P-town vs. G-town

Well, I've finally figured out something that I think may be the root of my weirdness with the people skills in the new homestead. Can you tell I'm trying to be diplomatic with my wording? It's not because I'm feeling judgmental about it, but mainly because people always take me the wrong way -- I guess the way I word things makes people think I'm being caustic, when a lot of the times, I'm not.

Anyway, here's what I've figured out: the people here, in comparison to the people back home, are incredibly... guarded. I want to say secretive, because that's how it feels to me, but I guess "private" is more appropriate.

Of course, my experience in G-town is limited to the people I hung around with, and my experience in P-town is limited the same way... this is just my personal observation. But here's what I see through my jme-goggles:

Back home, people are wide open about everything, particularly if you have a personal relationship with them. I knew all kinds of crap about people that I worked with, even when I barely knew them personally, so you can imagine how much I really knew about the people I hung around with. I know when they go to the doctor, when their kids have problems at school, how much they paid for their last pair of shoes, where they get their hair done, etc. etc. etc.

Here, I guess people like to keep things to themselves. It's very weird to me, to hear about one of Tony's immediate family members having a major medical crisis or a work crisis that nearly costs them jobs after the crisis is over. It sort of offends me, that they don't trust us or care enough to talk to us about things. Like, if my mom gets a lump in her breast, I'm going to be pissed if I only hear about it after she has it biopsied. I was super irritated when I found out that Kimberly was pregnant for Maddie and found out that I had been one of the later people to find out, and that was kept quiet for understandable reasons.

It's very strange to me that people that we spend a lot of time (at work or outside) with will have parents die, will search for new jobs, will have some sort of celebration or crisis, and we aren't told about it. It makes me feel like an outsider all the time.

I guess this is compoundedly (is that a word?) bad because I am like an effing open book 99% of the time, as long as it won't get me in legal or professional trouble. Like, if you want to see my c-section scar, just ask. I'll tell you right now the exact amount I make every month on my paycheck after taxes. How much I paid for my house. If you read this for any length of time, you'll see, since I've been pretty open in my private blogging about my struggle with being depressed and my love of Prozac, my joys and miseries about being a mom, etc. (And I plan on doing the same here.)

So I guess I've finally realized an insight that may help me in the future: P-town people are just to themselves way more than I am used to. Maybe I can stop being offended or having my feelings hurt when people aren't forthcoming about their lives... I can't imagine being best friends with someone who can't share his/her important stuff with me the way people back home would, but I can at least try to stop being sad or angry.

Another weird thing about here -- something small - doctor's appointments. It took me a good year to realize that, unlike back home, if you show up to the doctor's office early, they do not call you in early, regardless of the schedule. People here are on time or late; I guess it's a cultural thing for you to always be early back in the big LA.

Currently reading: Leaving Dirty Jersey: A Crystal Meth Memoir
Recently watched: Hide and Seek with Dakota Fanning and Robert DeNiro

just a few random notes

One: a book. It's called A La Cart. It's this girl who started collecting other people's grocery lists left behind, and she took them, created a character based on each one, and made a book of the compiled brief vignettes of each one. Check it out. Woody is the funniest one.

Two: a cartoon. I'm not the cartoon guru like some of my peeps on here, but I am enjoying this particular cartoon that comes on Cartoon Network. It's called Camp Lazlo. I particularly like this series with one eyed aliens. They come to earth to steal our cheese.

And a last comment: I attempted to begin reading I Never Promised You a Rose Garden, but I couldn't get into it. However, I have had that stupid song stuck in my head for over a week now... except I didn't know the first line... It's "I beg your pardon / I never promised you a rose garden." Since I didn't know it, I've been automatically, for some reason, singing, "Don't be retarded / I never promised you a rose garden." I think mine is catchier.

random comments for today

You can tell when it's research report grading time... I start looking like the before picture from "What Not to Wear." I've worn nothing but sweatpants since Sunday.

