Not-calm.com

In a world that keeps on pushin me around, but I'll stand my ground. And I won't back down.

2010-03-15T06:35:36Z

So, hey -- I love Tom Petty. But I love him in a weird way that's not very practical. I won't buy his music, because then it's not A Thing when I hear him on the radio. I was the same way with Led Zepplin for forever and then I bought an album or two and now when they come on the radio, instead of being all WHOOOOOO THE MIGHTY ZEP TURN IT UUUUUP! I'm just all, Eh, I will listen to that later. On my iPod. That's wrong and pathetic and I won't let it happen to me and Tom.

I'm on a lot of prednisone because of this drug allergy and oh my, is it making me mean. Ask my kids about how awful I have been and especially about me screeching at them to stop fighting and they will totally back me up so long as they don't think I'm close enough to reach over and whack them upside the head.

Kidding!

Jeez.

(I'm ALWAYS close enough for that.)

Poor Sophie had a fever and sore throat and headache and ear aches (bilateral, natch), and leg pain, and so tonight my mom and sister pitched in to tag team babysit the remaining children while I took her to the ER so that she wouldn't have to suffer all night. They gave her a mask in the ER, so she would not spread the love to the other patients. That was fine, but I think with the 101+ fever she got a little hot and so then she puked all in the sink of the waiting room bathroom.

That was fun to clean up. No, really. I mean, it wasn't MY house, so I was all whistling while I worked, you know?

One of the male nurses was such an asshole to me. I caught myself short of saying to him, Look, dipshit, I am NICE, stop being a dumbass to me. Ha. Haha. Basically, he asked if Soph had ever had a bladder infection before, and I said, Huh, I don't think so, have you Soph?

And HE SAID:
Uh. Aren't you her MOTHER? And you don't even KNOW THAT?

That dude, I bet, NOT A PARENT.

In the end, she's just a little dehydrated, has a viral fevery thing, and needs to rest and drink her fluids and hopefully keep the ears from getting infected.

Last Monday the class I've been wanting to take for months began, and of course that was the very day I started getting that reaction. I was too sick to turn on my computer for a little bit there. That's sick, people. In addition to no internets, I had no coffee and no beer. By choice. For like, days on end. But tonight I got all caught up (with the class, not the coffee and beer. Yet.) and turns out if I had to check out for a week, this was probably the week to do it.

Next weekend, SG and I are going to the central coast (where Eden and her family were last weekend, actually) and I am supposed to stay out of the sun, but I am still determined to get out of here for a good 30 something hours. It will be the first day of spring, the last day of me being closer to 39 than 40 (this is more interesting to me than it is terrifying, I'm not all Woe is me, I am so elderly, but my birthday is on the last day of summer, and I like patterns and stuff like that), and the first weekend we'll have had all to ourselves since January. I think we could maybe go see a movie and eat hot dogs without buns, and we'd be all, DAMN, that was a GREAT vacation! The Best Ever! And that's what long stretches of hard times, do, right? They make all the nice and regular type stuff, Really! Super! Appreciated! I mean, you know, even though the universe has been all Lucy on me, I'm totally all about making contact with the ball soon.

Can I raise a practical question at this point? Are we gonna do "Stonehenge" tomorrow?

2010-03-14T08:52:07Z

Week 8 was brown (sepia). The toe and heel of those socks are a pretty perfect match to the crayon. I'm still catching up.

The medical fun just kept coming this week, but I'm not sure if I'm up to narrating all the activities (because when you are in the hospital and you have to REPEAT your story to every person (and there are many, many people) who comes in, the compulsion to share gets worn right down. So, bullets, then? Don't mind if I do, thanks!

