April 25, 2009

Letter to the Editor of My Life


Dear Sir or Madam,

First of all, let me say that I appreciate the job you do, and this letter in no way is intended to negate that appreciation. However, I must express my disapproval of the way you represent the past. We both know, even if others don't, that the way the past is presented by my memory biased media is, shall we say, a bit too rosey? I do not in the least mind the positive outlook on my past that this gives me, but the present suffers by comparison, and it is difficult to remember, in the face of such blatant editing, that those times were difficult, too.

So, as I am your only customer, I humbly request that you let a little more realism seep into your portrayal of my life.

Or you're fired.

Hey everybody. I have a whole hand written list of stuff I've jotted down to talk about in this one. I find that if I wait til Elliot is asleep and the house is quiet I have a much better chance of actually completing a thought (which is good). On the other hand, that means that a lot of the time I've totally forgotten what I was going to say - thus the writing down a thought when I have it. However, before I start on ANY of that...

Whoopeee!! It's warm. It's supposed to get to 79 today, which means taking the baby outside and letting him run his tiny little legs off.

Back to the list...

We had visitors the other day! That's right, the Jehovah's Witnesses came a'callin'. I was curled up on the couch, surrounded by an ever growing pile of tissues, and suddenly there were people walking in the front door of our building. So I pulled myself up and went to open the door, and there they were, a lovely grandparently looking couple wearing adorable little black suits, wanting to know if I would be interested in having a bible study led in my home. I was not, but I put this to them gently, and I told them I would be happy to read their issue of watchtower if they wanted to leave one for me. They invited me to a "talk" being held a the local temple, and I asked them if it was a lecture or a discussion (apparently a lecture, with a question and answer period after) and told them I would consider it. I introduced myself and Elliot, and told them I would shake their hands but I had a horrible cold, and didn't want to pass it on, and they told me to get better soon and went on their way. Really they were very pleasant people. I cannot, however, help feeling a tiny bit of glee that this entire converstation took place while I was standing there in a tank top, tiny hotpants, and my bedroom slippers. They must have thought I was walking around in my underwear.

I try to be really polite to religious prosletizers who come to my door. After all, even if I disagree with them, they really do think they're helping me, and it seems wrong to be rude to them. Also, I have to admit, I find them fascinating. I would have gone to their talk if it was a discussion instead of lecture. I like to ask them questions about their point of view. Like, in their Watchtower, they had an article where they semantically broke down something Jesus is reported as saying in order to support their theory of rebirth. I want to know - given that the original language was Hebrew, and that when it was finally written down (a long time later) it was written in Greek, then translated to Latin, then to English, how can they attempt to take anything specific from the way the sentences are constructed? I mean, taking the broad meaning, sure, that should (hopefully) have survived time and translation and bias (although, not necessarily), but to take one tiny little word AND the gramatical context and try to build a whole pilosophy about it? Anyway, I find all of that fascinating.

The other day I really felt like a bad mother. Waxor had been sick, Elliot had been sick, then _I_ got sick and it was just miserable. So when I went in to change Elliot's diaper and found it to be BEYOND messy I did not have the most positive attitude about it, but I just sighed and started on wiping him up. Elliot, however, had other ideas - he's started getting very tempermental about the whole diaper changing thing. So he started wiggling, and instead of just telling him no and calmly going on about my business I snapped at him, which of course only meant he struggled harder. He screamed and kicked and got his feet loose and grabbed his butt with his hands and then it was all over - there was poop everywhere. I snarled my face up and said "NO!" really sharply, then I yanked him up, yanked all his clothes off, held him at arms length all the way to the bathroom, stuck him in the shower and turned the water on. He started crying, because the shower scares him, and I just kept washing him. I sort of got my temper under control as he got cleaner, so that by the time he was clean enough to pick up I picked him up and held him and told him it was okay, but, of course, once my temper was under control, I felt really bad. Oddly enough I wasn't upset with myself over anything I actually DID - he did have to go in the shower, that was the only way to get him clean - but with how I didn't care that it was scaring him just because I was angry. I felt really awful - I have a horrible temper and I felt like I had totally taken it out on my baby.

The next night, though, I felt like I sort of redeemed myself. We had gone to Todd's house for dinner, and Elliot fell asleep there, and when we left around 9 we totally screwed the pooch on the whole "getting the baby in the car seat without waking him up" maneuver. So he was strapped in the car seat and really just wailling, completely miserable because he's not asleep and doesn't know why. I sat with him in the back sang Barney's I Love You song, but he only calmed down for a few verses, so we switched to Little Bunny Foo Foo, and that only worked for a few verses, so we switched to Winnie the Pooh, and that was the magic song. So I sang Winnie the Pooh for about 15 minutes and stroked his hair, and eventually his eyes glazed over and he fell asleep. Then I felt like perhaps I was not such a bad mother, after all.

Oh, so I've finally set this up as a blog. The web address is here:

http://jessica-lifeintheslowlane.blogspot.com/

And you can follow it, if you want, and not get these emails. Also, if there's someone who still hasn't made my mailing list and wants to read these then you can just give them the address, instead of needing to forward stuff on. The back archive is up there, too, not that any of you want to REread what I've said, but it seems convenient... Anyway, if you want to stop getting these and just follow the blog let me know.

I just finished reading a book called The Writing Class by Jincy Willet, and no, I'm not about to write about the actual story, although that was good. It's a mystery that takes place in a writing class, and it has a lot of stuff in it like writing exercises and comments about what makes a story good or trite - and it's interesting. Someone in it says that scarey is really hard to write, the only thing harder is funny. So, of course, I want to try writing something scarey, and something else funny. I have no idea what I can write that's funny, but I know just what I'm going to write about that's scarey. I freaked myself out with it when we first moved in here, so maybe if I write it down it won't scare me any more.

I also got inspired by a phrase at the end of the book "All the Time in the World". I have two different story ideas for that, so I think I'll just write them both and see which one I like better.

Last but not least, at the begining of the book the students get a choice of three assignments (1) come up with 10 names (first and last) and a short character description (2) write something from the point of view of the opposite sex (3) write the opening paragraph to a short story or novel. I found all of these interesting (although, honestly, the third one is the least interesting) and I think I'll probably do them all.

Chances are excellent that I'll be sending all of you some of the stuff that I end up writing, but I promise to warn you first so you can avoid it, if you like. :)

Alright, I have to go take Elliot out into this glorious day now. Everyone go out and do something impetuous, why don't you. It's good for the soul.