Bliss and the Color Pink

January 2012

2012-01-25T23:41:00.000-08:00

Venturing into the blogosphere like a scared rabbit because it's been so long. Have things changed? Perhaps. Perhaps not.

Still teaching at that small college. Still struggling with academic writing. Still being challenged by J but lifted by M and A. My younger children amaze me, my eldest bewilders me. I have found love in a most surprising place. There, I have found peace and impatience and regret and unabashed joy. I am left breathless.

Yes, yes, things have changed. I have changed.

At a time when I thought my name was most ironic... I have found bliss.

Today, I drank a margarita, sitting next to my children, in a suburban restaurant. We laughed and looked at our phones and shared things coming across the airwaves. Just like all the others at the tables. Not-so-little-but-still-little M turned to me with her round rosy cheeks sprinkled with freckles, smiling at her iPod and the games and the music, feeling so grown-up. I wish she could stay eleven. In this moment, I hope she'll always feel as beautiful as she is. I hope she'll always believe she is as smart as she is. I hope the world will not steal her confidence and sense of inner and outer beauty.

The salt on the rim of the glass is good, and I lick my lips. We pay the bill, gather our things, and run to the new red car, yes, yes, red, red as a sun's summer kiss. We flip on the music and drive into the dark.

Arizona and Anti-Latino Sentiment

2010-05-25T15:43:00.000-07:00

I have rarely used this blog to share political opinion because I'm not very good at it. I tend to jump with knee-jerk emotions first, common sense second, and deep liberal bias third. Maybe not in that order. Despite that disclaimer, here I am, sharing political opinion.

Arizona's recent laws give local police the power and authority to chase down illegal immigrants, as well as school districts to ban ethnic studies classes and oust teachers with accents. These laws have really gotten under my skin because they nicely legalize Latinos as the scapegoats for our country's problems. My Facebook profile is full of links to these articles alongside my bitching. I'm doing it knowing I've got a slew of conservatives as FB friends. I am desperate, I find, to change their minds even though I know it will not work. They are dug in, their feet stuck in the mud of "patriotism." And when I look closely, I cannot help but notice that the conservative FB friends are mostly white. If they're not white, they are Latino family of mine who grew up in Orange County (pretty much...white) and pretend they are not Latino except when it is convenient.

My mother raised me in a pro-farm-worker environment. She never let me or my siblings forget who picked the food on our table, the lettuce, the spinach, the strawberries, the green beans. She also reminded us that the workers for the most part were not documented and treated very poorly. For years, long past the time of the great Gallo-wine boycott, she would not drink Gallo wine. Even today when I see the name of Gallo, I pull back my hand, opting for something else. My great-grandmother worked the migrant farm-worker routes alongside her last husband on her way towards citizenship. She landed in the San Fernando valley, raising her family to adulthood and then dying surrounded by many generations of Mexican blood firmly rooted now as American citizens.

Today when I read and hear the vitriol towards "illegal immigrants," code for Mexican, and I see the person speaking or see a shot of the writer in his or her byline, I cannot help but see they are not Latino. They cannot connect to these people who have broken their backs for the comfort of these same complaining citizens. It is very frustrating to me. "They" do not know. Now, I am well aware that there are Latinos that support Arizona's efforts, and whites that are against Arizona's efforts. Of course.

But still, I hear the anger, I hear the hate, I hear the denial of responsibility. I think "they" do not know. They simply lift their fork full of hand-picked food to their mouths, scraping their forks against the plates and drinking their local wine made from hand-tended grapes in their little cozy dining room after a day in the office or the store or plumbing someone's house. From that comfort they rail against those people who are invading their country and taking their benefits. It is strange to me the profound disconnect. The denial of their OWN histories. The denial that it is their demand for cheaper products and more interest on their pension plans that corporations will hire the cheapest labor possible who can only be...undocumented workers who will not complain about the wages and the conditions.

Enough railing.

The year is ending for us. I have grading to do, as always. I am looking forward to summer vacation, mere days away. I look forward to lazy times by the pool, a writer's conference in Jackson Hole, catching up on an online teaching certificate, prepping for the fall, contemplating yet some more a law review article. I will not rail about the circumstances of J. That is reserved for another post.

Much on my plate.

Is that a Santa Ana breeze on the horizon? It is too bad that it is not enlightenment; no, just hot air.

Schools are tightening up...

2009-09-01T21:25:00.000-07:00

D couldn't get into his classroom at the local middle school because someone stuck something into the lock and broke it off, meaning the door lock was broken. Once inside, he read a memo that let him know that the school district cannot afford copy paper, or tissues. So he has to buy his own copy paper, and buy tissues for the kids. Meaning...god forbid that the swine flu comes around and kids have nowhere to wipe their running noses!

School has most definitely started. Fires are burning, kids are grouchy, parents are tired. Is it Friday yet?

Black Sabbath, Jimi Hendrix, Rage Against the Machine: Joy

2009-08-20T00:29:00.000-07:00

I cannot help but be in awe of passion enacted, of seeing the temple in which a person's heart lies. As J lounged about at the foot of my bed, near midnight, laughing and chatting with me and D, I knew he was happy and proud and satisfied. Rarely do I see this person. Rarely does he allow himself to feel the joy to the point where it spills out, splashing those who love him most. It was a wonderful sight! They were precious moments indeed.

See, tonight he played his music - shared himself at his best with strangers, friends, and family at a humble restaurant-bar in the suburbs - he played his drums, driving the music with his excellent timing and lively fills. J and his band played their fave music, a 45-minute set of good old fashioned rock and roll. At the end of the set, he and his bandmates each got paid 50 bucks, and the restaurant owner wants them back. An awesome night. He was exactly where he wanted to be. He was where his heart truly lies, where he thrives and lives and breathes.

One year ago, J was kicking and screaming as we signed him up for an ongoing, formal "rock band" music program in our city. He didn't want to do anthing that even hinted of "school." The program director was young and hip and yet J proved a major challenge to him. J said horrid things aloud, rebelled against the structure of the weekly sessions, he sometimes didn't want to go to practice. The director would sort of look at J in distress, laughing sometimes, cringing at others. He admonished J. Sort of implied that maybe J shouldn't come back. The director was like a first-time parent (in fact, the session J attended was only the director's second session of his cool new program). Never had he encountered such an unpredictable and difficult to wrangle kid (we were so proud).

D and I figured this was yet another path that he'd burn up. Oh we fought him on it, we pushed for it, but we knew this was up to him to pull off. So J slogged through that first session, concluding the five weeks by playing three or four rock songs with other students at a big outdoor show (part of a music festival in our L.A. suburb). Another five-week session was about to start. D and I prayed he'd sign up but doubted it. J complained about the director, about being older than some of the kids he played songs with, about the time away from his "friends", friends D and I desperately loathed (and still do).

The director (like all smart and loving parents) decided to try a different approach with J. Before the session was to begin, he called J on the phone to personally invite him to the program once again. He used plain words, saying simply, "You're my best drummer. Nobody gets it like you do. I need you to be a leader...not a fucking shit head." Please know, the young and hip director had our full support.

J signed up again. And again. For the past four months, he has not only been a part of the formal program, but got asked to be part of a separate band by a fellow program student. The best of the best, really. These other kids are awesome, great kids. These kids comprise J's band - they have grown to be good friends. Very good friends. The band has played quite a few shows around town. Played at an under-18 club, at a party, played at a couple of fund-raising carnivals. All on their own, with a little help at booking by the parents behind the scenes. And they're good! I knew J knew his stuff, but how cool that these kids found each other, all very talented for being so young, all passionate about music.

Now, yes, they are well-supported by their parents. I worried about that actually. At first, they seemed like five kids stuck together, playing music their parents liked. J, of course, was most worrisome. He would get a bit moody because these weren't HIS friends. He liked them, but they weren't his people. I don't worry any more. He has slowly begun to prefer his bandmates to his friends. Slowly. In fact, they have not only become good friends, but true professionals.

When the lead singer quit (you're not a real band until someone quits!) a few short days before a gig at a carnival, the remaining four buckled down with the lead guitar player taking over lead vocal and let me tell you, they played the hell out of that show. They were in a pinch and they tackled it, without the parents calling any shots. I was most proud of J.

They have a new singer now who played tonight, another great kid with a great voice and that same amazing passion in someone so young. In other words, an excellent match. Mind you, the boys advertised for a new singer, got a hit, auditioned him, and took him on.

Yes, yes, tomorrow we'll get angry at J for more rebellion, for more poor decision-making. He will continue to struggle against those damn boxes until he can get to music full-time. We will struggle with trying to get him into the box because that's our job. We're hoping for a little compliance with the continuation school...for meeting with the school-appointed psychologists...because we are his parents and we have to do the "right" thing to keep him off certain rocky, unpaved roads to which he seems ever-drawn.

Not too long ago, someone commented to me, "Why the hell are you encouraging this rock and roll crap? He needs to be in school!"

We encourage the "crap" because we ARE his parents, and we see where his heart lies. It is a beautiful place. It might not look like YOUR temple...it might not offer up a degree...or a corner office...or a pension plan.
No, J's temple is deliciously dark, and moody, with colored lights flashing, tall amplifiers blaring, electric guitars whining, where beers and tacos get carted around by curvy waitresses, and there's a tip jar on a step. His temple smells like cigarette smoke that wafts in from the outside, and there are flirtations happening on the side of the stage where he can't quite see. There are girls in the front dancing and making eyes at the players, and there are grown folks who nod and bob their heads the incessant beat and say, "damn, I remember doing that," or "damn, I wish I'd been able to do that way back when..." The temple is filled with music...and joy.

Tonight J was at his best, he was where he is supposed to be. For that, I am in awe.

Birdfeeding

2009-08-09T17:51:00.001-07:00

Our entertainment for today: putting out seeds for birds.

Perspective

2009-08-08T17:53:00.001-07:00

Throughout this summer, I've been reading Danny Miller's highly moving story of the premature birth of his twin sons at his blog, Jew Eat Yet? His tale of the loss of his son, Oliver, and then of Charlie's fight for survival in a Los Angeles NICU, has brought his readers along on a harrowing journey that reaches all the amazing parts of parenthood. In reading Danny's heart-wrenching entries, I cannot help but turn to my own children, and see them again as the miracles that they are.

It's not that we, parents of children who are..."out of the box" for lack of a better word, can ever forget the amazing fact of having a family, but rather that we can (at least *I* can) easily lose perspective. And maybe it's just me. Maybe I have unreasonable expectations, maybe I'm so influenced by what we're all "supposed" to be doing, that I cannot see the good parts of children who are not like all the others.

The other day, the Bliss family was having dinner with my sister's family. Now...my sister AB, is one of those lucky people who has children who are highly compliant. They follow the rules, they heed the demands of their parents, they perform fantastically at school. Rebellion is simply not a part of their lives, and I'm quite confident, based on obverving their personalities, that rebellion will never be a part of their lives. It's just not in them. So...at this dinner, my son, is trying to explain why he has to leave the party early. Why he has to get up at six in the morning to pick up trash at the local park.

Community service. This simply does not register on the mind of my nine-year old nephew. So J is his special way smiles broadly and says to little T, "I'm helping society and our environment tomorrow morning! It's a good thing to be green."

Yes, it is.

Our summer has been filled with a lot of music, J and A both are in cover bands and they're playing all over town - at band battles, baseball fundraisers, and J's band is playing in local under-18 clubs. They're having a blast and doing well. M is busy with swimming and guitar lessons.

We're all playing lots of Playstation Rock Band gigs. We've been to Mammoth Lakes and have been completely indulgent in going out to dinner. I've done lots of reading, prepping for classes and a presentation in October, and lounging around in idle and funny conversation with the kids. We've watched a lot of tv, our feet up, popsicles in hands, our dog in our laps. The summer has been surprisingly cool. When it's hot we swim in our community swimming pool. We've had few battles this summer since the boy both decided summer school wasn't going to happen, but for the most part D and I have just focused on enjoying the free time we have without the onus of work.

Our vacation is coming to an end and the routine will once again jump up and force us to strive towards "in the box" behavior. But until that day, we've tried to adjust our perspective and soak in the miracle of our little family. Thank you, Danny, for sharing your story and reminding me of the amazing parts of life that get swallowed up in routine and living in the box.

Summer Again

2009-05-23T10:37:00.000-07:00

Wasn't it just a couple of months ago when I posted about Summer, 2008? I had big plans and accomplished few of them. Wasn't it really just a few months ago when I posted that J was determined to not fail the semester? Well, here we are, June lurking in the short distance and he is failing all his academic classes. He plans on continuation school in fall. He plays in a band and hangs out with his friends. He has locked himself out of driving, proms; he has no phone, he gets no money from us, or extras. Essentially, he has no life. The school did everything they could, short of doing the work for him. Every teacher sat there with everything they possibly could to get him to give one little shit about getting a "D". We yell every so often, but for the most part we have given up. His future in his hands.

We did everything within our economic means. We did everything emotionally but bleed out in front of him. The doctors have examined him up and down. He's on medications to address his disorders - he skips taking them. He curses us when we don't provide him with money or a ride anywhere. There is no "punishment" that elicits anything, nor any reward either.

It is hard to be supportive because there is not much to be supportive about. That he takes a shower? Good job, son! Oh look, he's walking on the sidewalk! Excellent, he remembers his password for MySpace. Nice job on getting dressed and finding your own way to your friends' houses. I can imagine that for some these would be miracles. I have completely lost all perspective.

I dreamed last night his friends broke into my house.

We simply stand by and watch him fall lower and lower. He wants no help to move forward. He doesn't want to move forward. He simply doesn't care.

I do not know what to do any longer...short bleeding out in front of him simply to end a terrible ache.

Today, tomorrow...

2009-05-09T10:49:00.000-07:00

The weekend has hit and I couldn't be happier. While I love school, I love teaching, I'm thrilled that summer is here. Never fails I imagine so much getting done without the drag of a routine and meetings.

I signed up on Twitter, trying out a new way to write, another possibility of technological expression.

Probably, I'll abandon that, too.

Tomorrow's the beach.

Happy Mother's Day to all!

A New Day

2009-01-26T19:51:00.000-08:00

One thing I love about teaching is the prospect of a "do-over" every semester for the repeat courses. It's a great thing being given the opportunity to restate information to students, to tweak assignments to make them more effective, to adjust lecture material to make it more interesting and accessible.

J seemed to have the same feeling with the start of the semester. Towards the end, he gave up because the snowball had become too large to manage. He blew major classes in the semester because he believed there was no chance to salvage his grades, and he was probably right. Too much make-up work.

Tonight he's working hard to complete assignments. He told me he was going to really try to get all the homework done. "Check my homework every day, Mom. I'm really going to do this. I have to."

Do-overs are soooo wonderful.

Observations

2009-01-09T22:35:00.000-08:00

It's been a hellish week - the child, J, isn't attending school. At all. We've got the school involved, he'll be cited (50 hours community service for him; three hours in court, court costs and getting up early to take him to community service for us), he's lost his phone, computer time, money for lunch, rides anywhere. He still has a warm bed to sleep in, food, clothes, medical care. He left without permission to hang out with friends and didn't come home until nine o'clock. He grinned at me through the front door's window, cold yet sweaty from skateboarding in 60 degree weather. Hungry. I was surprised to see him, sure he'd stay the night out. Sure he'd miss tomorrow's drum lesson and Saturday detention. I was wrong. D told me he'd be back.

"You missed dinner," I said as he strolled inside. He made himself a can of soup. Made small talk with M. Watched TV with D. Went to sleep. Another day...

Dealing with this has left D and I feeling hopeless, helpless. The situation reminds me much of when I was a child and could do nothing to control an out-of-control mother. It frustrates me. Saddens me. I see such a bad end. The depression is rolling in like late-night fog and when the children leave for school, I crawl into bed and stay there until noon.

***

M is enrolled in gymnastics for the first time. She loves it! She's sweet in her baby-roundness, in her clumsy efforts to follow along. She smiles at me, though, from the blue mats, trying hard, and at the end accomplishes moves she could not do at first. I sit and watch, listening to the other mothers. One boasts about how she follows her children all day long from activity to activity. "I don't miss anything. I'm there all the time whether it's practice or the games. I have three children and I get to every thing they do."

I don't understand why she needs to prove her devotion so loudly. I say nothing. We were devoted like that to J.

The exercise is good for M and will improve her tendency to fall easily, make her less clumsy. She's too much like me in that way. On the way home, M tell me about the Vice-Presidential run-off she's in for her second grade. She's concerned about the boy-girl ratio. I tell her that Hillary Clinton had the same problem. We both agree that politics is a rough road. She wants to know how many times a President can run for office. She's calculating how many times it might take to turn around that boy-girl ratio.
***

Next week I'm headed to a university retreat in the local mountains. I'll be grateful for the change in pace, for the snow, for the cozy dinner. It will be nice to sleep in a warm bed, alone, and in complete white silence.

Another day, another...

2009-01-06T17:51:00.000-08:00

Another day, another opportunity for my eldest and dearest to tell me to "fuck off." His language is such a delight! It always makes me self-reflect, wondering, classically, where did I go wrong? At what point did he decide that life "in the box" was not his thing? I don't even know WHAT his thing is anymore.

I don't know where he thinks he will end up. To him, the streets seem a viable and sometimes preferable place to being in a home where he has to attend classes and not fail them, oh, and not commit crimes. That is ALL we require. I don't demand that he do chores, or get straight A's (hell, I don't demand C's), or even be nice to people.

BUT...the streets is where he'd prefer to be. I'm not sure what to do about it. I thought therapy would be good, but he refuses to comply. Medication he won't take. He simply says, "fuck off."

God, I'm so glad I decided to procreate.

This morning, I dreamt of my mother. I was so relieved that she was here and ready to tackle the problem of J. I cannot quite convey the intense disappointment when I wakened to a darkened room, with my husband snoring away and my dog curled up in between my knees.

Damn, it's all on me. Still.

New Year's Resolutions

2009-01-04T21:56:00.000-08:00

Procrastination runs in the family. Tomorrow the kids start back at school and in these last moments of vacation, I checked A's teacher's website and oh dear, there's a book report due on Friday. I scrambled through our own limited library for books to read, plugging them into the Accelerated Reader website to see the reading level and finally said...hell with that, kissy, kissy, go to bed.

I ask, why did I not take a peek at the website two weeks ago? Why did my little angel not bother to remember that this book report needed to be done, i.e. that reading needed to be done? He's in sixth grade - I think he's ready to take some responsibility for his own school requirements. Yes?

J has an opportunity to audition for a band that might get media attention and so to do that, he needs to practice the most basic elements of drumming: keeping a beat for longer than three minutes. He played all of five minutes today. He says, "Yeah, I'll do it." I won't even mention the schoolwork situation. We have two letters on the counter saying he's failing courses at high school. Yeah, yeah...I'll do it.

I have many projects sitting on a desk at work waiting for me. Yeah, yeah, I'll do them.

What is my New Year's resolution? Get better at not procrastinating. I'll try to get to that res tomorrow...or in the next few days. Sometime later this month.

M is like her father and is not a procrastinator. She might be young, 8 years old now, but she is always keenly aware of school obligations, or important dates, or activities. She put out her school clothes for tomorrow morning. She made sure she was in bed at 9:00. She always comes home and does homework right away. I pray she will always be so punctual.

J, A, and I will drown beneath put-off obligations.

***

I so wish to return to daily/weekly blogging. I miss my home here. I'd love to say, I will write here every week/day. Yeah, I'll do that.

***

Where has 2008 gone? We struggled with J most of the time. I struggled with my marriage the rest of the time. D and I have very different viewpoints on how to handle difficulty. In the end we are textbook dysfunction: we point fingers at each other and everyone is miserable. We dare not venture near the other because we're too pissed off. I cannot seem to rise above the muddy fray. Instead I choose to wallow, burying myself in work. At work. At least there, there is the semblance of functionality.

My second resolution is for a better family life, but I doubt that will happen.

My third is to get through the promotion process at work successfully. I'll let you know if that happens in February, 2010.

***

I'm terribly lazy when it comes to exercise. Wouldn't it be grand to try for that 20 minutes a day routine? Yeah, yeah...that would be a fantastic resolution to accomplish. I'll get to it after I read a few more pages of "Hood" by Stephen Lawhead.

***

Happy New Years, blogger-world. May you all have resolutions that can be accomplished. And get a little goofy in the process.

2008-10-23T23:59:00.000-07:00

Sooooo silly... We bought a webcam to talk to family across the country. I thought to test out video capture since I'm suffering insomnia. Posted about J. Always J.

We've already amassed a ridiculous collection of home videos. M and I talking about our "hotel." A loves to spend many minutes staring at the camera and making faces. The dog swimming across the screen.

I'll have to see if this works during the day, when I can speak in a normal tone. I never knew I rolled my eyes as often as I do. I'm in my pj's. I'm gonna be in pain tomorrow when I try to get up to take the kids to school.

Did I already say it? Sooooo silly.

So I posted something and immediately took it down. The sound was way off. I'm going to have to make several test runs.

R.I.P. Sassy

2008-09-14T20:49:00.000-07:00

We lost our beloved girl today, doing what she loved...running like mad, down the street. Playing the jester just one too many times. We will miss you, doglet.

Vigil

2008-08-30T12:38:00.000-07:00

The hardest part of sitting vigil while a person slowly retreats from this life is...sitting vigil. With both of my parents, I recall having to sleep, needing to finally go home and rest. I couldn't do it - I lay in my bed, tossing and turning, weeping, praying, waiting any second for the phone to ring. For some unknown cosmic reason, as if I willed it, the phone would ring and I would jump and grab the handset and there was this horror when I realized it was a wrong number at four in the morning.

This weekend we sit vigil for a beloved brother-in-law, the husband of D's older sister. BW is a strong man, a kind one, a truly giving Christian man. I point out his beliefs because he and I sometimes battled. In the end, I could not help but feel a slight envy at his faith.

Today, he is on our minds. We wait, we worry, we hope that some miracle will change the inevitable result of a long battle with diabetes.

School starts on Tuesday - there are things to be done. We've had a wonderful summer, visiting my brother-in-law's only son and family, D&A, in D.C., hanging out by our community pool, going to the beach, staying a week with my sister in Mammoth Lakes.

I have yet to write a thank-you note to D&A in D.C. for their great hospitality. The card waits on the table, the little gift to include. I don't know what to say now that D&A sit vigil in the hospital. I missed my opportunity to express that thanks and now my voice will seem like a drop of rain in the aching storm that for the moment, for now, is their life. Hopefully the words will come.

Godspeed, my dear friend.

The morning after...

2008-06-06T08:58:00.000-07:00

Ahhh, now I see the articles analyzing Hillary and her accomplishments on behalf of the "gentler" sex.

Marie Wilson

Rebecca Walker

BBC News

Godspeed, Hillary...damn it!

2008-06-04T17:41:00.000-07:00

Don't get me wrong, I truly respect and admire and am in awe of the meteoric rise of Barak Obama. But the woman in me who rallied like mad for Geraldine Ferraro back in college, who waited 22...nay, 28 years for another woman to even come close to the Presidency, the woman in me is deeply and, dare I say, bitterly disappointed that Hillary Clinton is not our nominee. We could taste the success and at the last moment, saw the end fly out of our reach.

Reviews of Hillary's speech last night were typically scathing. However, unlike the critics, I thought her speech was absolutely appropriate. DAMN it, she harnessed 18 million voters. As one of the CNN commentators said, Barak can still feel her breath on the back of his neck. This was no landslide. Not even close to one. So damn it, she owed those 18 million voters a speech and a speech she gave them on the eve of her post-primary departure that we all knew was coming. As a Hillary supporter, I liked hearing her accomplishments, I liked the reminder of the states she won, I liked hearing a reminder that DAMN IT, we as women are NOT finished, we are not conceding to anything. And if some people believed she was "defiant", well, she ought to be.

Critics railed that she should have acknowledged Barak's accomplishment in being the first Black to become a Presidential party nominee. And so many have. But Hillary...this was her night, too. No woman has gotten as far as she did in the process. Nobody commented on that accomplishment. That accomplishment has been virtually ignored in favor of criticism of her defiance.

My god, where would women be today if they weren't defiant? Where would most of this country be, if not for defiance?

Hillary Clinton will be gracious when the time is right - today at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee policy convention, for example, and Friday. But last night, was "her" night.

Damn it.

Happy Mother's Day!!

2008-05-11T12:16:00.001-07:00

May the day be a blessed one for all!

Go Hillary!

2008-03-05T08:33:00.000-08:00

You know, when it comes down to it, I have such a soft spot for Hillary Clinton. While there might not be much difference in policy between Barak Obama and Hil, I believe in her experience and woman-ness. YAY for Ohio!

First Post of the Year

2008-02-22T20:32:00.000-08:00

Mid-February - such a delay for a first 2008 post. I've been distracted by family routines and drama and the new job. But I'm here now.

I lost my coat somewhere, sometime in January. The coat was a grey wool pea coat that my mother and I had purchased together at Nordstrom's, off the sale rack. The right-hand pocket was flawed in that one side of the satiny pocket had never been anchored to the thick outer shell of the coat. To use it, I always had to fish for the opening once my hand passed the slit in the coat. Every time I searched for the side pocket, I thought of my mom telling me, "We'll just sew it up. Easy." We never got around to doing that before she died. The coat got a lot of use. Whenever the temperature dipped below 60, I grabbed it out of the hall closet. For years that coat has been featured in family pictures. For years I've hidden in the coat, protected, comfortable. I thought of getting a new one, but new ones never felt as secure as the grey one with the big black buttons. My sister told me the coat was getting a bit...outdated. Sometimes when the house was particularly chilled, I cuddled beneath the coat. If I was unsure of the weather, I'd take it anyway. Even if the thing stayed draped across the back seat.

So, yeah, the coat is gone. For the life of me I can't remember where it could have been left behind.

I wonder if it got left at a faculty assembly, where I sat between my boss and a Psychology professor. Or maybe it was in a classroom, where I stood at the front of the room and spoke of outlining as a tool to improve writing. Maybe I left it in the room once I gathered my books and flash drive, before I headed out into the dark. Perhaps I simply shed the coat in the hallway outside my little office decorated with books and framed posters from my house. Perhaps I walked and shrugged off the drab grey coat, shrugged it right off my shoulders to show off the lacy blouse beneath, the light-colored slacks, and the platinum pendant swinging against my chest. It must have felt good to walk away from that heavy weight on me.

I know it must have felt good because I didn't even notice its absence for the longest while.

Today, I read homework and assignments and dialogued with students by e-mail. We're having a meeting on Monday afternoon to revive our department's student association. I'm working slowly on an accreditation report due in June. My boss is a lovely person, a former missionary, a lawyer, too. We have lunches together and she always smiles when I walk into her office. When she introduces me to people she knows, she says, "We're just thrilled to have her!"

During the winter intersession at the University I learned that a colleague knows my favorite professor from my alma mater. I realized in that moment that I was where I was always meant to be. In my senior year, I took a detour from my wish to get a doctorate in English. Law school. By walking away from graduate school, I knew I was walking away from an academic career. For many years I agonized about that decision. Dissatisfaction with practicing law grew and weighed down my spirit. The children came, the marriage dipped, I was lost in a fog of displacement. Writing wasn't good enough to quell the lasting ache of having missed what I thought was my long-lost opportunity.

When I heard that I was mere steps away from my English professor, I suddenly saw the full circle.

I shed a weight when I signed on to work at the College. I finally got to a place where I wanted to be. And it feels so good to be free.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

2007-12-24T12:10:00.001-08:00

From the Bliss Family...

Have a wonderful holiday!

Happy Thanksgiving!!

2007-11-21T21:47:00.000-08:00

May everyone have a beautiful and satisfying holiday!

Awakened

2007-11-06T01:37:00.000-08:00

As if to smooth the non-touching wrinkle in our marriage, he brought potent creamed coffee to my classroom. I drank the large coffee in sips and slurps on and off throughout the lecture and now it's two in the morning and I'm wide awake. For hours it seemed I lay beneath thick covers unable to warm up. I started with few clothes on, a t-shirt, a pair of pajama shorts. I got up to get socks. I switched the shorts for pajama pants. I finally threw on a robe. Still the bed was cold, still my mind wouldn't stop. Last step was getting out of bed and hitting the keyboard.

Music haunts me, Mexican music. The tones have been following me, trailing my every move. A week ago or so on a Saturday night, in a similar vein of wakefulness I rose to the sound of Mexican music coming in through a cracked-open window. Near two-thirty in the morning I saw. I pushed the covers off and walked through the dark to poke my head out the sliding door of our room, listening for some minutes to the music. From next door, I realized. For the longest time I listened, so much like the musica my mother listened to when she felt homesick. The words, the meanings, I had no idea. My Spanish has never been good. I tended, I tend, to gather meaning from the tune, from the rises and dips in the melody. This...I couldn't quite read. I wasn't picking up joy. Reminded of her pain, I went to bed. The music was unusual. The music carried so far, it stayed with me until I fell asleep. I dreamt of my grandmother.

In the morning, my son came to me and said plainly, Mom, Robert is dead. Someone killed him. 23 years old. At a party. Somewhere. Around one in the morning.

Oh no, I said, oh no, his poor family. His poor parents. Their world has stopped cold. For a few weeks, for some months, their world will not be real. He was one son of five.

The music comes to me now. I wonder if they'd learned of it. If someone learned of the killing and played the music to soothe a heart in shock. Perhaps it was coincidence. Perhaps it was a dream. I won't ever know because the family is private that way - the dad waved to me during the week, a wave that screamed of normality, of business as usual. I know that's not the case.

Writing hasn't put me to sleep yet. I hear a whispered voice carrying down the hall, "Mommy." No, that's D's rhythmic snoring. A kind of choked music, a soothing, grating, familiar noise which at once can lull me to sleep and keep me wide-eyed.

Tonight I asked a student if she'd be interested in a Law and Literature class. She said yes, but hoped music would be included as part of our literature. She'd love to research rap as a statement about law in our modern society. Yes, yes, that's wonderful, I said. Music. Music.

Driving-By, Shooting the Sh...

2007-10-09T16:06:00.000-07:00

The University where I work is a small town compared to the community college - the streets are quaint, the buildings have character, and parking is a constant thorn in the sides of faculty and administration. I find that I miss the students off the city streets back at the community college. They didn't have to apply to get in so they were often rougher in their knowledge, in their recall of the last exam they took. Even the younger students had the cynicism and pallor of working folk, burnt out on traffic and too many hours in air-conditioned discomfort.

At the university, the students are well-invested in their education. They pay a lot of money for unit hours, read their text books, and are firmly headed towards their 4-year degrees. Community college students are much less confident on what will happen in the upcoming year. They might be there, they might not. They might transfer, they might not.

In my new position, in my little, over-air-conditioned office, I find myself un-confident of where I'll be in a year. Will I make the grade? Will I transfer? Will I be able to do all I said I could do?

At home, we're even less confident. Our eldest angel is maneuvering his way through high school, a treacherous path of incompetent teachers, temptations, and unmet needs. We're happy to see that his tics are quite manageable - quite reduced. We're happy to see him swimming in a huge school, but sad to see his grades bump back and forth between an A in English and an F in math. How funny that college used to be an automatic in my life, an unquestionable goal to attain. Today, I really have no idea if he'll ever get there, much less graduate from high school. I can't see him enlisting in the service (he hates taking orders from any kind of authority). Don't think he has the passion yet to be a professional musician...so...

Oh hell, it's probably too early to tell. Really.

My second son, A, has developed an interesting maturity about school. While he's still in "RSP", the modern "special ed", and he still struggles with completing "extra work", he also prides himself as being a "rule follower." He is a pleasure to have in class, his teacher assures us. He's attentive and always does his best even if it's not perfect. At home, he's just himself: liking to get under the skin of his brother and sister. He chuckles to himself, I can see, when he gets them to raise their voices. He still moves at his own speed, when he's good and ready.

The baby, M, not so baby. She's a peach at school, excited about everything, finicky about doing things correctly and in a pretty way. If she can make it sparkly, she will.

The man in my life: D. We continue in our comfortable co-existence, but I struggle with his reluctance to treat our oldest for his behavior problems. D doesn't like the label perhaps that J's problems put on him. Perhaps it's denial. I'm not sure.

Our weeks fly by, full and noisy. There's always a test to take, a class to prepare for, math facts and spelling words to memorize, a test to write. As always, I love the quiet of the house, late at night and right after I return from taking the three to school. Sassy and I walk the rooms and sip coffee and check e-mail. I'll shower before heading out to the University where there is much more to do, more meetings to attend, new classes to worry about, high-paying students to sell myself to.

M is singing now as I write, her new poem of the week, Five stinky pirates, as plump as can be... except the words grind down to a groan because she's aggravated, because she can't remember the rest. I'm hungry, she says, haughty and princess-like, while copying sentences, before reaching for the Cheez-Its. Can I do this later??

"No, M, do the sentences now. There is no later. Later there is dinner, baths and books to read. Do it now."

"Oh!!"

We miss summer, I realize.

Summer Reading

2007-07-05T11:06:00.000-07:00

Venturing outside my normal topics of posting, I wanted to share a book with you that I'm reading called "Outlander" by Diana Gabaldon. No, it's not literature in the traditional sense of the word, but neither does it qualify as "romance" or "science fiction" or "historical fiction." Rather, it's a combination of all three genres which is why it has appealed to so many fiction-readers. In fact, the entire series has been so beloved that the books have been on the national bestseller lists since "Outlander" was published in 1991. In this first book that I'm currently reading (all 640 pages or 896 depending on the format), 1945 nurse Claire Beachamp recently reunited with her husband following a separation due to World War II finds herself transported to 1743 Scotland when she touches the boulders of an ancient henge while on a walk to pick herbs. From there, her adventure starts.

