So Uncool

Hurrying  to the grocery store for a carton of eggs this morning
because I know how much  you dislike it when we run out,
I met a man who nodded as we passed--
a man who smiled and said, "How are you doing today?"
I nodded too,
and smiled in return
and kept walking.

Some wild part of me wanted to run after him,
wanted to tell him the silly story I heard last night,
And what I thought when I read the headlines over breakfast.
To tell him that, honestly,
I am not sure what comes next
and that I am afraid.

This evening, I watched your face and took my cue--
some days you speak, and I laugh at your jokes and applaud your plans;
some days you’re silent, and I make sure the house is clean enough, and the children busy.
When you curse the world,
 I listen,
carefully mirroring you.

Tonight, I am looking in your direction, nodding and smiling, but I am not here.
 I am thinking about the man I passed this morning, and what might happen
 if someone truly saw me;
if someone would ask me--
someone who really wanted to know--
"How are you doing today?"

     ginger_biscuit  poked me in an email today, and reminded me that I have been neglecting this space. She's right, I sure have; it's been two weeks!
     Here's the rundown: I am still slogging through The 8:55 to Baghdad by Andrew Eames. It's not that it's a bad book, it's just not that good, either. I did read The Story Sisters, which is Alice Hoffman's new book. It wasn't my favorite of hers, but it was readable. I thought she glamorized being a rape victim a bit, although that wasn't her intention. And it seemed as though she was having trouble deciding on the tone of the book--distant and fairy-tale-ish, or more real-life. I also read an early Charles deLint, Moonheart, and that was pretty good. I am almost at the end of Dragons of Babel by Michael Swanwick, and I'm enjoying that one, too.
     I am also reading The Art of Practicing: A Guide to Making Music from the Heart by Madeline Bruser. She brings some familiar (to me) yoga and meditation practices to bear on the topic of practicing an instrument. I think it's a useful book, so far. I have already found some of her advice working for me, most notably her suggestion to practice pieces very slowly. I also found this insight helpful not only as it applies to my cello practice, but also as it applies to my efforts to regain a running habit, hampered by a bad left knee: "You can't develop your potential by trying to be somebody else. You have to start with what you have. Then things can open up. The body works well when you treat it gently." For me, this means not trying to be who I used to be a few years ago, as well as not trying to be someone else, in regard to running.
     Because it is summer vacation time for the kids, I am having trouble finding as much time as I'd like to practice my cello. Not only do I have to drive children here and there, keep them amused, and clean up after them constantly, but now there is no time when I am home alone, which affects my concentration. Today was a good practice day, though. I am working on a piece--Bach's Minuet Number 3--that has an extension combined with a shift, which is giving me fits. I was beginning to despair that I'd ever be able to do it, but today it looks like there might be hope. I'm not as smooth as I'd like to be with it yet, and my B on the A string is tending to be flat as I reach back from the E, but today I think I might be able to present a reasonable rendition to my teacher at Friday's lesson. I hope. This is my second week working on this song, and while I don't mind sticking with it, it gets embarrassing when it looks like a lack of practice time is holding me back. I have noticed improvements in my intonation, and in my ability to hear when my notes are in tune and when they are not. I still have miles and miles to go, but at least I am noticing improvement. I learned my first minor scale last week. I really need to spend more time on scales, and I don't mind practicing them, but with the difficulty I'm having with learning my songs lately, I've been neglecting them. I'll be good and do them tonight!
     My garden is growing like crazy, and I've already been eating out of it. So far we've had turnip greens, lettuce, cucumbers, peppers, and yellow summer squash from the garden. My CSA box has had interesting things in it, too. I am still not sure whether I like Swiss chard, but I fixed a bunch of it last week. I sauteed it with some garlic and onions and some potatoes in olive oil.
     I am hoping to get to the beach soon. It's already July, and I haven't been to the beach yet! We had a hot weekend, but now the weather is cool and kind of cloudy again. Not the best beach weather, but not bad, either.
     I have been really struggling with food and weight issues lately. I have gained weight, probably due either to inactivity or perimenopause, and my clothes are tight. I hate that. I know that dieting doesn't work, but honestly, I just don't see what else I can do. All that therapy undone by some tight pants! Geez. I haven't started counting calories yet, but I feel that coming on. It would be nice if I could just accept myself as I am, but my doctor said my blood sugar was a bit high, and besides, I feel like I'll just gain weight forever. I don't know. It's such a struggle. If dieting isn't the answer, then what is? I just don't know. I thought the solution lay in self-acceptance, but this feels out of control and chaotic. The problem with dieting is that it has taken me so long--years of working on this--not to feel crazy around food. Finally, food isn't the center of my life--neither eating it nor concentrating on not eating. I am so afraid that a diet will start the roller coaster ride all over again--and I hate roller coasters. Seriously--both actual and metaphorical. Anyway, right now I hate the way I look, I'm thinking about it all the time, and I have nothing to wear. Okay, well, I have one sweater and one sleeveless top that I like, one white shirt, and two pairs of pants. But it's not really sweater weather right now, so this leaves me really limited in the wardrobe department. I have piles and piles of clothes in a variety of sizes that do not fit me, though. Yuck. I probably have gained twenty pounds since last summer. Part of that is because I went through a not-eating phase (a year ago) last spring and lost some weight, and my body has decided to replace it and then some, as usual. Oh well, anyway, this is a bore; can you tell I'm getting obsessed, here? I so wanted to avoid that.
     I hate to make it sound like life is all bad. It's not. I am thinking of taking my bike to get a tune-up so that I can get around on it and get some exercise while also getting some things done. I can't walk to do very many things, because it takes so long to get errands run that way, but maybe if I ride my bike it will be reasonable. I just hope my knee can take it. Well, I'm going to go get on the treadmill now and see what I can do now, even though Zainab feels that the treadmill noise will interfere with her very important t.v. watching. Sheesh!
    
