Strapped with Memories

At one time during our drive to the end of the universe and back, Bryce let out a moanful wail that almost caused me to swerve off the road. He was complaining about his back being hot and itchy, and I'm sure it was. He had been strapped in his carseat for about 3 hours without a break, and it got me to thinking about the car trips we would take as kids. My dad would fold down the back seats in the station wagon and we would have the entire expanse of the car to roam around in. Like this, only moving.



On one such car trip, my dad took my brother and I to a New York Yankees game. On bat day. With our paid admission, we each received a regulation size Louisville Slugger baseball bat. Mine was signed by Micky Mantle. The year we went was Mick's last good year. He played all nine innings and hit a home run. This was one of my fondest memories from childhood because at the time I lived and breathed Yankee baseball. I slept with my baseball glove under my pillow and dreamed about the day I stepped up to the plate at Yankee Stadium.



One of the things that made this trip really cool was that from the time I was born until about the age of 7, my dad had a series of jobs that kept him away from the family for months at a time. He would come home for a few weeks, then leave again. The trip we took to the ball game was the beginning of his being home more. Up until this time, he had a job in a monitoring station in Greenland, working on the DEW line. While my mom was at home raising us, my dad was here.



I hope someday Bryce and Quinn will look back at some of our road trips with the same fondness I have of mine.

And now for something completely different....

This, of course, needs no explanation. My brother (on the left) and I (on the right) are attending the Kamusi Cultural Immersion Summer Camp.

Just kidding.

This picture was taken at the 1965 Worlds Fair in Flushing Meadows Park in Queens, NY. The theme of the year long event was "Peace Through Understanding" and dedicated to "Man's Achievement on a Shrinking Globe in an Expanding Universe". The centerpiece of the fair was a 12 story high stainless steel model of the earth with three satellites in orbit. Me? I thought this guy was way cooler than the Unisphere.

Childhood Humiliation Photos Part II

It was this that made me realize I shouldn't listen to my brother ever again.



As you can see, I'm a gullible dork.

Traditions

As I was growing up, it was tradition that once a year between Thanksgiving and Christmas we would gather as a family after dinner, pop popcorn, and watch our family slides.

My dad would haul out the projector, set up and open the slide screen, and carefully arrange the stacks and stacks of slide projector canisters in chronological order making sure the current years slides were on the bottom. The lights would be turned off, and we would lay on the floor with our pillows and popcorn and watch and listen as the snapshots of our life were projected onto the screen and talked about by all.

When my dad passed away, I took possession of this slice of our family history recorded on chrome film not knowing exactly what I would do with them. The projector no longer worked, and couldn't be repaired. I thought of getting a new projector, but that never happened.

I came across the box of slides last month while rummaging around in the hall closet. I pulled them out, and began looking at them one a time, holding them up to the window, thinking of how much fun it was to watch them once a year.

I took the slides to be scanned and just last week got them back. I'm going through them one at a time, fixing them up a little in photoshop, and plan on making both an album and a DVD slideshow for my siblings and mom for Christmas. And I'm going to revive this tradition with my family. Every year.

I'm going to post a couple of my favorites up here on the Fringe throughout the month to humiliate myself.

This first one is me as Mighty Mouse, putting fear into the villainous villains (that's my brother without the shirt) and getting the girl.



Now you know why Kristen finds me so irresistible. I'm a dork.

You don't find it, it finds you.

I am on a job interview at least 50 times a year and when you interview for the same position every time, you get pretty good at it. Most of the time I get the job, other times I don't. And every so often I get the job, but turn it down. And that's good.

During the interview, I am frequently asked how I got into photography, or how long I have it been doing it. There are two distinctively different answers to those questions, and both are true.

The first (long) version goes like this. I was working for a financial services company doing third party commercial loans. We loaned money for big long haul trucks, trailers, and heavy duty "yellow" equipment. It was a good job, for it's kind. The job was predictable, steady, decent pay, and had good benefits. Then one day a huge Mega-Mongo company paid an unbelievable amount of money for our company, just to get this certain piece of the pie that resided in the Pacific Rim where liberal usuary laws made loans with interest rates of 50% and up a very, very profitable operation. The Mega-Mongo company that bought us also had a conmmercial lending division so some of us at the branch were offered positions in the central streamlined operation and others weren't. If accepted, the new position would require a major move. The timing of this branch closing and offer to move to keep the job was ill-timed. Kristen was in her 8th month of pregnancy with Bryce. This move would require us to sell our house, transplant a newborn, one highschooler, and one jr highschooler, and Kristen would have to quit her job. We considered it, but decided against it as the benefits did not outweigh the drawbacks. Instead, I took a paltry severence package and the improbable but joint decision was made that I would stay home with the baby, and begin offering photography services.

And so the short answer of version one is that I tired of being a pawn and working for The Man. I was tired of downsizing, restructuring, and layoffs and decided to pursue a passion and dream and work for myself as a photographer.

The pursuit of photography was something that had long ago been buried, buried deep in the no man's land of my brain, the place where Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, Fairies, and all the other fanciful and impractical dreams of youth are buried. The hole where mine was buried was dug by my father. At least he started the hole. With valuable and practical lessons he showed me how to dig this hole, and soon turned the shovel over to me where I willingly (how did this happen, this willingness?) finished the job. It wasn't a swift burial, it took a long time to dig the hole in just the right spot, deep enough and wide enough to completely swallow the dream, and cover it up so you could barely notice that anything was buried there at all.

The second (very long) version of the answer to the question how did you get into photography goes like this. During the summer between fifth and sixth grades I got my first job as a paper boy. I was responsisble for the delivery of the afternoon paper to 56 houses in my neighborhood. Once a month I would make the rounds and collect the monthly subscription fee from my customers, going door to door with my bank zipper bag and receipt book. I would then ride my bike to the designated spot to meet the route manager and pay my tab for the month. The remaining balance over what the papers cost me was mine to keep, my profit for the month. I made about $75 a month for 90 minutes of work each day. That's some serious cash for an 11-year-old kid.

