New Year for Fran

I wrote about Fran for the One Minute Writer's Fiction writing prompt today http://oneminutewriter.blogspot.com/2010/01/friday-well-saturday-fiction-new-year.html .

P.S. Lots of women leaving men-themed fiction on this prompt... interesting.

Looking Back

Around New Year's everyone turns into a redhead. There's an obsession with looking back over the past year, making lists, counting what was best, and what was worst. We want to improve on our past, make the next year better. Where did we go wrong? What did we do right? People, this is a very redhead view of the world - it's how I live my life. And I warn you...spend too much time doing it and you'll go nuts.

That being said. Here's my list:

What I did right:

• I spent time with my friends. I traveled to DC and put in face-time rather than cyber-face time, and spent time with people I truly care about and always will.
• I spent time with my family. My son knows his grandparents and aunts and uncles in a way I never did.
• I was nicer to my Mom. She deserves it.
• Me and the Old Man potty-trained The Kid. Gave ourselves some diaper-free months until the next little monster comes along.
• Spent more time having Fun with The Kid. Let some chores slide. Best trade-off I ever made.
• I fell in love more with the Old Man, and let my guard down around him a little bit.
• I reconnected with an old childhood friend who haunts my dreams. Funny how people don't let you go. Nor should they.
• When my boss wanted to delay an assignment for me until after maternity leave, I called her on it. Just because I'm gestating doesn't mean I can't think and work anymore. Jesus Christ.
• I published an article.
• Blogged a lot. Dreamed up Fran, a character who will make me write about her more in 2010.
• Traveled less and made sure the three of us had more time as a family.

What I regret:

• Spending time with worry. At times letting it consume me.
• Getting drunk in Wichita. Although I didn't know I was pregnant at the time.
• Letting my sadness this fall spill over and affect my family.
• Being mean to my Mom.
• Feeling alone in my own home way too much.

Song of the Year:

• "It Happens" - Sugarland

Did I learn anything?

• I understand communication in theory, but in practice, I suck.
• A husband and a child can bring more depth to life than I ever imagined.

Happy 2010 everyone. I hope we can all learn to live in the present more, and worry about the future less.

She's Strong

"Beside a well, one does not thirst. Beside a sister, one does not despair." --Chinese Proverb

I can't think of anything else to write about now other than my sister. When my sis is going through any sort of change or pain, helping her is all I think about. I want to actually live in her house and be right next to her during all of this, in fact. I want to take her burden and carry it for her and stand in front of her to deflect all the negative scary emotional vibes floating around her head right now. If she asked me to break his legs, even though he is a decent, good man and doesn't deserve it, I would do it.

There have been times I have been scared for her life, have had nightmares for her, have felt that she was lost - almost too far gone from me.

This time it feels different. She has changed into a person who faces problems head on. I'm not scared for her, only impatient for her, waiting for her to get through this change, wanting to speed it along for her. All other loyalties fall aside, do not exist. If she stole a car and went on a rampage robbing banks across the Southwest or disappeared for two years in the wilderness or started shoplifting chocolate bars from WalMart or decided to become a nun or took up scrapbooking... (all terrible, horrible things)....I would find a way to encourage her depravities.

Fran's Night

Fran wiped the last of the dishes dry with her apron, then took the long red and white checked cloth from around her waist and carefully folded it on the washing machine, to be cleaned with the morning clothes. Oliver preferred clean linens whenever possible, even though he never bothered to step through the two-way swinging door into the kitchen to see her in her apron.


Dinner on the table at five thirty in the evening, sharp, Fran. Your husband needs his dinner after a long day. No mind that Billy and George and Janet have been pressing their tiny hands to her legs all day, tugging on her while she scours the house, does the laundry, makes their meals, and puts them into crisp clean sheets for naptimes. How many times did she change their clothes today? The five o'clock change, to ensure they were presentable for their father, was always the one that frosted her the most. Dinner and full wardrobe changes, just so Oliver wouldn't be bad news when he walked through the door.


All three children and their father ate dinner in the solemn dining room, rolled the buns, tested the bread. Tonight Oliver had sent the buns back, telling her they were too moist. He needed them dry to sop up his gravy. Damn jamoke in his suit all day. Had a secretary at work, and a maid at home. She popped the oven back on, and stood shaking while the bread warmed, then realized it would just overcook them. She grabbed the oven mitts and yanked them out. Damn jamoke. No noise from the dining room. The children knew better than to cut up in front of their father. She heated a cast iron skillet, brushed some butter on the bottom, and toasted the buns a little, hoping that would do the trick.

