Tension Makes a Tangle

Twenty-six days since my last post. I'm improving!

Recently, Honey shared with me a link to a program that would allow us to seal in today's college tuition prices for Shortcake's future use. In other words, we could pay X amount each month for a total of Y amount, which would be honored at up to 270 universities around the U.S. - including our alma mater - in 2028, when she starts college. We figure in 18 years, the program will expand to include more than just 270; but for now, we're pleased that it includes our alma mater, MIT, Stanford and plenty of other recognizable, "good" schools. At our present income, the monthly amount we'd need to deposit for the program is not really do-able. This is something that I want to look into further and might likely be the best idea for college savings for Shortcake. But I'll be honest, I worry that discussing how to save for her will lead to a conversation I'm not sure how to have. Carrying my economic weight.

The underlying topics of this conversation, as I see it applying to me: obligation and role-modeling.

Let's begin with the obvious, obligation. I have a child now. I am no longer the center of my own universe, nor is my husband the center of his own. (Well, when we decided to marry, we combined orbits around a collective of two, so we haven't been the centers of our universes for several years.) Now, the focus of our orbit is around this little girl and any of her future siblings, and it is a vital focus. So that means every decision we make, and action we take, needs to be done for the good of the family, and more specifically, the good of her. Wanna move to Ireland? Will that be good for the unit? Good for her? Maybe. Maybe not. So, it seems like the logical response should be: Molly should get a job outside the house. It is her obligation, if she wants her child to attend college. And don't be so selfish, Molly - your husband needs someone to lighten his load. Get over yourself! What makes you so special that you don't have to get a hair cut and get a real job?

And this is where I begin to falter. I'm not sure I'm ready to re-enter the full-time workforce, yet. I'm not sure I ever want to. Let's get the selfish reasons out of the way, first: I enjoy caring for our daughter. I love it. Even when it's at its most annoying,caring for our daughter is still more rewarding than when outside work is least annoying. I enjoy being able to go to the library or go grocery shopping during the day, or take the dog for a walk in the sunlight, or go on an audition. Though mothering doesn't let me get as much done as I'd like to do on any given day, I like the weekly flexibility it offers. An economic reason I'm reluctant to return: childcare is expensive. The last job I almost took - a contract job that would've lasted a few weeks - I turned down, because the cost of childcare would've been about 2/3 my paycheck. Yes, 1/3 is better than 0/3, but it's hard to argue that I should leave our child in the care of a virtual stranger to bring home 1/3 of a paycheck working on a project that I'm actually not enthusiastic about. I've been in the workforce for about a decade or so, and my attempts to climb beyond the bottom rung have met terribly limited success. So, I'm not entirely sure I qualify for many higher-paying jobs to offset the cost of childcare, anyway. Finally, a sentimental reason: I don't want to become my mother.

My mom has worked outside the house in some form or fashion since she was a teenager. In the 34 years I've been around and have seen her work, I've rarely seen her content with her work situation. She usually resents her jobs. She enjoys being employed. Mom is one of those people who wouldn't know how to fill the time if she didn't have a job. She'd be bored and confused. But she's always ended up resenting her job.

And this is where the role-modeling conflicts with my sense of obligation.

I was lucky enough to see my dad switch career paths and find his calling. Ministry is difficult (financially, emotionally, spiritually), but it's what he's best at and what he loves, passionately. Mom never really found that path of passion. She did what she had to do to pay the bills when they were newlyweds, up through my tween years: working for the state in a mind-numbing bureaucracy. She despised it. When she decided she wanted to teach, she was thrilled to pursue it. She learned, after a few years, that students don't give a shit about learning, administrators' support of teachers is fickle and parents are either disengaged or overly protective. She hates it - or, at least, she's rarely had anything good to say about it in the last 15 years. I'm certain some of my mom's resentment isn't so much at her job as it is at the fact that she's always had to be the one whose salary is most stable, and often larger. Try raising a family of four, plus a dog, on $12k a year, the take-home my dad had when I was a teenager, and you can see how Mom was obligated to stick out a job she didn't like.

My goal has always been to provide our children - but particularly any daughters - with a mother who is happy with her career. Whose job is, if not her passion, then at minimum, a source of pride and joy. It has always made me terribly sad that my mom has never been happy in her career choices. The last thing I want my daughter to see, when she sees me, is a woman who lives with personal or professional resentment.

Of course, I realize I have to correct an earlier assertion. My mom did once have a job she was passionate about. She was a feature writer at our town's daily newspaper. Knowing her as I do, these days, I think that was the best job for her personality. It fits her organizational style, her personal curiosity and her writing style. She gave it up about a year or two before I was born. I never knew why until this last year.

She gave it up because she and Dad wanted to have a child. Dad, newly ordained, was chaplaining here and there, and subbing in pulpits, as well as in the local school system as a teacher. His income wasn't steady or sufficient. Mom's was. However, in the mid-70s, if you wanted to keep your job, as a woman, you didn't get pregnant. The only employer who wouldn't fire you if you were pregnant back then, that she knew of - and that would pay a better salary than she made - was the State of Texas. She returned to work six weeks after I was born. Six. Weeks. That's the amount of time they gave her. For those of you who've had kids, you know your body is just then starting to heal, and the baby, who still needs to eat every 2 - 3 hours, is entering the 6-week fussy phase and needs Mommy. Luckily, Dad was unemployed at the time, so he provided the childcare for a few months. Within a year, he got a full-time chaplain job at a local hospital and they had an employee nursery.

And this takes me back to work. I could be wrong, but I suspect that having me at home is an emotionally beneficial arrangement for us as a family, right now. I have had a few auditions (a couple this week, actually) for paying gigs; I'm exploring a paying gig for Shortcake and I'm not without options in terms of working from home or working on occasion. What I need to do right now is decide how committed I am to not subsuming. This would mean more self-promotion on my part, something I am loathe to do. I truly hate tooting my own horn, particularly as a means to an end. It might also mean a little more flexibility on my family's part. Currently, I try not to be out more than 1 - 2 nights a week, for rehearsal and performance. But I could (and would like to) make myself more available for improv teaching opportunities, some of which would be at night. The pay would be a pittance, but it would be pay doing what I enjoy and I'd be getting better at it for future work.

