The Cascading Catastrophes of Fall 2012

November 1st was the deadline for mom and I to turn in the manuscript for our forthcoming book, The Bullying Antidote, to our editor at Hazelden. And boy, was there "trouble at the border." It started innocently enough...

1. Fenders Bent & Epic Road Trip

It started a few days before my birthday, when my brother and sister-in-law drove into town. They woke up the morning after their arrival to find their car—with contents yet to be unpacked after a late-night arrival—gone.  Not my bad luck, theirs—but that day I got into an almost comical 50/50 fender-bender, backing into another car that was backing out of a parking space behind me. Friday night at my birthday party, adventure got the better of me and I volunteered to drive my sister-in-law back to Moab in the rental car (my brother went on to Hawaii) and fly back the next day. It was awesome, getting out of the city and seeing the wide empty spaces of America, bonding like crazy with a soul-sister. I lost a few days of writing, but we still had three months to go.

2. Goodbye Auntie

The weekend after I returned, I hung out at the pool with my Auntie Rita, who has always adored me. She gave me my first (and best, and only) cat when I was two. She told me about her latest community-building exploits (always a mover and shaker) and mentioned her weird occasional dizzy spells.The next morning she died suddenly from a brain anyeruism/stroke thingy. I spent the next few weeks grieving and organizing music and graphics for her service and online memorial...(ripples of love, mystery, sadness)... and not writing very much. Somewhere in there, a new dent mysteriously appeared in my bumper, but I never got a chance to call the insurance company...

3. Where's my TV?

Labor Day brought a relaxing afternoon at the pool with good friends, and a gorgeous red sunset painting a new fall pallete in the sky acknowledged our grief but also welcomed a new season. When we got home, our TVs were missing. Our poor dog was locked in a bedroom. On the bright side, they took my monitor but not my computer. They didn't take the laptops. They tossed my jewelry across the bed but didn't take anything (I don't have any gold, just rhinestones). On the dark side, they stole about exactly the amount of our (very high) deductible. (Goodbye, Christmas.) The insurance paperwork ate into the writing time. 

4. Where's my Data?

The following week, my netbook had a hard drive failure, eating up 18 months of my journals and putting a real kink in the book writing process. (Thank goodness I use Dropbox for the book!)  My mom found me a new laptop on Craigslist, (thanks Mom!), but moving into it was slow and sometimes frustrating process. I had to order new memory three times before I got it working right. A week after that, Donald's laptop failed, taking weeks of essays and Chemistry journals with it. And a week after that, my desktop computer also died. We think it got dropped in the burglary. The repair guy inadvertently erased the disk that had all my data on it. I discovered Disk Drill and Crash Plan. Not one, not two, but three computers. What are the odds?

5. Really?

So one day in the middle of all that, all the lights came on on the dashboard of my car, a 2006 Toyota Prius. The prognosis? The main battery had failed, a $3000 part. The good news? It was still on warranty! Woo hoo! Good news! Happy dance! But the weirdness continued... I got a shuttle home from the shop but could not enter my neighborhood to get back to writing because the police were hunting down a bad guy with a gun. Maybe it was the robber.

6. A Thump on the Head

Driving around with my new battery one day, feeling as if my troubles had passed, I got one more little howdy from the Universe. At a red light turning green, a Mini-Cooper hit me from behind. I got a whack on the back of the head from the headrest and a license-plate print on my bumper. Off to the chiropractor I went for whiplash treatment, but weeks later my head still feels funny most of the time. I'm getting used to thinking less, sitting still, napping more. When they took the plastic bumper cover off, they discovered the bumper bar was bent in a 'u.' 

7. No Zumba for You

I got subs for my Zumba classes the first few weeks, but every time I thought I was better, I'd rock out, and then my symptoms would return. My doctor, who initially said "it can't possibly be a concussion, you weren't hit hard enough," finally advised me to avoid intense exercise for 6-8 months.  I should have known this was coming. Way back the week Rita died, my iPod was the first thing to go. Since then it had been one little technical difficulty after another—the replacement iPod, missing speaker parts. As if I didn't have enough to grieve—I'd just gotten my business off the ground (and my abs are looking great). This was the final straw. Or so I thought.