    

     My birthday was last month. I wanted a digital camera. Although I never had much use for taking snapshots (this is unfortunate in some ways, because there is a serious lack of pictures in our family photo albums), I have been wanting to take pictures of things I find interesting. My daughter told my husband I wanted a camera.
     And ... surprise! He bought me a camcorder. I was surprised, yes indeed, I was. I admired the camcorder, and put it on a shelf, where it's been ever since. I have been wracking my brain for three weeks now, trying to think of something I would like to do with this camcorder. Home movies are not my thing. Sarah, my daughter, suggested that I do a documentary of our upcoming camping trip. That would be great, except that I am the one who does the packing and unpacking, puts up the tents and sets up camp, and does the cooking and so on (remind me again why this is called a vacation?). I imagine it would be rather difficult to film myself doing those things (unless I had a helmet-cam, but this is not one of those). She also suggested I make a music video. I said that would probably require that I have someone who could make some music. She suggested that I do a talk show. I said I have nothing to talk about. She said I am negative and shoot all her ideas down. (Oddly this is the same criticism I received from a PTA member. It is not my fault if people do not come up with good ideas, is it?)
     So I still don't know what to do with this camcorder. It looks quite nice on its shelf, I suppose, but it is rather an expensive knick knack. All incoming ideas will be equally shot down--er, I mean considered. Really, though--if you're not into home movies, what do you do with a camcorder?

From baxaphobia.

IF YOU'RE ON MY FRIENDS LIST, I want to know 28 things about you. I don't
care if we've never talked, never really clicked, or if we already know
everything about each other. I really don't. You are obviously on my flist,
so let me know with whom I'm friends!

1. Your Middle Name:
2. Age:
3. Single or Taken:
4. Favorite Movie:
5. Favorite Song or Album:
6. Favorite Band/Artist:
7. Dirty or Clean:
8. Tattoos and/or Piercings:
9. Do we know each other outside of LJ?
10. What's your philosophy on life?
11. Is the bottle half-full or half-empty?
12. Would you keep a secret from me if you thought it was in my best
interest?
13. What is your favorite memory of us?
14. What is your favorite guilty pleasure?
15. Tell me one odd/interesting fact about you:
16. You can have three wishes (for yourself, so forget all the 'world peace
etc' malarky) - what are they?
17. Can we get together and make a cake?
18. Which country is your spiritual home?
19. What is your big weakness?
20. Do you think I'm a good person?
21. What was your best/favourite subject at school?
22. Describe your accent:
23. If you could change anything about me, would you?
24. What do you wear to sleep?
25. Trousers or skirts?
26. Cigarettes or alcohol?
27. If I only had one day to live, what would we do together? (If you have
no idea, just say something crazy, it'll entertain me!):
28. Will you repost this so I can fill it out for you?

Misogynist in the extreme, I know, but it just rolls off the tongue; it has attitude; it has sass: "Quien es tu papi?" Women, come on, there must be some way we can co-opt this the way we're co-opting the word bitch? Work with me here, okay?

