A City of Ghosts

I am so grateful for the few of you who always read me, even when it takes me two, three, or six months to find the time to blog (and something interesting to say).  Thanks.

So I’m going to tell you about the most exciting thing that happened to me today – a book came in the mail. Yeah, I know, that sounds sooooo exciting. Whatever. I have found that when I allow small things to make me happy, I am happy more often. I scoff at no small pleasure, and usually I try to find ways to draw my pleasures out as long as possible – which is what I’m doing right now about this book, actually.

Betsy Phillips, who blogs as “Aunt B” and under her own name (I almost said “as herself” but I kind of almost think the opposite is true) at Pith in the Wind, wrote and self-published A City of Ghosts. As someone who reads her blog at least several times per week and often daily, there was no question I would also read the book. I ordered it about a hundred years ago, but Amazon lost it or something – I’m still not clear what went wrong. While I was waiting, I read a comment Betsy made about not being able to know what people are thinking as they read the book, and that resonated with me. Except, usually when I let people read something I’ve written, I’m pretty sure I don’t want to know what they’re thinking. So I thought to myself that if I had more time on my hands, it would be fun to sort of live blog reading the book – not because I think my point of view about it is particularly important, but because it’s a point of view, and also just because I thought it would be a fun little project. Alas, when do I have time to do such things? Never.

Imagine then my joy when I arrived home from work today to find my Amazon box on the kitchen counter on the eve of my two day mini vacation. The frustrating delay means that I DO have time to write about the book as I read it, and I’m more excited than is probably reasonable about that.

Of course  I won’t actually be live blogging the book. That’s too much multi-tasking even for me. What I will be doing is jotting down my thoughts as I go, and then coming back and trying to interpret those notes in long hand. Hopefully it won’t annoy Betsy too much. It will probably annoy her less (assuming she reads it at all) if it causes some of you to buy her book, so umm, you could mention that in the comments if it does.

So the first entry, since I haven’t really started reading yet, is this link to the press release and information about the book. Read that, become fascinated with the concept, then meet me back here tomorrow. K? K.

More on Nashville Flooding and Response

I should have learned by now to be careful what offhand references I make while writing. The top search term that led people here yesterday was “Charlie Neese draws penis,” followed by “Charlie’s penis.” Pretty sure that second group of people didn’t get what they were after.

I wanted to take a moment to thank everyone who has spread what I wrote yesterday. There are many more perspectives, and they are all beautiful. Nashvillest.com did a round-up yesterday, so check there for more.

I think it is absolutely essential that all of us who have something to say about our beautiful city right now find a way to make it heard “outside.” We need the world’s attention for a while. So if you have a platform and something to say about Nashville, now is the time. If you have a platform but want to use my words, or those of one of the many Nashville writers who have shared their thoughts, then great, go with that. Be heard.

I heard a great story this morning. Obviously I can’t confirm whether it’s true or not, but it feels true, if you know what I mean. I was at a Red Cross shelter chatting with a volunteer and he told me that Monday evening he and some friends went into Nashville to tent city with the intention of helping people relocate, find shelter, etc. They got to tent city and it had been washed away already. Gone. So they went to the Rescue Mission thinking that, even though a lot of Nashville’s homeless don’t love the Mission, it was a logical rallying point. They were right, a number of tent city residents had made their way there, but the Mission was still very low population. Why? Because a number of the able-bodied had gone down to the Catholic church to help move stuff out of the basement. So basically, these young men went out to volunteer to help the homeless and found the homeless volunteering to help others. Like I said, I can’t verify any of that, but it feels like something that could happen here, doesn’t it?

In other news, students and staff from Daymar Institute in Murfreesboro will be holding a bake sale on Sunday May 16, at the Kroger on South Church Street, Murfreesboro, starting at noon. Come purchase something, or if you want to donate or participate, email Rach_odom@comcast.net.

Please remember that it’s going to be a long, sustained effort to get us out of this mess. Plan to help today and tomorrow and this weekend, but also plan to help next month when the weather starts getting hot and people need shelter with air conditioning, and in August when still-displaced children are going to need school supplies and clothing, and in December when the economic impact is still being felt and parents need help providing Christmas for their families. It’s a marathon, not a sprint, but we can definitely do this.

