Second-guessing life choices...sort of/not really

It's that time of year again--the time when teachers post their "back-to-school" photos or comments stating that this is their 18th year in the classroom or their 12th year at School X and 24th year teaching in general.

This is also the time of year when I think to myself, "This MIGHT HAVE BEEN my ____ year."

[For the record, had I not taken an extended break from full-time work, I would be starting my 23rd year.]

Mostly, seeing these posts makes me feel bad because it means that in 4 years I could RETIRE from teaching, and that probably isn't the best attitude to have, especially since I haven't worked full-time as a teacher in 19 years. The only reason I have regret is because I would want to be almost done with a job that I haven't wanted to do full-time in the first place. 

And this just seems....dumb (in addition to confusing). 

So it is also at this time of year when I have to do what a lot of people do: I have to give myself a good talking to in response to stuff I see on social media. 

The talking to goes like this:

First, you didn't want to try to be the mom you wanted to be and the teacher you wanted to be because you felt pretty certain it would drive you crazy to not give yourself fully to either one. That is water LONG under the bridge so would you puhlease get over it. 

Second, you created this weird life of sorta teaching, sorta writing, sorta editing and have a bunch of hobbies and interests and you would have to give ALL of that up if you went back full-time. You spent time with your kids while they were growing up, and now you're spending time with your parents who are growing old. 

[To soothe your ego, here is a reminder of the things you've done: 13 years as a freelance writer, 11 years at the cottage school, 7 years as a substitute teacher, edited several books for people who have been published, editor at online literary magazine, soon-to-be published in an anthology. There do you feel better now?]

Third, you ABHOR meetings. The best part of the teaching you do is that you can avoid these. Same with your writing work. Minimal meetings is key. 

After the lecture I feel better and am able to go about my life doing what I have chosen to do. 

Until next August when we do this again.

A decade of freelancing

While I don't do new year resolutions or get jazzed about celebrating what is an arbitrary "time change" event, I do recognize that within our human-imposed calendar we have milestone events that we recognize.
Birthdays, for example.

I do celebrate birthdays (mostly other people's birthdays), and I give a passing nod to anniversaries, too.

This year, 2020, marks a decade of freelancing for me.
I didn't ever intend to be a freelancer.
I didn't go "looking for it."
It was pure accident.
I saw an opportunity and thought, "What have I got to lose?"

In my first year of freelancing, I wrote three articles, and only one was paid.
I made $50 for it, which was fine because I was just so excited to have my name in print.
At the time, I was knee-deep in baby- and toddler-care, so to use my brain in a way that allowed me some quiet alone time and made me feel intellectual was huge.

Now, since the freelancing is still part-time, I write around 70 articles a year.
I've branched into more advertising-type work.
My pay has increased, too.

Opportunities have presented themselves in which I edit others' work.
Opportunities have presented themselves in which I train other writers.

Freelancing has made me a better English teacher.
Not every English teacher gets paid for their writing, and I'd venture to say most don't.
When I think about going back to teaching full-time, I know I'd have to give up my freelancing, and I really don't like that idea.
My freelancing feeds my teaching and vice versa.

One of my favorite things about freelancing is the serendipitous way in which it happened and how that one thing created a cascade of openness to other serendipitous opportunities that have brought me a tremendous amount of pleasure and growth. 

Why I don't write fiction

Each week, I give my cottage school students a writing prompt to begin class.

Sometimes these prompts relate to the text we're reading, and sometimes they are just fun and creative.
I have found that the weirder the prompt, the better. My students don't seem to like a run-of-the-mill, "Write about your future goals" or "Write about your best vacation" prompt.

I search the Internet widely for prompts and ran across this one this morning. It is a line of dialogue, and students were instructed to write a short story around this dialogue: Sir (or Madam), we all have cats we'd rather be at home playing with.

As a college professor once more or less told me: You're a great writer, but your ideas suck. He said it nicer, and he said it about only one particular writing piece I wrote, but in general, I agree with him.

I don't have good ideas.

Here is proof.
This is a very short "story" I wrote this afternoon while my students were composing their stories.
I read mine at the end.
Suffice it to say, my students weren't impressed.

FYI: If you read the professor's dialogue with a fake German or Austrian accent, I think it makes it better.

“I shouldn’t have to say this to my teacher,” I thought.

I had thoughts like that a lot. Thoughts about what an irresponsible teenage human should not have to say to someone who should be a responsible adult human. It was a role-reversal I never wanted nor asked for.

“Madam, we all have cats we’d rather be home playing with,” I said. “But you have to teach today. There’s just no way around it.”

“But Snoopsie and Moopsie and Diffenschmutz miss me terribly when I’m not there,” she sighed. “They mew and lament, their tales hanging between their legs, no feline enthusiasm at all when I pack my bag to leave.”

