Tanya's Week Off

Kealoha here. Seriously. Tanya needs this week off. She's got narration, voice-overs, teaching, writing, editing.....  You get the idea.

So I told her not to stress about blogging. In fact, I've changed her password, so not only can't she blog, but she'll need to resort to leaving comments if she has anything to say!

I'm not taking all of her social media away. She still has Facebook and Twitter. And Pinterest, which I've still avoided.

Plus, this blog needs a few more references to tikis!

Limited Edition Tiki Bowl

That, dear readers, is not a Mai Tai.

In today's cocktail culture, the only safe place to have a Mai Tai is in a Tiki bar. And those are few and far between. (I would suggest searching Critiki to find the closest bar to your location, and make sure you thank them for keeping the spirit alive!)

If you can't make it to a Tiki Bar, here's an easy to follow recipe:

Trader Vic's Mai Tai

1 oz fresh lime juice ½ oz orange Curacao  (ORANGE! NOT BLUE!!!) ¼ oz orgeat syrup  (Orgeat is an almond syrup. Usually found with coffee syrups) ¼ oz rock candy syrup  (I've been substituting Agave Syrup, and it works great) 1 oz aged Jamaican rum (I would highly suggest Appleton Estate) 1 oz aged Martinique rum (Myers Dark rum is perfect) Shake well with plenty of crushed ice. Pour unstrained into a double old-fashioned glass. Sink your spent lime shell into drink. Garnish with a mint sprig. Original drink by Trader Vic, 1944. Adapted from Jeff Berry & Annene Kaye, Beachbum Berry’s Grog Log. (San Jose: SLG Publishing, 1998) p. 50

OK class, get shaking!

Aloha & Mahalo!

The "I Haven't Beens"

I’ve been struck with a stuffy nose and a tired body. Stupid mid-winter colds. And right before I’m due to narrate too. Grrr. To offset this yucky feeling, I pulled on my hot pink velour pants, which I recently rediscovered in the back of my closet. These are a step above the comfort of yoga pants, because these pants don’t even pretend to be active wear. No. They’re called LOUNGE PANTS. They’re whole purpose is so you can lounge around. Brilliant!  

I crawled into bed at 2PM for a nap. The Claritin D was kicking in and making me feel woozy and I thought a nice little sleep would help. As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t sleep because there was a nasty little dance going on in my head. Ugly twisted creatures called the I Haven’t Beens.

They’re insidious buggers. They’ll keep you up for days if you’re not careful. My I Haven’t Beens are as follows:

I haven’t been working on my novels

I haven’t been reading enough

I haven't been blogging enough

I haven’t been hanging out with the friends I miss

I haven’t been cleaning my house

I haven’t seen my sister or talked to her in a while

I haven’t taken my mom out to lunch

Then I got really annoyed with myself, because while I have really good intentions and I want to do everything on the planet, I’m only one person. Here’s what I Have Been doing:

I’ve been working on a short story

I’ve been eating healthy

I’ve been exercising

I’ve been devoting myself to my kids

I’ve been planning and prepping three classes

I’ve been relaxing so I don’t freak out

I’ve been tending to my relationship with Kealoha

So while there’s a ton of things I Haven’t Been doing, there’s also a ton of things I Have Been doing, and I’ve got to be happy with that.

Plus, when you’re wearing pants like these, you’re not SUPPOSED to do anything strenuous, except maybe bake brownies. Which I might do any second now.

In short, I’m still here. All is well. I’ve just been busy with living.

The Best Excuse For A Fart EVER

My daughter sometimes calls herself The Fart Machine. She’s five. Don’t tell her I told you she calls herself this. She’ll deny it. Sometimes, she’s really proud of her ability to create noise from her own body, and other days she insists that someone else did it. Like an invisible squirrel. Or Peanut (the kitty we had to find a new home for six months ago). Or Kealoha. Sometimes it IS Kealoha, but he usually owns up to it.  

Yesterday morning, Simone let out an impressive fart. It positively vibrated.

“Simone!” I said. “Did you do that?”

She shook her head. Then she moved quickly away to another area (you can figure out why). She turned around and said: “I didn’t make that fart. The Adams did.”

The Adams? “Who is Adam?” I asked. “Your cousin? He lives like a half hour from here. I’m pretty sure he didn’t do it.”

“No! Ma, the ADAMS did it.” She looked at me with that ‘how can you be so stupid’ face. “You know. ADAMS. Those tiny invisible things that have stuff swirling around them.”

“You mean atoms?”

“That’s what I said! The Atoms did it!”

“Are you telling me that you didn’t fart but atoms colliding around you made that fart?”

She looked at me like I was finally understanding something really simple. “Yes. That’s right,” she said, sounding relieved that she wouldn’t have to continue educating me. “You know, ma, your hand is made up of thousands of atoms. THOUSANDS.”

So. Okay. Wow.

Don’t tell me that kids today aren’t learning anything. I don’t know where she learned about atoms, but it wasn’t from me, and if she can take that concept and blame her farts on it, then I am in awe of her awesome power. Brain power, that is. She makes me so proud.

My Freak Out Over Facebook And Going Gluten Free

I love Facebook but every once in a while it annoys me. Mostly, when I’m already annoyed to begin with…or depressed…or whatever, I can feel my inner shark surfacing, complete with that JAWS music. When you're anxious or struggling, it's sometimes hard to hear how happy everyone else is and how great running is and how they've lost 40 pounds by drinking shakes and eating a totally organic diet. I mean, I have trouble taking a shower every day because there isn't enough TIME, let alone go for a run and make organic smoothies from my own window garden.  