The City With a Servant’s Heart

We here in Nashville are in crisis, there can be no doubt. Some of us (like myself) are barely affected personally, but the city we love is in trouble and it hurts all of our hearts. Our landmarks are flooded, our pristine and sacred places, both new and old, are no longer pristine at all. We tear up when we see water on the Opry stage, devastation in the Cascades, and mud caked in all of those areas where the water has finally begun to recede.  We are tempted to lament all of these things that make our city special. I submit to you, Nashville, that these are not the things that make our city what it is.

There has been a sense here for the last few days that the world has forgotten us. National media have barely covered what to us is a disaster of barely fathomable proportions and we are getting zero acknowledgement from the federal government. Others have written about this, doing everything from begging for attention to stating boldly that Nashville does not need national attention or federal money. We’ll take care of ourselves. In a situation this dire, this large, none of us can afford to let our pride push away assistance, but this is my home, and I know exactly the sentiment that prompts these thoughts. You see, we here in Nashville may not be able to take care of ourselves, not when we’re in this kind of trouble, but we know we will take care of each other. It’s in our history, in our community, in the way we live our lives every day. Nashville has a servant’s heart.

Nashville isn’t about being a fan of the Predators. It’s buying tickets to a game you can’t attend because you know we need the sell-out. It isn’t loving country music. It’s supporting local bands in local venues and dropping a ten in the tip jar because these kids look kind of hungry. It isn’t even about loving thy neighbor as thyself. It’s about dealing with your neighbor’s needs and stopping to figure out your own later.

This weekend, Nashville was about rescues and communication and shelter for those who lost their homes, businesses, and family members. From civilians who happen to own boats pulling people off their roofs to others wading out to stranded cars to help carry children, to NES workers trying to rescue a man clinging to a tree, we saw everyday run-of-the-mill Tennessee heroism in each news broadcast.

This week, Nashville is about so much more: recovering and rebuilding, even as those rescues continue. Our Clear Channel radio stations got together today to raise money for the Red Cross. Jack FM, known for not taking requests, sold requests this morning for $25 for flood relief. Nashville not only played along and gave money, but kept its sense of humor and found a brief moment of levity, for some probably the only levity of the day (the requested song that accompanied my commute was Milli Vanilli’s Blame it on the Rain). Last I checked, more than 8300 volunteers had signed up with Hands on Nashville to work in many different capacities around the city. Belmont University has given its employees three days of paid time off to do volunteer work. The Red Cross has shelters running in every town that’s been affected – only in Nashville would you have both pet-friendly and no-pet shelters so that the pet owners and the allergy sufferers don’t inconvenience each other! One of my students, concerned about parents who don’t have a clean water supply for mixing formula, has offered up her stash of pumped breast milk. Harris Teeter is giving away bottled water in Franklin and in Davidson County. A woman named Heather on the radio this morning suggested that professional caregivers who have extra space offer it to displaced persons in need of that care, and she started with her own home. This is the short list of efforts going on all around us, and still the outside world barely notices. But that’s okay. We are who and what we are even when no one is watching.

Every year the Nashville Scene host its “You Are So Nashville If” contest, full of inside jokes. Some are funny and some aren’t, but that’s hardly the point. My point is that today, you are so Nashville if you know that the Opryland Hotel can be rebuilt, LP field can be made ready for play before the season starts, the Schermerhorn can be repaired, and that our city will pull together and make it right, given sufficient time. You are so Nashville if you know that our stuff may be soaked, but what makes Nashville the city that we love isn’t even damp.

P.S. You are also so Nashville if your first thought when hearing that Opry Mills was flooded was that maybe they’ll just tear it down and rebuild Opryland. Or if you saw poor adorable Charlie Neese draw a penis on the weather map and assumed he was just tired and stressed, not trying to be funny. Or if you heard Ghost Ballet fell over but you had to call a coworker over to look at it because you couldn’t really tell a difference.

Bullshit. Seriously.

