TheCSO and I were having dinner in a trendy local restaurant* when the following conversation occured:
CC: We totally need to find him a girlfriend. I just feel bad for him.
TheCSO: Yeah?
CC: Yeah, as far as I can tell, he wakes up, eats, works, goes for a run, has dinner talks on the phone for awhile, then sleeps.
TheCSO: We could liven up his life significantly even without a girlfriend.
CC: Really?
TheCSO: Oh yeah, at the end of the day he could be like "Dear Diary, today I woke up, went to work, chased rabid squirrels out of my office, worked, went for a run, talked on the phone, got my utilities reconnected, then went to sleep." That would be a much more exciting day.
CC: You're an asshole.
TheCSO: Nah, if I were an asshole, he'd also have to convince the DMV that he wasn't dead.
CC: I think this is why people don't come to you with their personal problems very often.
CC
*This is a total lie. We were at Red Lobster.
Showing posts with label TheCSO. Show all posts
Showing posts with label TheCSO. Show all posts
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Lick it, Lips!
As a public service, I'd like to inform you that there will be a Rocky Horror Picture Show Convention in Atlantic City the weekend of September 28.
I'm so tempted to go just to people watch.
CC
who, with Joe-the-Math-Guy, theCSO and a bunch of her college amigos once forced the Rialto theater in Raleigh to impose a limit on the number of rolls of toilet paper one person could bring in after we brought in a dozen rolls apeice. (WalMart had a sale.)
Ah, the halcyon days of my misspent youth.
I'm so tempted to go just to people watch.
CC
who, with Joe-the-Math-Guy, theCSO and a bunch of her college amigos once forced the Rialto theater in Raleigh to impose a limit on the number of rolls of toilet paper one person could bring in after we brought in a dozen rolls apeice. (WalMart had a sale.)
Ah, the halcyon days of my misspent youth.
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Become a misanthrope—Get a SmartCar
As I sat in the parking lot of the Calabash, North Carolina Hardee’s, changing a tire as half a dozen people watched me and asked questions, I realized my SmartCar was seriously making me start to hate humanity.
And I don’t know what to do about it.
I realize I do own a red convertible. That said, I’m not intentionally being the person who exhibits attention-seeking behavior, then complains about the attention. I suppose some comparison in this direction is inevitable, and maybe I deserve it a little bit. But I like small cars and I’ve always wanted a convertible. TheCSO insisted we buy a red or yellow car because SmartCars are, well, really really small and he wanted me to be as easy to see as possible. I really didn’t buy a SmartCar to meet people.
But meet people I do, constantly.
And I really hate it. I’ve started to look at the world with a suspicious eye. When people approach me in parking lots, I’m already thinking “Don’t ask about the mileage, don’t ask how much I paid for it and for the love of God, don’t make fun of it.”
I mostly drive with the top up, in part because when people know it’s a convertible, they talk to me about it all the more
I can be, I think, a pretty nice person. I do a lot for other people and a lot for my friends. I am fond of almost everyone I know.
But I am seriously starting to dislike strangers.
I’m chubby and fairly plain with nice, even features but on the whole am not particularly impressive physically. When I was younger, I fantasized about being really, really, beautiful and how wonderful it would be. As I got older, I started to suspect that I would find the attention would get old. Now I’m certain I would despise it. I can’t even take people fussing over my car.
This all hit an apex this afternoon, when a tire that had a slow leak suddenly went completely flat. I noticed it in the parking lot of a CVS. There was a Hardee’s two blocks away. I had postcards to write and I just didn’t feel like I could deal with the flat tire this very second. So I drove the car two block and parked it behind Hardee’s, flat tire facing away from the restaurant.
I went in to Hardee’s, got a soda and wrote my postcards. Perhaps half a postcard in, one of the employees comes up to me.
“Does that thing run on water?”
“Huh?” I said. I always play dumb when people ask me about my car. Might as well make the conversation a little annoying for them, too.
“Is that your red car?”
“Yes.”
“Is it one of those cars that runs on water?”
“No,” I said. “It runs on gas.”
She went away. Half a postcard later, she was back.
“Does it cost twenty dollars to fill the gas tank?”
“More like thirty,” I said.
I was almost done with the postcards when she came back again. “My manager was taking out the trash and he said you have a flat tire.”
“I know. I’m going to take care of it now, I just wanted a drink first.”
“Ok, because the tire is flat. He saw it when he was taking out the trash.”
“I’ll take care of it.” I said. At this point the lady really was trying to be nice, but I really, really wanted to be left the fuck alone. I threw out the soda, stuffed the postcards in my pocket and headed for the door.
I have a full-sized spare and could have changed it there, but I just wanted to be out of there, so I pulled out the tire pump, a little machine that attaches to a bottle of fix-a-flat-type-stuff. As I attached the pump to the tire and to the cigarette lighter in the car, the lady who worked at Hardee’s and a guy who I assumed was her manager came out to watch. They were soon joined by a couple who had been in the Hardee’s and some teenagers who had been walking across the parking lot.
“It’s such a cute little thing.”
“What’s she doing?”
“Pumping up the tire.”
“I could never fit my kids in that car…”
I couldn’t get to 36 psi fast enough. Finally, it was done and I unhooked the pump and threw it into the passenger’s seatwell. The crown dispersed, I drove away.
But I was left with a sense of unease about the whole situation. Sure, it was annoying, and it would have been nice if someone had actually offered to help, but this IS appreciation, right? I mean people fuss over my car because they think it’s cool.
I tell myself this over and over.
CC
And I don’t know what to do about it.
I realize I do own a red convertible. That said, I’m not intentionally being the person who exhibits attention-seeking behavior, then complains about the attention. I suppose some comparison in this direction is inevitable, and maybe I deserve it a little bit. But I like small cars and I’ve always wanted a convertible. TheCSO insisted we buy a red or yellow car because SmartCars are, well, really really small and he wanted me to be as easy to see as possible. I really didn’t buy a SmartCar to meet people.
But meet people I do, constantly.
And I really hate it. I’ve started to look at the world with a suspicious eye. When people approach me in parking lots, I’m already thinking “Don’t ask about the mileage, don’t ask how much I paid for it and for the love of God, don’t make fun of it.”
I mostly drive with the top up, in part because when people know it’s a convertible, they talk to me about it all the more
I can be, I think, a pretty nice person. I do a lot for other people and a lot for my friends. I am fond of almost everyone I know.
But I am seriously starting to dislike strangers.
I’m chubby and fairly plain with nice, even features but on the whole am not particularly impressive physically. When I was younger, I fantasized about being really, really, beautiful and how wonderful it would be. As I got older, I started to suspect that I would find the attention would get old. Now I’m certain I would despise it. I can’t even take people fussing over my car.
This all hit an apex this afternoon, when a tire that had a slow leak suddenly went completely flat. I noticed it in the parking lot of a CVS. There was a Hardee’s two blocks away. I had postcards to write and I just didn’t feel like I could deal with the flat tire this very second. So I drove the car two block and parked it behind Hardee’s, flat tire facing away from the restaurant.
I went in to Hardee’s, got a soda and wrote my postcards. Perhaps half a postcard in, one of the employees comes up to me.
“Does that thing run on water?”
“Huh?” I said. I always play dumb when people ask me about my car. Might as well make the conversation a little annoying for them, too.
“Is that your red car?”
“Yes.”
“Is it one of those cars that runs on water?”
“No,” I said. “It runs on gas.”
She went away. Half a postcard later, she was back.
