The Reluctant Writer

Round Forty-Nine of Infinity, Divide by Two

2009-02-11T07:29:00.000-08:00

I have grievously messed up tonight
Again I have spoken
before thinking
And you react
As I have allowed words to pass
the gateway of lips meant to be
securely guarded
by reasonable thoughts.
Reasonable now treasonable
These words should be leashed
so I can pull back, take back
retract
what you have heard
and firmly muzzle nouns, verbs, prepositions
before these syllables tear down the tree
they were only supposed to bark up.
But it's too late, what's been said
has been said and we must react
and act and assess degree of impact.
I know that I am wrong
but on the cusp of my stuttered apology
you let me know you have heard the bell
and I find myself with raised emotional fists.
This devolves to quick jabs to the dignity
fierce blows below the belt of decency
And well-timed uppercuts landing
precisely where we know they hurt most.
A recipe for surrender reads:
open mouth, insert fist
because my self-righteous foot
is still kicking you.
Add one tablespoon
of shut the hell up
Simmer
Stirring frequently.
We trade verbal sparring for silence,
wrapped in individual shrouds of rightness
escaping into the forced politeness of non-speech.
I'm afraid of where this goes,
the first one to break loses
and we wind up with sleeping arrangements
resembling June and Ward Cleaver
except pissed off
backs turned
cloaking devices up
phasers set to shut the hell up.
Silence allows reflection
and the heart is finally able
to call up the trecherous brain
to ask if it's mouth is running
and to ask why
no one went to catch it.
I am wrong.
Sorry.

Twitterpated (a short story)

2009-02-02T12:13:00.000-08:00

I like a girl. Her name is Mandy and she smells like really nice soap. I’m sure it’s something more specific than really nice soap like lavender or pink coconut raspberry but I’m a guy so it’s all just really nice soap to me. But really, she smells great. We met for the first time in chemistry class. Appropriate, I know. She just couldn’t keep her eyes off my Bunsen burner. Actually it took me a while to attract her attention since I’m maybe not the most noteworthy specimen of masculinity. So one day after class I really put on the charm. Leaning suavely against the lab table while she walked by, I said, “Hey there.”

At least, that’s what I wanted to say. Instead I was screaming because, when I went to lean suavely, my elbow bumped a rack of test tubes full of chemicals that are really not pleasant when they mix. Needless to say we bonded when she had to guide me over to the eye washing station and held my hand until the ambulance came. I’ll never wash these eyes again, if I can help it.

That was all it took for her to notice me and, before I even thought it would be possible, I was able to change my Facebook status from ‘single’ to ‘it’s complicated.’ But she didn’t take the bait right away. So, I became persistent. Random notes in her locker. Memorizing her schedule so I could be in just the right place at the right time. I know, you’re thinking stalker, but I don’t think if you’re in love that sort of thing really counts. I mean, it’s not as though I was standing outside her bedroom window throwing pebble after pebble waiting to hold a huge boom box over my head and serenade her with a Rick Astley song. I had that scenario saved for if the notes in her locker didn’t work out.

But I wasn’t desperate. Finally she smiled at me one brilliant afternoon in the middle of chemistry class. At first I didn’t think she was smiling at me, I thought she was smiling at the guy who’s a starter on the basketball team who sits behind me. Brad. I was thinking murderous thoughts about Brad in that moment when suddenly I realized I had an incoming text message on my cell phone. Peering at the screen stealthily under the desk I was sitting at I read the words the object of my affection had typed with her delicate fingers. It said: “Wh r u doing l8tr?” I smiled back at her across the classroom and typed back, “I luv u.” Realizing that this was not a good first move, I quickly backtracked. Instead I typed, “Nuthin, how bout u?” She was clearly impressed by my cool, yet casual reply and we agreed to meet each other after school.

The rest, as they say, is history. Mandy is an amazing conversationalist. She can text faster than anyone I’ve seen. In fact, that’s how we talked most of the time. She didn’t like to actually talk, which was great most girls seem to talk way too much. The silence was nice, at first, but after a while I found myself trying to convince her to speak to me. I tried to create situations in which she would be forced to talk instead of just pecking away at that miniature keypad with her graceful thumbs. I even tried pretending to choke on my hot dog one afternoon. In the middle of trying to indicate to her that I was about to lose consciousness I felt the familiar vibration of my cell phone in my hip pocket. Irritably I read the message: “CPR?” I honestly think she would have attempted to text the Heimlich maneuver.

It became clear to me in that instant that I was going to have to reconsider this relationship. Just as I had come to this earth shattering conclusion, things managed to get worse. My darling Mandy discovered Twitter. If I wasn’t comfortable with her constant texting before, Twitter helped her take this whole obsession to a new level. Twitter is text messaging taken up a notch, subscribe to someone’s Twitter feed and they can provide minute by minute details of what they are doing. Mandy subscribed me to her Twitter and her updates on her every little move became inescapable. I resorted to leaving my cell phone in my locker, turned off because the stream of information was constant. I dreaded returning to my locker and turning on the phone only to be greeted with dozens upon dozens of messages from my beloved. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to know what she was doing; it’s just that sometimes it was a little bit too much information. One afternoon she even Twittered the details of her trip to the girl’s room. This description included the words: “Just flushed.”

By the time I was getting details on her bathroom habits, I knew that the time had come for me to draw the line, to bite the proverbial bullet and just tell her that I couldn’t stand the Tweets anymore. That’s what they call individual Twitter messages, Tweets, such a cute word for such a sinister concept. Even Mandy’s friends were begging me to make the tweets stop. I decided to discuss the situation with my friend Charlie. He has a lot more experience with girls and I knew he would have some kind of solution for my situation.

“It’s driving me crazy, dude.”

“So just tell her. What would be the worst that could happen?”

“I tried, she never listens, she just tweets.”

“So tweet back at her.”

