Christmas lists

Men I Would Marry

1. Alton Brown - Not only did he whip up a sweet potato pie in 60 seconds, but he dressed up like a pilgrim and sat on the giant turkey float at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. I admire this about him, as well as the fact that he is brilliant and makes molecules out of Styrofoam and advocates grape juice. Plus he's hilarious.

2. Burton Guster - He plays pretend and goes on adventures for a living, and that is the kind of living I want to be doing. And he can tap dance. And he's hilarious.

I'm not inclined to resign to maturity.

3. Aaron Rodgers - Any man who can maintain his manliness with his face shrouded in yellow deserves a doting wife. Also, according to Sunday's commentator, he's cool like the other side of the pillow. I have no intimation of his current state of sense of humor.

I am manly, even in yellow.

Professions I'd Profess

1. Radio City Rockette - Because they are beautiful and smiley and everything Christmas is wrapped up in their synchronized kicking legs. I particularly loved this year's outfits.

I want legs like these.

2. Foot model - I have particularly lovely feet (once the scars from summer camp heal), and they are way underappreciated by being shoed and socked most of the year.

3. Cheerful tollbooth operator - I usually have to work up the nerve to roll down my window at a tollbooth, because I just know the person I am rolling down my window to is probably not going to make eye-contact with me, and will most likely mumble and take my money with as much joy as if they were taking my kidney stone. I want to be a cheerful tollbooth operator so I can smile at people and wish them a good day and make their long trip seem a little bit shorter.


Places I Would Be

1. Whoville - Because only when living in a snowflake can dressing like candy-canes be every-day attire.

 2. The Pie Hole - It's colorful, I love pie, it's probably snowing there, and I think the Pie Maker is a dreamboat.

I am a dreamboat.

 3. Wilmore Old Fashioned Christmas - I have spent the past 4 Christmases walking down shop-lined Main Street, watching the tree lighting in the cold, drinking hot chocolate and eating homemade cookies, and singing the Hallelujah Chorus in a giant stain-glass church. This year I will only be there in my heart.

sock day

Today Wigwam had a sock sale in Sheboygan.

Apparently this is a biannual event that all of eastern Wisconsin knows about. My parents got in on this tradition two years ago and I ended up stealing most of my mom's socks to claim them for my own. They are warm and beautiful and comfortable and my feet toast champagne in celebration whenever I put them on.

So I ventured into Sheboygan to find this sock sale, all by myself. Google maps told me where to go, but when I pulled into the parking lot, I stopped the car in front of a giant warehouse and bent my head to peer out the windshield. A steady stream of people exited through a door with no handle on the outside, all of them carrying unmarked brown paper bags. I watched them for a few seconds, to make sure they didn't look like they were brainwashed or zombies or pale (a sure indication that a vampire had just feasted on them). They looked normal enough.

I parked and walked toward the entrance. An old lady, waddling and wearing a fleece jacket with pastel wolves on it, walked in front of me and I used her as a source of comfort, because nobody would attack me or kidnap me or try to suck my blud if I stood close enough to an old lady. (My reasoning is just flawless.)

I walked through the door and down a hallway, where I felt like muttering, "Walkin' the Mile, walkin' the Green Mile," and hoped I did not meet the same end. And when the hallway ended, I stopped and my eyebrows said to my hairline, "I'm coming to meet you." Aisles formed by open boxes filled a large, hallow warehouse, and dozens of people filed up and down the aisles, stopping occasionally to bend at the waist and dig through piles of socks.

I laughed.

And then I dove in.

If you have never dug through a cardboard box full of wool socks, I suggest you do so. It is a humbling yet strangely satisfying experience, much akin to what I assume pigs feel when they hunt for truffles. I've never asked one. But next time I see one, wearing my Wigwam socks, I know we'll exchange glances, and I'll smile, and the pig will nod, and we'll walk away with a bond that anyone who has not dug for socks or truffles will not understand.

At first I was too self conscious to dunk my head in a box, and casually walked down the aisles, surveying the piles from a safe distance. I stopped in front of one, and bent a little to swish some socks around noncommittally. Everyone else had their own individual boxes to fill with socks. And people walked around like chickens trying to decide which coup they wanted to nest in. And when I realized that I couldn't possibly look more ridiculous than the rest of these people, and that the women wearing shirts with cupcakes made from puffy paint weren't going to judge me, I stooped my head into a box and dug with claws of a raptor.

