November 1 and All Is Okay-ish

It's November first and I have committed to writing a ridiculous number of words. Why, you didn't ask?

I have no idea. I think I miss writing.

Here's what I do know. Sort of.

It's transition time. It is mid-autumn. Halloween is over. Thanksgiving and Christmas are on the horizon. The days are getting shorter. The time is going to change. Mornings will be brighter, but night will fall so much earlier.

This is Davey's time. He loves the shortening days, the lengthening nights. He could easily live without the sun. If I could ever get him to get a DNA test, we'd probably learn he's got a bit of the Land of the Midnight Sun in those genes. Even when the sun is out, he's holed up in his cave with the shades closed and maybe, just maybe one lamp glowing. He's a vampire without the fangs and cool clothes. Can a DNA test pick up a vampire gene?

Meanwhile, I'm scurrying around, trying to convince myself this is all fine, I can handle the short days. I crave the serenity of the long evenings where I want to be in bed by 8pm and there are enough candles to keep a semblance of hygge if I embrace it. 

Is it okay to drink decaf loaded with milk and sugar at 6pm? Is it time for me to finally conquer that rommegrot recipe? If I'm going all in with the hygge, I'm indulging in the sweets, I tell you what.

Halloween has been stowed away for another year. Goodbye spiders crawling up the exterior wall, the giant web, the ghosts hanging from the front porch, and all those delightful vintage Beistle cutouts. You pumpkins, gourds and mums can stay. 

And yet it's too soon for Winter decor. I mean, I still have to tidy up the garden and put my tender plants under cover so I'm not ready for winter. And what is winter decor anyway?

Well, if you look at my Amazon cart (yes, I'm a big part of the supply chain and economic problems), it's some kind of mashup between Nordic and lazy. Pinecones, a Rookwood ceramic tree, a macrame thingy, and da-da-da- CANDLES. 

What was I saying? Oh, yes. Decor. Okay. Okay. It's not decor. It's slapdash, whatever my mood is, what I can afford with a few dear pieces thrown in. I keep telling myself that I should get rid of the thrift store finds, and antique store purchases that no longer speak to me. A lot of what I need to get rid of (read: donate) are a lot of those mismatched, no joy-giving Christmas decorations we've collected along the way.

I have a glass turkey. That'll hold me through December. The turkey has no choice.

I'll bet they don't have those on Gallifrey

A couple of things you will never hear me say.

1. Big girl panties

First of all, what an interesting thing to say. And by interesting, I mean bless your heart, that sounds ridiculous. I mean, are some of you still wearing your little girl panties with the ruffles on the butt? What gives?

Also, I may be bitter because all my panties are BIG GIRL panties.

P.S. If you know where I can get some big girl panties with the ruffles on the butt, I'd love to hear from you.

2. Happy dance

Honestly? I don't dance when I'm happy. I don't dance when I'm sad. I eat.

Come to think of it, I also eat when I'm bored, waiting to pick kids up from this or that, watching television, going to movies, driving in the car, lonely, horny, frightened and/or wistful. In fact, the only time I don't eat is when I'm hungry and that's because with all that eating, I don't think I'm ever really, truly, physically experiencing hunger.

Maybe I should reconsider this dancing business.

See also: why do you want to make me think of Snoopy anyway?

3. This isn't something said. Instead it's something you'll never see on my vehicles. What is up with those window stickers that show the family? 

Am I the only person who finds them odd? Maybe I'm too old now to appreciate the magic of having a window sticker depicting a nuclear family. I admit to a certain jadedness along with the sexy silver hair and need for bifocals.

I'm not entirely devoid of a soft side, however. I admit I got a chuckle out of the one I spied recently as I drove on I75. It had a Daddy Dalek, a Mommy Dalek,  two little Daleks and K9.

SOURCE

Grump over. Your turn.

A Squatch by Any Other Name

Early in our life together, MathMan wasn't so comfortable saying the word vagina. True, it wasn't something I dropped into casual conversation either. Thinking back, vagina didn't come up that much. What was there to say really? Besides, we're creatures of our time and culture. Those days were different.

Back in the modest 1990s, the media, when met with the need to report on sexual matters, took the careful route. Anchors referred delicately to Monica Lewinsky's stained dress and made oblique references to cigars.

Oh and remember when the nation got all oogey about references to Clarence Thomas's artistic placement of a pubic hair on a Coke can?

Different times.

It's quite easy to see why MathMan felt compelled to invent his own word.

What's questionable perhaps is the word he invented.

The word, the origins of which remain a mystery to all but the most distinguished etymologists, is squatch. It's a weird word that has caused me to wonder on more than one occasion what in the hell must be wrong with my vagina to have inspired it.

Stop being such a narcissist, I tell myself. MathMan has seen more than one vagina. Maybe this word - squatch - is an homage to some other vagina.

Lord I hope so. I mean squatch? Is that an onomatopoeia? Or commentary on one's need to deforest?

Having daughters increased, if only slightly, the need to use the V word. I distinctly remember one such occasion when one daughter, at the age of three, lay on the floor after a bath. Her hands wandered and she proclaimed "Hey, there's a hole in me!"

