April 2011 – Page 2 – The UnderToad

Spring Break is Officially Over

And not a moment too soon. Last week North Carolina was in the record lows for the end of March. It rained every single day except Tuesday, when the wind gusts made the sun shine at a maximum of 30 degrees. Today we are predicted to have a record high for the beginning of April. Of course.

Eliott was awake every day last week at 7am. At least her sister got the Spring Break memo and stayed in bed another hour. For this, Eliott was forced to entertain herself in her bedroom until “Carter wakes up.” I am happy things weren’t the other way around. So naturally, this morning, when I got out of the shower at 8:15, both of the girls were still sound asleep.

I was exactly halfway productive last week despite the fact that I was on full time mom duty for at least 10 hours a day. This means the house got vacuumed (but bathrooms remained dirty), laundry was washed and dried (but only half-way folded and definitely not put away), errands were run as needed, and well planned fully executed meals were cooked every night for dinner (but leftovers are sort of smattered throughout the fridge, unidentified). This is what I get when the only way to get my kids to stop yakking at me is to look busy with anything but the TV, a book, or the computer. Despite the fact that I’m about to hit my one year milestone in stay-at-home-mom-land, I admit I still have not created a weekly schedule for myself and my things to do. I keep thinking I will. Then I keep not doing it.

The truth is, I’m still stuck in the habit of getting all house chores done over the weekend. I like the way Saturday and Sunday frame a nice chunk of time and pose an impending time goal of “If you don’t get this done by Sunday it won’t get done until next weekend.” Usually that is enough to motivate me into full productivity. I like settling down in front of the TV on Sunday night knowing the house (and bathrooms) are clean, the grocery shopping is done, and clean clothes are put away. Somehow, I can embrace Monday when this is my weekend.

Unfortunately, my body now knows that my only responsibility for the rest of the week is making sure my children don’t die. I mean, there’s dropping them off and picking them up from school on time M-W-F, and nap-time every day around 1:30, but otherwise, my days are pretty wide open. It seems a little stupid and pretty lazy that anything I don’t finish on the weekend gets put off until the next weekend, but I’m not lying when I say that the clean laundry that has been laid neatly on the chair in my bedroom to prevent wrinkles will not be put away until next Saturday. The toilets will have to go another week, and maybe if I’m lucky, I can send my husband to the grocery store on his way home from work for bread, milk, and raisins.

When the weather warmed up on Saturday, we sort of went outside and then never really came back in. At 5:30 last night it dawned on me that we had nothing to eat for dinner. I sent John for grocery-store-deli fried chicken (my favorite) and beer, and proceeded not to re-stock any of the staples we clearly need.

This is why we’re having soup for dinner tonight, even though it is about 86 degrees outside. Because if there’s one thing I do well, it is a big mean pot of clean-out-the-fridge soup. Everything is in and it is on the stove, cooking itself, as we speak. This frees up my afternoon to sit on my porch with some sun tea (yes, I am that domestic) and watch my kids blow bubbles. Maybe I should finally pick up the book for April book club.

I’m too busy cherishing these moments that every one keeps telling me to cherish to do any chores today, or for the rest of the week, I suspect. And in the words of my brother, if my only real responsibility for the day is reading the book for book club, well, that’s a pretty damn good day.

Confessions

Imaginary Men

When I was a junior and an RA at Baylor one of the freshman in my dorm brought me a notepad with this on the cover:

She was one of those freshman (among thousands) who had become a bit obsessive about the need for a boyfriend. This was one conversation I was never good at, considering a). I’d never had a boyfriend and b). I didn’t particularly want one. It wasn’t that I was against the institution of exclusive dating. In fact, in the big scheme of things, it likely would have been an easier route than the one I ended up taking. It was just that what I wanted, what I believed I deserved, well, I hadn’t found him yet.

This little impromptu gift was the result of a conversation that had gone, to my memory, something like this: “Claire, you’re pretty and cool, and everyone likes you. Why don’t you have a boyfriend?” My response: “I’m maybe not quite as cool as you think I am – but thanks – and uh, “the one” –for me– as far as I can tell, he doesn’t exist. Or if he does, he sure as hell doesn’t go to Baylor. Besides, it’s so much easier to keep the potentially good ones at a distance. They always end up disappointing me the minute I find out they aren’t what I’ve created them to be in my mind.” But what I wasn’t saying was, “Good question. I’ve been thinking and wondering the exact same thing.”

I used to joke that my only standards for a man were that he needed to be older and taller. Older wasn’t as difficult as taller, which effectively ruled out over half the underclassman at Baylor. (And Texas boasts of all things big. Hah.) The real truth was, while I was open to dating almost anyone, I wasn’t about to close that door called “There’s possibly something better than this,” on something that I knew just wasn’t It. In my early 20’s, I didn’t know exactly what I wanted, but I knew I had not found it yet. And this didn’t worry me. Marriage, as far as I was concerned, was a long way away.

