Don't Treat Me Like I'm Stupid

Don't treat me like I'm stupid
I know more than you believe
while you have years of experience
I give people what they need

Don't treat me like I'm stupid
and blame me for your mistakes
you can't prioritize to save your ass
but that does not my problem make

Don't treat me like I'm stupid
and look into my eyes and smile
you're inept and inconsiderate
and people only tolerate that for a while

Don't treat me like I'm stupid
sitting up in your office with a view
down on the street they know your game
and are ready to abandon you

Don't treat me like I'm stupid
I have money to spend
don't piss down my back and tell me
it's raining on your head, my friend

Don't treat me like I'm stupid
I'm small but I have a mighty heart
and I know what it takes to keep someone
even when my world is falling apart

Don't treat me like I'm stupid
and hide behind a blaming smokescreen
everyone knows you're in over your head
and that makes you the stupid ones, not me.

Long Time Gone

I've been away from the Blogger dashboard for too long. But that's me. I am a serial procrastinator and a person who, when the projects are for sheerly my own personal satisfaction, etc. starts a million things and never finishes them. When it comes to doing things for others and clients and the like, I am on it in a heartbeat; checking, rechecking, timelining, updating, revising.

Me, though, I'm the shoemaker's child.

Today the Bennington waitlist closes, and although the Assistant Director of the Writing Seminars sent me a very encouraging and lovely email on Friday, I'm now on to determining things I can do to either enhance my application packet for the June 2010 term, additional schools to which I will apply, or none of the above. My heart feels like I want this MFA and I need this MFA to push myself as a writer. To grow as a writer. To learn as a writer. To take on roles that keep me closer to writing and reading than I am right now. Yes, i write every single day of my life, and yes, it's writing that requires a talent. But no, it isn't the writing that I see myself doing from that lovely cottage in Ireland when I'm in my 50's (which are now only 15 years away). Perhaps it's the writing that will pay for that cottage and afford me the breaks away from earning money (or much) from publishing.

But I ask myself - what will help me over that last little hill and into the sacred temple of Bennington or Warren Wilson or any of the other well-regarded schools that offer low-residency MFA programs and make me feel that they respect me as a writer and a human with all of the responsibilities along with it?

And will the idea of getting into a program and the opportunities it can offer be enough for me to put it first? Up there with the paying clients and pro bono cases and helping outs for the organizations to which my kids belong?

Feeling just a little lost today - but suitable I would say for the weather outside.

I shan't lie

I'm writing this after drinking about half a bottle of syrah and eating a medium-sized bowl of pasta with garlic, hot pepper flakes, freshly ground pepper, olive oil and salt. Okay - and I ate a few mini marshmallows dipped in peanut butter a few hours before that.

That meal (?), gluttony, absolutel disregard for health and ateries and fat cells and the like can really sum up my weekend.

We had a rough one, last week. Along with a fairly pressing work schedule and coming off the Swine Flu, I did the solo parent dealyo most of this week as my husband took an epic journey to exotic areas of our country including Terra Haute, Houston and Sacramento. Why and when will be in the press soon enough (perhaps - or maybe the country's just used to bad economic news from HR Directors these days). Suffice it to say however, that upon his arrival home Thursday he needed immediately to take on the single dad role as I was out for a meeting with a client and then Friday night, as he delivered the final presentation to receive an importing/exporting certificate from WVU (that seemed like a good idea at the time...), I took advantiage of a sitter to support my alma mater's Relay for Life and listen to a speech by my former professor, current friend and always mentor Dr. Bev Hogue as she delivered an awesome speech about her "cancer journey."

