The Playground

Evelina is part of a love/hate triangle at preschool, and I can't even make that combination of words compute in my head.

So here's the breakdown: At some point, Evelina and Collin "decided" to get married. I guess Collin was too excited at the prospect because he told Kristen about the marriage plans and "she spread it around to everyone" even though Evelina and Collin had decided to keep it to themselves. Then Nick U. told Evelina that he hates her because she's marrying Collin.

(I just received updated details informing me that Nick and Collin are "half-friends" because Collin likes to play with Evelina more than he likes to play with Nick.)

Ok, so then Collin made a picture of a sad face to remind Nick that Evelina was sad about the whole thing and Nick wrote "I'm sorry" on the back of it. But evidently Evelina still feels that he hates her and doesn't want to be friends with her anymore.

Evelina's response to me: "I just want the whole thing to be over with...you can be friends with more than one person."

She's so melodramatic; when she came home she was worried to talk to me about it because she didn't want to "break their confidences." And she flung herself down on the couch and said, "I can't believe I have to say this."

I tried gently to remind her that she wouldn't be getting married until she was older and she responded defensively, "But Collin's SIX!"

We decided that our first course of action was to make Nick U. a card that says something like, "Dear Nick, I like playing with you. I hope we can still be friends. Love, Evelina." The card is being accompanied by a piece of candy. I hope that in the world of 5-year-olds, candy and a card is letting someone off easy.

Next time on As the Merry-Go-Round Turns: Will Nick U. accept Evelina's offer of friendship, or will he demand more? And how much longer can Evelina tolerate Collin's loose-lip ways?

Nepotism: the practice among those with power or influence of favoring relatives or friends, especially by giving them jobs. ORIGIN: mid 17th-century from Italian nepotismo from nipote "nephew" (with reference to privileges bestowed on the "nephews" of popes, who were in many cases their illigitimate sons).

Ok, so it's favoratism of friends and/or family. I've observed a lot of nepotism in my life, and I have to be honest, it gives me a sour taste. I know we can all sit around and idealistically spout that we are fair and just individuals who value impartiality and think only the most qualified person should get the job, but that's not where we live in reality.

On a daily basis I have lived and worked with people who were lousy at their jobs and in their positions of assumed authority with their bloodline (or peripheral association with a certain bloodline) as the only thing keeping their paycheck secure. And I hated it. Often I felt like I or someone else could do the job better, more efficiently, more creatively, with less overhead and fewer mistakes, and produce a higher quality end product. So I don't understand why it's often the case that people's vision and logic is so terribly warped when it comes to friends and family members. Liking a person does not qualify him or her for anything other than the possibility of sharing a tub of ice cream with you, providing you both like the same kind and are reasonably good at sharing. (But even in that there are particular qualifications.)

I recently heard a person say that "right or wrong" he would defend his dad's position in the face of any controversy, or, more accurately, in the face of any conversation or difficult situation that was against his dad, even if he was in the wrong. What does that say about people when they are willing to shun what's right and true and instead stand up for the wrong and the lies because they come part and parcel with a family member? I just don't understand.

Certainly we all exhibit nepotisistic tendencies now and then, like when I drop my kids off at preschool and I KNOW they are the cutest, or when we're in a restaurant and some teeny ankle biting screamer is making everyone wish they'd ordered in and I smile proudly at my three angelic ketchup-crusted faces - but that's different! Why? You ask. Because it's internal nepotism. No one knows you're actually thinking those things, so you can get away with it. Plus, it's not like you ever act on any of it.

Point is, I can't deal with it. I wish everyone would take off their familial lenses and see the world as it is, not how it would be if their family ruled it.

I hate clichés, but it seems they are fond of weaseling into my perspective lately. (Reference: previous post "Life-long Victims.")

"No good deed goes unpunished." If you've ever done anything extraodinary for other people, you'll understand what I mean. Rarely is the deed appreciated, and even if it is, it becomes a presumption held by the recipient of said good deed. Then if you never rise to that standard again, you're the jerk.

