when we pray is it breaking the fourth wall?

Things that were said today:

Before Sunday School starts I turn to G:
-What is it about church that makes me want to not talk to people?
-You hate large groups of people.
-Oh, yeah. You're right.

Monstruo Uno–my little nannykin who is now six and has no more baby-fat in his face!–shows me his latest lego castle contraption:
-And I made him the king because he has a mustache.


Later Uno, Dos, and I are all building together:
"I'm busy building this gibbergabbermumblemumble" says Dos.
"I'm busy too!"
"Can I be busy with you guys?" I ask.
"You're always busy with us," says Uno.

All of these things are undeniable facts. I wish I could figure out how to change some of them. Mustachioed kings? Really.

naps in meetings

I miss my nannykins. Today M. One showed me the volcano, lava, and tornadoes he'd drawn on the sidewalk.

{sigh}

If anyone new asks, I'm not claiming creative direction of this documentary. It's been over a year and I feel nervous as the letter H. Especially since we show the College who's commissioned me the rough cut of our documentary on Friday.
I'm going to be very ill on Friday.

Very, very ill.

And I've lost every other good word of thought I had.

powerade is refreshing, too

Some people are of the firm belief that Sherlock Holmes is still alive because the Times of London has never printed an obituary for him (As reported by the book we gave to my sister for her birthday which I immediately borrowed) (I have the best sister ever).

I've been going through the people that I know and wondering who's character I should profile. I've got lists of them and then I think of Charles Dickens and wonder how to appropriately go about my descriptions. I'm lost so I'll just list today.

LIST OF TWO AGREEABLE PEOPLE IN MY LIFE

My roommate who reminds us all to be flexible because we never know when ten people are going to show up to make dinner with her in our kitchen. Or when we decide to delay our plans so we don't leave her alone with a homeless person whom she's invited over for dinner.

The awkward boy at my church who is ever adding interesting moments to my life. I remember my first conversation with him I didn't want to talk to him. Then he stood up in Sunday School and asked if anyone had any little tea lights. I told him I had five dozen and I'd bring over some that afternoon. He wanted them for a science experiment. I made him explain it to me once but I didn't really get it. One Sunday after church he met me in the hall and said, "I wanted to talk to you but I don't have anything to talk about." So I asked him about his life.
I've noticed he's always very concerned about whether or not a girl is happy with her new haircut. He always asks to make sure they're happy with it and they haven't had any of the drastic haircut trauma he's heard about. He's taken an interesting interest in my H.C. In the beginning he met me in the hall after church and said, "I liked your hair better long." Yesterday after church I was talking to a friend and he came over to tell me I should really grow my hair out.
"Oh," I said.
"Well, I guess you'll do whatever you want, I just really liked your hair longer."
"Okay, well, we'll see what happens."
I enjoy people telling me absurdly socially inappropriate things like that. It's refreshing. But it must be authentic and sincere! So don't go starting up cheap imitations!

Yesterday my cousin's sons, mis monstruos, kept sticking their popsicles under my nose to show them to me. Monstruo Uno would like you all to know that if he sticks his rootbear popsicle on Dos's yellow popsicle it tastes like pineapple.

P.S. I enjoy you.

Funch

Interestingly enough*, Dear C and I were lunching today (because nobody spends their afternoons playing cops and robbers anymore. We all job and work and school in our afternoons. Lunch. We all do lunch. Fun lunch, aka: Funch) and we talked about how even we feminists (we're both strong and devotedly feminist and maninist) who are wildly amazing and independent and accomplished find ourselves quickly falling into being the adoring significant other. Not that adoring isn't bad, but it is when you slip out of being you and having your life and there's something precious that you compromise and you lose.

What is it that I lose? What's that word for what it is? I'm not talking about virginity or something physical like that. There's no wall of Jericho that comes tumbling down, there's no boundary that is crossed, no rules that are broken, it's an essence that slips through my fingers and leaves that gross feeling afterwards.

