Not much happens in my life, I mean, nothing very fun or exciting. I really don't do anything I don't want to do, though. Which is not to say that I don't cook or clean or pay bills or bathe, I guess I just mentally prepare myself for these types of activities and make myself want to do them. If I cook, I get to eat, and I like to eat. If I clean I get to walk across the floor without getting all kinds of dirt and dog hair and what I can only guess is bits of mortar or gravel stuck to my feet. Bills? TV. Bathing? People not thinking I don't bathe. Last Sunday I had to go out for some soda, juice, and milk, which no matter how much I buy I cannot keep stocked. I don't like leaving the house, not on any day but especially not on a Sunday afternoon. But I made myself want to do it because I wanted to not drink water anymore.
Walmart is my nightmare, plus it's all the way in Russellville. The Dover Supermarket is great, but not a cheap as the Dover Dollar General, so I loaded my two-year-old into the car. My eleven-year-old came along too which was great because I could leave the Story, the two-year-old, in the car with Hayden, the eleven-year-old. When I walked in I was really glad that I left the boys in the car. It was late in the afternoon so all the church-shoppers had already headed home and apparently after them comes a wave of meth addicts, buying their sugary drinks and salty dinners in cans.
When I leave the house each day, what usually happens is see how pale my skin is in the sunlight in my rearview mirror and realize that normal people probably would have done something with their hair, or my pants really don't fit quite the way they did when they came out of the dryer and I feel kind of bad or embarrassed about how I look. That day in Dollar General I felt very well-put-together and confident about my pale skin. In front of me was a girl with some other people roughly her age who had paler skin but with little scratches all over it and un-filled-in prison tattoos of a cross and a little fairy with a Confederate flag for wings. She was wearing black fuzzy slippers, mens' boxer shorts, and a Jeff Gordon t-shirt. Behind me was a woman (apparently meth-addict or not, people in the South still adhere to the unwritten rule that women do the shopping) in short-alls with the sides completely unbuttoned, a pink too-small tank top and also some slippers, although hers were pink. She had some kids with her. That's about all there is to the story. Nothing amazing happened and no matter how hard I tried to eavesdrop out could not make out what they were saying to the people with them. That would have made a better story...
I don't know if they did meth, and I don't know that they weren't really great people. Maybe they just really like those fuzzy slippers and the kind of life that allows them to forego shoes altogether. I hope that whatever they were doing that day that they enjoyed their canned red beans and rice and Kool-Aid. They made me, for those few minutes while I was sandwiched between them in line while the overly-friendly cashier chatted the first one up, feel very lucky and very blessed and a little bit sad.
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Friday, June 11, 2010
Technology
Remember back in the '90's when the internet was vilified because it was eliminating the need for real human interaction? It was about the time online grocery shopping was introduced, and I was in high school so I may not be remembering this right. People were terrified that we would become a country of shut-ins and recluses. And look what we've done. Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn, how many more are there? Hundreds? Thousands? We have the capability to never see another live human being again and yet what most people choose to do when they're online is contact other people, people they've not seen in years. I've got more friends on Facebook than I ever had in my whole life, people who I thought hated me, people who I loved but didn't know I existed. Every time I get a friend request I think "Wow! That person noticed me?!" All the missed opportunities! I could have been the most popular person in high school, if only I'd known that so many people knew my name. I guess the rule pretty much is that if you went to the same high school or college, you were friends. Which is really pretty interesting. Even the people I remember as being enemies (not mine, of course, I didn't have any enemies, and if I did I was unaware of it and still am because we're facebook friends now) in high school are friends. Take all these gang-related shootings, for instance. I've always thought that gang members would have way more similarities than differences, they ought to get along. They would probably be facebook friends. After all, you have to know someone to hate them, you have to be alike, to care about them in some way, otherwise you just wouldn't care about them, they'd just be someone you didn't know. Thanks, facebook, for demonstrating that.
