geek clothes July 30, 2010
Posted by philangelus in sarcasm.12 comments
I’ve realized how much I’m a geek: it’s visible.
This week I’ve been “teaching” Vacation Bible School (I’m a youtherd, shepherding children from activity to activity) and every day they have a “color of the day,” and they’d like you to wear something in a specific color.
Monday’s color? Red. I have red t-shirts so I didn’t think about it until it came time to get dressed, and then I realized, I effectively have no red shirts to wear. My choices were either the Dragonball Z t-shirt with Vegeta looking murderous, or my Apathy Coalition t-shirt. To wear to Vacation Bible School at the Angelborough Church Of Christ.
Yeah, not looking real good for the color of the day there. I wore blue.
But all this week a dreadful realization has crystalized in my mind, something I’ve tried to deny for the past few months when I first noticed it at one of the Kiddos’ baseball games: I dress like a geek. Most of my t-shirts have the Gatchaman characters on them, and the ones that don’t have other anime characters, bizarre slogans, or other hints at my nonstandard way of perceiving the world.
The respectable adults around me don’t do that. They’re wearing plain shirts, or stripes. They have tiny embroidered logos and collars and buttons.
I asked my Patient Husband, who was wearing a Tick t-shirt, “Did you and I just fail to grow up?”
Part of it, he reassured me, is that both of us keep our clothes for a ridiculous length of time. We both still have clothing from high school.
No dice, I said. Most of my Gatchaman shirts come from later than 2000, and my woot.com shirts date from the last six months.
He took note at the next event he attended, and he concurred with me: the other parents dressed normally. By which I mean, in respectable clothes. The kind you could wear to Vacation Bible School without someone feeling the need to ask if you’re sure you’ve accepted Jesus into your heart.
The stereotypical geek clothing, if you believe TV, has been pants hiked up over the waist and showing your ankles, maybe a pocket protector and thick plastic glasses. But I’ve come to the strange conclusion that it’s geeky to showcase your interests on your t-shirts, and moreover that I don’t mind.
But at least now I know why they think I’m weird here in Angelborough, and I can admit I wear my geekery on my sleeve.
The Kindness Of Strangers July 29, 2010
Posted by philangelus in writing.add a comment
When I nearly forgot to go pick up my kid from summer camp because I was engrossed in Katrina Kittle‘s “Two Truths and a Lie
But actually, I’m going to write a review for her novel “The Kindness of Strangers
WARNING: The Kindness Of Strangers deals with childhood sexual abuse, and I believe a few regulars here might (would) get triggered by the events narrated in the book. Anyone who tries to avoid triggers should also avoid the rest of this review.
The Kindness Of Strangers revolves around two families, each broken in a different way. The first consists of a widowed mother (Sarah) and her two sons, ages sixteen and twelve, and they’re still aching from the loss of their father two years prior. When Sarah’s best friend’s son Jordan attempts suicide, it emerges that his father has been sexually abusing him, and his mother is suspected to have done so as well.
Sarah’s family opens to include Jordan, taking him in as a foster child even as the authorities struggle to implicate his mother and Jordan does everything in his power to reunite with his mother.
I found the characters compelling because of how realistically they reacted to the information (discovered piecemeal, again realistic) that the unthinkable had been taking place right in front of them. Nate and Sarah also deal with struggles in their own lives that highlight aspects of the struggles Jordan faces.
Kittle addresses the complicated issue of emotional healing after violation — both physical/sexual and emotional. She explores the selfish and unselfish reasons for one person to help another, as well as the complex and contradictory ways we react to help in our darkest hours.
Because I’m a curmudgeon, I have a few nitpicks. The ending wrapped up a little too neatly for me, although I’d prefer not to say why for spoiler reasons. I also thought that in a few places Nate was written to appeal to the adult women readers in the audience (ie, moms like me). Nate is introduces as a rebellious teen who’s in trouble with the school and may get in trouble with the law, but as it turns out, he’s really a golden-hearted, thoughtful young man. I liked him, of course, but I found the setup (through his mother’s eyes and the lens of her fears) and the execution were at odds.