That was it! I would finally break up with her. I would be free of the endless tweeting! I had been worried that this relationship was going to wind up with me having to do her in somehow and that I’d be haunted by the tweets, like that guy in that Poe story. Her ghost would be tweeting at me and I’d be raving at the police to tear up the floorboards of my house just to stop the sound. The sound of the hideous tweeting! This was a much better solution. I would just take out my phone, calmly, and writer her a Dear Mandy text. You know: “Dear, Mandy, it’s not you, it’s me…but it is you…” No, no that doesn’t sound right. “Dear Mandy, you smell nice, but it’s over.” Hmmm…that’s not quite how I want to say it either. “Mandy, we just can’t see each other anymore because I really don’t need to know what you had for breakfast, why you chose to wear the pink socks instead of the purple socks today, what you smelled on the bus, the entire lecture from history class line by line from Mr. Popper when I will be hearing the exact same lecture the class period after you, the entire lunch menu with prices or the exact ingredients of the snack you intend to eat after school. I want a real relationship with a real girl who talks to me and maybe wants to hold my hand or make out with me occasionally. I want to throw your phone into the deepest, darkest ocean so that it will be swallowed by fish that will be swallowed by another fish and another fish, ad nauseum until the only thing you can hear from it is the faint plop of bubbles that escape the mouth of the fish as it rings in the depths of it’s belly.” Heh heh, I don’t think that’s going to fit in a text message. 140 characters max, that’s a darn shame. Oh look, I’m getting a tweet now. “Jake,” it says, “I really love you.” Oh well, I guess I don’t really want to break up with her just yet. I wonder if they’ll let you tweet “I do.”

Study: Domestic female goes through elaborate steps to prepare meals

2009-01-30T07:55:00.000-08:00

NEBRASKA (Reuters) - Housewives are the chefs of the kitchen, having been seen going through precise and elaborate preparations to rid the evening's planned meal of stew of the 'yucky parts' to produce a meal that will be approved of by the smaller life forms in the house, scientists say.

"It's a sign of how well their brains are developed. It's a pretty clever way to get a stew without the observable horrible bits," a research team member told this newspaper.

The research team said they repeatedly observed a domestic female chopping onions into pieces small enough that they are unobservable through a microscope and slicing carrots into fragments so tiny that they are said to not resemble carrots any longer.

The female, identified by the exasperated expression on her face and eyes that are glassy from lack of adult stimulation, added enough sauce to the stew to utterly mask it's contents. Researchers have also repeatedly observed the utter rejection by the smaller creatures in the environment of the food prepared.

This behavior either shows that the female does not learn well from previous experiences or that she holds out some kind of hope that the smaller life forms will alter their behavior despite the fact that they have given no indication of doing so.

"We have seen the female respond to the noise of complaint by the small creatures by microwaving chicken nuggets or grilling cheese sandwiches leaving large quantities of carefully prepared food to be consumed by the adults who wouldn't have cared if the onions appeared in larger chunks," said one observing scientist.

The domestic female purportedly resolved to discontinue elaborate food preparation, though scientists expect her to repeat the behavior within the next couple of weeks.

To read about dolphins that exhibit a similar behavior, please see this story.

The 25 random things about me: facebook phenonmenonmenon

2009-01-28T08:45:00.000-08:00

So it seems that many of my gregarious friends on Facebook are doing this so since Allen tagged me in his 25 things I thought it would make a fine blog topic for today. I'm going to spice mine up a bit with graphics because it makes it more fun.

1. I am a very fast reader. I took a speed reading class when I was young and I don't know that I apply the skills learned from the class or if I am just naturally inclined to absorbing material. As a consequence of this I am able to understand and appreciate books but I don't necessarily have a running image of the characters and their surroundings in my mind. I can understand that a scene takes place in the desert and the main character is blond without having a clear picture of said scene in my imagination. If I attempt to actually construct a mental image of the character and scene it slows down my reading process tremendously. A byproduct of this is you will probably never hear me say that a character in a movie based on a book doesn't look how I imagined the character to look since I probably didn't have a specific and clear image of the character anyway. Am I defective?
(wow that was only one I hope I can be more succinct.)

2.I have had a variety of fixations on television shows as I have grown up. They included but were not limited to: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (when I was about 8), SeaQuest DSV (for however long that show ran for, I was enamored of Jonathan Brandis), Star Trek TNG and Deep Space Nine - to the extent that I attended a convention and also still have a signed picture of Brent Spiner - the actor who played Data - because I wrote him a fan letter. To my shame I watched an enjoyed The OC (mostly for the first season, after that it got kind of ridiculous). Currently my show fixation has migrated to Lost (as many of you know already).

3. At the age of 12 I spent my summer writing a novel, it was around 100 pages typed. It was called Myth and it was about dragons. I see a lot of similarity between the plotline of the book I wrote in Christopher Paolini's book Eragon. His is much better plotted and thought out than my 12 year old writing but the underlying concept was very similar. From the moment I saw Eragon I said, "that's my story!"

4. I don't have a large intestine. I was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis when I was 13 or 14 and I got sick enough (at the age 16) to have to spend several months in the hospital. This eventually led to surgery that removed my entire large intestine. All of it. Instead I rely on my small intestine for all of my digestive needs and I really don't miss the large one at all, especially since it made me so sick. I also have a cool scar.

5. I like powdery substances. I like the way they feel. Among the substances that this includes: beach sand, laundry detergent powder (I don't actually touch it but I like to scoop it), powdered sugar....

6. I have alternated between sports and more nerdy activities through my childhood before settling down in my nerddom. I eventually discovered that I am a much better geek than jock. I still enjoy playing basketball but watching sports in any form is anathema.

7. My favorite saints are St. Joseph and St. Pio. My confirmation saint is St. Benedict. I was born on the same day as St. Theresa of Avila.

8. I have a special dislike in my heart for rhyming poetry unless the rhyme is not noticable or is intentionally clever.

9. I don't eat much fruit and I despise bananas. I like the flavor of fruit and enjoy
fruit juice but it's a texture issue for me with actual fruit. I will not drink orange
juice if it has pulp.

10. My idea of a perfect morning is sitting in a comfy chair in a coffee establishment with an excellent brew in my cup, a nice spongy cakelike pastry on my plate, and a good book to read or an interesting person to have a conversation with.

