9Oct

15.333485

Posted by: Bethany in Uncategorized 9 Comments

When I was 15, I loved filling out surveys. LOVED. Would happily have born their children, etc. I considered myself very clever too, filling out my age as 15.333485 and my eye color as “pond scum.” As was done back in those days, I circulated my very clever surveys to all my friends and chuckled to myself at what they would think when they read that my preference between chocolate and vanilla was “Hello, do you KNOW me?” (Chocolate and I had quite a reputation back then.)

Then I found maturity at the ripe old age of 15.792144 and destroyed all those surveys that I had poured all my very clever immaturity into. I became a… Meme Snob. The experience is not unlike discovering crème fraîche, fresh Asiago, and cavatappi al dente and then turning up your nose at Kraft Mac ‘n’ Cheese forever after. Only, sometimes, you still secretly crave the taste of orange powder and soggy noodles. Come on, ‘fess up.

Today, I found myself craving a soggy orange meme… and instead of ignoring it sanctimoniously like usual, I decided to be 15.333485 again and enjoy it. (Plus, I had nothing else to write about today.) This is for you, Kelly!

6 Random Things About Myself (why does it feel like I’m starting a 3rd grade essay?)

1. My favorite food in this or any other universe is fried okra. Which pretty much limits me to the southeast quarter of the USA. Oh, and Cracker Barrel! But sadly, Cracker Barrel has yet to set up a franchise in Italy…

2. No one can deny that I’m a disgrace to my Texan upbringing. I start to melt at 85 degrees or medium salsa, whichever comes hotter. I own neither a pickup truck nor a shotgun.* Country music fills me with fantasies of puncturing my own ear drums. Need I continue?

However, though I’m not officially admitting it, I often miss the landscape of Texas… Those rugged oceans of sandstone and grass that manage to look safe in their rampant wildness… Red bluffs crowded with stubby pine trees overlooking friendly fishing lakes… Fresh-baked prairie and wide open spaces in every direction… Those Dixie Chicks were onto something (country music notwithstanding).

—
*Nor a rifle, a pistol, an AK-47, a bow and arrow, a BB gun, a Bowie knife, or a rocket launcher. Though I have used all of them before. Yes, Unreal counts.

3. I have ten piercings, including three that have closed. My little sister, who got a darling sparkly nose stud at 14, owes me BIG TIME. At 14, I was going for double-pierced ears, which might as well have been nipples for how well certain parents of ours took it… but they’ve come a long way in the meantime, and my jewelry and I are willing to take full credit.

4. During breakfast, Natalie looks at the backs of cereal boxes, and I read sugar bags. Sugar comes with poetry in Italy (why not?), and here’s a particularly charming translation for your reading pleasure:

 “The Sugar in a Cup:”
Sweet as an enamored boy,
Candied as an unexpected kiss,
Light as a hug without end,
Simple as the waves of the sea,
Sugar is everything and nothing,
It is not, but it is present…
It hides in a cup,
Reappears in a bag, the sugar…

5. My hair in college went something like this:
Normal: light reddish-blond (I call it Irish)
BLUE
Blonde
Blonder
[Christmas break] Blonde of a strawberrier variety
Long
PERM (I know, but it was tasteful, plus it saved my life during those 4 a.m. hygiene sprints sharing a dime-sized mirror with 75 other girls in South Africa)
[Summer break] Cinnamon-apple red
Straight
[Convince best friend DeAnn to dye her hair, though her hair resists mightily] Longer
Honey-blonde
[Christmas break] SHORT
Dark Irish
Mahogany
[Summer break] Chestnut
Back to normal
Spiky fuchsia wig
Roasted chili red
[Future husband falls in love with me and vice versa] Shoulder-length
[Christmas break] Chestnut, round 2
Pomegranate blonde
Long
[Summer break] Longer
I’m-getting-married! red
[Wedding] SHORT
Just plain brown
With a touch of red
And then several touches more
[Christmas break] PURPLE (it was temporary, but still…)
Caramel
Blonde highlights
[Graduation] EXCEEDINGLY SHORT 

It seems that every time I get bored with The Way Things Are™ or just need a breath of fresh figurative air, I reinvent myself by way of hair. It’s the only viable option for me, really. I will never be able to tan beyond the shade of fluorescent white. I will never be able to afford replacing my wardrobe every few months. I seriously doubt I will ever have the time to go on a Pilates spree or a soul-searching trip to the Himalayas, though, um, yes please. I can’t change much about my routine with little ones to care for, and I can’t rearrange the furniture in our shoebox apartment. B
ut I can disappear into the bathroom with a little box marked “#556, Red Mahogany” and emerge forty minutes later a different person.