I opened up a checking account and dutifully deposited the profits each month, watching my financial empire grow. I changed routes, getting more houses, hitting up the ones that didn't subscribe to take the afternoon paper, and making even more money each month. Now 12, my only means of transportaion was my bike. My one-speed route bike with the basket in front was adequate for delivering papers, but lacked the necessary speed for quick transport to friends' houses, the school playground, or the local convenience store (when a bottle of Dr. Pepper and a comic book was the only answer for a boring afternoon).

I decided that my first major purchase was going to be a Schwinn 10-speed bike. I told my parents of my decision and they agreed to let me spend the money. My mom took me to the bike store, where I looked over the selection of bikes. I finally found the one I wanted, and the salesman pulled it down from the rack. He asked me to hike my leg over the seat and straddle the center bar. I did so, but had to stand on my tippy toes, and even then the bar was pushing up on my package. He explained that because I could not clear the bar, for safety reasons he couldn't sell it to me. I was devastated. I ran out to the car and cried. Nothing my mom said on the way home made a difference, I was just crushed.

We got home and I jumped on my route bike and just started peddling. I wound up at a new shopping center about a mile away and was tooling around on the sidewalks when I stopped in front of a camera store. I walked in just to look aound. The owner asked me if I needed something, and I told him I was looking for a camera. I gazed into the display case and my eye stopped on a what can only be described as a thing of beauty: the top-of-the-line SLR Minolta SRT 102.

I asked to see the camera, and he brought it out of the display case and placed it on the rubber mat on the glass counter top. He gave me a quick rundown on how the camera worked and without any hesitation I told him I would take it. I wrote a check (can you picture it? A 12-year-old writing a check for $300 for a top-of-the-line camera. Uh, no ID, sorry, but you can call my mom) and zoomed home with my new possession.

My dad hit the roof when he learned of my purchase, but in the end I won out and was able to keep it. I carried it with me everywhere I went. I got books from the library on photography, and studied every piece of photography literature I could get my hands on. I would ride my bike to the camera store, hang out and ask thousands of questions about photography. I lived and breathed photography.

As time went on, I discovered the power that comes with carrying a camera. It was my passport to places I would never otherwise be allowed to enter. During high school I was accepted to the newspaper staff, because I had a camera. Hall pass? We don't need no stinking hall pass! As long as I had my camera with me, I was allowed to cruise the halls without interference. It got me to the sidelines of football games, backstage at concerts, early access to events. My camera and an "I'm here on assignment" got me where the action was!

During my junior year of high school, I planned on going to a famous photography school in California. I applied and was accepted, but the hammer came down and my dad refused to let me go. Instead, I was encouraged to pursue a more "valuable" and "practical" career in engineering. My parents agreed to foot the bill for my education, and off I went to the state university. But not for long. I didn't like the subject matter, and as a result I didn't do well. I left during the second year and decided to work for a while to figure out what I wanted to do all over again.

So the short answer to the second version is I have been taking pictures since I bought my first camera when I was 12 with paper route money.

During the decision-making process of what the hell are we going to do we're going to have a baby and I'm out of a job, a silent ground shift took place in the deep dream burial crevice of my mind, pushing the photography dream ever so slightly back to the surface, raising it just enough to the point of notice. When I first found it I looked at it and walked away, but kept coming back more and more frequently. Each time I returned to the burial place, it was further out of it's grave, looking better and better, as if this crossroads in our life were giving it energy, renewing it, feeding and nurturing it, until I had to bring it out to the open and speak of it. To me it was beautiful and scary (I can't imagine what it looked like to Kristen) but she agreed to let me try and I love her for that. If not for short legs and a corporate buyout and re-org, the dream would still be buried.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

My older brother and I are 15 months apart in age. Here we are on halloween dressed and ready to score some candy. I can't be sure, but I think this was 1964.



And this was last night. Bryce and Quinn are 19 months apart in age, dressed and ready to score some candy.



Homemade costumes are the best (and no, they aren't wrapped in toilet paper.)

Compression

Quinn loves to look at photo albums. Before John went digital 18 months ago, we had stacks of pictures piled up in closets and on counters, gathering dust waiting to be lovingly placed into scrapbooks and albums with captions, dates, and labels to tell future generations exactly how old Bryce was when he cut his first tooth, or how long it was from the time Quinn finally sat unassisted to the day he decided commando crawling was no longer the best mode of physical movement.

Alas, I am a crappy wife and mother. All of the prints that are actually in albums were placed there hurriedly by John, most of them over two years ago, before Quinn was old enough to be capable of successfully destroying something of value if left unsupervised for an activity such as photo album upkeep. The rest of the prints, including pictures of birthdays, milestones, and vacations are still sitting in dusty stacks in my closet. And this doesn't even begin to touch on the THOUSANDS of digital files we haven't even bothered to have printed yet. Behold my crappiness.

Despite his mother's shortcomings in family history preservation, Quinn could spend hours looking at one of the four complete photo albums we actually have. (FOUR. The crappiness, behold it.) They are out of order, there are no labels or captions, and some of them have bent or torn pages from ardent toddler viewing excitement, but one of his favorite activities is to lug one of the heavy bound albums from the low shelf in my closet, hoist it onto our bed like he's a mountain climber throwing his pack up over the peak, and climb up with a satisfied grunt to look at pictures from two years ago. The only reason he can tell which kid is him and which is Bryce is because he's memorized them. If he comes across a picture of Bryce as a two- or three-year-old that he's never studied very intently, he assumes it's a picture of himself: "There's me!" I always blush and roll my eyes at my crappiness and say, "Uh, no, that's Bryce. See, there you are. You're the one with...um...no teeth...sitting in the...er... high chair." Then I go wallow in my shame. (But I don't actually take any steps to remedy the situation - hence, the mounds of dusty pictures still un-albumed. I flaunt the crappiness!)

There are jillions of pictures of me as a child that my mom or dad lovingly labeled, dated, and pasted into dozens and dozens of now worn and yellowed albums. In almost every album, there is at least one picture of me looking at photo albums. Quinn apparently inherited this gene from me. And since I am usually in my room when he's on his photo viewing kicks, I almost always get sucked in, too.