8. 'F' is for 'For Goodness Sake, Make it Stop!"

In the midst of all the drama came the first report card of the year. There was not an 'A' to be seen. Finally, I called Kaiser and got the test Donald needed. On the plus side, he was diagnosed with ADD. On the minus side, he was diagnosed with ADD. At last, a clear answer to the doing-homework-but-not-turning-it-in conundrum. At last, my worries were confirmed: he's taken after me. Now I'm in ADD school, learning everything I can, and it's dawning on me where he got it from....

9. All the Little Things

Life is full of dramatic inconveniences. None of us can avoid them. I always liked to define luck as "when the bad things happen at good times" — i.e. the car breaks down in your driveway, not on the highway. There has been plenty of good luck among the bad, but I'm just exhausted from watching things fall apart. I washed the dirty drapes, seeking renewal, and they disintegrated. I borrowed Dave's keyboard for ten minutes and it died, as if I have the touch of death. But when the dog ate all the halloween chocolate and her benign tumor started bleeding all over the house, I found a way to stop the bleeding. Yes, I did.

10. But I did it.

Wasn't there a book in there, somewhere? I white-knuckled it to the deadline, writing for 8 hours at a stretch some days, avoiding FaceBook and socializing and even phone calls. And somehow, keeping my few remaining brain cells focused on the task at hand, I managed to get, with mom, to the part where we it send. Less than a week later, the book is already posted on Barnes n' Noble and Amazon. Talk about whiplash!

Now I'm totally post-partum and wondering what happened to my life before I agreed to let the bully book take over my life.... who am I again?

Grieffy Goodness

My husband feels, sometimes, like I give him a lot of grief. I don't think I do; I keep asking him questions until I understand, even when his voice goes up and he starts saying "back off, you're badgering me" sorts of things.

Well, here's a revelation. I do give him grief. I was born into a world that had a boy in it already who didn't want to share attention with me (his little sister, less than a year younger), and got hard-wired, somehow, to compete with men. Sometimes I get mad at the huz for competing with me, but guess what, it's my own default setting.

I'm one of those weird people who cry when they are moved, whether by a beautiful story, piece of music, sappy movie (even if I KNOW I'm being manipulated), or a cute baby at the grocery store. I just have leaky eyes. But yesterday my energy guru pushed me on it. I was weepy for having figured out I compete with men. I felt relieved and happy and elated. And moved. "What are you sad about?" she asked, when the tears jumped into my eyes. "I'm not sad. I'm happy. I guess I'm just wired wierd."

"Tears are for sadness. You're carrying grief. Let's see if we can fix that wiring," she said, and started tapping on my meridians. Then the session was over. I felt relieved. Last night I dreamed about moving to new places, finding new rooms, figuring out where all my stuff would go now.

But that was just the beginning. Today, no matter how hard I pushed my eyebrows together in a cranky frown, the grief started leaking out my eyes unprovoked, threatening to flood my emotions. The countless large and small failures to do my best, failures to prevent conflict or loss. The unforgiving self-loathing. Each tiny memory connected, by a thread, to another, and another, so pulling one string had the effect of knocking loose another loss, causing me to feel more and more bad bad bad. Money lost. Dreams in drawers. Falling into fight after pathetic fight in a marriage that feels quite sturdy most of the time. And now, a long fight in a parked car on date night.

"What are you so sad about?" he asks, finally. I tell him about the tapping. I tell him about the grief. Suddenly the arguing was over. He nods. He understands. "It's like you don't want to feel it a little," he says, "because you don't know where it will end." The dam breaks. My tears begin spurting in full force out onto the steering wheel. He fishes around behind the seat and hands me tissues. Yes. That's exactly what it feels like.

Behind the flood of tears, I hear my familiar, judgmental voices, trying to put the cork back in. "What have you got to feel so sad about? You've had a great life. Lots of opportunities. You're white. Blonde. High IQ. You have good teeth. You got to go to private colleges. You traveled the world. You're you own boss. You're so lucky. You have so many people in your life who love you, admire you, adore you. Those people in Iraq deserve to grieve. Those people in Darfur. Those people who live in the apartment next door to you and have to look at your beautiful yard, they've got a right to grieve. It's selfish of you to give over to such blubbering and self-sorrow. Cheer up; the world would much rather see you smile than cry."

