Stuff to Do When You Discover that you just don't give a shit.

Several times a day, for the last week or two, my husband has gazed over at me and said "You okay? How're ya doing? Okay?"

It only took about 10 days for me to notice this - that this was happening repeatedly, and that it might mean something.

I tried to answer him this morning.

"How ya doin', sweetie? You okay?"
"Tell me why you're asking. Do I seem other than okay?"
"Yeah, you seem kind of...angry or something."

Well, that's just silly. When I'm angry, there can be no question. There's no "seem"-ing. Everyone knows.

But I took a second to think about it, and I started to say:
"I don't know, I've been feeling kind of..."

and then Ian broke into a spontaneous dissertation on the powers of various Mario characters. And I shot myself in the head. With my finger, but still.

Eric nudged me back on topic. "You've been feeling...what?"

"Oh, I don't know. Maybe feeling disconnected? Like nothing has very much to do with me."

This is potentially quite bad, since I have a job, a marriage and a kid that have very, very much to do with me, in which I need to remain deeply interested and intimately involved.

I may be having a little depression flare-up. I had one last summer, and I didn't recognize it, because I had never in my life been a LITTLE depressed.

So all day, I've been making a list, which I will now share with the internet:

Things to do When You Discover You Just Don't Give A Shit

1. Clean the kitchen. Nothing is fun or interesting anyway, might as well do those things that everything is normally more interesting than. Put away the laundry. Empty the dishwasher.

2. Gather all your clarity and focus and think back about what balls you might have dropped at work in the last 2 weeks. Go over your emails. Immediately reply to those ones you 'forgot'. Go over your calendar for next week. Perhaps make a more detailed 'to-do' list than usual.

3. Do not go bathing suit shopping. I really, really need a second, and, should I find one, a third swimsuit, since we go to the pool every afternoon and my one suit is aging ungracefully. Of course, the price of a decent suit is coronary-inducing, and of course the affordable suits at WalMart are no match for my pulchritude.

If by any chance you are in the market for an expensive but excellently-made and long-wearing plus-sized bathing suit, I totally recommend Junonia, which has great merchandise and great service. With God as my witness, I'm getting my surfing wet suit there...one day.

Anyway, I love shopping, but I recommend steering away from stores on that first day that you discover that you don't give a shit. Whatever size you are, it's wrong, and nothing looks good, and the merchandise is all ugly and shopworn. Don't do it.

4. Declare a moratorium on whatever the Endless Conversation is in your house. Whether you go in endless circles about Pros and Cons of Growing my Beard In or What Color to Paint the Bathroom, Volume 9000, or The Car Made a Weird Noise or Is Yoshi a Turtle, No He's a Dinosaur, No He's a Frog, blah blah blah blah BANG. We get 24 hours off from that. And if someone forgets, and brings it up, the clock starts over. Sorry. I don't make the rules. Oh, that's right, I do. Well, sorry.

4. Play cards with your kid. It's low-impact. And he'll lose interest before long.

5. Grocery shopping is okay. It might spark your interest. Not staple foods, though. Make someone else go for those. I went to the Indian grocery for chutney. They had 20 kinds!

6. Knitting is kind of boring, but getting something finished feels good. Make things in sprints.

7. STAY THE HELL AWAY FROM COMPUTER SOLITAIRE.

8. Get enough sleep. Tranq up as necessary.

9. Speaking of - if you happen to be a walking pharmacy, er, prescription med user, you might think back over your week and take a look in your medicine cabinet. This is a bad time to miss doses. You think it doesn't matter - I always think it doesn't matter - but apparently it does.

10. Watch cartoons. Bob's Burgers and Regular Show are a good fit for mild depression, and the Amazing World of Gumball and Adventure Time are nice when you start to feel a little better.

