Dh went out drinking last night, without bothering to tell me. I was able, around midnight, to guess that a "meeting" probably meant downtown, which probably meant his favorite drinking buddies, which probably meant a stop XYZ- they found a new one, but he rolled in at two in the morning. I spent from about midnight to two rolling in distress, thinking his car was broken down, or something. I really do need to get through med school/ nursing school first/ to have some equanimity on the subject. I realized if my worst fears were right, then uggghhhhhh.
smallie is better, and on a roll. She's begun the "homework" game.
Um. blog. research next week. I don't know how to do anything at all, or where to register. Last week ( first week of class) was devoted to chocolate, coffee and liquor. This week, getting into class- comp 2. starting in later october. An eight week class, since I am so skittish about what happens when I am in class. MIL comes tomorrow. She stays through saturday. Saturday is golf day of some sort- ds1 just got his first club, a putter. ( Why yes, he is one pair of plaid pants short of a cliche) sunday is sunday school class first day. Oh, I'm going to try and make a dress that fits tomorrow. There is a vintage vogue, and if I knew how to link, I would----but it has a gather at the neck and near the waist, asymmetrical. It's a 40's design. Joann's has some brown print polyester- brown background, white sprigs of flowers- very 1940's- and I think I can make a knit dress, instead of a painfully fitted, lined 40's dress. And yes, someone else found the fabric, not me. And I'm going to put arms on it. Honestly, I don't see it being ready by Sunday, since my MIL is going to expect to visit, and be received, and all that.
Um, I hated it growing up, but my g-ma was really strict about " don't speak, if you haven't anything nice to say," but, lordy, I wish more people had had the muzzling training. I am utterly perplexed that all these people that I didn't marry, and wasn't raised around, feel that association means intimacy, means say whatever ruthless, awful thing comes into their head, b/c we're "family." I want to go Southern Postal on them. Like, they all meet my grandmother, and talk about how she frightens them with how cold and proper she is. Which, well, she is. But, dude, her family- they've had successful family reunions and holidays for- years, decades, generations. You learn to be polite, since you're going to be talking to them again the next year, and you want next year to be nice, too. You don't point out flaws, or get radical on politics, or vicious about religion, or mention weaknesses. You want to be pleased to see them again, and happy to see them grow, and then age with you. and then children. I mean, they all live to be 90 or more. They can't say cutting things. That cut will last for half a century.
I mean, honestly, the first time I've been comfortable at a "family" event in a long, long long long long time was visiting my grandfather right before he died. My dad drove me and the kids up- I wasn't going by myself, and my husband couldn't get off work- anyway, so my grandfather is in the hospital, and my dad is there, we are there, and some people from my grandfather's sunday school were there, just talking. You know- you say two sentences, someone says two sentences related- "football" "coach anecdote" "team prospects" "character of quarterback" " I love watching the game, they look like they are having fun"- desultory conversation where everyone is pleased to see the others participating. You know- the happy glow? My dad goes on this 20 minute peroration about all the famous, wealthy, well- connected football players from his college. They looked stunned. Then my grandmother says " Why, I'm hungry. B, could you join me for dinner?" At dinner, he insults his wife. I know that he's pleased to say he has a wife. My grandmother starts looking at the air around him, over his shoulder, anywhere but at him, since he's done an unthinkable thing. Never, ever, ever, ever, insult a spouse in any situation. That may be the only person who has got your back. And this is a poor state, so you may really need someone who likes you when you are old, and decrepit, and so on and so forth. I had to explain all this to him on the drive home. He was so embarassed.
But I was thinking, "Damn. I miss that carefulness." I mean, I go to Thanksgiving, and dad is trying to sow discord between XYZ. Mrs. M can't find a nice thing to say about her own son. She has a hard enough time finding nice things to say about the boys. Dad's wife tries to sow discord between dh and I. And then the extended brag and/ or excoriate lectures.
Anyway, I want to know what entitles all of these frankly awful people to tell me to go spay myself. Or tell me that a dead baby is a good thing. It's not. It looked cold, and sad, and like it needed a blanket.