Which brings me to glassware. Tomorrow my father-in-law, Richard - founder, owner, and auctioneer at Spear Auctioneers - is going to be holding his first live online auction, a first for the state of Arkansas as well, and it's going to be all glassware. Hours and hours worth of what I'm told is a magnificent collection. Tomorrow, what began as small gatherings in chicken houses and cattle ranches will be broadcast at the speed of information around the world. Don, who wears suspenders and a cowboy hat daily, who does something like 300 push-ups and sit-ups every morning, who once punched a horse when it got out of control and knocked IT to the ground, is worried to death about his voice being heard across the nation. I'll be there clerking, along with my sister-in-law and one other clerk, who sat through hours of training on Proxibid, the online auction service. Only Richard, the auctioneer and my father-in-law, seems stoically calm.
This is where we are now. Some people may still fear a world where people can hide in their dusty apartments and still collect really nice glassware, but I think this is going to go the way of everything else. I think friends will be made, I think people at home can now take part in the excitement that an auction generates, be a part of that energy even from far away, because isn't that what we do best, being people?
If you want to be friends with Spear Auctioneers, Inc. they're there on facebook. If you want to take part in the auction, to exercise that human instinct to interact with other people go to proxibid.com and look for Spear Auctioneers under auction houses. It's going to be epic.
Which brings me to glassware. Tomorrow my father-in-law, Richard - founder, owner, and auctioneer at Spear Auctioneers - is going to be holding his first live online auction, a first for the state of Arkansas as well, and it's going to be all glassware. Hours and hours worth of what I'm told is a magnificent collection. Tomorrow, what began as small gatherings in chicken houses and cattle ranches will be broadcast at the speed of information around the world. Don, who wears suspenders and a cowboy hat daily, who does something like 300 push-ups and sit-ups every morning, who once punched a horse when it got out of control and knocked IT to the ground, is worried to death about his voice being heard across the nation. I'll be there clerking, along with my sister-in-law and one other clerk, who sat through hours of training on Proxibid, the online auction service. Only Richard, the auctioneer and my father-in-law, seems stoically calm.
This is where we are now. Some people may still fear a world where people can hide in their dusty apartments and still collect really nice glassware, but I think this is going to go the way of everything else. I think friends will be made, I think people at home can now take part in the excitement that an auction generates, be a part of that energy even from far away, because isn't that what we do best, being people?
If you want to be friends with Spear Auctioneers, Inc. they're there on facebook. If you want to take part in the auction, to exercise that human instinct to interact with other people go to proxibid.com and look for Spear Auctioneers under auction houses. It's going to be epic.
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Crossing the Street
It got a little slow at work today so to avoid sitting at my desk pretending to be busy when people walked by the door, and because we were thirsty, Trish sent me to the PDQ to get some drinks. I walked out the door with keys in hand and stopped in the parking lot. PDQ is just across the street - literally across the street. And although we send our drivers there all the time on errands I decided to risk it and just walk.
It started out alright. I made it all the way to the end of our street uneventfully and then waited for the opportunity to cross to the other side which only came when the light that allows the parade of summer Walmart shoppers to file into the packed football-stadium-sized parking lot. As I was reaching the other side I heard what might have been a whistle.
I got our drinks and headed back, this time facing traffic for a distance of maybe 50 feet. In that time I got whistled at (definitely), "hollered" at, honked at, and then an 18-wheeler drove by, looked me directly in the eye, and blew that massive horn that 18-wheelers have that require that "honk-honk" motion with the entire forearm to execute (every kid who's ever been on a road trip knows this motion). By the time I got back to work I felt like a million bucks.
When asked what took so long I admitted that instead of driving I just walked across the street. I was met with these shocked looks that meant "You did WHAT???" Rhonda even said it aloud. "Yeah, I just, I mean, it's literally RIGHT there, guys," I said pointing to the PDQ outside our front window. They were amazed.
