Because Niobe's doing it

The rules are: 26-word poem, words in consecutive alphabetical order

All bitter cold days,
ever fearful,
going home
in January's knowing light,
mine never over
painful questions
ranging snakily through, under
vast, wasted
exertions--
yet:
Z.

And, yes, I cheated on the x. I hate it when people don't cheat on the x. How many xylophones does the world need, anyway?

Check out what Niobe and Julia wrote. Slouching mom proposed the challenge.

The way to a girl's heart

A.: Hey, you're looking all skinny! Except for those great big shorts you've got on.

S.: (grins!)

Mind you, skinny is a relative term. When I got pregnant, I weighed more than I ever had in my life, 55 pounds more than the weight I think of as "mine." But as of today, I'm back at the weight I was before I conceived. I've lost 17 pounds in the last three months, by moving away from depressive eating and moderately increasing my exercise. And yeah, my shorts are kind of falling off of me.

I can't tell you what a relief that is.

Me and the Iditarod: not gonna happen

At dinner (not dessert!)

Z.: I found some cookie to eat.

S.: That's because I didn't wipe down the table.

Z.: Why?

S.: Because I'm a lazy housekeeper.

Z.: Why ah you a lazy husky?

First day, new classroom

I'm home from dropping Z. off at her first day in her new, infant-free day care room. Everyone but Z. is 2 1/2, and Z.'s half-birthday is Sunday. There was no changing table in the classroom! Wow. A bright new era dawns.

Since A. doesn't start back at school until next week, we dropped her off together. Dropping her off was fine. The room is beautiful, and the teachers had the best, most fabulous toys out for first-day drop-off distraction. The other three kids from her infant-toddler room were already there, so all the promised people were reassuringly present. The assistant teacher was floating last year, so Z. already knows her well from when she covered in Z.'s infant-toddler room. The head teacher blinked at our cloth training pants, but it was only a blink: "okay, we've had cloth before." And the binky-free trip to school went unprotested. Really, nothing could be better.

Except every waking moment of the eleven hours that led to getting her out the door. Z. usually goes down around 9:30, after her bath. Recently, she's been getting up about once and needing to be firmly directed back to bed, but she does go and that's usually the end of it. She's been under the weather for a few nights, so she's been getting more cuddling down, and I think that, on top of a late nap, was what set us up for disaster.

Last night, she popped up seven times between 9:30 and midnight, with tears and coaxing and threatened time outs each time. When I got to bed at 12:15, A. was in Z.'s bed, and Z. was doing everything she could to keep her Mommy in bed with her--in other words, to keep herself awake. I took over, and it was more of the same with Mama until I dredged up the Cuddle of Last Resort.

The Cuddle of Last Resort is a cold-season manoeuver, for when Z. is too stuffed in the nose to sleep flat. I get myself propped up on pillows and she drapes herself over me. The problem with this for me is that I can't get to sleep when she's touching me and I don't even really get sleepy on my back. We haven't used this one in a few months and she was considerably lighter then--put enough toddler weight on your chest and it gets hard to breathe.

It took her a good 45 minutes in this position before she finally dropped off. I crawled into my own bed at 1:30. The alarm went off at 6:00. We got Z. to school at 8:30, and it's only a four-block walk. It was pretty much solid tantrums--about getting out of bed, about eating breakfast, about finishing breakfast, about ponytails and hairclips, about teeth-brushing, about another book, about getting dressed--until I cottoned on to what she was saying:

"I'm too cwranky to go to school."

Yes, everyone, I set us up for this morning's mess by keeping her home when she was cranky last year. I am still paying for that one.

Lucky for us, Z. is proud of being a big girl. When she was finally cuddling in Mommy's lap, I told her that when she was one, it was okay to stay home from school because she was cranky. I told her what wasn't strictly true: that when she turned two she started going to school even when she was cranky.

And so, we coaxed her into her training pants and her shorts, got her new librarian shirt on her, re-did the ponytails, got the sugar bugs off the teeth and the sandals on her feet.

She's off at school. There are no babies in her classroom now. She's not a baby anymore.

And it was my turn for tears walking back down the hall.

Remembering

In Memoriam:

Ilsa, my diva dog
October 8, 1995-August 29, 2006

She died last year on the night before school started.

We scattered some of her ashes earlier this summer down in Southern Maryland, the place of some of her happiest days. Today we buried what we kept--by far most of them--and placed some stones from the St. Mary's River over them, in the shady spot near the gate where she used to lie in the periwinkle so she would be the first one to greet you when you came home.