Now, some of the dialogue is silly (one exchange has our heroine, Claire, saying, "Ugh!" in response to hearing some terrible incident involving her Highlander lover, Jamie Fraser, a written vocalization which never fails to stick in my craw). There is also the unreal ease with which the heroine accepts Jamie's love (thereby seeming to forget her still-living-in-another-time period husband without that much of a blink) as well as the rather ... er ... politically incorrect punishment from said husband (Jamie spanks the bejeesus out of her with his belt when she disobeys him).

All that aside, I've found myself transported right along with Claire despite my high-minded preference for more intellectual literature. I recommend "Outlander" to anyone who's looking for some fun, light, engaging summer reading.

On a related note, I've actually been reading more tradition romance novels. Rubbish to be sure, but enjoyable nonetheless. The books seem to go along with my penchant for movie and television watching. I wondered why I've abandoned writing, why I put aside my heavier reading pursuits in favor of silliness.

I wonder while I lecture J on the necessity of school, of passing classes, of not running around with hoodlums as friends, while I dole out medications to the boys and tie and re-tie M's hair in ponytails and listen to J tic because he's so stressed out over summer school. Today I meet with the principal of the school because in truth, J's needs are not being met. I've come to the conclusion that if he's unmanageable in school, it's because he's not being managed correctly. The other day he cursed me out, using...well...using my favorite F-word in the world. Yeah, THAT one. I was surprised, horrified, wanting to get a switch off the tree and mete out my own punishment, but I realized the stress over school had simply reached a boiling point. Something isn't right in Denmark, so to speak.

I don't think I need to wonder why I'm escaping into escapist fiction. When I was in law school, I used to escape the serious lifestyle of studying with video games and made-for-tv movies. Today, there's stupid fiction, hot sex between the pages, happy-ever-after endings, and ... made-for-tv movies. I'm not doing anything different than I did back then.

Last night we went to the Pomona Fairgrounds for the fireworks. The show was preceded by monster trucks and freestyle motocross. I had to laugh that in Pomona (versus the big show at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena) when the announcer asked everyone to clap and cheer for our servicemen, firefighters, and law enforcement, the crowd booed law enforcement. D and I laughed hard along with all our compadres in the crowd. I don't think any police officer wanted to stand up in that crowd! We had fun though, yelling out wildly for the Bounty Hunter who stirred up so much dirt with his wheelies that it took a full ten minutes for the air to clear. We collectively gasped when the motocross guys did no-handed flips with their motorcycles and one truck caught fire after too many donuts. And then the fireworks. We took pictures with our cell phones along with the rest of the crowd - no fancy cameras and tripods for the cheap seats! Even though J stayed home, choosing to hang out with a neighbor, A, M, D and I enjoyed ourselves despite the long and slow exit. For the evening, we escaped and forgot our usual troubles.

Well, back to "Outlander."

Summer, Summer, Summer...

2007-06-25T12:48:00.001-07:00

"I have a runny nose, Daddy, and besides that, someone was making fun of me at school on Friday. I don't want to go to summer school today." Ahhh...so said my dearest at 7:30 this morning when D tried to wake up J up. So he could go to school, so he could get 10 credits and thus take less classes in his first year of high school.

Last summer we thought to relieve the kids of school. This year is a different story. Both boys are in school - A is being home-schooled by D, and J is at the high school. M is also being home-schooled. With J, we thought it best to acclimate him to the routine of school, to get him used to managing his tics in a school environment. D and I worried. He did so well at home, we didn't want his good work to plummet. But the reality is, his tics ARE being well-managed, and he WILL lose out on the music programs if he stays home.

"Come on, Daddy, I really just want to stay home, just for today."

D came into my room and whispered, "He's got a really runny nose."

"Give him a cold medicine."

D tiptoed out of the room. I drifted back to sleep. At 9 or so I got up and looked in the bedroom and there was J, asleep. He slept until 11.

When he woke up, he asked, "Hey, I made plans to go skating with my buddy. Can you drive me to the elementary school? Just to the hill."

Umm...no.

"Why NOT??!!"

"If you're too sick for summer school, you're too sick to skateboard for friends."

"It's just summer school, it doesn't matter!!"

Heavy sigh.

Yesterday was nice though - after screaming and fussing and complaining and threats to stay home, all five of us managed to get into the SUV and head out to the Orange County Marketplace (which used to be the Orange County Swapmeet) to walk around and buy a beach hat. Which we did. Bought beach hats. Afterwards, we drove to Newport Beach for an early dinner and I had a Mojito. Never did I need one so badly in my life. We all had fun, though. Lunch-dinner was the best. Classic rock playing. The ocean breeze coming in through open windows, chips and salsa, hamburgers, fun conversation. Beach hats.

I took pictures from the pier. I'd not seen that many people at the beach in years. Packed. Sardines.

Today we'll go swimming at the community pool. I'm going to learn how to make a Mojito.

Happy Father's Day!

2007-06-17T17:28:00.000-07:00

Happy Father's Day to all my fellow fatherly bloggers, whether by biology or love. Hope your day's been a good one, full of family, friends, or the peacefulness of a quiet day.

Spectaculular Independence

2007-06-13T08:39:00.000-07:00

I thought this picture was worth publishing. My little M woke up in a stormy mood, dramatically tossing clothes about, bemoaning her lack of desire to follow our strict time line in order to get to school on time. Since the days of my childhood, where I fought with my style-conscious mother over what I wanted to wear, I vowed never to force my own children to abide by my personal sense of dress. I'm glad to see I was successful in creating independent-minded children who see beauty in many things, in places others might skip.

Graduation

2007-06-11T10:30:00.000-07:00

My oldest child, J, is graduating from 8th grade on Wednesday. I've been disconnected from it. My brother (father to step-daughter, S) and his wife put on a graduation party on the weekend for S (who graduates also from 8th grade) and to tell you the truth, I was relieved because when they let me know about it, I realized I hadn't planned anything in celebration of the day. Why? I suppose it's because the year's been a long one with J, our battle with Tourette's, with his "couldn't-care-less" attitude towards school, my own recalled "couldn't-care-less" brush with 8th grade graduation. I suppose the disconnect was more due to D's and my narrow focus/worry on his walking onto the high school campus next week for his first class back at school rather than walking to get a diploma. All my energy has gone into fretting about high school. Will he tic there? Is the medication enough to counter the anxiety? Will he be lost there? Will he let his grades plummet there? Will he walk to get his diploma there? And what of those other kids of mine?

So, he's graduating. Congrats, my dear. Now onto the really hard work of setting yourself up for college and a career. The world is your oyster as they say. Are you going to nurture the pearl, or swallow the meat with horse radish?

***

The weather is beautiful now. I love the June gloom which gets burned off by a slow-to-heat noontime sun. I sit on a chair on the porch with my book and a coffee in the morning, watching the sprinklers work and the dog sniff around the perimeter of the yard. Something always new to find in the familiar, eh?

Pssst....

2007-05-17T23:57:00.000-07:00

I got the job!

And now...I worry about doing well. The angst never ends. God help my poor family, friends and loved ones.

Signed,

Assistant Professor Bliss

Names

2007-04-25T14:40:00.000-07:00

As I reviewed the names of the students who were slaughtered at Virginia Tech, I wondered what the names were of the people slaughtered in Iraq on that same day. And the ones yesterday. And today. I keep wondering if the situation in the Middle East would be more "real" if we knew who these people were? If we saw their smiling faces, their dashed hopes, up front and personal?

Or would it only to serve to sadden us, to bring us all to the brink of helplessness since our voices tend to be lost in the politics of it all?

***

I had that job interview and now I wait. I did okay, not stellar. Sometimes in the throes of nerves, I tend to say things I wish I didn't. Can I recall anything specific? Yes...and it only gets worse in my imagination with time. So I do better not thinking about it. I'll wait for the rejection letter. As I munch on foods that are bad for me.

***

Only April 25? Damn it, I can't wait for summer.

Happy Easter!!

2007-04-08T12:14:00.000-07:00

Happy Easter, everybody. Here at the Bliss household, we had a mini-Easter-egg hunt in the house because it's been raining. Later, we're going to host a lunch for D's sister and her husband. Nothing fancy. Lasagna from the local deli and a salad. I'm not sure we even have dessert.

The picture is from a few weeks ago - I attended a conference in San Diego and the family met me on my way home. We stopped in Carlsbad for a "dip in the sea." The kids played until their clothes were soaked. The two little ones wore clothes from my suitcase for the ride home. J sat at the edge of the sand, refusing to get his pants wet. Who could blame him? I ran behind the kids snapping away.

What's on our agenda? I've got an on-campus interview at the local university. Found out I have only one other competitor. When I first got the letter, advising me of the day-long interview, I was near tears with stress. Since then, I've let it go. I'm prepared, got a lecture ready to go, a portfolio put together, the suit's pressed, the only thing left is doing my best. Right? The terror has subsided because this is something we've been waiting for, but it's much out of my control. Either I'm a fit, or I'm not. Right? I know, to some, this is silly. They do interviews often, it's a routine. This has never been routine for me - it's always been an opportunity for Adriana Bliss, the child, to rake herself over the coals for everything that's wrong with her.

So here I am. Cannot wait for Wednesday night, after my evening class is over. So I can get on with my life.

The kids are doing well - J's vocal tics are under control at last. He still has a motor tic where he clicks his jaw, causing him real pain. But that seems to be on the mend - the times he does it is less, the ferocity is less. We're going to enroll him in our city's high school, come September. I'm hoping to work out a custom program where he can take two of his core classes at least, as independent study, or perhaps with a home teacher. He's done incredibly well this year - getting straight A's - earning A's on his exams. I hate to rock the boat by dumping back into the classrooms he's grown to hate.

April already? Tomorrow's my birthday. I'll be 43. Ouch.

I'm sorry I've let my blog go. Writing has become an exhausting task. Perhaps my energy is zapped by school, the children, keeping up the house, prepping for this interview. I'm not as free in my writing as I once was. The words don't flow like they used to. They are restrained, organized. To the point. I suppose that's good except the straightforward ideas never hit paper. Or a computer screen. They stay in my head, acting like a beach's waves. Thoughts of short stories and blog posts come and go, darkness finally arriving, so only the echo of creative thought is left as I fall asleep. The surf not seen by anyone. Maybe, maybe summer will bring new light.

I think of you. Often.

Happy Easter, my friends.

"I love you."

2007-03-05T16:25:00.000-08:00

I'm sitting in my office, surfing the internet blindly, listening to J read a story with his home-teacher in the next room, the kitchen. The two each read sections, and at the end of the story will discuss themes, plot, character, the usual. At one point in the tale, a son leaves his mother to serve in the Civil War. The two share a brief conversation and then the son says his goodbye, marching off. J interrupts and comments, "His mom didn't say she loved him. That sucks."

I smile to myself. I suppose some habits are a good thing. Telling those you love, that in fact, you do love them, is a good thing.

On the other hand...

2007-02-27T11:06:00.000-08:00

Our school changed its semester system, so FINALLY, today, I'm lecturing for the first time since the beginning of December. I didn't teach a winter session course and had a really long break, therefore. A break I appreciated because as you all well know, I prefer running barefoot and NOTpregnant around the house, free of all responsibility and obligation to anyone whatsoever.

On the other hand, I'm actually sorta happy about starting tonight because if my dear husband comes home from school one more time with the comment, "Why's the house such a mess?!" I will be forced...to commit a crime.

So...tonight...I will be away while he takes care of getting kids to bed, doling out meds, fighting to get A into the shower, cleaning, sorting, organizing. Ahhhh.... When I get home after ten, the house will be quiet, quiet, other than the gentle taps and regular noises of J at the computer, other than the sound of D snoring.

I did have my telephone interview with the school I mentioned previously - not bad. I have no judgment whatsoever on how I did. I do know the interview lasted for 50 minutes, the professor did let me know that the next phase was the on-campus interview but added, "We'll keep you informed." Who knows what that meant? I figured she wouldn't have mentioned it all unless she planned on asking me back...on the other hand, the "keeping informed" part sounded purposefully evasive, unwilling to commit, which meant I didn't blow the interviewers away. Either way, I'm relieved that part is over. I was terrified, I practiced, I was ill, waiting for this thing to happen.

So yay! It's done. Whatever the result, at least for now, I've got a reprieve.

What's coming up? I'll be attending an education seminar in San Diego at the end of March. I'm looking forward to it - two days. I'll be sharing a room with an old friend of mine, a fellow professor. She's a kick, we have a lot in common, we'll laugh a lot. I might run into one of the interviewers. I'd be surprised if she didn't attend. That might be...interesting.

More doctor appointments are coming up. We've got J on a new medicine for his tics, one without any side effects. Using it for Tourette's is a bit experimental, meaning no formal study has been done on this medication. It's called "Namenda" and is normally used in patients with Alzheimer's. The drug does something to the neurons that play a role in Tourette's Syndrome, meaning the medicine should theoretically reduce the tics. We'll see. Even though he just started, I have seen a reduction in the regular tic'ing. There doesn't seem to be a change however when it comes to stress. He still grunt-yells quite a bit with his teacher (school work causes him stress). I'm patient though, this time around. After a month, if there's not a significant reduction, if he still tics as loudly and as frequently with his teacher, we're stopping the medication and waiting the requisite six months on no new medication so we can get on the UCLA study for Behavioral Modication/Habit Reversal Therapy. Basically, he'll learn to control his tics by himself. We might do it in addition to the Namenda. If he can stay on that medication for six months without a change, then we'll be eligible for the program. According to studies, Habit Reversal can reduce tics anywhere from 30% to 80%. Knowing J, we'll get the 30% which is why I'm not too keen on getting him on the program.

The other reason is that the trip to UCLA is horrible - the traffic turns what should be an hour drive into a three hour drive one way. No matter what you do, you WILL hit that traffic either going there, or coming home. Because we live in San Gabriel Valley, there's no escaping it. I don't know if I could do that twice a week, or even once a week. We've been doing it for years, going to the Jules Stein Eye Institute for J's eyes (he was born with strabismus (cross-eyed)) since he was four years old. We know that drive well.

On the other hand, if he could reduce his tics without the use of medication, that would be a lifelong skill that he could turn to whenever he needs, as opposed to medicating even during times he doesn't need to, when the tics naturally wane.

On the other hand, I've got to prepare for school, and clean up this messy house! Tomorrow, I'll think of these things.

Updating at Last

2007-02-03T11:31:00.000-08:00

Time is short these days even though I spend hours in bed on Saturday mornings and a couple of hours a day watching television. Sounds leisurely, but that's all there is as far as kicking back. The rest of the time is spent sleeping my requisite eight hours, guiding the children in their own responsibilities, disciplining them, tending to the dog, the house, attending social gatherings and professional development classes at the college, prepping for the Spring semester, watching my weight fluctuate between 143 and 146 from week to week, housecleaning, cooking, reading, moaning about my lack of exercise, and super-marketing. The little things in my daily life feel large these days, whale-like to my Jonah-self. Blogging is somewhere down the list. Way down the list. Buried. Swallowed.

As I said once before, posts pass through me several times a day. Thoughts on marriage, children, writing, movies, friends, siblings, funerals, speeding tickets. Nothing gets written down though. Time, time keeps cutting me off.

So here's a quick listing of things that have happened that warrant rambling posts, that get cheated out of rambling posts.

1. The wife of a cousin of mine died. I met her when she was young and in love. I was a pre-teen. The memorial service was held at my great-aunt's house (the mother of my cousin). The place transported me back to my teenage years and I spent the afternoon milling in and out of a throng of relatives, looking for my parents, because certainly, they had to be there. They were there the last time I spent time in that house.

2. I spent the evening of that service at the Magic Castle, in Hollywood, California, watching card tricks and other such illusions. When I stepped out into the cool night air, as I eased my way into late-night Los Angeles traffic, I wondered the illusion of our life, of death. Wondered if I would ever learn the secret to that Great Trick.

3. J's tics disappeared, then reappeared. Our HMO has decided that we need to travel to Ontario, California, in order to see a covered neurologist. We're saving money though on the kids' medications and on sick visits to the doctor. PPO isn't all that it's cracked up to be.

4. M had the flu this past week.

5. We all had some sort of stomach flu thing that kept re-upping in our bodies over the holidays and the early part of January. Thank goodness, it's passed.

6. Television that I'm enjoying: Grey's Anatomy, Heroes, Deadwood, Prison Break, 24, the Office, 30 Rock, and the dreaded American Idol. I gave in to the craze and despite YEARS of deriding the show as the sole reason for the decline of good old fashioned dramatic series, I'm liking the delusional attempts by some at fame. I suppose I'm horrified because my GOD, I'd never do that. I wouldn't dare think such a thing possible, even if I had the talent to back it up.

7. I learned a really cool program to boost my courses that I'll be teaching in the Spring Semester (set to start the final week of February), Blackboard Academic Suite. This is basically an interactive website where I can post assignments, handouts, where I can hold discussions on discussion boards, even have chats. I'm excited. I think the students will have a greater sense of the material, and the greater sense of access to assistance. I hope I have the energy and time to truly devote to the websites for each class.

8. A's mood has been awful for the past month: he's irritable, he's sassy, and has a bad attitude. He's 9 years old. I have no idea why he's behaving this way and talking to him hasn't gotten us anywhere.

9. I have dreams of divorcing my husband. The motivation for the move changes in these dreams. One in particular was because he insisted on wearing my pink, suede, cozy boots. Does this mean I think he's gay on a subconscious level? Or maybe I feel imposed upon, that he has moved into my closet.

10. Money seems to flow out of us like blood from a cut artery which brings me to the potential full time job which will more than double my salary. I have a telephone interview with the university in two weeks. I should do okay if I can practice enough, if I can prepare well enough. Part of my problem comes from the school's desire for its professors to do scholarly writing. Because I've only been teaching for four years, because the community college has no requirement for writing, I am completely at a loss as to what the hell I would do scholarly research on. See, legal scholarship is not my love, never has been. If I do make it through the phone interview, then there will be a face-to-face as well as a teaching demonstration. You want to know the truth? I had been hoping the school would lose my resume, not because I don't feel qualified but because interviewing, being judged, scares me to death. I am filled with blood-curdling, paralyzing fear.

11. Today's a beautiful day. Tonight D and I will be out celebrating my sister's 40th birthday with wine, good dinner, fun conversation, kids with babysitters. Ahhhh....

Happy Saturday, everyone.

The Slippery Slope

2007-01-16T19:20:00.000-08:00

On Sunday morning after much planning and purchasing of the minimal snow gear, the entire Bliss clan (entire: my family, my sister's family and my brother's family) took a jaunt to Wrightwood, California, in order to tube down a slope. Yes, a very short slope with 8 different "slides." Hundreds of people lined up to buy tickets and then got in another line to slide down the slope on a plastic innertube. I'll give that the line moved fast, I'll give that as I slid down the slippery slope (yeah, I used that cliched phrase on purpose) I was slightly afraid that I'd fall off and when I went zooming up the up-slope, I shut my eyes out of slight fear. Run #2 was fast! The funny part (besides the ridiculously long line of snow bunnies waiting for the slide down the hill) was seeing everyone come up the slope via the conveyor belt. That, and the tow. People sitting on their innertubes being dragged up the slope via a tow rope. Or tow wire.

Clearly, I don't have the lingo down.

We had a fun in this radically different place, a place that hit 22 degrees near ten in the morning, especially when we pulled over and played in someone's private driveway (see picture) in order to make snow angels, yellow snow, snowballs, and collect snow for our cooler. Whoever you are, thank you for allowing us to indulge for about 15 minutes. You made the day for the little Blissians, three of whom never have been in snow, like ever.

Well, that's not true. One cold morning long ago, my mother and I took A and J, ages 3 and 5 respectively, up Mountain Avenue towards Mount Baldy, driving until we hit snow. We tumbled out of the car and joined several other families who found the same snow patch. The boys used an old cardboard box to slide down the small hill a couple of times, then they just played. After they were sufficiently wet, we got them out of their clothes and wrapped them in blankets and our jackets for the ride home. I guess we forgot how wet snow can be. My mother took pictures of the boys that day. Later, she cut the photos, cut around their angelic faces and placed them on "flowers," sticking the "flowers" in a narrow glass vase as a bouquet. The vase is still on my kitchen window sill, the photographs unfaded although they are a little water marked.

Then there is my own personal experience with snow - skiing. Yes, it's true, back in my college days I used to ski every season. Not a lot of skiing, just enough to take the intermediate runs at a good clip, without too much slowing down. I think I actually managed to swoop a little, you know, swoop, that rhythmic back and forth thing that looks so easy in the winter Olympics. I really enjoyed it - I'm thinking of taking the kids back to Wrightwood for snowboard lessons (the boys) and skiing lessons (M and myself). D says he'll wait in the lodge with hot chocolate and a book (he says when he was learning to ski, he knocked over enough people in his mad dashes down the bunny slope to last a lifetime). But...the money. Skiing is definitely a hobby for the wealthy.

And wealthy we are not.

Still...to escape into that cold. Might be worth a little debt.

The change of pace was a blessing. The icy ground, the tailgating sandwiches, getting a chance to feel cold that never hits the city during daylight hours...relieving.

Stuck

2007-01-07T14:42:00.000-08:00

We spent a windy day at Legoland on Friday – my sister, myself, and five of our six children. We had a guest, too, a cousin the same age as our kids. J didn’t go because he’s grown out of the park. In truth, I didn’t want to go either. The thought of an amusement park just rubbed me wrong. The thought of expending energy rubbed me wrong. When my sister rang me up in the early morning, all dressed and ready to hit the road, I sank deeper into the sheets, my eyes drawn to the curtains where shadows of trees swayed, behind which leaves brushed the windows. D was anxious for me to go, so he could get stuff done without the children hanging on him. He popped out of bed and got coffee going.

A kind of depression had come on. I felt sorry for myself, for J with his intense tics, tics I could hear across the house with doors closed. I’d spent the night awake, staring into the dark, tossing and turning, listening to D’s snoring. I found myself crying over J’s condition, crying in utter disappointment that the medication had quit working, that we were back to square one, where nothing worked and we were just going to have to try something else.

Goddamnit.

The drive to Carlsbad seemed interminably long, the children happy though, happy to be hanging out together. They’re easy that way. We arrived and spent a long lunch with JE, our cousin who works there. She left her son RE with us for the afternoon. Again, easy. I walked and had a coffee and chatted with Sister. Little energy had to be expended. As the sun began to go down, the temperature in the park did, too. I put gloves on, put my coat on. Huddled on a Lego-red metal chair to watch M ride the little cars while my sister entertained two-year-old Izzy nearby.

With all the other children in the group, she ran and got into a Lego-blue car. The announcer asked everyone to raise their hands if they buckled their seat belts. Like the kindergartener she is, she raised her hand. They were off. Except M’s car didn’t move. She raised her hand. An attendant ran to her and tried to get the thing moving but it still didn’t move. He pushed her to the side and got her into another car. Lego-yellow. She buckled up and began her first loop around the track.

She rode an entire thirty seconds before the announcer told everyone to stop their cars because their run was over. M made it around half the track. Everyone popped open their buckles and began running to the exit.

Except M. She fumbled with the seatbelt and when she couldn't get it off, she raised her hand high in the air like a good student. Just like the attendants told her to do.

And she sat. And sat, her arm unmoving and as high up as she could get it. Without getting a single attendant to look at her.

I began to fight the exiting kids, trying to get in through the exit, waving and calling out to A and AH who were coming out, too, “No, no, turn back! M is stuck in the car! Go get her!”

The attendants were too far away to hear me and too wrapped up in managing exiting riders to care. My poor little M continued to hold her hand in the air and no doubt was in a state of pure mortification. The attendants of course continued to be completely oblivious to the trauma that was happening across the track. I couldn’t see M’s face clearly, just her little hand in the air, waiting, waiting. But I knew her heart.

She then got the clue that she was going to have to save herself, that nobody was going to come, so she began to squirm out of the belt, just as third-grade AH arrived to save her. The tears started as the two girls walked closely together off the track, AH’s arm around M, AH flashing nasty looks to the Lego-workers.

Normally, I’d have ripped the attendants new you-know-whats but you know, I just grabbed M into my arms as she sobbed over the ridiculous humiliation of being trapped by a seatbelt.

I couldn’t help but chuckle and yet…

The wind picked up and the kids rode one last ride, the awful seatbelt nightmare forgotten by everyone but me.

From there, tiredness fell over me that I cannot describe. But first we had to have dinner with my cousin, JE. The pizza was late, didn’t get to her house until eight that evening, an entire two and a half hours after we left the park. She had ice cream sandwiches to offer, pictures to share and pictures to take. Truly a lovely hostess. We had a long ride home. By the time I got into bed, it was after midnight and all I could see in the dark was M in that car, far away from me, with her hand up and nobody coming. I couldn't sleep a wink.

D said across the bed in the lightless room, “Forget it. It was kind of funny, wasn’t it? Classic even. I mean, who can’t get out of seatbelt other than blonds and Polish people?”

“But it wasn’t funny. She was helpless. Kind of like how we are to J’s tics. Completely and utterly helpless. Mortified.”

Silence met me.

“You’re too deep for this hour of the night. Stop thinking in analogies.”

“I can’t help it, it’s what I do. I think in analogies. Constantly. My entire blogging life is made up of analogies. What would I write about if not for the analogies?”

“What would you write about?” Not a question. A statement. Sleep overtook him. I got up and watched TV. I’m going to call UCLA, I thought. I’m going to stop that lousy new medication he’s on that isn’t working. I’m going to look more seriously into dietary changes. I’m going to wiggle out of this medical seatbelt.

We are not helpless, goddamnit.

Happy New Year!

2006-12-31T16:45:00.000-08:00

This morning I awoke to J ticcing again, often and loudly. Very disheartening because the medication he's been on seemed to be working really well. We thought we finally found "the one." So...I've got a headache. As I doled out the morning medications for the boys, I realized that I tend to live my life waiting for the proverbial next shoe to drop. The happy times, the peaceful times, are just moments in which we take a breath. I'm just waiting for the next bad thing to come along, you know? What's it gonna be next? A new disease, a death, a speeding ticket, job loss? A tornado? What, what, what's gonna happen NEXT?

This is an attitude I have to stop, change. And therein lies my New Year's resolution. What's yours?

Post-Holidays

2006-12-28T10:47:00.000-08:00

I see my last blog entry and it feels like Christmas lights on a house, long after the holidays have ended. Something new needs to be put up, the lights have to be taken down along with the Christmas tree and wrapping paper and decorations. Everything needs to be put into the old boxes and re-stuffed back into the garage. The thing is...every time I sit down to clean up here, one of the children demands something or other. Before long, I'm out of the habit. Like now.

So today's M's birthday. She woke up with a big smile, her front tooth missing after a goof-around session with A last night. "Mommy," she said, "the tooth fairy came last night! I got..."

She peeked into the plastic baggie and said, "Five dollars!"

D had put it there - we tell the kids the tooth fairy is kind and always leaves the tooth for the memory box we keep in the kitchen. I glanced at D, "Five dollars...wow. That Tooth Fairy has become very generous."

"Increased cost of living, you know."

"What does the tooth fairy look like, M?"

"She's green and white. Green dress, green shoes, green face...and she wears a bracelet with a white tooth!"

"So beautiful."

A couple of presents came, by way of D who had already started cooking some bacon out in the kitchen. Roller skates, elbow and knee pads, a pink outfit from the Gap, and socks. All lovely. The house was warm, the boys were still sleeping, and Sassy was romping in the wrapping paper. There didn't seem anything wrong with having a post-Christmas birthday. We'd worried about that when we learned M's due date. Would she feel cheated, sad, bummed out? So far...so good. Only time will tell.

Christmas seemed to fly by as usual. All holidays seem to do that. Every year seems to do that. Teaching has intensified the speedy feel of time because when I teach, I live lecture to lecture, test to test, assignment to assignment...focusing on the end of the semester. Poof it comes...then it goes...then the year starts up again. Very roller-coastery. When life stops, like now, during the holiday break, I feel like I just got off that crazy coaster, looking around, saying, "Whew!", dizzy, breathless, the memory dream-like. I see the children and they are so much bigger now, so...outside-the-womb.

I long to hold them again in Papa's rocking chair, rocking in the dark, feet deep in slippers.

We went to my aunt's house yesterday, spending a blustery day in Mission Viejo. At one point I turned to look at the kids outside, all the kids, cousins, second cousins, and they were running like mad against the wind, even J, looking to be swept away in that wildness. They laughed hard and I chuckled at teenage J having as good a time as nearly-5 CousinMG. We sang a birthday song for M but she couldn't bear the attention so she dipped her head down, fumbling with an errant string on her pants. At least she didn't cry. She used to cry when she was younger. At every birthday song. The moment that song started, she cried. Prescience maybe.

So yeah...Christmas is done with. The financial leak is plugged. We'll cry come January's bills, I can assure you. The Visa card was hot this month which we loathe but feel compelled to do anyway. The teachers, other kids, extended family, the selves. We tend to use Christmas as the excuse for buying what the kids need. Shoes, clothes, crayons, a new skateboard deck, a book of bass guitar tabs, books, a winter coat, socks and underwear. Then the few games and toys. The kids don't seem to notice. Thank goodness. They are the sorts where if it comes in a wrapped box, then they love it.

I got sweaters. Still need new jeans. Wish someone would have gotten me time, though. Time in a box. Maybe a trinket that slows up the clock and erases the wrinkles I see in my face. The laugh lines that no longer go away, the worry lines that don't fade with relaxation or sleep. Oh and what of all that whitish hair? You, dear readers, have no idea the greyness of my hair. I stopped coloring long ago, not able to keep up with the white roots that would shoot up only two weeks after a tint. At one point I was called, "prematurely grey." I think I'm passed the premature part, heading into forty-three. The hair seems appropriate.

Why do I feel like sighing? A sense of loss in the wake of the holidays overwhelms the moment. Some things are lost that can't be given back...some things are lost that I'll never re-attain. I think I've lost those things sooner than others lose them, sooner than I was ready.

I'll be back...I need to watch M skate in the front yard. Need to break up J and A who are battling in a back room. Damn it, I'm strapped into the seat and the attendants have called, "All clear," and the coaster is off again.

Merry Christmas!

2006-12-24T13:26:00.000-08:00

Happy holidays, everyone. May the world treat you gently, these days and always.

Shhhh....

2006-12-14T19:32:00.000-08:00

Everyone quiet...I'm blogging while I'm giving an exam. Yes! It's true! The students are trudging their way through a grueling legal research and analysis exam. They've got a case to read, a statute to analyze, and a page right out of Shepard's Citator. I feel all-powerful. Their futures lie in my hands...my reviewing of their exam will either make their "A" or bring them down to the "C" or the "D" or worse.

[Please, someone, hand me my sceptor..and that crown over there...thank you, oh so much you worthless subject, you.]

I kid.

Actually, this keyboard is really noisy so the flow isn't happening. I'm certain when I get home later I'll read this post and be horrified. I'll edit and re-edit and drive the Bloglines people nuts with the repeat posts (assuming that's what happens). But see, I'm compelled. I've been reading blogs lately and they all made me want to write. I'd love to slam out some fiction, or a really good memoir-type thingie. Sometimes though I think I've said it all. I talked about my mother's unbalanced ways, the lemon tree, the pine tree, the children, the husband, the marriage, the school...Tourette's, hypertension, bipolar...stiff muscles, overweightness (yeah, yeah, that's not a word)...eating...photography...bubbles in the sink, sunlight in a dusty room...teaching, learning, crying, laughing.

There's just no more to say.

I have that trouble with photography. For the longest time I was documenting my suburban life--

[Student, that's called a true and false question. If any part of the sentence is wrong, then the whole thing is wrong. Right...if your notes indicate a different bit of information...then...right...it must be...? So "true" is your final answer, eh? Okay then...be on your way, you stricken student, you.]

I had oodles of pictures, plenty of beauty in my quiet urban-suburban town. Then one day I hit a wall. I'd taken a picture of that wall already. And that reflection. And that pond, and that graffitti-stained tree. And the kids. Oh the kids. They do keep changing, true. They are an ever-shifting subject...but...

I felt I'd seen it all, documented it all. I press my eye against the viewfinder and there is only familiarity.

Shhhh...the keyboard is driving me wacky. Two more hours to go. I'll edit tomorrow. No, no, I'll just write a new post.

Blindness

2006-12-06T15:33:00.000-08:00

All right, I'm admitting it here, right now. Total confession time. Heard about Britney Spears' no-unders photos and had to look for them. I was curious...found it hard to believe, believe it or not, that she'd run around without...panties. I mean, COME ON! That's ridiculous.

I found the pictures.

I cringed.

I looked.

My mouth stretched into an "eeeek...it's true..." and cringed again as I scrolled once more through the several, horrifying shots of Ms. Spears getting into a limo and then engaging in what looked like a group hug with the huggers purposefully hiking her skirt so the paparazzi could get a lower-than-low shot of...everything under the skirt.

I sent the link to all my friends and family.

I don't know...maybe I have to be a guy but I found the pictures intensely embarrassing. Then I got nostalgic. Awwww...I remember the days when I'd actually WANT someone to see my personal business. I remember the days when I could actually drink enough alcohol to not mind strangers seeing my personal business without getting a migraine headache and throwing up in the bushes. Remember those days?

Yeah, so...I'm blind now. Completely, utterly blind. I looked and lost my vision. Blackness, I see, colors blurring into black, background noise of my children demanding Christmas presents and cell phones and cards for downloading music off the internet and really expensive clothes. The noise I appreciated most though was little almost-6 M, chiming, "Mommy, can I get Snow White panties, huh, Mommy? Or maybe Ariel panties? Or...or...the Twelve Dancing Princesses panties?"