It is somehow related to the times when I'm interested in someone and my mind gets fogged up so that when he calls me and asks me to spend the evening with him I say yes and forget that I have friends and deadlines and to do lists and personal wishes.

I feel silly even trying to write about it because...I've found no words. Is there scientific proof that says we don't always think in words? Because I find always find myself struggling as I delve at cliffs of thoughts or maybe it's not like digging granite out of a quarry but more like clay. Sly smooth cool clay.

Oh dear, I'm still talking. Typing, I mean. And does the meaning come out? Hmmm...

Also, it turns out that I'm not the only one struggling from terrible dreams. I was watching my cousin's five year old, Dear Monstruo Uno, and the neighbor boy we were playing with noticed my earrings one day.

"Are those spiderwebs on your ears?"

"No, they're dream catchers."

"What are those?"

The conversation stuck with Monstruo Uno who asked my cousin for one to keep his nightmares away. She tried to explain...well, anyway, if you've been to a family dinner you can imagine how something so simple ended up involving P Diddy and God and cultural insensitivity and distinguishing the differences between Spanish cuisine and Mexican cuisine. So no dream catcher. And I don't have one either, really (a dream catcher).

I started thinking about the discussions I've had with people about my dreams. What I really wish could happen is that what Friend R--I sound communist, let's just call him Comrade R. Comrade R suggested imagining a beautiful mythical bird. Actually it was more simple when he was describing it and more beautiful. I should have written it down. But it was that tactic that people always suggest, put something into your dream, something good, to save you from the nightmarish parts. It's never worked form me in fact they turn out worse because then something good is ruined. But all the same, I'd like to explain this magical little trick to my dear Monstruo Uno because maybe it will work for him. And maybe if I imagine it will work for him it will work for me.

*I decided in trying to write a reply to a seven page letter from someone in Denmark that it is sometimes better to start as if you're in the middle of the conversation.

reign of errors

Today as I was five feet away from my nanny-ing house I saw a fire engine parked on the street. If anyone knows any little boys, you should know this is their dream come true. I ran inside the house, "Nannykins! Nannykins, hurry-up with your shoes we must hurry outside to see the fire engine!"
The dear mother, my cousin, helped one, and I helped the other with tying their shoes. Monstruo Uno said, "Maybe I can hear the sirens from here, my ears are growing louder, I can hear everything people say now. I can hear everything you're saying, I can hear what everyone is saying. I can hear you talking. I can still hear you talking."

It was one of those afternoons of greatness, the kind where I even get one of Uno's jokes which are my favorite kind of jokes. Voici:
"Knock, Knock."
"Who's there?"
"Worms."
"Worms who?"
"Aren't you glad I didn't say bird?"
"Yes."
"You're supposed to say, 'Bird who"
"Oh. Bird who?"
"Bird you glad I didn't say Bird eating worms?

And then everything went through annarcic meltdown after lunch (a toy lizard was convinced that all the other toys were murderous spiders and kept beating them all up and trapping them under the piano lid). So I still don't know what to tell you about children. Except that I would like to reference Virginia Woolf, if you have children that are yours, get a room of your own. Otherwise you'll be trying to write a letter but your letter will be bombed by a renegade christmas ornament and you will not be able to write until the imaginary fire has died down. And don't even try to put the fire out yourself with imaginary water because you will always get it wrong and will have grabbed an imaginary fire-shooter everytime.

here's some from the mason jar

I can't not post today because a dearest friend tagged me as being a fantastic blog she reads. Hopefully she reads good blogs.

[me]

Thought six:
I don't know what children are about, but I think maybe it's absurdism with a dash of transcendentalism.
I wish there was more salt involved. Because my family loves salt. I'm not sure if the full weight of our love of salt can be carried across the web rays to you. For example, There are family dinners every Sunday, and every Sunday there averages one mini salt shaker for every 1.4 people. And my sister spreads her toast with butter (the salted kind) then sprinkles all with salt.