Allow me to provide a specific example, but first a little backstory. Two weeks ago, I gave up wheat. It was an experiment to see how it affected my mood and energy and general sense of well-being. And…dammit…it was great. I felt great. Chipper, bright, flat tummy, etc. But by the end of the second week, munching on so much protein just made me want to take a shower. But I was determined. If I could do two weeks, then I could keep going. And then I took my son to the allergist and that went okay until she noticed from his charts that he hasn’t gained weight in A YEAR. I made an immediate plan to see his primary care physician, and my brain started spinning.

This morning, I’m a ball of nerves. I need to cry. Big time. The place I narrate for isn’t returning my emails on availability. I think a gig is in the works, but I’m terrified that something happened or someone said something and they’re not going to hire me again. That would be tragic. I’m also obsessing over my son’s health. His dad and stepmom think he might have celiacs…an allergy to gluten. (We’re going to the doctor’s on Monday.) And I realized just how fucking hard these last two week were trying not to eat wheat. I mean, gluten is in everything. It’s in CHEESE and coffee creamer. You pretty much have to shop at a health store to get food that’s entirely wheat-free. Plus, when you’re stressed out and it seems like you’re kid isn’t growing and you’re really stressed out and no one wants you to narrate for them and your students aren’t doing their homework and you don’t want to yell at them because if you do, then they put that on their reviews of you and then you don’t get hired at your job again and then you’re poor and on the street and eating gluten any chance you can get…

I sort of lost where I was going with this.

Oh. Yeah. Facebook.

So I read a post this morning that this super nice, beautiful woman had run 2 miles in 23 minutes. It made me mad. First, she's gorgeous. Second, she was out running while I'm wearing tight yoga pants where you can also see my panty line and that I'm wearing big ol' panties and not a cute little thong. Also, she could run two miles in twenty three minutes, whereas I had just eaten two cupcakes in under twenty seconds, saying Fuck You to the whole wheat-free diet., and to my general diet, and to not being hired to narrate, and to my son being sick, and to the stress of a job that has no security, and to just generally feeling not-good-enough-all-the-time.

And that’s why Facebook annoys me. Mostly, I annoy me. Not all the time, and not during the time I was stuffing my mouth with delicious cupcakes, but about five seconds after and for probably the next two weeks while I try to give up wheat AGAIN.

I do have to say those cupcakes were terrific and now I’m on a lovely gluten/sugar high. I’m going to go cry now. Then wait until Monday in hopes that all is well with my kiddo and my jobs and my life and I’m just having an understandable, normal freak out moment.

Dammit. Now I want a loaf of French bread.

Seriously. With a chaser of pancakes.

Random Notes FOUR "A Different Kind Of Weenie"

-Four- Kealoha will probably kill me for writing this (or go into the website and delete the post. I’ve given him permission to do this if I ever cross the what’s-appropriate line). But it still makes me laugh.

We were snuggling in bed and I was just about asleep. He was wrapped around me and I felt something sort of ‘lower down’ moving a little bit. I could ignore this, or I could ask him about it. So I said: “Are you fiddling down there?”

“Fiddling?” he asked, whether because he was unsure of my meaning or just needed me to say it louder.

“Yeah. You know…are you ‘fiddling’ on the sly?” I said. Louder.

Kealoha burst out laughing. “No, Maw, I ain’t fiddling. I’m a-scratchin’ my leg. The stuff you fiddle with is higher up.”

Then I realized that maybe he was laughing at my vocabulary. “What? People talk like this! People say ‘fiddlin’ on the sly’ all the time. Naturally. Don’t they?”

“In the thirties maybe. In the deep south.”

Hmmm. Just yesterday I talked about being bamboozled and something being a lot of hooey. Kealoha may have a point. This isn't a natural vocabulary. Maybe it should be.

And maybe my marathon of Boardwalk Empire has had a slight effect on me. I’m starting to think that my palpitations might be cured by a little backwoods hooch.

Hooch is alcohol, right? And not…uhm…a vajayjay?

Shoot. I better stick to modern slang.

Random Notes THREE "Crazy Books"

-Three-  

I’ve been reading great stuff as ‘research’ for my Madness and Women in Literature course. So, okay. It started out as research but now it’s just fun. I read “We Have Always Lived in the Castle” by Shirley Jackson…which is a vibrantly colorful messed-up read. Plus the cover is fantastic.

I’m currently reading Stephen King’s nonfiction “Danse Macabre” where he talks about the horror genre and Peter Straub’s “Ghost Story”.

What with Cthulhu living in my walls, all of this has inspired me to write an actual, real live ghost story. Oh, it’s so very fun. Fingers crossed, you’ll see what I’m talking about later.

Random Notes TWO "Wall Creatures"

-Two- As many of you know, the big drama in the house was the demon-noises I heard in my wall by my computer. I blame these scratching noises on my lack of enthusiasm for writing…but mostly I’ve just been lazy. I thought this was living in my wall:

But the exterminator told me it was this:

Damned field mice trying to come in from the cold. They actually gnawed a little mouse hole outside. I’m trying not to think of them as super cute little field critters who can ride bicycles and wear cute little hats and outfits and have living rooms decorated with acorns as teapots and a spool of thread as an end table, but instead menacing demons with fangs and claws and NESTS.

We have set out an obstacle course of traps. I feel guilty and proud about this. If they actually do wear little outfits and hats and ride bicycles and stuff, they should be fine. If they’re just rodents, then their days are numbered.

Random Notes ONE "Weenies"

-One- In honor of the Superbowl (which we had no interest in watching, but I felt immense pressure to cook a bunch of appetizers) I made that mini-weenies thing where you get mini sausages and then crock pot the hell out of them with a can of cranberry sauce and chili sauce. It’s not really cooking…it’s more like mixing.

I laughed more than I care to admit when I thought about how much I loved my mini-weenies. Even Kealoha loved them. He said: “I love your mini-weenies” and I said: “Aw. You say that to all the girls.”

