just be.

bull

i'm a fan of dr. phil and his show and books. i've learned a lot and changed a lot as a result of what he's written and said. he does a lot of work on bullying—why kids bully, what happens when they do, how bullied kids can handle it, the whole spectrum. i feel so sad for the kids who get bullied—kids get bullied to the point that they internalize what they hear, and some of them even kill themselves. but it's taken till now for me to figure out what touches me so much about them.

i realized today, watching today's episode, that i was bullied. kind of a lot. i used to get teased a lot about my nose. if you've never seen me in person, trust me: it's a thing to inspire awe. it's huge. and bony. i hated it. i wanted nothing more than rhinoplasty for most of my youth; the only thing that finally convinced me that i'd never do it was reading a magazine article explaining that the doctor breaks your nose—while you're awake—then resets it. yeah. that was *not* happening. so now i try to tell myself that it gives me character, though i still loathe photos in profile.

i remember being bullied in middle school—sixth grade, i think—a lot a lot. i had a close circle of friends, and at some point, they decided that i was going to be the target, and they were pretty good at it. they started a rumor that i was a lesbian; i didn't get how that was an insult and totally laughed it off, so that one died relatively quickly. then one of them challenged me to a fight. a fight! girls' bathroom, friday at high noon, be there. seriously! i maintained all week that there was no way i was fighting anyone, especially not my friends, that they could show up and i wouldn't be there. i was scared inside, of course, because i'm totally not a violent person and couldn't even begin to imagine what this meant, to fight someone, but i stood firm that i wasn't going to go to the appointed time and place. fortunately, nobody came and grabbed me and took me there, and the time passed and no fought took place.

when i got to the summer before freshman year of high school, i was a target again. this time, i saw it coming: leta was having a big party and everyone was going. but i thought there was going to be pot there, and i didn't want anything to do with that. i didn't go, and that felt like a turning point. after that, none of my friends was my friend any more. we didn't just stop being friends—i would pass them in the hallways at school, and they'd literally look the other way. avoided me like i had done something horrible. i was a pariah. seriously. it was awful. i felt so alone. i made a couple of new friends, but i still missed my old friendships and didn't understand why they'd been ripped away from me.

the worst was when a rumor started in english class about me and the teacher pulled me aside to scold me. i can't remember all the details, but i do remember that the teacher was strident in her accusations and wouldn't believe my truthful denials. i remember being completely flummoxed about where her information had come from. i also remember that she was the mother of a girl of whom i was jealous because she'd landed a part in a play that i'd really felt i was meant to play—strange, but i remember that losing that part was incredibly painful for me for some reason, and i was sad that this girl would be playing the part instead of me. the fact that this teacher was this girl's mother made the pain of the wrongful accusations and scolding even more acute.

after that, things were never the same in high school. i had some other issues, particularly with a boy in the neighborhood who made me feel very threatened and vulnerable sexually. i wish i understood why, but it was intensely difficult. 

my parents took me to a psychiatrist, which i guess means that it was as bad on the outside as it was on the inside. after a few months, the doctor recommended that my parents give in to my pleas to transfer me from that high school to another one. i wanted that transfer so badly that, when my family took a monthlong trip to japan and i had to choose between starting at the new school on time and going on that trip, i started at my new school. seriously. i know. ubergeek, right? but i really thought it was the right thing. i think it probably was.

at the new school, i made new friends and renewed friendships with childhood classmates. i was never popular, but i wasn't ever really bullied again, either. i didn't fit in with any one clique, but i had some really true friends.

postscript: all the friends involved in the threatened fight of 1977 are now my friends on facebook. i've thought of them a zillion times over the years, especially the girl who was actually supposed to fight me, and always wistfully. wishing i knew what had become of them, wishing we'd stayed in touch. when i joined facebook, i looked for her particularly and found her. we are now looking forward to reuniting next time i'm in our hometown. we talk on facebook most days and always get a big kick out of each other's sense of humor. all of them have turned into beautiful women with beautiful families, grade-school kids of their own. it makes me really happy to see the photos of them. the fight incident was one of those weird blips on the radar that just seems...weird. nothing more or worse than that.

postscript 2: i'm 43 and have still never tried pot. it kind of baffles me, but there it is.

hpapy bithday to me!

at least, i think that's how pooh spelled it. wobbly and all.