Dinner Tonight: Summer Salad

It doesn't seem quite fair to post this recipe, as it requires advance prep - I made the garlic-infused oil last week for another dish, and I decided to cook the wheat berries this afternoon without knowing what I would do with them. Nonetheless, here what I did -


Cook some wheat berries. (The way to cook wheat berries is to combine 1 part wheat and 3.5 parts water in a pot, bring to a boil, cover, lower the heat and simmer for an hour. I cooked a cup, because that's what I had left in the bag in the freezer.) Let them cool.

Open one can of black-eyed peas. (Hum chorus of 'tonight's gonna be a good night' here.) Drain, rinse, empty into a huge bowl. I used Goya, 15.5 oz.

Chop into small chunks half a cucumber, half a red pepper, and half a yellow pepper. Core and squeeze the seeds and runny stuff out of 2 small tomatoes, and chop those also. Throw all that stuff in the bowl with the beans and grain.

Now it's flavoring time. Chop up about 2 tablespoons of something spicy. I had a new jar of hot gardeniara, which is pickled vegetables -green beans, okra, carrots, celery and peppers - in olive oil. (This product makes an annual appearance at our house on the Thanksgiving relish tray, along with the olives and pickled watermelon rind.) Fresh or pickled peppers or probably some hot sauce would also be good. You need to mince them up really small, though, so they get disbursed through the grain and beans. Throw that into the bowl.

Now give it a couple shakes of that cheap balsamic vinegar.

I was about to give it a tiny splash of olive oil, but then I remembered! A week ago, I had poured a small container of olive oil, and thrown in a whole lot of chopped garlic, basil leaves, rosemary needles, the end of a jar of capers, and some peppercorns. I had spilled about half of it, the day I made it, and had used a bit on pasta, but found it underwhelming. However, it was great today! I do believe I will be keeping a small jar of that brewing at all times.

So throw in a couple spoonfuls of that, making sure to scoop up some garlic and capers and leaves.

Toss, adjust seasonings. Some raw sweet onion would also be good, if you have some handy. It'll need flaky salt and fresh pepper.

We ate ours with crackers and sardines, as I was in a sardiney mood after listening to today's The Splendid Table.



Adorable knitted sardines via The Daily Green

Also this is quite delicious

http://artsyville.blogspot.com/, a perfectly lovely blog
via Brady on Facebook.

The reason the internet was invented.

1. @PeanutTweeter
via my brother. Random (they're NOT random, they're the funniest tweets in existence) tweets placed in the mouths of Peanuts characters. Not all work safe. Luckily, my kid can not yet read much.




2. The Vintage Collective's flickr photostream.

HUNDREDS OF PAGES of old graphics - illustrations, monograms, esoteric symbols, dingbats, plus some great contemporary designs they inspired. Plus photoshop tutorials. Heraldry! Ships! Insects! Scientific implements

just all sorts of ridiculously cool stuff, and most of it is covered by Creative Commons. This is an amazing resource. It's the personal collection of a gent named K. Sandberg.

A movie I loved.

Semi-related thought (or stream-of-c0nciousness blathering) - didn't I used to love fiction? Didn't I used to read PILES of fiction? Didn't I used to write fiction, occasionally, and aspire to write fiction professionally? (Some of you haven't known me that long, but the answer to that is YES.)

I have 34 items checked out of the library right now. Aside from some animated videos, all of them a non-fiction. I haven't gotten a novel out of the library in perhaps 3 years.

This film, which I loved, is a documentary, short on interviews (short on talk of any kind) and long on concert footage and people staring out tour bus windows.

Whenever anyone asks me what my favorite film is, I answer Stop Making Sense, which I realize is nothing but concert footage.

I wonder what this means about me.

This is odd.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1381464/Bunny-rabbits-compete-jumping-course-Dressage-set-world-storm.html

Microblogging on a full-feature platform.

Opening day at the pool in our complex.
First family to visit the pool.
First people to swim in the pool in 2011.
First injury of 2011.

we are awesome.

