I found out from Jackson’s mom the other day that Lucas and Jackson (and possibly others) were comparing penises at school last week. Some, you see, are snipped and others are not. The observation from one boy was that one penis “looks like a finger.”
Ah … social skills…
The last few months (February/March/April/May) have been slower than I would have liked them to be, and the surplus I had built up prior to that is now spent. One of my major clients has not given me any work in two months, which is quite unusual. I have big tuition payments looming on the horizon. I’ve been beating the bushes looking for more work.
A couple of years ago I edited two books for the religious press that my uncle runs. He put my name forward and two of his editors hired me. Then nothing–no communication. That was OK, because I didn’t make bank on the projects and I had plenty of work coming in at the time, so I wasn’t worried. However, after pinging the editors a couple of times and receiving no replies, I started feeling insecure. My recent dry spell and panic about cash flow finally motivated me to contact my uncle again, to see what was up and why I had fallen off the radar. It took a lot to work up the necessary courage to write this to my uncle:
“In 2004 and 2005 I copyedited two books for (your Press)(Title 1 by Author 1 and Title 2 by Author 2), but nothing since then. Although I’ve tried contacting both (Editor 1) and (Editor 2) periodically, I’ve received no replies from them. During each of those projects, I had the impression that (Editor 1) and (Editor 2) liked my work. Now that so much time has passed, the insecure part of me wonders if they weren’t happy enough with my work to continue giving me projects. The confident part of me hopes that perhaps job changes, changes in the publishing climate, or perhaps my being out-of-sight-out-of-mind is the reason I’ve not heard back from anyone. So, the short of it is I’d like to work for your press again, if possible. I just wanted you and your editors to know I am available for either editing or proofreading projects.”
My uncle replied:
“I’d love to get you back onto the copyediting roster. Both (Editor 1) and (Editor 2) have left to go off into freelance land, so I’ll be glad to pass along your stuff to our new editors. We’re just beginning work on our Spring ’07 books, and I see several that could work well for you. Can you send me your current vita to pass around to everyone here?”
I am much relieved to hear this news! And grateful that he is willing to put my name forward to his editors again. I was afraid that after inquiring, my uncle would be forced to tell me that his press didn’t find my work up to snuff, and that it had put him in an awkward position. Nepotism, and all that.
So, maybe things are looking up. I don’t think I’ll ever get rich working for his press but it makes me feel good to have that door open. I’m just so crappy (meaning fearful, lazy, and shy) at marketing myself.
[Insert pipe dream here: Maybe someday I’ll have the dough to hire someone brilliant like Kimkim to do sales for me.]
Today I lost an earring.
My parents gave me a pair of earrings for my birthday. Today was my first time wearing them. They are posts with rather large gemstones in them: rainbow topaz, set in white gold. (See, princessy, right?) They are beautiful and different. When you turn the gems, they sparkle with pink and purple and gold and green and turquoise lights.
I don’t buy stuff like this for myself. My parents seem to have decided that I need semi-good jewelry. (I think they feel sorry for us because we still have hand-me-down everything.) Anyway, their princess likes jewels, and so, periodically they give me nice pieces. And I love it.
I got home from the gym tonight and discovered that one of the earrings was missing from my ear. I retraced my steps, called the gym, even drove over there to look in the aerobics room for it. No earring.
Here’s the psycho part: I cried like a baby for having lost this earring. I sobbed. Something inside me snapped — something hooked into all my normally lidded feelings of worthlessness and pulled them all out into the open air. I felt like a child who had done something terribly wrong and disappointed my mom and dad. I berated myself for my irresponsibility, for being a loser, for not deserving to possess anything so nice. I thought, My parents gave it to me. How could I lose it already? What a fool I am. I don’t appreciate all the things people do for me and give to me. I don’t deserve any of it.
I went home again after checking at the gym and scoured my house. I found the earring a few minutes later. It was on the bed where Lucas and I had a tickle fight earlier this afternoon. See, I panicked when it was gone, and totally forgot we had played on the bed. I even found the earring back among the covers.
So, now it’s all better. Crisis averted. I don’t have to admit to my mom that I lost it. But wow — what a lot of emotional crap the experience dredged up from inside me. I still feel awful. Guilt sucks.
Lucas informed us last that he and Tidoo have opened a restaurant called North Balcony. It’s open on Saturdays and Tuesdays, and it serves “American food”: spaghetti with onions and meatballs was the only dish we could get him to reveal. Hid did say that they let him and Tidoo serve the food.