But the voices don't stop the tears, not this time. This time I can't help but follow these rivers all the way to the biggest hole, somewhere below my solar plexus: my parents' divorce. Something I never really grieved.

I did cry, I'm sure. I sure felt sad. It was the end of the world as I knew it. But I had to buck up. I had to keep going. I had to keep smiling. I had to stay brave, for my parents. For my brothers. I didn't want to be sad, so I wasn't. I diligently search ed out the silver linings, of which there were many: My early emotional and intellectual independence. My strength--after all, I had survived the worst thing I could imagine. My fierce cheerfulness and optimism. But I also taught those voices in my head what to say. (They're very loud, tonight. "That was thirty years ago," they shrill. "You should be over it now! Suck it up!" But I did suck it up. That's the problem. I shut the door on my sorrow. And so many of my other feelings.)

I did process the divorce, over the years. I talked about it with my brothers and friends. I told my stories to a therapist or two. I listened to my mom and learned the details and forgave her. I listened to my dad and learned the details and felt sorry for him. But I never let myself feel it. It was too big. Am I big enough to feel it now? The grief feels overwhelming. I blubber out loud: "I don't know how to grieve."

"Is this why you keep expecting our marriage to fail?" asks the huz, handing me another wad of tissues. I smile. Just before our wedding, I tried to negotiate a contract with him, to consciously renew our vows every five years or dissolve the relationship. "We're getting married in two weeks, and you're planning our divorce already," he'd said. Today he says, "You keep testing me on this unconditional love thing, but you're the one with your finger on the eject seat button...." I laugh, through the waterfall of tears. Yes, it's true. We fought a lot last year as we approached our 14th anniversary. I worried a lot. That's as far as my parents made it.

Instead of dinner at a restaurant, we get drive-through so I don't have to show my puffy red face. I want to eat somewhere where we had a view of the sunset. I pull into the cemetery, and start sobbing again, from grief and joy. "Look!" I say as we pass the somber gates. "They built a place where people can go to grieve!" I drive up the hill, the gorgeous marble tombs and pyramids blurry beyond my tears. Fifteen years ago we posed here in black tie for our engagement photos. We are still together.

I don't know what will happen tomorrow. This could be the end of the mid-life crisis I've been having since I was twenty. I so want to change. To die, to be reborn, to be who I want to be, to stop being trapped by these voices that tell me what I should or should not feel. I have to stop running away from the grief. I'm too tired to keep holding it inside. I'm old enough now, I'm safe enough, to let myself feel my thirty-year-old feelings.

The huz rolls his window down so I can hear the silence, see the setting sun. Graveyards are beautiful places. I realize it feels good to feel so sad. Grief is different from sadness or sorrow. Grief is a room in your soul where sorrow can spend some time. I may be here for a while.

Ego Sum

Here's an early work of mine about navels. A mini-book with a big idea about human development.

If you don't know how to fold a mini-book, read this first: how to fold a mini-book.

Then download Ego Sum.

I'm so vain...

...you probably think this blog is about me, don't you, don't you....

I hate the other blog picture. And yes, this is hard, I would suck at being under thirty anymore, since "them kids" so readily post photo i.d.s on myspace and all. Speaking of i.d.s, I thought "Mrs. Id." should have pursed lips, so I went searching for a photo of me doing so. I found one that's close and gave it a treatment. But now I can't decide again. Help me pick:

dewy ingenue

naughty flirt

naughty flirt closeup

comic heroine

It's my eternal struggle. I don't ever want to choose just one, I like 'em all. This would have to look good both in this blog, my other one, Wandering Pie, and comment postings to other blogs like Dave's. I sometimes say clever things, I sometimes say insightful things, I sometimes say goofy things, so I don't want to look too evil and I'm sure I'm totally overthinking this. I've been reading a book called "the shy writer" and realize what an odd combination of incredibly confident and totally insecure I am. Guess that's being an artist. Thanks for your help in the p.r. department.