So when this little notepad found its way into my hands that day, it not only became the title of my first book, but quickly became my new battle cry, buzz word, and point-of-reference for reasons things weren’t working out with one guy, or why I was not trying to get things going with another. “Oh yeah, well, he was just an imaginary man anyway,” or “Oh no, I’d never go out with him. He makes a much better imaginary man.” There were many boys at Baylor who I simply liked to covet from afar. These, I didn’t even want to meet. I knew if I ever actually met one of them I would only end up disappointed. It was far better to just keep their cute faces with their perfect personalities inside my head.

One imaginary man I can remember fairly clearly was the very first boy listed on my freshman “Crush List.” I called him Johnny Angel (for obvious reasons) and I’m fairly certain everyone who had ever spoken to me and also regularly ate a meal in the Penland Dining Hall knew who he was, my pet name for him, and the reasons behind my covetousness from afar. I must have talked about him pretty often because I had random “Johnny Angel” sightings reported to me on a semi-regular and somewhat disturbing basis. I laid eyes on Johnny Angel for the first time on the very first day I was on campus for Welcome Week. I maybe even talked to him (as he was one of the small group leaders assigned to teach freshman everything we needed to know about college life) but I’ve since blocked that conversation out. The two things I remember best about him were his immaculate complexion and hair. He was definitely taller than me. The jury’s still out on whether he actually outweighed me at that time.

Once Welcome Week was over and real life began, I continued to see him around campus (usually in the dining hall) a few days a week. I would often blush if we made eye contact (an epidemic from which I had previously never suffered in my life) and I’m pretty sure I dreamed about him from time to time. I could not actually tell you his name right now. Either I never knew it or I don’t remember it.

Anyway, sometime during my junior year I started meeting my friend Clinton Pickens every Tuesday and Thursday for lunch in the upper classman dorm across campus (mind you, at this point I’m an RA in the same freshman dorm I always lived in). It was very difficult for me to eat lunch in this mostly “Greek” dining hall, I might add. I was definitely out of my comfort zone. Somehow, Clinton Pickens and our Tuesday/Thursday ritual of leaving lunch to spend the rest of the afternoon playing video games on the futon in his apartment, gave me just the courage I needed to get through the somewhat political social scene and certainly more than my fair share of really annoying beautiful-people-flirtation observances.

We pretty much always sat at the same table and the routine went something like this: come in and drop off book bags. Head into the food area, separate, fill up tray with food. Drop food off at table to navigate drinks with empty hands. Re-muster at table, see what food he had that looked better than mine, trade a few bites or steal a whole plate, eat, get dessert, and walk to his place. So one day, after getting my food but before getting my drinks, I happen to notice Johnny Angel has planted himself at my table. I’m freaking out. I’m immediately second guessing my decision on the BBQ chicken and wishing I hadn’t had some teaching practicum earlier that morning forcing me to dress like an elementary school teacher (or an off duty nun). I’m probably wishing I even owned a single pair of tight pants. So as I’m hyperventilating near the milk machine, planning what in the world I’m going to do and say (and to be sure, waiting until Clinton Pickens sits down so I’m not left alone with Johnny Angel) I’m actually thinking, “This is a dream come true! How in the world did he get him to sit with us?!”

I finally go back to the table. Johnny Angel and Clinton are talking like old friends. He looks up, once and very briefly, when Clinton suddenly remembers, “Oh yeah, hey, you know Claire Paulus don’t you?” To this, Johnny Angel mumbles, “Uh yeah, Welcome Week…” and then proceeds to completely ignore me for the rest of lunch. I’m not thinking, “Welcome Week 3 years ago, buddy. I’m not still a freshman here. And I may not be in a sorority, but I’m more than a little bit cooler and probably quite a profound amount hotter than my once freshman self. You don’t know what you’re missing.” I do remember thinking however, “Your skin is not quite as flawless as it looks with all the clouds and heavenly light beaming on you from a distance…and your voice seems a little higher than it sounds in my dreams…and, God…I think you actually might be skinnier than me.” I hope I resisted the urge to actually touch him, but at this point, it wouldn’t have mattered. It was over. Johnny Angel was suddenly just another ordinary college BOY, who had little more to offer than the rest of the disappointments I’d already experienced.

