Computer Woes

Our laptop bit the dust. This was almost a year after I spilled an entire glass of water on it. Does it take a year to really kill a computer? I guess if you want to put it through a slow, painful death.

So, my blog has been non-existent. Hopefully soon we'll get another one and I can resume. I actually really miss it.

But, I wanted to update anyone who might drop in to see what's new. Although, Mom, I guess you already knew about the laptop. I know that my one or two other readers have just been on pins and needles.

Until technology is once again my friend...

New Series

I've decided to start a series on my blog called "Awesome Experiences and Mediocre Moments." The posts as part of the series will be experiences from my life that are significant to me in some way. I don't know how often I'll post something new in the series--let's just be laid back about it, okay? If the stories end up being an experience in boredom, I will discontinue the series with little or no notice! But then, how can you tell if you're being boring? And, isn't blogging the ultimate outlet for the self-obssessed, so do we ever find ourselves boring? But, that discussion is for another day.

So, here is installment #1: The Coach who made me HATE Running

I wish I were a runner. I mean, I dream about putting on a little tanktop and shorts with fancy running shoes, taking off down some desert road Forrest Gump style, the wind in my hair, my heart beating in perfect rhythm with the sound of my feet on the pavement. Unfortunately, when I actually do run I can't hear my feet on the pavement over my extremely loud, scary sounding gasps for oxygen. I can run about a block before it's all over. I think I have a mental block about it, and I can trace my running issues back to one coach. To protect her identity I'll call her Coach X.

Now, Coach X had a notorious desire to punish kids though sports that was known far and wide. She was tough, a little mean, and had zero tolerance for non-athletic types. You can imagine where that left me on her list of least favorite students. I was very near the end, right behind the girl with the clubfoot and right ahead of the blonde on crutches. I was introduced to this coach on the first day of school in the fifth grade, when she arrived at PE sporting her short red shorts and extra white t-shirt, whistle dangling around her neck and pencil tucked behind her ear. She didn't smile. She never smiled, and she turned little terms of endearment into sarcastic jabs, like this:
"Well, you're never going to get in shape if you don't bring your tennis shoes to class, sweetheart!"

"I'll tell you one thing, darling, you are getting a zero for today, and on top of that you're not getting rid of those extra pounds!" or

"Listen here, precious, you are going to run lines today until you vomit, and after that you're going to run some more!"

There are too many stories about her to list here. She was THE girls' coach at my school, so I had her every year from fifth to eighth grade. Let me just briefly guide you through my experiences with her. She gave a kid a nosebleed once while administering coproral punishment. I got a piece of glass in my foot one day during fifth grade and she demanded that I not cry. When she taught math (her second favorite way to torture people), questions from the class were considered an indication that we weren't paying attention to her flawless instruction.

All of this background information leads me to the reason for my aversion to running. There are two issues, really. One is the fact that when I was in junior high this coach forced everyone to run track. That's right, track. We're talking individual events, in front of crowds of people. She carefully chose the heats for her best runners, and then just stuck the rest of us wherever there were spots. So, I was usually bringing up the rear (I mean, WAY bringing up the rear) in the fastest heats. I was the kind of runner who was trying to finish races while people were already walking across the track on the way to the concession stand. Picture 7th grade me, weaving around people, saying, "Excuse me, pardon me" as I try to get to the finish line. Okay, maybe it wasn't quite that bad. But, it was bad. This was junior high humiliation at its finest. My poor parents were at every track meet, cheering me on while I crawled across the finish line.

The second issue revolves around one day in the seventh grade when my mother made a call to the coach, asking her to let me sit out of PE. I arrived, innocently enough, and was informed by the coach that my mother had called. Then she had me sit in the bleachers and gathered around all of the seventh and eighth grade girls and announced:

"I want all of you to know that because of Melissa Clark you are going to run for this entire hour. Get on the line."

And she proceeded to run those poor girls until they were half dead while I sat mortified on the bleachers.

Is it any wonder that the thought of running puts me in a tizzy? Maybe my subconscious conjurs up some skewed picture of Coach X in my brain everytime I take off, and my body can't handle the mental pressure.

But, it's probably more likely that all of my slandering of Coach X here is just a jumbled and confused collection of memories from a kid's perspective that have no bearing on who the lady actually was or how she conducted herself.