Crossing the street in a small town is very, VERY different from crossing the street in a city. For one thing, nobody does it in a small town. I said my decision to walk across the street was a risk, and that was no joke. The only people who walk anywhere in this town are people who can't afford cars, people whose cars have broken down on the side of the road, and people looking to get picked up in other people's cars. If you're not in a car you obviously can't afford a car. If someone drives by and honks, they assume that since you've clearly made some bad decisions in your life, why not make one more? If someone honks in the city it just means you're about to get nudged onto the sidewalk by their bumper, or you dropped something in the middle of the street. It never occurs to anyone to walk anywhere here because parking is readily available. In the city I would walk miles just to avoid trying to find a parking spot, not to mention paying $25 to park the car. Here there are fields of parking lots. Which, then, is why we're all overweight down here. If you put a gas-station sized parking lot outside of Walmart, or one of those confusing multi-tiered things like they have in the city more people would walk, who can get a diesel truck into a parking garage anyway? We would all get more exercise, lose those extra pounds, and then, like me, feel deserving when we get honked at while walking down the road.
It started out alright. I made it all the way to the end of our street uneventfully and then waited for the opportunity to cross to the other side which only came when the light that allows the parade of summer Walmart shoppers to file into the packed football-stadium-sized parking lot. As I was reaching the other side I heard what might have been a whistle.
I got our drinks and headed back, this time facing traffic for a distance of maybe 50 feet. In that time I got whistled at (definitely), "hollered" at, honked at, and then an 18-wheeler drove by, looked me directly in the eye, and blew that massive horn that 18-wheelers have that require that "honk-honk" motion with the entire forearm to execute (every kid who's ever been on a road trip knows this motion). By the time I got back to work I felt like a million bucks.
When asked what took so long I admitted that instead of driving I just walked across the street. I was met with these shocked looks that meant "You did WHAT???" Rhonda even said it aloud. "Yeah, I just, I mean, it's literally RIGHT there, guys," I said pointing to the PDQ outside our front window. They were amazed.
Crossing the street in a small town is very, VERY different from crossing the street in a city. For one thing, nobody does it in a small town. I said my decision to walk across the street was a risk, and that was no joke. The only people who walk anywhere in this town are people who can't afford cars, people whose cars have broken down on the side of the road, and people looking to get picked up in other people's cars. If you're not in a car you obviously can't afford a car. If someone drives by and honks, they assume that since you've clearly made some bad decisions in your life, why not make one more? If someone honks in the city it just means you're about to get nudged onto the sidewalk by their bumper, or you dropped something in the middle of the street. It never occurs to anyone to walk anywhere here because parking is readily available. In the city I would walk miles just to avoid trying to find a parking spot, not to mention paying $25 to park the car. Here there are fields of parking lots. Which, then, is why we're all overweight down here. If you put a gas-station sized parking lot outside of Walmart, or one of those confusing multi-tiered things like they have in the city more people would walk, who can get a diesel truck into a parking garage anyway? We would all get more exercise, lose those extra pounds, and then, like me, feel deserving when we get honked at while walking down the road.
Friday, June 4, 2010
Why I'm Blessed
It's getting really hot here, which means that I'm not comfortable anywhere. Outside it's sweltering, so hot you can't breathe. Even the wind is hot. Inside, no matter where I am, the person who must not pay the electricity bill keeps the thermostat down around 70 degrees, which is much too cold. I don't like to use the air conditioner in my car, not because it doesn't work right or anything but because to turn it on makes me feel like a wimp, like putting the visor down does (one day you will all recognize my zen-like inner strength and it will all be due to my years of driving around in a 100+ degree car with sun streaming directly into my eyeballs). I know, it makes no real sense. Incidentally my zen-like inner strength only goes so far when it's actually 100+ degrees out side the car and thus about 500+ degrees inside the car and I finally had to cave and turn on the air the other day. I was chastising myself for my weakness, but I think Story was relieved, he does not have the self-control issues that I have. Whereas I practice way too much, he, in my opinion, practices way too little.
