Let's Get Sh*t Done

When I was in high school, I wrote a scathing article in the school newspaper detailing the disparity in which boys’ sports and girls’ sports were treated.  This was in the early 90’s and I was a product of a mother who did not burn her bra in the 70’s but was highly influenced by the push for women’s equality of that era.  The main complaints I had as an athlete was that the sports teams I was on had substandard uniforms, equipment and fields.  I don’t think I had ever heard of Title IX; I just knew it wasn’t fair that boys’ teams got new uniforms and we were wearing hand-me-down boys’ uniforms.  I don’t think I need to explain why a uniform designed for a 13 year old male basketball player might not be the best fit for a 17 year old female field hockey player.  I experienced quite the notoriety when the article was published because I was quite passionate about the inequality and voiced it.  (go figure) Girls told me great job and boys, especially football boys, threatened to hurt me because I may have mentioned their losing season in the article more than once.  This article even struck a nerve with teachers; again, female teachers were basically fist bumping me while I received a lot of stony faces from my male teachers.  I struck a nerve, but then I graduated and moved on and the inequality of boys’ sports vs. girls’ sports didn’t seem an issue I needed to press anymore.  I was very busy not playing any sports for the first time in four years and gaining an excessive amount of weight as college freshman are prone to do. 

I didn’t think about girls’ sports much until this past year when my own girl started playing on sports teams at her middle school.  I looked at the new uniforms she was given along with warm ups, sweats and athletic bag and thought about how things had really changed.  I was happy for her that in this era, not only are girls’ sports teams endured, but that they are expected and encouraged and funded.  My girl however, still spoke often and passionately, about how the boys’ teams were treated better or didn’t have to work as hard.  I told her I was sorry to say, but even today, her female coaches and her female teammates would always have to work harder.  This is, unfortunately, life as a woman.  Forty-four years after Title IX, these girls and coaches still have to work harder, play harder and be more than their male counterparts and women everywhere are still working harder, trying harder and still being paid less than their male counterparts. 

Anyway, soap box speech over, yesterday I was just reminded again how incredibly important sports are for teenage girls.  I’ve watched my girl over the past year go from awkward and clumsy to an athlete.  I have watched her run, climb, lift, throw and shoot.  I have watched her win, lose, try and fail.  I have watched her play her heart out and I have watched her dig deep when she needed to.  I have encouraged her and watched her encourage others.  But yesterday, yesterday, she did something that gives me goose bumps to think about.  Her basketball team was losing very, very badly.  They were outmanned, outplayed and outshot.  They were frustrated, they were learning as they went and they were struggling.  My girl did not get to play much, which I still don’t understand, but the last time she was in, she was on it.  She was here and there, she was defending, she was getting her arms up and in there and tangling up and she was giving it absolutely everything she had.  The look on her face during her last play had me desperately wishing I had a great camera or could draw.  Her face was red with exertion, hairs around her face just everywhere as they slipped out of her ponytail, her jaw was set, her shoulders back, but it was her eyes set like steel and determination that just killed me.  The look on her face simply said “Let’s get shit done.” 

I guess I had that face too.  Plus mouthguard and bad uniform.

I like that she is an athlete. I like that she is learning teamwork, perseverance and endurance. I love that she is learning at age 14 to set her game face and her mind to “let’s get shit done.”  This, this is what she is going to need to be successful, to be heard and to be everything she is meant to be.  This is why sports are so damn important during girls’ teenage years.  This is why we need to sign them up, this is why they have to try different things and this is why we sit on those benches and bleachers and run around town taking them where they need to be.  I am thrilled my daughter is 14 and learning how to get shit done and not 24.  Or 34 or older.  I am so thrilled I have goose bumps as I write it and picture that face, that feral, ferocious face once more.

So we need to keep pushing for true equality in spending and funding for sports.  We need to talk about female athletes with the same reverence we use when talking about male athletes.  We need to be present, be encouraging and be LOUD as we cheer them on.  These girls are learning how to be strong, to be there for each other and they are learning how to get shit done.  And if their faces look anything like my daughter’s, they are going to change the world.