But isn't Photoshop fun?

I Hate Fridays

Friday is the day I feel most like a trapped housewife. Rather, a flying spirit or a corporate executive trapped in the body of a housewife. No, not the body--the house.

Friday is the day other people go on dates, drink with buddies, light a candle with the family.

Friday is the day I can no longer ignore the thick coat of white dog hair on the dark blue carpet, the stains of chocolate milk and ketchup that have built up on the kitchen counter all week, the ticking hands of the clock.

Friday is the day the huz comes home with staring eyes from a week of everyone else's problems. He comes home at 4:30. Or at 5:30. Or at 6, depending on whose printer won't turn on because they forgot to plug it in, or who said or did what to whom and had to be suspended for it, or what pile of piled-up details were forgotten to be done by someone else.

Friday is the day all my intentions for the week pile up and beg for my three available hours and accuse me of FAILURE if I don't cross them off the list before it all starts over again on Monday. And the ones I cross off don't even say thank you.

Friday is the day I forget to eat lunch and I snack on all the leftovers that litter the counter like a human vacuum.

Friday is the day I want to read blogs and follow links and speak out and cry over poetry and stare out the window at the rain splashing off the leaves, turning into hail.

Friday is the day the laundry must be folded, since the huz always remembers to wash it, and thank God there's TiVo for dealing with that.

Friday is the day the huz used to vacuum the rugs and push the broom around and be furious with me when I got in his way, making phone calls, finishing projects, planning fun. It took me three years to realize he had a routine. I'm not good with routines. Especially those involving dust.

Friday is the day the trash truck comes, and the bins must be brought in but I never do that, even though I now help take them out on Thursdays. I try to leave something for the huz. I start to vacuum at 4, and lately it's done by 5:30 and it's all done by me.

Friday is a day of must-dos, which I only tend to like to do if I invent them myself. Who invited all this dirt in? I'd rather finish that novel I said I must write.

Friday is the day the kid goes to play, and l'm all alone with my squirt bottle and sponge and the crud dripping out of the soap dish and the spots on the floor by the toilet and the hair in the tub.

Friday is the day I'm so distracted by things I can't finish and things I forgot to start that I can't even remember to turn on the radio.

But when I do, I remember Friday is the day the huz writes an opera. All I have to do is remember to press 'play.' Friday is the day an idea can sing through five songs that have never been played before. It's a day of listening. And sometimes it's love.

Friday is the day we are alone together for a few hours, even if it's spent pushing brooms and moving rugs and talking about what's not getting done. Or what is.

Friday is the day we sit close on the couch and watch our shows, and with the kid away, nothing moves from its place for a few magic hours. Friday is the day for cheap Chinese food.

Friday is the day we start over again. With a backbeat and a clean rug. From where we are, not where we wished we were.

I love Fridays.

All About Me

Well, not ALL about me. Just 55 things.

1. What time did you get up this morning?
7:15 so I could talk to Dave for a few minutes before he left, and then go pull Donald out of bed.

 2. Diamonds or Pearls?
Depends on the day, time of day, and outfit. I have equal piles of both and would like to wear diamonds (let's say "diamonds") up one arm, pearls down the other. And colored stones down the middle.

 3. What was the last film you saw at the cinema?
Walk the Line. (But saw "the Aristocrats" on video this weekend - oh my!)

 4. What is your favorite TV show
The Daily Show is my religion, and we watch the Office and Scrubs every week, but Sex in the City reruns are my current favorite. I watch 2 episodes on TiVo every Tues. and Fri. when I fold the laundry.

 5. What did you have for breakfast?
Two slices of leftover sourdough bread (toasted with canola butter) and a mug of Teecino

 6. What is your middle name?
Ann – like 90% of the female population.

 7. What is your favorite cuisine?
I guess if I had to pick one it would be Mexican. I love peanutty, coconutty, Thai, stir-fries and sushi, and a good Gardenburger with fresh tomatoes, but couldn't live without beans, cheese, rice and salsa.

 8. What foods do you dislike?
Lunchables -- and all the processed non-food items they force on kids.

9. Your favorite Potato chip?
There's a goat-cheese and herb flavored kind I get at Trader Joes that makes me eat the whole package at once.

