Happy InSoWriMo!

Shannon has proclaimed this month InSoWriMo—International Sonnet-Writing Month: write a sonnet every week in December. I’m going to give it a whirl. Will you join us? Come on…it will be fun.

Here is my first contribution—my first try at a sonnet since about 1991 and a rare breach of my rule against ever writing anything on-line about my in-laws.

Thanksgiving With the In-Laws

My husband’s mother, Liz, won’t skimp on salt
or family stories, bacon grease, or cheese.
While mixing this year’s stuffing, she recalled
Thanksgiving with her ex’s sister. She

wouldn’t put in any salt or butter
There was no fat, and everything was steamed.
Before we went, I talked with Gary’s mother—
she brought the salt; I smuggled in the cream.

But, while she talked and worked the stuffing bowl,
I heard my husband’s brother’s girlfriend laugh
as, cooking Liz’s famous green bean casserole,
she cut the called-for butter slab in half.

If we’re to gather, cook, and dine in peace,
we families need our secret recipes.

Why I’m Thinking it Might be Time to Wean

1. August, at age two years, three months, has started calling them “the big one” and “the little one.”

2. A guy on Sesame Street was listing words that end with Z: jazz, glitz, fizz. “And,” August added with conviction, “bubz!” It’s a little eerie nursing someone who knows so much about phonics.

3. This is a detail from May’s latest family portrait:

That scribble above the word mama might very well be an attempt at sounding out boobs. May has been copying a lot of words down and spelling with help, but this would be the first time she’s tackled deciding what letters to use on her own.

So: nutrition, comfort, linguistic fodder, artistic inspiration…I’ve got it all, here. It does seem like it’s gone on a bit long, though. And do I hope they even out a bit after we stop nursing.

Three More Days

Thank you for your kind words after that last post, about the violence. I really feel like telling the story of the woman who was killed, but it doesn’t seem quite right to do publicly (although our local journalists don’t seem to feel that way). I went to her memorial service last weekend, and although I can’t go into the details, just let me tell you the things I learned from this tragic thing that happened. I tend to be a bit remedial in my learning of great life lessons, so bear with me. In no particular order:

1. Mental illness is a bitch.
2. Married people can become almost like one unified organism. It is beautiful and terrifying.
3. People can come through (or be in the middle of) the most awful struggles and still appear utterly unremarkable and ordinary.
4. I want to ask people more questions, know more about the people I “know,” and be less afraid of offending someone by wanting to hear about their life.

~~

A has been out of town for almost a week, and can you please remind me again how I did this for two months last winter and we all survived? Yow. I’m exhausted. Friday I left work early to take a nap. My boss wasn’t around when I decided to leave, so I sent her an email that said, “If I don’t get some sleep, I’m afraid I’m going to lose it with my kids tonight, so I’m going home.”

It isn’t completely horrible; the sleep is just tough, and the girls have been challenging, I think because they miss A. (I do, too. It is lonely and boring here without him.) And I had some relief booked for last night and today but it dematerialized at the last minute, so that put me in a tailspin.

But now it’s almost 9:30 and I believe I’m going to go to sleep at a decent hour for the first time in weeks, which ought to help. I’m still behind on pretty much everything and haven’t been working on poems at all this week, which makes me feel loony-brained and flabby. But the end is in sight.

Full Moon Week

This week a woman I know—not a friend but someone I’ve worked with off and on in a loose way for seven years—died a violent death. And then a friend of mine had her house broken into and her little girl’s bedroom ransacked. And there is a rash of robberies going on in my neighborhood where three or five people not only threaten you with a gun and take your stuff, they also shove you to the ground and kick you in the head over and over. Between all this and the news on the radio about men flipping out and shooting people, I am worn out from spending the week envisioning violence.

I keep thinking that there had to have been—at some point—something someone could have done to stop it. A person doesn’t just go from normal mentally well peaceful citizen to causing awful harm on purpose in one giant step, do they? People around them must see, must have seen. Even people on the edges of their lives must have seen hints but not been sure or not wanted to interfere or just not known what to do.

It makes all of life seem scary, not because of all the danger that the bad guys make, but because we are so fragile and so entrusted to each other, and we are often so lame at seeing what’s really needed, and even worse at sticking our necks out and helping.

Anyway, I’m exhausted, and rather than do anything useful I am baking a chocolate cake, and am going to sit on the couch and knit something soft, and then go to bed early.

Peace to you and yours.

Boo!

Status

How many months until it’s my turn with those novels, I wonder? On the other hand, My Body is Private should be in my hands within days.

I appreciate your ruminations on the poem feedback. I suspect that “needs more unfolding” is shorthand for “don’t know what the hell you are talking about” or “too shallow.” Either way, the poem in question feels about as done as I can make it, so I guess it’s just something to put into the mental compost pile for next time. Maybe someone who likes more “folded up” poems will appreciate this one and decide to publish it.

The girls were chickens for Halloween and adorable. August spent the evening in a state of disbelief. Before we headed out, she kept asking, “Why do I have this bucket?” I assume she couldn’t believe we were serious when we kept answering, “We are going to go and knock on our neighbors’ doors and they are going to put candy in that bucket.” It happened, though: lots of candy. Major sugar high, minor crash at the end. Mmm, festivals.

Alive

It occurred to me that even though I don’t have it together to write anything ponderous and lyrical, I should post something to let you know that I seem to have conquered the swine flu rather than vice versa. I was in bed for a week. Then for a week I was doing all the normal things, only with a cough and more slowly. And now I’m starting to feel pretty normal, though still half-snotty.

