Backyard wasteland

Nerf weapons outside
abandoned in frost, waiting
for next year's epic

battles

The Old Man

We fit together/ without a thought. You step to/ the blurred edge to breathe

This is the way it's always been, before I was born. I had your children and we lived together. I picked fights with you knowing your only reaction would be muted amusement. We're each other's wallpaper.

At times you're so delicious I want to bite you. When we hold hands I ignore you completely, I forget you as I stroke your thumb. Sometimes the most important part of you is your schedule.

You don't complete me. I don't complete you. We are whole without each other. We use each other in a most wonderful way.

Boxing Lessons

I box to punch things, sure.

But it's also a meditation, a figurative beating to soften my attitude toward myself, and a way to cope with stress.

Boxing is painful, for the lungs, the legs, the knuckles. Life's painful too, especially if you stick your neck out to push the envelope and improve upon the status quo.

Lesson 1: Spend a lot of time preparing. Warm-up is a quarter of the boxing lesson. It gets the heart pumping, it loosens the muscles, and focuses the mind on the task at hand.

Lesson 2: Breathe. Sure it will hurt. Breathe through the pain. Deeply. Often.

Lesson 3: Keep your mind in the moment. Pay attention to your moves, or else you'll probably break your wrist.

Lesson 4: Don't look back. You will make mistakes, many of them. Don't let the mistakes mess with your head. Move on from them, quickly. Or else you'll probably break your wrist.

Lesson 5: Don't look too far ahead. Look at the clock and realize there's only 5 minutes left, and I guarantee those 5 minutes will seem like eternity. Plus, why would you think about all the other things you need to get done that day when you need all your concentration not to break your wrist?

Lesson 6: Spend a lot of time recovering. Intense work calls for a couple days of rest.

Change

Every character in every book on my shelf is interesting not because of what they look like or sound like or want, but because of what they do when things change. Frodo gets the ring, Harry has to go to wizard school, Princess Leigh-Cheri suffers a miscarriage, Peekay was sent to boarding school, Rob and Laura break up, Lestat is bitten, Eragon finds the egg.

What ensues is about the hero struggling through to figure a way out of the trouble. Sometimes the trouble cannot be cured, for example, you're a vampire and you'll always be a vampire even if your friend burns you and cuts you up and buries you in a swamp. But in your head you are working through accepting your own self and making sense of your new world. Sometimes the trouble can be solved and even then the heroes go through painful transformations that leave them a little sadder but wiser and maybe seeing some hope at the end.

I'd like to think that as I go through this huge change at work I'm this interesting, deep character who pays attention to the vital questions in life as I weigh the pros and cons of my next action. I'm not. I go pretty blindly, waiting in this denial stage for someone to rescue me, as if I'm Bella. Fact is, I'm not Bella, not even remotely like her but for the one exception that if a vampire was into me I would totally not kick him out of bed. In my head I'm more like Hermione or Buffy (yes, I do have the Philosophy of Buffy the Vampire Slayer on my bookshelf) and I shape my own future.

But even Hermione went through the fuzzy hair stage and we all know that Buffy doubted herself very frequently in Seasons 1 and 2.

Letter to Papa

Dear Papa,


I just finished reading your story, finally. You’re not getting a handwritten letter because I type much faster, plus now I will have an electronic copy of our correspondence, dude.

As I told you on the phone, I got into your story. I’ve read some of it a while ago (13, 14 years?) and gotten different things out of it now. I have certain books I read over and over again and depending on the stage of life the stories mean different things to me. Women Who Run With the Wolves has stories with hags and wise women and girls getting lost in the forest, and your last story had some of the themes I’m used to. I feel incredibly lucky that you write (and Mom) because it is the chance to know you on a different level.

The words in your stories are beautiful – beautiful phrases and sentences too. Some of my favorites:

“Listening to you talk to a woman is like drinking clabbered milk – it goes down in fits and makes you gag.”


…


“I want a family, Willie, I want kids, I want somebody to hold me.”


…


”Oh my god, she’s coming up. I don’t know if I like her. I don’t know if she’s that good looking. Maybe living by myself isn’t so bad.”


“I’m not interested in talking you into enjoying this. You are a real piece of work.”