and a hpapy bithday it has been indeed. lots and lots of good wishes from friends here and far, productive errands to start the day, fun knitting time at the shop, a catnap, and a fabulous dinner out with my guy. knitting time was extra-awesome thanks to the visit of eight-year-old amanda, a new knitter, with her four-year-old sister lucy and their mother. amanda sat beside me for a nice chunk of time and practiced her knitting in "her blue": hawaiian blue. adorable. lots of stories, smart and funny girl. the kind i'd want to have if i had a daughter. my favorite thing she said, i think, was "this is my favorite yarn store. everyone is so nice. <thinkthink> i think, if i ever go to another yarn store, i'll still think this is my favorite and first. well, it'll still be my first, but i hope it's still my favorite." squeezeyay.

my favorite remark of my own of the day: on the way to eleven for dinner, i said to smartboy that my favorite thing about taking off on a friday was that it felt like saturday so, when it was all over, you felt like you'd had a three-day weekend.

rather than tell you what smartboy replied, i'll let you fill in your own reaction as that sinks in. i'm sure they will be similar.

dinner was teh yum. the amuse-bouche was a tiny little grilled cheese sandwich made with pleasant ridge cheese, morels, and pesto. teeny tiny crispy good. then we had a couple of cheeses for appetizers; the triple cream was as smooth and mild as it sounds. yum-o. i had a mesclun salad with a goat-cheese dressing—i don't care for goat cheese, but i must have accidentally ordered the wrong thing. it was still really good. then came the vichyssoise, to which i'd looked forward for days, and it was every bit as delicious as i'd hoped. i don't know why it's not on every summer menu—it's cheap and easy to make, hard to screw up, yummy, and cool and soothing summer food. eleven makes its with tiny crisps of fingerling potatoes, adding a wonderful saltiness. and of course i saved room for dessert, which was a s'more, eleven style. this meant a thick graham-cracker triangle on a plate drizzled with chocolate sauce, with a small scoop of marshmallow ice cream on it and a cut-out of the same cracker atop that. scattered across the plate were a few truffle-looking scoops of some kind of chocolate ice cream—so good—but the best part (elbowing space with the vichyssoise for best part of the meal) was the homemade marshmallow, a heavenly, creamy sploosh about the size of a lime, browned perfectly with a torch. as andrew put it, it was like the best part of a toasted marshmallow: not the black char, just the creamy part and the brown crispy part. definitely not your run-of-the-mill jet-puft.

oh: another favorite of the day was a sign outside big mama's. the chalkboard sidewalk sign read,

peach cobbler $3.50
parking $45.00
total $48.50.

(big mama's is a barbecue joint a few blocks from downtown.)

anyway, tomorrow is lots of cleaning and houseworky kinds of things that should be very gratifying. plus knitting, because i have a lot of that to do. and it'll feel like i had a three-day weekend to do it.

p.s. dan abrams is hot. he makes the ridiculosity of michael jackson coverage much more pleasant. that is all.

fathers.

i have lots of parents. two birth, two step, and two in law. i should have done this on mother's day, too, but i'll try to make up for it here.

my mother and i have our difficulties, but she really is a wonderful woman in so many ways.  she sacrifices for those she loves—most recently, the years she's spending nursing my ailing, elderly stepfather through his deteriorating physical and mental health. when i was younger, i was so grateful that she had such great skin; i seemed to have inherited it, but i fear that i haven't taken very good care of this gift and don't predict aging as well as this. for all the pain in her heart, i am so, so sad. i hope that she finds some peace.

i wrote on veterans' day about my stepfather, jerry. what a character. he already looked terrible at the wedding, in september 2005; he'd been diagnosed early that year with alzheimer's, but before that, he had been vibrant, funny, and full of good stories. i miss him.

then there's my own dad.

you might be thinking, "how unfortunate that the photographer gave him that crazy look in his eye." you'd be wrong. that's how he always looks. growing up, i heard him get called "groucho" a lot, but i always thought he looked a lot more like einstein than marx. but he really does make me laugh. a lot. you can see that i look a lot like him—i've inherited his crazy white hair, his curls, and, of course, his nose. and i either inherited or learned his sense of humor and his sailor's mouth.

and my stepmother has been with us since i was in college.

this isn't at all how i picture her. i think i've seen her in a dress like four times, ever, if that. usually i picture her in scrubs (she's an ob/gyn) or in sweats or pjs (since she's always on a freaky sleep schedule, being a doc who delivers babies who are rude enough to insist on pressing into the world at all hours) or in hockey gear. but i do always picture her smiling and talking; she, like my dad and me, is full of opinions, and the house is always full of lively conversation and debate. i love that. she's also big into entertaining—one of my favorite things about life at their house is the sheer number of people who come and go, especially for holidays and celebrations. always tons of food, and never the kinds of stuff i'd expect to be helping to make. and lots of cultures—our friends anna (russian) and vijay (indian), handan (turkish) and everette (virginian), and nathan's birth family are always representing.