And with my head in a box, I listened to the conversations of the people around me.
"Do you think Tommy would fit into a large?" One lady said.
Another couple walking side-by-side surveyed their box. "I've already got enough for the kids...." Oh, what a happy Christmas those children are going to have.

Dear Santa,
This Christmas I would really like some socks. I will be an extra good boy if you can make them Wigwam. Please give the skateboard and iPod Touch to some other child with less ambition. Sincerely, Johnny

One young lady shuffled through a box of socks and frustratedly said into her cell phone, "Well how is he supposed to keep his job if he forgets to tell people what's wrong with their ears?"

I hope "he" is not a doctor, and that I have never gone to him.

In the end I walked out of the door with no handle on the outside, carrying an unmarked brown paper bag full of socks. I feel like a true Eastern Wisconsinite. And my feet are pouring the bubbly as we speak.

predicaments of people persons

Sometimes when I'm driving by myself, I make friends with other drivers to lessen my loneliness. I pick a car to caravan with and pretend that it shares in mutual companionship. Sometimes I name it.

Today I passed a purple semi and it tooted a few abrupt honks at me. This is not the first time I have been honked at by a semi. It happens at least once a road trip. I can never understand why. Is my tire flat? Is my gas lid indecent? Is there a tuxedoed man clinging to the roof of my car? I assume that must be it, because only truck drivers from their perched altitude could have such a clear view of the top of my car, right? It certainly cannot be that they're honking at me flirtatiously, because today as I sat in my Camry listening to Michael Buble in my plaid pajamas and with my stuffed bear sitting on my lap, I'm pretty sure I did not give off the "hey, I'm flirty" vibe.

I realized about 45 minutes later, however, that that purple semi was still in my rearview mirror. I had faithfully employed cruise control the entire time, so my speed never left 75, but the purple semi, whom I decided to name Grape, was fluctuating in speed. He came up beside me and passed in front of me. I didn't mind, since I was lonely and Michael Buble ONLY sings about being in love. (I think "You're Nobody Till Somebody Loves You" is a horrible concept.)

However, Grape's speed remained inconsistent, and I eventually pulled out to pass him again. Again, he honked. Okay. What's the deal? Is there toilet paper sticking out of my tailpipe? He couldn't possibly see into my car from his height, and think that I'm an attractive lass. Maybe he's lonely, too, I thought, and recognizes that we're in a caravan! I've never had another car actually acknowledge our automotive symbiosis. This was so special.

I had just drunk 3/4 of a tall Starbucks's Thanksgiving blend, and my bladder was ripe. But if I got off to pee, I wouldn't be driving with Grape anymore. Mom called, and I asked her if semi trucks ever honked randomly at her. She said no, that she had never been honked at by a semi. I still thought innocently that Grape was just honking in communion, when he drove up on my left to pass me. I looked over and he waved at me in an odd way, wiggling his fingers as if he was telling me to fall behind. I pretended it was a friendly wave and hung up with my mom.

I am incredibly ignorant and this is all very embarrassing. I am going to die at a very, very young age, unless I stop believing that everyone sees life as innocent frolics through meadows of daffodils, like I do.

Well, the lanes widened into 3, and Grape pulled up with a lane in between us, so that when I looked over at him, he said something (I can't read lips, bucko), and motioned backwards with his thumb. I, in confusion, and to myself, said, "What?" Then a truck sidled up in between us, and I pretended that I tragically got swept away in traffic, separating us after over an hour of driving together. Really I stepped on the gas and maneuvered through cars in an attempt to get very, very far away. Then my brother called, who had apparently been told by my mother that I'd made a friend with a trucker.

"Actually, he tried to talk to me, so I drove away," I explained. I could still see him in my rearview mirror, several cars behind me.
"Yeah. Have you ever seen Joy Ride?" Brandon said. "The trucker tracks him down--"
"But his truck is purple." Nothing associated with purple could be threatening! Barnie, Asbury University, eggplant....
"--and he rips off his jaw."
The tips of my eyebrows had met in the center of my forehead. "Now I'm scared."
"Yeah."
"He seemed friendly!"
"They all do."