There is this hilariously offensive lawmaker in Colorado who has led to great news stories. His name is Doug Bruce. First, he was in trouble because on the day of his swearing in, he kicked a reporter for taking a picture during the prayer. Then, he voted "no" on a resolution aimed at honoring military veterans. His reasoning was to take a stand on too many resolutions... but if you know anything about this particular area, Colorado Springs, etc., this is a SUPER military area... what with Ft. Carson, the Air Force Academy, NORAD, etc. Probably not the best one to take a stand with.

Then, this week, he referred to migrant workers at "illiterate peasants," which, probably true, but not PC, is probably not a good next step for old Bruce. http://www.gazette.com/articles/bruce_35551___article.html/colorado_rep.html

Here's another, unrelated interesting news story:http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8vd3d3LmZvcmJlcy5jb20vbGlmZXN0eWxlLzIwMDgvMDIvMTQvY2l0aWVzLXNpbmZ1bC1sYW5kZXItZm9yYmVzbGlmZS1jeF9sbV8wMjEzc2luZnVsX2xhbmQuaHRtbA==

scream real loud

Word of the day:

phagocytize: v. engulf a cell that has been specially marked as "bad" and to be killed.

Not only cool, but any time someone uses it today, scream real loud.

One class of research reports down, three more to go!

disdain and amusement

So the other day, I got home from work early. Tony left to go get the boys, and I rode through Burger King to pick up dinner after going to the library.

I'm sitting behind this car. It has to be maybe an early 80's El Camino. I know some people keep up older cars... that was not the case with this one. It looked as though it had been beaten with a baseball bat. It squeaked and made horrible belching noises when the guy started and stopped. None of this is really that unique here in the great town of Pueblo, but to top it off, it was spewing gray smelly smoke in extreme amounts toward me. I was gagging and had to roll up the window and turn the A/C to circulate to avoid suffocation.

I'm sitting there thinking, "Get a better car, dude." I mean, it's not like I drive a Maserati. I have a Taurus that's a couple of years old, but at least it's not a farting hazard. I am sitting there. Thinking, surely you can buy a better car than that for just a few thousand bucks. And where are the cops when you need them, because clearly this smoke is impeding other drivers' views. And that if the global warming thing is really true, the entire planet's temperature just rose one degree from this El Camino alone.

And as I am sitting there judging, being very haughty and arrogant about what a loser this dude is in this crappy El Camino, I neglected to remember...

I was driving Tony's car. The green 1999 Neon. The car you can hear coming up the road from three houses down. The car with the shocks so blown that it's like we have hydraulics on it. So after I sat there with disdain on my face for this loser in the old smoke-belcher, I then had to eat a little humble pie and drive up to the BK employee, where I had to squeeze the food between about eight inches of space, because the power window on Tony's car won't go down all the way.

good quotes of explanation

Excerpts from Darkness Visible by William Styron - about his struggle with depression. (Don't read it - the book itself sucks)

Depression... remains nearly incomprehensible to those who have not experienced it in its extreme mode, although the gloom, the "blues" which people go through occasionally and associate with the general hassle of everyday existence are of such prevalence that they do give many individuals a hint of the illness in its catastrophic form.

And one of the most unendurable aspects of such an interlude was the inability to sleep... the disruption of normal sleep patterns is a notoriously devastating feature of depression...

I felt a kind of numbness, an enervation, but more particularly an odd fragility--as if my body had actually become frail, hypersensitive and somehow disjointed and clumsy, lacking normal coordiation. And soon I was in the throes of pervasive hypochondria. Nothing felt quite right with my corporeal self...

The madness of depression is, generally speaking, the antithesis of violence. It is a storm indeed, but a storm of murk. Soon evident are the slowed-down responses... ultimately, the body is affected and feels sapped, drained.