My first opportunity to teach her the proper word and what did I do? I told her that was her squatch. I may have also mumbled vagina, but it got lost as she tried the word on for size. Squatch? My squatch? My squatch!

The word stuck. Became a part of our family's lexicon forever and ever.

Today American society appears less twitchy about certain words. Now it's all vaginal probe this and erectile dysfunction that. Ashley Madison, a website used by people seeking to have "discreet affairs," advertises on the radio and has its own jingle about sleeping around to "save one's sanity."

Different times.

Now even The Goldens have become more comfortable discussing vaginas and penises and the like. Put a little vodka in me and you're likely to hear me imitate my high school sex ed teacher with the lateral lisp saying vas deferens.

And yet we revert back to that word. Cling to it. Yes, we're all growing up, but we still say squatch.

Which explains why this show strikes us as so damn funny.

 

He thought he was the only one

Okay, so maybe I was....

 I had a conversation tonight with a friend I've known since the first grade. We went through twelve years of school together and attended the same college for two years before I transferred to another school.

After we caught up on our families, we talked a little bit about what it was like when we were kids. He shared with me a story that will always stay with me. When we were at the toughest age on the life continuum, another friend of ours said something hurtful. One word. But he got hung up on the one word and it affected him for two long years, framing how he viewed himself, how he felt about his place in the world.

One word. And it may have been said in jest. But when you're thirteen, one word is all it takes to shatter you.

I remember being thirteen and feeling like the whole world was staring at me, that I never measured up, that I was awkward and uncool and a million other things that rhyme with spaz and goon.

I've survived the passage of two of my children through that year and have one more on the precipice of thirteen. It's pretty much a roller coaster through a lightening storm with razor blade raindrops. As a mother who is privy to only a fraction of what happens in the lives of my children, the most I can hope for is to be on the side of good, counteracting whatever mental poison is injected through the barbs of a single word.


What do you remember about being thirteen?

We've got it all until the revolution comes

Some more world-stopping observations to help get you through your day...

1. Scott Farkus and Grover Dill may rule the back alleys between home and school, but they're terrified of the vacuum cleaner. They also enjoy rasslin' on the back of my chair which means they're tumbling around back there behind my head. The joys never end.

2. You know you're a true political junkie/journalist groupie when you vow never to wash your twitter again after WaPo columnist Jonathan Capehart responds to one of your tweets.

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2.1 If you're not on Twitter, you might want to rethink that. Did you know you can interact with fun people like the author Tayari Jones?

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2.2 And if you are on Twitter and not following me, what's up with that? Don't make me deliver a cat to you. Because I will.

Seriously though, be sure to check out who follows me and who I follow. I've made lists, too. Great people, funny people, co-conspirators, authors, political types and my blog friends who fit into any number of those categories.

P.S. If you're on Twitter and I'm not following you, please leave your twitter handle in the comments so I can fix that situation. Thank you.

3. The word super is being overused. It seems to have replaced the now exhausted extreme and mega. We have this new Super Committee of Congressional members who will decide whether or not we flourish or wither and then there's this new Super Group called, of course, The Super Heavy featuring Mick Jagger, Dave Stewart, Joss Stone, Damian Marley and R.H. Rahman.

I think we'd have a better chance of making it out alive if we put the Super Heavy in charge of policy and sent those bought lawmakers into the studio with some kazoos and the much-maligned squeezebox.

4. Want to stir things up on Facebook? Mention Kozy Shack pudding. True story.

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5. I've been listening to the rhetoric coming from the Right, the moderates, the corporate media and anyone who owes their living to fundraising money from deep pockets. I find it chilling that there's this assumption that we all must simply accept the current and very gross income inequality as the "new normal." Listen carefully and educate yourselves, my loves, because that horrible notion frames everything that those folks say.

6. There are two more containers of Kozy Shack pudding in the garage fridge. I've put it as far away from me as possible. So let's say I decide to eat one. But I don't want to gain weight so to balance the input, I just eat it while running on the elliptical. Webcast? Yes or no?

7. I've tinkered with the layout of the blog and my other blog PoliTits, making the font larger, for example, because I notice that when I'm reading blogs with small fonts, I tend to stop reading because it's too much work. I know. First world problems abound. Let me tell you next about how the dishwasher is so noisy that I have to crank up the volume on the television in the living room so I can hear it while I'm puttering around in the kitchen.

8. I'm definitely a Libra. I'm torn between positive visioning that I'm going to get the job in Chicago for which I interviewed this week and fretting that if I think or talk about it, I'll jinx the whole thing.

9. I think politicians should stop trying to sound hip by making pop cultural references and employing folksy sayings. They could stand to lay off the similes, metaphors and euphemisms, too. Play it straight, people, or run the risk of wishing Elvis a happy birthday on the anniversary of his death. Someone spank their handlers and put them in the corner until the next news cycle.

10. Your turn. Observations, thoughts, gripes, confessions, whimsical statements of epic proportions welcome.