Say You Want a Resolution

Here it is, January 2^nd, and I have already broken two of the three New Year’s Resolutions I set for myself.  I normally do not make resolutions because I know me.  I know that I take things that could be possible and give them a ridiculous time frame to get done and when they don’t get done in that time frame, I throw my hands up in the air, retreat into the fetal position and self-medicate with handfuls of chocolate.  This year, I got caught up in the hype.  New Year, New You?  Yes, why not me!  New Year, New Beginnings?  I could start something fresh or new!  Out with the old, in with the new?  Yes! I cleared out one whole drawer in the kitchen after I read that.  I don’t know, too much daytime TV or too many exclamation point headlines, something spoke to the slacker in me and said “join this”.  So I did.  I quickly decided I would lose weight, be a better friend and this will be the year I become a teacher.

Let’s look at number 1: lose weight.  I normally do not believe in losing weight because I gain and lose the same three pounds every few days and if my jeans fit, then so be it.  Not this year.  This year I was going to lose real weight, measureable weight and glow in the satisfaction of it.  Sadly, this goal lasted until lunchtime on New Year’s Day.  Bill made homemade mac and cheese.  Kraft in the blue box I could have passed up but not homemade mac and cheese.  It was delicious and I ate myself into a cheesecarb coma.  I am not proud to say that when I woke from my couch nap, I went straight to the kitchen in a low blood sugar zombie trance and ate the remaining ten cold noodles out of the congealed cheese at the bottom of the pan.  Go ahead and judge me, you can’t be thinking any worse of me than I was while I kept shoving those cold, yet tasty, noodles in my mouth.  Knowing that this is my life and I am weak, I gave up on lose weight and changed it to “make healthy choices.”  This morning I ate quinoa with banana and walnut for breakfast.  This erases the shame of the cold noodle eating from the day before.

Goal number two was to be a better friend.  I have friends, I love my friends, but as of late, I feel as though I am terrible friend.  We don’t get together often, I forget what they tell me and all I offer is words.  Well-rested after two weeks off of work, I thought I will be a better friend and make time to actually see my friends before I don’t have any friends.  Today I started thinking about school and work firing back up and I know I am not going to be that good friend.  I socialize all day at work, wait, what I mean is my job is very social.  My kids talk an awful lot when I get home and I guess I am all talked out at the end of the day or even sometimes on the weekend.  If anyone would like to get together and take up some quiet pursuits like yoga or knitting or hiking without talking, call me.  Especially if it involves comfy pants!   Until then friends, I am sorry I don’t make book club or parties or neighborhood events, but if you need emailed words, I’m there.

New Year’s resolution number three is to be a teacher.  That one I am not compromising on.  Since that is really more of a life goal or a career path, I think I just stuck it in with the resolutions to keep the fire burning. However, I don’t need New Year’s to make me remember I want to teach because I think about teaching all the time.  This is going to happen, stay tuned.

I feel amused that I was such a lemming and followed the resolution crowd right over the cliff. We all know better than that.  If something in your life really needs to be changed, it shouldn’t matter if it is January 1^st or June 23^rd; you should change because you are ready, not because the rest of the world is proclaiming you should do it now.  

As for me, 2016 will see me continue as me.  I will work and be a mom and be the loudest mom at all the sporting events.  I will write, I will read, I will learn new things and insert myself into any teaching opportunities that come up.  I will try and I will succeed and I will also try things and fail.  I will inch along, I will race along and hopefully end up ahead and not behind. I will laugh, I will cry and I will say bad words at both opportune and inopportune times.  I will make healthy choices and I will fight my coworkers for more than my share of the queso.  I will value myself, I will value the friends who stand by me even though I am a terrible friend and I will love my family with all of my heart.  And I will, this year, at some point, be hired as a teacher.  The things I have listed are not resolutions, they are just my life.  They were my life in 2015 and they will be a part of my life in 2016.  It makes me happy to read them and it makes me smile to know I get to keep doing these things.  My hope is that the things you list make you happy as well.  Happy New Year!

We Are Family

Road trips seem to be very Dickensian in their nature: they are both the very best and very worst of times.  People always comment that we are so brave or fun-seeking or crazy because we drive places all the time, but the simple truth is that it is a lot cheaper than flying.  We are not looking for road warrior status; we are just looking to save a couple of hundred dollars.  Sure, I’d like to get to Chicago in two hours instead of 18.5, but I would also like to eat when I am old and maybe send my kids to college.  Maybe. 

