bad mom

here i am now

noreply@blogger.com (stephanie) — Tue, 11 Jul 2023 13:42:00 +0000

FYI, I’m keeping this space alive because I own the domain and am not yet sure how to transfer it to my new home so please find me at Substack from now on.

Thank you for being there. And here.

I love you & appreciate your support and wish I could bake banana bread for everyone.

i’ll be back

noreply@blogger.com (stephanie) — Wed, 08 Mar 2023 01:55:00 +0000

Still here, writing in my head every day and trying to make it happen out loud.

Check out my Instagram offerings while you wait : badmom + badmomtravels (and thanks for caring).

rituals for the new now

noreply@blogger.com (stephanie) — Sat, 22 Aug 2020 16:40:00 +0000

Every morning, my one-eyed cat Zelda climbs onto the bed purring fiercely and nudges her face against mine. For an hour we play a combative game: I pull her squishy body against me & try to sleep a bit more and she pretends to nuzzle while really seeking my bare skin to bite. I've thought this was about her hunger but no matter who feeds her, she only comes for me and my shoulder (or hand or arm, sometimes chin or eyebrow). I've decided Zelda, whom I named after the writer Fitzgerald, is my muse. A feisty, aggravating, literally biting muse but one that will get me out of bed and into daylight.

I like to think, especially when faced with this isolating crisis, that routines will bring me what I need - consistency, stability, predictability. But they can only do that if properly recognized and named for their intentions. For most of my almost-52 years I've tried to establish routines that will make me somehow Better; I've always been on the verge of being someone More Stylish, More Confident, More Fit, Cuter - An Artist, A Writer, Someone Who Can Follow A Basic Schedule. It has worked occasionally - I did graduate from high school and college and got married. I've also finally developed a sort-of system of trying to plan daily meals, though this is loosely defined and it always includes at least one night for takeout. But what was the real point of all that organized angst?

I've been thinking that my approach to routines in daily life has been mostly seeing them as necessary but punitive tasks, and no one likes to constantly face punishment (conversations about BDSM aside). It might be more a matter of semantics but I'm starting to feel like if I call what I want to do with & for myself "rituals," I'll be more likely to embrace the changes. Already I light a candle at my desk when I'm serious about getting work done; I make sure my kettle is programmed before I go to bed because then I envision my morning reading & writing time without waiting for tea to brew; I ride my stationary bike less for the exercise and more for the joy of listening to podcasts + recording the distances in a weekly journal.

My August ritual used to be celebrating my birthday with something indulgent each day while also refocusing attention on school prep; for decades I have loved both things in a way that filled my being with joy & gratitude & a sense of purpose. That tilted a bit last year when I thought I was done with teaching, though I found a similar feeling in becoming a docent. I'm realizing that the New Now and absence of my former teacher/docent ritual has depleted me; it's become harder to embrace joy; I feel thankful for life only in a more general way, and my purpose seems nebulous. I've moved some things into the classroom I won't be able to use for at least a couple of months due to pandemic concerns and I have precarious stacks of history books around my house to read & use for lessons, yet everything still feels unmoored. I've been trying to establish routines for organizing but the world is in such a state that organization seems futile.

I can't allow that feeling to linger though, because that would mean surrendering and a Leo/Virgo is nothing if not tenacious (see also: stubborn, obsessive, bossy, and/or controlling).

So, I'll take Zelda's morning ritual with me as a call to rise and get back into this odd new world.

Excuse the bite marks.

compartmentalizing

noreply@blogger.com (stephanie) — Mon, 22 Jun 2020 16:08:00 +0000

I am nothing if not a supreme organizer, from my unending list-making to an unnatural love for bullet points. I like to think it's a simple sign of intelligence & efficiency but if I'm being honest, I'm pretty sure it comes from my desperate need to [pretend to] Control Things. At first glance over my life, it doesn't look like much was out of control - I only have 1 point for ACEs - but I've come to realize that even a single event in childhood can color the world going forward, and I have long had a stay-in-the-lines attitude that ended up being a hindrance, frankly; when getting hung up on How Things Look and How Things Should Be more than What Things Could Be, we miss a lot of exquisite little details. I still get hung up sometimes but I work harder at looking around corners and in the cracks, too. I'm working on crying out loud more, too, but in a controlled cute Rachel McAdams way as much as possible (it's never possible).

On that note, here's a thing I wrote from a series of observations I was making when trying not to directly look an uncontrollable thing in the eyes.

_________________________________________________________

I Practice Believing My Son Has Cancer

I sit in the hospital room on a dumbly comfortable recliner,

consolation gift for the parent who finds herself

in a foul game of fighting

disease by picking poisons that might or might not make him sicker today or later, really

nobody knows.

Don’t worry.

I’m offered a discounted lunch delivered with his free meal,
cheer the salad with salmon and blackberries, as if I’ve won a significant award.

My boy pores over his two-page paper menu with excited eyes vowing to try everything by the time he is done

in the fall, as if
that will be the bigger prize than
life past 19.

Don’t worry.

There is so much sun streaming onto my exposed neck,

wrapping itself first around idiot yellow flowers staring over my shoulder at the magazine I took from the absurdly welcoming waiting room.

Everything a flavorless joke
reminding us that life goes fucking on outside of here.

Don’t worry.

I brought a book I will neglect in a bag full of other website-suggested things,

because mothering instincts say that if I have

everything we need we will not need anything:

Not the extra soft socks or the unscented lotions or powerful sunscreens

or ginger-infused organic candies meant to quell
toxic nausea. We are

prepared and prepared and prepared
and...

Don’t worry.

redefining failure

noreply@blogger.com (stephanie) — Mon, 15 Jun 2020 23:54:00 +0000

When I supposedly quit teaching last Spring, one of the things I looked forward to doing more intentionally was write poetry. During my sabbatical, I had planned a similar thing but was open to trying a variety of styles: I took a 1-day play-writing workshop at Portland Center Stage (wherein I had a minor anxiety attack on my walk from parking garage to classroom but overall had a useful and not-mortifying experience, plus made a Facebook friend in the delightful + highly accomplished teacher/playwright [namedrop ahead] Adam Szymkowicz, though I have still created nothing remotely like a play); went to two meetings of PDX Playwrights and participated in a table reading, which was extremely gratifying at the time but otherwise did not inspire a masterpiece; watched rehearsal for a staged reading production that was immensely interesting though again, didn't result in me developing a thing; and I entered a mentally exhausting short story contest through NYC Midnight that somehow earned me an Honorable Mention, which I will forever hold in irrationally high esteem. Poetry has always been an occasional exorcising exercise for me, and sometimes I revise it for other people to read. This year I decided to explore the world of Deliberately Writing Poems And Maybe Getting Paid For It.

First though, I paid someone to be my guide into the publishing world because I thought it would be good for advice + accountability. Yet, after 50+ years of being me, I'm finally admitting that I usually do/don't do what I want regardless of whether it's good for me or an egregious waste of money. My writing workshop leader is wonderful and I do not begrudge her in any way the fee or cost of her book - I have found a lot of the planning tips & goal setting worksheets useful, and checking in on the web forum every week [or three] with her and other writers also helps me to put my thoughts & ideas in order. But it has also made me realize, after a few months of frenzied and slightly distressing submissions to poetry journals, that Being A Writer is not really what I want to do; I just want to write.

The first two places I sent poems this year both accepted my work right away; at the time this certainly meant I was a Capital P Poet at long last, so I set up a daily writing & revising schedule then chose ridiculously esoteric places to submit. But when the rejection emails began to arrive, mercifully staggered and gentle yet still disheartening I, in dismal role model fashion, abandoned my routine and went back to simply writing every few days while eating breakfast on my porch, revising occasionally because something lodges in my brain for hours, only considering submission to small obscure journals craving content.