I didn’t know if it was possible for my eyes to roll permanently back in my head, but given how frequently it happened nowadays, I had begun to worry. 

“Snoopsie, Moopsie, and Diffenschmutz will be fine,” I assured her. “Don’t you pay someone to check on them?”

“Yes. I pay Patricia’s Puss Playpals $1000 a week to come give my babies their lovings,” she said.

“1,000 dollars a week!!!!!  Are you daft?” I yelled.

“I am a professor of astrophysics, and I understand concepts about this universe that you couldn’t even begin to wrap your puny little brain around. Please do not patronize me!  My grimalkins are my world, and if I want to pay $5,000 a week for their care, I will,” she screeched.

“Wait, $5,000? You said $1,000!” I replied.

“$1,000 is for playtime. I spend $2,000 on restorative massages for them. $1500 for a personal chef to grind tuna filets for their meals. The remaining $500 is for cat toys.”

Later that day, after my teacher had taught her classes and careened out of the parking lot to return to her pride of tabbies, I had my mom take me to Dr. Edward’s Eyeball World. I knew mine would get stuck, but I didn’t know my teacher’s budget would be the cause. 

1. Like a Millennial and 2. why teaching and fun are important

This is the second year that my neighbor and I are seeing Broadway shows together. 

She orders season tickets; every month or so we go out to dinner and afterward are entertained for two hours by people who have more talent in their pinky toes than I do in my entire body. 

At last's month night out, I was telling her about my mindf*ck resulting from my grad class, in which I feel/felt like "not a real educator" because I don't teach full-time in a district school. 

My friend, who has two 20-something children, promptly responded, "Pshaw." 

She then went on to tell me that I am actually far hipper than I realize because I am, essentially, a Gen Xer who is living a Millennial-like professional life. I'm not tied down to one gig and have a much more interesting life because of it. 

She reminded me that not every person gets to interview local "bigwigs" around town, the kind who have donated millions to various civic projects. (That piece will come out in 2018, and one of the "bigwigs" even told me I'm a "fun interviewer.) She reminded me that not everyone gets a byline. 

After her cheerleading session, I began to look at my odd professional career with pride. 

Not every English teacher has an actual almost 8-year portfolio of published writing pieces. Actually, I'd be willing to bet that most don't. That is something special I can bring to my students, even if I don't teach that many of them. (Here is a nice article about this.)

I had thought to myself, "I'm not a real teacher because I have small classes," but I had to remind myself that my college professor only has 11 students in my grad class. It isn't the size of the class that makes you a teacher. Just because I haven't taught thousands of students doesn't mean those I have taught haven't learned something valuable from me. 

I recently received a text from a mom of two of my former students, both of whom now attend the local university. She text was short and sweet and basically said, Ms. V's English class is harder than college English classes. 

I can hardly think of a better compliment. And I know that even though my class is challenging, my former students had fun. They looked forward to being there. 

It is very important to me to make English fun and interesting, to be funny and interesting to my students. Back in the day when I taught in the district, I think I brought fun and interest to the class. In moments when I think about going back to the district at some point, I wonder whether I would still be able to do that with all the testing and data-driven instruction that is done. 

In this class, as we've been designing lessons and thinking up plans, I have realized that I'm pretty good at that. I'm pretty good at thinking how to take a piece of text and make it teachable. 

For not being a "real professional," I'm not half-bad. 

Blog and university

A college friend of mine who teaches at a local university asked me if I would speak to her classes about blogging and share my experience as someone who is a "professional" writer (my quotes, not hers).

I realize that I get paid for writing, but in my own head, I think I'd have to make an actual sustainable living from writing to consider myself a professional. Of course, I suspect that many, many writers who get paid for their work do not rely on that as their sole breadwinning activity.

Anyway.....

Her students will have a long-term blogging assignment and must consider the following essential questions:
1. How does writing act as a way of knowing?
2. How can I use digital technologies to reach an authentic audience?
3. What do I have to contribute to the conversation?

It is interesting for me to think about these essential questions in light of my own blog, which is in its 11th year of existence.

My purpose in writing has changed over the years to some extent.

My mood disorder is way better managed now than it was then. Time and age have mellowed me a bit. Children have mellowed me a bit.

My blog remains a place where I come to work through my life and doing it publicly forces me to be analytical instead of going off the rails emotionally, which is what I did in my handwritten journaling for years and years. Having an audience forces me to deeply explore my feelings through the lenses of the intellect and fact and rationality.

There has been a movement toward advocacy in this blog for the people who do read it. In sharing my mood disorder, G's mood disorder, and my own parenting challenges, I have been told I have helped others manage their own issues or, at the very least, feel less alone.

Blogging has helped me know more about myself, both positive and negative. It has helped me find more balance between emotion and intellect. Finally, it has allowed me to know others who have reached out to me with questions or comments after reading the blog.

