world fender-bender

Like when two worlds collide, but not as severely.

This morning was very odd. D and I went to check out a Lutheran school for A's kindergarten (and possibly beyond). It was the school D attended, K-5, and the same school many of my friends went to and subsequently made their way to the Lutheran high school. My elementary school, sadly, is defunct due to a lot of mismanagement and fear of neighborhood changes. Old white Germans don't really live around there anymore, but the old white Germans in charge couldn't handle the transition. They would rather the school die, apparently. Nicht Gut. 

Baltimore is Smalltimore, as most people know who have spent more than 2 years here. For those of us who have spent 90 percent of our lives here, one would be hard pressed to go anywhere without recognizing at least one person. It makes going out without makeup particularly treacherous, if I cared about that sort of thing. 

If you take the Smalltimore phenomenon and grow it exponentially, you can get a good idea of what it's like to return to a Lutheran school after a long absence. It's not merely the associations one has with the physical space, though those are enough; walking through the hallway of my old middle school sent torrents of insecurity through my whole body, and I hadn't even seen anyone. The smell. The lockers, floor polish, radiators, copy paper, the mustiness of hormonal anxiety, gym shoes. It was a little too much to handle. 

Luckily I didn't have too many associations with the buildings we visited today. The only times I had been there were for middle school record hops, all at night and in the basement of the church, which I probably wouldn't recognize even if it had a smoke machine and strobe lights going. And Def Leppard blasting from the speakers.

Today, it wasn't the place but the people who sent me plunging into a contemplative mood. The principal was D's confirmation teacher, a formative person in his life. She was one of the few adults D said had been completely honest about life when she taught him. Knowing how quick D is at spotting baloney, I had been eager to meet this woman for a long time. She really is extraordinary, loves middle school kids (my personal favorites), and is a whole lot shorter than D remembered. She's been there for a very long time, which is a great sign for an elementary school, and has a great rapport with the teachers. 

We took a tour of the school, and several times a teacher's name would be mentioned, "so-and-so's wife," so-and-so being someone I graduated with or went to the ice rink with, or had all my classes with and hardly ever talked to (a real feat in a class of 50 kids total).  The most anxiety-inducing of these names belonged to an ex-boyfriend's mom, who is a middle school teacher. She's sweet, super-nice, and I clearly remember the last time I saw her: dropping me and her son off at the movie theater for a date. Jeez. 

Even though there's a lot of water under the bridge, 15 years of water in fact, it's still rather unpleasant to see someone and wonder what they're thinking. "Yes, I remember you. You're the one who broke my son's heart." Or something equally horrible, and probably not at all what's going through her mind.  But it was going through mine. I was not nice to boys, not at all. I don't think I ever had a rational thought for my whole dating career, when I look back on it. Teenagers are irrational, yes, but I had convinced myself of my superior intelligence which kept me even further separated from reality. "All these boys are lame, and I am so far above them," I would say as I agreed to go out with one of them, and then another. Staggering idiocy.

I'm probably being too harsh with myself, with all the intervening time making me much more critical. But there are a few people in particular I can't think of without shame and remorse, and a prayer that the wounds I inflicted were much less than I fear. I am friends with some of these guys now, which has been a real, if awkward, relief. I know though, that there are things that happened in high school and college that still grieve me, so I can only guess that there might be someone who can't think of me without a great deal of negativity. Well, I can't do much about that except track them down on Facebook and send a long-overdue apology. If I don't, I'll probably run into them at the grocery store in my sweats. That will be the day I decide to move to California.

home improvement photos

Check out my flickr page for photos from our frenzy of renovation! More still to follow, once we're finished. I'm so excited!

twilight madness

Hm. I feel compelled to write about this, even though I also feel very sheepish and way too much like a giddy, hormone-addled teenager. My sister-in-law gave me the book, twilight, for Christmas, which I've been studiously avoiding, fearing that it would be just a poor substitute for the gaping hole left by the end of Harry Potter; supernatural powers, a love story, good triumphing over evil through self-sacrifice, but with vampires. I was wrong that it was a poor substitute, though my plot assessment wasn't too far off. D said "it's probably like Buffy without pop culture references." Yeah, less snarkiness but the same themes of desire and doomed love, dealing with all the mess of growing up, with the added desperation of wanting someone who should be your mortal enemy. Realizing that a person you thought the embodiment of perfection actually chooses you, above everyone else. 