I say all that to say that I'm thankful to have a job. In an economy that I can't make sense of, that for the first time in my life has directly affected me, requiring me to spend long terrifying months going to interviews for jobs that I wouldn't get, jobs that instead went to people who were way over qualified for the positions, people who were just as disappointed with themselves for getting that job as I was for not getting it, not to mention gas prices, interest rates, the rising cost of food, and endless newscasts about things I don't understand. Despite all of that I have a job, in an office, where I don't have to answer phones or look at customers or take care of anyone, and what's even better is it's not outside. I don't know how laborers and construction workers and equipment operators get through a day. All of you out there reading this, carry a thermos of cold lemonade in your car to give to those guys standing in the hot sun with the "STOP" and "SLOW" signs that hold up traffic for hours while they lay hot asphalt on the hot road, making you late for your nice office job. I think they would appreciate it. Their job would be unbearable. That's got to be the worst. That or stump grinding.
I say all that to say that I'm thankful to have a job. In an economy that I can't make sense of, that for the first time in my life has directly affected me, requiring me to spend long terrifying months going to interviews for jobs that I wouldn't get, jobs that instead went to people who were way over qualified for the positions, people who were just as disappointed with themselves for getting that job as I was for not getting it, not to mention gas prices, interest rates, the rising cost of food, and endless newscasts about things I don't understand. Despite all of that I have a job, in an office, where I don't have to answer phones or look at customers or take care of anyone, and what's even better is it's not outside. I don't know how laborers and construction workers and equipment operators get through a day. All of you out there reading this, carry a thermos of cold lemonade in your car to give to those guys standing in the hot sun with the "STOP" and "SLOW" signs that hold up traffic for hours while they lay hot asphalt on the hot road, making you late for your nice office job. I think they would appreciate it. Their job would be unbearable. That's got to be the worst. That or stump grinding.
Monday, May 31, 2010
When the cat's away, the mice will play... or catch the house on fire
When I left my two-year-old at home with my 36-year-old for the weekend I was well aware that my roles as wife, mother, cooker, cleaner, motivator, and giver of unintentionally condescending looks were crucial to the functioning of this household, but when I walked in to find Story (the two-year-old) in a diaper and boots, covered head-to-toe in soot and blue Sharpie, and Justin (the 36-year-old) practically in tears on a pile of blankets on a pile of clothes on the couch, I had to re-evaluate my true value.
As it was told to me everything was going really well until Saturday morning when, after putting Story down for a nap and dozing off himself, Justin woke up to the smell of burning plastic and flames licking the ceiling of the bedroom. We knew that we had potential electrical problems, but for whatever reason these potential problems became kinetic that Saturday when the new alarm clock caught fire. Luckily someone was home to panic, consider calling 9-1-1, and then pummel the flames with our equally new pillows, slinging melted plastic and alarm clock organs all over the walls and carpet. After the fire, he said, he just gave up on the house-cleaning aspect of his endeavor. What did it matter to have a box of rice thrown from the counter top when the entire bedroom was covered in thick black tar-like dust? What is the point of putting the dirty dishes in the dishwasher when the side table has been reduced to charcoal?
Despite my hatred of walking in to a dirty house, I had to feel sorry for Justin (only after recovering some sense of what his weekend must have been like, and his knowledge of the fact that I would be extremely disappointed and probably furious). "I wanted so badly to for you to walk in and be impressed with me," he said half mad that I wasn't, and half acknowledging that I had no reason to be. I was impressed though, there was evidence that he really had good intentions, the curtain rods that I've been asking him to hang for months were hung, and while there was a black blanket of soot all over everything, the rice that was on the floor was cleaned up, the dirty dishes were at least in the sink, and Story seemed like he kind of enjoyed looking like a burned-up Smurf. So, as always seems to be the case, what was intended for evil, God made good because today the two of us cleaned, rearranged, and redecorated the house - redecorated as in we hung some pictures and moved a clock. It looks a lot better now, better than it did before I left.