Even with the limited number of albums, I'm always amazed at how I've already forgotten certain pictures, certain moments. Quinn will turn the page and I'll look down and see Bryce as an intensely curious 19-month-old eyeing his infant brother swaddled in a receiving blanket and I'll think, oh yeah! I remember that exact moment. I had BABIES. Who is this galumping kid next to me? He'll turn another page and I'll see two-year-old Bryce rolling his Little People bus gently over a completely relaxed and happy baby Quinn's stomach and knees, and I'll know I would have forgotten the day I took that picture if it weren't in this album. Then I always feel a little sad. Sad that I've forgotten, sad that I don't have a picture to remind me of every moment I wanted to capture but couldn't, sad that I haven't treasured those moments enough to have set aside the time to document them more thoroughly, sad that those days are over, as difficult as they sometimes were - because now we have new, different difficulties, sad that in three years I'll be looking at pictures (digital, most likely) of these times, right now, in the same melancholy way, sad that I'll never be satisfied. Then Quinn turns the page again, points a pudgy finger at a picture of Bryce, one that he loves, that he's asked me about many times before, and says, "there's baby Bryce, mom!" and beams up at me with all the exuberance of his adoration of these times. I don't have a picture of this, so I write it down. Crappiness be damned.

Dead Horses

My first memory of realizing that there legitimately might be better things in store for me besides rolling my eyes in disgust and disappointment at my peers and their materialistic, self-centered antics was during my senior year in high school. For whatever reason, up until that year, I had avoided any academic challenges, thinking I wasn't smart enough and that I would fail if I took any "advanced" classes, AND THEN WHAT?! IF I FAILED A CLASS, WHAT THEN? WHAT, I ASK YOU?! Life would be over. End of story. Curtain falls.

My junior year English teacher was going to be teaching the advanced senior class, and I knew if I signed up for it, I'd get to take English class with her again. Everyone else, all of my narcissistic peers who lived for weekend sleepovers and trips to the mall and wore silver half hearts around their necks that either said "BE FRI" or "ST END," hated that teacher and thought I was insane for 1.) voluntarily signing up for a "hard" class and 2.) voluntarily returning to HER class. I loved her, though. She was witty and demanding and she kind of looked like she might hold secret Wiccan meetings in her basement. Nobody but me suspected that, and I don't know why I did, other than the fact that she had a stereotypically witch-like face, only a little prettier, and with a little more sparkle in her eyes.

Once my senior year started and I realized that the advanced classes got to read books ON THEIR OWN TIME, that they were given a lot more leeway in terms of paper topics, and that the structure of their paragraphs were under much less scrutiny than the content of their document, I was slapping my forehead in self-derision for having avoided these classes before. My junior year "major" paper was about orcas (aka "killer whales"). My senior year paper was a multi-media comparative essay using Conrad's Heart of Darkness, the screenplay to Pulp Fiction, and The Police's Wrapped Around Your Finger, using the theme of self-deification, a topic I invented because I had the sweet, sweet liberty to do so. As the year ended, Possible Secret Wiccan Teacher and I were talking about how much I'd enjoyed the class and she had one of her mischievous, mystical looks in her large, dark eyes and a wise, knowing grin when she said, "you know, some people's lives peak in high school, and then it's downhill after that, but yours will be different - you have a long way to go."

It hit me, when she said that, that all of the eye rolling I'd been doing might actually have the chance to stop. After all, the eye rolling was a self-defense mechanism designed to help keep me at arm's lengths from the peers I didn't understand, who didn't understand me. I could have gotten behind wearing a "BE FRI" necklace. I could have gotten behind spending 24 out of every 48 hours at the mall and eating warm pretzels with people who accepted and understood me, who wanted to be my friends. But those people, my peers, it had been my experience, never understood me. They thought I was odd, they chalked it up to nerdiness or dorkiness or dweebiness or whatever the acceptable phrase was at the time - then they found a way, usually a cruel one, to extricate me from their group, to remove the one who made them uncomfortable and who they just couldn't find a way to assimilate. I could act haughty and uninterested and then we'd all be happy, we'd all get to stay in our comfort zones. When Possible Secret Wiccan Teacher said those words out loud, told me that actually, this crap doesn't really matter, the best is yet to come, it was like being reminded of something I'd known a really long time ago, but had forgotten.

I went on to college and the work force and married life and adult interactions. Still, there are times where the arms length eye rolling instinct wants to kick in, to protect me from the pain and loneliness that comes from social rejection and outcast status. Sometimes we don't "fit in" even in our own families. That truth never changes. What changes is our awareness of the white hot sun rays of CHOICE in how we embrace that truth. Do we harden our protective shell and burrow into our cool, dark stagnation, or do we climb out risking burns and painful blisters on the off chance we'll find warmth and growth? The difference between my youthful peers and me was that I recognized the sun rays of choice because I had to. They didn't need to know such things existed, so comfortable and largely accommodating were their dank shelters - all of the BE FRIs and ST ENDs could fit inside any one of them. That "peak" my teacher mentioned occurred inside such places, and was more like a small hill than a mountain top. Those of us whose "peaks" are out in the sun and hard as hell to climb sometimes forget that the burning sensation from those white hot rays, that's part of the experience!, the blisters, they make you stronger!, the shelter was too small and stifling, and the pain, well - it is accompanied by so much more.

These pretzels are making me thirsty!

Actually, right now I'm eating popcorn and M&Ms. In bed (the crumbs are on John's side, heh heh). And washing it down with a Mike's (light) Hard Lemonade. I figure it's fine since I ran two miles today and mopped the kitchen floor and battled an unnaturally strong water bug over the weekend. Oh, and then there was that near nervous breakdown on Sunday, too. Yeah, I deserve the white trash snack at the very least. And maybe also a hot stone massage, or, you know, a padded cell and some restraints.

For once, I'm actually not ready to discuss or analyze Bryce and his issues in this forum; I'm still digesting too many thoughts, emotions, and options. Anne Lamott suggested that instead, I write about my experience with school lunches, so here we go.