I will start with the worst of times because our ride home was heinous and it has taken me two days being back at home to be willing to talk about it.  The ride home is always the worst because your body and brain remember just how long it took to get here and they start protesting before you even get in the car.  It’s going to be long and uncomfortable and you and everyone in the car with you knows it.  We are tired of music, tired of podcasts, tired of road noise and tired of each other.  We are driving way too many miles in one day to try and not have to drive way too many miles over two days.  No restaurants look good and would it kill the state of Missouri to have more than two Starbucks in it?  The heaviness of sitting and only sitting for so long weighs on you and it becomes harder and harder to unfurl from your car position when you stop even though you are desperately longing to move, to stretch, to bend, and straighten.  You eat Chex Mix by the handful in a desperate attempt to curb your bathroom breaks because every minute stopped is a minute you are not moving ahead.  This works well but also gives you swollen ankles and all you can think of is how desperately tight your socks feel.  The boredom is so prevalent: the same dead winter landscape in each state, the same reminders to put your shoes on as the car glides to a stop at the gas station, the same thoughts buzzing around and around your head, the same nothingness.  We are in limbo.  The ride home is most definitely the very worst of times.

This trip home from Chicago had all of the weariness listed above as well as hellacious rain and terrible driving conditions.  I am not going to complain about it one bit because we were fortunate to have a good vehicle, fortunate that Bill is an excellent driver and fortunate to have missed the freezing, flooding and tornados.  It was intense.  It was crazy-scary and at one point I had to move to the back and move SG to the front because the incessant rain on the windshield was making me tense.  Then in the back, I had to talk myself down the crazy tree because it was so much smaller back there and the rain still would not let up.  It was not a pitter patter of rain; it was a constant, incessant deluge. 

So why do we do it and is it worth it?  It is always worth it because we get to where we want to go.  We see our family and watch our kids with their cousins and think it is totally worth it.  We explore new cities and take pictures in front of cool things and the time in the car disappears.  We stay at a relative’s house and live their life for a few days and know them better.  We have fun, we stay up late, we visit local haunts and we eat all the food.  After a day or two at our destination, we don’t remember being in the car at all.

And, every now and then, I take a good picture!

The ride to our destination is so often the very best of times for us.  We are all excited about going on our trip and have saved up new music, new things to entertain us and new things to talk about.  We flood the car with our words and our laughter.  We sing along, loudly, to all the songs.  We complement each other on our range or remark how we didn’t know that the other person even knew that song.  (Bill McMahon knows all the songs.  All the songs) We pass snacks back and forth that are purchased for road trips only and everyone smiles and savors them.  We are no longer four people leading four different lives that intersect; we are four people with one common goal.  We are less interested in all the things that make us “us” and more interested in what we are going to do as a “we” over the next few days.  We shed the weight of our lives as we click off the miles and we laugh more, we talk more and we enjoy each other more.  We like the closeness the car brings and we talk more openly and honestly and we listen more clearly than we ever do at home.  There are fewer distractions in the car and sometimes as a family, you need that.  We remember that we are a family, that we love each other, that we are living our lives together and not just along-side one another.  We are a family.  That is worth all the miles down the road and back again.

Bad Books, Bad Books

This time of year, I normally like to write a review of the best or worst books I have read and encourage you to pick them up to enjoy or throw them across the room in disgust.  I usually reserve one sentence for my complete disdain of Little Bee even though it’s been five or six years since I actually read it and can’t remember why it is I spew vitriol at it again each year.  But tradition is tradition, right?  Even though it has been a disappointing year for books, I will still share what I’ve found and I will malign Little Bee.

It has been a tough year for me and books. I have started more books than I have finished.  I figure by this time in my life and with the multitude of books out there, if an author can’t grab my undivided attention by the third chapter, I am moving on.  I want to fall into a book. I want to lose all sense of time and purpose as I flip pages. I want to be wowed or moved or flipping frantically to see what happens next.  I have not found a lot of this out there this year.  I also incredibly impatient with YA because they are all trilogies and that is two books too many.

