this is not (entirely) serious

There are few things in life that give me the creeps more than watching a left-handed person write. I mean it makes me want to vomit just thinking about it, honestly.

Of course, I shouldn’t be quite so general, not all lefties write the same way. There are lefties who push their pen across the paper. This method I find not quite as annoying, but I don’t see it as often, either. There are some who hold their left hand stationary and use their right hand to push the paper to the left as they write. This type is bothersome to me, but not completely disgusting. What irritates me the most are those lefties who wrap their entire wrist around the pen (or pencil) in some contorted looking position and then drag the pen as they write. The hook hands, what I call ‘em. Dragging is for righties, darn it, and we do it with class and ease.

This is on my mind today because the boy that I watch during the day is 15 months old and he is starting to use those adorable little plastic eating utensils. It may have been the cuteness of the brightly colored, miniaturized fork that distracted me from it until today, but today I was distracted no more. I take his baby fork, I stab a piece of chicken, for example, and set it on his plate in front of him. He reaches for it with his left hand. NO!!!!!

I asked his mom if they were “paying attention” to it and if they were going to try to do anything about it, and she said no. She said she’d noticed him throwing with his left hand. I wanted to tell her that she should put an end to this before it’s too late, but figured it’s none of my business. But that won’t stop me from handing him things to his right hand all day long when she’s not there. (I’m kidding.) (no I’m not.)

My kids will be righties, mark my words! I don’t care if they’re 12 years old and saved up their allowance to buy themselves one of those fancy pair of lefty scissors (gross). I’ll only hand them things to their right hand, even still.

“No son of mine’ll be a southpaw!” I’ll yell, “Now go to your room and practice shuffling cards!!”

He will probably hate me, and I’m okay with that. Once he’s 70 and realizes if I’d just let him be a lefty he’d already be dead; then he’ll thank me.

I don’t buy that handedness is genetic, anyhow, and even if it’s partially genetic I’d say the bigger part is environmental. I mean some people are born with an addict gene, right? But that doesn’t give them an excuse to just be crack heads. Seriously! Same (exact) thing. Now if they’re ambidextrous, that’s another thing. I feel like you only need to utilize your partial-left-handedness in winning bets and the like. My brother was ambidextrous until he was 4 and my parent’s were like “screw this” and then they’d only give him things if he’d take it with his right hand. He’s a righty now, thank God.

I know what you’re thinking. Probably the same thing every other person (and there have been many) that I’ve had this argument with was thinking.. What about Paul McCartney? Everybody knows he’s left-handed, and he's managed to stay awesome. And to that I retort, Paul McCartney is one in a billion no matter how you look at it. End of story.

the little girl and the parking lot

The official start of spring was sometime last week, I know. But the informal start – the way more fun, way more festive start to nice weather - happened today. It was just as this afternoon turned into this evening. I was walking the short distance from my apartment to my car. I was slightly late to class so it may have been more of a jog than a walk, but that’s unimportant. Through the loud, blowing wind I heard a familiar and unmistakable sound. I hadn’t heard it for half a year, but I recognized it in a second. The little girl who lives in the apartment building across from ours was standing in the parking lot singing, Broadway style, at the top of her lungs.

She is probably seven years old, maybe eight, and she looks exactly the same as she did last September… the last time she made a parking lot appearance. Or at least the last performance I caught. You can never tell exactly what she’s saying when she sings, but it’s pretty obvious that she makes up each song as she goes. Usually you hear her before you see her, at least I always have. Accordingly, her voice makes a bigger impression than her appearance. With her dark brown hair, cut Bruce Lee style, and thick bangs covering every bit of forehead. Her puffy lilac jacket has faded and her white tennis shoes got dirtier since the Fall. I’m not saying she’s homely looking, because she’s not. She just looks like your average little girl. But she sounds like more than that.