Oh, another thing blogging has done is force me to do research to support whatever belief or feeling I have. Even if it is just a Shakespearean quote from a play to tie into something I'm experiencing, because it is public I want it to be as accurate as possible.

I never really considered this blogging thing a means of reaching an authentic audience, but I guess it is. It is as valid a writing piece as a letter to the editor of a newspaper or a feature article or any of the other pieces of writing I have done (or taught students to do).

I'm very excited to speak to the college students, sharing what I know and probably more importantly, learning from them. That experience is one way in which my blog is helping me contribute to the conversation of writing, purpose, and authenticity.

I will probably be fired

I have been tasked with an advertising project for the family of magazines I have written for since 2010.

It would not be hyperbole to say I am hating it a little bit.

It isn't the writing---that is fine. I can roll the writing out like a machine.

What is maddening beyond belief is the scheduling or, more specifically, the lack of scheduling on the part of the individuals I am supposed to be getting on the schedule for their interviews.

I, unfortunately, take deadlines pretty seriously, an affliction that no one but me seems to have.

My editor has linked me to a spreadsheet where I am supposed to note my progress--contact made, when the interview is done, when the article is submitted, etc.

My tolerance for scheduling frustration is quite low, so I am now posting these kinds of commentary in the spreadsheet:

--STILL playing phone tag with this lady
--I'm getting tired of calling this chick
--(sound of Carrie whistling)......no....really..that deadline is totally optional, people. Just ignore me.

I KNOW that a big part of my problem is me.

My deadline is a rolling one beginning June 20. I've got the intro and one of the articles written but not submitted because I had a question to which I am waiting for an answer.

I've got time.

But we've got camp in two weeks which will make me pretty much unavailable for five working days.  When I return home each day at 4 pm, I will be smelly and dead.

And I just hatehatehatehatehatehatehate the waiting for people to respond.  I always have....from the time I was a preteen.

I'm telling myself this is the continuation of character building in my 40-something self, but it just sucks, and I just suck at character building.

I worry that they may fire me (or stop hiring me) for articles due to my spreadsheet commentary.

Unless, of course, they give it to me because no one else wants to deal with this shit.

Something else I enjoyed doing more that I still enjoy but don't do as often

Blogging.

For years, blogging was a lifeline for me.  A way to stay sane.  A way to vent all of my frustrations and catalog my life in a way that made it feel more meaningful.  I mean it was meaningful, but staying at home with one's children is an isolation unlike any other.

Didn't I just blog about how I like being socially isolated----why, yes I did.

But there is a difference in choosing to be socially isolated when I have the option and ability to be (which is now) versus the isolation imposed on a person when she stays at home with her baby and has to put her baby's needs above her own.  And even though I am socially isolated in terms of entertaining or "hanging out,"  I am not socially isolated in that I am around people all the time by teaching and subbing.  And I have three children now who often max out my sociability by the time 9:05 am rolls around.  That sits in stark contrast to first-time mom with a newborn who is in her house all the time after being a professional working gal for a decade.

I still enjoy blogging, but I often find it difficult to find things I want to write about.

There are topics about which I've thought of blogging----

*like about how I wonder if I did things as a childless teacher that the parents of my students felt like ringing my neck for because my assignments and their due dates probably didn't take into account how freaking difficult it is to manage homework for children in the midst of fixing dinner and getting baths and doing activities.  I don't remember, but I ask myself if I ever gave assignments over long weekends when families probably just wanted to do nothing and not have the hassle of a long-term assignment.

*like about how when I sub at the high school for kids with emotional problems, I see myself in them, especially now when I can fly off the handle and rage for seemingly unimportant reasons (mostly PMS-related).  But I see the combination of my OCD/GAD and my hormones and what they make me feel inside and how they make me lash out at times.  I see this in those kids.  I worry that G will be the same.  I think that it is probably a bonafide miracle that I am not an abusive parent.

I used to regularly do NaBloPoMo, but now to blog every day would feel like a chore rather than a lifeline.

And yet, to not blog, to give it up completely, would leave me empty.

I'm working on this balancing act.  

I've won a Major Award

That is a reference, of course, to A Christmas Story.

The truth is that I have won an award....actually a couple of awards....but I didn't know about them until recently when a fellow writer emailed me and said, "Hey, did you know you won an award?"

To which I responded, "Uh, no."

First, I should say I did know that I won (along with a team of other writers) a 2015 Parenting Media Association award for a special series in our local family magazine on "Raising Boys."  I was notified about that one.  I quietly patted myself on the back and promptly forgot about it.

So the other two that I didn't know about until recently:

• 2015 Metro Journalism Award from the Society of Professional Journalists on an article I wrote titled, "Stepping Up Her Game" (Minority & Women's Affairs).