“Does it cost twenty dollars to fill the gas tank?”
“More like thirty,” I said.
I was almost done with the postcards when she came back again. “My manager was taking out the trash and he said you have a flat tire.”
“I know. I’m going to take care of it now, I just wanted a drink first.”
“Ok, because the tire is flat. He saw it when he was taking out the trash.”
“I’ll take care of it.” I said. At this point the lady really was trying to be nice, but I really, really wanted to be left the fuck alone. I threw out the soda, stuffed the postcards in my pocket and headed for the door.
I have a full-sized spare and could have changed it there, but I just wanted to be out of there, so I pulled out the tire pump, a little machine that attaches to a bottle of fix-a-flat-type-stuff. As I attached the pump to the tire and to the cigarette lighter in the car, the lady who worked at Hardee’s and a guy who I assumed was her manager came out to watch. They were soon joined by a couple who had been in the Hardee’s and some teenagers who had been walking across the parking lot.
“It’s such a cute little thing.”
“What’s she doing?”
“Pumping up the tire.”
“I could never fit my kids in that car…”
I couldn’t get to 36 psi fast enough. Finally, it was done and I unhooked the pump and threw it into the passenger’s seatwell. The crown dispersed, I drove away.
But I was left with a sense of unease about the whole situation. Sure, it was annoying, and it would have been nice if someone had actually offered to help, but this IS appreciation, right? I mean people fuss over my car because they think it’s cool.
I tell myself this over and over.
CC
Friday, July 18, 2008
So has anybody seen "Mamma Mia?"
I love me some Christine Baranski and see just about everything she does. (Yep, even the Grinch.)
At the same time, the reviews "Mamma Mia" had gotten, combined with the fact that, well, it's an Abba musical, has pretty much everyone I know not wanting to see it.
TheCSO still owes me big because I sat through "A Scanner Darkly," so I COULD cash in that chip. But do I want to?
Has anybody seen it? Is it that bad? How much screen time does Christine Baranski get?
Thanks,
CC
At the same time, the reviews "Mamma Mia" had gotten, combined with the fact that, well, it's an Abba musical, has pretty much everyone I know not wanting to see it.
TheCSO still owes me big because I sat through "A Scanner Darkly," so I COULD cash in that chip. But do I want to?
Has anybody seen it? Is it that bad? How much screen time does Christine Baranski get?
Thanks,
CC
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Another thing I'm thinking about today-Bohemia drift
No, I don't know why I feel so much like writing recently.
The other day, theCSO and I were going someplace and listening to the songs saved on my Iphone. (I no longer inflict my taste in music on most people. Be it the Colin Raye or the 2 Live Crew, I always manage to offend my passengers' taste. But the CSO is used to my ways and pretty tolerant.)
Anyway, I have that La Vie Boheme song from Rent in there and as we were listening to:
To hand-crafted beers made in local breweries
To yoga, to yogurt, to rice and beans and cheese
To leather, to dildos, To curry Vindaloo
To Huevos Rancheros and Maya Angelou
TheCSO commented that we're pretty mainstream and we really like most of that stuff, and have no particular objection to the rest. And indeed, out of context, that almost looks like a list of yuppie favorite things rather than a list of counterculture favorite things.
And we had a pleasant discussion of how interesting it is that the general principles that the song espouses (riding your bike midday past the three-peice-suits) remain something that we associate with hipsters and being counterculture, but the cultural specifics have drifted into the mainstream so quickly.
On a related note, I have a friend who is into S+M who is in total denial about the mainstream acceptance of S+M.
"Look, right here! It's in Cosmo!"
"Shut up! Shut up!"
So that's another thing I'm thinking about.
CC
The other day, theCSO and I were going someplace and listening to the songs saved on my Iphone. (I no longer inflict my taste in music on most people. Be it the Colin Raye or the 2 Live Crew, I always manage to offend my passengers' taste. But the CSO is used to my ways and pretty tolerant.)
Anyway, I have that La Vie Boheme song from Rent in there and as we were listening to:
To hand-crafted beers made in local breweries
To yoga, to yogurt, to rice and beans and cheese
To leather, to dildos, To curry Vindaloo
To Huevos Rancheros and Maya Angelou
TheCSO commented that we're pretty mainstream and we really like most of that stuff, and have no particular objection to the rest. And indeed, out of context, that almost looks like a list of yuppie favorite things rather than a list of counterculture favorite things.
And we had a pleasant discussion of how interesting it is that the general principles that the song espouses (riding your bike midday past the three-peice-suits) remain something that we associate with hipsters and being counterculture, but the cultural specifics have drifted into the mainstream so quickly.
On a related note, I have a friend who is into S+M who is in total denial about the mainstream acceptance of S+M.
"Look, right here! It's in Cosmo!"
"Shut up! Shut up!"
So that's another thing I'm thinking about.
CC
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
I have always had a low opinion
of people who say "Now how would you feel if someone did that to you?"
I've written on this topic before because I've had several friends in the past who liked to recite my minor sins back to me, always ending with that dumbass question. I've heard it applied to, among other sins, "kissing your ex at a party," "needing to work on the college newspaper when you have yet another boyfriend drama" and "poorly disgusing that I didn't like the romantic surprise you painstakingly prepared for me because you didn't know me very well and assumed I would love something I actually found mildly traumatic.*"
I always feel like responding "I would feel like a melodramatic, self-important idiot if I made a fuss about it." (Ok, I genuinely felt really bad about the romantic surprise at the time, though in retrospect, I don't have a lot of sympathy for planning romantic surprises for people one doesn't know very well.)
Anwyay, I'm sure with "how would YOU feel if..." the idea is that I will have a sudden, shocking revelation:
"Oh my gosh! If I had plans with a friend and they had to cancel a few days before because of a work crisis, I would feel...bad! How horribly I must have wounded you!"
(Cue dramatic, un-CC-like sobbing, wailing, moaning and begging of forgiveness,)
I think I've written before that my total disgust for anybody who uses this phrase dates back to a clingy, in retrospect completely mental college friend who used it constantly. Since, then, I've regarded it as a red flag that the person I'm dealing with might be a self-important pain-in-the-ass.
I'm fairly certain that for most of us, considering the "how would *I* feel" point is pretty much a reflex when we're about to do something that someone else will likely find unpleasant. For me it is always factored in to the cost benefit analysis I go through when making a choice about whether to, say, report someone who is giving me bad customer service, to say nothing of when I'm about to do something than might annoy a friend. So to me, there's something inherently quite insulting about asking someone to consider how they would feel in the same situation.
Anway, I've written all that before, though it has been a couple of years. Yet I find myself revisiting the idea today, because I've several times recently encoutered people who can't deal with having their own logic applied to themselves and actually haven't considered this point, and are in some cases in total denial. (Well, yeah, when you do the same thing I did, it's much worse, because of these minor distinctions that don't make much sense...)
And I am totally flummoxed by the mere existance of these people.
I've discussed this and similar issues with an admittedly snotty close friend who says that if you're going to argue with stupid people, you need to prepare yourself with the sort of logic that appeals to stupid people. This logic includes several variations on Pascal's wager, any political logic that fits on a bumper sticker, and yes, my least favorite question. But that's for winning an argument.
Usually I don't even bother to try to show stupid people they've wronged me and get an apology. It's always more work than it is worth.
So that's what I'm thinking about today. Suggestions?
CC
*This was not theCSO. TheCSO would never ask me that question. He's way too smart and way to aware that he and I think differently.
