electric boogaloo

1. Graham calls me mean somewhere between 2600 and 4000 times per day. Nicolaus doesn’t come right out and SAY that I’m mean but will say things like “Today everything you’re doing is completely designed to make me feel like I can never be good enough.”

Don’t worry. This was because I asked him to:

Three minor course corrections in fifteen minutes was interpreted as overly critical and harsh parenting. Which is mean! YOU’RE MEAN.

Sometimes when they call me mean I say, “That’s right. I’m the meeeean machine!” Then I mow over them like I’m a giant tractor. Which would make me an awesome parent if it broke the stormy mood and made them laugh and then we could all smile and hug and have ice cream with happy guitar music playing in the background, and then they could narrate over the scene with a little monologue about how great their childhood was. But no, the mean machine only pisses them off, which makes me think it’s even funnier, which makes me a jerk.

2. Why did Eddie Vetter sing about the company that makes baby swings and carseats?

3. Turning 36 didn’t make me feel old but! Overhearing adults talking about their favorite science fiction TV moment from their childhood, realizing it was from a show I watched in college oh oh ohhh now my head hurts. Must be some kind of temporal distortion anomaly. Or I’m just old.

4. Someday we want to move but we don’t know where to go. It’s still in the hypothetical stage, but it’s neat to think about where we’d go. The ideal place to live:
Somewhat rural
Few chain stores
Minimal traffic
No major sports arena
No mall
Walkable
A used bookstore
Trees
A nice park or two
Some kind of farmer’s market
Drive to water: lake, river, ocean… Kevin needs to be near water
Mild weather
A general vibe that is: open minded, relaxed, anti-racism, not hyperfocused on religion, sports, and/or meth.

It doesn’t have to be a hippie town. Just friendly and not grossly materialistic and/or racist, you know? We’d stay in this general area except that small towns outside of Atlanta have ILLS OUT painted everywhere, and it’s not weird to meet people with confederate flags displayed somewhere on their car or body. We once went into a gas station and the very friendly clerk had a huge illustrative tattoo on his arm. It was a picture of a black man being lynched, and then just in case the intent of the lynching tattoo was too vague there was a person on his forearm who was shooting at the black man. The bullets were drawn like little dashed lines going to the cartoon victim.

We are looking for a small town with whatever is the opposite of that.

But! But but but, one big problem is that I am an insufferable crybaby about winter. Isn’t there something in between the mild-weathered bible belt and the insane holy jeez it’s cold north?

5. This is where Kevin points out that his company has a location in Hawaii.

6. This week we are still working on medieval europe, right now focused on how Christianity shaped everything during that time. Nicolaus instantly drew a comparison between the Christian God and Zeus, and Jesus and Perseus. I like Nicolaus.

7. I also like Graham, even though he is being an unbelievable punk lately. It’s hard to get him to focus and participate in what we’re doing. I know it’s the age. He concentrates fine on his own important four year old work: Spinning in the time machine, playing with sand and rocks, drawing funny pictures, eating oatmeal and so forth. But sitting and listening to me finish a whole sentence is almost impossible for him.

I don’t mind being interrupted if the person is on topic. But this is total non sequitur interrupting for the sake of interrupting.

“So that’s where the Romans got the idea to…”

“Mama? Mama? MAAAMAAAAA.”

“Yes?”

“I have a question.”

“Is it about what we’re talking about right now?”

“Yes!”

“Oh! Cool. Okay, what is it?”

“I mean no! My question is, my question? Is?”

“Yeah?”

“Which ones of the Beatles died and got killed and which ones of them survived?”

You aren’t supposed to reward stuff like that with an answer, but I can’t help it. It’s too good of a question.

At dinner the other night we were chatting about movies when Graham suddenly asked me how exactly did Romans make their limestone cannon balls?

Kevin says he probably wanted to know so he could make some to use against us all. But it was a neat question! What could I do? I tried to look it up, right there using my phone at the dinner table which is a terrible example no computers at the table oh my god worst mother ever.

