Procrastination

This morning I got the kids to school early. Only about 3-5 minutes before the first bell rang, but for me that is quite the accomplishment. I have got arriving at the last possible minute before the last bell or being marked late down to a science. So this morning, as I walked back to my car, passing all of those parents who are usually coming back from their drop offs as I am running to the door dragging my panting, stumbling children, I could barely contain the urge to start dancing, whooping, pointing at these parents and yelling, "That's right! IN YOUR FACE!" But I obviously didn't. The world in my head is infinitely more fun then my reality as I'm sure everyone else's is...

I am now writing this instead of getting ready to go back to the school to attend my daughter's publishing party. I have exactly an hour to eat, shower, unload the dishwasher and cut 60 tiny pieces of chocolate peppermint bark. My daughter woke up this morning with a stomachache, worried that I would be late to the party. I guess she has every right to be.

I think that I am an adrenaline junkie, loving that rush you get when you are running late late late, but then you manage to make it on time.

So I better get on with it.

Me, Von and Dennis

You ever have one of those moments when all is right with the world? House is clean for the most part, kids are in school, the water for a cup of tea is almost ready and you can hear the soft rattle of the crock pot cooking dinner ahead of time. Then the cat pukes all over the counter. That just happened to me 2 minutes ago as I was just sitting down to write. But that is not what I want to write about today. I want to write about my son.

I woke him up this morning and found tucked neatly in bed next to him his sister's American Girl doll. With no clothes on. Pulling the covers back I also found the doll's special hairbrush. He refused to explain to me why this occurred and his sister denies any responsibility. While I know logically that this was an innocent prank in order to torment his sister in some way that only the 2 of them actually get, this did spiral me into one of my unreasonable worries that I often find myself in. The ones that you do not want to admit that you actually worry about. The ones that you know could potentially upset other parents if you actually admit to thinking these things of your child. You know, you see your daughter dancing around on a coffee table during a party as a toddler. you zoom ahead 16 years in your mind and you see her at 18 doing the exact same thing, except she is in her underwear and she's surrounded by a fraternity. and she's really drunk.

Actually, on a funny side note, I remember the time I took Von to visit my husband at work, all of the secretaries were swooning over him as he was an extremely good looking tot. Von buried his face into my chest and yelled, "Don't look at me! "Don't look at me!" I told them that he was just going through his "Blue Velvet" stage of development. One of the secretaries was horrified that I would actually associate my sweet son with that movie and told me so. I guess she didn't like the movie.

Back to my point. Seeing my son lying in bed with the naked doll fast forwarded me a decade, catching him in bed with either a naked girl or another naked doll with a hairbrush. Both would scare me a lot, but for different reasons. The first, because I just never want to have to walk in and see my little boy in bed with a girl-I know it will happen someday. Just don't feel I need to think about it. My plan is to have his father slide a box of condoms across the table and tell him not to be a dumb-ass.

The doll goes back to my unreasonable worry-finding the naked, thankfully not anatomically correct doll and the hairbrush in his bed, I saw for a moment weird fetishes occurring, cats and dogs in the neighborhood disappearing, and my baby boy sitting in a dark dank apartment in yellowing skivvies brushing a dead girl's hair while body parts sway slowly above him hanging from meat hooks. Fucked up right? I realize that I am permanently damaged from all of the Stephen King books and serial killer books I read way too young. But still I think everyone deep down, every parent has these dark thoughts, that their children could be the next Dahmer or Gacy. How does it start? Did their parents actually have any idea of what their child would grow up to be?

I am happy to say that for the most part, my kids are pretty normal, very funny little people, but every once in a while I worry about their choices in life, the hardships that will come to them. It doesn't keep me up at night, but when weird little things like a naked doll in bed or a funny underwear dance happens I do stop for a second and my mind goes to that dark place. I think of all of those poor parents of all of those scary, frightening or simply lost, people and I wonder if they had weird little moments too, that in hind sight that they wished they had handled differently. I usually just laugh, then tell everyone I know on the internet and desperately hope they grow up OK.

Side note-yes I know I have mental health issues-I'm not a danger to the public, I'm actually quite harmless.

Books of 2011

I meant to write this yesterday and got caught up. I was going to talk about my 2 favorite books from last year, with an honorable mention as well.

Ok-1st book would be "A Monster Calls" by Patrick Ness. It's a sad book. Incredibly sad. I found myself sobbing out loud. (PMS most likely contributed as well). The book was based on an idea from Siobhan Dowd, who passed away before actually writing the book. So someone had Patrick Ness take the idea and write the story. It's about a boy named Connor, whose mother has cancer. One night a monster comes to his window claiming that Connor has called him. The monster then goes on to say that he(the monster) will return 3 more times and each time tell a story. After the third story, Connor will then have to tell the monster a fourth story that is true or he will eat him alive. Ok Ok, the monster actually tries to scare the crap out of him the first visit and on the second visit states his terms. This really scares Connor because the poor kid is trying to deal with some really tough feelings, especially about his mother's impending death. There are also difficult life things going on for him and the illustrations are really really good. Definitely read it-It's a downer, but in an uplifting, beautiful way.