When it's not appreciated, it's ignored, left unrecognized as though it was never done in the first place. And that is discouraging. It leaves a person feeling like there's no goodness or hope left for humanity. If we can't even be grateful toward one another for a good turn, how are we to go on and thrive in an ever increasingly degenerating world? It makes me ask myself, "What's the point? Why try?"

When it's not ignored, it's taken as a due, something rightfully owed by the good-deed-doer. I think that's worse than all the others because of the requisite conceit to arrive at such a mentality.

The worst part for me here is that this isn't hypothetical; I know people like this, and it makes me want to renege on any good deeds I might have done, just out of spite.

(I will allow you to taste the delicious irony of it all: Clearly I'm a glutton for punishment because in the midst of writing this I'm seeking out contact info for a family in my town whose house burned down over the weekend so that I may offer them my children's superfluous clothes and toys since they have two sons near the ages of mine. The good news is that I don't know them, and people you don't know tend to be more grateful than those you do know. And that's just another slice of the ironic pie.)

For awhile I've been discouraged at my lack of production with writing. I write a few things now and then that tend to be compact and unadorned. I frivolously call myself a writer to those who ask, but I mock myself behind their backs. I imagine a real writer as someone who pours out words onto the page (screen) all day, can turn a witty spin on any circumstance, and has fun in every moment of effortless creating. I can do none of those things. Especially the having fun while making it look easy part. I love writing, but I think what I love more is the feeling of finishing something and seeing all those words that I thought up squished together - no matter how unsightly - as some form of complete product. I find the actual process tedious and tiresome.

I've decided there are two kinds of writers I recognize against which I apparently juxtapose myself: the Prolific writer (hence the feelings of less than greatness) and the Great writer. I have not, until now, distinguished between the two. In fact, I thought they were the same creature, but now I know I was wrong. A writer can be prolific without being great and great without being prolific, as well as both at once. This recognition has set me free. I thought I would never be a real writer because I don't have shelves filled with my words. Fortunately for me, the two can be mutally exclusive.

Since I will never be Prolific, I have decided to be Great.

So far this year, Casey and I have bought a house AND filed our own taxes! (And it's only March.) Both new ventures for us. Good times, good times. By December, who knows what will be within our reach?

* Today on As the Merry-Go-Round Turns:

As of Friday, Nick hates Evelina even more vehemently than on Monday. He let her know that he thought the marshmallow heart she gave him to make up was gross. And she's sad that "the more and more he hates me, the more he's friends with Dalton." The poor girl is ready to throw in the towel, "It's no use. It's never gonna happen. We can try - me and Collin can try to get back together with Nick, but I don't know." I told her it sounded to me like Nick was just trying to be mean, to which she replied, "I think you're right, Mommy. I can ask him."

We'll see how that plays out next week.

* See post Days of Our Preschool Lives for the full story.

I couldn't think of anything to post about, so I decided to bestow upon my loyal audience yet more Fibs:

Hearsay
he
said
she said
they both said
the other was wrong
either way, make up sex is good

Invasion
NO!
STOP!
all day
DON'T TOUCH THAT!
Keep your hands off it!
Kids and their grabby little hands

Wired
hot
cup
coffee
in the morn
drink a pot all day
at night, lucky to sleep a wink

I had to read Julius Caesar in 10th grade, and for some reason, that line always stuck with me; Consequently, I notice the coming of March 15 with great interest. I'm not particularly superstitious, but I just like to see if there are any coincidences on days like the Ides of March and Friday the 13th (which, by the by, is coming in April).

Since Shakespeare's play, the Ides of March has become synonymous with a foreboding sense of doom. I haven't experienced it myself, but hey, the day isn't over yet.

So, click on the Wikipedia link and indulge in a bit of interesting trivia.

In case you were wondering, one of the best ways to break your 5-year-old daughter's heart is to embarrass the tights right off her by making her show up to tap class just as everyone completes the last shuffle-ball-change.

"Do you know what time it is?" the rotten overweight teacher asked. As a matter of fact, no. I don't know many in the preschool crowd who regularly keep the time on them. (The same cannot be said, however, for my son whose incessant time querying has burdened me with extreme exasperation toward the pedant who invented time-telling devices.) Evelina and her dad were the unfortunate and unwitting bearers of my bumbling idiocy. I kept saying the class starts at 5:45 when in reality, it started at 4:45. They were just in time to be ridiculed for missing it all.