Fear had heightened my need to pee, but I was terrified of getting off at an exit with Grape still in sight. I seriously thought about whether I could drive the remaining 2 1/2 hours home in a wet seat, if I just peed where I sat. I would rather have to buy an entirely new car because it smelled like urinated Thanksgiving blend than to die.

I kept driving, and eventually I lost sight of Grape. He was long gone, as far as I could tell, and I got off at a stop to use the bathroom, scanning lines of semi trucks to make sure Grape wasn't one of them. I drove home thinking a few things. 1.) What kind of desperate person tries to hook up with a random person on the highway, from two different vehicles? (It gives a whole new meaning to speed dating. ha, I just came up with that.) 2.) What kind of naive person thinks that when a trucker honks at her, he's simply delighted to have a driving buddy? 3.) There is a time and a place for friendliness, imagination, and child-like faith in the human race. It is not while driving alone through Chicago next to a semi truck driven by a strange man.

And they lived lonely women, for all eternity.

I don't like Jane Austen. And I've read 4 1/2 of her novels, and only liked one (see below), so I have a right to this opinion. Perhaps I'm lacking in proper breeding, or intelligence, or a heart. Whatever the reason, I don't like her.

And I feel the same for the movies made about her books or about her. Do modern-day women have no better use of their time than to use it swooning over men in ruffles who fall in love with women who aren't even lovable? And, according to Jane Austen, in order to make a truly great story:

1. If anything drastic is to happen in the plot, it must be raining.
2. The most honorable, respectable, and noble men must have very, very wicked relatives.
3. An annoying woman who talks too much is necessary to say uncomfortable things at awkward moments.
4. Some sort of secret about the hero must be revealed that threatens the heroine's happiness with him!
5. But all will be cleared up in the end so that the hero comes out even more heroic than before.
6. The heroine has no wealth, and this is a great conundrum as to whether the hero can love her anyway. Which he either does, or doesn't and therefore is not the hero and the hero swoops in gallantly at the end and the heroine realizes she's loved him all along.

However, I have to confess that I have been watching - and reading - a lot of Jane Austen recently. Yes, I know. I have nothing better to do with my time than swoon over men in ruffles who fall in love with women who aren't even lovable. And I have been doing a lot of swooning, especially over this ruffled man:

Here Mr. Tilney is saying, "I am sarcastic and mocking, but also capable of great emotion and passion. Love me."

I like Northanger Abbey so much because it's funny. The whole novel is basically poking fun at itself. And if any other man had played Mr. Tilney in the movie, I don't know if I would enjoy it so much. I say "enjoy" because watching the movie is an ongoing process for me. Like a remote-control all-you-can-eat buffet of witticisms.

There are great dangers in watching/reading too much Jane Austen, I've discovered. One (and by "one," I mean single females, like me) will begin to expect reality to follow the rules of Jane Austen, instead of the rules of, well, reality. According to Jane Austen, in my life I should expect:

1. A man, possibly up to 20 years older than me, will ride 50 miles on horseback to confess his undying love for me even while having no idea if I return his affections.
2. If I have curls around my face and am seen by candlelight, men will love me without knowing anything about my personality.
3. Poetic thoughts will be narrated in a British accent while I look at the landscape and heavily sigh. "Life will never be the same, but hopefully my heart will mend. Oh, will I ever see Philip again?" ("Philip" being the name of the argyle sock I can't find. Its mate, Rosalind, is lonely, and my feet are cold.)

I need to stop watching these things because I'm beginning to think like this, and this is bad. If only I had a rich relative or relation to take me under his or her wing to some foreign place for a few months so I could be introduced to good and bad people that will alter my life and fortunes forever.....Is that too much to ask?

adventures in nannying

I saw this as my friend's Facebook status today:

"An adventure is only an inconvenience, rightly considered. And an inconvenience is only an adventure, wrongly considered." -G.K. Chesterton

I would say that yesterday was an inconvenience that I rightly considered, but then I realized it was more than an adventure. It was a harrowing escapade.

The day started as any other. William got up from his nap, giggled when I used cold wet-wipes on his bum, and cheerily waved his hands in the air as I put him in his high-chair to eat some sliced strawberries. Then the doorbell rang. The doorbell has never rung, and as I walked toward the door, the first thing I saw through the window was a badge. For some reason I automatically racked my brain for anything that I could be in trouble for. The only thing I could think of was that I was parked on the grass. Am I getting a citation for parking on the grass? But it's our grass!