And here's this to ponder, and make me feel guilt over my pleasure: www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A46032-2005Jan3.html .

     I haven't updated about my cello lessons for a little while, so I want to catch up with that. Last week I had had two weeks on the same song, because we ran out of time in the previous lesson to learn the shift to second position that the new song required. That was okay, because I was going out of town that weekend and probably wouldn't have had adequate practice time anyway. On the bright side that week was, as I mentioned previously, playing music with ginger_biscuit .
     Also during that week I printed out an easy cello version of Greensleeves, and started teaching myself to play that. I figured out the key signature--B Flat Major--on my own, but then tripped up a bit over the six eight time. It was okay, though, since it's a familiar song and I just played it by ear. Still, not being able to count it properly bothered me.
     Then, at last week's lesson I was assigned Bach's Minuet Number One, from the second Suzuki book. That's the one with the shift to second position. I worked on that all week, but when I went to play it at my lesson today, it was really rough. I am not sure why I am suddenly having so much anxiety about playing in front of the teacher, but the last two lessons I have. Strange. Anyway, because it was so rough and because on my shifts the A and the E are flat, my teacher said I should continue to work on this song this week, rather than learning a new song. I agree that I need to keep working on the shift and the intonation. Also I have memorized the song, but not quite smoothly, and since I'm a terrible sight reader at this point, I need to get that down before I can feel comfortable playing the song. I also need to apply the baroque bowing that I learned for the last Bach minuet to this one, but since I am not quite comfortable with the song yet, I haven't done that.
     What was wonderful at this week's lesson is that we spent quite a bit of time on music theory. We talked about the Circle of Fifths, how to know how many sharps or flats a scale has, and what they are. We also talked about the time signature, and what the top and bottom numbers mean, and why six eight time is not the same as three four time. I am really pleased that my teacher suggested that we spend fifteen minutes each week of our forty five minute lesson focusing on music theory. She is going to teach it using the cello, rather than the piano keyboard, as the basis of the theory. Of course the theory is the same, but I think it will make a lot more sense to me if we apply it to the cello rather than the keyboard since I am not a piano player.
     I learned a new scale, E Flat Major, too.
     Even though I did not get a new song this week, I feel that I have plenty to work on in practice. I would like to spend more time each day practicing. I've been feeling some resistance from people at home; they resent the time I spend practicing, I think, and that makes it hard. I've also had a busy and fairly stressful couple of weeks, with financial issues, family issues, and the unexpected death of an online friend all making me feel kind of off-balance. Still, I want to do it, and so I'll make a way for it to happen.

     It was new recipe time again last night. Not because I needed an adventure, but because it turned into one of those, "oops, dinnertime approaches, and there's nothing to cook" nights. Plus, since Jamal came home with his bunch of boys in tow, a last minute grocery run was not happening.
     I found ground beef in the freezer, but I didn't have taco shells or tortillas on hand, didn't have potatoes for shepherd's pie, and didn't have elbow macaroni for chili mac, either. I could have done a quickie spaghetti sauce and served it with the fettucini I had on hand, but I didn't have any bell peppers or anything to punch up my sauce, and besides, we had lasagne last night. What to do?
     Google, of course. I searched "quick ground beef recipes." Among my first results was a recipe for Beef Cottage Cheese Pie that claimed to be made from "ingredients at hand" and to be unexpectedly delicious, according to the three reviews it had. I looked at the "ingredients at hand" and compared them with my actual, and paltry, items at hand: an unbaked pie crust--check. An onion--check. Black pepper--check. Flour--check. Ketchup--seriously?--check. Eggs--check. And, of course, cottage cheese, which I almost never have on hand, but last night I did. Yes!
     Honestly, I thought the recipe sounded awful. But I was desperate, and didn't have time to be picky. So I made the pies, although I added some mushrooms to the recipe, and hoped for edibility.
     The result? Well ... let me just say it was not as disgusting as I thought it would be. Am I going to add it to my recipe archives? No, because it wasn't something I'd plan ahead to make, and as I mentioned, I almost never just happen to have cottage cheese in my refrigerator. But it was a success for last night, just because dinner was cooked, people were fed, and I didn't have to take four ten year old boys with me on a last minute grocery store run, and the food was actually edible (unlike my earlier adventure with the scallops recipe).
     Here's the recipe, taken from busycooks.about.com:

     Sometimes I see people post a "Question of the Day." Some people, quirkofonic in particular, I seem to recall, call it "Question of the Whenever." These questions are generally not rhetorical, although I suppose they can be.
     Well, here's mine. I think I'll call mine, Question of My Life, because I haven't asked one before and don't intend to do it again. Plus, this question kind of applies beyond its immediate context and into all areas of my life, I think.
     With all that build up, what is my question? Simply this (it's a question of the rhetorical variety--no need to answer it):
     Why do I feel obligated to mop my sticky kitchen floor before I can practice my cello?

