Snow. Snow and more snow. Walking through it today felt surreal. I think this is the creamiest snow I've ever seen. It mushed under my black boots like dirty ice cream. And the drive in this morning was even more strange - every ten miles or so, there was a Ford Taurus buried on the side of the interstate and facing the wrong direction. Fish-tailed and spun circles. Semi-truck lights barreling up behind them. I once owned a Ford Taurus. My sister bought it from me, hit a deer with it, but still drove it for another year with the dented hood fastened down by bungy chords.

What an odd week. The snow and I are drifting, feeling congenial, like kissing cousins. I keep drifting back to Monday. There is no out-of-body experience comparable to taking your teenage girls to Planned Parenthood for the first time. They giggled a lot, seeing as they were nervous. They filled out their questionnaires in private because I told them to. I watched the nurse practitioner give them both "the shot" in the arm and then hand them each mini brown paper bags full of colored and flavored condoms. I listened to her explain to them that oral sex was just as risky for STDs. There are no words to coin how hard this was. Then we celebrated - for simply making it through it - and we went to see The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (a slow, so-so movie, in my opinion - but then my heart wasn't really in it). I felt squirmy, but I tried. We all three put our feet up on the seats in front of us. I sat in the middle. What kind of a mother am I? I had to keep reminding myself: This was a good thing. A Fact: Sixteen year-olds have sex with their soldier-school delinquent boyfriends after they've been seeing each other for over a year. Especially if their friends are having sex. It's a given. I was right again. I bought them Sour-Patch Gummy candies to chew on through the movie and, for the ride home, Steak-n-Shake milkshakes half-price at Happy Hour. I crossed my heart for their virginity and in hope that I hadn't soiled the wavy definition of "love-making" somehow, but such prayers went unheard. They were lost in the roar of the Nissan Maxima's muffler (which has a gaping hole in it).

Another flipper: watching the PhD application deadline for assistantships float by. Looks like I'm taking a year off to join the working world. The traditional working world does not accept me well. Sorry - what I should've said was vice versa. I've been in school for years for a reason. Up and coming problems: resumes and vitaes, updated website stuffed with PR bullshit, interviews and telephone calls, a dark and drabby personal blog that might rise to haunt me in background checks and google searches. More up and coming problems: an expensive trip to Chicago to show off what I may not get finished (talk about being buried!). Coffee is no help for all-nighters to get stuff done - I have built up a wicked tolerance. I'll figure it all out. Today, Dr. Preibe sat at my desk's side and in her lovely Australian accent told me, "You're not like the others" (good or bad?? I think I saw her wrinkle her nose), and then she told me to quit second-guessing myself. Problemo Numero Uno.

I need a new snow shovel or one of those flat round butt sleds and a tall, tall hill.

Buddhists say "the inner voice is like a crazy monkey." I found this on a How To Meditate website that wouldn't even give me free mp3s. The phrase has been reverberating unspoken ever since. I give up (again) on the likelihood of finding a meditative state. The site said "find a quiet place where you will not be interrupted." I haven't had a place like that for eighteen years.

Here soon we're heading to Shadeland Avenue - the heart hospital. Grandad had a surgery to remove a dark cancerous spot on his lung this morning. He's all spit fire for 81. He still rides a motorcycle and chops his wood with an ax. He has a tattoo on his forearm that looks like a blue bat, but, really, it once read "Mary Jo" inside a heart with wings. I hate the thought of having to see him weakened. We'll be leaving once the kids are dropped off from the bus. We'll be returning eleven 99-cent movies to Family Video before we hit the interstate. I watched all but two of them. Some (The Jungle Book, Iron Giant, and Balto) I might've watched as many as five times. Last night - late - I made myself watch Gia. I thought it would have more sex.

Meanwhile, I've been drinking coffee all day. I had a small Totino's Triple Meat pizza with my coffee around noon. I've had a kink in my back, just below my right shoulder blade, and I've been stretching all over the house trying to work it out. I hung my head and shoulders off the edge of the bed until I thought my eyes might bleed. I tried ballet with the kitchen cabinets. I made Matt - the Yeti - squeeze me until my back popped. Nothing worked. It's still there - crowding out my inner voice which isn't all bad.