11. I'm not comfortable in large groups of people unless I am on stage performing for them. For this reason I'm not much for parties.

12. I have been to a Goo Goo Dolls concert, a Counting Crows concert and I was once dragged to see Joan Osbourne in concert (and am still scarred by the experience). I would still like to see Great Big Sea in concert. The image to the right is the Counting Crows. I would definately see them again.

13. My goals in life at this moment include: finishing a novel and making sure my children survive their childhood.

14. Most of my friends that I consider close friends live very far away from me. Sometimes this makes me very lonely. I need to go on a road trip to Minnesota or Indiana. :)

15. I don't like chess. I have tried to play it with Matt but he's been playing for a really long time and the game frustrates me. I consider myself a logical person but chess is too much logical strategy for me. Logic puzzles also frustrate me.

16. I also dislike math. I think it has to do with the side of the brain I use more often. I can do math if called upon to do so and I taught algebra for a period of time. I am capable of comprehending math, we just aren't friends.

17. I took a lot of lessons when I was young. I learned to play tennis, golf, piano, and violin. I attended basketball camp and a young writer's camp. I do not consider myself proficient today at any of the things I took lessons for.

18. I am a logophile. I love to learn words and meanings of new words. It is not often that I come across a word I do not know the definition of but I become excited when I find them. One of the words I learned recently was sesquipedalian - meaning a person who is given to using long words or a word containing many syllables. This is also why I love Boggle-style word games (any of my prolific friends who are reading this are now attempting to solve the grid on the right). rate, rates, shear, hear, heart, sites, site, lite, slab, gelt, gelts, delt, delta, etat, bare, bares, brand, head...

19. My favorite flavor of ice cream is mint chocolate chip or chocolate peanut butter. When I was a little it was gold medal ribbon from baskin robbins.

20. I have a hard time following through with things I resolve to do. For instance, we have tried several diets in this house and they have never amounted to anything long term. I'm a stubborn person but this does not translate to resolve in a lot of instances.

21. I can make several animal sounds that are fairly convincing - bobcat, rooster and meowing like a cat. They utilized this talent for the Easter pagent at my college by having me be the rooster that crows three times when Peter betrays Jesus. I am usually able to draw cats to me by meowing at them. I have also been known to attract cows to me merely by standing close to a fence where there are cows in a field- this has happened on more than one occasion. There was a period of time in which I considered being a vet - even as an adult.

22. My middle name is Aquin which was also my grandmother's name. It is the town St. Thomas Aquinas came from. Aquinas means 'of Aquin.' The yearbook at Matt's school is called the Aquin. Before seeing their yearbook I had never seen something with my middle name on it before.

23. I really like writing with chalk on chalkboards. I got to use one while I was teaching and this was highly enjoyable for me. I didn't like how much chalk dust got on my hands but I think this relates to my love of powdery things since chalk is powdery - chalk dust is lovely to me too.

24. I love the smell of old books. Used book stores are a great place to find this smell. I also love used book stores.

25. I can't watch when people get shots or when I am given a shot. I get very queasy seeing a needle go into someone's arm whether it is someone else or my own. I have a hard time watching them give my dog shots too.

Apathy

2009-01-27T08:16:00.000-08:00

Ok, so I've complained more than enough about the cold but it really does suck all of the life out of me.
I would prefer to stay wrapped up in a blanket all day. Problem with that is that nothing gets done and I begin to have new appreciation for the term 'spring cleaning' - for me it's going to mean finally getting to all of the things I've been neglecting due to not wanting to move around very much.

meh.

Snowbunnies

2009-01-26T06:45:00.000-08:00

Yeah! It's the last week of January...soon we can say goodbye to this awful month.

Boo! It got up to 50 degrees last week and now we're encased in snow and ice again and we're in the teens for temp. Which sounds like some kind of high school club that takes temperatures or closely follows the weather.

This weekend featured for me:

1. A night out with some ladies from Matt's school

2. A bad movie (not bad as in morally offensive, bad as in it was just a stupid movie)

3. 4N6 tourney

Dinner at Applebees was pleasant, I was invited to go on a girls night out with Matt's female co workers so I jumped at the chance to get out of the house without children. Fun, but at the same time awkward since on these sort of adventures the other people I'm with knew each other a lot better than I know them. Just one of the perils of being new.

Because it took a long time to settle everyone's bill at the restaurant, the only movie we could make was Bride Wars...from the moment I checked the movie listings I was afraid that this was the movie I was going to be seeing. Yikes it was bad. I suppose for those who like the 'chick flicks' and/or have been planning their wedding since they were prenatal this was a good movie.

I just couldn't identify. For a good Catholic girl such as myself, you don't just get engaged one day and get married three months later. It just doesn't happen. We were engaged for a whole year before we got married, just worked out that way. And it wasn't as though I was expecting to be engaged at that point either. I had never given a thought to a wedding before I had a ring on my finger and even at that point it was like...well, I guess I need to plan something now.

Apart from a desire to be the center of attention for a day (read, narcissism) I never got the whole bridezilla, it's all about me thing. As long as the wedding mass went well I wasn't really concerned with much else and the only thing you really 'plan' about the mass is the readings.
C'mon it's one day out of your entire life and I'm sure that these girls have major let down when the 'big day' is over and done with.

Life goes on...

The 4n6 meet was fine. I just wish we had more kids on the team to work with (and at the same time I don't). It's just kind of disheartening when there are two of them and you haven't been working with them long enough to expect them to go to finals.

So it goes...

It's snowy outside and I'm ready for winter to be done. Please Mr. Groundhog...short winter!

By the by, I LOVED the Lost season premiere! I'm not going to blog on it just yet though because my darling husband is behind on his episodes and I don't want to spoil his viewing of the new season. I'm still awaiting the first installment of Lost-Vivor though....

2009-01-20T08:02:00.000-08:00

Ah inauguration day...I will be trying to skip the all Obama all the time coverage which is pretty easy to do without cable tv. I shudder to think what the 24 hour news networks are like at this point.