     Life has some good things in it.
     I finished getting the basics into my vegetable garden. I have tomatoes, a variety of peppers, eggplants (Asian and globe), cucumbers, basil, lettuce, mustard greens, turnips, parsley, chives, onions, an artichoke just for fun, summer squashes, and a sickly patch of strawberries. My mint patch, which has spearmint, peppermint, and lemon balm, is coming back from its setback after our big snow this winter, but I lost a newly planted rosemary bush (I do have another, established one elsewhere in my garden), and the asparagus I planted never came up.
     I also got a pot of marigolds planted, and added a chamomile to the herbs that are mixed in with the flowers in my front garden. I have rosemary, thyme, and sage there. Right now the roses are in bloom, and the lilac is finished blooming, but oddly my peony still has only buds. It's really late this year. I have yet to plant my nasturtium seeds. It's almost too late, but not quite, so I'll plan on that tomorrow. I lost all my dahlias over the winter, and I'm not too happy about that. I got a new rose bush for my birthday from a friend of mine, and I need to plant that tomorrow, too. Its blossoms are yellow, full, and fragrant.
     I want to find some affordable large barrels to plant strawberries in so that I can grow them along the driveway. I might try imafarmgirl 's suggestion and use old tires, if I can figure out where to get old tires. I might plant more lavender, too.
     Over the three day weekend I visited ginger_biscuit  and quirkofonic  and had a lovely time. One of the highlights for me was getting to make music with ginger_biscuit , me on my cello and she on her violin. I'm a beginner, and she hasn't played in a while, but we had fun and made what music we could. She's great at playing by ear, so she learned a couple of the songs I knew. I hope we can do that again. I hadn't realized how much fun making music together can be.
     I finished reading a book today that I started late last week. It is the first book I've read for the reading challenge: Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman. I'll review it in a separate entry, but I do want to say that if you like urban fantasy, this is a fun one. I enjoyed it thoroughly, especially the reference on page 255 that made me look at the plot in a slightly different light (you'll have to read it).
     One of life's very good things is ice cream. And I have found a wonderful one! Tonight I polished off the last of a pint of Haagen Dazs Five mint flavor ice cream. The Five ice creams get their name because they contain only five ingredients: milk, cream, sugar, eggs, and a natural flavoring--in this case, mint extract. So far I've tried the vanilla, the chocolate, and the mint, and all of them have been delicious. My favorite ice cream used to be Breyers, but I've switched and now it's Five.
     So those are some of life's sweeter things that have come my way lately.
    
    
    
    

     My cello lesson was yesterday. I learned--or attempted to learn--something called an extension, in order to play a G sharp on the D string. Interesting! And tricky, at first, but I practiced it some today and I can do it now, although slowly. I need to work on it more to speed it up. Still, this is very exciting!
     And I figured out a trick to help me with my bowing, which is working out well. So, I'm feeling pretty cello cheerful today. I didn't learn a new scale yesterday, but my teacher did say that she would recommend a music theory book to me so I can learn more. For this week I need to work on the extension, my intonation (my fourth finger notes are tending to be flat), and playing scales in quarter notes. That may not sound like much, but it will keep me busy for sure!
     When I was at my lesson, I saw a beautifully carved harp on display in the hallway. I love how musical instruments are often so beautiful.

     Yesterday, May 15^th, was my birthday. May 15^th is also a day celebrated by one culture and mourned in another: it is known on one side of Israel’s construction of an eight meter high 436 mile long concrete barrier as Israeli Independence Day, and on the other side as al Nakba—the Catastrophe.

     The politics of al Nakba are much discussed and available elsewhere, so I’ll focus on the personal, instead. After all, it is my birthday I’m talking about. Throughout my childhood my father told stories of his family being marched off their land; he was about twelve years old, and led a bull by the ring in its nose as they trudged along at gunpoint. I was an American child, but these stories His family scattered various places; some have spent their lives in refugee camps near Ramallah and are still there, while others moved to countries in the Middle East. He was the only one of his brothers and sisters to settle permanently in the United States.

