Required reading for all parents: Calvin & Hobbes. Read. It. Read all of them, every collection. You will be a much better parent. A better person, too.

True confession time again (is it Thursday already??). I've fallen behind on the clarinet schedule I'd given myself. I will not give up, though. I need to find some decent jazz studies. My studies are all classical, which is great and lovely and all that, but … I need jazz. On my way to club on Sunday afternoon, I was listening to a 17-year-old saxophone player on the radio. I was inspired and jealous. So I'm back to working on my poor old tired fingers.

Good surprises, bad surprises

Good: Some joker changed the GPS system in my car so that distances are given in kilometers now. (I'm thinking it was probably Em, since she often switches it to French, as well.) So I went to Scrabble club yesterday (18 kilometers away) using the metric system. I'm not going to change it back. It's about time I went metric wholeheartedly.

Horrifying: The thin grocery bags that come in so handy on dog walks sometimes have invisible holes.

Heart attack: I was weeding/pruning my daylilies (giving them one last chance before chopping them down), and lurking, waiting…



Very good: Then at Scrabble club, which ended up being three people, myself included, I met a player who also writes science fiction. In fact, she's a Clarion graduate (Clarion is similar to Odyssey). I gave her a ride home after club and we chatted about people in the field. It was great to hang out with someone who knows what Odyssey is like and who also plays tournament Scrabble!

You know what happens when you don't practice for a while? You get rusty. Your fingers don't do what your brain tells them to do. Stumble, start, stumble, fumble. Your brain doesn't remember its old tricks quite as well as you'd like.

Then your rating drops about 200 points and people in the rooms with you comment about how much better you used to be. Then you get grumpy and obsessed and play for hours until you remember how to play the stupid game. Then maybe you gain back about 40 of the points.

The thing is… I really am good at this game. Boggle, that is. (I could have been talking about the clarinet, but thank god there's no rating there.) I love playing it, not only because it's fun, but because I am good at it. So I won't stay away quite so long next time. I'd hate to risk mediocrity.

The alert reader may have noticed that I've opened listeme up for comments. I've given my offspring the "don't be a goober and post a bunch of w00t! type comments" lecture. We'll see how it goes. I'm feeling brave or reckless or foolish.

BOGGLE TOURNAMENT - Sunday, October 10
Noon - 4 PM
at BORDERS at The South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa
3333 Bear Street
limited to the first 20 entries
Entry Fee: $20

Grrrrrr. I'd almost consider flying to a Boggle tournament.

Attention Senior Parent(s): Finally your time has come. Tell your child how much they mean to you and wish them well as they leave the nest and move into a successful future. The end of a student's high school career is an important milestone in one's life, so give your senior a source of encouragement that they will look back on for years to come.

Okay, forget the fact that this seems to have been written by a 12-year-old. It's an ad for… senior ads. I can, according to the ad, send in up to ten photos with 150 words about my son. They will "artfully arrange" my photos and thoughts and publish them in the high school yearbook. (Forgive me if I'm suddenly thinking nasty thoughts about the whole Creative Memories movement. I am visualizing clip art of diaper pins and footballs.) Mostly I'm thinking that Aaron would never forgive me if I did such a thing. So, I won't.

Maybe I won't quit Scrabble yet.

It wasn't a normal club night. For one thing, the doors I ordinarily enter through had a penciled sign: "door broken, use side." This building has a lot of doors. And a lot of sides. I managed to find a door that worked, but I really had to fight the urge to try the ones I normally use. They looked perfectly fine. It bugged me to imagine someone just taping that sign there and then giggling at the sight of people approaching, stopping, sighing, and veering off to find another door. But perhaps I'm paranoid.

Club turnout was lighter than usual. I was paired right away with someone I'd never seen before. Her name wasn't familiar either. Several times in the game, I found myself wondering what her plays meant; not knowing anything about her, her style, her rating, her history, I kept falling into a potentially fatal loop trying to analyze her moves. This is a big flaw of mine, I have decided. "What does that play imply about the player's rack and intentions?" I ask this too much. Sometimes it is an important question. Often it is a waste of my time.

She beat me. I still don't know her whole name. She could be a novice for all I know.

The other three games really went my way. I drew well. I had a blast. I felt like I was seeing the board, the options, the flow of the game.