I’m telling you, jokes about mini-weenies never get old to me. Which is probably why I wrote a book where one of the main characters is named Sausage*.

*That book is called "Pepper Wellington and the Case of the Missing Sausage" in case you're curious.

What Horton Likes To Do, According To My Son

My son is seven and has been struggling with learning to read and write. He’s a super bright kid, but honestly, I don’t think he really cared or was interested enough in writing and reading until recently. Even now he’s not all that interested, especially when at school they make him read boring books about families and apple picking. There are no explosions or blood anywhere in these stories. They’re BORING. Mostly he reads and writes now because he’s forced to. I try to breathe through it. I tell myself “One day, he will love reading. Just not yet.” Lately, though, he’s started writing little notes. If something is hard for him to say, he’ll write it down. I usually have to interpret it, but the notes include things like “I don’t know why I throw fits” and “I’m sorry, Mom” and other stuff to make me all weepy and proud like.

Recently, he played a game on the computer and wanted to show me what he’d accomplished. It’s a Dr. Seuss game and you get to write your own captions. The first picture shows the elephant from Horton Hears a Who talking to a skinny creature. Here is the story he wrote:

HORTON: I like to poop on me

SKINNY CREATURE: me to

The next picture shows the same characters looking very pleased. Here’s what he wrote:

HORTON: I like to pee on me

SKINNY CREATURE: me to

The next picture introduces a new character. Here it is:

My son showed me this looking proud and just a little bit mischievous. There was a moment where I had to make a decision. Should I punish him for the 'innappropriate' subject matter, or commend him for writing? It took me about a second to decide. See, there is a comedic narrative arc here. Horton and the Skinny Creature meet and Horton shares a secret interest. He is relieved to find that the Skinny Creature also shares that same secret interest. Then, the story amps up and they find they have even more in common! It’s so exciting! Then, the story takes a twist with a third character being introduced. Not only does this character also enjoy peeing, he enjoys peeing on basically every letter in the alphabet, and possibly every person on the planet. The end.

It’s sort of brilliant.

Okay. So maybe I’m reading into a bit much. I high-fived my son, told him to keep writing. And reminded him how to spell ‘fart’. You’ve got to engage their interests, right? I mean, he is only seven.

A Response To My Most Recent Rejection (rated R)

Muther humper. I vowed I wouldn’t write about writing-angst anymore, but I just got another bastard rejection letter. I mean, what the fuck? What on earth is going on in this hell-hole? It is a damned fine rejection letter, though. It’s really fucking nice. Like unbelievably sparkly shit nice. For real. I just don’t understand what the letter MEANS. I mean, I have no fucking clue. See for yourself: “Dear Tanya,

Thank you so much for letting me look over “Foodies Rush In”! My reader absolutely loved “Foodies Rush In”, but it contains too much cursing and she thinks if you change it up, it would affect the integrity of the story…From what she said, someone is going to snatch this one up soon anyway!”

What is that? What does she mean I fucking curse too much? I NEVER curse. I’m a fucking clean-mouthed bitch to the power of a ho. For real. I mean, my vocabulary is so fucking sparkly people think I’m a mother fucking VAMPIRE. I could teach kindergartners and those little ass munches would use language so fucking colorful that…

Uh….

Wait a second here.

Just let me re-read a little bit.

Uh huh. Okay.

Yep.

Ah.

I think I see what she’s saying.

Good to know.

Conversation I Almost Had With My Kids And Then Thought Better Of

Last night, Kealoha told me a joke at the dinner table. He spread his arms out and said he was Jesus on the cross. Then he said in a death groan “Peter! Peter come here!” The rest of the joke involved Jesus repeatedly asking Peter to come close and Peter anxiously coming closer to Jesus to hear Jesus’s last words and then finally Jesus whispers: “I can see your house. Over there.”  

It’s a ridiculous joke. Sort of wrong and funny at the same time. My son was listening and of course, he repeated the joke but amped it up. Suddenly, he was a seven-year-old Jesus on the cross with his tongue hanging out and moaning and crying about “The nails! Oh, the nails! Peter! Come here! Arrggghhh!!” The joke somehow became horrifying.

To change the subject, Kealoha and I started whistling “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” by Monty Python in “The Life of Brian”. The kids wanted to know what the song was so Kealoha pulled it up on Youtube.

You know, you think humor is universal but then you sort of step back and see something in a new way. Like, what if I were a kid seeing this for the first time and the adults were all laughing. How would that affect me? Would this be future material in a therapy session?

The song started playing and I thought, uh, maybe shouldn’t show this to the kids. And then I had a conversation IN MY BRAIN with my son, explaining why this song is funny. ME: See, son, the men are all being crucified. They’re going to die. And it’s going to SUCK. They’re nailed to crosses and death just doesn’t get any worse than that. SON: What’s funny about that?

ME: Well, see, they’re experiencing the worst kind of pain possible and they start singing this little song and dance number about looking on the bright side of life. What’s the bright side of being crucified? Nothing! There is no bright side! And that’s the joke.

SON: That’s not very funny.

ME: It’s hysterical. In a sick, twisted sort of way.

Thankfully, I stopped myself before having this conversation with my son because I immediately realized that you just can’t explain genius like this song. You have to experience it. And we will just have to wait until my son is a little bit older to appreciate the depth of the humor.

I’m also hoping he doesn’t repeat the Jesus and Peter joke to anyone who’s super religious. They probably won’t think it’s funny.

Birth Day (a sci-fi story)

As many of you know, I've been toying with some different kinds of writing. Here is a short story that slips out of the comedic territory, and into the world of literary sci-fi. Let me know what you think. I'd love to hear from you.

Birth Day

by Tanya Eby

Amelia sat at her kitchen table with her tablet loaded on the North Quadrant Times. It didn’t matter which website or news address she clicked on, every headline was nearly identical, with the exception of a few small words: Birth Day Is Nigh! Birth Day Dawns! Beware of Birth Day!