I like writing. I sometimes savor revision. And of course I appreciate recognition, but that isn't the goal.

Just like when I was teaching. So there I am again, gladly.
______________________________________________

Stopping Time, featured in the Poetry Moves program through Artstra & C-Tran

______________________________________________

Gunning for Manhood, featured in Porcupine Literary

Consider these boys,
the ones thick with scars
from sitting down and shutting up,
tearing down and manning up;
the ones who keep the hammer cocked.

Young girl on the bus sees these boys:

thick bodies smashing space,

grabbing brawn like starving dogs,

yowling aimlessly in the aisle,

sneaking fearful glances.

Click.

Wary girl on campus eyes these boys:

sure bodies brawling bravado,

parting crowds like prized princes,

catcalling crassly in hallways,

disguising desperate desires.

Click.

Teacher at her desk notices these boys:

sharp bodies cleaving feelings,
battering emotions like dangerous boxers,

waiting warily in shadows,

dismissing sorrow and grief.

Consider these boys,
the ones who run and punch and yell and rail

and kick and scrape and howl and break,

the ones who would rather pull a trigger

than hurt
out
loud.

re-recalled, with a side of queer eye wisdom

noreply@blogger.com (stephanie) — Tue, 09 Jun 2020 17:27:00 +0000

I was having a pretty good non-school school year, exploring a new life in which I sometimes struggled to explain what I "do" when not preparing to be a museum docent or volunteering to answer phones for public radio drives & local film festivals (not technically retired, not exactly switching careers, sometimes writing but not really "a writer"...). Overall satisfying though.

The ephemera from my former classroom that I couldn't bear to give away to students or leave for other teachers or take to Goodwill I arranged in the library at my school where I spent a couple of days each week organizing & checking out books, making posters for monthly themes & Renegades in history, helping design mini-lessons for Advocacy classes. I got to chat with kids before school and during lunch about what to read, how to revise poems, the importance of alone time, ways to deal with friends who weren't behaving like friends anymore; it was a lot of the parts of teaching I loved the most. I even attended staff meetings and offered useful input about some of the students I had taught before.

During my unstructured days, I went to art education trainings, wrote poetry, baked, made some collages, started metal stamping, and watched all of the Queer Eye episodes with utter tear-filled joy. What a life.

Yet. As much as I appreciated Last Year Me for recognizing her need to step away from a literal lifetime of teaching to explore A New Identity, I could not stop talking about how I had worked & connected with "my students." Every conversation seemed to veer into the land of dealing with people, trying to understand, empathize, and help. The more Queer Eye I watched, the more I felt like they [Karamo] were speaking directly at me - do I really know myself? What do I want in life?

As this year rolled on and into a pandemic, I found myself reflecting more on those questions. I relished learning to give tours at the art museum, though I also actually liked not being expected to leave my house. But other than making scones to leave on neighbors' doorsteps and/or eat in front of the TV, or constantly revising poems or stressing over my Submittable bio & cover letter, I spent the distancing time reading and thinking. I planned imaginary lessons. I wondered if my principal or colleagues would allow me to "guest teach" a few times. I felt a little sheepish about asking to go back after having cleaned out everything and made pronouncements about Moving On. But this is when I started to really listen to the Queer Eye guys [Karamo] - the past is the past, we decide what to do with it and how we go forward, it doesn't matter what other people think of us, it is okay to ask for help, it's necessary to take care of ourselves. I asked.

So here I am, getting ready to go back to my school, into a different classroom, to teach US History for two quarters; I'll still be able to give museum tours during my off-time plus write some poetry now & then. My days are now spent more on reading about the people who have been left out of textbooks + designing lessons to open students' eyes to the nation we have wrought, and hopefully send them out to create a new order.

I'm also watching every Queer Eye episode again. While eating scones.

a calling recalled

noreply@blogger.com (stephanie) — Fri, 22 Mar 2019 05:14:00 +0000

This week, I submitted my resignation from teaching.

I can't remember not wanting to be a teacher. I was an only child for nine years, playing School most of that time with a makeshift classroom of stuffed animals arranged in relentlessly neat rows, each assigned a name in an old ledger from my grandpa's business. Occasionally I roped my younger cousin into joining me but only as a student, never the teacher. If he thinks of those days fondly, he's being kind; I was a rigid taskmaster in my early days, assigning him (and the hostage toys) leftover handouts my former-teacher uncle gave me in an old briefcase. I also remember conjuring infractions to punish him for, as I hadn't yet learned the art of positive behavior reinforcement. Later, I divided my time between torturing my cousin with math & spelling worksheets and preparing 'lessons' for my baby sister, using Sesame Street, Mr. Rogers, and Captain Kangaroo as inspiration. As I got older and better at interacting with others not as a tyrant, I found myself seeking out other broader, more finessed ways of sharing information I learned from my constant reading and TV-watching.

All through real school, my favorite parts of the day were staring at cute boys, reading, and writing (order may vary); on the best days, I helped cute boys with their reading and writing. The one time I skipped class in high school was to finish an English paper due later that day. I admired most of my teachers, especially the English teachers, and those I didn't served as examples of What Not To Do when I got their job. I also babysat a lot and spent most of that time reading to and interacting with the kids before watching TV and eating snacks; I felt like I was a natural.

In college I fell in love with Thirtysomething and the idea of becoming an Advertising Executive (never mind that I was unclear on what that actually meant), but really I was only in love with the cool houses and wardrobes that apparently came with working as an Advertising Executive (maybe?). Teaching was still in my periphery but I knew it wouldn't pay well and in the late '80s, making money was The Goal. In my junior year, an honest professor mentioned that anyone not willing to sell every awful product being sold would never make it in advertising; I dropped the class and promptly enrolled in the School of Education. I relished the Literature classes directed at future teachers; I tutored other students in writing; I spent time working at the campus preschool and babysitting for graduate students. During student teaching, I surprised myself with instinctual moves like bonding with an otherwise difficult kid through our mutual love of football, and gently redirecting the teen who earnestly asked me to prom. I also incorporated Wayne's World and an SNL skit into lessons. Rock star.

I cherish the highlights of my time in classrooms: from the middle school where I designed curricula from scratch and helped 8th graders plan community projects to the GED prep work in a group home with adjudicated youth to the substitute teaching where I perfected my Love & Logic techniques, to these past 12 years at my favorite place outside of my own home. Despite the sometimes long hours and occasional emotional beatings, I continually felt called to teaching.

Until this year. When I signed my intent to return last spring, toward the end of my sabbatical, I didn't think twice. Why wouldn't I go back? I had gladly dedicated most of that time off to my daughter and she was graduating; I'd pursued some Fun Things but none of them had specifically offered me a new career. I put my classroom back together, planned some fresh lessons for different classes, made connections with my students, as usual. Yet, it felt different. My boy continued his monthly chemotherapy treatments; my girl marched alone in football games 450 miles away; I kept comparing my hours of preparing lessons to the hours I'd spent volunteering with homeless youth and at film festivals and with public radio pledge drives, and I longed for that freedom to use my time as I wanted. And, I realized, as I needed.

I knew what I was accepting when I chose to be a teacher. I have loved even the hardest, most mentally trying moments of all of my experiences as an educator. I consider every instance a gem in my crown - I couldn't have become the wife, mother, friend, or woman I am without having absorbed the digs and disappointments along with the praise for and pride in my classroom time.