I was going to reserve a Hotel room this morning, but received a letter in the mail from my bank that there was a possible breech in security somewhere so they've limited my charge rate to $100 for the next five days until they can get me a new card. I called and bitched to no end or purpose. There are no suspicious charges. I am one on a long list of many. I got us caught up on the bills. I cussed about the cell phone contract. Once again, the student loans have saved us. Easy come. Easy go.

I am happy about the warmer weather and the melting snow. I almost took a walk this morning, but I woke up with the four year old (somewhere in the night, she had crawled into the bed between us). She was smacking my forehead saying "Mommy, the sun is up! Mommy, the sun is up!" Instead, I put the dog out and took a deep breath. I should've taken them both with me and ditched this ranch.

My daughter turned 16 today. I know the picture to the left is dated May, but she just took it the other day (faulty camera settings?). Tonight, I made her a super chocolate brownie cake with chocolate frosting served with chocolate ice cream. We bought Reese's peanut butter syrup to pour over everything (it was orgasmic - try it). For her birthday, I bought her an eight pack of tall Pepsis (she could live off of Pepsi and chocolate) and a scrapbook with "Once Upon a Time" on the cover in glittery letters. I paid more for a stack of Rock-n-Roll patterned pages to go in it than what I paid for the book itself. She wants to make magazine collages. She wants to be a photojournalist. She wore piggy tails and a neck tie with peace signs all over it to school today. She wore tube socks with rainbow stripes and big yellow smiley faces on them. She likes looking a little silly - she told me this weekend, "Mom, I'm running out of time to play dress up - I have to do it now while I can get away with it." I'm not talking her out of staying young.

Her birthday has to be at the shittiest time of the year. I can't remember her ever having a birthday when there wasn't snow on the ground and bitter cold winds. I told her tonight that we should start celebrating her "half birthday" in July. I remember her second birthday . . . I was living in a tiny blue house in Vincennes, six months pregnant with Erin, with no car and jobless (in a self-pitying stupor because I was pregnant again and refusing to go back to seeking an associates degree - I was hopeless). I kept a grocery cart in the alley that I pushed back and forth to the grocery store - no kidding. Ashleigh was for-the-most-part bald and still chubby. At two, she had finally started walking - she had been rolling herself around the floor instead of even crawling. She was still having "night terrors" - waking up in her crib at night screaming yet in a dead sleep. We had just made it through a battle with head-lice; the kids had picked them up at the local daycare -- shared cots at nap time. Justin had just turned four. On her second birthday, the weather was so bad that we were snowed in for days. I couldn't get out of the house. The grocery cart in the alley was knee deep in a snow drift. We were playing lots of Sonic the Hedgehog on an overdue rented Sega system. I couldn't afford cable. I think Highway 41 got shut down, but my mother made the forty minute drive over on the back roads to see her that night and bring her a present (I can't remember what). Mom driving on ice and snow was never a good thing, but on that evening it was. I only have one Polaroid picture to mark the occasion. We're sitting in the tiny kitchen with its dark wood paneling and yellow lighting, and Ashleigh's on my lap in her PJs, giggling at her homemade birthday cake (I'm surprised I had the milk and eggs). I'm in an oversized sweatshirt and have on my huge plastic-framed glasses - my hair is limp and streaky. There is a rosey blanket hanging over the back door that led to the back porch to keep out the drafts. That little blue house was always cold.

On her MySpace profile today, Ash posted this:
"Remember when getting high, meant swinging on the playground? when protection, meant wear a helmet? when the worst thing that you could get from boys, were cooties? dads shoulders were the highest place on earth, & mom was your hero? your worst enemies were your siblings? race issues were about, who could run the fastest? war was only a card game? the only drug you knew, was cough medicine? wearing a skirt didn't make you slut? the only thing that hurt you were, skinned knees? AND WE COULDN'T WAIT TO GROW UP."