To be totally honest, my initial interest in the book came from the casting for the movie, namely this young man:

Robert Pattinson, who played the ill-fated (but hot) Cedric Diggory in one of the HP movies, has grown up a bit, and now plays the role of Edward Cullen: a dreamy, intense, brooding, majorly hot vampire who falls in love with a human. 

See, I can't even describe one character without going all gooey. I feel like a stooge. 

So I read the first book, charged through the second and third while in Maine (losing much sleep and waking to constant musings on what I had read), and just finished the final book last night. And I saw the movie today with my sister-in-law. A little obsessed, aren't we? Yes. ok? 

The movie was really interesting to me, and not just because Edward is a little too gorgeous to be allowed. The movie captured the feeling of high school friendships, the entirely unspoken relationship between two introverted family members, and the feeling of isolation when you're an old soul in a teenager's body. The casting really was terrific as well, especially for Jacob, Bella's friend from the reservation who has a very large part in the next book. It's really going to be interesting, and I hope they don't get a crappy director to replace Catherine Hardwicke. She didn't like the short timetable for production, which I don't blame her for. I just hope they can get someone good. Sophia Coppola...?

I've been reading the first book to D while he works on the thousand things that need doing in our renovation-explosion. It's funny to hear his theories on things, character motivations and so forth. The books are not terribly great writing, but you wind up caring so much for the characters that it doesn't really matter if the writer can get repetitive. Sometimes the narrative switches to Jacob, and I admire how she can change the feeling and pacing of the writing to match his thoughts and personality. It's compelling and addictive, though I wish heartily it were otherwise. 

When I first started reading the book, I felt really depressed. There's a whole phenomenon surrounding Edward, millions of girls looking to him as their ideal guy. He's a protector, he's complimentary and sincere, he's observant of feelings and moods, and is able to control himself even when his feelings are more than passionate. And mysterious as well. Great, right? I just was sad because it seems like a guy needs to be undead, or live over a hundred years ago, to be a really awesome, manly love interest. Most of the guys in contemporary movies are brainless hedonists who are lucky enough to find a woman who can lower her standards to be with him. They're man-sized boys with no sense of leadership or responsibility, no idea what it means to have an intellectual connection with a woman. And then the women are so busy eliminating all the mystery they possess, to keep themselves from loneliness, and then are surprised that the guys lose interest in them. They stubbornly cling to their independence, not letting anyone fight for them and so no one does. A lonely, bitter existence. So here comes Edward, a man from another time who has more than an idea of the right way of going about things--he acts on those ideas. And everyone swoons. I'm not surprised, though I wish there was a way to say to these girls, "quit taking suggestive photos of yourself for your facebook page, being coarse and trying to be one of the guys, treat yourself with the respect that you want from everyone else, and then maybe someone will notice." And tell guys to just read the book and take some notes. "What would Edward do?" someone said, as an answer to a difficult relationship. Funny, but still sad to me. 

