Letter B

The Fish Are Jumping, And The Cotton Is High

Oh lordy this is going to be a tough summer. 95 degrees today and I thought I was gonna die. Like, Rosanne Rosannadanna gonna die. What the hell is August going to do to me? I'll be in my third trimester and closing in on my 50th additional pound. Come the dog days I'm pretty sure I'll be lying on the floor in front of the air conditioner waving a white flag while Lowell plays with knives in the other room.

My sister and nephews are here, enjoying the beautiful tropical weather. It is so awesome to have them. It's pretty much my favorite week of the year when those boys are out of school and git their a**es hauled up here from North Carolina. They are 12 and 8 and, because I am not their mother, a total blast. Just great kids. For instance, they let Lowell worship them properly. He follows them around and asks them if they are careful around cars and they answer him appropriately every time. (He is currently in a cautious stage. Asked me yesterday if we have to be careful around trombones and french horns. Also on an orchestral instrument kick.) They play with him, read him books, let him snuggle with them and possibly may be potty-training him by the end of the week since he does anything they ask. (Please God). And having my sister here for a week is just too excellent for words. She is my best friend. The only drawback is that whenever we are together it throws into high relief what we are missing by not living next door to each other. Sigh. Someday.

Thoroughly enjoying my full-time manny husband home for the summer. Being married to a teacher has its drawbacks but summer is definitely not one of them. Today while my sister and the kids were in the city melting into small pools on the sidewalk he put out the garbage, dropped off the car for servicing, brought me cherry coffee cake, took Lowell for a couple hours while I fussed with my new computer (belated birthday present), installed two air conditioners, fed Lowell lunch, and then told me to go take a nap. I could get used to this. I'm sure he could too. Summer offers up a bit of a salve for the hearbreak that inevitably comes with teaching disadvantaged kids. I don't think he would be able to do it otherwise. He deserves every freaking second of it.

5-7-5

Some of you may know that I am a poet. I don't publish a lot of my writing here because this isn't really a poetry blog and I'd like to keep the few readers that I have. (There are a couple examples from the archives here and here if you are interested). But I love writing poetry and I miss having an outlet for it. Back in the day I wrote and read regularly and had a small chapbook published. Nowadays I barely get anything down and only occasionally really work at my verse. In many ways I am okay with this. I really believe that being a poet is a gift. Not to be squidgy, but for me being a poet is about the way I get to see the world and it is special to have this ability. If I am able to get it down and share it, all the better, but I get a lot of satisfaction from just the thoughts that spring to my head. That said, in many ways I am NOT okay with it. I definitely have moments when I wish I could transport myself back to when I was single, scribbling away in my garret and posting rejection notices on the wall. I miss being around other poets (besides my genius poet husband), going to readings, buying obscure journals and all that kind of stuff. I miss having the time to obsess over 16 lines of text. I miss being able to sit long enough to hear what the muse has to say over the constant noise and distraction.

So I have been halfheartedly trying to think of ways to get writing poetry back in my life and not coming up with much. I thought about getting a writer's group started in my new town (too much commitment), or maybe taking another workshop (kill me now), or just getting to a reading once in awhile (didn't happen). But then two things happened that got me re-focused. One, I got pregnant again. Nothing motivates me like a deadline. I had to figure some kind of new routine out now or it was just going to get worse. And two, I started messaging on Twitter (you may have noticed my mini-updates over here in the right column of the blog). If you are unfamiliar with Twitter it's kind of like a cross between a social networking site like MySpace and an old school message board. But there is a twist, you can only use 140 characters or less for each post. As I was twittering I kept noticing how much it was like writing poetry, especially haiku. (In fact, the main competitor to Twitter is another service called Jaiku). In the past I loved writing haiku as an exercise when I had writer's block. It was a good way to get  back into my rhythm. I also love modern takes on the haiku like the Honku (hi Aaron) and recently really enjoyed Emotional Toothpaste's month of haiku posts. Eureka! I thought. I will twitter in haiku. And just to give it a little shape and hook I'll make it about parenting (plenty of material there). And thus Momku was born. I plan on doing them almost daily (I'm leaving myself some wiggle room but it will be as close to daily as possible). You can read them here on LetterB (right hand column, under Today's Moment of Zen) or you can add Momku as a friend on your Twitter account. I really hope you enjoy this new project. I hope I enjoy it too.

I Chose To Celebrate Father's Day By Registering For Blogher.