and my newest parents are a complete grand prize for me: my mother- and father-in-law.

rudy was a monk before he married my mother-in-law back in 1962. (i remember their marriage year easily because of this awesome, dated painting that hangs in their bathroom.) he remains one of the most thoughtful people i know, in both senses of that word. i am so grateful that we didn't lose him a few years ago to some nasty complications from bypass surgery. he is smiling in this photo, if you can't tell; he adores nancy, and the house is always full of laughter and smiles (and opinions and stories—i love that there, too). nancy is a talker and has an easy laugh; we (half) joke that andrew married someone exactly like his mother. it really is kind of scary; it's a good thing that i love her so much.

these are my parents, all six of them, in different ways, of whom i think on days like mother's day and father's day. and lots of other days. i am so, so lucky to have all of them.

so, when i hear and see the news about what is happening in iran this week, i am all the more grateful that my parents are not likely to be shot in the streets, that they can speak their minds freely, and that they do not need to watch me die in the street from government-ordered gunfire. i am heartbroken for the parents risking—and some losing—their lives, their health, their jobs, their livelihoods; for the children they may lead behind; for the parents who may have to nurse their children back to health, guard them from danger in the street or their homes, or mourn them, maybe even having watched them die. i cannot imagine anything worse. please hold these parents in the light today and every day until they have peace.

no pithy headline tonight.

• killing someone for doing something legal within his or her profession is not legal, no matter how abhorrent that something is to you. it is not self-defense.
• it is really, really cool to see a space shuttle piggybacked on a jet.
• fish should not be 15 feet long.

a little editorializing:

i have three friends who i know have had an abortion. i'm sure there are more—those are just the ones who've told me. two were single teens, one of whom had a child already and did not want to increase her family while she tried to put herself through school and lived partly on public assistance. another was married and had children already and was already overwhelmed.

abortion is heartbreaking, to me. i do believe that life begins at conception—that is, life in the sense that any organism is alive. when the one friend i knew while she was wrestling with this wrenching decision was agonizing over it, i asked her whether i could adopt the child if she carried it to term. (my husband and i do not intend to have children biologically or through adoption, and i have had my tubes tied for 11 years.) when she decided to terminate the pregnancy, i mourned the loss of a child with genes contributed by this wonderful woman and her amazing husband, a sibling for her other children.

but in no way do i believe that it is my place—or my government's place—to force any of these women, or anyone else, to carry a child to term if that woman does not believe that she can do so. it is not my place to tell her that (fill in the blank) is not a good enough reason to end her pregnancy or to make any other determination about her physical or mental health. that is up to her and her doctor, perhaps with the help and guidance of some spiritual authority or her partner or both. but it is never up to me, and it shouldn't be. my belief that the thing inside her is alive is not the same as believing that it is a person in the same sense that she is a person.

it certainly is not the same as believing that a medical professional who performs a procedure on her—a legal procedure, with her informed consent—is a murderer. and it is not the same as believing that vigilante punishment or vengeance against such professionals or their clients, families, or associates is in any way acceptable, let alone laudable. shame on randall terry and his ilk.

i am easily entertained.

i offer this as a preface, as i am about to review a movie for you, and i want you to have some context. before i met smartboy, i dated a guy who told me that i had an easy laugh. he meant this as a compliment. and more than one person has echoed the remark, so i figure it's probably true. i've also been told that i'm easily entertained or amused, most recently yesterday by anna. it could mean that i'm simple, or it could mean that my movie reviews aren't really that useful because any old movie would make me happy. i do love me a movie.

but i promise that i am not being simple when i say that "up" went from never seen to in my top five favorite movies of all time when i saw it yesterday. not immediately—immediately, i knew i liked it, as i love all things pixar. just minutes into it, i knew that i loved it more than most pixar movies, which is to say more than most movies; i was crying and laughing and so in love with the main characters that i was already sad that the movie would end—in two hours. and the longer i watched, the more i loved it. by two-thirds of the way through, i knew it was stuck. stuck in the list of top fives forever. my number 1 favorite movie cannot be budged ("it's a wonderful life"), probably never will be. but "up" has displaced "monsters, inc." in spot 2 and joins it and "the princess bride" in the list that i think will persist for a long time. spot 5 isn't fixed, but top 4 doesn't sound as important. ironically.

so i'm saying: get thee to see "up," preferably in the theater. and if you need a buddy to see it with you, consider yourself buddied. and see whether you can pick yourself out among the characters.

woof,

dug.

thinking of my favorite veteran

i think of jerry often and try to remember him as he was when healthier, telling great stories and full of creativity and life. alzheimer's disease has gutted him, but he'll always be my favorite veteran—a real hero.