A cheesy bulletin. She read it to me out loud in the living room while I was attempting to work. I stopped. Has she grown up? Looking back NOW? What is she looking forward to? At least she's made it to sixteen and held on to a bit of freedom. I asked her if I wasn't her hero anymore - jokingly, but a tad serious. She had cried at the table earlier because her brother and sister were fighting in the hallway while she was blowing out her candles. She is often accused of being overly emotional (sometimes by me). But she tries to be a common voice of reason; when things are chaotic, she'll go do laundry. She can be very mothering. She told me she'd always wanted to sing me the Bette Midler (Did you ever know that you're my hero?) song, but she thinks she'd screw it all up. I teared up. I told her I'd sing it right back to her - in fact, there in the living room, I tried - I got a little operatic and silly. She winked at me fondly like an old lady. Most times - and since she was a shy baby - it seems to me she has had that kind of spirit.

Wow - here is one freaky piece of digital literature. I felt compelled to post it. I wish I had created it. I still have slight Adobe Flash phobia - mostly because it has the power to suck me in for hours upon hours upon hours.

It's often times hard to be impressed with the words when such awesome visuals are whirling around and stanzas are appearing and disappearing in a piece like this. The words didn't impress me - maybe if I could read them outside of this activity and interactivity. What is that saying . . . ? Maybe if I clicked through it five more times . . .


Dim O'Gauble
by Andy Campbell

launch

The kids got a free day - school was canceled. So, I left them all at home - in their PJ's and wrapped in comforters - with one computer to argue over. Justin was told not to start a fire in the fireplace. Erin insisted that there was nothing whatsoever to do ("This house sucks."); she will have no choice but to monopolize the phone. Ashleigh was baking chocolate chip cookies by 7AM. She insisted on babysitting Jo so we wouldn't have to make a trip to Grandma's and get her out in the cold. On Monday, Ashleigh turns 16. She's made it to the great dominion of car dating and, therefore, more womanly choices (like gynecologists and birth control). She wants me to take her to the movies on Saturday - her and her soldier boy, her best friend and my son (a double date for which I will not hang around - let them make out in the back of the theater if they must). Her soldier boy doesn't have a car. She's still hell-bent on seeing the movie, Unborn. I heard it received some awful reviews. I can't talk her out of it. She wants to see that dog with his head on all upside down.

The drive in to campus wasn't so bad. We brought along big tumblers of coffee. Matt wore his fuzzy Moose Hunter's hat. I found some gloves. The car started fine. The roads were fine. What's with all the hub-bub? School buses have managed worse. I parked on the top floor of the parking garage again - seeing as we're driving the Maxima and NOT the van. It's not so bad up there - reminds me of being in downtown Indy (namely that one garage not far from the jailhouse where I stood on the roof and watched them implode Market Square Arena), but it's wasting cash. Wasting cash (*sob*). It's killing me. On the walk over, my eyes watered and my nose watered, and then the water froze as soon as it hit air. I could've had icicles hanging out of my nose if it wasn't for my sleeve. :)~ I worried that the lenses in my glasses might crack. I'm not sure if they can even do that.

Yesterday, the snow coming down in giant flakes, making little cyclone snow whirligigs in the cornfields and parking lots, was gorgeous. Last night, we made snow ice cream; we ignore the ill-repute of likely air pollution and add sugar, milk and vanilla. All of this snow will grow old. It won't be melting anytime soon. Instead, it will hang around and be soured by tires and boot tread. It will all get stomped on and pushed aside. It will turn gray and mud brown and grow all crusty around the edges. All of the little glitters will give up on being reflective and grow dull. Yesterday, I couldn't properly explain to my four year old the scientific factors and conditions involved when building a snow man. She stuck out her lip and bawled (threw herself on the floor, rolled around until she hit walls, etc.) and thought that I was horrible for building her up to the possibility of forming Frosty in the front yard and then squashing all of her hopes with the confusing response "It's too cold for a snowman." What freakin' sense does that make? She has actually become quite skilled at giving me the fish-eye (fish-eye came just before rolling bawling fit).

I'm dreaming of May. Sort of. With May, comes warmth and short sleeves again and sandals. Open windows. In May, I'm done with everything. It will be time to move on to . . . something.

