my life in compartments

years ago in college, i remember one sunday driving with my (gay) friend andy. i had to drop off a cassette i had borrowed at a (platonic) friend's house. it was a newspaper friend, glen, and he lived in an odd house in a church parking lot. we went in, chatted a bit, and left. i guess my easy rapport with glen threw andy for a loop.

"i can't believe you have friends i don't know about," he said. "this shocks me."

"why?" i asked.

"because you are always with us," he said. "i had no idea."

this pleased me to no end. once again, i had kept worlds from colliding.

i have been doing this ever since i can remember. and i thought i was the only one until a few years ago.... a single fellow at work used to be very private and mysterious about what he did after hours. the girls at work would all tease him, ask him if he was dating anyone, why so secretive. i have two worlds, he said. work and not-work...and never the twain shall meet. i began to see there were more like me.

in high school i had my friends i had grown up with, and i had my alter-ego life that included misty, a friend who drove an unmarked police car, and cindy, my friend whose dad sold pot out of a garbage bag from their living room. we were good girls but we did like to go to clubs and hear bands play. and dance. and perhaps once in a while egg or toilet paper someone's house.

in college it got a wee bit more complicated because i had my high school friends, then my newspaper friends, and then my core-group of coolest-people-to-ever-walk-the-planet friends. i still did not want any crossover. because to me it was like having a plan B and C. like if one group didn't work out, i had something to fall back on.

flash-forward years later to me about to get married. and in planning a wedding i realize that four very distinct groups will collide: my mother's conservative church friends. my redneck relatives who have no filters. my rowdy college friends, also lacking filter and sometimes clothes. and my husband-to-be's filipino relatives.

this was my worst nightmare come to life. these people, all in one room, with alcohol. with me as the center of attention. and all that i could see myself taking from this coming together of peoples was a migraine headache and the mother of all culture clashes. no, this must never happen, this was the very reason for which elopement was invented.

and now for many years my worlds have not collided. and that is pretty much because they have all but ceased to exist. when you are busy shuffling off to swim team and baseball and scouting events, your world once again closes in and becomes rather small. manageable. aligned. until the internet invents something called facebook.

and here is the catch-22 of facebook: all the people you have ever met/known/seen/spoken to show up and want to be your friend. they all show up and look at your life, spy on your words, or maybe they participate and get in a facebook quarrel with someone they've never met. maybe someone who has loaned you a wig gets mad, threatens you and deletes your friendship. the praise-god christians show up to help you with your life. do you think i am kidding? sadly, all of this is fact.

it is, hands-down, the biggest intergalactic collision of worlds i have ever seen.

and now my worlds consist of college friends. old newspaper friends (from a real newspaper this time, not the college one). some cousins. and the PTO. yes, i know, it sounds like snoozer categories on jeopardy. and which of these does not fit? oh well that would be the PTO. they are lovely people, but they are not to be invited to the wedding. and by PTO i mean pretty much anyone associated with my kids' lives. they are in a compartment all their very own. i adore them, i see them everywhere i go, and that is why i do not need to see them every night on my computer.

i need my peace and quiet. and that quiet you hear? that is the sound of my worlds not colliding.

farrah and michael: sadder still because they were tragic figures?

leave it to michael jackson to upstage farrah and steal her last moment in the spotlight. but as one radio announcer pointed out, MJ is getting all the attention because his death was sudden and unexpected. farrah's was not.

i got overly sentimental about farrah last night after watching the barbara walters special on 20/20. but not because i was a huge fan -- although i do have happy associations with her, the 1970s, and charlie's angels -- but because she went from this beautiful girl to a caricature of what can happen when you subscribe to hollywood's prescription of plastic surgery, pills, and people who are not good for you.

this is how i like to think of farrah:



not this:



and not just because she's older. i love it when people age naturally because then you can see some semblance of their younger self in their face. to me, in the last few years her skin looked stretched too tight. she no longer had the huge magnificent smile.

