I’m investigating things that begin with the letter M.
Saw Alice. Was amazed at every turn of every page of the story. Amazed by Johnny Depp’s talent, the way he makes you love him, makes every character he plays redeemable and makes you feel compassion no matter what. I’m in love with the Hatter/Alice relationship and I felt so sad for him when she left. Won’t anyone think of the Hatter?
Dylan has started using quotey fingers randomly. I don’t know where she would have picked that us – though the likely source, as usual, is me. For example, tonight after dinner she said, “Dad, do you like “pineapples“?” We laughed until we cried and then we laughed some more. And of course, she’s a tiny mutant teenager, so she made angsty face and crossed her arms and refused to laugh…until she couldn’t hold it in any longer, and of course, did so.
Alex is becoming a small person, and I’m finding myself holding conversations with her the way I used to with Dylan. Dylan somehow took a leap from four years old to seventeen years old and now wants nothing to do with me. She spends her free time playing Spore on the computer and just generally being in a different vicinity than the rest of us. Its unsettling and I’m hoping its just a phase. So now Alex is filling that spot and we have silly conversations and long conversations and we talk about the weather and what our brains do, and when she is loud and I tell her “Shh, you’ll wake the whole neighborhood,” she asks confusedly, “Why is the whole neighborhood asleep?” Last night we were watching the most recent episode of Lost and she is just baffled at non-Locke. “Is he the man in the wheelchair that doesn’t need a wheelchair on the beach but needs a wheelchair in his house? Is he dead? Then is that him? Is that his twin?” Oh Alex, I don’t know.
We are in the “end-game” for health care reform. Votes will be made soon. Do you hear the drums? The ominous, sensationlized, fear-mongering drums symbolizing good versus evil, red versus blue? BOTH WILL ENTER, ONLY ONE WILL LEAVE. Eh, neither do I. It will pass or it won’t, but there will be reform. If not this time, the next. I’ve got to have faith that the people against the bill aren’t really as stubbon, misinformed, and heartless as they have literally and wholly acted this past year. If I must have faith in something, it is that people will hopefully, eventually, do what’s best for our country.
Spring is so close I just want to sneeze in anticipation. This has been the longest, coldest, greyest winter I can remember. Though I feel like I handled it better than the last few. I wonder why that is. I’m excited for the abundance of sunshine though, no matter that after two-ish weeks of gorgeous weather I will feel like my flesh is baking just from walking out to my mailbox and be praying for rain, for a meteor shower, for anything just to block out the damn thing. I’m also excited for earth day, just because its always been my favorite holiday.
I wanted to volunteer at the school I went to as a child. See, when I went to school there we had the most amazing Earth Day activities. The high school students got out of class the entire day and cleaned the school. In the morning we made our cleaners from vinegar and baking soda and oils for cleaning wood, using rags instead of disposable paper towels. And we loved it. At the end of the day, the place just smelled clean, which in a public school is pretty rare and amazing all in itself. That wasn’t all though. We had what I can only describe as an Earth Day Pep Rally. It was a very small, K-12 school, so the whole school would pile in the gym and we did these activities. I think we watched a movie, listened to someone speak, and what sticks out the most to me is the frog races. Who knows where our science teacher came up with this idea, but she had these frogs, right? And little lanes that we would plop the frogs down on. And the students had straws…anyone see where I’m going with this? Probably not. The students had to blow on the frogs’ bums to get them to hop. Whoever’s frog got to the finish line first won. My sister who was in kindergarten or pre-k at the time, well her frog hopped over the line first and won a goodie bag and a baby Dogwood Tree, which we planted in our yard and you can look out of my parents kitchen window and see it today.
That’s a celebration of the earth, folks. That is teaching children, teenagers, people, that its important what we do, how we act. I wanted to volunteer, to help organize this again because I remember it being such a wonderful thing and as my brother still goes to that school, I know that they haven’t been holding them at all since I graduated. But I’m afraid I know exactly why they ceased their celebrations. No one cares. My brother, a junior, informed me that every kid in his class would hate me if they were made to participate in something like that. I believe him. I also believe teachers are too busy/too stressed/too apathetic to take interest in my offer to volunteer and unfortunately, I have two children and cannot do everything alone. I’ll do something though. I feel it, like hunger or unspent energy, gnawing at me. I’ve got to do something.
Sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.
