Flush

I work in one of those sorts of places where the toilets are automated.  I walk in, take a seat and, when I stand again, voila!  Magic happens.  That toilet flushes like that’s it’s job.

Wait a minute!  You mean you’re supposed to flush after use?  Why yes, gentlemen using this building, you ARE!

We are not of the if it’s yellow let it mellow crowd.  And in the unisex, you may find that you don’t trigger the auto-flush doing whatever it is you’re doing.  But why, WHY, don’t you go ahead and hit that spiffy black button that makes it go manually?  Let me tell you, I don’t need to see your business first hand.  And, while I appreciate your effort to save water, you’re failing since no person in their right mind would want to sit down there and risk encountering your splash back.

Really.  Just hit the button.

What I Want to Say

I’ve taken to saying holy cow! when what I really want to say is Fuck.

What I want to say is that I’ve been hurtling through this year, but that doesn’t quite fit.  I feel like I’m moving slowly, taking measured steps forward while huge barrels of icy water crash down around me.  What I want to say is that this has been an outstanding year.  But it isn’t really true either.  I’d count my blessings for you but you’d be bored – the list is so long.

On the other hand, since my daughter was born in June, I have watched my mother change from a person I recognized (no matter how I felt about that) to a woman who is a rather unpleasant stranger.  I’ve attributed this to the death of my maternal grandmother in November but really it could be something entirely mental health related.  My grandmother lived with my parents and the fall that precipitated her death was dramatic.  In the end, it wrung my mother dry.  We flew cross-country with our 6 month old in the winter for the memorial and that was the last time I saw any familiar part of my mother.  In April, my paternal grandmother died.  My parents handled this as they characteristically do; in an effort not to upset my sisters and I in any way, they downplayed her imminent death and eventual funeral.  Within 24 hours of hearing she had just days, I was on the opposite coast with my hand on her shoulder as she passed away.  I think there’s a lot I want to say about that.  I know that if I had told my parents I was going prior to rather than after my arrival, they would have discouraged me and been disappointed that I’d gone.  As it was, I felt disobedient for skulking around.  It was important.  That’s what I want to say.  Last week, I learned that the menacing looking black patch on my arm was melanoma and I’ll be heading in for a biopsy of my lymph nodes.  While I keep saying it’s nothing, the odds are unlikely, we caught it early enough, what I want to say is this sort of thing wouldn’t happen to me.  Cancer is just not what I see happening.  I’m pretty sure though, that saying that is a good way to get kicked in the teeth.

It’s a lot for one year.  Even if it’s a health scare and not a health crisis, it’s still two grandmothers (three if you throw in D’s Annabelle in early fall) and one mother short than when I started.  I catch myself trying not to hold still, moving forward steadily, hoping not to get drenched again.

A Real Page-turner

I love love love this post by someone who does the same things I do.  Just yesterday, in fact, I walked home two and a half miles reading the whole way.  Although sometimes I have a proper book with pages and all, I find that the glare of the sun on the pages and the heft of the book make it so that reading while walking longer distances isn’t as comfortable.  A block?  No problem.  Any further makes my head hurt.  So yesterday, as I do often, I walked-read on a Kindle and angels sang a chorus the whole way home.

Walking while reading provides a certain amount of danger.  Negotiating curbs, rogue bicycles, malicious bees, traffic.  If you enjoy a little spice to your day, I suggest you try reading while walking from a flat area up a barely noticeable incline. A page-turner walk is even more fraught with peril than walking with a Kindle. Turning the page requires extra attention to the pavement and surroundings and a physical effort that could set you off kilter.  Any veering I’ve done while reading has been at the prodding of a paper page turned too quickly.

That said, reading while walking (in any format) means I’m missing out on what’s going on in the world around me.  Since I love seeing unusual cars (or people) pass, looking at balcony gardens or watching the bridge construction progress, I don’t read every day.  Walking is as much a meditation as it is time away from my child, my work, my life that I can devote to a few chapters of a particularly good read. Like Deborah Bryan says, it has to be a really good book to claim the cracks in my schedule.