I've written on this topic before because I've had several friends in the past who liked to recite my minor sins back to me, always ending with that dumbass question. I've heard it applied to, among other sins, "kissing your ex at a party," "needing to work on the college newspaper when you have yet another boyfriend drama" and "poorly disgusing that I didn't like the romantic surprise you painstakingly prepared for me because you didn't know me very well and assumed I would love something I actually found mildly traumatic.*"
I always feel like responding "I would feel like a melodramatic, self-important idiot if I made a fuss about it." (Ok, I genuinely felt really bad about the romantic surprise at the time, though in retrospect, I don't have a lot of sympathy for planning romantic surprises for people one doesn't know very well.)
Anwyay, I'm sure with "how would YOU feel if..." the idea is that I will have a sudden, shocking revelation:
"Oh my gosh! If I had plans with a friend and they had to cancel a few days before because of a work crisis, I would feel...bad! How horribly I must have wounded you!"
(Cue dramatic, un-CC-like sobbing, wailing, moaning and begging of forgiveness,)
I think I've written before that my total disgust for anybody who uses this phrase dates back to a clingy, in retrospect completely mental college friend who used it constantly. Since, then, I've regarded it as a red flag that the person I'm dealing with might be a self-important pain-in-the-ass.
I'm fairly certain that for most of us, considering the "how would *I* feel" point is pretty much a reflex when we're about to do something that someone else will likely find unpleasant. For me it is always factored in to the cost benefit analysis I go through when making a choice about whether to, say, report someone who is giving me bad customer service, to say nothing of when I'm about to do something than might annoy a friend. So to me, there's something inherently quite insulting about asking someone to consider how they would feel in the same situation.
Anway, I've written all that before, though it has been a couple of years. Yet I find myself revisiting the idea today, because I've several times recently encoutered people who can't deal with having their own logic applied to themselves and actually haven't considered this point, and are in some cases in total denial. (Well, yeah, when you do the same thing I did, it's much worse, because of these minor distinctions that don't make much sense...)
And I am totally flummoxed by the mere existance of these people.
I've discussed this and similar issues with an admittedly snotty close friend who says that if you're going to argue with stupid people, you need to prepare yourself with the sort of logic that appeals to stupid people. This logic includes several variations on Pascal's wager, any political logic that fits on a bumper sticker, and yes, my least favorite question. But that's for winning an argument.
Usually I don't even bother to try to show stupid people they've wronged me and get an apology. It's always more work than it is worth.
So that's what I'm thinking about today. Suggestions?
CC
*This was not theCSO. TheCSO would never ask me that question. He's way too smart and way to aware that he and I think differently.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
So, wanna hear about my fucked up nightmares?
Sure you do.
I had this weird series of little nightmares on Sunday night, and I haven't been myself since. I haven't slept well in days.
Maybe it's the nightmares. For lack of something to do as it's two-a-freaking-clock-in-the-morning, I will describe the nightmares I can remember. They were a series, leading in to one another with a sort of narrative flow. I have the impression that I actually dreamed about ten of them, but here's what I remember:
-I screwed something up at work. It wasn't something that was going to cost my firm or a client any money, but it was personally aggravating to my boss, who had to spend (unbillable) hours fixing the situation.
-Sometime later, I was on a field trip or something with ZombieKid* There was a bicycle coming toward us on the road, straight for ZombieKid, I pushed him out of the way, which made him fall into a mud puddle in front of all his friends, who laughed at him. The bicycle swerved in plenty of time and wouldn't have hit him.
-I took him home to get him cleaned up. I drew a bath for him while he played the computer, then told him to take a bath. As he was getting out, my best friend came home and I told her about the mud puddle.
"You didn't give him a bath, did you?"
"Well, yeah, he was muddy"
"Did you put some of the chemical in the blue bottle in the water?"
"No...?"
"Oh God. His skin is really sensitive. You can't give him a bath without his chemical! Now he's going to get a horrible rash!"
-Some time after that, I realize that theCSO's coworkers were't coming over for dinner any more. I asked him about it and he gently explained that his coworkers thought I was boring and that they liked our house, but didn't want to be around me.
I don't remember the others, but as far as I can recall, it was me hurting and embarassing people I care about all night long.
It was like my subconcious was sending me a message encoded in dreams, and that message was "You suck."
It was a rough night, y'all.
CC
*ZK is my best friend's nine year old. He's geeky in many of the ways TheCSO and I remember being as children and we are very protective of him. TheGnome is younger, but a little more savvy about the world. Anyway, I am not related to these children, but they are the children in my life in a fundamental way.
I had this weird series of little nightmares on Sunday night, and I haven't been myself since. I haven't slept well in days.
Maybe it's the nightmares. For lack of something to do as it's two-a-freaking-clock-in-the-morning, I will describe the nightmares I can remember. They were a series, leading in to one another with a sort of narrative flow. I have the impression that I actually dreamed about ten of them, but here's what I remember:
-I screwed something up at work. It wasn't something that was going to cost my firm or a client any money, but it was personally aggravating to my boss, who had to spend (unbillable) hours fixing the situation.
-Sometime later, I was on a field trip or something with ZombieKid* There was a bicycle coming toward us on the road, straight for ZombieKid, I pushed him out of the way, which made him fall into a mud puddle in front of all his friends, who laughed at him. The bicycle swerved in plenty of time and wouldn't have hit him.
-I took him home to get him cleaned up. I drew a bath for him while he played the computer, then told him to take a bath. As he was getting out, my best friend came home and I told her about the mud puddle.
"You didn't give him a bath, did you?"
"Well, yeah, he was muddy"
"Did you put some of the chemical in the blue bottle in the water?"
"No...?"
"Oh God. His skin is really sensitive. You can't give him a bath without his chemical! Now he's going to get a horrible rash!"
-Some time after that, I realize that theCSO's coworkers were't coming over for dinner any more. I asked him about it and he gently explained that his coworkers thought I was boring and that they liked our house, but didn't want to be around me.
I don't remember the others, but as far as I can recall, it was me hurting and embarassing people I care about all night long.
It was like my subconcious was sending me a message encoded in dreams, and that message was "You suck."
It was a rough night, y'all.
CC
*ZK is my best friend's nine year old. He's geeky in many of the ways TheCSO and I remember being as children and we are very protective of him. TheGnome is younger, but a little more savvy about the world. Anyway, I am not related to these children, but they are the children in my life in a fundamental way.
Thursday, May 29, 2008
So what DID CC end up doing with her weekend?
Will asked me a couple of days ago in the comments of my post on vacation sites for a girls' weekend.
Smiley Dave, ZombieKid and The Gnome were going to hang out with some friends of Smiley Dave's near Hershey Park, so Saturday we all drove up to Hershey Park and had an exhausting but very fun day where she learned that amusement parks are way more fun when one does not attend them with the ChaliceMom and ChaliceDad.
(E.g. When I was a kid, my mother would HARASS me until I went on the log flume with her. I HATED the log flume. I was SCARED of the log flume. I would dread her starting in with the "Oh, it's not that high and we should all go if one of us goes..." routine. As an adult, if you don't want to ride the log flume, you say "Hey, I don't want to ride the long flume. I'm going to wander while you people ride the log flume, call me on my cell phone when you're done" and nobody gives you crap about it. It's awesome.)
The Chaliceparents also maintained that nobody ever wins the carnival games at Amusement parks so we were never allowed to play them ever. I won a medium-sized stuffed monkey for theCSO on my third try at a two dollar game. (Yes, it was a monkey probably worth less than six bucks, but shut up.) Smiley Dave came away with a stuffed monkey AND this giant daisy.