     Or was it permanently? I grew up hearing stories of my father’s discontent. He married my mother, an American, and then spent years and years hating America and Americans. Over the years his bitterness grew more, not less, until finally it encompassed even his own four American children. When I was eighteen, he left our family, moved back to the Middle East, remarried and raised a second, Arab-enough family.

     Al Nakba is more than a political event; the effects of the trauma of that event and the continued oppression of the Palestinian people by Israel in partnership with the United States to this day have effects on lives that, like mine, appear far removed from the original event. Now I hear my father has a Website, listing his accomplishments and his children; I am not one of them.

     So, I am al Nakba’s unwanted bastard offspring; too American for my Palestinian father and his family, but just a little too Arab to simply sink into my American-ness and not feel a connection with his people. I feel what it means to be stateless in a way that is different from the political meaning of the word. I belong neither here nor there, not quite enough of either for anyone, truly “other” no matter where I go

     If I were a character in a novel, my birthday falling on the day my father’s people call the Catastrophe or the Disaster would be highly symbolic and fraught with meaning. As it is, it’s just my birthday, and it’s just the day of al Nakba, and that the two fall on the same day is mere coincidence, because I am just an ordinary human being.

     I had my cello lesson yesterday. The week leading up to my lesson two weeks ago, I worked hard on bowing issues, and when I went to that week's lesson, my bowing was looking good. So the next week I concentrated on intonation, and that was getting better. Then the week leading up to this lesson I worked mostly on my new song, because it had some things in it that I found pretty challenging. I didn't work a lot on bowing or on improving intonation, outside of my song, anyway.
     And this week my bowing has gone all to heck. Darn it! My teacher told me that the tip of my bow is too low, and that I'm not pulling the bow across the strings in a straight line. I really thought I had that fixed. So, today I went back to working with the mirror. She is so right. I can't believe this. How could I have gotten it right, only to have let it all fall away? I struggled with the bowing tonight, and I just don't know why I am having so much trouble. At least I remember the things I did to get myself bowing correctly before, so this week I can do them again. Mostly it's about using the mirror.
     Which is hard. I hate looking at myself in the mirror. Tonight all I could see was how fat I've gotten again. Blobby. Blech. But I have to say, I do like my haircut. That's something, anyway. I've been doing a lot of nervous eating lately. I am just so tense and anxious all the time. I am not sure that it is because I don't see my therapist any more, and so don't have that outlet, but it might be that.
     Anyway, I am so annoyed that I have to revisit this whole bowing issue again. This doesn't feel like progress at all. I just don't understand why this is so hard for me. Part of it, I think is that the song I was learning was difficult, and when I tense up over something difficult, my shoulders raise and that pulls the bow to a funny angle. When I relax, it looks a lot better. Also, I let my hand be too lax, even though one of the things I realized when I was working on my bowing is that all my fingers need to be active rather than passive, although not tight or tense.
     It's such a balancing act between activity and relaxation. I am wondering whether I'll ever get this right.