Since I went to Chicago Public Schools for elementary school, we actually did not have a cafeteria. They trucked in boxed lunches every day, and we all ate at our desks. Oh, sure, it sounds glamorous, having lunch delivered daily to our elementary school, but no. The "boxes" were flimsy, flat ventilated containers of what tasted, looked, and felt like FDA rejects. The best day was pizza day, unless you got a box that had been stuck on the bottom, in which case your cheese and sausage (if that's what they really were) were stuck in a gooey, warm mass on the top of the paper-thin lid when you opened it: yuck. An anal kid like me would insist on scraping every last cheese and tomato sauce molecule off the top of the box and back onto the soggy, white, pinhole-covered crust in an effort to make it right, to fix it, to complete it.

One day in second grade, the class trouble maker decided to take my quirks and wield them to his sheer entertainment. I was picking at my low grade beef, trying to find the most consistent non-grisel-y texture, and a look of horror came over his face as he stared at my plate: "Look at that! Those are roach eggs! ROACH EGGS ON YOUR PLATE!" I turned my head back to my white plastic spork/foon, suspended over the gray lifeless mass on my spongy cardboard lunch plate. Yep, it looked like roach eggs, alright. On a gullible, stupid impulse, I tossed the fork away and the food went flying a few desks away. My teacher, my favorite teacher ever, the teacher who always liked me because I laughed at the jokes that nobody else understood and I always followed directions and I was quiet and cooperative and I did good work and I came to school on time and was a low maintenance, high performing second grader, looked up from her (probably gourmet) lunch just in time to see me flinging food across the room. Our eyes met. My heart fell. There was no understanding or concern in her eyes, no look that suggested she might need to investigate the situation before jumping to conclusions about her star pupil: only anger and grave, grave disappointment. "Kristen, did you just THROW YOUR FOOD?" My face was in flames, I stammered, "Yes, but, but, he told me it had roach eggs on it and--" she wasn't listening. Another teacher, a teacher who didn't like me (she was just jealous of my obvious good standing, the insecure hag) walked in right then. My teacher looked at her, and in the now silent class, announced to Jealous Hag Teacher, "this is one of my best students. I don't know what is going on today. She just threw her food across the room!" Jealous Hag Teacher glared at me and said something unclever and rude, like, "well, well." My teacher then sealed my fate: "Kristen, go stand out in the hall until I tell you to come back in."

Great, I thought as I stood in the dingy, narrow hallway like the little delinquent I'd become at the hands of the class troublemaker (who kept his mouth shut and got off scott-free by the way): just look at me now! As I was standing there, my cheeks still burning in humiliation, my feet and hands trying to find a natural pose while I stuck out so obviously from the painted concrete block walls, I heard footsteps coming toward me. What now? Oh, crap, it's a parent! Another adult to shame me. Clop, clop, clop, clop. It was somebody's mom and I started to drop my gaze to the dirty tile floor, but she caught my eye first. I searched her face for what I knew would be a silent scold, another hurried adult assumption based on a lack of information about me, and I prepared to harden my face in return, but I didn't have to. She looked at me with a soft, slightly amused glance that my adult memory interprets to mean that she knew I didn't belong out there. She smiled a peaceful, understanding smile. My second grade self was confused by that smile, but thankful for it anyway. After Jealous Hag Teacher left and I returned to the classroom, I felt somehow silently, secretly vindicated.

Enough memory mining. Back to littering John's side of the bed with popcorn kernels and pretending life's one big, entertaining sitcom with quick resolutions and easy answers. Or at least more laughs than sobs.

Well, I can tell you THIS!

I grew up around more adults than kids my own age. My dad spent the majority of my childhood in some phase of graduate school, which meant that I was exposed to all sorts of intellectual debates about liberalism, philosophers, religious movements, ideologies, and ethics -- debates that took place in all of the stereotypical places you'd imagine graduate school intellectual debates to take place: dimly lit coffee houses, famous local delis, tame dinner parties, and picnics on campus parks involving some undisclosed but not outrageous number of alcoholic beverages. Growing up, I thought such conversations were normal, everyday occurrences -- that all parents were philosophers and writers, or at the very least, friends with philosophers and writers. When I wasn't learning phrases like "Contemporary Perspectives on the History of Religion" and "Sociological Perspectives of Secularization," I was surrounded by college students 24 hours a day, because during my dad's Ph.D. program, my parents were Resident Heads in a dormitory at the same university.

By the time I entered elementary school and found friends my age, I never really related to them like a "normal" kid. I think I was so used to being around adults that I actually felt more comfortable talking to the teachers than the other students. I had a few close friends whose parents were also involved with the university, who understood my preference for talking over playing on the playground, and so I remained somewhat oblivious to my misfit status until we moved away from the university environment right at the time I entered junior high. It was then that it became crystal clear to me that my peers had no appreciation for my adult-like sarcasm, vocabulary, and "responsible" approach to life. In high school, I waited tables at a restaurant and one day during a lull, I stood talking to some co-workers. We looked out the window and noticed a blackening sky. Somebody said, "look at those clouds!" and without thinking first, I said, "yeah, they look really ominous." Silence. Awkward looks. Someone giggled nervously and said, "Kristen, you use too big of words," after which the awkwardness turned to sheer hilarity and everyone laughed and laughed: that quirky Kristen!

I use too big of words. How I managed to laugh off this horribly constructed sentence as if it were perfectly acceptable, the way everyone standing around seemed to think it was (WAY more acceptable than the HUGE three-syllable word "ominous"-- THREE SYLLABLES! Whoah, Nelly.), I will never know. In my mind, "You use too big of words" was like the mushroom Alice ate that caused her to grow so huge that she suddenly had the capability to crush the "off with her head" queen like an ant: while I externally took the high road and laughed at myself, my internal fantasy of verbally defending myself grew disproportionally into attacking what I saw as her ignorance, then to crushing what I saw as the close-minded, peer pressure mentality that had encouraged my silence among people my own age during my later childhood. I was young enough to stay silent, but old enough to realize that the collective, elective ignorance of many of my peers would eventually silence me permanently if I didn't surround myself with different ones. In college, I did just that, and it was refreshing not to feel forced to use "smaller" words when I spoke and to spend my days in a place surrounded by fellow "misfits."

