Good New(s) Year

Dr. Winterhalter sent me some good news the other day and I thought you all might like to know it. She and I applied for a research grant for the summer of '06 to work on a book she, along with a professor at Georgia Southern, is compiling. The book is called Feminist Locations, and it is composed of essays from professors all over the south. Dr. W let me know that we won the grant and I will be able to work as an assistant editor on the project next summer. I am happy for the experience. I know there are many other people who are more qualified for this position, but I am thrilled to have the opportunity.

The Dreaded Resolution

Every year, about this time, I begin to start thinking of my new year's resolution. Every year, this resolution is the same: to lose weight. While I was married, we would always go to church on New Year's Eve and at midnight, we would come together as a church and pray for the year ahead of us. I always imagined that the people around me were praying for world peace and an end to world hunger, while I bowed my head and asked God to give me the strength to lose the 60 pounds I gained when I was pregnant with Reese. I was ashamed to be so shallow, but it meant so much to me.

This year is no different. I have enjoyed bread and desserts during the holiday season because I know on January 1st, I will be right back on my diet. This year I started to question my resolution because it has been so ineffective in the past. Hopefully, I will start teaching this fall and I do not want to have to turn my fat ass to a group of insecure, and potentially mean, teenagers, so I have a lot of motivation to finally succeed. Outside of the physical, I have other issues I need to work on. I have ignored other areas in my life that could use some improvement to focus on this one wish, as if this achievement will fix all the other problems in my life. Maybe it would, but maybe not. I am going to try a different approach this year: I am going to keep my resolution to lose weight, but I will not make this my single goal. How about you? What resolutions have you had in the past, and how successful have you been? What is this year's resolution?

Kid's Say The Darndest Things

I don't want this to be a blog about the joys of motherhood, so I try to decide what to put based upon the rule of would I repeat this story if it did not involve my child. This is one story that I would probably tell no matter who it involved. Me and Trey were watching television together last night, actually I was watching television and Trey was composing a Christmas letter to Kirsten, when a commercial for Ruby Tuesday came on. The announcer said "Enjoy our Hang off the Plate Ribs, slow cooked for hours." Trey said, "I would never order those things." I disagreed,"I would, they look delicious."
"But Mama, think about it. It would take forever. The man said they cook it for hours."
After I quit laughing, I explained that they started cooking it long before the person ordered it from the menu. I thought it was very cute.

On another note. I do not know if any of you have seen the beautiful Reese Witherspoon in Vanity Fair, but I watched it the other night and loved it. It got such horrible reviews that I had never had any interest in seeing it, but I could not sleep and it was on HBO so I watched it. I fell in love with Becky Sharp's card-shark husband(James Purefoy). Seriously, it was like a teenage girls crush on the New Kid's on the Block. He is adorable (see picture above). I am going to the book store today to read all 912 pages of the novel to see how much they changed it in the film version. I always heard Becky Sharp was a horrible girl, but Reese Witherspoon could never be anything but sweet as pie. Casting may have been off here a little. If you get a chance, watch it, or if you have already watched it, tell me what you thought.

Merry Christmas!

Only the strong survived. The plastic reindeer did not have a chance.

For all my petty complaints about my life, this christmas I am thankful for the goodness in simply being alive. I have wonderful friends, people that I truly, truly like, and a beautiful family. I hope each of you have a merry Christmas and a fabulous year. I look forward to sharing them with you.

It's The Most Wonderful Time

I started this post several times but I kept erasing it because I could not find the right thoughts to put down. I felt that I had depressed everyone with my musings on death, so I wanted to talk about something different. I could have talked about my relentless pursuit of the xbox 360, and how maddening it was to keep missing out on the hottest gift this Christmas. I woke up at 7am each morning, threw on a baseball cap and sneakers and went to Wal-Mart and Circuit City, and then before I went to bed at night, I got out and repeated my trip to the stores, hoping that the person at the desk would say, "Boy are you lucky. We just got a shipment in." I would gladly write out a check, stuff the xbox in my car and plan on ways to keep it hidden from my boys. It would be my Christmas gift to myself to have pulled off the impossible and made two kids very happy. It was not meant to be that way. Instead, I woke up one morning, sad and depressed and feeling like a failure, only to stumble along a premium xbox 360 package at WalMart.com. I could not click the "checkout" button fast enough. It was, as Kirsten would say, "a Christmas miracle." It was not until I had to confirm the order that I realized this "premium" package was over 1000 dollars. I did not care: I bought it anyway.