Getting our stupid suits on and finding towels and car keys and things was SUCH A HUGE PRODUCTION that I spent the 1-block walk thinking mean thoughts about my husband and son. Weren't we just at the beach last week? Didn't we have a fabulously relaxing and agenda-free time? Why is it causing more stress to go to the pool for an hour than it did to go to another state for 3 days? Why is everything in the world such an enormous pain in my own personal ass?

And then it was time to cross the street. My stopped on the curb, took Eric's hand, and said "You hold Mommy's hand."
"She's carrying the towels, dude, she doesn't have a hand free for me to - "
but I shifted the bag to my shoulder and took his hand.
We crossed the street, the sun dappled through the leaves overhead.

Ian grinned.
"Look! A happy family. Just like I wanted."

When we got to the other side, Eric and I each laughed and apologized to each other for contributing to one another's grumpage.

And then Ian slipped on the pool deck and sliced his chin open.

awesome.

we're never leaving the apartment again.

Statistically Improbable

Statistically Improbable Phrases used in our household today:

"Porcupine Mega-Zord!"

"enjoying the Great Zucchini"

Given recent history. I realize that a new blog post from me is also.

Look Closer.

So there's this guy, right?

He takes pictures.

They are not precisely what they seem.

The guy isn't either, precisely.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/07/garden/07marwencol.html

In short - talented reprobate is assaulted, beaten nearly to death, lies in a coma for 9 days. When he wakes up, brain-injured, his drawing talent is gone, as well as his memory, his identity, and his addiction. Just one aspect of his old personality persists.

And this is what is grown up in its place.

This is by far the most interesting thing I have read in....maybe forever. PLEASE check it out.

And this one year, at puppet camp....

Inspired by this TED talk, I decided to initiate a new Twitter feed focused on my summer job - puppetry. No, I am not kidding.

I'm the Director of Puppetry Arts for Mystery Academy. It's a company run by our friend Chris Bowers and my husband (Nepotism! YESSSSSSSSS. ) that creates content and teaches magic, circus arts and puppetry in camps and schools. They've been at it for several years - last summer was my first summer.

My very first paying job, when I was a teenager, was as a puppeteer. Years have passed, and I've followed the astonishing work of people like Julie Taymor (who was producing off-broadway avant garde puppet plays in the late 70s, about the same time I was flailing my arms wildly to novelty tunes played on a reel-to-reel tape player.)

Several years ago, I saw a beautiful exhibit of some of her creations at the National Museum of Women in the Arts...and I started to wonder. What if I had known that it was possible to make a living as a puppeteer? Obviously, people do. Okay, not many people, but a few. What if I had considered that as a real career, not just a pocket-change venture when I was a teen?

For one thing, I decided, I would have a much different relationship with my own body. I would be more athletic - partly naturally, from the work itself, and partly through training. I'd certainly have well-developed upper-body strength. And probably be fairly graceful. More integrated, I think. How would a professional puppeteer walk, I wondered? What would she wear?

(Obviously: black turtlenecks, beat-up jeans, bare feet. Suede boots when footwear was required. Earrings, and perhaps a nose piercing, to make up for the lack of rings and bracelets.)

And if my mind and body were better integrated - if I hadn't spent all those years thinking that my body was nothing but trouble, longing to be a brain in a jar - what would that mean for my relationships with people?

Plus, I'd be a full-time artist, designing and performing. (With maybe a little food service or hotel front-desk work on the side.) I'd be around other creative people all the time. There'd be a certain amount of whimsy in my work life, plus a decent slug of humor, both tender and bawdy. Lots of late nights. A modicum of couch-surfing. A good bit of cheap wine. Some grant-grubbing, which I would be great at because I'm so charming.

Sounded okay.

So that was the road not taken, one of many, and. good Lord, couldn't we use up what's left of our lives pondering the stuff we didn't do in the part that's already been? Romances we turned our backs on? Jobs we didn't get or turned down?

In that way, being the director of puppetry arts is a circle, a link with my past.

And there's another way.