Wednesday night - headache. Very bad. Rash GETTING WORSE.
Thursday morning - Nate is home sick, too. Again. Make 11 a.m. doctor visit for him.
Two minutes after that - H E A D A C H E. Email doctor.
Half hour later - phone. My doctor, please go to the ER. You didn't TELL ME you had a bad headache. You still have a fever? YES? You DO? You didn't TELL ME you had a headache.
Hour later - Nate with his dad for day, SG bails on work and takes me to ER
Two hours later - crying in the waiting area because my head? It hurts. And so does my neck.
You know what that means?
It means I get to wait.
Wait
Wait
Wait
Get an IV in each arm and almost get pain medicine, but wait
Watch two nurses working one on each arm draw out most of my blood. For tests
Wait
Wait
Morphine (think it will kill me dead, hate it, head still hurts)
CT scan (if you keep your eyes closed the WHOLE time, it's less terrifying. If you aren't claustrophobic, never mind)
Turn down more morphine
Turn down vicodin
Ask for tylenol
In comes doctor to do Spinal Tap
Revise order, gulp vicodin just before the spinal starts
Cry
Curse
Cry
Love vicodin for the moment
Cuss
Lay flat on my back for an hour, talking to SG, who is missing classes to keep me company. (This is a Big Deal. I can't even begin to make you understand how much of one.)
Leave hospital 9 hours after we arrived
Get Willow from Granny's
Go home
Put Willow (who was worried that I was going to actually die) to bed. She tells me Granny took her out for supper and that she had grilled cheese. Also, she is glad to see me.
SG comes home with In and Out and fries. Yes again. He does love me. Little bit.
Eat
Sleep

So, I'm totally fine, but because my head was making me cry, the doctor wanted to be sure that my brain wasn't infected. Which, well, at one point I bet SG $100 that I did have meningitis because I was hurting so bad, but luckily I didn't. I think I did figure out why the headache, though. As the doctor was doing the spinal, she remarked that it was taking a very, very looooong time for my CSF (cerebral spinal fluid - I worked in a neurosurgery office long enough to call it that in my normal vernacular) to fill up the four containers they needed. I said, So, is it possible that I have this awful, awful headache because I'm dehydrated from having a fever for so long and I'm low on CSF, and I have a headache from that? And will have another after this procedure? You know, from being even lower on CSF?

Yes. That is entirely possible.

Oh. Okay, then.

Here. Drink these two cups of straight-up potassium.

Dude. You should at least mix this shit with morphine. Yuck.

When It was finally time to leave, I was a little wobbly and so SG led me by the elbow and shoulder through the back of the ER and to the exit. We walked past a few other patient beds, and this older woman walked up to me, looking very concerned, and said, Hello, Dear. How's your wrist? Is it better?

I looked at her, thinking she'd maybe look back and realize I wasn't who she thought. But her whole face looked like she was still waiting to hear an answer, so I just looked at her and looked at my wrist, and I said, Oh, it's much, much better. Thanks for checking on me. Then we said goodnight and walked outside.

I'm feeling a whole hell of a lot better now, but I haven't done much but rest the past couple of days. SG took another day off on Friday, to take care of me, get Willow to school, pick everyone up, take me to get a birthday gift for Willow's friend and then drive Willow to and from the party. He took Nate with him to study and pick up a new gorgeous guitar. My stepdad took Alex to the high school for a game, gave him money to get something to eat. Sophie and I had a girl's night: The Simpsons and pasta on the couch.

This morning I took Willow to softball at 8:30 for the Hit-A-Thon and Opening Day. She didn't have a game, but she had the best hit on her whole entire team. I smell a college scholarship and a whole lot of Saturday morning snack shack hot dogs for the next several years of springs.

Then we went to Soph's first soccer game, where she nearly scored, but was shut out. SG came down to the game on his motorcycle. At one point, Willow was bored, so he let her put on his helmet and walk around. And I stood there watching, thinking that I should get a picture, but I think the idea of pushing the shutter button was more than I could stand. Too bad, because it was hilarious.

I was so insanely tired today. Really. We didn't get home from all the sports until well after 2 and I had to nap. But - it was a beautiful clear blue sky day and I was not in the hospital. I only look like I should be.

Next weekend: road trip. No kids. Possibly even no more rash.

If you are sick and even think about going to breathe on me this week, be prepared.

Oh, nothing much. Just having my picture taken in my underpants. You?

2010-03-11T07:51:27Z

So this is a fun and too-long story; the story of how I learned that I'm allergic to the sulfa family of antibiotics. Last week I got an ear infection, and since I can't take erythromycin (you know, that five-day Z pack thing) or penicillin because I'm allergic to both of those, the doctor called in a sulfa based antibiotic for me. Bactrin or septra, it's called. But I think those are the generic names and the proper name is JenIcide.