Articles were the same too. All women aged 14-40 should prepare for oncoming labor. Do not go to the nearest hospital. If every woman went into labor at the same time (as expected) then hospitals would be overwhelmed and would not be able to help. No. The Birthing could be done at home. Hospitals should be reserved for emergencies only (and there was some hysteria with the thought that what if every birth turned out to be an emergency. What then?). They’d had nine months to prepare. Everyone else, from young children, to older adults, to all the men, should check their birthing kits, re-watch delivery webinars, and prepare for…

Well. The articles were vague on what (or who) exactly to prepare for. The nearest guess was to prepare for a child. A billion children, actually, all over the world in every location: villages in Africa, deserts in America, and in the tallest urban jungles in the world. Even two doctors stationed at the North Pole had conceived, and they were both women without any men around for thousands of miles. Doctors and mathematicians calculated that Conception Day occurred on April 17 at 2:11 EST. They had been crunching numbers since then to decide if the Conception or Birth Day had any astrological meaning.  Their decision so far was…maybe.

Amelia was not worried. She ran her hands over her swollen abdomen and the child shifted within her. Fluttered, really. As if it had wings. And couldn’t it? Couldn’t her child have wings? Stranger things happened. Stranger things did happen like nearly nine months ago when every woman on the planet age 14-40 had conceived.

When the news started pouring in, when understanding started dawning, the news sites trumpeted the findings: Massive Simultaneous Teenage Pregnancy became All Women Above 14 Are Pregnant! Amelia held her breath, hoping against hope. And then the new headlines: No Women Over 40! Amelia had cried into her pillow that night. She had felt that she was different. She hoped finally, after all these years, that she could have a child of her own. It was not to be. All the incoming data, every news site, and every expert claimed to understand: All the women in the world between the ages of fourteen and forty were pregnant. There were no pregnancies before or after that age. Women who had been pregnant at the time of Conception Day, seemed to have reverted their pregnancies back to Conception Days. As if their pregnancies had simply restarted. No one over the age of forty had conceived. They were safe. Except…against all the data…Amelia.

Amelia. Pregnant. But that was impossible. She was 43. She’d had fertility treatments back when she was married. The doctors had said it was impossible for her to conceive and then, inconceivably, Patrick had left her and started a family with someone else. But now. Now, this. A gift. From her research, she discovered that she was the only 43 year old in the entire world who was also part of this experience, and because of this, she had sequestered herself. No one must know. No one must know that she was the one person who didn’t fit.  She’d seen what scientists had done in the beginning to understand. Those women they’d tested, experimented on, tried to help with terminating the pregnancy, those women had never come home. Young girls terrified of what their parents might think had tried aborting their fetuses…and they ended up dying. Or worse. Weeks and weeks of agony while the cells within them shifted to create another fetus to replace the one they’d taken, only growing double and triple time and causing deep pain. Those girls, they were lost. Their spirits slipped away. After Birth Day, Amelia wondered if they would come back to the world, but she doubted it.

She felt for them, these girls and scared women who were too terrified of carrying a child. She pitied them their lack of faith. She understood what it was like to feel lost, because she had been lost too, but in a different way. How she had slipped through living day to day, with no love in her life, just work, and sex occasionally, and long nights spent on her own while Patrick…She did not finish the thought. She reminded herself that now, with her child almost with her, she would be found.

There was no astrological or spiritual rhyme or reason for the moment of conception; she knew that. It was simply a miracle. Simply a miracle. Yes. She believed that this miracle was simple. A fact. Perhaps it was a leap of evolution. Whatever it was, there was no changing it, no stopping it, and the entire world had been forced to accept it. Birth Day was coming. Birth Day was nigh.

Amelia knew, knew at her very core, that there was, however, a reason why of all the women in the world she was chosen to be the oldest. Her child would be special. Her child would be a leader of children. She was chosen because her wanting had been so great; her suffering for a child so prolonged. Birth Day would change the world, beginning with her own.

“Incoming call,” said the computerized (though entirely natural sounding) Voice. “It’s your sister.”

Amelia quickly stood and went to her kitchen counter. She smoothed her long red hair and pinched her cheeks, hoping to bring them some color. Though, actually, since becoming pregnant, she did seem to have an otherworldly glow. One of the many reasons she tried to stay inside. The hologram would dull her glow, but it could not dull the size of her stomach. If she stood behind the counter then her sister would not see her rounded belly on the vidscreen. Amelia only needed to keep her secret a bit longer. Birth Day was only hours away, and then she could tell the world of her purpose.

“Amelia!” Her sister Nina said. Her voice was high and tight, her face pale. Her image stood across from Amelia, so clear that it was almost as if they could share a cup of coffee together. She seemed to have aged another ten years in just these nine short months. Nina’s red hair was now streaked with white, and the color seemed to have tarnished to the color of rust. She had deep circles under her eyes and her skin was dry and creased with new wrinkles. “Why aren’t you over here? You’re supposed to bring your Birthing Kit! The orders say that family members must help other family members! It says! You agreed! We need you here!”

“I can’t come. I’m sorry,” Amelia said softly. She was sorry too. Sorry that her sister would have to deliver her grandchild on her own. Sorry for her niece who, at just shy of fifteen, was terrified of what was happening to her body.

Her sister began to cry. She tried to muffle her voice. “Please,” she pleaded, looking straight into Amelia’s eyes. “Amelia…you’re the only one who has any medical training. Ed is a complete moron. He’s out back preparing the old bomb shelter in case some kind of attack happens. The boys are no help. I can’t do this alone. Margie is only fourteen! She’s just a child!” The rest of her words were lost.