6. I am not afraid of heights… exactly. However, my hands begin to sweat profusely the moment I’m up high. Or when I watch a movie scene depicting someone up high. Or when I think about watching a movie scene depicting someone up high. For instance, right now; my palms are literally gushing as I type. It would seem I was not blessed with survival instinct.

—

I am a Meme Snob no more. Now please pass the Mac ‘n’ Cheese.

8Oct

Squandered Therapy

Posted by: Bethany in Uncategorized 4 Comments

The piano and I have a long history, a tabloid-worthy on again, off again relationship. I started lessons at five years old—I remember having to rest my hands on my teacher’s large doughy ones while she played… yeeeesh—and shortly thereafter, my mother took over. Mom was, and still is, a sought-after piano teacher. She’s great at it. But (you knew there had to be a “but,” right?), I was the one student who didn’t “click” with her methods. I learned to play quite well, but it was a lot like me potty-training Natalie: we got where we needed to get, but the journey was decidedly unpleasant.

At the first possible opportunity in high school, I swore off the piano. Years of unwilling sonatas and scales had left me bitter, hating the instrument and hating that I had the weight of my talent hanging over me for eternity. (Um, I’m ever so slightly melodramatic.) Every time I walked by a piano in college, it taunted me à la that guy who keeps popping out at Happy Gilmore to call him a jackass. “Hey there, yeah just walk to class as if you don’t see me, YOU SQUANDERER!”

But toward the end of my sophomore year, my lovely friend Q convinced me to play a song she had written for the Battle of the Bands. I didn’t entirely hate the feel of keys and petals for once. And by  my junior year, I was playing multiple times a week in a little campus band. It was fun, man, and bore no resemblance to those stuffy mathematical Bach compositions I had grown up on.

Word leaked out that I was playing again—I’m told my mom cried for joy when she heard—and my husband and parents conspired to give me an electronic piano for graduation. I was stunned, in a good way. Mostly. All except for the little urge to run. That poor piano has sat untouched for months at a time since I got it; I’ve worked on a piece here or there but mostly felt guilty. There is no way I could devote those necessary daily hours to practicing, so why bother? (FYI, I often feel the same about working out. And then I squelch my guilt with a brownie.)

However, something has shifted in the last month and I’ve become a piano addict. I never realized what an effective stress reliever was gathering dust across the room. When I run into writer’s block or need a break from chores, I pull out my colorful Peanuts songbook and channel Vince Guaraldi ‘til my fingers tingle and my mind quiets down. It’s my creative outlet when others fail me.

So now I’m thinking hopelessly grown-up, motherly things about my preschooler who loves, loves music and is the [supposedly] perfect age to stick her toes into music theory. Will she hate it? Will she feel indebted to it? Will it seem like opportunity or dead weight? Will she do better starting at a formative age or when she’s old enough to make an educated decision? Will I make a crappy piano teacher? Will music suck away her life… or turn into a beautiful self-therapy? And how important is this all anyway?

6Oct

Social Housefly

Posted by: Bethany in Uncategorized 2 Comments

Summer has been a sore loser this year. Rather than make its curtain call and exit gracefully, it’s been brooding backstage, pulling down sullen clouds to mask any potential autumnal glory. I can handle rain and wind and sun, but I never can figure out what to do with sulk. Feel free to blame my recent blog neglect on this.

Of course, by the time I finished writing that last sentence, the sun had flexed its ironic muscle and blazed through every wisp of mopey gray. It’s hard to stay pessimistic when the world is so stubbornly beautiful. It’s just… The things I’ve always loved the most about fall are all social. School starting up with fresh lined paper and gooey nuggets of knowledge to share with my classmates. A Halloween costume party with pumpkins to carve (though one year, I had to resort to cantaloupe), hilarious group games, and cauldron cakes. Thanksgiving dinner for everyone we knew didn’t have a home-cooked meal at his or her disposal; Cajun turkey and angel biscuits and no less than three types of pie, our large dining room bursting at the seams. I grow a bit desperate for community when the sky glazes over.

