BASEBALL

She doesn't understand the first thing about baseball yet. The "rules" of this baseball game played at a birthday party yesterday were very free form anyway, involving 4 throws, then everyone run to whatever base, then repeat over and over until you felt like doing something else. But Isabel wouldn't know a base if it stood up and introduced itself, and she had no time to slow down and have it explained to her.

What she DID know was that some kids had gloves and some kids didn't, and she wanted a glove. She ran around searching for one and talking about it, until she finally located one that had been abandoned, ran over and scooped it up. After flashing a triumphant smile in my direction, she looked out at the busy throng of  kids running around to different bases, and said three words:

"I could win."

Yep, you're darn right you could.

Kitty

Jan. 8, 1994 - July 29, 2009

To our dear Kitty:

you were extremely loved, in all of your quirky glory.

We will miss you.

I VOTED

FOR HOPE

FOR MY COUNTRY

FOR MY FAMILY

FOR CHANGE WE CAN BELIEVE IN

FOR BARACK OBAMA

I want to help save my country

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Inviting one more angel

"I know it's safe up there
But take those wings you wear
And fly to me.
Fly to me."

--from Fly to Me, singer's name unknown but will be found

HOPE

Happy Valentine's Day!

And Happy Happy Birthday to Carrie Link!

MEME me up, Scotty

I've been tagged for a MEME about my "writing." I don't really know what a MEME is and I am still only able to refer to my "writing" with quotation marks, but who am I to question the infinite wisdom of Carrie Link? (Plus, it's a nice kick in the pants to re-enter the blog world now that I FINALLY have phone and internet service. Devil, I have met thee, and thy name is Verizon.)

Five tidbits about my "writing:"

1. In the past few months, 85% of my blog posts have been formulated and written in my head only. They have been far more scintillating and witty than the ones I actually post, so I hope you have been able to check some of them out telepathically.

2. I feel guilty about how much I love receiving comments, since I have been so spotty in my commenting on the blogs of others. (I hope you know who you are, and that I love you--and often read you--even when you don't see me.)

3. Like I do with many (most) things in my life, I tend to make my writing/blogging experience more complicated than it needs to be due to my own over-analysis. TT calls this analysis paralysis, which generally annoys me and which I contribute entirely to his male, testosterone-plagued existence, but he does have a point. Occasionally.

4. I spent most of my education and all of my first career reading and analyzing the writing of others, so I do get a kick writing about anything I want...like, stuff other than other peoples' writing.

5. I took a creative writing course my first semester in college, with an incredible teacher who was also a respected editor of The Kenyon Review. I will never forget this definition he taught us: "The only thing that makes a writer a writer is the profound, unshakable desire to do it." So, I'm definitely not ready to call myself a writer. Yet.

I tag Holly because she is awesome and I totally do not get how she does it and need to learn. I would also tag Suzy, because her writing and her journey are as beautiful and powerful as she is, but I am too late because she has already been tagged.

In other news, we have moved and I am deeply in love with all of it: the cottage, the neighbors, the village, the people, the river, the trees, the leaves, the smells, the air, the crickets, and even the spiders (except for those really huge ones). We've only been here for three weeks and are a long way from being settled, and yet I haven't felt this deeply at home in years. Belly is happy and delicious and now wears apricot pigtails.

Love.

I sing like a Big Mac

As we approach our moving date and Belly and I spend more and more time traversing between the city and our new house, I have realized one of the (many) great benefits of moving to the suburbs: the reintroduction of driving into my life! I always used to be one of the "drivers" in the old days--the friend with the car (his name was Julio from the Paul Simon song), the one always happy to pick other people up and drive places near and far, even though I have no sense of direction. I spent two and a half months driving across the country the summer after college, but twelve years of NYC living made me practically forget how much I love to drive.

I have done some of my best thinking behind the wheel of a car. It's amazing--I couldn't possibly imagine sitting in a chair and just thinking about stuff for more than about 5 minutes. I am way too fidgety and antsy for that, and my brain would just turn into a useless hamster wheel. But take that chair and make it move down the street, road, highway, strip, it doesn't even matter where, and my brain takes off as well. My thoughts can move forward too, from one topic to the next, instead of spinning in place. I wish I could try meditating on one of those moving floor things in the airport...I bet it would be a lot easier. Maybe I'll start picturing my meditation cushion as a moving object, floating across the water or moving through the air! Oh, and I also need to get a meditation cushion.

The other incredible thing about driving "alone" in the car (and by "alone" I currently mean accompanied by no one over 2 years of age): what a fantastic singer I suddenly become. I mean multiple record-deal fantastic. Like, a complete hush would fall over crowd in Madison Square Garden just to catch every timber of my fantastic voice. The unfathomable power of my singing voice (ONLY alone in the car, or else accompanied by like-minded singing talents/best friends) is the reason I had always completely lost my voice by the time Julio and I arrived at school. Nine of hours of pure singing sensation (plus a couple cigarettes) required a few days of recovery.

So I have realized that my singing voice has a lot in common with fast food.
In regular life, they both may leave you feeling...less than satisfied, perhaps even a bit queasy.
But in the car, on the road, they are nothing short of awesome.

Some arithmetic

Or, What I Did On My Blog Vacation (in no particular order).

Went to Vermont with family.
Minus: note to self: do not schedule family trips when two or more women involved will be experiencing PMS.
Plus: had many wonderful times together anyway.

Had a colonoscopy.
Minus: this hardly seems necessary to explain.
Plus: everything was perfectly as it should be.
Super-plus: the poor woman's colon cleanse!

Spent an evening in the Pediatric ER.
Minus: after many hours, everything was fine and it turned out to be a waste of time for all.
Plus: is there any better way to describe a trip to the Pediatric ER than as a simple "waste of time?"

Bought a house.
Minus: a quick glance at our bank account will answer this for you.
Plus: it is nothing less than a dream come true. We are moving to a cozy little cottage with a wonderful literary history, nestled on a lovely street in a town that is basically Mayberry, if Mayberry was funky, artsy, had a great farmers market, and was 25 minutes from New York City.

Got a weird infection and had to go on high power antibiotics.
Minus: stomach was temporary disaster.
Plus: skin was temporary perfection.

Had a new attack of some old anxiety that I thought had been kicked to the curb for good.
Minus: no fun, as any anxiety/panic sufferer will tell you.
Plus: a great reminder that I was in need of a tune-up.
1. Had a lube job: the ratio of coffee and wine to all other fluids required some realignment.
2. Fuel levels needed correcting: healthy food is not only meant to be purchased and fed to others as one shoves errant oreos and pieces of cheese into one's mouth. Healthy food, it turns out, can also be ingested by one's own self every once in a while.
3. The engine was being neglected, left to spin and spin on its own. When my engine is denied some basics--time to read, time to breathe, time to sleep--this is what it will tend to do.

Learned something, again.
Minus: What can be negative about learning something, except for the realization that I have to keep learning it over and over again.
Plus: Learned (again) that plans and promises are not nourishing, they are depleting. I have only the power of now.

"I recommend you take care of the minutes, for the hours will take care of themselves." -Lord Chesterfield