Probably way better than most of what I read.

As I grew tired of being disappointed by the banal selection of fiction I came across, I moved on to read more non-fiction books this year than in my whole life.  I read one about a guy who retraces the Oregon Trail in an actual covered wagon.  It wasn’t the best book, but I did learn a lot about mules and the history of mules in America.  This was not at all fascinating or interesting, but it was something.  I also read Missoula by John Krakauer and strongly feel it should be mandatory high school reading.  Boys and girls need to be aware of what consent is: what it looks like, what it sounds like and how to stop in a situation where it is not given.  Girls need to learn to never leave their girls and boys need to learn stop and all of them need to learn what a dangerous situation can look like before it becomes dangerous.  I felt fired up after I read this book and disgusted and alarmed, so it was probably one of the best ones I read this year.  I also tried to read The New Jim Crow, but I borrowed it from a teacher at school and found I was more interested in what she annotated on the side than the actual book, so I will try again once she finishes the book herself and annotates the rest of the chapters for me.

Disappointing new books led me digging around the classics in hopes that older is better.  The Awakening reminded me a lot of Madame Bovary and I could see where it was headed so I opted out.  I did discuss it with someone who had read it and she confirmed and elaborated on the doom I had sensed coming.  Confederacy of Dunces was amusing in its preposterousness and reminded me a lot of Candide.  And is it wrong to admit I enjoyed Lolita?  Seriously, the main character, Humbert Humbert, is such a creepy perv and the books centers on pedophilia but the writing and story-telling were spectacular. 

Looking through my paltry list of books read I see that I did give four books more than one star.  I guess I do have some books to recommend after all!    I’ll Give You the Sun was amazing and a YA book that is not part of a trilogy.  I also enjoyed The Truth According to Us.  Historical, witty and voiced a little in letters it caught my attention and held it.  If you liked Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, you will like this one too.  I stumbled across American Housewife Stories and giggled and guffawed through it.  Written by Helen Ellis, I had to keep reminding myself it wasn’t written by David Sedaris.  I know you Santaland Diary haters won’t be picking this one up, but I picked it up, I passed it on and I highly recommend it.  The best book I read in this year of blah books was A God in Ruins.  This is Kate Atkinson’s follow up to Life After Life and it is just as good.  It is full of captivating characters, excellent writing and an ending that is more philosophical than conclusive.  Read it and tell me what you think of the ending.  I had a lovely discussion with a coworker as to what we thought it all meant.  I thought the ending was daring and thought-provoking and dare I say provocative?  I dare!  It was provocative!

I wonder if because people skip proofreaders and editors and self-publish we are flooded by a tsunami of poorly written fiction as a result.  Or is it because everyone gets a trophy and thinks that they can sing or dance or do whatever that they also think they can write? I realize that these are bold words for a woman who writes without an editor and usually publishes her work with some sort of grammatical error.  However, you don’t see me publishing a book, so I feel confident in maligning others.  Maybe I am just tired at night and would rather stare at the TV and watch crazy people in Alaska fight for their survival.  Or perhaps I have read so many good books in my life that I deserved a year of ho-hum books.  I am not really sure what this whole year of bad reading was about, but whatever it is, I hope this was just an off year in a lifetime of good reading.  Well, minus that time I suffered through Little Bee.

Jingle, Jangle, Juggle

Picture it, if you will, Josh Groban’s “O Holy Night” softly streaming through the speakers on a crisp morning.  This invokes feelings of peace and joy and happiness, right?  Yes, unless it is playing in my tiny Prius as three people search, scramble and throw things around looking for a pen while yelling at each other about not being prepared.  I needed a pen to write a note for tutorials on the back of the HEB receipt we found stuck to the floor of the car and neither child had a pen or pencil in their enormous, voluminous backpacks.  They tried to turn it on me but I quickly deflected all blame and responsibility and ruined the boy’s life by actually walking him into middle school and asking the first person I saw for a pen.  