My other nitpick is that Kittle worked a lot of research into the story, so while she gives what I believe is a dead-on-target depiction of childhood sexual abuse and the mindset of the victims, she also wanted to make sure all her research made it into the story. I felt one of the plot twists and some of the exposition were written in order to get information into the book that didn’t otherwise fit.
Overall, I enthusiastically recommend The Kindness of Strangers
–
Disclaimer: I was not provided with a free copy of either book by the publisher for review purposes. I was provided with free copies by my local library for reading purposes, and I wrote a review of my own accord.
My mysterious house July 27, 2010
Posted by philangelus in family.3 comments
Every so often we still find a “surprise” leftover from The Cursed Move, which if you recall was still giving us paperwork headaches a year and a half later. (“Surprise! Your flood insurance isn’t valid!” and “Surprise! Your email address got turned off for no reason other than you used to live in a different state!”)
I met a woman at the playground. I’m sure we looked a sight. Her name was Integrity and her baby’s name was Aesthetic, and she dressed in flowing sheer skirts and I thought would look very good in a crown of daisies. I sat on the ground in my unfashionable jean-shorts and a t-shirt proclaiming “THE APATHY COALITION,” and we talked about babyhood, motherhood, baby slings, cloth diapering, and that sort of stuff. She asked where we lived, and I told her.
She said, “Have you walked down to the end of the road?” When I said I had, she asked if I’d gone into “the culvert” and I said, “Actually, it got kind of creepy back there, so we turned back.”
She said, “The spirits are angry back there.”
I said, “Did we put our garbage dump on a native burial ground?”
She shook her head. “The natives are peaceful. It’s the colonists who get angry at our technology and for taking their land.”
This explains why we felt all that creepiness when we walked back there, on foot, without iPods or even our car. But okay. I can deal with a house full of secrets, and if the previous owners knew about restless colonists and failed to tell us, I guess it’s too late to do anything now.
We’ve had a new surprise, though, in a hidden corner of the house.
Back when we moved in, I had just researched my grandmother’s sewing shop from Brooklyn, the Liberty Handkerchief Company. Googling it immediately showed there’s a Liberty Handkerchief at work in England, and they produce very high-quality silken kerchiefs, which apparently are in demand.
When we moved in, I found one in our closet. I immediately gave it to the seller’s realtor (along with a newspaper clipping of the owner, discussing his business) but I thought that was a neat reminder of my grandmother.
This Sunday, looking in the back of one of the cabinets for something, I found another surprise. Almost exactly two years to the day since we moved in, I found a salt and pepper set.
They’re lovely. They remind me of my other grandmother’s salt and pepper set, actually, except that the pepper shaker is actually a pepper mill. The cabinets are strangely shaped and these had been pushed to the back.
It’s nice to think of my other grandmother, “visiting” here in a way. You think you know a place, but sometimes it surprises you with its hidden secrets.
Light July 26, 2010
Posted by philangelus in religion.4 comments
I was asked to help out with a local church’s Vacation Bible School, and somehow I stumbled through the first day, Kiddo #4 attached to my hip, herding the kids from activity to activity. (Job title: Youtherd.) I’ve been nervous that I’m going to mess it up and these kids will forever hate church, religion, and God because of one stupid VBS worker.
Tomorrow I actually have to do something, but today the most exciting part was finding myself in a pitch-black room with eighteen kindergarteners and first graders.
The VBS theme is outer space, and the science lesson was about light. The instructor made the room dark (while Kiddo #4 happily told me, “No yight! No yight!”) and shone a flashlight against the wall. He pointed out that you could see the place the light emerged from the flashlight, and the circle on the wall. Then he said, “And can we see the light beams?”
I immediately got what he was saying, but the kids didn’t at first, not until he sprinkled some talcum powder and it passed through the flashlight beam, and suddenly you could see the light because of the particulate matter descending through it.
He said, “God’s love is like that, where you can’t see it but you know it’s coming to you.”