So, if you're itching to be the biggest heal of your kid's life, mess up one of her favorite activities and send her along with a misinformed other parent so they both get to look foolish together.

Oh the stabbing irony of my life! Please read my March 15 posts in sequential order; that would be from the bottom up; you can tell by the time stamps. Then explain why I would be smacking my forehead right now.
Here are my hints:
First entry: I said I had nothing to blog about.
Second entry: I said I had never experienced the doom of the Ides of March and that the day wasn't over yet. (Foreshadowing, anyone?)
Third entry: As far as my daughter is concerned, I've wrecked her life.

Thank you for playing Chastity's Life: A Comedy of Errors.
I encourage you to submit your answers as comments.

WARNING: Read at your own risk. I can not be held responsible for each individual's interpretation of my words.

Carly Simon is a smart woman. She had something to say about a past lover and wrote a great song to illustrate her point. Over 30 years since You're So Vain was a hit, and she still hasn't revealed who it's about. The best part is that it's her prerogative as the artist/writer to never tell who she was thinking about when writing that song; even the man himself doesn't know. (Or at least she hasn't told him.) And that's what draws the attention. The mystique of it. But it also offers Ms. Simon and the unnamed subject a certain amount of anonymity or maybe it's freedom...Ms. Simon was free to express what she needed to say without the possible ramifications of libel or slander or whatever because she didn't name names. It's perfect all around, the artist has his/her freedom of expression and the subject is spared having his name blasted from car radios across the country. Everyone knows of course that the real man in the song would have to know who it's talking about because he'd be the only one vain enough to believe she wrote a song about him and his vanity in the first place...Some people think the sun rises and sets by them.

So, it's with You're So Vain playing through my mind that I say this:

I am going to write what I want to write about whomever I please and it's not always going to be about you. In fact, I will probably never name you. Sometimes it will be about her or him or them or people you don't even know. Sometimes it will be my imagination and my story about events that I create. And if you feel like it's about you, that's called projection. You're finding yourself in a story because you somehow identify with what's being said and because you put yourself there, not because I did. Maybe you've found a personal truth in what I've written, and if so, I'm happy to wash muddy eyes clean, but that doesn't mean I had you in mind when writing it. It just means you're vain enough to think I did.

That is my disclaimer; I will write what I see and what I imagine and I'm not asking you to be a fan. I write for my pleasure and expression because I have something to say. And I don't have to answer to you.

I'm reading a cool book right now called The Writer's Journey, 2nd Edition, Mythic Structure for Writers. It's by Christopher Vogler, to whom I will extend heartfelt gratitude in my acceptance speech at the Emmy's for my award-winning TV drama series. The book is all about story structure and archetypes and Carl Jung and I think it's just fascinating. (Anyone who studied this stuff in college would likely blow it off as redundant, but as I am self-educated, I love it.)

As he discusses archetypes such as mentors, threshold guardians, and shapeshifters along the Hero's journey, I'm starting to identify these characters in real life and recognize who each archetype is in my reality and how they all have affected my personal Hero journey. It's enlightening to learn how each character can change throughtout the story becoming a different archetype depending on what's required to move the story along. It's also cool to recognize that same change in principle players in real life and to see how a person can one day be a villian and later on be a mentor.

The best part is, the book just makes me feel smarter. And if everything else in it were lacking, that would be enough.

Today was a good day. This morning I fell down the attic stairs messing up my left butt and my back. This afternoon I died slowly during the interminable wait in a doctor's office for my sister to have a tetanus shot - which never materialized.

BUT

I had a great workout with a great friend at the crack of dawn. I managed to shower before anyone else's morning pee disturbed me. The children played well; they were helpful and didn't try to make my head spin (more than once). Loan paperwork has been read, scrutinized, re-read, mailed. Last night I enjoyed lively and engaging conversation with a friend from across the country, and the after-glow lasted through today. Jessica helped me sort, purge, and pack a lot of stuff today. I hope my ambition will continue tomorrow when I tackle the eight bags of stuffed animals. I was able to help out a friend in a small yet useful way. Now, at the end of the day, I feel good like I accomplished something and made a divot of a difference in my corner of the world. We are preparing to embark on our life and it feels good. New breezes blowing and all that.

