to the lady in the dressing room next to mine at Marshall’s
If you have to make noises as if you’re moving your bowels in order to try on those pants, then you probably shouldn’t buy those pants. On the other hand, if you actually are moving your bowels, please leave the dressing room.
my children’s strife
My children share amongst themselves the most bitter anger and strife. Border conflicts escalate as the borders are infringed upon by looking, touching, talking and farting. Alliances — always two against one — are forged and broken, over and over again. Violence erupts like lava. My name is called. “Mo-o-om!”
“Quit it,” I say. They don’t.
“Stop that shit,” I say. They don’t.
“Hey. Stop touching each other, dammit. Quit it before I spank you. If you don’t stop that bullshit, I’m gonna go over there and hit all three of you with a big stick. With nails coming out of it. On your butts. Hard. Dammit. QUIT IT,” I say. They don’t, they don’t, they don’t.
“Okay, that’s IT,” I say, getting up and walking over. “Get OFF the video games NOW.”
“No, mom! Mom! No! We’ll quit! We’ll quit!” They quit fighting for a solid half hour.
Hey, it’s better than bombing them, right?
gall bladder update
To clarify — the doctor suspects (strongly) that I have a gallstone. I have to go have an ultrasound done to be sure. If I’ve collected enough gallstones, I go to the bonus surgery level with $2500 deductible. I don’t know if I’m ready for that level yet.
It’s almost fall.
I’m so glad because it’s my favorite season. In the whole world. To prepare, I gathered a whole bunch of used magazines and tore my favorite pictures out of them. Nesting instincts, you know. Now I need to situate my Netflix account and dry clean our chenille throw.
Also, I’m making a list and checking it twice. Right now it’s too early to prepare for xmas. Next month, it will be too late. What do y’all want to be for Halloween? I have no idea what I’m going to be. Gosh. I already saw Josh’s costume at the costume place. He wants to be a ring wraith. The Baby wants to wear Josh’s skeleton costume from last year, which works out well for me. Dallas is undecided. He takes after me.
I kind of want to be a barbarian princess, but I don’t know for sure yet. I can’t figure out what kind of pedicure that would require. French, you think? I need to start collecting torn-up fur coats now.
middle school
Did I tell y’all my oldest, Josh, goes to middle school now? Well, he does. Sixth grade. The year that can make or break a person. Or is that just how it is for the girls? It’s hard not to want to control his little life. I bought him the tennis shoes he wanted — luckily they weren’t the ones I’m morally and emotionally opposed to. He wants to join the chess club. I hope that’s not something that’ll get him harassed, but I can’t let my fears color his ambitions. He’s the only one who tucks in his shirt and wears his belt, like it says in the dress code. He says he knows it’s different, but he doesn’t care. Okay… okay. Let him make his own choices. Let him live his little life.
loner
Dallas is a loner. He doesn’t really have friends. When he tries to join in the recess episodes of Four Square, the cheating and lack of logic upset him.
Dallas was the teacher’s pet of the after-school art class last year. He is an artist — a very systematic one. He makes himself art journals and fills them with long series of Escher-like diagrams or painstakingly illustrated restaurant menus.
He loves music, too. No — he doesn’t love it. He absorbs it. Or it absorbs him. He listens to it very seriously, analyzing each sound, asking the names of the artists and songs so he can add to the catalog in his mind. “Mom, can we hear Number 9 on the Chemical Brothers CD?” he very specifically requests. Jazz was his favorite. Now it comes second to techno.
He hasn’t asked to play a musical instrument, but I’m starting to wonder if I should enroll him in a class. Maybe percussion to start with. But I don’t want to be one of those moms who burdens her children with her own never-realized dreams. We can just try it, though, right? If he doesn’t like it, I’ll take him out of the class with no hard feelings. But if he does like it, he’ll be one of the most innovative, respected artists in the world. Nothing to get all bent out of shape about, right?
But he still has hurtable feelings. (Sometimes.) He says, “Mom, none of the kids wanted to play with me.” Maybe because he wanted them to play his exact way. Maybe because he’s too big. Maybe because… I don’t know.
“Forget them. They’re just stupid little kids. Who cares what they think?” I say. I know it’s not nice, but come on — sometimes it’s so totally true. A lot of people’s kids are stupid and rude.
The Baby needs a name.
I think I called him Rory once, so Rory he will be.
Rory likes to dance. Rory dances his ass off.
Women tell Rory he’s cute — that he’s gonna be a heartbreaker. He’s not stupid. He says, “People like me because I’m cute.” Is it evil to let him take advantage of the shallow weaknesses of others? Rory knows that the bubble tea clerk will give him a different flavor for free if he’s the one who asks her. He knows how to bat his eyes — to hold a tear suspended in their lashes.
But he knows, also, that he has to get by on more than cuteness here. Here in this apartment, a person has to be smart and/or funny. Or, at least, quick with the laundry.