On the agenda for today...a trip to the library which had to be canceled yesterday due to the unforeseen closing of said library for MLK Jr Day. So we will be heading there today to restock our reading and viewing materials.
Also, laundry. Oooo excitement.
And later today, forensics team practice which will hopefully be more productive than practice yesterday.
I'm not feeling very inspired today but I wish that I had a Lost viewing party to look forward to for tomorrow night. As it stands I just don't know enough Lost nerds here who would want to get together to celebrate the return of Lost. Instead I will be cheerfully huddled in front of my computer screen on Thursday morning to delight in a fresh episode. Yeah!

Also, thanks to Michelle Kafel who provides us with this delighful little addition to the blog today in honor of inauguration day.

MLK Jr and the Most Depressing Day of the Year

2009-01-19T09:07:00.000-08:00

So researchers have decided that today, January 19th, is the most depressing day of the year. I find it ironic that it also happens to be MLK Jr day. A day that most of us do not get off work, unless you happen to work for the government in some capacity. When you are a stay at home mom it's not like you get public holidays 'off-work' anyway.

I don't feel particularly depressed today, I would have told you I felt depressed last monday, though. It's been nice to get out of the house and help Matt out with the high school forensics team. Challenging to take two little ones to practice every afternoon when they're hell-bent on destroying his classroom while they're there and determined to get into as much trouble as possible since my attention is divided while we are there.

We're off to the library today even though I'm not out of reading material yet, but the kids could use some new books to look at and some new tapes to watch. I promised Bel we would get Brother Bear the last time we were there but, cruelly enough, it was checked out. So today we venture to the library because I made sure that it was checked in. Good mommy.

TV and the upcoming week

2009-01-16T11:01:00.000-08:00

Delightful! Yesterday's Colbert Report featured Stephen commenting on the PETA 'Save the Sea Kittens' campaign in the segment Tip of the Hat, Wag of the Finger. PETA got a tip of his hat because by Colbert's logic, saving the sea kittens frees him up to consume as many land fish (graphic of a kitten) as he wants to.
He said he would also be partaking in field potatoes (cows) and sky nachos (owls).

I also enjoyed my weekly viewing of The Office. It was a pretty good episode but definitely not one of the best. Michael's part in the episode was not all that funny but I did find the duel concept to be a clever one for Dwight and Andy. The part of the episode I found the funniest I think was Jim going around to Dwight's weapons caches with a box.

Very much looking forward to a fresh episode next week as well as the season premiere of Lost on Wednesday. I have to watch everything the day after since we don't have tv and I do all my television viewing online. I'm not too upset about this since I am able to get minimal advertising by watching online.
With the return of Lost, I also am anticipating resuming reading the inspired blog Lost-Vivor. Last season's Lost-Vivor champ was Sawyer with the Nikki Fernandez Memorial Fan Favorite Award going to Ben. Can't wait to see what witty comments Jess comes up with this time around - I look forward to reading her blog almost as much as I look forward to the episodes. I had forgotten about her attempt at 'branding' the Chalupa Dharma research station that was thwarted by ABC. It featured a Dharma station logo with a taco in the middle...brilliance.
I'm also looking forward to more podcasts as Damon and Carlton are quite amusing and the extra information about Lost is fun to have. Visits to Lostpedia will also resume.

Tomorrow - Raymond Central Speech Tournament. I'm excited even if the kids aren't as ready as they could be. It'll be a nostalgic blast from the past for me. I haven't been to a Forensics meet since college.

January: The Cruelest Month

2009-01-15T06:56:00.000-08:00

Cold doesn't even begin to describe today. I thought my toes were going to fall off after I got back from dropping off the boy at preschool.

January: a significant contender for worst month of the year.

It's features include:

- Post Christmas let down as we round
off the season of merriment and
festivity.

- Cold beyond all reason. We're in the
negative temps here and don't get
me started on the wind chill.

- The next closest holiday is a card, candy
and guilt holiday (that we don't celebrate
in this house since it's someone's b-day.

- The next liturgical season we have to
'look forward to' is Lent. While Lent is
necessary and all I don't think it's fair
to call it a 'fun' season. It's definitely not
as easy to get kids excited about Lent
as it is to get them excited about Advent.
"So what do we get to do for Lent, Mom?"
"We get to deny ourselves! Yeah denial!"
"Can we just do Advent again? The candles
were a lot more fun."
"No, cold showers and no sugar for anyone
hoorah!"

So you could say that January sucks the life out of me. It was named after the Roman god Janus, the god of the doorway. I'd like to show January the door. At least February is a shorter month, and we get the bonus of seeing what the pesky groundhog is up to.

Quote of the week: Noah: "The yogurt that I had for snack made me drowsy."
(either he doesn't know what drowsy means or his pre-K teacher is spiking his yogurt - I wouldn't blame her if she did)

Ridiculous attempt at rebranding

2009-01-14T07:33:00.000-08:00

Hilarity ensued when I discovered yesterday PETA's campaign to Save the Sea Kittens. The Yahoo! main page had a link to an article about PETA's 'rebranding' of fish as sea kittens in an attempt to generate a more cute and cuddly image of fish.
I think that they fail to realize that Disney had already successfully 'rebranded' fish as cute and cuddly in The Little Mermaid. After all who can deny that the cartoon fish are clearly cuter than their actual real life counterparts.

VS.

I don't think it's hard to see why the rebranding doesn't take very well to reality. A quick visit to an aquarium or pet store will be the fastest way to crumble PETA's rebranding attempt. There isn't much that is kitten like about fish. I was most amused by the reaction of kids from communities in Alaska where fishing is vital to the life of the community. There was a quote from a 12 year old girl saying that she felt that fish were food, not friends. But the most entertaining quote goes to a response from one of the commenters on the story about PETA's rebranding who said, "Save the field puppies! MOOOOO." This seemed to be right on point. How long is it going to be before PETA puts up a website with goofy looking cows sporting long droopy ears, soulful eyes and wet noses? Anyone who has spent any time around livestock will be able to see the utter stupiditiy of this, just as anyone who spends a lot of time fishing knows how ridiculous the attempt to see them as sea kittens is! The only one person I can think of that this might fool would be Jessica Simpson.