My second favorite book this past year was Kelly Link's "Pretty Monsters". Kelly Link is a master of the short story. Short stories are fucking hard to write. You have to get characters, setting, a good story line all in a small amount of pages and wrap it up well. She is a true artist. My favorites were "The Wizard's of Perfil", "Monster", and "The Constable of Abal". (I actually just looked inside my brand new copy of said book and have discovered that there is a story in this edition that I have not read yet, so that's good). I should probably describe the stories more but I'm not going to-just read them.

My honorable mention would be "Johannes Cabal Necromancer" by Jonathan L Howard. The scene where a mob of lunatics, freshly broken out of an asylum are marching and singing happy songs about Lovecraftian monsters is priceless, as are the descriptions of Hell.

I'm sure you have noticed that I like fantasy books. Every single book here is fiction and has monsters in it. I used to feel very self-conscious about my reading choices. I am surrounded on all sides by non-fiction lovers, who can be rather uptight about it. I read plenty of non-fiction, mostly about gardening, beekeeping or animals. Biographies and history books don't hold too much interest for me. I guess that is kind of the way it is. My husband somehow thinks that I am obsessed with vampire and zombie books. But I'll go into detail on that maybe tomorrow. School is almost out and my shitty job beckons.

Every year for the last few, once on Myspace and I think a few times on Facebook, I have posted the books I read for that year. I keep track of them in the back of my journal. Rather maticulously, with the dates I read them as well. I started doing this was in response to some Apple CEO saying that nobody reads anymore, when asked about whether or not Apple was going to come out with a competitor to the new Kindle. The article also gave some ridiculously low number for the amount of books that the average American reads in a year. I was a little insenced because I am a voracious reader and if I could find a way to make money just reading, I would definitely do so. I think that I read about 52-53 books that year. I like to think that when I read a book it's like a little personal "Fuck you" to Steve Jobs, but not really, because he's dead now and I am not even sure if he was the one to make that crappy statement.

I was actually considering the purchase of some kind of Nook or Kindle this year. I thought it was definitely about time. But then something happened that made me change my mind.

I got a Barnes and Noble card from my brother for Christmas. With that I bought a copy of my 2 favorite books that I read this past year. The same day that said boks were delivered I also got a stack of books that I had on order from my neighborhood library. I stacked them up and held them, feeling the weight in my hands of all of those words, just waiting to be read. I thought of the enjoyment I got from waiting for all of those books to come in. In this age of instant gratification at the touch of a button, I decided that I was not ready to give up the magic of waiting a bit for a book that I'd really like to read, the magic of looking at and holding the book in your hands that hasn't been opened yet. For me that experience is like a child on christmas Eve waiting for Santa.

I decided to buy used beekeeping equipment instead.

Here is my list of books read for 2011. I include instructional books and Graphic Novels. I'll post tomorrow about my 2 favorite books for 2011.

-The Happiness Project

-The Gates-by John Connolly

-The Big Book of War (Jack of Tales graphic novel)

-Johannes Cabal Necromancer-by Jonathan H Howard

-Robbing The Bees

-Making Toast

-The Dirty Life-by Kristen Kimball

-A Discovery Of Witches

-Horns

-A Reliable Wife

-Wisconsin Death trip

-Shit My Dad Says

-The Nanny Diaries

-The Radley's

-Pretty Monsters

-Magic For Beginners

-The Land of Painted Caves

-The Nazi Officer's Wife

-Jane Eyre

-The Wide Sargasso Sea

-Rose Red-a Fables graphic novel

-Witches-a Fables graphic novel

-Fab Four-a Fables graphic novel

-The Reapers Are the Angels

-Writing Down the Bones

-The Lost Gate

-Games of Thrones

-Her Fearful Symmetry

-The Book of Lost Things-(**Favorite from 2010)

-A Monster Calls

-The Knife of Never Letting Go

-Pretty monsters(again)

-The Walking Dead-Rise of the Governor

-Swan Song

-The Ask and the Answer

That frog

I swear that sometimes I am like that frog on Bugs Bunny who only performs for that one guy with the mustache. The difference is that I cannot write anything with anyone in the room at all. I'm taking a quick moment while B is out and the kids are in bed to at least write a little something. Problem is that will most likely really really sucks. I need to get into the habit of writing something somewhere every day, but i almost invariably fail at it. I get distracted by things on the internet, Facebook or the myriad of blogs that obsessively read about people with dead children or spouses and a couple about gardening.

I made it through Christmas and I am happy that it is over. I'm supposed to have all this time to do things that I need to do, but I am wasting it away doing something else.

Come back tomorrow. I'm going to put up my yearly reading list. I read some good books. Sorry this kind of sucks but it is better than nothing right?