     This morning I remembered that it is impossible to undo months of household neglect in one hour. My house is being appraised today (as I write this, in fact--I need to look busy to hide my embarrassment at my messy house). I have piles of papers in my office; an hour ago I had piles of toys and trash in there, too. Both of my daughters' rooms are teenage disaster areas--walk carefully. My laundry room is full of baskets of unfolded laundry. My back porch is piled with recyclables, skateboards, basketballs, and dog toys. The whole place needs a good vacuuming, from basement to second floor. And dusting? What's that? I'm allergic to dust, so dusting gives me a headache, although I'm fine as long as I leave it where it is. So ... it's dusty in here.
     Okay, that's not why it's dusty. It's dusty in here and messy in here because I am a Flylady dropout. Flylady is so sweet. She says, "baby steps," and "housework done imperfectly still blesses the family." She gives good advice about simple morning and evening routines, and how to get rid of clutter. She shows us how to get rid of clutter "hotspots" before they burn the whole house down. Perfectionism, she says, is the enemy of getting things done.
     And don't I know it. I am a perfectionist. I am obsessive. I am single-minded. I am all or nothing. You would think Flylady would be the perfect coach for me. I thought so, too. I read her Website. I started taking baby steps. I shined my sink, and made up a morning routine. I decluttered. My house started to look pretty good. I wasn't embarrassed by the mess when people dropped by. We all had clean clothes and clean dishes and clean towels. I knew what I was cooking for dinner every day and never had to run to the grocery store at four o'clock.
      It was great. I felt good about my house, and my housekeeping skills. Domestic goddess, that was me! Oh, yeah. But if some is good, more is better, right? I added a few items to my morning routine. And then, to go with my morning and evening routines, I made up an afternoon routine! My morning routine kept growing until it touched my afternoon routine. My daily chores expanded until they filled in all the gaps. I washed "loads" of laundry with only three or four items to keep any dirty clothes from piling up in the laundry room. I followed people around surreptitiously and put things away as they put them down. I washed fingerprints off walls as soon as they appeared. After a while, I was spending my free time standing around anxiously waiting to head off any possible threatened mess.
     Have I mentioned before that I tend to get obsessed? Yes, I get obsessed. The problem is, I can only handle one big obsession at a time. So cleaning became my life. It wasn't a whole lot of fun. Obsession is all or nothing, so the day I decided that I was tired was the day it all collapsed. And now, here I am again, in an embarrassing mess.
     It's not all horrible. I mean, the kitchen is still clean, and the laundry isn't dirty, it's just not put away (yet). The living room and dining room are only mildly cluttered. The bathrooms are clean. But the rest ... well ... I could do better. And I'd feel better if I did better. I love having a clean house. I just don't love to clean it.
     I love to practice my cello. I love to read books. I love to do math problems. I love to be outside in the garden. I love to take walks. Housework isn't torture or anything, it's just that it pales in comparison to all these other things. And right now, cello is my obsession. If I start cleaning my house, I'll stop playing the cello. Really.
     But I am feeling embarrassed enough that I hear Flylady calling me again. I wonder whether I could try again? I wonder whether being aware of my tendency to obsess will be enough to keep me from it?
     Or, I could just sit here and wait for the appraiser to leave and then hope no one ever comes to peek into my closets again. As soon as she's gone, I'm going to practice my cello, and then maybe I'll decide what to do.

     Just in case you weren't bored enough with the cello chatter, here's an installment of my latest gardening adventure to round out my posting day!
     All last week I was busy, with no time to plant, but my vegetable garden was only half planted. The weather last week varied from fair to pretty decent, but I just didn't have time to get out in the garden and really get dirty. I wasn't too worried about, though, because I had Saturday slated for an entire day out in the garden. All week as my husband reminded me over and over and over and over and over to plant the garden, I kept reassuring him that Saturday would be my day. Friday the weather was windy but blue and warm, but I had no time for gardening. My husband reminded me yet again that the garden was not finished. He said that it was supposed to rain Saturday. I assured him that a little rain never hurt anyone, and I'd be out in the garden rain or shine. I also made the stupid mistake of mentioning that I might make potato salad one day soon. By the time Saturday came, I 'd been hearing about the promised potato salad, too. Unfortunately, I had to buy potatoes first.
     By the time I got myself off the couch and to the store and back with the potatoes it was getting close to noon. The weather looked pretty good, though. Cloudy, but not too wet from the morning's rain. I made the potato salad, got dressed for gardening, and went out.
     I got a couple of pepper plants in the ground when it started to sprinkle. No problem. I got two tomato plants in the ground. Sprinkles continued, and I was damp, but fine. Then I saw a flash. I heard a rumble. And another. A thunderstorm! But I kept planting. I planted another pepper plant. Suddenly rain began pouring down. Sarah was in the window staring out at me and laughing. I picked up another pepper plant. I picked up my shovel. The rain turned to hail. I looked up at Sarah, now joined by my other two children, and had to laugh, too. It hailed harder--this stuff was beginning to hurt! I looked down, and I was standing in a small river. The hole I'd dug for my pepper plant was full of ice. I was drenched and shivering, and the thunderstorm was raging. I gave up.
     My garden is still half planted. I have an appointment or something to do outside the house every day next week, which means I have to stay fairly clean and not get covered with mud. This is crazy. I had plans to go nursery browsing with a friend today, but she hasn't answered her phone, so maybe I should just go ahead and get out there while I can. But it looks kind of like rain.
    

