blue girl

The Best Day Ever

I've been clicking through my photos and ran across this one.


We were in New York and I was up early on a Sunday morning. Grabbed a book and a cup of coffee, crossed the street and walked into the park. Snapped this shot before finding the park bench near the pretty ivy covered bridge where I sat reading and drinking my coffee while listening to someone playing the saxophone far off in the distance.

The Aunt Who Buys Books

But why VC Andrews will not be on Bridget's list:

VC Andrews books were basically what the Twilight series is now, bad formulaic writing that makes copious use of the sexualization of young girls. It is pre-teen porn. Everyone good is beautiful and blonde, everyone evil is either ugly, or slutty. There is no subtlety, every moment is overblown and dramatic. The plots exist solely to railroad you through to the end, jumping from sexy scene to violent scene to sexy scene. But all with a veil of Wrongness draping over every Louisiana bayou scene. It is WRONG to do these things, it is WRONG to be sexy, it will lead to you being kidnapped, tortured, or murdered if you are sexy, being a young girl is Wrong and Dangerous.

...And you know, if adults want to read that stuff, fine. I don't even think there's a problem with smart well read kids reading it every once in a while. Everyone picks up a romance novel or a pulp horror novel sometimes. But when I was young, I was reading one, maybe even two books a day. Most kids don't do that. And when they are only reading a book occasionally, I don't think they should only be reading trash. Because it doesn't encourage them to read good stuff later, it just guarantees they will keep reading trash.

...And the really bad part about these books is that you don't learn anything from them. You don't learn about sex. You don't learn about people. You learn nothing about the real world, or science, or imagination. In fact, you don't even learn how to properly fantasize about sex or relationships, which is ridiculous, at least if the books did that they would have some defensible purpose. Maybe, MAYBE, you could argue it builds vocabulary. But they use the word bosom in Jane Eyre too.

There's this idea that as long as kids are reading, and it's a young adult novel (which of course is perfectly safe), then it's better than nothing. I hate that idea. What you read as a child impacts your life in such a heavy permanent way. It dictates what part of culture you're going to identify with, what you'll choose to read when you're older, and what kind of interests you develop. It changes how you'll do in high school, what kind of friends you'll make, what kind of conversations you'll have with strangers. It's fucking important.

So that's why I hate VC Andrews, and also why I will be the aunt who buys books.

Read the rest of Bridget's post here.

Do you have Bridget bookmarked? You should. Consider me like your aunt (which I would never be because I am nowhere near old enough and never will be, so just pretend) giving you a gift. She should go on your list!

So Un-tech

I added the "ShareThis" widget to my blog. See? Down below? But, when I tested it, it will only let me share the newest post, not any post I want. For example, I tried to ShareThis post and it only Shared Steve's post...again. (Which was the first post up top before this one.)

I've got Steve Kuusisto prayin' and conservatives breaking out in hives all over FB and Twitter, and who knows what else.

What have I done wrong? Anyone know?

Steve Kuusisto Prays

...for a gibbering twit who might soon break out in hives.

Raising the Bar

Blue Kid called me tonight on his way home from work.

"Guess what, Mom?"

"What?"

"I got a raise. (!)"

His voice had a tone to it that was tapped down, but I could hear the enthusiasm he was tapping down. So, I followed his lead.

"Good for you. (!)"

"I'm the only one who got one. No one else did. (!) I got a perfect score on the evaluation. (!)"

"Well, you deserve it. (!) You're a hard worker. You never miss work. You have a great attitude about it."

"None of the managers even got one. Just me. (!)"

"I'm not surprised. I'm proud of you. (!) Be careful driving home. There's freezing rain."

"I will. (!) I'll be home in a few minutes."

When we hung up, I was so happy he was so happy. But then I started worrying that he'll put too much importance on money. But then I thought that it's not the money, it's the acknowledgment and reward for doing a good job that had made the two of us so happy. And then I started to worry that he might get hooked on making more money and more money and that this is just the beginning and that's all he'll strive for and one day he'll end up, years from now, getting lots of raises (or not), making lots of money (or not), but he'll have that feeling that something's missing and I won't be here to say something like, "You are great at what you do, but you really shouldn't focus so much on the money. (!) You should think about doing something that really makes you happy. (!)"

And after all of that had gone through my mind (!), I remembered our conversation Sunday night when I saw the line drawing, the fabulous black ink line drawing he had worked on for two weeks for art class.

"You know, you should really think about art school. You know that? (!) You're really good. You have your own unique style, very original. (!)"

"I don't know, Mom. I like art. But, I'm thinking of getting a PhD in history."

"How come? What are you gonna do with it?"

"I don't know. I don't really care right now. All I really know is that I want to learn it all. I want to really learn and know as much as I can."

(!)

I didn't learn that learning as much as I could about what I loved the most was what really mattered until I was in my thirties.

He got up and I watched him walk out of the room. And nothing about what he had said worried me at all.

