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.

The List

Please complete the following sentence:

I wish someone had told me that one day soon, out of the blue, my child would say to me, “__________ _____ _________________ __________,” because I sure had a hard time coming up with a non-stifling, honest, appropriately informative but not overly frightening response on the spot.

We’ll get lots of people to answer, then make a book listing all the horrifying possibilities, and fewer of us will get caught with our pants down. Ok?

I’d tell you the thing May said last week, but it’s quite distinctly her story, not mine to tell. Suffice it to say: normal childhood thing, high stakes conversation, wish I’d thought it through ahead of time, hope you’re more able to share yours than I am.

Boss

The teacher of a class I took this summer (she taught me to go into a trance. Did I tell you about this?) had this to say about motivation and writing. (Go read it. Especially writers. Really).

I don’t know who those two overly made-up ladies are who supposedly have each other’s backs, but this idea about the power of being visible and accountable as a writer is intriguing. I’ve commited to fifteen minutes every single evening in my basement cave writing studio (and I’ve been doing it for three-ish weeks now) (!!!) but I’m thinking more now about who supports me in this from the outside, because it’s going to take more than my personal superpowers of will and concentration to keep it up. Who are my bosses? Myself, for better or worse. My writing group. A. Teachers of writing classes, when I’m taking them.

Who are your bosses in the things you want to do? Who are our bosses as parents? What can we do, I wonder, to train these people in?

Trip

We went on vacation. We stayed with my parents in Seattle and drove with them to the house on the Oregon coast where we went every summer of my childhood, and I said this last time we traveled, but it’s even more true now: this was the best trip we have taken since May was born.

It was so easy. We didn’t bring diapers. We had fun. On the plane on the way there, I knit three quarters of a mitten and A read the paper and the girls spied things in the I Spy book and drew pictures and asked questions and learned phonics from my iPhone. They were excited about everything: seeing airplanes. Riding in an airplane. Drinking apple juice in an airplane. Talking about the stuff going on outside the airplane. And then: the matching big wheels Grammy Sue had procured, and the broad, dead-end alley/driveway where they could ride in circles to their hearts’ content. The crotchety cat who didn’t scratch them once. The ocean. The pink and white circus animal cookies. It was all an adventure.

(I was pretty excited about the cookies, too, although now I’ve moved on to enjoying some exotic candy bars that a friend gave us. Wunderbars. Do you know these? Cadbury’s. He got them in either Canada or Australia; I am going to need to find out where and then begin the emigration process immediately. They are like Butterfingers but with better chocolate and a thick layer of caramel.)

The two tiny bumps in the road were all about August’s bodily fluids. One night, standing on my folks’ nice wool living room carpet, she threw up a half pint of raspberry yogurt (still not sure why; one time only. Fatigue? Bad yogurt?) and, proving once and for all that childhood brainwashing can trump both ordinary self-protection and maternal love, I threw my whole being into protecting the carpet, catching a big double-handful of vomit in midair before yelling for someone to help comfort poor sick August while I washed my hands.

The other thing was about those infernal auto-flushing toilets, which all airports, save for the S concourse of Sea-Tac, have in all locations, even the “family restrooms” where you can be sure small children will be venturing, ripe for trauma. I covered up the electronic eye; they were still terrified, and, as an indirect result, August, who also refuses to use potties on airplanes (“It have bubbles in it.”) peed herself right in her seat. Which we soaked up as best we could and then told the flight attendants about on our way out. “Thanks for your help, and by the way 38-B is soaked with urine.”

Good things: We met Eva and her Little Girl, who it turns out are real people and not figments of my internet imagination, and who are every bit as funny and pleasant and interesting as you’d expect. We went to a playground together and saw a view and hunted horse chestnuts. Later, with another friend, we ate croques monsieurs at a bistro where August conked out with her head on my shoulder, and then drank really good coffee and ate terrific salami. We drove to the beach. We climbed a mountain, mostly carrying girls on our backs, and I’m still sore. We made blackberry pie and huckleberry pancakes, and the kids did lots and lots of the foraging and picking and sorting of berries. May and August frolicked naked in the ocean, and May yelled “This is so much fun!” over the roar of the waves, over and over.

And now we’re home; it’s A’s birthday, and have you ever heard of a good birthday that included a flight from the left-hand side of the country to the middle of the country? No, of course not. Poor guy. But after we revived our garden and dumped the contents of our suitcases into the washing machine, we did take a pretty terrific bike ride and eat, all four of us, at a great outdoor place. It turns out all four of us love fried calamari, and as we ate we made a list of those among the world’s foods of which that is true. Surprisingly few: corn on the cob, raspberries, and an exhaustive collection of desserts. The combination of August’s tender palate and the adults’ interest in flavor narrows the field considerably. We ate ice cream together (on the list) before biking home, and then spent two and a half hours trying to get May to sleep. (She was worried that she’d get a tummyache. Also, worried that worrying about getting a tummyache would give her a tummyache. Translation: Overtired, jetlagged, and very smart.) And then we went to bed and I was almost asleep when I heard some type of bird, animal, or something making a hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo noise outside. At first I thought it was a rooster, but it was more raccoon-slash-owl-like, only less owl than the stereotypical ‘hoo’ spelling might lead you to believe, and I’d never heard it before, and I got up to try to record it because I knew I’d never be able to replicate it to properly ID it (already can’t), but just ended up standing on the front steps in my PJs for five minutes hearing nothing. What could it have been?

All I ate today is a two-dollar danish at the airport and a 15-calorie Americano (Seattle’s Best Coffee: they list calorie amounts for every beverage, on the menu-thing on the wall. Have I been in the Midwest too long or does that seem odd?) and that yummy dinner, and I have a feeling that if we had any cheese in the house I could down a few slices of it and doze off, but all we have (er, had) are (were) those Wunderbars, and sedation is not among their many beneficial effects. I will now bring the recording device to bed so that I can lie in wait for the hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo while hoping for sleep.

Hierarchy of Needs

This evening May and I cooked together: granola (to soak up all our pear-and apple-sauce), and then salsa verde—with fresh garden stuff whirled in the food processor.

I explained to her why the food processor won’t turn on unless the lid is secured: “If we put our fingers in there while it’s spinning, it would chop them all up, and we wouldn’t be able to put them back on again.” [Side note: Was that cruel? It felt overly harsh once I said it, but it's true, and I said it lightly, and I really, really don't want her to ever put her hands in the food processor.]

“Even a doctor couldn’t put them back on?”

“Nope. Not even a doctor.”

“And we need our fingers.”

“That’s right. We need our fingers toooo….”

My reflex was to say was that we need them so we can hold a pen and write, but mid-syllable I decided to see what her answer was instead. “To what?” I finished. For some reason I sort of assumed she’d go straight to the pen.

“Water!” May declared.

“Water?”

“To hold a cup! Of water! We need fingers!”

“Well, yeah. You’re right. We do!”

She continued to groove on the exercise. “And to hold utensils!”

“Uh huh.”

“So we can eat food!”

“Yes…”

“And to hold tomatillos!”

Eventually I fit in “and to hold a crayon,” and May interrupted, “or a pencil! So we can draw!”

I guess I’d been thinking that without fingers I could drink through a straw, and that obviously the real loss would be the ability to put stuff on paper independently and quickly. But I’m extra impressed with my little Maslow and her creative and oh-so-right-on-and-logical take on the world.

Especially the part about the tomatillos. Yum.