Sometimes I focus so much on the games that I forget the other part of Scrabble: the community. I get so shy (yeah, I really do), even in my own club. Tongue-tied. Instead of chit-chatting, I wander around and look at boards. What do I think I'm learning from these boards? It's just a coping mechanism so I won't have to talk. But I remember going up to Manchester this summer and being so overwhelmed by the welcoming kindness I received from the club there. Away from home, from my kids, for so long – going into that club room at the back of the supermarket was like being with my extended family. I felt warmed.

The other thing that is not going all that well (which implies there are only two, and of course that's just silly) is my writing. I'm not feeling that itch. Usually there is a deep hunger when I am not writing much, a hunger that is only assuaged, of course, by writing. At Odyssey we were all warned that this might happen. That we might not feel like getting back to writing for a while. Units of time were suggested, jokingly I thought. A few months. Up to a year! Well, surely, that wouldn't apply to me. I have to write. Right?

So I'm following some of the suggestions that were given to us. I'm filling my mind with ideas. Researching and reading outside the genre, journaling (and blogging, I suppose), exercising, talking with old friends. I keep having these flickering ideas, which I'm kind of automatically jotting down. I'm taking heart from the busy discussion boards of previous Odyssey years. Obviously everyone eventually gets back to writing.


A picture from last month's trip to Maine:

My niece, adding her own mark to the post at the cabin.

It has been weeks since I studied for Scrabble. In fact, my flashcards are still in my green duffle bag, unpacked, from Nationals. The entire bag, still zipped, sits next to the laundry basket in my closet. My stems notebook is in the bookcase. I intended to take a couple of days off from studying after getting back from New Orleans. It was the rational thing to do. There was plenty to occupy my time in August.

But now it is September. Past mid-September. I haven't been to club in weeks. This week looks iffy, too. At this point, I've scheduled no tournaments.

So obviously, although there's been no formal thought process on this, I've gone into a Scrabble sabbatical-type period. I’m a little alarmed by this.

I looked out a few hours ago and saw:



(This photo was on the front of the Washington Post web site, so it's taken from a different angle.) I watched it for a moment in shock, and then we all dashed to the basement. Luckily it passed by us.

This is supposed to be a blog, a journal – what, an online diary? Whatever it is. Yet I still keep myself, my innermost thoughts, off the screen. I joke a little, pontificate, lecture, distract, describe, and explain. But I don't tell my secrets, do I?

I think that's okay. This is a transforming process – the process is transforming, and it is transforming me. I'm a private person. That won't change. But some things will.

Driving in the blinding rain, I'm entertained by Chris. He's leafing through a Bible he found in the back seat and wants my opinion on Leviticus. So he reads me verse after verse after mind-numbing verse about dietary restrictions. "What do you think?" Mostly I think the book could have been much shorter. Also, Em and I think it sounds like the kind of advice Captain Picard would have given a primitive people to keep them from dying from food-borne illnesses. Wash your hands, don't eat weasels. This seems pretty sensible to us. I think Chris was looking for a more theological criticism.

Thankfully, we arrive at Target and the scriptures are forgotten.

Don't criticize me for cleaning Em's bedroom this week. Yes, it is pampering her a little. Yes, she should have done it herself. Yes, she knows these things. She also knows I’m looking out for her, that I know she's going through a hard time right now, that I'm on her side. She knows I don't think being a parent is about winning. It's not a game or a war. So I did this for her because I love her and because I want her to have a space that is clean and bright, where she can find her things when she needs them. It is good for her, especially when she's having a hard time.

Why do so many people treat kids' issues like they're nothing? It makes me so angry. Okay, yes, thirteen-year-olds are sometimes difficult. Often. They are mercurial and obstinate and dramatic and sullen, all at the same time. But the stuff that bothers them really does bother them! (Once I saw this little kid being tugged along by his impatient mom; he was shrieking about sand in his shoe, and she was telling him to stop being a baby, it was just sand – and all I could think of was how often I've stopped to get sand out of my own shoe because it was bugging me. Treat the kid like a person, lady. Of course, I didn't say that to her at the time.) So what is my point? I probably don't have one. Except… I remember being thirteen and scared and angry all the time. I remember feeling like no one understood me. I'm sure – absolutely positively sure – that Em thinks I don't understand her, and she is right. I don't understand everything about her. I don't see the personal stuff she deals with at school or really understand why she hates me one day and adores me the next. I understand some things. I know some things that she doesn't think about: that she won't be thirteen for very long, that the people that torture her at school will grow up, too, that some of them will turn out to be rotten people and some will turn out to be okay. I know that she will survive this. She will survive boyfriends and failed exams and a clueless mother. So I don't understand her and she doesn't understand me? So what. At least her room is clean for now.