Something’s Broken (and for once it isn’t me)

My parents have just been visiting for three weeks.  I had a fortunate childhood and I like them well enough, but my mother (previously known here as the VVM) has a complex set of mental illness and emotional damage that makes her less like a mother and more like a particularly sensitive time bomb.

It has taken years of visits to recognize that two or three days before she leaves for home she stops speaking to me, has no opinion about anything, trails behind on any outing – and by behind I mean a block or so, not just a bit – and waits for the opportunity to take something I’ve said and twist it into a personal attack.  You can imagine where that goes.  No place good.

In the end, I spend hours wondering what I could have done differently, and I can usually find something.  I said or did something that she could take wrong.  This time I carefully watched every word I said and until the very end of her last day.  I’d be proud to announce that I’d averted crisis except that it’s impossible.  She dissolved anyway.  She attacked other people, less so than she usually goes after me, but I stayed out of the line of fire until all the signs came anyway.  Even though I didn’t say anything, it happened anyway.

She lives on the other side of the country and our visits are annual at best.  It doesn’t matter that she has contentious relationships with other family members.  It doesn’t matter that I love her very much.  It doesn’t matter that she treats me differently than my sisters.  What matters is that I don’t know how avoid another visit.  I can’t stand the idea of doing this again now that I am completely sure it isn’t my fault.

Sure, it could be so much worse.  But it sure as hell could be so much better.

 

Spoiler Alerts, Please

The news is fun lately, isn’t it?  I mean, not that it was ever fun like woooo! but it’s definitely more fun like take shelter! and honestly, that’s not my favorite sort of fun.  Rather than continue on lamenting the lack of wooo! news, I’d just like to put in a plea for disclaimers.  Most people are pretty good at hollering SPOILER ALERT so that they , hopefully, don’t reveal the ending of a given book, situation, movie, plot for those that are planning to engage but haven’t yet.  I deeply appreciate this since I hardly ever get around to seeing or reading things as soon as they happen and I don’t like to have endings just tossed about.  But I need spoiler alerts on more things.

In particular, I need to be spoiled on graphic violence, cruelty to animals and people, heartbreaking, irreparable situations and so forth.  Just today, I read part of a terrible article about a terrible thing that happened to something helpless in a country where folks felt like they had no choice but to do that terrible thing.  It showed up in my feed, so I didn’t even get the chance of a headline (not that it would have helped) as a hint to rush past and I would not have read that article had I known I was going to get graphic detail about what happened.  Also, that video you posted about the loyal dog refusing to leave someone’s side after a tragic situation?  Please, take down the picture associated.  Last night I was reading a book whose jacket stated that it was a mystery tangentially related to a flood happening 60 years previous.  So when I encountered the detailed description of how a person drowns and what it looks like I was paralyzed.  I couldn’t unread it.  The author couldn’t know how I would feel about that, but I sure could have used some warning, rather than just words flung down on the page in the middle of what was a previously gentle paragraph.  SPOILER ALERT: I’m fragile.  No, seriously.

So it’s my own fault.  I don’t NEED to click on the article with a clear headline about abuse or disaster.  In fact, there is no way that’s going to enrich my life.  Unfortunately, in the very same places I get the news I want to see, I also find headlines that all but explain other tragic and terrible stories.  You certainly are thinking this is an ostrich in the sand sort of moment and you probably are also thinking that folks like me are the reason we can’t solve epidemics of abuse or haul nations back onto their feet.  I’m okay with that because I don’t function well when I’m mentally bruised.  I can’t make a difference in anyone’s life if I’m overwhelmed by terrible thoughts and memories.  I’d rather be a happy, productive, whole person than read about or see images of horror. Unless I’m prepared.  So please, CNN, spoiler alerts.

At Least Santa Loves Gays

I find I’m pretty much constantly outraged these days.  Let me clarify, I’m pretty much outraged at the state of Virginia there days.

It’s not good here in the Commonwealth.  It hasn’t ever been good, that’s true, but it’s certainly getting worse than it has been.  I don’t usually get all twisted up in the machinations of politicians.  They do good and bad but they also come and go.  Whether or not that’s the right perspective, it’s the perspective I find most allows me to recognize that it isn’t the person making these godforsaken decisions, it’s the politics.  The “not the person” part is important to me, but it’s getting more challenging by the day.

