Listeme

I’ve felt at loose ends most of this weekend. Aaron had his wisdom teeth out on Saturday (all FIVE of them), and I neither drove him nor sat by his side nor did any of the things “Moms” do. (I did, however, drive his siblings pretty much crazy all day Saturday by asking them to look in on him about every 20-30 minutes. “Is he breathing?” “No, should he be?”) Memorial Day weekends have been traditionally family weekends for the past 20 years. Wedding anniversary, Greg’s birthday, picnics with in-laws. So it has been weird. I struggle with perceptions. People think it’s unnatural for a woman to voluntarily live apart from her kids. There is an flash of “those poor abandoned kids” sometimes in people’s eyes. Or at least I imagine so. My reasons are good and right and my children know them. Importantly, they don’t feel abandoned. They know that I want them to thrive, to feel strong in their home, in their schools, with their friends and, yes, with their dad. They are getting to ...

So I went to see the new Star Wars movie. It was an action-packed night. First, I met everyone at the house. Daniel and Christopher both grabbed seats in my car, which left Emily and Chris trying to figure out who would ride with us and who had to ride alone with Dad and Tina. (Tina is Dad’s girlfriend. She’s a very nice person. Long ago, we used to go on vacations with her and her boys.) But none of the kids want to be alone with them, which is pretty funny. Neither did anyone want to sit in the middle of my backseat. Nor did they want to ride together in the other car, which seemed like a logical solution, at least to Daniel and me. So there was a standoff in the driveway. (Aaron was smart and took off with his carload early.) Eventually Chris got exasperated and slammed out of my car to ride with Greg and Tina. We all decided that he would get shotgun on the way back. Then we headed to the theater. Lines were already forming, but we had time to eat. Some people wante...

Gloria and I played a million variations of the same game. “Let’s be Pixie and Dixie.” Dixie was a marginally better name. It sounded cute, which was part of the point, but it didn’t sound too shallow. You got the sense that Dixie was a bit more competent than Pixie. Sometimes Pixie and Dixie were superheroines, with terrific animal sidekicks. It was implied that they were very glamorous, with various skimpy (yet tasteful) outfits. They had a lot of magic. They could speak and understand Animal. They could heal. I don’t remember them ever flying. They were twins, of course. Well, except for the times they were triplets with the invisible but powerful Trixie. Trixie was cool even before we read the Trixie Belden series. Then she was cool and could solve mysteries. Trixie could do a lot of things that I couldn’t do. She could talk to strangers without stammering. She could beat up bullies. She was very fashionable. She was funny. She got Pixie and Dixie out of many a jam....

I miss singing. When I was a kid, my parents always sang in the car with us. Church songs, songs from Fiddler on the Roof, folk songs. Christmas carols. When my dad had rheumatic fever, he taught himself to play the guitar and then we would have family singalongs. I didn’t do that with my kids so much. For one thing, their dad is a bit tone-deaf and that discouraged me. But I should have anyway. It’s not like I gave up a career in music or anything. My singing voice is, well, adequate. I can carry a tune. I can harmonize. I am not a soloist, unless one counts shower-bellowing. Music writes itself into our brains. I can hear the first notes of an old hymn that I haven’t heard in decades, and my brain calls up all the verses. I find myself whistling commercial ditties and camp meeting choruses. Maybe those songs helped form a framework in my mind. Maybe it is a positive thing that I can’t get the Gilligan’s Island theme song out of my head. Or the kajillion verses of “The C...

Anybody want to know what divorce mediation is all about? This is the language from the draft mediation agreement, but it sums up my motivations for going into the process pretty well: “We agree to treat each other with respect, to speak respectfully to and of each other in the presence of our children as well as in their absence, and to require all others, including friends and family, to do the same. We agree not to do or say anything that would undermine our children’s affection and respect for the other parent. We agree that each of our children needs each of us as much as the other and that neither of us is more important than the other in the life of our children. It is with our children in mind, that we enter into this Agreement.” So today I sign this agreement. I don’t feel sad or upset. It is a necessary thing. It is not on some master checklist on my calendar: get oil changed, sign mediation papers, pick up margarine. It is bigger than that. Of course.

