writing skills/profession

Stepping Out on My Blog


So when I wasn’t here, I was here and there and there.

First piece I am lamenting my ability to hold the line with the daughter on proper school footwear. As I wrote this for the mommy blog, it reminded me of a middle school friend whose mother made her wear winter boots until May every year.

While the rest of us were splashing about in the April showers in our Adidas (the height of cool in 1977) runners and track jackets, she was shod in grandma boots with the zipper up the front and a mid-calf ringed with fake furry fabric that pilled and her winter jacket from Sears.

“Was she scarred for life?” Rob asked as I related the woeful tale of my old buddy.

“Well,” I said, “the last I heard of her she was a teacher at a community college somewhere in Florida and working on her third husband.”

True. By the time we were thirty, she’d run through two husbands and her potential third was about eight years younger than we were. I don’t know for sure  he was a student, but the evidence was damning.

However, in case you missed Rob’s point – I didn’t – the boots were not the likely cause. She had the misfortune of being the catalyst behind her parents marriage, and her mother felt that her great potential had been cut down before it could bloom by my friend’s untimely arrival. Seriously. Even though we were all very young, it was evident to us that she was flogging her daughter with her thwarted ambitions rather than asking herself why she simply hadn’t used a more reliable method of birth control – like abstinence perhaps? Jae was the family go-to in a Cinderella way while her younger brother, an obnoxious cry baby, was the second coming.

“You are going to cave on the shoes,” Rob told me.

“I told her only as treat,” I conceded.

“You totally caved,” he confirmed.

I have not. Dee only gets to wear the flip flops on the last day of school, which is still months off.

The other posts are about racism in Mississippi schools (hardly worthy of a stop the presses but reprehensible never the less) and bribing kids (in some instances it works beautifully).

Also ran cross this awesome link on Jezebel* that led to a blog post by Paulina Porizkova – the former super model – on the shame not allowing women to age is. Excellent read.

Forgive my lazy blogging. Allergies are kicking me hard.

* A must click. There is a current pic of Paulina that leaves me in awe.

Rebounding


I am still only partially recovered from last weekend’s training session. I went into that one on the heels of post-holiday-lag and a late night phone intervention with N1, who read my post about his mother.

N1 reads my blog here and there now (Hey, kiddo.) and though I suppose this should push me to censor a bit, I probably won’t.  He’s sixteen.

“I’m not a child,” he tells me.

But he’s not a grown-up either (sorry, N1) and certainly, I know things from a perspective historical and experience based – about our family that he doesn’t.

Long story shortened – I find out via Facebook (the joys of a mixed feed) that N1 was planning to make a little trip to his mother’s for the purpose of retribution.

First of all, violence is not a good idea. Second, it would have accomplished all of nothing.

So we talked and came to terms and in the end, N1 couldn’t have made the trip anyway because he’s totaled not only the car that my mother bought for him, but his dad’s car too. Within two weeks. I think only my mother has a better record for auto accidents than that in our family.

But as a result, I got about 5 hours of sleep before the Friday training and we worked on twists.

I love twists, but to do the standing ones without falling over, I need sleep and calm happy sinuses. I had neither.

By the time inversions rolled around Sunday morning, I was just enduring. Sometimes I think a big part of the training is survival. It’s like a special forces unit. Or Officer and a Gentleman.

Well, I have other options, but the nagging sense of being a quitter in the face of an obstacle that is largely myself is familiar.

Pray a bit to Ganesh and remind myself that it is just two more training weekends and a final weekend of testing. Woot!

This last week was a slow slog toward catching up on the rest that eluded me and ended with my toppling over in yoga class yesterday because I mis-aligned myself in a standing twist. Definitely left a mark.

But I thought I would score a bit of zzzzz on Saturday morning due to excellent training of the child – who can feed and water herself. However, the lengthening days means that birds tweet merrily from 4AM on (and they will only be getting up earlier in the next two months), coupled with a husband who wanted to get a jump on reno and a daughter who hacked up her breakfast like a cat who’s been grooming too much – and I am still tired.

And I have work to do.

Next Saturday I am presenting at the county library’s writer’s workshop, I have been stepping up my blogging on Care2 and 50 Something, applied for a new online job – for money … it’s an actual paying job … and I have to finish all my yoga reading this weekend because the next training weekend is the 30th.

I should have titled this post “ricochet”.

Here and There Today


My trip to Dubuque inspired a soul-search about being adopted. Read it here.

And I’ve got a couple of good pieces about education – unions and tenure – over at Care2, which no one will read. They are more interested in posts about lesbian students being bullied about prom attendance and whether it is okay to bully bullies back than they are in the fact that the very foundation of public education in their country is being artfully chipped away by the Obama administration. Seriously, if this guy gets two terms, the great divide between the upper classes and everybody else will be defined by a Grand Canyon chasm that would make Dick Cheney proud. But oh well.

Yoga. Yoga. Yoga. And maybe scones. Then I will call it an afternoon.