I have avoided the doctor, and holy gee you weren’t kidding when you said Mucinex was expensive. The cheapest box was $20! If two random internet acquaintances (ok, one delightful internet acquaintance and one really good real life friend who reads my blog) hadn’t vouched for it I never would have sprung for it. It worked, but I only needed a couple of pills, and now I have $18 worth of Mucinex on hand for next time. Or to barter for something I need. Do you know any hairdressers who provide child care? And who would take a few chops at my hair in exchange for 18 Mucinex tabs?

* * * *

We’re trying to decide about Christmas. Travel west and stay in my parents’ big, clean, mostly childproofed house where my mom does most of the cooking, then come back to three weeks of jetlagged children, grandparent hangover, and the inevitable illnesses picked up on the plane? Or stay here, be in charge of our own space and time and not have to travel, and invite my parents and brother to stay with us, and somehow sort out how to have a peaceful holiday without having to host three Christmas dinners and/or get tangled up in competitive grandparental gift-giving awkwardness?

* * * *

A few weeks ago on an afternoon when I was sort of feverish anyway I sent out a big stack of poems to various journals, and the first of the rejection letters came today. As expected, it was from the fanciest of them, the biggest stretch (the earlier in the process they decide to toss your work, the sooner the letter comes). Pleasantly, it wasn’t just a form letter but had a personal note thanking me for sending my stuff and commenting on one poem, “We lingered a bit over some of the more surprising narrative turns, but in the end we wanted more unfolding.”

More unfolding. Please let me know if you have any idea what that might mean. I’ve made myself a cozy little writing space (well, cozy and, you know, dank) in the basement, and as I headed down there this evening A wished me “Good luck with your unfolding!”

* * * *

Have I mentioned lately that I have two daughters? And that they are probably the most stunningly smart and beautiful little people in the world. I don’t know where to start, but it’s true.

Pigs Fly

I am mostly well, May is well but still a little draggy and cranky, and A and August are still well. I believe that maybe August has been protected by my antibodies since she still nurses a few times a day. Is that even possible? And if so, might I have a marketable commodity here, what with the H1N1 vaccine shortage? (This doesn’t explain why A hasn’t succumbed, though. He is not drinking my milk. That I know of.)

I said “mostly well” because the misery that spent the week seething through my body has settled into a dime-sized spot an inch behind my left cheek, so I’m thinking I must have a sinus infection.

I’m hesitating about going to the doctor, though, because since starting at a new clinic this summer I’ve been in for two appointments: 1) to establish care and to check out what I believed might be head cancer but was not and 2) to have them listen to my lungs last week for feared pneumonia, which wasn’t there. I don’t really want to be that lady with all the fake illnesses, and sinus infections are so nebulous, it seems like a gamble to go in and try to convince them that I do actually know when something is wrong.

Also, I have seen two doctors there. One was 21 years old and nervous. The other was 21 years old and looked like a 21-year-old George Clooney and had a fetching Eastern European accent. This was at the initial check-up and head cancer appointment. The guy asked me whether I’d had a pap smear, and I flashed into a minor panic. “Yes! Yep, all set with pap smears, thanks! My oldunattractivefemaleOBGYN takes care of those. Really! All set!”

So I realize diagnosing a sinus infection wouldn’t mean George Clooney having to rummage around my bits, but I’m still not thrilled about going in to visit with either of those nice young men again. I’ll give it a few days and see if my head starts to feel symmetrical again, and in the meantime try to find a GP who is female and/or over 40.

Sick, Day 5

Fifth day in a row of utter exhaustion. I am renewed in my belief that the pig is a filthy animal and may begin to boycott pork. Except bacon. Blargh. I have no severe symptoms (no fever, slight cough, stuffy nose) but can I do so much as put away a basket of laundry without needing to lie down for the rest of the morning? Nope. I can knit, though, and read. May is better, mostly (no fever since yesterday, and cheery). A and August are still well. Very, very glad A is able to stay home and entertain the energetic August while I languish on the couch.

Quarantined

May has the swine flu and so do I, and the four of us have been more or less cooped up in the house since Friday on account of feeling lousy (May, me), taking care of people feeling lousy (A) or feeling rambunctious as ever but not being allowed to leave the house alone (August).

Since Friday. That makes four days, and I am just ill enough that it has mostly felt sort of cozy rather than awful. Ditto May, I think; except for a scary high fever spike on Saturday (which came right back down after we got on the stick with the Tylenol/Ibuprofen mix), she’s been relatively chipper and without any of the deathbed-like illness I’d come to expect from the H1N1. We’ve slept a lot and watched an ungodly amount of TV, including an Olivia video over and over. I had been unaware that Olivia was even a show, but it is, and with catchy music and somehow just as much imagination as the book. We’ve also eaten a lot of popsicles. And French onion soup that comes in a box—my new favorite food—with baguette toast and lots of gruyere on top.

Of course, a slew of weekend plans had to be cancelled, and the girls are going to miss their school’s fun yearly field trip to the apple orchard (we’re keeping August home even though she’s still well, on the theory that she is about to get sick any day and is likely contagious, because God knows there is no containment of germs in this house no matter how many times in a day we chant “Catch your cough!”). Also we are both missing any number of things at work and trying to scramble to get them done from home, but overall there is a very nice feeling of resignation that we are just going to miss a week of our lives to slug around and get well and keep from infecting our friends and neighbors. Or two weeks, I guess, depending on when and whether A and August get it.

The fact I’ve been sitting up long enough to type this must show that I’m on the mend, but it’s kind of worn me out. Back to the couch.