 10. What is your favorite CD at the moment?
 I'm loving Jonatha Brooke. Rhonda gave me her CD for my birthday last year.

11. What kind of car do you drive?
A gold Saturn station wagon with the rearview mirrors duct-taped on. (Had a little problem with the gate at the end of the driveway.)

12. Favorite sandwich?
Mmm. When I was about 12, my uncle flew me in his small plane to the Nut Tree and I had a California Sandwich. I think the avocado and sprouts inspired me to move out here for good when I was 22.

 13. What characteristics do you despise?
Jumping to conclusions, and/or overreacting. But we all do it. Even worse - not being willing to solve problems. Most of them stem from misunderstandings or faulty assumptions. (On the flip side, generosity is my favorite.)

 14. What are your favorite clothes? 
I thought long and hard about this, and although my Mark Jones feather gown is pretty iconic, I decided to give my Levi's 501's the credit they deserve. I've worn them every week for 25 years (not the same pair), and they make my butt look good. Speaking of denim, I can't wait to meet my first Autum-attic corset! I expect it will be a favorite for years to come.

 15. If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you go?
big dreams: a Mediterranean cruise. A few weeks in an Italian villa near Rome would be fantastic, too. More realistic: Santa Fe. Or New York. Or a few months in the mountains in Colorado with a horse and my family.

 15a.  How many countries have you been to?
A modest number: U.S., Mexico, Guatemala, Canada, France, England, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Austria. Now ask me how many states I've been to. 49! By the time I was 12, too. I was very impressed with myself.

 16. What color is your bathroom?
One is a tasteful olive green with a gold mirror, lace curtains and a floor that looks like slate; the other is white with a blue wall (with flecks of melon and gold underneath) and bamboo accents. I painted the wall with a turquoise wash over layers of color to go with our designer toilet seat sent from a friend visiting Florida. Its the most beautiful toilet seat in the world, blue with inlaid shells, nets and seahorses.

 17. Favorite brand of clothing?
Ummmm.... Hattie Carnegie?

 18. Where would you want to retire to?
I'll never retire. I'll die with a pen in my hand in either my country ranch or my city penthouse.

 19. Favorite time of day?
Sunrise and sunset – both make me feel like the world is full of possibilities. Also Donald's bed time, when I'll either read to him or write.

 20. Where were you born?
Born in Detroit (Motown!) in the projects (dad was a med student). Raised in groovy Boulder on the plains.

 21. Favorite sport to watch?
Steeplechase.

22. Who do you least expect to send this back?
Myself. These things are such a time sink. But I was so inspired by Stephanie I saw the possibilities.

23. Person you expect to send it back first?
Too late.

 25. Coke or Pepsi?
Juice Squeeze or Vitamin Water (we call these things "waju" - water-juice). But we're a Coke family.

 26. Are you a morning person or night owl?
Neither. I'm sleepy both times. Except once in a while when I wake at 4am and can't get back to sleep -- I do my best work then.

 29. Any new and exciting news you'd like to share with everyone?
 Actually, yes! After all these years, I'm finally starting to get published! An article about Vintage Cookbooks is coming out soon in The Sophisticate, and an excerpt from my next novel was published in Rudolf's Diner, a web 'zine. I'm working with a coach on my website, http://www.kristencaven.com.

 30. What did you want to be when you were little?
An artist with long hair (down to my waist), who would wear pantsuits and live in the desert with 1 horse, 2 dogs, and 3 cats.

 32. What is your best childhood memory?
I keep coming back to a warm summer day where my brother and a few friends found these big piles of grass clippings/hay and built nests in them. The adults couldn't find us, and were mad when they did. But we were so happy in our little child-sized hidey-holes we made ourselves. And the smell.

 33. What are the different jobs you have had in your life?
ARBY's was the first... after that, I was a cashier, a painter's assistant, a house painter, a nanny, a roller-skating waitress; I worked as receptionist in a garage, a book wholesaler, and a doctor's office; I drove a van, I taught summer camp, waltzing and cartooning classes before starting what turned into my first career as a desktop publisher, evolving into a graphic and web designer. Of course, I must add being a photographer's assistant and a dancer, the most glamorous jobs of all.