Amelia took a deep breath. “It’s going to be okay, Neener,” she said using her sister’s pet name. When Amelia was a baby, she called her sister Neener because she could not say Nina. “I’m telling you the Birth Day is going to go fine. Margie can do this. You can do this. All you need…” Amelia took a sharp breath as a contraction gripped her. “All you need to do is believe.”

Nina rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand, dragging a line of mascara across her face. “Believe what,” she said and her words were filled with utter loss. “There’s nothing left to believe in anymore. We don’t even have control over our own bodies.”

“Believe in miracles,” Amelia said. “I do.” She decided then that the time had come. She stepped away from the counter and walked to her sister’s image standing before her.

“Amelia…” her sister breathed, as if she couldn’t believe what she was seeing. She reached out to touch Amelia’s stomach and then the connection was cut.

Amelia bent over as another contraction rippled through her body. The pain reminded her of surfing. How you rode the wave as long as you could until you tumbled, then, waiting in the water, you floated, until you could catch the next wave bringing you closer to shore. She would ride this out.

“Warning,” called the Voice. “Birth Day is imminent. Prepare your delivery stations. Please tune into Quadrant Four’s webcast delivery. Doctors are standing by to assist virtually. Remember: hospitals are not equipped to handle Birth Day. You must do this at home. Hospitals are on stand-by for emergencies, should any arise.”

It seemed that even the computerized voice was strained with fear and anticipation. This is what they had all been waiting for. The final answer was coming! What would happen next? Every time they’d tried to do a 3D imaging sequence, machines shut down. When a pregnant woman was in an accident and killed, they had tried to open her stomach to see what lurked within, but by the time they did that, the fetus had been absorbed. They’d tried ultrasounds and video feeds and even shamans to tell the world what kind of children women were growing. Would they be regular children? Gods? Demons?

Amelia knew the answer. She was growing Hope. Hope in the way that old advertisements claimed Hope For a New World and a Better Tomorrow!

The next contraction was fierce and Amelia leaned against a chair for support. She only needed to get to the next room where she had everything waiting. It was only a few more steps.

“Warning!” the Voice called. “The Children are coming!”

Amelia walked the few steps to her living room and lay down on the bed. She knew what was coming and that she only had to surrender to the experience and she would be okay. She breathed.

“Birth Day has begun!”

It happened incredibly fast. There was pain and tearing and she breathed through it. She was silent, in fact. All was silent. She no longer heard the Voice proclaiming warnings and advice for complications. She no longer heard the proclamations of the names of women who had successfully brought a child into the world, though she knew that there would be proclamations. She was aware that the world was in an orgiastic state of fear and anticipation. She knew that today people would take their own lives rather than learn of what was coming. She knew that what was coming was not, in fact, evil, but humanity’s next leap into a bold new future.

She breathed. She pushed. And then the child slipped from her in a rush. There was silence still. Amelia pushed herself up, scooped the child up, and looked into her daughter’s perfect silver eyes. Her eyes seemed to spark with electricity. In fact, staring into the child’s eyes, Amelia thought for a moment she saw the swirl of a tiny universe forming. The child seemed to consider her for a moment. Amelia brought her daughter’s gleaming metallic body to her breast, kissed the top of her cool head, and smiled as her baby nursed, seeming to know exactly what to do.

Everything would be different now. This was how transformation happened: quickly, without warning, and if you were brave enough to embrace it, it would take you to incredible places. Amelia and her daughter Hope would lead them all.

“Warning!” called the Voice. “The children! The children have arrived!”

All over the world people waited to hear the crying of the new children and were astounded when instead of sobs of a billion infants, they heard the tinkling laughter of what they could only understand as newborn stars.

Al Gore, Perry Mason, and Halley's Comet

I woke up last night to the sound of thunder. Thunder. And rain. IN JANUARY.  

What is going on? What distorted parallel universe did I wake up in? This is not natural. I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again: Al Gore was right about EVERYTHING. Somebody should give him a medal…or at least a free cookie or something.

I want me some snow. I want me some epic snow. I want snow like from my childhood. I grew up in Traverse City and one of the houses (where I lived from 10-13) was on top of a hill by a lake. Clouds would sweep over that lake, get fat with moisture, and then dump all of that new snow on our driveway. I’d wake up to snowdrifts that were seven feet tall. The snow would cover our car in the driveway, leaving only a frayed tennis ball that we’d stuck on the antenna for just such an event. Seriously.

School closings were as reliable as Wednesday. They happened every week. I’m not exaggerating.

It reminds me that once while Mom and my stepdad Jay were trying to get the cars out, Mom told me to go outside and play. I turned off the Perry Mason rerun on TBS (I was a weird kid. At 12, I was obsessed with old crime shows), crawled into my mom’s 1970s brown snowsuit and went outside. I wasn’t quite sure how to ‘play’. I’d read that other kids played, but I wasn’t sure what that meant exactly.

I’d heard on the news that Halley’s Comet might be visible soon, so I decided to go outside and look for it. I crawled through the back yard, over a snowdrift as big as a sand dune, plopped myself in the snow and waited. With all my snow gear on, it was peculiarly warm. The only thing that was cold was my face as the snow blew over it. There was a terrific silence, a faint crackling of ice and snow shifting. The snow fell in a whisper all around me. In the distance I could hear snow blowers.

I lay there for hours. It felt like hours anyway, and I thought maybe just maybe I saw the comet, streaking across the sky in a blur of white. I probably made a wish.

When I got too cold I waded back inside, peeled off the snowsuit by the front door. Perry Mason was still on. I made a twice-baked potato in the microwave.

In reality I’d been outside for a total of three minutes, and Halley’s Comet wouldn’t arrive until a year later (1986) and you could only see it in Australia.