In 1984, I had one of my life's true epic fails. I was a camp counselor, and I failed at it. Miserably. Historically.

When I was a girl, I went to Girl Scout camp every summer for many, many years. I imagined that I would grow up to be a camp counselor, maybe even a camp director, camp was such a natural and good part of my life.

When I was a college senior, and needed a job, I got a position at a girl's camp in Maryland. Being older than many of my fellow counselors, I was given older girls - 13-14 year olds, their last year of being campers. Some would be CITs the next year, but most would never be back.

It was awful.

I was sure that I would be spending the summer molding young feminist minds, helping some dear girls reach their full potential, raising their consciousness.

As you have undoubtedly figured out, these girls did not want their minds molded or their consciousnesses raised. Or otherwise interfered with. They wanted to play cassettes of "Purple Rain" and "Rio" and complain about things and NOT go swimming....you know. They wanted to be 13-year-old girls.

Apparently, I had forgotten about being a 13-year-old girl.

It was a bad match. My co-counselor, who did know about being a 13-year-old girl, was disgusted with me and had me, in effect, fired.

Except of course they couldn't fire me. So many of the other drama department staff had washed out (gotten mono, gotten fired, quit in the middle of the summer, left for the arts and crafts department) that I was actually needed as a teacher. They took me out of the cabin, moved me into staff housing (IT WAS LIKE DYING AND GOING TO HEAVEN) and had me teach double day-parts and take shifts manning the camp office instead of supervising cabin life.

So it was actually great. Plus I met one of my dearest friends, with whom I lived for many years.

Except I was a failure.

That failure has stung me for literally decades. I have shied away from teaching kids at church, volunteering with middle and high schoolers, because I was convinced that I just didn't have anything to offer kids.

But last summer, having way too much vacation accrued and way too little money, I decided to take on the puppet thing. Wrote curriculum. Designed projects. Gathered materials and books and dvds (Muppets! Giant agitprop puppets in the streets of Cambridge!)

and it was one of the best, most energizing, most rewarding things I've ever done.

So now, in effect, I am two things that I could have been but wasn't. I'm a puppeteer. And I'm a fucking great camp counselor.

And now I'm @PuppetGoddess.

all apologies.

God, that was really boring, wasn't it? 2 months of nothing but videos? What was I thinking? That's just irresponsible.

Sorry. I wasn't myself.

until they sparked

So we made the hard decision and we each made an incision
Past our muscles and our bones, saw our hearts were little stones
Pulled them out they weren't beating and we weren't even bleeding
As we lay them on the granite counter top

We beat 'em up against each other
We beat 'em up against each other
We struck 'em hard against each other
We struck 'em so hard, so hard until they sparked

oh, how I love this song.

quoted without comment

Ian shows me his 3 identical stuffed bunny toys.

Ian: "These are my two children. Their names are Glitter and Sparkle."

Me (taking one and cradling it): "Really? Which one it this?"

Ian: "That one's the boy. Glitter."

Me: "Oh! Hi, Glitter!"

Ian: "Oooh, no, that one's the girl. Sparkle. Or, um, wait, I think....no, no, I've got it now. That one's the boy. His name is GraveDigger."

through ups and downs of facing each other

a video of an anteater eating cheez whiz

apparently this is now a video blog.

but I couldn't pass this up. You must watch it. I stumbled upon it today when I was looking for, yes, a Polyphonic Spree video to share with my boss. I have no idea how Jen, who is my actual friend in real life, even before she was a PBS blogger, award winner, famous blogger, heart-toucher, encourager of people all over the world, all that stuff she is now....anyway, I have no idea how her interview here is 'related' to the Spree, but it was a cool thing to find.

Diana was my fav Project Runway contestant, those many years ago. I'm thrilled that she's still in the public eye. I got to her blog via A Dress A Day.

Happy Valentine's Day!!

This is lovely

Scott Schulman, my (and everyone else's) second-favorite photoblogger, steps in front of the camera for a change. Worth 7 minutes.