So, this activity, combined with the knowledge that Wednesday evening we shall bid farewell to our boys to fly to San Diego and walk 60-miles in 3-Day (The Breast Cancer 3-Day), aided and abetted our decisions to basically take this weekend off. We stayed in touch with our PDAs of course, but really tried to focus energies on the boys and what they wanted to do. A bit of our activities:

• get up early, crawl in bed with mom and dad and giggle for an hour
• have a fantastic early morning read with Dad on the couch
• cherry kool-aid from Mom at 9 a.m.
• free-time in which lots of Wii and Lego play ensued
• lunch at our favorite Mexican restaurant including a "virgin strawberry daquiri;" spelling test on the British spelling of words likve "colour," "favourite," "grey," "realise,"; explanation about why "toilet" is a more-commonly-used term across the pond; and fried icea cream eating race with Dad
• trip to the Mound Cemetery to investigate old graves and paranormal activity. Big disappointment, the dog could not come. "Dogs are much more sensitive to paranormal activity," my 7-year-old states. "If there were ghosts here, [the dog] would have acted crazy and we would have proof."
• Visit to Giant Eagle
• Viewing of Dr. No
• crawl into bed with Mom and Dad in the middle of the night - strip off all clothes.
• awake to Mom yelling because someone in the bed is naked
• reading with Dad, games with Dad, being quiet while Mom sleeps in
• discussing Dr. No with Mom and Dad and playing with Lego.
• more Wii
• beating up my brother
• going outside for a two-hour romp with the neighbor kids - ignoring Mom and Dad
• family dinner
• homework
• reading with dad

Yes, incredibly child-centric. And totally against my NaNoWriMo goals (not a word written in three days). And really not productive for preparing for a journey across country.

But the kind of weekend I love best...

Scared

A show of hands please - who's afraid to set foot outside with the rash of random shootings taking place? Seriously - Ft. Hood, Orlando, Oregon and one that hits close to home, Pine Planins, NY. Okay, so Pine Plains was simply a hostage situation in a school by and armed man, but if it weren't for Pine Plains, ny husband and I would never have met, so I take even something that in this day and age would seem trivial (after all, no one was even killed!) seriously. (For those keeping track, that was sarcasm back there.)

I find myself getting twitchy in public places now. On Saturday, my son and I were in Borders - hallowed ground for us - enjoying a few spare moments to inhale that new book smell and pick up a new Del Tora Quest series and a copy of The Guernsey Potato Peel Pie and Literary Society (I never can get the name of that book right). A larger man goes walking past me, saying something really loud repeatedly - what I only now think was likely some sort of singing or chanting - with two early teenage girls following closely pointing and laughing the whole time. In my head I pegged those two girls as the first victims of this man, who on probably any other given Saturday would have been just a run-of-the-mill local nutbag, but in light of all of the events, was obviously a crazed gunman ready to take revenge on a society that can read and communicate without chanting or singing something loudly in a monotone.

And to top it all off, tonight is the scheduled execution of the DC Area Sniper. Who doesn't remember that reign of national terror? Even before I learned that he'd likely driven his deathmobile right along the interstate that runs through our town I was running through the Wal Mart parking lot in zig-zags, resistant to taking my kids anywhere in public and fearful that each time I pumped gas I could die. Right there. Doing the mundane thing I most despise.

I'm not asking for much. I'm not asking for an end to Global Warming or for the economy to go back to clinton-era weath overnight, but please, can't we just stop killing each other for a little while?

No Editing Allowed

I sit here in my basement office working away at client documents. I have a set of Questions and Answers and a press release to do for one client, and a press release to write for a pro bono thing I do. I'm telling myself that if I can get the paying client work done, I have permission to work on the novel that I have jumped in to.

But every time I start to type in another Q or fill in the A, I keep coming back to questions about this new project. I'm worried about structural issues - I want it to seem like it's coming at a person from various sides and disjointed...frankly, I want it to replicate the thoughts that race through the minds of a group of friends as they learn of and work to deal with a friend's suicide. But I'm not there yet. And taking on the sheer number of characters it takes to pull this off is daunting. I'm 1,000 words into this story (and please note here that I am not typically a writer who lives and dies by word count. In fact, I've never seen so many writers who do until I joined Twitter. My knowing word count is based on the fact that I've committed to doing this novel in one month - the month of November in fact - as part of National Novel Writing Month - NaNoWriMO) and already have so many places to go and things to say. I've settled on third person limited omniscent narration (including thoughts) but wonder if first person would work better. I waiver if I should delve at all into the story of the character who kills herself, or leave her to be described by her friends' actions. But I don't like that idea because it focuses on the people who are left (which I like), but not on the person who chose this tragic path...

