Not Calm (dot com)

Critical mess

Critical mess.  Am I applying this overused play on words to my house?  Myself?  The world at large?

Yes.  Yes.  And, I'm too busy at the moment to notice the world at large.

My house is always kind of a wreck.  I hate that it is, but mess seems to win no matter how much time I spend cleaning up.  One memorable weekend not long ago I listened to fifteen episodes of This American Life over two days *just* spent cleaning the boys' room.  It was amazing when I finished.  Now it looks worse than ever. 

Every room here looks like someone turned it upside down and shook it.  In fact, one of my favorite inventions that I never got around to creating -- though I DO have the websites where I could order the materials to make it all bookmarked, so maybe I will -- is a little snowglobe living room.  The couch and bookshelf (tiny doll furniture) would be secure at the bottom and when you turned it upside down and gave it a shake, tiny newspapers, socks, shoes, gum wrappers, pencils, stuffed animals, teeny cut up pieces of yarn, abandoned homework, books, backpacks, belts, hats, hair clips, sunflower and pistachio shells, pillows, dvd cases, video tapes, remote controls, loose CDs, junk mail, broken crayons, and legos would gently float down like so much snow, covering the living room. 

There would be a whole series, of course.  I would release a new room each year.  A bathroom with minuscule bars of soap and itty bitty Q-tips.  Empty toilet paper rolls and bottles of shampoo that slowly leaked onto the floor.  Wouldn't it be kind of therapeutic to shake up a room and watch all the stuff suspended in water?  Maybe I could glue a tiny version of myself to the bottom.  I'd be standing with my feet set wide apart, my hair in flames.

Anyway.  The mess.  It's bad.  It's all the result of doing too much at once.  Instead of taking the time to put the clean laundry away (because something else must be done right at that moment) I'll leave a stack of it on a dresser or near a dresser or on the dryer for "later."  For when I have time to put it up.  And then I don't make the time and I add to the pile or make a new one next to it and then when the kids ask for socks I direct them to the pile, which they paw through and knock over and then I don't know what's clean and what's not and it starts spreading like some kind of creepy slime even though it's just clean, folded laundry. 

The same thing happens with papers.  And books.  And anything else that is stackable.  Right now on the floor near the bed I can see the final Harry Potter book under a stack that is made up of a pair of my pajama bottoms, four of my tee shirts, one of Sophie's drawings that I want to keep, a playmobile unicorn, a pair of tights, and a laptop bag.  On the table near the bed is an improbable tower of mail, kids' clothes, computer and iPod cords, an empty prescription bottle, a box of checks, a book, something flat in bubble wrap, a little ziplock bag of girls' earrings, Lex's PRESCHOOL graduation hat (he is in 5th grade -- it hasn't been there that long; he just recently found it on the amazingly neat shelf in his closet and it ended up here), and a phone charger.

It's all stuff I've stuck there because I was feeling too busy to put it up properly.  The thing is, I HATE living this way.  I do make an effort, but I may as well be using a square of toilet paper for an umbrella during a downpour. 

I realize that this is all of my own making.  I REALLY should have brought my kids up to be used to helping out around here.  In my defense, I wasn't very good at helping them form healthy habits as I always had a baby on my hip or at my breast and mostly let them do what made them happy so I could rest and have a break now and then. 

Which, um, came back to actually bite my ass clean off. 

So now we've reached critical mess.  Walking in the front door raises my blood pressure by several thousand points.  No one can find any clean socks.  Everyone is tired of hearing me gripe.  I have visions of my own starkly clean and minimalist apartment where NO ONE is allowed to visit me.  Ever.  I'll just video conference forever and ever, amen.