.


These mindless robots of proper usage These husbanders of inconsequentia

The hospital scene made me LOL (Laugh Out Loud). “Now do you see why you can never take anything for granted in a hospital?” Hee hee.

…

He worried about the wholeness of the building because it had been built by men and even well-intentioned men sometimes make mistakes. Brian knew just how powerful the world outside the door was. He wrapped himself and went out into the night. While the women and girls, carefree and cozy, slept on, he scraped the snow from their rooflines with a long pole. Khaa! That’s the difference between men and women, children.

Excuse me??!!! Maybe it’s because I’ve spent many night hours awake with my children while my husband slept – carefree and cozy – that I take a major exception to this. Men may worry about the structure and the building and in our case, mowing the lawn, but women’s work is worrying about the emotional and physical health of the entire family, and rack up many, many sleepless nights. I’m convinced women don’t fully sleep for the first 5 years of their children’s lives, because they need to hear the coughs and cries.

But I forgive you, because then you make up for it when Brian tells the story of Claire killing the hag. I’ll let it slide.

…

So. I’ve included two of my short stories. The Toe will be published in The Sandstar Review, an online poetry and prose publication. Carrying On is the prelude to The Toe. Whenever I want to write fiction I use these two characters, Fran and Oliver, and it frees me up to be a little more creative. I’m thinking I should invent another character who is a working mom, but I fear there will be too many clichés coming out of that one.

I’ve also included vital information from the internet, in case you ever have to make the decision whether or not to drink sea water.

I am incredibly grateful to have your stories, and I look forward to reading them again when I’m forty. Sigh. The only good thing about turning forty in six years is that I will cease to be ignorant and I will become wise.

I love you,

Your eldest daughter,

Carrying On

Fran opened the door into her home and heard voices. She walked through the dining room to say hello to Oliver, to ask what he was doing home so early. Then the woman's laugh drifted through the closed kitchen door, and Fran stopped.

Cabinets opened and closed, dishes and silverware were set on the table, the water ran in the sink and was quiet. The smell of cold roast and pickles and the sound of Oliver's low, pleased grumble made it to Fran, all the way to the dining room.

Fran would have rather caught them in bed.

She nudged the door open and walked into the kitchen, pretending to be surprised, as if she were the one who had something to hide. The woman was a young beatnik, dressed impossibly in long blue striped pants and a flowered blue shirt, and bare feet. She was standing behind Oliver as if to be ready in case he needed more food, or salt, or a refill on his coffee. They were not touching.

"I thought you volunteered at the school on Tuesdays," Oliver said to her, an accusation.

"I had a headache," Fran said.

Fran had always imagined hippies smelled bad and didn't comb their hair, but this young woman smelled like lavender and had long, silky brown hair tied neatly with a scarf. Fran could see a soft freckled shoulder and no bra strap. The woman gathered Oliver's empty plate and placed it in the sink, and without a trace of shame, set to doing the dishes. The plate, the fork, the cup and the dish towel found their homes while Oliver and Fran looked on, as if they were watching the theater.

It was Fran, not Oliver, she addressed. "Tears will build up in your ears if you don't cry them out, and then you won't hear anything." She touched Fran's face and left, and they both watched her climb into her little white Ford Falcon parked across the street and drive away, still barefoot.

It was the only day in their entire marriage that Fran did not make dinner. She lay in the lavender-scented bed and listened as the children came home from school, while Oliver boomed that their mother wasn't feeling well and he would take everyone out for hamburgers and shakes.

In the twilight of their lives, in one of her deliriums, Fran would take electric pruning shears to her husband, but they never spoke of it.

To read more about Fran and Oliver, and the electric pruning shears episode, click "Fran and Oliver" on the right, or search for "The Toe," one of my fiction stories.

Living Together

LIVING TOGETHER

COHABITATION AGREEMENT


Crazy Coppertop, Cohabitant No. 1, and The Old Man, Cohabitant No. 2, hereinafter jointly referred to as the Cohabitants, who now live together, hereby agree as follows:

1. The Cohabitants wish to establish their respective rights and responsibilities regarding each other’s emotional baggage and property and the emotional baggage and property that may be acquired, either separately or together, during the period of cohabitation.