Last year, I was too busy bringing forth offspring to wallow in loneliness, but this fall, I’m fighting my blessings tooth and nail. We have a lovely apartment in our dream country; I should be bowled over with gratefulness every time I walk in the door, but I can’t stop focusing on its size. Which is close to that of a matchbox. It snags at my sense of purpose not to be able to invite groups over, have overnight guests, or keep an open-door policy like we used to have for our friends. Tiny apartments, especially those inhabited by tiny children, are always, always, always a mess, and I’ve been keeping visitors at bay.

I should be glad I’m not in school too. I mean, I am glad to spend my days unshackled by assignments or deadlines. But oh, I miss the learning environment. I had some amazing classmates in college, and my brain goes into a panicky flutter when I consider never being in a circle of like-minded academics again. I’m aching to go buy pencils.

For the record, I have no reason to be lonely this autumn. We’ve made more friends here than we can manage at once, and all it will take is some effort on my part to coax out a fulfilling relationship or two. And other people have been quite willing to open their [larger] homes for our feasts so far. But the clouds are back, mountains of damp smoke piled just outside my window, and they whisper of a bleak social future.

How does a natural pessimist stop reading her fortune in the weather? And how does a shy conformist break out of her bubble to find community?

1Oct

Puffed-Sleeved Authoring

Posted by: Bethany in Uncategorized 5 Comments

I’m still dabbling my toes in this new school-year schedule. Natalie’s pick-up means much less of the afternoon coffee calm I have grown so fond of, but the mornings are now sacred to writing. While Sophie sleeps away the hours (bless the child), I fix myself something hot and drinkable with one too many spoonfuls of sugar and pick my brain for usable words. Sometimes they come, sometimes they don’t. Always, I feel like a charlatan in an artists’ world.

It’s so very easy to believe that other creative types spend all day in enchanted studios with brightly-lit idea dispensers and chocolate fountains spewing time. I love my little corner, but I have a horrible suspicion it’s only a playhouse where I make-believe what real adults do. Stephen King advises writing six hours a day, every day of the week, and then reading books the rest of the time to keep the mind fit. Anne Lamott instructs her students to plow through “shitty first drafts” and then put the bulk of time into rewriting. Julia Cameron recommends free-writing three “Morning Pages” every day to stimulate thought flow. Good advice, all. But they might as well advise me to write in Chinese.

I see my main job as loving my sweet husband and precious little girls by scrubbing, mending, doing umpteen hours of dishes a week, traveling, dancing, and taking afternoons off to play at the park. It’s the very best kind of hard work, and I’m happy to fit my writing in around the edges. But is that allowed? I can’t help thinking as I vacuum that Stephen King would tell me I’m obviously not committed enough. As I daydream and deliberate over an artful first draft, I can imagine Anne Lamott kicking me out of her class, and Julia Cameron’s “tsk tsk” rings in my ears as I bustle my early morning away with bottles and cereal and Winnie the Pooh backpacks.

I guess I’m just struggling to feel legitimate. And confident. And comfortable with the push-pull of a multi-faceted life. And less squeamish and crumbly about creating differently from everyone else. Oh, I hate being different. This feels an awful lot like being the only girl in seventh grade wearing lacy puffed-sleeve dresses while all the others look like Bratz models* and publish a best-selling novel each year and are swamped with incredible freelance gigs and have their names in the running for a Pulitzer and wear snappy glasses and never wash dishes because they’re too committed to leading brilliant author-y lives. I think I could be unequivocally happy with my present lifestyle once I get over this different complex and accept that maybe my way of finding fulfillment in writing is just right for me. Or if they start giving out Pulitzers for vacuuming. Either way.

—

*Please pretend that’s not a true story. Please?