I try to never write when I’m angry, whether it’s grading papers, drafting court documents, letters, emails, or blog posts. This would be an exception. Because I just read this and I am pissed. Now before anyone starts telling me that’s what rationed health care is all about, let me just preemptively say “bullshit.” I don’t have a problem with rationed health care. If the rationing entity were to say to the public at large, “We will not pay for pap smears until the age of 21 so that we can pay for everyone’s pap smears,” I’m cool with that. I can live with that. Changing the recommendation is a whole different thing.
I was diagnosed with cervical cancer about two months after I turned 22. Both of the doctors I saw agreed that it had been there for a while and was not a new condition. Don’t get me wrong, I know it’s comparatively rare in that age group. Especially non-HPV cervical cancer, which is what I had. But telling the public at large that they don’t need to be screened will put the something greater than .2% but less than 14.9% of cervical cancer victims who fall in the 0-21 age category at greater risk for delayed diagnosis – and therefore infertility or even death. Obvious right? (And don’t even get me started on mammograms) The effect here is that not only will young women with insurance not go to their doctors and get their annual pap test, but the women who would have gone to Planned Parenthood or another private organization that does these tests at low cost or free (some are sliding scale for income) are also not going to go because they’ve been told they don’t need to, and lets face it, it’s not exactly fun.
So please, by all means, tell us that a public option in health reform means rationing services and that certain screening procedures will not be paid for relatively low-risk groups. Fine. Then also tell us that low-risk is not the same as no-risk and if at all possible we should be getting ourselves screened for these things anyway. And if you are one of my students and therefore a young person that I care about aged 18-21 and your insurance provider tells you they won’t pay for your pap smear because of this “recommendation,” call me. I will f*ing take care of it. Because that’s bullshit.

Things I Don’t Want to Write About Today

I know I said I was going to blog about health care next, but truthfully I’m just not in the mood. That would be a lot more thinking than I want to do today. Also, I’m not in the mood for debate, which is odd for me but there you go.

It’s time for another season-opener evaluation of the MTSU mock trial team but I’m not really in the mood to do that either. I’ll get around to it, but for now I’ll just say I have no earthly idea how we will fare this year. Between budget issues, personnel issues, and issues I have not yet identified but can sense under the surface of these newly minted teams, who the heck knows whether we’ll even have teams to field by the time Regionals roll around. Since I’m trying this new thing where I just let stuff happen that I can’t control anyway, WHATEVER (in my best Hyde from the 70′s Show Zen tone, though I may have belied the tone with the caps).

It’s also the time of year when I ought to have something to say about the Predators, but I haven’t had time to keep up with pre-season at all. My friend Amanda is blogging about the Predators semi-pro, but my google-fu is weak today so I will have to refer you over there after I ask her how to find it.

I could blog about music but to my great shame, I have not picked up anything new in weeks. My excuse is that I spent more than a week after seeing The Wallflowers listening to pretty much nothing but The Wallflowers and Jakob Dylan and then I went to see Wicked and spent some quality time with the soundtrack after. We won’t talk about how the last thing I actually downloaded was a Miley Cyrus song. Pshht, I said we’re not talking about it.

I had a status conference today on a case I want to get settled and off my agenda so I can move on. Unfortunately the Special Master just extended the mediation date and set a new status conference so if anything the case got slowed down again. That frustrates me to no end, so I don’t really feel like talking about that either.

I was supposed to have an extra evening with Max tonight since his dad is out of town, but I just got a call from him that he’s on his way back and will be home in time to pick Max up from school. I REALLY don’t want to write about how much I was looking forward to that extra time since I didn’t get home last night until after Max went to bed. I love teaching and can’t really imagine not doing it, but it’s rough when I know it’s Max’s time I’m using to do it.

So here’s what I’m left with: It’s Feel Good Friday, and here are the things I feel good about: Progress on the professional front in several arenas; Plans with two good friends for two fun events tomorrow; I am totally taking the afternoon off to do nothing and consume caffeine. I might even take a nap (gasp).

Max-ism of the day:

A.K. (my sister): Max, I’m making chicken vegetable soup, do you want to eat that or do you want me to make you something else?

Max (tone of deep suspicion): What kind of vegetables? Are there tomotoes in it?

A.K.: No.

Max: Is there spinach in it?

A.K.: No

Max: Are there carrots in it?

A.K.: No, it has broccoli and mushrooms and corn and artichokes and shallots and it’s a creamy soup.

Max (as if doing the world a huge favor): Okay, I’ll eat it.