In a similar mode of thought, since reading Barbara Kingsolver's book Prodigal Summer, I have been more seriously considering the interrelation of man and the natural world. I wouldn't consider myself a conservationist but instead I would say I am a proponent of stewardship. I think that God created the world with a specific ordering and that it's our job to take care of this world and the creatures in it. I think that this permits the eating of animals and plants in moderation but that mankind hasn't been so good at the whole moderation thing. On that note it is fascinating to observe what happens when we have interefered or attempted to interefere with natural ecosystems. In Australia, scientists attempted to remove feral cats from an island that were threatening the population of sea birds (that were apparently endangered) with this result.

Thusly, if we interfere with moderate amounts of fishing it would not only impact those who work in the fishing industry but also would seem to be yet another interruption of an established ecosystem relationship. If no fishing occurs, certain species might proliferate to the point of becoming a pestilence or may cause the extinction of whatever species the fish use as food. Balance is important in these situations. If kids whose parents shop at Whole Foods and buy neatly wrapped prepacked fillets suddenly won't eat fish because they are harming the sea kittens then it's not going to overturn the fishing industry by any stretch of the imagination but those kids might miss out on the nutritional benefits of eating fish.

Paul Watson is another interesting figure to point out in this due to his involvement with Japan's resumed whale hunting. Now there was a time in my life when I, as a 12 year old, was horrified that anyone would hunt whales and wrote an editorial to that effect in the local paper. However, I am sympathetic to Japan's whaling at this point. Why shouldn't they be able to hunt non endangered whale to provide food to their population? It seems nonsensical that western society should foist their opinion about suitable food onto another. I say if they want to eat the whale, let them eat it. It's not as though they are hunting the whales just to decorate their homes or for the purposes of creating aphrodisiacs.

Better perspective of man's relationship to the natural world is important at this juncture although probably not as prominent in the minds of people as their financial situations. I intend to continue cooking, serving and eating the occasional sea kitten as the occasion warrants. We don't eat much sea kitten, though, at our house, Matt doesn't like fish or cats.

Hibernation: Not Just for Bears Anymore!

2009-01-13T07:17:00.000-08:00

I am decidedly not in favor of cold winters. They happen every year in the midwest and this is what we accept since California is no longer our place of residence. It's probably the only thing I do miss about living there (apart from the many places with incredible food - here they're pretty stuck on their meat and potatoes diet) was knowing that if I really had to get a snow fix I could travel up to the mountains and spend a day in the snow. I never had that inclination while we were there and it was nice knowing that no matter how cold it got, it would never be so cold that I would have to scrape my car. I remember being at a policy meeting at the school I taught at where they were going over the dress code that mentioned that the kids were not allowed to wear hats, gloves or scarves. I thought this was barbaric but I was quickly informed that it was never cold enough for the kids to need those things. Ah culture shock!

So now that I'm stuck in the bitter cold and now that I will be schlepping the boy at least to school for the foreseeable future I am warming up (pardon the pun) to the idea of hibernating for the winter. This would be of huge benefit to the populace stuck in snowy weather and we would all get a nice long rest. Imagine how refreshed we could all be by spring! It could also be the solution to the packing on of pounds during the Christmas season. If hibernation began shortly after Christmas then the majority of cold weather could be avoided and we wouldn't have to start weight loss attempts in cold weather that doesn't accomodate outdoor workouts.

Apparently the industrious people of New York have already considered this matter thoroughly:
This doesn't really surprise me since, in Buffalo at least, I know they have winter 11 months out of the year and their hibernation would last a good deal longer than the average American.

The other websites that I found referencing human hibernation were much more serious scientific endevours regarding cryogenics wherein one could decide (for a fee of $5000) to be frozen for 50 years and reanimated after that time period - apparently the aging process is also slowed down so after that 50 years you would only have physically aged 482 days or 1.3 years.
Hurry because registration starts on February 15th!

I don't think I'm on board for 50 years, even if I could shave 48.7 years off of the next 50. How crazy would that be...my kids would be older than me aging process wise!
All I'm asking for is the ability to bypass the months of January and February, possibly March as well depending on the outdoor conditions.
I miss my walks outside and the park.

Angst

2009-01-12T06:36:00.000-08:00

I don't know what to call it. Maybe it's a quarter-life crisis but that doesn't quite seem to fit since I'm not an aimlessly drifting 20 something trying to reconcile my new adult life. Maybe it's that now I'm looking back on my early twenties and the fact that I'm going to be 29 this year.

I could call it mommy angst but I'm not sure that fits either.

A story to illustrate:

An evening of actually leaving the house sans children last night was punctuated by the overhanging clouds of knowing that my parents had driven up from Lincoln so that we could go out for a few hours. Only a few hours. Three hours of not having to tell anyone 'No!' in a commanding tone of voice, three hours of supposedly adult conversation, three hours of not glancing around constantly to insure that someone who I'm supposed to be taking care of is not touching and/or destroying something. Unfortunately the event was one where I didn't really know anyone very well since it was a faculty function. The food was good, the conversation wasn't exactly the witty, adult spectacular that I had imagined it to be. The entire evening away feels like an enormous ticking clock reminding me that I only have this small slice of time in which to be myself and not someone's mother.
Being a parent of preschool children inevitably comes into the conversation at such events and, regrettably being in the presence of those who have long since overcome the pitfalls of the upbringing of young children sort of nod their heads sagely and tell you that one day your problems will be far in the past. Small comfort for the everyday reality of dealing with the preschool set and their issues.