2. The Cohabitants have made a full and complete disclosure to each other of all of their current emotional and mental liabilities.

3. Except as otherwise provided below, the Cohabitants waive the following rights:

a. To keep a list of “what he does” and “what she does” in order to bring it up at a later date.

b. To expect Holidays, birthdays and all such celebrations to be relaxing, joyous affairs.

c. To complain when Thanksgiving is celebrated at The Golden Corral buffet restaurant.

d. To any expectation of freedom from sarcastic comments when the other party is watching “their show.”

e. To waive subjection to any mental or emotional scars acquired during the course of parenthood, whether currently held or hereafter acquired.

f. To any expectation of private solitude on a regular basis or any expectation of pursuing “hobbies” that satisfy either parties’ interests and mental sanity.

g. To any expectation to “party it up” or dance at any sort of celebration unless they are stinking drunk.

4. RELEVANT EXCEPTIONS TO PARAGRAPH 3 ABOVE:

a. An unspoken running list that is emotionally suppressed may be kept by both parties.

b. Unspoken high expectations may be kept emotionally suppressed.

c. Complaints about the quality of food are acceptable; however, complaints about the physical presence of the family in a buffet restaurant on such a day are not.

d. No exceptions.

e. No exceptions.

f. Hobbies may be pursued covertly and with great shame and guilt.

g. No exceptions.

5. Cohabitant No. 1 is responsible for the following: Laundry, bathroom cleaning (except Cohabitant No. 2’s bathroom,) floor cleaning, washing sheets, pulling weeds, watering the garden, categorization and organization of household goods, remembering family birthdays and then reminding Cohabitant No. 2 that she will not in any circumstance take responsibility for gift-buying for said birthdays, scheduling doctor’s appointments for the children, completing school paperwork, suppressing her high expectations for holiday celebrations, planning meals, grocery shopping, and taking care of the emotional health of the entire family.

Cohabitant No. 2 is responsible for the following: mowing the lawn, killing the bugs that eat the lawn, standing at the window worrying about the bugs that are eating the lawn, making dinner, doing the dishes, performing repairs around the house, grilling, listening intently and quietly as Cohabitant No. 1 vents about her job five or six days a week, planning one vacation per year to ensure that both parties find immense satisfaction from being away from the kids, and understanding exactly why Cohabitant No. 1 “loses it and goes crazy” and reacting correctly. (Note: the definition of “correctly” can only be determined by Cohabitant No. 1 and will forever remain a secret.)

6. The Cohabitants have separate income and assets to independently provide for their own respective financial needs and materials that support any “hobbies” that may be attempted.

9. This agreement constitutes the entire agreement of the parties and may be modified only in a writing executed by both Cohabitants.

10. In the event Cohabitant No. 1 is unable to abide by this agreement and "loses it" she will refer to a "love letter" written by Cohabitant No. 2 addressed to her in October of 2008 in which he states fairly clearly why he loves her. If Cohabitant No. 2 fails to produce another love letter in three to five years Cohabitant No. 1 may request a re-drafting of the above agreement.

I HAVE READ THE ABOVE AGREEMENT, I HAVE TAKEN TIME TO CONSIDER ITS IMPLICATIONS IN LIGHT OF THE FACT THAT FOREVER IS A LONG TIME, I FULLY UNDERSTAND ITS CONTENTS, I AGREE TO ITS TERMS, AND I VOLUNTARILY SUBMIT TO ITS EXECUTION.

____________________________________ ______________________________
Cohabitant No. 1 Cohabitant No. 2

Choices

The gifts of a meaningful challenging job and a beautiful messy delightful family mean I make choices every day - but how lucky I am to have these choices.

What really matters to me? What do I want to be remembered for when I die? Yes, family comes first, but my values align with where I work, so work is a part of it. I help connect people to the natural world and wildlife in a way that is not packaged, canned, processed, frozen, televised, spun, disinfected or dissected; and with that connection I believe humans tap into something greater than themselves, to raw, wild life and death and our duty to immerse ourselves in it and protect it at the same time.