It is strange now to be at the half-century point of my life deciding to change direction, to alter my identity, to become Something Else. More than strange to not even be able to name the Something Else I'm becoming - I might write, I might be a professional volunteer, I might be the substitute teacher some people love and others think is weird. Yet all of these things feel more acceptable than staying in a position where I ought to be uplifting but am instead feeling like a slow drain of inspiration & joy.

I hope that those coming into my place are feeling how I did for a couple of decades - excited about designing ways to engage sometimes-surly teens, energetic in their desire to instill a love of learning - and that they are open to embracing the unknowns of classroom life, the demands of loving other people's children, the challenges of balancing dedication to teaching with necessary self-care.

I don't think I failed, but I am exhausted and ready to move on.
Here's to a new calling.

writing for real

noreply@blogger.com (stephanie) — Wed, 29 Nov 2017 17:37:00 +0000

I'm more than halfway through my 50 things before 50 quest and have only included a couple of mundane activities plus about half a dozen concerts, though my list of Things To Do during sabbatical is still overflowing with ideas I haven't yet started to pursue, mainly because they scare me.

One of those Big Plans was to "write more," by which I essentially meant "let other people who don't automatically like everything I do read my creative writing." So I entered the NYCMidnight Short Story Challenge - getting a $5 discount by posting an announcement on my Facebook page, which served two necessary purposes for me: saving money that I'm not making this year and publicly declaring my intention so I can't easily back out.

I am a little terrified; Eleanor Roosevelt would be proud.

As soon as I entered the contest (which doesn't start until January, thank baby Jesus), I vowed to establish the long-resolved-but-never-realized habit of writing something each morning. This is especially painful for a perfectionist, even a recovering one like I pretend to be; I am every day mentally apologizing to all of my past students for acting like free write activities are simple and fun.

My first two days were exercises in mild self-loathing and premonitions of spectacular failure, but today I consulted the Creative Writer's Notebook that my beautiful, talented, genius friend Lisa gifted me.

The prompt I chose was about "revealing character." I was given vague details - a traveling salesman, tall with a bad back from uncomfortable beds at cheap hotels, who is divorced and has two young children; I was instructed to use these facts and describe this person through actions and strong narration. I sighed, worried over it a minute, then took to writing (in pen, to keep myself from editing & revising as I wrote). Here is the draft I composed in half an hour this morning (with a tiny bit of editing as I transferred from notebook to laptop, because I'm a perfectionist/cheater):
___________________________

What must they think of me? A man who has spent his life driving around, trying to convince people to buy things they don't need, who sleeps in places that will never stop smelling like old ashtrays and dirty socks. This lingering odor has become part of me, their father, arriving on the porch seconds before I do so that when they hug my bent neck I can feel their reluctance to get too close; my children will always be the first ones to let go.

Each month when I make my way back to our dusty little town, I look forward to the moments around that first touch and imagine they will be different - their eyes will brighten this time, their hands will reach faster for me, their faces will nuzzle in close again like when they were babies.

I drive past the mile markers, noting each place with a mix of anticipation and shame. The bowling alley at the edge of town, only six miles to their neat little house, was the first place I kissed their mother and made her believe our lives would be different. The grocery store, somehow still standing in the middle of strip malls and supermarkets, blinking as stupidly as it had 20 years ago when I was the star clerk, a local celebrity, about to make everyone proud. The remains of the drive-in theater, rotting in an abandoned field of beige weeds, only one mile to go, shoving broken scenes of fumbling with buttons and snaps, unzipping in the back seat shadows, sweating and whispering and promising.
__________________________

Thoughts welcome.
Be kind but firm.

the paradox of perspective

noreply@blogger.com (stephanie) — Wed, 04 Oct 2017 17:52:00 +0000

Sometimes when students ask how old I am
(after I give them a silent pointy raised eyebrow to remind them that not everyone loves this question since guesses about age usually skew to elderly and no one wants to be associated with that too soon)
I give them historical math problems by way of answer:

I was born the year before Neil Armstrong walked on the moon.
I was born a few months after Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy were assassinated.
I was born the year before Woodstock.

Some search their brains for these facts, eyes squinted hard for maximum thinking power.
Many grab their smartphones and plug in keywords, triumphantly shout 1968!
then consult their calculators for the final number.
Others blink slowly and look away, uninterested in history & math,
my age not worth this effort;
obviously I was born a long time ago, maybe even before their parents, who are old and boring.

Whenever I go through this exercise I'm reminded
of how many events the whole world knows
sees
feels
happen at the same time
as tiny personal miracles and tragedies.

Other people were born exactly on the day of the moonwalk -
how did those mothers feel, their excruciating labors overshadowed by the constant coverage
of a guy kicking around space dust?

Other people died exactly on the days great men were murdered -
surely those families felt doubly gutted, lost in two worlds of grief, wondering whose mattered more.

Many Woodstock attendees left early, cold & muddy, hungry & tired,
were back at their desk jobs or slumped in classrooms,
while Jimi Hendrix stunned onstage with his Star Spangled Banner.

Perspective.

****
I remember being home sick from school on March 30, 1981, watching TV on the couch when breaking news announced President Ronald Reagan had been shot.
I remember feeling hollow, the hair on my arms shivering;
I'd wondered how my mom felt when her president was shot.
But then, I remember increasing aggravation
that the coverage was going to interrupt General Hospital,
the bright spot of sick days;
7th grade Me dismissed the possible death of a world leader
in favor of watching my favorite soap opera.
****
For a few days in September 1998, the troubles of the entire planet disappeared.
My son had been born
early
quick labor
fetal distress
try to sign the release with your wrong hand because we put the pen in your right and IV in your left
emergency Cesarean
only 4 pounds
low sodium & blood sugar
umbilical hernia
jaundiced
moved to another hospital
miles away.
Certainly there were discoveries and assassinations and victories and catastrophes
important to hundredsthousandsmillions of other people
but
I only cared about
one thing one thing one thing
minute after minute after minute
until I could bring my boy home.

Perspective.
****

It is a strange experience
troubling yet comforting
distasteful while delicious
to understand
this world is so vast, so full, so gigantic
and so enclosed, so limited, so minute.

relating in retrospect

noreply@blogger.com (stephanie) — Mon, 18 Sep 2017 15:59:00 +0000

As a teacher and mom, I know I'm expected to remind people that nothing is impossible. If I were a motivational speaker or Oprah or an abnormally perky optimist like I'm pretty sure Reese Witherspoon is, I'd point out how the word even says I'M POSSIBLE! I want to punch myself for just typing that.

The thing is though, some stuff is impossible and I think it's important that we face it in order to properly deal with it. I'm not talking about complicated tasks that seem despairingly unlikely - eradicating hunger, exacting world peace, having a million dollars to do with as I please, living in a pineapple under the sea, meeting/marrying Michael Fassbender...I mean something like time travel. Specifically, being able to return to my own teen world and help myself make different choices. This is impossible not only because no one that I know of has perfected a time machine yet, but mainly because what teenage person would ever listen to a grown-up's advice, even if she claimed to have come from the future?