Many people lose all appetite; mine was relatively normal, but I found myself eating only for subsistence: food, like everything else within the scope of sensation, was utterly without savor.

Death by heart attack seemed particularly inviting, absolving me as it would of active responsibility.

...the sufferer from depression... finds himself, like a walking casualty... thrust into the most intolerable social and family situations. There he must, despite the anguish devouring his brain, present a face approximating the one that is associated with ordinary events and companionship.

zoinks! it's pope benedict!

Okay, perhaps it's because I wasn't raised Catholic, but does anyone besides me think it's hilarious that they call the car the Pope rides around the "Popemobile"? At the beginning I sort of thought it was just a joke, years ago, when I first started hearing the term, but now they say it in serious newscasts, like it's a real world. This morning, thousands of spectators cheered as Pope Benedict circled the arena in the Popemobile.

I can't help but think of the Batmobile and the Mystery Machine. Like maybe they should paint flames on the side.

Maybe we'll make Daddy a Pastormobile. I'm thinking airboat, with the Christian flag waving mightily on the back.

things I never thought I'd say

Things I thought I'd never say (related to things that can only be realized in retrospect):

1. I miss when gas was only $2.00 a gallon.
   
2. I wish I could be awakened by an alarm clock.
   
3. I wish I could grade for five hours straight at home this weekend.
   
4. I'd love to be awakened by someone cleaning the house.
   
5. I wish I could raise my kids in Louisiana.
   
6. It'd be cool to go back to whenever I was so skinny I had trouble finding clothes small enough to fit.
   
7. I wish it were more humid.
   
8. I'm ready for warm/hot weather.
   
9. I wish my boobs were smaller.
   
10. I'd love to live on my parents' street.

feeling nostalgic

and thought I'd post a few old poems I wrote back in the day...

Instrumental
jme 1997

And I look up at you
You're there but not really
Feels like I'm on another plane
Never knew you could be this way
Didn't know this was all I had to do
And though I could always find the words
And I could never write the music
What mattered to me was the completeness
Perfection all around
And I'd been looking with a penlight
At the insignificance that danced around
And I'd thought the dance was consequential
Found out it wasn't
Not important, a cruel joke
And it had kept me sidetracked
And distracted from what could really be
And though what mattered was to be whole
I'd always been told that I wasn't
And what I find in others is that they are
But you show me I am
I've been on my knees for years
Looking for the missing pieces
And you pulled me to my feet
With the option of standing forever
And I'm not accustomed to that
But though I find your music in
Perfect complement with my verse
Surely you find my words lacking
And you just wanted to be instrumental
I'm here but not really

Leave tonight
"leave tonight or live and die this way" - tracy chapman
jme 2000

If I left today
With the choice of leaving or dying
Would you want me
Would you ask me to come
And tell me it will all work out
And show me that there is a life
Beyond what I have known
I don't feel at home here anymore
I don't know if I ever did
And a plane ride may be just what I need
You did make me feel like I was
On another plane
I've been here so long
I feel that to leave one is to leave all
And I don't know if I can do it alone
But then I've been doing it alone all this time
And maybe I don't want to do it alone anymore
Maybe I want you, and you are the reason
Maybe with you this weight will leave my chest
Maybe I'll finally be able to breathe free
Like breathing near the ocean
Like knowing who I am
Like turning back the clock
Choosing life
Choosing me

petrified foodstuffs

I was just cleaning out Aidan's little kitchen set, and I found half a pancake and two thirds of a string cheese.

Hard as rocks, but still greasy. :p

chit chat and a few reviews

If anyone hasn’t been to B&N lately, they have the coolest thing that I purchased yesterday. On that rack where they sell the tiny boxes of stuff like for your desk (the mini-yoga book, etc. -- I have the wee little garden gnome), they have a box of Office Space flair. Needless to say, I scooped it right up. Not only is it the most hilarious movie, but it’s great for my job, since the kids are always bringing up stuff from there in class. I stuck two on my jean jacket collar that are completely appropriate for work: the "Did you get the memo?" one and the "We need to talk about your TPS reports." one.