I planned to write about the tournament as soon as I got home, but the kids stayed over Monday night, then I worked and had mediation meetings and more kid time and then worked some more… very good and busy week, really. So here I am, finally. The tournament was great. My record (8-7) doesn’t sound great. I did make some boneheaded errors. In fact, it looks like -- as much as I can’t believe it and hate to confess it publicly -- I probably missed the word BASENJIS. For a kajillion points. I have gone back over my score sheet with disbelief and creative rack leave analysis, and I am pretty sure that’s the rack I had. So that was indeed a terrible miss. But in that same game, I also made one of the better strategic plays I’ve made in my scrabble “career” and was rewarded by being able to play out with ESTUARIaL from the ES and win the game. From low to high in one short game. I’ll resist making comments about metaphors for life. I had a lot of good luck and a lot of bad luck. ...

The Boston Area Tournament is coming up this weekend. I feel very unprepared. I guess that’s understandable. The other things going on in my life are pretty overwhelming. I’m trying to decide what to do when I grow up. I’m trying to find work to do while pursuing those life goals. I’m in the middle of divorce mediation. These things are pretty big. If I could look at my life from outside it, like a best friend or a sister, I would tell myself that I’m doing okay, that I should take more baths, that I should enjoy spring walks, that I should have a glass of wine or an ice cream cone. If I’m to be responsible for all the grownup things, I should also take care of myself. Right? So I’m armed with flashcards and optimism. It is a tough division. The games will be hard and require concentration and intelligence.

From the warnings in the back of the Life textbook: If one sleeps over at one’s old house to take care of one’s own kids while their dad is on a business trip, and if one is pleased with how calmly and smoothly everything is going and has gone and seems to be likely to go in the future, one should not be surprised when one’s silly dog decides to have -- oh, what should we call it? diarrhea? -- in the master bedroom on the white carpet. One should be careful not to say anything too terribly vile to the dog while scrubbing away at germy spattery spots with old white gym towels. Note: one should be especially alert to the smirking meanness of the universe. The universe has been known to send along vicious wasps to sting one on the ring finger of the left hand, causing one to nearly faint from anxiety.

Do people really mean it when they say they just want what's best for everyone?

I feel a little disloyal to my genre roots, but I’m increasingly drawn to so-called literary fiction. Some of my stories for Odyssey barely qualified as science fiction and probably could pass for mainstream or literary. Whether or not they are GOOD is another matter. I guess I will keep doing what I have been doing: writing the stories that I must write. I can figure out how to categorize the stories later. Pretty rocks for my Scrabble slingshot: Umbellet, brunizem, whimbrel, bigeminy.

Cue soundtrack from Sound of Music… These are a few of my favorite things this week: Half-price Easter candy on Monday. Sunshine-y walks with Curie around the “lake” (it’s a man-made pond/puddle, but it is big enough for geese and ducks, which are very entertaining for Curie.) Finding my favorite pair of socks which I’d thought were lost. They were tucked into the last duffel bag from Odyssey. This was not the best find in the duffel bag, but it was a nice surprise. Discovering the notes I’d taken during Odyssey are not as full of drivel as I’d feared. Avocados. Playing half-decently at club on Tuesday. Finding a bunch of stories that Daniel wrote in first and second grade. (The first was called Apple Story, and it is riveting.) Raindrops on roses…

This will be my first “major” holiday alone. Ever. I’m watching it approach like I’d watch a bouncing doorknob coming down the highway toward my windshield, with a mix of “hunh, would you look at that?” and “I wonder if that will cause a big dent?” Mostly I’m wondering if the northern Virginia Scrabble club meets on Easter. Of course, I’m remembering past Easters. (That’s the whole point of holidays, neh?) I never have decorated eggs. Eggs weren’t a part of the tradition of my childhood. One year about ten years ago I bought one of those cheapo kits at Rite-Aid or someplace like that, but somehow I forgot to use it. I think the dyes ended up being used for one of Em’s great works of art. I like cooking the Easter dinner, although often we ended up going elsewhere for this holiday. I like the chocolate. The music. That is my favorite part. For several years, the family took part in the huge musical celebrations that our (then) church put on. Even when I wasn’t a part, I re...

At club on Thursday , I played two phoneys. This makes me very happy. I have felt for a while that I worry so much about playing phoneys that I forego perfectly good words. “Take more risks,” I have jotted on more than one scoresheet. Neither word was obviously bad. Neither was on the list of “phamous phoneys”. Neither word was challenged off. Take more risks, indeed. Okay, so I’m never really going to be a hang glider. I hope that doesn’t disappoint anyone. (For one thing, it takes a lot of hand-holding to get me up in the air in the first place; it’s hard to hang glide with one hand.) I can fly kites, which is almost as nifty! But I digress. These days I’m doing a lot of scary things, a lot of stepping out on faith. Maybe other people wouldn’t find them as scary as I do. But the important thing here is that I find them scary -- and that I’m doing them anyway. So what if it isn’t usually considered brave to argue with utility companies? It is brave of me.

