Party postmortem

I am pooped. But the party is over.

I’m too wired to sleep right now, although everybody else here is happily snoozing. We didn’t have as big a crowd as usual this year, but since I had time to talk to a friend of mine I only see at this party every year, that worked out well. We had the famous meringue bones, little smokies, these cheese/bread appetizers my sister-in-law makes, a baked brie, and your basic standard party appetizers: chips and salsa, chips and clam dip (my mother’s recipe), veggie tray, etc. Plus chili and cornbread. And a chocolate cake we never even cut because we all ate obscene amounts.

We had a minimum of kid accidents. Laura fell against the coffee table and bruised her arm pretty badly, and also had a soccer ball deliberately kicked into her stomach. She definitely got the worst of it. Will started out pretty shy, but revved up quickly. It was almost 11:00 before I could get him in the bed, and he was about comatose by then—he came in the kitchen and grabbed this huge handful (for him) of crackers, maybe six crackers in one hand, and then took a bite out of them… very interesting technique. He had some major circles under his eyes.

One of my friends who taught with me at Michigan State was here tonight too--by the strange vagaries of academic careers, we’ve both ended up at USC campuses. He’s divorced, no kids, although he does have a dog who apparently needs diapers and is indulged as a kid would be . . . anyhow, I think the kids were a little much for him. The party may have been way too much. We decorate pretty seriously and all. I was refilling the punch, and have these plastic skull molds that I freeze punch in--then when I add new stuff, I throw in one of these ice skulls--they keep everything cold and look very cool floating around in the punch, which is this electric green. I’m dumping the punch out and my friend's just about having a fit. So I can’t tell if the whole holiday excess was too much or if it was just the kids. I think he enjoyed himself in this sort of bemused way. I hope so.

Speaking of friends from MSU, my best friend Lisa (yes, there are so many of us) sent me an email the other day. We hadn’t talked in several days, and we usually talk quite often. She said she’d missed me, so she came to read my blog--which made me miss her too. (Also I’m glad to know somebody is reading this! Of course, I do realize this is made more complicated by the fact that I haven’t given any of my other friends the address or told them I’m keeping it.) Then she wondered why she isn’t mentioned here . . . Well, we know why, don’t we, Lis? So many things that stay unsaid. I wish you’d been here tonight.

Well, I’ve washed all the dishes and relaxed a little and have just hit the point where the punch tastes absolutely nauseatingly sweet, so I think that must mean it’s finally time for bed. I have to finish a grant proposal and start grading a new set of papers tomorrow (or rather, later today) . . . plus trick or treat. Whew. It’s going to be a long day.

Ghost stories . . . and potty training?

Tuesday night, I took Laura to Columbia to the Haunted State Museum--this is the second year we’ve gone. They turn the lights down in the Museum and set up storytelling stations throughout; a ghost (or ghoul, or whatever you call somebody dressed up in a black robe with a hood) takes your group to each stop, where storytellers tell ghost stories related to South Carolina somehow: Alice of the Hermitage, a Poe story outside the model of Fort Moultrie, the Gray Man. My favorite last year was the Lizard Man of Lee County; the Museum had an exhibit hanging with a piece representing the Lizard Man, a folk art sculpture/painting--it was wonderful. I wish I could remember the artist’s name; I’d love to have a photograph of the piece (since I know I couldn’t afford it). Each storyteller also has an accompanying ghost--the Lizard Man was the first stop, and last year Laura didn’t realize there would be stories and ghosts. When that Lizard Man ran out from the gallery shadows, you’d have thought Laura was going to hit the roof. Another ghost got her during the Gray Man--that girl has a classic horror movie scream. This year we had to sit on the front row for all the stories. She wasn’t about to get caught this time.

I can’t wait til Will’s old enough to do this kind of stuff. Right now we’d never be able to pry him off my head if we took him to something like this. I guess his fun for the week is going to be getting to carve the giant pumpkin at daycare--and they think he’s ready for potty training. He must be more interested in it at school than at home, is all I can think. But he’s had a couple of days where he really took the initiative on it, and so now Amanda and Monique want me to send in FIVE extra changes of clothes (per day?) and send him in underwear. This sounds like some obscure torture rite for him and us, if you ask me. What’s wrong with pull-ups? Anyhow, here I am again, taking Laura on fun outings and worrying about Will’s bodily functions. I guess with the two-year old you are much more likely to be concerned about this sort of mundane thing, but it really doesn’t seem fair, does it?