I cannot be certain, but the conversation must have come up between Clinton and me later that day and this might have been exclaimed within: “Oh my gosh. THAT was Johnny Angel?! I totally forgot. Oh that’s funny. You’ve been peeing your pants for like the last 2 hours haven’t you? I wish I had realized it earlier. That might have been more fun.” Thanks Clinton. I should mention here that Clinton Pickens is not an imaginary man. He was and still is exactly what I always wanted him to be, which is red-headed, funny, and mostly awesome in every way. Ask him why we never dated. (My answer is that he never asked.) But I tend to suspect that we both knew it would be far too much humor/obnoxiousness for anyone to handle. It may have resulted in everyone hating both of us, and in turn, us hating each other. Or, perhaps I was for him what most guys were for me. Both of us, in short, were probably keeping our options open.

It turns out, when I searched for this very Anne Taintor picture, there are many women blogging under this title (so much for originality). Apparently I was not the only one in the world afflicted by the disease. Too bad none of them went to Baylor. I could have created a club for us. As it is, maybe they’ll all buy the book.

Confessions

April Fool’s Day Confession

It is April Fool’s Day and I have a confession to make. I’m more than a little ashamed to admit most of what revolves around this story, so it seems only fitting that I tell it in its entirety. It is also, most fitting, that the recipient of this confession is one of my 7 subscribers. *Deep breath.

Nineteen years ago today, I told a lie.

Skip the mental math and take a journey with me back to 5th grade. My teacher, Miss G, still in my top 3 list of all time favorites, suffers from a degenerative muscular disease known as muscular dystrophy. At the time, she required the use of a cane and a willing student’s neck to get down the hallway. She did all of her teaching from a stool behind a large podium, which to this day is still how I see her in my mind’s eye. (I remember the way she had to use both hands to lift under her knees, one at a time, in order to prop her feet on the shelf of that podium. A year later I was in the Area/District Spelling Bee and got out in the very first round on the word “podium.” All I could think about was how bad I’d wished the Peanuts cartoon sticker on the front had instead been anything labeling the p-o-d-I-u-m, Kindergarten style. But I digress.)

In order to truly appreciate this story (and this woman), you have to be able to hear her as well as see her. She is loud. Her voice is loud, her laugh is loud, her personality is loud. Because of her, I later wrote off any lesson in my college education classes that in any way mentioned yelling and/or sarcasm to be detrimental to the classroom climate. She used both. Brilliantly, I might add. Because she could and she had to. She wasn’t going to silently but purposefully move toward the talking student’s desk (mine) and use what I later learned was called proximity control. And I can say for certain, as the recipient of much of that voice backed by scathing sarcasm, I am all the better for it. All of us were. She laughed at herself as often as she laughed at most of us, so when she yelled, or made fun of someone, it was a beating of love.

If the woman needed a cane and a kid to get down the hallway you better believe she wasn’t standing on desks hanging our artwork from the ceiling (even at 5 o’clock) or rearranging the room with regularity. But don’t get me wrong. My 5th grade classroom was just as vibrant (and I dare say more organized) as any other room in the school. This is because she used her students to do everything. Another point of her brilliance was her appointment of classroom jobs. These were not the traditional elementary school jobs like door-holder, line-leader, or turn-off-the-lights-and-shut-the-door-during-fire-drills-boy. A particularly detail-oriented and skilled scissor user got the job of cutting out the letters and actually creating bulletin boards every quarter or so. The girls with the best handwriting in the class wrote everyone’s names on the laminated “assignments checklist” and were allowed to keep up with who turned in what, and then go browbeat the kids who were falling behind. Other jobs included writing the daily assignments on the chalkboard at the end of the day, plugging and unplugging the potpourri pot at the back of the room, pulling down and raising the screen for the overhead, same for the blinds, and running messages back and forth to the office. Looking back I realize the genius in all of this. In fact, when I was pregnant I realized how I too could get away with pretty much ordering students to do pretty much anything (including fetching food and most of the time paying for it) in the name of… whatever… and they’d do it. I realized the year after pregnancy, most would still do it even though I could just as easily do it myself. This was the case in my fifth grade class. She did need us. But even if she hadn’t, we were her minions, and we worshiped her.

I like to believe that Miss G had a knack for assigning jobs that were indicative of a personality trait of each student. I actually had two jobs. One was refilling her “H2O To Go” cup whenever it ran dry. (I see a need and I fill it, pretty straight forward.) My primary job, however, I suspected was among the most important. *This suspicion was later confirmed when I became a teacher, a coffee drinker, and someone who generally believes that societal boundaries do not apply to them. My job was to go to the teacher’s lounge first thing every morning and get Miss G’s coffee. This was a big deal. Obviously, students aren’t generally allowed in Teacher’s Lounges. Also, Miss G didn’t take her coffee black. She took it with a bit of milk. Sometimes this one 8th grader would drink a milk first thing in the morning and save a little for Miss G’s coffee. If that was the case, either the milk was poured directly into her cup and left next to the coffee pot or the carton was left in the fridge. Other times, I had to go to the milk bin (right in front of the office windows) and take a milk. I was smiled and waved at by the office staff as they knew it was “for Miss G’s coffee.” I was four and a half feet of nothing but importance.