Z. and I had some talks today about how when you finish crying you feel better. She asked me "Now do you feel happy dat Ilsa dayeed?" A. translated this as: "I know Ilsa died, but are you feeling better now, Mama?"

And actually, seeing those stones when I came through the gate, even though my heart twisted a little, I did feel better. I've missed her waiting for me.

Military Connections?

Jody asked us about our military connections. She had in mind the frequent claim that mainstream Americans have little contact with the soldiers now serving in Iraq. My connections to the military are a little thin on the ground in real life, but thick in my now defunct intellectual career.

So, real life first:

• My paternal grandfather served in the Navy in WWII. He served in the Aleutians, as part of the military contingent on merchant marine ships, so he actually saw very little combat.
• My father chose to avoid the draft for Vietnam by joining the army reserve. He had reserve duty that took him away from home for weekends during the earliest years of my childhood.
• When I was small, my family lived for two years on Saipan. Even in the mid-70's, WWII was such an overwhelming part of the terrain and culture of the island that that war felt just as present to me as the Vietnam War that was still winding up. I have been to the site on Tinian where the Enola Gay was launched; I was 4 at the time. That was the same age I saw the footage filmed by Marines of Japanese civilians jumping from Suicide Cliff, fleeing from the US invasion. In their defense, my parents didn't know what was coming. But you know? Suicide Cliff was a place we went by pretty often, so it didn't quite go over my head.
• M*A*S*H was one of the few shows we could see on television on Saipan. I know this isn't particularly real life to a grownup, but to me at 3 and 4 years old, it was a substantial part of my sense of how the world worked.
• I registered for the draft as a conscientious objector. I know, I know, I know--I was eighteen and a feminist and in the peace movement.
• I was in the peace movement. It was a little late in the day, but I spent a couple of summers and a good part of a school year canvassing for SANE/Freeze and did a lot of protesting during the first Gulf War. This is an antithetical relationship to the military, but a relationship nonetheless.
• In my last year of college, I went to a going-away party for the brother of a friend who was joining the military, and all of his ex-army friends were telling stories. I felt like I was a guest in a different culture, and I was.
• When we were in Madison, the president of our little synagogue, who was a psychiatric nurse in the reserves, was activated for service, an event that shifted the community's sense of investment in the war.

Intellectual career next:

My dissertation was on the topic of how women in the baby boom generation write about the trauma of the Pacific theater of the Second World War. I've spent a lot of time with soldiers' and sailors' memoirs, and with the novels that came out of that experience initially, with various histories and secondary literature, and of course all of that all over again with the way it comes back in the next generation, so I've spent some time on the similar literature that comes out of Vietnam, as well. I've also read so many Hiroshima stories that when Jonathan Safran Foer went there in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close--a book we sort of strangely read out loud to each other in the car--I interrupted A. and inserted what was going to come next from off the top of my head and got it pretty much right.

That's a good 8 or 10 years of my life spent reading, thinking, and mostly not writing about the military, but the military of my grandfather's and father's generation, and all this even though I would say that (like Jody) I feel hostile to the entire idea of standing professional armed forces, whether volunteer or conscript. I tend to think of my interest in terms of my early exposure to the war while living on Saipan. I tend to think of my hostility in terms of a family history of qualified pacifism and having grown up on Capitol Hill, at what everyone assumed would be ground zero when everyone assumed the attack would be nuclear.

Thinking about this, it strikes me that what I have connected to are the wars of the previous two generations that touched everyone, because of the draft or because--in the case of the Cold War--of the grip they had on the culture while they were being engaged. This seems like an argument that the draft does make more people pay attention--a point that Jody, along with Senator Rangel and others, have made. But I guess I'm throwing in my two cents there, too: if we're going to go to war, let's share the burden.

Your thoughts, guys?

Curls

Figs

Summer Days

My life has been spent on the academic calendar. It's only the past two years that I've had a year-round job, and since I'm my own boss, even that feels like a bit of fiction. Because I'm married to a teacher and used to be one, the summer is still the time of year I think of as dedicated to recuperation from the ravages of the school year.

I am also a seasonal affective disorder sufferer, so my year cycles through low and high. I am likely to be depressed by December and January, even in a good year, and I haven't had a good year in quite some time. This makes me a much better early-season gardener than a mid-season one. By the time the bulbs start to bloom, I am desperate to see the ground returning to life and beauty, so I watch for the crowns of my perennials with the eye of a scavenger.