A deep breath, and a smile, and back into the dining room.

George had his pudgy fingers placed on the table, on either side of his plate like he'd been taught, and he beamed at Fran. "Thank you, Momma."

Fran's fake smile shifted into a real one. "You are most welcome, son."

"Hep me with my bread en budder?" Billy asked.

"Me too, Momma, me too," Janet echoed.

Fran slathered butter on Oliver's bread, and laid it carefully before him on his bread plate. She buttered the children's then, and for the first time during dinner, sat down at her place.

Oliver placed his hand on hers, and the warm spot grew in her chest, and without looking up from his dinner, he said, "Yes, dear, thank you." The jamoke was capable of illuminations every once in a while.

After small, quick bites of half her food, after the dishes were washed and dried and the table scrubbed, while the folded red and white checked apron rested on the washer, the children played quietly on the living room floor, Oliver read the paper, and Fran sank into the chesterfield, ankles crossed.

Ever since I wrote "New Neighbors," Fran has been bugging me to write more about her. She is a fascinating character to me. Seventy five years old, and today's post was one of her experiences in the fifties. http://crazycoppertop.blogspot.com/2009/10/new-neighbors.html

The Love Song is Dead or, The Making of Girl Power Five

Is the Love Song dead? Yes, girls, yes it is. Girl Powers One, Two, Three, and Four had no love songs, and Five certainly doesn't either. When I want to lift up my girlfriends, inspire them, I don't pick a love song. Seems like a trap, a giving in, a surrender. Never surrender, chicas.

Girl Power Five has been fun to make. With lyrics like these, it is an exploration in feminine whoop-ass:

It's him or me
That's what he said
But I can't choose
Between a vegan
And a pothead
So I chose you
Because you're sweet
And you give me lots of lovin'
And you eat meat

(She can't choose between two men, so she chose her dog.)
--"Man of the Hour" - Norah Jones

Then there's the country girl take on girl power, which often plays on themes of domestic abuse and killing the guy who done you wrong:

His fist is big
But my gun's bigger
--"Gunpowder and Lead" --Miranda Lambert

Then there's the hip hop take.

Hell no
I don't need your dough
I'm not gonna be your ho
You can keep your ring
Tough shit
I see you're full of it
I'm not gonna be your bitch
I don't care about your bling
--"Hell No" --Frankee

That is deep shit right there, girls. Deep, deep shit.

This is the way the world works. Women's boundaries are not a given. We must carve them out ourselves, bare our teeth, growl, and bite back if necessary.
Manage your own calendar, you rock-clapping Neanderthal.
Why don't you pick up a vacuum, genius?
Oh yeah, you're not willing to commit to the relationship? Then get the hell out.
Make your own damn dinner.
Hey, out there in la-la land - get involved with your family! Enough "you" time, jackass.
Guess what, hottie? Your good looks don't save you from waking up in the middle of the night with the baby.
Of course there are nicer ways to say these things, but if you want nicer, read someone else's blog.

There are consequences for fighting back, for asserting ourselves - loneliness at times, fucked-up relationships, horrible stereotyping labels - but as Alicia Keys says:

If I could touch the sky
I'd risk the fall
Just to know how it feels to fly
--"How It Feels to Fly" --Alicia Keys

Here's touch of mush: I'm grateful for all the strong women in my life who I lean on, who inspire me. Remember, the search for validation is fruitless. Just believe in yourself to begin with.

Stop Cavorting!!!!

My box-like maternity clothes make me look like a box. And my sweater is depositing linty-lintiness all over my brown pants.

And The Kid woke up at 5:00 am. Came downstairs after my shower and saw him standing completely naked in the kitchen (it is 5 degrees outside). The Old Man has been working long hours at night and was still sleeping. The Kid wanted to eat his oatmeal naked. I never thought I would have to say things like "You'll freeze your butt off if you eat your oatmeal naked!" I wrestled him into his clothes while the car was warming up and got out the door 10 minutes late.

This is one of those days where if I were a wolf I would have my teeth bared and pick up my young by the scruff of their necks and throw them back in the den. "Stop cavorting at 5:00 am. Enough with the cavorting!!"

Book with a Kick-Ass Voice

I'm reading Tainted, by Julie Kenner. It helps when I'm writing to immerse myself in an author's totally authentic voice.

The first line of the book is:

"Can I just say that dying sucks?"

And it's sci-fi.

And it has a female protagonist - definitely Buffy-like.

My friends out there - you are in for some good reads when I lend you her books.