Since then, though, I feel like I'm back in that restaurant wanting to crush close-minded ignorance like an ant again. Maybe it's this geographical region, maybe it's the types of jobs I end up taking, maybe it's because I don't have time or money to invest in things like graduate school or even something as simple as a book club. I usually don't have time to put much thought into it because at work I spend my days reminding myself just to fit in, just to get by, just to continue to help provide a comfortable living on the Fringe. The friends I have tend to contact me mostly out of convenience, and so even though they don't necessarily ridicule my vocabulary, they bring their own energy-sucking close-mindedness to the table in the form of narcissism and self-centeredness, and try as I might, I can't continue to see those friendships as anything but reminders that once again, I have effectively invited soul-crushing, ignorance-accepting silence into my life.

When I originally started typing this post, I had intended to write about the funny new phrasing Bryce uses anytime he wants to tell us something. Maybe we're sitting at the dinner table praying to the Texture Gods for mercy on our exhausted souls in the form of Bryce actually eating something bigger than a crumb, like maybe an entire half of a black bean or an eighth of a canned peach. Maybe we're running around in the morning, me in the bedroom getting ready for work, John in the kitchen feeding the dog or making the kids' breakfast. We're never expecting a conversation, we're never prepared for an interaction despite knowing that one of our kids is physically incapable of being awake and within a 10-mile radius WITHOUT interacting with one of us. In any case, he has been coming up to us out of the blue to tell us about some or other inconsequential thing (that he still likes chocolate milk and would prefer it for every meal, that the sky is blue today, that he was thinking of what it would be like if Truman weren't a dog but were actually made out of wood, etc.) with the following opening phrase, the origin of which John and I have tried and failed to learn, and so now assume based on the Broadway show director flourish with which it is always stated that Bryce created it in his own mind: "Well, I can tell you this!"

At first, John and I would look at each other in confusion, wondering where he came up with the phrase, then giggling over the contrast between his young, small appearance and his adult-like conversational voice. But now, I feel like I understand where he's coming from. Sometimes a person just has to make it clear that they're about to make an important point, be it about chocolate syrup, wooden dogs, or a decision to better one's life - you know?

Well, I can tell you this: I'm done with the silence of ignorant conformity. And I have no clue what that means in any practical sense yet, so there's no need to torture yourself by asking things like, "what the hell does that cryptic comment mean, Kristen?" because I will not have an answer... right now, I just know I'm done.

Mom, as you can see, some things NEVER change.

For the first time in a long time, a case of writer's block almost took over and ruined my chances at producing a decent Mother's Day tribute. When Kara first alerted some fellow bloggers about her idea, I was all, "Oh yeah! Count me in! Mother's Day tribute, here I come!" and then Kara got busy organizing all the blogunteers and I was in the *gulp* first group. The gulp in that last sentence was me swallowing my wine, which I use to dull the nightly cacophony of my kids' howls and growls during each failed attempt at a peaceful dinner -- and also it was me feeling some irrational, unexplained pressure to publish something outrageously outstanding. I even roped my poor brother into trying to work with me on the Mother's Day blog collaboration project, and the guy really stuck with me to the bitter, near-unproductive, anti-climactic end. Dealing with anyone else so flighty and insecure, Jonathan would have bid good riddance two sentences into the dialogue. But my brother is loyal and dedicated, and relishes any chance to flex his irony muscles (and also to ridicule his sister), so he endured my indecision and self-criticism for days during the most painful and almost barren creative process either of us had ever experienced. "How about we interview mom?" "How about we have mom interview us?" "How about we publish a series of e-mails discussing how to go about producing a tribute?" "Hey, I know! Let's use some of the ACTUAL e-mails we've written about this very thing!" "Wait, new idea. Let's act like Johnson and Boswell and write 18th century letters back and forth to each other, complete with period-sensitive spelling and phrases!" You think I'm exaggerating about that last part, don't you? Clearly, you don't know Jonathan and me very well. (And that draft will never be published. So spare yourself the pain: don't ask, unless you have millions of dollars you'd be willing to pay to read such contrived crap.) You can, however, read some snippets of all of those related chats and e-mails below, along with some fun facts and endearing traits about our Mom, who we love dearly, and who will probably be rolling her eyes at our apparent inability to grow up, already.*

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April 28, 2006 [chat]
Kristen: I agreed to be part of this mother's day blogger collaboration thing, and I'm one of the first in the lineup to write, which means I need to write something by May 3rd (which is next week, argh)...and I realized after I agreed to this that I apparently have nothing to say. LOL.

Jonathan: hahaaha- want a ghostwriter?

Kristen: maybe you could just help me brainstorm...there are no hard and fast rules, it is supposed to be an internet-wide "tribute" but it could funny, "snarky", deep, etc
I just had a thought
what if you and I did like an interview-style thing about mom
we could both post it it could be pretty funny

Jonathan: i'm down. are we interviewing each other, or mom?

Kristen: really? heh heh. this is much better than what I originally thought I'd end up with.

Jonathan: let's make mom interview us! hahhahaha

Kristen: oh wow! we should totally interview mom! maybe we should ask mom things like, name a time Jonathan totally embarrassed you. hahaha...that would get her talking! name a time Kristen made you want to pull your hair out due to her anal tendencies

Jonathan: hahhaaa- that's good. i'll work on questions, you do the same, and we'll trade off tomorrow..

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April 28, 2006
To: Jonathan
From: Kristen

Jonathan - how about these for questions?

1.) Remember that time you tried to sell Jonathan on the black market? Tell us a little more about that.
2.) Name a time Jonathan embarrassed you to the point of pretending he was someone else's kid.
3.) You know how Kristen was always so helpful and obedient? Talk a little about that.
4.) No, seriously. Kristen was always having to get Jonathan out of trouble, wasn't she?
5.) All the sibling rivalry was completely Jonathan's fault. Right?

Hahahahaha!