And he did. What kid doesn’t want carrots and spinach but is cool with artichokes and shallots? Mine.

Catching Up

For all two or three of you who have me in a feed reader and will therefore notice that I have posted again, I couldn’t decide whether to make this one ginormous post or several smaller ones, but in the end I decided those few who read me won’t mind me writing a novel.
The last post I made was some time ago and I was agonizing over whether to take a job that would require me to drop all of my cases and end my practice. (When last we heard from our hero…) Well, I didn’t take it. I had decided to give myself until the end of the year to make the decision as to whether it was financially time to move on to something else. In the meantime, during this crazy summer that has just ended, I got the proverbial offer I couldn’t refuse: a corporate job as general counsel with an impressive compensation package, the opportunity for lots of travel, working with a good friend, getting to build my own staff of lawyers and support staff, AND it’s fine if I finish all of my existing cases. So yeah, I took that. The Office Assistant says I sold out, and I will admit that the idea of never being a trial lawyer again is a little daunting, but I’m excited. This is a huge opportunity for me to build something from the ground up and also to build something financially for Max that I never expected.
In the meantime, classes have started again and I am now teaching four classes at two different institutions. With the new gig, that’s not going to be something I can keep doing for long. Right now I’m doing the new job, wrapping up my existing cases, and teaching and it adds up to an average of over 100 hours per week. I expect it to be down around 70 by the end of October but that’s still more than I can do for very long. So some of those classes will have to go. Of course I’ll be keeping mock trial if at all possible, which is good because nobody else is standing in line to take it on. In the seven years I’ve been coaching, four assistant coaches have come and gone. That’s not the best track record. It’s probably because the kids are such brats (just kidding… maybe).
Max has started first grade and he is a whole new kid. Every day is a good day and he is excelling. I think a lot of that has to do with his reading. He really kicked it into high gear on literacy over the summer, reading pretty much whatever he felt like reading. He picked up “Twilight” off my mom’s end table and started reading it one day. After a moment of consideration I decided that was maybe not a good idea. He told me that was okay because it was girly anyway. Ya think? Anyway, the remarkable thing is not that Max is reading well, it’s that his teacher has remarked that he is several grade levels ahead which means HE IS STAYING ON TASK AT SCHOOL ENOUGH FOR HER TO NOTICE!!! So yay. He’s also interacting more with other kids which is a really good thing and something he’s had trouble with. Of course now he wants to have sleepovers at the homes of children whose parents I don’t know, but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.
Oh, by the way, my apologies to anyone who follows me on twitter and thus spent weeks getting nothing from me except my horoscope. When I signed up for that I had a plan, albeit a goofy one. The thought was to compare the things that I posted on twitter (tweeted?) to what my horoscope predicted and use that comparison as blog fodder when I couldn’t think of anything to write. Instead, I disappeared from both my twitter and my blog and poor Allen had to point out to me that I was accosting people daily with my horoscope and nothing else. So hey, sorry about that. I wish I could say that my solution would be to follow through on the original plan, but time is at a premium lately so I just unsubscribed to the horoscope thingy.
What else has happened since last I opined? Well, I attended the wedding of some friends. My ex was a groomsman. I do not reccomend to anybody EVER that divorced people attend weddings together. It can be awkward, it can cause anger, it can cause nostalgia and melancholy. Any of those things are possible. It CANNOT result in feelings of happiness, except at the end when you leave slightly buzzed thinking “better the bride and groom than me.”
Max got a dog over the summer. A mixed breed who-knows-what rescue who somewhat resembles an Australian Shepherd. Max named him Coyote, which frankly is a little grand, and insists that he is a Golden Retriever. Golden Retrievers everywhere are insulted by the comparison. While not an attractive dog, he is the perfect dog for Max in that he is extremely calm and accepting of whatever comes. Though he’s great with Max, he is timid with strangers, and I think he has been abused in the past and has developed a habit of fading into the background. This works great around here. Some kids need a dog that will run around and play with them. My kid needs a dog that will stand still and pretend to be Darth Vader while Max dances around “killing” him. He even wears the helmet for a little while.
Later this week (hopefully) I will write again and inspire consternation amongst my conservative friends when I explain my frustration with President Obama’s healthcare plan. At first, they’ll be all, “Woohoo Brandi has come to her senses and thinks the plan sucks.” But then they’ll read the rest and realize that my frustration is caused by his moderate stance on the issue. A real liberal would espouse an entirely different plan and the public option wouldn’t be negotiable. So there’s something to look forward to, no?
Maxism of the day (or season?):
Me: What game are you playing? (as Max is clearly on the Cartoon Network game site)
Max: I’m not playing one, I’m making one.
Me: What?
Max: The games on here are all too easy so I made a new one and sent it to them. Now I’m making another one.
And yeah, I checked, and yeah, he did. Scary.