I've found myself in a strange place lately [hello again, middle age, you fucking creeper]. I'm trying to go about my business, aging and contemplating my purpose and letting go of my children as they become adults, but I keep stumbling across these thoughts & memories that make me question what I even know about myself. And if I don't know myself, how do I help guide other people with any credibility? I believe myself to be content with how my life has been but then I fall into a pit of What If and start to retrace my steps - they usually go back to my foolish freshman year of college when I squandered 99% of my opportunities to be a better person (the 1% is miraculously not burning bridges with some classmates whom I still consider good friends and they seem to feel the same). So I try to get inside my own 18-year-old mind but memories are unreliably altered by age & perspective, and reading those loopy-cursive journal entries is so embarrassing; I cannot connect Now Me to Then Me other than generically recalling the events. Everything she wrote seems silly and shallow - I know that's because I'm looking at it through the eyes of a 49-year-old old person, but when I try to imagine asking her to think deeper, to understand why she's doing what she did, I'm at a loss. Why am I unable to relate to my own younger self? I remember feeling so mature, so capable of accomplishing whatever I wanted (though I can tell I had no idea what I really wanted...why??), so almost-sure of myself (disappointment with my hair is a lifelong theme); at the same time I also know I was far more insecure than I let on even in my private writings. I start to feel sad for Then Me and that's when I wonder about the time travel thing - if I could go back, what could I tell her that might inspire her? Would I just drop in as Future Me a la Kyle Reese (with a different end purpose, of course) or simply pose as a naturally occurring adult on campus whose wisdom is somehow welcomed? But then, I didn't listen to my smart best friend/roommate nor my cute Michael J. Fox-lookalike grad student advisor when they tried telling me how to not fuck up, so why pay attention to the righteous old weird mom-lady? And, I ultimately don't want her to drastically change her life because I am happy with how my life has turned out - if Then Me didn't flunk out and spend a year away from university, I probably wouldn't have met my man and had my kids and felt so strongly about helping other teens find their way.

So, what do I really want from this exercise?

I wish Then Me had made more meaningful connections with people, including herself; I wish she would realize how smart & funny & capable she really was - not based on what others told her but because she shut up the loud mean voices in her head and listened to the quieter gentle ones that matter most; I wish she could get comfortable sooner with her body and treat it kindly, with respect; I wish she liked herself more then, because it's been nice for the past handful of years, finally.

There is a paradox here - the past doesn't define me, but it does shape me. I am here only because of where I've been, yet I lament how I spent my time there. Maybe that all makes the now even better though...

Have I just accomplished the impossible?

50+ things before 50

noreply@blogger.com (stephanie) — Sun, 03 Sep 2017 21:51:00 +0000

I will have lived half a century by next August and would like to diminish the societal weirdness of being 50 - having to check a new demographic box on forms, knowing most women begin to be dismissed at this age - by mindfully engaging in activities that bring me joy, magnify the wonder of our world, show myself and any doubters that I do indeed still have relevancy & usefulness & vibrancy. I started this process last fall when I requested a sabbatical for the 2017-18 school year, to have 180 days to freely manage my time, being available for my graduating daughter and exploring different kinds of opportunities.

Here I'll record the unique things I do during this year, to remind me in my old age (many decades from now) that I loved life, that I came to live out loud and did.

Day 1, August 23, 2017 : Dinner at Le Pigeon featuring grilled skate + foie gras sorbet

2, August 24 : Poetry reading with secret boyfriends Anis Mojgani & Derrick Brown

Precious Anis Mojgani

Darling Derrick Brown

3 + 4, August 26 & 27 : Iggy Pop, Spoon, and Beck in concert

5, September 8-10 : Assistant to Tom Kenny, voice of SpongeBob Squarepants et al, at Rose City Comic Con

Marvelousness

6, September 11-19 : MVHS band fundraiser

7, September 15 : Miller's Crossing at Reader's Theatre Repertory

8, September 22 : Alison Moyet at a tiny theater with my college bestie

9, September 24 : Wine tasting + vineyard tour with friends in the Gorge

10, September 28 : Begin weekly volunteering at p:ear, a program for homeless & transitional youth

11, September 29 : MVHS band social

12, September 30 : Pullman for Mason's 19th birthday

13, October 5 : Answer phones for OPB fall pledge drive

14, October 5 : Cobra to Seattle, train home

15, October 6 : MVHS Homecoming football game

16, October 12 : Happy Hour gathering with colleagues

17 + 18, October 13 : Greek dinner + The Turn of the Screw at Readers Theatre Rep

19, October 20 : Fun Home at Portland Center Stage

20, October 21 : Burlescape show at Crush Bar

21, October 23 : Depeche Mode in concert

22 + 23, October 27 : Train to Seattle for Tegan & Sara concert + overnight with high school friends

24, October 30 : Mary Lambert concert, meet Mal Blum

25, October 31 : Halloween party + face painting at p:ear

26, November 1 & 2 : Check in filmmakers/actors/guests at Portland Film Festival

27, November 3-5 : Dad's Weekend at WSU, Seth Meyers performance + Stanford football game

28, November 6 : First meeting of Citizens Advisory Committee

29, November 11 : MVHS Holiday Bazaar prize table

30, November 12 : Extra on the digital series, The Musicianer; meet Beth Harrington & Lowell Deo

31, November 14 : David Sedaris reading

32, November 15 : Design giving tree tags for p:ear

33, November 17 : Paula Poundstone, front row at the Aladdin

34, November 25 : Tailgate at Apple Cup in Seattle

....stay tuned...

permission

noreply@blogger.com (stephanie) — Wed, 23 Aug 2017 03:29:00 +0000

I will not be teaching this year; I prefer to call it a 'sabbatical', evoking a noble adventure, instead of a 'leave of absence', which sounds like illness, defeat, or sad emptiness. It has taken a significant amount of mental energy for me to first decide this is a good idea, then to talk about it aloud, then to discuss logistically with the people affected, and finally to make a formal written request. I enjoy imagining I'm the rebellious type who lives by a sassy "Better to ask forgiveness than permission" philosophy, but in reality I tend to be a rule-following pedant. However, as I have approached the half-century mark of my life, I'm ready to take a break from some tendencies.

Many people (women - let's be honest about who tries to please everyone else all of the time) talk about giving themselves permission to say "No" more often - no more taking on unsatisfying jobs, no more spending time on unnecessary tasks, no more saying or doing or pretending to be something they aren't or don't want to be. These are very important considerations, but as a woman + parent, I long ago allowed myself to say [FUCK] "No" to any activity or behavior that did not directly impact my children's well-being and/or might result in an arrest, but what I haven't done as much is say "Yes" to the things that make me feel good. Vibrant. Successful, purposeful, necessary, alive. See also "Potential Midlife Crisis But Shut Up Because Your Judgement Isn't Helpful." I might still have some issues to work out.

My main motivation for the sabbatical was to be present for my daughter's Senior year of high school (much to her now-horror; I'm hoping she'll be grateful later. Stop laughing). I realized when my son was graduating that I'd either missed or scrambled to be involved in many little events & opportunities throughout the year, and I determined to not let that happen with my last child. I know who I become when I'm trying to Do All the Things for family + school + self and she is unpleasant, and since I'm now on the verge of turning 50, I feel the need to get better at this Living Life Fully gig. There are so many small, beguiling things I realized I've wanted to do with my time for decades and am determined to use this one year differently. I will turn my unstructured blank-canvas days into masterpieces - some will be be fuzzy Monets, some crisp Vermeers, some wildly spectacular Jackson Pollocks & Hieronymus Boschs, others bewildering but fascinating Dalís.

This year's Yes goals, in no particular order:

Volunteer for causes I love - Band Boosters, 2018 Senior Parents, Portland Film Festival, OPB pledge drives (I CANNOT WAIT TO ANSWER PHONES), finding solutions to homelessness

Read more - I have a ludicrous number of books hanging out waiting on my nightstand, dresser, table next to my livingroom recliner; follow me on GoodReads and send encouragement, maybe let's create a book group?