     I had oatmeal for breakfast. Do you care? No? Okay, well then, here' some thrilling cello chatter instead!
     My lesson on Friday was a mess. I knew it was going to be a mess, because my whole week was a mess (see previous post for gory details). To make things worse, my messy week kicked my anxiety into overdrive and practice was also a mess of tension and distraction. I think I mentioned that I was worried about my lesson.
      So, I blew into my lesson on time--the wind caught my cello crossing the street and pulled my along like it was a sail--but the teacher was five or ten minutes late. It was okay, since there's a gap between my lesson and her next one, so we could go over a bit. I do need to rush home to be there when Jamal gets home, but the time frame was still working. That five or ten minutes gave me time to unpack the cello and to sit and try to be calm.
     We tried to start with one of my older songs, "Allegro." What a disaster. After all that practicing "Rigadoon" using F natural and C natural, my fingers didn't want to switch to F sharp and C sharp. My teacher suggested, in the future, playing a scale in the key the music's in before playing a piece. Oops. That means brushing up on reading those key signatures. Heh. Music theory--oh, yeah. She was nice about the disaster, though, and just said that if it wasn't helpful to warm up with an older song, we might as well go straight into "Rigadoon." Eek. Not so good. Oh, well, actually, not as bad as I thought it would be, because I thought I'd forget entire measures, but I didn't. What I needed to work on was, once again, timing. I was coming in an entire beat too early or too late at one point after a rest. We worked on that. I had a small bowing issue, but not much. The good news was that she said my intonation is pretty good! I worked so hard on that, and I didn't think it was good at all, so that was nice.
     We moved on to "Minuet in C" by Bach. Bach! Wow! Yay! It has a bunch of new stuff in it for me--slurs and accidentals and all kinds of exciting things. I practiced it verrrrry sloooowly yesterday, just the first two lines. It was challenging, but not impossible. I didn't get to practice yesterday as much as I'd have liked, due to other obligations and Sarah's need for relative quiet to do homework, but the practice felt good, and a lot more relaxed than it has been. I also got a new scale to practice, F Major. I love scales.
     Lessons are stressful in their way--interacting with the teacher, some anxiety about looking bad in front of her, that sort of thing--but always useful, and I love the breakthroughs in understanding that they bring.
     This coming week is seriously overscheduled for me, so I hope I find enough time to really work on this new song. I'm already trying to think of what else I can short in order to devote enough time to the cello this week. You kids didn't want dinner this week, did you?