I really do appreciate all Mom has done for us. I just mourn that she decided to sacrifice her personal, professional happiness in the process. For most of human history, women have been the ones who've had to subsume their dreams for the expectations of society, or their subsume their happiness for the good of the family. Though Mom had more options than her mother, and she pursued them, she still subsumed both her dreams and happiness, ultimately. I live in an era when I have more options than my mother had. My dreams are fluid, as is my happiness, but I don't want to subsume them. I want Shortcake to see a woman who is happy with her professional choices, whatever they look like. ... I'm just living in tension about this, right now.

Religious Literacy

Lookee here! It hasn't been six months, only two! I told you I'd write more often. Who knows? Maybe there will even be another before we see the end of 2010!

I haven't gotten over the hurt written about in the previous post. Not sure I ever will. But I'm working on forgiving. Secret Agent Woman left a very true comment after my last post. Honestly, I don't think I'm ready forgive one of the members of the offending party. The other member (party of 2, you see) apologized and asked for my forgiveness up front, and I granted it. In the meantime, I'm following my therapist's advice and trying to reach out to person 1. I've deduced from the little response received, and prior conversations, that that person is relatively insecure. Which is sad. And which may be why person 1 cornered person 2 into deliberately hurting me. So, now I'm feeling sorry for Offending Person 1, and hoping that I can move to forgiving him/her through pity.

Besides, if so many in South Africa can forgive their vicious, violent oppressors (and yes, I know that's debatable en masse) then I can learn to forgive an insecure, immature offender who probably has no idea how much his/her action hurts me and those around him/her. That's all I'll write on that.

Onto more interesting things. (And I apologize for the lengthy vanity trip above.) This week, a study by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life was floating around on Facebook. It looked at elementary religious literacy of Americans, and their general knowledge of public expressions and public religious figures. I'll be honest, I didn't read the full story; I jumped straight to the 15-question quiz to see how I compared to most Americans. The average American falls around 50%; I got 100%. I took the full 32 question survey, and only missed one. (To the Learnin' Mobile, PK!) The thrust of the study, however, was that atheists and agnostics scored higher on the quiz, on average than those who self-identified any faith.

Online, my atheist friends - who also took the quiz - crowed a little bit (okay, so did I) and one of my clergy friends used it as a call for the church to do a better job with religious education. Perhaps not surprisingly, when I glanced at the results question for question in the study, most of the wrong answers on content were delivered by people outside their own religion. Atheists didn't know who Job was, for example, and Christian Evangelicals weren't sure what Ramadan was, etc. Those not identifying as anything - not atheist, not believers, not agnostics - seemed to do as well as anyone else, though again, weak on the content questions.

I don't really want to explore here what it means that there was a knowledge gap between non-believers and belivers. But it's worth noting that not all the questions were about Bible stories or Christian dogma, but about elementary aspects of many religions - including mythology and doctrine - as well as religious history in America and public expressions of religion. What I find interesting is that few people, regardless of how they identified, did well with the questions about religious history or public expression. Specifically, school prayer, Bible reading in school and spot the preacher from the First Great Awakening. Everyone basically got the last one wrong. I can understand why someone may get a doctrine question wrong in someone else's religion (heck, even in their own), but why the generic religion-in-society questions?

I suspect we don't really know how to talk about religion, religious heritage or items of faith or spiritual nourishment and exercise in our society. It makes us uneasy. What are generally regarded as the two taboo topics of conversation whenever you meet someone or are at a party? Religion and politics. Is there any wonder than that we're culturally ignorant? It's like religion (maybe politics, too) is the sex of the modern age. Because it's so personal, it's volatile and we don't discuss it. Or when we do, we just sneer at each other and reduce the other to withering stereotypes.

Despite this, I'm very grateful to the education I received growing up. Not just my religious education about my own religion's sacred stories and doctrine. But that my father and schoolteachers taught us about religious influence in public life.

For instance, when I was in high school, English Lit classes in Texas followed a certain path: 9th grade was focused on English (as in British) lit; 10th grade was general lit with heavier emphasis on poetry; 11th grade focused on American literary genres and movements - with heavier emphasis on the novel, I think; 12th grade ... I don't remember. (Who remembers their senior year?) In 11th grade, we covered the major movements from early colonial days up through WW2, I think. Maybe just the Harlem Renaissance. Included among those early colony movements were the essay, pamphlets and ... the sermon. I remember we learned about Cotton Mather and Jonathan Edwards. We read "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," not as prosetylization, but as an artifact of the period. We discussed how that sermon influenced the general thought of the day. Just like we read "Thanatopsis" and discussed the spiritualism trend in literature during the period. Just like we read Twain and discussed how his writing affected the public. Just because we were being exposed to writings of a religious nature, didn't mean that we were being "preached to."

Likewise, in 10th grade world history class, we had a section about world religions. I don't remember how long we spent on the world's 5 most popular religions, but I do remember that we learned about the Vedas, the Bagavad Ghita and different big movements in Buddhism. For the quiz about the world religion segment, we had to list 5 of the 10 commandments, 4 of the 8 noble truths, maybe all 5 tenets of Islam, or maybe 3 (I can't recall). I think we had to list some of the books of the Torah, too. That sounds familiar. And I don't remember what core principles we were supposed to know about Christianity and Hinduism. Maybe the resurrection for Christianity and the cycle of life and death for Hinduism? Sure. We'll say that. None of this was delivered with any hint of favoritism or bias, even though I'd put money on it that every one of the students in the classroom, and the teacher too, were either Christian in practice or personal history. I don't know how that compares to the general American public high school education. However, my husband, who attended a much larger, much wealthier school that produces plenty of white collar, college-bound grads (as opposed to my school which produces a lot of blue collar workers and straight-to-military), doesn't recall any such exposure in school.

