On government shutdowns, lack of money, bologna, and MacDowell

It's Day Two of the government shutdown and I am feeling pissy and sad and emotional. Very PMS-y, I might say. Part of me wants to log on to Facebook and rant and rave and call Republicans Retardicans or Repugnacans, because it is the GOP that I (and much of America, including our fine president) blame for the mess that is in Washington. Congress schmongress. Let's fire them all and get new idiots in there. Let's start with the Tea Partiers.
My husband, who's been with the Federal Aviation Administration for twenty-five years, went to work yesterday, and today, and he will go tomorrow and the next day, but he isn't getting paid right away. Government-issued IOUs. So of course I have a pony in this race, which makes me (somewhat) worthless because I bring in a whopping $275 weekly from my nanny jobs. (I love my morning and afternoon gigs; I am torn. Don't want to leave my families; might have to leave my families and get a 9-5 desk job, which is necessary at this stage in the race because my foot is still semi-broken and throbs ten hours a day. But then there's my adorable children, and a verbal promise that I will stay with them throughout the school year. As I said before, I am torn. Oh, and broke.)
My default plan, whenever the pissiness and sadness and OhmigodIneedtomakemoney sets in, I turn to my writing. Specifically, I am trying very, very, very hard to corral my ADD and focus on my Bologna book. I am particularly in support of this plan because it has been one year since I was at MacDowell, holed up in my cozy stone cottage in the woods of New Hampshire. It was ONE YEAR ago that I was at my laptop working on Bologna With the Red String, and now 365 days have gone by, and I am still not finished.
Not finished.
Getting closer, but ...
NOT FINISHED.
What to do?
Pretend I'm at MacDowell. Head to my writing room, which my dear husband helped make possible (the man I'm disappointing financially); spray Indigo Wild's Frankincense & Myrrh Zum Mist -- that's the scent I sprayed inside Mixter Studio; listen to Tony Bennett's Duets II album --that's the music I listened to on my iPod as I wrote, outlined, edited and cursed at the simple desk adjacent to the stone fireplace; set myself to a schedule: 9 a.m. to noon, write; break for lunch; write from 12:30 to 3 p.m. And yet ... I am missing (son of a bitch, oh, how I am missing) the screened-in porch and wooded surroundings of Mixter studio; I am missing the electric hotpot that I used four, five, six times a day to make decaf coffee or tea; I am missing the glorious absence of housekeeping; I am missing the wonderful Plunk! of my lunch basket hitting the porch; I am missing naptime. (At MacDowell, I napped from 3 to 5 each day, waking to shower and prepare for dinner.)

To encourage my focus and discipline, I tell myself that I will to return to MacDowell once I publish the food memoir. You will go back, Kathleen, you will get there.

It will happen for you. Now sit your ass down in that chair. Finish the fucking book.