The weekend is coming.  Saturday I am going to start the Master Cleanse (which I'm hoping will help with my autoimmune disease because I'm  tired of taking four pills three times a day and still being sick) and between trips to the loo I will be making trips to the garbage and the goodwill drop off.  I'm hoping to clear things out enough that I can maybe hire someone to come and help me keep on top of things.  Because not only do I not blog, I don't do other vital things like pay bills on time, pluck my eyebrows, read blogs and books and magazines, knit, cook, watch movies and chill out now and then. 

I can't do it all.  I will be miserable if I keep trying to.  I want to walk in the door and feel glad to be here.

i post

with my iphone.
i know . . .
i spoiled.

cooper's hawk

  cooper's hawk 
  Originally uploaded by jenijen

Yesterday morning I got up before 6.  It was still pretty dark outside -- darker than it looks in this photo.  I saw what I thought was a big cat on the back fence, and I walked closer to the window to see what it was up to.  Turns out it was this cooper's hawk.  She perched there for a few minutes, flew away, and then came back to finish checking things out. 

We've lived in our house for almost six years and that's the first hawk I've seen in the back yard.  The wall behind the fence is part of a two story apartment building, so I was surprised to see her there so close to so many people.

A couple of hours later I drove by the cemetery I pass every day on my way to work.  It's just a few blocks from my house, and since I grew up in this neighborhood, I've been watching it from car windows for over 25 years.  I've walked through it, too.  People I knew are buried there.

Today, for the first time that I can remember, I saw a backhoe digging a grave.  Maybe I just noticed because it was near the street, just on the other side of the very high hedge that fences in the cemetery grounds. 

I drove by again at the end of the day -- there were bright flowers in bunches and wreaths stacked so high they showed over the top of the hedge.  I wonder if the things that I think are unusual in my daily routine are really out of the norm, or if they're happening all the time and I simply don't notice.

Look where my brother and his wife are

apt. balcony view
Originally uploaded by jasonsyawp

*sigh*

Today I wore the bracelet that I bought for myself at the religious shop right next to La Catedral. All day long I'd look at it and feel good that part of Barcelona was wrapped around my wrist.

Do something different with your life

Long ago (in a galaxy far away), I used to sometimes go-go dance with my friend Tim's band*.  (I sort of wrote about it here).  He asked me to be in one of their videos, and I did, and now, something like 15 years later, here it is.  I never thought I'd end up on YouTube.

I used to have a VHS tape of a concert with the actual go-go dancing on it, but I think my former husband may have taped a soccer game over it.  Or something.  I haven't seen it in a very long time.  I used to get so nervous before the shows that I'd have to have a couple of shots of help and a beer chaser.  It was weird to be on stage as -- of all things -- a go-go dancer.  I'm not really the type.  It was as fun as it was weird.

I still have that outfit in my drawer.  The hat, too. 

It doesn't freak me out that it is so tiny and will never, ever fit on my body again.  But it does make my head spin that Lex, at T-minus 25 days to 11 is closer in age to me when that video was made than I am now. 

Dude. 

I think I need to go lay down.

Not too long ago, I found a cassette tape that Tim gave to me when they were trying to pick songs for an album.  He handed them out to a few people to get feedback; a test audience of friends.  I have a tape deck in my van, and for days this summer when it was hot, I drove around with the windows down, singing along and being nostalgic.   I thought about when we met at the coffee shop we worked in.  It was 1989 or 1990.  Long enough ago that when I told people I had a job as a barrista they didn't know what the hell I was talking about.  I was his assistant at the espresso bar in the mornings, and we were a damn fine pair.  We'd watch for the regulars to park out front, and they'd glide in, hand over their money, say good morning and take their drinks from us without even slowing down.  To this day I will see regulars around town and I know them by their drinks (Hey!  It's the double dud lady!  A double dud is a double, decaf, nonfat latte.) 