Because of Dad's great admiration for the First Amendment as well as for free expression of religion, I got what I think is a clearer picture of religious freedom rights in America. I was grateful that teacher-led school prayer had been struck down, but not fearful of my teacher ever uttering the word "god" in any context other than a swear word.

Theologian Elaine Pagels believes we should teach religion in America's public schools. Not as proselytization, but as academic study. She may be right. We don't do it now, and how has it helped us? So many Americans are ignorant about other religions. (Hell, their own, as well.) I thank God and my forebears for our secular government; the separation of church and state is probably my favorite amendment. But would talking about religion violate the establishment clause? I don't know that teaching religion would ever occur in the U.S. There is a lot of mistrust that floats around. Who decides on how each religion is represented?

I guess my big question is this: Who does it benefit for us to be ignorant of others' religions, our own religions and the influence of those religions? The current tsunami of Islamophobia clearly benefits no one. It weakens our country in so many ways. The apparently misguided notion that a public school teacher is legally disallowed to read from the Bible as a piece of literature serves to strengthen those who believe that Christianity is under attack. If you don't know Martin Luther from Martin Luther King, then you miss massive catalysts for revolution in western history.

Religion matters. Just like sex matters. If we can learn to talk more openly about sex, while still respecting the personal importance it carries, why can't we learn to do the same about religious matters?

Souvenirs from an Era

A few weeks ago I woke 15 minutes ahead of the alarm, and when I tried to go back to sleep, I couldn't. Cheap Trick's "The Flame" was suddenly, inexplicably and without warning in my brain. Well, actually it was Maroon Five's "She Will Be Loved" - which is even more inexplicable, as they just plain turn me off - which then morphed into "The Flame." Sitting upright in bed, in the dark, I had three thoughts in rapid succession:

1) Damn, NPR for running that story about the Deering Mansion in Miami being haunted. I can't shake it. As either Huey, Dewey or Louie used to say: "I don't believe in ghosts, but I sure am scared of them!" The story made my restless nights even more restless.

2) Wow. Those two songs are structurally very similar. Someone should mash them up if they haven't already. Wow! I noticed an opportunity for a mashup! Look at me! Club DJ stardom is just minutes away!

3) Aww. "The Flame!" It's one of those songs from the soundtrack of my life. A song I may have enjoyed, but because it emerged on my radar at a certain critical moment in my development, I cherish it as a landmark of sorts.

Playing the song in my head, in bed in our dark room, I recalled how I'd relish listening to it at night, coming from my clock radio in my dimmed bedroom. I had a dimmer switch in the room I had from birth to 12 which I rarely turned all the way off. I remember how comforting that song was to me, in junior high, lying in bed, my room in artificial amber gloam, the rest of the house asleep. There are a handful of songs, images and other artifacts that whenever I encounter them, inspire a certain nostalgia that would not have seemed likely when I originally encountered them. Certain pop songs from 1988 - 1989 forever haunt me in ways that other don't. And I think it has everything to do with two things: the fact that that's when my family made our first big move; and that I was at the peak of puberty. (By the way: never move your family when one - the eldest, at least - is in the throes of puberty. It's more traumatic than a move at 10 or 15. I've asked around.)

If I really thought about it, I could find those musical or cultural artifacts that were in the background when I lived in these places that later proved to be memory markers.

• "Stand" by REM will forever be the song that introduced me to REM and the song that I identify most with arrival in my small town. I'd heard of REM, but never anything from them. I was 12 and whenever the video would come on MTV, Dad would get up and get my brother and me to do the Stand dance, encouraging me to accept our new, small town. I resented the new town so much, but couldn't resist Dad's enthusiasm. It's only years later that I appreciate what Dad was trying to get us to do: embrace place and bloom where planted.
• "Mary Moon" by Deadeye Dick is always the song that brings me back to 18, in a small west Texas university starting school completely - and I mean completely - clueless, but feeling utterly liberated and probably the most confident I've ever been in my life. I think I liked it because I had a "Mary Moon" reputation at my high school, but it was mocked, not celebrated. Here was a song that not only celebrated that archetype, but made her (sexually) desirable. Same me, new leaf.
• Fresh Air with Terry Gross on NPR became my best friend when I had to drop out of college after my first semester due to lack of funds. I still listen to the show as often as possible, but I remember discovering her in Houston, when I was in depression, knew no one and the future looked uncertain. When I think back on those days, those afternoons in my bedroom, I am so grateful to her and to the local NPR station for fostering and sating curiosity.
• The Indigo Girls were always playing from my stereo or from those of my best friends during my college years.
• Margaret Atwood and Kurt Vonnegut were my book buddies the year after college, when I joined Honey at his first station, in the city to which I would never return to live in a million years, but for which I have a soft spot in my heart.

I don't know what the cultural artifacts are that I associate with my current place. I'll probably find them in retrospect. Plus, we've been here long enough - almost 10 years - that I probably have cultural artifacts associated with certain periods in my life, as opposed to places. For instance, I associate Sigur Ros, Rilo Kiley and Ben Gibbard with the period I spent completing my thesis. A friend turned me onto Sigur Ros when he heard the topic of my thesis dealt with constructed languages and gibberish. They sing mostly in Icelandic, but occasionally in a fabricated language. They're so mellow and soulful that I was able to mope and comfort myself in their music as I plowed through. A coworker turned me onto Rilo Kiley and Ben Gibbard, breaking me of my prejudice against Death Cab for Cutie, much to the relief of my husband, who likes Death Cab. I can't place my finger on what it was about those two artists that spoke to me in that manic period, but I latched onto the music he shared, and that we already had in our collection, but I was too blindly stubborn to listen to.

