This week I'm seeing why I tend to read less these. It's a combination of ambitious (for me) reading plus getting overwhelmed by life and kids.

A weird thing happened when I got pregnant and had Molly: I lost a lot of my interest in romance novels. There was no conscious thought process involved, I have no good reason for it, I just find I don't care as much about romantic stories. The romances I've read in the past year or so have been parts of a series where I already knew the characters and wanted to see what happened, more than I wanted to vicariously experience the romantic tension and falling in love. Saying this, I may dip in again sometime soon and see if that's changed, but man, isn't that a weird, possibly hormonal, reaction?

When I (mostly) stopped reading romance novels, my go to quick and satisfying read was gone. Romance novels were books I'd pick up at moments like this (it's early morning, my kids both have screens). While I love the biography of Montaigne I'm reading and I'm getting a lot from the book on ADD, I don't have it in me to focus on either of those while interrupted by various cereal and yogurt requests and "oh god don't jump off of the back of the couch" moments. Those aren't grab a page or two here and there books. They take longer, I read them in actual quiet moments in bigger chunks.

Now, I do read other things, and there have been books in the past year or so that I would be reading right now. It's mostly science fiction and fantasy. I'm just slower to start them, because it takes a little bit more of an effort, both in the choosing and the getting into the story. Right now, I'm also reading through Y: The Last Man, but graphic novels are also something I don't tend to pick up when I'm hanging out with the kids.

It seems to me that I need to be quicker to choose my next fiction read if I want to be reading more. I think I'll do that this morning, but first I need to put a game disc in and probably play babies with my toddler for a while because she's done with her screen.

One of the random mental things I do sometimes is consider what things I really ought to do every day. It's one of the ways I grapple with feeling overwhelmed--I think, okay, leaving aside all else and ignoring what will happen on auto-pilot, what should happen every day. Here's my list:

1. Dirty laundry consolidated, washed if there's enough for a load, and put away.
2. Kitchen cleaned.
3. Work email answered.
4. A few specific work tasks that I won't list.
5. Litter boxes clean.
6. Exercise of some sort.
7. Pick up the living room and kitchen areas.
8. Bed made.
9. Plan and cook dinner (with planning done at some point before, say, 5 PM).

Of these, I tend to get the kitchen and litter clean most days, I make my bed before I get into it at night, and I always get through at least some portion of work email (though it's been a while since I got through it all in one day). I plan and cook dinner more often than not (but go through bad streaks), and I rarely stay that on top of laundry, though I wish. Exercise is another thing that happens in streaks of good and bad, and I tend to be consistent within a streak (I know if I get started, I can stick with it for a while, but I get into ruts). I tend to pick up the living room unless work is really busy/overwhelming or I have to run a lot of errands.

Frankly, I am better at this sort of every day thing than I am at projects, which is a result of having a pretty standard ADD brain that likes everything broken down into manageable chunks (break the projects into chunks, yes, I know, but projects are finite and, er, let's not even get into this digression today). This is probably why I think about things this way. In my ideal world, I'd add these things to my list:

10. Read something challenging for 30 minutes a day.
11. Write for 30 minutes a day.
12. Clean the house/work on house projects for 30 minutes beyond the basics in the first list.

My actual job obviously plays into this, but we're talking ideal world, and work projects tend to be a different beast than other parts of life, with external, other people focused motivation that works differently than whatever drives all the rest.

I have a REALLY hard time with those last three things (10-12), and in the long term I'd want to spend more time than that on the first two. Once in a while, I'll take a shot at adding them in to my life, but it always kind of peters out, and I know that it's because that stuff is based almost purely on internal motivation. Everything on that first list has strong external motivation for me. Numbers 10 and 11 are about me and my own personal development, and number 12 is about a larger kind of satisfaction with my own house (and seeking a sort of smooth running that I feel we lack). Those things are harder to wrap myself around, and they always have been, but oh they lurk.

How about an update?

Watching

The Librarians is an utter delight. I'm at the end of the second season, and there were Doctor Who references, and it's all about narrative and stories, and it's cheesy good fun.

Supergirl is also a delight, a nice antidote to the current political climate.

Reading

Y: The Last Man. I'm still not sure about this. It's weirdly sexist in places, but it's beginning to acknowledge that the characters are flawed, and it's developing layers, and I'm going to keep going with it for a while. I like that it's a slow build.

Scattered. This is a book about ADD written from an attachment theory perspective. I went into it looking for advice for myself, and I'm finding that it's got me thinking a lot about how much my parenting matters to my kids--not so much the overarching theories and goals, but the moment to moment warmth and kindness. There was a lot of neurophysiology stuff that, I admit, blew past me, but now we're getting into parent-child relationships and how they're shaped by circumstance and I do find it interesting.

How to Live. This is a biography of Montaigne structured as a series of answers to the question "How to live?" I'm loving it but it's making me mad at myself for not remembering books very well. I should be taking notes (hence this little bit of writing, probably). Right now, I'm at the part about Montaigne's travels, and it makes me want to read his secretary's journal of some of their journeying, even if it is in part about poop and kidney stones. It's also making me interested in philosophy again (I almost had enough courses for a minor in philosophy in college), and I've enrolled in a coursera intro to philosophy course. This book is very, very well written, extremely compelling for the material. I'm about 2/3 through it right now.

That's it right now. I'm trying to read a lot more than I have been, because I swear, not reading feels like leaving a part of myself lying by the side of the road.

Social Media

Still I waffle. Still I log into Facebook and Twitter over and over, and still I feel like it's either a waste of my time or a complete overload of information. I think a lot about how I kind of hate being instantly accessible, and being on social media means that any piece of information someone drops goes right into my face. With text and such, I also feel like I'm supposed to respond quickly (and I get so irritated about this expectation), and that's even worse, but Facebook and Twitter are a kind of instant accessibility, a way that I am confronted with everyone's thoughts. Even though I can choose what to follow, it often feels like way too much for me.

So I experiment here, for now. I'm a little bit at sea with my writing, whether it's journaling or other stuff, so this is me throwing things at the wall to see what etc.