"Oh yes, M, you can have as many panties as you want! All the panties in the world!"

***

Once again, I offer my apologies to my loyal blog-checkers for not updating very often. Just the school and holiday blues - too busy - not enough quiet time. Blog posts rush past me every day - lengthy posts - posts about dreams and nightmares and Tourette's syndrome and then when I sit at the computer, nothing reaches my fingertips.

I'm disturbed on some level because not so long ago I imagined that just maybe I might eek out a living writing. I envisioned short stories, novels...I saw something real and plausible. Then I started teaching. And it seemed like all those ideas of mine disappeared. I started a blog as a creative outlet, as an alternative to making a living as an author. I put a lot into the blog - it was wonderful. Then the blog became an extension of my conscious and subconscious and suddenly it wasn't anonymous anymore but really me.

And then the "me" began to act just like I do at home - indulging in non-productivity. The silence of the blog is me on the couch. Wearing underwear, for those of you smarties out there. Underwear and jeans. And a top. A bra under the shirt or sweater. A well-covering sweater. With boots. Socks and boots. And beer in the hand. Or maybe a book. Or it could be no boots and socks and just slippers with M or A next to me. And the house is messy. And there is chili simmering on the stove. Bubbling chili with beans, Italian sausage, ground turkey, canned tomatoes and lots of spices. My sister's recipe that took me a week to finally pull together. Because lately, me-on-the-couch has been enjoying prepared food. BBQ pork, pineapple fish, orange-peel chicken wings, vegetable lasagna, turkey meatloaf. D and I love prepared food.

"Look, honey, I just have to stick the thing in the microwave and voila! All done!"

"Delicious. The salt will do wonders for my hypertension."

"No...that's the trick...low salt."

"Delicious. The blandness will definitely do wonders for my compulsive eating."

"Exactly!"

So...yeah...the silent Bliss Blog is Adriana on the couch. Wearing underwear.

Happy Thanksgiving, Dear Bloggers!

2006-11-23T11:02:00.000-08:00

May your day be filled with family, friends, love, and wonderful food!

Just Around the Corner

2006-11-21T18:22:00.000-08:00

I don't know whether it's the up and down weather here in L.A. (cold in the morning and at night, hot during the day), or the high energy of impending holidays, but I've been incredibly lazy, sleepy, unwilling, when it comes to writing. Instead I work on school stuff, help the kids, kick back and watch television, read, eat. As I told someone who asked, "I'm just bobbing along," a leaf floating down a creek, a seedling in a gentle breeze. A quiet peace seems to have fallen over our house - the noise level less, the tension dissipated. I don’t know where all that “extra” stuff went, but the absence is welcomed.

A local college has an opening for a full time business law professor so of course, I applied. It took me months to do it. The ad has been sitting on the college’s website for two months. I’d look at it and my heart would skip a beat and my stomach would tighten up…not in wishful thinking but in pure stress. I felt obligated to apply because these positions are rare. The family needs the income. The hours wouldn’t be much more than now, only I’d get paid twice as much. Oh certainly there’d be a wee bit more work, networking-kind-of-work…yes, yes, but…but…

I sent out the application. Right away I got a letter in the mail. I saw the envelope and thought, “A rejection letter! So soon!” I slashed open the thing and found an optional information sheet. Something about my sex, age and race. For survey purposes. I have nothing to hide – I filled it out and off it went.

Full time work is daunting, however, especially with the children being still so young. On the other hand, the financial stresses are killing us. The stories don’t joke that money is the primary cause of marital disharmony in the suburbs. I’d go one step further and say it’s the cause of familial disharmony. The frustration leaks down from the parents to the kids to the dogs. I’m pretty sure that when Sassy runs screaming out the front door every chance she gets, it’s due to our lack of finances. (“Not enough snacks! Not enough snacks! Get me to Beverly Hills!”)

So…I don’t know. Here I am…waiting to see if they’ll interview me, hoping they won’t, desperate that they hire me, terrified they will. Truth is, I like being free of any responsibility or obligation. Raising a family though takes away that as a viable option.

***

The other day I saw a black cat sitting proper in between two small track homes, sitting still as an Egyptian statue. She sat on aged grass facing the street, facing me. Behind her I could see the water meter, pipes twisting into the house, and slew of tied, colored balloons, leftovers from a party. I wondered whether they belonged to one of the two houses, or whether they’d landed there from some other house, from some other gathering. The cat looked perfect. Picture perfect. Belonging to nobody. Free…like the balloons had once been. I wished for my camera.

***

New tics. A has developed a vocal tic – a repeated humming. His Tourette’s actually started that way but A.D.D. medication alleviated the symptoms entirely. So for two years he hadn’t made any noise at all. D and I just looked at each other tiredly when we noticed that it wasn’t going away. The thing came on as suddenly as it had disappeared. The good thing is that has a soft voice so the sound isn’t as jarring as J’s noise which means we won’t pull him out of school, not yet. I don’t know if I could handle both boys being home taught, or home schooled. The thought of the two of them at home makes me shake in my proverbial boots.

Unfortunately, A had to endure two different teachers who chastised him (one of them wrote him up for “insistent noise”) for making the sound in class. I had to go to the school and educate the teachers. What frustrated me wasn’t the substitute teacher but his regular teacher. I’d made her aware of the potential for vocal tics months ago. I had explained to her, “If he makes a noise that doesn’t stop with a warning from you, a noise that continues, a repetitive noise, it’s a tic and he can’t control it.”

My poor baby – despite his tendency to be a bull in a china shop, despite his stocky build, he’s quite passive when it comes to authority. So when his regular teacher asked him to be quiet. He really tried to be quiet. He didn’t say anything to her when she commented, “Are you copying your brother? You weren’t doing this last week so it can’t be a tic.”

She did admit that she asked him, “Can you stop doing that?”

He’d looked at her, pursed his lips, thinking, pondering the question. Then said, “No.”

And STILL she didn’t believe it was a tic. So…needless to say, she chastised him and he arrived at my car, upset and moping. I had a chat with the teacher, sorry that I hadn’t told her earlier, believing my month-ago conversation would be enough.

Epilogue: she did apologize to him personally.

***

J’s transformation into a full-fledged teenager continues to…captivate me. The other day he asked me to drive him to a local park to hang out with some friends of his. He grabbed his skateboard and hopped into the car. We drove to the designated park and he didn’t see his friends. He called on the cell phone, speaking in some language I could barely understand, something sprinkled with “dude” and “where you at, yeah?” Soon, about five kids emerged from the playground, all tall and lanky and swaggering. And then J rattled off an, “I love ya, Mom, bye!” before slamming the car door and making his way across the grass, a boy tallish and lanky and swaggering. As he walked away, skateboard at his side, his long-haired form blurred, he blended in with the other kids. He looked nothing like my child. He was a teenager. Worse, he was a teenager that I’d have never communicated with when I was his age. Hell no. I’d have passed him by in the halls. I’d have looked down and hugged my books to my chest and groaned with annoyance if he screamed or whooped it up (as J is wont to do). The sight makes me drive home quickly to A and M – who are home, sprawled on the couch, watching something stupid. I huddle down in between the two of them, grateful that they’re still little and kissable, that they’ve not hit that peak yet. The sight of J in the park makes me miss his babyhood intensely.

Wheee!

2006-11-09T00:10:00.000-08:00

Where have I been? No, really, WHERE have I been?

***

Sleeping, not-sleeping. Going through the usual motions of mother-wife-teacher-flake, watching t.v. until late, following the elections, digging into Don Quixote, eating leftover candy, picking fleas off Sassy, staring at a picture of the boys when they were 3 and 1 and crawling and making an "oh" expression while in cowboy pajamas and smiling, oh smiling to the point where I want to pick them both up in my arms and never let them go, or grow, going to a shouldn't-have-happened bachelorette party out in the boonies, wondering the point, the punchline, of all THIS.

***

Kate and Sawyer had sex in a cage! Wheeeee! I wanna be in cage, too!

***

Driving home from the elementary school the other day, I see in the side-view mirror M's reflection as she leans in her booster seat, leans with her still-tiny and round face out the window. I ask her, "Honey, why do you do that, put your face outside the window like Sassy?"

Not a second passes, no time to think, she says, "I like the wind. It makes me happy."

A few days later, as usual, D comes home in the afternoon and this one day he finds me on the bed in our bedroom, stretched out, pillows behind my head. I've got the Playstation going and I'm slashing away at creatures in Final Fantasy XII and he just eyes me, shaking his head at my laziness. The younger kids are running around in the backyard and screaming like mad, the kitchen is a mess, homework isn't getting done, late sun rays are coming in through the sliding glass door, dust, dust is dancing in the lit air, and he says, "Why are you doing this when there's so much else to do?"

I smile, wiggle my toes, stretch like a cat, pause the game, "I like it, I like the tossing of work to the wind, the noise of it - it makes me happy."

***

Tonight, take-home exams were due. I lectured, assigned an in-class project. The students must have been anxious to go because they all sped through the assignment and the class emptied out early, near 9:30 p.m., a whole half-hour early. When I locked the doors and began the walk to my car, two young women came up to me with worn tests in their hands and a story about a car and a cell phone and a brother who'd disappeared with keys, and they were huffing and flustered and grinning hopefully, asking if I'd still accept the test. I laughed, calling them, "Lucky girls, girls born under a lucky star."

They giggled and were so thankful that they'd caught me, that I took their papers, that I gave them a break. They hustled off, huddled in the chill air, disappearing into the still-busy parking lot, into the darkness, and I climbed into my car. The radio turned on as I turned the key. Lucky, I thought, to have made someone's night.

***

On Saturday, I talked to a veterinarian technician. Like an expert she massaged the haunches of a once-abandoned pit bull terrier, and told me how much dogs like that. I said I’d be sure to do that to Sassy, massage those rear muscles of hers, or the shoulders. She’d love that, I said.

“Oh yeah, isn’t that good? Isn’t she just the best doggie ever?” The dog stretched and rolled over to her side, in heaven.

The tech was beautiful, long, blond, straight hair, just past the shoulders, bright brown eyes. She sat twisted, her bare feet turned up slightly, the piercing in her navel glinting in the low light of the low-ceilinged room. Music thumped in the background and women chatted away, laughing, glasses clinking against the other. A party.

“Should I give you my e-mail, so I can get the DVD?”

“Oh yeah," she said, "just put it on the evaluation.”

“Great, yeah, cool.”

“You want to dance some? You never did try those moves.”

“No, dancing on a stripper’s pole is just…not my thing. But you guys did an awesome job, especially teaching us the lap dance. The sexy, drunk walk was good, too. But the lap dance...that was really good…ooohhh…and the push-up, the dragging-your-boobs-on-the-floor-with-your-ass-in-the-air push-up. Nice! Beautiful!”

“Sexy!”

“Yes, very sexy. And I agree…slow is sexy.”

“Slow is the key…want the last penis-candy?”

“No…you keep it!”

“Love the condom!”

“Isn’t that just a kick? Ohhhh…puppy…you want another rub? I just love animals.”

"I'm sure you do," I smiled.

***

Strange, we’re not too far off the end of the semester. I’m anxious for the ending again. Looking forward to the long winter break. I suppose I don’t really want to work. That’s probably the truth. Raising the kids is job enough – raising myself…job enough.

Dreaming

2006-10-30T10:40:00.000-08:00

Sleep brought me absurdist isolation, figuratively, dreamily. I was on a ship somewhere far – couldn’t tell if it was the ocean or space or an island or desert. I shared a bed with a woman, a co-worker. She and I were both married but we both lusted after the ship’s luscious first mate, a guy who looked like a guy from Lost, the television show, and this guy wanted us in return but was respectful of our marital states. He was supposed to look like the guy from Lost, but in reality looked like David Lee Roth of Van Halen. His face morphed through the dream, moving from Lost’s Sawyer to this aging, grey-haired David Lee Roth. The transformation put me off track – the attraction lessened. I simply couldn’t bring myself to lust after DLR. Nevertheless, he tossed a bunch of books to the side from his cart and hopped into our bed. I was concerned about the books, curious to know what books he had brought us. He kissed me, he kissed her. Over his shoulder I spied the Captain’s assistant who reminded me very much of Freddie Prinze, Jr. and it occurred to me that really, he should be the one kissing me as opposed to this Sawyer-wanna-be.

Finally, in my dream, I got up and took a shower. When I emerged from the tiny bathroom, drama had taken place. The reluctant DLR had moved away from the bed and the woman was in tears and another woman who had wanted in on the action was shaking her head. I shooed them away and I got back into bed, happy to have the space back and happy to be rid of the drama, when my cousin walked into the room and asked me, “What happened?”

“Just silly stuff. Nothing. Stupid. Don’t worry about it. Where do you want me to work today? The factory room? The bridge? Kitchen?”

“Doesn’t matter, Adriana, just keep your nose to the grindstone.”

I woke up, knowing I had oodles of papers to grade, Halloween eve to tend to, dinners to plan, exams to write, and no desire to socialize with anybody. Gotta keep to the grindstone. Gotta forget about DLR because he’s just not the same anymore, you know? I don’t think any one of us is the same.

***

We visited Farmer’s Market yesterday in Los Angeles. The kids were clawing at me, literally, as I sat on the couch Sunday morning, trying to watch Shirley Temple’s “The Bluebird.” My favorite movie next to the Disney’s Aristocats. The movie didn’t interest M. She stretched and made noise and complained and whined and wanted to change the channel to something dumb, something really dumb like Sponge Bob.

“They’re looking for happiness, M, how can you not like that? They go to these lands and see all kinds of things and the cat and dog turn into people and isn’t that dog just like how Sassy would be if she were a person?”

“I’m hungry!”

“What do you want to eat, then?”

“Oreos!”

“Not for breakfast…”

"Spell the words, Mommy, and I'll write them."

"You can't write here on the couch - go to the table."

"No!"

She was bored, that was all. D said he wanted to shop at Kohl’s, wanted to leave the kids home with J as their babysitter and the thought of it made me want to pull hair out. “We need to go someplace…with the kids.”

He grumbled and fussed and I hopped in the shower. Made it out in ten minutes flat. We hit the road, intending on Chinatown but deciding on Farmer’s Market because it was next to the Grove and that might be fun being we’d never been. We left J at home because he wanted to skateboard with some buddies and eh…it might be better because he tends to aggravate the others.

The weather was crisp, warm, and sky-blue, as if wind had mopped up Los Angeles leaving a bright, shiny floor behind. We parked up high and spied the Hollywood sign on the green hills. The four of us marched down the stairs from the sixth floor and emerged into an outdoor mall, with the brightest, shiniest spot on the floor: the American Girl doll store. M walked through the place, determined to buy something. Anything. I promised her Emily, maybe, for Christmas or her birthday. She sighed and with a shake of her head we left, heading into the noise of Farmer’s Market. We ate hotcakes bathed in butter, Panini, hot dogs, and a slice of greasy pizza. We fantasized about fried alligator and when we got home later, we were sorry we didn’t pick up that alligator for J. Would have been fun.

Our afternoon closed with a tour of the Grove on the Trolley and a milkshake for the ride home through Los Angeles. A had rasberry ice cream - the best ever. We both agreed. We’d hit Little Ethiopia on our way in and exited through Korea and Central America, down Beverly.

For dinner we made our usual, tacos. I didn’t have any salsa, not my salsa, the stuff my mother used to make. I felt its absence, her absence. The kids were down early. Bathed, washed. Halloween is Tuesday and A, this morning, said, “Don’t you wish today was over and it was Tuesday already?”

“Definitely wish the days would move faster…I’m thinking Snickers and Buttercups…I think I’ll be myself, though. No costume.”

“Meow,” M said from the backseat.

Drive By

2006-10-11T11:16:00.000-07:00

Perhaps it's my quirky sense of humor, perhaps it was the exalted language, but with a vision of a naked man running down the halls of a government building in my head, I found the lawyer's closing comment funny.

***

I received a phone call last night from one of my best friends, a former paralegal secretary, who gave me a good link to the heads of Verizon as a means to resolve my insanity. We laughed, I ranted, she suggested I get over my hopeless problem, I cried, we recalled the good old days of working in a law office and feeling powerful. In the end, I realized I should just enjoy the benefits of a good screwing and move on with my internet life. Thank god I CAN post this entry, thank goodness I'm living in a 30-day timezone with no fees for the time being. Forget battling the big guy, I will lose.

We all do, really, because of the way we've been living.

The problem I've been going on about for weeks now is our fault. "We/our" being the suburbanites. We've been sleeping our days away and when we're not sleeping, we're on the hamster wheel, running our kids to school, chasing our paycheck, paying our bills, filling up our cars with gas, chit-chatting about Tom Cruise. Voting? We vote the way our parents did, we vote for the guy who has the most money, the most ads on television, the one who pushes our false issue buttons (gay marriage, abortion, blah, blah). We've been living in a Matrix that we helped create in order to give ourselves a pain-free life...and in the meantime, our support system, our employers, the computer that keeps up the Matrix, why, they've taken over.

And we let it happen by not paying attention.

So yeah, I'll let the screwing happen like so many others - lie back and enjoy the sweat, the heat, the darkness of the room, the calories being burned away, the shivering, reluctant orgasm of internet connection, or a full tank of gas, or a good show on the television. When I get up and get my clothes on, when the big guy saunters out of my bedroom, I'll realize I've been fucked by all the big guys...Arco, Verizon, the Government...and jesus...what woman doesn't want to get fucked by a big...guy?

***

By accident, I erased years of saved e-mail. With one swift click, I deleted years of friendship, constructive criticism, love, high-fives, births, deaths, information. For long minutes I searched the folders, finding nothing...gone, gone, all gone.

An empty mailbox stared back at me. Clean, full of promise. Full of forgetting.

Modern Life: Part 3

2006-10-10T17:15:00.000-07:00

God, DSL is fast. Fast, fast, fast. Faster than dial-up that’s for sure. I was scared, don’t get me wrong. When I sat at my desk, my computer on the floor, swiveled out for easy access, a flashlight at my side, I worried that the modem sent by Verizon wouldn’t work. I already knew what their technical support was like, so the last thing I wanted was a software program that would tell me, “Remote computer doesn’t respond,” or some such demonic message. I'd had my fill of inept technical support through EarthLink.

What a relief when the modem connected without any problem. When I saw the Verizon website on my screen, I got on my knees and thanked the computer/telephone-wire gods. The first thing I did was check my account on that infamous Verizon website that their automated phone service repeats like the proverbial broken record.

Hm, I thought, as I glanced at the section regarding webspace. The website stated that I got 10 MB of webspace with my account. Their advertising page said the same thing. The two agents I’d spoken to however told me 110 MB. A misunderstanding? Couldn’t be. I was very specific with the agents.

“EarthLink gave me 10 MB per screen name, making it 80 MB. How much does Verizon give me?”

“110 MB of webspace.”

“Are you sure?”

“Sure as pie. Sure as I can be.”

“Now, I don’t want Verizon unless I have the webspace. EarthLink gave me 10 MB per name.”

“110 is eleven times more space! All for $17.99 a month!”

“Can I order it now?”

“You need to cancel your other DSL service first.”

“Consider it done.”

“And I get all this for $17.99 a month.”

“Provided you agree to a one-year contract.”

“Not a problem.”

I hung up the phone and proceeded to cancel EarthLink. The cancellation/installation nightmare began. The conclusion was a clean, crisp connection. After checking my account page and seeing the 10 MB bit of information, Dennis called me to inform me that DSL was up and running.

“Yes, yes, I know that. I’m online as we speak.”

“Fantastic!”

“Well, not so much. I have a problem.”

Dennis agreed, “Bad Verizon! Bad! Misrepresentation!”

“So can you get me what they said I would get?”

“Can’t do that. I’m just technical support.”

“Who can I talk to?”

“Billing. But I tell you what, I’ll do that for you and call you tomorrow.”

“Fantastic!”

Next day, Dennis called but I wasn’t around so he left a message on my phone, “Okay, for $17.99 you get 10 MB. If you pay $4.95 you get 50 MB and for $9.95 you get 100 MB.”

Dennis called again and I ripped him a new one as I hitched up kindergartener paintings on the outside window of M’s classroom to dry, “Thanks for nothing, Dennis, as I can read Verizon.com. The problem is that I relied on what the agents were telling me as I did not HAVE an internet connection. As soon as I got off the phone with the first agent, I cancelled my internet! I didn’t read Verizon.com. I wasn’t directed at the time to check their website. They sucked me in, they made me rely on them, and I trusted the information I got not once, but twice! So were you able to resolve my situation? Get me the webspace I was promised at the rate of $17.99?”

“Can’t do that. They’ll only give you a credit of one month free-DSL.”

“But that isn’t acceptable. I was told…”

“I’m so sorry for the inconvenience. You’ll need to speak to billing yourself.”

“Fine.”

My trouble ticket according to the Verizon website was, "closed."

I called Verizon then the next day about the 110 MB I was told my account included. They said, “No. We offer 10 MB. You must have misunderstood.”

“I didn’t misunderstand. One agent explained I’d have eleven times more webspace with my one screen name than EarthLink offered per screen name. That’s pretty specific. The second agent repeated the same information. A completely random agent.”

“They both must have misunderstood your inquiry.”

“They didn’t misunderstand. I explained I wanted more than 10 MB for the one price and they assured me that’s what I would get. Two agents on two separate occasions told me the same thing.”

“Let me transfer you to a supervisor.”

Needless to say, I got disconnected twice, sent to the same automated system, got shifted to technical support, finally landing on a non-supervisor at billing.

“Let me transfer you to a supervisor. Sorry for the inconvenience.”

“No transfer! Don’t put me on hold for a half hour like the other agent!”

She laughs, “Oh no, I wouldn’t do that.”

Forty minutes later, I hung up the phone.

The next day I tried again, finally reaching a supervisor to discuss the “situation.” Ms. Frances was speaking to me. I explained the situation. I told her the misrepresentation.

“All I can offer you is one month free of DSL service.”

“But that’s not acceptable.”

“I apologize but it’s all I can offer you. Do you accept?”

“I want to speak to your supervisor.”

“She’s not available.”

“You make her available. I have a problem and you’re not helping.”

“I’m making an offer. Do you accept?”

“Let me talk to your legal department.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Give me the address for your legal department, physical, e-mail, phone, whatever.”

“Do you want the $29.99 credit for one month free of service?”

“Why can’t I speak to your supervisor?”

“I am the person handling your problem and my supervisor is unavailable to speak with you.”

After ranting a bit, I finally relented and said I would accept a credit as a temporary fix. I'd be calling the Better Business Bureau and the Federal Trade Commission next. The matter online, the "escalations" matter, was deemed, “closed.”

That’s when it hit me. $29.99? No question, I do have a tendency sometimes to be a bit slow on the uptake. So, wait. $29.99? My credit should have been for $17.99. I e-mailed Verizon.

"Can you confirm the cost of my DSL connection?”

Here’s the e-mail I got back:

Thank you for contacting the Verizon eCenter. My name is Paul, and I will be handling your request today.

This message is in response to your email dated October 9, 2006. You inquired about your current DSL rate. I will be happy to assist you.

I understand how important it is to manage your Verizon account. We currently have a request in place to credit your account for a month of DSL service at $29.99 per month. That should appear on your statement in 2 billing cycles.

Your DSL account is still currently set up on the $29.99 3.0Mbps/768Kbps package. I can process a request to change your DSL to the $17.99 plan. I need to share some information regarding that package first.

The $17.99 per month Verizon Online DSL service is available to you when you sign up for the One-Year Commitment Plan. Under this plan, a $79.00 termination fee is applied if you cancel the DSL service between the second and twelfth month of the service agreement. At the end of the one-year commitment period, your rate will remain $17.99 on a month-to-month basis.

You may want to carefully consider your decision as the $17.99 Verizon Online DSL Service is provisioned at a lower connection speed of up to 768K/128K. You currently have a connection speed up to 3.0Mbps/768Kbps.

If you would like us to enroll you in the $17.99 one year commitment plan, please respond to this email and I will be glad to assist you.

Although additional follow-up is needed, it has been my goal today to address your concerns related to your Verizon Online billing rates. I hope I have succeeded in meeting that goal. In the meantime, if you have any other questions, please let us know. We look forward to serving you.

Slow DSL? SLOW DSL? What SLOW DSL? I'm not even going to get into the "two billing cycles" crap. Why should it take two months for a credit to go through? Anyway, nobody mentioned anything about the $17.99 being associated with a slower rate of DSL. Look, I’m just a regular gal, not a computer know-it-all. DSL is DSL as far as I was concerned. I had no idea that DSL came in different flavors and Verizon never attempted to explain that to me on the telephone when I placed my order. I never mentioned the rate of transfer, I never asked about it, they never spoke of it. EarthLink also never indicated there was a speed issue (they had one rate and what that is, I have no idea), so as far as I knew, when Verizon said DSL was being offered for $17.99 if I agreed to a one-year contract, I assumed they were talking about…whatever speed DSL was offered at. They DID mention the higher cost but that was only if I didn’t agree to a one-year contract.

When looking at the Verizon general website, not my own account page, Verizon hints in the fine print that here are different rates of transfer, but they don’t specify what speed the $17.99 brings you as they only offer a $14.99 deal for ordering DSL online and THAT apparently brings a "slower DSL" which...now I am familiar with. Prior to that, the language would have been Greek to me.

Yeah. So I e-mail back, basically saying, WTF? Give me a physical address of Verizon DSL so I can complain. And who can I talk to from the legal department? To which I get a response.

Thank you for contacting the Verizon eCenter. My name is Paul, and I will be handling your request today.

This message is in response to your email dated October 10, 2006. You inquired about contact information regarding your DSL service. I will be happy to assist you.

Our corporate headquarters address is:

Verizon Corporation
140 West Street
New York, NY 10007

The department to which we have referred you will be able to assist you. If you have any additional questions, please let us know. We look forward to serving you.

Thank you for using Verizon. We appreciate your business.

Sincerely,
Paul
Verizon eCenter

“The department to which we have referred you?”

I e-mail back. “WHAT FREAKING DEPARTMENT?!”

Not exactly that, but pretty close to. I'm still waiting for their response. Maybe I should have asked, "What freaking department?!"

Ahh…modern life. What do I anticipate will happen now? I fully anticipate a morning full of sunny skies, birds singing, and a cancelled account. I’m pretty certain Verizon will offer me a cancellation as a remedy to their alleged false advertising…no, no, their “misinformation or miscommunication.” Oh and the vodka. Did I mention the vodka? Yes, yes, I anticipate a few shots will take care of the migraine I have.

In the end, I’m to blame really. I figured if Verizon owned my phone lines, they’d be able to handle the DSL aspect the best of all of them. Why use another company who’d only have to access Verizon’s wires? Cut out the middle man.

The only thing getting cut here is my last nerve.

General Thoughts on Sunday

2006-10-08T15:49:00.000-07:00

Typing away on an old novel of mine - words coming easily. I listen to the house. I hear a television. I hear the dog barking outside. Cars driving past. The front yard is decorated with stuck-in-the-grass signs, pumpkins with our names on them, witches, black, arched cats, spiders, Boo! Halloween hasn't hit the inside of our house fully yet. I hear the neighbors laughing.

What I don't hear are J's tics. He's not done a single one all day and it's been days now of quiet. The final say will be when he sees his teacher. If he's quiet then, and quiet for a week, he'll be in a position to go back to school.

I'm torn about sending him back right away. He likes being at home. He likes not having to comply with dull, mindless rules, getting to bypass the tedium of running from class to class to be on time, standing on numbers for roll, tying shoes, acting in accordance with a vague standard of proper conduct. He doesn't have to sit in a seat for designated time periods without doing anything "productive". Doesn't have to do the work specifically when told to do so during the day.

He sleeps until eight in the morning. Drums a little, runs a little. Comes in and works on some homework unless he'd been ambitious and decided to do it all the night before. We'll talk throughout the day. He'll get on the computer and play with music. He'll read for a half hour and write in his notebook some thoughts on the reading. He'll skateboard. We'll have lunch. Sometimes he and I will go to the doctor or visit my grandmother or my sister. We'll pick up the siblings. He'll wait for the teacher by doing chores around the house. He'll drum for a longer while. He'll meet with the teacher and then go out and skateboard, sometimes with friends.

Am I cheating him by keeping him out of the system longer than necessary? He's gotten A's and B's on his exams - I think when he goes back, we'll see once again the low grades and the failed responsibilities. This works. That doesn't. Should I work harder at indoctrinating him to the ways of Verizon? Or should I bite the bullet and try home-schooling which does scare the hell out of me? I don't know. I really don't.

I think of new words to describe a world run by machines with no heart, no brain. Verizonous. Verizoniac. Verizonish. We're being trained to function in such a world and the first place we learn that is in our schools, public and private alike. But is that such a bad thing?

M cried on Friday when I had to leave her classroom. She does it every time but it doesn't stop me from volunteering in her class every Friday morning. I love it - her tears though make me weep. I won't stop though. I won't stop to save the extra pain. I didn't get to do volunteer with the boys (other than in A's second grade class) because I always had to take care of a baby. So this is wonderful. A special opportunity. Our special time. The mornings there are sweet. I sit at a table and help the kids paint pictures with the smooth, drippy yellows, reds, blues and blacks. The children all have to paint a picture following the picture the teacher drew - not a lot of creativity necessarily, but it does help them. They don't struggle with the how-to. I do notice though with each attempt, the paint strokes differ, the sizes, the exact shapes. Everyone is different, yet the same. They're identifying themselves within the sea of sameness.

They sing songs together. They march in place together. They do everything as a group. Obviously it makes for organized education of a large number of children. Any less than that opens the door for unfathomable chaos.

I love the independence within the system. When the children are all listening to the teacher talk about body parts, their skull, spine and falanges, Mary sticks her hands in her back pockets and shouts with complete delight, "My hands are on my butt!"

The whole class laughs and the teacher does too, commenting that her hands are on her glutteous maximus. There is a lot of joy in the class and I suck it in. Yes, they're learning a sense of sameness and yet they rebel against it constantly. They don't just retreat to a corner to read when they're done, they chat and lie on their bellies and backs as they flip through the pages of various books. Each child that comes to me to do their painting tells me something about themselves.

"I cut myself, look."

"My cat is red."

"Yesterday, my daddy came over and stayed while Mommy went to work."

"I like spiders."

"I threw up on my birthday."

"You're M's mommy."

"I like to paint."

M cries when I leave and I hold her. She's got to follow the rules and buck up. I kiss her and assure her I'll be right back. She'll be just fine. And she is. She will be. But it's hard to walk away from her. I often feel like just grabbing her up and taking her with me, except I can't.

It's against the rules. This is something she's learning early.

Short Fiction: Insanity

2006-10-08T12:15:00.000-07:00

She must be crazy, I think, as I pass her by in my car, my silvery, rolled-up-window car, with the heater hot and airy and the music loud enough to drown out sirens and the back and forth swish of windshield wipers. Her powdered-white face despite brown arms, neck and legs, and a short satin skirt in the rain make no sense, umbrella or no. Trudging up the steep street in tall shoes guarantees a spill. She has to be crazy. I wait at a stop light and she stands on the corner, her face blank, unblinking, as she stares at me through the misty window. Why does she wear such thick and unyielding white makeup, red lipstick a prickled pear fallen in a snowy desert? She’d look like a geisha in another time, with more care, with grace and silk and cultural intention. I press the gas, and zoom away. She stares at me still with her masked face as she crosses on the yellow, disappearing from my view.

She must be crazy, a mental patient wandering, I think, as I scream songs within the car’s walls and worry about my gas mileage, driving past the newspaper fronts showing death in desert markets as innocents buy food and toothpaste and nod to their neighbors before blowing sky high.

Up and Running

2006-10-04T14:39:00.000-07:00

A miracle of miracles. I received the DSL kit yesterday and this morning I received a phone call that I could connect, that my account was going to be billed right away. Isn't that rich?

Now, now...I was worried about connecting because after all, EarthLink said most likely my problem was in my house, a DSL killer in my own home, so I figured I'd get the modem up and wouldn't be able to actually connect. I anticipated more hours with technical support.

It's so nice when my pessimism loses out.

Got the filters on, got the modem connected, got the software up and running, and whoooooweee....got a crisp, operable connection. No problem, no sweat. Which made me glad as hell to have quit EarthLink because they were truly incompetent.

I'll give Verizon credit where due - they got it up and running a day before the date I wrenched out of them, a full six days before the date they initially set. I will give "Dennis" credit for calling me several mornings in a row to update me on the progress.

I'll slam Verizon still for their uber-lousy telephone system and terrorist-cell departments. When I checked online for the status, I learned that my account only offered 10 MB of webspace. However, when I ordered DSL, two different agents told me I'd have 110 MB. When I called this morning to ask, "WTF?" I was told it was 50 MB by one agent, 10 MB by another, and still another put me on hold for twenty minutes before cutting me off.

I'm reserving my question then for "Dennis." We'll see how he does with THIS new problem.

SO...I'm back, still building my favorites links, still recovering from the Great August Computer Crash.

Watching Water

2006-10-01T12:58:00.000-07:00

The tentative date for DSL installation is October 5, which has turned into a day of dread actually being that it might mean another two weeks of technological support hell to figure out why it won't work on my phone line since that's why I called Eart-Link in the first place. A failed DSL.

Today, however, I have dial-up service through Verizon. At first I thought Charlotte at the billing department was just being a nice girl when she promised I wouldn't have to pay for the first 30 days considering all the trouble I went through, and she did that without ever putting me on hold, but then I realized that was just Verizon policy - you don't pay for the first 30 days. Not bad policy, but still. I'd been hoping for more personalized Princess treatment. You'd think they do SOMETHING for me, right? But why would they? Considering I'm a blip in their system, not even a blip, less than a blip. I'm a dot. Just a dot in a series of billions of black or grey dots on a blank white page, or on a tray of emptiness. Anonymous without the beauty or mystery of billions of lighted dots in a night sky.