Weeknight events - more concerts, collage nights, poetry readings, book signings

Audio book recording - I've already looked into the [very intimidating] paid world and blanched at the requirements, but have found some ways of reading aloud for fun/free

Reader's Theater - a local director encouraged me to try this low-key version of acting; terrified but excited

Travel - Keeping eyes open for opportunities to visit new places without spending a lot of money I won't have

Baking - whatever, whenever; it calms me and I'll want that often, I suspect

Writing - I've already begun to attend to my blog more often, trying to harness thoughts into a theme people might be interested in, but I'd like to investigate screenwriting, more poetry, or short story crafting

__________________________________________

Permission is a dastardly thing. It wants you to think it is necessary, that it is the only way you will be able to accomplish what you wish. But you are in charge of your life - some parts feel unchangeable but don't let them guilt or worry you into believing you aren't in control - sometimes it's only a matter of changing the question from Can I? to How can I?

And it might take 50 years, which is okay.

memories, dull the edges of my mind

noreply@blogger.com (stephanie) — Wed, 09 Aug 2017 00:06:00 +0000

I wasn't exactly a mean girl when I was younger, but I was definitely an accessory to mean girls. My little sister might say I was an actual mean girl sometimes, especially regarding possessions. But, for example, I maintain that since I'm 9 years older than her, most of the Barbie stuff was mine before it was hers so how can I be accused of stealing that tiny copper pot and besides, she's known where I keep it not locked up, in plain sight AND I'm pretty sure I've offered it to her many times in our adulthood and she won't take it. So anyway, on the periphery of mean girlness. Moving on.

Lately (which, in an almost-50-year old's brain means "in the past 20 years") I've been giving increasingly more thought to the usefulness of memories. As someone who writes & reads and encourages others to do the same, I realize the importance of memories but after having had a few instances of my very vivid, certain memories turning out to be completely unverifiable with the people involved, I am now wondering what is their real purpose if they're ultimately unreliable?

First, the case that basically invalidated most of my 6th grade year. To set the scene, I silently but forcefully disliked nearly everything about my teacher that year: he was old, he made us run and play sports CONSTANTLY, he called my mom to admonish her for letting me eat a Pop Tart and orange juice for breakfast every morning, and each week he would dump desks that he deemed 'messy.' Now, as a lucid adult + teacher myself, I can make these adjustments: he was only about 40 that year; we ran and played soccer maybe twice a week; that is a pretty terrible diet for a preteen girl [but still, I felt bad for my mom because she left the house to work at 5:30am so not her fault I was/am still no good at nutrition]; and while I would never shame students, I do promote neatness in my classroom.

The parts of this teacher I did happen to like were his constant encouragement of my writing skills and praise for my tidy desk, which leads to the first memory I had that was blown to smithereens a few years ago: I saw the name of a boy tagged in a former classmate's 6th grade photo and immediately remembered him sitting quietly next to me at the back of the classroom, waiting for that teacher to come down the aisle to dump his desk. Every week. I had offered many times to show him how to organize his books and pencils and tissue box, reminded him to throw out crumpled papers & empty snack bags, actually rearranged his things myself + told him breathlessly, probably harshly (mean girl tendencies) when it was time to CLEAN HIS DESK! I'm starting to sweat again right now. In my twitchy memory, this kid sat with almost amused resignation, as our menacing teacher moved Gestapo-like toward us.

I immediately sent this guy a friend request and waited, heart thumping, for him to accept so I could find out that he had fully recovered from this obviously horrible and humiliating treatment 30+ years ago. Except that when we did reconnect, he had zero memory of this situation. Nothing. In fact, he sent me a photo from his law office where boxes and papers were stacked impetuously around the room. And, inexplicably, beyond that, he said our 6th grade teacher was one of his favorites - they had gone running and rock climbing with other classmates on weekends; they'd kept in touch for many years afterward.

What?

After a tiny spark of irritation that I had spent so much mental energy trying to needlessly defend this kid's dignity for decades, I realized my own standards of what makes a good experience and solid relationship clouded my perceptions of what happened for him. (Hello, productive counseling sessions). That is, if that teacher even really dumped desks - how can I know for sure? I'm afraid to ask my friend, the classmate who posted our picture in the first place.

But then last week, I found out another situation I had been involved with (this is where the almost-but-probably-an-actual mean girl thing comes in) has apparently not lived on in the psyche of a key player.

The summer before our Senior year, a friend & I decided to call a pay phone outside the Safeway. (I'm presuming all of my readers are old enough to know what a pay phone is, and understand why calling it randomly would be considered a fun thing to do during summer break in a small town). I think a couple of harried adults answered and hung up before we hit the jackpot with a couple of boys from our high school; we immediately became spectacular improv artists weaving elaborate storylines for ourselves: a couple of hot 18-year old girls from Las Vegas visiting our cousin. The details were embarrassingly, painfully silly and unbelievable but we had a captive, willing audience.

Fast forward to weeks later, after we've called these boys many times at their homes to talk about increasingly outrageous nonsense while somehow never being able to meet up with them in person, and school is starting so the Las Vegas girls have to return home. We promise to call again though, and that's when things become actually terrible - we notice in the halls what these guys wear then claim to have had a dream about them in those outfits, or we remark on something someone at our [pretend] school said or did, which happened to have been exactly what we saw one of our boys did that week.

Finally, because I wasn't a mean girl at heart, I decided we should stop. But also, we needed to tell them the truth. My reasoning, I (think) I remember very clearly, was that they would be confused & sad if the Las Vegas girls just stopped calling them. Somehow it seemed better in my mind to expose their utter gullibility face-to-face. To be fair to young stupid me, I saw myself as the bad guy in this scenario and thought of the reveal as more of a confession (and absolution, of course) of my crime. Regardless, I told "my" guy during a slow dance at school and he laughed. Again, young stupid me considered this a good sign - I actually wrote in my journal that I thought we were going on a date shortly after that, though I'm pretty sure he never spoke directly to me again. And for the last five years, he has not accepted my friend request on Facebook.

But here is the thing that makes me doubt my recollections: I finally found someone to tell him hello for me and mention I was sorry; my theory, based on my finally realizing that the 30-years-ago confession was more a humiliation than a relief, was that he thought I was a horrible person unworthy of being his friend, even in cyberspace, but if he knew I was apologetic we could move on - yet he told that person he has no idea who I am. No idea. Now, I know this thing actually happened because a) a friend was involved and can back me up plus b) I wrote about it in my journal and by God, that thing is full of unsettling true things. It stuns me that someone, like my 6th grade acquaintance, will have a completely opposite memory of a situation and I don't understand why.

However, again as a result of good counseling sessions, I am letting it all go. We with opposing memories will just have to forever agree to disagree.

Maybe. (Is this a male/female thing? An age issue?)

Probably not. (Why does this matter so much to me??)

I guess I need a few more counseling sessions.

things we forget to remember

noreply@blogger.com (stephanie) — Mon, 01 Aug 2016 23:28:00 +0000

I went to my 30th high school reunion this past weekend, and I not only loved every minute of it but I've looked forward to it, and all of my reunions, for years. Somehow I had a childhood that left me unscathed and even happy, and I still enjoy being around the people I grew up with.

Because I am one of the planners (of course) and a huge fan of the Mortified concept, I decided to read some excerpts from my 1985-86 journal. I mainly thought it would be a funny addition to the evening but the more time I spent reading & choosing selections, the more I realized how significant those [insanely embarrassing] reflections really are.