Check in at the end of 2016

This has been a shitty year in many ways, but this month I've found myself reflecting on how my own mental health is so much better right now than it was a year ago. I still grapple with some anger, resentment, and loneliness that resulted from what really must have been intense (and externally exacerbated) post-partum depression, a time when I also felt like nobody was there for me. But, let's be clear, last December I cried at least once a day, and this December I think I've cried once. I'm doing alright. It's a huge relief; I can't be the only person who feels like they're going to be depressed and anxious forever when in the throes of it.

This week off from work, with the kids and Melissa home, has been a good one. I've read a lot. However, I've also realized that I didn't read many books last year. I'm not even sure I hit 20. Who even am I? I am determined to read more, which is not a resolution, but a "oh my god what the hell." This week, I read the first volume of Y The Last Man which, enh. I read Carrie Brownstein's Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl, which was good, but I am still thinking about some of it. I'm almost through the first volume of Bitch Planet, and I am going to keep reading the whole series if only because of the scene with Penelope and the mirror that shows her as her ideal self, which brought fierce, intense joy to me. The rest of it is perfect, too, but oh that scene.

I have had a lot of energy around the house. I've finally cleaned out the utility room. I've replaced almost all of the handles and knobs in the kitchen. I cleaned out several drawers and cabinets; my kitchen is happier and easier to use. And I've been cooking a lot, far more than usual. It's all grounding me, making me feel more like this is MY house. I do this thing where I feel like I have to respect past owners, kind of self-efface, not respect my choices enough. Just as an example, this week (after four years here) I took off the "meat" and "dairy" stickers from when the previous owners, who must have kept kosher, lived here. I did this with the garden in the last house we lived in; I never felt comfortable making decisions there that didn't respect the work of the person who built the garden, all while my lack of investment in the thing was contributing to (though not creating) neglect. This yard is more of a blank slate, happily, and I am planning, planning, planning, and hoping this energy and investment holds up. I feel more free about this stuff than I have in a long time. Maybe it's brain chemistry. Maybe it's consistently getting more sleep. Or maybe it's that my toddler is over two and will play by herself for more than a minute at a time. Possibly it's all of that.

I'm feeling fairly done with Facebook these days, which is why I'm posting here. I'm trying not to be too judgey and cranky about it, but I have all of these feelings about fake news, real news and how I'm confronted by it, and how things get passed around over there and, also, about connections with people and the value I place on them. I've always said that I can't hate Facebook because of how it lets me stay in touch with so many people I'd lose otherwise, but I don't know. Are facile, shallow connections worth it when I'm not willing to put in the effort for more? Or is it keeping a tenuous thread between me and some other person so when I am willing to put in the effort, it's still reasonable? There's also how stung I've been to see people that I thought loved me vote for things that are actively damaging to my rights.

I don't know. In any case, here's a blog post. Hello, end of 2016.

On small southern towns

I know you, Southern Small Town. I KNOW you. I see you posting nasty things about transgendered people molesting children while you dither about how you know Uncle Joe touched cousin Jill's little girl inappropriately but nobody talks about it and the little girl seems fine these days so maybe it's okay to invite Uncle Joe to Thanksgiving anyway. I know you and your conspiracy of silence around rape, around sexual abuse, around mental illness, around every goddamned thing that's ugly. I KNOW YOU.

You know it, too. You know that it's not transgendered people in bathrooms molesting your children. You know goddamned well that the super butch "macho" guy standing at the door or the slick dude at church is more likely to do shit like that--to molest, to hit, to lie about it--than the transperson in the bathroom. Because, like I said, I know you. I know you're not stupid, despite what mass media would have me believe. Because I grew up there, too. I know how strong you are, I know how blisteringly smart you are or can be (some of y'all are stupid, but that's your own fault, and there's stupid in cities, too).

I also know how afraid you are. I know how, in a small town, you can't put your foot down without risking losing your whole social network. I know how important it is for you to conform--to post about Jesus, to post about how Obama is ruining the nation, to post about transfolks being dangerous--because it's always safer to be conservative in a small town like where you live. I KNOW YOU. I see you. I know that if you lose your friends, life will be miserable. I know. You can't just go out and get new ones, in a small town, not easily.

I'm still appalled at your utter failure of compassion, though. I am constantly horrified. I left my small southern town for some very good reasons, but I am still shocked, I still thought better of you, I really did. I am stunned that you can think about someone who feels wrong in their body, who goes through something that I have to imagine is difficult and terrifying, this transition from man to woman or woman to man, and think "what a horror show" rather than that poor person, who had to deal with that. Who had to risk their whole social world (where's your compassion for that?) so they could be true to themselves, so they could live out this life, this only life we get, as happily as possible. The more I think about this, the more horrified I am, the more I start thinking nasty things about what's made you this way. What is WRONG with you?

I see you. I know you. Be better, goddamn it.

I’m irritated this morning about, like, life. How do I describe this?

I’m annoyed that the lotion in the bathroom at work says “stress relief” on it, as if some lavender scent will relieve stress in any real way, and more than that I’m annoyed at all of the products that are supposed to help us cope with this life, right, where most of us are not really following dreams and are instead getting through days and weeks. I’ve long been annoyed at beauty products (she says, with make-up on her face, mind you, let me not pretend I’m immune), but today I’m annoyed at all of it. All of the soporific nonsense, from homeopathic idiocy to McDonald’s, all of it designed to calm us and soothe us and prevent us from thinking too much about what’s real and what matters the most.

I’m annoyed at myself, for letting so much time trickle past me while I do things like look at Facebook and not things that I’ve deemed important to my happiness and to having this short life contain something that I feel is worthwhile.

I’m annoyed at the shortness of life, and at everyone who’s ever tried to claim that our lives “burn bright” or “mean more” because we’re not immortal. I love some Doctor Who, but shit, give me a long life and let me see if it’s actually tedious, because I don’t believe it for a second.

I’m annoyed at myself for my distance from people that I love, at how I don’t work harder to connect. On the one hand, fucking Facebook surely doesn’t seem like the answer, but on the other, when I turn off Facebook I feel more alone. I don’t think social media is entirely pointless and empty, but it’s not the same as sitting down with someone, sharing a drink, writing a letter. I’ve felt isolated a lot in the past year.

