Being Homesick, or, Why Being a Grownup Sucks

I wish I lived in the Ozarks.

I wish I had remembered to apply to schools in Missouri.

I wish I was observant and articulate enough to explain why I wanted to leave Hillsdale.

I wish I hadn't lied to my parents about my boyfriend. Any of them.

I wish I could remember the name of two of the roads in the woods.

I wish I could have managed to keep that pillow my mother made me.

I wish I knew anything about my mother.

I wish I knew anything about my mother's family.

I wish I knew anything about my Dad's family, for that matter.

I wish I knew how to talk to my Mom about my Dad's family.

I wish I didn't have to explain why I have a mother and a Mom, who are not the same.

I wish I knew how to talk to my Dad about my mother.

I wish I had finished that story about my Dad's mom.

I wish I knew my Dad's stepmom.

I wish I had more visits with my Dad's dad.

I wish I hadn't had so much loss in one year.

I wish I could have saved my dog.

I wish I could spend more time with my little sister.

I wish I knew my baby sister better.

I wish I didn't rebel so much against the like-clockwork order of my teen years.

I wish I hadn't learned how to lie so well.

I wish people hadn't believed me.

I wish I hadn't had to leave Missouri.

I wish I didn't get homesick.

I wish I didn't get Momsick and Dadsick.

I wish for one day of one summer of one year in the life I already lived.

Research Before Breakfast: Doors

This bit of research can only be considered useful, funny, even lucky, if preceded by a little background.

My house is about a hundred and ten years old. It's effective build date is some time later, and it's been remodeled and retrofitted an inestimable number of times. Much of this is actually retrofit vs. remodel, which means that things like plumbing and electrical were installed however it'd fit instead of being installed in a modern way in an old structure. Walking in my basement--which itself is retrofit, dug under the existing structure and the dirt piled under the floor joists on the other side--is for short people. And even short people get their hair tangled in the mess of wires no longer used for things like cable and phone. Each consecutive upgrade left the skeleton of the previous technology. This house really could use some help.

Besides the help we've been offering it over the past five years, we've also taken to remodeling certain portions because of the general small size of the place. We've yanked all the lower cabinets in the kitchen and installed a stainless steel standing sink, and an island. You can have six people in the kitchen having a conversation while dinner cooks now. Before, two people doing dishes was like mining in a coal tunnel. We did something similar in the bathroom, so you don't feel like you're in a port-a-potty.

There's a hall in one of the built-on sections. This hall includes the bathroom, a linen closet, and the entrance to a bedroom. We keep an air filter in the hall during swamp cooler season to scrub the air free of desert grubbiness before we breathe it, but even without the filter there, the doors to the three spaces make the hall extremely irritating to use, and it's got the bathroom--one of the most frequently used doors a house ever has.

Take a jump in space and subject matter over to the new art gallery. My husband is working on a system of sliding doors to cover the entries to the office area--a reception window and a door--so that the gallery has not only more wall space but is unbroken visibly. Options are frustrating. He wants to try out the simple sliding door systems for closets, just to see what kind of weight, effects visible from gravity, and general utility it has. (Spoiler--he did not choose this system for the gallery. That is a-whole-nother research thread.)

Come back to my hallway. This miniature barn-door-style system is now in place for my bathroom door. I'm LOVING it, except that he just used the bathroom door itself as the sliding door, and if you're aware of geometry in any way, you can imagine that the door meant to fit into a space does not effectively cover the space. And it's the bathroom, the place most urgently needing complete privacy, especially when you have guests. And I have a party coming on in a few days.

Remember the retrofit house and the fact that things that would standardly be...standard...are just....not. The concern is that getting a door is going to be a special order or a table saw project. We run a tape measure of what size should cover the space if hung from the track. It might be useful to note that the ceiling is made of plaster over a scrap-wood-like-frame, and this track has its mounting screws every few feet. We combated this in the bathroom by running a long board securely to studs and mounting the towel rack to that, and we have done so again here at the ceiling--so that this slightly-lower-than-standard ceiling results in a slightly lower-than-that door height.