This is the day which the LORD hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it. Psalm 118:24

So this evening as part of our out and about-ness, we had to stop at Giant Eagle for diapers, during which time I loudly confirmed to an unsuspecting black man that racism is still alive and well in the world.

I don't often realize I have what's considered by some an extensive vocabulary. To me, it's normal; the words I speak are the words I read and the words in which I think. However, it has not been uncommon for me to hear others mention my frequent use of "big words." Big words are fine, but friends, I'm here to tell you, keep your big words far away from your cleverness. They don't mix; like oxygen tanks and cigarettes in a hospital, someone's bound to need skin grafts when the sprinklers shut off.

As we're walking through the diaper aisle, Casey and I are discussing something inane like toilet plungers when he says something opposite of something he said before. Naturally, I take up the argument and point out his incongruity - because that's what I do - and instead of just calling him dumb for what he was saying, I had to be clever. I wanted to call him a name that meant he was taking back something he previously said, replacing with a new story. I could have called him an "Indian-giver" since I remember kids saying that in 5th grade or whatever, but as I am not likely to meet any Native Americans around here, I had to choose something more racially relevant.

(I know you're wondering what race has to do with toilet plungers, and I have to say, I don't know. I was appalled at the discovery myself.) As we turned around the end of the aisle, I smuggly and full of pomp practically shouted "Re-nigger!" at Casey at precisely the moment the aforementioned unsuspecting black man passed us. Because I was so enthralled with my rendition of the word "renege" (which sounds like "renig" and means to take back) I came to tears moments later when I smacked into the obvious.

Of course there was no explaining it, not even to myself. How did it escape the filter of my own ears before it echoed off the steel beams and linoleum? I couldn't stop thinking about that man walking to his car, returning home with his dog food or whatever, and wishing he'd just waited until the morning to go out. If I knew who he was, I would find him and apologize for what sounded like an ignorant dirty insult.

Because I wanted to be clever with my big words. Well, from now on clever and big words play on different sides of the playground. I know I was careless with my word choice, but I have to think, what really caused this problem in the first place?

I blame my broken toilet and the smart-ass plunger that would rather flip itself into a belligerent ladle than do its job, without which Casey and I would have no cause for discussing said plunger or arguing about what he said in the first place.

So there you have it: Racist Toilet Plungers.

...to be me"

I used to love this Tom Petty song, still do in a way. It was my anthem in junior high and high school. I'd turn it loud in my bedroom with all the windows open and just sing-yell it as loud as I could. And I believed it. I believed no one knew what it was like to be me. No one had lived my personal hell or could ever imagine how rotten I had it. I carried this mindset into adulthood and still believed I had had it worse than anyone I knew, and no one could comprehend. I had become a victim of circumstances, a casualty of childhood - I was collateral damage.

I'm discovering that plenty of other people felt and still feel that way too. That no one else can ever get it, truly relate to what they've been through. Not only is this mindset narrow, it's vain, self-effacing, and exclusionary. Friends aren't allowed to step in and offer a shoulder.

It's a by-product of the human condition to be jaded, shit on, kicked in the face, simply mistreated. How can one person say to another, "You don't know how it feels to be me"? Of course we do - by knowing how it feels to be us, we know how it feels to be you. That is why we are capable of empathy - putting ourselves into another's position and then experiencing his or her feelings. How could we ever get through the general suckiness of life if God didn't equip us with a way to console each other?

I think it's small-minded to believe that you or I had or have it so bad that no one on the planet could possibly relate. The scope of human thought and experience is not that big and the world population is 6.6 billion, so the navel-gazing attitude of "you don't know how it feels," is nothing short of ludicrous. In the masses of 6.6 billion people, you're the only one generating a certain feeling or thought pattern? I might never have experienced the exact circumstances of your unique heartache, but the point is that I have lived through my own heartache and I know what hurt feels like, just like anyone else. We can relate, not on merit of our circumstances, but on the universal understanding of heartache or happiness.