Father's Day went well. A raging success, actually. Even though in the midst of preparing a traditional  breakfast-in-bed I realized we were out of eggs. And we are a family that is never, ever out of eggs. Quite the opposite. We usually have dueling cartons, egg-lovers that we are. But, tragedy was averted by my quick thinking and thrifty nature (we had some left-over cooked ones from the day before that made a tasty sandwich when smothered with swiss cheese). I suck at frying bacon, by the way. I realized that fact a little too late. But Matthew seemed very happy so he must like it half-burnt and half-raw. (But what am I doing? I forgot that on the Internet nobody cares what you made your husband for breakfast.) Somehow I lucked out that when given the choice of getting to do anything he wants for the whole day Matthew chose to build a raised herb garden. I stood at the window watching him, feeling a little like Tom Sawyer by his fence. I swear it was his choice. He stopped only to take us all out for ice cream and then was right back at it. (Personally, I chose to sit on my a** the whole day on Mother's Day). If I haven't made it completely clear in this space Matthew is the greatest dad on the planet. Generous, loving and present. He deserves a month of Father's Days. But thank god they don't do that. That's a lot of bacon.

So I am going to BlogHer this year. When they announced that it would be in Chicago this summer I rejoiced. My dad and stepmother live there and I like nothing better than to mix pleasure with pleasure, so we're headed out there the same week for a visit with them. I'll nip over to Navy Pier for both days of the conference. Will you be there? I hope so since although my accountant assures me that I can write the whole thing off (attending a conference to stay current in my field! Finally my internet career pays off!) I am really going to meet all of you wonderful people out there. I am pretty damn excited. A leeetle peeved that I will be hugely pregnant at the end of July. This will make me feel more self-conscious and simultaneously unable to enjoy the kind of social lubricants that help in these situations. You know, like tequila shots. But at least I won't be hungover on day two. I hope that you are going to go. Each and every one of you. I can't wait to read your badge, squeal, and hug you like a long-lost friend. And I apologize now for impaling you with my humongous abdomen.

Alternative To Getting A Sitter

We were having a hard time keeping Lowell out of the dog's crate. Then we thought, why don't we just zip him in and go see "Oceans 13?" *

*Obviously this is a joke. We went to see "Knocked Up." Again, kidding, we don't crate our toddler. No matter how tempted.

The Filly Beat The Fellas

I couldn't have been more wrong about the Belmont Stakes this year. I was predicting a snoozer where Curlin would take the prize with no real challenge. (Apparantly I wasn't the only one since the money was even on him at post time). But instead we were treated to a amazing run and a historical win for Rags to Riches, the first filly to win the Belmont in 102 years. After she blew away the field in the Kentucky Oaks (an all-filly 3 yr. old race on the same day as the Kentucky Derby) the talk was that her trainer should have entered her in the Derby. I bet Todd Pletcher is wondering "what if..." now, after she proved herself worthy in the most grueling race of the three. What a finish! Really worth watching online if you didn't see it. As usual, Joe Drape says it all better than me. Read his article in the NYT.

The Triple Crown is over and now summer can begin. Hmm, maybe we'll take a trip to Saratoga...

Emerging, Phoenix-ish, From The Embers Of My Ridiculous Chest Cold

Cold finally starting to taper off. Slowly. This has been a tough one. Lowell has been sick too and we have made quite a pair. See Lung Hacker and Snot Spigot! Come one, come all! On that sideshow note, I have noticed that I have been much less vigilant this pregnancy. In swift succession the other day I ate brie, painted my toenails, and cleaned the toilet with a pungent solvent. Just call me the poor man's Crystal Lil.

Matthew is growing a goatee. This happens every so often and I try very hard to be supportive. I am not a huge fan of facial hair on him, not because of how it looks, but because of how it feels. Even when his beard is grown out it's pretty spiky so this inbetween period is brutal. I squirm when he goes to plant one on me. It's like kissing a toilet brush. Again, trying to be supportive, but possibly failing. Hope he doesn't read this.

Currently loving this: Online Communities Map. And pretty much everything else available for order on this site. The sudo command t-shirt gave me quite a good chuckle. I was trying to think up a good one for a maternity t-shirt but then realized that my current milieu includes absolutely no one who would get the joke. Sometimes I miss hanging out with geeks all day.

I almost wrote an entire post about how the Mr. Clean magic eraser is the greatest thing that has ever happened to me. Then I slapped myself on the head for being such a stereotype. How can I scoff at these ridiculous commercials of housewives swooning over their fantastic cleaning products when I seriously want to bring that little white brick to bed with me at night? Somewhere in some alternate universe far, far away my former self is shaking her head at this entire paragraph.

Current pro of having a girl: don't have to revisit circumcision debate. Hurray! Current con: finding a name. Choosing a girl's name is proving to be very difficult. I realized I was getting desperate the other day when I started perusing spam senders for possibilites. Gustie Orelie? Sounding good at this point.