And here are some recent book/film comments:

Three books I just finished:
1) Manic by Terri Cheney. Not the best book writing-wise, but if it’s completely accurate (it’s supposed to be true), it really gives you an idea of how insane life is if you’re bipolar. Unbelievable.

2) Confessions of a Slacker Mom. Okay book, but really just a big preachy tale about how the author’s parents are the best models in the world. Some stuff is just plain common sense.

3) Confessions of a Slacker Wife. Same author, of course, but this one was better. Had some funny stuff in it. I posted an excerpt earlier last week.

I also watched a few things:

1) Shut Up and Sing. A documentary about the Dixie Chicks and the fallout after their anti-Bush statement at the beginning of the Iraq fiasco. If you’re not one of my chosen few, groovy right-wingers, you should watch this. I don’t remember a lot of it, but it was very interesting.

2) The Storm. A PBS Frontline about Katrina. Not incredibly interesting, but it did make all the government officials look like the idiots that they are.

3) No Country for Old Men. Slow-moving, which of course any Cormac McCarthy book will be, but it was a good movie. Javier Bardem certainly wasn’t the jolly Spaniard from the Oscar broadcasts in that movie... and the commercials essentially ignored the fact that it also includes Tommy Lee Jones (I love him), Woody Harrelson, and Josh Brolin.

4) Spun. An indie movie about meth addicts. It’s got Brittany Murphy, Mickey Rourke, Jason Schwarzman, Mena Suvari, Debbie Harry (Blondie), Eric Roberts, and John Leguizamo in it. Definitely not for the easily offended, but it was pretty good, and definitely shows the grossness of meth heads that I’ve seen - the rotting teeth, the sores, the unbelievably sick living conditions.

Whoa! The washing machine is going insane. Okay, moving on...
Next, I’ll be reading The Birth House, which is our next book club pick, and Created in Darkness by Troubled America, which is supposedly a collection of funny essays - my new favorite book genre.

student elections

There is a student body election going on right now, and there is a hilarious poster by the stairs to downstairs Columbine. There’s a group of three people running together against a pair of guys -- the three’s names are Owens, Manly, and Dix (don’t even get me started on the hilarity of those two last names together). Anyway, the poster says, "Three heads are better than two. Unless they’re on the same person, because then you go from ’freak’ to ’crowded’."

Hilarious.

so true...

From Confessions of a Slacker Wife by Muffy Mead-Ferro:

It’s different for my generation than it was for generations past… For one thing, women's lives have changed radically in the past couple of generations because so many of us are working full or part time outside our homes. So we're out there taking care of bosses, clients, and customers.

But too often, when we get home, it feels like we're supposed to take care of everything there too... Case in point: My husband exasperates me sorely from time to time by asking such questions as "Do we have bread?"

I realize from an intellectual standpoint that this is nothing to get irked about. I am aware that from my husband's straightforward viewpoint, "Do we have bread?" is a yes-or-no question as to the status of a simple material fact. "Do we have bread?" does not, in his mind, warrant a reply such as the following from me:

"Do we have bread? Am I to understand, from your question, that you do not know, after the five-and-a-half years we have spent in this house where the bread is kept? Or should I simply infer that you are too lazy to look in the bread basket? And is it also the case, since you would never be expected to keep abreast of what the bread supply is or, God forbid, actually go to the store to replace the bread that we've eaten or let get moldy, that it is my job and my job alone to know what the bread inventory is and to do what's necessary to make sure it is maintained at a level where you can eat bread whenever you feel like it? Or is this just your irritatingly indirect way of asking me to get up and get you a piece of bread??
...
But it's not just the number of wifely chores I have--and the fact that I don't have my own wife to unload them on--that chafes me. It's also the "invisible" nature of my household tasks that makes them a little more onerous. Of course, it's only reasonable for the workload in any operation, including a household, to be divided according to who does what best, and I'm in favor of that. Even if it means the work ends up being divided along somewhat traditional, what some people would call sexist, lines.