Saturday morning and I have time to write!

What could possibly be better than drinking your morning coffee on the deck in beautiful weather while playing around on the internet you ask? Doing all of the above while Max sits next to me drawing aliens and submarines. Why aliens and submarines you ask? That one has a longer answer. Apparently when the aliens take over there are going to be holdout resistance cells in underwater colonies and the aliens will have to use the submarines to wipe them out. I’m also kind of getting the sense that Max is rooting for the aliens.
So I went to a job interview yesterday and was offered the job. That sounds like a great thing. And it is. I wouldn’t have gone to the interview if I didn’t feel like I need a job. The economy is killing me, and while I could get by for a lot longer, I don’t see things getting drastically better in a hurry. And this job comes with a decent salary and excellent benefits. And it’s a fun job. Without going into too much detail, I would be performing judge-like functions which is definitely something that would play to my strengths and satisfy my control issues (thus keeping them out of my personal life).
It is a really sad thing to contemplate giving up my practice though. I’ve wanted my own practice in the boro since I was 19 and in my second year of college. And I worked my ass off through a lot of adversity to get to a point where that was possible. So letting go of that, knowing it would be a long time if ever that I could try it again, and especially giving up cases that I’m very invested in, is slightly heartbreaking. It would also mean giving up teaching a second class and possibly giving up mock trial, and that would definitely be rough. On the other hand, what kind of spaz am I to go interview for a job, get it, and then wonder if I want it? People all over the place are losing jobs and failing to find work again and having trouble taking care of their families, and I got a job (a good one) out of my first attempt. I should be feeling pretty darned lucky shouldn’t I? Ugh. Well, I will spend a fair amount of time this weekend making that decision I guess.
In other news, two of our mock trial teams qualified for ORCS (Opening Round Championship Sites for those unfamiliar with the new qualifier system) and will be going to compete in said competitions next weekend. I will be taking the “B” team to Memphis and Coach V is taking the “A” team to Greeneville. Coach A was going to come to Memphis with us, but she has a paper to present the following weekend so she bailed. I’m pretty sure we’re gonna have more fun in Memphis. The pressure really isn’t on the B team to get out, just to do a credible job, and of course I’m a lot more fun than Coach V anyway. An oddity this year is the lack of visible drama about team reconfiguration. Every year when we get past Regionals and have to decide who will go on and in what role, somebody gets their panties in a knot and freaks out about how dumb the coaches are and how unfair, etc. After seven years of coaching I’ve come to recognize who is likely to get upset and to just wait for the outburst. This year I sense there is some dissatisfaction under the surface but it hasn’t been brought to me. I don’t know if that’s because of some lack of trust, or if everyone is just trying to behave as profesionally as possible in a pre-professional activity. I’m going to assume the latter until told otherwise and applaud them for it.
Good things that happened this week: I settled a case that my client didn’t want to take to trial. Personally I’m always game for a trial but she felt like she was likely to cry through the whole thing and ya’ll know I can’t stand people who cry. So I wholeheartedly agreed that we should settle and we got what she wanted out of it so that was good. I went to trial on another case and totally kicked ass, which is always good for my self-esteem. And I discovered some new music that I think I like a lot. And Max is home for a week. And I found very cute shoes at Marti&Liz for $9 after breaking the heel on a pair I wear often. And… a few other things but I think that’s all I want to share with the internet!
Max-ism of the day: Actually this happened last week but I haven’t written about it yet so I will. Max had a project at school where he was supposed to paint what his imagination looked like. The finished product had a lot of pink and fuschia in it. When I asked about that he thoughtfully said, “My imagination IS pinker than I thought it would be.” As if it just happened that way and he had nothing to do with it. It was pinker than I would have expected too.
Second Maxism of the day: My mom has been trying to instill religious beliefs in Max, a process which I find somewhat amusing because he is an admirably logical child and she has not had a great deal of success. So she introduced him to the concept of “what would Jesus do” a few weeks ago. She explained to him that you can ask yourself that when you make a decision because you know that Jesus would do the right thing. Yeah, it’s annoyng, but harmless so whatever. Then this morning as he was trying to decide whether to deliberately set off the security alarm or not, I heard him ask himself “What would Logan do.” Anybody who knows Logan must appreciate the hilarity in that. Anybody who doesn’t will have to take my word for it. I think he correctly anticipated what Logan would do though because he did choose to set it off. I barely stopped him in time, which I guess is what I get for not intervening sooner but sometimes you have to wait for the funny. Logan would likely have done it drunk and without pants, but other than that, spot on.

