Six Weird Things About Me

So Amalah over at amalah.com posted a meme challenge ------ identify 6 weird things about yourself. This was barely a challenge, by the way. I could go on for days. Now weird is relative and I have no desire to post ideas that would make my mother blush, so we're sticking to things about me that I find weird. Some of you know at least some of these things, I think. And you may not think it's weird. But seriously, I'm a little weird.

1. I have an unusual indifference to physical pain. I don't really physically hurt in the way that other people do. I'm still afraid of pain, but I know that it just doesn't effect me like other people. My son seems to be the same way.

2. From the time that I was 11 years old until I was 33 years old I always had bangs in my hair. Now I don't have bangs and no one who has met me since I moved to New Jersey nearly 5 years ago has ever seen me with bangs.

3. From childhood onward, I have always loved Laura Ingalls Wilder. In fact, I was a little obsessed as a child and often hoped to travel back in time so that I could be like Laura. Each year I re-read all of the books and I have a Laura Ingalls Wilder cookbook that I read and cooked from. Often.

4. I got my first Newsweek subscription when I was 14 years old. I have been a loyal reader of the magazine ever since and I never miss a week. That's 25 years of reading Newsweek. They should give me a free year or something.

5. I like to wear matching bras and panties. I especially like it if my bra and panties match what I'm wearing. I know this is weird but I just can't help myself.

6. I've liked every place that I've ever lived but I simply love the South.
Everything about it makes me happy and I feel most at peace when I am there. It feels like home to me, in a way that no other place ever has. I wish that my son had been born in Tennessee and my fondest daydream is about moving back there.

Time Out of My Head

One of the dangers of being me is that I think way too much about nearly everything. When it comes to just being and living in the moment, I am so not your girl. Need advance planning which requires the thinking through of every single freakin' possibility? Call me. I am so there for you.

The problem with being this way is well.....that I am this way. There are times when I become mentally exhausted by something that I just need to let go. But letting go is not me and instead I take one more opportunity to turn the compost heap in my mind, looking for a solution that I haven't yet imagined. It's not good.

But today I spent 6 hours in a class about the origin of human rights. It was a tasty combination of history, politics, law, and philosophy. The stuff that is right up my alley. And for the whole of the time, I was out of my head and thinking about other things; problems far greater than my own. And as I walked back to my car at the end of the day, I felt really free.

Let's hope that it lasts.

Ode to Grilled Cheese

Is there anything finer than a grilled cheese sandwich? I ask merely as a rhetorical question because the answer, of course, is "no." It's a lovely quick supper on a night when a warm fast meal is called for. It's always a tasty lunch. And, with a glass of juice in the morning, hey, it's "cheese toast" (thanks Dad) and a most yummy breakfast. In my humble opinion, it is the world's most perfect food. It certainly is doing its part to contribute to world peace. Okay, that might be overstating the case. But you get the idea.

Winter Fun

So we headed out to the frozen Lake Carnegie in Princeton this afternoon to enjoy a little sliding around on the ice. The lake was plenty frozen ---- an almost 5 inch slab of ice could be seen at the edge ---- and the town had come out to play. There were folks in ice skates with hockey pucks and a plan, busily playing a pickup game. There were lots of people like us ---- sliding about in their sneakers and laughing ---- and then there were the funny sights: people in dress shoes, sliding about; folks on their cell phones, talking in the middle of the lake (I imagine that these conversations went like this: "I'm on the ice; talking on the phone"); and one dude (out-of-towner?) smoking a cigarette there in the middle of the frozen lake.

But mostly it was good old-fashioned fun. We haven't had a big snow so far this winter but the ice was pretty terrific.

The Hard Part

JT was sick last week – an ear infection and what turned out to be bronchitus. Despite one round of antibiotics, he woke up at 3 am last night complaining that his ear hurt. I got him a warm compress and some tylenol and today we headed off to the doctor again. The school nurse had a look at his ear before we set out, so I knew it was probably an ear infection.

But still I worry. As we drove to the doctor, I watched in the rearview mirror as my sweet boy slipped off to sleep, peaked and feeling puny. I worried about the dark circles around his eyes. I worried about whether or not he can go to school tomorrow. The visit to the doctor didn't take long ---- the lungs sounded clean but the ear remains inflamed. A new antibiotic was prescribed.

The thing about being a single mom isn't the work. Moms do a lot of work, single or not. And we're a tough crowd so doing all the laundry, packing all the lunches and getting all the suppers on the table won't slow us down. But being on your own means that there is no one to share the worry, to help you give voice to your fears, to remind you that sometimes an ear infection is just an ear infection. And of course that means that there's no one to share the joy either. When your boy reads well ---- out loud and strong with confidence and excitement in his voice, there's no one else in the house to share your pride in this accomplishment.

And that is really the hardest part of doing this on my own. Joy shared really does multiple. Sorrows shared really do become lessened. I loved to share my joy in this miracle who is my son. I loved that there was someone else who took pride in him like I do. And I miss that part of being his mama. The part where I shared him with someone else who loved him as much as I do.

Who Needs Subtle?

I made some cookies tonight – chocolate chip – the favorite of a certain brown-eyed boy who lives in the house. He helped himself to 3 warm cookies and then said to Tiger the cat, "whose mama makes the best cookies ever?" When Tiger did not offer the immediate – and obvious – reply, JT told him how it is, "my mama makes the best cookies ever!"

It would seem that the boy has figured out how to keep the cookies coming.