• 2016 Metro Journalism Award from the Society of Professional Journalists on a breast cancer supplement I co-wrote (Health Care Reporting).

So I bring these up now because it occurred to me, after attending the writing conference this week, that I am a legitimate freelance writer.

Like, this really is a thing.

Of course that sounds stupid to probably anyone else but me.

At the conference, during our panel, I began by saying that I consider myself the least qualified of the three panelists because 1. it was accidental that I even became a freelancer and 2. I feel like I do it haphazardly.  I don't "go after" jobs or strive to go anywhere beyond the little work I do.

One of the other panelists, who has what I consider a more extensive list of experience/expertise but who happens to be a male of about 24 years of age, respectfully disagreed with the experience thing and thought he qualifies in that arena.

(The third panelist is an editor-in-chief of a magazine with 30 years of experience who told a hilarious story about interviewing Geraldo Rivera, so he definitely takes the "Most Extensive Experience" category.)

Anyway, the director of the organization that sponsored the conference made the point to me that I may sell myself short, that lots of women are interested in the things I balance, and that my perspectives are valuable.

Which made me think of those awards.....

I told D about them, but I don't think I even told my mom.  I certainly didn't add them to my resume (yes, I do keep one on file cause you just never know), but maybe I should.

Maybe I do need to give myself more credit?

I guess the thing that I readily acknowledge is that I think I'm pretty great, but I also know that no one else cares.

The thing is...maybe I should care a little more than I do?

Upcoming writers' conference......so.not.qualified or maybe I am qualified?

'A few months ago, one of my editors emailed me asking if I'd be interested in attending a local writers' conference and serving on a panel session with other freelance writers.  This coming weekend is that conference.

Sure, thoughts like "I wonder if I'm the 19th person she's emailed to see if they'd be interested?" ran through my head, but ultimately I decided that even if 18 other people turned it down, I'm the one who didn't.  Showing up counts for a lot in my opinion.  (And I'm hoping not to be struck down by the viral funk that is coursing through my family.)

I keep flitting between thinking I am qualified to be on this panel and thinking I am completely unqualified to sit on the dais (or whatever I'll be sitting on).  

I've been actually earning money for my writing for 6 years, so I think I can say I'm a "professional writer."  Whether that money is enough in total to pay one month's mortgage is neither here nor there, I reckon.  The point is that someone thinks my writing is good enough to pay me for it.  I guess I'm qualified.

In the email reminders I keep getting about the conference, the freelancers have been told to bring some of their books to sell to attendees.  This is the part where I say I feel completely unqualified.  I haven't written books.  I do the little ads on this blog, which have rendered me a total of zero dollars and zero cents.  I have been published but not that published.  

On the rare occasions when friends have said, "You should write a book," my response is that I have nothing that would fill up a book, which isn't me gunning for praise.  I have no motivation to write a book because I have nothing I want to say in a book.  

Also, even if I did have the desire to write a book, I haven't the time.  I would have to let other things go, like the freelancing for the magazines or the teaching at the cottage school, and I enjoy doing those things.  I would feel like I have a real, full-time job, and I don't want a real, full-time job.  

This blog is a meandering stroll that dabs into family events and mood disorder challenges and parenting perils.  I'm not sure I could come up with a succinct thesis statement that would sum up what this blog is (assuming if I ever wrote a book I would use this blog as a jumping off point).  

This blog is mostly a place where I can fulfill that need to write that I think all writers have.  There isn't a take it or leave it (even if you love it) to writing if you are a writer.  There is an imperative to write, even if that writing isn't something for which you are paid, even if you never write a book from it, even if you never show anyone anything you've ever written.  You may go for days or weeks without writing, without having that urge, but when it comes, you have to heed it.  You feel overwhelmed with the need to "get these thoughts out and down" onto paper or screen so you can see them in the clearest light, away from anything else in your head that clouds them.  

Writing is this

I hate "God is great" and that darn phrase from Sam McBratney's book

It's summer......
I'm bored......
So I have nothing to write about except all these little thoughts swirling in my head.

I often talk to my students about the terms "denotation" and "connotation."

Denotation is the literal meaning of a word.  For example, the denotation of the word blue is the color between violet and green.

Connotation is the idea/feeling/meaning that a word invokes.  The connotation of the word blue is sadness or melancholy.

If I say "I am blue," I may be Violet Beauregarde or I may be depressed.

I think it is very important to consider not just the definition you find in a dictionary, but the larger perceptive meaning that words suggest to you and others.

Suffice it to say, I have a connotative conundrum with the phrase "God is great," which people use a lot.

Typically, this phrase is used when someone gets good news.  I have yet to see someone say or write "God is great" when they've just been diagnosed with terminal brain cancer (or any cancer).