I didn't take the medicine right away, hoping that my ear would feel better and I wouldn't need it. But on the third night of not being able to sleep because it felt like I had an icepick in my eardrum, I caved and took the first pill. That was Thursday at something like four in the morning. Twice a day I took the antibiotics, and my ear started to feel better and that was good and things were fine, except my throat still hurt, a lot, and I felt kinda bad, but, you know, no more stabby ear pain, so I was better, all things considered.

Then at work on Monday, I got a little feeble brained. Actually, a lot. I left a few minutes early, because Nate was sick and had already left daycare to go home and rest. I got home by five and felt awful and took his temperature and mine. We both had fevers; his 99.8 and mine 101.9. Huh, I said. We are sick. There was a blur of soup and blankets and medicine and popsicles and I went to bed at 8, telling the kids not to stay up too late. Even though he's in the middle of studying for three finals, SG offered to come by. I told him no, because I really didn't want to get him sick and he needed to study. Tuesday I got up and barely got the girls dressed and out the door, somehow drove them to school, and came back home and worked,shivering, from bed all day, Nate on the couch coughing and watching Lost for probably 10 straight hours.

Tuesday night was much the same, very early to bed, still with the high fever, lots of shivering. It was my stepmom's birthday, so before Alex went over to the school for wrestling, we called and the kids all sang Happy Birthday over the speakerphone. I kind of recall talking to them, remember my dad telling me that I should call the doctor.

Wednesday morning I woke up at five and got up to pee. And there was this really awful rash all over the tops of my thighs. Huh, I thought, that's weird. I guess it's a heat rash from having a fever. And then I went from the bathroom to where the vanity mirror is and I turned on the light and there was my face, swollen so badly my eyes were unrecognizable. I lifted up my shirt, and there was a rash starting on my stomach and chest, too. I leaned in closer to the mirror and confirmed that my face was covered in all different sizes of purple and red bumps. And so was my neck. My back, too. I was feeling pretty sure that given my migraine-stage headache, high fever, muscle pain, and rash, I had some kind of viral meningitis and that I would surely die.

So I typed something like: "high fever, rash, swollen face," into my iPhone and in the first page of matches on google, I saw a link with the name of the drug I'm on jump out at me. When I clicked thru and read, the symptoms I was having matched to the letter the description someone had written of being allergic to this drug. She ended her note by saying, "PLEASE, PLEASE think hard before letting anyone put you on this drug God bless everyone."

So I took a benedryl and took a shower, where I was afraid for a little bit that my throat was swelling up, maybe about to swell shut, and I wondered if I should maybe go grab a handful of the kids' straws and kinda jam them down my throat just in case. Honestly. No kidding. Finally I decided that my nose was definitely not working so great, but I could still breathe alright, and my throat felt funny, but not like it was really closing up. I sure was awake though, and that was a damn short shower. I got on the phone with the advice nurse who told me to go ahead and take another 25 milligrams of benedryl and asked if there was another adult home with me. No, I said. Just my four kids. Oh, she said, they know how to call 911 if something happens to you, right? Sure! I said, They totally do. Well, she said, you can't drive. Can you call someone to take them to school for you?

And so then I called my mom, who'd left for work early that day because she had a shitton of work to do, and she turned around, came to my house, picked up the messy living room, fed the girls pancakes, brushed their hair, helped them gather their school things and gave them a ride to school. All the while I was drooling on the couch, totally knocked for a loop by the benedryl. I think I came to sometime around 1, and Nathan spent another entire day watching Lost.

I worked on and off (mostly off, because I knew I'd just mess up if I really tried to do anything) and then called my stepdad for a ride to the doctor in the late afternoon. And, you know, he only had to wait for me for two hours at the doctor. Whoops.

She looked in my ear and told me it was still infected. Awesome! I said, and she kind of looked at me funny. Oh, it's just comic at this point, you know. I totally figures that my ear would still be infected. She said that just to be sure this was a reaction to the medicine, she was going to take some photos of my rash and send them to the dermatologist for review. And in the meantime, I was to drink some water, because she was considering admitting me to get some fluids in me because my heart rate was really high, up over 100.

I had my photo taken in my underpants, and the girl actually kinda gasped when she saw my back. I drank some water. Then, finally, the doctor came back and told me that the dermatologist agrees that I am allergic to this antibiotic, too.