Since this IS a tribute, I guess we should make it less about us (imagine that! Narcissists talking about someone other than themselves!) and make sure we mention all the things we love about MOM, like how she has the classic "mom's house," fully stocked with all the foods we love, at all times, an open kitchen, day or night, how sociable and funny is - she pretty much gets along with everybody and puts up with all sorts of freaky characters we bring into her life. (Can we say "in-laws"? Hello.)

Make sure you get your questions/comments to me as soon as possible - this is due by May 3, you know, and I don't want to be late.


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April 29, 2006
To: Kristen
From: Jonathan

May 3- got it. I remember that from the first time we talked, too. Don't worry so much about it- we've still got like five days or so to work this all out. As you know, my "office" is a car, and so I don't really have all that much downtime to write emails and post blogs like you clearly do, hahaha! Ooh, but you just wait until self-driving cars come out. I'll be outblogging you in no time.

A thought: I'm sure we could get Mom to let us dredge up all the embarrassing/funny things out of her that she never talks about, like the time Cheyenne literally dragged her across Lake Shore Drive in the early morning snow, while we stared out of my bedroom window on the fifth floor and just laughed and laughed! Hahahahaha!

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April 30, 2006
To: Jonathan
From: Kristen

Oh! Thanks so much for rubbing it in my face about my "downtime" at work. Like I'm not already flogging myself for going through the pain and misery of changing jobs just to end up in another prison of boredom. Well, we can't all be as free to run the roads as you are, Jonathan. Some of us adults have what they call "responsiblities," even if they're not all that pleasant...now I know that "responsibility" is a dirty word to you, so I won't use it more than once, I mean I'll try to be RESPONSIBLE enough to avoid it. But the point is, I was setting a deadline as a reminder to you because I made a commitment, and I have...

RESPONSIBILITIES!

Oops. How'd that get in there? Sorry about that.

Now, back to something else we should somehow include in the tribute: Mom always appreciates the humor in a situation, even if she's distressed or disturbed about something. She can completely disagree with our philosophical stance and yet crack up at whatever irreverent joke you just made. Or at herself, as in the case of getting dragged face-first through the snow by a galumping, squirrel-crazy golden retriever.

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May 1, 2006
To: Kristen
From: Jonathan

Geez, I was just kidding about the not working thing, calm down! There's no reason to get so jumpy- I'm just trying to help. I have had no problems in my life, thusfar, in keeping up with "deadlines," (yeah, this mother's day collaboration sure is a big deal- much more important than my car payment and my real life. get a grip...) so I'm pretty sure I can handle this one, too. You know, this is not at all unlike the time we were at the beach in Florida with the church group when I had a broken arm. You got so mad when I didn't obey you about not getting in the ocean- not because you were concerned for my safety, but that you just wanted to control everything! I'm sure if it were up to you, Mom never would have given me that butterknife to shove down into my cast when it became so itchy (from... all the moisture- it's very humid in Florida!) because the DOCTOR said not to scratch it. You would do that, huh? Make a child with a broken arm suffer with horrendous itchiness just to prove a point! Wow. That's pretty intense.

You know, I just remembered that I wrote and recorded a song for Mom on Mother's Day four or five years ago- I'm not sure when, exactly. I don't even know what it sounded like. The only thing I remember about it is that the last line of the song was "And let us never speak of this again." And she never did. That's how she is. Respectful. And kind. Hmm... how very odd. Just makes me wonder about genetics, is all. No reason in particular.

Jonathan
P.S. I hope this communique falls into your highly structured "Response Time Regimen," or "RTR" as I call it. Quick, write back- now! There are only two days left! OH MY GOD!!

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May 1, 2006
To: Jonathan
From: Kristen

Oh, give me a break about the Florida trip!! You KNEW if Mom had been there, she wouldn't have let you get in the water, which is why you TOTALLY IGNORED ME with your little makeshift waterproof cover (i.e., a trash bag and some masking tape) when I tried to get you to stop. Nice try, but no. I was right, you were wrong. And I bet Mom would back me up, SO THERE. Also: some people (like Mom, for instance) like how structured I am, even if YOU don't.

Speaking of Mom, can we focus on the actual TRIBUTE for a second (since it IS due in two days, and apparently it will no longer be an interview with Mom but more of an interview with each other)?? I was thinking we should also talk about how Mom always did cool things like put authentic looking notes from the tooth fairy under our pillows every time we lost a tooth. I think we never questioned the tooth fairy's reality because those notes were so believable - and our tooth fairy even had a name! To this day, when I hear "tooth fairy," I think of "Gilderoy's" signature written in Mom's flowy, fancy hand-writing on those rectangular yellow slips of paper - folded neatly with our tooth money, of course. And the notes were always so long and personalized. I hope I'm not expected to live up to that standard. My kids will be lucky if I even tell them about the concept of the tooth fairy: "Tooth fairy? Who told you about that? Well, you can put your tooth under the pillow, but I'm pretty sure the tooth fairy is WAY TOO BUSY to make it to ALL the kids' houses with EVERY SINGLE TOOTH, I mean come on!. The population has really exploded, you know."

Yes, I'm sure I just gave you more ammunition for your Kristen attack with that one. Enjoy.

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May 2, 2006
From: Jonathan
To: Kristen

Who needs ammuniton?! Looks like you've already sunk your own ship with your own loose lips! No need to drag me into this... Besides, I'm not trying to formulate a "Kristen Attack," as you say. I'm trying to help you put together a fitting tribute to the woman that spent the last 30 or so years raising and supporting us, remember?! Or have you forgotten that this "tribute" is due TOMORROW? I hope you have a great time compiling all these happy memories and nostalgic reminiscences for this blog project- by yourself. Clearly, I am not up to par with the sheer professionalism that you direct your working and personal life with. I'll just send Mom a card and call her. See you at Christmas.

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May 3, 2006
From: Kristen
To: Jonathan

Geez, is this some sort of profound statement about adult siblings? We might as well be back in our yellow room with our matching farmyard quilts, fighting over who gets to be the clerk behind the desk (and by desk I mean dirty clothes hamper in our bedroom doorway) during our afternoon game of "store." As you once said, everybody's a child. I guess we've proven it.

It's a good thing we have Mom there to fill us up with chips and cookies and be nice to our freaky friends while we figure everything out.