Assorted bag of bones

We decided to go ahead and have the Halloween party. We spent most of today cleaning up some and getting down all the decorations--the tombstones, the papier-mâché cat and skull and pumpkin lanterns, my phrenologist’s model. I just plugged in the orange and black bubble lights, too. We’re about to hang up the Day of the Dead banners Fran and I bought when we went to Mexico--they’re getting pretty faded, and I’m afraid this might be the last year I can use them. Two years ago I ordered seriously discounted skulls and a bag of assorted bones from a biological supply company that sells models for students in university labs; around Halloween they have this section called Bucky’s Boneyard, I think. Now I get their catalogs all the time--disgusting. But it’s cool having the bones scattered all over the back yard. One year B.H. let me have some of his dry ice, and the kids loved the heck of out that. I’m enjoying myself today . . . although I should be grading papers. Guess I’d better go finish so I can be at least a little virtuous today.

A child said, What is the grass?

Moss

Moss grows here every year.
There they stay until the summer days fade away.
Moss is like cousins some people say.

Laura, 9 years old

Vice Presidential Dreams

I had funniest dream I’ve ever had in my life last night. We had the coffeehouse, so I know standing up on that small raised stage and holding the microphone is part of why I dreamed this. And when Laura brought her journal so she could read her poems, I looked through at the other entries (authorized parental reading, not snooping, by the way) and she had written this wonderful entry titled “If I were the President.” Let’s just say she has some liberal leanings, and that I love that.

So in this dream, I am John Kerry’s vice-presidential nominee, and I am debating Dick Cheney. It’s the roaming presidential candidate debate format, with the tall stools and the microphones. Bob Schieffer is asking the questions, and we are taking our turns, just wandering all over that stage. The questions were absolutely a hoot. I woke up late, so I couldn’t get up and write everything down before I forgot it all, so I only remember one of them now. Bob Schieffer says to me, “Professor, many of America’s largest corporations are moving in their advertising away from the Baby Boomer generation as a target to the younger generations. What are your thoughts about this trend and the effect it might have on the economy?” Not exactly the most burning question of the campaign, you think? And there I am, answering this question just as dead seriously as can be, at the same time that I’m watching myself and just laughing.

The best part about this dream is that I’m telling my friends about it at lunch, including a very good friend who, shall we say, doesn’t share my political persuasion, and as soon as I said, I’m the vice-presidential candidate, he says to me, “That would greatly increase my chances of voting for Kerry.” A funny dream and a lovely compliment all in the same day.

Mission accomplished

Ha. I found it. Finally I can sleep.

Coffehouse

We had the campus coffeehouse tonight—-it was a hoot. Very gospel revival type, rather livelier than usual. Less serious too, I thought, which was sort of too bad. But a former student of mine came back to sing, so we sat in the back and were the irreverent audience members--you need one or two in every crowd. Some beautiful singing, a couple of very interesting poems, good audience involvement--really a lot of fun.

Laura went up with me tonight to read. She read two poems from her school journal--the first was my favorite, a beautiful poem titled “Space.” She has remarkable sense of structure and rhythm in her poems, but not the forced dah-dah dah-dah rhythm that so many poets never get past. Her second poem, she explained, was “a humorous poem about a squirrel”--it was very funny, even if you didn’t know that she spelled the title character “squarll”(you’d think that child was raised in the woods). I am so proud of her.

My own poems went pretty well too--I had memorized them and remembered them both word-on, so I was pleased. One of my favorite parts of the night is when Laura and I were walking back to our spot, Will came walking up to meet us and said, “I want to go talk!” Cute little thing. I told him to get a little bigger and he could have his turn. I can’t wait.

Seek and ye shall find

I have a major obsessive compulsive problem. You would not believe the amount of time I’ve spent looking for something I lost recently. A small thing, insignificant in itself, easily replaceable. But man, do I want to know where it is. I probably need medication for this.

Boy explorers only, alas

Another old email

I don't like square cheese. But I love my crazy husband.

From: Christopher
To: Lisa
Date: Wed, Apr 9, 2003 11:00 AM
Subject: SANDWICH FIASCO!