When what they want to happen happens, God is great.
When what they don't want to happen happens, God will take care of them and has it all under control.
Either way, God apparently has a special place in his pocket just.for.you.

Maybe they are using "great" in the denotative case?  In this case, I wouldn't have a problem.  God is above/beyond the average or normal.  I can get behind that usage.  God is bigger/larger/more profound than our average/normal human understanding (which also leads me to the whole idea that as mere humans we don't have the capacity to understand God in any way, shape or form, but that is another blog post for another day.  Or maybe later....because I am bored.)

But "great" connotatively means "better than good."  If I say I had a great time at dinner, I do not really mean I had a time beyond the normal, even if dinner was beyond my normal dinner.  I mean I had fun, it was good, I enjoyed it.  "Great" is a judgment word.

So if "God is great" it means God is judgmental.  God is picking and choosing who gets blessed and who doesn't.  God deems you to be special and someone else (who did get a positive cancer diagnosis) to not be special.  I know this is not what people intend to mean when they say it, but this is how I (and maybe others) connotatively understand it.  This phrase is like a skin tag in the bra line.  It doesn't cause pain or damage, but dang does it rub the wrong way.

I also have a problem with the general overuse of the phrase.  Like the word "blessed" (which also has that judgment-like meaning attached to it), it has been run into the ever-loving ground.

It is akin to "I love you to the moon and back," a phrase that stems from Guess How Much I Love You? by Sam McBratney.

Ooooo, don't get me started on this one.

It doesn't bother me for its connotative/denotative meanings but for its absolute ruination because everybody on the planet loves everybody else on the planet far beyond the planet.  They love them to the moon.....and back.

And we have to have t-shirts and signs and ornaments and cups and bracelets stating that we love people to the moon and back.

I love the Sam McBratney book, but I daresay he is sick to death of this phrase being used by every human alive to describe how they feel about their loved ones.  Is there no other children's book in the world that has a similar sentiment?

This, THIS, was the book that I adored when my children were small.

It's summer.
I'm bored.
Possibly PMSing....
Just ignore me.

The day (today) I lost my s*** over the school bus

It was half a year coming, really.

It's not like I hadn't put up with it and put up with it.  Since August.

I'd called the compound.  I'd emailed and spoken with the school counselor who said he was at his wit's end about the bus, its route and its lateness and gave me the name of the district people to call.  I'd called the district people.  I'd emailed friends whose kids also ride this bus and urged them to contact the district about its perpetual lateness.

Nothing changed.

Today, I happened to lose my mind about it.

To my way of thinking, which may or may not be rational, the school bus should be sitting at the school when the kids are dismissed at 3:50.  The school bus shouldn't arrive at school at 4:00 or 4:10 or 4:20.  (Ok, maybe 4:00 is ok, but kids shouldn't be sitting in the gym for 30 minutes waiting, especially when the kid lives 2 miles from the school).

Actually it is between 1.8-2.0 miles.  That distance really doesn't warrant 45-60 minutes every day to get home.  When it isn't the first month of school, and the weather is fine.  A straight line from our house to school is 6 minutes.

To my way of thinking, if the district is going to have a dang "policy" whereby if you live in certain clusters you have to attend certain schools, then perhaps they should adhere to said policy and if people move into a new neighborhood in a different cluster they should have to change schools so that 1 bus doesn't service 2 different schools since the danged bus can't seem to make it to either school in a timely manner.

Do I sound entitled?  Is this totally a first-world problem?  Yes and yes.

This morning we stood in the freezing cold waiting on this bus for 35 minutes.  This afternoon the bus dropped off my crying 8-year-old.  It was a different bus, different driver, coming from a different direction, on the different side of the street.  My heightened anxiety child was off-the-chain.

Today was the straw that broke this camel's back.

After I had calmed G down and told him I would "get more information," I proceeded to sit at my laptop and fire this off:

Mr. C***, I called your office in early December about bus ***, which services *** Elementary.  The woman I spoke with assured me the situation would be looked into.  Both you and T**** C**** were out of the office when I phoned.  

I have contacted J***** Compound about this bus.  I have talked to Mr. M*** at **** Elementary about this bus.  This is the second time I am contacting you/your office about this bus.  We live at *** ****** Drive, *****, which is 6-9 minutes away from *** Elementary, approximately 2 miles distance.  My sons do not arrive home from school most days until 4:45.  Today it was 5:00 pm.  

This is the cherry on the top of my *school district* transportation day especially since my sons and I waited 35 minutes in the freezing cold this morning for the bus to arrive.  It was 9:00 am before it picked them up.  As you are probably aware, school begins at 9:05.  

Parents are strongly encouraged to have their kids ride the buses, and because I want to be a team player with *school district*, I have done as requested.  

