Orange is the New America

So I took February off, and most of March, sort of watching and hoping things would even out. You know, on the national level. Things did not even out. Things continue, daily, hourly, to tax my capacity for horrified disbelief.
And yet, laundry needs to be folded, and lunches need to be packed, and lesson plans need to be written (oh, who am I kidding? I don't write lesson plans), and kids have birthdays, and kids have concerts, and there are buds on the trees, and life appears to go on (At least for the time being.
NPR told me that Lord Martin Rees, the British Royal-Grand-Sciency-Poohbah, predicts we have a 50% chance of a 'cataclysmic setback' in the next century...so...there's that). As much as I dislike the phrase 'the new normal,' that appears to be the rough beast that's slouching toward us.
So when this new normal catches up to us, as it inevitably will, let's remember that it belongs to someone else.
We are not these fearful, small-minded, nationalist bigots. We have the grace to shake the hand of someone we disagree with. We do not hinge a woman's value on the shape of her body. We have the compassion, the humanity, and the resources to protect those who cannot defend themselves.
And when a certain kind of person calls us 'nasty,' we do not merely take it as a compliment, we wear it like a badge of honor, like a coat of arms, like a banner to let the world know what we are, and what we are not.

a brief history of my mental breakdown, or, I need more Tuesday and less Sunday

Friday, Jan 20: Denial and avoidance. Okay, semi-avoidance...found inaugural speech highlights on the interwebs.

Saturday, Jan 21: Feeling hopeful, buoyed by millions of protestors. Telling myself, 'we just have to be better and stronger, and we are better and stronger! We got this!'

Sunday, Jan 22: Optimism crashes and burns, slide into deep, dark, sucking abyss

Monday, Jan 23: Snarl at my students, grump at husband, binge-eat mint chip ice cream.

Tuesday, Jan 24: Join local NPR station, donate my raise to Planned Parenthood. Pull on reflective tights and go for a run, in the snow, in the dark, in 18 degrees.

Wednesday, Jan 25: Crying and drinking, general disbelief

Thursday, Jan 26: Birthday. Telling myself that 40 is as good a time as any to level up my badassery. Also, was serenaded by a clown.

Friday, Jan 27: Numb shock and exhaustion. How is this possibly really what is actually happening?

Saturday, Jan 28: Facebook is making me hyperventilate, but I can't look away...

Sunday, Jan 29: teetering over aforementioned abyss, keep it at bay with potato chips. 

starting 2017 in style

Went to school today with my sweater inside-out.
Who noticed?
The principal, naturally.
I'm, like, the consummate professional and stuff.

stuff you probably don't need to read

Also read Catalyst by the revered YA author Laurie Halse Anderson. I haven't read anything else she's written, and will probably (okay, maybe) get around to some of her more acclaimed stuff, but then again I might not. Catalyst was fine, but it did not excite me at all in any way, and for God's sake, it's January, and the inside of my brain is starting to feel like the Donner expedition, and I need something that's going to light me up - like a story about sentient fungus!!
In the next room, however, my kids are watching Kubo and the Two Strings, which is pretty damn delightful (though, okay, would it kill anyone to have the Asian leads voiced by Asian actors? Show them how it's done, Book of Life. But if that doesn't bug you *too* much then it's a great story).

It's a new year now, and here in Eagle County winter break was not *nearly* long enough...but today was a rare and coveted Snow Day! How can one not feel better on a snow day? If nothing else, the overpowering wave of skier euphoria is sweeping westward on the breeze (at least I think that's skier euphoria...guess it could be weed, too).
Anyway, I'm not paying attention to the horribleness today. I'm paying attention to the snow day. The snow forts, the gingersnaps, the hot chocolate, the magical childhood moments, the practicing of the One-Eyebrowed-Glare-of-Motherly-Disdain because so help me if these kids don't get out of the house and run off some energy we may none of us see tomorrow...
Luckily, the part of my brain that filters out background noise has quadrupled in size and efficiency since giving birth to boys, and also I happened to have a library copy of 2016's Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy burning a hole on my desk, so I read some things. The only writer I knew in the whole thing was Kelly Link, because obviously, and her story The Game of Smash and Recovery was weird and lovely, high science fiction (and here is my disclaimer that I have not completely gone over to the dark side yet, that the force of my English Lit background remains strong, and that thereby stories featuring sentient spaceships as protagonists have to work twice as hard for me to like them half as well)(yes I am a bigot; fortunately there are writers like Kelly Link to help me overcome my personal shortcomings), but deliberate and artistic too, and she does good work. Also there was The Mushroom Queen by a writer named Liz Ziemska; what happens when an unhappy wife, mid-dissatisfying-marriage, contemplates leaving but is instead subsumed into the underground mycelium web? It was every bit as weird as it sounds, but also real and excellent, and there was evil fungus and a really great dog. I had to read it twice.
Before all this I'd been reading On Writing by Mr. Stephen King Himself, a guy whose work I haven't read in probably twenty years (though at Eric's suggestion I should probably check out The Green Mile and Shawshank Redemption) (and he *did* write Hearts in Atlantis - I wasn't wrong about that!). Great book. Direct, entertaining, full of quotable one-liners and unfussy pointers on getting words on paper without sounding like a buffoon.
So that's what. 