80"

Seriously.

Before we get our hopes up, we check the standard sizes for doors.
Standard Heights & Dimensions: Door Height: 6'8" (80")

In my house of a century's worth of retro-remod-slapshod construction (this was a rental before we bought it), we can buy a standard-sized door.

We're thinking we're going to get this one, if we don't find one at Habitat for Humanity cheaper.

It's suitably boring, has no doorknob holes (the doorknob in the temporary door has been one of the most entertaining things when we have guests--they all try to open or close the door like normal. That is, if you like making fun of people), and can be painted however we like. It won't collect dust from the aforementioned swamp cooler's air drawn from the dusty world. We'll put a cute little handle on it or something so it's easy to move. 

I like these:

Research Before Breakfast: Hat Pins

 This is a new column that may induce a bit more daily to the 365 format of this series of blogs. The idea is that I'm brewing while I'm catching up on all the activity that happened between when I went to bed and when I woke up, and in this global society where I have friends in more than 10 time zones at any given time, and my local friends have friends in multiple time zones, there can be a lot of activity during my sleep. But before my coffee brews, I will find some question to answer, some thing to look up. Welcome to the first edition of this column.

Wear a Bowler Hat Day was designated yesterday. I'm not sure where it came from, but our Tuesday Muses writing group came decked in rounded caps. You can find them on Facebook if you must see. 

http://www.target.com/p/men-s-
adult-bowler-brown-hat/-/A-11317331

But Wear a Bowler Hat Day is not just a random hat you've bought at Target. No, this group has craftiness up its sleeves and there are things you must do to your bowler hat. You must make a clip, or some decor. Peacock feathers, gears, roses, buttons... you name it. And when you've made your hat-garnish, you must show it off, and there are limited number of people showing to the writers group and you know your friends in all those time zones will wish they'd have been there to see it. So you take a picture of your newly crafted clip modeled on your bowler hat. You post it, and people start talking about it. Then the conversation gets a little strange.

Someone asks if you need a hat pin, because they had been thinking of making one. No one in the conversation knows what a hat pin is for. The knowledge pool is limited. I have a hat pin in my jewelry box, handed down from who-knows-where. I don't know what to do with it, and it was long before I even knew what it was. I know there are many people out there just like me who have no clue what to do with said object. It's very sharp. Too long for shawls. Not for hair. Not a clue.

http://www.vixen-vintage.com/2012/01/history-of-hatpins.html

(I know what to do with hat boxes. I store my craft supplies in them and they are very chic all in a graduated stack.)

Turns out, Google knows all. Vixen Vintage is the first result for "How do you wear a hatpin?" They actually show you where to put the pin on different styles of hats, like here:

and here:

http://www.vixen-vintage.com/2012/02/how-to-wear-hatpin.html

and even have a suggestion for what to do if you have fine hair that may cause the pin to slip...

 try crossing bobby pins at the back of your head, and pin through that AND your hair.

 and also some common sense advice about the use of hairpins...

Pins don't secure a hat for high winds and dancing like a madman. 

So now I know, and so do you. And if you would like to purchase a handmade pin, you can find some like this for sale here:

http://www.genaconti.com/Hatpins.htm

35 Days until November 1

Tuesday Muses, if nothing else, is a place to get your muse on. Or, you can just eavesdrop.

"My kind of nutjob is the best kind of nut job. You can trust my nuts."--quote from Tuesday Muses

"Haul tables in heels. Suck it up." --classic quote from Tuesday Muses. 

 "That's NOT what she said. That's the INVERSE of what she said."--classic TM quote

"What was the setting of that show? Post-Apocolyptic Candy Land?"--yet another classic quote from TM.

Turns out, it wasn't the setting of that show. But now it is the premise of my NaNoWriMo novel. So, welcome to the first edition of

Notes Necessary for November Novelling

Post-Apocolyptic Candy Land

Before I reveal too much information and taint your preconceptions, I have a couple questions for you, my audience.

