Sunday, September 30, 2007

the rapist of redlands

There is a rapist in Redlands this month. He locked some people in their house and beat and raped them. Am I scared? A little. But more than being scared, I am annoyed. I simply do not have time to fit a rape into my schedule. I'm really overwhelmed with work right now, the house is a mess, and the kids keep me busy all day long. Dealing with a rapist would be the last straw. I simply don't want to waste my energy kicking him in the balls and reporting it to the police; it would just be a nuisance. I imagine myself walking into the living room and the rapist is sitting there silhouetted in the dark, smoking a cigar, waiting to rape me--they are always so dramatic--and I sigh and turn the light on and ruin his ambiance and tell him, Dude, get the fuck out, I'm too busy for this shit, I've got papers to grade.

curse you, woman of costco

A lonely, ugly, poorly dressed woman with two children's outfits cut in line in front of me in Costco. Sure I had a cart full of crap, but she pretended that I did not exist and calmly stood in front of me. She was old, she had two items, so I let it go. But I could not suppress the rage. That old bitch, I thought to myself. All she had to do was ask me to go first, but no, she had to cut. The audacity of it stung more than the act itself. Perhaps one day I will run into her in a dark abandoned alley one day, and on that day, the tables will turn.

www.santriestudios.com


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www.santriestudios.com


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Saturday, September 29, 2007

They tell me on Thursday that they are very concerned about Ben's aggression at preschool, and I am shocked because the last thing I would call him is aggressive. He is the kid who makes a family of the letter I out of Legos, who pulls The Crucible off the the bookshelf and pretends to read it, who shares toys with Elliott and kisses him good night. Intense? Yes. Stubborn? Yes. Mean and aggressive? I was shocked to hear that they think so. I drove away from the school thinking oh my god he has autism or a psychological problem and am I just being defensive of my kid because he's my kid? Well, of course I am. In any case, after this lovely discussion, I take Ben to the ear nose and throat surgeon in Fontana. As I am driving on the freeway, I am stuck behind a monster truck with a web address in a gigantic font that I cannot avoid advertising a really wonderful-sounding clothing company: www.bigtittiescrew.com. Shocking that when I go to check out the website, it doesn't exist or has not been published yet. You'd think with a name like that, that they've got their act together. In any case, onto the surgeon. Ben has now peed all over himself and I do not have an extra pair of shorts, so I take him to the bathroom and he pees in the toilet (yes!) and I change his pull-up and plan on telling anyone who asks about the wet spot that he sat in a puddle. No one asks, thankfully. In the waiting room, a deaf old man complains about the war and says, "Take 'em out, take out his tonsils. I had mine taken out and look at me. I used to be skinny, you know" and when I try to reply to him, he just keeps on talking, a monologue, really, because he can't hear a damn thing I'm saying. The surgeon puts a long scope with a light on the end down Ben's nose and Ben is patient and friendly the entire time, so I promise him a "cake" (aka a muffin) on the way out. Ben needs surgery to remove his adenoids, which may help with the constant, painful coughing and infections during this time of year, and which may also help with his pronunciation of words. So on the way out, I try to buy a muffin, but my one dollar and thirty cents will not cover it and they don't take cards. The kids seem to be laughing at me as I drag Ben over to the ATM, where I am denied because I only have eighteen dollars in my account. What do you have for a dollar thirty? I ask the guys. Nothing, they reply. But then they take pity on me. They ask me what I want. I tell them the lemon muffin and I am flushed with embarrassment and I hope that they are never students in one of my English classes. And the whole way home, Ben eats his muffin and I can't stop thinking about whether or not something is really wrong with him and what I can do to fix it. I still don't know.

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Sunday, September 23, 2007

not it

I just sat down to print out my lesson plans for tomorrow...and, just as my ass grazes the checkered fabric of the chair, my fingers poised to type at top speed...a kid starts screaming. It sounds like Ben, who was napping, so I start upstairs, and I hear the scream again, through the window, which is open. It is not my kid. For once, it is not my kid!

Saturday, September 22, 2007

why?