We had to get there at the crack of crack, and after the morning rush, we'd clean up and restock and talk.  Tim was a huge Beatles fan.  The hugest, because he had this.   I remember that when I'd take a shower after work, it always smelled so good when the hot water would hit my head.  I think there was so much coffee oil in my hair that the hot water running off me was coffee.   And, I often think of the time that he sang to me as we stocked the fridge one day -- got a whole lotta milk whooooooo! got a whole lotta milk --  Hearing LedZepplin now makes me want one of Tim's cappuccinos.  NOBODY makes one like he does.  NOBODY.

*Tim -- if you are reading this, would you email so we can go to a movie or something?  I miss you.  It's been way too long.  Stupidly long.

When I think of love, I think of you

This is SO good!  I don't know how I snuck in the door for this one, but whatever -- I'm not going to question my luck!

See my dear old friends on you tube.  I really, really miss them.  Especially lately.

I forgot to mention in the post below that I do have one problem with watching soccer games: whenever one of the kids gets hurt -- ball to the face, kicked in the leg, wind knocked right out of them -- and all the other kids "take a knee" (kneel down on one knee) it totally makes me cry.

Like, even the hurt kid is dry-eyed, and I'm choking back tears and snot and sobs.  I *know* they're fine, really, but it just gets me. 

This morning I took the kids to school on my way to work.  All the first graders line up together and then walk over to their classrooms.  Soph's friend was sobbing this morning because she misses her parents, who went on a trip and were due back today.  Willow wanted to know why C was crying, and I could barely speak enough to say, Oh, she just misses her mom and dad.  But! They'll be home today!

I'd make a terrible first grade teacher.  I can see it now, me in front of the class crying along with the kid who forgot his lunch (so, so sad!) or the one with the pencil that keeps breaking every time she tries to sharpen it.

It's much better that I work with grown ups.

Cheerleader (that's me)

I was laying down in the dark with the girls in their bed at bedtime tonight when one of their sharp fingernails lightly scraped across my cheek.  It didn't scratch me at all, but it brought back memories of when the kids were tiny babies and I'd trim their nails and then drag their fingers across my cheek at all different angles to make sure there weren't any sharp edges.  My fingers are too tough to feel it properly, and the skin on my cheek is the only skin I've got (or had, back then) that's near soft enough to tell.  I hadn't thought about that in a long time.

So -- last Saturday Nate and Soph played their first official soccer games.  I always thought that I would not be one of those yelling from the sidelines parents; that I'd just watch, supportively and in a way that conveyed that I only cared that they were having fun and it didn't really matter if they won.

I am not that person. 

I even said to Nate's assistant coach (who, uh, happens to be his dad) after the game, "Dude! You guys have a GREAT keeper, but you've got to teach the kids to rely on him more.  They should pass back to him when it gets too crowded in front of the goal."

Amazingly, he agreed, and pointed out that eight and nine year old boys don't exactly have razor-sharp focus on the game. 

All during Nate's game, I'd stand up when the action got interesting, and I YELLED.  I yelled, "PASS THE BALL BACK! TO! YOUR! GOALIE!"  or "NATHAN, DUUUUUUDE! YER OFF SIDES! MOVE DOWNFIELD!"

Then, I'd sit back down in my little folding chair and take a sip of my vitamin water, getting my throat ready for the next time I needed to contribute to the game plan.  Nate's dad was all

PASS
THE
BALL
UPFIELD

PASSTHEBALLUPTHEFIELD
PASSTHEBALLUPFIELD!UP!FIELD!

for like, the whole hour.  And, I *know* his pain.  I felt it while screaming at them to just for the love of maude to pass back to the goalie!

In fact, I'm a little worked up about it right now.

Sophie's game was less tense.  Instead of yelling opinions, I clapped a lot, and yelled WOW! LOOK AT SOPHIE RUN! to Willow, who was right next to me.  Sophie hates all the opposing teammembers and takes it personally when they score.  Even when a girl on her own team accidentally kicked the ball into the net while trying to defend the goal, Sophie was glaring at the other girls.  She's littler than almost all the other kids, but man does she run hard and get pissed off. 

Sounds familiar.