Willow was finally willing to get within three feet of me once she learned my fever wasn't contagious (she HATES having a fever), and I even took SG up on his offer to help me out. I made him go to In and Out burger after school and he brought me a burger and fries and a Dr. Pepper. Willow got a chocolate milkshake and fries. The truth is that I didn't really want him to see me like this. I look bad, people. Like, even my kids were going, Jeez, Mom. What the hell!?

I've made a short story long, but now I'm home with a little bit less of a fever, a new antibiotic that she hopes I won't react to (Help me, Doxycycline, you're my only hope. hahaha) a turbo prescription version of benedryl, and my all-time favorite drug to hate, prednisone. I'm starting out on 60 mg a day, so of course I don't think I'll get any sleep tonight. It's too bad my body has no strength at all, otherwise I could clean the house all night and do a ton of laundry and organize the kitchen cabinets. I have to stay out of the sun for the next ten days, the tail end of which overlaps with the weekend away SG planned for us in San Luis Obispo. You know, the beach town on the central coast where we were planning to be outside a lot and maybe get in the water. Yeah. Looks like I'll be rockin the floppy hat, sunglasses, and long sleeved shirts. Still, though, I am so looking forward to next weekend, even more than I was before I turned into a much more swollen and splotchier version of myself.

Making a dent in my crayon box

2010-03-01T23:56:57Z

I took a desperately-needed twenty minute break from work today to take photos for the red and white crayons. (If you are all, Huh? Read this.)

I'm at home because 3 out of 5 of us are sick. And we recommend sugarless gum for our patients who chew gum. Really, though, twenty minutes from picking up my camera to sending to flickr. That and a glass of cold peppermint tea, and I'm not quite so crabby anymore.

We've been hangin with Vanessa and Zac

2010-02-26T15:19:13Z

Willow turned seven yesterday and has been watching High School Musical movies every waking moment since just to drive that point home. Nathan gripes and moans and literally writhes in agony about it (while sitting on the couch watching with the rest of us).

If you subscribe to the Waldorf theory about kidrearing, that puts all four of my kids (7, 8, 11, 13) right in the phase where they're most interested in their friends, so I'm thinking, Hey! I'm kinda done here.

Kidding, of course. I still have to feed them and drive them all over the free world.

Yesterday Sean sent me this link, so at lunchtime I walked over to the grocery store and picked up My Very Own Box of crayons.

I'm not sharing, because I need this box for the next year or so, and this is the fate of poor, hapless crayons around here:

Thru this Saturday is week 12: macaroni and cheese

Check out the flickr pool, pick up your own box of crayons, dust off the camera and play along on the home game. If the sun comes out this weekend, I'll catch up on the first eleven colors.

No rules charades

2010-02-24T06:28:28Z

Willow is standing in the middle of the living room, and we are all watching her, except for Lex who is watching Hulu in his room. It's her turn, and she's pretending to climb, like maybe up a tree or a pole or something, but you can definitely tell she is climbing. We know she's trying to be an animal, and for a hint she says, It starts with a Ceeee. So, of course, I yell Koala! And she says, YES, and SG goes, Huh - koala starts with a K, dude, and I said, If you wanna win, you have to think like a six year old.

Sophie, of course, had the best run, but I can't remember all the ones she did. There was the one where she got on her back and flopped around: Hobo having a seizure; and the one where she pointed to her foot, so we all yelled FOOT, and then to her brother's crotch, and I said, OhMyGod, *sigh* Football?

I think the very best was the one where she sat, her chin resting on her knees which were drawn up to her chest. I'm a kind of food, she said, and then didn't move, didn't even blink I don't think. So we started guessing foods that she likes, and then she yelled, It's my FAVORITE spice! Without missing a beat, Nathan yelled PARMESAN CHEESE! and SG and I laughed until we cried, while she pointed out that she was sitting triangle shaped. Trust me, it was funny as hell in person. It's like playing charades with Salvador Dali, if he were smoking opium; but in a good way, you know?