I'm really curious what music or cultural events or artifacts will turn out to the be the familiar landmarks in my memory for this period of my life. It seems like this year and the coming year will likely be so momentous for us that there will be something that I always associate with this period. I'm just eager and curious to find out what it is. It'll probably be evident 5 or 6 years from now. And it'll probably surprise me. I never would've guessed something like "The Flame" would've been among my take-aways from 1988!

La Commedia e Finita!

It is finished.

I managed to capture all the signatures I needed and this afternoon, I delivered to my school's library, the requisite two complete copies of my thesis! When the university thesis librarian accepted them, I asked if there was anything left for me to do. (I keep waiting for some other shoe to drop; like a switched baby hidden in Vermont or something crazy.) But she said no. Once they've accepted it, I'm all done. To congratulate myself, I bought a copy of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (book 6 - yes, I'm a book behind!) and a People magazine that pretends that there are enough varieties in Hollywood female body types to use them as examples of how to flatter any figure. (pfft!) It was a little anti-climactic for me, on campus. But I think that's because I'm not yet allowing myself to fully accept its finality and the relief. That, I'm certain, will change this weekend!

This weekend, my group is taking our performance to a festival I've been meaning to attend for years as an audience member, but I get to make my debut there as a performer! Woohoo!

... and speaking of "Woohoo!" ... one of my motivations to get all my thesis crap completed today was the opening of The Simpsons Movie. Though skeptical that a movie of my favorite show might ruin the show - Hollywood does not have a good track record there - I've been looking forward to this since I saw the first teaser for it in the theaters last summer. I promised myself that if I could get my thesis completed, signed, sealed and delivered by today, I could go see the midnight opening, tonight. And so we did!!

I joke that when (if) we have children, they will think the order of religious adoration and guidance in our household goes something like this: God, Jesus and The Simpsons. They will probably believe that we have somewhere a Gospel of Groening, consisting of the books of Homer, Marge, Bart and Lisa, and including the non-canonized apocryphal texts of Futurama. We had to be in tonight's audience.

GO SEE THIS MOVIE, NOW. Not just because it's good, but because the sooner you see it, the fresher and more appreciative the audience will be. This is definitely a movie worth seeing with a hungry audience. This film would have been okay on its own, but it could not have stood alone without 18 years of stories and culture commentary. You almost have to see it with a full house who genuinely loves each and every one of the characters in Springfield. When the lights went dim and the initial vignette played out and the clouds parted to reveal "The Simpsons" with Elfman's iconic score playing in the background, the crowd - many of whom I'd spotted wearing Simpson's t-shirts - erupted in applause and cheers. The crowd ate up the humor, as well, of course. This was an opportunity for everyone who digs this satirical staple to come together and dig it together.

As Simpson plots go, there was nothing out of the ordinary in this one. That's what made it so good. The stakes were raised higher than they usually are, but the story moved just like any other Simpson's episode. It just ran three times longer than usual. Something I was afraid of was that they would litter the dialogue with profanity and lower the jokes with toilet, T&A lowest common denominator gags. When Hollywood takes TV to the silver screen, you can tell by how readily the studios go gutter how much they really trust the core material. The writers, however, must be given credit for responsibly handling their tone when the restrictions of broadcast regulations were lifted. They definitely crossed the FCC line at least one or twice and they punched a little crasser than usual a few times as well. However, when they did stretch the "good taste" line, they did so sort of tongue and cheek, implying that they couldn't get away with this in broadcast, without being heavy handed and without feeling forced. There's nothing I detest more in a film based on a TV show (or any film, really) than when a character utters language (profane or not) or engages in behavior which is absolutely uncharacteristic of him or her. It's quite clear the studio forces the character to behave in that way to appease the 15 - 23 year old boys in the audience who have no sense of character believability.

There is so much I liked about this movie. I know the critics aren't receiving it well, from the headlines I've read. I'll have to read the reviews later. And I happily admit I have drunk the Kool Aid with the marketing on this. But it's quite willing on my part. I know they're pimping and they know I know what they're up to. There is much I'd love to share about the movie with you, but I don't want to blow anything. I'll just say this: it's essentially a longer version of the Simpsons, but one which is best experienced communally. Go see it as soon as you can. Go with a big crowd who adore the Simpsons. You'll be glad you did.

Three Beautiful Things

since i've been stressed to the max, lately. i'm going to return to the 3BT formula which Clare has beautified the world with. plus, i think y'all would rather read what's going right in my life, for a change!

1. Despite a mix-up in the formatting of the signature page and sending it off at the wrong time, my first professor has dropped the signature pages back into overnight mail for me. I should get them tomorrow. How merciful that my prof doesn't mind doing the administrative bull on vacation!

2. Chatting with my favorite cousin on the phone this morning. And hearing her toddler, normally a terribly sweet, gregarious and precocious girl throw a fit in the background. She's being potty trained and apparently has a favorite kind of wet wipe, which my cousin didn't have available to her.

3. Knowing that well-placed, compassionate wisdom is a family trait. My cousin, after hearing of one of the stresses I've been under lately, emailed me some sympathetic encouragement her father, my dad's brother, gave to her when she was in a similar situation. And it sounded just like the kind of thing my dad would say to me - or anyone really. And he's so good at that kind of stuff. It warms my heart, for some reason, knowing it runs in the family.

Just when I think things are getting better ...

I met with the last prof who needed to comment on my thesis, this afternoon. My other two professors have commented and their adjustments are relatively simple to fix. I thought today's meeting would be about an hour long. It was three hours long. He basically took a scalpel to it.

This is due, with all signatures in two and a half weeks. But really, it's due in 10 days, because I'll be out that last week.

The good news is that he knows it's unrealistic and unreasonable that I would be able to implement all the changes he suggested. Also good news is that it won't require any new research. In fact all his feedback was excellent, however daunting. I just wish I'd gotten it a week or two earlier, as I had originally sent this to him over three weeks ago! His request is that I "do what I can." And that is what I will do.

