Today has been one of those good days when a kid is sick, but just a little bit. Just enough of a bona fide temperature to keep him home from school (and of course, me home from work) but not enough for any actual suffering to go on.
Here's what I did today. We were already dressed to leave for school when I kissed Brandon and discovered how hot he was, so we went on over to Publix and bought cold medicine and soup and stuff. We came back home and got into bed and I finished reading Revolutionary Road. After that I straightened up the house and took my sheets off the bed to start some laundry. I checked emails and fixed Brandon's lunch. The mail came. At 3 we went to pick Bliss up from school and to transact some business at the bank since ordinarily my weekdays are all tied up in golf ball hell. Then we picked up Bliss's new contacts that had been waiting at the optometrist's office, and came home.
See, now that's a life I can deal with. It would make perfect SENSE to me if my days were spent taking care of people and things I actually CARE about, and doing little things that would make life smoother for the whole family. It makes sense to me too, quite frankly, that there should be some time in there for things I want to do, at times of the day when I have the energy to do them.
I don't care if I'm 44 years old, I will never accept or understand who arranged the world in such a way that I have to spend all day every day doing something I hate, surrounded by people who irritate me, just to make enough money to enable me to get up and do it again. It makes me crazy to even consider the phrase, "spend my life." I'm literally SPENDING it--throwing huge handfuls of days at the least desirable thing I can imagine.
When I stayed home and lived off my severance pay for a year or whatever it was, it was one of the best times of my life. Life was just better for the whole family. I got the kids to school, I wrote, I took care of the house and the pet. If a child needed to go to the doctor, no problem. If an errand had to be done during business hours, I was on it. Brian came home to a meal on the table and no work waiting for him to do around the house.
And see, I'm not what you'd call high maintenance. I'm not a shopper, I don't need to get my hair and nails done, I don't care about driving a new car. All I really want to do is stay at home and have an existence where I'm not resentful and exhausted all the time. Why can't I have that?
Friday, January 30, 2009
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Awards Ceremony
Brandon won some awards at school the other day, and I went to see the ceremony.
It's strange; I'm not the mushiest mother in the world, not that much into kid stuff generally, but school programs tend to turn me into a pitiful weepy ball of emotion. My heart fluttered, just watching Brandon and his first grade classmates lined up across the stage holding their certificates so proudly.
Think of it: their loved ones assembled to watch, applaud and photograph them as the biggest boss of the place shook their hands and said "Great job!" and handed them an award. The beaming children have no idea that life will only be that way for a little while, but the parents know it and I think that's why we cry.
The principal asked us to turn off all cell phones. "For the next little while, your boss doesn't need you," he said. "Your kids need you."
Then the first grade teachers took turns standing at the podium, calling the names of children who had perfect attendance and whose grades were admirable. A glamorous-looking daddy in a long black woolen coat had taken time from his day to be there. He intercepted his little girl as she descended from the stage and presented her with a beautiful bouquet of fresh flowers. All of us flashed our cameras and our smiles, and gave our children hugs when the ceremony was over. We told them how proud we were.
"Brandon got a birthday present today," his teacher told me. That night, when Brandon showed us the gift he'd received from his friend Robert, I turned to mush all over again. In a tiny Christmas gift bag, Robert had placed an obviously-loved stuffed lion of his own. Onto a piece of notebook paper he had taped a pretty Christmas pencil, and under that he had drawn and colored a lion. "Happy Brday Brandon," his note said. The very idea of that little boy thinking of Brandon the night before and going around his own home gathering things to make a gift for him was enough to break my heart--in a good way. As my mother-in-law said, it almost gives you hope for the next generation.
But back to the topic of school programs: when Bliss was in elementary school, she sang in the talent show every year. I always went to see her and she did a great job, but the moment that stands out in my mind from all those shows involves a child I didn't know.
The performer was a tiny blonde girl who must have been in pre-K. She wore a light pink ballet leotard, tights and ballet shoes. Her mother stood to one side of the stage for moral support, and put on a CD of classical music. The little girl raised both arms gracefully over her head and simply ran, rather slowly, 'round and 'round in a big circle. That was all. She was too little to do anything fancier, but the rapturous look on her face was enough to kill me in my seat. She was so lovely and innocent it made your throat ache just to watch her, because you knew that in her future--like everybody's--there would eventually be troubles and heartaches of some kind. But she would always have this one moment where she stepped onto the stage and did a very simple thing, and everybody loved and applauded her for it. That time in life is so brief.