As it was told to me everything was going really well until Saturday morning when, after putting Story down for a nap and dozing off himself, Justin woke up to the smell of burning plastic and flames licking the ceiling of the bedroom. We knew that we had potential electrical problems, but for whatever reason these potential problems became kinetic that Saturday when the new alarm clock caught fire. Luckily someone was home to panic, consider calling 9-1-1, and then pummel the flames with our equally new pillows, slinging melted plastic and alarm clock organs all over the walls and carpet. After the fire, he said, he just gave up on the house-cleaning aspect of his endeavor. What did it matter to have a box of rice thrown from the counter top when the entire bedroom was covered in thick black tar-like dust? What is the point of putting the dirty dishes in the dishwasher when the side table has been reduced to charcoal?
Despite my hatred of walking in to a dirty house, I had to feel sorry for Justin (only after recovering some sense of what his weekend must have been like, and his knowledge of the fact that I would be extremely disappointed and probably furious). "I wanted so badly to for you to walk in and be impressed with me," he said half mad that I wasn't, and half acknowledging that I had no reason to be. I was impressed though, there was evidence that he really had good intentions, the curtain rods that I've been asking him to hang for months were hung, and while there was a black blanket of soot all over everything, the rice that was on the floor was cleaned up, the dirty dishes were at least in the sink, and Story seemed like he kind of enjoyed looking like a burned-up Smurf. So, as always seems to be the case, what was intended for evil, God made good because today the two of us cleaned, rearranged, and redecorated the house - redecorated as in we hung some pictures and moved a clock. It looks a lot better now, better than it did before I left.
Saturday, May 29, 2010
The Chapter Called Confusion
Do the rest of you have moments when you step outside the life you're living and into the world of all that could have been and is possible? And you feel this, well, I guess you'd call it potential welling up inside of you that is either being totally realized or completely wasted, only you don't know which it is because you're so busy realizing or wasting it on day-to-day functioning. I've always spent a lot of my time being very confused and frustrated because of these moments which can actually stretch out for days. I've never been sure of what I'm thinking or feeling. I can't distinguish between what I hope for and what I'm afraid of. I don't know if something is good or bad. I find myself thinking what, really, is my purpose? Where the am I and how the hell did I get here? Is it stress? Maybe it's a spiritual problem, maybe it's just problem with making decisions.
Sitting at Mom and Dad's house in Chicago this evening, in their bedroom/Dad's office, listening to Gillian Welch on Prairie Home Companion, a baseball game on mute on the TV, Dad doing his stretching after his walk, Mom changing clothes for about the 13th time today and organizing things that she'll never use the rest of her life, I had one of those moments. That feeling of things being intensely right, or intensely wrong. And I could have cried from happiness, fear, or frustration at not knowing which it was.
Maybe this is what it is to be 20-something. Maybe this is what it is to be me, being 20-something and having one child in one state and one in the other, to have parents who need me and a family who needs me too, to have all these un-realized dreams and all these other dreams realized. It's so confusing and I don't like thinking about it. The rest of you get those moments too right? This makes sense? Maybe my 30's will be different. Maybe I just shouldn't listen to Gillian Welch anymore.
Sitting at Mom and Dad's house in Chicago this evening, in their bedroom/Dad's office, listening to Gillian Welch on Prairie Home Companion, a baseball game on mute on the TV, Dad doing his stretching after his walk, Mom changing clothes for about the 13th time today and organizing things that she'll never use the rest of her life, I had one of those moments. That feeling of things being intensely right, or intensely wrong. And I could have cried from happiness, fear, or frustration at not knowing which it was.