24Sep

Leaf Piles of Failure

Posted by: Bethany in Uncategorized 3 Comments

Yesterday was one of Those Days, the kind you can’t help laughing over when retelling even though you really want to weep. To get my mind off of writer’s block and the subsequent gloom-and-doom of my future, I spent over a significant chunk of day cooking, peeling, and pureeing pumpkin. I whipped up two loaves’ worth of spicy-sweet pumpkin bread batter and deposited them in the oven… at which instant the oven breathed its last. I had to leave the kitchen as-is, heaped with dirty dishes and unbaked bread and orange splatters aplenty, to pick Natalie up from school, and then it took us over two hours to get back. A certain three-year-old—no names, but you catch my drift—dragged her feet to the extent that I pushed two girls with the stroller up-up-uphill. First to one store, then to another, then uphill yet again for an essential we forgot. A certain eleven-month-old—again, no names—threw her hat as we were crossing a spectacularly busy intersection, and the resulting car honks and angry shouts made me die a little inside. Then the stroller tipped over at the park, our grocery bag burst, and we all limped back to our pumpkin-besmeared home spewing a trail of white sugar in our wake. That was when the doorbell rang.

I’m learning that all you can do with a day so determined to be a failure is to let it. Roll around in its messiness and stupidity like a pile of fall leaves and have a blast scattering them to the wind. (Though honestly, I have hated rolling around in leaf piles since I was eight and realized that they probably contain bugs. And also dried leaves, which are awfully poky. And also bugs. Nevertheless, the metaphor stays.) Once I get over my unreasonable expectations, such as productivity and basic hygiene, failure days can be kind of fun. And the best news? Hours away is a brand new day that, chances are, has already learned to behave itself.

(I may acquire a taste for optimism yet… Who would have guessed?)

23Sep

In Between

Posted by: Bethany in Uncategorized 1 Comment

Sweet vanilla chai this morning in a quiet house, stuck in between paragraphs of a story. My mind wanders as always. To the four neat publication packages tied with invisible bows, probably somewhere over the Atlantic right now in a gray bin of papercuts. To my wilderness of a kitchen, ravaged as always by the elements of children and smallness, stickiness concentrate. To the jewel of a morning outside but never inside, no matter how many windows are open or how earnestly I coax the world to slip in and bustle with me awhile. To my baby’s runny nose and the doubt-gremlins in my head and my chipped nail polish and the dust in the cracks of my keyboard and the photos my old harddrive took down to its grave and the marching ranks of to-dos.

When I’m in the groove, words sprinting from warehouses in my brain to my fingers to the page, I have no trouble with the world. Dishes could be heaped in the bathtub and bills perched in a line on my desk, but as long as I had written something to be proud of that day, Polyanna herself could not be more optimistic. On the flip side, writer’s block makes me forget how to be content.

Today I need to remember.

Fresh pumpkin waiting in the fridge (and not having to pull anyone’s teeth to acquire it this year)
Sweet baby gurgles and quacks from the other room
Natalie’s sunny change of heart about school
Cinnamon cocoa
My favorite ultra-petite laptop, The Organicow, suddenly being back in commission when I need it most
The luxury of hours to spend as I choose
Anne of the Island
Bright orange flowers sunbursting on the balcony
10 minutes mapping out melodies on the piano (and discovering my fingers aren’t quite as rusty as I thought)
An afternoon espresso date with Dan
Always, always, fresh starts—new bursts of oxygen to the brain, new ideas, new hours with opportunities all their own

20Sep

Bane

Posted by: Bethany in Uncategorized Comments Off on Bane

What I want to do right now:
~ Waltz around the park beside our house absorbing the prismatic autumn afternoon
~ Make a silly YouTube video to embarrass my girls with one day
~ Pile myself on top of every pillow we own and read a novel
~ Teach Natalie how to do jumping jacks
~ Brush up on that gorgeous piano version of Canon in D
~ Write for seven hours straight, peeking into my Anne Lamott now and then for inspiration
~ Have a dance party with my peeps
~ Call up a good friend just to say hi
~ Take the Mini-Metro downtown to sniff lovely fragrances in The Body Shop (and lust over the shoes next door, of course)
~ Paint

What I have to do right now:
~ Dishes

(Can one pull off jumping jacks while scrubbing casserole dishes?)

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