The next morning, I slept late. No early morning trek to Wal-Mart hell, so I sat at my computer and out of habit, I checked to see if Circuit City had any 360's in stock, and yes, they did, and at half the price. The only problem was that I had to call and order it over the phone and Reese just happened to overhear my order. I lost the element of surprise I love so much. There would be no "Oh my gosh" upon seeing the presents under the tree on Christmas morning. I thought I could work it out later. The next day, I told the kids that Circuit City called and said there had been a mistake and they could not send out the xbox 360, but would be happy to send us a regular xbox. They are so gullible! Sad faces abounded for the rest of the day. I had the advantage back.

I cancelled the order at walmart and waited for the order from circuit city. I convinced the kids that after Christmas we would get them an xbox 360. I went shopping and when I finished I stopped at my mom's to see my brother. Everyone kept mouthing something to me and pointing to the spare bedroom, but I had no clue of what they were talking about. I went into the kitchen with my mom and she said, "The UPS guy took the xbox to your house and the kids saw it. It is all in the guest room. Reese called me and said 'Please come get it Granny so mama will not know we saw it. She will be disappointed if she knows she can't surprise us.'" She had tears in her eyes when she told me, and at first I did not understand why, but then I thought about the fact that they had not said one word to me about their "surprise." There was no cheers of triumph or "can we play it now since we already saw it?" Three little people cared about dissapointing me more than they cared about their own fun times. I can't say that, as an adult, I always do that. I have no doubt that they would never have told me they already knew what they were getting. So, I got my own little surprise for Christmas. In a world that has commercialized the holiday season, and I am just as guilty of this, you can still find a moment of selflessness. I thought to myself, maybe, just maybe, I am doing an ok job. That I am not failing at the most important task I have been given: to not completely screw up the lives of three beautiful individuals. It was a gift that cannot be wrapped up in paper, or bought in a store, and it will be the best gift I receive this year.

Memories of My Melancholy Whores

I am reading Gabriel Garcia Marquez's new short story Memories of My Melancholy Whores. I love Marquez (I know you do too Christy) so I thought I would keep a little journal while I read it. When I told Dr. Torres that I planned to read it over the break, she said, "In Spanish, the title is very shocking. When I saw it I gasped." Initially, I was attracted to the word "Whores," but I knew it would not be about lascivious sex, but a love story of some kind. Sex is usually secondary to love in Marquez's work. So far, I love it. Here is one of my favorite lines: "I don't have to say so because people can see it from leagues away: I'm ugly, shy and anachronistic. But by dint of not wanting to be those things I have pretended to be just the opposite. Until today, when I resolved to tell of my own free will just what I'm like, if only to ease my conscience."

I'm not very far into it, but my heart already aches for the narrator, who is a ninety year old man preparing for his death. That is how Marquez always makes me feel and why I keep on reading his beautiful prose.

The Art of Losing

One Art by Elizabeth Bishop

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

--Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

I am not easily frightened. I am unfazed by spiders and bugs. Finances never keep me up at night. I don't fear that the random man walking towards me will rape or kidnap me. But I am terrified at the thought of death. Rape me or take me, but don't kill me. Bite me and gross me out, but just don't inject me with any poison that will cause my heart to stop.

Yesterday, I found out that a girl I used to work with died Sunday night. She was my age and had a six year old daughter, Jasmine, who was her inspiration for going back to school to get a degree. Because she was a single mother, she used to bring Jasmine to work with her and, while she cleaned rooms, I would keep the precocious six-year old at the front desk. Because I lost my father at a young age, I can imagine what this little girl will go through. Every Christmas will be a reminder of what she does not have, and what she is missing. She is learning what some people will be lucky enough to never learn: that life can be unfair to the poor and the young and the vulnerable, who are all too often one in the same. Many times she will ask herself "How would my life be different if my mother had lived?" The sad part is that she will never know.

My 85 year old neighbor died last week. He had struggled with cancer for years and his death was no surprise to his family. His youngest son is my age and his oldest is in her fifties. They lived a nice, full life with their family intact and whole. I admit, I am jealous. Not only for me, but for Jasmine and others that I know have lost someone important to them too early. My tears for Jasmine are tears for myself. I have not yet mastered the art of losing.

Insightful Insight

This morning on Imus, George Carlin said something that I think applies to this billboard on the side of a West Virginia highway: "When you are born, you get a ticket to the freak show. If you live in America, sometimes the seat is on the front row."

Dixie Lee Swogger Higginbotham Jacobs . . .

Cast of Characters

Going along with the theme of my previous post, I have to tell you a little bit about my family history. Most of you know I went to a bizarre little school where the only literature we ever studied was the Bible and Pilgrim's Progress. I never wrote an essay and the only science I learned was intellilgent design, or as we called it back then, " we don't come from no monkeys!" Many of the kids that went to school there, were there because their family either, did not want them around black people, they had been kicked out of public schools for abnormal behavior, or their parents went to the church that was in charge of the school. I was part of the last group.