Maybe this is what it is to be 20-something. Maybe this is what it is to be me, being 20-something and having one child in one state and one in the other, to have parents who need me and a family who needs me too, to have all these un-realized dreams and all these other dreams realized. It's so confusing and I don't like thinking about it. The rest of you get those moments too right? This makes sense? Maybe my 30's will be different. Maybe I just shouldn't listen to Gillian Welch anymore.
Monday, May 24, 2010
Home Ownership
There are worse things that could happen to your feet than having cold water squish up between your toes whilst walking across the carpet in your two-year-old's room at 6:30 in the morning. Stubbing your toe on the corner of the dresser in the middle of the night with a glass of juice in your hand, for one, is pretty bad, or getting up off the couch only to step in what you're praying is milk-soaked Raisin Bran that has somehow been spilled on your new living room rug by a careless child, that's a bad one. The cold water thing is up there on the discomfort scale though, and that's what I've been dealing with, consistently, for a month. The other stuff has happened too, but not every day.
At first I thought there was water getting in from outside, so after inspecting the outside of the house on my hands and knees I found a few potential culprits and got a can of that silicone foam stuff that gets about 500 times it's original size as it dries. I didn't know that when I was filling holes though and now have giant yellow foam stalagmites all over the outside of my house.
Apparently what I did was fill every hole that was allowing the water to drain because about the time the foam was dry Story's room became a humid marshland. As I was walking down the hallway, discouraged, I felt water coming up between the slats of laminate flooring and finally realized that the water was coming from the air conditioner, which is in a tiny closet off the hallway. Now that I think about it I'm pretty sure I remember hearing dripping sounds when the air was on. I feel like a fool.
I tried to fix it myself, reasoning that it was condensation from a cold copper pipe, which I lovingling bundled with towels and then shop-vac-ed Story's carpet all prepared for it to dry thouroughly. That didn't work either and after putting pie tins and buckets to catch the now steady stream of water (it could still be condensation, it's really humid here) flowing from the cold pipe, I caved and called a plumber, or electrician, I don't know what he was. Not a plumber, I guess, when I asked him if he could fix the garbage disposal he said I had to call a plumber. I thought guys who had names on their shirts knew how to fix anything, I'd have had the guy look at my car which is slow to start these days if I had been home. He acted like the air conditioner should be a quick fix though, unknowingly insulting my efforts over the past month.
So, after a month of sloshing around and trying to fix it myself, it's finally running right. Now I've just got to figure out how to fix the carpet, the laminate floor, and the foam pillars outside.
At first I thought there was water getting in from outside, so after inspecting the outside of the house on my hands and knees I found a few potential culprits and got a can of that silicone foam stuff that gets about 500 times it's original size as it dries. I didn't know that when I was filling holes though and now have giant yellow foam stalagmites all over the outside of my house.
Apparently what I did was fill every hole that was allowing the water to drain because about the time the foam was dry Story's room became a humid marshland. As I was walking down the hallway, discouraged, I felt water coming up between the slats of laminate flooring and finally realized that the water was coming from the air conditioner, which is in a tiny closet off the hallway. Now that I think about it I'm pretty sure I remember hearing dripping sounds when the air was on. I feel like a fool.
I tried to fix it myself, reasoning that it was condensation from a cold copper pipe, which I lovingling bundled with towels and then shop-vac-ed Story's carpet all prepared for it to dry thouroughly. That didn't work either and after putting pie tins and buckets to catch the now steady stream of water (it could still be condensation, it's really humid here) flowing from the cold pipe, I caved and called a plumber, or electrician, I don't know what he was. Not a plumber, I guess, when I asked him if he could fix the garbage disposal he said I had to call a plumber. I thought guys who had names on their shirts knew how to fix anything, I'd have had the guy look at my car which is slow to start these days if I had been home. He acted like the air conditioner should be a quick fix though, unknowingly insulting my efforts over the past month.
So, after a month of sloshing around and trying to fix it myself, it's finally running right. Now I've just got to figure out how to fix the carpet, the laminate floor, and the foam pillars outside.
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