#12 Reason Having No Money Sucks

I haven't worked since March of this year. I was gainfully employeed as a teacher, and then as a nanny up until my mom died March 25, which is when my world kinda sorta fell apart. Went into Depression Mode and stayed there, under the covers, for about a month. Would climb out and get showered and dressed, but then something would trigger a  memory of my mom ~ big things, like seeing women out in public with their moms; little things, like passing the Little Debbie display at Price Chopper, as my mom loved her some oatmeal creme pies ~ and then I was back to the bed and not brushing my teeth. You know you're at the edge of your sanity when you stop brushing your teeth.
No work? No money. Well, none of my own. Thank God I am married to a wonderful and generous man who is gainfully employed and has allowed me as much grieving time as I needed (and continue to need). Without my own paycheck, though, I feel very much like an adolescent holding her hand out for movie money, or for lunch money to get together with the girls.
Since March, since no paycheck, I have given up lots of material goods, purchases that I never really needed, now that I come to think about it, but sure as hell wanted. I used to buy whatever I wanted whenever I wanted. My generosity soared. Lots of gifts for the children and for friends. Lots of dinners out. I had Olive Garden's menu memorized. Lots of clothing and shoes bought. Daughter wanted a $200 pair of Uggs? Her third pair? OK.
Look: I am not a brat. I did have the money, and I did spend it, but I donated a lot of money, too. I bought food for local food pantries. I paid for dozens of Starbucks purchases for cars that were behind me in line. I bought classroom gifts that students "bought" with good behavior tickets I'd handed out during the week. I took donuts into school, and full-size birthday cakes and gallons of ice cream when a student had a birthday.  And I bought a shit-ton of books; I was a regular at Borders before it closed (I am still sad about this~) and then I turned to Barnes and Noble and, eventually, amazon.com, although I am ashamed to admit that mail-order approach, considering amazon's one BIG reason Borders shut down.
I bought new-release books, both fiction and non-fiction; I bought enormous coffee table books; I bought poetry anthology books, both hardcover and trade fiction; I bought home design books; I bought anyone's memoir or autobiography. I bought cookbooks. I bought little gift books, you've seen 'em, the lilliputian quotation books meant for teachers, or for women, or for mothers. If it was published, I bought it. And if I bought it, read it, and loved it (Garth Stein's Racing in the Rain, for example ~), I bought half a dozen more copies and gave those away.
And now, now that I have no extra money, I have had to stop buying books.
It hurts. My withdrawal from Barnes and Noble is painful: I am an alcoholic who must stay away from the pub.
How to compensate? I go to the library. A lot, like three times a week. Am I reading that many books every week? No, but I am a book junkie; I get my fix by perusing the shelves and carrying as many books to checkout as my arms can hold. Then I bring them home and set them on my dining room table, artfully arranged, and I get a euphoric sense of possibility just having them there. That's what books do for me: they promise a future for me that would be different if I did not have them.
How does anyone NOT read? There's so much to be learned and to be considered, so much to be absorbed.
Books think for me. Wish I'd been the first to claim that. However, attribution goes to Charles Lamb, Essays of Ella, (1823), which I know because I got it out of a book I own called The Quotable Book Lover.
One more quote, before I leave this post:
"Books must be the axe to break the frozen sea inside me." ~ Kafka (1883-1924)

Why do people give up on each other?

In the last few days I've learned that two couples I care about are splitting up; additionally, reality TV's Mom and Dad of the Year are calling it quits. Of course I'm talking about Jon and Kate Gosselin, the parentals on TLC's Jon and Kate Plus Eight.
I can count on one hand how many times I've watched the show (my students got me interested ... ), but I'd set my stove timer for 60 minutes to remind me to tune in Monday night.
There I sat on my sectional in the living room, riveted to the "couch scenes" whereby both Jon and Kate said something along the lines of "we don't hate each other, but we can't live together because we fight too much and that's not good for the children."
Hmn. Married couples who fight. Married, parenting couples who fight. OK, so what's divorce-worthy there?
All my adult life I've searched for non-combative married people who are parenting (the hardest job on the planet, BTW) and I've yet to run into a couple who are ALWAYS googly-eyed and exhibiting their best honeymoon behavior and never getting bored with one another and are perpetually smiling through life's big and little disappointments and "gosh-golly-gee-whizzing" their way through the week. Puh-leese.
I've been searching for going on 35 years now and I just haven't found that golden couple. I'm fairly certain that perfect couple does ... not ... exist.
There's something called LIFE that prohibits us adults from behaving perfectly 24/7. There's too much month at the end of the money; the dog pees on the new carpet; the three-year-old throws hourly tantrums and screams "You're Not My Mommy!" as you haul her over your shoulder through the automatic doors at Target; your spouse is balding; you are balding; you're tired at the end of a work day and want to go to bed at 7:30; the remote control has gone missing; the flirtatious co-worker is making you feel valued; the in-laws are a pain in the neck; the house needs painting but the Pontiac needed a new transmission and now the neighbors are just going to need to DEAL WITH YOUR FADED PAINT in the subdivision that tells you which colors to use anyway; your headaches (real ones, not the fake sort) preclude any romantic notions; the bank didn't post your deposit on time and now you owe a $25 overdraft fee; the cat killed a bird and delivered it to your doorstep, which your four-year-old has carried into the house with his bare hands; there's a perpetual toilet leak in the downstair's bathroom; middle-aged spread has attacked your midsection; your 13-year-old just brought home a grade card with five F's and one A (P.E.); the stomach flu has ripped through your house and it's two days before Christmas ... .
I could go on. And on and on.
Here's the deal: No one gets through this life unperturbed. Even Angelina Jolie at times is sick of Brad Pitt. And vice-versa.
The show must go on, people. Especially when there are children in the picture.
So, A.L. and B.L., and K.K. and B.K., is there any way to reconnect, to find that joy that first brought you together?
Please try. You're too loving and smart and compassionate to give up on each other.