We are far less than the breathtaking vision of infinity.

***

Where have I been? I've missed my fellow bloggers. One peek at one website and I learn life changes have taken place for some. I’m standing in the middle of a stream, feet sinking into a rocky sand-bottom, life’s water rushing past me.

***

Last night a friend of A’s called, near seven at night. The friend was bored, wanting someone to play with, and called A, his best friend. Since J was out and the house was quiet and D and I were feeling relaxed, easy, we said sure, go on over. Play video games a couple of hours. We’ll get you at ten.

We’d never been to the father’s house before but we’ve known the dad a long time, having seen him at open-houses over the years, having met him when picked up his son at our house from parties and play dates. The mom doesn’t speak well of him but we knew that was politics. He’s a homeowner and doesn’t pay child support, but he does support his son. They are all rather…rough around the edges. Feeling relaxed, we said, sure, go on.

Later, A called, asking to spend the night, and he sounded happy and I said fine, sure. Then I talked to the dad and he said the boys were having a blast, playing video games and all was well until the dad said in his inimitable way, “Well if they start acting up, I’ll just tell them to shut up. I’ll just tune ‘em up a little.”

I’d already said yes. All my comfort and relaxation fizzled away into a blast of paranoid conceptualizations. Swallowing hard, I countered, “Hahaha…I’m sure they’ll be fine.”

When I hung up the phone, I stood in front of D, chewing my nails like some the freak I just knew the dad to be, “What have I done?”

“They’re fine, honey. The guy’s a mechanic from the underside of Irwindale – of course he’s going to say odd things. Not everyone is as fortunate as you to be born to a U.S.C. professor and self-educated mother. He’s not a child killer.”

“You must drive there now. You must drive by his house and be sure that everything is copasetic.”

“You want me to drive by.”

“Drive by, park, and peek into his windows to make sure he’s not molesting and killing my child.”

“It’s ten-thirty.”

“Please.”

With a sigh, D dragged himself off the couch and got into the car. I stood at the open door of my house as Sassy dashed past me onto the dark street, running like a greyhound. I screamed, “God DAMNIT,” and ran, too.

Things were fine. Certainly, D had to duck and avoid a police car driving slowly with a spotlight shining into the bushes, but things were good.

“They’re playing video games and are happy and loud. Things are fine.”

Needless to say, sleep was rocky, transient, dark dreams rolling within, scraping my insides. There in the silence of the house, as I half-slept in my bed, my mother came to me, laughing open-mouthed from the floor of a mountain creek. She wore leopard underwear and lay in the chilled water, grass and vines and trees hanging low, close to her. Water cascaded over grey and brown rocks and she was delighted with her circumstances, alone in springtime, her long legs kicking the water, her body rising and falling with the current. She looked at me and said, “Mija, come in, how cool the water is! How exciting!”

I said, no, standing as I always did during her life, waiting on the shore, waiting for her to get out and watching for poisonous snakes in the bushes.

Hook me up, baby!

2006-09-27T18:49:00.000-07:00

“Welcome to Verizon Online. If you are calling about home DSL service, press 1.”

I was so excited. I just cancelled my EarthLink account. I cancelled after spending two weeks on the phone with their off-shore technical service because my DSL connection had ceased. No, wait, “off-shore” is too nearby. Let’s get accurate here. I had spent two weeks on the phone with their eleventh circle of Hell technical service. Better, much better. So yes, I cancelled EarthLink.

I shouted, “I cancel you! I cancel you! I cancel you!” Slam, slam, slam the phone down hard in its shivering cradle. Three times is the charm, as they say. Three times to divorce, three times to cancel.

“Welcome to Verizon Online. Please listen carefully to our menu options as they have changed. For orders, press 1. For billing, press 2. To cancel, press 3.”

Eager as a beaver, I pressed 1 again. A long message ensued, telling me the virtual history of Verizon, the origins of man, the fact that I’d dialed the wrong number if I didn’t have a Verizon phone line. Since Verizon owned my phone line, I stayed on the line. I continued to hang on even though ten minutes had already elapsed because I was so excited to get my brand spankin’ new DSL service.

“Hello this is Karen at Verizon DSL, how may I help you?”

“I’d like to order Verizon DSL! Hook me up, baby!”

“May I have your phone number?”

I give it. She asks, “What’s your name?”

“Adriana Bliss! That’s me! Adriana B as in boy, L as is lion-hearted, I as in I’m hooked on DSL, S as in super-Callafrajalistic, S as in super-excited-to-get-DSL!”

“I’m sorry, I have no record of you. Who is your telephone provider?”

“Verizon.”

“And your name is?”

“I just gave it to you.”

“Whose name is on the account?”

“My husband.”

“His name is…”

I gave it, knowing there’d be issues being that I still use my maiden name. “Look, Bliss is my appointed name. D is my husband.”

“Do you give us permission to look at your records?”

“Yes, by golly.”

“Would you like us to review your records to see if you have the best deal for your telephone service?”

“Not really, I just want to order Verizon DSL. Hook me up, baby!”

“I do need to look at your records as far as your order is concerned.”

”Fine, whatever it takes.”

“I see that you’re paying a little more than you should. For $44 per month you can have all these features and more, plus we can bind your regular service bill with your Verizon Wireless service. Would you like to do that right now?”

”Not now…just want the DSL, that good old-fashioned DSL.”

“Sorry for the inconvenience. Do you give us permission to look at your wireless records?”

“NO!!! Just give me the freaking DSL!”

“You don’t need to use that language with me, m’am.”

“I think I do, considering you refuse to take my order for DSL.”

“Well, why didn’t you say that in the first place?”

I said nothing, choosing instead to yank a thick lock of hair out of my head and rake fingernails down my chest. She then proceeded to spend the next thirty minutes taking down information. You know, the basics, my name and address. She entered it, then lost it, entered it again, lost it. Entered it a last time.

“Sorry for the inconvenience.”

We finally got to the section about equipment. “For $49.99 you can have the Gateway combination router and modem. How’s that sound?”

“Ohhhh…that sounds lovely. Yes, hook me up, baby!”

“Oh. Hm.”

“What?”

“Can’t do it.”

“Why not?!”

“Computer won’t let me.”

“Well, override it!”

“Can’t do it. Hm. Never seen this before.” She whispers to someone other than me, “Get me a supervisor.” Returns to me. “Sorry. Can’t do it. I’ll look into it.”

“Great,” I said, knowing the problem would die on the vine like a sad fungus-ridden tomato.

“We’ll just send you the regular modem for $29.99. Would you like that in one payment or three?”

“Oh hell, make it three.”

The kids by this time are mewing for food at my feet, licking my legs and kicking the hell out of each other, so I pushed hard to conclude our deal. She promised nothing, letting me know Verizon will be in touch as to the installation date. Within hours, I got an e-mail (because EarthLink hasn’t disconnected me yet) saying there was a problem.

A delay.

Next day I called because I couldn’t bear to spend any time immediately with any sort of agent of anything…and as soon as I dialed the toll-free number, a computer responds to me with my very own telephone number, asking if I’m calling from that number, which is strange because I have a blocked number. How can the computer know my number if my number is specifically blocked? Strange indeed. Anyway, I listened to a message that said, “You’re scheduled for installation on the 26th. This information is the most updated information any agent or I can give you,” meaning I don’t get to talk to anybody. There is no prompt to speak with a live person, just sends me to the main menu where if respond accurately, I’ll get to the same message again. I tried again. This time I’m clever and deny that the number I’m calling from is actually the number, deny that I’m calling about my DSL order, deny that I’m even interested in Verizon…finally reaching a live agent who shoves me off to her supervisor who informs me that my order has been cancelled.

Yes, you read that correctly. I was cancelled before I even got started.

“EarthLink has to release the line before we can check to see whether you can get DSL or not.”

“But I have DSL.”

“We need to check that.”

“I’ve been paying an ungodly amount of money for over two years for fast-as-fire DSL. So obviously I have DSL.”

“We need to verify that.”

“I’m verifying it for you!”

“My superiors in provisioning need to confirm that. So anyway, as soon as EarthLink releases the line, then we can check this and then we’ll get you started again. You’ll need to re-order.”

“RE-order?”

“Yes, re-order the day after EarthLink releases the line. Provided we can verify that EarthLink has released the line.”

My screaming had the man hanging the phone up delicately, saying, “Sorry for the inconvenience.”

I called EarthLink, demanding that they release the line. They said it would take ten to fifteen days. Sometime in mid-October. I tore into the agent who sent me to a supervisor, laughing as she did so, saying there wasn’t anything she could do, that I was in line, in a queue, to be released along with all the other people who were canceling EarthLink like the lemmings we are.

She transferred me to a supervisor, but not before keeping me on hold for ten minutes. After ten minutes she returned to inform me that the supervisors were very busy.

“And what am I? NOT busy?”

“I’m so sorry for the inconvenience,” she said before putting on the elevator music.

The EarthLink supervisor finally picked up and reiterated what the agent said, that it would take ten to fifteen days. Please be assured that I told them how absurd that was, how downright criminal that was to keep my line tied up after I cancelled them. He was silent. I did notice however that when I got off the phone and attempted to dial in that I no longer had dial-up internet access. EarthLink may not have released the line, but they certainly cut off my internet access.

I called Verizon and after fooling the computer into thinking my number wasn’t my number and I wasn’t calling about DSL or anything remotely related to the internet or even planet earth, I landed with technical support. The Verizon agent advised me that there was good news, that EarthLink was releasing the line on the 25th of September. Once the 25th passed, Verizon could check DSL and if I passed the check, they could install DSL on the 27th.

“Cool, so you’ll send me the equipment now? This way I’ll have equipment to hook up on the 27th, right?”

“Sorry. Can’t do that.”

“WHY NOT?!”

“We can’t send you anything until we know you can get DSL.”

“I GET DSL!”

“Would you like to speak to my supervisor?”

“You bet your sweet bippy, I do!”

“Here you go.”

Dial tone. She disconnected me. I dialed again, working like a snake, winding my way around the automated system which would otherwise send me to the recording that repeated my blocked telephone number and assured me that my installation date of the 26th was, “the most updated information any agent or I can give you. Thank you for using Verizon. If you have any further questions, please visit our website at www.verizon.com.”

Now…how can I visit their website if I don’t have any internet access?!

Well, I’m sure they’re speaking about people who have Verizon dial-up access. But what about for those who are just getting DSL, who don’t have any internet access at home? They offer the same information at their technical support prompt, the support for people who have trouble with their internet access, and are put on hold. While on hold, I sat through a repeating message about visiting their website. Sort of like rubbing my nose in it, mocking my complete lack of internet access. I hung up on technical support. I decide to call the sales department since my first call before I cancelled EarthLink had been so successful, my fishing call, the information call. The gentleman had been kind and knowledgeable. He seemed like a real person. So human.

“Wow, that’s quite a mess,” the sales guy said to me after hearing my sob story. “Unfortunately I can’t help you at all because we’re a third party vendor.”

Meaning the sales department for Verizon DSL isn’t actually Verizon. Which makes me think the technical support isn’t Verizon and neither is the billing department or the provisioning department or the installation department or the access department. Which makes me wonder, “What is Verizon?”

“It’s PEOPLE!”

Or some terrorist cell organization. One cell can’t know what the other cell is doing otherwise their push to take over the world will be sabotaged. Or perhaps it’s run by aliens. Or maybe the computer has finally taken over. There are no people behind Verizon. Instead, it’s one main computer gone amok.

I call the technical support number again. Lie to the computer. Technical support sends me to shipping. Shipping says I don’t exist and sends me back to technical support which sends me to a supervisor. I demand they send me the equipment but they refuse even though I begged them to please, PLEASE just put a modem in a box and send it to me so that when DSL gets installed I’ll have the equipment in place, all ready to go.

“We need to verify that you have DSL capability first. That’s how we do things here, that’s how the disintegrating memo we received last week told us to do it. That and the buzzing chip that was implanted into my brain sometime in the night when I first got hired on here at Verizon Pluto…I mean, Verizon. Sorry for the inconvenience.”

The 26th rolled around. I called Verizon. I said, “Today’s the 26th, hook me up, baby!”

The technical support agent that I reached after lying to the computer about my blocked phone number spends about ten minutes saying, “Hmm,” and “Mm hmm.”

She says to me, “I need to transfer you to sales.”

“Sales can’t do anything for me because it’s not Verizon.”

There’s no argument. She says, “Hmm.” Then transfers me to the toll free number. After I lie to the computer, I land in technical support once again. New agent. Not a supervisor.

She asks, “Can I have your number?”

“You know it, the computer knows it, I know it, and they know it.”

“Can I have your number?”

“Why am I here? Another technical support transferred me to you – I don’t want you – I want someone—”

“Can I have your number?”

Because it’s clearly a battle I cannot win, I capitulate. I give my number and demand to speak to a supervisor. She transfers me after putting me on hold for ten minutes.

I get one named Dennis.

“Welcome to Verizon where the customer is king!”

“Where’s my DSL equipment and when will my DSL be installed?”

“Ah yes…and you are?”

“Adriana Bliss.”

“But you don’t hold the account.”

“No.”

“What’s the address – just confirm it for me please.”

I do and we begin the dance again where I tell him what I want and he avoids answering like one avoids the plague.

“We have to wait for the go ahead before we can install.”

“And who gives the go-ahead?”

“The access department.”

“Who can I speak to there?”

“Well, they’re not really the deciders. They’re waiting for the provisioning department to give them the final okay.”

“Who can I talk to there?”

“Well, they’re not in charge of the actual line. The engineering department is.”

“Who can I talk to there?”

“Nobody ever talks to them.”

“Oh…my…god. So it’s like the Dark Brotherhood in Oblivion.”

“In what?”

“Never mind…so the engineering department, the group who actually checks the wire and gives the okay cannot be reached by anybody, you included?”

“That’s right. We wait for the go-ahead. And updating the consumer records with the go-ahead will take forty-eight hours.”

“Forty-eight hours for the engineering department to tell the provisioning department to tell the provisioning department to update the consumer records so that you can THEN tell me to order Verizon which will THEN allow you to mail out the equipment which will take five business days.”

“Five to ten business days.”

“So I won’t have a working internet until sometime before Christmas.”

He chuckles, “Oh I’m sure we’ll get it up before Thanksgiving.”

I slam the phone down, “I cancel you! I cancel you! I cancel you!”

The Yellow Pages must offer some other DSL options, no? Our country has not been eaten up entirely by Verizon. I call Adelphia for cable. They tell me it will be near $50 and will take ten working days to get someone to my house. I call DirectTV for the satellite option. After listening to the automated system and elevator music for ten minutes, I go into seizure and am forced to stop. I call a couple of numbers. One takes me to an adult entertainment outfit and another is residential number.

“Is this Freebie DSL Service?”

He sighs. “No, this is a residential number.”

“Oh, is this 555-7676?”

“Yes, but it’s my personal number.”

“You’re in the Yellow Pages, you know.”

“Yup, I know.”

“So sorry for the inconvenience.”

So here I sit, waiting for EarthLink to formally disconnect, Verizon to assure I have/had DSL, and then…to hook me up. And then…to wait for the equipment to get here. And you know, I don’t even know that DSL will work because…after all…the failed DSL is why I was calling EarthLink for technical support in the first place.

I laugh now. I laugh and laugh and laugh as I take a huge dose of Vicodin (thanks, Patrick!) and a shot of vodka to wash down those bitter pills. Then I straighten myself out at the podium for my lecture on Constitutional Law to my eager evening students. I end up ranting about EarthLink and Verizon. The overhead then fails. No connection, no signal, the computer tells me. I think about the shows TiVo is recording, thankful that something technological actually works. Besides my phone…my working Verizon phone that’s run by people-eating, alien terrorist-cell organizers.

See you next week, folks, the next time I can get access to some computer somewhere with an internet that works!

Going Off Line

2006-09-21T21:26:00.000-07:00

Well, well...Earthlink finally disconnected me after a "conversation" I had with a supervisor. BUT Verizon won't be up and running (let's all pray!) until next week. So...offline. I'll be internetless for a while other than logging on at school.

See you then. Thanks everyone for the comments...LOL. Eleventh circle of hell, I tell ya'!

Dialing In

2006-09-20T15:18:00.000-07:00

The good thing about dial-up internet, for me, is that I tend to not dial up at all which has been fantastic for my computer video game skills. A and I have shot up in the Oblivion ranks since the Sunday before last – bring on the buying of houses and unlocking of very hard locks and the big, powerful weaponry. Now, if only I could use that weaponry in a dark, medieval alley while facing Earthlink technical support gurus.

[breathe]

Here’s a story for you. So one sunny day, the Sunday before last, after checking e-mail using the same connection, the same modem, everything the same, that I’d been using for nigh onto three years, I left the house to finally purchase a new computer. Bought a Gateway. Brought it home, hooked it up. Copied over old files from my backup drive.

Good to go.

Next step was the internet. Hooked up the modem that mere hours before I’d been using with my laptop. Tried to set up the connection myself.

Didn’t work. No DSL. No connection.

Called Earthlink, that down-home Pasadena company that grew from a little nothing into a big noth— okay, big company. Now, dialing Earthlink is no easy task. Really, it’s comparable to any far-reaching task on a medieval video game. I have to push buttons, wait, perform magic tricks, wait, dance the two-step, wait, and wait some more. After many sweat-provoking minutes, I finally reached the comforting, smart-sounding lilt of a Bombay accent. Technical support walked me through two steps before deciding to send me to the “level 2” technical support since the modem wouldn’t connect.

“I am so sorry for the inconvenience.”

Then they disconnected me.

I dialed Earthlink again, waiting, waiting, waiting. Got technical support. “Hello, this is Sarna, how can I help you today?”

“I just got disconnected.”

“I am so sorry for the inconvenience.”

“No, you’re not.”

“No, yes, yes, no, I am so sorry. Welcome to Eart-link, the little engine that koood.”

“Koood?”

“Yes, koood. Can I have your Eart-link address?”

“I already gave it to the other guy.”

“There is no other guy, there is only me. I am your last salbation.”

“Salbation?”

“Yes, salbation. Can I confirm your name?”

“Fine, fine…Adriana Bliss.”

“I have no record of that name, vaya con dios. Please allow me the transfer to the sales department where you can get Eart-link at a discounted rate for new customers for six months. T-ank you.”

“No transfer!! My modem doesn’t work! Fix it!”

“Can I have your e-mail address?”

“Yes, fine, ABliss at Earthlink dot net.”

“APlist at Eart-link dot net?”

“No, A-B-L-I-S-S at Earthlink dot net.”

“That is A as in apple, P as in Paul—”

“No, B as in Brown.”

“Okay, Adriana at ABliss at Eart-link dot net. Let me pull up the notes. I see, your modem does not connect. You need a level 2 technical support.”

“Please don’t disconnect me.”

“I will make sure there is no disconnection. Thank you for using Eart-link technical support.”

I heard the music of two keys being punched in and then the nightmare of the dial tone. I’d been disconnected again.

I tried yet again, and got disconnected again.

I tried one more time (please note, by this last time, I’d downed two shots of Vodka and was laughing loudly, the lilt of my very own Bombay accent bouncing off the walls, through my darkened home), except this last time, the technical support advised me that there was no way level 2 would ever answer as they were closed and would not reopen until the next morning.

Wheeeeee!

The next day, Monday, Earthlink advised me through a level 2 technical support lady in India that most likely my modem died and thus for the low price of $25.00 they would ship me the latest in technology. I should get the new modem by Friday.

Friday came. I plugged in the modem. I tried to connect and it failed.

“Error: Remote computer doesn’t answer.”

I rang up Earthlink. Waited, danced, performed the magical tricks, etc. After getting disconnected only once, the support tech in India said, “We need to have Verizon check the line. This will take three days.”

I slammed the phone down, like five times, sending children and a husband to my side. I fainted. They put cold towels on my head and M cried by my side. When I reawakened, my husband handed me a shot of ice-cold vodka. Smiled. Said, sorry for the inconvenience.

Verizon came out while I was at a soccer game on Saturday, surprising the hell out of me. My husband called in a panic, “I don’t know what to say! Where do I send them?! What’s a modem?! What’s a DSL?!”

“Lemme talk to him,” I said, “lemme at him!”

“Hello this is Vernon from Verizon DSL. DSL works fine. Must be the internal wiring in your house.”

“Can you check that for me?”

“Can’t do it. You don’t have Verizon DSL which you could have for only $17.99 a month with a twelve-month commitment.”

“No, I have Eart-link.”

“Well, call them and tell them they have to check the inside wiring.”

“They say they’re not responsible.”

“Who owns your phone?”

“Verizon.”

He checked with his boss. “So sorry, but there’s no record of you at Verizon.”

“So how does Earthlink think I’m getting DSL?”

“Whatever it is, it’s not Verizon DSL. Call Earthlink. They’re responsible for the connection from the outside of your house to your computer.”

A ball flew past me, hitting a small child. Blood splattered, parents panicked, grass flattened, I cried.

I called Earthlink, sitting through that outrageous voice mail system and talked to a technical support.

“Verizon said they’re not responsible for the internal wiring, you are.”

“Who owns your phone?”

“Verizon.”

“Call Verizon.”

“I DID!! There’s no record of me!”

“I am so sorry for the inconvenience.”

“Wait…wait…tell me this what does your computer say as to how I’m receiving DSL? Wait, wait…how would you know how American phone systems work?”

“I took a class. Let me explain to you.” After some gibberish, he assured me that I needed to contact my local Verizon and/or a private company. “Homeowners are responsible for their internal wiring and phone jacks.”

When I got home, I called the local Verizon which said they could check the inside wiring with regard to the regular phone but not for DSL. They referred me to some other company, a private company in San Fernando Valley. I pulled out my Yellow pages. Reached Jesse at a local telephone/DSL/computer/networking/communications company. He said he could be here Monday afternoon at 2:00 p.m.

He got to my house at 6:00 p.m.

After fiddling with some multi-colored wires and hanging on the side of my house, he then advised me that my modem did not work (no shit!!), that the DSL was not working even when they hooked my modem directly to the end of the Verizon wire.

“But Verizon said it worked.”

“You have Verizon DSL?”

“No, Eart-link.”

“Geez…why don’t you have Verizon DSL? It’s like $17.99 a month. How much you pay?”

“Lots.”

He shook his head, “I’ll talk to Verizon, but your modem doesn’t work. Call Earthlink. Okay, my visit was $45.”

I wrote a check. Then I called Earthlink.

Jason from Bombay answered and after pulling up notes said, “Your modem doesn’t work because it’s the latest technology. Your Verizon wire however is the oldest DSL technology. It needs to be changed from frame rate to ATM. Once we change, your modem will work.”

“How long will that take? And why on God’s green earth didn’t anyone notice this a week ago when you sent me the latest technology modem?!”

“I am so sorry for the inconvenience. Changing the transfer will take two to three weeks.”

I slammed the phone down. Several times. I banged my head against the desk. I cried. Yelped. Sassy pooped in my office.

The next day…no, yesterday, I called Earthlink and cancelled my account. I contacted Verizon DSL and am currently waiting for new home installation kit. Of course, there are delays.

See, I have to get Earthlink to disconnect me first. Then it will take Verizon five days or so to process and get DSL turned on…

Wheeeeeee!!! Where’s the crack pipe when I need it?

Hurry, hurry...update...wait...wait some more...

2006-09-12T22:16:00.000-07:00

So in addition to my computer crash woes, my DSL modem died. Hahahaha...yes, life just gets better by the day! Out of desperation I plugged my brand-spankin' new 'puter to the phone line.

And here I am.

Nothing but school is happening at the Bliss household, school for me, school for D, school for the kids. J's doing a little better with the tics but he's still not where he has to be in order to get back into the classroom. He's off the Keppra - too much medication with nearly no alleviation. So we're down to Zoloft and a mood stabilizer. Oh and the clonidine patch. I like having him at home, in truth. It's fun to pick up lunch for him after my class. I like having him near me, so I can keep an eye on him. He battles schoolwork, but he does manage to get through the assignments without breaking much of a sweat. Not to sound like him, but I do think he'll be back at school before the semester is over. I have a feeling he'll not be thrilled. He REALLY likes not having to wake up at seven in the morning. Nine works for him just fine.

M has had a delayed reaction to attending kindergarten. Cried on Monday morning. Begging for me to work in the classroom a few days. Really, in truth, she'd rather me pick her up at recess. Morning recess.

A has flown into the routine of school with his usual agonizing misery. Homework hell has officially started. It's to the point where we're going to have to hire a tutor, an older student, to do his homework with him. For some reason he just feels too comfortable fighting D and I as "teachers."

Mmm...well, I'm beat. Just thought to check in. Let you all know I'm alive.

A Thirteenth Birthday Party

2006-09-09T12:38:00.000-07:00

I've invited over family, and J's invited a few friends to celebrate his teenagehood. The middle-schoolers will hang out, we'll eat, the little ones will play. D and I debated over the entertainment, deciding in the end to just go traditional. Let the kids entertain themselves. Maybe we'll throw in a Sponge Bob jumper just for kicks.

The other night I found an IM left up on my screen - J was asking a buddy if he wanted to come to the party and as enticement, he said, "There's going to be a big fucking bouncy house."

If that doesn't represent someone in between worlds, I don't what does.

Happy Saturday, everyone.

"What a woman!" Updated

2006-09-08T18:17:00.000-07:00

That's one of my favorite quotes and it comes from Disney's "The Aristocats". And...wow...what a woman! An over-50 nurse strangling a bad, bad intruder with her bare hands. Even the BTK killer found choking as a means of death difficult to do because of the strength needed. I keep trying to imagine the event and find myself sort of chuckling, rather darkly I know, at what had to be pure shock on the part of the intruder. "This can't be happening, this CANNOT possibly be happening. I have a hammer AND a penis! Why meeeeeee?!"

***

Hectic week - getting up early every morning to get the two younger kids to school by eight o'clock, coming home to get J set up for his morning with breakfast and his assignments from the home teacher, then jamming to the college to teach my morning class on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Wednesdays and Thursdays are tough because on those nights I've got late classes to teach - the school shortened the semester and decided to tack on additional minutes of teaching to the class hours so they want us to hold the students twenty more minutes than we had to last year. I now don't get home until after 10:30. And I never can go to sleep right away - I always find myself awake beyond midnight. Stress can push it to two. Makes getting up the next day for the kids doubly hard.

M decided to entertain D last night while I was at class by jumping off a little puffy chair and spraining her ankle badly. Yeah. She got to experience her first sick day and got us a lovely afternoon at the doctor's office and radiology department. Fun, fun, fun! Wait, wait, wait!

***

Sassy took off out the door AGAIN, after her visit to the groomers that revealed her mad itching wasn't caused by bad skin but by fleas.

***

J loved his iPod. I've had to fight him for computer time, as he works to transfer his favorite cd's over.

***

Lost the internet a couple of days thanks to my modem going wonky, forcing me to use the college's computer to check on e-mail.

***

My desktop's hard drive is kaput. The money I spent for after-warranty customer service and "recovery disks" was a complete waste. I'm pulling the last dollars of my inheritance money to buy a spiffy new computer, the rest of which is still paying for J's and A's doctor. Who's been billing me lately every time we have a phone session that he set up to monitor J's progress on the Zoloft. I appreciate the attention (the neurologist hates dealing with us because J's not responding so well to the treatment, and don't doctors hate that?), but not the charges which our Blue Cross won't pay for.

***

Problem with kaput computer is I will have lost all of July's and August's pictures due to my being lazy and not backing up since late June. And to think that right before the Great Crash, the night before, I had said to myself, "Self, you better back up the drive."

Ahhh...hindsight's a beautiful thing.

At least I hadn't spent the summer finally completing the Great American Novel that was sure to win the Pulitzer.

***

I'm at a creative low.

***

M's hopping all over the house, avoiding putting weight on her injured ankle, and she's quite proud of her skill. I have to say, I don't hop. If I injured my ankle, I'd take the crawling option, probably settling for the lying-down option. Oh, oh...I feel it, I sense it, the sleepiness is coming back, the wish to sleep through my life rather than engage.

***

Lately, whenever I post on the blog, I publish, then republish, then republish again. The bloglines folks must think I'm nuts. Or unsettled. Or uncommitted. Or scatter-brained. Or fluid.

Update: Another tale of a woman taking care of business.

School's in Session! Updated (spoiler!)

2006-09-05T15:49:00.000-07:00

Took the babies to school today, the first day back. A off to fourth grade, M off to kindergarten. Beaming faces, neat outfits, clean shoes. Ran home and got J set up for some preliminary lessons - a little Algebra, a little English. Something to do while I taught my day class. 1:30 and 2:00 came much too soon - time just to catch my breath, to snack, in time to arrive at the school...to a flat tire in 105 degree heat. D to the rescue, with AAA. Took the babies home to corral them while the home teacher spent an hour with J.

Soon? Bass lesson, dinner, baths, bed, preparation for my own class tomorrow night. Trip, stumble, get back up...skip, skip, skip. My it's hot these days.

Update: Since I'm writing a saga about the newly-intensified Tourette's of J, I thought to mention our little...incident this past weekend. We'd been at a party at my brother's place, a little USC football celebration (whooo we won!) that ran until ten o'clock or so with lots of swimming, drinking, eating, and socializing. When we all hobbled in through the door, we played our messages. Lo and behold, some children thought it would be funny to call our machine and leave a message imitating J's vocal tics. A prank call in the truest sense of the word. A very painful prank. We handled it as best as we could, after telling J that his desire to beat up the message-leaver wasn't the best move. We said the kids probably thought it was just something funny to do, that J is so cool with his TS, that they maybe really didn't think he'd mind. It was the best we could do to alleviate such a humiliating and disturbing moment. We finished by saying, "Kids are mean, and dumb. They do things without thinking of the consequences. We're so sorry that happened."

The next night, as I was watching a movie, as J was heading to bed, I overheard him tell D, "I think the noise is going to fade away tonight. I bet you I wake up in the morning and all I'll have is an eye thing, or a bit of a shake. I really think so, dad."

I couldn't sleep after that. All I could think about was how I wanted that, too, when my father had cancer and my mother got ill. "Tomorrow morning, this whole nightmare is going to go away. Tomorrow I'm going to wake up and everything will be just like it was before, better."

Tomorrow's his birthday. I bought him an Ipod. I asked the girl at the shop, "Which one do all the kids buy? Which one would a 13 year old boy buy? Black or white? The one with the screen, right?" I didn't want to make a mistake. Didn't want to buy the wrong one. I put it on our credit card. Went into debt because I can't fix anything for him, because every time I put a pill into his mouth, nothing changes. But I can buy him something fun, modern, all the rage. That and telling him a story at night, telling him I love him. Listening to him, watching him skateboard and drum, when he wants me to watch.

Tonight we saw "House" and J emerged from the office right at the end when the doctor sticks a paralyzed guy with one shot and cures him. The guy stands up and voila! The family cries and all is good. J laughed and said, "That doesn't happen in real life, does it?"

"No, honey, it's pure fiction."

"You mean, pure bullshit!"

"Yeah, that's the word."

Labor Day

2006-09-04T15:43:00.000-07:00

Thirteen years ago, around...oh...say, 1:04 p.m. I gave birth to J, a beautiful (really, truly, the most beautiful baby I'd ever seen in my entire life! No, no, no, really!) bouncing (not too bouncy, after all he was only 6 pounds), baby boy. We were thrilled. My father was so excited, he could barely stand. My sister was in the room and at the emergence of J, swore on her life that she'd never have children...oh ever.

"No, no, no!!! Not going through that!!! That is an act against all decency and basic physics!!! I'm off to a frat party now! Have fun with your baby!! And that gigantic episiotomy that stretches from your nose down and up to the back of your neck!!"

My mother stayed all afternoon, my brother, friends and in-laws. For the next week our house was Grand Central Station, with every cousin, friend, and co-worker dropping in for a great amount of ooh'ing and ahh'ing. We had so many people that when my second son was born, dearest A, truly bouncing at 7.5 pounds, D chased everyone away and we were more akin to recluses who gave birth to an alien as opposed to a child. We ended up rather lonely at that time.

So tonight, even though we're not exactly on his birthday, we're having ribs, beer, and corn (well, I'm having the beer...a few of them...by the end of the night, the children will be traumatized and dragging their drunken, singing mother off the couch to the shower...okay, that won't happen, I promise. I've seen the cautionary Lifetime Movies!). We'll tell tales of the birth, of the manic drive to the hospital, of Papa in the room at 10:00 saying, "In just a couple of hours we're going to have a baby!", and of all the first baby lessons parents learn (such as never leave a jaundiced baby near a window on a sunny day lest the puppy think he's a chew toy!). No that last thing never happened. Just kidding.

Oh yeah...I'm giddy with recall. Oh those days. Those lovely days before two more children came along, when D and I were in love and we had our little house and everything was bright and rosy.

Happy Almost Birthday, J.

Bubbling Up

2006-09-01T15:12:00.000-07:00

Computer's still on the blink. I'm working from my aged laptop with the slow processor that I didn't notice was slow until I hooked up to the internet. We're talking molasses slow, curse-causing slow. Why oh why did I not spend the extra $200 for a faster thingamabob?

Attended M's kindergarten orientation this morning. Watched her sit in the circle with her new teacher and hang to the side of the playground when I picked her up after the parent meeting. Something in the way she stood at the fence reminded me of J when I dropped him off at a new preschool. Later, D drove by to check up on him and there was our J, crying at the fence. Three years old. A most horrible memory for my husband - I'm glad I only heard about it. That memory slid into another, one of me as a preschooler that never went to school. I have this vision of being in a treehouse of some sort. Girls in a group at the sandbox. A fancy doll in my lap. My mother told me she tried to get me to play with the girls, that they tried to talk to me. She said I refused to speak - I held my doll, ran and hid in the treehouse. Watching them from afar.