I finally got my hands on a book by Bobbie Ann Mason. Of course, I haven't even cracked it yet (it's used, but still looks uncracked). The cover is so-so. Pretty colors. Instead of reading literature, I've been doing this. My syllabus looks like a teeny-weeny font hell, but I like that pic of myself all tan in 2004 - back when I was teaching sailing on a man made lake with duct-taped-up sunfish to overfed executive fledglings dropped off with plastic lunch boxes and 30SPF sunscreen from limos or jaguars (while Mom and Dad wandered off to Rick's Cafe at the Boatyard). Talk about foreign. Ah, sailing. I think I always liked hiking the kids through the woods better. There was something vengeful in it. There were walking sticks, slithering ferrets, and those mosquitoes. I might've lost one or two kids to what I thought were swooping Blue Herons. Luckily, no one ever drowned.


Today is my first day of my first comp class. I'll have to wear a turtle neck shirt in case I get all nervous (as usual when speaking in front of any amount of people) and my neck and chest turns all red and gets hot and scratchy. Woah, my neck is growing red just thinking about it. I call it the heeby-jeeby hives. It's like a tell-tale curse. When I'm feeling uncomfortable, I'm not allowed to hide it. A turtle neck will work. I might be wearing one for the remainder of the semester.

I am so behind on everything CEllA's Round Trip, and I feel like an ass. I bet there are writers out there who submitted back in September who are giving me bad reviews because I haven't gotten back to them soon enough. I know it's rude. I also know that I need a few more bad-ass poetry submissions to balance out the flash and the coooool art. I may have to change the output plan - maybe the whole flashy layout thing is too much work to keep an online journal going - especially when you can only put it out once a year. I may have to start playing with Adobe Flash again. The new year may call for experiments. I just want to make good writers and artists happy. :)

My sister has called me three times in two days. I just got off of “The Morning After” phone call. It’s the morning after her fortieth birthday party, and she’s all the way down there and I’m all the way up here, not where I’m supposed to be. I’ve refused to shower. I’ve been sitting on the sofa, drinking coffee and smoking and watching movies from the eighties, keeping a frown on, keeping my PJ pants and socks on, and refusing to put a bra on. Friday night, I started playing Guitar Hero and didn’t stop until two in the morning (I still never got past Easy). I figured this was supposed to be a fun, enjoyable weekend, before the hard work kicks in, and I’m going to take it. I'm going to enjoy it, damn it. I’m slowly getting over it. Yesterday, I took the tree down to avoid hating myself and my lack of mobility. I like the living room better without a crowding fake tree in it, without all of those lights constantly plugged in and twinkling and making me worry about the possibility of a house fire. Getting the tree down and, now, some writing, is the full extent of my accomplishments for the weekend.

Julie says her party went well. She says we should’ve been there. She wasn’t even motivated to get drunk, although she tried, but apparently paced herself all wrong because she was bummed. She said she drank a bottle and half of cheap wine and didn't even get a buzz.

Our plans fizzled on Friday in a dramatic way. Despite our efforts to pack the van smarter, to be sure to bring the dog’s stuff and lots of his chewy hide pieces, to warn the teenagers of ALL the rules (namely that that one little idiot with the Camero wasn’t to step one foot into my sister’s drive way), to make sure that my new check was in the bank, to fill the tank, and, finally, to check and top off all of the van’s fluids, the Windstar blew a transmission line or seal just as we were exiting off of I-70 and into Cloverdale. Our weekend trip was ruined.

The stretch on the interstate between Indianapolis and Cloverdale is like poking through Nebraska. It’s the longest ever, and it’s tricky, makes you think you’ve surely missed the exit, by-passed Terre Haute, and will soon be crossing the state line into Illinois. Finally, as we signaled properly and headed up the ramp exit, something popped. Smoke was everywhere. The cab of the van filled with the awful stink of burnt transmission fluid on a hot engine, all of that fluid we had just bought an hour and half earlier because I insisted because I am smart like that. Obviously, we freaked out the typical mechanical functioning of the old Windstar – 140,000+ miles on the odometer, with some light always blinking, the doors never fully shutting, the seat belts sticking, the windshield wipers failing to work but only during storms and blizzards, and that odor that makes me think it was once completely under water. The van had probably been running so long with barely any transmission fluid in it that when we poured a little in for the trip (being careful NOT to overfill it – just like the dippystick says) the seals and lines were newly overloaded and couldn’t hold the flow.