My cousin has always said she thinks her Monstruo Dos, who is dos, looks like my Dad. For those who need to know, I nanny her two little'uns. This afternoon as he was running around the parking lot with either a broken umbrella or a mini soccer ball, I saw it. Mon père. Monstruo Dos smiled (a smile verging on all the mischeiviousness in the world) and I looked closely and critically and there was a mini fuzz-head version of mon père. Oh there he was, my dear funny Pa, dancing around with a broken umbrella just as he would dance around the house with laughter at the puns he would find.

............................

When I saw this on PostSecret on Sunday, I was wishing it would be from that person I know.

{sigh}

And now, I need to commence the writing of my compare and contrasting of Life of Pi and Catcher in the Rye. Let me tell you about that later.

Love you all,
Marge

what happened after we played with dumptrucks in the snow

Today we talked about poo-ing in pants and when that was being all wrapped up (and I didn't even need to get my hands dirty) Monstruo Uno claimed Monstruo Dos had eaten the top off of a floss stick. You know, the reusable kind where you change out the little flossing head. I took the child onto my lap, it's best to treat these cases with precaution, I'm sure, as I don't have any previous experience in this matter, and asked him a few diagnostic questions.
-Did you eat the floss head?
-yeah
-Did you swallow it?
-Yeah
-Did you really swallow it?
-no (or it could have been yeah, sometimes they sound the same)
-Is it in your throat?
-yeah
-Do you know what a throat is?
-no
I pointed at the middle of my neck saying, "This is your throat, this is your throat," then he started poking my neck as well. So I poked his neck back. Then he cuddled up to me and I was so charmed by this goat-like baby and nobody was choking.

must wash my Mick Jagger hair, must wash my Mick Jagger hair

oh my darlin'
oh my darlin'
oh my darlin' marxist foe,
oh I went to california
now I'm back in old _____.

I was a country bumpkin cousin
excited as could be
to see a strip of sky between
the passes over me.

there was wind to hold my soul and
lots of charm and fall and sand
you were my autumn time-oh
now i'm back in winter land.

what am I doing?
What am I doing
what am I doing with my life?
I don't know, no I'm not quite sure
but I'll maaaaake the best of it.

A nice bright spot is being back to my nanny-kins. Love them. Monstruo Dos was full of hugs and he made a fish face at me which I finally deciphered correctly as being attempts to kiss my cheek.
Monstruo Uno showed me his tricks he's been practicing all morning which look like the beginnings of break dancing. He told me he learned them from his Grandma in Florida and that I should tell my family. OK, I will, I said.

Ya lyublu tebya.

The end.

blip, blip, blip, blip

Delaware state flag

There are the best of times that you may remember always and take with you past the grave and then build the life after upon those cinderblocking memories. Well, yes, I've had some of those.

Monstro Uno and I have been cinderblocking it. Hier (ayer, ieri, gisteren, yesterday) during the perfect fall day, We sat on the curb and watched as the wind picked up the leaves at the end of the street and sent them skittering towards us. I'd never seen anything like it. We chased the leaves around.
Today, we held our tri-weekly wrestling pillow fight. Then he decided to give the pillows different magical properties. "This one is Burn Danger, this one pokes, this one is Accordian Danger."
Wait....What? "Accordian Danger?"
"Yeah. Which one do you want?"
"I want Accordian Danger."
He also told me that for his dad's birthday last year instead of blowing out the candles, his dad sat on the cake and squished it and so then they made another one and he squished it again and he squished all the cakes.
Later we were looking at state flags. "What does Delaware's flag have on it?" I asked him.
"A diamond...and a band."
"Yes, I think you're right, Delaware does have a band on their flag."
Connecticut has a police badge on it and Florida has a pirate ship.

And finally the triumphat average French student has found a new clé (keeeeey): post secret in French! HA! There I'll get jargon and terminology and phraseology and sentances that people actually use! VERNACULAR!!! Hail the conquering hero!

PS. peut-être I'm the only one who's interested, BUT aujourd'hui the French writing lab tried to correct at least three things that were correct in the first place. I even pointed one out while I was there and got the WHITE OUT on my paper. L'arc de triomphe ! This gives me hope.

hello, my name is Palate

A Black Orpheus to set you dreaming.