i think it's tragic that her one and only child is a drug addict in jail. i think it's awful that her partner, ryan o'neal, was arrested for doing meth with his own son. she had a rocky relationship at best with ryan, but it is terribly moving that they showed up for each other in later years when they both faced serious health problems. he was at her side when she passed, and his words about it ("she's gone. she now belongs to the ages") were perfect. a perfectly tear-jerking story that is all too real.

and michael. the very definition of hollywood tragedy. the very worst things that can happen when your parents pimp you out and no one is there to be your safety net.



my kids see pictures of michael jackson now and ask why does he look like that. why did he try to turn himself white. why does he look like a girl. what happened to him.

in no way would i ever give him or anyone a free pass for molesting children, just because some terrible things may have happened to him. but who were those parents who let their children go to his home? and let them spend the night? they are just as much a monster as he was, if not more, because they knowingly put their child into danger and left them there. and for what? a possible lawsuit? a good time at neverland? please. there's always enough blame to go around.

i love his music, and so does most everyone i know. he just got progressively weirder as the years rolled by. he lost complete touch with reality. and i can't help but think that at least now, his three kids might have a better shot at some normalcy. depending on who gets them.

i don't think his death is tragic. i think his life was tragic. and sadly he'll be remembered just as much for his dark side as his fantastic music. that's the price of immense fame. a lion's den but as many free passes as money can buy. and it can buy a lot.

RIP farrah and michael. you need the peace.

scout camp photo essay

this is the first day of scout camp. myself and my younger son, little brown bear of raccoon eyes, are waiting for instruction on how to succeed in archery. i know from past experience that you are doing well just to not land in the dirt or sail it over the target. i tell myself it is much like darts, except with bigger, more cumbersome tools.




brown bear lucks out and gets a smaller bow. which could later explain why he gets two bulls-eyes and i get zero. that is my story and i'm sticking to it.




there is a long line of boards and, as you can see, plenty of arrows land in the dirt. i am so glad i was not an indian. i would have starved to death.




the older boys, the webelos, get more arrows and more turns. they have a few years behind them now and are not a menace to society with a bow and arrow in their hand.




...although that did not stop brown bear. he shot like a hungry man aiming at a charging bull.




and that is why he got the coveted mark of the expert marksman. there were fist bumps and high-fives among the kids, whether they knew each other or not, who hit their target.




next was something i'm more comfortable with, having been born and bred in texas. guns. or rather, bb's. this is most everyone's favorite station at scout camp. the boys have four days of shooting where they load their own gun, cock it, learn about gun safety, and fire. and not necessarily in that order.




a few of these little dudes have a lot to learn about gun safety. because while they are reloading they will aim the gun up, down, and all around. or they will aim at the wrong target. much like dick cheney.




there were frequent rehydration breaks for water, gatorade, or snow cones.




there was the making of slime. always a big hit, since it looks like jello but is similar to something you might pull from your nose. i wanted no part of this. our slime has since "disappeared."




the webelos (the older boys) ("we'll be loyal scouts") spent time each day building their own rocket. i was surprised at how professional they all looked. and inside each one is a tiny parachute that will shoot out once it is fired into the atmosphere.




this is my older son's rocket on the launchpad. he got to launch it twice. it was most awesome.




to infinity . . . and beyond!

trials and tribulations at swim team

i lost 10 pounds last night. i sweated it off in a puddle at a swim meet. four hours in direct sunlight can do that for you.

swim meets are insane. they last for hours. while your child maybe competes in four races, those four races could each be spaced 1.25 hours apart. let's say you have two kids. you do the math.

yesterday i was a timer. i stood at the end of a lane (lane 6 if you must know) and timed each child coming my way for hours on end. people, lane 6 is a slow lane. and many times there is no swimmer in it depending on the particular race. since it's an even number lane, it was our competitor's lane and i found myself rooting for them if only so they didn't place dead last in every single race.