I want another snow like THAT. Please tell Al Gore to get me one. I hear he can do almost anything. Except, you know, become president. (Booooo)

Cheesecake & Chet Baker

Saturday morning. I’ve got some soft jazz playing on Pandora (currently it’s Chet Baker). I’ve just made a cheesecake and it’s cooling on the countertop. Kealoha is outside snow blowing away. The kids are at their dad’s house and I’ve spent the last twenty-four hours picking up Squinkies and Lego pieces from my floor. I’ve unlocked three levels of Mario Kart for when the kids are home, and already I’m counting the days until they come back.  

Today Kealoha and I will get groceries and check out Costco. I’m wearing my favorite yoga pants and a pullover. Dinner is homemade picadillo, corn pudding, and rice and beans. I will drink wine and listen to more jazz. Maybe Kealoha and I will watch a movie or “Homeland” or something. Maybe I’ll fall asleep on the couch while I pretend not to.

I might read today. Finish up with “The Haunting of Hill House” and make some discussion notes to go over with my students.

Outside the sun is shining on the snow. It’s one of those bright, cold, crisp January days.

Sitting here, I’m having one of those moments where everything is pretty clear: I have everything I need. There might be things I want still (you’ve got to have wants) but the truth is, I have everything I need.

It’s not a splashy day. Not an especially exciting day. But sometimes, a good day is more than enough.

Being awake after midnight can cause deep thoughts like "Nathan Fillion is like a comfy sweater"...

It’s 12:30 PM and I am wide awake. You’d think that this is relatively normal. I know people who stay up until 1 or 2 every night. Most of these people are (in my mind) strange creatures who thrive on creativity. They must accomplish so much, especially if they put their kids to bed by eight or nine.  

So maybe I’m one of these cool Night Hawks. But, uh, no.

I’m wide awake past midnight because I fell asleep last night at 8PM. That’s right. I had the kids tucked in bed by 7:30. By 8:00, I was downstairs with my legs propped up on Kealoha, sort of forcing him to rub my feet. We put on “Castle” and by approximately 8:03 I was fast asleep. It was a great sleep too. I was warm and cozy. I blame “Castle” for that. The show is just so damned comforting, nightly murders aside, that I can fall asleep while watching it as soon as the opening credits roll.

Maybe it has something to do with Nathan Fillion. He’s sort of like a cozy sweater. Whenever I watch something with him in it, I just feel like: everything is going to be okay.

Now granted, I was pretty tired. I’d had a day of teaching where I terrified a group of students by pulling out a bag of cherries from my purse and asking them to write about them. Why cherries? I saw them at the grocery store and I wondered if they’d make a good writing prompt. And I had deep conversations with my kids that required a lot of brain work. Conversations with my son that included him saying things like “Whazzup, yo? Touché, yo. 'Sup?” He’d squint his eyes, and show me how to look intense and cool. (Very impressive that a seven-year-old can be that intense, but brain exhausting trying to understand what he meant by 'touché yo".) My daughter and I also bonded over a conversation that included her saying “I’m a fart machine, Ma. I can’t help it. It’s what I DO.”

It was a day filled with pondering and contemplation, and I was tired.

So I reclined on the couch. “Castle” started and Kealoha rubbed my feet and I was warm and cozy and deeply asleep. Somehow I schlepped upstairs around nine to continue to sleep.

What do cool people do after midnight? I imagine they do stuff like blog and create new flavors for ice cream. What a weird time of day/night to be alert. It’s sort of like visiting a distant land.

And now I want a comfy sweater and/or to hang out with Nathan Fillion. It’d be great if I could get him to read me a story. That’d put me right back to sleep. (In a good way. He’s a great actor.) All he’d have to say is “Once upon a time…” and then throw in some murders and/or references to Firefly or the pies he tried in Waitress, and I’d be off to dreamland right away.

Hmmm. Pie. Maybe I’ll create a new flavor of pie with the time before morning.

I’m thinking something savory….with bacon…Hmmm….bacon pie….

Mini-Epiphany #9,238,002 (approx.)

This weekend I posted another whiney woe-is-me writer blog. It needed to be done. I’ve been struggling with it. Then after doing some research for pictures I’ve used on this blog, I found a very similar whiney woe-is-me writer blog  FROM TWO YEARS AGO. Have I really been bitching for two years about this? Uhm. Yes.

So.

Enough.

This weekend I went on a quick walk with my friend L. She’s so great to walk with. We’re both the same kind of neurotic personalities and our ups and downs seem to happen at different times. That’s great because when one of us needs to vent, the other can listen and be supportive-pseudo-therapist. A week later, the roles switch.

I was venting about Kealoha being sick and how it affects his personality, and the struggles with the kids and making sure they’re happy, and the stress of writing and working and cooking etc. and then I realized that there was a big stress I was no longer worrying over: my teaching. I’ve sort of just let go of the control I have, because I don’t really have any. They’ll either renew my contract for another year or two, or not. At the end of two years, if they continue to renew me, they’ll either have to hire me full time or my contract maxes out and I won’t be able to teach for them anymore. I’ll be able to adjunct, but not full-time. I can stress about it and try to find another job (even though I love what I’m doing). But no matter how much I stress or fuss, really, there’s nothing I can do about it. I don’t have any power over this. They’ll either hire me or they won’t.

I’ve decided to just enjoy this time in my life where I get to be a professor. I love every minute of it, so instead of wasting all my energy obsessing over whether or not my contract renews, I’m just enjoying my time.

I didn’t decide to do this. It honestly just happened.

It’s sort of freeing, the way I imagine it will feel to go braless in public if, you know, your boobs weren’t so heavy and pendulous that random children would run to you requesting a feeding. Not that I speak from experience, mind you. Nope. Not me.

I’ve been annoying myself for months.

It’s time to stop.