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Happy Mother's Day, Mom. We have no idea how you survived our childhood. We really don't.

(At least not Kristen's. Love you, Mom! -Jonathan (the one whose blog you knew about...))

*No sibling relationships were harmed in the making of this completely (and painfully) fabricated exchange. And Mom? Seriously: Jonathan caused all the fights growing up, didn't he? That's what I thought. Little trouble-maker.

Happy Happy Joy Joy

All my life, I've been considered more a pessimist than an optimist. Growing up, my mom was constantly lecturing me for worrying about things before there was anything to worry about. She saw me as doomsdayish and negative, an old soul in an awkward kid's body, bringing the happy mood down by several notches with my constant instinct to look for what might go wrong, or what might already BE wrong, with any given situation. I always found it ironic that MY frustration and cynicism toward the world around me caused HER great amounts of worry and frustrated sighs.

I never really agreed with my mom's assessment of me; I always considered myself realistic, not pessimistic. I don't purposely set out to find something negative in a situation, despite my mom's life-long opinion to the contrary. I do, however make a point to arm myself with information and the willingness to act on it if necessary. This could be in the form of verbally communicating some feeling of distrust, dissatisfaction, or worry. It could be in the form of making a choice in my life with which others might disagree. Or, it could be in the form of lots and lots of sarcasm. You just never know. I'm an enigma.

The house I grew up in demanded certain social facades; in a childhood marked mostly by maturity and good behavior, my one tacit rebellion was the refusal to smile in public if I didn't feel like smiling, silently exposing the truth that our family might not be the picture of functionality and bliss everyone assumed. This caused both of my parents much consternation, but I know on some level they understood that they couldn't do much about it. However, this act has had two results: 1.) my family sees me as inherently negative, turning this whole thing into a big self-fulfilling prophecy, and 2.) to this day, one of my biggest pet peeves is when I have a natural, straight face and people see me and say, "Smile!" (Why? If I'm not feeling particularly joyful right that second, or laughing at a joke - or someone's misfortune - , what's wrong with a straight face, people? What? What?) So, because I'm not inherently negative, but because I still insist on having an actual REASON to smile when I'm walking down the street, I end up feeling self-conscious anytime I do point out something that is legitimately negative, or frustrating, or depressing. And sometimes when I'm just being sarcastic (but not jovially), people think I'm being serious. (It's that damned dry wit.)

Someone recently found this blog by doing a Google search for "stress and heartache from children," and once again I find myself asking, "should I be concerned about this?" Maybe my mom has been right all these years: I'm just too much of a downer, all I ever talk about are the bad things, the challenges, and as an adult, the things that cause me to look like a colossal parenting failure.

Well, not today. John's busy season is coming soon, and we decided to take advantage of the last weekend we'll all be at home together by doing something that felt more like a fun outing with the kids than our usual harried weekend division of labor wherein we draw straws to determine who takes the louder and more time-bomb-like child to the less stimulating errand location, and vice versa. We've only taken both kids to a movie simultaneously once before, and since I'm determined to end this post on a sappy happy joyful positive note, I won't divulge any details. Suffice it to say that we've allowed enough time to lapse since that experience that neither of our faces twitched when we considered trying it again yesterday. The stars must have been aligned properly, because not only were our schedules completely open, but both kids took a nap and woke up happy. When we asked them if they wanted to go see a movie, their eyes almost popped out of their heads as their intellects tried to grasp the concept of doing something FOR FUN with both of their parents on a weekend that didn't involve a trip to any sort of grocery store. We explained again about the movie rules - how the movie theater management will call the police and have you hauled to jail without your parents if you get out of your seats, how if you yell during the movie, they will rip out your vocal chords and pin them to your shirt to publicly shame you...you know, the basic movie rules all parents tell their kids. They seemed to think they could handle following all the rules, so off we went.

The beauty of being "pessimistic" is that you set out with low expectations; John and I went in with the understanding that at least one of us would be shushing or walking at least one of the kids around after about seven minutes of previews. So, imagine our sheer and utter ecstacy when both kids sat next to us mesmerized for the entire hour and a half of Curious George, laughing at the funny parts, sharing their popcorn, never once attempting to climb over or kick the seats in front of us or turn the theater aisles into racing lanes. Quinn didn't whine. Bryce didn't have to go to the bathroom. Neither of them yelled inappropriately or tested any limits. At one point we thought maybe Quinn had lapsed into a coma with his eyes still open and locked on the screen, so during the scene where George sees all of the helium balloons at the zoo and runs towards them, John turned to Quinn and whispered, "what's he going to do?" Without taking his eyes off the screen or moving his head from the optimal movie-watching, popcorn-eating position, Quinn whispered his guess in reply: "he's going to a birthday party." I'm telling you, that kid is obsessed. Nobody could call HIM a pessimist.

Look at that! No woe-is-me theme, no chaotic scenarios to relive and deconstruct. No exasperation, anger, guilt, or frustrations bogging down my thoughts. See? I'm perfectly capable of expounding on the good experiences, looking for positives, and simply being content with everyday occurrences. What I don't do, and I won't ever do is present a PRETENSE of happiness and contentment where those feelings don't legitimately exist. And what I also don't and won't do is ignore the things that are sad or frustrating or that bring feelings of complexity that can't simply be smiled away - like guilt, regret, and desire. And I hope my kids learn the difference between society's current definition of "pessimism" or "negativity" and an honest, self-assured communication with the world about one's state of mind. I can simultaneously appreciate the good things in my life and work to make the not-so-good things better over time. If, in my process of doing that, some people find these posts by searching for phrases that would traditionally be considered "negative," that seems perfectly logical to me - because people could also theoretically find them by searching for "chuckle over crazy kid's antics" and "successful travel with four-year-old," which seem pretty positive to me.

It's a complex life lesson, and I hope my example does more than just confuse my kids. Oops, there I go, worrying about things outside my immediate control again. Please don't tell my mom.

Return of the Cheeto Gang

I’m getting braces.