This is going to be my Christmas season this year: soft rumblings of holiday bliss in the background drowned out by the craziness of our lives.  I usually write something about pausing to enjoy the season or not getting caught up in the crazy but I am fully onboard the crazy train and I say let it rip!  Basketball games and gifts to get each week before the games?  Sure, sign me up and don’t let me know until the night before.  Winter Concerts where kids need to be there ten minutes before I get home from work?  Totally doable!  Cookies for this, beverages for that and White Elephant gifts too?  God bless us, every one. 

This is just the way life is this year and it would be silly to think that the magic of Christmas would slow things down.  I am a little sad that the busyness is creating havoc with some of our normal traditions, but I think that is part of the kids growing up and turning our lives into a whirlwind.  During one of my unemployed years, I crafted an advent calendar out of trees made from colored Christmas paper and not only did it actually turn out, the kids loved it. I know they love it and while I know that, I forgot to buy candy to put under the trees until December 2^nd.  The candy I bought didn’t fit under the trees and while trying to make it fit and doing homework with the boy and putting together lunches for the next day, I gave up.  I knocked all the little trees over, piled the candy in the middle and considered it done.  Maybe I will buy one of the nicely packaged ones from Starbucks and let my children feel the love from a giant corporation this holiday season. 

Timber!!!

 I drank so much coffee yesterday my heart hurt, but in kind of a good way, like it was finally keeping up with my brain.  Work is just as crazy as everyone is trying to cram the last few weeks of the semester in.  One of the things I do here at work is personally visit students in class with very overdue books.  They love (?) the personal attention and it helps me put a face with a name.  Yesterday, as I was running around to classes trying to hunt down overdue books, I found a kid lying unconscious in the stairwell.  It almost didn’t surprise me.  Later on this same day, a teacher yelled out to me as I was once again on the hunt that someone in her class was having a seizure and could I help?  Of course I can help.  Thinking about this later I think that all the busyness of our lives has brought me to the realization that everything and anything is going to happen every second of the day.  I don’t have to be prepared for it; I just have to go with it.  I am going to apply this to the Christmas season too.  I might not be able to stop and do all the tiny things that make used to make it enjoyable, but I can still enjoy the blur of lights as I run along.

Finding Comfort Where You Can

Last week I went to the doctor and had to fill out a little questionnaire.  One of the questions was “Do you ever feel old or unattractive?”  Initially I laughed and thought what women over 40 would not answer yes to that?  I even told the doctor that they should just pre-mark the form with yes to save time and we laughed.  However, this week I found myself in a bit of a sad place and those words kept haunting me.  Getting ready for work? Unattractive.  Bathroom mirror at work under the fluorescents? Old.  Rearview mirror?  Old, unattractive and insanely hairy.  Sigh.

I guess sad place might be a bit of an understatement: tsunami of hormones and sinkhole of sadness might be more descriptive.  I was sad about being made to realize that there are days I feel old and unattractive.  My parents were going to come down for Thanksgiving but my dad is sick so they can’t come.  William wanted me to learn to play his trumpet for his winter concert and while I wanted to, my stupid, failing, Bell’s palsy ruined lip won’t seal and I can’t play it.  I am not going to lie; I went upstairs and cried my pillow wet when that happened.  The whole time I was weeping copiously I was thinking how vain I am, how stupid this all was and how I was just sad. And while it is okay to be sad, it is okay to cry and it is okay to mope, who wants to go around like that for more than a day or two?

Today I gave myself back some power.  It wasn’t straightening my hair or stopping to recognize all the good in my life or even tying my decorative scarf in a jaunty way.  My power came from wearing the most gigantic pair of underwear I own.  You should be thinking granny panties, stay-away-panties, putting the pant-in-panties-panties.  Bloomers even.  I am not worried about panty lines because they are so big there aren’t any.  They are so big that their waistband sits higher than the waistband of my pants.  They are even so boring they are beige.  Not ecru or wheat colored or farmer’s field brown, they are just beige.  The first time Bill saw them and asked what the hell I was wearing I lied and said I must have grabbed the wrong ones by mistake.  I didn’t.  I saw them beckoning me from the bin and I grabbed them because sometimes you just need to wear a gigantic pair of underwear.  Don’t judge me: I know you all have that one pair.  Heck I know some of you would still be wearing the mesh panties they send you home from the hospital in with your newborn if you could.  They are comforting and actually so gigantic they are almost swaddling in their protection.  They seem to be acting as armor against not only the world, but deflecting the negativity circling from within as well.