Then Smiley Dave took the kids and headed to go hang out with his friends and Jana and I went up to Corning, NY. We were in the convertible and we could not have asked for better weather. We listened to Meg Barnhouse and Hairspray and the Indigo Girls and this goofy mix cd of songs I liked in college. Twas awesome.
We had the ultimate bed and breakfast experience in Corning here. Y'all, it's a Greek revival mansion that is full of beautiful antiques and run my two charming men whose moved to Corning from Seattle was primarily motivated by their love of Steuben glass. In fact, a discussion of Steuben glass with one of the guys enthused CC so much that she ALMOST dropped $250 on this small sculpture at the Corning Glass Museum's gift shop the following day before realizing that Steuben glass Victorian hand cooler collectors were really Hummel figurine collectors with more expensive educations. OK, I still kind of want the elephant, but again, shut up.
So we had this incredibly blissful time in Corning, so much so that she and I are already booked for next year at the Bed and Breakfast of the awesome, where they proudly display a signed photo of Eartha Kitt wishing the two guys luck on their business venture.
At the Corning glass museum, we went to these beginner glass classes and got totally enthused about bringing Smiley Dave, Zombie Kid and theGnome back next year, though the kids would need to stay someplace with less fragile surroundings.
CC
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Post-Post-Hunt
FortiesGirl, Dr.When, theCSO and I were a team in the first PostHunt, which was a competition where we ran around DC answering complex, multi-step puzzles. It was a lot of fun, though of the five puzzles we only completely solved one. We got a solid halfway on three others and were totally lost on the fifth. It was really, really, hard, y'all. (We missed one puzzle because we couldn't tell that a fortune cookie was coconut-flavored.) But at least half a dozen teams finished the whole thing, so it was us, not the puzzles.
TheCSO, FG and DW were really disappointed that we didn't do better, though I was more Zen about it because frankly these days I'm used to feeling like lots of people are smarter or at least better prepared than me and seeing things I can't. Thank you, Law school.
Anyway, I've been talking it up for the last two days and at least Jana-who-creates and Kate-the-lawyer are wanting to participate next year with their respective mates, so I don't think I'm going to have a problem getting a team together if they bail. Besides, if Jana is in, her kids are in and there's no way TheGnome would have missed the coconut.
I think the highlight of the day for FG and DW was getting to meet Dave Barry and I took this picture of them. (Dave Barry was really nice about posing for pictures and signing books.)
It was a good day.
CC
Monday, May 05, 2008
Futher adventures of the last holdouts to gentrification.
It sort of defies explanation how I ended up at my mother’s house on Saturday morning in my pajamas, knowing that the police were on their way.
Well, no, it doesn’t. She'd brought my brother Oliver over to my house that morning and theCSO and I had rolled out of bed, pulled on jeans and met them at the door. My brother and my husband had business to discuss. After fifteen minutes of negotiations about how much extra Oliver was going to charge theCSO and me when he mowed around all the construction stuff in our yard, my mother needed to get back to her house.
I’d told Oliver I would drive him to his first job of the morning so he and theCSO could finish their negotiation. As he was getting out of the car, Oliver casually mentioned that I should probably call and check on my mother. She’d had to leave because she was kicking a big mean guy out of her house.
(The ChaliceMom and ChaliceDad for reasons CC can’t fathom allow Jason and Oliver to run a flophouse for their degenerate little friends in the basement. Sometimes, those friends need to get kicked out.)
Sigh.
I drove over to my mother’s house.
This was one UGLY big mean guy. He stomped around halfassedly packing his car, but mostly yelling threats and in general making a spectacle of himself. My parents’ neighbors paused at their flowerbeds and looked up to watch. They have to be used to this by now, but I was still dying a bit inside.
Big mean guy hadn’t been paying any rent, but he had been there over 30 days, which grants him some rights in our county. When it was pointed out that he couldn’t PROVE he’d been there over 30 days, he decided to call the cops and ask them to work it out.
Fair enough.
It was about then that I realized that I may be a Smith by birth and thus capable of anything as far as law enforcement is concerned, but I usually like to be wearing a bra when I talk to the police.
“Things here seem pretty good,” I said. “I think I’ll head on home.”
My mother reached out and grabbed my wrist, "Please?" she said. I held her hand.
Big mean guy slammed a large box down in the driveway. “My car is legal,” he said mock philosophically, “I don’t know about Oliver’s car.”
The Chalicemom and I looked at each other and shrugged. So what if it’s not? You can have a non-street legal car in your driveway. The cops can only ticket if it’s a junker that has been there for 90 days or so or if they see you driving it. Every Smith knows that.
“And what if they search your house? I bet Oliver has some nasty stuff on his computer.”
My mother and I looked at each other. This might be a problem. If Oliver had any particularly weird porn or had contracted with any hookers and left evidence on his computer, he could go back to jail. And the police have an excellent record of finding probable cause to search the houses where my brothers live.
I will freely admit my brother is a terrible person, but he is a terrible person who is giving making an honest living a shot and on some level I respect that.
My mother looked at me. “Can you get rid of anything weird on Oliver’s computer?” she asked.
“Dunno. Don’t think so. But I can keep the police from looking in it. I’ll be back in ten minutes.”
I took the computer and stuck it in the back of my car. I drove home, trying really hard not to think about those lines from Animal Farm, “Twelve voices were shouting in anger, and they were all alike. No question, now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”
I dropped the laptop off and put on some lawyer clothes. One of my more casual suits, some pearls, some nice shoes. Look at me, respectable member of society.
I was back at my parents’ house in time to talk to the police. I talked to them about our unruly houseguest. Big ugly guy stalked off. The police left. I talked to my mom about going to the magistrate to get a stay-away order.
“So,” my mother said. “I’m going to head over to the county courthouse, but the Flower Mart at the National Cathedral is today and your father and I were thinking about going later this afternoon. Would you like to come along?”
I declined. The day was starting to heat up, and my suit was starting to get uncomfortable.
CC
Whose brother insists there was nothing weird on the computer, but who didn’t look herself.
Well, no, it doesn’t. She'd brought my brother Oliver over to my house that morning and theCSO and I had rolled out of bed, pulled on jeans and met them at the door. My brother and my husband had business to discuss. After fifteen minutes of negotiations about how much extra Oliver was going to charge theCSO and me when he mowed around all the construction stuff in our yard, my mother needed to get back to her house.
I’d told Oliver I would drive him to his first job of the morning so he and theCSO could finish their negotiation. As he was getting out of the car, Oliver casually mentioned that I should probably call and check on my mother. She’d had to leave because she was kicking a big mean guy out of her house.
(The ChaliceMom and ChaliceDad for reasons CC can’t fathom allow Jason and Oliver to run a flophouse for their degenerate little friends in the basement. Sometimes, those friends need to get kicked out.)
Sigh.
I drove over to my mother’s house.
This was one UGLY big mean guy. He stomped around halfassedly packing his car, but mostly yelling threats and in general making a spectacle of himself. My parents’ neighbors paused at their flowerbeds and looked up to watch. They have to be used to this by now, but I was still dying a bit inside.
Big mean guy hadn’t been paying any rent, but he had been there over 30 days, which grants him some rights in our county. When it was pointed out that he couldn’t PROVE he’d been there over 30 days, he decided to call the cops and ask them to work it out.
Fair enough.