BE FOREWARNED STOP SANDWICH I PREPARED FOR YOU THIS MORNING HAS THE WRONG CHEESE IN IT STOP MY APOLOGIES FOR ANY DISCOMFORT OR ILL FEELINGS DUE TO MY MISTAKE STOP I WILL NEVER STOP LOVING YOU STOP CHRIS STOP

Pitiful William

I always thought I was not the sort of person who would have all that much to say about bodily functions, but I guess having children changes that. William is sick today, and threw up all over himself and me three different times. He’s too little to really understand what’s happening, and definitely doesn’t get the concept of the throw-up bucket. He got pretty upset the second time, not only because he doesn’t know what’s happening, but also because he soaked his dinosaur pajamas. After I got him cleaned up, he said, “Mommy, I spit all over. I all done. I am keeping my mouth closed,” and he put his little hand up to cover his mouth. If it only worked that way. He’s feeling better now and taking a long nap, but he sure has been pitiful today.

Clean up, clean up, everybody, everywhere

Wow, did I just get my feelings hurt. Or something.

My across-the-street neighbor has been having an interesting life lately. She’s been staying home with her three kids while her husband worked swing shifts; the kids are 9, 5, and 2. They moved in just before Will was born, so almost three years ago, and I’ve gotten to know her because her daughter and mine are good friends--and she is a lonely woman. Nothing like being cooped up all day with three little kids to drive you nuts, especially when cleaning is your only recreational activity. I don’t like her husband, and it’s not hard to see that he’s not any company for her.

She decided this summer that was enough, and left with their children. She went back to work, and was so excited to have grown people to talk to again--and I remember that feeling. She would bring the kids back when her husband had his days off, and leave them for long visits--she was working by then, so much busier than she had been. About a month ago she decided to move back in, and they’re going to counseling together. I think things turned around when her husband asked her how on earth she’d kept the house clean and taken care of the kids at the same time. It doesn’t always take a lot, you know.

Anyhow, she came over to pick her daughter up a while ago, and I was folding clothes for the eighth time today. Laundry Saturday, woo hoo. The rest of the house is basically a pig sty, as my mother would no doubt describe it, although I’ve been working on it while I’m not doing clothes. And my neighbor looks around and says, “I feel so at home here! I never understood how hard it was to keep the house clean when you work!”

Now I guess I should take this as the kind of enlightenment she’s happy about her husband having--she finally understands. But instead I have this image of her spending three years looking at my dirty house and thinking I’m a slob. I wish I could be one of those glass-half-full people. Sigh.

New clothes and quality time

One of my favorite stories about my little brother is when he was little and spring rolled around. My mother says he about had a fit when she tried to put shorts on him for the first time--he thought the pants were broken. Apparently this went on for days. Fortunately we’re not having that problem right now.

Instead, now that we’re finally having a little cold weather, it’s very exciting for William, who is thrilled about all his new clothes. I guess last year he was still too little to understand the seasonal wardrobe overhaul. I took him to Target the other day and bought him all kinds of new stuff, and we’ve been cutting the tags off in the morning as he gets dressed. “New pants,” he hollers. And this is one boy who loves shoes. They have a dress-up section at his daycare (equal opportunity dress-up, thank you, and the kids are often cross-gendered), and for weeks he would walk in the door to the Glowworm room, plop down on the floor in the corner, and start pulling off his shoes so he could wear these giant boots. Finally I took him to buy a him his own pair of boots: his “tiny boots.” He stomped around the house for days. So between tiny boots and new pants, he’s been enjoying the fall weather.

It’s a good thing, because he’s been getting the short end of any special attention these days. Laura had a student holiday/teacher workday last week, and we asked my mom to come over and watch her for the day--Laura doesn’t much like the afterschool program the way it’s set up on their holidays, and neither do I. So we trucked Will off to daycare while Mama and Laura went off to Andrew Jackson State Park. I’m a big believer in individual time for each child, but Laura certainly gets that much more consciously. When Will was born, I was staying home with him in the summer and it felt like we were alone together all day long; Laura was home, but she was playing with her friend across the street most of the time. So I would take her out every Saturday morning to the library or to Michael’s to do the kid club crafts, and boy was it wonderful to be out with someone who didn't need diaper changes. This month, I’m taking her to two ghost story events--one at the park here, and then the Haunted State Museum (which was a major hoot last year). Well, Will’s too little for real ghost stories. So he’s ditched again. Poor baby. Or maybe I should revise that, since he just walked up to me a minute ago and announced: "I am a big strong boy."