Today, I was part of the "been there, done that," group. The parents who've already put one or more children through kindgarten. We didn't ask many questions, we filled out the information sheet quickly, we didn't have cameras. Tuesday I will. I'll snap the shot of M by the door with her teacher. I'll sign up for the field trip to the zoo. I'll offer to staple papers or cut shapes at home. I already checked with Mrs. SuzieQ to arrange for M's birthday cupcakes in January instead of December (her birthday falls between Christmas and New Year's Day). After is better than before. I don't want her birthday to be lost in the craziness of public school Christmas break preparations.

I'll miss M being at home - I miss her already. Funny though because J will be home. We've confirmed the home teaching - a teacher will be here every day in the afternoon for an hour. This takes a little pressure off of us. Sure, we'll have to make sure he studies and does the projects, but this way, he'll be keeping up with his class at school. This way, he'll be able to slide into place when the tics are under control. Funnier, J seems happy. He says he doesn't feel angry anymore. He thinks the tiny green pill is doing the trick. Last night he asked me to tell him a story before bed...like when he was younger, before things changed, "Come on, Mom, tell me about Sam and Jam. Tell me about how Jam's a skateboarder and Sam's a drummer."

I laughed. My J, talking from the top bunk. I launched into something silly, something short. He giggled, but didn't stick with the story, asking something off-topic, talking about his birthday party. When I said goodnight and walked away, I heard him tic a little, a short, violent burst of a hum. In the darkness, I knew just where he was, lying on his side, facing the door. A shout of presence, of being.

Don't forget me.

When he was in kindergarten, I worked in my own law office, a sole practice. I have no memory of how or when I picked him from school at 11:00 every day. A whole year went by and I cannot remember what I did, not clearly. I think we had him in daycare after school a couple of times a week. I think maybe he sat in the office with the secretary until D picked him up. I picked him up maybe and took him to my mother's place, where we'd have lunch, after which we'd drive home, me, J, and A. I went to the zoo with him, his big field trip. I didn't help the class much. I was glad when he went to second grade because I didn't have to worry about the early pick-up. By then A was in pre-school a few times a week. The years are blurry. The greyness blows up with my mother's death. Clarity comes. M leaves her infancy. Our days are clear in my head, exact. Years of M and me.

J shouts now. I can here him across the house, one end to another. I always know where he is - the bedroom, outside skateboarding, in the office on the computer. I always hear him. He's shouting for me, a constant reminder of my barely-there-ness. I listen, thinking on how to fix it, thinking on the goodness of it.

How funny when M goes to kindergarten, the beginning of her independence, J is home with me. How strangely ironic, how noisy, how bright.

Blogging My Life

2006-08-28T18:25:00.000-07:00

[Hysterical laughter is heard.]

My desktop computer crashed.

Hahahahaha!

Hahahahahahaha!

[She quietly goes to the bathroom with a noose and a Bud Light.]

Fear

2006-08-28T00:00:00.000-07:00

Have I bared too much of myself in this blog? I think so. The blog has become a judge in my life, a mother having listened to my exposed truths - so many eyes, so many opinions, dangerous holders of power over my tentative groundedness, my fragile sense of control.

When I was a teenager and in love, I complained to my mother of the faults of this lover. I said, "He was mean to me, he did this and he did that." Then when he left me, I cried to her, I said, "He hurt me, he cut me right through the core of me." Then when my lover and I made up and I was giddy, my mother stood with her arms crossed and forbade me to see him again. "He hurt you," she said without regard to my passions, "he's a danger to you." She would not forget what I said about him, about his misdeeds. She would not let me forget what I said.

I felt something like that last night. All chaos broke loose, leaving me a shred of a woman. D and I stood firm on a decision regarding J and he lost control. When he was done, D and I collapsed on the couch, collapsed into one another. Drained. We talked late into the night - insomnia gripping me. I found myself caught up in the words of a drive-by poster whose comments I chose to delete because I didn't want that sort of meanness, "objective" meanness, in my "home" of a blog, but there I was wondering if what she said was true. Maybe our chaotic household is my fault, our fault. Perhaps everything I have on my hands is karmic justice. Yes, that person would say. Of course it is. everything would be fine, but for you.

I'm questioning all our choices with the boys - perhaps we should dump all the medications and start from scratch, perhaps we should pick up and move to another state, another town, get a fresh start, perhaps...perhaps...perhaps. Guilt pulls me down, deep under. Sadness, agonizing self-pity. Why is this happening to me? To my family? Why isn't our path one of sweetness, one of bliss? What will become of my beautiful boy? Of all three of my beautiful, energetic, non-academic children? Where did I read recently a quote, who said it? Tell me who said it? "When they least deserve your love, they need it the most."

Lord give me the strength to love an angry, burdened child. Let me be strong the way I'm supposed to be, and not weepy the way can be. Let me be part of what he needs to be upright, not a further weight that crushes him.

I should cut posts. I should slash away at all the exposure. Delete, delete, delete. Don't look, all. Just...don't fucking look. Pass me by, pass the mad lady at the side of the road, talking to herself and waving at demons and cursing the sky and the dusty ground she walks upon. Don't hand her anything, don't talk to her.

I find myself afraid of the very next moment. Paranoid. I cover that up. The kids battle each other now - I turn to them and ask that they get dressed. Choose a book and read quietly. I'm make a big lunch, feed them through their stomachs since I'm coming up short on the emotional food.

This morning, dreams haunted me. My mother was too busy for me. She moved from activity to activity throughout the cabin and I could not corner her to talk to her, to get comfort from her. She finally left and I was in tears. My father's second wife stood next to me and said, "I told you I'd always be here for you." A lie. My sister believes the dream was only a reflection of our reality - in fact, the second wife lives and in fact my mother does not. I woke up crying, feeling the pain of her loss and then just as suddenly as it had come on, I stopped. The mourning passed.

D had already left for work and when he called I was still in bed. Breathe, I tell J, breathe through the tics. Breathe, D tells me. Breathe through the fear. Believe. Be confident.

"Okay, honey."

Poetry-Fiction from 2002: Illicit - part 1

2006-08-27T14:13:00.000-07:00

Soccer season is back on for the children. They've been doing it a long while, each year at a local church league that I like because it's less pressure. The children can either excel or chase butterflies and either way, they'll get hints on how to improve and a trophy at the end of the season. The place swarms with smiling parents and red-faced girls and boys, the place oozes a perfect cover, leaving me to wonder about underlying secrets. This series of poetic efforts came out of a single moment of observation of a man and woman, unrelated, giving each other a subtle glance before blending into the sea of flawless families.

***

"Snack Bar"

Chocolate donuts, sprinkled, glazed,
Black coffee, creamer, sugar,
Pretzel twists in a bag.
Fifty cents in my sweaty palm,
As I see you.
Goatee, salt and peppered,
Hazel eyes looking directly at me,
You make me blush.

"Large coffee," your voice hits me,
A kick of the ball to the chest.

Wedding ring glimmers
In a ten o'clock sun.
Gold shoved into the pocket of my jeans,
Hidden like another bit of lint.

"Anything else?" I ask.
I know what I want.
You say nothing at first,
Shaking your head and grinning knowingly.
"A goal for the team would be good," you say at last.

"One for the team. Here's change."

You walk away.
Stop an errant soccer ball,
Throw it back in play.

*****

"Ladies Room"

Trembling hands, eager mouths, wetness.
An empty coke can rolls along the floor.

A break in the game,
Sounded by a whistle.
"I gotta get back," I pant.

Sticky skin rubs against mine.
I gasp - we gasp,
As I'm pinned against the wall.

"Stay to left! Go, go, go!!"

Water from a leaky pipe puddles beneath us,
We splash unconsciously.

"Goalie! Get it, get it, get it! YES!"

Slick fingers pressed into my mouth,
I taste myself.
The door ... someone's at the door.
Hurry now, hurry.

*****

"Aztecs versus Fusion"

Squinting, I watch the swarm
Zig-zag between guarded nets.
The ball leads, pushes, pulls,
My eyes tire at the work.

Squeals, hoots,
Hollers, chuckles,
Clapping enthusiasm,
Such blind sweet love.

Metal bleachers absorb the sun,
Too hot beneath me.
Lemonade-filled cup sweats beads of icy water,
not enough to cool me as I rub it across my cheek.

One goal, two. A tie.
The hour nears its close.
You lean forward,
An excuse to touch.

I don’t know your name,
I like the anonymity.
I hope to keep it that way.
I know it won’t last.

The heat is endless, isn’t it?

Shhhh....

2006-08-26T21:18:00.000-07:00

I'm babysitting my sister's beautiful kids this Saturday evening - brought two of my own to provide the entertainment. They're easy this way, fish in a fish bowl, bobbing in a quiet current, happy as they swim about colored rocks and swaying stalks of green. The littlest giggled loudly at the smallest things - so sweet Izzy is at age two, on a cool night, after a hot bath and a book.

J stayed home with D, chatting online, skateboarding outside, making plans for his 13th birthday party. Things are set for home teaching due to the still-severe vocal tics. I'm worried about him doing the work for me, worried about him getting lonely for a social life. We'll keep looking for that magic medication to turn the noise down - I feel so helpless in this regard. We're trying relaxation techniques, but they feel powerless to that terrible itch in his throat that's a tic, that makes him shout out. I want to grab him up into my arms and love this away but he squirms out of my grasp. There is novelty in the idea of not attending classes, but there will come a day when he watches his siblings leave the house, and hears of school gossip, and on that day staying home won't be so fun anymore and he will want to go back. I hope we'll have things "fixed" on that day.

School begins for me on Tuesday and my lectures are prepared. I find myself less nervous now that the books have been cracked open, that my mind has been smoothed and coaxed into thinking of the law and of assignments and quizzes.

Soccer season started for the kids - A and M. They ran and kicked and sweated in the early morning's sun. D and I sat with the other parents in our blue folding chair, sipping coffee, cheering each child on. In between games, I rushed M home for her to change clothes, to grab pancakes from McDonald's. Returned to the game, we sat back at the side of the field and cheered A as he ran like mad and kicked like mad and came up to us, asking for water to be poured on the crown of his head to cool him off. When we got home later, I chuckled when he said, "I wish the game was two hours long. It was so good."

Ahhh...the kids don't want to sleep. I have to go shush them, kiss them goodnight.

Another Day, Another Dollar

2006-08-22T20:56:00.000-07:00

So...the butter in the tub of butter went flying one way, and the plastic tub went another. I threw the tub. Across the kitchen and when I was done, I had to pick up the clump of Earth Mother buttery spread with my hand, grabbing up dust and one strand of white hair off my head. Plopped it all back into the tub.

A good role model, me. Throwing buttery spread as I screamed, "Don't you talk to me that way! You learn to control your anger, you...you...!!" Something, something vile came out my mouth at the close of those commandments that probably shouldn't be repeated. Ironic, hypocritical...such a good parent...me. I now see that my eldest, freshly-teen child has managed to crawl into that part of my brain that is cabable of collapse, a place only occupied by my mother, my brother, and my husband. Now J.

I've got a migraine. I'm at the computer, a Diet Coke at my side, M using a wet paper towel to wipe down my desk (water/wood, not a good combo, but whatever). D's watching "the Closer," J's skateboarding outside, A's nursing a bike-riding-wound ("I was riding on the grass and Sassy was biting my tire and I fell and look, something pinched me right here! See? Owwwww..."). I'm tired.

Got my hair trimmed today, got a little color to soften the blow of my intensely grey hair. Watched my shadowed, weary face in the mirror as my hairdresser chattered on about her life, about the parallels of our lives.

"You said that to J?"

"Yeah. After the butter thing."

"Oh honey, that's nothing. Two days ago I told mine to SHUT THE **** UP! DON'T THROW YOUR ****ING BULL**** AT ME YOU UNGRATEFUL ****!"

I laughed, cringed, "Ouch."

"How is it they drag you into the dirt?"

"So low, so deep into the mud, I don't think there's a way out."

She chuckled, "We've all been there. Ain't proud of it, but they have their ways of bringing it out."

They have a way alright. M got her hair cut, too. Trimmed the ends into a nice straight line. For months now she's been like a circus girl, the left side of her head, long hair, the right side, just below her shoulder. Don't know how it happened - I suspect she got creative with scissors. Either that or I got over-enthusiastic when I had to cut a chunk of hair that got caught up into some light-up, twirly toy. She's even now. Ready for school. Ready for all that hair to grow out again. A got his hair cut, too. J still sports his Glam-rock hair.

Afterwards I rushed home, straightened hair whipping in the open window's breeze, swept up the boys and headed out to Pasadena to meet with their doctor. A's doing well, J's obviously a little stressed. From there, we flew across town to the neurologist for the tics. They've decreased with the Keppra but we're still seeing spurts of real loudness. So...Zoloft's on our list now. Address the anxiety. Let's see if we can soften the blow of external stressors so he won't tic as often. Makes sense. He was nervous for the doctor and you could hear him outside the office.

"You might consider home-schooling until we get this sorted out," the doctor suggested.

"We thought so too."

"You mean, I don't have to get up in the morning? Whooo!"

The drive home was slow, traffic heavy, but the boys seemed strangly elated. Happy even. J had a good talk with the neurologist. The doctor answered lots of his questions. Told him lots of stuff about other Tourette's patients of his. Assured J that he's not the worst he's seen.

Oh, oh...D's up. Saying J damaged the plastic pool with his skateboard, but I intervene, "No, no, I saw it was broken last night. I think Sassy got to it."

Battle averted. Apology.

Bed for all. I've started prepping for school. Finished each syllabus for the three classes. Polishing up on the opening lectures. Tweaking the approach. Adjusting the tempo.

I'm ready for a change.

Foreigners

2006-08-21T14:16:00.000-07:00

The boots were made of a deliciously soft, worn leather with a bluish tint and boasted colored rhinestones on the pointed toe in a sweet diamond shape. The heel, a classic cowboy cut. They stood out among other boots and shoes – the shelves lit up in a bastion of modern style. Touching the boots, picking them up in my hands and caressing the uppers, I realized I couldn’t find the sticker. You know, the stickers all things for purchase have. Where was the sticker, for God's sake?

“How much are the boots?” I asked, giving up.

The salesgirl looked at me, confused, saying nothing. A security guard standing at the entrance’s metal detector glanced my way.

After an awkwardly long time, I repeated, “Excuse me, you, how much do these boots cost?”

She looked around, fixed her black hair (straight hair pulled up into a spiky bun) and smoothed her mismatched clothes. Sighed. Smiled, showing gums and teeth. Silver piercings glinted in the store’s canned lights. She spoke slowly. “The…boots…are…two thousand four hundred sixty-three dollars plus tax. They are original Floops.”

“Floops.”

“Floops.” She chuckled, “From Floopsters on Robertson. The one and only.”

“Do you take Discover?”

“Deez-cuh-beer?”

“Dis-cuh-ver.”

“Dees-cuh-ber?”

“DISCOVER! DO YOU TAKE THE DISCOVER CREDIT CARD?!”

The salesgirl straightened her slouch and cleared her throat, the security guard now right next to me. He looked like the guy from the Transporter. Cannily so. His face just as unreadable as the Transporter himself. He breathed heavily, and I could feel hot air on my neck.

“We only take Platinum American Express and the Fort Knox edition of Beverly Hills Bank.”

A wave of chuckles spread across the floor, other customers having tuned into our discussion.

“What about a check debit card?”

“Look,” the girl conceded, “we have some sale items in the back room if you’d like to have a look. Please leave your knocked-off, very-big purse at the front desk, with Blaine, our security guard.” She eyed my clothes from Target and smiled a sad smile. “On the other hand, if you get back on the…” She cleared her throat, clearly disbelieving the words she was about to speak aloud. “If you get back on the San Bern-ar-dino freeway and get off at Figueroa and turn right, you’ll eventually find the garment district of Los Angeles. There, among your people, you might find some bargains. The people will even...haggle. Maybe they’ll take this…Dees-koo-ber card of which you speak. They take all sorts of foreign currency, actually. You know, like pesos and rupees.”

There was nothing more I could do – D and I had crossed the border inadvertently. We’d left our San Gabriel Valley and had become aliens in a foreign land: Beverly Hills.

See, D surprised me with a weekend out of town. The babysitter came and spent the night while we got a top floor room with a view of Century City at Le Meridien hotel on La Cienega and went to the Hollywood Improv comedy club. We had dinner at the Stinking Rose. And shopped a little. Very little. We really did laugh at how fish-out-of-water we were, little hillbillies just off Walton’s mountain, just emerged from our double-wide on our lot by the pond where we swim naked and fish for dinner. My cute Kohl and Target special clothes, alien to the residents, drew pitiful stares. My Off Fifth sandals, strange brown leather straps wrapped around my sun-tanned feet…clearly from another planet. And my purse! Say no more. Is that from a swap meet?

Dees-koo-bert…burt…burr…barrrr….

The most spoken phrase, “We don’t take Discover, among a slew of other cards. What is that anyway? Can I see it? I don’t think I’ve ever actually SEEN a Discover card. I did learn about it in my social studies class though, right after learning of the Crustacean period.”

“But they take Discover in Upland!!”

“Up-Land? What about Down-Land? Or To-the-Side-Land? Hahahahaha! How funny the little girl in the funny green top speaks! Oh isn’t she cute in a chubby sort of way? Do you hear her accent? Come on, say Louis Vuitton again. Hahahaha!”

The comedy show was good, but not as good as the one in the stores we glanced through, not as funny as we felt, walking the streets and Beverly Center walkways where the rate of exchange is extreme to our single dollar – their two thousand bucks was like twenty dollars to them.

In the end, though, we had a good time. Definitely a very interesting, restful, over-night-stay. We'd do it again. If not for the homecoming alone. How glad we were to see our barefoot ragamuffins on our asphalt driveway, standing next to our 2001 Suburban with the dents and A's name scratched on the side, and our beloved dog rushing past us towards the street and into the creek without even a sniff. How happy we were when the kids clutched to their little chests the free hotel soaps and shower caps.

We love the San Gabriel Valley. There really is nothing like home.

The Family Trip

2006-08-16T18:11:00.000-07:00

We sang Kumbayah, roasted marshmallows over an open fire, and had group hugs in the cool, fresh air. We hiked together, looked across amazing mountain peaks, prayed together, supped together, and had deep, star-gazing talks…

And then I woke up.

Hahaha…yeah, yeah, the family freakin’ trip with my sister’s lovely family to their cabin. I have to tell you, there were times on this five-day jaunt to Mammoth Mountain that I wanted to pack my single suitcase and walk to the airport a few miles down. The main culprit was my beautiful, shout-tic’ing (how DO you spell that word?), angry, almost-thirteen year old, J. Let’s see, in the five days, he repeatedly asked to go home, shouted at us no less than twenty times, kicked his bike, broke his skateboard, smacked a museum exhibit, and bugged every living soul in that cabin (except two-year-old Izzy – she always smiled at him and he always smiled back) until I was literally in tears.

In his defense, I understood his anger. Wherever we went, people would turn to look at him because he made loud Tourette noises, and many who turned would make loud comments. We had one woman glare at him every time he tic’ed. It was hard.

“Why does he make that noise?”

“Is he coughing?”

“What IS that?”

"That's a funny noise, huh?"

One athletic-looking lady turned to her husband and said, “It’s Tourette’s,” then turned to my sister and asked, “Right?” The husband, too, turned to my sister, saying, “Don’t they have medication for that?”

“Yes, but it takes a long while to figure out what medication.”

“Oooohhh…”

Exhausting. He exhausted me. The condition exhausted me. As a note, an early epilogue, the Keppra at a higher dose (2 grams a day) seems to be working, finally. Yes, he started doing it again just now, but there seems to be a window here. I’ll give it another week before setting an appointment with the neurologist, to demand that they fix this, before school starts because there is no way he can sit in a classroom shout-tic’ing.

We did have fun, though. No, really. We were surrounded by pure mountainous beauty, thinned air, and a sense of freedom. The best part had to be the wild mountain bike ride down Mammoth Mountain (on the “easier trail”), sliding and careening, on a shock-installed mountain bike (which is set in such a way that our knees were up much higher than we were used to making for quite the period of adjustment). While the ride was sandy, there was the potential for more experienced riders to catch air and hit higher speeds on the curves. We, on the other hand, cruised down the trail – I fell one time, got the bruise to show for it – in about two and a half hours (we were told it would take an hour). Sure, we had a six-year-old with us and he did slow us down (sweet TH, he was a good sport), but I’m not sure my sister and I would have gone all that much faster. My sons, though, and D (after J and D got over their mountain-biking discomforts), jammed down the trail, having to wait nearly half an hour for the rest of us.

The nights were chilled, a fantastic difference from here in the lowlands. The hiking around the campground gave us gorgeous views of a tumbling waterfall and the most peaceful, lapping lake. Fishermen spotted the water’s skin, a deep, wavy blue in the sun. The kids went jeeping with their uncle – all six of them piled into the old army jeep while DH rode like mad over trails to Lake Mary for a boat ride, or into town for a pizza lunch. One morning they went fishing – the boys in the fishing boat, the girls on the dock with D (who surprised himself by learning to bait the hook and cast the line). Our dinners consisted of margaritas, slow barbecues, and the sound of the kids playing on the rocks around the cabin. Our nights after the children went to bed, had the four of us chatting until late, until our sides hurt with hushed laughter, and our eyes just couldn’t stay open any longer.

Our one adventure – a flat tire on the way to the fish hatchery. Funny, that, D looking shocked, the sound of air from the tire, the sinking to the right of our black Suburban, the kids yelling with pure joy to see the flat tire. We all climbed out and DH grinned, nodded, determined to get the spare on way before the triple-A could even roll a truck out the driveway. The kids began wandering the open field surrounding us and I followed them, finding an obsidian chip which pushed them to hunt even more. They had such a good time hunting for the black, shiny rock they didn’t want to leave. We did though – we visited the hatchery, watching the hundreds of rainbow trout in their open tanks, hundreds that would be dumped into the lakes for the fishermen.

We were sad to leave – the five of us could have stayed longer but I opted for the drive down the hill along with my sister. I couldn’t bear much more of J’s upset. Also, the kids love being their cousins…left alone, just the five of us, sadly, I felt just wouldn’t be the same. There’s too much space between them. They seem like three only children, or three first-borns. They butt heads far too often.

So we’re down the hill, back in the Los Angeles heat. School’s around the corner. The day’s slow. I overheated a boiled egg in the microwave and it exploded much to our amazement…twenty seconds on high! Yellow pulp spread all over the inside of the microwave and on top of the stove’s burners. Like snow, like fine paint.

We’re home again, after such a short jaunt.

Back from Mammoth...

2006-08-15T20:12:00.000-07:00

I was supposed to post a "Goodbye, see you in a few days"-post, but never got around to it. So here I am...back. More on the weekend later. Unpacking. Unwinding. Sighing.

Blogging Bud Light

2006-08-10T18:40:00.000-07:00

I've drunk an entire Bud Light in a bottle in like ten minutes, deciding I'm going to blog the experience because...well, I always forget how nice it is to have a little alcohol with food, or while kicking back and reading in the sun, or while by the pool, or while in a bar with good friends, with family. My back space is busy because I keep adding letters, a j here, a w there, an extra e or too many a's. Now, Bud Light isn't my favorite but it's here and I don't mind and I still feel that sweet, all's-well-on-the-homefront, and isn't that person I'm with just wonderful, handsome, and all-around perfect? Oh! And it's my husband. To think he's so wonderful, and I married him. Oh me. Oh my.

I've got Orange Chicken on the stove, some basmati wild rice thing in a pot, and I've completely forgotten what I planned to blog. Perhaps it's that good feeling I wanted to blog about, or the massive crusges...sruches...crushges...crushes I have on the following bloggers I've run across on the internet:

**** and

***** and

long gone ******

and...oh yes... ******. Hahaha...I bet that one surprised you all. I bet you're thinking...I had no idea Adriana was a ********. Hahaha...just like at that party I attended back in 2001, recovering from my mother's death, letting loose...woweee! The hostess of that night reads the blog. In silence. Never posts. She could attest to the events of that night. Oh hell, I'll just lay it out for you. It started with 80's music and a whole bunch of Lemon Drops.

***

I know. It shocks you to read this.

[Edited because at the time this was written Ms. Bliss wasn't herself. She really ought not post when she's been drinking.]

So yeah, omg, what are you all going to say about me?! Innocent Bliss, dear devoted Bliss...she's deep inside, still a devoted mother after all. Doomed! I'm kidding, seriously.

I drank a Bud Light and I made some silly jokes and A laughed and so did M, and I was pleased to have let go a bit of the nervousness for the trip, the annoyance with D (isn't it always that way when a family departs for a vacation?), the anxiety about school starting in two weeks. My mother used to drink - she turned to the drink - and we hated when she did. She'd get very amorous with whatever man was around her, she was overly affectionate. She used to deny the drinking. Later, as adults, we chuckle over it. Back then, I just used to get angry.

Ahhh...well...so yes, the dinner's burning and I'm here blogging. Wheeeee! Scooby Doo is on the tube, J's gotten home, ticcing a storm, but he's good, he's happy. He says a girl likes him. Of course because he's a drummer. He's cute. He's quite accepted in spite of the noise. As I talk to D, I can tell he's suspicious of my easy-going-ness. He keeps looking at the bottle next to me. The empty bottle. I can also tell that the Tourette's thing is more a problem for the parents than for J. He's noisy - the pills do nothing - it's probably more evidence of his mood swings than pure Tourette's...or they're intertwined...hard to untangle where these things originate. But yes...while it bothers him, I think it bothers him knowing it bothers me and D. The more worried WE get, the more upset he gets.

So we need to shut up about it. We need to be as quiet we want him to be. We need to be.

We're leaving tomorrow night for Mammoth. Did I post that already? Yes, tomorrow after J's camp concert. We'll be coming back on Thursday, it looks like. Wow, a whole week without the blogspot at my side. I have a notebook. I'll have to take notes. I doubt I will. Hahahahaaaaa...like all my plans for the summer. Remember that post? Yes, it's all gone. Didn't accomplish a single thing, a single BIG thing I wanted to accomplish.

I suppose small things are good.

I was going to close with something brilliant, something wise. All I'm thinking is...darn it...nothing. I'm thinking nothing. My mind hasn't expanded in any way I was hoping.

Maybe the next time I'll have to try a Corona...or an Ale. Yes, an English, warm ale. Or maybe I should stick to ice tea because I think I'm gonna puke.

I can see September...

2006-08-09T13:34:00.000-07:00

Actually, the date that's getting me anxious in a negative way is August 28 and it's just around the corner, the beginning of the fall semester. I enjoy teaching, I do, but for some reason -- perhaps laziness, or a mild fear of being inadequate, or feeling "teaching law" is too high a goal -- I've got a nervous stomach about it. Butterflies in my tummy, as M would say.

We're leaving for the mountains, to the infamous cabin, this coming weekend. J's camp concert is at 4:30 on Friday afternoon and then we'll hit the road right after at 6:00. This will give us three full days at beautiful Mammoth Mountain before heading back down the hill on Tuesday. I'm looking forward to it - our last days of freedom. Then school will start for everyone. Back to a routine, back to homework, back to getting up early.

I'm tired, sleepy, cranky just thinking about the start of school.

I've noticed that depression has snuck back. Today, I did nothing really. Lay in bed until 9 or so, went back to bed at 10 or so, got into clothes near 11 only because my grandmother knocked at our front door. I also noticed D's and my funny balancing act. When I'm down, he pulls up. When he's down, I'm the one pulling up. We have a classic see-saw relationship. He's been really optomistic, energetic even, today while I sit at the computer like a lump. He's got the vacation list in his hand and is starting to pull things down, getting them ready for packing. I hit the news pages on the internet. He's offering hints and supportive comments for me, telling me the beauty of being a teacher. I hit the blogs. He's on the phone now, chatting with fellow teachers, prepping for cross-country coaching. I flip on the tv to the soaps while munching on a low-fat mozzarella stick.

Yesterday, I had plans on getting a pedicure - never managed to get to the shop. I went to pick up J from music camp and the moment he got into the car, he asked to go places, asked about his person, how does he look, he must look good because girls were talking to him all day. He was talking at a high pitch, loud, clearly a bit hyper, and immediately a headache began. We stopped at my sister's place for dinner and ate pizza. Took pills for the pain. By the time we hit home, after battling the 210 freeway's traffic and M's whiny nastiness from the back seat, I had a full-on migraine.

My grandmother stopped by just a little while ago - oh yes, I mentioned that already - on her way to a doctor's appointment. She had cataract surgery some weeks ago and the healing isn't going well so she holds tissue to her eye and pauses conversation because her eye hurts, her left eye. I fed her, like she was one of my children. My grandparents are at that stage. They need a little something extra these days, a little extra care, a small plate, a little food. Since I'd already made hot dogs for lunch (turkey dogs...eh), I gave Mama one, too. She wanted it cut with ketchup on the side, the way M likes it. I put a little pile of raspberries on the plate. Brought her a glass of milk. Sent D to the market for Tylenol for her, because she was in pain, her eye swelling slightly and weepy. My grandfather has even less of an appetite - he only wanted cookies and milk. I put cookies in a small bowl for him and he was happy. Slowly ate his way through the cookies. The two sat at the kitchen table watching and chatting with M and A who were stamping and coloring on paper and my grandmother got into the act, too. I made grilled cheese sandwiches for A and me.

I felt like such a mother - sandwiched in between sets of children. I was reminded of my own mother. How I'd grieved the reality that I'd never get to mother my mother, that I'd never be sandwiched. Not true. Here I am...peanut butter. Oh that's sounds dumb, doesn't it? Bad writing. Which reminds me that A discovered Sassy likes peanut butter. He's been giving it to her just to watch her repeatedly lick her lips. He laughs a belly laugh whenever he feeds it to her, never failing to comment to me how much she loves the peanut butter.

The mother of A's friend called me last night and I never called her back. She wanted us to take her son today - just for a while please - just a little while as she's not feeling so hot from her surgery and the thought was too much for me. So I sit here, knowing I flaked and feeling badly about it. I'll have to call her and apologize. Tell her we'll have him next week when we get back from Mammoth.

The kids want me to play with them and I just can't, don't want to. I'm going to grab a book and let myself get sleepy, sleepier than I am now, so I'll close my eyes to everything and pretend I have months and months of nothing to do but focus on the noise J makes and my sun tanned feet and Sassy scratching her neck and D marching around the house as he puts clothes away from the just-done laundry.

There are so many more clothes to wash in summer. How funny that is.

Lost Words

2006-08-08T15:14:00.000-07:00

I lost an essay of mine about tea cups, saucers, cracked china and blood, an essay about my mother. After searching my computer archives and another online journal, I’ve come up empty. It may have been something beautiful and poetic, full of pain and missed opportunities – perhaps I just wanted it to be. There wasn’t much about my mother’s death that was beautiful and poetic.

***

The woman in front of the room was past seventy years old, and she wore a print flower dress with an eyelet bib and a sparkling broach. She’d brought her collection of china tea cups and saucers and had them spread across the linen covered table. Flower centerpieces and books about formal tea filled in the empty spaces. Tea pots and tea cozies and pretty paper napkins and placemats and invitations reflected her pride and she leaned forward into the microphone to make sure we heard every word she said, “After everyone hears my story, you all should be ready to hold your own tea party.”

Next to me a woman in pristine Sax Fifth clothing, pearls highlighting her ivory skin and hair, skin nearly translucent with years on this earth, said, “If a tea’s that much work, I’ll stay in bed, thank you very much.”

The tea party woman continued, “And if you break a tea cup, don’t worry. Mismatched tea cups and saucers and tea pots are all the craze.”

I wondered when she’d get to her story, the real one she wanted to tell.

“Flower arrangements don’t have to be expensive to be beautiful – just stick freshly picked flowers into one of those broken tea cups and you’ll be all ready to go. You can also put candies into a tea cup and send those home with the guests.”

Sax Fifth Avenue grumbled, “If I had any desire to send gifts, I’d just order off the internet.”

“Another thing that’s wonderful are these little sugar cubes shaped into flowers and such. People never want to use them, though. So when the tea is done, I collect them, save them, and wait for my next tea party.”

The tea lady clasped her hands and breathed into the microphone, “And with every sip of tea, you sip the love of the Lord. Let me tell you my story about finding Jesus.”

Ah, the story. I leaned back in my chair, scratching an itch on my head, wondering if Sassy finally brought home fleas, damning those worthless Hartz collars, and listened to the tale of the tea lady and Jesus.

“I was raised in the church,” she said in a deep, melodramatic voice, “and spent every Sunday in Sunday school. I worked hard for the church and memorized many bible verses. But I never felt the love of Jesus, not personally.”

“If I wanted to feel the love of Jesus, I’d just lay in bed and watch Billy Graham.”

Wait, I thought, isn’t this the Christian Women’s Lunch? I bent and whispered, “Aren’t you a Christian?”

“No, I’m a Republican. I worship nothing. Oh…no…I worship Visa and Mastercard and my Arco shares. Can you please pass the butter?”

I checked my tea after I passed the golden pats on a plate. I wondered if someone slipped a peyote button into my white china tea cup. My cell phone buzzed in my purse and then began to sing the blues, a lady in a large blue hat glaring at me, shaking her crucifix necklace at me. I clicked the phone off.

The tea lady began to weep, part of her speech having skipped over me, lost in the air and my buzzing phone, “And then my husband died from a bad case of syphilis he caught from a toilet seat in Rio de Janeiro while on a mission for God. Too much pain after having watched my daughter get run over by the MTA bus as she chased her black beast of a dog across the street. I knew I was missing something in my life.”