However, I have reached the point where I am DONE with having my sons arrive home an hour or more after school dismisses when I can pick them up and have them home by 4:10 (our neighbor got tired of the issues with bus *** a long time ago; she rolls into her driveway with her children at no later than 4:10 each day).

I really and truly try to be an advocate for *school district*, but my patience has been reached for the 2015-2016 school year.  I expect a response to this email from you so that I know it was received and read.

Thank you,

Lord knows, I'm not proud of this, but I just had to send it.  And even though it will be a royal pain in my butt to pick up my sons every day (and will require me to reschedule G's occupational therapy appointments), it will mean G and M have more time at home for doing homework and just being kids, and I won't be standing outside waiting for a bus instead of fixing my family's dinner. 

Trying on this ad stuff and pondering whether I'd ever want to "market" my blog

A friend of mine posted a photo of Karl Marx on my feed when I complained about shopping, which I hate at all times, but especially now, at Christmastime.

I think that is funny since I just recently thought about (and am test-driving) ads on this site.

Apparently, based on the ads, my blog appeals to people who like Victoria's Secret and are schizophrenic.

How did it know that I took $50 of the money I earned for next semester's teaching and bought myself 13 pair of VS undies?  I have decided that at 42 years of age, with a master's degree and nearly 12 years of mothering under my belt, I am DONE with buying cheap underwear that stretches out after two washings.

I still buy cheap a$$ socks, though because socks don't ride up into unpleasant places.

Sometimes I've pondered being intentional about "marketing" this blog...about actively trying to promote the blog.  In doing so, though, I'd open myself up to a whole bunch of nonsense.  A whole bunch of opinions I don't want.

Like this gal.
Holy heck!  What a sh*tstorm.

I may not agree with her shopping choices, but she also isn't asking me to pay for it, so what does it really matter to me.  I'm certainly not going to lambast her on her blog.  But so many small-minded people will and do.

If I promoted this blog, if I went on blogher and networked to get it "out there," then I would have to deal with whatever fallout occurred as a result.  The small amount of meanness I got on here, before I stopped allowing anonymous comments, was all I needed of that.

I've always questioned the wisdom of not appreciating smallness, or of aspiring to awesomeness no matter the cost.  I remember our city posted signs around a number of years ago that read:  "City name:  16th largest metropolitan area in the US."  I just thought this was so stupid.  Top 3---I can totally see making signs about that.  Even top 5.  But 16th?????

That was a perfect example of a perfectly fine city feeling like it needs to aspire to greatness, when it would be better served to be what it is and get over that desire to grow and gain and be bigger, better, more metropolitan.

I am probably a perfectly fine city who shouldn't bother with signs.  

What would my obituary say?

Yesterday, I listened to a bit of RadioLab, in which they discussed people who can lie to themselves, which sounds pretty terrible but actually has some positive aspects.  People who can't lie to themselves tend to be depressed and anxious; people who can lie to themselves tend to be more successful in terms of business and sports.  There is a protective effect of lying.

I think it is pretty clear where I land.

Since I wrote about the sudden death of DS, I've been thinking about what people will remember about me when I'm gone.  His obituary was lovely and so beautifully summed up his spirit.  If you'd never met him, you'd feel like you had after reading his obituary.

So I wonder what my obituary would say....and how I would feel about that.  If I could write it myself, what would I want included.

I think it would say or I'd want it to say:

• I truly aspired to be kind, but I was just a little too judgmental and mean to make that work as well as I wanted it to.  
• Somewhere along the line I found that to feel angry felt much less painful than feeling sad.  
• My greatest wish was for my children to be empathetic people.  
• I died being completely taken off-guard by what killed me;  I'm certain I was worried about something else causing my demise.
• I really believed my greatest gift was walking the fine line between hilarity and solemnity.
• I couldn't be any other way besides honest to myself because it physically hurt to be otherwise.
• I aspired to be musical and sucked at it.  
• I was pretty terrible at proactively savoring moments, but I was attentive enough to quiet when I noticed I was in the midst of one.  And I treasured it.
• I always wished I was better at sitting down.  
• Small things I loved:  pottery, falsetto singing, being read to by my children, hummingbirds, planning vacations, prints of placed I'd visited, native plants, unexpected wildlife sightings (including cows in fields despite their lack of wildness).

My family is not a set of writers.  My dad had me help him write a condolence note to a great aunt the other day, which made me feel extremely happy....that my dad had asked for my assistance as a writer, however small.  And D probably considers asking me what to write in the cards he gives me for anniversary and birthday.  So unless one of my children has a knack for writing, and I die at a much later date than anytime soon, my obituary will probably not say any of these things.  

But this is how I would hope my family and friends would know and/or learn about me.  

My yearbook ad to N

Parents were able to place an ad in the yearbook for their 5th grader.  I can't remember how much the different sizes cost, but I opted for the smallest one because 1.) I'm cheap and 2.) my child doesn't need a shrine.