some of the children will stop mid-lane, look around to see how the competition is doing, wave to their parents, and then they may or may not continue the appropriate stroke to the end. we are yelling, swim! go! you can make it! don't stop!

it is -- exhausting. yelling. in the sun. for people who cannot hear you underwater.

there are three timers per lane. everything goes really fast. well, except in lane 6.

when we had no swimmer, i would beat it over to where my kids were sitting with their groups waiting to be called. they write on them with permanent marker -- their number, their races, their heat, their lane. they look like a tattoo experiment gone really bad.



my older son, who is always surrounded by kids, has taken to saying "peace out yo" after everything he says. so basically i am playing straight man to his little comedy routine. excuse me, holmes? how did this happen? you don't think i know what peace out yo means? i play along, which means i basically ignore it, and his friends think it is hilarious.

here is a sample conversation:

him: "yo, mom, those pudding cups are awesome!"

me: "oh, you had one already? did you find the spoons?"

him: "there are spoons?"

me: "um, yes, how did you eat it?"

him: "with my mouth. (cue in friends laughter.) (cue in mom looking bewildered.) peace out yo."

okay. hilarious. my children are eating like dogs while i am sweating my buns off in lane 6. i rush back to my spot where i am working with a nice lady and man who forgive me for missing the starting horn, and also for thinking that last week since i was listed as "backup" on the timer schedule that i had the night off.

evidently, "backup" means you are there the whole time, starting your timer with each race just in case another timer misses the horn. because you must have three timers per lane.

sports just confuse me. there is not one single sport that i truly understand. even in baseball where it seems to be pretty straightforward, there are weirdo rules that i am still hearing about six years into little league. and it never fails that some poor person will ask me what just happened. and i always say, i have no idea. i just show up when they tell me to.

so in swimming there are four strokes. freestyle means normal swimming, on your stomach kicking your legs and moving your arms. that is misleading. because to me, freestyle implies that you are free to do whichever style you want.

then there's backstroke. the same, only on your back. i get that one. it's just hard to go straight.

breaststroke. your arms scoop up out and around. your legs do something that looks froglike and, i just learned this last night, they can under no circumstance show themselves above water during this stroke. HIDE YOUR LEGS. if there is a kick -- boom, you're disqualified. you get the purple ribbon. no one wants the purple.

and of course, the dreaded butterfly. anyone with any sense on this earth hates this stroke. it makes no sense for the human body to try and copy a dolphin. they are aerodynamic. we are not. it makes my back ache just watching the kids do it. everyone gets dq'ed (swim team lingo, people) doing this stroke at one time or another. we would like to know who invented this stroke. what drug were they on.

i had a smackdown with two 7-year-old's last week over the butterfly. there are relay medley's with four boys and each one does a different stroke. well the boy who did the butterfly got disqualified. so the whole medley team got purple ribbons. back under the tent, the boys were talking smack about the kid who did not touch the wall with two hands. yes, that's right, because the butterfly is not complicated enough, they throw in stuff like oh, you have to touch the wall with two hands simultaneously.

well, combine that with all the weird looking stuff the rest of your body is supposed to be doing (feet together, no kicking, just moving up and down like a whale tail) and your arms -- i don't even know where to begin in describing what your arms are supposed to do -- and it is a lot for a little kid to remember.

the kid who messed up the stroke had tears welling up in his eyes, listening to the other boys talk. and they wouldn't drop it. so i turn with my mommy glare and say, "okay guys, that is enough." they keep on. i step it up a notch. "do you know that you are on the same team? do you really just want to throw your teammate under a bus for messing up the hardest stroke? that is terrible sportsmanship."

they still do not drop it. i pull out my big guns. "where are your mothers? and are YOU doing butterfly tonight? because i cannot WAIT until you get disqualified so you will know how it feels." all the other parents in the tent, mainly asian, are very quiet. they see now that i am a crazy honky. two dads come over later and are very friendly. clearly, they are scared.