It was about then that I realized that I may be a Smith by birth and thus capable of anything as far as law enforcement is concerned, but I usually like to be wearing a bra when I talk to the police.
“Things here seem pretty good,” I said. “I think I’ll head on home.”
My mother reached out and grabbed my wrist, "Please?" she said. I held her hand.
Big mean guy slammed a large box down in the driveway. “My car is legal,” he said mock philosophically, “I don’t know about Oliver’s car.”
The Chalicemom and I looked at each other and shrugged. So what if it’s not? You can have a non-street legal car in your driveway. The cops can only ticket if it’s a junker that has been there for 90 days or so or if they see you driving it. Every Smith knows that.
“And what if they search your house? I bet Oliver has some nasty stuff on his computer.”
My mother and I looked at each other. This might be a problem. If Oliver had any particularly weird porn or had contracted with any hookers and left evidence on his computer, he could go back to jail. And the police have an excellent record of finding probable cause to search the houses where my brothers live.
I will freely admit my brother is a terrible person, but he is a terrible person who is giving making an honest living a shot and on some level I respect that.
My mother looked at me. “Can you get rid of anything weird on Oliver’s computer?” she asked.
“Dunno. Don’t think so. But I can keep the police from looking in it. I’ll be back in ten minutes.”
I took the computer and stuck it in the back of my car. I drove home, trying really hard not to think about those lines from Animal Farm, “Twelve voices were shouting in anger, and they were all alike. No question, now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”
I dropped the laptop off and put on some lawyer clothes. One of my more casual suits, some pearls, some nice shoes. Look at me, respectable member of society.
I was back at my parents’ house in time to talk to the police. I talked to them about our unruly houseguest. Big ugly guy stalked off. The police left. I talked to my mom about going to the magistrate to get a stay-away order.
“So,” my mother said. “I’m going to head over to the county courthouse, but the Flower Mart at the National Cathedral is today and your father and I were thinking about going later this afternoon. Would you like to come along?”
I declined. The day was starting to heat up, and my suit was starting to get uncomfortable.
CC
Whose brother insists there was nothing weird on the computer, but who didn’t look herself.
Monday, April 14, 2008
Sunday, March 30, 2008
I have a lot of very smart friends. Indeed, for all practical purposes, I have a panel of advisers.
When I have a psychology question, I call my smart friend Pam, who is a psychologist. Katy-the-Wise gets lots of my personal problems and religion questions, though other people have been known to handle the overflow as I have lots of both. Smiley-Dave the structural engineer told us how to fix a sagging wall in our garage and told us where to put our bookcases.
Obviously, LinguistFriend gets the language questions.
TheCSO and I kind of share a brain on a lot of things.
My question is: Do other people not do this? If not, why the hell not?
I went over to my parents' house this evening to help them jumpstart my mother's truck. When she and my father and brother went off to drive it around to get it charged up, I sat on the couch brushing the dog. Eventually, I started looking through the papers on the coffee table for a magazine.
I found notes in my mother's handwriting. Suspicious notes.
When my family got back, I held the paper aloft.
"Um, Ma? Is this a get rich quick scheme?"
"Well..." My mother said.
"She lost a lot of money. I wasn't supposed to tell you." My brother Jason filled in cheerfully.
"It was my fault. I didn't spend enough time on it," My mother said.
"Oh, come on, Mom. That's what they always tell you."
"It is?"
"Yes," I said, exasperated. "They convince you it's your fault for not working hard enough. It keeps you from suing and to make you easier to convince next time. Amway has been doing that forever."
This went on for awhile. I never did find out exactly what sort of scam it was, though I'm gathering it had something to do with real estate. They lost more money than I would want to lose, but not so much as to create a serious problem.
But still...
I really tried not to be a sanctimonious pain-in-the-ass about it. At the same time, I was shocked. I thought about the Psychiatrist in California who lost 1.3 million to the Nigerian scam and what his kids must have gone through.
And I thought about how naturally I ask people for advice and rely on the knowledge of others. If I were going into the real estate business and I had a daughter who was a law student, a son-in-law who was good with finances and did my taxes, I might ask the daughter to research the company and/or the son-in-law to look over the paperwork.
WtF?
My mom isn't what you would call book smart, but she's no fool either. I almost think on some level she knew it was a scam. Maybe she wanted the dream of easy money more than she wanted the money she spent getting into it.
If that's the case, I hope she just buys a lottery ticket next time.
CC
exasperated.
When I have a psychology question, I call my smart friend Pam, who is a psychologist. Katy-the-Wise gets lots of my personal problems and religion questions, though other people have been known to handle the overflow as I have lots of both. Smiley-Dave the structural engineer told us how to fix a sagging wall in our garage and told us where to put our bookcases.
Obviously, LinguistFriend gets the language questions.
TheCSO and I kind of share a brain on a lot of things.
My question is: Do other people not do this? If not, why the hell not?
I went over to my parents' house this evening to help them jumpstart my mother's truck. When she and my father and brother went off to drive it around to get it charged up, I sat on the couch brushing the dog. Eventually, I started looking through the papers on the coffee table for a magazine.
I found notes in my mother's handwriting. Suspicious notes.
When my family got back, I held the paper aloft.
"Um, Ma? Is this a get rich quick scheme?"
"Well..." My mother said.
"She lost a lot of money. I wasn't supposed to tell you." My brother Jason filled in cheerfully.
"It was my fault. I didn't spend enough time on it," My mother said.
"Oh, come on, Mom. That's what they always tell you."
"It is?"
"Yes," I said, exasperated. "They convince you it's your fault for not working hard enough. It keeps you from suing and to make you easier to convince next time. Amway has been doing that forever."
This went on for awhile. I never did find out exactly what sort of scam it was, though I'm gathering it had something to do with real estate. They lost more money than I would want to lose, but not so much as to create a serious problem.
But still...
I really tried not to be a sanctimonious pain-in-the-ass about it. At the same time, I was shocked. I thought about the Psychiatrist in California who lost 1.3 million to the Nigerian scam and what his kids must have gone through.
And I thought about how naturally I ask people for advice and rely on the knowledge of others. If I were going into the real estate business and I had a daughter who was a law student, a son-in-law who was good with finances and did my taxes, I might ask the daughter to research the company and/or the son-in-law to look over the paperwork.
WtF?
My mom isn't what you would call book smart, but she's no fool either. I almost think on some level she knew it was a scam. Maybe she wanted the dream of easy money more than she wanted the money she spent getting into it.
If that's the case, I hope she just buys a lottery ticket next time.
CC
exasperated.
This is what the toll road to Dulles Airport looks like
TheCSO and I are geocaching with friends.
The cars sound like the ocean. Its all a crazy suburban kind of
beautiful.
Tuesday, March 04, 2008
My non-opinion on Single Sex Public Education
PG, this blog's official asker of hard questions, asked me what I thought of this article on single-sex public education.
And honestly, I'm torn.
Actually, I'm torn on a lot of things relating to education. For example, I have for a long time been a great supporter of public schools and public education. I went to public schools myself and got a good education there and I have always stuck up for the public schools.
Then I started running a youth group with a girl who goes to Sidwell Friends, a bright, stimulated, thoughtful girl who raves about the education she's getting. Her friends and her kid sister (who also go to Sidwell) are equally confident, articulate and overall impressive. Chelsea Clinton turned out OK, too.
And I've started thinking "Gee, if I had a kid, I would really want to send her to Sidwell."