We pulled into a BP station, each of the kids excitedly eyeing the McDonald’s across the street, whining and drooling and offering up their own pocket change leftover from Christmas money to help with the cost if they could only get their teeth into a cheeseburger or a few of those golden McNuggets, oblivious to the notion that the cost of fixing this van will likely take my entire check and, yes, the van IS broken and our entire weekend plan just literally went up in smoke and out the exhaust. We won’t be making it. They refuse to believe it. Surely, leaking fluid is an easy fix done by some adult-like person while they munch on a quick, greasy lunch. No worries. The dog, stuck in the back seat between two kids, goes nuts once the van is stopped, attempting to leap at an open door while one is holding on to his collar. He barks and then starts licking a window. I screamed at one of kids to PLEASE take him for a walk to pee. There will be no McDonald’s; This is serious. Their little faces drooped.

Matt looked under the van two or three times, pulled the van back twice to stare at the puddle of fluid, stuck his finger in it and sniffed it, said “Yep, that’s transmission fluid,” and then he shrugged and offered up his usual ultimatum: “I don’t know what to do.” He can take apart a computer and put it back together again to the pressing beat of stopwatch, but he knows little to nothing about cars. He’s famous for driving them until they break. His little Nissan Maxima has been sitting in the driveway with no gas and a bad starter, untouched for months; he’d rather not confront the issue. His grandfather and younger brother make fun of him for it often. He doesn't like to make decisions either. He looks to me for an answer. So while he looks on, admiring my strength to confront strangers in strange gas stations, I march into the BP and ask for the nearest auto repair shop. I know that the transmission has not gone completely out; the van was still moving (but it's still pretty bad - the fluid was thick and dark). We can drive it to a shop. If we have to get a new transmission, given the worth of this old van, we might as well go find a completely new used vehicle. The woman behind the counter pauses in her job checking out stacks of cigarette boxes to burly women and truckers in flannel and tells me that there’s a guy behind the Motel 6 and then there’s another place on in town called Steele’s. I ask her which is better, and she gives me viable information: “I’d go to Steele’s. That guy behind the Motel 6 once screwed me over for being a woman.” She says this with an evil bent eyebrow, like she’s still planning some sort of revenge. I take it as precious, usable information and I'm glad that I asked. Any guy who would screw over a woman for being a woman wouldn’t blink to screw over a couple of out-of-towners just in off the interstate. The four kids and skinny puppy wouldn’t even make him flinch. We drove on in to Steele’s, leaving a lovely dark trail of fresh Auto Zone Merc V transmission fluid behind us. Matt wouldn’t take it up over ten mph, but I was okay with it.

We sit in Steele’s parking lot. Matt’s smoking his short, fat Camel Wide cigarettes like a fiend. Still stuffed into the van because it’s cold outside and the room inside Steele’s is too small and inhabited by strange old men sipping on coffee and reading local newspapers, it’s me and Matt and the four kids and the dog and a trunk full of baked goods and gifts and an old E-Machine computer that I was going to give my sister and her hubby for their twelfth anniversary, which would’ve been today (Sunday) – the day after her birthday. They haven’t had a decent working computer for years. The E-Machine stinks, but I know it will be better than nothing, and, as she’s informed me blatantly many times before, what we think “stinks” is often, to her family, “flat out luxury.” She implies often that I'm a snob. The computer had been sitting upstairs barely touched for going on two years. I am a snob. I was going to give it up and stop being an ass.

Just a few days before, I had complained to her on the phone about our loss of money, how we couldn’t make our trip down there as we had originally planned (the original plan was to stay down there for five days, to celebrate New Year’s Eve with them); We always relate well on this, on how the economy is in deep shit and how we can barely keep up with the bills. She seems almost giddy that, now, she’s not the only one who's poor. I told her that I might lose my cable and internet, truly upset, and she laughed at me. She told me I sound like an idiot. She reminded me that I can live without cable. Yeah, I can live without cable, but NO INTERNET? Is she fucking nuts? But remember, sister? Her husband just got laid off and is filing for unemployment. They’re holding their breathe, hoping he can get a check within two weeks, otherwise, they could lose everything - have to move back into that 1979 camper sitting in Mom's driveway, parked all crooked because Mom doesn't know how to pull it. I am an ass.