Top 5 Signs That it's Freakin' Cold

5. JT readily consents to wearing his winter coat and his mittens.
4. I turned on the furnace in my house.
3. Flannel toilet paper.
2. Female students' skirts actually larger than a postage stamp.
1. The window in my classroom is not open.

Real Life Conversations at Prep School

The scene: U.S. History class at the beginning of the period.

Me: "Hand in your homeworks. J, I forgot to give you the assignment; here it is, you can turn it in on Wednesday."

J: "Oh I just handed mine in."

Me: "Okay?"

J: "Yeah, over the weekend when everyone in the class was talking about the homework that was due, I just figured that you gave it to me and I must have forgotten and so I called E and he sent it to me on e-mail. But he added a name to the list - Curtis Jackson – and I couldn't find him in the book, so I tried Wikipedia."

Me: "And just who is Curtis Jackson?"

J: "50 Cent."

The class bursts into laughter. Yet another reason to love my job.

Preparing for the Their Future

I see this pattern every year as my senior students approach graduation – they begin to reminisce about their past. It starts with memories of the 9th and 10th grade but then the conversation quickly shifts and they begin to talk about the 6th grade. The 2nd grade. Kindergarten and even earlier. The students who have been here from preschool onward call themselves "lifers."

In fact, for the lifers it may be that the faces in their classrooms have been the faces they've been seeing since they were 4 years old. This builds a remarkable community of young men and women and by the time I see them, at the age of 17, they've come to appreciate the patterns and the pleasures of that kind of continuity.

But it also means that as they prepare to graduate and leave their parents' homes for college, they are also preparing to say goodbye to another place where they have grown up, a school and classmates that some of them have known for nearly all of their lives. They are all eager to move on and yet there is a wistfulness as they begin to look around this familiar place with new eyes. They are preparing for their future by remembering their past.

On Friday, they brought in a video of the 1st grade play from 1996. More than a dozen members of the class of 2007 were featured players in that video. As we watched it, they laughed and laughed, recalling memories from that show. And I could see in their sweet first grade faces the young men and women they are today. The poised young woman with the terrific star power and wonderful singing voice? She was there, a little girl with a sunflower around her face, poised even then. The tall, kind young man so eager to please at the age of 18? He was there as well, with shining blond hair and a shy smile, performing his part perfectly. Their little 1st grade faces had a hint of the young adults they have become. One little girl walked across the stage and I knew right then that it was the tall young woman I see in 3rd period each day.

I know that this review of their personal history is a natural part of preparing to say goodbye to their childhood. College life beckons, with the promise of new faces and new classrooms. They don't all know it quite yet, but they are ready. First, however, they need to say goodbye to this school, a place that looms so large in the memories of their lives.

Good for My Heart

I am the world's most frenetic multi-tasker and since I became a single mama, that problem has grown worse. So when I work out on the eliptical trainer, I don't just enjoy the ipod tunes and the sweat rolling down my back. Oh no, I work out and read. And not crappy People magazine, either. I read the New York Times magazine and Newsweek. I'll not lie: this combination makes me feel extra virtuous. Hey world, look at me: developing my mind and keeping the blood pressure low. Ha. Take that.

So today finds me 10 minutes into my workout, ipod blasting embarrassing songs from the 1970s, and on track to run my 5 miles with Newsweek by my side (okay, technically, on the handy magazine holder just in front of me, but poetic license seemed in order). I turn to the cover story (brief aside: I read the Newsweek cover-to-cover, in the order the lovely editors have chosen to place the stories. No skipping around. Now you see why I need to keep that blood pressure low).

The February 5 cover story is entitled "Black Hawk Down" and it's about the 12 soldiers killed in a helicopter crash on Saturday, January 20 in the Diyala province northeast of Baghdad. Look it up on a map and think about it. As the story points out, "...the most remarkable thing about the crash might be how quickly the deaths of a dozen soldiers can pass into and out of the public's consciousness these days." You should read this story.

In fact, you must read this story.

The story is about the lives of 12 soldiers, 11 men and 1 woman. 10 of them were serving in Iraq as part of the National Guard. They left behind 34 children, some of whom are pictured in the magazine. That's what got me, really, these ordinary people pictured with their children, doing ordinary things. Hugging their toddler. Standing with their tall teenage children. Hiking with their 11 year old. I looked at those pictures and lost my breath. I stopped running and I just stood there sobbing.

I'm a parent and while I usually refrain from drawing conclusions about how other people feel about being a parent, I think I know what these people feared the most. They didn't worry about being by their child's side as they won the big game, or graduated high school, or got married. Of course, they wanted to be there for those moments. They'd have moved heaven and earth to do so. That's what parents do. But they also worried about being there when the small moments that make up a life happen. Just one more story at bedtime. A last cuddle from a sleepy ragamuffin. A hike through the woods. A trip to the park. A card game. Or listening to your kid tell the same knock-knock joke that you told when you were 6 (it wasn't funny back then either). It is those moments, the ones you don't plan, the everyday moments that are too countless to chronicle, that make up a life.

And now, suddenly, for 12 people there will be no more of those moments. Thousands of potential moments, gone in an instant.

The 12 people who died left behind many people who loved them and will mourn for them. They don't need you and I to mourn anymore. But they, and the thousands of other soldiers in Iraq, and the millions of people who make their homes in Iraq, need us to pay attention. Now. We must fix this unholy mess that we have created.

You can start by reading this article. Now.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16843652/site/newsweek/