Loving February

(I just took some medicine for a migraine, and now I type on a laptop bouncing with caffeine jitters on my lap. It's kind of fun.)

My mother wrote in her weekly family newsletter last Tuesday that she loved February. Because the snow starts melting between storms, and there are holidays like groundhog day and valentine's day and presidents' day to distract her, and soon enough February is finally over and it's almost spring!

Tim and I have been mocking her (in private, of course) ever since. Walking Jonathan to school, we will point at a pile of ice and say, "Look at all that gray snow! I love February!" Or, "Only three weeks until March! I love February!"

Of course, this morning rain was falling instead of snow, and the gray detritus left by December's snow plows was shrinking into gray slush, and my nose didn't hurt so badly from the cold when I walked outside yesterday. Maybe my mother has a point. Maybe I can appreciate February because it will be over quickly. Because there is hope that winter will eventually will be over, but not so much hope for spring that the regular snowstorms and freezes are depressing, as they are March and April. And May. And June.

While we are speaking of the weather, our February weather is totally beating out the weather of those of you in Washington DC, and even S. California. That I can appreciate.

A note

A little over a week ago, Tim posted this note from Jonathan on his facebook page:


Within a matter of days, Jonathan received two letters in the mail containing dollar bills.

Dude. I think the boy is onto something.

Learning new things daily

Today, I learned that the library closes at 6pm on Saturdays. I learned this at about 6:27 pm when Tim pulled on the library doors in an attempt to help me enter and select some books for the family for the week. It was a disappointing lesson.

A few minutes later, after having redirected the family outing to the local market for produce, I learned that the Big Rivalry basketball game was happening tonight in my town. I learned this when traffic crawled to a stop on the road heading to the basketball arena/ grocery store.

Not all the lessons I learned today were disappointing. I learned that Jonathan is getting good at riding his bike. We both took our bikes to the church parking lot -- totally empty on a Saturday afternoon -- and rode in circles. He sang while he biked, humming in happiness. And as I followed him in and out of empty parking spaces, I remembered that biking can be done just for the happy feel of movement, not only for transportation.

I loved my son when he was born, but it was the ferocious instinctual love of a mother. I love my son now for all the same reasons, but also because he fills my world with so much light. His honest pleasure at spending time riding a bicycle in circles over the empty asphalt, just happy to be with me in the sunshine in January. The simple things that make him laugh -- and cry. Like Tchaikovsky with the volume cranked.

Today I laughed and told him, "You know what? I love you. I'm so glad you're part of our family."

And he smiled and said, "Me too." And I knew he meant it. And I meant it. And he knew it. And isn't it amazing?

And if that isn't sappy enough for you, then I don't know what to say. Except maybe check the library hours before leaving home. And the local basketball schedule.

That's all.

Worst type of dream

I like it when I dream that I'm flying. It doesn't happen often, but it's always fun. I also like to dream that I'm falling, plummeting off a high cliff or out of an airplane. I always jerk awake at the last minute, and lie in bed smiling at the free adrenaline rush. I like that. In these kinds of dreams, my mind takes over my body and lets it do impossible things.

Sometimes my body takes over my mind and hijacks my dreams.

The worst example of this is when my body's bladder is full, but my body's brain is not ready to wake up and haul the rest of the body's appendages into the cold to empty said bladder. The bladder always takes revenge by inserting itself into the dreams.

We start by having to interrupt the dream sequence to find a public restroom in dreamland. In the dream I go in, do my thing, come out, resume dream activities, only to have to find another public restroom immediately.

After a few trips, the bathrooms begin to change. They get progressively more and more reasty. Urine on the floor. Missing doors on the stalls. Crowds of people staring through missing doors and floors sticky with mess.

And my dream companions, naturally, begin to get more and more annoyed with me. Can't we get on with normal dream activities here? Hello! Surely there's something more interesting in your subconscious than this? And I keep getting more and more annoyed with the dream sequence. Another bathroom? Didn't we just take care of this a minute ago in this dream? What is going on here?

Then my alarm goes off, and I wake up in the cold darkness, and see that it is past 6:00, and realize I have to pee really badly. So I get out of bed and walk across the floor into a tiled public space with a trough along the far wall where I can squat and take care of things, provided the smell doesn't get to me first ---

And then the alarm goes off again and I realize I haven't actually gotten out of bed and my bladder is going to burst if I don't get up, so this time I roll out from under the covers and walk across the hall to the wide room carpeted in green industrial loop carpet where some sort of business meeting is going on, but I make my way to the far corner to the lone toilet standing in its own black stain ---

And then the alarm goes off again and this time I really get out of bed and make my way into the living room where someone is trying to sell me a new micro wireless robot which will follow me around providing internet everywhere, which sounds like a really great idea except I can't pay attention now, I have to find the public bathroom which should be through that door on the left ---

And then the alarm goes off again and this time Jonathan walks in and turns on the light, and I feel Tim roll over and get out of bed and mumble that he's going to go use the bathroom ---

And that is it! I am up and out of bed and fully awake, because if I have to wait to use the bathroom I will pop.