I'm similarly torn on single-sex elementary education. In this case, it's an issue of fairness to the minority. I believe the studies that the majority of students do well in single sex classes. A majority of boys want to watch snakes eat rats, a majority of girls would rather have more feminine sorts of science classes.
I just know I wouldn't have been happy with that sort of education, at least not socially. I hung out with boys all through elementary school. In gym class, we had a project where we had to make a "workout video." While small groups of girls worked out to Janet Jackson and Paula Abdul, my guy friends and I did a truly hilarious video where we worked out on roller skates to a Weird Al song. By the fifth grade, my best friend was a girl, but her name was Elizabeth and she went by "Lizard."
Would I have talked more in class? Dunno. I always talked a lot in class. Class is really boring if you don't. (This is an impulse I work hard to curb in law school.)
And TheCSO, to put it mildly, did not blend in at his elementary school in Charlotte, North Carolina, which had a large portion of lower-income students who were not culturally equipped to appreciate his sensitive and geeky self. (Ironically, I'm pretty sure he would have been just fine in Northern Virginia. I remember hanging out with a kid named James who was obsessed with disasters. On the swings we pretended we were escaping from the burning hotel in "Towering Inferno" and he knew more about the Titanic than any kid ever. I can totally see a little CSO and James being best pals. Also, in retrospect, James was way cooler than I gave him credit for at the time. I should totally google him.)
But the test scores are better for single sex education overall, and I totally don't want to discount that fact.
So what do y'all think? Is it worth a little extra cultural conditioning if the kids get a better education out of it?
CC
who did google James. He lives in LA now and seems to do something in the film industry. I friended him on Facebook.
And honestly, I'm torn.
Actually, I'm torn on a lot of things relating to education. For example, I have for a long time been a great supporter of public schools and public education. I went to public schools myself and got a good education there and I have always stuck up for the public schools.
Then I started running a youth group with a girl who goes to Sidwell Friends, a bright, stimulated, thoughtful girl who raves about the education she's getting. Her friends and her kid sister (who also go to Sidwell) are equally confident, articulate and overall impressive. Chelsea Clinton turned out OK, too.
And I've started thinking "Gee, if I had a kid, I would really want to send her to Sidwell."
I'm similarly torn on single-sex elementary education. In this case, it's an issue of fairness to the minority. I believe the studies that the majority of students do well in single sex classes. A majority of boys want to watch snakes eat rats, a majority of girls would rather have more feminine sorts of science classes.
I just know I wouldn't have been happy with that sort of education, at least not socially. I hung out with boys all through elementary school. In gym class, we had a project where we had to make a "workout video." While small groups of girls worked out to Janet Jackson and Paula Abdul, my guy friends and I did a truly hilarious video where we worked out on roller skates to a Weird Al song. By the fifth grade, my best friend was a girl, but her name was Elizabeth and she went by "Lizard."
Would I have talked more in class? Dunno. I always talked a lot in class. Class is really boring if you don't. (This is an impulse I work hard to curb in law school.)
And TheCSO, to put it mildly, did not blend in at his elementary school in Charlotte, North Carolina, which had a large portion of lower-income students who were not culturally equipped to appreciate his sensitive and geeky self. (Ironically, I'm pretty sure he would have been just fine in Northern Virginia. I remember hanging out with a kid named James who was obsessed with disasters. On the swings we pretended we were escaping from the burning hotel in "Towering Inferno" and he knew more about the Titanic than any kid ever. I can totally see a little CSO and James being best pals. Also, in retrospect, James was way cooler than I gave him credit for at the time. I should totally google him.)
But the test scores are better for single sex education overall, and I totally don't want to discount that fact.
So what do y'all think? Is it worth a little extra cultural conditioning if the kids get a better education out of it?
CC
who did google James. He lives in LA now and seems to do something in the film industry. I friended him on Facebook.
Saturday, February 23, 2008
CC the Smut Buddy
If any of several different people I know die suddenly, I have a job.
Not executor, not funeral planner.
I’m the guardian of the delicate sensibilities of their next of kin.
My name is CC, and I’m a smut buddy.
If any of these friends dies, I am to go to their house and steal their smut collections, their toys and in one case a decent selection of books.
Maybe it’s that I’m pretty tolerant and understanding of the wide variation in what people think of as fun and sexy. Also, I tend to end up with keys to people’s houses. Probably it’s that once a casual acquaintance finds out that close friends of mine sometimes receive custom erotica on their birthdays, they tell me things they don’t want their Mommas to find out. After that, I’m the logical person.
I was talking this over with a friend the other day, one who was mostly concerned about his collection of lesbian catfight porn.
“It’s not so much my parents seeing it, it’s that they might think it was my wife’s.”
Ah. Good point.
“Most of the visual stuff is on computers, so I don’t think that would matter. We have plenty of written erotica around my house,” I said. “My mom wouldn’t like that, but I don’t think it would upset her too badly. I mean, we don’t have anything REALLY freaky. I mean, we have, like, ‘Screw the roses, send me the thorns,’ but that doesn’t even count, does it?”
He let my words hang in the air. Oh yeah, that book might be a beginner's guide for dabblers/erotica writers/bachelorette parties, but it would SO bug my mom. And the Chalicerelative? I shudder to imagine.
So clearly, theCSO and I should add this to the list of end-of-life issues we need to discuss.
CC
Who doesn’t want her mom to find her friend’s lesbian catfight porn at HER house, either. Guess we all better live a long time.
Not executor, not funeral planner.
I’m the guardian of the delicate sensibilities of their next of kin.
My name is CC, and I’m a smut buddy.
If any of these friends dies, I am to go to their house and steal their smut collections, their toys and in one case a decent selection of books.
Maybe it’s that I’m pretty tolerant and understanding of the wide variation in what people think of as fun and sexy. Also, I tend to end up with keys to people’s houses. Probably it’s that once a casual acquaintance finds out that close friends of mine sometimes receive custom erotica on their birthdays, they tell me things they don’t want their Mommas to find out. After that, I’m the logical person.
I was talking this over with a friend the other day, one who was mostly concerned about his collection of lesbian catfight porn.
“It’s not so much my parents seeing it, it’s that they might think it was my wife’s.”
Ah. Good point.
“Most of the visual stuff is on computers, so I don’t think that would matter. We have plenty of written erotica around my house,” I said. “My mom wouldn’t like that, but I don’t think it would upset her too badly. I mean, we don’t have anything REALLY freaky. I mean, we have, like, ‘Screw the roses, send me the thorns,’ but that doesn’t even count, does it?”
He let my words hang in the air. Oh yeah, that book might be a beginner's guide for dabblers/erotica writers/bachelorette parties, but it would SO bug my mom. And the Chalicerelative? I shudder to imagine.
So clearly, theCSO and I should add this to the list of end-of-life issues we need to discuss.
CC
Who doesn’t want her mom to find her friend’s lesbian catfight porn at HER house, either. Guess we all better live a long time.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
CC coming to Boston
All the talk about conventions just reminded me. TheCSO, Jana-who-Creates and I are likely coming to Boston for ROFLcon on April 24 and 25. I don't know how much time I will spend at the Con as I will be studying a lot, but I'd really like to hang out with some of my Boston friends.
CC
CC
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
An Evening with theChaliceDad
Picture it: Fairfax County, 1996. A young CC, rather depressed that the SAT she had been planning to retake has just been snowed out, decides to take a walk out in the snow to see if the local creek has frozen over. As she gets close to the creek, she slips, hitting her head hard on the ice. Head bleeding, she stumbles back home and sits on the kitchen floor, still sort of shocked.