     Zainab has been acting up at school again lately. She's fourteen, and in the eighth grade. On Tuesday she stayed up late having her hair done. Wednesday morning she told me she thought she should be allowed to sleep in and get to school late because she was tired from staying up late. Uh, no. Having your hair done is not a good excuse to miss a class. So then she said she had P.E. first thing on Wednesdays, and she hates P.E. (which I already know) and she shouldn't have to go because she was tired. Obviously, she was not getting the point. So I told her that she had to go to P.E. whether she hated it or not, and furthermore, that if she didn't get herself to school on time there would be no more weeknight hair doing. Normally we deal with hair on the weekend, but she got caught in a rainstorm Tuesday afternoon, killing her flat iron. I don't think going to school curly is a problem--I'm against the whole flat ironing thing--but she thinks it's a disaster, so that's why I let her stay up late to fix it.
     Anyway, as it turned out, my husband got a call from the school saying that Zainab had arrived at school at 9:50. School starts at 8:40. I spoke to her when she got home. She didn't feel like going to P.E. so she went out and bought herself breakfast instead: What's the problem, mom? We don't learn anything in P.E. anyway, so I shouldn't have to go. Uh, whatever. She's grounded.
     So then, on Thursday, I got a call from the principal. Zainab has been rude to her P.E. teacher (she has P.E. on Thursday mornings, too) yet again. Zainab hates this teacher. I am not fond of her, either, but the fact is that Zainab is a rude child. There is not one adult who has spent time with her who does not think she is rude. Even her own grandmother, my husband's mother, has said that she wants nothing more to do with her. I am aware of this. I have tried everything I can think of to solve this, but with only limited success. Then I got an email from her homeroom teacher saying that she had a talk with Zainab on Friday because Zainab was rude in her class. Argh! Geez! Zainab admits to the rudeness in homeroom, but says that the P.E. teacher is lying and hates her. Well, I don't know whether the P.E. teacher is stretching the truth--she might be, a bit, judging just on what she said to me--and I'm sure she does hate Zainab. Why wouldn't she? The child is rude. So I am going to be sitting in on the Thursday P.E. classes from now on. Oh, joy. Zainab says if I do that, she'll just skip the class. We'll see about that.
     Anyway. Here's the thing. The P.E. teacher has made it clear that she's under the impression that I let Zainab get away with this stuff. It's not true. Every time the teacher has contacted me, Zainab has had consequences at home: grounding, no t.v., no computer, no phone--the usual stuff. I always follow through. Always. I am very consistent, and don't make threats that I don't carry out. The teacher obviously doesn't believe me. She called and wants to know what I am going to do about solving this problem. I don't know. I've thought about therapy for Zainab, but she's not communicative and she doesn't think there's a problem, so I doubt therapy would help. I asked my therapist about that, when I still had one, and she agreed that if Zainab doesn't want therapy it's unlikely to be helpful.
     And my husband. Why do we have such a rude child? I don't know for certain, but I believe quite a bit of it has to do with parenting practices earlier on that he insisted on, that I knew were not good at the time, but that I was too afraid of him to protest. I am in the wrong there, I know that. I admit guilt and responsibility for that. I am also sure that's not the whole story, but it didn't help. I was also so stressed out and afraid because of being in an abusive situation (it was worse then than it is now) that I don't feel that Zainab and I ever really developed a strong bond with each other. I mean, I love her, but there's a connection that's lacking. I am so sorry about that. So now, with all this behavior at school, my husband says to me, exactly these words: "Well, what are you going to do about it?" His explicitly stated philosphy of parenting now is that I am supposed to raise the kids by myself, and if he doesn't like something I do, he lets me know and I change it. How a father can work up the guts to come out and say such a thing, I do not know.
     So, the school and my husband to me: "What are you going to do about this?"
     I DO NOT FUCKING KNOW!
     Sorry for the language. I never say those things in "real life." In real life, I am calm. I am polite. My language is clean. I am competent: When the computer has a problem, I fix it; when the business has a problem, I fix it; when the PTA needs something, I do it; when things needs attention in my house, I manage them. I am that "go to" person around here. I'm not outstanding at anything, I just keep on keeping on, one step at a time. And I never, ever cry. Maybe I am a robot?
     Maybe if I were a robot, I'd have software that would give me detailed, line by line instructions on what to do when everyone says, "What are you going to do about this?" If child is rude five hundred and twelve times, then ... what?

Your result for The Brutally Honest Personality Test...

Crackpot - INTJ

13% Extraversion, 53% Intuition, 73% Thinking, 80% Judging

Take The Brutally Honest Personality Test at HelloQuizzy

     It's a beautiful day for gardening, but I'm not feeling motivated. I skipped my yoga class this morning, so I have extra time, but I don't want to get covered with dirt and in the middle of things and then have to go to my cello lesson this afternoon. So tomorrow I'll get out there and finish planting what I have, and then go to the nursery on Sunday to browse around for anything else that might be fun to grow. I didn't buy any eggplant starts, so I'll be looking for those, too, as well as some strawberries. I want to plant them in barrels on the south side of my house, where I have great sun but no garden space.
     I was feeling really frustrated with cello practice yesterday. All my personal anxiety and the events of my bad day seemed to turn the cello into nothing but a squawkbox (well, worse than usual), and besides, hard as I've worked all week on intonation, I just wasn't hitting it. Plus, after saying this week's song is easy--which it is--I was also not getting that right. So I was tense and stopped after just an hour of practice yesterday since it didn't seem to be doing any good, anyway. I was feeling worried about my lesson, but I am trying to relax myself by reminding myself that it's a lesson, not a performance, so whatever I'm not getting right will be a good focus for the lesson and will help with practice this coming week. For some reason I always feel that I need to come to my lesson with everything perfect--pretty silly, considering that nothing can possibly be perfect so soon.
     I plan to attend a performance by my cello teacher's band this evening, at a cafe not far from where I live. I'm looking forward to that; I needed to pick back up on doing new things, as I think that's a real mood lifter for me. At the same time, I'm feeling pretty overwhelmed. Too many people want too many different things. It will be better in a couple of weeks, I hope--unless more things come along and demand my attention!
     I feel glad that I've got my books picked out for my reading challenge, and I even have one of them on hand so I can start right away Memorial Day weekend. I also have three books waiting for me at the library, so I'll go pick those up in between doing what needs doing today.

    Anxiety--ugh. Can't concentrate, can't sleep. I hate running my eyes over the pages of a book and not reading a word. I hate lying in bed awake and tense. It's days like this that make me understand why people turn to drugs. Geez.