It's strange; I'm not the mushiest mother in the world, not that much into kid stuff generally, but school programs tend to turn me into a pitiful weepy ball of emotion. My heart fluttered, just watching Brandon and his first grade classmates lined up across the stage holding their certificates so proudly.
Think of it: their loved ones assembled to watch, applaud and photograph them as the biggest boss of the place shook their hands and said "Great job!" and handed them an award. The beaming children have no idea that life will only be that way for a little while, but the parents know it and I think that's why we cry.
The principal asked us to turn off all cell phones. "For the next little while, your boss doesn't need you," he said. "Your kids need you."
Then the first grade teachers took turns standing at the podium, calling the names of children who had perfect attendance and whose grades were admirable. A glamorous-looking daddy in a long black woolen coat had taken time from his day to be there. He intercepted his little girl as she descended from the stage and presented her with a beautiful bouquet of fresh flowers. All of us flashed our cameras and our smiles, and gave our children hugs when the ceremony was over. We told them how proud we were.
"Brandon got a birthday present today," his teacher told me. That night, when Brandon showed us the gift he'd received from his friend Robert, I turned to mush all over again. In a tiny Christmas gift bag, Robert had placed an obviously-loved stuffed lion of his own. Onto a piece of notebook paper he had taped a pretty Christmas pencil, and under that he had drawn and colored a lion. "Happy Brday Brandon," his note said. The very idea of that little boy thinking of Brandon the night before and going around his own home gathering things to make a gift for him was enough to break my heart--in a good way. As my mother-in-law said, it almost gives you hope for the next generation.
But back to the topic of school programs: when Bliss was in elementary school, she sang in the talent show every year. I always went to see her and she did a great job, but the moment that stands out in my mind from all those shows involves a child I didn't know.
The performer was a tiny blonde girl who must have been in pre-K. She wore a light pink ballet leotard, tights and ballet shoes. Her mother stood to one side of the stage for moral support, and put on a CD of classical music. The little girl raised both arms gracefully over her head and simply ran, rather slowly, 'round and 'round in a big circle. That was all. She was too little to do anything fancier, but the rapturous look on her face was enough to kill me in my seat. She was so lovely and innocent it made your throat ache just to watch her, because you knew that in her future--like everybody's--there would eventually be troubles and heartaches of some kind. But she would always have this one moment where she stepped onto the stage and did a very simple thing, and everybody loved and applauded her for it. That time in life is so brief.
Friday, January 9, 2009
Brian and Brian and....
(In a previous post I mentioned that I had written this one but had taken it down in case I hurt Brian's feelings. He saw that and of course demanded to read the possibly-offensive post, only he thought it was funny and said I should put it back. So here it is.)
I usually don’t use my blog to poke fun at my husband because I fear his retaliation. He’ll say some shit that isn’t even funny, just to get me back. Oh and it won’t be TRUE, either. Yeah. But in the case of what I am about to tell you, I simply feel that the world needs to know.
My husband’s name is Brian. Let’s call him, for the purposes of this post, Brian F. He has a friend whose name is also Brian; let’s call him Brian L. These two guys have odd things in common; things that make a normal person go Hmmm. The biggest and most obvious thing (aside from their names, of course) is that they love game shows. I don’t just mean that given a choice of several types of TV shows, they would choose a game show. I mean they LOVE them. They belong to internet discussion groups about them. They read books about them. They sit around watching old game shows on tape. They have the home games. They make scornful references to failed hosts and crappy sets and burned-out light bulbs on the Family Feud board. Their brains are crammed with game show trivia.
Their brains are also crammed with more general trivia. They’re both terribly observant about things that regular people (like ME) either don’t notice in the first place, or notice in passing but don’t retain for long. For instance, they can tell you who recorded every song known to man, and who wrote it, and what year it came out, and what label it was on, and what year it was re-recorded and why, and blah, blah, blah.
I tend to leave the house when Brian L comes over.