Exuberance deflated

Well. It was about to happen. Two red-letter days IN A ROW and then today.
First, I slept in far too long. What is it with me and all this sleeping lately?
I'm either depressed or there's something seriously wrong with me. Or maybe I'm staying up way too late. Here it is 1:40 a.m. and I'm wide awake. Posting a blog entry, for crying out loud! Ten minutes ago I was loading the dishwasher.
Another reason -- HUGE reason my day sucked -- was because my PVC's showed up around 2 p.m., and then lingered long enough for me to think: OK, is this the day I die? (PVC's are an abbreviation for premature ventricular contractions, which is a long way of saying "palpitations" or "irregular heartbeat.") I was vacuuming the stairs when they started. Immediately thought of that horrible scene in About Schmidt where the Jack Nicholson character comes home from an errand and finds his wife dead, the vacuum hose encircling her lifeless body.
Yeah, yeah, I've been checked out. My cardiologist tells me that my PVC's are the "good ones," the kind that won't cause my heart to quiver in a frenzied mess and then stop altogether, say, while I'm picking out peppers at Price Chopper. According to the doctor, my palps are probably with me for life: I just need to deal with them by, largely, ignoring them. Easier said than done, let me just say. Oh, and even though they're supposed to be "quite common" in women over 40, none of the Bunco gals has experienced them. I've polled every female at Northgate Middle School, and only the librarian can identify.
Third sucky reason to dislike today: I am down to $135 in my checking account, which means I'll have to ask Husband to deposit some money from the joint account into my little piddly expense account, which will more than likely peeve him greatly and cause a great poutage and the silent treatment for, say, oh, about ten days.
And then, I went and did something extra stupid: I watched a movie called Two Weeks, whereby Sally Field plays a 60-ish mother who is dying from cancer (stupidfreakingcancer) and hospice has come in, along with her four grown children, all of whom are there to be with her in her last days.
The movie's a Kleenex box jerker. My eyes will, most assuredly, be super puffy in the a.m.

Here’s what critics have said about TWO WEEKS ….

“Writer-director Steve Stockman is writing from experience, as the script artfully melds the honest, cold facts of dying with the awkwardness and humor that can be found in such circumstances. It’s a film to be sought out.”
Jeffrey Lyons and Alison Bailes, WNBC-TV

“Sally Field creates an agonizing portrait of Anita Bergman. Ms. Field’s tough, accurate performance is all the more compelling for its understatement. A knowing cinematic primer on what to expect when a parent dies.”
--Stephen Holden, The New York Times

“There’s an honesty to this film’s portrayal of what cancer does to family dynamics. Unsentimental, darkly funny. (Stockman’s) gifts as a writer are beyond reproach.”
--Jason Shawhan, The (Nashville) Tennessean

“Very real, very moving, and very funny. Sally Field is breathtaking.”
--Bob Rivers, CBS Radio