Enduring Interests

I’ve been keeping a word document with blog ideas since I started Mighty Girl in 2000. It’s strange to look at notes I’ve written for myself with ideas I don’t remember. (For example, “wig story” and “healthy penis 2002.”) Anyway, here are three bits of interest. It’s possible I’ve already posted the last one and forgotten to purge it from the doc. Do you remember?

1. Nomura’s jellyfish grow to almost seven feet in diameter and weigh over four hundred pounds. Every once in a while, the population spikes, and fishermen trap hundreds of them in a single fishing net. This slimes and poisons the fish caught with them and ruins the nets, as the gargantuan jellyfish have to be cut out.

2. Small children in Japan make dorodangos, or shiny balls made of dried mud. They kneel in the dirt for hours packing the mud and polishing it until it shines like a marble.

3. There’s a butterfly resting on the car windowsill, Bryan brushes it with his key and it takes flight. He opens the door for me, and as I slide in, a penny falls from my wallet. It lands head side up.

#42 Make Your Time Line

Prompt on page 49 of
No One Cares What You Had for Lunch: 100 Ideas for Your Blog.

My first decade:

Age 1: I do not cry when hungry or tired. The doctor says I’m probably slow.

Age 2: My mom and dad stare down at me. Dad says, “I think she’s lying.” Mom says, “I don’t think she knows how to lie.” I am lying.

Age 3: I would like to wear dresses and shiny shoes all the time, please.

Age 4: Dustin tries to “hump” my leg in the kindergarten recess line, and I shove him. Forever after, I will find the name Dustin slightly irritating.

Age 5: I carry a red purse with a long strap, and fill it with pennies. One day while Joey and I are chasing each other around the playground, I swing it excitedly and hit him in the back. His face is so surprised and pained that the memory of it still makes me cringe.

Age 6: Mrs. Bartlett sends my best friend home because she has a hole in her sweater. I cry because I know her family is poor, and I have to stand the corner as punishment for crying. I attend a new school for third grade.

Age 7: While swinging, I realize I have no impending doctor or dentist appointments, and experience a surge of pure joy.

Age 8: My father dies. At his body viewing, a young man who works at the funeral home takes me to the refrigerated florist shop to buy me a flower. I choose a carnation, a white one with red stripes.

Age 9: Mrs. Ross is my happy, curly-haired fourth grade teacher, and she assigns us poetry exercises. Her note on my first haiku says “Great imagery! You will be an excellent writer one day.”

Age 10: “Mom?” I say. “How do gay people have sex?” Mom takes a deep breath and pauses. She says, “I am very uncomfortable telling you this, but they say that if you’re old enough to ask, you’re old enough to know… Gay people have sex in the butt.”

ine

2006 Collective John Hughes Flashback

A lifetime ago, we attended the Air Guitar Championships. There was exactly one girl who was a contender. She had it all: the snarl, the reckless abandon, a mean air technique. She was going into the final round, rocking it out, and bringing the house down. At the end of her performance, the crowd was going wild, she was strutting around the stage, grinning from ear to ear. And then, as if in slow motion, she raised both hands above her head and sort of twinkled her fingers. The crowd gasped and drew back. “Cheerleader,” one of them said. And just like that, everyone went silent and headed for the bar.

San Francisco was always picked last for kickball.

http://www.db798.com/pictobrowser.swf

Stats

I’m three months pregnant, and my 9-year-old nephew and I discuss baby names:

Trevor: What will you name it if it’s a boy?
Me: Maybe Hank.
Trevor: Hank Aaron had more home runs than anyone else.
Me: Really?
Trevor: He was MVP in 1957.
Me: I didnâ€™t know that.
Trevor: He was also black at the time.

Both Sides of the Pillow Case are Cool

My friend Leslie Harpold died a few days ago.

When she heard about the baby, Leslie sent us a care package because she thought an email wouldn’t be enough of a celebration. It contained:

-Punk Rock Baby and Hip Hop Baby, lullaby versions of punk rock and hip hop classics
-Two bibs, one that reads, “Notorious B.I.B.” and another that says, “Mutha Sucka”
-A onsie that says “Mama ain’t rasin’ no fool.”
-And mittens to keep the baby from scratching. One says “LOVE,” the other “HATE.”

Those mittens, especially, made me feel like a mom for the first time. They got me thinking about tough little baby hands.