Thus enters the angst.
I see these other adults around me who are older or much older than me and I see their issues and life situations are so much different than mine because they have progressed to that stage where their children are growing up, leaving the house. Their parents are aging and need care.Their concerns revolve around those things. But for all this, they seem so comfortable in their adult skin.
I think it is their seeming contentment that frightens me.
I have visions of a time when I will not have small children and I will be able to cultivate a sense of person. I hope to be able to re-educate myself in such a way that once again I know how to behave in public without wrangling children. When I am out without them I become painfully aware that I have no idea what to do with my hands. Did I have these things before they became the carriers of childrens and the holders of hands? Do I fold them in front of myself, do put them in my pockets? Surely these hands were more useful back when they were my own.
And yet there is a peacefulness in not having to observe anyone's behavior but my own, though I find it makes me infinitely more aware of my own mannerisms.
I feel stuck in a place right now where I have difficulty identifying with people who are at my own stage of life....I get uncomfortable in 'mommy' conversations where there are comments like "Oh I always knew I wanted a bunch of kids," *internal cringe* How can I possibly divulge my own reluctant motherhood in the face of such a delightful proclamation?
Sure I can talk mom shop for a while but I find my attention flagging when the conversation drifts to ironing and it's virtues.
Urrgh
I don't identify with those who are more advanced in the world of parenting and adulthood, the complacent seeming ones. I hope that one day I will be able to foster my personal interests and not become complacent. I can only hope.

So that leaves me with my quarter life crisis that I don't truly have because I'm married with children. I think there should be a definition for those of us that married early, had kids and 'missed out' on the process of the individual discovery of early adulthood.
I love my husband and kids but I find in myself a longing for the freedom of individuality.

Matt and I discussed going out of town just for a night. 24 hours if possible for our anniversary. I never quite understood when I was younger why my parents would go out of town without my brother and I. It always seemed to me that they were depriving us of a family vacation if they didn't take us with them.
Of course, now my understanding has blossomed.
I would like to have three meals where I am not having to make sure that two other people are fed before I even get to my food (which is usually cold by that point). I would like to spend an entire morning in a coffee place drinking cup after cup and reading whatever I happen to have, be it book, newspaper or magazine.
There are many things that I can imagine myself doing. I am really trying, though, to reconcile in my mind this season of my life. It is definitely a challenging one.

Blogging just like everyone else in the free world

2008-11-19T07:30:00.000-08:00

I have come to the 'stunning' conclusion that I am not only an amateur blogger, I am a decidedly bad blogger. I don't have a fancy blog page with pictures and wingdings and sponsorship. I don't write everyday and I don't often have much, if anything, interesting to contribute to the blogosphere. I am unsure if this fact is depressing, heartening or just nonfactoral. I am not making up words and I am not ashamed.
Several things have my attention this week (though the attention span and the thought to which I give them are brief):

1. Motrin advertisement

I happened onto a story on USA Today.com
http://blogs.usatoday.com/betterlife/2008/11/motrin-makes-mo.htm

This article talks about how moms who practice the 'art' of babywearing or carrying a baby in a sling was apparently criticized by an advertisement for Motrin. I watched the ad and I think I can sympathize with the mothers who were upset by it. Some people take their babywearing very seriously and the ad makes light of it - as though it were a fashion trend to wear a baby. I used a sling myself with Isabel and I have to agree with the other moms to the extent that Motrin's ad was off base considering that wearing a baby never really caused me back pain. I have had significantly more back pain from just schleping children around sans sling. It's definately not something that I did to 'look cool' or be fashionable (since when have I ever tried to be fashionable). The fact of the matter is that it's just easier to navigate a crowded store or public venue without resorting to also plow through with a mammoth sized stroller. I suppose I feel at this point like I have enough ammo in my court of personal opinion to write an anti-trappings of modern motherhood blog. There are so many things that current moms debate about and espouse that just don't make a heck of a lot of sense. It's especially sad to see new mothers adopt these opinions and which make them wind up looking like a deranged pack animal. So...in short, baby wearing is good....trends of modern mothering often not so good.

2. Obama and the number of the devil

Several sources I have looked at recently
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_barack_obama%27_s_zip_code
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-talk-debunkernov19,0,3729098.story

This is exactly the sort of thing that makes Christians look like raving lunatics. I don't think that Obama is the anti-Christ just because I disagree with him on certain moral issues. It is a strange coincidence that these numbers accompany this man but it also seems like people who are against his presidency for more than just moral reasons are digging for anything that will cast him in a negative light. After all, he hasn't even taken office yet. I will be reserving my judgement and praying that he makes decisions that protect all life as he runs the country.

3. WOOT OFF!
Today is a woot off on http://www.woot.com
This means I will be checking the computer more often today, but most likely not buying anything. Unless I can get lucky and get a BOC.