I’m just irritated, feeling some kind of weird itch I can’t scratch, and what I have to do right now is get some work done, work I feel disconnected from, and here I go, without any kind of conclusion for you. Escaping isn’t right, but carving out meaning in all of this isn’t easy. 

Points

"Iron Man is our goal keeper."

Henry’s favorite thing to do right now is to hit a pitched beach ball with a plastic bat. Here, he missed the ball and it went down the steps.

“Mama, you scored a goal!”

“How many points do I have?”

“One!”

“How many points do you have?”

“One hundred!”

--

Henry loves word play right now.

“Iron Man, Iron Man, gently neighborhood Iron Man. Spider hat, spider hat, gently neighborhood spider hat.”

--

Together, with Henry on a slight delay: “Spiderman, Spiderman, friendly neighborhood Spiderman. Is he strong? Well, listen bud, he’s got radioactive blood.”

--

“Mama, let’s sit and have our snack. Can I sit on your lap? Can you check your phone and see how much time we have left?”

10 books and the rest of my life

My friend Kevin asked, on his Facebook, which ten books we'd pick if we could only have ten books for the rest of our lives. I've been writing a bit again, and I keep meaning to post here, so why not start with something as silly and random* as my overthought answer to this question.

Kevin gave no rules, so I made up my own. Basically, I am assuming there is no apocalypse for the rest of my life so I don't need a lot of guidebooks, that omnibuses are allowed, that I can still find facts and how-tos online but am not allowed to read books online, and that I can't say that my kids can have infinite books and I'll just read those.

If I could only have ten books for the rest of my life, well, the first two are obvious to me, because I’ve found them infinitely re-readable**:

To Say Nothing of the Dog, by Connie Willis and

Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen

The next is also obvious, it's 

The Complete Works of Shakespeare

because it will be there to allow me to dive into language and stories and I do believe Shakespeare is the kind of thing with so many levels that I can’t really appreciate it all in one lifetime.

Another omnibus would be

The Chronicles of Narnia, by C. S. Lewis

Because I want to read them to my kids, even with the allegorical nature and the lack of Jesus in my life. They were so important to me as a child.

I’m saving one spot for the third book in Rothfuss’s Kingkiller Chronicle, whenever it comes out.

Grimm’s Fairy Tales, because duh.

The Bible, because there’s a lot there to read, and it informs a lot of literature and thinking in the US. I don’t know enough to say which version I’d want, sadly.

Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott, because I think she’s wise and because I want something about writing on this list, though if ever forced to make this 10 books choice I will probably dither over this one.

Plenty by Yotam Ottolenghi, because I want one cookbook, and that’s the one I want. It hits my cookbook buttons—excellent food, pictures, and text.

The last slot I will save for something that comes out later. It might be another one from Connie Willis (though, oh god, what if it was like Passage rather than one of the good ones), or maybe something else, but I want one slot free for aspirations and possibilities.

*Is it silly and random, though? Or is it the most important question of my life?
**The runner up in this category is Possession by A. S. Byatt, and I would probably dither over this if forced into this reality.

I don’t often give parenting advice. I feel like parenting is a messy business and that most of the people in my little social world seem to be doing a great job, even though many of us have wildly different styles.

However, one thing that gets me a little, I don’t know, fired up, is when I run into a “rejected” parent online somewhere who seems genuinely put out that their kid sometimes pushes them away. The context is usually a non-birth mother in a lesbian couple (which is what I am), and I chomp at the bit to tell them how to cope with it. This little essay is me giving in to that impulse.

I have a lot of experience with rejection from my son. A lot. He’s three, and he’s still (very minimally) breast fed, and it so happens when I am writing this essay, I am in the middle of another period of extreme rejection, probably caused by the fact that his birth mom also carried him practically everywhere when we were on vacation a couple of weeks ago. Moments ago, he explained to me that I wasn’t allowed to play Legos with him tonight because he was going to play Legos with his other mom. I was supposed to go cook dinner.

Which is to say that I have some experience in this area. Three years of it, to varying degrees. I am here to share my limited wisdom with you.  I really don’t claim to know any capital-t truths about parenting, but I might know a couple of small-t truths. Here are a few things I sort of know.

1. Your job is not to be loved by your kid, your job is to love your kid. That’s where your focus belongs
2. You cannot take it personally.
3. Seriously. You can’t. Your infant is a small, weird animal who doesn’t even think yet. He or she reacts to smells and heartbeats and familiarity. Your toddler is a bundle of hormones and chaos and nonsense. Rejection from a small child is essentially meaningless, unless you imbue it with meaning.
4. This one deserves some extra hedging, but I have found that the best way to get my kid past one of these phases is to spend a whole hell of a lot of time with him. I take him out alone. I sit on the floor with him whenever I get a chance. I pay attention to him and not my phone. Doing this consistently, really engaging with him, helps a lot. Almost always. This can be especially important with the smaller children who are still breastfeeding a lot, because it is inevitable that a breastfeeding infant will spend more time with the parent with the magical boobs, and that time spent matters. Sometimes it is going to be hard to have alone time, because you have to get through a lot of fussing, but surely, certainly, you can think of ways to get your child past the fussing, rather than just giving up and going, “Well, he just hates me, that’s why.” Babies don’t hate anybody. Babies like the sound of rain and breezes and songs and textures and silly faces and rhythms and, god, you know all this, don’t you? Put in the energy. You have to make up for the lack of magic in your boobs.
5. Play the long game. Sure, your kid might tell you that you’re not allowed to play Legos with him at three, but when he’s older he will remember that you cooked him a million dinners and patiently got him dressed most mornings and went out of your way to pick him up early from school. This really just goes back to number 1, up there. Your job is to love your kid, not worry about how much he or she loves you. You’re in this forever. Act like it.
6. Sometimes, at the end of a bad day, your kid is going to go, “NO GO AWAY” when you try to sit down with him or give him a hug or otherwise spend time with him. And you might burst into tears and have to retreat for a little bit to cope. That’s normal, or I hope it is. The sadness will pass. You can complain on Facebook or eat some ice cream. I understand. Believe me. It’s okay. I’d never tell you not to feel this way now and then.