My family. There is the *yawn* view that it is our highest duty to raise another human being. The Old Man and I have never talked about values but I guarantee we agree on fundamental concepts:
* our children will be able to think for themselves, to participate in their education, to discover the world so as not only to become functioning adults but to have their choice in how they make their living.
* money and status aren't everything.
* our children will believe unwaveringly in their own self-worth.

There are so many demands on my energy and focus and time, and some demands are bullshit demands, let's be honest.... that it has helped me to define big picture priorities:

1. A majority of my energy goes to my family life.
2. I engage only in pursuits I find personally satisfying.
3. I nurture my mental, physical and spiritual health on a regular basis.

When I feel like dropping a six pack of High Life on The Old Man's chair as a parting gift and escaping to Mexico, or when my head pounds from stress and clanging noise, or when I can't focus because my mind has checked out, those are clues that I'm not paying attention to my top 3 priorities.

One of those things I find personally satisfying is writing... I haven't posted a lot lately, but I hope to correct that in the future.

Thanks for listening, online world. :)

The Dog is Eating Lucky Charms As I Look the Other Way

frosted whiskers gleam
the baby hits the dog
a cereal fight

the baby wins.

Torn Debate

http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/07/introducing-the-motherlode-book-club/

Torn: True Stories of Kids, Career & the Conflict of Modern Motherhood is the first book in the Motherlode Book Club hosted by Lisa Belkin (see link above.) I’m a contributor; read my essay, When I Sneeze, I Pee a Little, and you might laugh a bit. And maybe pee.

Comments are coming in on the NY Times site like crazy, and I find myself not really wanting to jump in the fray. The comments range from SAHMs (Stay At Home Moms) – apparently we are labeling EVERYTHING with acronyms these days, making it that much easier to stereotype people – to die-hard career women who feel they’ve sacrificed nothing as moms in high-powered jobs.

Daycare bad
Daycare good
“Daycare at 4 months old? Why don’t you just take your kid from the hospital straight to daycare?”
Contributors are a bunch of whiny rich mothers
Quit yer bitchin’
Etcetera.

Here’s the deal. Each to her own. What works for you doesn’t work for me. Vicey versey. This is a time in history when a large number of women are the primary breadwinners (especially now in the bad economy, look it up) and are mothers with responsibilities at home.

And here’s the other deal. Women’s work is this:

Laundry

Dishes

Dinner

Diapers

Bedtime

Grocery store

Dry cleaning

Vacuuming

Calendar items, including doctor and dentist appointments, financial planner, vacations

Emotional health of entire family, including remembering birthdays, hugging children when they are crying, planning family events, sympathizing with sick kids, knowing when to hold ‘em, when to fold ‘em, when to walk away

Etcetera.

It’s being charge of my own emotional health plus the mental health of the entire family that is the honest-to-goodness straw on the proverbial camel for me.

Of course not every woman feels this way. But the debate obviously goes on (86 comments on the NY Times blog) and some women, like me, feel divided, feel torn.

I do feel like the story of dads is missing in the book. These days young dads like my husband juggle work and family right along beside us. But my husband doesn’t feel torn. It’s not an identity crisis with him.

By the way, the name of this blog was almost Identity Code Red, which is highly dramatic but illustrates the point.

In this time of social change when both moms and dads are going through a redefinition of roles, why the hell wouldn’t we write about it?

By the way, there’s a need for more books like this, from fathers’ perspectives. Someone write that down and go make some money off the idea. Peace out.

Slow It On Down, Baby

Shave your beard and moustache
Move your truck over so I can get by on the driveway, would ya
Don't forget the papers
You'll have to look in the filing cabinet all by yourself
Be there at one or else
You punk-ass husband

Through the rain

I heard singing

And the croak of frogs

And then

silence

And I no longer wanted to put vodka in my Orange Julius
Maybe we can knock boots instead

Book review

Of all the reviews of Torn, and wow, there have been many, this is the one I identify with the most: http://bioblog.biotunes.org/bioblog/2011/05/03/the-conflict-of-modern-motherhood-is-all-about-guilt/

It is as hard for dads these days as it is for moms. The Old Man took two months off when Baby Girl was born. He's the one who usually takes time off of work when they're sick. He picks up the kids four days a week from daycare.

