Workin' Girl

I caught Amaya with her hands down in the toilet this evening.

My first reaction: FREAK OUT.

And not in the good dancing kind of way.

The, "What-ARE-you-DOING?!-That-IS-SOOOO-YUCKY!-You-are-so-weird!!!!" kind of way.

She turned her head to me, and said, "Mommy, I love you." And smiled so sweetly.

Oh. My.

My girl already knows how to work it.

She doesn't know how to read letters or numbers, but she's fluent in people.

Poem

I'm having a hard time with the title.

I thought I would post this here, because I have some amazing students. And these amazing students actually helped me edit this poem.
Usually I'm really irritated with my students (every year) because they have a hard time being critical of writing. SO, I gave them something they couldn't wait to tear apart. My own poem.

I was surprised to find that they did a good job. Not because they don't write well. Because I actually made this into a way better poem because of them.
It still needs some tweaking, but I like how it's turning out.
They didn't like the word "crackling." But I couldn't find a suitable replacement. Poet's license I guess. Everything I came up with made it sound more and more like cereal.

Poem

When we argue in the car,
soon we fall into a silence
backlit by wheels spinning over concrete
~
~
~
air slips around our encased contention
the tunnel cuts the radio transmission
into a tune of electric chafe

Your head is facing the angle of the windshield.
You are watching the lines in the road
making their paths out of the dark.

I wonder if the direction of your face
Means you are waiting for my reply,

Being alone, together, crackles in my ears.

We’ve had this moment before
In many pieces

~ We’re standing in a wind, cliff side,
the waves cresting white over rocky pieces

~ hiking ahead of you,
clouds heavy in my rasping breath

~ our running soles scraping concrete,
a lopsided beat, at night

the static
scratches
my thinking.

Creative Cat

When I was in elementary school I put a lot of worth into the idea "creativity."

I think that was the buzz word back then. If you were creative, you were going somewhere, you were doing something, and you were somebody.

Funny how all of those things sound like somebody somewhere doing something else.

I often wracked my brain trying to find ways to be creative because I worried that I was not. I worried that the fact that I was wracking my brain meant that I was not creative, because creative was a gift that people had and it exploded out of them like a woman in labor. Sometimes you wanted to avert your eyes from creativity, but you didn't deny it either.

I think now that I am married to creativity, I know even better how creativity is like labor.

Difficult, inevitable, draining. And amazing.

Jake is on fire about 95% of every day. If he's lucky the other 5% is extinguished sleeping. His brain is on constant overdrive output. Creating is very different than explaining, assembling, or producing. It's that intangible idea that becomes tangible, abstract to concrete (and even abstract concrete). It's more than a plan and involves difficult manipulation to bring about, and I think the key here is that it IS created. Plenty of people have good ideas. Jake actually makes them happen.

We've watched more than a few movies about musician, writer, or artist geniuses. They're often on the haunting side, but they leave me with the strong feeling that Jake is in that category. He has the same need to create and work and love/hate his talent. Luckily for me he has worked very hard to put his fires under control, the ones that lean those geniuses to destruction.

Even luckier for me that I get to witness creativity in action. Jake is doing art, now, here. That kind of makes him a big deal.

Happy Birthday Jake.

Lent-Ish, Part II

Yep, it's that time of year again, that time you pump your fists in excitement for that grand ol' holiday....
LENT!

This year I chose to be vegan, for many reasons, the number one of which being that it's way better for you and for the environment, and since I believe that, I should definitely be doing something about it, instead of blatantly pretending ignorance.

Since I believe that, I should probably be doing it forever.

SIGH.

The jury's still out on that one. I kind of like Pollin's theory, the "eat vegan until dinner" thing, but I am aware of its hypocriticisms (did I make that up? Do I care? And do I really think 'hypocrisies' could do the job here? No...?).

I've learned all sorts of interesting things about being vegan. Care to hear?

1. You can still be totally fat on a vegan diet. Even when you have been doing the P90X workout plan for 3 weeks now, you can not even lose 1 pound. OH, yes, you all thought I'd start looking like Scott, but actually there are all sorts of fun things you can make and eat and still be vegan, the not least of which are OREOS. That's right. You heard me.

1.a. Oreos don't taste as good if you don't have regular milk to dip them into.

1.b. Newman O's are waaaaaaay better. I recommend peanut butter flavor.

1.c. You can even make vegan poundcake. I think I've been baking more than ever.

2. Soy yogurt? DEESGUSTING. Except for baking with. That probably should have been 1.d.

3. You are more likely to randomly stick a piece of spam in your mouth if you are trying to be vegan that if you are not. Just ask the billions of omnivores that don't live in Hawaii how often they eat spam. This is especially true if you are making musubi for your non-vegan family.

4. That being said, I haven't really missed meat.

4.a. Much.

4.b. Gourmet Magazine is so not vegan friendly. And they are so mean to rub your face in it.

5. When you eat vegan, you almost never eat until you are disgustingly full. Satisfied is a term I am now familiar with.

6. If I had been Jesus in the desert for 40 days, I would most certainly have given in. Good thing for you I wasn't Jesus. Lent might have been a tad different.

6.a. Today I not accidentally ate 2 twirls from Amy's boxed macaroni and cheese.

6.b. Yesterday I not accidentally ate some sort of dip that had either mayonnaise or cream. (you can't eat fried green tomatoes DRY people!)

6.c. I have accidentally and not accidentally had animal products at least a handful (or several handfuls) of times over the last 30 days. And I am scheduled to eat normally for Jake's birthday (his request) as well. I maintain that I have pretty much been entirely vegan. I did not blatantly drink milk or eat cake or anything like that. Well, I did have a bite of one cake. Okay, so I did not eat any meat. Except that one time at Robin's. But only that ONCE! I don't think I had cheese.

7. You can eat a LOT of vegetables and not feel full.

8. There are almost no vegan convenience foods. Which is good and bad.

9. Agar agar powder is ridiculously expensive.

9.b. There are a lot of strange products for vegan cooking (mostly baking) that I now have a lot of.

9.c. Granulated cane sugar (regular sugar) is not vegan. Neither are nestle semi-sweet chocolate chips. I guess you can chalk those up to the not-accidental eating I've been doing. I've learned more about sugars than I ever thought necessary.

10. I'm cringing a little bit at the idea of going back to normal.

Mean Mommy

Things that are making me into one mean mommy, today:

1. 2 peed underwear.

2. 3 half-hour sessions of sitting in the bathroom because she said she needed to poop. Instead she just spends her entire time distracting herself and poking anything within reach and singing.

3. 4th session, I decided to let her sit there by herself, after putting her on the toilet because she starts her "secret pooping" hiding under the table and I think it must be time. I come in 2 minutes later to check on her to find her sticking her finger into the toilet water and licking her finger.

4. 5th session, after a firm talking to and a spank for licking her fingers, I come in to find her LICKING THE TOILET SEAT.

5. 6th session she initiates on her own. Totally exasperated and annoyed about the whole thing, I've given up even paying attention to her needing to go to the bathroom.

6. 7 seconds later, seriously, she comes out and plops herself on the carpet, bare butted. Then she moves to the couch. I am busy cleaning the floor from her widely dispersed musubi from breakfast. This is when she notifies me: "I pooped!" I look up. Look at her sitting on the couch, and run to the toilet to check.

Yes. She has pooped. And YES. Rice dispersal seems hardly noticeable in comparison.