I woke up to April!

I never understood why anyone discussed the weather at length but when it's as bizarre as ours, I think it needs to be discussed. It's been like this since I moved to Anchorage in 1980-- but every year I am shocked. Our weather is cold for a bit, then freezing our tails off cold for a bit longer, then it warms up and rains, then snows, then nosedives into cold weather again. It's just not fun. We have green grass sprouting right now, mud puddles in the yard, and it's no fun. You can't send the kids out to play in it because it's not snow boot weather-- snow boots get caked with mud, but rubber boots are too slick. (I'm not discussing, I'm complaining!)

My brain is shorting out on me. Forgive my sentence fragments. I'm doing school work with Calamity Jane singing and trying to play Honkey Tonk Angels on her guitar (she's not good yet) and Mudd banging on a drum and singing Twinkle Twinkle. Calamity is funny because she knows nothing small. No Home on the Range for this kid, she goes for imitating Dolly Parton and k.d. lang and the finest. . . oddly this is what her mother listens to! Starshine likes to clap to the music, and she actually keeps time pretty well. Mudd? He deliberately gets out of sync. He's funny, too.

Peaches is gone. She can't handle high school. She signed herself out the other day-- she is 18 and can do this. She has all the credits that she needs to graduate. My husband wants her to stick around, but she is being obnoxious and texting me at midnight saying that she won't be home. I don't know what she has here now. She wanted to take me out for coffee, but I am afraid I will say something hurtful. After she accused me of only wanting her around for her dad's money, I don't know what boundaries she has or what consideration she feels up to showing. Don't get mad-- just love them. I dealt with worse on internships.

Now we are in the next phase of parenting. Cloud is going into her high school soon, and Guy is entering middle school. The next 5 years will be about getting the younger set up and ready to launch as well as getting the tiny babies into reading and being active. We have an insane sporting season coming up and I am tying up my classes.

I am at a loss on what to do sans child support, but my husband says we'll make it. I can't work-- they get sick and need someone home with them. Child support is an issue, but it wasn't why I wanted my daughter home. She says she wants to make her own mistakes-- on that one, you just back off. "Ok, make'm."

At my Facebook, I have encountered the kids who lived on my street who I grew up with. They were my brother's friends, but they'd come home and I'd already be there and I'd be baking cookies or brownies. They are very, very successful and I felt silly telling them about what I am up to, but they razzed me and are more interested in my work with a volunteer radio station. They remember me stuttering and getting into speech and debate.

I was apparently in indirect Cupid for a marriage! It was funny as my parents were selling their house and at this point I was 21 or so and back home post divorce. A very articulate woman called and asked about the house and we connected over the phone—I really liked her and she liked me, too. Right before she came over, a smarmy guy called and asked if we’d be willing to sell to “Japs.” I was ticked because of his term and asked if he was trying to get me into legal trouble because it was illegal to discriminate, then I started talking really fast at him, using my words like stones and hopefully maimed him for a week! He was calling from some place in Vegas and was just smarmy. She showed up right after that and I was still FUMING. I told her why. She happened to be Black and I was like, “You are human! If the money is green, you qualify.”

She kissed my cheek and said, “This is the house I want to buy. Bring me the papers.” I told her that she had to see the flaws by law and besides, my dad would kill me if I let her sign without knowing so she followed me around and signed a promise to buy right there. She was looking at the paperwork while I canceled other appointments for that afternoon.

I called a friend who said, “Her husband is White. She’s faced discrimination.” I told my friend she was full of it (she was White and married to a Black man and EVERYTHING was a racial issue to her) and she said, “You were set up by the phone call—she wanted to see if you were friendly and you passed the test with an A+.”

Sure enough, that night she signed the actual papers and said, “I want you to see my family!” and showed us a photograph. I started laughing and told her what my friend had said. Well, she had faced discrimination. My ‘hood was all white, upper class, and they are upper class—but neighbors would make some snide remarks to my father later. Well, their daughter married my brother's best friend who lived next door! She is beautiful-- and this guy is so laid back and nice.

One of the other friends who contacted me was into economics and now teaches. His brother is a lawyer, another friend lives nearby and instead of balking when I teased him that I'd dump my kids at his place, he said he'd coach them! These are people who I used to ride bikes with late into the night and watch them play basketball (my eye-hand coordination is nonexistent due to my vision) and they played sports with my baby brother. The brothers gave me a clock for my first wedding. The clock is long gone but I have replaced it and it is still "the clock that ___ and ___ gave me." I have thought of them all often in the past 15 years, but that clock made me think of those two in particular a lot.

The other day I received a note from a prof whose class I'd highlighted in my paper. She'd prayed for 10 students-- she got 18 signed up for her class, thanks to my help. She is a really wonderful person and she is very gifted-- I'm very happy that so many took the class!