As soon as I glanced toward the center of the parking lot I saw her, squatting in the middle of a puddle. The soles of her shoes were completely submerged, the rest of her body hovering steadily above her feet. I backed my car out of its spot and slowly made my way toward her. She was smack dab in between me and where I needed to go. Part of me wondered if she’d move out of the way but a much bigger part of me –the part who remembered her from last year – knew she was staying in the puddle. She waved at me, still squatting, as I very, very slowly drove around her. Just after I passed her I saw her in my rearview mirror, jump straight up and out of the puddle, springing with enthusiastic jazz hands. Water splashed up around her when she landed, just as I rounded the corner.

It’s hard to guess just how much of what’s going on around her she ignores. How does she choose what to disregard and what to imagine? What am I, in her world? Do I even exist? I am her audience, or at least a part of it. The parking lot is her stage.

In a way she reminds me of myself at that age. But then again I’m not so sure I was ever that in my own world. I would make-believe and sing (very quietly) in the backyard… but my parents had a privacy fence. I don’t think I would have had the guts to perform for an audience. My stage wasn’t open to the world.

All I know is I’m glad to have her back. I look forward to the next several months of nice weather and her singing. I hope she doesn’t mind my listening. It seems like she doesn’t care who hears her, whether it be everyone, or no one at all. It just makes me wonder if she’s practicing for something… or maybe this is what she practices for.

mama se mama sa mama kossa

You’d think, as pets, turtles would be relatively quiet. Not ours. I swear Gary is probably the loudest turtle ever. If he’s not throwing the rocks around his tank he’s tapping on the glass or making these creepy gagging sounds. They’re the kind of noises you can’t get used to and there’s no controlling him. He’s driving me crazy! We were thinking about getting him a girlfriend turtle to keep him company, but I’m starting to worry it will just be twice as noisy. Ugh.

Anyway I am pretty much depressed that spring break is over. I had too much fun just relaxing and not worrying about school or homework. I really can’t wait to graduate. I have disliked school for as long as I can remember. I like learning, and it’s not even so much the going to class part that bothers me. It’s the homework. I just don’t care for it. Anyway I only have a few months left. I just have to keep reminding myself that. I am not going to graduate school. Everybody keeps saying, “Oh just wait, after a few years you’ll go back.” And all I can say to that is, “Um, no I won’t.” Seriously.

So now that it’s over and classes are starting again I’m just kind of dreading the whole thing.

Over spring break I…

--managed to avoid any and all homework (until now).
--hung out with my friends, family, and husband way more than usual.
--had Wanna Be Startin Something in my head for like four days straight (I’m not complaining).
--drank much less coffee than usual.
--only went to Target twice.
--finished watching Project Runway Season 2 (Santino totally should have won).
--finished watching Project Runway Season 4 (I wanted Christian to win! Yay!)
--started watching Project Runway Season 3 (I don’t have a favorite, yet).
--forgot to watch Celebrity Apprentice. Insanity, I know.
--built a trellis out of leftover bamboo skewers and hemp string (while watching Project Runway). It’s pretty awesome. I’m going to put it on our balcony and have morning glories climb it.
--bought tickets for and started counting down the days until April 15.
--finished one knitting project, started three.
--took lots of walks.

Considering Considerations

Writing these blogs is hard for me because I am not a creative writer. I am not a creative writer if only for the fact that I do not consider myself to be a creative writer. I write. Obviously, I write. But I do not deem myself a creative writer and therefore no one else should suppose that I am one. If a man refers to himself as stupid it is the job of the listener to recognize that the man knows better than anyone else the level of his own intelligence. If he says he is stupid then it should be agreed upon that he is stupid, indeed, and we shouldn’t expect anything intelligent to come from him. There is the possibility that he is actually smart and just calls himself stupid. He might call himself stupid so that little will be expected of him, or in an effort to be more relatable to his stupid audience. He might call himself stupid because he is modest and simply uncomfortable with the idea of calling himself smart. Modesty is the best policy, at least that’s what some people believe. I am not comparing myself to the man who says he’s stupid. I don’t think I am stupid and I am not being sneaky or modest in saying that I am not a creative writer. I am just being honest, which is supposed to be a good policy as well. My point is that when a person considers themselves to be something (or to not be something) then that is what they are (or aren’t). This may be illogical; in fact I’m sure that it is. According to me, then, whenever a girl tells you she is not a creative writer you should assume she is not and when a man tells you he is stupid you should believe that he is. That seems an unreasonable way to go through life. What if a man, probably a different man but possibly the same one, tells you he is honest? Would you let him hold your money while you tie your shoe? Probably not. It is more likely you would get to know him and determine for yourself whether or not he is honest. What if the man is a priest, though? What if the priest tells you he’s a thief? Well, that would just be confusing. But my point is how much do we let others do the considering for us and to what extent should we trust our own ways of considering things over the considerations of others? Just because I didn’t consider myself a criminal doesn’t mean I didn’t deserve to be in jail. Just because I don’t consider myself a creative writer doesn’t mean I can’t or don’t write creatively. Hmm. Now I’m unsure of what to consider myself.