And doctors continue to believe they are better than everyone else…

I wish I had time to write more about this.
So what happens if you go to your doctor and s/he has this form for you to sign? What are your choices? Give up your First Amendment rights with regard to your medical care or be denied medical care? This makes sense to people? We’re all used to doctors with a god complex and doctors who don’t want to be held accountable for their own malpractice, but this seems to take things to a whole new level, no?

My Valentine

Having been in a crappy marriage for nine years, I really don’t remember the last time I gave two shits about Valentine’s Day. It’s been quite a while. Maybe once or twice after I got married, but I can’t really remember one that stands out. Max, though, at age 6 and in kindergarten, took a huge interest in the “holiday” this year and offered early on to be my valentine. The overwhelming sweetness of his intentions was a little bit dampened by his concerns that “daddy would rather be with his girlfriend,” but we left that alone and made our plans. Honestly, I didn’t know how to address it other than to tell the ex that it was said. Hopefully he made some effort to make Max understand that he would rather be with him all the time, whether it’s true or not.

Yesterday was the kindergarten party and it was pretty awesome. Max had made a lovely card for me and he had brought Pokemon cards for his friends. Those turned out to be a huge hit (among the boys). He also had been having a good day at school which was an extra little gift.

Then today I received my present. The gaudiest and most lovely V-day present I have ever gotten. A limited edition Build-a-Bear in pink with flowers and orange ribbons, and a microphone, the better for her to sing the Hannah Montana song that Max picked out just for me. Even petitioned the sales staff to search out that song in the stockroom because they were out of it in the store. When I asked Max why he felt so strongly about “Best of Both Worlds” for my bear, he said it was because I was just like Hannah Montana. A bit nonplussed by that statement, I inquired further. He said, “Because you have two jobs and you’re a really good mom but you do everything so good that nobody ever knows how hard it is. Like Hannah Montana.” And I freakin’ choked up at the Chuck E. Cheese.  I do wonder, though, where he gets his info on Hannah – we don’t watch it.

Frankly, I think he might be a little off base. I’m going through one of those periods in life where you feel like you can’t do anything right or make anyone happy. But it’s nice that his perception is that I’m holding it all together. It’s probably more credit than I deserve, but then again maybe I get credit for trying. We had a great time at the Cheese and then his dad picked him up. It was a lot harder than usual to make that exchange.

Which is one reason it was a really bad day for me to find out that his dad has been exposing him, albeit indirectly, to his sexual behavior. I don’t want to grab for the moral high ground too quickly – I date, too. But Max is completely in the dark about that, and I feel like he should be unless there comes a time somebody is pretty significant. And yeah, he’s only six, but he’s developing his moral compass now, and knowing either of us has overnight guests when he isn’t around seems like the worst possible idea in facilitating that. And of course I can’t imagine it helps repair the realtionship Max has with his dad, which is already less-than-ideal.

I guess I’m using the blog as a way of thinking out loud because I feel so powerless to protect him. No court gives a damn about the kind of damage I’m worried about unless it’s really extreme and usually accompanied by evidence of abuse or at least of actual harm. It’s partly the control freak in me, I know, but it is very hard to just accept that. On the one hand, the obvious realistic one, I know I can’t make the ex a better person than he is. If I could, I’d have done it while I was married to him. In fact I tried. It can’t be done, or more accurately, not by me. But on the mom hand, bullshit. Ugh. Which is why I am such a wreck tonight. I ended up cancelling my plans for the evening because I keep crying. And wanting to hit stuff. With a large and heavy object or possibly a sharp one. Making it probably a bad idea to spend time with a male individual for the immediate future.