In some ways, we won't ever question men's decisions on how to craft their work days as much as we'll question women's. But it is also not a mainstream idea for a man to take major time off for his family. There's less leeway and the tacit assumption that the man's wife will be at home while he works long hours or drives two hours for an emergency work call.

The Old Man and I both keenly feel pulled in too many directions - there's got to be an easier way.

Meetings

I'm new at running meetings at work.

I asked a co-worker, our Public Involvement specialist, about an idea I had to curb sarcasm during meetings.

I buy a Nerf gun.

When I hear sarcastic or negative comments, I shoot the offender.

He pointed out that I was answering an indirectly aggressive tactic with an overtly aggressive tactic. And how does that further my goal of mutual respect and an atmosphere of collaborative problem-solving?

Still, wouldn't it be fun?

For Cathy

Women will always be defined
by the people they surround themselves with.

It's always been this way.

From the first cave chick who scrambled
vulture eggs

to the next Prime Minister of Country So-And-So
to wear heels.

The only difference between then and now
is that we have a choice.

Imagine three paths:

Path One: You don't get married, you don't have kids,
you surround yourself with intellectual coworkers
and young urban friends. You drink every Friday and Saturday
night, and you read. And because you read so many interesting
articles and blogs and books, you know everything. Including
how to parent.
(You are a career woman.)

Path Two: You have a husband for a while. Maybe he dies. Maybe you
don't like his sorry ass, and you leave him. Maybe you realize you're
a sista. You travel. A lot. You know where the best restaurants are and
the bookstores with the biggest self-help sections.
(You are a spinster.)

Path Three: You go to college and major in something incredibly impressive,
like biology or computer science or engineering. You get married. You have a kid.
You are stripped of your dignity the first time your kid pounds on the door
and screams while you try to go the bathroom alone. You do not keep long hours
at work, which clearly exhibits a lack of commitment to the older folks. It amuses you to pick fights with your husband, just to keep life interesting.
(You are a mother.)

(If a salesman came up to you
and told you that he had a
once in a lifetime
experience
to sell you, and that this experience
would provide a concrete moral compass
for your life
so that deep in your bones
you would know
what is right
and what is wrong
what matters
and what is fluff...
and that this experience
would provide periodic waves of euphoria
and unbelievable feelings of gratitude,
but that in exchange,
you would question your very identity,
your energy would drain from your body
as if a vampire was sucking your blood
constantly
and that you may not ever again have
time to pluck your eyebrows -

would you buy it?)

So what's it gonna be?

Path One, Path Two, Path Three?

We chose Path Three. We bought motherhood, and maybe because our kids are small and helpless and need us for every basic human function, we have no other identity.

We'll raise our daughters. And one day our daughters will choose.

So what's it gonna be?

Path One, Path Two, Path Three?

Bedtime

dark, quiet, peaceful
i watched them
my four year old
putting my baby to sleep
they held hands
he smiled

a neon sign was above their heads
green and pink
blinking the message
"Duh, this is life's most important thing. Right here. Duh."
with a neon arrow pointing down
to my kids

she reached up to his nose
hooked a finger in his nostril
and yanked
he said ouch
she smiled
giggled a sleepy laugh
they're fighting already

Detour

Does God care more about the piss-ant town in the desert or the city, where the full-on press of people touch shoulders while their eyes bore into the sidewalk?

Fran wondered. Her husband's mind was closed to her. If she had to say whose mind she knew better, Oliver's or God's, she would say God's. She couldn't imagine Him up in the sky inhabiting every mind at once, shifting from Japan to China to Utah, and then deciding after weighing all the options to settle His gaze on her.

She sat on a cliff above the town, shoes off, toes in the grit and pebbles. It was noisy, but it wasn't. She thought she heard the highway twenty miles north, maybe a jake brake every once in a while. Western Kingbirds rushed the sun and lingered in the shade.

She smelled sage and sneezed.