Driving along, we all noticed the readout on the stereo flashing messages at us. You don't think they were at us? "EARTH GET READY HERE COMES THE SUN" Any reasonable person would have gone home and started building the reflector panels. Any reasonable person.

Grumpy all weekend. Wanna know why?

1. It's impossible to do errands in this town on the weekend. Everything takes far too long. Example: I went to Lowe's (like Home Depot, but less competent). I needed an estimate for repairing my kitchen counter. The guy did not wish to repair my counter. He wished to sell me other things. This took a long time to straighten out. I found a laundry basket while wandering back through the store and decided to pick it up since I was there anyway. I picked line number 8. Line number 8 was the twilight zone of lines. I entered it. I went to another dimension. I finally got out of the store with my laundry basket. The rest was a blur. The laundry basket cost $2.04.
2. I procrastinated and fiddled away my time, avoiding working on a web cast that I'd promised by Sunday, until I had to rush to meet the deadline. I hate it when I do that. It's stupid.
3. Now that they've replaced normal easy-to-use useful grocery bags with thin plastic blue bags, it's much harder to cover textbooks. I had to actually purchase something to cover the textbooks. (I will say, though, that the thin blue grocery bags are useful on dog walks, if you catch my drift.)
4. The female commentator on ESPN's Sunday Night Football is one of the top ten annoying humans on the planet. (Oh! And while I'm complaining about ESPN, I'll mention that they used yet another word – multiple times – last night which would not be allowed on a Scrabble board. In this case, of course, it would not be because the word is offensive but because it's not in either dictionary. I'm referring to the untimed* down.)
5. A lot of bad dreams messed up my sleep.
6. I went to pick up my puppy Curie from the folks who transported her from her show to Virginia. They live in the same exact house I live in. (Same builder, same floor plan). This did not make me grumpy. It was just cool.
7. I had a toothache. It's not hurting any more. Emergency dental visit averted yet again!

He was on such a roll, a fine rage.

Stomp stomp stomp! All the way up the stairs, past where I was doing laundry, into his room, slam!

"I declare this room a sovereignty!" he bellowed.

Well, geez. I thought teenagers were supposed to say: "And stay out!" My poor nerdy boy.

Last night I had a terrible dream. I don't actually remember what made it terrible, but I awoke gasping in terror. During the dream I was pounding on my head and shouting: "no, no, this has to be a dream!" People were looking at me funny. Even in my dreams, folks ridicule me.

There were painters involved, housepainters, and they were painting my house rather garishly. Perhaps this was part of the problem. Bad home fashion can be a nightmare.

Also, a dear friend of mine was hiding in my shower and shouting at me to stop turning on the bathroom light. (If I remember correctly, I started deliberately turning the light on and off, just to be annoying – but surely I wouldn't do something like that!)

So I'm wandering around today, happy to be awake. Occasionally I stop and look around, checking the paint on the walls, just to make sure the dream is over.

Last month's picture of my baby:



I don't know a lot about shows and prizes and so forth, but my sister tells me that she did very very well at Basenji nationals this week. Can one be "proud" of a dog?

Words to live by (if you want to live a long time):

1. Floss.
2. Eat only stuff that can spoil – and eat it before it does.
3. Don't lie to little kids.
4. Live so that you don't have to lie to little kids.
5. Park as far away from the store as possible. The walk is good for you, and it leaves a parking spot for little old ladies or pregnant women or moms with toddlers.

The cycle of life, bus stop to bus stop. They get taller, kinder, grumpier, wiser, leggier, tougher. They watch Big Bird, then scorn him, then wear tee-shirts sporting his yellow head … to high school. They wear the kind of pants my mother might have tried to make me wear: flared, patterned, and weird. I'd have died rather than wear those pants, and not just from the humiliation. My classmates would have killed me in a kind of noncompassionate darwinism. "She has no taste, no taste at all. Kill her before she can reproduce. Quick, do it now!" Those pants are in again.