“You need to go to the hospital,” her father says.
“Ummm… No. I’m fine,” she responds.
“No, really, you should go to the hospital. Let me take you” her mother says.
“I’m FINE.”
It goes on like this for awhile until CC, who just wants to be left alone, stomps off to her room, locking the door behind her.
The ChaliceDad breaks down the door.
She goes to the hospital.
Picture it: Fairfax County, 2008. It’s 11:00 at night, after a night of driving to school and back in an ice storm. I’ve just snuggled into bed next to the CSO. We’re talking, as we endlessly do, about plans for renovating the very kitchen I bled all over those years ago. The phone rings.
“Jason,” TheCSO says in the same annoyed tone of voice he always uses when talking about my brother.
I go pick up the phone anyway, “It’s Dad,” my brother Oliver is screaming, “He fell on the ice and he’s bleeding really bad and he won’t go to the hospital. Mom says it doesn’t look that bad.”
Oliver sees everything as a tragedy, my mother is the sort of person who assumes that using expired meat can’t be all THAT dangerous.
Fuck. There’s only one way to tell what’s going on.
TheCSO and I get dressed. He brings his laptop. He knows he’s in for a long night.
Yep, Dad is bleeding from the head still, an hour after his fall. It's an ugly wound, the kind of wound one can't really get from a fall without shaking one's insides.
“Dad, we should take you to the hospital”
“No,”
“It’s the smart thing to do,”
“No,”
“We’re all going to worry about you if we don’t,”
“NO!”
Jason and Oliver yell, my mother whines, I argue, theCSO does handyman chores. We break off and conference in little groups. There's lots of yelling and arguing, especially on my brothers' parts.
“You’re father is afraid of doctors,” my mother says.
“I’m afraid of head trauma,” I respond. But that's a weak argument and we all know it. My nervousness over a theoretical head injury is nothing to what my fether is feeling. My father's fears are strong and run very deep. When he's faced with one of them, he becomes hysterical, like a drowning man who pulls a potential rescuer under the water.
“We could call the paramedics, then claim he’s not being rational if he doesn’t consent,” theCSO says. "They would take him." Nobody argues that this wouldn’t work. After all, it's probably the truth. Rational people go to the hospital after they hit their heads. Besides, everybody else is dressed with middle class respectability. My father has that Unabomber beard that the mentally ill tend to get because of the difficulties of giving them a razor or keeping them still long enough to shave them. We're the crazy guy and his dysfunctional yet well meaning and respectable middle class family straight out of central casting.
“He’s so afraid,” my mother says. “What if the stress is worse for him than the head trauma would be?”
We look up the symptoms of a serious concussion on the internet. He pretty much has all of them. And has had them to an ever-increasing degree for the last ten years as he’s had stroke after stroke.
He’s still bleeding a bit. Head trauma aside, he could use some stitches.
It’s 1 a.m. at this point. The streets are a sheet of ice. I go back into the living room and crouch, putting myself at eye level with my father. Nobody ever looks in his eyes. At least, I don’t.
“Listen,” I say. “We can’t tell if you’ve hurt yourself or how badly. Ideally, we would stay here and keep bothering you until you consented to go. But theCSO and Mom and I have work in the morning, and we can’t play this game all night. Will you go to the hospital?”
“No!” he says. He’s not in good condition, but he’s still an ex-opera singer. His denial seems to shake the room a bit.
“OK, then. We’re going to go with that decision, theCSO and I are going home.” His whole body relaxes. “But, the really dangerous thing with concussions is getting two of them. At this point, we're playing the odds. Odds are good you’re fine now. But if you fall again, the odds become very bad. If I were you, I would stay off the ice and not leave the house if there’s an ice storm for some time, because if you fall again, we are taking you to the hospital. We don’t care what you have to say about it. Jason, Oliver and I are each bigger, stronger and meaner than you are and there are three of us. Do you understand?”
He grunted a “yes.”
And we went home, ever conscious of how family roles change over time, even when the personalities don’t.
CC
“You need to go to the hospital,” her father says.
“Ummm… No. I’m fine,” she responds.
“No, really, you should go to the hospital. Let me take you” her mother says.
“I’m FINE.”
It goes on like this for awhile until CC, who just wants to be left alone, stomps off to her room, locking the door behind her.
The ChaliceDad breaks down the door.
She goes to the hospital.
Picture it: Fairfax County, 2008. It’s 11:00 at night, after a night of driving to school and back in an ice storm. I’ve just snuggled into bed next to the CSO. We’re talking, as we endlessly do, about plans for renovating the very kitchen I bled all over those years ago. The phone rings.
“Jason,” TheCSO says in the same annoyed tone of voice he always uses when talking about my brother.
I go pick up the phone anyway, “It’s Dad,” my brother Oliver is screaming, “He fell on the ice and he’s bleeding really bad and he won’t go to the hospital. Mom says it doesn’t look that bad.”
Oliver sees everything as a tragedy, my mother is the sort of person who assumes that using expired meat can’t be all THAT dangerous.
Fuck. There’s only one way to tell what’s going on.
TheCSO and I get dressed. He brings his laptop. He knows he’s in for a long night.
Yep, Dad is bleeding from the head still, an hour after his fall. It's an ugly wound, the kind of wound one can't really get from a fall without shaking one's insides.
“Dad, we should take you to the hospital”
“No,”
“It’s the smart thing to do,”
“No,”
“We’re all going to worry about you if we don’t,”
“NO!”
Jason and Oliver yell, my mother whines, I argue, theCSO does handyman chores. We break off and conference in little groups. There's lots of yelling and arguing, especially on my brothers' parts.
“You’re father is afraid of doctors,” my mother says.
“I’m afraid of head trauma,” I respond. But that's a weak argument and we all know it. My nervousness over a theoretical head injury is nothing to what my fether is feeling. My father's fears are strong and run very deep. When he's faced with one of them, he becomes hysterical, like a drowning man who pulls a potential rescuer under the water.
“We could call the paramedics, then claim he’s not being rational if he doesn’t consent,” theCSO says. "They would take him." Nobody argues that this wouldn’t work. After all, it's probably the truth. Rational people go to the hospital after they hit their heads. Besides, everybody else is dressed with middle class respectability. My father has that Unabomber beard that the mentally ill tend to get because of the difficulties of giving them a razor or keeping them still long enough to shave them. We're the crazy guy and his dysfunctional yet well meaning and respectable middle class family straight out of central casting.
“He’s so afraid,” my mother says. “What if the stress is worse for him than the head trauma would be?”
We look up the symptoms of a serious concussion on the internet. He pretty much has all of them. And has had them to an ever-increasing degree for the last ten years as he’s had stroke after stroke.
He’s still bleeding a bit. Head trauma aside, he could use some stitches.
It’s 1 a.m. at this point. The streets are a sheet of ice. I go back into the living room and crouch, putting myself at eye level with my father. Nobody ever looks in his eyes. At least, I don’t.
“Listen,” I say. “We can’t tell if you’ve hurt yourself or how badly. Ideally, we would stay here and keep bothering you until you consented to go. But theCSO and Mom and I have work in the morning, and we can’t play this game all night. Will you go to the hospital?”
“No!” he says. He’s not in good condition, but he’s still an ex-opera singer. His denial seems to shake the room a bit.