If she were a betting woman, she'd put money on Him checking in on New York City, or at least somewhere on the East coast. She pondered the things all women ponder when they have a free moment:

apples
bananas
spaghetti (if she were back in New York the Italian deli would have the fresh pasta and marinara and she'd pick up some bread to go along with it)
but canned is fine, just fine
iron that shirt (and why Oliver started wearing plaid is beyond her)
organize the cupboard above the stove
send her daughter a birthday card (thirty two years already?)
psyche herself up for time with Oliver on the sofa tonight (she'd try not to be obvious about the fact that she'd rather be in the den reading a book)
butter
lemon
coffee cake
provolone
rye bread
batteries.

She traced a message for God in the sand, in case He happened to look there, then slipped her shoes on and walked to the grocery store.

Grumpy Monsters Bubbling Snot

If I were single, I'd be at my sister's house right now, a five hour drive away. But the reality is I have two sick kids and chose not to endure the long car ride with grump monsters bubbling snot in the backseat.

Kids are kids. They inspire love, panic, boredom, anger, amusement, resentment. The panic comes in two forms. When I've been away from them for too long - as I was on my business trip this week - I need to hold them, feel their physical presence, their breath, their heartbeats, touch a flesh-and-bone reminder that they are healthy and alive and I haven't through some long absence neglected my offspring.

The second sort of panic comes from constant care for them from sunrise to sunset and then again from midnight to three in the morning. And then again, from sunrise, with forty eight hours more stretched in front of me. My husband works long hours on the weekends, so Saturdays and Sundays my hands are full and my brain cannot disengage. Every waking moment I am responsible for two human lives. Taking a shower and exercising and plucking my eyebrows and spending more than four minutes on the toilet and reading a magazine and cooking a hot healthy meal and having the freedom to drive to the fucking liquor store and back are far off dreams of a time long before and a time that surely will not come again for at least five years.

I've experienced both kinds of panic this week. I've rushed home to crawl into the cage and hold my children and I've mentally bruised and bloodied my fingertips clawing at the iron bars.

Hey Baby

Baby Girl,

If you must choose between a cowgirl and a princess, be a cowgirl.

But still.

I think the whole world of work these days is wrapped up in worry..the economy, making more money, staying relevant even after globalization. In our respective workplaces we begin to eat each other alive, to pick and tear each other apart. Like a den of wolves, starving for fresh meat. When we're attacked by another pack, we turn on them and fight viciously.

The above is somewhat melodramatic.

But really, it's not too fun out there. I still believe that the people I work with are passionate about what they do, and will accept pay cuts, demoralizing speeches from leadership, bashes to the hard work they've done over and over again, and they will keep being passionate about what they do, because they aren't doing it for the money or the recognition or the promotions or even the camaraderie in the end. They are doing it for the deep-seated connection they have to wildlife. And when we wake up out of our blood-crazed senses and look around, we'll still appreciate that about each other.

Again, the above is somewhat melodramatic. But still.

Mush

http://crazycoppertop.blogspot.com/2010/02/love-letter-to-old-man.html

This Valentine's Day, I am proving my love to you with

green tea
burnt pancakes (damn it, I can never make breakfast, which is probably why i dream that you are in love with the blonde who makes french toast)
maple sausage
mexican lasagne
rice krispie treats smothered in pink icing
a card to tell you that when you get rid of your cold i'm going to jump your bones.

So What?

i might live life to
a contrived soundtrack. Better
false notes than affairs

sunday snow

the softest bed i know
is in the dirt and leaves
under new falling snow
my view full up
with tops of trees

Senryu Times Three: No French Toast for Thee

yes, dreams do matter

you put your hand on her hip

and stroked her blonde hair

her french toast smelled sweet

sick the way you whispered sex

and slurped the syrup

bad news, you Old Man

I beat up bedtime betty

no more french toast dreams

Annie's Voice

she thought she lost her voice
but then she made a choice

she thought she had no choice
but then she found her voice

tripping
hiding under the covers
from life
unsure of her direction
never with conviction

making hard choices
forcing herself to live with them
alone
in the house she built for herself
in the house she
and no one else
bought for herself

she tells herself she is nothing
no spine no substance
no SHE
no who she is supposed to be

but no one knows or cares
who she is supposed to be

she is carving
cutting
breaking
demanding
the right road for herself
and fuck everyone else
only she can find the way

and she will find the way

even if she never
ever
ever
finds her voice.