The Shitshow, Part II? Or...the Nadir! Except that feels like the kind of word that makes people not like you very much because you sound pretentious.

Well, the electoral college did their thing this week, and I don't know what I was expecting anyway.

I had conceived this return-to-blogging as a sort of way to count my blessings out loud, a way to focus on the stuff that won't make me completely foaming-at-the-mouth insane, but this is the darkest time of the year and shit is feeling pretty dark.

SO a couple of weeks ago I sent some winter gear to the folks at Standing Rock. Not much, but something. I walked my dogs a few blocks in the freezing-cold after-bedtime dark. I listened to a tearful nine-year-old who is afraid she and her family will have to go back to Mexico. Threw a few dollars into the Salvation Army bucket at the grocery store. Since not-much-but-something is all I can seem to muster these days, I am going to tell myself over and over that it's working, that it's accumulating, that it's a step into the next day and the next.

We get maybe a minute more daylight today than we did yesterday, and I promise to be in a better mood next time I sit down to write.

channeling Liz Phair

Also, I never intended the name of my blog to be prophetic (more a reference to the absolutely unreal levels of testosterone present in my house at any given moment), but apparently Boyville is still alive and well. While I am happy and privileged to nurture the loud fart festival that is life with my kids (ie, own personal boyville), to the rest of my scary fellow citizens and the smug combover of the patriarchy I say, fuck that shit.
Also, my husband has poured me a venti glass of wine, and if I ever, ever want to actually post any posts I don't have much time to go back and edit. Just so you know where we stand.

The Shitshow

Yes, I wandered off there for a while, not practicing good blog husbandry and whatnot, and now I show up thinking I can just start writing again, till under the weeds and cobwebs and resume my platform. A little predictably, like those relatives who found Jesus after September 11th...actually now that I think about it, it's almost exactly like that, which makes me feel a little squirmy because I might have rolled my eyes at those relatives behind their backs at the time, and now here we are. Because when we suddenly feel like the world is burning down around us, some of us find religion and some of us, apparently, blog.
So that is fair warning. Everything that comes after this is a probably semi-unapologetic attempt to just make myself feel better about this shitshow/dumpster fire/heartbreak/crisis of a faith that holy shit I didn't even know I had until I was watching those electoral votes stack up in real time.
Also, sounds like my friend Eric is going to need some extra reading material here in the near future, so I'm just doing my part.

incensed

This Month's Least Favorite Word: Incent

Sentence: "We need to incent students to give their best effort."

Sigh.

I drank the sugar-free koolaid

So, last month I joined a cult.

I should preface that a little. First, I live in the skinniest region in the country. I do not have research to back that up, but I know that research has been done, and someone is welcome to go have a google at it and prove me right.

Second, there has been a blog post growing in my head for several years about the teacher's lounge at one of the schools where I work...this is problematic because I know you're supposed to never blog about your workplace, especially if you're being less than complimentary. But listen, I think this is sort of the opposite of a backhanded compliment...some kind of gripe that is only a gripe because I like and admire the people about whom I'm griping? Does that work? I'm going to pretend it does.

Third, the first requirement of cult I joined is texting a picture of your scantily clad self to a total stranger...and I DID. That right there should be a huge red flag, the kind of red flag that, in its frantic waving, knocks you in the head with the end of its flagpole, giving you a concussion and averting the whole unfortunate situation. But I was not so lucky, and said picture is now preserved in the annals of electronic history (Side note: I'm sure we all have those moments when our utter lack of self-respect astounds even ourselves. Actually, I don't know if we all do that. Maybe it's just me). I could totally give you a blow-by-blow of me, facing the bathroom mirror in a sports bra, trying to hold the camera-phone at such an angle that it conceals the fact that I haven't shaved my armpits in...ahem...a while - but, luckily for you, this post is not about the growing-in of my winter pelt. No, it's about how the residents of my particular part of Colorado are body-obsessed (like, seventeen-year-old-girl body-obsessed, only it's not limited to seventeen-year-old-girls) and how I and my increasingly ample muffin top joined their ranks for a week.