It was the sheriff, and I propped the door open with my foot as he asked if I'd heard any strange noises last night. Reason number one for watching too many detective shows: My thoughts weren't gasping at what crime might've taken place last night, but instead were occupied with why this "sheriff" didn't seem to have better people skills, and whether he was really the criminal in disguise trying to decifer if there'd been any witnesses to his crime.


I told him I was just babysitting, and he'd have to come back later to ask the real residents.
"What is their last name?" He whipped open his pad of paper and tucked his badge away.
I told him, hoping I wasn't spelling out their death.
Then Rajah, their bengal cat (which is half domesticated cat and half leopard, in case you didn't know), bolted out the door between my legs.
"Rajah!" I called in distress, as if he would stop running at the sound of his name and return sulkingly, muttering under his breath, "Nobody ever lets me do want I want to do...."


So, in turn, I bolted out after him. I whisked past the sheriff on the front steps, running through the neighbor's grass in my socks, in 50-degree weather.


"Don't chase him, he'll come back!" The sheriff called after me. My thoughts weren't rationalizing, "Maybe he's' right," but instead, "I hope he doesn't steal William, and I hope William isn't choking on strawberries."


I didn't know what to do! Rajah just kept running farther and farther away, and the pine needles in the grass poked my thinly-covered feet. So I came back to the house, and apologized to the sheriff for running away. He apologized for making me let the cat out, and we ended on good terms. As he turned to leave, I asked after him, "Is there anything we should be concerned about?"


"No, no," he said, because policemen usually have a habit of wanting you to feel safe, even when you aren't. "It was a car parked outside...the street...it had nothing to do with the house." I nodded, as if I understood what he was trying to say. Again with the people skills. What was a car parked outside? Which street? This house? In other words, he could've smiled politely, tipped an invisible cowboy hat, and said, "You needn't worry your pretty little head, ma'am. I'm not going to tell you anything."


When I got back inside, William's hand was halfway in his mouth and his bib splattered with strawberry juice. He looked at me as if to say, "Whatcha been doin'?" So I put my shoes on and ran out the back door. I found Rajah a couple yards away, his head stuck in a pile of brush. I grabbed him from behind and tucked him under my arm.


Then he growled at me, and hissed angrily, and turned around and attacked my forearm with his teeth. I think saying "ow" is probably the stupidest habit the human race has passed on through the years, because what does "ow" even signify? Nonetheless, I shouted, "OW!" and tried to keep his undomesticated teeth from piercing my flesh any more.


"Rajah is an evil cat," I told William, walking in the house. William looked unconcerned. I opened the basement door and threw Rajah down the steps. "You think about what you've done!" I told him. I surveyed the scratches on my arm, two of which were drawing blood. If I get cat-scratch fever and die, I want this blog entry read at my funeral.


After the strawberries, William and I went to the park. On the way there, I made him repeat after me. "I will not eat sand," I said. William gurgled. I considered it good enough.


But William did eat sand, and reason number 2 for having watched too many detective shows: The jeep parked on the street by the park gave me the heeby-jeebies, and I imagined some guy finding out the police had talked to me about last night and was now waiting to pounce. I walked past the jeep on the way back to the house, and a lone man sat inside with a bluetooth in his ear. I imagined he probably said something like, "She's leaving the park now. I'm in pursuit." Do criminals use cop-terms? I only ever hear these things from the detective standpoint, so I don't know. But the entire walk home I kept glancing over my shoulder to make sure he wasn't following me.


Today nothing was remiss, and my cat wounds show no signs of gangrene. And William and I even dressed alike. Does this mean we spend too much time together? Or that 23-year-olds shouldn't wear overalls?

prudent microscopes

I came across my writing notebooks from sophomore and junior years. Reading through them made me miss my writing classes, and the things they made me squeeze out of my imagination like paste that doesn't look appealing, but ends up adding a bounty of flavor to the main dish.