Meanie

Sometimes I amaze myself.  Usually it's not in a good way, but more in the "wow. I'm so astonishingly stupid" way.  And, the thing is, I'm not stupid.  I just sometimes forget to remember what I know, instead acting on impulse or habit or laziness or autopilot and not doing what I have learned will sometimes work.

Huh?

Well, the past two days Lex has been a total ass.  (He knows how I feel about his recent behavior, and while I've pulled way, way back on writing about the specifics when it comes to the older kids, I'm just going to lay this one out there.)  He's been throwing elbows, telling his siblings that they are stupid and disgusting, that he hates them.  I was asking him about something (I don't remember) and he said to me Yeah, what the hell ever.

OH, YES.  He does know better.

It's been really awful.  I've sent his friends home (only to chase after them to come back to play when Nathan became really upset) I've confiscated his cell phone, tonight he wasn't allowed chocolate when the rest of the kids got some because he was being so mean.  He's had a lot of time in his room to smoulder.

And, I KNOW that punishing someone for being mean will only serve to make them meaner.  I know it.  If I take his phone away for being a shit to his brother, he will be pissed at his brother (and at me) and it won't help him to be nicer. 

But, apparently I forgot, and I kept all weekend trying to make him be nice. 

Then tonight, I went outside to take out the recycling and call the boys in for supper.  They were in the driveway, leaning up against the van and talking.  We started back for the house and I pulled Lex back, suddenly seeing so clearly what he needed.  I put my arms around him and hugged him and said, "Hey -- you've been acting really mean the past few days.  And I love you.  And I know that you love me.  And your brother and sister."

He didn't tell me what is bothering him, but he hugged me back and apologized, a real one, for being so rotten.  He let himself melt into our hug a little bit, and then he took a deep breath and touched my hair.  He said he felt better.  It's funny -- he's out of here every chance he gets, and if he's here, he has a friend over (seriously).  But I think what he needed to snap out of it was just a little attention from me.  I do know a few of the things he is struggling with.  A couple of them are sort of a big deal and I worry.  I just hope that I can keep remembering to be kind with him when he can't be.  And much more attentive with him when he is. 

Never see it coming

There's a pretty big wildfire burning in a state park in the mountains kind of near where I live.

I took that on Monday (two days ago) when I was driving. 

This was taken a few minutes later from down the road:

Now the mountains are invisible in all the haze.  I don't smell smoke outside, but when I walked into the house tonight it smelled like a campfire in my living room.  I think that's so odd.  The fire is burning in a state park, 11,000 acres so far and only 20% contained.  They think it may burn 50,000+ acres. 

The whole sky is hazy and thick, but it doesn't really look like smoke now.  It looks like awful smog.  When the sun goes down, though, it's gorgeous.  You know those shimmery silver heat mirages you see in the road?  They are pink.  And orange.  The light is a golden, rosy, tangerine color, and even the inside of my car was lit up and golden.  I took this tonight while at a stoplight as I was driving over to my mom's house.

Just after I took that, the light turned green.  I sort of paid attention to the road with one eye and got my camera (the little bitty one) zipped back into its case.  I probably took an extra two seconds or so to get moving.  I turned left.  I drove a quarter mile or so, and then slowed to make the right-hand turn onto my mom's street.  A car was stopped in the oncoming lane closest to me, waiting for me to turn so they could turn after me.  Only, instead of turning (probably on to their own street, going home after work for supper) they got smashed into by a truck.  I kept going.  I could see that someone else was stopping.  I had to get back to the kids' school which I'd just left for a few minutes so I could take some papers to my mom's.  I was late, sneaking away from the PTA meeting between the teacher meetings I had for Back to School Night. 

I don't think I should have stopped.  I'm not trained in first aid enough to help.  Someone else stopped.  I felt bad, though.  I felt like if they just would have been able to turn in front of me, they'd be home already.  Who knows. 