If you have hurt and I have hurt, we are the same. Why do we try and make our individual hurts more relevant and distinct and memorable and worse? To prove a point? To shun the comfort offered by others - because they couldn't possibly get it? To remain in a perpetual state of victimization because we thrive on the drama and lonliness of our self-created isolation?

I don't know. I don't know why we do this. But I know that I'm guilty of "you don't know how it feels," "you have no idea what I'm going through," and "you don't understand." It's all a pack of lies, and if we'd just quit trying to one-up everyone all the time, we might realize how much more satisfying it is to identify all the similarities in our collective pains and engage in some reciprocal sympathies.

In short, I think "You don't know how it feels..." is a cop out to naming the emotions or participating in a back and forth conversation. It's a statement that no one can respond to without sounding petulent: "Yes I do! I do too know how it feels." Give me a break. People say "You don't know how it feels..." when they don't want anyone to know how they feel. It's a way to hide because if you don't tell me how you feel, obviously I don't know.

Thanks to Barb, I've found my glasses. I said I had looked many times in the couch for my glasses, and I was done looking. But Barb said she lost a set of keys and looked and looked, then over a year later Sarah found them buried down in the couch. Well, I took the advice to not give up, and it was fruitful. After more than a week of tension headaches and near misses while driving, I can see again. Of course that doesn't remedy the broken earpiece, but that's a problem for another day.

Ok, I may be leaving this provincial bucolic little town in a few weeks, but that doesn't mean I'm going quietly. Official type people in this town feel obliged to send me citations about an innocuous pile of leaves in my front yard, informing me of "clean, safe, and sanitary conditions" which shall be maintained on the exterior property by the occupant.

What a load of crap. I like my pile of leaves. I've created a mini ecosystem in which my children revel in discovering different bugs and worms and generally being introduced to the micro world around them. Plus it's composting. I'm doing the borough a service by not having to add my biodegradable matter into a landfill. Instead, I'm using it to benefit the environment by replenishing depleted nutrients into the parched land that is my front yard.

So I have 15 days to remedy my compost pile or face prosecution for the violation. Here's where I complain: What business does this borough have telling me what's "clean, safe, and sanitary" on private property? My environmentally friendly leaf mound is not spilling into anyone else's yard or onto the sidewalk. It's self-contained and inoffensive.

When it comes to publicly used property this borough is neither "clean, safe, or sanitary." The playgrounds are completely unusable and a major tax-suck; between the barren swingset frames and the bumblebee infested tire swing and the rusty nails sticking up from broken and splintered wooden planks on the bouncy fire truck and car, I can't even consider bringing my kids to play there. The sandbox has become a litter box to all the neighborhood stray cats; I've found used condoms and hypedermic needles just laying in the grass; there are cigarette butts everywhere and we're lucky if the grass is mowed more than twice a month (and that's too infrequent during mosquito season). Those are just the unclean, unsafe, and unsanitary conditions, to say nothing of the merely discomfort related conditions. There are no benches or shaded areas for parents; the water fountain hasn't worked in more than 10 years; there are no bathrooms - not even a port-a-potty. How can you herd a gaggle of potty-training toddlers and yardapes to a park and not have to pee during the trip? Several times.

The complaint is this, people walk by my house all the time dropping their litter - all manner of fast-food containers, plastic bags, and squashed pop cans. Several times a week I have to clean all that up because it's garbage and obviously not "clean, safe, and sanitary." So I wonder, where are the litter police? Why aren't the people actually creating the mess getting citations? Why doesn't the borough clean up its own "backyard" before coming after me about my front yard?

I'm protesting this. It's insulting to expect me to do away with something that's hurting no one and likely helping - in some small way - everyone. It's insulting for this borough official, the "Code Enforcement Officer," to nit-pick my yard for a tiny, perceived offense when it's my yard; I work there; I play there; I bother no one. Yet I can't walk down the street with my kids to the playground because it's a public health and safety hazard.

Oh! And don't even get me started on the sidewalk between my house and the playground! You want to talk about unsafe! They have had to apply reflective paint to the juts between slabs of sidewalk to somehow guard against a misstep. But I'm sorry, two-year-olds just don't get the concept of reflective paint, and so they fall. Is that safe? I don't think so.