That’s the sum of my advice, based on my three years of periodic rejection by the world’s cutest kid.  Maybe it’ll help a little, or maybe you’ll roll your eyes and go “she thinks these little monsters aren’t manipulating me? she probably doesn’t believe in gender essentialism, either.” But that’s another essay.

Very short reviews of a few things

The Lorax is a far better movie than you might imagine. The songs are brilliant, the animation is excellent, and it's got Betty White. I think it's true to Seuss's vision, too.

I often do not like spiced teas very much, but I very much like the Christmas blend from Tin Roof Teas. I am normally very skeptical about statements like this, but: I am starting to think it's just that I don't like spiced teas I can get at the grocery store.

I did not very much like the 2005 version of Pride and Prejudice when I first saw it. I was all, "Keira Knightley is no Lizzie Bennett!" and I was annoyed at all of the smoldering and the lack of humor. I still feel that way a bit, but last night I watched the end of it again, and you know, it's a lovely movie. It's very slow and pretty and the guy who plays Darcy isn't all bad, and the Jane is actually better than the Jane from my favorite version, which is the BBC miniseries. However, Colin Firth will always be my favorite Darcy, and Jennifer Ehle has a sardonic, cool edge that Knightley lacks and needs for playing Lizzie.

Endless Alphabet is the best iPad app we ever bought for Henry. The Toca Boca apps are also fantastic.

That is all.

"There are books that one reads over and over again, books that become part of the furniture of one’s mind and alter one’s whole attitude to life, books that one dips into but never reads through, books that one reads at a single sitting and forgets a week later."

--Books v. Cigarettes, George Orwell (found at Breathing Books)

I miss language. I used to be the sort of person who memorized quotes, songs, and poems. I once had a friend with whom I could have conversations composed entirely of lyrics. I kept a list (online, even!) of everything I read, and I was so very pleased with it, even though I never did come up with a rating system. My major in college was linguistics, and one of my minors was French, and along the way I took a lot of philosophy and literature courses, all in the service of my love of language.

Somewhere along the way, my reading habits changed. I still read a lot, particularly for the mother of a toddler, but at some point I stopped being the kind of person who would randomly pick up a book of letters or poetry and joyfully, slowly browse to being the kind of person who plows through books like bowls of popcorn. I have such a hard time slowing down to appreciate what I’m reading on any level other than that of the story, and that makes me sad.

I’d say I’ve regressed, but hell, even when I was a child and teenager, I would write quotes down and tape them to my bedroom wall, just because the language pleased or tickled me. Sure, it was mostly Darkwing Duck and Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy up there, but these quotes stuck in my mind due to the way they were said, the language used. As I was watching The Grinch this Christmas, I recalled how I loved the ridiculous names of all of the toys as a child and wanted to write them all down and memorize them. Most of what I read these days does not stick. Romances, in particular, all blur together in my head. I will defend them, and I will keep on reading them, but I will never claim that I am reading them for the lovely language and not for the ever-present romantic tension. The language in my chosen romances is not bad—I’d probably have a hard time reading them if it was—but it is only scaffolding for story and character, and not special in itself.

It’s not that I never read anything but romance. I do. It’s that I don’t savor what I am reading, or at least if I do, I only manage once in a great while, little glimpses of wonder that keep me trying.

I am forever deciding that it’s time I started reading more classics*, and as I’ve thought about my resolutions while leading up to this New Year’s Day, I have been wondering why I am so obsessed with this idea. I am often uncomfortable with this drive, because I feel like it has a little bit to do with what I think of as bourgeois-esque academic striving, and that’s not a motivation that feels comfortable to me.

As I pick apart my reasoning, though, I can recognize that my motivations are complicated, and a strong reason to read more highbrow literature is so I can find more beautiful language, language that really resonates with me and helps me get a little bit clearer on who I am.

And that’s really what this is about, isn’t it: Remembering a part of myself that I miss, but also getting back to figuring out who I am, particularly in the context of this life with my family, because I think, no matter the reason, it was about when I got serious with Melissa that my luxurious reading slowed down. It’s possible it had to do with that slight shuffling of self that happens when you are mingling your life with someone else’s, but this should not have gotten lost in the shuffle.

This stuff, it’s a form of prayer for me. Careful reading, my love of words, is one of the ways I tap into the loveliness of being alive and human and part of the world around me. Stories are another way, but I am pretty sure I can never lose that, even if I tried.

All of this said, I have two resolutions for the year ahead. One, I am going to read five books from this list. Two, I am going to keep a careful list of everything I read, rather than (possibly in addition to) using Goodreads. Goodreads is all well and good, but I want something I own. It might be a private document, or I might stick it online somewhere. If I do, I'll come back here and link it.

How about you? What are your plans for the next year? Tell me what you're going to read.

*And I never get very far, though I do try. In the past year or two, I’ve read about half of Don Quixote, a handful of the Federalist Papers, a bit of Herodotus, and various portions of non-fiction books that aren’t classics but do have to do with economics. I did manage to finish How to Read a Book in my 30 minute portions, which I find somewhat hilarious.

Being a Mom (Part 1 of god knows)

Earlier today I tweeted that my working mother guilt is at an all-time high, but “guilt” is not the right word. It’s sadness. It’s that I am sad that I have to send my child to daycare, and today I am sadder than I usually am.

For whatever reason, Henry has become more affectionate, particularly to people who aren’t Melissa. I suddenly have a little boy who wants to cuddle, who wants to hold my hand when I’m walking next to the stroller, and who wants to ride in the car with me when I’m just running out to pick up pizza. This change has brought me a world of joy, but it means that I also have a little boy who does not want to be parted from me when it’s time to go to school in the morning.

When I say that I am sad, I mean that it hits me in the gut when I see that one of his trains is parked on a windowsill in the dining room, that I fight back tears when I see someone at the library with two children about the size Henry is right now.

I am also confused, because this is one of those things that messes with my sense of self. I was at the library to drop off a couple of books and, as is usual for me, I stepped inside for a few minutes to wander around and see if any books caught my eye. As I was wandering, today, I thought about that fifteen minutes or so and how I could be spending it with Henry. Well, not that particular fifteen minutes, as he was almost certainly napping, but that fifteen minutes could be used to do work that I wouldn’t be doing later, so I could go pick him up fifteen minutes earlier than I might have.