This week begins the 6 days a week of sports routine that will be here for the next few months. Willow has softball Monday nights and Saturday mornings AT 8:30 EVERY SATURDAY UNTIL MAY. Soph has soccer Wednesday nights and Saturdays, and the boys have wrestling Tues/Thurs/Sun nights. We will blow off the Sunday wrestling, I think, because it's 30 miles from here and ends too late to be out on a school night. Still, though, our schedule is gnarly full and that's not even the science projects and homework and skateboard riding and guitar playing and all that. I'm not complaining, though. I love it even though it's relentless. Willow's first softball practice was last night and holy crap you never saw anything so cute as her little team. The batting helmets are so big on them you think they'll wobble right over, but they can all hit off the tee and Willow even got a couple of ground balls with her new mitt that SG got her. I can't wait to see them in their little uniforms with their visors.

I like this. I like the crazy busy, fifty things a week. Sure it's a pain and super expensive and no doubt I will gripe about keeping it all straight, but I love tucking them into bed when they're worn out from having fun. I don't spend as much time with my kids as I wish I could, and it feels like we're doing stuff they'll always remember.

Amen, pass the potatoes

2010-02-18T06:21:44Z

~Sophie. She likes to sleep in my bed at night. SG said to her (but not at all unkindly) SophODemon, are you going to still be sleeping in your mom's bed when you are eighteen?

She did not miss a beat. She rolled her eyes, exhaled, turned her face toward her right shoulder, Uh, NOOOH. I'll be sleeping with my boi-friend. Sigh.

And SG looked at me and I looked at him and we could not help but laugh though I was also kinda praying a little, because, well, because.

~Over the weekend I forced the girls to pick up the toys in their bedroom, heartless bitch that I am. You know how it is; they act all stunned, look at you, openmouthed and outraged. Well, they say, will you at least HELP US? And I say, Uh, no. I have stuff to do and it's your mess and your room. And YOU WILL CLEAN IT. ALONE.

Later, after they actually did a fantastic job of picking up (I only had to drag stuff out from under the bed and out of the closet twice before they stopped with the stuffing/cleaning) followed by vacuuming, I heard that Willow turned to Sophie as they were picking up the 47 stuffed dogs and 53 Playmobile babies and 6 million candy wrappers and said this:

Mom is treating us like SHIT. Like a BIG BAG OF SHIT.

She's six. First grade. I should be absolutely utterly and completely horrified. Instead? SG and I spent a few days getting her to say it again, and then reminding her that she can't say that at school or around her friends' parents, unless it's a friend she doesn't really want to hang out with anymore.

The baby of the family has it made, man. We eldest children aren't allowed to get away with anything, but the babies get to be evil and parents find it entertaining.

~While I'm at it, I'll retell this story. When Lex was about four and Nate was two and Sophie was newborn, we were all at the barber shop, getting Lex's hair cut. He was sitting in the barber's chair, on a booster, all cute and chatty with his little brown sandals poking out from under the cape. He and the barber started talking about smoking.

Lex: My dad smokes.

Bob the Barber: Oh. Well. he looked at me But your MOM, she doesn't smoke.

Lex: Noooooooo, my mom doesn't smoke.

SHE DRINKS!

It's hard work defending that Mother of the Year crown

2010-02-12T16:47:37Z

you'd think that in New York, of all places, Fashion Ave wouldn't be just one way

So yesterday I got trapped in my own shower. At first, I was laughing, because how dumb is that, to get stuck in your own shower? But almost immediately the claustrophobia kicked in, and I started to get very nervous. The door comes off the track all the time, and it's not a big thing (except for that one time when the door came OFF the track and fell on me, but I survived that). This time, though, the door that always gets hung up did its thing and it messed up the other door, too, so that neither of them would slide more than a few inches away from the wall. It kind of felt like all the air got sucked out of my lungs and I started talking out loud to myself like I would to one of my kids who's freaking out, Ohhhhh, this will be just fiiiiiiiine! I said, Everything will pop right back into place and you'll be out of here in just a second! Really! Breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth. . .

Obviously, I was able to escape, which I almost regretted given how poorly the rest of the day was: kids elbowing each other so they could be the first one in the van; foot stomping and whining and lots of wandering off during the *&%$*&# Valentine making; an epic brawl (pushing and scratching and threats of bodily harm included) between the girls because one "accidentally" closed the others' tab on the computer; and the crying - dear, sweet, merciful Lord, the crying - about picking up toys, about going to bed, about not getting to go ice skating, about having never been to Disneyland, about shoes and food and tangled hair. I was just all, DUDE, I wish I were still trapped in that damn shower. But then, then I thought how much better it would be if I just threw the kids in there instead, knocked the door back off the track and let them brawl it out, Celebrity Death Match style. Ooooh, or THUNDERDOME! With costumes, natch.