In the meantime, I've still got travel adjustments to make for our upcoming trip. I've got a movie review to write for my friend's rapidly growing blog. I've got medical appointments to line up. I've just been named logistics goddess at work for a project that's about to vomit all over us in the coming weeks. I've got articles to proofread and somewhere in the mix: sleep to get. I'm really writing complaining about this to get my juices flowing so that I can begin to tackle the beast in earnest yet again. Okay ... let's try this one more time.

Cutter! Come bandage the scrape above Molly's eye and blot her bloody lip. Alright Molly, round 5 now. What did Mama say? Mama said knock you out! I'm gonna knock you out!

A grouse and a gladness

One problem about having the radio alarm set to NPR is that sometimes the first thing you hear in the morning just depresses or angers the crap out of you. Such was the case this morning when I heard about the latest update on BBC reporter Alan Johnston. The latest video shows him with an explosives belt strapped around his waist.

What the crap? If Palestinian separatists and dissidents want help and respect from the outside world, maybe the should drop the shit like threatening people who are there to tell their stories or killing wheelchair-bound cruise-goers or even blasting their own damn selves up in shopping centers! They've been pursuing terrorist and illegitimate means for over 20 years (in my lifetime anyway) to right what many people in this world agree is a political wrong. And what has it gotten them? Some of the worst unemployment in the world and a big fat wall. Here's a thought: try some Ghandi-style peaceful resistance. It took 20 something years in India, but it looks like you guys have all the time in the world on your hands, just no patience or even any realistic or reasonable goals. Here's another thought: I can't speak to the opinion of local Israelis, but I know that my Jewish friends here would prefer an Israel where Palestinians and Israelis live peaceably with dignity and opportunity. Your adversary may be actually be your ally if you stop and listen. But violence does not breed a credible partner.

There is some good news in my life. I don't want to post only on irritating subjects.

For one, Babydog has decided to sleep in this morning. This is good for me, because this means we'll probably have breakfast together, instead of her at 5AM and me at 8:30.

More excitingly, though, last night, I sent in my completed thesis to my thesis committee for their review and revisions. If I understand the process correctly, once they have sent it back to me, I make the changes, they and my advising professor sign off on it, I send it to the library and we're done! Since there's essentially nothing I can do with the content this week, I'll use this week to go to Staples and buy the correct weight paper that it's supposed to be printed on. And I'll run it by the library again to be reviewed for formatting. I have to admit that I'm rather nervous. Having worked on this for the last 10 months, I know the vein of my advising professor's comments, but not the general opinions of the committee members'. So I don't know what to expect when it gets kicked back!

TEN MONTHS! As Honey was saying last night, this thesis is past due. We need to induce! And how! I'm so ready for this to be over. And when it's done and we can stick a fork in it and it's published and I can truly chant, "no more pencils, no more books," then I'm looking forward to sleeping for two months and having a big ol par-tay!

My First Improv

My parents enrolled me at a local Kindercare, shortly after my brother was born, when I was four. After a few weeks or months there, the Kindercare was going to put on a "circus performance" for the families by the children. The day that roles were cast, I was so excited! Kids were going to be doing the "acrobatic acts" as well as the "animal acts" and clowning and taming. It was going to be a ball!

Casting day came and roles were divvied up. Molly got bupkus. I wanted to be anything; I didn't care. As an adult, I now suppose there were probably reasons for divvying up the roles the way they did, but as a kid all I got out of it was: "sorry. not even leftovers for you." I'm sure some of the shafted kids didn't care, but as one who's always had a performing bug, this was an insult. (Seriously, it was a circus under the direction of amateurs, at a Kindercare in the Panhandle of Texas. It's not like talent or skill were important.)

During the next few weeks, the kids in the "circus" would break out in their groups to practice their parts. I remembered watching them thinking, "I could do that. Pfft. That's easy," and all those other armchair quarterback observations. I really did watch carefully.

Circus day came - must've been a Saturday - and I had been talking it up at home. I don't know how much my parents knew of it. I don't know if they thought I was performing ... they must've known I wasn't, but ... I was very eager to get to the Kindercare. Dad took me. Mom stayed home with my brother. The show had already begun when we walked in and almost as soon as we walked in, a volunteering mother eyed us and hurriedly waved us over to the entrance of the kitchen which was being used as a dressing room. "We have an extra bear costume," she explained worriedly, "are you a bear?" This was my in. Dad seemed not to know. I couldn't get busted! I nodded. Dad took his seat in the audience and I followed the mother into the kitchen. To this day, I can feel the excitement of vindication that I felt in that flourescent-lit kitchen.

The costumes for the bears were nothing more than brown paper grocery sacks turned inside out and cut with eye - and because we were so little, I believe arm - holes. In retrospect, it's quite clear to me there were extra costumes made because paper bags tear easily, so it would be best to have extra on hand. There was not an extra costume because some kid was a no-show. I remembered watching the bears rehearse quite well. There were three kids. There just happened to be four bags. I knew the routine. When these kids rehearsed, I didn't play with the other stage rejects, I watched them. I knew it.

It was time to go out. The other kids seemed to hardly notice that I was there. It was as if the other bear materializing out of no where was just as expected as anything else. Their non-chalance - and let's face it, lack of awareness - just played into my plans. We bears were called out to "the ring" and the tamer began giving us our commands. We stood on one leg danced or did whatever the hell it was the bears were supposed to do. But something happened that I didn't account for in my rush to get my just performance. The bear routine was crafted for three bears, not four. That meant, if we were supposed to stand on balls, there were only three balls to stand on, etc. The only part of the routine I remember with any clarity was the "bears sitting in chairs" routine. We walked over to the chairs and were ordered to sit. I had none so I sat on the floor. I remember the audience laughing, and feeling simultaneously embarrassed and elated. Embarrassed because my grand scheme at vindication clearly was ill-devised in the prop department, but elated because the audience was reacting to me, not the other three kids. I was both chastened and proud. To this day I don't know if Dad knew I faked my way into the performance.