Lucas is 7 years old these days. Sometimes he’s 17 or 19 or 6. Frankly, I can’t keep up. Over the last few days, he’s had a birthday every day. First he was 4, then 5, then 6, and now 7. He tells everyone. He’s very boastful and can’t be told anything at all because he already knows everything. Just ask him.
On Wednesday we worked on a gift for Ian for Father’s Day. We painted a birdhouse with a rainbow of colors. Then I hid it away where Ian wouldn’t find it. Thursday night at dinner, I asked, “What should we get the grandpas for Father’s Day?” Lucas blurted, “We painted a birdhouse for you, Dad!” So much for secret keeping.
We are going camping this weekend. It should be fun—I’ll let ya know.
I know I just wrote about Lucas’s swimming lessons earlier today, but this afternoon, after the very last lesson, when we were swimming for fun in the 3-foot-deep pool, HE SWAM!
Breath held. Check
Face in water. Check
Arms paddling. Check
Legs kicking. Check
Successful attempts: many
Distance traveled: 1-2.5 feet
Celebration method: clapping, shouting, jumping up and down (mommy); smiling ear-to-ear (Lucas)
Witnesses: Ripley, Roco, their parents, Natalie the swimming teacher
5-star, surprise bonus: Ian showed up moments later and got to witness the feat of swimming excellence in person, and thus revel in Lucas’s glory.
Conclusion: Awesome
Lucas is going through another phase where he doesn’t want to nap, and so far, no amount of coaxing, spellcasting, or shouting is working.
Not last night, but the night before, he woke at 2 am and wouldn’t go back to sleep until 4:45 am. Although we each put him back to bed several times, we checked on him later and found him in his room or in the bathroom playing with the light on. This is rather terrifying because I don’t like the idea of him wandering around the house (or worse—the backyard) in the night while his parents sleep blissfully unaware. It makes me wish we had an alarm. Anyway, this whole staying-awake-to-play-in-the-middle-of-the-frigging-night thing was infuriating and exhausting. Let’s just say, neither Ian nor I is a particularly good parent when deprived of sleep and faced with an obnoxious and defiant four-year-old.
What’s just got me boggled is how the kid managed NOT to nap the next day (yesterday). Generally, I would say I don’t know if I really believe in that “overtired and therefore cannot sleep” thing other parents talk about, but we sure experienced something like it yesterday. Fortunately, when we put Lucas down for the night last night, he slept solidly from 8 pm to 6:30 am, then joined us in our bed in the morning for another hour’s sleep, sans the usual wiggles. Phew! Thank heavens, for if it had gone otherwise, I might have had to confess infanticide.
The swimming lessons are going well!
Something clicked on Monday, however. I think it was the fact that Jackson (a friend from preschool) is an awesome swimmer, and Ripley (another friend from school) was at the pool showing off how well she can swim underwater to do handstands. Lucas tried experimenting with putting his face underwater, and then his whole head. When he received attaboys from his friends, their parents, and their younger siblings (Ellen and Roco), Lucas just couldn’t stop going underwater. It was perfect. I watched the fear of it just melt away from him. Then he started jumping into the pool from the edge. It’s the 3-foot deep pool that we’re swimming in, so he can stand on tiptoes the whole time, but the point is he’s getting over his fear of the water and showing off to his buddies: “Ripley, Ripley, watch me! Watch what I can do.” Ripley isn’t too impressed, being a better swimmer than Lucas, but with some coaching from her mom, she has learned to be supportive of Lucas’s efforts.
So anyway, that’s been $60 well spent. If I can scrounge up another $60, I’ll sign up for another session. But we’ll have to wait for the money fairy to arrive.
Anyway, Lucas’s preschool teacher says, “Maybe he’s experiencing an inner change.”
We gave away our son at 12:30 pm on Saturday. We did not go and retrieve him until 12:30 pm on Sunday. That means Ian and I had 24 hours alone together. Honestly, I cannot remember the last time that happened.
We spent some time in old Folsom, crawling through jam-packed antique stores, jewelry stores, art galleries and other places that would be VERY RISKY to enter with Lucas in tow. We felt so grown up. The day was beautiful and we were liberated. We sat at a gallery café and talked without anyone blowing bubbles in a drink, kicking our chairs, complaining about wanting some other snack, or spilling. We also wandered around Capital Nursery for a while and didn’t have to chase down a runnaway boy.