The fact is, my husband is far better at hanging light fixtures, and I'm far better at folding laundry... [so often our chores are] unequal in terms of their visibility.

You hang a light fixture up there, and it's up there for everyone to see. "Wow, that looks great," I can be expected to declare before my husband is finished putting the last screw in the ceiling plate. And even other people, when they visit our dining room a week later, might say, "Hey, you got a new chandelier." That sort of recognition is nice payoff for the person who hung the light fixture. Or planted the tree. Or built the fence. Or installed the new stereo. It would tend to make that person feel like they were valued and appreciated. That, I can only imagine, must be nice.

But who's there to say how well my husband's clean underwear were folded? Do the dinner guests, a week later, remark on it? No. The symmetry, consistency, and precision with which I can fold and stack a half-dozen pairs of boxer shorts is completely lost on the person who unfolds them, so it's hardly surprising if the people who came over to eat dinner don't take notice.

brought to you by the number three

I’ve decided perhaps I should start a photo log. Of what? Of the flights of stairs I fall down. Because I fell down some stairs AGAIN yesterday. (Note to newbies: I fell down the stairs at my house twice recently, once carrying my infant son.) I was leaving work and it was raining, which I stupidly am not used to anymore at all. The shoes I’ve been wearing since I moved here are flat flat flat AE clogs, with no grip whatsoever. If it is even possible that it will snow, I bring my snow boots, because I can’t walk in anything slippery with these clogs on. Anyway, I am walking to the parking garage next to my building, and I have no problem until I reach the stairs. I get to stair number two, and my feet slide out completely from under me and one of my shoes flies down the stairs and I drop my purse and say an expletive more loudly than I normally would. This jerk student was just leaving the stairs at the time and didn’t even stop to see if I’d broken a bone.

Then the best part… This dude was walking toward the stairs after me holding what I guess was his daughter. She was probably four. He hurried ahead to see if I was okay. I was like, “Yeah, thanks…” Then when I got up to get my shoe and purse, I fell AGAIN! I walked like someone crossing hot coals to the parking garage in my wet clothes and felt like crying out of (a) humiliation and (b) my anger at the universe for being so mean to me. Of course, today it’s funny, despite the continued back injury that is starting to affect my life and the gross looking bruise/scrape on my forearm, which was scraped through a denim jacket AND a sweater. Fun.

ANTM; the little munch

I missed yet another episode of ANTM because of forgetting to set my ancient VCR, but they've apparently successfully booted two of my three favorites in the past two weeks, Claire and Aimee. Now there's only Katarzyna left, and we all know she won't win. But God forbid them give She-male the boot. Or Stacy-Ann, whose voice is like fingernails on a chalkboard. Or Anya, who can't speak English. Or Fatima, who is like a skeleton. And what's up with the weird photo shoots this season? I mean, come on - bathing suits made out of meat? "Embodying" a musical genre? And how can Claire look modelly in 1980 Dolly Parton gear? It's so fixed.

It's so hilarious to hear Aidan talk nowadays. He definitely has his own communication trends, but he also turns into a little mini-me sometimes. He has decided that sometimes, words aren't necessary, and one only needs a gesture or to point at something to get what one wants -- a pillow, a bowl of pretzels. He still makes random commands: "No dancing, Daddy! Sing, Mommy!" and he still yells at me from his bedroom in the morning when I'm getting ready for work: "TURN THE LIGHT OFF! I want the light OFF!" He has also begun to continuously gauge whether things are, in fact, "silly" or "funny" - or perhaps both. But there's no mistaken whose house he's growing up in when he says, "Hey, I found my cool teeng. Mommy, want to check it out?"