Monotony of the senses

End of January. Is it fair to complain about the winter yet? I try not to complain, because I'm normally such an overwhelmingly positive person. Overwhelmingly so. But I'm really tired of winter.

I am most tired of the monotony of the senses that is winter. Every few days recently, a new snowstorm has blown in to bury all the color, and turn the world into blacks and whites. No oranges or blues on which to rest your weary eyes. Just black and white. And when we get a thaw, there are shades of brown, to be buried again in blacks and whites with the next storm.

And the eyes aren't the only sensory organ that misses summer. Snow has no smell. When you step outside for a breath of fresh air in winter, you don't smell mud or cut grass or crunching leaves. If you are lucky, you don't smell anything. Unlucky, you smell car exhaust, or worse, snowplow exhaust. And that breath of fresh air rushes into your nose and freezes out your sinuses. Ouch.

In winter, there is no wind in your hair or sun on your arm, or even the tickle of a bug crawling up your leg. You feel almost nothing on your skin, because every inch of skin is covered and double covered in layers for warmth and layers for waterproofing and layers to wear in the dry heated buildings. And the bugs are hibernating or frozen.

And there's no sound of snowfall. If anything, snow muffles sound. And the song birds are gone. And the crickets are dead. The sounds of winter are the sounds of traffic driving through slush, or a snowplow scraping the road.

End of January. I can't expect color before April, or even the smell of mud before March. I hate having four seasons.

Movie star

Here is a first for me: I was interviewed for a documentary on Friday.

First they painted my face to remove all the bad colors, and then they painted it again to put back the good colors. Then they put me in the center of a dark room with bright lights shining on my painted face and asked me to talk. Talk talk talk. Talk. I blathered on and on and on, lots of nonsense coming out of my mouth, feeling stupider and stupider until our time was finally up and I left, cringing somewhat over the blather that had come out of my mouth.

Out of an hour long interview, three 15 second clips may be used in the film. Good luck to them with that, I say.

You will have some questions at the end of this story.

1. What is the purpose of the documentary?

To encourage high school students to continue taking math. Specifically because math will make you brilliant, rich, and ultimately it will Save the World. Or at least keep our country ahead of the Chinese. Go Math! These were the sorts of things they were looking for as I blathered for an hour. On and on and on. But by half and hour in, I felt pretty fake. If I really wanted to influence a high school student, I would sit them down and ask them their interests and then explain various opportunities they could look into. Not pretend that I knew anything about what it takes to Save the World. And I'd say that even to a Chinese high school student. So there.

2. Given that attitude, why did they want you to be in the documentary in the first place?

No one told me why. They just told me to sign up for a slot on Friday. Intrigued, I signed up. But in retrospect, I can guess at their reasons. I think they are related to this post.

3. Wasn't that great getting a free makeover?

Yeah. I guess. I didn't actually look at the result until I was getting ready for bed that night, when I noticed that my cheeks ran straight up into my eyes. The makeup artist wanted to cover those dark blue patches under my eyes, you know? And I ended up with my cheeks terminating at the eyeballs. It was a bit of a shock.

I had to scrub my face to clean it off. Then scrub it again to really clean it off, trying to rub it out of my old lady pores. When I was done my face was all red in the nose and blue under the eyes -- back to normal. But worse, my skin felt really dry and tight and raw from the scrubbing, so I coated it in an overnight moisturizer. I conclude that although the makeup job disguised my flaws for the high definition movie, overall it was not a good thing for my skin. So I won't have it done regularly.

4. When can we see this awesome movie?

I have no idea. I don't know if I will want to see it. I mean, it's going to be high definition, right? Which means I'll get a really good view of my pores. Plus all that blather coming out of my mouth was truly embarrassing. And the 15 seconds they keep will sound more embarrassing on film, with a billion people watching. Since undoubtedly billions of people will want to watch a math infomercial for high school students.

5. Are you now considering a career in film making?

No. But now that you mention it, I think it would make a good addition to my list of 100 things to do before I die.

Number 79: Participate in a movie making project.
Status: Done.

I am totally smoking my way through that list. Awesome.

Day off work

Before having children: Ah. Day off work. Sleep in a little in the morning. Get up and do some chores around the house. Spend the afternoon catching up on a little work. Spend the evening reading a good book. Return to work Tuesday rested and rejuvenated and ready to go. Just what a day off is for.

After having children: School is closed. The boy wakes up at 7am anyway. We make a list of chores around the house, and let him fill in the other activities he wants to do. Play shop. Play with marbles. Spend the afternoon at the playground. We fight a little over dinner -- he won't eat his peas even though he once loved them. More chores in the evening. Bedtime comes, and I'm free at last. But although the library book beckons, I have to get ready for work tomorrow.

*Sigh*.