So, the next time I get in the mood to go for a run, I should try changing my perspective. "This one is for Coach X!" I should think to myself because she spent so many years "building my character." She is probably still out there somewhere, teaching kids to hate sports. But, I bear no ill will. After all, it's not like she made me hate shopping or going to amusement parks. Running I can do without, and when some great urge to run comes over me in the future, I can go to the backyard with my kids and run in circles until we get the giggles. No hot running outfit or fancy shoes or desire to win races required.

Move Over, Heidi!

I am working out. Actually, I have been working out fairly consistently for about a year, and since I don't look like a supermodel yet I can only assume that if I weren't working out I would be morbidly obese. This is what I tell myself.

A few weeks ago I started doing 30 Day Shred, which is the brainchild of Jillian Michaels, "The Toughest Trainer on TV." I imagine it's a pretty comical sight, me on my living room floor, making caveman-type noises while I struggle to get through the 20 minute workout. Jillian makes comments along the way like, "You have to tell your body what you want it to do!" and I try! I really try to tell my body, "Don't let this cheesecake I'm about to eat put any weight on me!" But, it doesn't listen. Thus, the grueling workouts.

I have gotten stronger, though. I can actually feel muscles in my arms, which is a rarity for me. I have no idea why Chad laughs when I ask him to feel of my biceps. Or why he makes fun of me when I can't open a pickle jar. Baby steps to that supermodel body, right?

Then I have to deal with the actual supermodels. You know the ones. The Heidi Klumes of the world who have a baby one week and model underwear the next. Would it kill her to wait a few months, just to make us all feel better?

But, I'll stick with it. Not working out now just makes me miserable. Almost as miserable as I am during the 20 minutes on my living room floor. Just you wait, Heidi. I am 33 years old, and I'm well on my way to not becoming morbidly obese!

The Songwriter

I used to write songs.

Before I had kids, I would come home after work and play my guitar and make up scenarios in my head to write about. I once wrote a song about an early twentieth century circus performer who was abandoned by all the kids who decided that his act was lame. He was the guy who gets shot out of a cannon. I mean, seriously.

And then I wrote all the typical girl-in-her-room songs, about love and sex and breakups and broken hearts, even though I have never experienced a breakup (thankfully). I wrote songs about my husband, my daughter, my students, and my parents.

Sometimes I get out my song notebook and sing through some of them. Most of them I've forgotten. And, pretty much all of them are terrible songs. Should that matter to a girl who just sings them in her room, no audience, no recordings, no witnesses? Probably not. But, for some reason it does.

Maybe someday I'll get back to it. Sometimes I feel inspired. One thing I haven't tried is writing songs about potty training or baby vomit. Maybe I should work on that: The Stay-at-Home Mom's Song Notebook. I can almost hear a chorus in my head: "Don't hold a baby high in the sky, he's likely to throw up right in your eye..."

I've gotta go. I've got songs to write!

Kindergarten Came

Five and a half years ago, I walked around for nine months housing a little human being inside of me. I felt every hiccup, every shift in position. I went to the doctor's office and heard her heartbeat and saw her funny little movements on an ultrasound screen. One cold winter day, she was born, and I saw for the first time the little being I had sheltered for all those months. She was beautiful.

A few months later, I took her to the nursery at church. I didn't hear a single word sung or preached that day. All I could think about was my baby, who was out of my sight and hearing, who might need me, who might be afraid, who might be misunderstood by those who didn't know her the way I did.

As the years went on, I let go in other small ways, trusting a few people to care for her, but never straying too far. She is mine. I love her.

Today I took her to kindergarten. She was excited and could hardly wait to get there. She was greeted by a beautiful young teacher, an exciting classroom, and pink playdough. She will be fine. She is ready.

For me, this is the end of an era that I have adored. I can't help but feel that from now on someone else will be getting more of her than I am. That's a tough idea to swallow. But, I will be fine. I am ready.

This is life. And, it's wonderful to see her run out into the world and embrace it. She and I will always be mother and baby, no matter how old she gets or how many wonderful or terrible things she experiences in this life. We can handle it all, with God's help. We'll be fine. We are ready.

Underwear Elvis

Last night Chad performed as Elvis at a church fish fry. Seeing his act reminded me of an essay I wrote for a little English department publication while I was in grad school. Here it is:

I remember the first time I saw my husband become Elvis Presley. It was before he even owned the white jumpsuit with blue rhinestones. In fact, he didn’t really have clothes on. We had been married for several weeks when he came sliding into the kitchen, Risky Business style, wearing nothing but knee-high socks, white underwear, and a guitar. I was scrambling eggs and made every effort to seem disinterested in his act, shaking my head, snorting that you’re-just-not-normal laugh. But, the longer he played, and the more he twitched and shimmied and shook, the harder it was for me to pretend that this act wasn’t worth watching. It seemed like this man was channeling Elvis himself, right there in my shabby little kitchen, and I could almost hear the roar of a Vegas crowd in the sound of sizzling bacon.