Opinion of disgruntled Pro-Lifer

2008-10-31T11:52:00.000-07:00

Increasingly I find as I read and respond to news articles (as well as the postings of friends) that somewhere along the way the pro-life position has presented itself poorly. Proponents of the pro-life position are painted as uninformed, close minded and archaic. I’m not sure how this happened since I can’t say that I have been intimately involved in the pursuit of the pro-life legislation or educational efforts. The most that I, myself, as a person who considers herself pro-life have done is to occasionally donate to pro-life causes and to pray for unborn children who may be victims of abortion.
The culture I find myself in, however, seems increasingly hostile to the pro-life position and this uphill battle that we are fighting seems horrendously stacked in favor of the so-called ‘pro-choice’ position. The main criticisms of ‘pro-lifers’ seem to become more vehemently proclaimed around election time. We are called ‘single issue voters’ and one angry poster in response to an article about the election commented that those who he considered ‘single issue voters’ should go “join a cult.”
I have been very troubled by all of this negativity that swirls around these important issues. Yes, I said issues, plural. Abortion is the most important issue in this country right now (and I know that there are many that would debate that with me as well) but I readily acknowledge that it is not the only issue confronting modern Americans. Other significant issues include: affordable access to health care, improving the situation of the poor and neglected in our country and the unjust war in Iraq. These issues are all worthy of discussion and need to be addressed by the leaders of our nation.
I am not the type of person who would sweep these other issues under the rug and solely focus on abortion. I think that a good number of pro-life persons would agree with me in saying that these other issues are also important to considerate and well informed individuals.
Abortion, though, is the major issue of our time and somehow the pro-life movement needs to find a way to polish up the tarnished image that it has garnered in the past years. We pro-lifers have been lumped in with President Bush’s presidency which has not been a shining star for America. Clearly mistakes and major errors have been made in many policies not just in Bush’s term but in the past several decades of our country.
We are seen as narrow, uptight Republicans who are unconcerned about our fellow man (or woman) unless they happen to be in the womb. We are caricatured as unconcerned about the environment and our impact on the natural world. I recently watched an episode of “The Colbert Report” in which he had a segment of Republican McCain supporters who were part of the ‘Hummer Club” and all seemed very pleased to drive around in their fuel inefficient vehicles. The clips painted the gentlemen as very ignorant people who obviously support the Bush presidency and McCain’s candidacy.
This election has even driven people who are pro-life to support Barack Obama and to publicly give their personal endorsement to his candidacy. I find this difficult to understand and yet the argument that I hear is that somehow Obama will create societal conditions that will lower the number of abortions. Despite extensive evidence that Obama is very pro-abortion they are able to convince themselves that he is the candidate that will best help the pro-life cause. He has not claimed to be pro-life in any way and still they jump on the bandwagon. I have struggled to understand this and the only conclusions that I can come to are that Obama is clearly a change from the Bush administration that everyone seems so anxious to distance themselves from and that pro-lifers are tired of being endlessly connected with the uneducated, single issue, gun toting ‘red neck’ vote. It is tiresome to be told how ignorant and senseless organized religion is. Educated people are attracted to Obama because he is well spoken. Watching the debates and interviews with McCain and Palin have been painful at the very least because they come across as well-heeled buffoons. The crowds they draw are depicted as hate-mongering, rabble rousing and bigoted. When I first saw Palin’s interview with Katie Couric I watched a clip on You Tube which first showed Tina Fey’s impression of Palin which I thought must be an exaggeration. I was dismayed to watch the segment immediately following the SNL parody which showed Palin’s actual response only to discover that Fey’s performance was almost word for word what Palin said. It is difficult to get excited about a person who is pro-life, as Palin is, if the person does not also seem to be able to express themselves intelligently. I find Obama to be a more dignified candidate than McCain who uses words well and is able to express his ideas (even if I don’t agree with them).
But at this point, the pro-life cause is linked to the McCain candidacy and the Bush presidency while a great number of us lament that there is not a better alternative. I am not excited about the McCain ticket. I am not in favor of many of his proposed policies that would benefit a select number of people and do little to help the social issues in this country.
I think that in order to salvage the pro-life cause we need to not only focus on pro-life legislation (which we should focus on to some degree) but also on helping to improve the grave issues of social justice in this country. We should be giving women viable alternatives to abortion that are supportive not just of pregnant women and infants but of families with children of all ages. We should be working to create legislation that makes adoption a simpler process for adoptive families. We should be working to protect and support the family unit, fighting for a living wage and health care for everyone. I know that we are doing these things already but I think that the criticism of pro-life people not caring about already born people needs to be corrected through a more pronounced public image of the pro-life movement helping people beyond the womb.
I know that as a pro-life person I am not alone in these concerns. I also do not consider myself bigoted, unconcerned about the environment, or a fan of the war in Iraq.
I know that I come to this election with a heavy heart because I think that Christians and Catholics have a long way to go before we can consider ourselves on equal footing with the secular masses. We are clearly at a disadvantage at this moment in history and the people who are publicly representing what we stand for are not doing us any favors. If I could accomplish one thing for those pro-life people in this country I would try to express to liberal and secular people that we are not all uneducated, moose shooting, wildly ranting fanatics who condemn everyone who may at some point have disagreed with us. There are a good many of us who are rational, even handed, good stewards of our natural world, and peace loving. We have intelligent and well developed opinions to back up our beliefs and we are of the opinion that faith and reason must be yoked together. There are a lot of us out here in the world, we’re just in the trenches raising families and we don’t always have the loudest voices.

Pray, Hope, Don't Worry

2008-10-22T16:05:00.000-07:00

If only I could take the advice of a saint I admire so much...

Some things I can fix...

2008-09-27T09:54:00.002-07:00

Yesterday I found a the toy cell phone that Bel has been bringing to me for weeks. It hasn't been performing according to her expectations as it has no batteries inside. So in a fit of actually accomplishing things yesterday I found some batteries and a screwdriver and made it work.

Now this is the kick about doing this sort of thing...I give it to her, pleased with myself for fixing it. She is pleased with this object that now works. It amuses her for five minutes and is discarded.

I have managed to make her happy for that brief a period of time.

So while I know my collective ministrations as a parent are what creates a happy, well adjusted child does this off-set the times when I get frustrated and lose it?

Migraines are the harbinger of the apocalypse

2008-09-24T06:58:00.001-07:00

I hate migraines.

I have had them more frequently ever since Noah was born and they have only become worse as time has gone on.
More medicine, different medicine, hours of agony when there is no medicine.

But now I have the pills and things are ok, the danger is running out. And the stuff's expensive.

*Sigh*

So after feeling like utter crap for three days and reading an entire book in one of those days (not in the slightest unusual for me but it also means that the house looks like crap), I am crawling out of my medicine/migraine haze and am facing up to the world again.

Writing has been stalled/on hold but shall resume (if possible) sometime later today and I will attempt to churn out some more pages of quality....because while quantity is nice it is not as desireable.

Adventures out in David City

2008-09-19T10:19:00.000-07:00

Walking around town has proved to be an interesting experience.

On Wednesday we walked just to the east of our house and discovered that it is apparently legal to have livestock in city limits. I was quite shocked to see a small fenced in area with two sheep and a rather larger fenced in area that had an assortment of enormous black cows.
Isabel has been rather frightened of animals lately, though, and she is ok viewing them from a distance but if they had come anywhere near us I think she would have been afraid.

While Noah was at pre-school I took Isabel to a mom's rosary group that meets once a month in town. There was another lady there who just moved here from Lincoln as well so I'm not the only new person here. That was nice. Most of the people I have talked to here have been here for quite a long time.

I have also found that people have very large families here. The average seems to be about 5 kids. I have only met one mother (the other new lady in town) that has fewer children than we do.