For me, though, the lesson was better: because until that gritty stuff got into the air, you couldn’t see the light at all. The clean air didn’t show the light. It was the dirty air. Not until he messed it up.
My takeaway: even if I mess up this week, that’s just another way God’s love can be shown. You can’t stop light. You can only reflect it in different directions.
There’s more to it, of course. I believe God loves us, and we don’t always see it during the “process” part of our lives, but then it strikes home and we realize it was there all along, even when we couldn’t detect it.
Then we reflect it so others can feel loved too. Even if we do it imperfectly, it’s not wasted, just reflected differently, and it’s still good.
why Jesus wasn’t born nowadays July 24, 2010
Posted by philangelus in angels, sarcasm.4 comments
To: virgin.mary@ancientisrael.com
From: gabriel@janelebak.com
Date: March 25th, 9:35:55 AM
Subject: IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT!
–
Hello Mary, Full of Grace
I know this is kind of weird, but bear with me and don’t get worried. I’m Gabriel, one of the angels who stands directly before God, and I wanted to let you know that God’s really pleased with you.
You’re going to get pregnant and have a son, and you should name him Jesus. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever.
Let me know if you have any questions.
Gabriel, Archangel
—
To: gabriel@janelebak.com
From: virgin.mary@ancientisrael.com
Date: March 25th, 10:02:11 AM
Subject: re: IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT!
–
Dear Gabriel,
I was pleased to receive your email, but how can that be? I’m not married, and seriously, check out my email address.
Please say Hi to God from me and tell Him I love Him.
Sincerely,
Mary
PS: You might want to change your subject line if you do this again because my spam filter caught this the first time around.
–
To: virgin.mary@ancientisrael.com
From: gabriel@janelebak.com
Date: March 25th, 10:15:29 AM
Subject: RE: re: IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT!
Dear Mary:
The power of the Most High will overshadow you and the Holy Spirit will come upon you so the child to be born will be known as the son of God.
Oh, and I passed along your love to God, and He says He loves you too.
Thanks for letting me know about the spam filter thing, although I don’t anticipate doing this again.
May the Lord bless you and keep you always.
Gabriel, Archangel
—
To: gabriel@janelebak.com
From: virgin.mary@ancientisrael.com
Date: March 25th, 11:24:30
Subject: re: RE: re: IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT!
Dear Gabriel,
Okay, thanks. Tell God I’m cool with that.
Sincerely,
Mary
Three exciting writing updates! July 23, 2010
Posted by philangelus in Honest&ForTrue, The Boys Upstairs, writing.22 comments
After this post, I think I’m allowed to call myself a writer for real, rather than just someone who pretends to write. What do you think?
1) Always open your junk mail. I got a letter from Liguorian, which I assumed was an ad for the League of St. Gerard. Fortunately I did open it because inside were two copies of a contract for my short story “Hands That Touch Time.” This will be my second story published with Liguorian Magazine, which has a circulation of 120,000 and which has featured award-winning stories in the past. Color me thrilled!
2) Remember my Christmas novella that would have been published last Thanksgiving had the publisher not gone out of business two weeks before publication date? I’m delighted to announce that The Boys Upstairs will be released this December by MuseItUp Publishing. I’ve already received the first round of edits, and I’ve been working with the cover artist as well.
As an aside, if any readers here would like a review copy to review on your weblog or podcast or whatnot, please let me know and I’ll see about getting a copy to you.
3) I am now represented by agent Roseanne Wells of the Marianne Strong Literary Agency! She’s given me an editing assignment for Honest And For True to make it more saleable (part of my task being to reduce the word count by about 17%) and once we’re done with that, we go on submission. I’m so excited because Roseanne really “gets” the book and the characters, and because she sees what I’m doing with it, she’s able to see ways the book can be improved.
Since I work better when I have to feed a ticker, I’ve installed a “weight loss ticker” in the sidebar to monitor my “book diet.”
