Fried-Day

(This post was originally gonna be about how tired I am. But then I thought 'Fried!' and this came out instead.)

Today is the opening day of the Texas State Fair - the Most Epic State Fair in the world, which I am certain is true even though I have never been to another state's fair. Because it's Texas. We have a beautiful Fair Park, we have a bonkers fried food competition, we have a butter sculpture and a car show and livestock and a gargantuan cowboy named Big Tex who burned down once but we brought him back bigger and better BECAUSE TEXAS. 

It's also the home of The Food and Fiber Pavilion, one of the most mellifluously named places in the universe. I have loved The Food and Fiber Pavilion since my earliest foray into its air-conditioned splendor. Before Texans cared about the environment, we would bring home a giant bag of fliers and pamphlets about cotton, butter, vacationing in Corpus Christi, and fifty recipes for ground beef. International Paper gave out rulers and a zillion pieces of paper, and we had to collect them all. We hauled bags around for the rest of the day, so that at night we could pore over our brochures and see if either of us missed any.

When we started doing yearly fair trips, I was a newly-homeschooling tween and my only memories of the fair at that point were riding rides with the random kids of a now-obscure family friend. I still remember the fun house - I was easily scared so that imprinted very well, the rest is a blur. But my mother, my little sister and I ventured down to Dallas on an uncrowded weekday circa 1995 and established a firm tradition and rigid routine for our subsequent annual fair days. 

First of all, we like to go on Senior Citizen day. They are easily outpaced so you can feel like you're really zooming through the place. Though the wheelchair row is full for the marionette show, there are plenty of good spots in the upper levels of the auditorium. Same goes for the frisbee dog show - we claimed a sprawling spot in the corner that should be engraved with our names by now. The cooking demonstrations are crowded with blue-hairs, but they're also slower in answering the audience questions so I won an Anaheim pepper once for being able to tell the chef where Disneyland is located. I didn't even know it was a pepper! I'm pretty sure it turned black and we threw it away a few weeks later. Don't fact check me on that.

We also have to start with a funnel cake, then enjoy a corny dog for lunch, perhaps washed down with root beer from a barrel. Cotton candy was a must, but also a major pain on rainy fair days. Abby has clearly traumatic memories of trying to keep her cotton candy under her plastic poncho - it's an important piece of family lore.

The Food and Fiber Pavilion (can you hear the angelic chorus celebrating that heavenly phrase) is also home to the Borden Dairy display, where they sell the Platonic Ideal of Chocolate Milk and you can also pet a cow. I'm ashamed to say I can't remember the cow's name at the moment but they missed some hipster street cred by not naming her Lizzie. There's still time, Borden - morbidity is very in this year.

I haven't even told you about the Creative Arts building, the Russian craft booth where I decided I wanted to learn Russian (I can say 'thank you' and 'apple' and 'cloud'), the car show, the sales buildings that are like museums of American ingenuity and forceful salesmanship. I do have to say that years ago all of the sample hot tubs were full and we had to put our hands in all of them, but now they only fill one or two which is a cheap move. Also, I appreciate the super powerful foot massage machines much more as an adult than I did as a teenager.

Going to the fair is a very different experience with Asher. When he was tiny, we were really able to recapture the feel of those earlier trips; but with additional family members, it's just never going to be what it was. Plus, The Food and Fiber Pavilion (God rest its somewhat-defunct soul) is now fully 1/2 gift shop and just not nearly as fun as it once was. But I still have to go pet the cow, and I'll never stop talking about it because it makes my heart sing in glorious Foodie Fibery harmony.

Also, Asher gets too overwhelmed. The smells, the crowds, the animals, the restraints needed to keep him from escaping into the wild - not his scene. I made a valiant effort last year but he just wanted to stay at the Texas Lottery booth and watch the numbered balls swirl around. Fun, but cheaper and easier to do with a bucket of ping pong balls at home. 

Sometimes we long to recreate our most treasured childhood memories for our kids, forgetting that they're not us, and that it can't even be done in ideal circumstances. His season for the fair may come, but for now I'll get his corny dogs from Sonic and show him dogs doing frisbee tricks on YouTube. And maybe I'll go by myself this year, just to see the jellies and quilts and have a funnel cake and visit The Food and Fiber Pavilion (ahhh).

Still Here, But Also Lazy

Y'all.

Netflix, a coloring book, and leftover soup. That's what I swept aside for this moment here, with you. Except I already ate the soup, so it was just the shows and coloring.

I don't know how people get enough doodling time to warrant all the adult coloring books I see for sale. Adult coloring books have tiny, fiddly designs - it takes forever to fill a page. So when are you doing them?