I definitely know why she is smiling.

Sometimes when you are not comfortable in your inside, you need to find comfort on the outside. I used to have an Old Navy Christmas tree shirt that I would wear when I felt sad.  Over the course of ten years, I would wear that thing around the house as a warning. I would wear it under a sweater to work and feel like I was wearing a hug.  Eventually it got so threadbare and disgusting even I had to admit it had served its time and quietly retired it.  Bill has a big white sweater he wears when he is feeling blue so I know that men do this too.  Somehow sitting here knowing I am wearing the most gigantic pair of underwear in the world has me feeling so much better.  I am no longer old and unattractive, I am as young as I am ever going to be and feeling in great shape!  Take that questionnaire!  I am still sad my parents can’t come but not so sad I will tell my daughter I don’t feel like Thanksgiving this year.  Let’s cook!  Let’s make a huge turkey for just two and more side dishes than four people can eat!  And while I can’t play the trumpet, I will rest comfortably in my giant underwear and the fact William said that he and I can always play piano together.

It's A Beautiful Thing

Today is November 11, 2015 and more specifically, Veteran’s Day.  Today we honor the men and women who have served in the armed forces.  I am absolutely getting my history geek on by scrolling the news feed of my Facebook page and seeing all the pictures people have posted of their relatives in uniform.  One coworker posted a picture of his father and mentioned, pretty casually I must say, that his dad escaped a Nazi POW camp.  What?!?!  How have we never talked about this?!  I want to know everything about it, right now!  Another coworker posted a shout out to his relative for serving in the Vietnam War and to the man’s wife for raising the kids while the grandfather was deployed.  Nicely, nicely done.

I drove to work and noticed all the flags flying today and thought of my neighbor who passed away a few years ago.  Bentley served in WWII and refused to talk about his service other than to say it was nothing.  I missed that he was not outside raising his flag and saluting it so very smartly today.  As old and fragile as he got, Bentley was ramrod straight and crisp when he saluted that flag.  It was a beautiful, beautiful thing and one that I am so very grateful I got a chance to witness.  I stopped at a red light and noticed the man on the corner had a sign declaring him to be a disabled vet so I rolled down my window and offered him some money.  He took it and thanked me and I thanked him for his service and he smiled a very toothless smile and walked on to the next car.  And then I leaky-eye cried; the kind I normally reserve for kids’ sports performances where I am so overcome with pride and emotion and nothing is sad, but dammit there I am crying again. 

As I think about it, I think it is because we are all, on our own way, kind of proud to be Americans today.  We are sharing our histories or our services and people are thanking and being thanked, and that is a damn beautiful thing.  How often are we proud to be American? How often do we even think about being proud of being American?  I think we are ambivalent about it most of the time and embarrassed about it the rest.  Next year is a presidential election year and as such, the absolute worst of America and its politics is what we are bombarded with.  I am tutoring kids in US History and one day will teach it, and America failed a lot of the time.  We killed, we conquered, we annihilated, we overpromised and under-delivered and continue to do so.  We continue to be racially divisive and sexually biased and discriminatory and if you don’t think so, you are a very white man with a college education and a good, good job.

However, today is not about the politicians or who is right or who is wrong. It is about the people of America.  Underneath all the bad you hear and find in America, the fact is that there are a ton of regular people doing good things every day.  Regular people raising their kids and thinking they are doing a terrible job.  There are people teaching kids or mentoring them and trying to get them to care.  People who volunteer to help, people who need the services the volunteers bring.  People who get up every day and just do what has to be done.  People who feed us, people who take our nasty trash away, and people who run our businesses.  Today, I feel reminded of all of that.  Today I feel like even though all we may hear about is the bad, that there is still an awfully lot of good and good people out there.  Today is about the dads and brothers and moms and aunts who believed in something bigger than themselves and who gave their time, their years and even their lives to serve it.  That is a beautiful thing, an amazing thing; a squeeze-your-heart and leaky-eye cry kind of thing.  Thank you veterans, for your service, and thank you also for reminding me that it is okay to have leaky-eye pride about the country you live in.