Early this morning when I drove to work, the sky was different looking from all the smoke and haze, even though I was traveling away from the direction of the fire.  I drove past a hillside pasture, past the cows and live oaks.  There were a bunch of pigeons and crows flapping all around above the field, making a scene.  Up on a tall streetlamp sat a hawk, perfectly still.  Just waiting for her opportunity.  Or maybe trying to figure out the weird looking sky. 

I listen to podcasts of This American Life while I drive.  I *love* that I get to do this.  I've had dozens of episodes on my ipod for forever, with never time to hear them.  Last night I finished reading a book by Joan Didion called The Year of Magical Thinking (stunning. beautiful. sad. open. raw. amazing. read it.).  The episode I listened to as I drove past the cows and the hawk had a part from a man who wrote about his childhood growing up here, in Silicon Valley.  His family came here when the valley was known as Valley of the Heart's Delight, and there were orchards everywhere.  He remembered that the land cleared for the subdivision they moved into had uprooted fruit trees around the perimeter when he came to see with his parents the plot where their house would go.  The trees still had blossoms on them.  Henry Coe was one of the agricultural heroes of this area, and the state park now burning in the mountains is, in fact, named after him.  It was perhaps started by someone burning trash.                                                      

I used to play in an orchard on my way home from school.  We made a game of avoiding the poor rancher who lived there, surrounded by tract houses.  Now it doesn't exist: where it was is literally gone, the earth there dug down many, many feet to make a better path for highway 85, one of the roads I drive on all the time.  The road I was driving over in that photo above.  More than once, I've driven near where that orchard was, imaging the ghosts of the trees floating over the highway.

Anyway, the author talked about essays that Joan Didion had written about all these aerospace families moving to California.  I'd really just finished the book -- it was strange with all the episodes I had to chose from, the way it all played out timing wise. 

Tonight's drive home I listened to an episode that dealt with sperm donors, adoption, orphans.  One of the segments had music playing in the background that I recognized as being something I really loved but hadn't heard in a while.  I knew it was one of John's cds but couldn't remember the name of the band.  I decided to ask him when I got home so that I could listen to it.  (In fact, I am right now, on repeat).  I played the part of the episode for him, demanding "WHO IS THIS?"  He wasn't sure.  I remembered enough about what album I thought it was from to help him find it (among his 4,000 cds -- that's something) and sure enough, there was the song. 

Never See it Coming by OP8.

One other thing.  All day I was craving soup.  I went to Whole Foods for lunch (because I forgot to bring one with me) and ended up with a huge container chicken soup with rice, even though I really think my meat eating days are numbered again.  Maybe that's why I ate it all.  Anyway, tonight in bed Sophie says, Can I tell you a poem? 

Sure I said. 

She said

In August I will be so hot
I will become a cooking pot
Cooking soup, of course, why not
Cooking once
Cooking twice
Cooking chicken soup with rice

trainyard graffiti

I'm pretty sure this is Sophie's lovely work, though she hasn't confessed.

I've been sitting here for an hour.  Type, type, type. . . delete, delete, delete.

So, I made a new banner from a photo I took at the wedding.  The wedding was gorgeous and sweet.  I'm a little emotional about it all because they live far away and I'm not adjusted to that fact yet.  Plus, my dad was here and getting to see him for a few days in a row and then having him go back home makes me all sad. 

The kids amazed me: they sat right up where the ceremony was, on some wooden steps.  Willow especially surprised me by sitting totally still, clutching her bouquet of tulips, crossing her little legs.  I think that Lex got a little teary when they said their vows. 

That's them watching Staci and her parents walking down the aisle.   

The weather was perfect and the mariachi band was awesome and the food totally incredible. 

Even the moon cooperated.

They're going to spend their honeymoon in my favorite city, Barcelona.

And sometime after they're back, I'm going to sneak up there by myself for a weekend so I can see all their pictures and hear all about it.