The best thing about these books is knowing that I have my own Edward, in a way. I am beyond grateful, awed really, even after all these years of being together, that D chose me. He's not perfect, and who would know that better than me, but even so. I could have settled for a very mundane, painful, and miserable life with someone else, and instead I have someone who I had no hope of ever capturing his attention. It's staggering. Even after all the butterflies and disbelief of those early days, I'm still amazed. It gives me hope that other people could find someone for themselves as well, that it's not just fiction.

home improvement

I'm home now, safe and sound and prepared for any weather now (1 inch of snow today, which had me scoffing, "Heh. I've seen worse! These people drive like pansies!" How quickly one turns to condescension.). A survived our 12 hour drive like a champ, I was thrilled to see D again after one of our longest absences, and I came home to beautiful progress on our house. D spent his time alone working, at his job first and then on many projects for hours at night, getting little sleep in the process. After a weekend of more work, we have a new toilet and sink in the first floor bathroom, the walls painted in the kitchen and hall, new curtains for the kitchen, new hardware for the drawers and cabinets, new lights in all the halls and kitchen...and more. It's fantastic. 

We've lived here for 8 years, easy to count since we bought the house during the never-ending election. I sprained my ankle at school (clumsy dork) and hobbled the walk-through with the owner of the house, who was very defensive about bits of the house that needed fixing. I'd be defensive too, if people were criticizing my half-ass constructions that could be more fittingly described, "Stuff To Do With Scrap 2x4's and Giant Nails." Like keeping the windows from falling open. Or creating a staircase addition that would make one more likely to break one's neck, than just leaving a two-foot drop to a more stable platform. I know I am a perfectionist, so my standards of craftsmanship are considerably high, unreasonably high. But...many of these Yankee Ingenuity jobs we've found over the years are shameful to see. I would have been lying awake at night thinking about the sledgehammered hole where the sink pipes come out in our first floor bathroom, or the fact that the top of the door frames weren't painted at all (because, obviously, no one can see it), or that a crack in the ceiling was masked over by wallpaper and paint. At least they had the courtesy to hire someone to apply the hideous wallpaper, which made its removal that much easier. If they had done it themselves, there would be glops of goo, seams that didn't match, and probably a few nails to hold it on till it dried. 

All of those things have now been dealt with by my wonderful husband, including great color choices for each room. It really helps to live with another artist. I can trust that he will not get a lame color, and will be even more critical of his work than the wife who just gawks and gasps at each little OCD detail. 

Pictures will follow!

bret-dist in Maine

I'm here in Camden, ME, taking care of my sister's kids and A while my brother-in-law recovers from major surgery. He's doing well, supposed to walk around a bit today, and had a good night's sleep, which is fantastic. The kids are also behaving themselves quite well, and had a day off school yesterday for snow. I expected them to be crawling up the walls, but they had a fabulous time playing Playmobil, Nintendo gameboy/DS, Legos (of course!), and running around with a huge box on their heads and shrieking. They also spent about an hour playing outside in the snow, after which time we discovered that A's snow boots really suck. His 2 pairs of socks were soaking wet, and I thumped about a cup of snow out of them. His little piggies were red and freezing, and he was miserable. "Next time I go at Maine, I'n NOT goin in da snow!" he decided. 

Right now the youngest boys are at the preschool, where they will be having lunch and playing and, no doubt for A, drawing things with lots of teeth. Getting there was a bit of a challenge this morning, as I get lost easily and am not used to four-wheel-drive.  It's extremely difficult to get the car out of it, once it's in it. Also I am not used to driving in snow or slush, and I needed all my concentration to get the car down the driveway and through the neighborhood. The boys were not letting me get by so easy, of course. "Are you stuck in da snow?" one asked. "Are we late to school?" another asked. Then the perpetual soundtrack of my life lately started up: "duh..DUH..duhduhduh DUH duh etc" (star wars theme, along with EVERY OTHER STINKING SONG IN THE MOVIE, courtesy of my son, who only knows partial versions of the songs and puts them on "repeat" in his mind). The car started to fishtail a little bit around a corner, as I was praying aloud, "God please help me to do this, I really need your help!" From the backseat, my nephew said, "God must be having his bret-dist."

Yes.

So that's the real reason so many prayers go unanswered. God is having his breakfast and can't be bothered. What does God eat for breakfast anyway?