As luck would have it, we are coming up on a three day weekend and the kids are with me! Bring. It. On.

A handshake is worthy, it's all that you've got

2010-02-04T04:57:00Z

This is the five dollar apron I found on Etsy last week that improved my day by at least 300% just by being in my mailbox when I came home after work. Why, yes, I am wobbling on the side of the kids' bathtub because I don't have a full-length mirror. That big can of beer was totally helping me keep my balance, though.

Yesterday morning when I merged onto 101 N, I was listening to one of my favorite albums from when I was just a scootch older than Lex. I guess I had a little cabin fever to get out after two days working at home with sick kids, because I got all Mario Andretti on the freeway with my stereo cranked up really loud. Anyway, I was thinking about my kid and my own self when I was about his age and how radically different those two personalities are but, even so, how well he and I get along now. He's much, much more mature at 13 than I was. Don't get me wrong, he still has a 13 year old boy sense of humor (like, he *really* wants to get this tshirt), but he's far more aware of both himself and the world than I was back in 1983. He's motivated to study and do well in school because he knows that it will be a big huge deal later on in life. I did alright in school, but I was so wrapped up in where I was that I didn't really think much about becoming an adult. And then I was one and found that really quite often I was thinking, Damn, I wish that I had _____. I don't think Lex will be doing as much of that.

I can never remember exactly what year it will be when he graduates from high school, so as I drove, I counted off on my left-hand fingers: eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh, twelfth; and the right: two thousand eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen. . . and my stomach sank because that's only five more years. I already feel like I don't see much of him; that when he is around his sisters take up all my time. I try to talk to him as much as, more than, I ask him to do things like take out the trash or vacuum or clean the bathroom. He either still likes me some or he humors me and sits down to talk with me, but a lot of times a couple minutes into a conversation I can tell that he's dying to go text his friends or watch Hulu. And I get it. It doesn't even really hurt my feelings. In fact, if a 13 year old boy would rather hang out with his mom than his friends, no matter how awesome she may be, then he's probably not going to be the happiest kid in school, you know?

It's amazing to watch him navigate being a teenager. He's so much better at it than I was. He's, well, he's capable. I don't think he'll be kicking himself in the ass when he's grown as much as he will be kicking everyone else's and taking names.

I think I could love a Kindle

2010-01-21T04:32:38Z

rainbow out the window at work today, missing the middle shot (taken with the iPhone)

I never thought it would happen, honestly. I swear. I have always been one of those Gimme my REAL newspaper, you can't curl up in bed on a rainy day with a laptop in the same way you can read the paper in bed. Sunday morning newspapers have to be PAPER. And books?! Don't even mention electronic books to me. Really. Puhlease. They can't come in the bathtub; no pages to smell and feel and turn; no row of spines on the shelf reminding me how much I loved reading them; no margins to scribble notes in. The horror. Seriously.

But there I was last night in bed, the NPR.org app open on my iPhone. I read about Britain's effort to curb binge drinking and Colbert's sponsorship of the US speed skating team, and just a little bit about Haiti (too sad). I let my newspaper subscription lapse months ago, because literally months would go by without me reading it. In print, anyway. I read the local paper online a couple of times a week, thanks to the email updates they send me.

So, I don't know, last night it just hit me that I am a total convert. I don't need hard copies of everything when I can fit it all on my hard drive. I don't need to waste all that paper when I can read it online. You know? And the electronic device may be a little cold, but I'm seeing it as a way to have so much more with so much less hassle. Part of me is all Hello? Who ARE you?