So, I went to reading. "Fatal Misconceptions" is a new book about the population control wars. Borlaug ( green revolution) vs Paul Ehrlich ( population bomb) If you google " the architects of culture of death" there's a whole series of essays about the people that put these thoughts in modern terms. PJ O'rourke on this is surprisingly - surprising. I think of him as "republican party reptile" not someone with a conscience, or a heart. The architects of death culture essays includes Margaret Sanger, which is how I know the horrid racist bits. Plus, really, on the other side, The New Our Bodies, Ourselves ......Oh, dennis bentley hart, or hart bentley.......he's an orthodox theologian, and apparently, way brilliant.........durant, a few of their civ books. These brush on Philosophers- seneca, and so on, showing what people were writing and thinking.. a lot of the "culture of death" stuff is classical philosophy, and roman statism resurrected, so much less elegantly.
Anyway, I have gone Southern Postal on some of them. I've barely spoken to my dad's wife since she decided to pick on me ( deliberately) at my own birthday. As she put it "I've never seen you flustered." It's my birthday. Good grief. I'm a mother of three. I don't have the time or money for a salon haircut, or a designer suit or fabulous gold bits. I have adornments- three of them. I smile, and ask how she is, and when she says " No, really, how are you?" I say " Wunnerful. How're you?"and then ask questions. She can't tell what I'm doing, or what the kids are doing, or anything.
Actually, I kind of want to ask why they think I am such a wussy pushover that they can say these things. I mean, I did learn from the freezing look master. I've asked, and the answer is always " But we're family." Um, there's a reason you moved halfway across the country to get away from your own family????Maybe, possibly, they might have some habits you might wish to reconsider???
I mean, I know I don't have a career, and no real prospect of one just yet. But, seriously, I was raised to get married, have kids, and then go to school and have a career. I don't think a competence at knitting or sewing or cooking means I checked my brains at the door. an ability to say nasty things about people in the public eye isn't really-------------sigh.
rant over. I know I can't be the only one who thinks this way.
ari
__________________
Boo- yeah!
... a part of devotion and love is the self- discipline to grow a talent into a skill...
I don't have a ton to say, except that I love reading your writing, I am so sorry about the baby, and I think your grandmother was on to something that is worth pursuing.
__________________
wife to one, the love of my life
mama to 4, all incredibly gorgeous, smoochable and bright - taking my breath away everyday.
"Little things are indeed little, but to be faithful in little things is a great thing." - Mother Theresa
I am off to bed but wanted to quickly add that I read the entire post (something my self-diagnosed ADD won't let me do very often).....
I could give you a few southern "hell yeah's" !
Truly sorry your dh was insensitive. Mine did that one night (but he was truly working late). I thought he was dead! Got down on my hands knees and prayed so hard and cried..... He called and I gave him a what for! Funny now, but he has never done that again!
Also, wanted to say it is so good to see you back!
__________________
Tracey, Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth ~1 John 3:18
I try to live my life by that rule. That I will have to be dealing with these people for the rest of my life. I never want to cringe in a couple years time in remembrance. Even if I totally, completely, disagree with them, at least keep my dignity. I wouldn't want to only ever talk platitudes and chitchat, but keep it civil!!! This IS family!!!! Hey, I'm still speaking to my ex-SIL, aren't I??
I so want to see that dress when you are done. Take a picture. Post it. Scan it in and post it, if necessary!! You want I talk you through how to post pics, and links, and stuff??
See, this is why I should not post when I'm bent. I really try not to.
Yes, tutorials would be nice. the dress will be slow, since it seems I'm going to have to massacre a few old tee-shirts to check the top fit. The illustration has a somewhat close-fitting top and weenie little cap sleeves, but apparently, they are guy at garage chops up his tee- shirt massive overhangs. It's Vogue 8727, I think. It's in Pattern Review, which is how I now know about the big ol' overhangs.
I've been fiddling through a list of "rules of the south" just for funniness, even though it's really serious.
1. Never, ever, ever, ever, dis your spouse. Ever. In a section of the country with ~uncertain~ medical care, you will probably, at some point, be walking around with untreated heart disease, untreated neurological conditions, carved with sun scarring......you need someone who loves you, and looks out for you.
2. Take pride in your children, not in a competitive sense, just in a descriptive sense. An axe murderer on death row can still have beautiful blue eyes, and was a sweet baby. .