Even with selecting the smallest, I had trouble coming up with what to say.

I'm not particularly good at praising my children, at telling them I'm proud of them.  I think I take after my dad in this regard, which is sorta maddening because as a kid I wondered why he wasn't proud of me.  He was always very proud of me, I think, but perhaps he feels like I do....that I don't want my kids to think they are better than others, to think they are so great they don't need to work hard.  I don't want my kids to be cocky turds, which I think can happen when a kid hears how amazing they are all.the.time.

My dad sent me flowers when I was inducted into the National Honor Society in high school. He wrote the card. When dad writes something, it is important to him; he really means it.  I still have that card.

So this is what N's ad looks like:

Even though I blather on in this blog, I opt for simplicity in the public sphere.

When she brought her yearbook home, and I read some of the other parents' ads, I wondered if the lack of flowery compliments bothered her, if she read some of the other ads and questioned whether her parents think she is beautiful and smart and amazing and delightful and every other MadLib adjective you can include.

I do think she is all those things, but I don't need and/or want everybody and their grandmomma to know it.  Because when I see parents do that stuff (in yearbooks or on Facebook or in person), I roll my eyes and think to myself, "Well, whoop-de-do!  Isn't your child just so special."  Especially if they are the parents that do it once a week.

I know my child is special to me.  I don't expect anyone else to think she is special, and I don't expect anyone besides her grandmothers to want to listen to me carry on about her awesomeness.  Which I don't.....not even to her grandmothers.

There are some people who can write things about their children and sound sincere.  Some people come off as braggy.  I take the self-deprecating route, and where that is not appropriate (like a yearbook ad for one's 5th grader), I choose modesty. 

Serendipitous death

I've written before about feeling like life/God is telling me something....those odd coincidences that just feel more purposeful than random.

I'm in the midst of one of those.

Looking back, I see its progression.

My neighbor told me about a book she wanted to finish reading called God In a Box by Marion Pember.  After reading a bit about it, I decided it sounded interesting so I got a copy and read it.  It was a bit mind-blowing for me, especially its discussion of what heaven may or may not be.  I've never been really comfortable telling my kids that heaven is in the sky because that feels too concrete for something as nebulous as death.  Plus, I want my kids to determine what they believe and having some choices, some possibilities within a framework, feels right to me.

Soon after I read the book, G commented as we drove by a cemetery, "There's thousands of people who've died, right Mom?"  I decided to tell him about the book and its suggestion that maybe death, what we think of as an ending, could be movement into another dimension that our brains can't perceive.  He seemed to like this idea, the idea that those we've loved and lost are closer to us than "out there" in heaven, wherever that is.

A week or so after the book and my talk with G, a former colleagues' boyfriend died of cancer.  She has been on my mind for many months since she reported his diagnosis.

This past Thursday, we euthanized Shanks with the help of a most compassionate vet, and that same afternoon I received an email from one of my magazine editors asking me if I'd like to write an article about preparing for a loved one's death when you know it is coming.

My inner anxious instinct wants to go off the rails on this one, wondering "Am I going to die soon?  Is THAT what life is trying to tell me?  Maybe D or one of the kids is going to die soon?"

I'm trying really, really hard not.to.go.there.

I'm trying to see this as purposeful, too many connective strings for me to ignore.  That this is not a warning, but that I've somehow, in some way, on the right path at the right time.

Why an old, used notebook is genius

We have an abundance of old notebooks.  N loves to draw so my neighbor has passed along half-used notebooks from when her children were in high school and college.

With G learning to read and write, it occurred to me that he would probably like a notebook of his own for writing letters and words.  This became especially clear once I started getting notes from him on my desk and bed.

And so I told him that he was getting his own notebook, just like N.

Wowee-Wow!  Talk about an excited kid.

This is what has been happening.

I started by asking him to help me think of words that rhyme with hug.

Then I told him I was going to write him a note, to which he replied:

Last night he nearly threw a fit because I told him we couldn't do rhyming words since it was so close to bedtime.

Today he did this on his own---thinking of words that rhyme with jump.

This is waiting for him on his bed (after I noticed him reading some of his Brand New Reader books to himself).

I forgot how completely cool it is when one's child becomes literate.  

The heart of a writer

The news of Seamus Heaney's death has finally spurred me to write a post about a topic I've been mulling over for awhile.

I met Heaney 20 years ago when I studied in England/Ireland/Wales with fellow college students, although I admit to having read little to nothing of his poetry since that time.  It's not that I dislike his work; I'm just more into novels.  

In my efforts to keep this blog up or do freelance work (and receive responses as a result of people reading my writing), I sometimes wonder if I am a bit of an attention whore, and it makes me feel badly.  Am I so deprived of attention, am I so emotionally needy that I require the feedback from others?  Why can't my writing just be for me?  