Why does the Disney store have a Mickey Mouse costume for a grown man, but not for a little boy. There is something very wrong here.

worst fear, realized.

Ben got a piggy bank from his Aunt Jilly as his gift for being her ring bearer. He begged coins off of everyone, and the tiny pig weighs like five pounds. I went to get the baby who had just woken from his nap, and Ben scampered into our bedroom, where he found more coins stored away in a tall glass vase we keep next to our bed. He stuck his arm in and dug out every coin, forcing it into the slot on the pig's back. "More coins. More coins," he said. The baby began to cry. His nose was running, and he wasn't feeling so hot today. "Look at the baby," I said. "He's sick." Ben did not look. "More coins, more coins," he repeated. "Poor baby," I said. "His nose is running." "Coins," Ben demanded.

I think I might be raising a Republican.

Friday, September 07, 2007

time alone

I sometimes dream about time alone, with absolute quiet. When people tell me they are bored, I am just a tiny bit jealous. Because boredom means time all alone, such a luxurious amount of time that you can get everything done and still have extra time to relax and then even more time for that time to turn into boredom. I have a little time right now, more than usual. Ryan is at a bachelor party and the boys are asleep (sort of) and I'm alone, and though I'm no where near having enough time to become bored, I am feeling a bit lonely and already missing Ryan and the boys. I'm going to eat dinner and clean up a little bit and maybe take a bath, the first bath I have had the time to take in months.

Thursday, September 06, 2007

it's back.

Benjamin's asthma is back. It was so bad the other night that he started throwing up his Fruity Cheerios he had for dinner. If you are asking yourself, did she just say he had Fruity Cheerios for dinner?, the answer is, Yes, we are bad parents. In any case, he coughed uncontrollably until the Cheerios and milk and bile ended up all over the blue sheet on his bed. Ryan cleaned it up because I was in the middle of a chat with my online students, and I have to have precision concentration and typing speeds of well over 100 to keep up with those chats. After the chat was over at 10pm, I got Ben up from his room and hugged him while we nebulized him with his medication. Then I let him sleep with me. He lay next to me in the room for awhile staring at the ceiling, and then he began looking intensely at his hands, turning them back and forth back and forth as if he were on an acid trip. Then he made his hands slide down the pillow like they were on the playground. Then he made his hands talk to each other and, finally, kiss. Then he took a deep, happy sigh and smiled to himself with satisfaction. This is what Ben must do for a really long time before he falls to sleep each night. At about 4:30 in the morning he woke up screaming, Milk, Milk, Milk, Milk, Milk. I told him, No Ben, it's time for bed, and he starting crying like a baby, Wah, Wah, Wah...It went on and on. So I told him he needed to go back to bed--at this point foolishly believing I'd actually get more sleep--and he kept crying and crying until he woke up Elliott who started screaming himself. Ryan took them both downstairs and let me sleep from 5:45 to 6:20 and then we were all up for the day. After Ben got his milk downstairs, he gulped it down in seconds and said, Miiiiiillllllk, emphasizing that final K. This kid is stubborn as hell.

Saturday, September 01, 2007

six months old

Hello Elliott. You are six months old today, and I can hardly believe how fast this time went by. You hear people say that all of the time, but when you have children and you can actually watch them grow each week, when you can see that physical record of time, it is amazing. And I love the changes, Elliott. You are an incredibly beautiful boy, with eyes that are so huge they are almost startling. You are teething, and your nose is running, and you are not necessarily calm, but you are something along the lines of accepting. It's like you're older than you are. You know this is something babies have to go through, and so you go through it. You are unlike me in this way. I know that I have to go through something, but I fight it all the way, thinking that this fight will change the outcome, though it never will. I remember when I was in labor with both you and your brother. I thought, I can't do this. I don't want to do this. And I fought it and thought this would take all of that pain away. But I got through it, and I can do more than I sometimes think I can. There are many things I love about you, but the one I find most endearing is that when you are really happy, you don't quite laugh; instead, you make this Donald Duck-esque squabble in the back of your throat. It's so weird, it's perfect.

the boy who likes milk

That's what they call Benjamin at his new preschool.

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