Then we dressed up and went to dinner at Il Fornaio in Roseville, which happily honored a gift certificate dated November 8, 2000. We ordered carefully to stay to our $50 limit, but also to overreach it just a tad, so we could tip the server with our credit card. $53.79 and we even had dessert. The meal was great and we ate fresh-baked bread.
Then, we used the two free movie passes that have been stuck to our fridge for I don’t know how long. We saw The DaVinci Code. It was exciting to see a film at the theater. My high heels were a little uncomfortable and we were definitely overdressed, but it was totally fun. The movie was good/entertaining—not fabulous. I thought it was very cool to watch Ian McKellan—larger-than-life Ian McKellan—go on and on about how the Goddess was deliberately shut out of religious thought by the church and women were systematically burned and suppressed and excluded from religion. (Whether you like the book or not, you gotta appreciate how Dan Brown has brought to mainstream attention the concept of the Goddess, that religion is a man-made phenomenon, and that people in power manipulate the truth—especially the “truth” about God. I think it’s fabulous that there are people in an uproar about this film, even though the film’s ending was different from the book’s.) And I enjoyed the portrayal of Silas by Paul Bettany very much, and Jean Reno always rocks. Audrey Tautou was good, too. … Actually, that reminds me: Our very first date together (Ian’s and mine—I’ve never dated Audrey) was The Last Temptation of Christ. The year, 1988.
After the film, we came home and the rest is censored. Suffice it to say it was a sleep-in morning, with delightfully sophomoric conversation and coffee. Lovely.
Thanks, sweetheart. I love going on dates with you. I hope you had a wonderful anniversary. I did.
P.S. And thanks for planting my new canna lilies and day lily!
Good morning, my love. Happy 11th Anniversary!
Eleven years ago today, we were getting ready to walk down a grassy aisle, lined with friends and family. We were getting ready to speak the vows that we’d each written, to hear the magical words pronounced by our priest that would cement the bond we already felt with each other.
We were nervous, excited. You were telling me to pack my suitcase for our roadtrip honeymoon up north to the Oregon coastline, Ashland’s Shakespeare festival, and a wretchedly ugly B&B in Napa. I flitted around our apartment, throwing in a pair of panties, then getting distracted. You must have told me to pack forty times, and I still forgot to bring a jacket along.
On that sunny Saturday, we were so joyful that the rain had stopped, just in time. I had my long brown hair done up with curls and ringlets. You tied your long brown hair back in a rubberband festooned with a maroon ribbon. Our friends busily prepared, busily fixed, busily set-up the holy ground where we were wed. You wore a rock T-shirt up until the guests began arriving. The chairs were white, the gowns and vests were burgundy, the long coattails, charcoal. We had more flowers than any wedding I’d ever been to. Your sister took the SAT test that morning, and crashed a car that afternoon. My bridesmaids and I got dressed at RoRo’s house. A photographer took photos of me in my ivory brocade gown: me alone, me with my mother and grandmother.
My dad decided there weren’t enough cups and he sent people out to by up all the plastic cups in town: a rainbow of plastic graced my meticulously decorated, and otherwise elegant, tables. The columns we thought would decorate the grounds weren’t stable in the breeze. Friends improvised. I suspect someone asked you if you were sure.
At the last moment, my father, without thought of the expense and with tears in his eyes, asked me if I really wanted to do this. I knew then that if I said no, he would take me to the car and drive me away without a backward glance. I said yes. He walked me me down the aisle to stand by your side. The barley was cast, the magical words were spoken. The community said, “We will.” And afterward, in a rush, we retreated to stand together under the giant oak trees, to have a moment of quiet certainty and relief in the middle of a crazy and out-of-this-world experience. My heart pounded. We kissed again.
Photos. Dancing. A whirl of color and sound and joy. We celebrated, we gave thanks, we said prayers.
Eleven years ago. I would do it all again. I love you today even more than I loved you that long-ago Saturday. You are my source, my retreat, my foundation. I love your humor and your fears. I love your compassion and your cynicism. I love your suffering and your playfulness. You are the partner I always wanted and the partner I revel in having. I don’t know how I was clever enough to see it when I was so young, but I know this: I chose wisely.
I will love you, comfort you, honor and keep you, in sickness and in health, for richer, for poorer, for better, for worse, in sadness and in joy. I will cherish you and continually give you my heart’s deepest devotion, forsaking all others, keep myself only for you as long as I shall live. Blessed be.