Who am I, if I don’t occasionally wander through shelves, looking at books?

Who am I other than Henry’s mother?

That sounds like a nice, pat response, a clear answer, but am I a good parent without a sense of self? It’s not just about fifteen minutes. It’s about taking another fifteen to write this. It’s about quality of time spent, whether it’s with Henry or without him. It’s probably about not playing games on my phone, if I’m honest.

I’m still not really sure what I’m doing, as a mom. I still need to learn about things other than “attention and time spent fills him up and makes him happy.” I know that I do.

It’s not easy to integrate all of this love into my life, I guess I’m saying, but oh man, it’s so great to have this big thing trying to fit itself into my time. Oh, man, I am so lucky. Today I’m just lucky and a little extra sad.

Farmer's Market Week

Food is the one budget item that makes both Melissa and myself feel a little woozy when we look at our spending trends on Mint. Melissa’s threshold is a lot lower than mine, but when I see us occasionally spending $1200 a month or more on food, it makes me feel sick, too. We’ve approached this problem in many different ways—making a meal plan for the week works the best—but when life gets very busy or stressful, we almost always slide back into old habits of eating out too much and not being creative with the ingredients we have on hand, therefore also going to the grocery store too often.

Last weekend I went to the farmer’s market and ran into a friend who said, “Yeah, we do most of our grocery shopping here.” This re-ignited a fantasy of mine, a fantasy that was recently fueled by the book An Everlasting Meal, a fantasy where we do exactly what my friend said: We buy all of our food at the farmer’s market and make it work all week. This fantasy includes a trip to the regular grocery store every other week or so to get things like tea and other items you can’t get at the market, but the farmer’s market would drive our eating*. My own little theory about this is that if we buy food that is interesting and high quality, I am less tempted to do things like eat out or run to the store at the last minute to get something easy to cook.

I mentioned this to Melissa last weekend after I was home from the market, and she said, “Yeah, I wish we did that.” We decided that at the very least, we’d come to the market this weekend and do some of our shopping. A few days later, I suggested to Melissa that we make a pact: For just one week, we’d try getting all of our food from the market. If she’d agree to this, I wouldn’t go out to get food at all this week, including coffee. Melissa jumped on this because, I admit, I spend far, far too much on eating out and coffee during the week, and I am the one most likely to go to the grocery store randomly.

The usual problem with this plan is that it takes time to cook and prep food and keep it from going bad in the fridge (which happens all too often to farmer’s market bounty in our house). However, I have a little extra time right now, and will until classes start mid-August.

We spent $105 at the market on Saturday morning, and there is a list below of what we got. I have no idea if we’ve over or under-shopped, and I think it’ll be interesting to find out**. I have been eating the hell out of this salad for the past week or two, which is why there are beets, and Melissa made carnitas on Sunday, hence the pork butt. I also have plans to make some panzanella and possibly fattoush, as those are things I want to eat all summer, and an eggplant salad that I found in the Penzey’s catalog, which is a surprisingly good source for recipes.

Feta

Breakfast sausage

Bacon

Pork shoulder

Eggs

Lettuce

Sweet potatoes

Beets

Arugula

Basil

Parsley

Cilantro

Jalapenos

Red & green bell peppers

3 German Johnson tomatoes

2 eggplants

Loaf polenta bread

Loaf other kind of bread

Corn

Little potatoes

Onions

*An even better fantasy is having all of our vegetables come from the yard, but oh, we’re so far from this.

**Since I wrote this on Saturday (it's Monday now), I've leaned towards "over-shopped."

My thoughts on North Carolina's anti-gay amendment

For weeks, I’ve been thinking, “I ought to write about the amendment and how it will affect my family.” I will write something sweet and lovely, I thought, an homage to my family and to all of us normal gay people out there just living our lives. There would be baby pictures, because I believe that just to look at my child is to love my family; he is that beautiful to me.  I thought, I will include a lot of facts that are not along the lines of “you are ignorant and on the wrong side of history if you vote for this amendment,” but more like “unmarried straight couples with children will be hurt by this amendment, too.” I thought that would be kinder and gentler and appeal to more people.

 I thought I will write this, and then I will share the link, and maybe one or two people out there who are undecided will see this and will be persuaded to vote against the amendment. Or, at the very least, my post would fire up someone who would vote against the amendment but who might forget to vote because it’s not that important to them. It seemed worth it to do this.

I kept not writing, though. I mean, I am very busy, right, so that’s one reason, but this is important enough to me that you would think I’d find the time. I didn’t, though.

I’m just too fucking angry.

I’m not easy to anger. In the midst of an argument a few weeks ago, my partner told me, “You never snap at me.” I don’t. I am much more inclined to disdain. I don’t get fired up. My version of anger is to sneer a little then pretend I don’t care until I’m over it.

This anti-gay “pro marriage” amendment, though, this has me full of rage. I haven’t done it yet, but I can’t guarantee that I won’t key your car or slash your tires if I see an anti-gay bumper sticker on your car. I have started thinking of people who speak out for the amendment, or have yard signs letting everyone know how bigoted they are, as “trash.” This—a word that has certainly been applied to my family more than once, a word that has caused many an eyeroll when spilled from the lips of random Carrboro/Chapel Hill liberals who secretly yet obviously hate poor people—is not an insult that comes to me easily, but I can’t think of anything else that fits. “Trash” carries the sense of worthlessness and irrelevance I want when describing bigots.

See, the difference between my kind of liberal and that kind of liberal is that I fucking expect you to be decent and act right, no matter how much money you have or don’t have. You don’t get the grace of “ignorant” or “uneducated” or “unworldly” from me. You fucking ought to know better.  I do. My mama does. My brother does.

A couple of paragraphs ago, I mentioned that my partner and I got in a fight. We do that. If I was in a different frame of mind, I might include that in a gentle little list of things that gay people do that are just like straight people.