so later, the rudest of the two boys comes walking into the tent with a purple ribbon. he got dq'ed for butterfly. he announces that he got dq'ed for butterfly. i say, "oh really. not much fun is it." no, he shakes his head.

but the story has a happy ending. the boy who first messed it up and lost the relay race for his team got chosen "shark of the week." the other kids had to eat his bubbles.

peace out yo.

i'm a celebrity. get me out of here.

last night i did not sleep any better than the night before. there are several reasons for this. the first being the fact that i chose, at 11:30 at night, to begin watching my latest netflix. i thought that, like "golden girls," it would put me right to sleep. i was wrong.

secondly, there are rooms in this house that are like the sahara desert. my bedroom is one. while my son sleeps like a penguin in an igloo in his room, i feel like i am camping on a windless night in a safety hatch.

but thirdly, this is the reason:



the dog. for some reason she has taken to sleeping in the sahara desert also. which would be fine did she not howl, scratch, sigh, and stretch her legs all night long, tapping the wall each time she does so.

in this picture, she is trapped inside the condo that two children made for her. it has a sunroof, which was removed so i could see "how happy" she was inside. and being boys, they left a small hole for her tail to come out and, brace yourself, so she could fart. when i looked down at her, i swear she looked at me as if to say, "i am a celebrity. get me out of here." but they had blocked all exits so there was really nothing i could do to help her.

i used to be able to sleep through thunderstorms. or carpet installation. or massive amounts of dorm noise during college. but now, if someone catches their breath on the other side of the house, my eyes shoot open. what kind of cosmic joke is this?

and i love to stay up late. i like to be the last man standing. i love the stillness. the quiet. it reminds me of being a teenager and savoring those few hours after my parents went to sleep (usually around 10:30) to read or watch tv or munch on some oreos.

but now the next day usually smacks me in the face. the day cannot stand that i do not want to wake up with the birds. the dog wants out. someone is always trying to tell me something that i cannot comprehend having been dead asleep two seconds before. my eye mask is now covering the lower portion of my face like i am a bandit. i feel like a dog trapped in a condo.

don't you people know who i am? i need five more minutes. i'm a celebrity. get me out of here.

not for the faint of heart

i have never had the desire to jump out of an airplane. maybe a momentary desire if i was sitting next to someone who stunk or in front of a child who wouldn't quit kicking my chair. but to voluntarily jump? for the thrill of it? no thanks. i'd rather just sit right here and get a refill on my diet coke thankyouverymuch.

and i do not have daredevil children. or i didn't think i did until a recent weekend where we ran into this pie-in-the-sky tower that included a four-story rockwall and a zipline.

i had never climbed a rockwall. and since there was no chance in this remote location of running into another mom from school who could see me strapped into this diaper-like apparatus, i gave it a go. let me tell you something. it is a lot more fun coming down than going up. i was very good at coming down. i could push off the side and not flip around in the air. it's fun to come down. going up? not so much.

the little "rocks" are very small. they were not big enough for my size 8 foot. i kept looking for a reasonable next step up the wall. there was none. i made it about four feet off the floor. my fourth grader made it all the way to the top and rang the bell.

so next, the zipline. i've seen people on reality shows riding a zipline and thought it looked like a blast. it's the sensation of flying through the air while holding onto a rope.

it was high off the ground. very high. look.




i went twice. and both times i almost chickened out at the last minute. i asked the guy, who was all of 18, to double-check the harnesses. i asked what was the most weight it could hold. (300 pounds.) i asked if anyone had ever died there. ("not yet.") he thought i was a nut. i don't care, dude. i'm about to step off a ledge and just hope to god that this tiny cord holds me.

my older, very cautious son has no qualms about stepping off the landing. i am at once proud and doubtful of his decisions in life. we are way higher than the trees.