Em said this morning, "I hate having one of the last stops." For a second I thought she was crazy. Having one of the last stops means you can sleep a few more minutes. The bus ride will be just that much shorter. Who wouldn't want one of the last stops? Foolish me. I wouldn't want one of the last stops either. Then all the seats are taken. Friends and enemies all blend together in a mass, all looking at you when you step up those three big steps. You can't pretend they're not looking at you, because you have to find a seat. You have to look back at them and walk with some pretense at dignity, clunky backpack and all, along the aisle until someone – friendly or unfriendly, and you never know which – makes room for you to sit with them.

This picture was taken a while ago, before Daniel grew a beard.



I'm missing him today. The pre-back-to-school frenzy, finding backpacks, packing snacks… it's just different without him.

I have a confession to make. Ready?

I really don't like Seinfeld. Let me make that stronger, in fact. I dislike the show. It is funny. It is hilarious, really. I've probably seen every episode. The writing was great, the actors, the directors.

But I don't like it.

(Interestingly, I've done an informal poll over the years and most – as in all but one – of the people that I've found who have disliked Seinfeld have been female.)

I also don't like talent shows of any kind, particularly if anyone I know is in them. I've paced a lot of hallways in my life waiting for talent shows to finish. My heart in my throat, my fingers ready to go to my ears (lest I hear anything).

Then again I've been known to run out of the room during crucial plays of professional ball games (so I won't see my team "fail"). I missed several of the Patriots' key plays two years ago as a result. And there's no way I can bear to sit and watch the balance beam competition in women's gymnastics. "Ack, any moment she's going to slip and her career will be over!" But – I'll return to see the replay of her fall.

The suspense kills me.

I forgot how much I love playing the clarinet! My Buffet is hidden somewhere in this house (and it's not like the house is even messy). So I'm stuck playing on the medium-grade clarinets. Luckily, I'd stored my favorite mouthpiece in my office. Otherwise, Heads Would Roll.

My mouth is still a little soft from not playing for a while. It works, though. I cruised around in my old Rose and Weidemann study books. The fingers still remember. They still remember. I'm amazed anew at what the muscles and brain together can remember.

Why the heck am I playing again? I don't know. But it feels good.

What is my purpose? What are my priorities? Why am I here? Will I ever know?

September goals.

1. Get back to a regular writing schedule.
2. Organize all the material from Odyssey. (This is actually part of goal one, but I'll let it be a gimme. Back when I made real heavy duty lists with different colored markers and stickers – the Insane Era – I'd put "make bed" at the top of the list every day, knowing I had already done it for the day, just so I could immediately have something to cross off.)
3. Launch the scrabble journal by September 15.
4. Practice the clarinet five days a week.
5. Finish making the eights-with-no-sevens flashcards.

Maybe posting these will keep me honest. I will add more as they occur to me.

Smells like September around here. New resolutions for the year, shopping bags, the beginning of a nip in the air in the evening, rubbery yet-to-be-worn sneakers piled in the foyer. I'm feeling a hint of excitement about writing projects, web projects, and the promised Scrabble journal. I've even found myself thinking with anticipation about "fall cleaning". You know, it's time to "get my life together".

I'm almost ready.


You need special training for missions like these:

"Go, go, go! Now's your chance!"

I wait on the end of the aisle, as there's no way the cart is going to make it through that mess of parents with lists and whiny little kids. "Red ballpoint pens; I think I see them about halfway down."

He comes back, after far too long. I've added Cheez-its and hot pink erasers to the cart and am eying some gumballs. "This is all they have." He hands me a gaudy golden pen with a squirt gun built in.

"Give me a break."

More lake news: they've installed microwaves in the cabins. Okay. This is deeply disturbing to me. First of all, let's be honest. The furniture is rickety at best. Harvest gold plaids went out of style with the Bradys. The easy chairs with no legs never were in style. The high chair is just plain dangerous. The pots and pans are not non-stick; that's baked-on grease. So bringing in cute little white microwaves seems like some perversion of priority.

Not to mention! Microwaves introduce things like frozen dinners, oatmeal with dinosaurs, and something called EasyMac. This is just wrong. Sick and wrong. Why, when I was a kid we chipped ice away from the lake's edge just to get our drinking water and then lit a fire to melt it.

And the microwaves are really tiny and inadequate. It took 14 minutes to defrost my chili.