As I've been stewing on this, including at a Bruno Mars concert a few weeks back, that the need to have others read what I write is entirely appropriate and natural.  (I wonder what other people think about during Bruno Mars concerts?)

If a person is a dancer or a singer or a musician or a comedian or a puppeteer or a writer, he or she not only loves the act of dancing, singing, playing music, telling jokes, orchestrating puppets and writing, but he/she loves the response of the audience.  Sure, there is joy in the simple act of doing these things alone for one's own love of them, but that love is magnified when other people enjoy it as well.  The whisper of internalized joy becomes a ROAR when it is shared.

I am a little dinky fish in a vast pool of talented people, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't share the writing that comes from deep within or feel like an attention-hungry freak for wanting to share it.  (Take that, stupid voice inside my head that tells me untruths!)

The desire to do it and to share it go together (unless one is Emily Dickinson, although even she shared it on a much, much smaller, more intimate level).

I think that is how you know you have the heart of a writer.

Dreaming big (I mean crazy)

I do my best, most clear thinking in the shower.  Lathering up is when I remember all those minute little tasks I need to get done that I have failed to do.  Unfortunately, as soon as my feet step through the open glass door onto the rug, everything is forgotten once again.

The other day I had the most brilliant idea, and by brilliant I mean far-fetched, difficult and highly likely to shave years off my life.  I thought, "Hey, I think I might want to write a book."

In the shower, this sounded like such a good idea.  I was thinking about my proposal and what I would send in for my first chapter.  I was wondering how to find a local agent and publisher.

Through the magic glass door I stepped, a towel rubbing my skin dry and my mind free of enthusiasm for such a project.  It just wouldn't work.

Would it?

Me and my big ideas

I often get these "great" ideas, which truly are pretty great, but they also happen to be time-consuming.  Having children was one of them.

So my first great idea of the moment is to expand on our very small neighborhood pet-sitting operation.  We have two neighbors for whom we pet-sit periodically.  One of the neighbors has two cats.  N and the boys give them fresh water if needed, love on them and feed them treats while I clean up the litter boxes.  The other neighbor has a freakishly long-lived goldfish whom we feed.  The kids enjoy their job as "pet-sitters" and earn a little money.

I thought we'd send out fliers to the neighborhood for the summer stating that my gang will pet-sit for $10 a day so that the pets can stay at home and the pet-owner doesn't have the expense of a kennel.  We can feed and water them, let dogs outside to do their business, bring in newspapers and mail.  N is old enough that I am going to teach her the fine art of litter box cleaning this year.  I thought we can divide up the payments between the kids, like $4 to N since she will do most of the work, $3 for G, $2 for M and $1 will go towards a charity, maybe the Humane Society?  This would be a little experiment for the kids on earning money and learning how to divide it up into spending/saving/donating.  (We already do this but this would be on a larger scale.)

My other great idea is to contact some larger scale magazines about either 1. selling some of my already-written freelance stuff to them for second serial rights or 2. writing new stuff for them.  I don't really expect anything to happen, but I'm never gonna know what could happen if I don't try.  And it boils down to mailing a letter and making some copies of the stuff I've published.

But that is just one more thing on top of all the stuff I do already which right now is planning 2 Valentine parties for N's and G's classes, making a class project for the school auction, and continuing in my role as Girl Scout troop leader and general cookie dope pusher.

And I still have to paint the kids' bathroom.

I really think I need to develop a tv-watching habit because all this productivity is tiring.

Christmas letters to Santa, 2012

N wrote her letter to Santa on Nov 25.

Dear Santa,

Here is a list of things i would like for Christmas.

1. One Direction everything (cd, shirt)

2. Monster High dolls

3. Cute clothes from a random store

4. Cute earrings (sterling silver)

5. Wipeout xbox360-Kinect

6. Brave movie-Disney

7. Barbie clothes (dresses, pants, etc)

8. Taylor Swift new cd-Red

9. a new sketch pad

10. art supplies

11. Stardoll doll

12. cute shoes (size 5)

13. some new coloring books

14. polly pockets

15. some cool stocking stuffers

Please try to get some of these things for me.  Also, try to get other things that i might like.

Love,

N

Yesterday, I took dictation for G, although he wrote the words "Santa" and his name at the closing of the note.

Dear Santa,

For Christmas I want Wreck-it-Ralph Smashers and Hulk Smashers and 3 Wreck-it-Ralph action figures and I want an Imaginext rocketship with an alien, a human, and costumes for them to wear and a space house for them to go inside.

And I also want Haunted House Legos.  And I want the Kinect Avengers game and Sonic Transform.  And I wan the Sonic sitting down game.  And THAT'S IT!!

I've been good and a little bit wrestlingly.

G