Simplicity is Luxury

And what's more simple and luxurious than a Vodka martini, straight up?

Three olives makes it a little complicated, I guess, but I'm willing to live with that.

I want to spend some time at Raoul’s with Brenda, watching the action go by, as soon as I possibly can.

Celebrating the Fight of a Poet

To this day, I know only three poems by heart, one of them Clifton’s “admonitions,” a startling yet funny poem that deals with race, gender, and what it means to be a poet. The last stanza reads:

children

when they ask you

why is your mama so funny

say

she is a poet

she don't have no sense

Every time I make a mistake, every time someone stares at my loud laugh or my inability to understand, I think of those lines, and remind myself, if a woman as lovely as Lucille Clifton can laugh about having no sense, why can’t I?

Read the rest of Andrea Scarpino's post, In Memory of Lucille Clifton

True Romance

Nothing says love like getting a six-pack of crew socks and a Shell gasoline gift card.

May you all be as lucky as The Skimmer and Blue Kid.

Happy Valentine's Day, Lovies!

Learning on the Job

I'm enjoying my new job. It's fun discovering that I'm actually good at things I didn't know I was good at. It's also fun to learn that when I learn I'm not good at some things that I don't beat myself up over it like I used to. I figure I'll just learn how to be better at whatever it is I've just learned I'm not good at at all.

Or not.

I've learned I can't be good at everything.

Contrary to what you've always believed!

Other things I've learned, or remembered I learned long ago and have been reminded of over the past three weeks:

I hate driving on the highway with semi-trucks! Especially in a blizzard. And especially when I'm sandwiched between two of them, the three of us driving 15 mph for 45 straight minutes. The one behind me pushing it to 16 every now and then.

The twenty year old me would've been "Whatever." The forty five year old me is all, "One false move and I'm dead! Dead! Stop tailgating me, you idiot!"

I've also learned that in those sorts of situations I usually don't use the word idiot. The forty five year old me swears a lot.

For the last three weeks, I've had a lot of fun observing people in the elevator. While most of them don't speak, some of them do. And the ones who do seem to have a lot of guilt about not taking the stairs. I've had a handful of people tell me that they don't usually take the elevator, they take the stairs and then they tell me why. The little lady with the dark, poofy hair? Her ankle was sore. The older guy in the blue suit? He was just too tired. Stayed up too late watching the Super Bowl. Damn Saints. Or maybe it was Damn Colts. Can't remember. The cute worker guy? Was luggin' too much damn equipment to be haulin' it up the damn stairs.

As if any of these people need to make any excuses to me. The only excuse I have is impatience. I just always want to get wherever I'm going as fast as possible. Hurry up and please press the damn "Close Doors" button and let's be on our way. Thank you very much and I hope your ankle feels better soon!

I've learned that I'll probably never get over my PTSD from being robbed at gunpoint six years ago. You'd think after six years it would be ancient history. And most times it is except when it's not, like the morning last week when I walked around the first floor for 15 minutes avoiding getting into the elevator with a man who was standing in the lobby.

You might think that if he was going to take the elevator he wouldn't have waited for 15 minutes to do it. But, a-ha! You'd be wrong. Obviously, he was waiting for me to get on so he could rob me and shoot me. Or, you might think that I should have just taken the stairs. But, a-ha! You'd be wrong again. He would then have just robbed me and shot me in a dark stairwell.

And how long would it take for someone to find my dead body? Forever. Because everyone who normally takes the stairs is taking the damn elevator.

I have no idea what triggered me that morning. The young guy who robbed me had nothing in common with the man standing in the lobby wearing a suit, talking on his cell phone. It was just an instinct I had. And I've learned to pay attention to that instinct. Learned it the hard way. I knew that young guy six years ago was bad news the minute I laid eyes on him and I ignored that feeling and ended up with a gun to my head. But I've also learned that that instinct can't be trusted anymore because a lot of men scare me now. Even business men in suits talking on their cell phones.

Of everything that guy robbed me of -- Blue Kid's pre-school I.D. photo (so cute!), my great, cool purse I bought in New York City, my pretty, silver, ornate business card holder -- him robbing me of that very accurate fear instinct was the worst thing he took from me.

Damn idiot!

You know I'm thinking worse.

I've learned lots of other things that a lot of you working stiffs have probably learned, too. Morning radio stinks! The drive-thru at Wendy's around noon? Not for impatient people who prefer elevators. And the big one: 3:00pm is sleepy time. But, I'm slowly learning to push through that. Little by little, I'll get better at it.

My Heart Was Singin'

One of my favorite songs. One of my favorite stories.

But, I'd never reverse the lyrics out of a lavender background like this. (No offense Tat Productions.)

I'd love it if someone would give me the time and the money to bring this story to life.

And if not that? Could someone just please give me a microphone? I've always wanted to belt it: 3:44 - 3:53.

Because then I'd never again be able to ask for a better nine seconds.