I just need to get back to work, which is exactly what I’m doing. My books will either sell or they won’t. People will like my work or they won’t. I’ll either lose weight or I won’t. My kids will fuss over dinner or they won’t. Somehow, I’ll be okay.

Or, I guess, I won’t… but I’m trying not to think about that too much right now.

I Guest Blogged Today

I guest-blogged today for Grand Rapids Region Writers Group. Instead of re-posting it here, I'll just put the link. It's more writer-whining as I struggle to figure out "When Is Enough Rejection Enough" and when is it okay to give up on trying to be the famous writer you always thought you'd be. If you want to read that, please visit http://grandrapidsregionwritersgroup.blogspot.com or just click on the link above.

My regular blog will return next week with more every-day mishaps and random stuff. :)

This is not a blog about clowns.

This is not a blog about clowns. I hate clowns. They’re scary because you never know what could be under that makeup. There could be ANYTHING under that makeup, like an alien or something, or maybe even Mitt Romney. Clowns are way freaky.  

So. This is not a blog about clowns. No. I want to write a blog about sparkly things. Things that make me happy. Stupid, lighthearted things that fill me with joy.

Here are things that make me happy:

1. When my daughter talks about her ‘brudder’ or that one day she wants to be an ‘ahrtist and a writah and a mudder’.

2. I like when my son dances. He has a gift for bad dancing, which I like to believe he inherited from me. I’ve spent years perfecting my bad moves…and my son just possibly could be an absolute genius.

3. I like that instead of giving me flowers, Kealoha gave me a Bigfoot App for my phone. You take a picture and then you can add Bigfoot into the picture. ANY picture. I expect crazy hijinks to ensue.

4. I like that I TOLD Kealoha that he should buy me that app. I like that I wasn’t even subtle about it. I was just all “Dude. Buy me that app. It’s cheaper than flowers.” (I was too lazy to do it myself.)

5. I like random videos about cats. Cats! Who doesn’t like cats?

6. Dips make me happy. Both the kinds you eat and the people kind. Wait. Does that sound like I like to eat people? Eating people, AKA cannibalism, does NOT make me happy. Clowns probably eat people and then laugh about it. Fuckers.

7. My students make me happy, especially when they look really bored at first and then they’re reluctantly interested and then later in the semester they tell me that they ‘actually sorta enjoyed the class and it didn’t completely suck’.

8. Blogging makes me happy.

9. I like owls.

I was going to add another one to the list, but I also like when lists surprise you, like when you’re expecting #10 and it just doesn’t show up. That #10 is a No Show. That #10 is out getting a reuben or a Cuban sandwich (which are my two favorite sandwiches.)

Enjoy your day. Don’t think about clowns.

A Mom, A Daughter, And The Stuff Between Us

What daughter doesn’t have a complicated relationship with her mother? I mean, we love our moms, but they also drive us crazy. Simple every day things can have an undercurrent that’s rife with past hurts, misunderstandings, obligation, and of course, love. I think I’m pretty typical in that regards to my mom. With my own daughter, I’m trying really hard to build a solid foundation so that when she’s a teenager and hates me, that years later she can come back to me knowing I’ve always loved her and been there for her. This week I moved my mom from Kealoha’s house to an apartment. She was staying in the house temporarily until she could find affordable housing. If you read my books, then you know a lot of the kooky mom-characters are actually inspired from her. Mom’s a free spirit. She loves to play games and do crafts; she still pretends and plays with the kids as if she’s a kid herself. But lately, her quirks have become more complicated and disturbing. Her quirks aren’t just quirks anymore…it’s actually more of an illness and it saddens me while it also infuriates me. Nothing’s every easy in regards to my mom.

Last year we moved her out of her retirement apartment in Coopersville. You might remember some of my blogs on that. We found her apartment stacked and stacked with boxes and garbage. Boxes were stacked to the ceiling with just a path to walk through. She was ‘downsizing’ after leaving her marriage and just hadn’t ‘had a chance to go through things’. It seemed plausible. Of course, we found jars full of strange, homemade rotten stew. When we found a box containing human remains of a guy named Joe, I knew something was deeply wrong with my mom, but we’d get her a new start at Kealoha’s. It’d all work out.

It was mind blowing, but still a little funny. Oh, quirky Mom.

This time, though, the move stopped being funny. We’ve put Kealoha’s house on the market and Mom was going to make the house look warm and inviting. She knew for over a month that she was going to move. I didn’t go over to her house because I have trouble with how messy she is. So I didn’t realize the extent of what was happening.

Every time I talked to her she was ‘packing’ and ‘sorting’. Things were going ‘really well’ and she was ‘excited’. I told her I’d be over to help on Friday morning and the movers were coming at 1. Then I heard the panic in her voice. “I think I need some more time” she said. I said there wasn’t any more time left. My brother couldn’t help her this time because he’s been sick and travelling all over the country. And after school started again, I’d be swamped with teaching, narrating, and taking care of the kids. She’d been packing for a month. How much time did she need?

When I walked into the house, I felt something inside me break. Maybe it was faith in my mom. She’d been lying to me. The house was in terrible condition. Nothing was packed. And there was more stuff than when she moved in. She hadn’t packed or sorted or gotten rid of anything. There was stacks and stacks of half-packed boxes, but they were packed with things like craft magazines from the 80s. I tried to throw some out and Mom got mad at me. “What are you doing? Those are really special to me. They have ideas for all the crafts I’m going to do.”

I found a stack of canvas that was so old it cracked when I opened it. “Can I get rid of this?”

“No!” she said. “Those are for canvas floor mats. I’m going to make some and offer classes.”

“Did you make a floor mat this year?” I asked. She didn’t answer. “What about last year? What about in the last five years?”

She grabbed the floor mats. “I have a woman who wants me to teach her.”