I used to work in a doctors' office, back in the day when we used computers, but only to print stuff out. Part of my job was FILING. Filing papers. Like, in alphabetical order and everything. And working for two neurosurgeons, there were a lot of papers: MRI and CT and X-Ray reports; Face Sheets; summaries of medical histories, illnesses, injuries, and operations to fix them; dictated letters after each patient checkup; Triplicate prescriptions; Insurance approvals and bills and OMG the insurance paperwork - incredible. Our complex wouldn't recycle paper, and one of the doctors would get so disgusted by the huge stacks of paper that we went through and he'd say, in his Massachusetts accent, Holy shit, the trees are cryin! And, really, they are. And I'm not sad to trade my aesthetic preference for paper in for however many trees will be spared if I continue to go paperless. Also, my bookshelf looks pretty ok with those framed photos and stuff along with the books, so extra room is not a bad thing.

So, okay. I am NOT for getting rid of books entirely, of course. Not even. Or magazines or CDs or newspapers, or any other thing that can come in an electronic format. But I do think it's going to be the case that I save the paper versions of things for the super-cool stuff, like my teeny, 1910 copy of Write It Right, by Ambrose Bierce (even though there is a free download available!), or my 1959 copy of Shakespeare and Company, by Sylvia Beach. I'm one of those people who doesn't even print out my receipt at the gas pump to save paper, and I've gone paperless on all my bills. A Kindle may seem too sterile at first blush, but everyone who holds one is holding the thanks and huge relief of one more tree. As soon as they come out with one I can take in the bath, I'm totally there.

Text "HAITI" to 90999

2010-01-15T03:43:34Z

Alex walked in after school today, Mom? Can I send a text to donate money to Haiti? It adds ten bucks to the phone bill, and the phone company donates all the money.

Of course you can, I said. Please do. And thank you.

"U.S. cell phone users have contributed more than $5 million in $10 increments to the Red Cross for Haiti disaster relief, by far the largest outpouring of support via mobile devices in history."

Rather than send a text, I chose Direct Relief. They are a stand-up company.

I've been following the harrowing news reports on NPR.org, but it's so very difficult to read, and I have such a hard time looking at the photos. All those bodies, and the tiny ones among them hurting to look at even more. I read about an eight year old girl in a makeshift hospital. Her whole family is gone. Eleven people. And I look at my own eight year old girl across the dinner table tonight as she tells us, over her bowl of homemade chicken soup, what she wants to do for the science fair. None of her ideas are experiments, really. They're inventions. But her eyes are so bright and she's gesturing with her spoon as she talks about hooking up a camera to a remote-controlled car or seeing who in the school is the strongest by building some kind of lifting machine that she can keep adding weight to. She will invite everyone via the school intercom system to test it out when classes are over with one afternoon next week, even the fifth graders. And suddenly I am crying for how broken this other girl must feel. This other little girl just like mine, this utterly orphaned girl, who maybe a couple of nights ago was making her family laugh at the supper table as she talked about what she wanted to do.

Meet Chrystal (or maybe Chloe)

2010-01-07T23:52:11Z

Looks like I really do need to spring for that AGD brush.

Actually, I am the one knitting the scarf, but I made her be in the picture because my hair looks even worse than hers. I'm happy that Willow is happy with her new doll, and I'm happy to knit it a scarf, but honestly, some dolls skeeve me out. It must be the no-blinking thing.

Dive in

2010-01-05T18:50:43Z

I had this weird dream last night that involved water and scuba diving and really cool steampunk kinda stuff. One part of it was Willow, standing on an indoor platform with her hands held up above her head like a diver. A diving board diver, not a scuba diver. There was a man with a clipboard who told her to hold still, and then he made a calculation based on the angle of her pressed-together hands and drew an X on the floor and said that if she dove from that spot she'd, go up seven feet in the air and land right here.

Sunday morning

2010-01-04T01:00:46Z

Mini pancakes.
Medium pancakes.
Traditional sized pancakes.
Heart shaped pancakes.

Made with melted butter in the batter. Not gluten-free. Served with the syrup that costs more, ounce per ounce (I think) than the good tequila.

Happy New Year

2010-01-01T00:25:45Z

2009, I love you. A lot. I don't think I have ever had so many good days in one year. I'm sillilly happy about 2010 (that's two-thousand-ten) arriving all the same, even though it means I'll be turning forty.

Oh. I just got a little woozy.

I don't know, there's just something about a whole new year that feels good. Nothing's really different from yesterday, but everything is shinier to me all the same. I love new calendars and days that stay light longer than the ones before them.

Happy New Year xo