Steele’s didn’t do transmission work, but one guy came out and crawled underneath it and told us, "Yep, it's definitely leaking transmission fluid." Thanks. He couldn’t tell us anything else about what was really wrong with it. We had been watching a forelorn little white-haired man stand smoking one cigarette after another while staring at an engine block, unhelped for the last forty-five minutes. We were lucky we got what little we got. Here’s where our hopes ended. At least Steele’s sold tiny bags of potato chips and cola – this made the kids happy. And they gave out free calendars. The four year old scribbled on one, and it came with stickers.

And so we sat at Steele’s for two hours, waiting on a AAA tow truck to show up. Matt and I pat ourselves on the back in conversation and tell each other over and over again what a good idea it was to purchase AAA Membership Plus back when he had a job. We tell each other that we should make sure that we can afford to renew it again when the time comes; it’s already paid for itself twice.

My son and I squeezed into a high front seat, and rode eighty three miles back down 1-70, around 465 and straight up I-69 with a small, talkative yet lovable, previously retired tow truck driver who had a mini-phone stuck to his ear. Randomly or in mid-conversation, he would shout out Hello into the air – answering another help call on his mini-phone – and make us jump. Surprisingly, he kept it below the speed limit. He told us, “I drive it right because I own the company” and then grinned all crazy. He told us he kept a pistol in the truck, and it was right down by his left leg, but not to worry because it was just for safety. We didn't worry, but I was thankful that it was me riding with the driver instead of Matt; he might've freaked.

Matt and the girls and the dog waited for his mother to appear at Steele’s to drive them back home in her SUV. They stood outside with the dog and shivered. We made it home, and AAA Plus covered a tow up to 100 miles, so no cost. The membership paid for itself again. But we go nowhere else for the weekend. No trip down south. No jaunts up the road to the Bob Inn. No hugging my nieces and nephews. No half-hugs from my father, hoping he would like that old book I was going to give him off of my own shelf because I hadn't bought anything nicer but still wanted to give him something more than a pound cake and chocolate covered spoons. No blowing up black balloons for my sister. No watching her giggle when I handed over the Swiss Cake Rolls. I was looking forward to bitching and nagging and rolling my eyes at my mother for being with Virgil again. I missed my sister’s fortieth birthday all because I, once again and as always, am the wielder of a shitty vehicle.

We unpacked the van of everything (although, as of now, my suitcase is still packed, a symbol of my lament). I thought about hugging that nice tow-truck driver from AAA when he dropped us off, or at least asking him for his address so that I might add him to the Christmas card list that I plan on making someday. I wish I could've tipped him, but he had already told me that the trip from Cloverdale to P-town was a $300 run. AAA had him covered. We sent the van off to another repair shop: transmission specialists in Anderson. We called another tow truck to come and pick it up on Friday, and it's been missing ever since, with no word back. We've been stuck. They didn't answer the telephone on Friday or Saturday. Auto repair shops in Anderson make me nervous. I am hoping they didn't steal it.

Finally, I found my blog again and a few spare minutes. I've written two or three starts to other posts, but never quite got them out here to be published. They're sitting in oblivion saved as drafts and without endings. The thing is that until the kids get back to school (MONDAY), my "break" is no break at all. In fact, it's plain insanity in the house - little room to move, barely a moment to concentrate on intentions revolving outside the neon edge of teen drama, unloading and reloading the dishwasher, still picking up candy wrappers and wishing the tree would put itself into the storage box magically (although I've heard it's bad luck to take it all down before the 6th - maybe it's waiting). I've been running the kids around, enduring additional teenagers that I didn't give birth to, fighting the kids (even the four year old) for possession of my laptop. Go ahead and say that you'd set them straight, pull the computer away, put your foot bown, whatever. Tell me again when you have your own set of assaholic adolescents. I often just let them keep it to avoid the whining. Truth is, now, I am seeking refuge after having a blow-out with my soon-to-be sixteen year-old. She and her boyfriend were doing some heavy petting in Mamaw's spare bedroom after New Year's Day dinner, and Matt and I hit the ceiling. We gave the "show some respect" and "if you're going to act this way, then you need to grow up" speeches and then took her boyfriend home early. She threw a tempter tantrum and stomped out the front door around to the backdoor where she rolled herself into a sobbing ball on top of the carpet in front of the clothes dryer. No, I didn't handle it so well.