I have to confess something. I enjoy reading Anne Lamott. Okay, okay, I know that makes me more touchy-feely than I usually admit. She is very lovey. She talks about mystical things. She freely admits to praying (although she uses the F-word frequently in her books about “faith”. I like this in a person.) She talks about breathing. She is very real, and I admire this. She talks about her parents and her son with a mix of love and frustration and grumpiness. She admits, in public, in her writing, to sometimes being angry, sometimes disliking her loved ones, to having to work very hard to forgive them. I like to think I’m like her in a lot of ways, but I don’t share this ability. I can’t easily look at someone I love, look them in the eyes, and say “I’m really angry with you.” “I am mad.” “That was a bad thing you did. To me.” Instead, I’m the sort that says, “Oh, gosh, I’m sure you didn’t mean to run over my dog. It’s okay. I was meaning to get rid of that old thing soo...

I figured out something. When life is busy and interesting, there is no time to write about it! Here are some of the things I’m doing these days: I’m still unpacking. I’m not sure if I will ever finish. Thank goodness, I have a lot of work. A lot. It is boring, but it pays the bills. My writing is starting to jell again. I’m working on long-range planning. It feels great. I feel great.

So there are two drawers in the kitchen. One is for silverware and measuring spoons, very well organized. The other is a thing drawer. I’ve been here nine days and already have a thing drawer. It holds the rest of the stuff. The things. Batteries, measuring tape, undefinable implements. Is this just the way my brain works? Must I have a miscellaneous file? Of course, at the moment I have a spare room, too. The rest of the apartment is spotless, well-organized, peaceful. But beware the spare room. Open it at your own risk. Is the little place of disorganization necessary to the rest of my life going neatly and purposefully? I am fine with that.

I’m starting to get my act together here. The pile of boxes slowly retreats under my fierce gaze (although I’m still adding boxes to the pile, which doesn’t help. I think the poor pile is getting mixed messages. “Does she want us to shrink or NOT?”) It is weird to live alone. Five days into this, so far everyone is surviving. One missed bus. A few miscommunications. The calendar is nowhere near functional yet. But we are all okay. The kids think the apartment is cool. I suspect that the novelty will wear off soon. Some snarling and grumpiness will happen.

Last night at Scrabble club , all my years of preparation finally paid off. People have scoffed at me. But no more! When S. arrived at the club, I was odd man out, so I immediately offered/begged for a game. He had his arms full of stuff, bags and the like, and I began to set up my board, rummaging through my (disorganized) bag for racks and tiles. And gum. And a cough drop. And a pen. Meanwhile, S. was rummaging less successfully in his bags. He’d located a salad but was muttering under his breath. I found the other wooden rack and slapped it on the table. “You wouldn’t happen to have a FORK in there, would you?” he asked sarcastically. He obviously doesn’t know me very well. “Why -- yes I do!” I opened the outside pocket of the bag, pulled out a stainless steel fork, and handed it to him. He took it without further comment and ate his salad.

Two address changes to note: After sifting through all the wise advice people gave me regarding the livejournal quandary and so forth (and ponies and kittens), I have decided to just mirror this blog at livejournal. When I feel the need to delve into more scrabble details, I will do this only at the livejournal blog. This will be the only difference between the two. The community features at livejournal make this worthwhile, in my opinion. (Community features include friends lists, groups, communities.) I’ll back-post starting January 1, probably. The other address change is less trivial. I am doing something today which I’ve never done before: writing a rent check. Yep, I’m moving down the road about a mile. The cats are staying at the house; the dog is moving to the apartment with me. The kids will continue to base their operations at the house but will be free to come and go at either place. All are doing well.

It’s January 31. I’m sure you all know what that means! Yes, it’s time to give Marsh some advice. Here’s my little dilemma. I like the way this blog is going. (I know, some of you think it needs a bit more spice, excitement. To quote one reader: “what you need is more scrabble porn.”) But I also want to take advantage of some of the features of livejournal, particularly the community features. So I was thinking about (and actually made) a more scrabble-oriented version at livejournal. Maybe I will take some of my general scrabble posts here and expand upon them over there. I don’t know. I don’t really want to just have two identical blogs. Honestly, though, I don’t want to only post about scrabble over there, either. So. Advise me!