As our first few years of marriage went on, I grew accustomed to seeing the amazing transformation that I called “Underwear Elvis” at any time of the night or day. I never knew when the King was going to make an appearance, but I was always mesmerized by the act which seemed to come so naturally to my husband. He told me how he felt a kinship with Elvis ever since he was a shy, skinny middle-schooler learning to play the guitar in his room, singing with Elvis records for hours at a time. As an older teen he entertained his friends by singing Elvis tunes, but by college he spent time on his own music, so the world rarely witnessed his uncanny ability to impersonate the King.

A funny thing happened, though, when he was asked to entertain at a senior citizens’ banquet at our church. He decided to do an Elvis act. He rented a jumpsuit with a cape, placed spotlights around the room, and put on a full-fledged Elvis extravaganza. The people went wild. Like me, they couldn’t believe that he could so easily turn into the King of Rock and Roll—his show was truly convincing.

Not too many months later, we were packing up to leave our home in Nashville so my husband could begin law school at Texas Tech. As a going away gift, the president of Sony Publishing and a member of our church who had witnessed his Elvis show, presented him with a white Elvis jumpsuit, complete with blue rhinestones, bell-bottoms, and a cape. It was tacky and beautiful. My husband accepted the gift with thanks, but couldn’t imagine a time when he would ever need an Elvis jumpsuit in law school.

We had been in Lubbock for exactly three days when he was offered a job as an Elvis impersonator at a local theater. He played show after show in his white jumpsuit, and the women went crazy. I stood and watched while middle-aged ladies groped him after shows as they had their pictures taken with him. One woman tried to unzip his jumpsuit—others stroked his hair or dabbed at his brow with handkerchiefs. Some nights children would come to the theater after their parents had dressed them up like Elvis—one little boy wore his dog’s Elvis costume. My husband became a local celebrity. Stories and reviews graced the local newspaper as everyone marveled at Elvis the lawyer. It all made for a great story.

Years later, we live in a small town, and the Elvis jumpsuit hangs in a closet. Even though my husband rarely puts it on, my daughter and I are still likely to be called Priscilla and Lisa Marie at the grocery store. My husband has reached an age where he finds the Elvis jumpsuit embarrassing—he says it makes him feel like he’s the one in the room who’s just wearing underwear while everyone else is fully clothed. Somehow I find that analogy appropriate, remembering his debut as Underwear Elvis in our little kitchen so many years ago. I still prefer to watch his lip curl and his knees wobble in the comfort of our little house while our daughter looks on in amazement. Elvis may have left the building, but in our family he lives on quite comfortably in white underwear and knee-high socks.

I've got a fever, and the only prescription is...more appliances!

On Friday I broke my washing machine. You see, I like to overstuff my machine. When you're washing for a family of four, you cram as much in the thing as you can legally manage. Not that there's a washing machine stuffing law or anything, but maybe there should be. The more clothes I can jam in there, the fewer loads I have to do. It's all very scientific and mathematical.

But, this time my system failed me. I stuffed an obscene number of towels, a blanket, and one of those baby shopping cart covers in there, poured in the soap, and let her go. Everything was fine until she got to the spin cycle. Then the frightening noises began. And the walking of the machine across the laundry room floor. Then the big crack that was followed by an eerie silence. That was the end of my washer.

I tried to be very grumpy about the fact that we had to buy a new one. I feigned all sorts of disgust at the amount of money this was going to cost us. I didn't want to be excited. But, I couldn't help it.

It's a strange phenomenon that occurs sometime between the year you get married and the year you have your first child. I call it Major Appliance Euphoria (MAE). It's an illness that comes on totally against your will, and one that certainly makes you feel old before your time. Once I couldn't care less what brand of washer I had or whether my dryer had a digital readout. I went for ten years with NO DISHWASHER, for Heaven's sake! But, you just reach a point when suddenly you get a little giddy at the thought of a washing machine with a wrinkle reduction cycle. It's a little embarrassing.

But, I am right in the middle of a raging case of MAE, and I am a more than a little anxious to get my brand new 4.3 cubic feet super plus capacity washer. Just imagine how huge my loads can get now! I can rule the world!

I won't overstuff my new washer, I won't overstuff my new washer...