I feel no similar desperation about keeping the jungle at bay in July. If it grows, it grows, and around here July is much too humid to do anything outside but swim. And August! Forget it. August is for doing as little as humanly possible, preferably in New England.



But as long as there is air conditioning (and in a bookstore in a humid town, there must be air conditioning!), I get things done in summer, usually in bursts of phone calls and fits of organizing energy. Actually, that's how I get things done no matter what time of the year it is, but during the summer I have bursts of bursts, and need less time to flop and catch my breath in between.

This summer has been something of an exception. I have had one notable accomplishment: I hired a bookkeeper. I have yet to give her any of the stuff she needs from me, but I did hire her.

The other high points of my working summer were, for me, occasions for congratulating myself on having hired and promoted well. I had relatively little to actually do in pulling off the fabulously successful HP7 launch party, and the "Best of" honor that we were given is down to my event coordinator more than to me. She's the one who envisioned and organized the festival that got us noticed in April.

Having hired and promoted well, having been freed from most of my child-care duties while A. was home, I have more or less let things go along without me for a couple-few months while I spent most of my energy on getting my emotional life together in various ways.

That work was long overdue, but it's far from done and there is one week left in summer. I'm worried about the fall. I'm worried that I haven't made enough progress, and I'm worried that what progress I've made was only possible because of the conditions of this summer. I know I'm in far, far better shape than I was this time last year. But I haven't tested that much.

It's almost time to go back to school, and I don't know if I'm ready yet.

(Illustration by Z. [detail])
(The orange spirals are Z. and Mama, but I don't know which is which.)

Gather with the pixies

Once again, your inimitable host is throwing the the whiner's ball this week. Uh, yes, that would be me, S.

Alla y'all are welcome to bitch and moan, newcomers and veterans alike. Brits and anglophiles can whinge if that's your preference.

Variation on a theme

Twinkeul, twinkeul, liddel stawr
how I wondeuh what you
twinkeul, twinkeul
Medium stawr
Dat’s me
And den I get to duh big stawr
twinkeul, twinkeul liddel stawr

I got to hurry up before I grow too old

Happy birthday to the late, great Joe Strummer, someone I now associate with Paul Wellstone, because I heard about each man's death in the car while listening to NPR, and had to pull to the shoulder each time until I was fit to drive again.

Sartorial adventure

A.: Look Z., Mama got you a shirt.

Z.: Glasses!

A.: Do you like the library?

Z.: Yes!

S.: It's for kids who like the library. Here, do you want to hold it?

Z.: Yes! (starts pulling up shirt she's wearing).

S.: Do you want to put it on?

Z.: (pulls down shirt she's wearing, reaches for new shirt) Can I put it on my head? (holds shirt in one hand, taps her curls)

S.: Sure.

Z. pulls shirt over her head and arranges it so her face shows through the collar, balaclava-style. A sleeve flops over her crown.

Z.: Why is dair a syurt on my head?

Will you tell me duh storewy

...about Mama and [Diva Dog] wauking in duh woods?



S.: Well, Mama and Diva Dog were walking in the woods and we found a good place to put up our tarp for the night. So we got under it and we tried to go to sleep, when we heard a "Crash! Crash! Crash!" in the forest. And what was it?

Z.: It was uh beawr!

S.: That's right, it was a bear. And what did Mama say?

Z.: Go away! Go away! Go away! Go away! Go away! Go away! Go away! Go away! Go away! Go away! Go away! Go away! Go away! Go away! Go away! Go away!

S.: And the bear went away! Everything was quiet. But then Mama and Diva Dog heard "Crash! Crash! Crash!" again in the forest. And I held Diva Dog's snout so she wouldn't growl, and I said ...

Z.: Go away! Go away! Go away! Go away! Go away! Go away! Go away! Go away! Go away! Go away! Go away! Go away! Go away! Go away! Go away! Go away!

S.: ...and we didn't hear that bear any more. But the next morning, what did I find?

Z.: Duh beawr's food! And Mama left dat beawr's food right dair, so duh beawr could take dat food home to da forwest, and duh beawr could put dat food away. And dair awr no kitchens in da forwest.

(Illustration by Z.)
(It's not meant to be anything in particular.)
(A budding Rothko, no?)

Listen to this space

Inspired by ppb and Jo(e), I just did some neighborhood freecycling for an mp3 player. I'm picking it up Monday, so I'm thinking you'll hear me singing Z. goodnight sometime next week. I'll try to get her to sing along!

Hey, everyone, it's Elul

Just got this from my rabbi ... well, one of my rabbis. It's not quite a Toddler Logic bit, but I thought it was still worth passing along.