But if all this isn’t weird enough, allow me to share with you the other thing they have in common: They love empty stores. You know, like when a store goes out of business? And there’s nothing in there but some old crappy shelves and racks and some dust bunnies on the floor and old tape on the windows? That gives them a woody. They press their nerdy little noses against the glass of such places and say Wow. Remember when the creamed corn used to be right over there?
Right now you’re probably wondering, as I often do, what kind of a person gives a damn about old empty stores. I can report that Brian F says he thinks it has something to do with nostalgia for a bygone era. Well, now, I can see how it would be cool to wander through a closed-up amusement park or perhaps a school one had once attended. An old hospital might be interesting, or maybe a prison no longer being used, like Alcatraz. But a store you were just inside a couple weeks ago? I don’t get it.
They are not alone in their freakiness, however. In fact there is a whole website, oft-mentioned by the two Brians, called Dead Malls [dot] Com. It is the cyber-gathering place for those rare souls who get excited by the phenomena of closed retail establishments. I looked at it just now, as research for this post. And I learned that the guy it belongs to is named… BRIAN.
I can’t tell you how disturbing this is to me. What do you want to bet he likes game shows?
I usually don’t use my blog to poke fun at my husband because I fear his retaliation. He’ll say some shit that isn’t even funny, just to get me back. Oh and it won’t be TRUE, either. Yeah. But in the case of what I am about to tell you, I simply feel that the world needs to know.
My husband’s name is Brian. Let’s call him, for the purposes of this post, Brian F. He has a friend whose name is also Brian; let’s call him Brian L. These two guys have odd things in common; things that make a normal person go Hmmm. The biggest and most obvious thing (aside from their names, of course) is that they love game shows. I don’t just mean that given a choice of several types of TV shows, they would choose a game show. I mean they LOVE them. They belong to internet discussion groups about them. They read books about them. They sit around watching old game shows on tape. They have the home games. They make scornful references to failed hosts and crappy sets and burned-out light bulbs on the Family Feud board. Their brains are crammed with game show trivia.
Their brains are also crammed with more general trivia. They’re both terribly observant about things that regular people (like ME) either don’t notice in the first place, or notice in passing but don’t retain for long. For instance, they can tell you who recorded every song known to man, and who wrote it, and what year it came out, and what label it was on, and what year it was re-recorded and why, and blah, blah, blah.
I tend to leave the house when Brian L comes over.
But if all this isn’t weird enough, allow me to share with you the other thing they have in common: They love empty stores. You know, like when a store goes out of business? And there’s nothing in there but some old crappy shelves and racks and some dust bunnies on the floor and old tape on the windows? That gives them a woody. They press their nerdy little noses against the glass of such places and say Wow. Remember when the creamed corn used to be right over there?
Right now you’re probably wondering, as I often do, what kind of a person gives a damn about old empty stores. I can report that Brian F says he thinks it has something to do with nostalgia for a bygone era. Well, now, I can see how it would be cool to wander through a closed-up amusement park or perhaps a school one had once attended. An old hospital might be interesting, or maybe a prison no longer being used, like Alcatraz. But a store you were just inside a couple weeks ago? I don’t get it.
They are not alone in their freakiness, however. In fact there is a whole website, oft-mentioned by the two Brians, called Dead Malls [dot] Com. It is the cyber-gathering place for those rare souls who get excited by the phenomena of closed retail establishments. I looked at it just now, as research for this post. And I learned that the guy it belongs to is named… BRIAN.
I can’t tell you how disturbing this is to me. What do you want to bet he likes game shows?
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
My Marriage is Financially Weird
I hear about how one of the big issues that married couples fight over is money, and I think, well, they're just stupid. Money disagreements are ever-so-easily avoided, if only you are willing to be the complete weirdos that Brian and I are.
Before we got married, I was the type of person who would anxiously move money from savings to checking to avoid an overdraft, because I couldn't be bothered to balance my checkbook. Brian struck me as such an organized person that it seemed like a good idea to open a joint account, you know--like regular married folks do--and let him handle all the finances.
This turned out to suck. For all of his organized ways, we learned that Brian is much freer with a dollar than I am. He looked at a suddenly-double checking account balance and thought "Wow! I can buy things!" while I suddenly felt as though I needed permission to access my own earnings. Yet once this became apparent, did we fight? Did we whine about the unfairness of it all? Did we get a divorce? No, we did not. We got separate checking accounts, and that was only the beginning.