Uh oh. Crisis moment. Firefighter erases Spider Countess’s picture on the dry erase board. And I sense it’s time to change diapers. . .

Women explorers, a spider countess, and a firefighter

Laura’s class is studying explorers this week--they have to pick three explorers they might like to dress up as in class next week. God help us, another project… Anyhow, she wants to dress up as Columbus or Marco Polo or maybe De Soto. Not to suggest that my daughter couldn’t be a male explorer if she wanted, but I did ask her: aren’t there any women explorers in your book? Nope, apparently not. I suggested she add Sacajawea to her list since she was studying the Native American cultures in that area earlier this year. But I had to think pretty hard to come up with any women myself. See how they teach us in school? Here’s a list from Encarta: You Go Girl: 7 Women Explorers.

We got the Halloween costume question resolved in a gender appropriate way too. Laura is going to be a Spider Countess (UGH) which we can sort of modify into a witch costume, and Will is going as a firefighter. At least he's wearing Laura's old firefighter costume... Things are never simple, are they?

Reading old email

I am sick. My poor brain is basically not working anymore at all. I'm supposed to be either grading papers or finishing the revisions on my article, but instead I'm sitting here reading email from the dawn of time. We're about to have our email purged of anything older than a year, so I'm checking my archives to make sure I have everything I still want. Minimal brains required for this. Here are a couple of my favorites.
_____________________________________

From: Chris
To: Lisa
Date: Thu, Mar 25, 1999 5:17 PM
Subject: home

got girl
i felt some rain
but in a nice way
chris
_____________________________________

From: Annetta
To: Lisa
Date: Thu, Mar 25, 1999 9:59 AM
Subject: Good Morning

I am on the way for a haircut and color. Lazy does not describe what I have been this last few days.

Look forward to seeing you soon. Calm down. Time magazine has an issue on important people in American history this week. Very few were women. Sad but true. Our influences are more behind the scenes I think. No wonder I like Xena. She is definitely up front and memorable.

Love, Mama
_____________________________________

I love email.

All work and no play?

What I don’t understand is how you can spend so many hours at work and still not get any work done. Something is just not right here. The proverbial papers hang over my head again, loads of odd and various committee assignments to work on, a new student advising assignment, an article to do the final proofs and corrections on (and thank God they’re final), book orders for spring to finish, and a conference paper coming up in less than a month. I haven’t written a poem in weeks. And somehow I’m supposed to get to class every day. And actually be prepared too. Hmm.

I am seriously rethinking the seventh annual Halloween party. But how to give up such a long-standing tradition? And one which allows my only opportunity all year to display my skulls, Yorick and Bob. No meringue bones? No famous chili? Alas.

A Correspondence: Injustice to Kitty

Lisa 10/5/2004 7:31:06 AM
did you put kitty out? her food was still in the house
and the back door was unlocked. we couldn't find her.
if you didn't put her out, you need to come back home
on your break and get her out of the house
before she trashes it while we're gone all day.

Chris 10/5/2004 8:39:43 AM
shit...ok

Lisa 10/5/2004 8:41:46 AM
So I guess that means no.
I swear, we looked everywhere.
Sorry.

Chris 10/5/2004 9:14:43 AM
KITTY EXTRACTION COMPLETE
NO COLLATERAL DAMAGE

Lisa 10/5/2004 9:16:52 AM
Where was she?

Chris 10/5/2004 9:16:52 AM
Cat was sleeping on one of the kitchen chairs.
Didn't want to come out at first.
Seemed like it was an injustice to her.

Syllabi, shrines, and moonpies

I’m busy right now starting to grade another set of papers, and also trying to get book orders straight for my spring courses. I’m teaching the sophomore-level fiction course next semester, and I’ve been trying to figure out a good coherent approach to the class. I’ve about finally settled on contemporary southern fiction--I read Sue Monk Kidd’s The Secret Life of Bees last night, and I ended up staying up late to finish it. It was wonderful.

The main character in the book has this special collection of secrets--little things that were her dead mother’s. The book was full of icons, small symbols, rosaries, shrines. When I finished reading, I couldn’t sleep, so I started thinking about making myself a little shrine: not quite like the wailing wall in the book, but something small and personal and holy. So here it’s something like 2:30 in the morning and I’m wandering around the house with a silver platter looking for river rocks from when we lived in Alabama to go with my mother’s jade Buddha and a piece of driftwood.