But fuck all that. Fuck you, if you don’t have enough compassion and enough of a theory of mind to really get that most people aren’t that different from you, and that this truth is the basis of compassion and understanding. Something is wrong with you—yes, you are fucking broken inside and probably jealous and small and will always have a tiny, little, miserable fucking life--if you want to punish me for the way I choose to live my life. You can think I’m stupid and wrong all you want—I will do the same thing to you, particularly if you think your own private religious beliefs ought to dictate a single goddamned thing about public life—but do not try to fucking tear down my walls and tell me that I have no rights as a parent to my child or no rights as a wife to Melissa. Stay out of my goddamned life, and leave me alone, you terrible human being.

That’s why I haven’t written anything. 

Er. So. Feel free to share this with your friends. There’s a palate cleansing baby picture over here. Also, more usefully, if you want more facts and reasoned arguments about this, you should befriend my friend Nathaniel Grubbs on Facebook. He posts a lot of really great stuff, from a religious (Baptist, even) perspective.

A break from the internet

I never finished my travel stories from over a year ago and it feels really awkward to move on from that last entry without doing that, so let me sum up: Melissa got a terrible cold. We met Mel, a friend I'd known on the internet since I was 16, and that was cool. We visited the British Museum, which is my favorite museum of all the museums I've ever visited. Oh, we also visited the Tower of London somewhere in there, which was also extremely cool.

Are we good? Has some of the awkwardness dissipated? We're good if I don't even mention the baby we've had since we went to Europe? Great!

A couple of weeks ago, I posted this to Twitter: "Sometimes when I can't get to Facebook I have a small uplifting moment where I go, 'Maybe someone has destroyed it and we're all free now.'" Since then, I've asked myself over and over, "If I feel that way, why do I keep using these things?"

As you have probably guessed from the title, I am posting about the break from the internet I am about to take. "Why are you posting about that here?" you ask, very wisely, because it's not like I have posted here in a very long time and will be neglecting an audience if I take a break.

I am posting here because, see, I have a fantasy. I have a fantasy about a life where I do not hit the refresh button on my browser a thousand times a day. I have a fantasy where my free time is spent reading books that I love rather than rolling my eyes at the fifty utterly inane things my "friends" have reposted on Facebook in the past hour, things that weren't funny when they were first printed on cheap t-shirts in the 80s, or things about Jesus or Republicans or Democrats that get reposted due to some impulse that does not sit well with me, even when I'm the one who has done it. Where I don't have to put the word friends in scare quotes because my interaction with them is a little bit more meaningful and less dissipated through social media. Where when I read things, I read in big chunks and not little soundbites. Where I have time to think about something I've just read rather than flicking on to the next thing.

I don't think all social media is bad, or even most of it. But I am jealous of my time, and I have this fantasy. I'm posting about it here because, in this fantasy, my blog is the only place I post anything.

I've also been reading a book with a main character who reads constantly. She's 15. It's reminded me that when I was young, I read constantly, too. I took a book with me everywhere. I never stopped reading. I miss that. I still read plenty, but when I have a few minutes I am more apt to check my phone than I am to read a page or two of a book, and that feels somehow less true to myself. If I were about to die, one of my regrets would be "I haven't read enough books."

I don't know if everyone does this, but when I feel like this about something, I tend to make plans. How can I get from this fantasy to reality? I think. This is my way. Yesterday I sat outside (in the sunshine in February!) and wrote this list of rules down, and I thought about writing this post, and how it would be embarrassing to announce this on Facebook even if I was doing it just for accountability, and that thought made me want to do this even more, because one of the things that makes me most uncomfortable about Facebook is letting so many people back into my life that I was probably well rid of a long time ago.

The truth is, it's likely nothing would ever have come of this--who knows, really--because I am an old hat at making these kinds of plans, but I am also realistic and know that it's hard to break habits, and my flicking around the internet habit is very well ingrained. I usually make a plan like this and then carry on my merry way, possibly moderating my behavior a little bit, but nothing drastic. I tend to think that shaking things up too much can be stressful, and I do not need extra stress right now.

But this morning I mentioned my fantasy to Melissa and I said, "I was thinking about doing this until spring break, I probably won't, but..." and she laughed and said, "I'd be impressed if you did this for just one week."

Challenge accepted, I thought, and here I am. It's a good week for it, as I need to spend most of next week prepping for tests that are the week after, and I have a paper due. I am going to follow the rules I wrote down until next Friday morning. It may be unrealistic to think I could stay away from Facebook and Twitter until spring break, but hell, a week? I can do this. Right? I totally can. I've just deleted a bunch of bookmarks to make this a little more easy, and I went through Twitter and Facebook to remove all emailed notifications they might send. I'm about to update Goodreads since I finished that book last night. I'll post a link to this post at both Facebook and Twitter. Then I'm out, at least from a lot of things.

If I like it, I might keep right on until spring break. If it's a nightmare, well, I'll quit. And hell, if it's making me completely crazy in two days, you'll see me around in the usual places, because it's not worth it if I can't get anything done.

Our Christmas Vacation: Day Eleven

Our vacation has been a whirlwind. We knew it would be, and we are okay with that, but that makes it a little bit like a week long summer camp with some European cities--you know, where you don't really get to know people, but you feel like you do, and the strength of those brief friendships sticks with you for a long time after? Paris is the guy at the pool that I have a huge crush on; London is the girl in my cabin that I stay up with late and whisper about the guy at the pool.

Our hotel is half a block away from St. Paul's. We went to the evening service there tonight, and we toured it earlier today. It was a Connie Willis tour, because we are nerds, and we stood in front of the Light of the World and thought about Dunworthy and I swiped the order of service and thought about Polly and I wandered through the crypt and wondered if the fire watch slept down there (no, actually, I'm told they mostly slept on the main floor). St. Paul's is, beyond our nerdiness, an incredibly beautiful cathedral. We couldn't take pictures inside, however.

After visiting St. Paul's, we walked down to Trafalgar Square for the New Year's Day parade. We got rained on and only saw a bit of the parade before we gave up and got lunch, then went on our own little walking tour of London. We saw Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, and Buckingham Palace.


Then we went to Hyde Park, which is partially a Christmas wonderland.

