Who are we, the Kardashians? Pt 3 Snow

At our new place, we don’t hanve to shovel snow! Omg. Who arewe, the Kardashians?

Who are we, the Kardashians? Pt 2 Laundry

At our new place, we have a washer and a dryer inside our new place. Who are we, the Kardashians?

Who are we, the Kardashians? Pt 1 Cabinets

At our new place, we have sooo many kitchen cabinets! Who are we, the Kardashians?

This is only half of them! (Still unpacking.)

Fear and Labor

Here. Omg. This is up! I feel super cool and all embarrassed, and I’m so honored to have my writing up at The Feminist Breeder!

San Francisco seemed as good as any place to pee on a stick. After two weeks of driving cross-country feeling a little off, blaming car sickness and altitude changes for my nausea and exhaustion, it was time for more wine, one last cigarette and the inevitable. (Read more)

An essay about my fear, (terror?) of having a baby and how I transformed into someone I’d never thought I’d be.

Paul Grossmann took this of my gigantic boy belly. He's an awesome photographer you should know.

When I found out I was pregnant, I was scared shitless and was really looking for someone else who was just like me and got through it.

The fact that women do it every day, have multiple children etc. did not matter. I thought my fear was something no one else had or could even understand. What I found was women who were anxiously anticipating the arrivals of their little bundles, not someone who wondered if she could just ask to be knocked out and have them take the baby out. (Although, I was also terrified and mistrusting of hospitals, doctors and bitchy labor and delivery nurses.)

This essay is a small snippet of my entire experience, but a really important snippet. If one other terrified pregnant woman who envisions childbirth as the climax to a bad (good) torture-horror film finds this and is calmed, at least for a moment, I’ll feel pretty good.

Experimenting on my Students: A Cure for my “Cell Phones in the Classroom” Rage

The Phone Stack is a brilliant and fun idea for a group of friends out to dinner, whereby everyone puts his or her phone on the table and whoever goes for it first, pays the check. I LOVE it, because I hate myself when I realize I’m sitting, having a conversation with someone AND checking my emails, in part because, 1. it’s rude, 2. because I wasn’t able to recall the instance I picked up my phone and began checking emails, and 3. because this idea has so many other possibilities for use.

Family dinner for one. However, my son is not even a year old, and while we do all eat dinner together, we are so involved in feeding him and ourselves, that out iPhones stay away. So, I will catalogue this idea for future reference.

In the meantime, I am definitely going to try something like this with my students this semester! Their incessant texting under the desk drives me up a wall. I’m a pretty laid back professor, but my uber-rage turns on when I see the glances into the lap and the thumb typing. And, when I call them out, it’s usually like, “Wha?” I have tried a number of things to get them to stop, but it really is a disturbing compulsion. Kids. Seriously! Draw in your notebook! Write a note to your boyfriend! Freakin’ zone out and daydream.

Sometimes I long for simpler times.

So, I think this will be a fun social experiment and maybe they can then police themselves I hate policing when I’m trying to take about story arc and immediacy in storytelling.

But, what should be the penalty for the person/people who go for their phones? It can’t be something that punishes the whole class and it’s got to be something that others would want someone else to have to do. Like picking up the tab at a restaurant. Teachers? Students? What do you think?

Be reasonable! Or don’t. I like ridiculous suggestions, too!

A (totally not serious) Critique of Suess’ Marvin K. Mooney

Marvin K. Mooney Will You Please Go Now! is not one of Seuss’ best. It’s no The Cat in the Hat, it’s no One Fish, Two Fish, or even Hop on Pop. The basic story is, as the title suggests, a plea for this Marvin K. Mooney character to “please go, now,” yet, it’s never specifically defined where he should go or, perhaps more importantly, why the narrator is so insistant upon him going, thus begging the question, what is the occasion for the telling of this story?

Perhaps Mooney is being asked by the narrator to please go to bed, but it’s not explicit. I think the reader needs to know for sure, ground us in some sort of reality. It would change the whole tone and ultimate conclusion of the story and help define just how we are to feel for both MKM and the narrator. As it is, the narrator’s anger just increases with each suggestion on how exactly MKM could possibly get to where he should go, but this, to me is anger for anger’s sake and snappy writing (which Seuss does a good job at).

It’s not rooted in anything I can understand. Is there some past between the narrator and Mooney that we should be aware of? He has to go. What of it? What’s a stake for Mooney, the narrator if he goes or does not? Would knowing that help round out these characters?

I do enjoy the suggestions the narrator makes for modes of transportation that Mooney may take to “go.” They range from the common, skates, skis, a hat…

To the whimsical. (A Zumble-Zay.)

But, still. This just isn’t doing it for me without knowing more about these characters. Overall, it was a quick read with lots of fun colors and some good potential characters to draw out from the narrative. Additionally, my 8 month old reports that the cover tastes good and is fun to bang with his hands.

Pink Foil lipstick. This reminds me of:

1. 1992. High school drama club cast party for Damn Yankees at Señor Rattlers where we, of course, danced to Rock Lobster and Paradise by the Dashboard Light. Then, we stood in a big circle, swaying and singing That’s What Friends Are For (lame, right?) and drank virgin margaritas. I have videotaped proof of this.

2. Also,same year, working at the Old Salt on the boardwalk in Ocean City and cleaning the scrimshaw pieces and cranberry glass and hosing down the hermit crabs.

3. Also, F.M.’s 17th(?) birthday party, probably ’93. He wore an Emerson, Lake, and Palmer shirt and had a cake and, like, half the party was stoned. There were Doritos and Pepsi.

4. A.E.L., 1992, A.E.L. kept her lipstick in her pocket and applied it often. I kept mine in a bag or a pocket and rarely used it. I have never been one to freshen up my make-up.

Pink Foil Lipstick.