I went with my church to the prison this past week. I'd been thinking of one of our ladies from Kairos and a lady knew her and let me know that she is in The Hole-- solitary confinement. They are put into a room alone with just a Bible.How the Hell does anyone read a Bible? Without understanding it is impossible and just words. She deserves to be there, but how they do the solitary confinement doesn't help the person out. Who decides how long they be there? They don't have any set guidelines as far as anyone knows-- it creates a psychological mess for the person.

I feel like a catalyst-- I don't know how long I will stay with my church group. Too many of us makes us too eager to talk to offenders. At the same time, if I am on a rotation I can't commit because I have other things to do. Still, I get with things, connect situations like getting my church into the prison, and then seem to need to move on.

The Joy of Writing Bad Sex, Coming Home, Sending Horses to an Indoor Arena, Corsets, etc.

I came home to find sick kids. Last night my husband did not have a good time. After I left something emphatically hit a few of the kids and they were in bed or asleep on the couch. They are fine but sleeping a lot.

I threw out my back while straightening up Danille's tack room. Not wanting her to know, I didn't get aspirin at her place and kept up massaging her. Anything I feel with my back is minor. My back pain is an 8 and will be an 8 for a few days, but hers will be at a 10 until the cold snap is over and will probably take several more days for her to recover. Her husband and kids came home when I found out that if they signed the contract early that they could get her horses in to an indoor arena for a couple of months. He'd been wanting to do this but she didn't like being far from her equine babies! They will only be a few miles away but women and their horses have a pretty strong bond. He wanted to get them over before Danille changed her mind and he was too happy to get back early.

With my back hurting but me still doing what I was asked to do, I was taking extreme care of it. I don't bend, I swoop, using my legs. Danille thought this was great, "Honey, watch Tea! She has perfect posture when she shovels manure!" I couldn't even grimace as I chipped manure to demonstrate my perfect posture lest they catch on! She knew that I'd gone to finishing school when we were in high school and she was laughing, "I can't believe how you are so perfect in negative weather!" Perfect in negative weather-- ah, that's me!

I corset, so swooping without bending is something that I have learned to do when laced up. Last year I was going to get surgery because birthing 9 kids took a toll on my bladder control. Six weeks after starting to tight lace, I didn't need the surgery that was to sling my bladder up. Swooping without bending my back for 6 weeks did more for me than doing over a million Kegals over the previous 10 years. I look atthat surgery that I was to get and I am flabbergasted that in the time it takes to recover from the surgery, I solved the problem with a corset! Aside from me having zero recovery time, it cost way less than the surgery would have cost, too!

Steve at On the Slow Train sent me to Eudaemonia's article on writing about sex. This was helpful. She also directed her readers to Elizabeth Benedict's Joy of Writing Sex. Before I go any further I am going to buy this book next week.

I Know You're Out There Somewhere

I'm too tired to write ATM-- a flu is going through the house. It's not the throwing up kind. It's chronic back aches! I have to study. I just watched this song and got reminiscent.

My writing prof brought up an idea for where my writing is going. I can't elucidate right now but she threw me for a loop. I'm signing up for a second semester with her. She and I just wrote back and forth last semester, I did a few stories for her, but nothing special. I thought she would fail me but I got an A because she was seeing growth that you are not seeing on this blog-- yet. She says that my muses get to me via various angels they put in my way and that I have the sense to sometimes recognize them. What I hate is how I don't get to write about fun froth. In an age where the economy is going south, I am writing about issues that are uncomfortable that she says society is ready to confront and that I need to write in a Jane Public sort of way. I'm really good at being shallow! Why can't I write about sex starved debutantes and hockey moms? (She said, "Because I'd have failed you. Next question?") Why can't I write a bad Disney movie about a hockey mom who wants to be Vice President? LOL I chatted up a psychologist who says my research will take me to dark places that I don't want to go. (It's not about witchcraft or anything evil on the surface.) I like to eat. I need to be a food writer. I should write children's books. I know my prof is right and that what she said is the right path for me, but I really want to be lite and shallow.

I'm really tired. More later.

How to Tick Off a Magazine Article Writing Professor

I was assigned to write a report about the magazine industry. I started out hating it-- it was boring and I. . . I like to write about what I like to write about, dammit! I wound up enjoying it.

My professor, who is a passionate magazine article writer, did not like it. I tore down his livelihood. I told him who my brother is, a professor there at the college, and that he had told me years ago that the media does not exist to provide information so much as it exists to sell advertising. That is what I wrote about. I wrote about how every magazine sells to a niche and that advertisers pay to sell their ideas. Magazines show you how to use the latest "stuff" not now to use what you have.

It's an unfortunate fact of life that this is true, and while I have not seen my grade, my professor had a tone that makes me wonder if I will pass the class.