If you read agency weblogs, you know Roseanne Wells from her guest post at Colleen Lindsay’s, about why adding a dragon doesn’t help your broken story. If you read it (actually, do go read it) you’ll immediately notice the first sentence:
My friend Jane* has a tendency to tell really boring stories.
*sniff* I hope not. 
I got some mileage out of that on the phone with her (“I know! We can add a dragon!”) although probably more than I should have.
4) There is no fourth thing. Sorry. These three are exciting enough for right now.
A formula piece July 21, 2010
Posted by philangelus in family, kiddos.11 comments
Out at the mailbox I was greeted with a surprise.
Inside, I called to my Patient Husband, “Sweetie? Do you have something to tell me?” and I handed him a container of infant formula.
He looked puzzled. “Wouldn’t you have to tell that to me?”
Neither of us could come up with how they might have gotten my name. I am not — not — pregnant, and my youngest Kiddo is over two years old. We have no baby-related magazine subscriptions; I haven’t purchased a baby-related gift for a friend. I’ve purchased yarn, but not everyone who knits is expecting.
I opened the box to find an entire can of the stuff, plus multiple coupons for $$ off other cans. I looked in the advertising material for a website where I could opt out of their advertising campaign and set the can of formula on the table to put in the “to be donated” stack.
It did occur to me that my mailman, who knows everything about everyone in Angelborough, probably thinks we’re about to become Eight Angels, Five Kids, One Family, but not a problem unless he tells everyone on our route.
Formula advertising is aggressive. I’ve always made sure to check off the “I plan to breastfeed” box on any form with that option, and they’ve only targeted me more. Over thirteen years I’ve received bottles of liquid formula, coupons, “checks,” diaper bags, freezer gel packs, insulated bags, and magazines about infant nutrition that begin with “Of course breast is best, but–” and then follow up with twenty pages about how to choose the best formula for your baby and how to make formula feeding to work for you.
I don’t mind. I’ve donated up to twenty cans or bottles of formula to the food pantry because of their largesse.
That is to say, I didn’t mind until they broke my little girl’s heart. Kiddo#2 came into the kitchen while I tried to navigate the formula company’s website to find the opt-out screen.
“What’s this?” she asked.
“Oh, that’s infant formula,” I said. “It’s what babies drink when they don’t nurse.”
She said, “Oh,” and then three seconds later her face went brilliant with a smile as she gasped.
“No!” I exclaimed, because it wasn’t the mailguy I should have worried about. “No, it was a mistake! They sent it to us by mistake!”
Her shoulders deflated, and her smile drooped. Because for one hope-filled moment, she was a big sister to another baby.
I finally found the opt-out page and worded it strongly that I wanted to be removed from their list and never re-entered onto it. An hour later they wrote back with an apology and the assurance that I’d been removed. And Kiddo#2 has recovered.
But I think it’s kind of sweet how she was delighted by the thought of another sibling.
I thought there’d be an earth-shattering kaboom July 20, 2010
Posted by philangelus in pensive.5 comments
Sunday at the train station I found myself face to face with a black plastic trash bag standing under a central support post in the bottom floor of the parking garage, no one around it. It wasn’t someplace you might leave a bag while unpacking your trunk. It was clearly full of “shaped” stuff, like things in boxes rather than, say, trash.
The entire train station has signs all over it proclaiming “IF YOU SEE SOMETHING THAT’S TEH WEIRD, LET US KNOW!” *sigh* So I unbuckled the two-year-old and hauled him back into the station to find someone to notify.
The Amtrak Police door was locked up tight, so I went to the ticket counter. “I feel really stupid telling you this,” I began, and I explained about the bag.
This is truly weird what happened next: the ticket counter clerk went with me to go take a look. I’m a jaded New Yorker and figured she’d write on a post-it “Idiot woman with baby, frightened by trash bag.” But instead we walked into the parking garage and I showed it to her.
She prodded it, agreed it looked suspicious (actually, it looked downright creepy) and then told me, “It’s not ticking.”
Hooray. We’re safe.