i had to get a picture of the two of them about to tandem jump. i think next time i jump i would like not just a helmet but full body armor.




and here they come, flying through the air.




the little one asked if we could perhaps get an all-day pass to the zipline. the answer to that would be NO.




i'd like to apologize in advance to my mom, who has now had to see these pictures twice, of her beloved grandsons flying through space on a tiny wire. this is why we don't tell you what we are doing in advance, mom. by the time you see this, you will know that we survived.

my summertime rules: break them at your own peril

it's the second official day of summer vacation and the need for new summer rules is quickly making itself apparent.

for example, this. the day that school was out was a long, crazy day. my older son was invited to go to a birthday party of a kid he barely knows. but the 14 invited boys were to be picked up in a stretch hummer limo. and go play laser tag. eat pizza. tool around town in the hummer. go back to the boys' house for swimming, games, and an overnighter. this was a red flag to me that the mother was certifiable. crazy. out of her mind.

and it was also another red flag. every other kid's birthday is going to suck eggs in comparison. so, thanks lady.

nevertheless, he went. i get the report back that the boy has two laptops in his room. that his room is "so big" that 14 boys could play hide-and-seek in there. yes, great, fantastic. i really wish i could now drive him through the real-life setting of "slumdog millionaire" to show him how the rest of the world lives. because while it is nice to have friends with more who share, these are not the values i am trying to set.

but i digress. i'll leave the sense of entitlement for another post.

i drew the line at spending the night, but we let both boys stay up a little later than bedtime since it's summer, after all. here's the problem with that. i have early risers. it does not matter what time they go to bed. whether 8:30 p.m. or midnight, they will be up with the chickens. and furthermore, i was delivered the gut-wrenching blow that summer swim team begins (four days a week) at 7 a.m. this is not good news for a night owl.

so the first day of summer, when i am expecting to sleep to a delicious 9 a.m. or so, i wake up to faces in my face at 6:06 a.m. they are asking me questions about who can do what on which computer.

SUMMER RULE #1: if you should get up at some ungodly hour before 7 a.m., i do not want to know about it.

with this rule firmly in place, i can now go about my morning fog unperturbed.

the next thing that i had somehow totally forgotten about was the abnormally large amount of dirty dishes. because they're home all day. because they graze non-stop. because as soon as you clean up one mess, they're back in the pantry.

it is things like this that can drive a woman insane. like, completely out-of-her-mind nuts. it's how a mailman feels. there's no end to the mail. ever. can people just stop mailing stuff for one damn day? no, they cannot. it's the hamster wheel of life.

so i suggested with great authority that they use one cup all day long. and i don't care if you switch from lemonade to water, just rinse it out and keep going.

i also suggested, with great affection, that they get their own damn food. exceptions to this would include things baked in the oven, which will NOT i repeat NOT be happening every day.

i further went on, with what i hoped was extreme kindness, that if they were to use tray tables they are now responsible for wiping them to my specs and putting them back up. so then the next rule reveals itself.

SUMMER RULE #2: get it and put it back up your own damn self.

next i decided to do a sneaky mom move. to take something that was already on the horizon but tie it to a goal. my kids are both excellent readers and i want it to remain that way. i don't want them to slack during summer. and besides, doesn't everyone just need a little daily time to chill?

so i told them that yes, we can go to schlitterbahn waterpark once they each read an age-appropriate chapter book. so i have also bought myself a little daily quiet time in this deal.

SUMMER RULE #3: read.

read and then tell me about it. read the book and then see the movie. or vice versa. read and don't ever stop.

so that's as far as i've gotten. three rules. but it is only the second day of summer vacation. and, what's that? what do you need? a tissue, a band-aid, some goldfish? your wallet, the ds charger, your goggles?

GET IT YOUR OWN DAMN SELF, i call, with what i hope is great love and affection.

for stephanie, who never stops bugging me to write, even when i think i've got nothin to write about....