I long considered that my most embarrassing moment. I don't any more, but yesterday, after years of considering it my introduction to public performance, I thought about it from a different perspective. It's kind of a metaphor for my cycles of depression and feelings of failure: I desire it. I'm denied it. I try it. It doesn't go perfectly and I end up embarrassed and without a proper chair. Sure, that's just life and that's how it goes for everyone, so I should stop complaining. But I've got a good personal anecdote to use as a metaphor.

They ARE after you. HAPPY BIRTHDAY! ... and what we remember.

I found this article on MSNBC.com about a guy in Australia who was being mauled by a great white shark from the top down. The diver pried himself off enough to poke the jurassic beast in the eye, right as he was coming down for a second munch on the noggin. Kudos to the diver! He is a fracking bad motherfucker! God bless the Aussies!

I really like this picture to the left here, by the way. It's just cool. To learn more about how predatory fish want to find you at home while you're watching Wheel of Fortune or doing Sudoku and kill you and eat you with a side of dijonnaise, please click here.

Before I go any further, I also want to extend the warmest, fuzziest and most loving of greetings to VirginiaGal, on this the eve of her 30th birthday. (Since I'm pretty sure she'll read this on the 24th, maybe I should dispense with formality and just call it her birthday.)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, VIRGINIA GAL!!

... as Honey says, being 3o is orgasmic! all. the. time. I wish you many, many arousing days from here on out! (see how she blushes!) Seriously: Blessings to you on this milestone. May you have scores more! ... and if on this day that those who love you want to celebrate you, you post about being 30 and single, and not the good fortune to have made it this far, I will go cry in my milk.

Moving on!

I grew up in west Texas. Anyone who's read more than two posts (or who reads and knows me off-line) has probably picked up on that. My experience on the East Coast has been that people tend to think Texans are illiterate morons. (Pardon the exaggeration of their perception of us. What can I say, we're prone to hyperbole.) And frankly the current dipshit in chief does everything to perpetuate and affirm that ugly stereotype. I always find it amusing that Texas gets totally dissed for anything it doesn't do in a progressive manner, when there are many other states - some not even in the South - which have their own backwardy ways, too. But that's for another post. Nonetheless there are definitely aspects to life in Texas that many of us who no longer live there - and those who still do - are either irritated by or downright pissed off about. The amount of children uninsured for one. But as I was having drinks with friends the other night - two others of whom spent their youth in Texas - I was struck by their memories of public education.

One woman grew up in and graduated high school from Amarillo. The young man lived in a suburb of Houston till he was 15. I spent my entire life pre-18 in the Panhandle then the southwest hunk of the state. Houston to Amarillo is a 12 hour drive on a good day, to where I lived it was 13 or 14 hrs. Amarillo to the desert southwest section is about 8 hours. For Sonnjea in CA or Joe in Vegas, you may know that's not a big deal, but if I have any readers on the East Coast, it indicates that people can have very different experiences all within the same geopolitical unit.

The young man from Houston said he remembered having to get permission slips/waivers signed from his parents before his school could teach him Sex Ed or evolution. My friend from Amarillo said her school would have never even broached either. But I remember the Sex Ed section of health class pretty well - it lasted at least 2 weeks - and while I don't remember a "section" or specific class lesson about evolution, I do remember in biology, we just kind of talked about it like a given. We evolved from apes; we're adapted to this or that, etc. We never had to have waivers for either concept.

I called my brother whose adolescence was split between the middle of nowhere southwest of the state and Houston. He remembers in the small town, all the 8th grade boys were coralled into the auditorium one afternoon and one of the town doctors explained sex. As for Sex Ed in Houston, he recalls a week in health class and no waivers. He remembers nothing of evolution in science class. He remembers nothing of science class. (We're more of a word family. We're happy with the Cs we worked hard for in math.) Additionally, a friend of mine from SwTX, now in Austin, recalled with me the day all the girls in HS were given a sex ed talk from a local nurse, complete with birth control options - and how we thought it grossly unjust the too-fertile boys didn't get the same treatment. Nonetheless, no waivers. But I, unlike her, have memories of people in the town we could go to for BC if we needed/wanted it. She remembers it being not available at all.

I guess I find all this curious for two reasons. Again, as much as popular as it is to lump all Texas experiences into the same basket, the communities really do vary region by region. The second reason is this: how much of memory is accurate?

Of the 5 people referenced (my brother, me, my Amarillo friend, my Houston friend and my small town friend), our time away from high school ranges from 9 to 17 years. I barely remembered anything I was taught in high school, aside from classes I liked. Most of my memories from those days are social. And, how much of our memory is affected by the image we want to retain? Does my friend want to remember no birth control options in our town? Does my other friend want to remember Amarillo as the constrictive-Bible belt city? Do I want to remember taking evolution as a given in high school Biology? I recently discovered that what I understood to be the reason I wasn't specifically taught Greek Mythology in Junior High was inaccurate. I'd picked up somewhere along the way that it was because a religious right-wing parent demanded my school stop teaching it. I learned a decade and a half later that wasn't the case. It was simply that I missed that section because in 7th grade (generally when it's taught in TX), I had moved before my prior school got to it, and after my new school had covered it.

How accurate is memory, then? Especially memory of events that really don't seem to matter that much now? High school biology class? Sex ed? I already knew what evolution was and my parents, though not as much help in the department of the mechanics of sex, were always there to talk with us about the emotional aspects. It seems memory would be far more accurate, or at least impactful, for the moments that mattered: picking a name for my baby brother, when we had to put our dog to sleep, the mean teacher who gave me detention for something that wasn't my fault.

... something I do presume, though, is that in this country that is becoming more and more politicized, waivers may be becoming the norm in many parts of the state. But I wouldn't be surprised if they're becoming the norm in many states, period.