There is a big part of me that wants to shut down all of those voices and just write away. That is how I write best most of the time - just hover hands over the keyboard and let it all come out. in fact, that's what the organizers of NaNoWriMo tell you to approach this challenge - write first, edit later. But isn't that wrong? What if I get the point of view messed up and end up having to rewrite the whole damn thing? Would that be so bad? I mean in many ways, that's what editing is for. Right?

This, what I've done right here, is an example of throwing stuff down first - I've not hit the delete button once. Nor do I intend to review the post before I publish. I'm doing it to see if I can. And if I will.

Fresh

This year in an effort to break free of the bonds of chemically-treated produce and Wal-Mart, we joined a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) in Sailsville, Ohio. We got in on the program two weeks late and had no real idea about what it would be like - all we knew was that our neighbors had new heaping bags of fresh vegetables every Saturday and they loved it.

We chose the Mott Family Farm based on our neighbor's recommendation. The owners were the sort of kind and welcoming you see on bad Lifetime movie - except they were very genuine. They warmly welcomed us into their embrace - we paid a modest fee for 17-weeks of the fressh veggies (we did a half share because we had no idea what we would receive) and agreed to make one run to the farm to pick up the vegetable crop for consumers based in our area. That was it.

Our first pick-up was surreal. "We get to just take this bag?" I asked the woman who hosts the drop off site. I couldn't believe these vegetables just magically appeared for us. I know it sounds stupid now, but in a world of grocery stores and credit card scans and plastic bags sure to outlive my great grandchildren's great grandchildren, the simplicity of it all was crazy to me.

In the car, we tore into the bag like children in an overloaded basket Easter morning. Raspberries, tomatoes, things we couldn't identify, they were all there waiting for us. We ate raspberries on the way home, giggling as if we'd done something wrong because they hadn't been washed yet. But it's organic we tried reminding ourselves. We were giddy.

It became my custom to go through our bag each Saturday after returning home and processing the veggies - taking stock and working to prepare dishes with them as soon as possible to ensure they wouldn't go to waste. The first bite of Arugula from The Mott Family Farm sent me into cheers for the peppery flavor - so much more vibrant than any store-bought variety I'd ever tasted. I started making cherry tomato salad with the seven or more varieties of heirloom cherry tomatoes we received, fresh basil, fresh onion...fresh fresh fresh!!!

Then, like all good things, the leaves started to change (hot peppers and squash were in abundance) and the supply dwindled until on week 17, we said goodbye to our CSA share for the season. I admit that with the other things happening right now - finalizing a successful fundraiser we put on in the community, getting the children adjusted to school, Swine Flu, training to walk 60-miles in three days - I hadn't much thought about out farm share. Then today the sun was shining brilliantly in the bright blue sky, a cool breeze blew across the area and we were out enjoying 71-degree temperatures when a week ago it was 30. And the urge for some cherry tomato salad hit me.

And I missed it.

Circle

Today my youngest niece turns 19. This is enough to make me feel older, but for once, I'm not actually thinking about my aging process.

I'm thinking instead about my sister.

Her 19th birthday on December 4, 1988 was a fun-filled party at my parents' house capped off by a midnight viewing of Tequila Sunrise with many of her closest friends. The party was great fun - I, being five years her junior, was allowed to invite a friend and the two of us enjoyed the music, food and gossiping about all of the older kids in the house. But over the entire party hung a cloud - barely noticeable during the times when laughter and Bon Jovi filled the room - but all too present in the split seconds of silence.

My sister chose a different path than a lot of recent high school graduates - although not so different from the paths chosen by many of her friends in the city of Virginia Beach where we grew up. She decided against college and instead chose to join the Air Force. As an Navy Jr. ROTC (Reserve Officer Training Corps.) student throughout her high school career in our military-infused area, she excelled in areas that made a good soldier and was recruited heavily by the armed forces. She chose the Air Force ultimately when her ASVAB results indicated that she would be suitable as a flight technician. She was going to work on planes!!