I've said I hate to dream.
But then my father read me some spare journal pieces:

Fall 1992 (the year when I was five)
Marge and I drove over the prairie last night and we saw the quarter moon. She told me during the day the moon's mom moved his bed back to where he started and at night the moon moved his bed wherever he wanted to. The moon's mom's name is Andrew. He has lots of brothers and sisters and three silly boys, three silly girls, and three stray girls. The stray girls just seem to be part of the family. When I asked her how she knew all of this she said the moon had written her a letter.

Oh glory! That I was pen pals with the moon!

And although I begin to wonder at how our lives are so filled with things that can break--I'm getting tired of my own voice saying "Cuidado, you can't do that, you will break all your crayons; your plate is going to fall off the table and break; you're going to fall; fireman's hats sometimes just break," I have a tiny little voice in my head haunting me with "you'll shoot your eye out"--and although Black Orpheus was filled with all the feeling of inescapable dread my dreams fill me with, we can still in the end have loved and have been pen pals with the moon. Then make the sun rise with a song we've just made up.

Ahab, your professor clips his heals together

The add/drop deadline for mi universitio being yesterday kind of makes me feel doomed. Doomed-io. Ooohhhh France, WHY?!?! Why have you drawn apart all of the grey squishy curls of my brain, drawn them all apart to different points on different maps. Your syntax is a confusing fog blown into, through, and clogging up my ears. I hear no evil, see no evil, and taste no french pastries. French leeches are sucking out my blood. My heart is faint.

Monstor Dos that I love little dearly every afternoon is trying to defy gravity. We have been conducting scientific experiments. If he climbs up on to another precarious perch while I'm not looking, will he fall this time? Yes, I say to you. He will. Again and again. I've never seen him fall so many times in one day. He screams, I pick him up, he pushes away from me to start climbing again. He is one determined person. And we must respect him, for defying gravity is a very noble aim.
He is also trying to create space. If he shoves a thirteen inch wide kitchen chair into a two inch spot, it will fit, right? Where there's a will there's a way, isn't there? Monstro Dos carries around a heavy aura of frustration. There's some more doomed-io-ness.

bibliophile in the nursery-the horror of the twentyfirst sentry

My favorite conversation of the day started as I saw G teetering on his trike-bike.
"Cuidado. You don't want to fall."
"Why do you say that?"
"Because then you could fall." (And I've seen you fall just like that five times)
"Then what?"
"Then you would be hurt?"
"Then what?"
"Then you would be unhappy."
"Then what?"
"Then the world would end."
"Then would you tell my frie-would you tell all my friends?"
"Yes, I'd tell all your friends that the world had ended."

I should have thought CUIDADO as I signed up for this writing writing writing frenchy class. I no longer have fear of the french lady who teaches me. She doesn't look at me as if I am a repulsive alien when I speak french as some frenchies will. I do have A-nnoyance because she insists I visit my arch-nemesis at the frenchy writing lab. France is being a difficult spouse that you think you might have to divorce. There is no comprendre going on anywhere. Germany has jumped on their back and offered them good German beer and I'm sitting in a pile of half-eaten granola bars from babies. Tomorrow I seek out a marriage counselor. And since France won't let me in, I'm preparing a french speech to ask France to come to Canada, you know, meet half way and add in spice.

Yesterday I found a dreamy little nursery rhyme I'd never heard before:

If all the world were paper,
And all the sea were ink,
If all the trees
Were bread and cheese,
What should we have to drink?

still celebrating the cheeseburger. further chronicles of one who goes by green light and ignores your voice

Today was an awe, happy family day.
Monstro Uno took us on a walk around the neighborhood. Twenty feet in front of me he waited on his bike.
"You see that I waited? I remember what you said the other day."
Monstro Dos is teething and wanted to be held all day long. I sat at the kitchen table reviewing my math for financial class when he crawled into my lap. I read my chapter of setting financial goals outloud to him while he gnawed on a jumbo strawberry. After a few minutes he tugged on my thumb and turned my hand palm face up. He needed someone to hold his slobbery strawberry while he played with my calculator. That's right, don't worry, Monstro Dos, I love holding your gummed-up food in the palm of my hand.