I went through a few different phases of coloring because initially I was under the impression that colored pencils were the only way to go. They look mature, like something an actual artist would use, so you can feel like you're doing something highbrow. But what I discovered is that I only get faint whispers of color if I hold the pencils naturally, so I ended up with a death grip claw hand and walked away feeling anxious and a bit sore, actually.

So then I tried crayons. Nostalgia factor, they smell great, they're satisfying to sharpen. But the colors end up under your nails and I still finished a coloring session looking like I was trying to do a bird shadow puppet or imitate the demonstration hand on the chopstick wrapper. This was not providing me with calm and relaxation!

My most groundbreaking coloring book discovery was the Crayola Pipsqueak Skinnies 64 pack. Markers = no reward for hand pressure. In fact, they force you to be quite deliberate and slow, which suits my desire for staying perfectly inside the lines. Which is also not relaxing, but is at least meditative. Downside? Terrible flesh tones, and very visible brushstrokes. I'm accepting the latter as a new stylistic choice (Markerism? Pipsqueakery?), but the former is still troubling. I will attach an example to demonstrate. The page is from The Official Outlander Coloring Book, a gift from my dear sister who knows my heart.

Now I have loved Jamie Fraser since I were a wee 15 yr old lass, but I haven't yet been able to bring myself to color a picture of him shirtless, let alone using colors such as 'Cheeks of a Virgin Watching Game of Thrones' or 'Ethnically Ambiguous Beige' or 'We Meant for This Color to Represent Mac n Cheese, Not Human Flesh'.  Maybe I need to invest in a broader palette of Pipsqueaks.

Unstirring the Pot

I waffle wildly in my interest level in politics.

My parents are passionate yellow-dog-Democrats in a very red state, and we talked politics a lot as a family around the dinner table. In fact, anything you'd feel uncomfortable bringing up in front of your in-laws was guaranteed to be passed around with the peas at our table. Seriously. Anything. You'd be shocked and delighted. It's one of the things I most look forward to replaying (when the nanobots give me access to all my buried memories/when I die and get the great and magical this-is-your-life remote and lifetime statistical report that I'm counting on). 

I was raised to be suspicious of nationalism, aware of our country's weaknesses, curious about and open to the ways that other people all over the word answer the same human questions. I majored in anthropology, for crying out loud - practically the birthplace of cultural relativism. I rolled my eyes at 'freedom festivals' and the sacrilegious overtones of patriotism. (I still do, but not as angrily.) But I do love my country's beauty, its ideals, its willingness to experiment. I even have a soft spot for our enthusiastic, pigheaded bravado - we're like a Golden Retriever wagging its tail like mad, unaware that we're knocking things off the shelves and shedding all over the furniture.

I was very vocal and excitable at college, where I was surrounded by young Republicans who hadn't ever encountered an exotically liberal bird such as myself. I relished blowing their minds. "You're not Mormon? You're a DEMOCRAT?!?!?!?!?!" (And then their heads exploded and they fell to their knees to pray for my eternal soul.) 

But the best part was when they would listen to my perspective, cock their heads like a puzzled spaniel, and then actually consider what I was saying and start to see why I felt that way. Was it something about our age, our new environment, the atmosphere of change and learning, that allowed us to really hear and connect with each other on such emotionally charged topics? Or has the world truly changed in 15 years? Or am I suffering from 'getting older', with its potential side effects of rose-colored nostalgia and a sneaking disdain for the future?

I fell into a bit of political apathy in my 20s - no real interest or investment in the whole deal. Lately though (let's be honest, after listening to the 'Hamilton' soundtrack a couple dozen times), I have felt a renewed interest in our democracy . . . just in time to encounter this year's three-ring circus.

It's hard to get excited to engage in the process when you feel like you won't be heard by anyone who disagrees with you. It's an echo chamber, where emotions run high but they're not really addressed. I know everyone rags on social media, but it does tend to magnify our outrage while glossing over our mutual interests and care for each other. We spend so much time trying to talk over each other, without doing the harder work of understanding and empathizing. We all get scared, and we don't do our best thinking and helping from a place of fear.

Of course, it seems to me that some people will happily take advantage of fear to use it for their own gains. I had a Cocker Spaniel named Licorice when I was a kid. He was black and sweet and sometimes nervous and his breath would strip paint off the walls. He also had a little fatty tumor on his side that was fun to squish. He was a year old when we got him, and he was terrified of garbage bags. Anytime you were carrying anything big in your arms, he would get away quick.

It'd be irresponsible of me not to say that I think of Donald Trump as someone who would wield a garbage bag to keep a dog in the corner. He's not concerned about whether you're scared. It suits his purposes to keep you that way. He's not going to reassure you that you're safe, he's not going to encourage you to grow and change, he doesn't really care about your experience of the world at all. He'll put a fence around you to give you some illusion of security from the big bag in his hand, but that will only serve to keep you small and scared of anything beyond your little kennel. That's not someone we should put in charge.