This brings me to April Fool’s Day of 1992. Kids had come in to school that day with a general attitude of April Fool’s Day excitement. (I recognize it now, from a teacher’s perspective that we were probably all acting like little assholes for no reason.) I’m ashamed to admit that I was peer pressured into an act of April Foolery but I’m more ashamed to admit by whom. You know how in elementary school there are the popular kids, the not-so popular kids who are just dumb enough to believe there’s a chance at acceptance into the popular group, and then the kids who are so painfully dorky or annoying or fat (or normal) that they don’t even pretend to believe they could possibly be popular? Well, at the time, I actually thought I was in the second group. Which is why I’m ashamed to admit that the peer pressure came from a member of the third, rather than the first. (It only took me two and a half more years to resign myself to the third group. Luckily, that group, in every school, gets a magical revelation sometime around sophomore year that it was probably the best place to be all along, and then we embraced it.)

So when I duck out before the morning announcements to go fetch Miss G’s coffee and the president of Group #3 approaches me at the door to say, “Claire, you should totally do something to her coffee,” my immediate thought was, naturally, “Of course I should! Because that would make me awesome today.” Nevermind that no one would even know what I had done but Miss G. Nevermind the conversation I’m missing while scampering off to be be a naughty little elf, in the name of caffeine and popularity. What I was missing was a very serious come-to-Jesus about how much Miss G hates April Fool’s Day and what it stands for. She is also delivering this speech with a passion that may or may not have brought her and others to tears.

Meanwhile, I’m in the teacher’s lounge, giggling, as I put garlic salt in her coffee (because every teacher’s lounge is just stocked full of the stuff). I re-enter the somber classroom to find my entire class apologizing for ideas they’d had, woefully sharing their own victim of April Fool’s stories, and agreeing with Miss G (some in prayer, I’m sure) as to why they also hate April Fool’s Day. I told you this woman had power. As I slowly pick up on what I had missed, mind you, I’m desperately trying not to wet my pants and praying to the Patron Saint of Spices that two tablespoons of garlic salt won’t be noticed.

The morning continues and I start to believe I might be okay. Until recess. As everyone files out the door, she calls me back in. Standing next to her behind the podium, I’m suddenly feeling nothing but shame. Little did I know at the time that I’d probably ruined the single best part of her morning. She asks me, in an unusually calm and somewhat soft voice, “Did you put salt in my coffee?” So here comes the moment that I’ve regretted for the last 19 years of my life. Here comes the moment that I’ve replayed in my head every time one of those get-to-know-you-games asks, “What is the biggest lie you ever told?” or “What is your biggest regret?” Why didn’t I own up to my mistake? Why didn’t I break down into the tears that would so easily have flowed and just got it over with? Why? Because I was four and a half feet of importance in this woman’s eyes and I didn’t want to lose that. I worshiped her.

So without even blinking (as I remember) I say, “No, Miss G.” She then says, “Okay. I needed to know. Because I need to know if it was just my cup or if the entire pot was messed with this morning.” I’m ten years old, and I have the audacity to then tack on, “Actually, the milk was already in your cup so I just filled it up.” (Of course I’m hoping this will lead her to believe the 8th grader was the culprit. What I’m not imagining is that he’s not only going to deny it, truthfully, but because he’s in 8th grade and he’s her favorite student of all time, she’s going to believe him.) But that was the end. Nothing more came of this for 19 years.

Certainly, what I did to the coffee was not the worst thing I ever did in life. But somehow, lying to Miss G really was. I have since reconnected with her in my adult life. I spent an afternoon with her just before graduating from college. She sent me a wedding present and I wrote her a long thank you note. She insists that I now call her by her first name (I can’t) and has shown me how she memorialized her trip to Australia. Even so, I have not been able to bring myself to confess what she likely knew all along, or certainly would have laughed about all these years later. I mean, if I could change places with her, certainly I’d be able to look into my adult face and disassociate it from my 10 year old face. But as myself, I cannot help but instantly be 10 years old again every time I think about that day, and I still blush, stutter, and feel ashamed in the memory.

I talk about Miss G all the time. I have probably told every single one of my high school classes this very story. I have certainly talked about it with my husband and he’s agreed with me about how irrational and silly I’m being. So I guess it is a bit of a cop out, but somehow fitting, that my apology has to come from over 2,000 miles away and is being simultaneously shared with the public over the world wide Interweb.

Yes, Miss G. I put salt in your coffee. Christina Rubio said it would be funny if I did something, so I did. And I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have lied to you the first time. And… I really hate April Fool’s Day too.

UPDATE: In Memory of Jill Gotzian, March 1, 2012