To begin with, the picture I've kept in my mind of my teenage self did not match the voice I heard when I was reading through the journal. It seems strange that I would see myself so differently considering I literally am the person who wrote those things. Many times we will create a version of ourselves that is better than what we are/were but in a way, I've been remembering a Teen Me that was much less confident and more timid than what I presented on those pages three decades ago. Some of it is cringy to Adult Me - the unnerving, lengthy explanation of how I named a teddy bear after Prince, my Canadian boyfriend, and his best friend who I also thought was cute - but a lot of it makes me nod proudly for the moxie I had, at least on paper. Alone. In my bedroom with the door barricaded against parents who never knocked before entering.

Of course there is the obvious connection between my life today, full of Potential Second Husbands - though I didn't call them that then - and the constant celebrity crushes I wrote about: Many were completely understandable like Matt Dillon, Richard Gere, and Andrew McCarthy (who I mentioned at least 4 times in the 18 months of this particular journal, one time in detail as the basis for my fantasy future son's personality) but some were unexpected and intense (Phil Collins, Martin Short...??) or obscure: "I do like Carlo Imperato from FAME very much - yes. And I still feel weak when I listen to Friday Night." Props to Teen Me though - that performance is pretty hot [for 1982].

However, there are dozens - not an exaggeration - of entries featuring boys from school whom I now have no memory of being interested in.

An excited note remarking on what an upperclassman wrote in my yearbook, which I revisited last week and found hardly eyebrow-raising at age 47.
The 4-page entry I read at my reunion that describes multi-day encounters (I'm avoiding the word 'stalking' as it has a deservedly negative connotation) with an underclassman I've literally never spoken a paragraph to, before or after that time. And I know this to be fact, not just an effect of my apparently-faulty memory, because I certainly would have written an all caps, exclamation point-filled follow-up, right? Nothing; I moved almost immediately on to other boys, most of whom were also eventual nonentities in my real life.

I've been trying to figure out what this all means. Maybe nothing; teenage brains are mercifully wired to dismiss a lot of once-monumental information in order to make room for more useful adult details like who will make a trustworthy partner, when rent is due, which vodka is actually good, and how to stay alive in general.

It is probably a good thing that we don't remember all of the things that happened to us in high school, when many of us were so rabidly insecure that we behaved like lunatics, spending half our time desperately trying to be noticed and the other half hoping to not stand out. But I do think that being able to revisit these times is useful in that it resurrects a person you didn't know you were, someone you might actually be proud of, so you can reevaluate who you think you are now and maybe even better understand other people. Reading about times I was nervous but rallied and cheered myself on makes me appreciate Teen Me better, which reminds me to like Adult Me more and stop second-guessing my skills, and praise myself for doing the things I'm afraid to. If I can do this for myself, I should do it for others more often.

I mean, after all, they might really love "Sussidio" too, and that's okay.

mom of bad mom, revised

noreply@blogger.com (stephanie) — Sun, 08 May 2016 07:03:00 +0000

I wrote most of this for my mom's birthday a few years ago. Today I revisited & revised it thinking I might share at her retirement party, but we were laughing too much about this woman's shenanigans as lunch lady for 31 years for me to step in and squelch the mood with a Hallmark moment.
Yet I still want to put it out there, because she is pretty kickass and deserves the recognition.
________________

She's been a young mother, a single mother, a drag racing & dating mother, a working mother, a mother of two, a second mother to many, a mother-in-law, a grandmother.
 
We've done a lot of things differently through the years - I never did drag race anyone... - but I have never doubted the influence of my mom's example as a brave & decent woman.
 
My mom taught me
family is important, even if they can be embarrassing and exasperating at times.
My mom taught me
we help people whenever & however we are able.
My mom taught me
quality is key, in work + play:
we mowed lawns like John Deere and colored like Van Gogh.
My mom taught me
it's best to let go of things sometimes.
But when I say 'things' I mean hurt feelings and bad memories, because...
My mom also taught me
garage sales & thrift stores are far more marvelous than the mall.
My mom taught me
napping is allowed.
My mom taught me
ice cream is a food group and we should eat it often.

And my mom taught me
if something is valuable to my child,
it should be valuable to me.
There is a difference between time spent
and time invested.

My mom is extraordinarily full of kindness. I'm proud of all that she has accomplished in her life with astonishing graciousness. She's even managed to stay devoted to the Seahawks despite 40 years of relentless Cowboys fanhood by her husband & first born. I'm actually beginning to think she has willed the switch in talent between the two teams...

I should say it more often but again, my mom is one sharp, capable woman so I think she knows how awesome I believe she is.

My mom (plus me)
July 1968

in the presence of royalty

noreply@blogger.com (stephanie) — Sun, 24 Apr 2016 02:16:00 +0000

I have no idea how I got Prince's 1999 cassette, but I do know that it immediately became my favorite album. Favorite very secret album, playing directly only into my ears through the headphones of my knock-off Walkman whenever I strolled to the beach, mowed the lawn, or tried desperately to get a tan lying in my backyard.

I felt subversive listening to it; for 1983 small town me the songs were unbelievably naughty. But for all its overt sexiness, Prince never made me feel uncomfortable [except when I thought about my parents hearing the lyrics]. So I knew then for sure that sex was supposed to be a good, fun thing [that I would never ever discuss with my parents]. A couple years later I spent my babysitting money on the Purple Rain LP and fell in love.

Riding the bus home Valentine's Day in 1985, I heard on the radio that they had added another Prince concert for the next night at the Tacoma Dome, and there were still tickets available. I bolted from my bus stop to the kitchen phone, frantically found the number for our local ticket shop/t-shirt printer and called. They said one of their employees might have a couple of tickets to sell, check back in 15 minutes. My heart was pounding - the possibility of seeing Prince was 15 minutes away. Fifteen minutes plus whatever the cost was, a desperate phone call to my mom asking not only for permission but for her to drive me and my best friend 2 1/2 hours each way on a school night, and my best friend's ability to come with me away. I don't think I have ever been so blindly optimistic again in my life.

The tickets were $25 each. They were front row. My parents said okay. My best friend's parents said okay. It was a miracle.

Regardless of our love for Prince, my bff and I were hardcore stereotypical teacher's pet-type girls. So naturally we wore our purple sweatshirts. Over purple polo shirts. With our Normandy Rose jeans and loafers. I am not making this up; I feel slightly embarrassed and very sweaty just remembering our outfits.

It didn't matter how out of place we looked (seriously, no one else was wearing a sweatshirt. Of course.) - WE WERE GOING TO SEE PRINCE FROM THE FRONT ROW. Sheila E opened like a goddess, tied an audience member to a chair and danced & drummed around him in her sheer bodysuit, then it was time. Purple smoke covered the stage and filled my unsuspecting, willing lungs. I have a memory of Prince crawling across the stage at some point but I'm not sure when that happened. He changed clothes a few times, and I'm pretty sure he was shirtless at one point. My stomach felt wiggly, my breathing shallow, and not just because I was on the verge of heat stroke. We were pushed against the barrier fencing for two hours and I thought many times I would lose one of my shoes (honestly, what was I thinking? Loafers.) but didn't really care. It was the best night of my 16-year old life.

For the past 31 years, I have felt like I actually know Prince because of that concert. I believe he made everyone in that arena feel like they knew him. Each time I saw Prince in an interview, on an awards show, with The Muppets, I believed we had a connection.

Because he was miraculous.

upon finding myself unplugged for an hour

noreply@blogger.com (stephanie) — Sun, 07 Feb 2016 01:07:00 +0000

Written on scratch paper at Powell's in Portland, Oregon this morning while my phone was being repaired
________________________________________

I watched a woman in an SUV waiting at the light on 11th Avenue.
I thought she was zoning out like we all do at stoplights, her face expressionless. She could have been sleeping upright behind the steering wheel, with her eyes open. But then, I saw her lips pull down, her cheeks crumpled. I wondered then if she was lost in thoughts about someone - someone she broke up with or was considering breaking up with, or someone who had died. I know how that face feels.