I have been glad recently that Matt and I are not in the market for a home loan. The financial situation that is going on in this country is certainly disconcerting and I am hopeful that things will settle down after the election. I'm sick of all the political nastiness and will be thankful when we have a president for another four years and this whole upheaval will just be a memory.

Today will be....

2008-09-17T09:34:00.000-07:00

Forecast: dull with a chance of boring

Am I complaining? A little bit.

The most exciting thing I have done today is drink coffee and play my boggle word games on facebook. I like boggle, I'm pretty good at it but I lost most of my tournament games on the application I play on (but all of the losses were ten points or less) so that makes me feel pretty good.

My brain feels, heavy somehow. I try to think about writing and continuing the stories I have started but when I start to write all I can think about is how lame what I am writing sounds or how my descriptions are awful or that my character development is dreadful.

I tend to beat myself up.

mahogany monopoly monotony

2008-09-16T12:47:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to be alliterative in the blog title.

I like David City I think. It is hard to get used to the extreme small townness of it. I don't have to be in the car for more than five minutes to get anywhere in town.

If I am so inclined I could also walk or ride a bike. I would like to ride my bike and it is sitting in the garage next to Noah's bike and a bike trailer I got for free from a friend in Lincoln. I sorely overestimated the condition of my bike, though. I think primarily I need to have the tires repaired or replaced as they are sagging quite a bit on the rims. Not knowing too much about bicycle repair, I think I am going to have it fixed up by someone who knows more about them than I do.

It is also rather daunting to contemplate taking the kids out with me on bikes and in the trailer. The main problem being that the trailer has no top to it so I would be concerned that Isabel might just take it into her head to try to get out while we're moving. Also, Noah has very little concept of how to make the bike go. I sort of wistfully watch other kids riding bikes and then am subsequently frustrated with my inability to show him how the thing is done. At first I know that the training wheels were not on the bike the way they should have been and that made things difficult.

I do find that in general I have a hard time teaching him how to do things for himself. I think that is what is daunting to me about the preschool years in my kid's lives. I feel very ill equipped to teach some basic human activities to them.

At least Noah likes school. He asks every day if he gets to go to school which is, in my estimation, a good attitude for him to have.

otherwise......not much else going on, seems to be the running theme around here.

Weekend football and the week ahead

2008-09-15T06:11:00.000-07:00

The kids and I did accompany Matt to the football game which was fine but the kids were very bored after a very short period of time. Football is only mildly interesting for me. Matt ran around the field taking pictures and we walked over to the park to play which is just right next to the football field. It was Noah's first football game though, which was interesting because we tried to explain the point of football to him but I don't think he really got it. We don't watch sports at home so this was a pretty foreign experience for him.

I'm planning on getting some writing done today but I'm not sure which story I will work on. Right now I have three different stories in the works:
1. an adaptation of Dante's Inferno
2. a story based on a character I wrote a short story about in college
3. a story that would be hard to describe briefly but it's called 'Revision' - I am having the most trouble writing this one as it is more technically difficult and I am trying to work through a major plot issue without being cliche.

Other than that I don't see this week being a terribly interesting one, just the average week with the average issues....

Roof repair and other Nonsense

2008-09-13T08:57:00.000-07:00

Today there are a lot of people up on our roof. Our landlord is replacing the roof, which is nice and it kind of reminds me of having noisy upstairs neighbors, which, mercifully, we no longer have.

I'm finishing reading Jodi Picoult's book 'Mercy' at the moment and I think it is probably my least favorite of her books that I have read so far. It's about an affair and it just hasn't quite grabbed my interest as her other ones have. I know that people read her books as 'book club' selections but when I read her books I usually feel like I'm not reading something terribly substantial. Well, Steinbeck and Vonnegut are next up for reading. I started reading Sweet Thursday by Steinbeck and realized that it was meant to be a follow up to Cannery Row which I haven't read in years so I went to the library and picked up a copy of it.

I have been reading more than writing which is normal but somewhat unsatisfying since I have been hoping to work on finishing something.

I find that it is difficult to find time to write without interruptions or when it is too late at night for me to concentrate on anything meaningful.

Matt has to go to the Aquinas football game today and I imagine that I will be staying home while he goes. I wouldn't mind going but attending something that is the duration of a football game with little kids who would need to be entertained almost the entire time doesn't necessarily sound like the most intelligent idea of the day. I would like to get out of the house and it does seem like a nice day outside so I think I may reconsider venturing out.

Aptly Named: The first post

2008-09-12T07:02:00.000-07:00

I don't know that I have anything valuable to contribute to a blog which is why I have called my page The Reluctant Writer.

I suppose if I felt I had nothing to say I wouldn't even bother with a blog.

But even if I just write for myself I suppose it will be worth it.

My struggle of the morning is that I find myself at a loss for how to entertain the kids today. This seems to be a problem many days. I have said before that if it was just me I was keeping occupied all day long it wouldn't be a problem but since I must also consider two kids under the age of 5 the issue of what in the world we are going to do becomes problematic.
It's supposed to be rather rainy and dreary today which will probably entail inside activities.

How I loathe the fact that they watch television/play video games as much as they do but I find it so hard to engage in toddler play sometimes. I would much rather be reading, writing or doing pretty much anything else than trying to attempt basic arts and crafts or games.

Noah would rather just watch television all day. I don't know how to remedy this other than just unplugging everything but I honestly don't know how I would stand the whining.

Sometimes I have elaborate plans of how exactly I'm going to change my life.
I'm going to go on a diet and lose weight. No extra eating, no sugar, etc etc
I'm going to write everyday and work on my book.
I'm going to get more exercise.

I don't stick with things though. Am I lazy? Do I lack commitment?

I am feeling like I may be headed toward depression again. It seems like I flirt with it periodically. Ironically, I didn't enjoy working when I had to go but I always forget how nice it is to have adult social contacts/extended time away from the kids from time to time.
I respect the fact that Matt is working now and I understand that he has lots of commitments but I find myself feeling isolated. This is especially true since I don't have any friends here yet. I'm going to have to find some way to adjust and deal.