 34. What book are you reading now and would you recommend it?
I'm reading Teacher Man by Frank McCourt (I'm married to one), With Middlesex, Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, and Mirror, Mirror waiting for my precious attention. I just finished Mistress of Spices, but was not in love with it. Also in the pile by my bed are The Wonder of Boys, Your Nine-Year-Old, and Skin, a short-story collection by Roald Dahl. Which is kind of cool, since Donald is reading a lot of his books right now, too.

35. Nicknames:
My brother calls me Kris. My dad calls me Krissy-wissy. My husband, for some reason known only to him, calls me Krispy Weets and Raisins, Cracklin' Oat Bran, or Fartblossom.

36. Piercing?
2 in one ear 1 in the other. I had to get the 2nd hole so I could wear my Tante Sophie's tiny opal earring. She gave me the pair when I was nine, a great treasure to her, and I lost one of them. I had to fight with my dad to keep the hole -- he would forcibly remove any earring he saw in it. But the next day at school my friend Shari would bring her needle and ice for the other ear....

37. Eye Color?
An unremarkable bluish-grayish hazel, but if you look closely there's a black ring around the iris with white flecks going around inside it.

 38. Ever been to Africa?
Never. But I kinda like the music. One of my favorite clients right now is a Ghanian musican. And we once had a fabulous vacation at the Animal Kingdom lodge.

 39. Ever been toilet papering?
I have a sense-memory of tossing a roll, but I think my guilt would have stopped me. If I ever did, Rhonda was probably with me. Rhonda?

40.
Passed it a year ago.

 41. Been in a car accident?
Three of them. My parents were out of town and I had friends over to dress up for the Rocky Horror Picture Show. On the way into town, the driver of my car pulled into oncoming highway traffic and we got creamed. But we were okay. It seemed a little odd giving a police report dressed in a wig and sunglasses, but we all got to the movie safely, and thought crashing the car on the way was a pretty punk thing to do. A few years later my friend Mandy rolled her Honda civic off the highway and down an embankment on Raton Pass. We were fine, but both felt like we'd entered a different dimension. Then a few years back, a truck pulled into my lane at the 80 exit off of 580, but I was still in it. That totally freaked me out, and I discovered the magic of chiropractic. My art car, amazingly, was technically totalled but looked and drove fine for being pushed sideways for 100 feet by a Mack truck. The insurance money was a godsend at the time.

 43. Favorite day of the week?
I've always been fond of Thursdays for some reason.

 44. Favorite restaurant?
I've been driving by La Mediterannee in Berkeley the past few days, on the way to the vet, and longing to go there again someday.

 45. Favorite ice cream?
Black Walnut, Pistachio, Maple Pecan, and the other nut, Coconut.

 46. Favorite fast food restaurant?
Subway.

 47. How many times did you fail your driver's test?
Oh, please. Moi?

 48. Before this one, from whom did you get your last e-mail?
Another parent anxious about the failing negotiations of the teachers and the school district

 49. Which store would you choose to max out your credit card?
Home Depot

 50. Bedtime?
Between 10:30 and 11, but I'm trying to get there earlier. I need my sleep, and it's so nice to read in bed.

 51. Who are you most curious about their responses to this questionnaire?
My own. I'm just surprised I'm doing this.

 52. Last person you went to out to dinner with?
At a restaurant? What's that like?

 53. What are you listening to right now?
Silence. How radical.

 54.  Favorite color?
Rainbow. Actually, I'd have to pick pink these days.

55. How many tattoos do you have?
0, due to a thankful indecisiveness. (I have a friend who is getting some very large ones removed.) I did come close to getting a Chinese dragon on my foot; the one that got away.

Any more questions?

Look, I'm a Almost a Cartoon!

Thank you kindly to those of you who know me for who I'm really am. Seems you all agree I'm a cartoon (though I feel blinded by insight most of the time). I'll get a new photo taken soon (to show off my lovely neckline) and post it on the new page I'm creating for Kristen, the Professional Writer. Yikes!