The day after she turned 19 my sister left for boot camp in Texas. The eight weeks went flew by and suddenly she was in training and just as suddenly she was shipped of for her first base assignment: Guam.

It was there, on that 15-by 30-mile snake-infested landing strip that my sister met a man almost twice her age, fell in love with him, learned she was pregnant with his child and married him. At 19. And I don't know if it was a combination of the military training, his influence and the awesome responsibility of being a parent, but the day my sister turned 19 was really the last day I knew her, really knew her like the little sister who shared the backseat of Toyota Corolla Tercel on many an eight-hour drives to Ohio. I imagine it happened instantaneously, because it hit me very suddenly that she had aged far beyond her years. And not in looks per se, although she began to suddenly eschew any type of style that reflected an awareness of pop culture and youth; she aged in attitude and mind. For her though, it may have been a process that took place over months - perhaps as her fetus aged, so did she. But it happened nonetheless. And she went from 19 to 40 and never looked back.

Or did she? I ask myself as I can't ask her. She can't see the transformation or doesn't want to, at least that's how I see it. I will likely never know, as she's become as foreign to me as the cash register operator at Wal Mart. She lives across the US from myself and my parents now. And she likes it. She calls my parents occasionally, and visits every few years. When we are together these days she acts still as if I am non-existent. As if I'm still that 14 year-old little sister that she said goodbye to on a December afternoon and forgot. My children, my life - they matter not to her - or at least that's what it seems to me. The forgotten little companion. I try to communicate, to reach out, to be a part of her new existence, but it's too hard to get in.

On this day, when I am proud of my beautiful niece who is a college freshman working to find herself in this world I wonder if her mother is right now thinking back to her own 19th birthday. And wondering where the time went.

What if?

After rolling around in bed for the past four days with what I believe was a wee touch o' the Swine Flu, or The Hiney as it is being called around my house, I made the decision to start this blog. Why? Oh, there are so many reasons why. Because I need an outlet for thoughts that I obsess over for a day; thoughts too complex for Facebook or Twitter yet too fleeting to devote to a full essay. Because I've been reading more blogs by Twitter friends of late and know I should get in on this conversation. Because I need to write. A lot.

Perhaps the biggest reason for starting this blog however lies in the fact that each and every day since roughly October 12 I've been overwhelmed with the knowledge that out in this world today are a group of people who decided that my writing was only good enough to merit me a spot on the waiting list for a wonderful low residency MFA program. I have no ill will towards these people whatsoever. They deemed me better than those people whose applications they threw into the circular file, however, I keep asking myself the eternal "What If?"

For me, in many ways, that question dominates my life. What if I cut my hair - would he love me more? What if I lost 10 pounds - would I feel better about myself? What if I enrolled my son in this program - would he learn to lighten up on himself? And on and on and on. So, since the email that told me that I'm good, but not good enough, came, "What if..." is bouncing in my head like a basketball.

Certainly I'm wise enough to know that the complexities that go into admitting a group of people into an MFA program go beyond me and my concerns. I know that issues relating to everything from age, gender, nationality, and concentration choice add to the equation that when worked with slide rule and pencil sharpened to the nub equaled me sitting at home wondering where I went wrong with my application packet. But still...what if I had more writing out there in the here and now? Sure, the publication area of my CV is weak (unless you count the thousands of newspaper articles I wrote as a reporter and used to hone my method of dissecting Creative Nonfiction pieces with objective accuracy and an eye for the story), maybe a blog will help. Maybe not. Maybe this blog will actually hurt my chances of getting in upon reapplication to the program. But what if it doesn't?

What ifs aside, the clear message that I got from this stomach-churning email that laughed in the faces of all of those cheerful and helpful loved ones who told me I was sure to be accepted was that I need to continue to grow as a writer. Indeed, that was my goal in applying to the program in the first place. To grow as a writer. Because really, if we don't grow as writers we're reduced to rehashers. And while I don't mind rehashing a good story in a socal setting, guaging audience reaction to the words and images created and ever-so-slightly tweaking them for the next group for maximum impact, I would stop writing tomorrow if I were doomed to write the same things the same way for eternity.

So here goes...what if this turns out to be something?