Unsurprisingly, it was absolutely all I could do this morning to get up and go to school. The students in my composition classes were about an inch from having the day off. I did finally drag my sorry self into school, but it was a dozy day. But I’m glad I did get in--I think the revision exercise we did helped some folks really see what to do with their papers. I hope.

My mother just called. She’s coming this weekend, and bought Moon Pies for Will and Laura. How appropriate. It must be a sign.

Buying pottery and making madeleines

Wow, have I been a bad girl today. Almost no cleaning up (Saturday mornings are always our evil house cleaning time). We went to the Jubilee Festival of the Arts instead. And I bought a beautiful pottery fish--very inexpensive, but I had also bought a pitcher at the seconds pottery sale in Waxhaw yesterday, so that’s two pieces of pottery in two days. There goes that prize money.

It’s not a huge deal, and October is really the only time of year I buy pottery--we go to this festival and to the Village Gallery sale this time every year, but right now I’m supposed to be saving money. In theory we’ll have one of our sets of student loans paid off in February or March if we can keep up the giant payments we’re making on it now. But it’s very ouch each month writing that big check. Let me tell you, graduate education in English doesn’t pay. Well… one weekend off housework and $60 on pottery won’t kill us. But I just bought all Will’s winter jeans too, so no eating out this week.

And what a bummer that is. I hate cooking when I have to. It’s not that I really hate cooking, but I hate doing it after I’ve been driving over an hour to get home and pick up the kids, and then walk in the door: boom. Everybody is starving. And the homework hasn’t been done. And I have this faint memory of days when I used to come home and relax. I don’t know how I got this stereotypically working mom. I do like to cook on the weekends though, and so instead of cleaning up now that we’re home, I’m making madeleines for a dinner we’re going to tonight. They smell so wonderful... and no, it’s not Proustian, thank you. They’re just really easy and quick to make. Although they don’t really go with pottery, do they?

Open mic

Last night we went a reception at the arts council and to a poetry/fiction reading at the local coffee house afterwards. I won second in our arts council’s poetry contest (whoo hoo!--$100 prize! probably the most I’ll ever make from a poem), and the winners were invited to read, so Chris and the kids and I all went. We almost always are the only ones with kids at these things, but Laura and Will behave pretty well at public events for a good while anyhow, and I don’t know how else in the world for them to learn what I’d like them to about culture if I don’t take them along. And we always bring animal crackers or something for distractions.

Will did pretty well last night, except that every time I had to get up--to go get my award, to read my poem--he would suddenly start asking the entire room “Where’s Mommy going?” This despite my holding him on my lap telling him for the five minutes before where I was going…. Laura of course was fine. She’s an old nine year old, and seems practically grown--she loves art receptions, and listens to the readings pretty closely. Plus Fran met us there, and she thinks Fran walks on water.

Laura listens so carefully because she writes poetry too, and some pretty good stuff, actually. She hasn’t learned to revise yet, but it took me years to do that and I was a grown woman before I did (and I’m not sure I’m done yet either), so I’m not too worried about that just yet. One poetry reading I was supposed to do at a high school literary magazine open mic, I was sick and had basically no voice. Laura stood up on a chair so everybody could see her and read my poem for me. And she did a great job--better than a lot of the high school students. Our campus coffeehouse is coming up in October, and she’s going to read one of her own poems that night. I asked her if she was nervous, and she said, nah, she wouldn’t really know anybody there anyhow. She’s got a point.

I thought I’d be all smart at my reading last night and memorize my poem, which is pretty short anyhow. On the drive in to work the past two days, then, I’ve been memorizing it, and I have it down pretty well. I actually went ahead and learned two, since I thought they might give us a chance to read a second poem too. But being the big believer in backup plans that I am, I also printed out a copy to bring with me--and then left it home when I swapped my book bag out for the diaper bag. That was a little scarier, let me tell you. I got a word wrong in the last line, but fortunately the line worked well enough without it, and I can’t imagine anybody knew the difference but me. Chris and Fran both said it was fine…. but whew.

And the second poem didn’t matter anyhow. Those dang fiction people--they always get more time at readings. The short story authors were supposed to read excerpts from their work. They didn’t. My poor little poem took maybe two minutes to read, and we went through probably five poets in 20 minutes. Then 45 minutes to hear two stories… they were starting the third, and it was bedtime for the kids. By this time Will was climbing under the table anyhow. A long night, but a fun one.