(at my wedding, september 2005; photo by lisa kyle)

happy mother's day.

happy mother's day to my mother, my stepmother, my mother-in-law, my sisters-in-law, my aunts, and all my mom (and stepmom) friends—lisa, jen, anna, beth, michelle, tobi, allison, amy, katy, cinnamon, christine, cyndy, kate, jennifer, melissa, su, tahnee, emily, andrea, barbara, monica, erin, charissa, carla, colleen, cara, charm, anne, t-bird, heather, georgi and michelle, jodi, karen, lisa, roxanne, marnie, pam, patti, polly, doots, ryan, sara, stacey, elfie, muffy, vickie, and anyone else i may have omitted! :) being a mom is so hard i couldn't bring myself to do it, so good on you! hope someone does something nice for you to thank you for all the nice you do for them every day.

knitorama

let me just start by saying ow. owie owowowow. not the migraine i had this afternoon, which has settled down, but my right hand and wrist. i knitted too much on my queen of beads socks too quickly, i guess, not enough breaks or something, and it HURTS. (the reward, however, is pretty wonderful: pretty new socks for me!)

making my living as i have for the past couple of decades making constant daily use of a mouse and keyboard, usually for double-digit numbers of hours per day and usually for six days per week, i am no stranger to wrist and hand pain. the difference with this is that cracking my wrist and hand joints is *not helping* this time. no response. it's not a joint thing but a muscle thing, and the muscles ache like leg cramps that wake you up in the middle of the night. (if you haven't had those, they are tearfully painful. eat a banana.) from the heel of my hand to my elbow. as soon as i finish my two current edits, i'm headed to natural stitches to buy one of those wrist support thingies. a brace, i guess it's called, to compress? i have no idea how they work, but i'm really hoping that they do. :(

that said, pain aside, the weekend has been really fun. i finished these socks, which is more gratifying than i remember finishing a project being (yes, anna, *you are right*), and i'm wearing them, which is also more gratifying than i remember wearing my handknits (again: *you are right*).

the funnest parts were hanging out with anna, as usual. saturday afternoon, i went over to the yarn shop to see (and hear) franklin habit read from his book, speak, and sign copies. he is so full of win that i can't believe that he fits it all in such a compact package. i love the book, too.

after the signing, anna and i went off to a little going-away party for our friend tobi, who is moving to nashville. so sad :( it was fun, though, held at the floral design shop that our friend april owns, which is just gorgeous, catered by our friend michelle, and attended by lots of people i haven't seen in a few years. and i met a few new people, too. punch, mini cheesecakes, lemon-filled cupcakes, spanakopita, crudites, and lots of other things i can't remember, all yummy.

then this morning, we took a class on the history and techniques of lace knitting and knitted lace. i had to escape to the car to sleep off a migraine for a bit in the middle, but it was really a wonderful class. i learned a lot and had fun; a day doesn't get much better than that. oh—and one thing that has made the day even better: i cast on a pair of socks using a merino-cashmere blend that is positively decadent. i am in love.

whew.

you would not know, from the fact that i just woke up from a 21-hour sleep, that i had a great time with anna on sunday at the pittsburgh knit and crochet festival. it really needs to be called a fiber festival or something, because there was weaving, roving, and all kinds of other fiber- but not knit- or crochet-related stuff. i bought a lot of yarn from creatively dyed yarn, of which i'd bought one beautiful, squooshy skein in michigan this christmas at threadbear but hadn't seen anywhere else before, plus a bunch of brooks farm and knitting notions stuff (including a smooth-as-glass cherrywood nostepinne that i cannot wait to try out), and some all-alpaca sock yarn that is going to be on my feet a lot, i predict. and some beautiful chunky/bulky yarn from cosy, who continues to be irresponsibly adorable. i also picked up a lovely sweater pin from the nicest woman in the world and some small accessories from glory-ous knits.

no photos, but this is easy: just picture lots and lots of blue—medium blues, mostly, and with a dusty grey quality—in every kind of yarn possible. some fingering, some aran, some worsted, mostly sport, with lots of sheen and squoosh. you will be picturing it all correctly.