I kept watching (it was a really long light) and saw her eyes brighten then, lips slipped into a half-smile. Maybe she was listening to a sad song on the radio then a happier one started. Or maybe she's listening to an audio book, I thought. Once I borrowed a cassette reading of The Phantom of the Opera for my long drive home from college. When I pulled off the highway for gas after a couple hundred miles, I couldn't remember passing any of the familiar landmarks; my shoulders were tense and my jaw tight from hours of being trapped in that story. The attendant must have thought me strange, a sleepwalker emerging from my car.

a few truths and a lie

noreply@blogger.com (stephanie) — Sat, 02 Jan 2016 21:37:00 +0000

I am not a resolution-maker. If I ever feel like changing something, I do it regardless of whether it's January 1st or the first day of school or my birthday or a Sunday night. I understand the desire to make a big production of starting New Habits and I did participate in the theatrics for most of my life, usually by buying a pretty new journal and writing lists of changes with a pretty new pen on the fresh pretty blank pages. After two weeks (maybe), that journal would be prettily collecting dust and anxiety on my nightstand; after a month I would stash it shamefully in a drawer and go on with my presumably failed life.

I finally realized, after years of suffering the little daily defeats of marriage and parenthood and teaching, that pressuring myself to Be Better on a particular date doesn't work for me. It's manufactured and bolstered by hype, and I avoid hype on principle - I wouldn't watch the first season of Survivor (but have watched all twentysomething seasons since), and though I love & live the idea of Carpe Diem, I refused it as a tattoo after finding 7000 versions of it during a Google search. Also, I'm pretty terrible with deadlines. Of course, I could resolve to be better with deadlines but that just makes my head hurt. I can do deadlines that are meaningful to other people - contributing to an IEP before a meeting, submitting grades, attending a party on the day it's happening - but trying to tell myself something needs to get done by a certain time? I am a totally insensitive jerk.

I've decided, partly because of those little daily defeats in life, piling on specific tasks so clearly unpleasant that I've ignored them most of the year is cruel, even for an insensitive jerk. After some reflection, anxiousness, depression, and counseling, I decided I'd check in with myself a few times each day to find out what I needed to feel, well, better. Better = calmer, content, connected, productive. Sometimes I need to do a specific thing (usually for other people/effing deadlines), sometimes I eat a little chocolate stashed in my desk, sometimes I play John Mayer loud, sometimes I take a nap, sometimes I startle my children by hugging them in the hallway.

I no longer make random resolutions at the end of a year. Instead, I make about 95 mini-resolutions every day, with immediate deadlines, and - I'm happier.

Carpe every damn diem.

reflection

noreply@blogger.com (stephanie) — Mon, 07 Sep 2015 02:46:00 +0000

Having lived almost a half century now (THAT'S FUN TO SAY), I'm a little surprised at how many things I'm just coming to terms with. Letting prepositions land at the end of sentences is one thing, but here is another.

Dropping my husband off at the airport for a business trip will never really be fun.
First of all, a shocking number of people wonder why I 'even bother' and whenever they express this I consider why I do it. Obviously (I hope? I guess the Potential 2nd Husbands list seems a little suspect to some...), I like my husband and want to spend as much time with him as possible [except during football season, because a) he would rather be in the garage and b) he doesn't fully appreciate how passionate I am about my team. I digress]. But I sometimes wonder if I insist on taking him because of a subconscious concern about our relationship; I have strongly identified with When Harry Met Sally... since its release - am I worried that not taking him to the airport will say something about us?

Anyway.

Every time I do it, I focus on the fact that PDX has great shops (Powell's!) and a beloved Coffee People so after he leaves I can get fun gifts and books and sit with a delicious non-Starbucks latte in blissful peace. But really what I do each time is have a pastry with my man, staring & talking about anything inane until 15 minutes before his boarding time, not-awkwardly walk parallel to him as far as I can while he goes through security, try not to cry or take 100 weird blurry photos, then wander through the stores feeling melancholy and spending far more money than I should even at Christmastime. "Coming to terms" with this so far simply means admitting to myself that I am sad when he leaves, no matter how many clever things I buy, and avoiding looking directly at any other people dropping off or picking up loved ones; airports are drowning in tears and I am not yet old enough to fully immerse myself in the poetry of this.

Maybe when I hit that century mark.

wish lists

noreply@blogger.com (stephanie) — Fri, 31 Jul 2015 00:00:00 +0000

A Very Special Rerun from Winter 2010

When I was a kid, my mom bringing home the Sears Holiday Catalog felt like getting ONE MILLION DOLLARS dropped into my lap. For a few delicious hours, I could have EVERYTHING I EVER WANTED [that was sold at Sears]. I went through it in three calculated stages - first, dog-earing pages featuring anything I was remotely interested in. Next, I dreamily reviewed those pages and used a broad-tip, exquisitely toxic black marker to circle those items I actually thought my parents might buy for me. Finally, I neatly wrote the item descriptions & quantities of everything I truly desired on notebook paper and if I desperately needed something (like the popularity-enhancing matching Shaun Cassidy pants and t-shirt), I would cut out the catalog picture and glue it on the notebook paper next to its listing. (Got the t-shirt but not the pants and, sadly, popularity remained static).

I still relish the idea of creating wish lists - for everyone, not just myself; sometimes I add things to my kids' Amazon lists because I am certain they simply did not think of asking for Star Wars trombone music or a German pencil sharpener but would really love getting it.

Today, with less than 3 weeks until Christmas [yes; try not to panic], I am designing lists of gifts I wish for certain people who inhabit my world. If I had a Sears catalog, I would cut out pertinent pictures and glue them on notebook paper, too, for emphasis.

For My Husband:
A personal (volunteer) masseuse; freedom from worrying about his hair loss; long, straight stretches of radar-less highway for driving his Cobra; a wife who spends as much time cooking, cleaning, and performing other domestic duties as she does composing hilarious Facebook updates

For My Kids [beyond the sheet music and school supplies]:
The ability to believe your parents when they tell you what remarkable traits + talents they've noticed you developing; a pause button for the universe when you need to take a few extra breaths and compose a coherent response to the girl/boy/teacher looking at/talking to you; the capacity to hold onto all the memories of your best lunch conversations and after-school meet-ups and momentsthatfeellikecenturies in the hallways

For My Friends:
Long periods of uninterrupted time to spend with me, drinking tea and other beverages, eating delectable foods, and talking about everything that brings us joy (and a little snark); more memories of their favorite things - watching kids growing & acting & making music, volunteering valuable skills, traveling, baking, reading in silence, writing future Pulitzer Prize winners

For Fellow Teachers:
The energy to keep delivering knowledge + wisdom + care; extended moments of quiet; time to thoroughly enjoy the activities that you love as much as teaching but give you a tad more peace of mind; unlimited back rubs and frequent spa days

For Our Students:
Warm, comforting places to be outside of school; the solid belief that we teachers love and value them regardless of their backgrounds, faults, and occasional attitudes; visions of a positive future

For Some People I Shall Not Name:
Clarity, honesty, self-awareness, humility, and more than a touch of class & tact in certain circumstances [everyday life]

For My Readers:
Continued good taste in blog material; time to indulge in simple pleasures as well as a few extravagant ones; more opportunities to meet up with your favorite people, in real life and from cyberspace

~ To all, blessings & best WISHES ~

mental health, deconstructed

noreply@blogger.com (stephanie) — Mon, 13 Jul 2015 18:22:00 +0000

Today I decided I wanted to start yoga again. This is what that decision-making looked like in stages.