So let's back up to the teacher's lounge. The teachers in this building are some of the best teachers you could hope to meet anywhere. They are caring, funny, supportive of the kids and of each other, devoted to their profession, and just an all-around lovely group of women. But I tell you what, for entire months at a stretch, the lunchroom conversation would center entirely around who was on what diet, who was doing what workout, and how much weight had been lost as a result. And how depressingly small that amount was, and how far they had to go to be back at their pre-pregnancy weight, and how early they had to get up how many days a week to complete their ps90X, or crossfit or crushfit or insanity workout, and which meal replacement shakes they liked or didn't like. It was soul-killing.
And to an outsider, it would appear that this was an intolerably shallow group of people. But the thing is, I know them, and they're not shallow. They're smart and dedicated and all better teachers than I am, and after weeks and weeks of listening to them the depressing realization dawned that this was such a large part of what they felt they had to offer the world. And then the scary realization dawned that these women are the role models for hundreds of girls every year, smart sassy beautiful silly girls, girls who were old enough to understand the message here, that it didn't matter how educated you were, or how many lives you touched; being thin and pretty was the most important thing.
And just like the message seeps into kids' brains without us even realizing it, it seeps into our brains too.
Case in point: I do not think being pretty and thin is the most important thing. I am not that person (am I? that little voice whispers). On a good day, my morning beauty routine runs about seven minutes. But I'm also of an age that could be rounded up to forty. I recently got reading glasses, and my eyes are not the only thing that don't look or function quite the same as when I was twenty-four. I don't care, I tell myself. It doesn't bother me. I'm above that. But it's hard to button my jeans. I'm braced for the day when a well-intentioned kindergartener asks me if I have a baby in my tummy. And, truth be told, my husband and I had been hitting the fun size snickers bars pretty hard in preparation for Halloween.

So when I found a flyer in my mailbox from a local nutritionist hosting a week-long 'clean eating challenge,' I thought, great idea! We would look her up on Facebook, she would post recipes daily, and we would check in, comment, and generally keep each other accountable and motivated. This sounded okay - I could use some new lunch options, and I'd been consuming so much coffee that I spent most afternoons with a low-grade headache. Clean eating, yay!
But then, as a token of our commitment, we had to text her a 'before' picture of ourselves in sports bra or bikini. 'Before' pictures are never pleasant (I guess that's the point), but I had already downloaded her shopping list and spent $200 on raw leafy veggies, berries, almond butter, and quinoa (okay, I admit it, I already had the quinoa), so I grimly donned the sports bra and sequestered myself with the camera phone.
Anyway, one cup of caffeinated beverage per day, lots of raw vegetables, and a completely unrealistic amount of water - generally survivable, and it was almost worth it alone to have someone else answer that least-favorite question of what's for dinner.  Our fearless leader was on the FB page constantly, responding to comments, answering questions about whether you could substitute kale for blueberries, and posting lots of bubbly support and positive, inspirational fitness messages. Things like "Stop saying 'I wish' and start saying 'I will,' superimposed over rainbows, waterfalls, or people's exceedingly flat bellies (not making that up).

And for all the hype, living five days without wine or chocolate was not that big a deal. 
Nor did it change my life.
Working out every day is nice, but it sucks up a lot of precious, precious time. 
And for all that, my 'after' picture did not look any different than my 'before' picture. Excepting a slightly more strategic camera angle.
I already knew that water and vegetables are good for you, and coffee and mini snickers bars are not. The rest, the mystery at the heart (or the exceedingly flat belly) of this cult, remains a mystery, and I remain uninitiated. Half-disappointed and half-relieved, but still on the outside.
And now, if you'll excuse me, I have some cookies to bake. Maybe I'll take some in to the teacher's lounge.

Seriously, all the word 'stakeholder' says to me is that I'm in a situation I don't want to be in, listening to someone I don't want to listen to.

Braaaiiins! Brrraaaaaiiiinnnnnnssssss!

Back to School! Blaarrrghghhh!

Two things happened in September.

One: all I did all month was go to teacher trainings. And meetings. And meetings about training. And professional development.
Two: Season Four of The Walking Dead came out on Netflix.

Result: The next time someone says "drill down into _______," or "take _____ to the next level," or "stakeholder" I am going to go all zombie on their shit.

a matter of degree

Isaac (5): "Mom, I think I'm a bad kid."

Me: "No, Isaac, you're a wonderful kid! Why do you think you're bad?"

Isaac: "Well, sometimes I say stupid, and stupid is a really bad word."