To this very day, we each write a check for half the mortgage. He pays the electric bill, I pay the gas. He pays the satellite and cable, I pay the water and garbage. We take turns paying for Brandon's after-school care. We each pay our own life insurance and cell phone bills, and of course we maintain our own vehicles. When we need a new appliance or hire somebody to do the yard work, we split that.
You wanna laugh? We go dutch in restaurants. We go up to the grocery checkout with one cart, and Brian takes out everything he selected and pays for it, then I take out what I selected and pay for that. "All in the same cart?" the store employees ask us. "Yep," we say.
Now in a way, I'm getting screwed on this deal. Brian makes about $15K more than I do a year and he still seems to have plenty of fun money to throw around while I, for all my miserliness, can't pay off my Mastercard to save my soul. But there are benefits, too. For one thing, it keeps me strong. If anything ever happened to him or to our relationship, I wouldn't be overwhelmed at the idea of having to manage my budget. Another benefit is that we both have the opportunity to say Yes, I think we can afford a new TV (in which case we split the cost) or No, I can't spare the money for a weekend trip (in which case the one who wants to spend can either pay for it all him/herself or wait until such time as the other one can afford it). There's really a lot of freedom in this arrangement and I don't know why more people don't do it. It's hard to whine about what you have and don't have when you are free to manage your own earnings however you want to.
Another good thing is that when Brian gives me a gift, it's really from him. When I give him a gift, it's really from me. I always thought it was odd for my dad to open his Christmas gifts from my stepmother and have to thank her for them when he'd paid for them all. And it must be weird for the dependent spouse too... thanks for my birthday gift, oh, um, and the roof over my head and clothes on my back and this tube of toothpaste you also purchased for me. I actually think that is a weird way to run your family finances.
Before we got married, I was the type of person who would anxiously move money from savings to checking to avoid an overdraft, because I couldn't be bothered to balance my checkbook. Brian struck me as such an organized person that it seemed like a good idea to open a joint account, you know--like regular married folks do--and let him handle all the finances.
This turned out to suck. For all of his organized ways, we learned that Brian is much freer with a dollar than I am. He looked at a suddenly-double checking account balance and thought "Wow! I can buy things!" while I suddenly felt as though I needed permission to access my own earnings. Yet once this became apparent, did we fight? Did we whine about the unfairness of it all? Did we get a divorce? No, we did not. We got separate checking accounts, and that was only the beginning.
To this very day, we each write a check for half the mortgage. He pays the electric bill, I pay the gas. He pays the satellite and cable, I pay the water and garbage. We take turns paying for Brandon's after-school care. We each pay our own life insurance and cell phone bills, and of course we maintain our own vehicles. When we need a new appliance or hire somebody to do the yard work, we split that.
You wanna laugh? We go dutch in restaurants. We go up to the grocery checkout with one cart, and Brian takes out everything he selected and pays for it, then I take out what I selected and pay for that. "All in the same cart?" the store employees ask us. "Yep," we say.
Now in a way, I'm getting screwed on this deal. Brian makes about $15K more than I do a year and he still seems to have plenty of fun money to throw around while I, for all my miserliness, can't pay off my Mastercard to save my soul. But there are benefits, too. For one thing, it keeps me strong. If anything ever happened to him or to our relationship, I wouldn't be overwhelmed at the idea of having to manage my budget. Another benefit is that we both have the opportunity to say Yes, I think we can afford a new TV (in which case we split the cost) or No, I can't spare the money for a weekend trip (in which case the one who wants to spend can either pay for it all him/herself or wait until such time as the other one can afford it). There's really a lot of freedom in this arrangement and I don't know why more people don't do it. It's hard to whine about what you have and don't have when you are free to manage your own earnings however you want to.
Another good thing is that when Brian gives me a gift, it's really from him. When I give him a gift, it's really from me. I always thought it was odd for my dad to open his Christmas gifts from my stepmother and have to thank her for them when he'd paid for them all. And it must be weird for the dependent spouse too... thanks for my birthday gift, oh, um, and the roof over my head and clothes on my back and this tube of toothpaste you also purchased for me. I actually think that is a weird way to run your family finances.
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