He's Got a Point

I have a friend.

I call him a friend less because I enjoy his company and more because I have known him longer than most anyone else and somehow I find myself in the same place, same time as him more often than possibly either of us would prefer.

See, he has a tendency to talk. And talk and talk and talk. While I consider myself to be a fantastic listener, even I have limits. The truth is I have very little interest in hearing, and even less capability to understand, whatever it is he always wants to say. And with him, it’s always something profound. Why is this like this, why is that like that? As though there is a supreme explanation for everything, and it is our task in that very moment to realize whatever it is. He can’t accept that some things just are. Try telling him so, you won’t get very far. I never have the answers he’s looking for.

Listening to him takes me back to high school honors English classes; trying to make sense of ways of thinking and ways of putting things into words that I just couldn’t make sense of. Being forced to read long, confusing novels. I never liked reading long, confusing novels and I don’t often do what I don’t like doing. In the same way that I pretended to have read the novel, I pretend to listen to him.

As soon as I notice that even he doesn’t know what he’s saying anymore, that’s when I officially stop paying attention. That is when the automatic responses kick in. Whatever I can throw out there to make him feel as though his thoughts are actually worth listening to.

“yeah … that’s true … good point … I think you’re right”

I always started the novel, by the way. And I always began reading with the intention of finishing. Each time a new novel was presented, I tried. I tried to make sense of it. I tried to enjoy it. Sometime before the second chapter, though, my mind would wander. In a very similar way, my mind wanders when I listen to him.

“I could be doing something else right now,” I think. “I could be doing something other than pretending to care what he’s talking about. I could be washing dishes; I could be getting something done. Heck, I could be watching Law and Order. I could be on the couch with a tub of ice cream in one hand, a spoon in the other, wondering who bludgeoned yet another prostitute with an ashtray.” Like I said, my mind wanders. My mind can’t help it. He’s just too exhausting.

Today our paths crossed again. As soon as he thought he had my attention he began. He talked and talked and then he said something. This something stood out from the other somethings. It sounded important. Important enough to grab a hold of my wandering mind and keep it still for a moment. I can’t say for sure what caught my attention. His tone of voice may have changed, maybe he was a little louder. Either way I could tell that if he had written out his monologue this particular something would have been underlined. Or at least italicized. Or possibly on its very own line.

“It’s not fair.”

At last, something I understood! Something I could relate to. Keep in mind I’ve no idea what he was referring to as unfair, but who couldn’t relate to the sentiment. Especially the way he said it. He didn’t toss it out like it so often is. He said it like he absolutely knew it to be true.

I looked at him and I truthfully, solemnly told him, “It may never be fair.” He frowned, but I could see he was pleased with the connection.

I have to remind myself how much it means to him that I at least try to listen. I have to remind myself that he needs someone to talk to - to express his questions, his concerns. He doesn’t necessarily need to know all the answers, he just enjoys the asking. I have to remind myself that even though he makes no sense to me sometimes, what he is saying is significant to him. I have to remind myself that he needs me to listen. I have to remind myself that next year when he turns five and starts kindergarten, surely his ability to express himself will improve.

Right?