1. What do you remember about the game Candy Land?
2. Did a Candy Land character make you feel uncomfortable at all? Weird you out? Cause minor distress? (You can answer this question here: SodaHead) 
3. Will you be willing to play Candy Land with me?

Turns out, I have to actually ask number 3 because some people are just stuck up about it. I know YOU'RE not one of those people, so let's set a date.

Seriously. Date Night--you, me, and Candy Land.

Fight

I think it should be a rule of parenting that if you get into a fight in front of your kids, you make up in front of your kids. Making up is usually quieter than the fight, so usually all they hear is a fight. Show them the healing. Show them what happens next.

Camp Nano August 2012: Words 1-694

Act I: Where ten people are introduced. Words 1-10,000

Storyline A:Father, Mother, Daughter, Son, Son, Son Words 1-3,333

1. Personality of Daughter 1-694

She walked into the kitchen. The parents were already gone for the day, and she was finally ready for her first cup of coffee. Being the only girl of four children, she was reluctant to do anything anyone expected of her. She thought of her boyfriend, upstairs, and the bravery of such a boy to decide to sleep with a girl with three brothers. She liked putting her boyfriends in difficult situations, and situations they didn’t necessarily go into with full knowledge. Saturdays. She poured her coffee and stirred in a cube of sugar and watched it malforme before sipping the air cooled coffee off the top. Some noise came from the basement. The boys were plotting the execution of some massive attack plan. There were four computers down there, just in case she wanted to join them. Usually there were four more boys down there and the computers they hauled with them taxing the internet. She didn’t even use the internet anymore on the weekends. She’d learned better. She cinched her drawstrings on her running pants and stepped into her shoes. She laced them tightly and waited while sipping the occasional new layer of less-than-scalding coffee. The boy came down in his swishy pants, she could hear him. She smiled and turned around. She gestured to the coffee and worked on finishing her own. When he sat down she got up, put a bagel in the toaster and poured a glass of orange juice and a glass of water. She drank the fluids quickly and then gave him half the bagel hot from the toaster. She ate hers dry and didn’t offer him anything to put on his.

She looked at the time. Approaching lunch. The brothers and brother friends would be stampeding up in just a few. She debated leaving him there. She decided to go outside and stretch, letting him at his leisure in the kitchen. Whatever happened, happened. She heard a hootenholler from the basement just as she was closing the door behind her. She grinned.

The breathlessness of running was always an unmatched feeling, the pounding, the forcefulness, the knowing you had to breathe and breathing because it kept you alive. Unmatched. Yes, sex made her breathless. Running was better. She barely felt the push of the earth back into her legs as she used them to propel herself forward. He kept stride with her, kept up and brushed his breath against hers. She kept the ones that kept up with her, but that didn't pass her up and leave her behind, as if she needed to be impressed. With three brothers, she couldn’t be impressed by a boy. There was nothing left that could be done that was impressive. Five miles was her standard run. He kept her pace and when they returned to her front porch she felt fully exhilarated. They stood together in the kitchen and depleted the rest of the cold water from the fridge. She thanked him for the company, kissed him breathlessly on the cheek, and told him she’d see him at school on Monday. She jogged upstairs and left him in the kitchen again.

The shower was invigorating. The sex, the coffee, the run, the shower. She didn’t need to accomplish anything else that day to be having a good, good day. She started shifting gears as she soaked. The stack of homework she had left to do sounded like a good way to avoid getting into trouble. If she got it all finished, she’d treat herself to an evening out, maybe an ice cream cone, and take the day tomorrow for a hike. Write an essay, read a couple chapters, plug through some mysteries that need solved, mostly about the relationship between gravity and its opponents. She decided she didn’t like the shampoo she’d been using and should buy some new stuff. She also decided she should probably get a job to pay for her shampoo whimsies. A job working on the trails in the summer sounded like fun. She could get paid to hike and move a rock every once in a while. That would be a good job.