My world is crashing down on me. Life as I know it will change FOREVER next week. What was I thinking? How could I have agreed to this? Will I be forced to face the daily agony of being taunted and ridiculed, have I voluntarily submitted to being the butt of my peers’ petty jokes? Because we ARE still in junior high, right? My every nerd-move and physical trait is being observed by the “cheerleaders” and “jocks,” to be humiliatingly twisted and thrown in my face while they gather together as one indiscernible, Guess jean-clad, confidence-shattering mob. Right?

Oh. Maybe you had a different junior high experience. Mine sucked. S-U-C-K-E-D. Actually, to be fair, it wasn’t even the cheerleaders who ridiculed me in junior high (and I apologize for stereotyping any former cheerleaders out there who have since seen the light on treating the quiet, nerdy kids like pond scum – no hard feelings, eh?); I wasn’t even on their radar screen. Some catty group decided I was no longer worthy of joining their oh-so-cool after school gatherings consisting of Little Debbie snacks and convenience store slurpees; after that, my wardrobe, face, hair, or anything externally visible was fair game. One day after they had ostracized me (during which event they told me I could no longer be a part of their group because “my family was too perfect” – nice, especially considering the dysfunctional hellhole I was living in at the time), I was walking in the halls between classes when one of them saw me and yelled out, “hey, Cheeto!” and started giggling uncontrollably with her (formerly my) friend. I’m sure I looked confused, because I had no clue what image the word “Cheeto” actually was supposed to conjure up for me. Had I eaten Cheetos with lunch and did I still have that neon powder on my sleeve? Was it a clever play on words involving “Chester the Cheetah” from the commercials? If so, exactly what was said play? Was it some sly comment on my CHEST? Was it a sarcastic jab at my academic abilities, like, “you must think you’re some kind of intellectual CHEETAH”? How deeply should I have analyzed this clearly genius inside joke? As it turns out, I didn’t have to analyze it at all; the lovely (and witty! Oh so witty!) girls saw my confusion and said, “your eye shadow, DUH! It looks ORANGE!! Like the Cheeto cheese!!” And with that, they cackled off to class. This went on for months.

I’m pretty sure they both wait tables for a living now. Not by choice. They were going to be married to rich men who would obviously shower them with such swank gifts as the highest quality eye shadow ever created. Karma’s a bitch.

For those of you wondering why I launched into a depressing discussion of the WORST YEARS OF MY LIFE and also asking yourself what IN THE NAME OF GOD any of this has to do with getting braces as an adult, well, I’ll tell you: I thought I was just fine with the whole braces thing (except for the $5400 price tag, which will forever haunt my dreams) until I literally woke up in the middle of the night feeling ill and imagining people at my new job not taking me seriously. Or not being able to focus on anything coming out of my mouth because of these shiny metal objects reflecting the canned fluorescent lighting with Every. Single. Syllable.

In my adult brain, I know this is crazy. Plenty of adults have braces; I see adults with braces all the time and I don’t think twice about it. Besides, it’s only a year. It’ll go by in a snap. But I had braces once before, you see, during that time in my life when everything associated with my physical presence was suspect – will this attract too much attention? Am I going to be ridiculed over this? And that little Junior High Humiliation Victim part of me hasn’t died yet. I’m going to beat her to a bloody pulp, though, because if I don’t get these braces, a portion of my gums will have most likely completely receded by the time I’m 50. I’m pretty sure I’m going to live past 50, and I think I’ll still want gums, teeth, and also a jawbone at that time.

So all I can say is this: The first person at my new job who makes a witty comment to me about the braces is going to have a bloody, gnarled stump in place of what used to be their arm. Cheeto Gang, you’d better warn them about that whole karmic retribution thing.

Although it's been said many times, many ways...

Many bloggers have recently expressed a wish for this holiday season to be over already, what with the traffic, the weather, the in-laws, the cards to send, the social functions to attend, and the shopping, my god, the shopping. I couldn't agree more. Have I wrapped the pile of presents for the kids yet? No, I thought I deserved one more week of stalling and stammering a fake answer every time Bryce walks downstairs, looks at the tree and says, "Mom, when are my presents going to be under the tree?" Have I sent out Christmas cards? No, it seems I prefer the guilt of receiving other people's cards and realizing I was too lazy to actually take the five minutes to choose a picture of the kids and address some envelopes.

This week would have been the week that I might be pulled out of my anti-holiday slump, though. There was my stepdad's annual holiday birthday party Tuesday night, a work Christmas gift exchange dinner Wednesday night, a trip to see A Christmas Carol performed live at a local performing arts center Thursday night. Parties, music, food, oh my! If anything could infuse one with the proper amount of holiday cheer, it would be my fun-filled week of Christmas events. But for whatever reason, I'm just not feeling it. Is it my decision plate problem? Is it that I've gotten too old to enjoy it all? Is it that the stress of the past five years of my life has obliterated my ability to appreciate the moment rather than worry about details out of my control? I don't know.

But I do know this. Right in the middle of a stress headache over unwrapped presents, uncooked meals, unplanned family get-togethers, I heard Alvin and the Chipmunks "Christmas Song" being played over the office phone intercom system. I was immediately transported back 20 years to Christmases in my grandmother's house when my brother, my cousins, and I wore out her Alvin and the Chipmunks Christmas 8-track tape and performed live renditions of our Alvin and the Chipmunks Christmas music video for all of the gathered, willing adults. My grandmother, Nana (pronounced NON-uh) gave us the impression that she rather enjoyed our chipmunk performances, so we obliged her every year until we were just too old and too cool for it. She died two years ago, during the Christmas season actually, and I've wondered where that crazy 8-track tape ended up. I know if she were still around and healthy enough to be with us at Christmas, I would probably be passing on the chipmunk tradition to Bryce and Quinn, who I know would gladly take it and make it their own.

So thank you, crazy IT guy who played the chipmunk song over the intercom this morning. How strange and unexpected that something so brief and mundane, and at work, no less, is what would finally plunge me into the Christmas spirit. I wish I could call Nana and tell her about it, but since I can't, I'll have to be content with playing this song for my kids while I sneak into my closet to wrap their presents.

I hope you find your chipmunk song memory. Merry Christmas!