“OK, then. We’re going to go with that decision, theCSO and I are going home.” His whole body relaxes. “But, the really dangerous thing with concussions is getting two of them. At this point, we're playing the odds. Odds are good you’re fine now. But if you fall again, the odds become very bad. If I were you, I would stay off the ice and not leave the house if there’s an ice storm for some time, because if you fall again, we are taking you to the hospital. We don’t care what you have to say about it. Jason, Oliver and I are each bigger, stronger and meaner than you are and there are three of us. Do you understand?”
He grunted a “yes.”
And we went home, ever conscious of how family roles change over time, even when the personalities don’t.
CC
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
An alternative to working out marital disagreements
TheCSO and I weren't as nice to each other last night as we like to be. This morning, he wrote me a snuggly make-up email. I wrote him one right back.
The google ad my "No, Sweetie *I* was a jerk, I'm trying to do better and I love you lots and lots"-themed email generated was:
Get a purpose driven Life - www.vocationsplacement.org - as a monk, nun, or priest. Free Online Test to see if you're called
Sponsored Link
Goodness, it was just a little argument. Let's not be drastic here!
CC
The google ad my "No, Sweetie *I* was a jerk, I'm trying to do better and I love you lots and lots"-themed email generated was:
Get a purpose driven Life - www.vocationsplacement.org - as a monk, nun, or priest. Free Online Test to see if you're called
Sponsored Link
Goodness, it was just a little argument. Let's not be drastic here!
CC
Saturday, January 19, 2008
The worst pies in London
"So what are you doing with a weekend all to yourself, Miss Sue?" TheChalicerelative asked, a reference to theCSO being out of town until Tuesday.
"Dunno. I'll help you pack some, and I'll spend some time at work, I expect," I said into the phone, keeping my eyes carefully on the road.
"What about this evening? If I'd thought about it, we could have gone out to supper."
"It's OK," I said. "I have class anyway, and afterwards I thought I might see Sweeney Todd."
"Again?"
Damn. I'd already told her I'd seen it. "I like it," I said lamely. The Chalicerelative is the sort of person who might well draw negative conclusions about the mental health of someone who willingly saw Sweeney Todd multiple times.
Instead, she sighed. "Your father loved that show."
While it's not accurate in the strictest biological sense to talk about my father in the past tense, for all intents and purposes, one might as well. Still, the Chalicerelative's words set off a chain of memories.
I don't know how young I was. Young enough to be comfortably held. And my father was saying, his voice that of someone delighting in telling a dreadful secret,
"Do you know what happens next? His friend Mrs. Lovett makes MEAT PIES!" I can remember my own childish squeal, then my father would roll out the words with Hestonesque vigor, "Meat pies made of PEOPLE."
When theCSO says that all my snuggly childhood memories sound like child abuse to him, this is probably what he's talking about.
Something in that movie really reaches out to me. Tim Burton often does. I saw the Corpse Bride three times and I love how his adaptation of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory really evoked the spirit of the book*.
My father doesn't leave his house when he can avoid it. But I'm still tempted to call up my parents and see if they'd like to catch a matinee.
So that's what I'm thinking about tonight.
CC
*Yes, I know you love the 1971 version. Roald Dahl and I disagree.
"Dunno. I'll help you pack some, and I'll spend some time at work, I expect," I said into the phone, keeping my eyes carefully on the road.
"What about this evening? If I'd thought about it, we could have gone out to supper."
"It's OK," I said. "I have class anyway, and afterwards I thought I might see Sweeney Todd."
"Again?"
Damn. I'd already told her I'd seen it. "I like it," I said lamely. The Chalicerelative is the sort of person who might well draw negative conclusions about the mental health of someone who willingly saw Sweeney Todd multiple times.
Instead, she sighed. "Your father loved that show."
While it's not accurate in the strictest biological sense to talk about my father in the past tense, for all intents and purposes, one might as well. Still, the Chalicerelative's words set off a chain of memories.
I don't know how young I was. Young enough to be comfortably held. And my father was saying, his voice that of someone delighting in telling a dreadful secret,
"Do you know what happens next? His friend Mrs. Lovett makes MEAT PIES!" I can remember my own childish squeal, then my father would roll out the words with Hestonesque vigor, "Meat pies made of PEOPLE."
When theCSO says that all my snuggly childhood memories sound like child abuse to him, this is probably what he's talking about.
Something in that movie really reaches out to me. Tim Burton often does. I saw the Corpse Bride three times and I love how his adaptation of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory really evoked the spirit of the book*.
My father doesn't leave his house when he can avoid it. But I'm still tempted to call up my parents and see if they'd like to catch a matinee.
So that's what I'm thinking about tonight.
CC
*Yes, I know you love the 1971 version. Roald Dahl and I disagree.
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
CC is all about the peacemaking
I really approve of the Democratic candidates making nice at the Nevada debate last night. I don't understand why we have to spend so much time tearing the candidates that we don't like up at the PRIMARIES. It seems like the definition of counterproductive.
Romney's win in Michigan leaves the Republican race more wide open than ever. I hope we can pick a candidate and get behind them.
This very moment, I'm leaning toward Obama. But at the same time, I'm really appalled by the sexism in the way people are treating Clinton. That Edwards has in the past painted himself as a "woman's candidate" seems pretty laughable at this point.
TheCSO and I were talking about this the other night, and I brought up the incident a few months ago where somebody asked McCain "How do we beat the bitch?" and he launched right into his response without even mentioning that he didn't see her that way or that "bitch" was not a proper way to describe one's female opponents.
At that time, I was making the point that if the supporter had been talking about Obama and asked "How do we beat the (insert racial invective here)," I'm quite certain McCain would have commented on the terminology.
TheCSO pointed out that the right has had sixteen years to paint Clinton as a bitch, so at this point lots of right-wing people are used to thinking of her this way.
I'm still confused on that one. Don't bitches leave cheating husbands and embarrass them rather than sticking by them? Do bitches raise daughters like Chelsea, who is easily the most well-adjusted and successful presidential child in decades?
And besides, if for sixteen years, the Republican party had been painting Obama as a "lazy (insert racial invective here)" then I would think somebody would have called racism on it and made them cool it.
CC
Ps. I'm rethinking the "Midlife Crisis" issue. I don't think I expressed what I meant well, and what I meant might have been wrong, too. Thanks for keeping me honest.
Romney's win in Michigan leaves the Republican race more wide open than ever. I hope we can pick a candidate and get behind them.
This very moment, I'm leaning toward Obama. But at the same time, I'm really appalled by the sexism in the way people are treating Clinton. That Edwards has in the past painted himself as a "woman's candidate" seems pretty laughable at this point.
TheCSO and I were talking about this the other night, and I brought up the incident a few months ago where somebody asked McCain "How do we beat the bitch?" and he launched right into his response without even mentioning that he didn't see her that way or that "bitch" was not a proper way to describe one's female opponents.
At that time, I was making the point that if the supporter had been talking about Obama and asked "How do we beat the (insert racial invective here)," I'm quite certain McCain would have commented on the terminology.
TheCSO pointed out that the right has had sixteen years to paint Clinton as a bitch, so at this point lots of right-wing people are used to thinking of her this way.
I'm still confused on that one. Don't bitches leave cheating husbands and embarrass them rather than sticking by them? Do bitches raise daughters like Chelsea, who is easily the most well-adjusted and successful presidential child in decades?
And besides, if for sixteen years, the Republican party had been painting Obama as a "lazy (insert racial invective here)" then I would think somebody would have called racism on it and made them cool it.
CC
Ps. I'm rethinking the "Midlife Crisis" issue. I don't think I expressed what I meant well, and what I meant might have been wrong, too. Thanks for keeping me honest.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)