3. This especially includes football. Now, lots of people- elsewhere- think that this is a bad joke- but, I put before you the odes of Pindar, the footraces in the Illiad, the writings of AE Housman, and I ask you, Pindaric odes are literally thousands of years old, and still worth translating. The people who bring you Pindaric odes and Illiadic footraces are from agricultural societies, which are just going to kick the s$%^ out of their bodies. Their athletic youth IS as good as it's going to get. It is the same sunlight on the Aegean, the Mediterranean, the English village fields, and the fields of cotton, or mill entrances.
4. Biological functions: never mention them. You do not mention peeing, pooping, sweating, farting, f^&*ing, burping, vomiting.....
I doubted the wisdom of this: honestly, so much of childhood is managing these processes: potty training, menstruation, intestinal challenges of soda pop and pizza. And then, I met a woman in her sixties who informed me she had spent the last week UPCHUCKING, and that she had a COLONOSCOPY scheduled, and here's what they do for a COLONOSCOPY. At the dinner table. I pulled out the old southern standby, and SWOONED.
The corollary of this is: my dad asked me to drive him to the hospital, b/c he felt a little light- headed, and laying down for a nap hadn't really helped. he was in the hospital for six weeks, getting a triple bypass, and having various failed organs pulled out. That's a little light-headed.
5. You can live two doors down from your mother, walk a half dozen dyed miniature poodles (pale pink, pale peach, light lemon, spring green, baby blue, and light lavendar)to the soda fountain on a color- coordinating leash every afternoon, have a signed copies of the biographies of Tammy Faye Bakker, Liberace, and those delightful tiger guys from Las Vegas splayed out on your coffee table, and you are not gay. ( See rule four) You love your mother. If someone, from elsewhere is uncouth enough to ask- you really love your mother.
Being gay would mean you would have to have a conversation about doing physical functions that are never mentioned: you should never have a conversation mentioning physical functions. Ergo, you are not gay. You love your mother.
6. It is perfectly okay, and even expected, that, when you have a date, and you are living at home, that your father will be cleaning his shotgun, if he hunts, or his service revolver, if he's in the military, or straightening his federal judge licenses, when said date comes to pick you up. This is not to throw cold water on your social life and guarantee that you will die, alone, and unloved, and undated.
Your father knows, better than anyone, that you are a goddess here on earth in disguise, merely tapping down your glory, just a little bit, with a few zits, and an unfortunate perm. It's for mercy. If anyone beheld your glory in entirety, they would burn up. As it is, they still feel awe, and overwhelming needs to ply you with sacrificial food and wines then hump your leg, since you are indeed a goddess of love and goodness and beauty here on earth. Your father is merely trying to sort out the cowards. You deserve a brave manly man to worship you as long as your consent to walk on this earth.
7. Calorie restriction is a guaranteed, more or less, way to extend your lifespan. Since most of the south is agricultural, and suffers from depressions, recessions, and doesn't necessarily get the bag money ( ahem, federal entitlement programs) that the north and west receive, you can bet that just about everyone has been through an extended CR period. Which means everyone lasts nearly forever.
Be polite.
This is the section of the country that also pioneered family reunions and genealogy. You'll meet these same people every year for years, decades, nearly a century. You don't want to have bitterness flourishing. There isn't a czar to massacre the people you insulted. There isn't death by potato blight. There isn't death by cold snap. There are family reunions with people who really do remember the Titanic, really did volunteer for World War I, and really did wear make and wear flour sack dresses during the Depression, and even afterwards.
You get a free pass in childhood to make life miserable for your siblings and cousins, but after that- watch out. You'll also never, ever, ever live down the miseries of childhood. I've been privileged to hear, every year for about fifteen years, about how G_ma X, in 1892m sent her brother running through town, naked as a jaybird, b/c she was washing clothes in the river, and thought she might as well get his. And he was sitting there, too, over 100 years old, mostly deaf, with a walker, reminiscing about dying her hair black with shoe polish.
(and when it all gets too much, sit down with a cup of tea and a bracing read of that lovely northern Judith Martin, and all of her telling lines to go with that Freezing Look)
won't let me do very often).....
Jody
Linear Mode