I awoke with 1st husband at 5:30 a.m. He told me to not let him back into bed because he had a lot of meetings today; I considered getting up with him to get some tea, write, and do some yoga but instead turned to diagonally occupy all bedspace and fell asleep again.

Husband woke me with a kiss when he left for work at 7:00. Imagined getting up to have tea, write in the quiet, do some yoga, then went back to sleep.

Awoke at 8:45 to text from 1st husband saying our new bathroom tile would be here tomorrow rather than the projected end of the month. Texted back "Wow, great!" and thought about going downstairs to do yoga. Ate some chocolate from my nightstand and perused Facebook instead. For two hours.

Got out of bed because back was aching, decided doing yoga would really help, went downstairs and poured a tall cup of ice water [after considering the merits and downsides of various other glasses and bottles in the cupboard]. Emptied CD player of other CDs to put in meditative CD of instrumental classic rock songs, wondered why we still own, alphabetize, and use 600 CDs instead of our 7000 hours of digital music. Cleared coffee table of last night's tea cup, wine glass, chip clip, empty Cheetos bag. Decided to vacuum coffee table drawer along with the impossibly plain always-littered brown rug where I then put my Wii balance board and yoga mat, instantly creating the need to vacuum again. Turned on Wii, discovered balance board batteries dead. Ate more chocolate, recycled old batteries, found new. Resisted urge to change from pajamas into yoga pants and sport bra, closed blinds, sat down to document this morning on the blog I've neglected for seven months.

Message : For any boys (or girls) from my junior high/high school days who lamented not getting any dates with me, thank your lucky fucking stars. Because sometimes this whole thing happens out loud.

Now, I'm going to do some yoga.

something far away

noreply@blogger.com (stephanie) — Sat, 24 Jan 2015 18:43:00 +0000

The second time I visited Singapore, in 2006, I flew alone the twentysomething hours to meet with my husband who had been there for a week already, working. I had plans for our time together - botanical gardens, night art festival, tour of Christmas lights, visiting an old Catholic convent and Snow City, lots of eating & drinking & taking probiotics. We did all of those things, and they were wonderfully memorable (partly because of how much we sweated through every outing). But like with most vacations, the mundane can become the sublime, too, if you're paying attention.

I wanted to wash some clothes during our stay and after an hour-long adventure in miscommunications with the hotel staff - plus one confusing trip to a restricted area - I realized there was actually no place in the building where I was allowed to do it on my own, and the hotel service would cost somewhere in the realm of the US national debt. So Stu & I took a cab with our two bags of sweat-soaked garments to the mall and handed them to the old woman at Washy Washy, an even hotter place than the sidewalk outside, where the only area not taken over by clothing was our space at the counter. It felt a little scary considering I had only the outfit I was wearing and maybe one more left in my suitcase at the hotel, but my husband had had good luck here the week before. The old woman smiled & nodded at Stu like they were old friends as she grabbed our bags, pulled at a few items on top, then tossed them to a corner full of other bags, shouting in less-smiley Chinese to a worker. We had to prepay our 22SGD, which was so significantly cheaper than the hotel rate that I once more doubted I'd see my clothes again.

We had lunch at the Hard Rock Café (because, Americans) then shopped along the main road. I considered replacing all of the clothing I'd just handed over to Washy Washy but settled on just one Esprit shirt and a cute long denim skirt that ended up being very difficult to walk in.

I'm pretty sure I slept fitfully that night, worrying about whether I'd get my clothes back, if they'd be wearable (I had a feeling no one was looking at labels about dryer heat recommendations), if I would have to spend my teacher pay on a new wardrobe. But when we returned to the launderer, the old woman smiled & nodded in recognition and went right to our bags. Everything inside was clean and folded with care, nothing was missing or misshapen or shrunken; in my relief, I left an embarrassing tip.

I tried many times to toss out the receipt for our laundry but something kept it in my wallet. Every time I saw it, I remembered how much I loved Singapore (despite the breathtaking heat) and I felt accomplished somehow. I felt like an adventurer, finding a way to get something done without taking the easier, expensive, tourist way. I realized later no one at Washy Washy had spoken English, yet we did great business together.

I hope I can go back someday.

me today

noreply@blogger.com (stephanie) — Sat, 03 Jan 2015 20:55:00 +0000

With Mark Wahlberg and the spirit of Adam Yauch, in my classroom trying to catch up + get ready for Monday.

I love my job teaching teenagers, but 'love' is a funny word. In our Poetry class, we call it taboo; instead of telling, show what love looks like. Feels like. Smells, tastes, sounds like.

So.

This is what my love looks like : a bulletin board next to my desk filled with handsome men and thoughtful quotes and notes from students, and an old laundry receipt from Washy Washy in Singapore; I bring what makes me smile, sigh, wistfully remember and pin it to my periphery for inspiration and joy and relief. My love also looks like tables arranged for seeing each other, a raised eyebrow, hands in the air, faces awake with thinking or furrowed with disagreement or blank with confusion trying to be alleviated. Sometimes it looks like eyelids fighting sleep because that's how life is, for all of us.

This is what my love feels like : the shaggy velour pillow against my back in the desk chair, the push of tacks and squeeze of binder clips, a swipe of Lip Rescue, the smooth glide of Flair pens on papers, tension fading in a student's shoulder, breath catching in my throat during a discussion, the empty-building concrete cold that settles in my fingers and under my socks on days like today.

My love smells woody like pencil shavings, floor cleaner sharp, deliciously acrid like playing school in 5th grade with markers that made me lightheaded, Tropical Sorbet spray when the paper mill stench stretches up the hill, and meadow gardeny when I slather on hand cream at the beginning and end of every day.

Love that tastes like black tea sometimes hot and sometimes lukewarm, fast lunches, secret chocolates in my desk drawer & stale emergency crackers in another, salty smoked almonds for sharing.

And this love sounds like my IHeartRadio New Order station (Van Halen on Fridays), the daily grind of a pencil sharpener, a whirring projector, scraping chairs and teenage voices negotiating for seats, maybe loud, maybe quiet from the edges, powerful words put into powerful sentences, "Good morning, Mrs. Spencer" and "Bye, Mrs. Spencer, have a nice day."

I love my job.

yellow, for sam

noreply@blogger.com (stephanie) — Fri, 02 Jan 2015 17:14:00 +0000

This print belonged to my mother-in-law. After she died I decided I would like to have it, not realizing until I brought it home that it exactly matched the walls of our bedroom. I keep it above my nightstand and think of her every morning & night.

Sam championed just about everything I did - after not killing her son with my reckless driving out of the dorm parking lot where she stood meekly waving goodbye one sunny Pullman afternoon in 1989. She did not like it when I considered myself not good/smart/capable enough so she often praised my sense of style, my decorating skills, my writing, my teaching, and later my mothering. It took awhile for me to believe her but then I realized, she was not a woman who wasted time or energy with lies. Whenever I start to feel not good or smart or capable enough, I remember Sam's earnest face and I can hear voice telling me to just get moving. Try. Stop wasting time.

Spirit.

oxo

new year sky

noreply@blogger.com (stephanie) — Thu, 01 Jan 2015 17:52:00 +0000

"I made no resolutions for the New Year. The habit of making plans, of criticizing, sanctioning and molding my life, is too much of a daily event for me." ~ Anaïs Nin

Start a marvelous 2015, friends