The Governor of Virginia removed the protections for gays put into place by the previous governor.  I consoled myself with the idea that the Virginia Senate passed an anti-discrimination discrimination bill.  A bill that reportedly will not pass the House.  But let’s not be negative.  At least, not until we hear from Virginia Representative Bob Marshall (and I might as well just quote here) who said, “I think there first should be some finding that homosexuals, as a class, are being discriminated against.  In all of my experience and reading, gay individuals seem to have more income, to attend more cultural events, to take more vacations than the rest of us. Show me where this discrimination is going on.’’  You can see that here, at the end of the article.

I’ll let you take a moment to consider that.  While I take a vacation and go to a cultural event.  Not to be outdone, Ken Cuchinelli, the State’s Attorney General opted to chime with an outrageously unreasonable roar that condones discrimination against gays. You can read the letter he sent to state schools here (it’s a PDF – so if you don’t want to open it, take my word that he’s an asshole).

Understandably, there was an outcry (this particular outcry comes from individuals at the university where I work).  And honestly, I can’t believe we got to this point so quickly.  I sat at my desk yesterday thinking about the chilling effect such changes have.   I am already facing a delicate balance with my pregnant wife and soon-to-be-no-legal-relationship-to-me child.  I had a moment where I wondered if it would be better to be closeted.  And then another when I realized how many people would stay closeted because of this.  If nothing else, It’s been a pretty bad March.

There was a moment of hope late this afternoon as the Governor appeared to distance himself from the AG.  The local paper is running a ticker saying that he has reversed his original executive order.  But really, I can’t believe I live somewhere that allows these shenanigans to go on.  Yes, I could move, but I shouldn’t have to.  It’s hard to blame the politics when the people do things like this.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus but he’s got nothing but coal for your sorry ass.

Too Hot To Trot

I was feeling particularly outraged last week.  It didn’t take much to send me off ranting and raving, what with the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell shenanigans kicking off the week.  A plan?  Really?  We’re only just now going to start devising a plan to fire fewer people for being gay?  I’m glad we’re going to need a study on how to do that.  In the meantime, I’ll continue to enjoy being oppressed.

But this has nothing to do with that (except for the outrage, that’s there, sure).  This has everything to do with an interview Michelle Obama gave at the White House on the Today show.  I couldn’t even hear what she was saying because I was distracted by her arms.  Her BARE arms.  In the background, I could see piles of snow outside her window.  But there she was, chatting with the interviewer (wearing dark colors and a heavy looking suit) in her BARE ARMS.  It was the sort of thing she’s known for wearing now, but I’m not particularly concerned about her personal style.  Because next to her and the snow and the BARE ARMS all I could see was my soon overdue gas bill.  The astronomically expensive gas bill generated by heating our house to just above shivering for a month.  I have kept the thermostat in the upper 50s in the house of a pregnant woman in order to keep our bank account from zeroing out.

It isn’t about energy-saving or insulation.  I’m taking steps to see what can be done to improve the situation.  In a record-breaking icy winter, it’s not surprising everyone is…well, surprised by their astronomically expensive gas bills.  My outrage is about her BARE ARMS and the luxury of being able to have BARE ARMS in her home.  It’s winter.  People cannot afford to heat their homes.  Even people have not lost jobs, lost wages, slipped away form cost of living increases.  But at the White House, it’s apparently so warm that Michelle Obama is uncomfortable with sleeves.

Humor the masses.  Put on a cardigan.

I was surprised at my reaction to her arms.   Whether it’s something she threw on or something carefully selected by a stylist, it was the wrong decision.   It read as a unnecessary display of wealth in an economy that can’t recover.  Thanks Michelle Obama and the White House staff for making me feel like the poverty line has become unreachable.

I’m sorry, I have the flu.

I’m that person.  The person who cancels.

I have the BEST of intentions.  Really.  I want to see you.  I want to hang out.  I want to laugh and spend time and celebrate our wonderfulness.  And so I say YES!  Yes I want to see you and come to your house and stay up to all hours loving life.  YES!