Years ago, I wrote a quote on our hallway chalkboard that said, “What you are thinking about is what you are becoming.” Leslie read it and cringed. “That’s hideous,” she said.

I wish you’d known Leslie. And if you did know her, wasnâ€™t she something?

Three Years Ago Today

Four Things (For Heather)

As you may know, I rarely do this stuff. For some reason, it makes me feel cagey. But Heather so rarely asks for anything. When she does, you kind of have to do what she says. So, this is for you, sweets.

Four jobs I’ve had:

Bead store clerk

Silkscreen shop owner

Dance instructor

Volunteer coordinator, Kerry Campaign, DNC

Four Movies I can watch over and over:

Amelie

Godfather II

Gilda

Say Anything

Four Places I’ve Lived:

California my whole life, except for a month each in:

Costa Rica

London

Boston

Four TV shows I love:

Veronica Mars

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

I Shouldn’t Be Alive

Myth Busters

Four places I’ve vacationed:

Jamaica

Malaysia

The Phillipines

Australia

Four of my favorite dishes:

Steak

Lemon blueberry pancakes

Fried potatoes with bacon and wilted spinach

Creme Brulee

Four sites I visit daily:

Four places I would rather be right now:

On the Giant Dipper at the Santa Cruz Boardwalk

In a dark room with a Christmas tree that has white, blinking lights.

Tucking in to breakfast at Zazie.

Swimming.

Four bloggers I’m tagging/slightly alienating:

Bryan who has to love me by law.

Sarah deserves a healthy prompting.

Andrea who is good at introspection.

Lori who is always game.

The Wonders of the Human Brain

In the shower, I realized that I remember the entire theme song from Fight Back with David Horowitz.

FIGHT BACK! Don’t let anyone push you around

FIGHT BACK! Stand up and hold your ground.

And so on.

This got me thinking about other useless things that take up space in my brain, and I started humming theme song to Small Wonder, the witless 80s sitcom about a girl-robot, Vicki, whose family tries to keep her robot identity top secret.

Then I wondered if there was any useful stuff up there, which led me to what I remember from an entire year of high school geometry classes:

If a=b, and b=c, then a=c.

If a+b=c, then c-a=b.

Then I thought, Aveda soap smells just like Fruit Loops.

Pretend I’m in Australia

So, months and months ago, the big plan was to be napping drunk in a hammock in Guatemala when I turned thirty. What with shuffling for work schedules and natural disasters (Please ease up for a while, God. Amen.), we decided to head for Belize instead. We’re leaving tonight.

While I’m gone, you’ll find posts about our visit to Australia that I was too damn lazy to post about when we got back.

Australia! They have giant rats that carry their babies around in tummy pouches. Aussies! Very similar to Americans, except more in touch with their mortality due to the myriad poisonous things surrounding them. Stay tuned.

Thirsty is the new Thirsty

I turned thirty today. To celebrate this, my best birthday ever, I have a story for you.

When I was 17, I got a summer job and saved up a modest amount of money for a car. I was searching, fruitlessly, for a VW bus that didn’t smell like pot or konk out on the test drive, when I happened upon an incredible, candy-apple red Karmann Ghia. My stomach hit my shoes.

I’d never been interested in cars, beyond their practical applications, but if I were a car, this was the car I’d be. The thought of owning it made me want to go-go dance in the parking lot, yodel from atop the highest peak, grab startled strangers and kiss them on the mouth.

My mom said no.

She called it a little, red, moving coffin. I pleaded, reasoned, cried, and finally wandered around forlorn for a week or so. Then she had to take an unexpected trip, I had no car to get me to school while she was gone, and she acquiesced.

As I’ve often said since, when you’re a seventeen-year-old girl with a red sports car and a matching cheerleading uniform, there is very little you can’t have. I drove the car through high school and into college, replacing practically every part along the way, until a tree branch fell on the top and broke most of the windows. I was way too broke to fix it, so I sold it to some guy for $400 and fought nausea when they towed it away.

To this day, I recognize the distinctive putt-putt coming up a street, and I make Bryan stop and watch them go by. Then I wipe a single tear from my eye, and we continue on our way.

This morning, Bryan and I decided to have a birthday breakfast together, and he went to fetch our car, which was parked several blocks away. He came upstairs to get me, and as we descended the stairs, he asked if I wanted to drive. “Not really,” I said. We opened the front door, and he said, “Are you sure?”