I believe that I was a born radical. I read books that no one else even heard of and was constantly in trouble. I believe I got my rebellious streak from my grandmother, who refused to be called Granny, Grandmother or anything else maternal sounding. She was one of those women that are in every small southern town that was close friends with the sheriff and could get a ticket fixed with a phone call. She had several husbands (5 to be exact) who were prominent blue-collar businessmen and she owned a restaurant called "The Blue Bird Cafe" that is still opened in downtown Brunswick. Her husbands were strange men. Her first husband, my grandpa, owned a boarding house for horses and would take me to all the horse shows. He would sit in a chair and yell at the horses as they went around the barrel's. I would sit between his knees and feel like the luckiest little girl in the world. He had left Dixie and my mom and her sister when they were very young, but as he grew older he decided to be a part of his grandchildren life. He died shortly after this decision, which is how my luck seems to go.

Dixie's next husband (I won't go though them all as some are more memorable than others) was Cecil. Cecil owned a Catepillar dealership and he was the love of Dixie's life. When he tried to leave her, she pulled out her pistol and tried to shoot him, but the gun went off and she shot herself in the foot. She was never charged with anything (see the note about the sheriff above). A few years after Cecil, Dixie married a man named Hershel. Hershel was a drunk chef who owned a catering business that had recently suffered because of his drinking. I will never forget the Thanksgiving after they married. Herschel impressed everyone with a fabulous spread. I have never since had better sweet potatoes than Herschel's. After a couple of glorious thanksgiving dinners, Dixie got tired of Herschel and kicked him out. We were all devastated. I loved Herschel and his funny drunken ways. Herschel got drunk one night after their divorce and was killed in a car accident. God bless his soul, he was a good man in spite of the drink.

I could go on and on about Dixie and her stories, but this has been to long and I need to get to my point: I have a lot of Dixie in me. My first best friend in school was kicked out because they caught her in the bathroom unfolding sanitary napkins and looking at them. I married a man that loved to drink and have a good time and was a fabulous chef. I also contemplated killing him several times, and if I had a gun, I may have followed through. I get tired of guys after a few years and want to move on, but I have too much of my mom in me as well and I try to do the "right thing," whatever that may mean. Dixie's granddaughter all have a bit of her in them and we know this, but we seemed doomed to repeat her mistakes. I guess there is a lot of power in the blood.

There Is Power In The Blood

"In whatever form a slowly accumulated past lives in the blood . . . It has the same power of broadening and deepening the individual existence, of attaching it by mysterious links of kinship to all the mighty sum of human striving."

This quote comes from The House of Mirth. Lily's life is destined for heartbreak because of her past. Wharton seems to blame her misfortunes on the "power of the blood, " and her family history. That is why Lily had to die: she could have never overcome her fate because it is in her blood.

I thought about this when my beautiful niece came by my mom's the other day to help us make fruit cake. She said, "I have 'shit magnate' across my forehead. If a guy is a jerk and a loser, I will find him out in a crowd of winners." She should have better luck. She is tall and thin, blonde, beautiful and smart. She is working on her master's in education, goes to a big university and has an amazing personality. However, it's in her blood to have that kind of luck. Everyone says she reminds them of me (not that I am tall, blonde or beautiful), but she has my type of luck. She thinks with her heart and not her head. She makes choices on how it will feel right now and not how will it feel ten years from now. I like to go to school and have fun, and if there is a loser in the room, I find him like a heat seeking missile. I wonder, Are we destined for our life? Can we do anything to change our fate? Wharton and Hardy seem to think not.

Free At Last, Free At Last!

This may be overdoing it, but only to a small degree. I am the angel and I am free. Get it?

Free at last, free at last! Thank God Almighty, I'm free at last! Let Freedom ring!, Operation Iraqi Freedom . . . Well maybe not the last one, but it is fabulous to be free. After taking my last final yesterday, I am able to once again enjoy freedom. I know why it was such a big deal. It feels great to wake up and lay there in my nice warm bed and not feel guilty. To know that I have no certain number of pages to read, no paper to write, and no lesson plan to make up, is wonderful. The sad part is that in a couple of weeks, I will be ready to go back to school,with my new pens and pencils, and laugh with Kirsten and listen to Brandi's elopement fantasies. For now though, it feels good to have nothing to do. I hope all of you are almost done, and when you are, let me know how it feels.

It's Finals Time

I will return, if I have the power of language, after my last final on Wednesday.

Sean Has Taken Over

Sean keeps coming up with lists that he would like for me to post, so here is another. I have to admit that I am partial to these as well.
I told Sean that I don't know if I can come up with 10 of my favorite movies. List as many, or as few as you want.
What are you favorite movies?
1. Grapes of Wrath
2. Gone with the Wind
3. Braveheart
4. Shine
5. Malcom X
6. Closer
7. Thelma and Louise

I don't think these are my favorite movies, but it's finals week and I have zero brain capacity.