(You all know what a period is, right? I'm presuming you took some form of Sex Ed?)

Wobbly Wednesday

Aye-yai-yai, this week! I had a wonky rehearsal tonight; I just didn't feel 100% great about my performance. And my professors still haven't signed off on the paperwork I need for my final semester, making it impossible (literally) to register.

BUT I'm going to cut the whine and note stuff that's gone well this week:

1. first day of new job today. AND the commute is 1/4 of what my old commute was. YEA!

2. laughter. ... for the lotto.

3. hearing my brother explain how he bandit ran out of the 5K into the half-marathon he had trained for but for which he had registered too late to legitimately run.

4. the little boy at 10,000 Villages playing with the instruments.

5. Winter has finally come to the East Coast!! ... at least the temperatures are on par.

what made me happy this week

1. Driving the wooded highway this time of year into work, it just fuzzies my heart to watch the leaves turn. About half a mile from where the main road branches off to join the freeway, there's a big pocket of tall thin trees that have all turned a lucious yellow. I pass them on my left and they just make me smile. They make me think I'm in northern New Mexico. This week was grey, rainy and chilly. The turning trees, particularly that pocket, kept me happy inspite of the meteorlogical drear. It's like they drink in sunshine and radiate it for us when the sun doesn't care to grace us with his presence. How I'll miss those leaves when it's winter and we have no terrestrial sunlight!

2. The deadline for submitting my intent to graduate was yesterday at 5PM. HEAR THIS: I, "she who puts the 'Pro' in procrastination,"actually got the paperwork in like 20 hours ahead of time. This is major for me. If it's due at 5, my norm is to get it to you at 4:57. Yea, me!

3. Keeping a secret from my dog: next week, she gets to go herding two whole days in a row! ... and with other dogs, too! I'm sure that'll be good subject for another post ... so long as I remember.

4. There's a local radio station that plays "old timey" popular music during the 7 o'clock hour on Saturday nights. It's a neat collection of scratchy recordings. Last night, I heard some song from the teens or 20s that I'm pretty sure was the inspiration to the theme song for "The Itchy and Scratchy Show." The tune was exactly the same up until the crescendo of their song. I laughed. If only the writers of the original melody had known that 80 or 90 years later someone would hear their tune and picture a cartoon cat and mouse beating each other with mallets!

in other news ...

I will be receiving a practice Spanish exam, as I have opted to test out of my language requirement for my degree. All it is is a translation test. Now all I have to do is be as good at Spanish as I was back in 1997 or 98 when I was easily 30%-40% fluent. um ... si tengo "stock" en Univision, es lo mismo que comprender la idioma con fluidesse, no? (See, Pissed Off? It's not just you who worries about exhibiting a mastery of a foreign language?)

The print deadline for a small monthly out of state paper for which I proofread has been pushed back till midweek. Everytime deadline is pushed, I'm always afraid it's because I'm not turning around the articles fast enough. But I think there are other factors at work here, because I have only received about 2/3 the normal amount of articles I usually get, so far, by this time of the month.

My parents are back in the city of my nativity this weekend for a conference. I'm somewhat jealous. I'd love to spend a day just to sniff out the old haunts of my youth. ... and to pick up some shredded beef barbecue sandwiches wrapped in too-thin butcher paper that you then eat in old school desks placed against the back walls of the joint. Seriously, my mouth is watering just thinking about it.

More on Dreams

I think I'm feeling homesick. Last night I dreamt that I was on or near the campus of my college alma mater. And we were playing the University of Tennessee and for some reason both the cheerleading squads of my school and of Tenn decided to hang out at my dormroom/apartment. (It kept morphing.) Now, I've never been a gal who's popular with the likes of cheerleaders. Their ilk were the ones who'd laugh loudest when human stains in high school would knock books out of my hands or otherwise harass me. But in my dream, I felt older and wiser and all these kids wanted to know was where to get good coffee or chinese food. And it had been such a long time since I'd spent time on campus, and in reality, so much has changed on that campus and the surrounding area that I really wouldn' t know. I gave them my suggestions anyway. And I teased the Tenn cheerleaders: "Congratulations on winning the Rose Bowl!" They rolled their eyes. "Oh! Yeah. Not you. Sorry!"

But the whole dream felt like that song from Avenue Q, "I wish I could go back to college." The line "these kids are so much younger than meeee," kept repeating in my head.

Then later in the dream, my honey and I were travelling to the center of the state for some reason. And we kept suspecting there was a German Fest going on somewhere that we really needed to get to. I've never been to a German Fest, but it seemed really important that we go. There was to be cake involved, apparently. But each time we were almost there, a morose sense washed over me.

Normally when I dream of places of my youth, I tend to focus on the small town in the middle of nowhere where I spent my adolescence. I've not been back in 10 years, and have spent maybe only a whole day there since I graduated more than 10 years ago. I mostly hated it when I lived there; so backasswards provincial, I thought. But now that I live in a buzzing, bustling, city on the Eastern Seaboard, all I've wanted to do for the last 3 or 4 years is just spend a week in that middle of nowhere provincial town. I think part of it is because unlike my Honey whose family still lives where he spent his youth, and virtually all of my friends, because my fam doesn't live there anymore, I can't really return and settle with the ghosts.

As for my alma mater. We return to the city every year or so. I feel like I kind of deal with those ghosts. But I'm just overall homesick.

My hair is still wet and I have to leave for work in 15 minutes. VA Gal, have fun in South Africa for me. Pet some cheetas!

Chomsky hates me

... or at least he should. Outside of the basic sentence mobile, I don't "get" syntax at all.