We might have been safe, but I’m also not stupid, so I shut myself inside my car while I buckled the Kiddo into his seat, then climbed into the front and backed out of the space. As I left, the clerk turned to look at me, and for the first time, she appeared worried. She didn’t touch it again, and she left it there to go back inside. I hope to get someone who knew what to do other than listen for ticking. (Or beeping.)
I checked later for news about the station being evacuated. I found none. I imagine my law-enforcement-working family members laughing at my face, but as I was driving away, I also could visualize in my mind one of those Drain-O bombs, and it shamed me how, the first moment I saw that bag, my instinct was to take the baby and escape. To just leave the whole situation in my rear-view mirror and make it someone else’s problem.
Happy birthday, Emily Rose July 19, 2010
Posted by philangelus in family, pensive.3 comments
Dear Emily,
Today should have been your tenth birthday, and tomorrow is ten years since you entered Heaven. I just wanted to tell you we still miss you and sometimes I still see the gap in our family where you’d fit in. (Although to be honest, given how crazy things have been here lately, you might be glad you’re missing out on all the action.)
Since you’re in Heaven, I imagine you have awesome birthday parties and that if you pester God to give you a pony for your birthday, you stand a reasonable chance of getting it. So have fun, and eat an extra slice of cake in my honor.
I usually imagine you as an adult, being a saint and fighting evil and maybe running scary missions with an angelic SWAT team which would have me sweating bullets if I knew about them. I pictured you that way even in the early days after you died. I don’t usually imagine you growing up, keeping pace of the girl you would have been if you’d survived. But on your birthday it’s easier to imagine you chronologically consistent. And now you’d be ten.
I can’t get to your grave this year to decorate it, due to the recent family chaos, but I bought you a pinwheel and I was planning to plant some flowers on your grave. We’ll have a cake here for you anyhow, and tonight we’ll sing you Happy Birthday.
Pray for us, sweetie. I know you’re doing all right, but we still miss you.
Love,
Mommy
no more free eggs for Mr. Neighbor July 17, 2010
Posted by philangelus in sarcasm.add a comment
“Do you think that stone owl is passive-aggressive?” I asked my Patient Husband.
“What stone owl?” he asked.
“On the mailbox of the house next to the one where they’re selling the fresh eggs,” I said. “I drove by and saw him fixing a stone owl to the top of his mailbox, and I wondered if it was because he was tired of the neighbor’s chickens wandering onto his property.”
My Patient Husband began laughing.
Back when I lived in Brooklyn, the idea of someone raising chickens was…well, that’s what Old MacDonald did, e-i-e-i-oh, and not something real people ever did. As we all know, eggs properly are found in their native environment, in cardboard packages of twelve in the refrigerator section of the grocery store. The idea of getting them out of nests and chicken coops was a bit weird and unnatural.
When we went on our honeymoon, the first morning in the hotel, I heard a rooster crow and raised my head, and my Patient Husband whispered, “You heard that too?” You couldn’t get more exotic than that.
I digress. Now I live in out in the swamp and perfectly normal people have hand-painted wooden signs out by the road that say “FrESH EggS: $2″ and own chickens that wander so close to the road that you ruffle their feathers with your backdraft when you drive past. They’re…okay, I’ll just say it. Playing chicken.
And, of course, people live next door to those people, and apparently affix stone owls to the tops of their mailboxes.
I said, “Do you think the guy just got tired of the chickens wandering onto his front lawn?” When my Patient Husband said it was possible, I added, “Maybe he could have a motion-sensor too.”
He said, “But aimed at about eight inches off the ground, and it plays owl calls whenever the chickens get close, but not the cars.”
You’ve got to admit: it’s brilliant in its own antifowl sort of way. If he’d played his cards right, he could have gotten a neighbor-long supply of free eggs, but maybe he just couldn’t deal any longer with chickens providing free fertilizer for his grass.
I remember that look on his face as I drove past as he stood alongside the road with his tools, hammering that owl into place to guard his lawn. It’s like an egging in reverse.