Typewriters in Public Day

My friend and I sat on Main Street in front of a popular coffee and lunch hangout for people of all types. Our typewriters nearly match, so as we worked occasionally we would have problems we could ask each other and help each other solve.

So what did we write?

1) Found Poetry:

The mountain sprouts at Main Street;
Art cycles from Scratch every day.
  Aspen photos Art's main squeeze:
  Aspen photos upcoming women;
  Aspen photos your exceptional Baby.
The photography gallery made Art blue.
  Bar headquarters! Bar interiors!
  Champion boots & red wings;
  Champion the trek.
Fair Colorado.

I wrote 3 versions of mine before this one. I wrote mine after my friend wrote hers, and she observed at some point that there was a significant lack of verbs on the signs around us. This was an advantage as I helped her look around to find words that could be used as verbs.


2) The Things People Said, including to us, about us, we said or we overheard.

"Oh MAN..." bemoans the toddler with his mom grimacing behind him.

"Look all studious, like," says the girl taking our photo.
"Write it down," whispers <friend>.

It sounded like he said, "We all have a public stowaway."

"They're down at that corner there, at the cafe with the checkered umbrellas."

"My brother-in-law tried to sell one of those on Craigslist...sell a manual typewriter."

"Bicycle bells, isn't it?" "That sculpture over there? I thought it was reflectors or something." They go over and ding the bells.

"Did Sherry see that?"

"Do you guys travel everywhere with your typewriters?"
"We're an art installment today."

"So you can type it and it prints at the same time?" he asks in faux awe. "What happens if you make a mistake?"
"Of course, we don't. We're perfect."

"I really like commas. Sorry."

"That's my typewriter."

3) Alternating Passages of a Story.

(I do not have the transcript for this; if it becomes available I will link to it or paste it here.)

4) Practice Using Apostrophes. Because apostrophes are not found by reaching with the pinky, but instead are located at Shift+8.

That bill is Mary's. This hat is Harry's. We are at Mom's house. We weren't expecting anyone to show up to watch us.

 5)  Q & A to each other. Specifically from her to me. Maybe I'll ask her next time.

6) Our Own Narratives
(Note, typewriters have a level of thinking ahead involved that I don't have practice at. This is unedited, and I just tried to use what I had already put on the page, even though I would have deleted, edited, or reworded things if I'd have been on the computer.)

Daring each other to perform better is an important requisite for the members of the group who are gathered here today. There are many of them, caught in a tangle of legs and wheels and chains and bike bodies. When they are all together they are one, but then they start peeling off like the audience after a movie, and the cars leave the lot one by one. The bicyclists stand and talk and seem oblivious to the others who are leaving. Somehow they know they are leaving, and there is some sort of order to it. It's instinctive, as if they are a particular species, with ingrained habits. Then, without warning, they slip their feet one at a time and push forward and wander into line and they are all gone. All that is left is the store and all the bicycles and bike bells for sale lined up on the sidewalk. And me, with my typewriter and coffee.

7) Handwritten Notes

10 people tallied mention us within ear shot or talk to us about our typewriters.
3 people take our pictures.
Kids
Learn to use apostrophes
We should have a typewriter cleaning day
Performance Art in Public
Dress like 60s business women to match our typewriters
Tip Jar
Paper, envelopes (stationery)
eraser paper
They can type
Polaroid 

8) And From This Developing Idea, a Handout, by <friend>

What can we type for you?

A love letter?
An eviction notice?
A poem?

You can dictate.
You can give us something to copy.
You can improvise.
So can we.

    Typewriters On Demand
*An original, one-of-a-kind gift
*A unique way to communicate
*A way to be an imaginary time-traveller

Feel a connection with the past
                                  with your grandmother
                                  with mechanics
Isn't it swell to be able to look at something and see how it works?
Don't you think it's nifty to type something and have it print at the same time?

It's the cat's pajamas!
It's the bee's knees!
It may even be groovy!

We can type in red.
We can type in black.
We can type (sort of) invisibly.

What can we type for you?