That is the tale of my best and worst Valentine’s Day ever. The highlight was probably playing basketball with Max at the Cheese.  He is easily impressed, which is a good thing because it wasn’t very impressive. We turned 35 tokens into 108 tickets. Do that math for a second – we are not the champions of anything. But we had a really good time, and I have never had a more sincerely affectionate valentine.

Flotsam and jetsam

I haven’t been thinking about any one thing enough to warrant it’s own lengthy post, but I’ve been having mental needle skips on a few things that maybe warrant some portion of a post. You know, just things I keep coming back to, usually when I’m trying to think about something else.
–A friend’s situation has had me pondering one’s ability to really help other people. I mean, at a certain point, they have to start taking their own steps. If they don’t, then anything you do to help is temporary at best. So do you help anyway? If you do, are you just enabling them to dig themselves further into their problem? Do you help conditionally in the hopes that the condition actually is helpful? Conditioning help actually seems like a shitty thing to do. I don’t know. If somebody is victimized or taken advantage of, but they refuse to remove themselves from the situation that causes that, what can anyone do to provide lasting help? For now, I have come to the conclusion that all that can be done is to offer support when it’s wanted. But that’s really hard for somebody who likes to save people.
–Turns out the ex reads my blog. And thinks I was unfair in my description of Christmas. I actually thought I was very fair, giving observations and then explicitly giving him the benefit of the doubt in his motives, so that sort of threw me. If I just wanted a place to bitch about all the things I think he’s done to me, it wouldn’t be in quite such a public forum. And there would be no benefit of the doubt. So now I have to think about whether I need to self-edit more since he apparently checks in. And again, I don’t know. I feel like I pretty directly take responsibility for the times when my reactions aren’t rational, or when I have to keep my emotions under control. I don’t see anything I’ve written here as a rant against the ex. But then, I suppose if we saw things the same way, or even if we were able to ascribe reasonable motives to one another, we might have wanted to stay married. Or maybe I do say things that are unfair, and I’m just not capable of seeing that because of all the things I DON’T say.
–My son is becoming more and more like a cat. He can spend an hour hugging me, kissing me, telling me he loves me, etc. Then ten minutes later I can say “I love you,” and his response is “okay.” He sits down next to me and sprawls all over me or cuddles in. But if he’s sitting on the very same couch and I sit down next to him, he’s going to tell me I’m crowding him, or crushing him, or making him too hot. Fortunately, I love cats. They have lots of personality.
–I’m really glad I didn’t make a New Year’s resolution this year. I don’t think I was ready to decide what I want out of the next 365 days or so. The future is pretty wide open right now, and I would hate to look at changing my mind or taking advantage of unexpected opportunities through a lens of having failed to keep my resolution. It seems like every day there are new possibilities I never thought about, or new people in my life who have some effect on what I want to do next. I really like just rolling with that to see where it takes me. I’ve never done that before and it is a great adventure. So far, anyway.
–Since I started blogging I’ve had at least six people, a few I have known in the past, and a few who are strangers to me say that they are in marriages that aren’t going anywhere or that they want out but don’t know how to do it or if it’s worth it, etc. This actually will be a whole post once I’ve had more time to think about it, but I’m wondering how that happens? None of these are people who are saying they hate this person or they’ve been abused or even, most of them cheated on. They just aren’t in love anymore and wish they knew how to move on without the guilt that comes with “giving up.” What is that? A failure of imagination? Poor work ethic? Selfishness? Of course, my perspective is skewed by experience, but I kind of think it might just be better self-esteem and a feeling of deserving more. Whether it’s true that we deserve more or not. That’s certainly up for debate. Anyway, like I said, I’ll be coming back to this one. It keeps coming up a lot. People have asked me if I think I would get married again, and I guess I’m trying to decide whether I have any reason to have higher expectations from a second marriage.
Max-ism of the day: “You said my report card was good. Why do I have to go back to school tomorrow?”