“If I knew I was missing something in my life…”

“I know, I know, you’d have just stayed in bed.”

“Yeah…getting the high hard one from my husband. Don’t you know women want to be fucked to God?”

I drank all my tea down. Blinked and stared at the tea lady on her knees and praising…something. “It was horrible! I had no personal relationship with Jesus! So I joined a prayer group!”

Someone tapped my shoulder and I got scared, thinking it was Jesus. I shook my head, no, no, I’m not ready to die, I’m not ready to meet my maker, I don’t want to sit at the feet of the Lord!

“Are you Mrs. Bliss?”

“Yes,” I said, turning around, getting glares from all over now, a bunch of crucifixes and tiny black hotel bibles being shaken at me by a bunch of ladies in hats. “That’s me…Mrs. Bliss-going-to-hell.”

“I have your daughter in my dance class,” she hissed, trying to be quiet, “And may I ask why she insists on screaming at my students if they don’t wear matching clothes? Is she autistic?”

“No, she’s just pre-bipolar. It’s okay, I’m starting her on pre-bipolar medication in order to prevent the full onset of the disease, you know, like prenatal vitamins that you take before you’re pregnant?”

The ballet teacher just stared at me and then walked away from me, backwards, “You are a monster!”

I turned in my seat and smiled to everyone else just as the tea lady got back into position at the podium, “Please order my book, ‘Tea and Jesus and Purple Sugar Cubes’. Thank you so much for the invitation to speak.” The room stood for a full standing ovation and an envelope was pressed into my hand by another lady in a hat, “Give to the children.”

“Of course,” I said, digging into my purse for a few dollars and a coupon for a free Filet-o-Fish. A woman began to sing in an operatic voice, a Disney song about finding something, and I could have sworn it was a rainbow and a leprechaun she’d found but I might have heard wrong thanks to the peyote in my tea. I walked with the crowd, noticing space around me. My phone buzzed which I thought was strange since I’d turned it off and I picked it up.

“Hello?”

“Hello, this is Satan.”

“Of course it is…silly me.”

“You’re expected at home. The boys want ribs but M wants you to pour her cereal and a cup of chocolate milk.”

“And you’re not just whipping this up for them…why?”

“Because only YOU can salve the wounds of your children.”

“And they are wounded….why?”

“They haven’t found Jesus yet.”

“Great…just great.”

As I breathed in the last few moments of my freedom, putting my phone away, shutting it off for the second time, the Saks Fifth lady sidled up to me, “That’s a terrible purse you have. Here, have a credit card application. Shop your heart out. Now THAT’s true love.”

The tea lady was packing up her stuff and I told her what a wonderful speech she’d given, “Really, nicely done. A fine little circle of a tale.”

She looked confused and wished me luck with my autistic daughter, “Word gets around.” She handed me an order form for her book and a little mesh bag of chocolates the label on which read, "Melting for the Lord." I took them and walked out of the conference hall into the hot, sunny day. My phone rang and it was my husband. I ignored the call and grabbed my keys. When I looked at my hand, there was blood. A stigmata.

I zipped home. Touched by...well...something.

***

No, that wasn’t the essay I’d written. Damn it.

Postscript

2006-08-06T10:09:00.000-07:00

Writing fast because I need to be on the road to visit a friend way out in the O.C. Check out Lori's Blog (link on the right!) for her on-point review of Miami Vice which D and I saw last night. She's got it DOWN.

Send good thoughts to the Bliss household today - kids are grumpy, husband's grumpy, and I'm leaving! [she grins evilly] Okay...carry on, all.

Have a lovely Sunday.

Catching Up

2006-08-05T17:10:00.000-07:00

Peeking in to catch you all up, before D and I go out for the evening, our usual dinner and a movie. I’m sitting at my laptop in the living room, watching A and M play with the hose and our plastic pool. They’re running from the swing set, running in the wet grass and wearing their goggles, looking funny as they splash into the pool, hysterical laughter jamming up against the windows. J’s playing drums in the office. The dog, this black dog of mine, is under the table, her hot body leaning on my ankles.

J’s camp went well, so well he got us to pay for the second week. The people in charge were great – gave us a huge discount, snuck us into their scholarship program so we only had to pay $250 instead of $650. Friday ended with a concert featuring the six bands at the camp and it was sweet, loud, and dreamy. The kids were on stage, being rock stars, playing their instruments well, singing lyrics they wrote. Lyrics that focused on being independent, being their own people, facing a violent world with open eyes and too-soon-to-be-aching hearts. J was among the most experienced musicians there and I think it was a good thing. He made some wonderful connections – fellow musicians.

What I found amazing was J’s passion for the music – he came home with blistered hands, dropping off to sleep early, anxious to get to the school in the morning. The kids there are fellow artists – they all have their “weirdnesses.” Clearly, he found himself in a pool of like-minded people and he swam beautifully. I’m sad there isn’t a school here, local, that could feed that passion. Our schools have all but deemed art a crime.

Another twist to the week was a visitor – a friend of A’s spent two nights with us. The friend is worthy of a second, separate post. I don’t how to describe it, to frame the situation. The mom went to the hospital and needed someone to take of her son which is where we stepped in. The father wouldn’t do anything other than stick to his “days” and her mother felt unable to watch the child. A sister also couldn’t save the day so here was this woman with the love of her life, her son, and nobody to help her. I had to work on D – he’s a cynic, he fears being used. It’s a bone of contention between us. I’m always ready to help and he grumbles. Maybe she IS using us, but I don’t think so. She always gives me things, things she should not be buying because she has no money because she can’t work…because she suffers from debilitating depression. Maybe it’s a like-mind, maybe I help her, am ready to help, because I walk a cliff’s edge, knowing I could drop off in that same way at any moment. And maybe D knows it, too, and is afraid of it, and doesn’t know a single person who could come in to save OUR day if we should both drop off. So…he grumbles.

Oh my, it’s time to go. The sitter’s coming. I have nothing to wear.

A little horror-gothic Fiction for your day (from 2004): Waiting

2006-08-02T10:31:00.000-07:00

She waited for me by the car – frazzled reddish hair to her shoulders, dark circles under ice-blue eyes, and magenta fuzzy slippers that had stepped into too many rain puddles. The expression on her face echoed the tearing away of patience. I shoved my hands deep into the pockets of my faded jeans, hunched my shoulders to burrow into my sweatshirt, and looked across the parking lot reflecting the edges of dawn. I walked in the mist, ready for the big kiss-off, knowing I wouldn’t get it.

This was maybe the twentieth time she picked me up from a Los Angeles County emergency room: a flare-up of one disorder or another…a busted hand from a fight…the occasional overdose. Tonight’s diagnosis: failure to take medication in a timely manner.

I shuffled along cracked asphalt, counting the steps.

“Sixty-five. Sixty-six. Sixty…sixty-eight…oh, double-step…”

She hadn’t changed positions since step number twenty-two. Not a shifting from her right leg to her left or an adjustment of her arm or anything.

Leaning up against the car door, she waited as if there were the smallest chance this would be the last time. Waited, as if something different were going to happen tomorrow, next week, the week after. I wondered if she did it out of love or masochism. Maybe we’re all masochists in love with ourselves, with suffering. Maybe there are millions standing by their cars…waiting.

I looked like shit after more-than-a-few hours on a gurney recovering from the effects of having missed days of one of my epilepsy meds. Oh hell, it was the one series of pills I thought I could skip. Gets tiring, day in and day out, to take so many. A cashier found me behind Von’s having grand mal seizures. I knew something bad was happening when the color of the world altered and I started smelling funny things. Last word I remember: oops.

After I called Jory, after having been poked and prodded and given a CAT scan, I lay on my side imagining the process of her leaving. She’d drag herself out of bed, throw on clothes, and grab the keys she hid in the microwave oven. She’d walk down the three flights of stairs of our apartment building, and start up the VW bug. We got a 1968 piece of crap that barely runs – probably only had a little gas. There’d have been mild cursing when she read the gauge.

I hated dialing home. You wouldn’t think so. Guilt lived with me the way a slug lives in a garden: for the most part it’s ignored, but most likely it’ll end up mush under a muddy boot. So…why hesitate?

Her voice had told me she wasn’t awake. ‘Course not – it was four a.m.

“’Lo?”

“Hey, babe…I’m at the hospital…pick me up?”

“Shit, not again. Time is it…Jesus.”

She paused and had me hanging by my fingernails on a plank of hope…and worry. I could practically see the locks of hair in her eyes, her big pink t-shirt with red balloons that said, “Love my balloons too hard and I’ll pop all over you.” Underneath, she wore grandma-style, matching pink panties. No bra. The get-up was her favorite sleeping gear. She’d gotten ready to tell me to go fuck myself. I heard the scrunching up of her mouth.

“Yeah, okay…I gotta bring cash?”

“Nah.”

Another sigh. “You all right?”

“Yeah.” She didn’t ask what happened, maybe out of relief that it wasn’t jail or the psych ward.

I reached the car in one hundred forty-three steps.

“Hey, beautiful,” I said, trying to sound normal, a chore for glitches in the norm. That's me, a glitch. I came into this life a “preemie” weighing ten pounds and measuring 23-inches…with a birthday six months from my parents’ wedding date. I grew up under the gaze of Nebraska Baptists who looked at me as if I were unfinished…a horrific miscalculation…sin itself. My parents probably felt the same way, going on to have more kids, each one a wonderful improvement on the last. In the end, they had one lawyer, one minister, a pediatrician, a veterinarian, and … someone they didn’t like to think about.

“Just get in,” Jory snapped. I slumped in the seat, fiddled with the heater. We drove in silence. Suddenly, she made a turn I wasn’t familiar with.

“What’s this?”

“Penance.”

She didn’t explain, keeping her eyes on the road. She wore an old, no-longer-white ski parka we’d picked up in a thrift shop last year. Blue fake fur lined the cap and the color reminded me of a movie McDonalds whored itself for a couple of years ago, something about monsters running a corporation. That was it – she looked like a blue, fuzzy monster turned inside out. Or maybe more like she skinned a blue monster and now wore his fur as a token of triumph. I swallowed hard, thankful to have at least kept up the bipolar meds. Glancing down, I read the stickers Jory put on the glove compartment: Free the Whales, Life’s a Bitch then You Die, Put Christ Back in Christmas, I Don’t Break for Pedestrians.

I have one bumper sticker, and I usually affix it figuratively to my ass: boo fucking hoo.

“Just tell me where we’re going.”

“Outta town.”

“What about work? Isn’t old Bob gonna miss you?” Jory was an executive assistant, a nice word for a secretary. She got paid all right – not enough. I was too disabled to work or drive or do anything. I looked at Jory, wondering again why she put up with me.

“It’s technically Saturday. I don’t work on weekends.”

“Oh.”

We finally got on a freeway, and I saw we were headed toward Palmdale, toward the Mojave Desert, a delightful monopoly of sand and dirt and plants nobody would want in their backyard. I mumbled about how I was going to straighten up. I’d be as clean and as organized as the miles of smooth emptiness we were traversing now. Low traffic and blacktop lit by morning accompanied my chattering. The putter of the bug’s engine gave me visions of a tow truck coming to our rescue.

She pulled off an exit, but I didn’t catch the name of the street. I tried, craning my neck to see. She drove slowly, looking around even though there wasn’t much of a vista. The sun started to warm me, so I shut the heater off.

“There it is,” she said softly, taking a sharp right onto an unpaved road. The car bumped and thumped and jumped, forcing Jory to shift into a lower gear.

“The hell?!”

“Shut up,” she hissed.

“Hey, baby, I’m gonna change, you know?” It was hard to believe I actually said such incredibly distasteful, not to mention cliché, words.

“I know that – I’m gonna change, too.”

“What you talkin’ about, Willis?” I watched a lot of “Nick at Nite.” That Willis line was from this one show about a white dad adopting a witty black boy and his older brother. The youngest kid, the witty one, was…really short. I guess the program spoke to a universal problem – deep inside, we’re all…really short.

“Shush.”

I did. I’d tried to clean up my act several times during our two-year relationship. Once I stayed in a rehab for two whole days. I didn’t like the food. She never overtly asked me to stop any of my doings. She ached over it, made faces at me of impatience, yet she never said, “Stop.”

She watched the road and slowed the car. Her closed lips stretched to the side in a satisfied grin, and she nodded while narrowing her eyes. We’d finally reached her destination: a large, abandoned, ranch-style house. The windows were busted, and once-decorative shutters hung like petrified flags that died on a windless day. The roof was flat with white and gray rocks scattered across the top, and the tan paint was peeling – a sunny day’s ruination. Tall, lanky stalks of dead yellow weeds emerged from an ocean of bulbous cactus.

Jory got out, stretched her arms, and said, “Isn’t this wonderful?”

“I don’t think so. Shouldn’t we get back?”

“No…this is your lucky day. Today is the first day of the rest of your life.”

I think that line was on our freezer door. I argued, “Isn’t every day the first day? I mean, if you think about it…”

She pounced on me, “You don’t understand. Last night’s foray was your last.” She walked over to a planter that looked like an old well and pulled out a long rope. “Did you know I won first place for calf-roping when I was twelve?”

I ran like hell…except she got to me and within seconds I was…well, roped. I couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe – I panicked. She put her knee somewhere up near my shoulder – she was resting. My cheek pressed into sand.

“Whooo-wee…you’re a tough one.”

“Jory…what’s the matter? What did I do different?”

“It’s not that it was different…it’s that it was the same. You almost had me fooled. Last time I had to pick you up from urgent care was over two months ago. I almost thought you turned a corner.”

“But it’s our joke, babe…you know…I’m a recidivist. I thought you liked that.”

“Yeah…I got into the codependence, I liked rescuing you…I liked that you felt better around me. All your hurts would seem to fade away when we were together. Your smile was precious because you rarely showed it to anyone.” She bent low and whispered hotly in my ear, “You made me feel so special.”

“You are special…”

“You got that right.”

She stood and got a hold of my fettered elbow. Dragged me across the lot toward the front door. Once at the entrance, she pulled me inside. My shirt slipped upwards and my heaving chest scraped along what used to be nice linoleum. Gold colors, yellows, mustards. A 1970’s house gone bad. Sliding along the no-longer-shimmering lines, I realized I was being sacrificed. I was a slug about to be squashed.

Finally, I came to a rest. Jory sat cross-legged several feet away. She was in the middle of what used to be a kitchen. The stove, the oven, the fixtures, the sink were gone – even the cabinet doors were gone. There used to be a counter for food preparation or for putting vases on or for papers to get ready for sorting…the top had been sheared off. I supposed Formica had value on the black market. I looked at the sliding glass doors. Someone had spray-painted in black on the right-hand side, Junipero was here.

“Do you remember where we met?” Jory hugged her knees and eyed me.

“Intersection of Grand and Ninth.”

“You were completely lost. Delusional. You asked me if I was from Mars...then you decided I was an angel because of the halo.”

“You are an angel!”

“I remember coming to see you at the psych ward after a week or so. You were so much better. We had coffee after you got out, and you wrote a poem to me. I cried. We walked hand-in-hand…and you smiled…and asked me for my number. I wrote it on a dollar bill, the only paper I had. You walked away backwards, wagging the money. You affected me.”

“We met for lots of food. Lunches, breakfasts, dinners.”

“Yes…we fed each other. We became a pair…we had heart. You moved in, you took care of the finances – you helped make my shack a home. Then the hospital visits started. One year to the date. Once you had me in your grip.”

“You’re saying I set you up?”

“It took some time for me to figure it out. You slowly moved into my life – first the dates, then the clothes being left, then you – followed by the draining.”

“But that’s how ALL relationships go!”

She had it wrong. I hadn’t set her up. I just got comfortable, I started to be myself, someone who just happened to indulge in my essential uselessness. I expounded on the trait – built it up to an art form.

She left. I called for her. I heard her re-enter the room. Her furred feet stopped at my head, one foot lifting and then landing on top of the other. The whole thing made me wonder how she did that without falling over, forcing me to look up. I saw she had a sledgehammer to lean on.

“This house,” she said, “is your brain – devoid of furnishings, fresh paint, and love – no class. Oh there’s potential, but the end result is the same. The walls still hold nothing.”

She lifted the hammer above her head and slammed it down to my right. My heart raced, I breathed the breaths of a runner at the end of a sprint, I sweated the sweat of a marathoner – I couldn’t talk. I wanted to beg for my life, I wanted to say I’d paid for all my wrongs.

She lifted the hammer again and crashed it against the floor causing a vibration behind my eyes. Liquid leaked like helium out of a balloon. I expected her to start talking in a high-pitch voice…because my head was as fragile as expanded latex…certainly helium kept me standing normally.

“You’re crying?”

Sniffling snorts answered her.

“You know, it would have been nice if even once you said, thank you.”

She lifted the hammer way above her head and the metal hunk landed near my ear. She moaned…almost ecstatically. She sauntered to the painted hearth and pulled on something. I soon saw thick, black hooks cemented into the mortared bricks.

The helium in my head started to pour out, through my nose, my mouth, my eyes. Liquid leaked into my jeans. Before long I’d be the remains of a kiddie party…red, popped latex…useless, used. I hiccupped in fear.

She dragged me across the floor in short, rough jerks. Pausing, she rubbed her chin with her hand then left again. I inched away from the looming, medieval hooks. Christ, how’d she do it? When? How’d she find the place? Sweet, angelic Jory…so delicate in the way she ate a bagel topped with cream cheese, biting down carefully to avoid a mess, licking the corners of her mouth. She had a strawberry tongue – round shapes would mark up the pink if she ate something that disagreed with her chemistry.

I was moving again, being dragged back into place. Another rope was wrapped around me. Suddenly, I was being lifted, heaved upwards. At last I was hanging, swaying. Jory worked some more ties until I could no longer move. I was cocooned in hemp rope and held in place by the hooks.

She explained, “Here you’ll stay, my dear, hopeless man. You’re now in a place where you can think on your deficiencies. You’ll be free to reflect on how you can better yourself – the many areas in which there might be room for improvement. In time, I’m sure you’ll feel remorse, gratefulness for the times I rescued you.”

Somewhere, I found my voice. “Jory, baby…I always appreciated the love you gave. Please, don’t do me this way. I’ll make it up to you!”

“I understand you can’t help the epilepsy…or that you’re bipolar. Your brain works against you. The system, our government, doesn’t help. They keep you disabled, remove your power. So many things are in your way.”

She smiled hugely, “However, I believe in you. I believe you can overcome. I believe in your strength as a person – as a man.”

I dribbled the remaining helium from my balloon of a soul, deflating. I thought maybe if I really became flat, I could fall out of the bindings. Such wasn’t the case. I’d be left…hanging on a string, leftovers from a party waiting to be trashed. I found myself wailing.

“Oh no. No, no, no. Don’t cry. What did you really have to look forward to? Sitting around our apartment watching TV, getting stoned on drugs, playing Russian Roulette with your medications, making fun of the neighbors?”

“That’s a kind of life!” I warbled.

She sighed. Picked up the sledge hammer and swung at the wall next to the brick hearth where I was, causing a shower of plaster from the ceiling. She danced around the room, smashing the other walls, whooping it up. As the haze from the dust cleared, I caught sight of something huddled in the skeleton of a cupboard. Ropes. Jeans. A red plaid, flannel shirt. They were very…sandy. I clapped my eyes on Jory.

“Jor…sweetie…you never told me what happened to your last boyfriend. You know, the Canadian paraplegic?”

She blinked. Smiled sadly. Shook her head.

“He was so ungrateful.”

The sun is now setting, and I’ve had no water, no food, no love or understanding. There’s no need to piss, because all the helium is gone. I’m deflated. The desert is a serene place. The house is far enough from the city so you can’t hear any evidence of civilization. Coyotes bark and howl their sad tales. Lizards scramble along the floor. The weeds and cactus plants are still and hum eternal tones.

I think of a future where I will wake up, take my meds, and dress. I’ll sit at our breakfast table with a bright yellow mug of coffee and eat a bowl of fortified cereal. Jory and I will chat about our love-making the night before, and we’ll dish the shocking political battle being reported on the radio. I’ll get up when we finish and help clean the kitchen. I’ll kiss her goodbye and whisper a “thank you.” I’ll walk to the stop where I’ll take the local to my next job. Or to an appointment with a counselor. Or to a place that will make me feel inflated…alive…valuable. I will thrive on my independence.

I picture these things. I think it’s possible…such a life. I’ll just have to wait for that time to come while I hang here, trussed.

Good Day

2006-07-31T21:48:00.000-07:00

Our worries are over - I can tell because my acid reflux is in overdrive. As soon as the scare passes, when the danger is over, the nerves settle and the acid kicks up. J attended the first day of camp and he loves it. This morning, early, early, he was nervous. Mad nervous. He snapped at D on the way there. He scowled and spit out negativity when he got assigned to a band. His tics were noticeable. But later, as D was leaving the school, J smiled and waved and D had hope for the day.

So it was all good from there. Thank goodness. The camp had meant the world to him and I was so worried and here we are, all in bed, getting ready for another day.

We'll be out tomorrow - Natural History Museum for A, M, and the cousins. We've been busy. Saturday was Newport Dunes, Sunday was a big bike ride at the Santa Fe Dam in Irwindale. Fifteen miles for A and me, fifteen miles of a bike path that ended up at my mother's old townhouse in Duarte. It was strange seeing the place again, strange to see A and J's names scratched in the concrete outside the sliding glass door. The new owner had come out because the dogs were barking and because A and I were looking into her yard. I said to her when she stepped outside, "My mother used to live here. We're just reminiscing."

She introduced herself and said warmly, "My neighbor speaks of your mother with such fondness. I think I met your brother. What a hard time that was. Let me get my boys so you can meet them. Come on in. We love this house so much."

I got a little choked up but reigned it all in. She said, "Thank you for selling us this place."

A and I toured the yard, and I saw that they kept the miniature rose bushes my mother had planted and the life-size clay ducks that had once been at my house, put there by a stranger the morning after my father had died, and the dirt-filled herb pots with the scooped openings. The place was a little messy, evidence of a busy family. Which made me happy - my mother would have been pleased that two little boys continued to march around the garden, just like my two had.

Afterwards, A and I rode to the corner 7-11 and had Slurpees, oh yeah, the sour watermelon, a new flavor, and I watched the grey skies as I stood next to the bikes, remembering how many times we'd been there before, A just a toddler.

Today, as we passed the same spot on the 210, on our way to pick up J from his day at camp, A pointed out the path we'd been on, "There it is! Under the bridge, we were there." Like validation. Like an assurance we’d really been on that path, we really had ridden the fifteen miles, and visited a place that seemed to only exist in our imagination for the longest of times. Yes, yes, my mother really did exist. She was real, as real as the names scratched into the concrete that had once been fresh and wet.

I’m in bed now, the notebook heating my legs, making me sweat because I’m under a blanket. The day’s over…and fast as anything, it’s going to enter memory and act like a figment of my imagination.

Going seriously off-topic: The hell? (updated)

2006-07-27T16:22:00.000-07:00

I don't get the outrage. Evidence of the American schizophrenic attitude toward breasts. They're never good enough.

Update: Speaking of people getting all up into a huff, check out the crying-children-exhibit uproar. Had I known the photographer needed crying children, I'd have sent M. She cries at the drop of the hat, an open-mouthed, agonized, soul-wrenching (her soul) cry, over the smallest things. She'd have walked out of the studio pleased with herself.

"Tourette's is ruining my life."

2006-07-26T18:41:00.000-07:00

J said that to me as we looked out from the third floor, over the railing, across the first floor of the California Science Center today. Children from summer camps across Los Angeles teemed below like red, blue and yellow water drops splashed onto a hot skillet.

"Can we go home?"

"Later."

Did I say I imagined improvement with the vocal tic? Yeah, I imagined improvement. He's got this loud "huh" thing going on so much he's gotten hoarse from it. At the museum today, people would turn and look at him, and he'd glare right back. At other times, he just looked down, eyes hidden behind thick hair, cursing under his breath.

Called the doctor and said, "WHEN will we see improvement with the Keppra?"

In a few weeks.

Called the doctor again and left a message on the machine, "Can I add Tenex to the mix since the Clonidine isn't doing much?"

Probable answer: sure but there still won't be much change for a few weeks.

Yeah, yeah, I get that but see I'm fucking desperate to help, desperate to ease the tough circumstance, desperate for the magic fucking pill to make this fucking thing GO AWAY.

"When's it gonna change, Mom, to something less noisy?"

"I don't know, baby, maybe you can try to do something else. I've heard some people can psych themselves into a new, different tic."

He's starting music camp on Monday, a new camp where he won't know the children and he'll have to deal with the explanations and possible rejections and possible misery. To tell the truth, I've got a stomach ache from all this. He's stressed, too, but he has no idea the agony his parents are in. As a parent, you want your child to be the "best they can be," and yet here he is in a virtually unchangable situation. Yeah, yeah, I know this could be worse. Thank God it's not cancer, or some other life-threatening circumstance, thank God he's here at all, yes, I get that.

But still. God damn it. I hide it though, I offer positive thinking to him. I say, don't get mad, just educate them. You're talented at the drums, you're going to make them forget the Tourette's.

"I hate this so much," he says to me.

Dinner tonight...pizza. There goes our good eating habits. Pizza and buffalo wings and something fried the place offers for free that you dip into ranch dressing. Positively deadly.

A New Day

2006-07-25T12:24:00.000-07:00

Did I say in my last post that I didn't expect any more drama? Famous last words as they say. End of typical Bliss-household day: Sassy ran out the front door near ten. Black Sassy, ran out onto a street with no streetlamps, with lots of bushes, where many driveways have access paths to the trails. Problem was that she ran out without anyone seeing her - she snuck out at some point. So for about fifteen minutes while we were all looking for her, we were all thinking this was it, she was going to really disappear into the suburbs.

Thank goodness A has bat eyes - he stepped out the door and yelled, "I see her!" We all ran out, me with the leash, M with the flashlight, D with a dog biscuit, and J with the judgment of everyone involved.

Fun, fun, fun.

Near three in the morning, J woke D and I with his tics. Total insomnia then for the three of us. Didn't get back to sleep until five. More fun.

We did finally see a neurologist today for the tics and got a new medication to try: Keppra. I keep wanting to call it Kreppa...a la Crappa...because the poor kid has had no luck with the other four medications he's tried. However, I am actually seeing an improvement. Seriously...fifteen minutes have passed since I last heard him and he is nearby. Can see him out the window here, skating back and forth, hair pulled back.

He's funny though because if I ask him about it, or comment about it, then he'll tic. Very suggestible. So shhhh...ixnay on the ic-tay.

How boring is this blog post? I clearly need connection with the world outside the one I'm living in because I've been wanting to post, wanting to write...I plop myself at my laptop at the dining room table because J has taken over my office. I find though that I'm lacking the energy to spread in any detail the thoughts across the page, too lazy to sprinkle and arrange and fold and toss letters. I really wanted to submit something to qarrtsiluni since Brenda and Dale both did (me too, me too!) but nothing comes when I try to get creative, try to put out something fictional or unreal or beautiful.

Cabbage. J wants me to cut up some cabbage for him, purple cabbage with lemon, a splash of oil, and salt. My mother used to make that for us when were kids and she always did it without question. I complain, put it off. Not now, in a minute, get off my ASS! Okay, cabbage. Cut, chop, mince. Put the stuff into two bowls for the two boys. Pour the lemon dressing.

In an earlier post of mine a commenter used the word, "lonely." I realize that I didn't know loneliness until my mother died. I can be surrounded by my family now but deep down, deep within, I still feel lonely and that feeling did not exist when my mother was alive. Is that coincidence? Did my mother's death coincide with the death of passion in my marriage or with the birth of my third child? Is tiredness cloaked in "loneliness"? I don't know. A couple of weeks ago I had dinner with my sister and her friend JC, and I was upset about the deal with my brother and I remember weeping a little at a stoplight, eleven at night, and feeling terribly alone. Nobody to call, nowhere to crash on a couch, the bed I'd crawl into would be a bit cold, and not heart-warm but even if it was, it wouldn't be the warmth of my mother.

My grandmother had told me, tried to explain to me, that I should not feel lonely ever because she is here and I am her heart. But...but..I keep her at bay because death does cut off the connection. The end of grief has cut off the connection. I no longer cry for my parents and with that cessation a thread has been cut.

Cabbage...purple, lemony, crunchy, filling. Yes, yes, I'll do it. Here, my sweet, in the blue striped bowl. Just for you.

Blogging the Weather (Updated again)

2006-07-23T12:00:00.000-07:00

The rain has come in on the heels of thunder and lightning. M asked me if the thunder was clapping for her and Sassy and I said, "Sure, honey." Except when my beautiful daughter got an expression of deep emotion and said, "Oh, Mommy, that is so sweet," I had to adjust my answer because she was sounding a wee bit too schizo for me.

I went riding this morning, five miles, I'd have gone more but the lightning freaked me out. Images kept coming to me of the eucalyptus trees getting hit and falling over me and my red mountain bike, cell phone ringing and ringing in the little pouch.

The rain is coming down hard now. D is reading by the window a Stephen Coonts book, I'm reading "Trails of the Angeles," and J is bickering again with A over which "Destroy all Humans" file A is playing on the Playstation. Damn it, A has emerged from the room and is starting to pick on M who is so happily watching PBS Sprout.

We've got to get out of here but D doesn't want to deal with the beach traffic. Not that I blame him. High humidity and 100 degree weather drive everyone to the same places. We're crowd-loathers.

J's tics have gotten bad again - we're starting him on a new medicine, clonodine. It's a patch we bandaid to his chest because the sticky patch it comes with...well...it sucks. It might be my imagination but I think there's some improvement - instead of him sounding out every twenty seconds, I believe he's going for entire minutes in silence. Tuesday we have an appointment with a neurologist since his psychiatrist has run out of ideas.

I asked A to read a book and he's crying, "I wanted nachos but you guys won't let me because you guys are mean!"

"You're not getting any more food until you've read for fifteen minutes."

"Stop forcing me to read! I'll read when I'm older!"

He's reading now. Anything for food...ahhh my dearest A.

I love summer! Updating later.

(Update) Our dog is a hunter, a growling, black, hot dog of a hunter. We found the little beast at our back door with a bird in her mouth. The screams! The running! The search for something to pick up the feathered carcass with! Wheee!!

Tick, tock, tick, tock.

I took a nap - found myself keeling over at three because I watched Quills last night at one in the morning. Didn't get to sleep until after three. Have no idea why, but the insomnia took me and made me her bitch. I mean, I was in bed at 10:30 or so and was on my way to the land of nod...but nooooo....

The movie was a good one - fantastic performances. Interesting story. Worth a rental, I think, if you've got a strong stomach for a bit of gore. I enjoyed the movie so much I watched the Forty Year Old Virgin this afternoon, why we waited for our dinner to cook. Dumb but I did laugh. The language is horrific...in that cheap-laugh way.

Also managed a trip to Trader Joe's for entrees - lots of frozen stuff and organic food in my continuing quest to eat better, such as carrot juice, 100% vegan buttery spread, wheat pita bread, organic hummus, organic apple sauce, and organic marinara sauce for our wheat-free, gluten free noodles.

J took a nap, too, but most likely it's from the meds. He also hung out with a friend of his in front our house, commenting that she just isn't the same anymore. I asked what was different about her.

"She's weird."

"But what exactly is weird? Be specific."

"She's just...all positive. Like everything she says is...optomistic."

"I shudder."

"Yeah...like...I told you she's really weird after her two years in the psychiatric hospital."

Shhh...I hear M screaming at A...something about a yo-yo, about her teeth, about the dentist. Oh dinner's done. Off to gather veggies out of my organic garden...no, I'm kidding. I'm opening some frozen veggies for the microwave. Hopefully all those stories about the death rays comeing from innocent-looking microwave ovens aren't true.

Remind me to tell you later about the Christian luncheon I attended recently with the lady who loved afternoon tea. Amazing tale of flowery napkins, mismatched tea cups and saucers, lacy dresses on elderly ladies, and finding Jesus.

(Epilogue) I always try to encourage my children to do for themselves as they have a tendency to treat me like their personal servant. So I do need to commend my son, A, who is learning to play the bass guitar, for gathering up his amp and trying to plug it into the living room's electrical outlet without asking me. There was only one problem - a plastic plug cover on the outlet prevented easy access. Seeing an obstacle, he did what any intelligent person would do when plastic blocks access. He went into the kitchen and got a dinner knife. He sat down on the carpet and wedged the knife in between the plastic cover and the outlet...

...yes, the little self-doer...

There was a rather large-ish explosion of sparks, a wide-eyed child shaking his head in a wordless claim of innocence, and a knife with melted stainless steel along its edge. Oh yeah, the circuit blew, too. Oh the commotion that ensued - screams, J's calling A names like idiot, stupid, etc., proper scolding.

We have a learned a lesson: not all self-doing is a good idea. When electricity and knives are involved, ask an adult for help.

Well, I'm signing off. I don't think our day will have much more drama. A and I are going for a walk with the dog, we'll all have ice cream, there'll be baths, then bed. Then...yadda, yadda, yadda...the billion-degree sun will rise tomorrow morning as it always does.

110 Degrees (updated again)

2006-07-22T15:21:00.000-07:00

Bicker, bicker, bicker.

"I'm getting the cd out of your drawer."

"No, you're not!"

"Stop it!"

"No, you stop it!"

[hitting and wrestling ensue]

"J, go to your room! A go to time-out, THERE!"

"Why do you always go after me when HE'S the one being a jerk?!"

"You're both being punished!"

"Mommy," M says, "he's calling me a loser!" [Who the hell knows who "he" is?]