This might be the last meeting of my Syntax class this semester. Our prof arranged the class schedule so that we could end class a week early, or go to the end (next week) if we wanted. As class has a narcotic effect on all of us - including those who thrive on the torture that is syntax - I suspect we'll opt to end it tonight. I still have two more papers to turn in. Luckily he'll be accepting those for a few more weeks. However, I don't know if I have any more brain power to drudge something up for two more papers. This week, I thought I had a topic, an arguement. Then last night I sat down to write it, only to discover I didn't.

I can't wait for this class to be over. Just two more papers and I never have to worry about Case Theory or Binding Theory or anything like that again. My brain can stop being the puddle of snot that it has become in the last 16 weeks.

Of bi-peds and motorcars

Today is shaping up to be excreable.

It started out nicely enough. I slept in, completed a paper that has been haunting me, took my dog for a walk. Nice enough morning. Then this morning, when I was arriving at work, I found my regular parking lot was filled to the gills. This meant I would have to maneuver through the narrow streets of the city, dodging other cars and pedestrians galore, just to find a two-hour parking spot. This also meant that I would have to move my car after two hours, to avoid the wrath of ticket-happy cops.

I crept through the quaint, crowded streets of the city looking for a spot and found myself the second car stopped at a perpendicular intersection. The light turned green, the car ahead of me swung right, and I was right behind him, inching forward. When I was about halfway around the corner, I saw a group of about 5 or 6 pedestrians crossing the street. They looked to be about halfway through the street, and I was halfway around the corner. I wasn't sure, so I kept going. I straightened up and continued onward. The pedestrians finished crossing and a few moments later, another car was behind me - presumably the same car that waited to turn right, behind me at the intersection.

For those reading this who do not live on the east coast - all none of you, and Niamh, my imaginary Shropshirean reader - allow me to explain the pedestrian-auto relationship that exists in the bustling metropoli of America's Atlantic seaboard. It's dysfunctional. Crosswalks are really only heeded by cars if there is a traffic light for them to follow. Pedestrians regularly begin to cross the street while cars are moving toward them. If a car is nice enough to stop at a non-stop signed, non-traffic lighted crosswalk to let a pedestrian pass, the east coast pedestrian will not acknowledge the courtesy of the car with a nod or even a glance, and will also most likely meander slowly across the street, even if it was evident the car made a point to stop when it really wanted to keep careening. I know legally the pedestrian always has the right of way, and I agree with that morally as well as legally. But it's also illegal to shoot someone; just because it's illegal for someone to shoot me, doesn't mean I'm not going to duck if I see a gun is pulled on me. It's imperative for drivers to drive conscientiously, but it's also imperative for pedestrians to be defensive.

That said, even as I made my right turn, I wasn't 100% happy with my choice, but I also didn't think the pedestrians were in any danger. I've had many a pedestrian BEGIN crossing in front of me while I was travelling at 20mph, and though I think they're idiots, none have ever been hit. I've also witnessed the same phenomenon with other cars and other pedestrians - never a hit. So, I presumed the gaggle crossing the street, at no danger from the cars stopped at the light, would slow their pace as I completed my turn. I was not 30 feet from where I made my turn, when I was stopped at another light, a few cars down. (Damn, I just wanted to find a parking spot.) Then, from between two cars parallel parked beside me, a woman pushing a stroller emerges and looks like she's going to try to cross in front of my car - not at a protected crosswalk. Naturally I make sure I've got my foot on the brake. Nope, she doesn't want to cross in front of me, she wants to talk to me. I crack my window. She places herself and her stroller-riding baby between a parked car on a busy street and me, in an activated car on a busy street.

"You could've killed us!!" she screams at me. She's yelling so fast that I say nothing and it's taking a second for all this to click. Apparently she was part of the group that crossed the street at the turn 30 feet back. "I HAVE A CHILD!! Don't you watch where you're going? You REALLY should be more careful!!" I manage to squeeze out a very humble and sincere "I'm sorry." "Well, you NEED TO BE MORE CAREFUL!" shouts the woman who pushed her baby in front of my idling car on a busy street to make a point. At this point the light had turned and the cars in front of me had driven away. I pulled away carefully because believe it or not, I have no desire to run ANYONE over. She, I presume had to swing her baby away from the ONCOMING traffic which she decided it was a good idea to brave in order to make her point.

I really did feel badly. By east coast standards, I'm a very kind or even pansy driver. When merge lanes are tight, I let the other person in. When a pedestrian is halfway through a crosswalk and I'm coming, I'll stop and let them pass - it's the law, but it's not the custom out here. I actually use my blinker! When you live here, you learn you have to act like no one can see you, because half the time they can't, and the other half of the time, the other driver or even the other pedestrian doesn't give a rat's ass. I'm a pretty courteous driver. I really felt badly. I almost wanted to cry. I could've killed someone. She made me feel like a bad person.

But then I started thinking about it. She just wanted to make a point. She wanted me to feel as bad as she did. That's not necessarily a wrong thing to want. But I'm not sure that poking your baby whose safety you were supposedly so concerned with, into oncoming traffic on a busy street, really displayed a sense of justice-seeking. Her intent wasn't to even express disbelief or anger. (A common pedestrian gesture here is throwing up of one's hands in anger at the stupid driver who almost killed you.) She wanted to make sure I knew I was an unworthy person. I won't give that to her. I apologized. Frankly, no matter how selfish my driving may have been, that's really all I can offer. No amount of money or groveling would erase a bad traffic decision. Her anger is entirely justified; if she had reported me to the cops, I could probably accept that. But when she decided to doubly endanger her child just to make a point, her anger lost a large measure of credibility.

She will be happy to know that karma crapped on me. I finally found a parking spot, and at the two hour mark I dutifully went to my car to move it, only to find a ticket under my windshield. Apparently I front-end parked into a back-end parking only area. (I'd never seen the signs, until I got the ticket, naturally.) Apparently it's worth $30 to the city that I master a ridiculous parking trick. Thirty dollars. A child is priceless, but I'm sure it would pay for the uber-adorable norwegian cap the cosmo-kiddo was sporting.

Excreable day.