This isn’t quirky or funny anymore. The house felt like walking into a chaotic mind, a mind filled to the brim with things that don’t matter, but to my mom there things filled with meaning. A broken plate is something someone gave her and she’s going to fix. A pile of old sticks is a craft she’s going to make. The weaving loom she carries with her is a project she’s going to do, though she hasn’t used it in thirty years. It’s almost like my mom tries to fill the emptiness in herself. She wants to be close to people, but she’s very hard on them. Has super high expectations. She’s on her third divorce. She’s made terrible financial choices. And now she has all this stuff around her and it’s actually isolating her. How can you connect with someone who's surrounded by stuff?

A couple came to look at the house while we were packing. I saw the house through their eyes: stacks of garbage, a house not tended to, total disorganization, boxes filled with garbage, piles and piles of broken, useless things. It was dirty. Chaotic. Uncomfortable. Not an inviting house, but a dark, broken house.

I love my mom. I do. But I think that her hoarding and how she lives is really just a symbol of something deeper. Something broken. I worry (like daughters do) that somehow I’m going to become like her in the future. Alone. With little money. Surrounded by things that I attach false memories and emotion to.

And the couple, needless to say, didn’t make an offer on the house.

Yeah. Downer blog, I know. Sorry about that, but as my friend Laura and I have talked about on our many walks, life isn’t tidy. You have good times and bad times. So this is one of the low times.

I take my mom’s condition as a warning. I need to make real and deep connections with the people in my life, and set aside the importance of things.

You can fill your house with boxes and plans of things to do…but it doesn’t fill your spirit.

Snow Storm, Drinks with Friends, and The Ghana Room at the JW Marriott

Ahhhh. The first blog of the New Year. 2012. Everything is sparkly and shiny and shimmering right before me. Okay. I’m drunk.

No, I’m just kidding. I’m entirely sober.

Kealoha and I went out last night to celebrate a friend’s birthday. I was so excited to leave the house and the kids in their Nana’s hands. This has been a good break, but mostly it’s been me inside with the kids and their various step-siblings and playdates. I’ve run up and down the stairs countless times, wiped noses and asses, cooked and cooked and cleaned and cooked and cleaned, disciplined, hugged, kissed, and then repeated everything over and over again. I’ve worn nothing but yoga pants and gigantic pajamas. Getting out of the house was definitely needed.

So in the middle of a winter storm watch, Kealoha and I left the kiddos and journeyed out. I think I bitched the entire car ride…just about general stuff. How my mom drives me crazy. How her new move into an apartment complex is giving ME a complex. How the kids are so demanding. How I hate that I’ve been dieting all through the holidays and my pants are still tight. Then I asked Kealoha if he liked my new shirt. I bought it at Anthropologie and it…let’s say…highlights my excessive cleavage. He said he liked it. “It’s like an optical illusion with all those stripes.” Then I stewed in THAT for a while. I was trying to go for sexy. I ended up wearing something that gave people vertigo.

We tried to go to this dive bar The Birch Lodge. They specialize in everything fried. It’s great. And it’s all wooden in there so you feel like you’re walking into a warm wooden womb. (That’s a comforting phrase to say. Just try it.) We pulled up and could hear the football cheers from across the street. Some frantic iPhone messaging and calling later and we decided to meet at the JW Marriot bar instead. Everything in Grand Rapids was closed, but you can always count on a hotel.

The JW was quiet and peaceful. I was glad I was wearing my sexy new vertigo-inducing shirt. Anyone who looked at me would think “Oh, she’s artistic” or perhaps “Oh, I feel nauseous.”

We joined my friend Kay and waited for Ally. When the four of us were all there, we had the sort of conversation that should be destined for high literature or plays. You know, topics like camel toe, and my problem with eating smoky mayonnaise with a spoon whenever I encounter it, and artisanal cheese and almonds and whatever.

Then Kay told me that she and her hubby had booked a romantic night at the JW and ended up in the same room that Kealoha and I did for our honeymoon (three months ago. Three!). It’s called The Ghana Room or something. It’s some sort of cultural exchange thing….which is great. Like they have pictures up all over the suite to educate you about Ghana, and how much you suck for not thinking about Ghana all the time.

The problem with it is…see…when you’re on (say) you’re honeymoon or celebrating your anniversary or on a romantic night away, you don’t really want to look at gigantic pictures of an African village and the villagers inhabiting said village. I mean, they look hungry. I really am all for feeding people and recognizing cultural differences and all, just NOT IN MY HOTEL ROOM. My sister took a look at the room and the pictures hanging over the bed and said “Yeah. That’s a mood killer. I totally want to have sex while looking at THAT”. I just felt guilty. And like I wanted to send sandwiches to random villages. It made me feel like a loser for spending a bunch of money on a hotel room for a night. (Which I don’t think the JW intended with their decorating.)

There’s a time and place for building global awareness through art. But it’s not in the honeymoon suite. Somebody should write the JW a letter. In fact, maybe I’ll just send them this blog post. Pictures of flowers and cityscapes are okay in hotel rooms. Portraits are not. Unless you’re into having an audience. Which is sort of your own issue, isn’t it?

Kealoha snapped a picture of the Ally, Kay, and me. I love the picture (though I try not to look at my rolly stomach). We look happy. Last night reminded me a little bit that I’m not just a mom who wipes noses and asses and everything. I’m also a friend and a woman with cleavage so vast it can cause nausea. (Or maybe that was just my shirt.)

An hour and a half later, Kealoha and I were on our way home in the snow and sleet. The kids greeted me like I’d been gone forever. They clung to me and kissed me and hugged me and I did, I admit, feel appreciated. It’s a good reminder. They may not thank me for being there and taking care of them, but they do know I do it.

It was a good night. A great way to start the New Year. Really, what good living comes down to is friends, family, and camel toe.

You can maybe X out one from that above list. Maybe.