That's our household today despite taking the kids out to breakfast and then watching Monster House. They're all irritable. Criminy, it's hot. We got into our Chevy Suburban after the film and literally could not touch the windows, they were THAT hot. When driving home from the film on the 210 Freeway, the temperature gauge on the truck read 116.

The movie. Gotta say, the trailers didn't tell just how scary the movie is for the little ones. There are scary faces in the frame screaming how "you're" going to die, kids calling for their mommy as they're being sucked into a green funnel of doom, there's of course the creepy house that literally turns into a very scary monster with teeth and claws and eats everything and everyone that dares cross its threshold, sad tales of abused carnival freaks, shadows and scary hands and trees that pluck children as they're running for their lives...really, it's a twisted, cartoon version of Poltergeist.

Several parents left with their children clinging to them. We didn't leave (oh hell no, not after spending $40 for online tickets) but M made her way to my lap and her cousin, TH, made his way to his mom's lap. J loved it...it was right up his alley, having puberty mentions, absentee parents, a kiss of a girl on the lips, and violent, wrenching scenes of people getting eaten alive. Yummy!

There was lots of humor, too, don't get me wrong - lots of jokey, cute dialogue. The characters were drawn well and the story was a classic story of releasing grief (perfect for the kids!). Overall, Monster House is an excellent movie - just be warned that it might be too frightening for more sensitive kids and children under 7.

So yeah...there's our day.

What else...oh yes, D and I saw Michael McDonald and Steely Dan in concert at Verizon Ampitheater in Irvine this past week. We really had a wonderful time (the kids stayed home with the babysitter which is always good). The music was wonderful, the night was gorgeous. Perfect, really.

Well...I'm off to have lunch. I'll check in later on this very, very hot day.

***

(Update 1) Ahhh...the heat continues. So our oldest and dearest wants to go to a friend's house to spend the night. D and I are wary because he's been very grouchy, grouchy to the point where we think maybe he's been skipping medication for his mood swings. Anyway, he wants to go to church with a friend, but he also wants to spend the night. D says fine, "But wear your black pants, not the torn-up ones." J doesn't want to wear the black pants, "They're too baggy."

They're not too baggy. They're not peg-legged, but they're not baggy.

"What about my gym shorts?"

"Wear nice pants - you're going to church."

The battle escalates. A half hour later, J demands to know why we became teachers and not something else that pays more so we can buy his Krew pants that he likes.

"Why are we so goddamned poor?! Why can't I wear normal pants?! I'm going to kill myself!!"

Needless to say, J is staying home tonight because he might kill himself due to the fact that we won't buy him sixty-dollar jeans. I don't care how much he wants to find Jesus, he's NOT going anywhere. So, dinner is all messed up. M is eating ice cream covered in Trader Joe's Midnight Moo (pretend chocolate syrup) and A is eating left-over ribs. I'm eating Sunchips because they're better than regular chips. D is sulking in his room. I love summer! Be back later to update.

(Epilogue) The house is calm. J is on the computer, M and A are playing quietly in front of the television, D is watching the Tour de France. I'm posting. There was one final request to spend the night out by J, but I quashed that with a smile. The night will be here soon. The day will be done.

Then...well, you know the rest, sun rising and all that.

Chasing the Unicorn

2006-07-16T18:09:00.000-07:00

The routine in our house isn’t ideal, but it is as expected when we decided to forgo summer school – a tendency to stay up late, an inclination to sleep in. Problem is that by the time we’re ready to do anything, the temperature outside is past 100 and we’re ready for our two hour lunch. And even if we’re ready at an earlier time, we have to deal with our lack of finances. So…we stay home. Not bad other than the resulting cabin fever … the kids bicker, D and I snap at each other, the dog runs out the door. We’ve taken steps to resolve the problem – we go swimming at the pool or we go hiking or biking along the creek near our house. No need to get in the car, no need to spend money.

The trail nearby offers a constant reminder of the city it cuts through – the trees and purposeless concrete structures bear layers of graffiti, trash is everywhere, old chain link fences lean to and fro. Yet on the other hand, there are signs that nature is winning out. Those fences lean into the water and are covered with vines and spider webs and the skeletons of springtime weeds. The concrete structures are equally covered with plants, each year getting increasingly buried. The trash comes and goes – people pick up, boy scouts do their part, fewer and fewer people travail the pathways.

The other day, D, A, and I went riding in spite of the heat. We go there because all the shading by the aged oak trees drops the temperature a good ten degrees. A and I hit the dirt road at a good pace, realizing quickly that D trailed behind us a good ten yards. A said, “I feel sorry for Daddy – he’s not used to this like we are.” We waited and when D rolled up next to us he said, quite openly, “I feel out of control going down those hills.” I found his nervousness interesting, revealing for a man who ran three marathons in his past life. Granted, life has changed us – he’s not the same, neither am I. We’re bound to come upon our limitations. I resisted the psychoanalysis. Anyway, we three were riding over the rocks, attempting to get our bikes through the water without putting feet down, when A and I turned a corner and way down the creek, we saw a large white bird. Looked like a heron or an egret. The beautiful creature dipped its beak into the murky water and then flew away in a burst of cloudy white. A and I barely breathed as we watched.

“Is it a magical bird?” he asked.

“No,” I said, smiling to myself at his innocence in the face of living with a cynical almost-thirteen year old. “She must live in the trees. I’ve never seen a bird like that down here.”

We waited and only when we left the spot, did we see her return for a brief moment.

“We’ll come back tomorrow with a camera,” I said.

The mosquitoes and bees and flies buzzed loudly as we zipped past spider webs and avoided poison oak. We finally turned around at the foot of a massive incline, the path going upwards without end. We rode back beneath a canopy of oak trees and over an old spray-painted bridge, spotting an overturned shopping basket in the water, its plastic mesh long invaded with water-loving plants. The end is always rough going – a steep, weed-covered incline. We huffed and puffed all the way home, our drinking water gone.

The next day, A and I woke up with a mission: to capture the heron or egret or whatever bird we’d seen with our cameras. We gathered our equipment – A has a compact film camera from his aunt, and I’ve got the digital Canon. Got a zoom lens, too. Dragged along the tripod.

This time however, we hiked. We trudged across the creek at the trail’s several spots, bearing the ninety-degree heat well because we had cold water and the drive. The first thing we noticed on our walk in was the unusual spider webs on the weeds – spiders wove their webs into funnels, through which we assumed they’d crawl. All around us, all along the bottoms of tall spiky, dead weeds, were white, downy black holes. We carefully stayed to the center of the trail, unsure of the type of spiders that built these homes. We must never have hiked the trail at this time of year because we’d never seen these before. And when on our bikes, we sped past them without looking.

Slowly, we made our way to the site of the white bird. Again, A asked whether it was magic. I asked why he thought so to which he replied, “Because the unicorns are magic and the bird looked like a white unicorn. Only a bird.”

“And here we are, the only ones who saw it.”

“Yes!”

The spot was an active part of the creek. Schools of tiny black fish swam in the greenish water, bees flew around tree roots, mosquitoes buzzed close to green swampy moss, and the water gurgled over colored rocks. Plants lay flat in the water, pressed down by the current, like ladies in repose. A balanced on a board between two rocks. Our feet got wet as we tried to find a place to sit quietly to wait for the bird.

We did find a nice rock on which to perch. We crawled over thick roots and through water, landing on the flat, leaf-covered rock. We waited. We listened. Birds cawed and bugs buzzed. Rabbits and squirrels rustled bushes. But no white bird, no heron, no egret. What we did see were the dragonflies. Red and blue ones danced around us in pairs, and one black, noisy one kept buzzing past us so loudly we couldn’t help but laugh at its motorcar sound. The dragonflies soon captivated us to the point where we forgot about our magical bird. We set the tripod up back across the creek and worked at getting pictures, not the ones we wanted, but new ones of something sweet and surprising.

The red dragonflies accommodated us with their habit of landing one at a time on a lone branch in the middle of the creek and sitting there for long minutes. Plenty of time for me to focus and shoot. Click, click, click. We took a bunch of shots for just the few that would turn out. For the longest time we played in the water with the dragonflies, making stories up about who they were, about their playful dances in the air. The afternoon moved slowly, the excessive heat far away from us, up above on the hill where we live.

The creek seemed an idyllic place – strangely untouched even though there was plenty of proof of the city’s population here, plenty of empty bottles and cans and paper. But there wasn’t anyone else there in those hours. Just us, alongside our imaginations and a kind of slow peace that is easily forgotten in the hectic rush of the regular city’s day.

We went home, tripod on shoulder, cameras swinging, chatting endlessly about the dragonflies. And what about that bird?

“Something magical happened today,” I said. “Maybe because of the bird?”

A agreed, to a point, “We have to come back again.”

Beyond the Edge of the Pool

2006-07-11T22:47:00.000-07:00

From the pool’s edge, M smiled at me before dipping underwater and popping right back up. I never shifted focus from the very spot she occupied. I believed that if I did, I’d be taking some trust away. As she dipped, she needed to know I’d still be there when she emerged from beneath the water.

I suppose I felt the same way when my brother called me last night – I suppose I wanted him to know on some level that no matter what, when he emerged from whatever sea he’d fallen into, I’d still be here, the same sister, the same person.

“How come you never call your brother?” he asked me late last night, on the phone.

“Oh it’s the back-stabbing traitor,” I said, in a voice that only teased him.

He chuckled, relieved, I could tell. And so it goes. Nothing has changed for forever – I’ll still be there for his birthday, my dramatic promises of never-seeing-him-again, over. We went on talking, reviewing what the kids were up to, what we all were doing, about his search for a new car, mulling over the choice of a hybrid rather than a gas guzzler, the Honda Civic most likely. Benign stuff that spoke of normality, spoke to my still being there when he dipped, still there when he popped back up.

As I scanned the benches alongside the pool behind the fence, I saw the other parents and grandparents divided: half reading books, half concentrating on the swimming children. I divided my time in half: half reading, half watching M. D joined me today – we two watched her and waved when she reached the edge of the pool. We sat close, chatting about nonsense as the heat rose.

Later, in the afternoon, D and I sat close again at our kitchen table and listened to my grandfather tell about his past, his roots. My grandparents had stopped by with the last cutting from the cactus tree in their backyard.

“The last dish of nopales for the year,” my grandmother murmured, as she watched with adoring eyes my son A eat the cactus with a man’s love of good food. The kind of love that might have spurred the saying, “The way to a man's heart is through his stomach.”

Popping open a Bud Light and taking a couple of sips first, Papa Ul then explained that his father came from Chihuaha, Mexico, and his mother from Parral, the city where Pancho Villa was first buried before being moved to Mexico City. He said said that he took a trip once with my grandmother to Parral and visited the church where his mother had been baptized. The church’s priest arranged for a letter to be drafted, detailing the names of his mother’s family members and other such details. He got the letter and pictures, too, and to this day, they sit in a box he periodically studies. The information meant much to him because he lost his mother to death when he was a teenager. "I have a similar letter," he said, "about my father and family." That, too, sits in the box which waits for him in the hall closet, near their television.

“You lived in East Los Angeles, didn’t you?”

“Yes, and I had many jobs.”

He recounts that he once worked for Sears Roebuck, packaging orders from the catalogue. “I worked in that old, old building in Downtown, Los Angeles, the one you could see from the 10 Freeway.” He remembered that he also worked for a stove company, O’Keefe & Merritt, up until the factory blew up. He recalled running like hell down a hallway and through a glass window. Then watched as the building burned to the ground. Later, he worked at a company that made battery cases. He also worked for a company that made specialized oil derricks in Los Angeles, machinery that pumped the oil in a much more efficient manner than the others at that time.

“I became good friends with the son of the owner.” He didn’t say much more about that, just smiled to himself, lost for a moment in memory.

“When had your father come to the United States?”

“He came in 1917 – first to New York, then across the north to Chicago and Minnesota and Idaho, then to Los Angeles. We lived, I was born, in East Los Angeles. For miles to the east, you could see the orange groves.”

Every so often, we’ve driven to San Pedro for lunch and in getting there from Pasadena, we have to drive across Downtown. Never fails that when we cross between the 110 and the 10 freeways, he’ll grumble over the change of the name Brooklyn Avenue to Cesar E. Chavez Avenue.

“It was Brooklyn when I was born, and Brooklyn it should have stayed,” he says.

My grandfather isn’t my biological grandfather – he married my grandmother in 1968 – but he is the only grandfather I know. He’s a bit…gruff. He lost both his parents as a teenager and he and his brother had to make it on their own. No time there to build a sentimental or tender personality. He’s always worked, he’s always made due. His last job was an importer of tequila. He walked the crates to Trader Joe’s, to the Liquor Barn, himself. He brought shot glasses and made sales to these big stores. They always bought from him, bucking their usual bulk requirements, because he was a damned good salesman.

When the clock began to inch its way to dinnertime, my grandparents gathered their things and walked slowly out our front door as we walked with them, saying our goodbyes. The sight of the two of them, my grandfather carrying a bag of returned containers, my grandmother in her hat and carrying her purse, is a familiar one - they are steady, always returning to the surface as if nothing ever happened despite their own troubles. We were grandchildren...we were not impacted by their chaos (and they certainly had it in their day) in the same way we were impacted by our parents' actions. Though the buffers are gone now, they are older and can no longer afford to be away from each other. My grandfather now refers to my grandmother when talking to me or my sister as, “Your mother,” such habit he was in when talking to my mother about my grandmother.

They climbed into their car and waited for the air conditioning to cool them off. I noticed a new dent on the side, just a small one, but black and definite. The dog sped past me, running off again, out the door, and D and the kids hoofed it after her. The heat continued though it was mild today. The kids are growing so, so fast. Our lives are in constant motion.

I found myself grateful for my grandparents’ presence in my life as they drove off…slowly, slowly down the road. They have not changed much, no matter the dips that have taken place over the years – they are always there, beyond the edge of the pool, waving, never shifting focus.

Connecting the Dots

2006-07-08T17:12:00.000-07:00

We’re off to the movies, A and I, to see “Pirates of the Caribbean,” to see Johnny Depp in all his wacky glory. Got a pair of tickets in my pocket, candy in my purse, cell phone turned to vibrate. Last week D and I saw the worst current movie on the face of the planet, a thing called, “The Break-Up.” Now, I know what you’re thinking. Why the hell would you see a movie that looked like crap in the trailers?

Because “The Devil Wears Prada” was sold out.

I really have to get on board with the online purchasing of tickets. I’m so behind the times. Today was a perfect example, actually. A and I flew across town to the multiplex, waited in line, only to learn at the window that the showing we were there for was sold out. All in 100 degree heat.

So…we’re waiting for the six o’clock showing. I’m posting while I’m waiting.

As I sit here, J chatters away, sitting on my desk. He’s not coming because he’s too involved with his friends. He wants to hang out with the neighbor kids, which is fine with me. I smile as I type, as he rattles off, “You know, those pills aren’t doing a damn thing for my tics. Fuck the pills!”

Now, I know what you’re thinking. My god, where’s the soap when you need it! Wash his mouth out! The thing is, he’s in a cursing phase. He tries out these bad words whenever he can. “Mom, can I have some goddamn eggs?”

“Hey! Did you see the shit?!”

“Now what the hell was that?”

We’re all hearing it. We all just say, “Watch your language!”

He just chuckles. The whole thing makes him laugh. Though I’m not laughing at his insomnia. He completely has his hours turned around. Up until 4, asleep until 1. It’s up to us to keep him awake now so that he’ll drop off at a reasonable hour, like 10. ‘Cause D and I so need that quiet time without the children around. They really are sucking the life out of us.

I had a long conversation with D about our lack of intimacy that’s going far beyond the sexual thing. I realized a problem when the two of us were lying on our bed and there was a perfect moment for him to reach over and touch me, give me a hug, whatever it is married people do, only he didn’t. After he woke up, he simply got up and left and I lay there in wonder. A few minutes later he was back on the bed and he did reach over…but instead of caressing me in a warm, affectionate way, he sort of rubbed the top of my head in this weird, dog-like manner.

“Woof,” I said.

Fireworks ensued. So yeah, I cornered him later that night.

“The hell? Does this satisfy you? Are you happy like this? Forget the sex, I'm talking about the three feet between us on the king-size bed.”

Then the diatribe came and he used words that I understood and I was so sad. He said to me, “The kids have dulled me to everything. When they’re not near me, all I want is to just sit there and embrace their absence. I don’t think about anything beyond that.”

I saw what he was talking about, I could understand the dullness. He left me alone to watch a movie about a girl who bashes her hand in drawers, the daughter of brilliant writers, with Ed Harris and Will Farrell, called, “Winter Passing.” A quiet, odd film that left me staring at the opening screen of the DVD, saying, “Hmmm.”

God, it’s hot outside…hotter than a motherfuck. Time to go. Need to line up so we can get decent seats to watch the drama unfold.

Update: Saw "Pirates," last night and enjoyed the visual gymnastics. Really, the pictures were pretty, Johnny Depp was perfect, but that was pretty much it. The best part of the movie was running into the ex-husband of a very good friend of mine. It was sweet to see him there with his family - a bit of a flashback to unbelievably more innocent days, before "divorce" meant anything, before the kids could ever talk back, before our parents died...before...before...before...

Last night I dreamt of opening a dress shop in a mall with some girlfriends. The thing that kept getting in my craw was the late hour we'd have to stay open, the every-day-ness of the store. I kept envisioning the long drive home after dark, kept trying to find a way out of it. The girls said, "We'll rotate the hours. Don't worry...just look at these beautiful dresses." Except the dresses weren't beautiful, they were plain, the only difference being in the color.

I think it was the late-night hummus with wheat pita bread that did me in. I might be thinking of the upcoming school year where I'll be teaching two night classes.

The Outsider

2006-07-02T15:57:00.000-07:00

Last night was warmish so we kept a window open in our bedroom. The cool night air though kept me awake, the air permeated with a skunk's bitter perfume. For hours I drifted in a half-sleep, too awake not to smell the skunk but too asleep to get out of bed to shut the window. Later, I dreamed angry dreams - my sister had taken something of mine and I hated her. We cursed one another and yelled. When I awoke, my bed was filled with little creatures, M on my one side, D on the other, and Sassy at my feet. I could barely move. I grew uncomfortably hot, stuck under the covers, limbs pinned by bodies. If I moved, I'd waken them. The dog would most likely get up and wet the carpet, M would would ask for food and television, D would rage, and my night would be over. Or worse, I'd throw everyone out of the room and I'd remain comatose until noon.

I lay still.

When I was ten, my parents sent me to an exclusive private girl's school in Pasadena that went from the fourth grade to the twelfth. From the moment I stepped onto that campus, I stuck out like a sore thumb and to this day I have no idea why. All I can figure is the girls knew something about me - perhaps they sensed an inherent vulnerability, a weakness. Perhaps they sensed I was in between worlds. Neither Mexican nor Jewish, neither rich nor poor, neither pretty nor ugly. They snickered behind my back, they shunned me at lunch. I'd get upset and sulk. I became profoundly self-conscious. I never could do anything right. I read the wrong books, I wore my hair the wrong way, I developed far too early. The girls in my class remained beyond my reach.

In order to pass the time, I followed various groups around but was never invited to be a part of them. I watched the Lesbians kissing in the bathroom and stood by as the Thieves stole the goods out of a forgotten notebook in an empty classroom. I stood in line with the Athletes to play handball, and I walked with the Ditchers to the outfield to eat sour weeds. One time I spent the night with the Short Girls, bringing the wrong kind of stuffed dog, finding the night long and painful as I endured make-believe games that didn't include me.

The only friend I had was a Polish girl who played the cello and with her own body in class. I caught her once and was fiercely embarrassed. For some reason on that day, we were sitting all over the classroom. I was one of a few who sat facing the bulk of the students. She was in the back, sitting on top of a desk and I saw her touch herself between her legs. I remember my reality dawning on me - it made sense she was the only girl willing to be my friend. I knew then why she had none. When I told her I saw her, trying to help her not be as much of an outcast as she was, she of course became angry. She spread rumors about me. Told people she and I had sex together. I was horrified because I sort of knew what sex was - I'd learned about it from a book - I assumed it was an extension of the kissing lesbians in the bathroom. She'd laugh at me openly in her newly found acceptance among her peers. She was no longer the bottom girl. The other students snickered even more. The year was agonizing.

Towards the end I'd cry in the mornings, begging my mother not to take me to school. I never told her about the Polish girl - she had a feeling though something was going on. I remember her telling me about "blackmail," asking me if someone was blackmailing me. I figured, yes, that's what it was. Of a sort. I kept the nasty situation to myself. When the year concluded, my parents relented and sent me to another private school, a smaller one. That year I spent not as much on the outside, but more on the verge of independence. I knew the following year I'd be in a public school, with hundreds of students. I couldn't wait. I bit my tongue and bided my time.

Years later in the public high school, I joined the tennis team. I wasn't very good, but I had a good time with my friends since none of us took the game very seriously. We couldn't. After all, we were at a public school. Few students could afford private tennis lessons, me included. We always lost our games. One afternoon, we were scheduled to play the same private school I'd attended when I was ten.

The day had been a hot one and we sweated buckets as we drove across town in the hired school bus. Everyone was talking, chatting, giggling - we'd lose, we knew it. Just another day. What mattered was coming home, the bike ride home. Pizza maybe at someone's house. Not for me, though. I gritted my teeth in memory of my miserable year. I wondered who I would see, if anyone. They all had their private coaches. I stared out the window as I saw the changes in the neighborhood. We left the average to less-than-average suburbs and moved into the higher end of Pasadena. Massive lawns spread in front of equally massive homes, expensive cars lined long driveways, the trees and gardens were impeccable.

We unloaded our stuff and walked to the tennis courts with their beautifully maintained green concrete and the flowering, shading shrubs covering the surrounding chain-link fences. At our school, we had black asphalt, open fencing, no shade. The courts at home were unforgiving on hot days. I was sick with nerves. Determined. I couldn't play for shit but that day I was going to be a monster on the courts. I knew it wasn't possible but it was what I wanted.

The coaches met and assigned courts to various team members. I was given one at the far end. Across from me was Tracy with her expensive racket, one of the Short Girls. There she stood, all five-foot-two of her, freckles, strawberry blond hair in a pony tail. She didn't smile at me, she barely acknowledged me. She tossed the yellow ball in the air and slammed it across the net. It hit the ground next to me, perfectly within bounds and bounced away. I stood there, grinned and shrugged. We tried again. I finally began hitting her lobs and volleyed as best I could. But I had no game, no strategy. All I did was hit hard as hell, all over the court. I watched her sweat as she ran around, huffing, exasperated, thanks to my total lack of game. She sweated profusely, her face reddening under the sun, as I watched her beat me.

By the end of our time together, she was so frustrated with my inability to play which made her unable to play that she let a few balls just fly past her. My only points. At last, having lost the match, I turned around without shaking hands as courtesy demanded and walked to the benches where my little clique was sitting. I danced a little dance, boasting my great loss to my friends, as we compared our losses, in stitches over all of our bad games. We chuckled as the rich kids sauntered by, exhausted to the core, dragging their metal rackets behind them, their pretty outfits and pony tails wilted in the extreme heat.

Thanks to us, the outsiders, they were a mess.

I brought M closer to me, kissing the top of her head. The dog raised her head and then plopped back down. From here, I heard J squeak, his usual tic. He's greatly improved with the new medication actually - he hardly makes noise now other than the occasional chirp.

Yesterday, D and I spoke of J's tics, concerned about the vocal ones coming back when he begins his music camp in August. They're stress-related - if he gets nervous he might end up hiccupping and squeaking like mad. D assured me that in the end it wouldn't matter much.

"He's got the goods - he's stylish in his own way, he's a damn good drummer, and he's funny. Kids forgive him - he's not an outsider."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. In the last week of school, some of the girls in my class were talking about him and one said, 'sure he makes some funny noises, but I don't care because he's sooooo cute!' Honey, he'll be fine."

In that moment, as I do periodically, I sort of kissed the proverbial ground that in spite of obvious differences, he's accepted by his peers. Thank god. The door creaked a little as A came in, sleepy-eyed, and collapsed on my bed next to the dog. I looked at my brood as I perspired in the darkened room, pinned in place by them. I felt a part of something wonderful, accepted. A perfect ending, really.

Up and Down, Down and Up

2006-06-26T23:11:00.000-07:00

We were riding our bikes fast down a dirt path lined with oak tree leaves, leaves that fell in autumn and will remain there until they become a part of the earth. There was a right-handed slope to the trail and my bike drifted into a gulley, making me yell out to A in front of me, “Move to the left!” My efforts were too late as his bike had drifted even further than mine did and when he hit the bottom of the hill, he finally lost control and fell hard to the ground, the wheel spinning, his leg under the core of the bike, his body sprawled in the leaves. He lay there and cried pitifully.

I jumped off my bike and ran to him, pulling his bike off him. I was concerned slightly about his ankle. I’d forgotten my cell phone and we were far away from any easy help, being well into a ten-mile hiking trail near Bonelli Park in San Dimas. We’d done most of the ride before, but never this far.

He looked up at me and just cried. He got up though and I saw there were no problems other than wounded dignity and mere minutes later we were speeding along the trail once again, up and down, whooping it on the downhill, huffing it on the uphill.

I was relieved to be there.

The past few days haven’t been good thanks to some drama affecting me – I sit here now, the day over, very sorry about a relationship that was once simple but is no longer that way. Simply put, I wanted to tag along with my brother and sister and their respective families on a weekend jaunt to the mountains when I discovered that my brother had built this annual trip into something far greater than he ever let on. He said to me, “Don’t take this personally, but I won’t go if you go.”

I was deeply hurt, taken by surprise, but I conceded. He’d been rather mean about it, both he and his wife. For weeks they'd been making jokes at my expense, saying they didn’t want me on the trip because they didn’t “like” me, saying these jokes often and as long gags, without telling me they were serious, that there was truth to their "jokes." My sister was hurt too at the awkward snub not knowing about this exclusion that he so learned to covet, that he never shared openly.

I sit here now in complete confusion. He hasn’t returned my calls, he’s not speaking to anyone, all because I thought it would be fun to spend some time with the siblings, me being free of my uptight husband and demanding kids. How fun, I thought, to kick back on the porch under the stars, chatting late into the night, glasses of wine in hand, with both Brother and Sister. This thing has turned into a nightmare.

I lost a beloved Aunt in a similar fashion – lost her to her problems, to my supposed insensitivity. We don’t speak anymore and it’s terribly painful. She won’t budge. No amount of kindness from me will bring her around. Again, she’s gone. I suppose I should look in a mirror and ask myself why. I know that the very challenging situation we have with our children has made us reclusive. I sometimes won’t call anyone for weeks and weeks simply because we’re working so hard at maintaining a schedule for the children and working so hard at keeping sanity within arm’s reach. I’m sure I’ve made bad choices in behavior. I give that I can be self-absorbed at times. I try not to be. I reach out…but I’m often pulled back into my cave with the hard work of my family life.

So…I’m confused and shocked and left speechless. My brother is someone I’m unsure of now.

I look at the time and cannot believe he has nothing to say to me. I’ve completely given him his coveted weekend – I got it, I’m over it. However, there’s obviously something more than I’m not able to grasp. If he didn’t completely disregard our childhood I’d blame it on unspoken wounds. Perhaps he’s angry at me for being an abandoning older sister. That could be true. We weren’t close as children. I bonded myself to my sister. We might have built an impenetrable wall without realizing it. We did so to protect ourselves from my parents. Perhaps…without realizing, we kept him out, too.

I don’t know what’s up or down. I do know that tonight, I’m not feeling the love. I’m feeling definite rejection, definite hostility. I’m stunned.

***

In this current low mood of mine, the mood that makes me look inwardly and into mirrors, I’ve decided that I’m tired of the celibate lifestyle. Yes, yes, I married and made all those vows about for better or worse and all that rot but really, am I expected to whittle away the last of my able years as an untouched woman? I think not.

So, I’ve decided to take on a lover. The lover should be taller than me, but at this point in my life with all my imperfections, I’m not going to be choosy. So…as long as the lover is not under 5’2” in height and is less than 5’2” across, I’m good. The lover does need to think I’m sexy – the lover should actually want to have sex with me. This is a must. If I wanted a lover who didn’t want to have sex with me, I’d continue on with the status quo.

And yeah, as you can probably tell, this relationship will be purely physical. Sure, a common interest in James Joyce and Joyce Carol Oates and films about heroin addiction would be nice, but not a requirement. I’m not interested in running away to the Dominican Republic for a quickie divorce and definitely don’t want an equally quickie marriage. NO COMPLICATIONS, that’s my new motto. I guess one could say I’m into the bootie call. My call, though. Don’t harass me for attention because I won’t give it to you if I’m distracted with the kids. But don’t ignore me either. Leaving love notes on my super-duper-secret yahoo e-mail account is fine. That I’d like.

Moving on, the lover can’t mind the bumps and softness and grey hair. He needs to find me fairly attractive – yes, the lover can want to have sex with me but he needs to be turned on by my 42-year-old self. He also can’t mind my driving impulse to call all the shots. Look, I have a busy schedule to keep. I take M to swimming lessons in the a.m., there are drum lessons for J at noontime, and bass lessons for A in the evening. We have an agreement to go swimming every day at the pool and do lots of mountain bike riding (see above). We’re also trying to teach our dog to walk like a regular dog on a leash as opposed to some crazed, wild animal, which requires walks/pulls twice a day. So far we’re making these commitments work. I’m also trying to get the family on a healthier diet, so I’ve got to be around for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Fact is, we can’t talk on the phone or chat on the computer or meet very openly for obvious reasons. Discretion is the name of the game. I think I can swing the occasional drive out to wherever the lover is on a Friday night. But it has to be at the lover's place. My house obviously is unavailable as all five of us are here...well...constantly. Can’t afford motels and can’t get caught in a car. Can’t do Saturday night because that’s the day I go out on dates with the husband.

So…I’m thinking that the best we can do is the lover e-mailing me at my yahoo e-mail account which is “sxymama4bootycall at yahoo.com”. I make no guarantees that I will respond. This will be training for the affair.

Okay, that’s my advertisement. You don’t like it, not my problem. Now…buzz off because I need to cuddle on the couch with D.

***

I’m looking up, now. I’m choosing to laugh and enjoy the muggy Los Angeles weather. Tomorrow I’ll call my grandmother, chat with the sister, watch the soaps, and fiddle with my short stories. I’ll cook for the family and vacuum the carpets and mop the floor and forgive D and myself for things beyond our control. I’ll work with Sassy and swim with the children in the cool water.

I’m tired of the pain, I'm just going to love.

Learning to Swim

2006-06-20T12:16:00.000-07:00

The mothers, fathers, and grandparents sit behind a latched gate to watch their kids in the swimming class – there are picnic tables beneath a lengthy canopy and covered bleachers. The sun doesn’t start to get hot until a half hour after nine which is why many pick the earlier swimming class. Ten to eleven is near unbearable once summer stretches into July. The shallow pool on the right is for level 1 and 2 learners. The deeper pool on the left is for the swimmers who are working on getting proficient. They can sort of swim but need practice and confidence. The teachers are all high school volunteers.

M is in the level 1 class. Putting her head underneath the water is the biggest challenge. She almost didn’t want to go to class. She’d come to my bed around 7:30 and said, “I don’t want to put my head under water. Tell the teacher I can’t put my head under the water.” I tried to assure her that the teacher already knew that and wouldn’t make her do something she didn’t want to do. But nothing I said relieved her of the worry.

She probably cannot stand the sensation of sinking, unable to take a breath, water stinging her eyes and getting up her nose and in her ears. I imagine she doesn’t take to total sensory deprivation – for the seconds she’s under water she does not know who’s behind her or next to her, she cannot see me or hear me, she cannot know what is happening in the world around her. For seconds earth and time stop…and she is at risk of losing everything. She shoots up and rubs her eyes fast and hard, looking around to see that nothing has changed. That is, when she dares to put more than her mouth into the water. Off she is now, hopping, holding hands with her classmates, singing, “Ring Around the Rosy.” When everyone else drops into the blue, she remains standing, smiling, tall and proud, determined not to go under.

Across the pool is a young, earthy-looking mother trying to convince her three-year-old to get into the water with the rest of his level 1 class. He grabs the cloth of his swimming trunks up into his tight fist and screams across the two pools. She bends down to him and offers treats and a juice and he sticks his lip out, digging in his feet, leaning against the gentle force of her pull at him, her easy push to get him to sit. She finally walks away as a teacher holds him and settles into the water. The boy cries loudly, hysterically, his call, short shocks of toddler terror. The other parents look sympathetic to the plight for a moment before pretending the boy isn’t screaming bloody murder. The mother hunches down on a bench, hoping that the father and son on the same bench block her from her son’s view. Maybe the loss of her will give him the courage he needs to swim with strangers, to face the water that the mother has warned him against his whole little life.

“Don’t go near the water!”

“Where are your floaties!?”

“Close the gate!”

“Don’t open the gate!”

“Stay away from the pool!”

“Stay out of the Jacuzzi!”

“Never get in the water without me or you’ll drown!”

The teacher gives up the fight and there they are, emerging from the pool, walking hand-in-hand back to Mom. The gate is unlatched and the boy is relieved and plops down on the concrete next to his mother. He plays with a toy while they wait for his brother to finish with his class, while the mom coos, “You’re supposed to be in the class. You can’t have your treats. Ready to try again?” The Superman figure in his hand flies over the table and he chases it down, sunk deep into his imagination.

In the meantime, M has shifted into lawyer mode – from here I see that she’s been given a green-colored “noodle”, a long flotation device, for her to hold onto as she practices her kicking. Green is unacceptable. She scoots over to a younger girl who has the pink one. M smiles and puts her hand out and seems to be chatting up the benefits of green. Suddenly the little girl smiles and they trade. M is satisfied with the deal and off she swims, kicking up a large spray of water, moving to the other side of the pool, pink…pink…pink.