And so it is a new year. I should be baking more cookies. I promised that I'd give my mother, my father and his wife, and my sister and her family all a basket of baked goodies for Christmas, but we've already eaten most of the baked goodies, and those that we haven't eaten are sorta' stale. We're heading down south to see everyone tomorrow. I've bought my sister's kids each a set of seven toys for Hanukkah (only they'll be wrapped in Christmas paper and they'll get to open them all at once). I bought my mother a little TY Beanie Bear to go in her basket; he is yellow with a helmet of black hair and golden aviator sunglasses (NOT the rubber duckie in the pic but he has the same hair and glasses) and he has Elvis scrawled across his belly (She will LOVE it - I imagine it will sit lovely on her hutch next to her collection of mini porcelain shoes and boxed Barbie dolls and various plaques with etchings of the "Footprints in the Sand" poem). Mom's back with her grotesque old boyfriend, Virgil, though (and already bitching to me about him over the phone), so I'm thinking about not giving her anything as punishment. I have vowed to not speak to the man again, ever. I'm hoping that my vow will make the visit awkward.

Saturday will be my sister's 40th birthday. She's having a house party, although she called this morning to tell me that her party has been "downsized" seeing as her husband just got laid off from the cabinet factory in Jasper. I'm not sure what "downsized" means seeing as she was only making a pot of chili and the rest was BYO dish and beer. I found her a book: Revenge of the Middle Aged Woman. I told her she should go back to college (again). I bought her some black balloons. I asked her if I could buy her a cake, but she said she wanted me to bake her one (Many years ago, I received a degree in Frosting). She said, in a certain measure of seriousness, she wanted me to make her a cake in the shape of a big, black penis because, alas, she'll be 40 and she's never had one. I think she was trying to make her husband laugh (or cry). I laughed until I cried. I told her that me making her a cake was impossible, seeing as we had the long drive down - four hours - with a hyperactive border collie. We'd have squished pieces of a devil's food penis all over the van. I bought her a box of Swiss Cake Rolls instead. I might put a sticky note on it to quote Liu Kang (one of the cool guys on Mortal Kombat, but she won't know that) "What if all the myths were [not] true . . . "

My only resolution is that I WILL quit smoking sometime before the next New Year's Eve. No pressure. No pressure. I can't quit this weekend, seeing as we're going down to my sister's - four hour drive (did I already say that?) - and it's likely we'll be drinking. We may find our way down to the Bob Inn, and there, when you walk through the door, if you don't already have one, they stick a lit full-flavor Chesterfield between your lips. Common courtesy (otherwise, they point at you and call you "weirdo"). I'm bringing along the four bottles of wine that we failed to drink last night. We weren't all that merry last night. Dick Clark was a stark reminder of our mortality - even in all of his hardihood and effort. Or WAS he? I'm still confused. I only drank one bottle of cheap Strawberry Champagne, and it wasn't for a buzz. It was because it was tasty after the tacos. I'm not sure if I can quit smoking over the coming semester because it's too soon to tell; I'm not quite sure how stressful it will be yet. Maybe if I quit smoking, I'd only end up tearing my own hair out or chewing my bottom lip off. I might be able to quit over the summer, take up something sportsy like speed walking or jogging or paintballing (there's a new spot in the woods, just up the road). I suppose I do have other resolutions. I want to write more and send more out to publications. I want my master thesis to be something meaningful. I want it to be something that can become something greater. I want to find my way back to poetry. Oh, and I want to be a better mother.

In the next two weeks, I have a lot to do. I have to finish up CEllA's Issue #02. I have to start talking to myself in the mirror like a teacher. I should probably cut my hair. Tonight, I have to pack and get that huge stack of DVDs back to Family Video. Knocked Up was a good, reflective film. The Bee Movie gets a C. The fun is over, after this weekend. I have a feeling, however, that this weekend will provide a loving end to my nonfiction story/thesis. Or it just might stir up more shit. Either way will work. I only need thirty more pages.