I've found others who concensus with me: campus is ugly and young this year. The flowers are beautiful the weather is great, but I feel like there is a marked lack of people who are creative and interested in their wearings. Sure it's marvelous that we don't all have the same priorities, but where's the art? People can make campus pretty, but people you're leaving it blah. Ima step up my game.

well you asked for spice. but that's an herb.

Well.
Monstro Uno and I conducted some scientific research today. We have solid proof that lack of sleep somehow inhibits your hearing ability or maybe it's the synapses that bring the sound to your brain.
Monstro Uno is still not satisfied with our findings that not listening means that something is taken away.
"You're not going to listen? Ok, I'll just carry your bike in the air in one hand and push your brother's stroller with the other. That's fine." (Luckily that only lasted five steps before we all started listening again.)
But you know, I have to say, I was at a loss as to what to do with a child who was upset with everything ("I can't eat [the pear] cut that way, what if it falls apart?!" "Don't put tape on it!...How are we going to keep it [paper boat] from falling apart?..Nooooo not tape!"). Do I make him take a nap? Not possible. So I sat down in the kitchen and started reading about a woman who had this constant feeling as though she were falling. Even after she hit the floor she felt like the floor would open up underneath her and that she was still falling. A couple of minutes later, my dear Monstro Uno asked for a popcicle.
Yes.
Yes, have a popcicle even though no toys have been put away. By you.
Yes, please. I don't want to argue or fight with you.
And that popcicle made all the difference.

My first assignment for my dear little documentary class is to write about five little things that normally no one notices. We must be ever watching! Always! Be aware! As my last documentary professor instilled in us the mantra, be wildly interested.
Wild.
At one point this evening I was walking my bike down this busy street. I'd noticed a man hesitate to see if a woman needed help with her fallen groceries, a shameful amount of litter and this boy's black socks. Then three boys (men? age generalizations are so difficult) sitting on a tailgait of a truck in the Burger King parking lot called out to me. I thought, odd, but why not.
"Can I help you?" I asked.
They wanted to know why I was walking not riding. And they wanted to know my name. And they wanted to know all about me.
They told me they were "hicking." Ten points if I could guess what hicking was.
"Well, I'm guessing hicking is tailgaiting in parking lots."
I won the ten points.
They inspected my groceries, told me I was cute, talked about Curious George, asked me to put them in a movie, offered me strawberry milk shakes and said I should hang out with them.
Acutally I should clarify, they didn't really just say I was cute. One kid/man said, "I was feeling really talkative earlier but now I'm kind of not sure of what to say. I mean you see a cute girl walking past and so you start talking to her and then you realize that she's not just a cute girl but that she's maybe a little weird (thanks for your honesty) and impressive. There's something to her." (He was impressed I had peas and tomatos in my grocerey bag).
Hmmm.....
Wild?
Interesting?

Odd.


Melodica that.

"You met him on the streets. And he gave you his card... Snap a picture because you'll never be there again"

There's something to be said about nannying. People write books and make movies about six year olds pulling their pants down. They make some nice sum of money on their darndest moments. Maybe I should get in on this.
The children, or los monstros as I think of them, are making me remember a lot.
1 The first time I tried vanilla extract even though I knew my mother wasn't lying to me that it didn't taste good. (Last week, "Crisco doesn't taste good." "Just let me taste it." Ok. you taste that Crisco.)
2 Mom's distaste for Shoots n Ladders. "Now I get two turns." "No you have to play fair otherwise no one wants to play with you." "Then I get three turns." "Then I get three turns, too." "Ok...or no you just get one turn."
3 Richard Scary books
4 Mom's Camelot record as she explained about the weather in Camelot.

I'm still amused that the older monstro cautions me to be careful so that I won't break a nail.

I ate a cheese burger today. I haven't eaten a burger in two years.