As I sit there among the crowd of parents, as the sun pin-pricks my arm, I slowly lose my identity and become an anonymous parent. I am one of thousands across Southern California at this time of year whose children are getting “water-safe,” whose kids are participating in the custom of swimming classes. I think of cliché images – the duck with her chicks behind her, the birds being tossed out of nest, kids on two-wheeled bikes in parks, teens in cars for the first time in parking lots, the kindergarteners raising their hand on the first day of public school to tell their name, and many little hands grabbing onto strong legs, little beings wishing to hide from the inevitable flow of time and a future. We are part of something much bigger than us. We’re the current of a massive river, flowing over colored stones and plants and fish. If only things could stop right now…if only we didn’t have to learn to hold our breath and lose sight of all that matters to us…

I remember being ten and swimming in the Huntington Hotel’s wonderful swimming pool in Pasadena with its fancy tiles and raised rows of lounge chairs. My parents didn’t have a pool so they joined the summer club at the aged hotel. They’d drop us off at ten o'clock and pick us up at one. They’d leave us money so we could buy snacks and virgin Mai-Tai cocktails. Because the pool was so big, and because we were so “water-safe”, my mother had no problem just leaving us. This was before the days of abductions and Amber-alerts. On these fantastical days of summer, my sister and I loved to play “tea party”. We’d get as deep under the water as we could and try to sit cross-legged, opening our eyes and pretending to lift china tea cups to our lips. We’d never last, our giggling and bobbing getting the best of us. Down again we’d go. Sometimes I lasted longer than Sister did, and when she left, I’d look across the water, at the swimmers and colors and light. The noise from outside was muffled and everything was colored blue. I had learned to love that strange place that only existed for the briefest of moments.

The class nears the end and every child is tested for their learned abilities this hour. When it’s M’s turn, she dips her whole face into the water, hair loose today because I forgot the band, and she stays there through a count all the way to eleven. She pops up and wipes her eyes and smiles big.

With a crowd of other parents, I step through the gate, towel and sandals at the ready. M is in her own crowd, coming to me, her face serious. When she reaches me, she grins and puts the sandals on, letting me wrap the towel around her chilled body. She turns and says, “I put my head underwater, did you see me?”

“I did! You were so good!”

“I have class everyday?”

“Everyday for two weeks. Before long, you’ll be swimming. What a big girl.”

She walks with her Dora backpack and when we burst through the front doors, she runs across the grass, the world looking a little different to her now.

Happy Father's Day!

2006-06-18T10:49:00.000-07:00

The picture was taken two years ago and I still love it - it's quintessential D and M.

Today, a breakfast with cereal and coffee, running shoes and a Tommy Bahamas shirt, cards, World Cup Soccer on the "big T.V.", and later, a Disney movie with lots of kids and popcorn. I couldn't help but giggle from the bed late last night when I heard cursing and water running as D fought with sinks that had backed up. Life.

Happy Father's Day to all the blogger Dads!

Slacker Times Begin

2006-06-15T17:47:00.000-07:00

School's out for the kids.

M took a long nap in the afternoon. J spent the time skateboarding, but now he's on the couch with a Diet Coke and "Boy Meets World" reruns. A is playing the "Cars" videogame with a neighborhood kid in his room, D is reading, I'm here, but I was watching a really low-budget action film with C. Thomas Howell on near-mute while chatting with my sister, while kicking back on my bed with M sleeping next to me.

The weather is lovely, Southern California bliss.

Time clicks by slowly.

Tomorrow we'll be attending the graduation from the University of California at Irvine of our dear babysitter. She came to us when she was fourteen - we were her first official babysitting employers. I don't think she ever worked for anyone else. We have loved her all these years - for a younger sibling, for a girl who never had babies to care for, she's the most reliable caretaker I know. She can watch six kids without flinching. She's brilliant (a valedictorian in high school and cum laude at college), independent (when everyone told her she should be a doctor because she could, she chose film studies), and will be phenomenal in whatever she chooses to do. I'm so proud of her...and am kissing the sky that she's still willing to watch my wild children.

A wants us to barbecue steak - I need to cook the cobs of corn that sit on the counter waiting to be shucked - Sassy has a chunk of M's hair in her mouth as they play on the floor, getting M to giggle, a sound that carries throughout the house.

"God darnit," she curses, running down the hall, waving a chewed-up sock in her hand, calling A's name.

Ahhh...school's out.

The Weight Game

2006-06-14T11:57:00.000-07:00

The thing with a sponsor is that you're supposed to call them before you do the bad thing. My sister and I act as each other's food sponsor, except contrary to tradition, we call each other after the bad thing has been done.

"I ate a BLT chicken sandwich from McDonalds...with the crispy chicken and fries. And a Diet Coke."

"Yeah, I hear ya', sister, I crawled my way through dust and sick children and toys and one very big black Labrador to get at the Doritos. The Extra Cheesy kind."

"One small dish won't hurt you."

"Who said it was one small dish? We're talking a half-bag...of the Family Size."

"Ahhh...a Sam's Club special."

"That's the one."

"Just say no, the next time you want to get into the bag."

"And for you...just don't order fries. At least you ordered a diet coke with lunch and not a chocolate shake. Oh wait...did you mooch off M's shake?"

"Two sips."

"Penance...we work it off this afternoon. You take the dog, I’ll bike ride with Izzy in the carrier."

"We can’t – AH has microplasmic pneumonia and M has strep throat. Maybe I'll wait for the boys to come home from school then go. After the homework. After A's inevitable breakdown over some transgression by J."

"Okay, tomorrow we exercise. What are you making for dinner?"

"Hamburgers."

"Sounds good. Maybe I'll take a quick spin to the market. Get some blue cheese - always good on burgers."

"Hmmm...reminds me. I should stock up on the ice cream. The kids are going through it now that it's hot."

We'll have to change our system.

Disclaimer: I'm exaggerating the subject of our conversation. Actually, my sister and I have been on a mission to filter out the junk food from our diet. We have a good jumping point - our kids have always snacked on vegetables: cucumbers, tomatoes, red cabbage, and salad. They do have a weakness however to grab chips when they're starved (and so do I). They've learned the guilty pleasure of eating chips out of the bag while in front of the T.V. I've tried to change the habit by making them use a Tupperware cereal bowl for chips instead. M and A are pretty good at that - J rejects the method. We're also working on dropping the sodas, preferring low-fat milk or natural juice. A has been good about it, so has M, J rejects the shift, always pulling out a soda or two. Now, I could simply not buy the bad stuff, but I've always been an advocate of moderation not abstinence, believing that absence makes the heart grow fonder. So we're trying to work with less rather than none.

For me...I've been all right about the adjustment but not over the past week thanks to A's birthday party. D brought many bags of chips much to the delight of my happy junk-food-eating-self. We had left-overs! My problems date back to being a skinny teenager and young adult. I could eat anything without gaining weight. When I got married at a young 26, I weighed 125. Then I had my first child and things have never been the same. The third child just pushed me over the fence, you know? Now...145. I can't seem to go below 140. Sometimes I'll drop to 138...but that doesn't last long. And that's all with decent eating.

Another difficulty is the exercise thing. In truth, I'm not committed to exercise because I don't like to exercise. The only thing I enjoy is bike riding and that's a rarity because it requires that I leave the house alone for more than an hour and I really can't do that all too often, not with my battling, challenging darlings of my life. I'm hoping to pick up the riding again next week when there's no homework, when D's home, when we're not up to our ears in junk food leftovers.

As a note, I have been trying high-energy yoga. That's not too bad. When I can get to it.

Back to food. Part of the trouble is that food's meaning has changed for me, as I've mentioned before. When I was younger, food served two purposes: (1) prevented death by starvation; (2) served as the centerpiece to social interaction. Today, I look to food for comfort, as a reward after a hard-day's work, as entertainment, as something very pleasurable, for social interactions, and...to prevent death by starvation. The role of food has so expanded in my life that I turn to it far more often than before which...increases the inches and pounds and...

So I cry. I cry over my inability to gain control over what clearly is a problem. Some say, 145 isn't bad! Better than 175! Or 200! Yeah...but it's not good, not for me, not with my...er...curvaceous tendencies. My 145 tends to look like 160.

I’m whining, aren’t I? Whining and doing nothing to resolve the issue.

I’m writing this with a Diet Coke to my side, sitting. Wishing I smoked. ‘Cause cigarette smoking cuts down in the calorie intake. Maybe I should order those diet foods advertised on T.V. with the free week of foods delivered to my door? Or the diet supplements or the diet pills that make people go from pudgy to six-pack abs in mere weeks? Or get that workout machine for only $69.95 a month for five years!

Well, I should go. I need to order pizzas for tonight for the kids and their friends.

Fiction: Relevance

2006-06-09T20:57:00.000-07:00

The kids called him Suicide. There wasn’t a lot of imagination that went into the name. See, the minister’s son really did commit suicide. During the spring break of his high school senior year he lifted a 12-guage shotgun, aimed it at his chest, and pulled the trigger. The blast cut him in two and left a cascade of blood on the back porch of his parents’ Pasadena bungalow especially for them to find.

I remember him as Richard. He shuffled along the sides of filled hallways and ate peanut butter sandwiches alone on the bleachers with Star Trek novels for entertainment. Bad acne and a lanky build made for a tendency to trip over his size 13 feet. He always wore grey slacks and collared shirts. He must have owned ten sets of the same outfit because he never wavered from the uniform. Not good for self esteem in the early 80’s where preppy was significantly more…stylish. His father preached from a local Baptist pulpit before Christianity was cool.

Richard tried drama in the fall of his tenth grade year. Played Charlie Brown in “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown.” We all attended because the school play was a main social focus, ranked third in importance behind the Homecoming football game and the Senior Prom. The depressive Charlie Brown with the beaming smile fit him perfectly in spite of the bad skin. He moped around the stage and sang in key and towered over the rest of the cast. He was weird enough that I developed a fascination with him. I loved Peanuts cartoons, having discovered them in a Bluejay bookstore, near Big Bear, on vacation with my parents when I was in the third grade.

To me, he embodied Charlie Brown.

I was his ninth-grade Lucy.

Beginning the first Monday morning after the play, I followed him around campus as much as I could and recorded notes about him in my black-and-white composition notebook. “CB walked to the bathroom twice today. The jam in his sandwich looked red instead of purple. His shoes were scuffed. He sneezed so hard at lunch he blew snot all over his sweater. Today, he wore the blue sweater with the college emblem. His acne is worse than ever.” Months it went on. I had a hundred pages of notes.

One spring day he caught me staring at him during Mrs. Tolbert’s mixed doubles tennis. I was waiting for my turn to play, sitting on a bench with the notebook at my side. He came up to me and grabbed the notebook out of my hand. I was mortified.

“Who’s CB?” he demanded after flipping through some of the pages, white shorts and yellow t-shirt (representative of our school team, the Bumblebees) too tight on his skinny body. They had to be hand-me-downs.

“Nobody you know,” I said.

“You’re a freak. You know that, don’t you?”

“Pot…meet kettle.”

I sidled up to him, craning my neck to get a good look up his nostrils. He snorted like a bull and shoved the notebook against my bulbous chest, pushing me far back. I collapsed back on the bench, immediately pulling out my pen to write of the interaction.

Mrs. Tolbert screamed my name to get onto court three, causing me to jump. My words got jumbled. She yelled Richard’s name and much to our horror, we were made partners.

“You’ve gotta be kidding,” he muttered.

I thought his arrogance was amazing considering how bad he looked and how wrong a fit he was for our average, checker-board high school. He should be moping on stage, I thought. He should be at the performance arts high school where students learn to sing and dance and act instead of the usual stuff. Richard had talent. I wanted to tell him, but his affront prevented me from offering the compliment.

The tennis game went badly. I kept missing the ball, I couldn’t serve worth beans, and I kept crashing into my partner. He panted and cursed under his breath and finally at the end, threw his tennis racket across the court, the racket skipping and sliding along the black tar. At the top of his lungs, he belted, “You’re an idiot!”

He stormed off to the boys’ lockers.

Appalled, I marched across the court and grabbed my notebook, sitting on the bench and writing, “Mrs. Tolbert is an evil servant of Satan. She paired me with CB and I discovered that he has a bad temper. She should have helped keep that trait hidden. The real CB gets frustrated but never throws rackets.”

Three days in a row we had to play together due to the racket-throwing incident. I never improved but we did get into a groove. I would simply step aside while he hit the ball the entire time. We won most of the matches that way. He didn’t speak to me the rest of the week.

I thought I’d never interact with Richard again. I’d accepted that. I was satisfied to resume my observations of him. Unfortunately, Mrs. Tolbert thought we made such a good pair at mixed doubles that she continued to pair us throughout the following week. After a particularly exhausting match in which I had to sidestep more than fifty lobs in typical Pasadena ninety-degree, smoggy heat, I offered to get him a cold soda from the school canteen.

“You paying for it?”

“If you don’t have any money.”

Shrugging a shoulder after a moment or two, he agreed. “I don’t have any money,” he said.

When I returned, he took the generic coca cola with a huffy attitude. I attributed it to the soaring temperature.

“What’s it like being a minister’s son?”

He looked sideways at me, asking, “What’s it like being a freak?”

I got brave, thinking he needed my sympathy, thinking I was being a good person to befriend the friendless. “You were really good in Charlie Brown. You should think about doing community theater.”

He snarled, “I’d rather slit my throat.”

In complete shock, I plopped down on the bench next to him. “What do you mean? You were in your element up there on stage. Your singing was the singing of angels, you were sublime. You’ve got more talent in your little toe than any of those other hacks on stage with you.”

He looked at me sideways, letting out a slow tongue-against-teeth whistle. “I’m your CB. You’re following me around.”

Grinning, I purred, “You are Charlie Brown incarnate. I am Lucy.”

He sucked down the soda and threw the can in the trash. He stood up, all six foot two of him. “Being a minister’s son,” he said, “is much like being a freak. We have our missions that have been handed down to us from a place that only exists based on faith. We have purpose that’s greater than we are. We venture into the great beyond, passing the word to our fellow man from on high. We are…relevant.”

“Oh yessss,” I murmured, my blood on fire, my limbs spaghetti. I was in love. I was in heat.

He stepped back at the raging furnace of my being and turned around to head to the lockers. I called after him and he put up his hand to shut me up. I dug through the trash and collected the soda can he’d drunk from. I breathed in the air from the empty hull that only moments before had been filled with cola nectar touched by his saliva. I ran my tongue up and down the sides of the can, willing to risk a slicing just to taste the sweat from his hands. Hoofing it to the bathroom, I locked myself in a bathroom stall so I could strip down and touch my body until I was exploding in orgasmic energy, slamming down onto the toilet to regain my footing.

I wanted to be with him, I wanted to be inside of him so I could course through his veins and slide through his heart and swish around in his belly like Jonah and the whale.

The next day he scuffled away from me when I reached for his hand during the passing period.

I wrote in a fever, “CB is running away from his love of me. He wears a purple sweater with a monogram that reads RS. He has new shoes. The Star Trek novel is stuck in his back pocket, pressing up against his ass. He threw away his sandwich in the trash and I ate it. Bologna. Very different from peanut butter. Strife perhaps has hit his home.”

The semester ended without getting so much as one word from Richard. I snuck into his church one Sunday to see him sing in the choir. He opened his mouth and pure heaven came from the depths of his soul. Being Jewish, I wasn’t familiar with any of the hymns. As he sang, I felt every cell of my body come alive. I got on my knees and put my hands in the air, grateful for every note that hit me. When the singing was over, he saw me and grinned. Mouthed the words, “We are relevant.”

The entire next year I spent in a psychiatric hospital for delusions, I was told. They did not understand love. They misinterpreted the slashing of my wrists for suicide. What they did not realize was that I was sending a love-gram to Richard – I was spilling my blood a la Christ, admittedly an over-the-top, dramatic display of my devotion. They took my notebooks. My parents were told that I had developed an unhealthy fascination for the fictional character, Charlie Brown.

When I returned to campus for my junior year, I learned that Richard had gone to a private school. When I learned that he’d committed suicide following spring break, I wore a hooded sweatshirt in mourning. I wrote in my notebooks. I spoke to nobody and refused to do homework for one week. I ate nothing but peanut butter sandwiches sloshed with grape jelly and layered with bologna.

When my English teacher asked me to write an expository essay on the definition of symbolism, I wrote over and over and over, “We are relevant.”

6-6-6

2006-06-06T17:04:00.000-07:00

The year was 1985 and Los Angeles’ Night Stalker haunted our dreams and waking hours. Once the sun set, once the moon rose, my brother stood watch in our parents’ bedroom of our Pasadena home, holding the orange-tinted sheer curtains aside, looking for a very real serial killer. The thirteen killings of the hard-working suburbanites were bloody, brushed with satanic symbolism and sexual in nature, perfect to feed intense media speculation and public paranoia. Living mere miles from several of the murder sites (Eagle Rock, Glendale, Monterey Park, Whittier) my parents, siblings and I would sit around the dinner table, listening to the television news reports for the latest clue regarding the curious pattern of the Stalker.

There was the idea that the murders took place in homes near freeway exits, and then the killer might have focused on homes painted yellow. Our house was about a mile, maybe more, from the 210’s San Gabriel exit and was painted white with green shutters so we felt somewhat protected. But those suggestions were just that: suggestions. One never knew if a house was vulnerable. The crimes themselves varied. There were shootings, stabbings, and rapes. The victims were just as varied, the ages ranging from 84 to 8. As outsiders not exposed yet to FBI profiling and CSI methods of identification now popular, we couldn’t possibly know what was in the killer’s terrifying mind.

An early survivor of the Night Stalker saw enough to help create a crime artist’s rendering. We had a face to focus on, a devil’s face with the dark eyes, cut cheekbones, and black, longish hair. This man was easy to envision breaking into houses, cutting the owners up, leaving lipstick pentagrams on the walls. We saw him everywhere. In the supermarket, at the post office, in the car next to us. We knew this man.

The real break came towards the end of the Stalker’s run, from a series of victims who were able to provide a better physical description of the man and his orange Toyota, along with his license plate. The car was found abandoned. A fingerprint was gathered which lead to mug shots from previous crimes that would be publicized. Now we knew positively what the killer looked like.

So much so that when Richard Ramirez was on the move through an East Los Angeles neighborhood, he was spotted and physically attacked by a throng of anxious urbanites. The Spanish-speaking crew brought him down and brought him down hard. He was found cowering and beaten, the police having to protect him from a near-lynching. The next morning, the Los Angeles Times ran a photo of the scared Ramirez as he was put into the police unit. An aunt of mine said later, “You know, with guilt I say, he was kind of sexy.”

She wasn’t the only one to think so. In the years that followed, Ramirez developed a real following of women, receiving wedding proposals, money, countless offers of love. In 1998, he received the ultimate gift: the death penalty. Los Angeles could breathe again. We could sit now in peace until the next paranoia-inducing event, such as the air crash over Cerritos which set off a paranoia about mid-air collisions.

Today, I was reminded of those days when I read that Ramirez is seeking a new trial based on the lack of competence by his first lawyers. The timing of the article was rather…coincidental, being that today is the sixth day of the sixth month of the sixth year of the millennium, 6-6-6. The article claims the lawyers were too new to provide an adequate defense. One might think so considering Ramirez pretty much received the heaviest punishment with no mitigation. On the other hand, as his former lawyer, Arturo Hernandez, said in the article, “But we did it pro bono. Didn't get a penny. For free, I think we did a hell of a good job.” Well, I suppose one could argue that you get what you pay for.

In the meantime, while we wait for the results of the Ramirez effort, on this day, I’ll be sure to lock my windows and doors and keep an eye out for the ghosts in the shadows, for the devil walking my quiet suburban street.

Picture of Darren McGavin from: The Night Stalker

Picture of Richard Ramirez from: All Serial Killers

Death by Cuteness

2006-06-05T15:29:00.000-07:00

We attended M’s ballet recital on Saturday afternoon, a show focused not on skilled turns but on profound cuteness. When the first group of four-year-old ballerinas tiptoed onto the bright stage in their blue, chiffon tutus, tears welled in my eyes and I thought I would die from the cuteness factor. In a line the girls swayed and stepped and looked at one another for guidance, finally following their teacher's movements as she stood to the side. The audience clapped at every twirl, at every tiny jump. The babies (because they’re still babies at four) did so well considering they were at the Duarte Performing Arts Center, in front of a significant audience. Of the forty children, only two cried, one from stage fright, the other a kindergartener who slipped and hurt her stocking-covered leg.

M slid out from behind the curtains several numbers later, hand in hand with her best friend, skipping around the stage and smiling surprisingly huge. I was taken aback at how comfortable she seemed because she tends towards shyness. She is so shy that she cried over attending the last rehearsal, saying she didn't want to go on stage. Not so on Saturday. In fact, her constant smile made me wonder if she has a bit of a “star” in her. Not that I have any desire to be a stage mother, but I was so happy to see that she showed no nervousness, no hesitation. She was all joy up on that stage, completely the opposite of her mother. She didn’t remember all the steps, but that didn’t bother her in the least. Two dances she had (all the kids had two), and later she told me she liked the second one best, the quicker paced “Greased Lightening”. She said she loved the “shaking” of her body to the beat, the hand movements, and the skipping, too.

At the very end D, along with the many, many family members of the other dancers, rushed the stage to give a pink rose bouquet to her sweet, smiling self. The morning had been a warm one, over a hundred degrees but I was basking in the coolness of my daughter who maybe will always be brave under harsh light of watchful eyes.

That evening we celebrated A’s 9th birthday at a Mexican restaurant in Pasadena, his favorite, with my sister and her family. Sunday brought a kiddie birthday party in La Verne, near Pomona. And today? Registering for swim lessons, ordering an ice cream birthday cake, and lunch at the Vault with M in Glendora. We had the finest conversation, mainly revolving around the interests of Barbie and her friend Crystal.

“I will be learning to swim, Barbie?” M asked in her most sophisticated voice.

“Oh yes, Crystal. You’ll be in a big pool with a teacher.”

“But I won’t be putting my head under water until I’m eight, Barbie.”

“Not until then?”

“I’m not a grown up yet. When I’m eight, I’ll be ready, Barbie. Will you be taking swimming lessons, too?”

“Oh definitely, Crystal. I’ll be learning to dive. There’s nothing like going hands-and-head first into a cold pool!”

“Especially on a hot day, Barbie!”

Stopping to smell the orange blossoms...

2006-06-01T08:45:00.000-07:00

Finally back online this morning. For the entire day yesterday, I had no connection to the internet. Couldn't read my favorite blogs or e-mail, couldn't screw around with my college's online course I'm on the waiting list for, couldn't read the news or play online scrabble. My god, my life had ceased! In truth, I didn't miss it as much as I once might have.

The bulk of the day was spent with my middle son, attending a field trip to our City Hall and museum. Because the trip was local, the cost of a school bus wasn't an option. $700 is far out of the question thanks to the skyrocketing insurance costs. So we used the public buses. Picture forty, squirmy third-graders with two teachers and six parents, all waiting for the bus in 90 degree heat, then getting on. I tell you, regular bus riders had the gamut of expressions ranging from eye-rolling impatience, to reflective sweetness (the homeless guy...it was either sweetness or he was a child molester), to amusement. The bus drivers get a lot of credit – they were unbelievably gracious having to give our passes, work out the fares (or not – by the time the last of the adults were getting on, I don’t think they were counting anymore), all despite having their time schedule to keep.

I couldn’t remember the last time I took a city bus anywhere. The last public transportation I used was in Washington D.C. and New York City, two years ago. In the Los Angeles suburbs, public transport use is dominated by the long distance business commuters that really have someplace to go and the hoppers who have no place to go. In fact, riding the bus seemed to be the occupation of the some of the passengers.

When we first got on, a man appearing to be in his forties, with raggedy black trainers and overly large plastic frame glasses, with nondescript slacks and t-shirt, jumped to our assist with our upcoming transfer. He knew which corner the bus we needed would be (the southwest corner), he knew the time of the stop (we were cutting it close) and the next time it would come by if we missed it (in thirty minutes). Even though my son’s teacher had the itinerary, I could tell she was glad to hear it from an insider. Walking that many kids from school grounds to the bus stop took time, the line of children kept separating as they discovered things around them (sticks, leaves, stuff on each other like backpacks, cameras, pocket toys), and then again, getting on the bus, delayed us even further. The man sat close the driver and watched the kids with peaked curiosity.

We tried to get all the children on seats in order to lessen the chances of injury – you definitely have to hang on to something if you’re going to be standing because those buses really lurch when the driver puts on the brakes. I had to laugh at the stiff sitting of the passengers who ended up next to the two or three kids small enough to squeeze into one seat. They hardly breathed lest they touch a coutie-ridden kid.

I have no doubts at the audible sigh of relief when we unloaded at our destined stop.

The tour of the city hall was interesting – the children were divided into small groups led by various docents. While most were of retirement age, ours was younger, a worker at our local camera shop. He gave an excellent tour, kept the children intrigued and gave me some food for thought about oranges being that such was the San Gabriel Valley’s main crop back during the founding years of Southern California.

He told a story of his grandmother who lived back east. One Christmas remained in her memory all her life, the Christmas where she received as a gift one navel orange from Southern California’s Sunkist Oranges. One orange. The children laughed at the story but of course didn’t understand the larger idea behind the story. They eat oranges all the time, orange juice, orange popsicles, orange Kool-Aid, orange Skittles. Orange, orange, orange. They simply couldn’t fathom the treasure of the orange. Later, the museum curators explained how the local folks never got to taste the most luscious oranges, the sweetest, because those were always shipped. The locals only ate seconds, the rejects from the packing houses.

“The best oranges were too valuable. You wouldn’t use it, or eat it, you’d sell it.”

So the grandmother remembered that one amazing orange.

As I watched the kids toss about balls in the park after eating their sack lunches before we hit the buses home, my son’s voice echoed in my head about what he wanted for his upcoming birthday. A video game, a PSP, more Nerf missiles for his toy “gun”, a radio control car, etc. Where was the orange? This birthday will come and go and will fade into his tangle of memories. It will most likely disappear.

In our society today, in modern, American society, is there any orange to give?

Tonight will be J’s band performance at school. Saturday will be M’s ballet recital. Sunday is a birthday party to attend with M for a school friend. Then the week will start all over. I’m glad the internet is up and running again, glad to be online again. Just another week…eh?

The only good thing about the stomach flu...

2006-05-29T11:13:00.000-07:00

...is weighing yourself the next morning. Like instant diet! Not quite worth the effort, which is why I never could become a bulemic (correction...that's bulimic) or anorexic, but it's nice to see a lower number that would have normally taken weeks to accomplish...lol! Now the trick is to keep it there...and work on the target number.

So we've recovered. I actually misspoke, or rather, I was writing in shorthand, about who was sick when. The first to get sick was A who became ill Thursday morning. I picked his puking self up from school and proceeded to sanitize the house while corralling him to his room and the boys' bathroom. I cleaned often. I sprayed with Lysol whenever I could. I cared for my sick child who threw up like ten times before collapsing into sleep the rest of the day and night. He was fine the next morning. He was playing. Saturday rolled around. Nobody was sick. Whooo! I thought the risk was over. The one-time deal. J played with a friend. The babysitter came over. D and I were off to dinner and the movies.

I did notice though, right before leaving, that I wasn't very hungry. I slipped into a state of denial.

While D and I ate at our local BBQ place (I did notice that neither of us ate very much - more denial), the sitter took the kids out for burgers. They all ate happily. They watched t.v., skateboarded outside and played on the computer. J had said though he wasn't feeling all that great and spent much of the time on the couch with the remote control in his hand. More denial. The sitter was sitting with M while she drew some pictures, sitting happily until M threw up over the dog in the park with the purple-red skies. Within a few minutes, J was running down the hall to the boys' bathroom to toss his cookies.

The sitter called us while D and I were at the very end of Mission Impossible III. The phone call came (the cell was on vibrate mode you cell phone haters!). We took off without catching the end, just as my stomach did a turn and caffeine seemed to be coursing through me. I definitely had something. When we got home, the toilets and one sink was plugged (as M was sitting on a chair in front of the sink, crying). We pushed the sitter out of the house with fair warning and apologies for thinking our one shot with A on Thursday was it. Still haven't had word on whether she's sick. Not sure I will hear as I told her please don't tell me, I'll feel even more horrible!

So...while D was clearing out the plumbing, I moved M into our room with a pan, and moved J to his room with a pan. Luckily, he just knocked off to sleep. A went to sleep, happy that he wasn't sick. In fact, he was having quite a good time following D around tending to the sickies and helping with the plumbing.

D slept on the couch. So while M was puking into the pan, I was puking in the master bathroom. Which was horrible - because I could hear my poor child crying and puking while I was spitting the remnants. Can I say horrible again?

This lasted until 2 or so. At the end, my poor daughter was waking up and turning slightly to throw nothing but bile while I held the pan. Then she'd roll right back over and resume her sleep as if nothing happened. In fact, I suspect she doesn't really remember those last heaves. She'll make a great sorority member.

At five in the morning, D staggered into my room, asking for the compazine.

"Honey, the pill won't do a thing for you."

It held him for three hours. Then he proceeded to get sick every half hour until about 2 in the afternoon.

Throughout the rest of the day, D and I laid about the house like beached whales while the kids ran amok. Nobody to cook for them, nobody to break up the fights, nobody to serve their every whim.

"Get turkey out of the fridge. Have some chips. A popsicle would be good. No, even better, just eat the Halloween candy that's in the cupboard....just...just...zzzzzzzzz."

Today, we're alive and kicking. Still not as good as should be, but enough to clean sheets, wipe down counters, write some e-mail, make sandwiches, rest in between spurts. The kids are fine, super fine.

Ahhh...so much for our long weekend.

When it Rains it Pours

2006-05-28T09:30:00.000-07:00

We've got the stomach flu - all five of us. This has never happened before! OY! Be back soon.

Quickly

2006-05-25T00:18:00.000-07:00

Quickly, before sleep, I write this.

I've a cold and am sitting on the couch with a blanket and a towel-as-handkerchief because I'm using too many tissues. Not the most sterile thing to do, but I kept thinking, "a penny a tissue," and had to stop even though we just spent many pennies on you-know-what passes, the DVD of M's upcoming ballet recital, portraits of our little ballerina and her fellow ballerinas, her big costume, and a rose bouquet to give her at the end of the recital, even though I know she'll be falling all over herself with shyness.

Had a long conversation with J's doctor at $250 per hour to talk about anti-psychotics (Abilify) to ease his vocal tics that have become painfully disruptive at school. Kids tell him to be quiet which makes J angry which causes him to tell them to shut the fuck up which gets him in trouble with the teacher which upsets his father since his father teaches at the same school which upsets J and aggravates the tics even more so. He's breaking my heart when he says to me, as he walks past into the garage to get a soda, no, it's less a saying to me and more an agonized groan, "I hate these tics, Mom. Why do I have to have them?" The door slams shut because it's on a spring. The door slams shut and it breaks my heart because he's beyond my help. Tics can't be loved away, the moods can't be kissed away, there is nothing I as his mother can do to alleviate the actual, physical problem. The door has slammed shut and I cannot see him or hear him, just as it is in the morning when the car door slams shut and he walks onto campus where I cannot help.

So I talk anti-psychotics with his $250 per hour doctor that Blue Cross won't pay for since he's "off the plan," since the best doctors stay, "off the plan." I talk side effects that mimic Parkinson's disease which is why he'll not just have the Abilify but an anti-Parkinsonian medication to prevent any possible muscle reactions.

"The important point is that all of these rare possible side effects are completely treatable. The one that leads to death can be stopped immediately in any emergency room that is equipped to treat a heart attack."

My soap operas are boring today and I delete them off the DVR. Hey, I say to myself, I'm done with the semester at last. Dance a jig. Dance a fast, bouncy jig. Finished grades early and I'm glad for it. How funny that for three semesters in a row, the moment I'm done I get sick with a cold or flu or sinus-thing. No dancing tonight.

Still dealing with A's intense irritability. He's a different person, an unrecognizable child, not MY A that I KNOW when he stands at the sliding glass door, about to go outside, refusing to do one colum of spelling words, when he stands there and scowls ugly and says, "No, I won't do it and I guess you'll just have to take away everything first because I'm just so stupid, huh? HUH?" That angry sarcasm is not the child I've known for eight years. He's a different boy from the one who cuddles with me later on my bed as we both read a new fantasy book about dragons and kings and Shadow Lords, as he kisses my arm and asks me to give his arm a tickle. I wonder how to learn to love this new boy in my house.

"Increase the medication," the doctor says at $250 per hour because he's the best that's out there.

I sit on the couch thinking about food. Thinking the cereal with pecans was good, but a small dish of leftover Chinese food would be better as would a sweet pickle or maybe some chips and salsa with extra salt because why weigh just 145 when I could shoot for 160? Forget it, I'll just suck on a square of mint chocolate while I down a cup of Cold Alka Seltzer. Maybe I'll follow up with a banana and milk to get rid of the lemony taste.

Exercise? Yoga? I watch a recorded show from FIT TV, watch the man lift the weights and dance about the mat and watch the "easy" way, thinking I'll get up and exercise, but then I hit the mute button because M is calling out for me, no, no, it's not M, it's J and his tic has started now that he's awake. I put the TV back on and sink back into the couch to watch yoga being done by a pretty Island woman in scarves. It looks easy and I'm thinking the night cold medicine is kicking in as is my very last Vicodin, the one I've been saving for when I needed it most.

I'll have to call a doctor to get a new prescription to ease all those slamming doors and waiting food.