I went there in part for the Christmas festival, definitely, but the real reason for going to Hyde Park was because of, er, well. The--um. How can I say this?

The reason I had to go to Hyde Park is because of the regency romances I've been reading. So I wandered through the winter wonderland and then sat with Melissa on a bench next to the Serpentine.

I tried to convince Melissa that we should have a spat, after which she would go home to her study and think about how infuriating I am. Then in the course of her musings she would realize that she was in love with me and devise an excuse to call on me the next day, and we'd make out in a parlor with a slightly open door. And I would feel feelings I didn't quite understand, but by the end of the book, I totally would.

We just came back to the hotel, though. Melissa is, unfortunately, sick as hell. We've gotten a bit pathetic near the end of our travels--too much standing outside in the cold and rain, I imagine. I am feeling a lot better, but my feet perpetually hurt. Melissa can barely breathe, she's so sick. I am not exactly sure what we're going to do tomorrow--the plan was the British Museum so Melissa can look at more old stuff, but museums wear us out more than anything else, so maybe not. We're just going to see how she feels when she gets up.

Which is not to say that if she wasn't sick I could have convinced her to have a spat and some drama with me, but let me preserve my dream, okay?

Our Christmas Vacation: Days Eight and Nine

On Wednesday, we went to the Louvre. Everyone always says that you need more time than you can even imagine for the Louvre, and it's very true. I sat in the hall of Italian paintings and wished, very hard, that I could spend a whole day there. Three days. With an art history book on hand. Then I'd do the same thing for the next area. It was amazing, and overwhelming, and I don't know quite what else to say about it. Do you want to see a few pictures, instead? Yes?


It was crowded but not horrible, and the Mona Lisa room was hilarious, and there are all of these random staircases that I think they just put in to weed out the weak.

I want to go back to Paris. Before very long.

We made it back to Brussels without incident--everything is easier the second time--and today, forgive me for complaining, I seem to have done something to my back. I hope it's just my back, and not something internal. I hurt. It sucks, and it's stressful to potentially be sick and not at home, and so we have taken it very easy today. I am sitting on the couch with this laptop, watching a re-run of last year's Doctor Who Christmas special (sadness!), and drinking a lot of water and hoping I wake up tomorrow pain free. We're leaving for London early-ish, and we have plans to see St. Paul's tomorrow after we get there.

Our Christmas Vacation: Day Seven

There are two things that I really love about Paris, so far. One, nothing here is ugly. Granted, we have mostly stayed near the center of the city, but even today, when we ventured out near the end of a metro line, I didn't see a single ugly building, or even a rigid, glassy, modern building. It's not just the buildings though; the metro signs are pretty. The street lamps are pretty. Even the traffic lights are lovely.

Second, and related to that, is the fact that Paris wears its personality. You know that person you knew when you were younger who seemed to choose to be a certain type of person, and they dressed a certain way to present themselves as that person, and you knew that it was a bit of a put on but you didn't mind because it worked, and it was so lovely? That's Paris. Paris says: I am artsy and graceful and self-aware. It's not just the old stuff; it's the shop signs and little chalkboards with meals written out and the awnings. I am not quite conveying what I want to say, I bet, but basically: This place is so pretty, and it works at it, it's genuine.

Nowhere else has that self-awareness been so strong as in the catacombs, which we visited today. We were going to go to the Louvre, yes, but it's closed on Tuesdays. We got turned around with days and thought it was closed on Mondays, but no. So we walked down there this morning and found it closed and traded today's plans for tomorrow's.

If you ever go to the catacombs, go close to when it opens. We waited in line for two hours today, because they only let a few people in at a time (200 max.). It was cold and my feet hurt and Melissa was grouchy that our Louvre plans were derailed, but we made it through and eventually they let us in and we forgot all of our misery. This is, possibly, a theme for our vacation--we struggle, we stress, and then we get somewhere and it's all sunshine.

Before the catacombs was a place to store bones, it was a quarry. We climbed down many stairs--130ish, I believe--to get to the quarry*.

The quarry itself was neat in the "we're walking through a tunnel under Paris" way, but the catacombs? They were amazing.

There was a sign above the entrance to the catacombs that said, in French, "Stop! This is the entrance to the empire of death."

Seriously! See what I mean about a city that can set a mood? There were signs all through the catacombs like this, little snippets about death and what it means and how one should feel about it.


There were also plaques like this one all through the catacombs, letting us know where the bones came from. When we saw a few for Les Innocents, I asked Melissa how well she remembered her Anne Rice. Les Innocents is where the crazy vampires lived, if you remember. If you don't, well. I understand. We did notice that many of the people in line with us were Americans--we heard more English on this line than anywhere else on this trip. I explained to Melissa that it's because we all read Anne Rice when we were teenagers. I'm sure that's why.

For dinner, we went back to Chartier.

We made a huge mistake for dinner last night. We were both very tired of bistro-y food and wanted something warm and starchy and comforting, so we decided to get Italian. It was, truly, the worst Italian I have ever had. The Italian I make at home is far, far better than this was. We are certain that the sauce was jarred sauce, and my pasta was cooked poorly, and the waiter was rude--the only rude waiter we've had in France was in an Italian restaurant, yes.

So tonight, we played it safe and went back to Chartier. This time, I had leeks vinaigrette and steak and frites and I got a half a bottle of wine and it was a perfect last dinner in France. Again, our waiter was great.

Now we are back in our hotel room, which is warm now because we asked for help and got a space heater, and soon we will sleep. Tomorrow morning, for real, we're going to the Louvre, then back to Brussels to hang with the cats and let our poor legs and feet rest.

*If anybody reading this has issues with heights and stairs like I do (I used to call it vertigo, but it's really just an extremely bad, physical reaction sort of fear that was born in Peru on a mountain, I suspect**): The stairs aren't that bad. There's a hand rail. They're lit, and not that deep. Going up is not exactly fun, but it's also fine.

**I have been thinking about this a lot, this trip, and yeah: I think I'm just so afraid of heights at this point that my legs kind of lock up in certain situations and I have a hard time descending--poorly lit stairs, escalators, really deep stairs, and when I'm extremely tired. I was never like this until I was in Peru, on various mountains, and had altitude sickness. I am trying hard to get rid of my fear on this trip, with a bit of success. I only just realized that it's probably not anything physical, and is all in my head.