But I also don't want to use my own opinion and fears of potential tyranny as weapons in the political arena. I want to find out how to help. I want to serve, to connect with others who serve, to build a nation of Golden Retrievers gleefully yelping at the scared Cocker Spaniels to encourage them out of the corner, bowing on our front legs in an invitation to play and help and enjoy one another. (I almost included sniffing butts in that metaphor, but thought wiser of it.)

So how do you engage in a political battlefield without taking up arms? How do you share your convictions without getting tuned out? And what breed of dog would you be and why?

Heebly-Jeebly

I'm getting a cavity filled this morning, and I'm not excited. I loved going to the dentist when I was a kid, and I'm not sure what changed, other than the fact that sometime in the last few years I developed a serious aversion to people touching my face. Just.... please don't. 

A selection of things I liked as a kid that now give me the wiggins:

Going to the dentist.

Being outside on snowy days - I can enjoy it for about 10 minutes. But I hate wet pant hems, crusty slush, and the gymnastics involved in outfitting a writhing bundle of excitement who will instantly ditch his mittens and then beg to go inside two minutes later.

Froot Loops - Like eating neon fiberglass.

Wearing leotards.

Live and sincere singer-songwriters - Not sure I ever liked these, so that's kind of a cheat, but my allergy to excruciating vulnerability increases with each exposure.Also, closing their eyes while singing is an exponential multiplier of my discomfort. But it's only if they're live. I sang along with John Denver for, like, 40 minutes yesterday in the car. (Although 'Rocky Mountain High' just doesn't sound the same since Colorado basically fulfilled the prophecy contained therein.)

A selection of things I hated as a younger person that now bring me joy:

The aforementioned John Denver, The Carpenters, and generally folksy 70s music. 

Cilantro, raspberries, and dark chocolate - My taste buds changed dramatically at around age 24. Much to the delight and astonishment of my mother-in-law, who seems to 'get me' more as a person now that I also love three of her favorite foods.

Getting shots/blood drawn - Hang in here, I can explain. Doing fertility treatments meant daily injections, and very frequent blood draws. I'm now perversely proud of my ability to remain unfazed by needles, so I get a little excited to tell the nurse which veins are easiest to access, and brag a bit about giving myself (or Dave giving me) huge, painful intramuscular shots in the buttcheek for four months. Who needed nursing school when you can use yourself as a human science experiment?

Running errands - I'm by myself, I can listen to podcasts, I can get myself a treat without any begging or bargaining. Nirvana.

Non-sugary cereals - Cereal is just the best.

(So, what do your lists look like?)

Meltdown Memory Lane

For the last couple of days, I've been trying to come up with an apt simile for keeping one hand on my wild little man while simultaneously trying to chitchat with grown people. However, since Monday's post I feel like I've exhausted badgers, and wolverines are too similar. So maybe this - it's like trying to pour someone a cup of tea in a tornado. You want to be polite and friendly, but really you're just gonna be all over the place and have to pray they'll forgive you.

I've also been trying to mentally compose a list of places I have had to sit down on the floor and try to  soothe the savage Buddy.  The easy ones are stores and restaurants - too often to name. Public bathrooms? Of course. Church? The kids loves a stage, and makes an appearance on the stand about once a month, so I crawl under the piano to retrieve him. Airports? Please. Site of one of the most memorable moments, when flying alone with Buddy and trying to get through security - it took me and two angelic businessmen to get him, his car seat, two suitcases, and my sanity safely (barely) onto the plane. Yesterday, it was the museum - a favorite place, but not one he leaves easily. So we spent 5-7 minutes on the floor in front of the elevator, Ash pretending to sleep, me holding onto one of his ankles so he couldn't make a break for it. (Does the kid have to be built like a linebacker?) I ended up carrying all 53 wiggling squiggling pounds of him out of the building while he wailed "New-se-yum! No home! No car!" He also has a bizarre aversion to zoos - but that's pretty much its own post altogether.

We don't have an official diagnosis for Ash - I'm sure we could get the whole alphabet soup (ADHD, ASD, SPD, etc etc) and I'm cool with that, but we haven't needed anything official so far. But I do tend to use shorthand for strangers - nothing makes judgmental people on an airplane stop giving you stinkeye like saying 'He's autistic." All of a sudden what they see as bad parenting magically transforms into personal sainthood - it's a bit delicious, I'm not gonna lie. But it's too simple an explanation, and while I like avoiding judgement, I also dread people dismissing my kid's brilliant, unique, creative, fascinating mind. So I get a near-daily exercise in letting go of the judgements of others, and embracing the messy here and now. Let's just pretend that all public floors just got mopped this morning - that usually helps.