I don't know what the prompt was for this poem, but I don't remember writing it a'tall, and it makes me giggle:

(written April 2008)

Back on Uranus,
we eat squirrel.
On earth, they're cute and furry.
I saw a girl
run over a squirrel
with her car
while using my laser vision
to toast my albino squirrel
(the white meat is healthier).
From within closed windows
I heard her scream
and saw the tires
absorb the shock
of the little lifeless body.
She kept driving,
I assume she cried,
and I retrieved
the dead squirrel for dessert.

I usually write much more serious poetry, on my own. But for writing classes I always wrote goofy things, because I was too afraid of criticism. Once I wrote a poem I absolutely loved, and was told I had to change everything about it because of "pathetic fallacy" and "archaic language." Why must there be rules to poetry?

This is the most original version of the poem I could find, having edited it to death to please the masses (aka my writing professor). I wish I still had the original, as it was my favorite. But this one will have to do:

On A February Walk (written February, 2008)

A tree branch creaks a sad, sullen moan,
a lone, tired voice in the midst of a roar.
Blustered and blown, the clouds, thick above
are sick with a gray that drifts down in small pellets
of snow that won't stick to a ground, soggy brown,
so they circle around, in careless, cold dances.

The branches are bare, with not even a coat
of ice that would care, in its unfeeling way,
to lend beauty in bleakness to a sad, creaking tree
that, in its meekness, creaks not to be heard,
but to let out the pain of its old, wooden joints
that burns with cold fire and subsides to rekindle.

Oh, winter, with winds that brutally blow,
lend me some snow in what compassion you own
to coat all that's ugly in a blanket of white
and mute my trite groans, lonely and bitter.
For somehow, to tread upon glistening flakes
makes the walk less despondent to take.

If you want, you can visit the place this poem was written. Just take a jaunt to Wilmore (some of you may already be there) and hop on my favorite college campus. The tree's the big one right in front of the steps of Morrison and, when the leaves aren't there to rustle when the wind blows, you can hear the branches creaking so sadly that the tree deserves a poem written about him. (Yes, poet scholars, I referred to the tree as he.) I listened to it on my way to class and sat on a bench with cold fingers gripping the pencil as I jotted down lines to remember later, when I was warmer and could write more.

I miss being a writer.

summer, fall, time to go

Today I sat on a bench in the middle of a park behind my house. I've walked through this park when the summer sun is turning everything green through the flesh of the leaves, and when the parking lot is frozen over with ice so thick I could skate on it in my boots. (And I have.) Today the ground was covered in brown crunchy leaves, and the naked trees rattled in the wind. I thought about seasons.

I had just gotten off the phone with my dear friend and sister, calling from Namibia, Africa. We've been through a lot of seasons together, from summers spent watching The Office while eating brownies or hiking up mountains in Utah, to traipsing through Columbus strung in Christmas lights and watching Little Women off-Broadway. Different seasons bring different things.

I was introduced to "chider" last week, or half chai and half apple cider. It is my new comfort drink. And it goes perfectly with autumn. I just drank a mugful and my tummy is now satisfyingly plump. Also, I am missing Zachary's candy pumpkins. I used to buy them by the carton for $1.88 at Nicholasville's Wal-Mart, but last year they weren't there, and I have yet to find my favorite football-watching snack anywhere. Don't even try to replace them with Brach's. Ick, Brach's. It's a Zachary pumpkin or it's no pumpkin at all.

THIS JUST IN. I'm going on a candy pumpkin hunt tomorrow. I'll let you know if it's fruitful.

The only thing I do not like about autumn is Halloween. In fact, I hate it. I could give you some religious lecture about the origins of Halloween being pagan and evil, but, frankly, I don't know the origins of Halloween. I've heard mutterings of them over the years. But even if I knew nothing about them at all, Halloween, to me, is unpleasant. Why graveyards and witches and spiderwebs seem fun, I don't know. Why people string orange lights from their houses and hang ghosts from their trees, I do not understand.

And Monday as I rode my bike back from the gas station with a gallon of milk making my fingers go numb, the little 4-year-old boy in my neighborhood rode his in front of my house.
"Can you ride with me back to my house?" He asked me. "There's something on my porch that's scary and I don't like going home alone."
So I rode with him down the street, and on his porch was a tall zombie skeleton in a black cloak hanging from the ceiling. The little boy eyed it warily as he parked his bike. Why does anyone want to celebrate things like that? If you celebrate Halloween, tell me why. I want to know the appeal.