But I’m going to cancel.  Watch me.  It will happen three out of four times and the fourth time is just cause I’m feeling guilty.  24 hours before I’m supposed to come I get paralyzed.  I can’t do it.  I dread coming to your house.  I feel like I might die.  I know I’ll have a good time, I know you’ll be a magnificent host.  I’m sure I’ll even be charming.  But I feel so much better if I don’t come.  Like a test I haven’t studied for being cancelled.  Like a test for a class I’ve never been to being cancelled.  Relief of the holy kind.

It’s not anxiety exactly.  My palms don’t sweat and my heart doesn’t race.  It’s just that when you asked me I really did want to come.  REALLY.  And then when it’s time to be there, I really don’t want to go.  REALLY.  There seems to be no strategy for this except to say no in advance and apologize after.  This would be easier if I’d have the good sense to say no when you ask, but when you ask, I want to, I do.

I’d go somewhere to fix this, but I’d probably cancel.

More than One Glass

My in-laws are in town today.  They were here yesterday and will be gone tomorrow.  I hope.  My mother-in-law said something like, “Well, we packed extra clothes for about a week.  You never know when you might want to stay a bit longer.”

You never know.

I know though.  I know that I’m delighted they came to see us this year, given last year’s debacle.  I know I’m very happy to have spent the holidays with family, instead of abroad as has so often happened.  I know that I’m going to be an excellent mom and that I have a previously untapped well of patience for children.  On the other hand, I know that I have a negative amount of patience for my mother and D’s mother.  I know that some things will drive me to drink – like this:

Look folks, when you’re visiting someone’s house, it’s okay to keep your water glass, not wanting to dirty up someone else’s kitchen.  But, if your host has taken your empty water glass from the evening before and washed it after you went to sleep, you are not justified in saying, “If I put this glass in the refrigerator, will it be safe?  I’m just trying to keep it safe.”

You’ve got no excuse if you leave the house for the afternoon and when your daughter-in-law opens the fridge said glass is empty.  It’s not holding any liquid, it’s not storing anything that you’re going to drink later.  It’s empty.  Put it in the sink and get a new glass dammit.

Well, it’s the small battles.  I know tomorrow I can wash as many dishes as I want to.

Christmas Eve – Not Chaotic

I’m not sure why we don’t shop like this every year.

D and I usually exchange gifts on the 25th.  Small gifts generally, things we think the other would like.  We were going to skip that this year in favor of something bigger but scrapped it and were left with nothing.  So we braved the holiday traffic and mobs to drive an hour to a place where there are a lot of shops crammed together.  A mall I suppose, but outdoors.  With a $50 limit, I was planning to buy a couple of smaller things and focus on not panicking in the crowds.

So, plans in place, we went to sleep last night excited about our plans.  And then I woke up at 3 with a splitting headache.  Sure, it was the same headache I’ve had off and on for four days but it had been gone for a few hours earlier and I was hoping I was off the hook.  Lies.  So I spent the wee hours wishing my ache away and watching infomercials.  As you do.  At 5, I fell back asleep, armed with advil.  At 8, she woke me up and my headache jangled around in one eye, trying to shred my brain.  At 10, we left to shop.  30 minutes in, we had to stop so I could buy sunglasses.  45 minutes in, we had to stop so I could toss my breakfast on to the side of the road.  When we arrived, I gave in and took the medication that might be causing rebound headaches but it’s christmas and I don’t care.

I was prepared to possibly die today in clouds of aftershave, pushy, last minute shoppers and screaming children.  In fact, the only crowds I encountered were in the tech heavy stores (along with overwhelming cologne – seriously guys, lay off in a public place) and the only kid that screamed had every reason to, being short one coat in the freezing cold.  D and I shopped separately, leisurely, and both had a wonderful time finding things for each other.  We capped it off with a visit to a pet store that miraculously had the special food our special dog needs and lunch with a queer server.  Talk about a christmas score.

So, tonight we’re celebrating with a gift certificate to an upscale Southern restaurant that our realtor gave us and tomorrow we’ll unwrap those gifts bought with love and leisure.  Who knew christmas eve could be so mellow?