Me: "It is a bad word, but sometimes even nice people say bad words. Like Dad. He's great, but sometimes he says words he shouldn't say."

Isaac: "Like fuck?"

Me: "..."

milestone

My first thesis-year mailing is mailed off! I know that to 12/13 of you, that makes no difference whatsoever, and this is why I'm posting here instead of Facebook (not that one more who-the-hell-cares post would break Facebook, but I'm trying to be considerate) but nonetheless I'm feeling the need to crow about it. And I have to crow now, before I get my professor's comments back, and she tells me not to quit the day job. (Receiving of such comments will take forever, mind you, because she must be the last person alive using USPS for this sort of thing. Seriously. I had to Print 30 pages of Actual Paper, stuff it in an envelope, write things on the envelope in actual handwriting, stick stamps to it, and drive it to the post office. Where it will be picked up, driven to Denver, and then flown on an airplane to Oregon. I don't know when exactly I developed an allergy to paper, but there is something jaw-droppingly archaic about transporting pieces of it around the country.) Anyway, yay for me!

Mom of the Year

The differences between firstborns and lastborns:

Alec, at 1, had been the sole subject of approximately 32,000 pictures.

Isaac, at 1, had been the sole subject of approximately a dozen pictures.

Alec, at 2, knew the word 'butt,' and also knew it was a word he was not allowed to say. So he didn't say it. Ever.

Isaac, at 2, loved to walk into the middle of a crowd and scream "BUTTCRACK!" because it got such an incomparable reaction.

Alec, at 3, was sometimes allowed to watch Disney/Pixar movies or educational PBS cartoons.

Isaac, at 3, could name every character on SpongeBob, and could independently find and use his favorite apps on my iPhone.

Alec, at 4, loved organic frozen blueberries, local whole-milk yogurt, and edamame.

Isaac, at 4, enjoyed those too, but was really fond of poorly spelled foods that come out of spray cans, such as Reddi-Whip and EZ-Cheez.

Owen, 7, was ssooooo excited to help me bake his older brother's birthday cake. First, he cracked an egg onto the floor. Then he tipped the mixing bowl over, pouring batter down the front of the cabinet.
The dogs have submitted a formal petition that he be put in charge of cooking everything, all the time.

more tofurky!

I found it! I found the thing!

What thing? you ask.

Glad you asked, I reply. It's the fake meat thing that is actually edible! And, better yet, it is a tofurky brand of fake meat.  Because that's just fun to say. Tofurky. And it sort of reminds me of turducken, though that's probably not what they were going for.
But here, let me end your suspense. It's the fake sandwich meat. Because when you put enough mayonnaise and mustard and cheese and lettuce and avocado in there, you really can't even tell. It's excellent.

It occurs to me that I need to update the little banner photos off to the side here -->
The little guy in the heart shades is now preparing to enter kindergarten, and will carry out his plans for world domination a week from next Tuesday.
The big guy is now a strapping young man with girlfriends and B.O. and ferocious, parentally-induced eye roll - all, apparently, requisites of third grade.
The basset still looks more or less the same. In fact, I don't think she's moved from that spot since I took that picture. In fact, we reupholstered that couch around her.

one is the loneliest number...

I think I'm down to one reader. This is what happens when you neglect a blog, I've brought it upon myself, all that. Fortunately, my one reader is a real person who comes over every so often, and he can berate me in person for my lack of bloggerliness, and apparently it has worked. A bit.
Here we are at the very end of spring break - a spring break that began with my first-ever writing retreat ('writing advance', my one reader kindly called it, and, while I would certainly like to think there was some advancement taking place, I'm pretty sure that for us writer-wannabes, advances are something different that involves money). I must say, as fabulous as the whole thing was, I am still recovering from all the silence. There was a time in my life when I was an abnormally quiet person. Okay, I'm still abnormally quiet, but once upon a time I existed in a near-constant state of abnormal quiet. Now I am a quiet person in a near-constant state of OH MY GOD PLEASE BE QUIET, and, as it turns out, life with all those Murray boys has reset my internal volume control such that when I find myself in a cabin, all alone, with no electricity and snow falling in huge blobs all around, I start feeling like my eyeballs are going to turn inside-out. Luckily the cure for the eyeball thing seems to be the same as the cure for the abnormal quiet thing, and it's the reason I was up there in the first place: write.
In other news, I read great books this month - two books by Adrianne Harun who is fabulous, and the new one - Ocean at the End of the Lane - by Neil Gaiman, from desperate adolescent nerd-crush on whom I have never recovered, and whose writing just keeps getting awesomer so I can justify the two-decade nerd crush - and also Drown by Junot Diaz, latest nerd crush. Sigh.