Elul is the month in the Jewish calendar that comes before the Yamim Noraim, the High Holidays, and it's devoted to t'shuvah, or turning: forgiveness, mending hurts, letting go of what's hurt you in the past.

Apparently, from what I've been putting up recently, I am planning on spending Elul figuring out something about getting my spiritual life together. But I'm mostly pretending that I'm not, okay? So don't point it out to me too much. (A little bit of pointing out would be alright, I guess.)

From "Snake Talk", A Traveling Jewish Theater

Enough of the oy veh! path. Now we are going to fix it. Now we make a new path. So. You take a shovel, you take a ground hacker, you take a hairpin. If all you got is a hairpin, take a hairpin and start digging. Dig in all directions, up and down, right and left, in and out. Not in a straight line. Nothing natural or interesting goes in a straight line. As a matter of fact, it is the quickest way to the wrong place. And don't try to pretend you know where you are going. Because if you know where you are going, you have been there, and you are going to end up exactly where you came from. Okay. So now we are digging. All of a sudden you bump into a stone. Oooh, it's so cute. Un-un. Throw it away like a hot potato. You are going to bump into lots of stones, geologically fascinating; stones of blame, resentment, self-pity. Oooh, from these I could build a palace. Forget it. You build from them, what you got is a prison. So you bend down, you pick 'em up, you throw 'em away. Dig a little, pick a little, throw a little, turn; dig a little, pick a little, throw a little, turn...

Now this is where you got to pay special attention to getting lost. If you are not lost, you are in trouble. Lost? Good. Sit down, blow your nose, and wait. Sometimes you got to wait for a very long time. Until a bird or a stranger comes along with a message. And do you know what you are supposed to do while you're waiting? You are supposed to do...nothing. Nada, zilch, nothing. And if you can do that, if you can do nothing until the right thing comes along, then you have mastered the hardest part of all.

Okay. So now you are back on the road, nice and easy, no rush, no push, and you take one little step, you take two little steps, you take three little steps, you take... watch out! WATCH OUT! You are about to fall into the puddle of empty manifestation. Here on the fourth step you are meant to fall down, not once, not twice, not occasionally, but on every fourth step. The ground opens up, the wind blows, a branch hits you in the head, you trip on stones, you twist your ankle, your heart breaks, you've got to fold the laundry and they have closed the two left lanes. All of the forces gathered together to stop you. And some people, when it happens, they fall down and they lie there for the rest of their lives. But some people learn to fall down/get up. Now that is one move: fall down/get up.

Okay. So now you are on your own way and you notice that with every step you straighten up a little bit. And it hurts. All of the places you've been bending over that got stuck. And don't try to avoid it hurting. Because if you do, you will never straighten up.

Okay. That's it. That is how you do it. You dig, you bend down, you throw away, you go in circles, you get lost, you wait, you listen, you do nothing, you fall down/get up; and inside, you unfold.

Feeling a little wrung out

So I'm going to take a few days off.

There may be some hike journals or toddler logic if the inspiration strikes.

Otherwise, see you in the comment fields, and I'll be back on Monday.

Boycott

Check out this link for more info, but here is a case where progressive Jews can join the Orthodox in putting pressure on a husband who refuses to give his wife a get, or Jewish divorce. As long as he refuses, she can't remarry. There are better ways of preventing this situation from arising in the first place, but they aren't accepted in the Orthodox world. The boycott is.

Don't buy from www.succah.com.

(And please note that websites with other spellings of "sukkah" or "sukkot" are not related.)

This is how bad things are around here

A. tells me that today, Z. woke up from her nap and said "Sometimes Thomas is a train."

And we both knew immediately what Thomas is the rest of the time: the rest of the time, Thomas is the bandleader for Pink Martini.

No dilating drops!

Today was back to the eye doctor, for a visual field test and photos of my optical nerves. The visual field test was sort of the equivalent of a hearing test where you put your hand up to show you heard the ping. You do one eye at a time, with a plastic patch covering the other one. You stare into a yellow light at the back of a space-age-looking bowl. There are flashes in your peripheral vision, some so faint as to make you think you imagined them, and you press a button each time you see one. Repeat on other side.

This happens in a darkened room, and the good news was that my eyes were dilated enough just from this process that I didn't need drops for the photo.

I now know what the insides of my eyes look like. They are orange-pink, veined, with a darker spot in each. They have a fetal look about them, actually. They don't look much like anything capable of perception.

What a strange thing a body is.

Anyone else have encounters with their insides they want to share?