IntroVeryVeryVert

I married at 19, so no one would accuse me of being commitment-averse. I mean, I hadn't planned on it AT ALL. I had dreams of graduate degrees and living abroad and taking a few besotted international lovers. But when a guy comes along who loves the same obscure books and has perfectly dark and handsome sideburns and is willing to take you to 3-4 movies a week, you better believe I'm locking that down. Almost fifteen years later, he still makes me laugh so hard in public that people give me serious sideye. On a weekly basis. (The sideburns are gone though, which I think was wise. They served their purpose in the mating dance, and he's moved on to romance-novel-worthy long and luscious locks - which is also definitely working for me.)

Another thing that brought us together was our shared love of not being around other people. Early in our marriage my mother-in-law enthusiastically roped us into taking the official Myers-Briggs test at the guidance counsel-y office in the busiest building on campus. So I spent a bit of a morning getting anxious about answering self-reflective questions correctly, which probably gives you a sneak peek of the results. At the time, I was a few points into the Extraversion category. But this was so, so very wrong. College was the height of my social activity, which probably had to do with the Rock Star status anointing the .01% non-Mormon students at BYU. Joining the church had the side benefit of allowing me to slip back into the squeaky-clean, somewhat-unfashionable crowd. Marrying David (a classic 'I could use about a month on a mountaintop, if you send snacks' introvert) was sweet, sweet relief. And we have spent several years happily avoiding parties together. And I play at ambiversion, cycling through eras of ambition and retreat, making friends and losing touch.

I think parenthood has intensified some of these traits. Ash is high energy, high intensity, human pinball madness. (In a very endearing, precious way.) So I hoard alone time like a ravenous badger. I also crave adult conversation and thoroughly enjoy social validation, which is hard to balance with my reclusive badgerly instincts. So every invitation is received with initial panic. Yes, invite me, I want to be loved! But please love me from over there while I stay home and make freezer jam. 

(I just made freezer jam today. Inside this badger is a Martha Stewart-looking badger wearing an apron.)

((I'm just gonna post this now because all I want to write about now is anthropomorphic badgers.))

Beginning is Continuing

I had a blog when I was a freshman in college. Sadly, I cannot resurrect those poetical musings for our mutual amusement/cringes. (You really should feel grateful - fifteen years later, all I remember is thinly-veiled allusions to boys I liked and congratulating myself on my own 17-yr-old cleverness.) So I am starting a new one, when everything and nothing about me has changed.

I'm scared to start this, though. I have a lot of very good excuses for going back to my leaf-raking and book-reading and Candy-Crushing. I have a challenging life with a fascinating and unique kid, who fills me with joy, tests my fortitude and endurance, and fuels my addiction to Diet Coke. I have a brilliant, funny, loving husband whose deepest fantasies inevitably involve a spotless kitchen. I also have a lifelong dream of being a published novelist, and how does this help me in that quest, exactly?

Here's the thing that hasn't changed for me though - through all those intervening up-and-down years, and even from my earliest memories, I have had a boundless, insatiable hunger for storytelling. I want to hear stories, read stories, watch stories, and tell stories. There is a soul-deep desire in me to bring stories into the world, and that desire knows no genre. Unfortunately, that desire also knows no discipline.

I wrote a book once. It's short, it's sweet, it's pretty crappy. And I am SO proud of it. And I want to do it again. But for some reason, going through years of fertility treatment and a few years of extra schooling and loads of therapy and having a baby and figuring out how to raise a kid with special needs has slowed my drive to the pace of an anemic sea turtle crossing the Gobi desert. (And yeah, I know that's kind of an awkward metaphor, but I'm rusty so you'll just have to let it ride.) So I need some help getting my mojo back - will you help me?

I'm going to commit to writing a post every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Because preschool. And if I post here, that's proof that I not only wrote a blog post, but I also wrote a bit of fiction on the same day. (I know you want to read it. You do. Because you love me. But I love you too, so I'll only subject you to my mental diarrhea in one venue at a time. (I just said diarrhea in my first blog post. Get out while you can.))

So thanks for allowing me to use you. I bet the last person who used you for their own purposes didn't thank you for it, so I'm feeling virtuous now. If you're willing to tag along for this, you'll hear whatever I'm contemplating that day, which could include pretty much anything because I love cultivating an eclectic brainspace.

I'm kind of embarrassed and annoyed by that last sentence. Thanks for being gentle with me while I recover from that.

Last thing - the title. I've done most of my creating in life by strong-arming my perfectionism into submission. This leaves me feeling powerful, but also sets me up for feeling more intimidated by every foray into something new. So this blogging thing? I'm just going to try. Most posts will be first drafts. Attempts. I'm looking forward to trying this new thing, as trying as it may be. So try leaving a comment! Let's be awkward together.