unfortunately, i went to bed sunday night with a bit of a migraine, my right temple stabbing, and i thought maybe i could just sleep it off. i went to bed at about 8:30–9, i think, and i should know better by now. i cannot sleep it off, and it will get worse. it did, until, by morning, i could not move my head off my pillow. smartboy very sweetly brought me some imitrex injections from my study, and i did one (ow) and slept until about 2, when i couldn't tolerate the still-stabbing pain any longer and did another injection (ow) and slept until after 6 p.m. and while i do appreciate the extremely creative and entertaining, intense dreams that my brain seems to bring me, i would gladly trade them and it for one that didn't give me crippling, blinding pain that lasts for days. it still hurts, but not enough to stay in bed. i needed to take my meds (yeah, like nine hours late), go to the bathroom (!), and eat something. smartboy made chili (gotta love a man who makes such good use of his day off), and it smells wonderful.

oh! and speaking of how wonderful smartboy is: valentine's day was off teh hook. i did work most of the day (which is good, seeing as i was not off today and couldn't even get up long enough to send an i'm-out-sick email), but in the evening, he made a fantastic filet mignon au poivre (his first-ever from-scratch meal, i think—he does a lot of chili from a hard times cafe mix and plenty of frozen foods and fresh pasta, but really, this was something to behold), finished off with some yummy tarts from costco. AND another tiffany–frank gehry necklace. he is a prize.

when i was younger, so much younger than today

when i was younger, so much younger than today...

twenty-eight years ago today, i was in bed when the clock radio--which i left on while i slept every night--roused me from my sleep. i heard "john lennon" and woke up--sort of like you don't hear ambient noise until you hear your name or something else important to you. i listened for a few fuzzy moments before i could process what the speaker was saying: john lennon had been shot. dead. in front of his apartment building. in front of his wife, best friend, treasured companion.

these were not times like now. in 1980, i didn't know anyone who had a gun. not even a hunting gun--and i lived in semirural virginia. i certainly didn't hear every night on the news about someone getting shot or shooting someone. it was a completely foreign concept to me.

john lennon, on the other hand, was an intimate, in my mind. i felt closer to no one than him, with the possible exception of my parents. i was very lonely then, all my friends at school having decided that i had stayed uncool when they had all upgraded to coolness upon rising to high school. none of them would speak to me, even when eye to eye in the school hallway. my parents' marriage was obviously falling apart, though they didn't separate for three more years. i was seeing a psychiatrist to try to get me through some internal confusion, depression, fear, and god knows what else--but she was a friend of my mother, so i would never really open up to her. i was a boiling pot of scary, as is pretty much any other 14-year-old.

but the beatles were my solace. in fourth grade, five years before, my best friend--a girl i positively worshiped--had introduced me to the beatles with a mad magazine image of the fab four age-progressed to age 64. she picked paul as her boyfriend. i chose john. over the years, i would decide that i loved george's shyness or ringo's humor more, but i always came back to john. i would listen to their songs like they were sacred hymns, sing along with them as though my life depended on it, read everything i could find about them as though i might someday need that information when i'd meet one of them and they couldn't remember some vital fact about themselves or their music or lyrics. i could pick out each man's part in every song.

there was more fanatical mania, but you get the idea. i was obsessed. hearing that night (like 3 a.m., i think) that john was dead hit me like a wrecking ball.

that morning was to be my visit to a new school, one that i was sure would solve all my problems. the shrink had recommended changing schools as the last thing she could think of to help straighten me out and bring me out of my funk (it wasn't called depression then, at least not in my circles). i had been looking forward to this visit because i was dying to change to that school and leave my misery behind.

instead, i was exhausted. my eyes were dark and sagging from crying all night and not sleeping a wink. i showed up at the school ready for my tour and interviews only in attire--not mentally or physically. but the one moment out of that day that i recall is seeing that fourth-grade best friend for the first time in a year or two, as we'd drifted apart slowly, and both of us crying and hugging. we couldn't believe what had happened.

i still mourn the loss of that creative mind, satirical spirit, and peace-seeking soul. i don't cry about it any more, but when i see a photo like this one, displayed on yoko ono's site today, i really am taken back to that day 28 years ago, sad in a place i can't get to unless i'm experiencing some pretty profound grief. war isn't over yet, but we're working on it. we miss you.

(i did change to that school the following january. laura and i didn't become friends again; she'd made new friends who'd come to the feeder school after i'd left it, and i just didn't fit in. but i made friends, too, and high school wasn't miserable any more. even better, thanks to the facebook, we've rediscovered each other. she's just as cool and interesting as i remember.)

another side note: i never knew about this, but i really, really want to go. i don't care what people say—including what *i* once said in immature jealousy—yoko rocks.