Our Christmas Vacation: Days Five and Six

Our hotel room is cute, but it is so cold. I am sitting here in my scarf with pants and longjohns and a sweater and another shirt and two pairs of socks on, and I am still cold. The only reason I got out from under the blankets, where I had retreated when we got back to the hotel, is that Melissa talked me into blogging and whispered to me about how I love the internet. I think I was leeching out all of her body heat and this was an act to save herself. She has very advanced defense mechanisms.

Yesterday, I must tell you, was obnoxious. I mentioned that we are housesitting? Maybe? Anyway, we are caring for a lovely house and two cats in Brussels, and we have the use of our friends' car while we're here. We decided to drive down to Paris, park outside of the city, and take one of the RER (suburban line, basically) trains in. Which sounds like it really ought to be easy, but one, we couldn't really park long term at the first station we got to and two, Melissa was briefly stuck in snow at the second (and final) station we got to. This doesn't really convey yesterday's stress--it was really about being in a strange place and not exactly knowing what you're doing and where you're going. All of the little things, like not being sure what signs say and how to pay at the gas station and whether or not the toll booth will really take your credit card like the internet says adds up to, when one gets stuck in the snow at the end of all that, a little bit of a fit.

We made it to our hotel, though, without anything truly going wrong. We are staying at the Hotel de la Cite Rougement, which is in a pretty good location between Notre Dame and Montmartre. Not that we're necessarily going to Montmartre. We haven't decided yet.

After we got here, tired and grouchy, we looked around and said "Paris! We're in Paris!" and it was all okay. I decided our frigid hotel room is romantic, because it's on the top floor and the ceiling is slanted and we have a window that is pointed towards the sky. It's like a nicer version of Sara Crewe's attic. For dinner, we went to Chartier, where we had a nice enough meal and, despite warnings, a nice and funny waiter. Melissa had fish. I had beef tartare. We are both a bit bistroed out at this point, to be honest, and we're going to have Italian for dinner tonight. I came here with big food ideas, but I've realized that great food in France might have more to do with offal, and meat in general, than I can handle. However, I still have some pastry and soup eating to do.

Today was absolutely not frustrating. It was cold, but lovely. We walked down to Notre Dame down the rue Montmartre, with two stops: One for a coffee and a chocolate croissant, and the other to take the following picture.

I'm glad we rewatched the first Harry Potter movie the other night, or I might not have noticed.

Notre Dame was lovely, of course, but the audio tour? Sadness!


I was clearly spoiled by the audio tour in the cathedral in Cusco. That was a great audio tour. It set a mood and it was informative without being dull. The one for Notre Dame was all blah blah liturgical blah popes archbishops blah without many details about the art. Still, lovely place. Our pictures of the interior are horrible, though.


Shakespeare & Company is right across the street.

It's my kind of place. I didn't stay long, because it was crowded. I also didn't buy anything and--I couldn't say why, actually. What the heck? Shopping paralysis strikes again.

After lunch (onion soup for me, croque-monsieur for Melissa) and Shakespeare & Co., we took the metro to the Eiffel Tower, then we walked along the Seine, holding hands. We do not hold hands often, but in this case it was required. Even if it was below freezing and the Seine is totally overflowing its banks and we were trying hard not to slip on the ice along the path. C'est romantique.

Today's great French success: Asking an employee at the Carrefour around the corner if they had fingernail clippers and having him understand me.

Tomorrow, we're going to go to the Louvre. We've dedicated the whole day to it. We weren't going to, but we kind of can't resist. And it's supposed to be sleeting all day.

ETA: We have obtained a space heater from the front desk. Oh, I hope it heats this place up.

Our Christmas Vacation: Days Three and Four

I like churches at Christmas time (though, to be clear, that picture is of the royal palace).

I am not religious in any real way, but I love Christmas. It is, to me, the sanest reaction to winter--you bring in lots of greenery, you light things up, you spend time with family, and you eat hearty food. I really hate the cold, and Christmas is my antidote. I was probably pushed along into these feelings by The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, with the whole "always winter and never Christmas" thing. What an effective way to let us know how awful the White Witch was.

A winter holiday is something I think that societies with winter have had in one form or another for a while. The traditions I was brought up with involved songs like "Away in a Manger," so you'll understand when I say I like well done nativities. We visited the Cathedral of St. Michael's and St. Gudula yesterday, and my favorite thing was all of the nativities set up by different groups in the city. The archaeological thing in the basement--I guess the ruins dated back to something like 1100--was cool, but the nativities and the Christmas decorations did it for me.


The reliquaries were pretty insane. Can you just imagine someone harvesting these things?



I think this is the head of St. Catherine. I can't remember--it was some female saint.

After we visited the Cathedral, we went to the art museum, where I am sure we saw a painting of whoever that last saint was.

I love going to art museums with Melissa. We alternate between trying to sincerely figure a painting out and making terrible fun of everything. We also agree on our approach: We stop for some things, but make no attempt to read every label or even look closely at a painting, and she is fine when I breeze through a room going "Jesus, Jesus, virgin Mary, virgin Mary, assumption, nativity, Jesus, Jesus, some saint, oooh look, some dudes playing cards painted by a Dutch guy."

Most of the pictures we have like the one below come from museum trips, when we sit down for a break. This one is no exception:

Today, we stayed home. We had originally planned to go to the Christmas market in Brussels, but it snowed a few inches last night and we didn't feel entirely safe driving, so we decided to have our Christmas dinner today and tromp around in the snow a bit. Melissa made a pie. It was amazing.


We also had a turkey breast, roasted cauliflower, green beans, and potatoes. It was lovely.

Do you want to see how deep the snow is?

Crazy stuff. Brussels doesn't usually get nearly this much snow, for what it's worth.

We are currently on the couch watching the first Harry Potter, and I really ought to be paying more attention to the movie and to Melissa. I hope we make it to the Christmas market tomorrow! Wish us luck, and I hope you have a wonderful Christmas.