8. Do you ever go to sleep and dream that you are watching a movie and wake up thinking I should write that movie! That would be a good movie! But then by the time you brush your teeth you realize that the movie in your dream made almost no sense at all?

9. I really want to do a school post. It’s been months since I posted an update, but we are trucking along through all of human history. History is crazy! Did you know that? I am probably driving Kevin nuts with my constant hey! Did you know? trivia that I learned that day.

10. Rearranged the living room again, and it has made everyone happier. I think sometimes we just need a different perspective on everything.

11. Goodness my body wants me to go to bed now. But I can’t. The dog has something gross stuck on his bottom. I couldn’t deal earlier so he’s chilling in his crate while I put off cleaning that for him. I bet that’s why this post is so long. Anything else you’d like to discuss? Really it’s no problem.

Two new prints arriving next week. They’ll be 11×17″, which means I need to figure out the best way to ship a new size of thing. You’d really think I’d learn to think of the shipping issues before I design something and stick with one of the standard sizes I already have packaging for, but the prints asked me to make them 11×17, so that’s what I did. Ah well… some artists’ work demands to be carved out of ten foot high blocks of stone. Or ice! And they end up just like me digging through the Uline catalog trying to figure out how to ship it without damage.

What? Oh right, the prints! It’s all about the cuteness with these two:

One night we all were out driving somewhere doing something and I talked to Kevin about wanting to cut way back on processed foods and refined sugars. We talked about how hard it is to do in this crazy mixed-up world of ours, but agreed that it would still be good to try. I felt good. I am so persuasive with the logic and the facts and everything, and Kevin is so smart to see my point. We are awesome, we sugar-cutting cutbackers.

We drove home from where ever it was, got out of the car, and walked up to our front door where these two guys were installing a soda machine. The real kind that takes bills and quarters and gives you cold cans of Coke and the retro kind of Dr.Pepper and holy lord it is a no-joke soda machine immediately outside our front door. We don’t even have to put on shoes.

Good:
When we come home at night, the soda machine greets us with a happy glow that looks like sunshine pouring in through a window. It hums a quiet bit of white noise that we can hear from inside our bedroom. Also there are very yummy drinks inside of it.

Bad:
It draws a lot of noisy people to stand in front of our door where they talk and laugh and echo their banter all down the hallways. Then THUDclunder goes the thing, and that person just bought a soda. The dog growls every time. It’s been two months now and we keep thinking he’ll get over it. He keeps thinking that we’ll finally understand that OMG Alert! Alert! Bad people are out there buying cokes! Buying cokes RIGHT NOW.
Is he defending the machine? The carbonated drinks? Our front door? I don’t know but oh my goodness dude they’re just little 20 ounce cans. Get over it.

I also don’t like the machine because really? I really need that kind of pressure and guilt and everything sitting right there outside my literal front door? It’s like Jehova’s Witnesses and/or a zombie movie in junk food form.

Also: Even though the boys have never once convinced us to buy them a bright orange orange-flavored drink from the machine, they still ask. That’s not true. Nicolaus asks, especially when the grandparents come over. Or he’ll find two quarters and casually say “I’m going to go get myself a drink, do you want me to find more money and get one for you too?”
Graham doesn’t care about fizzy drinks. He just likes to go out there and push all the buttons. The machine is part of his space ship.

And: It highlights our fiscal stupidity. It’s now just the fridge where we keep our cold drinks. The guy who owns the machine lives nearby and we could all save a step if we simply wrote him a $30 check every month and had him deliver a couple of 12 packs to our door. We’d save all that time we spend digging for quarters every day.

But see, buying them one at a time feels like less of a terrible and constant habit. If we paid the money all at once or acted like normal humans and bought it ourselves in large quantities at the grocery store for a lot less money, well that would make us gross addicted soda drinkers, now wouldn’t it? Besides, we would drink it all the first day. Then we’d stay awake for thirty straight hours. Then we’d crash and feel awful. Then we’d start a frantic search for quarters.

This week we are going to finally end the Roman Empire. I mean it this time. They do this every time and I love the way they fall in love with each topic, so I try to be flexible. But it’s been weeks and weeks of learning about Ancient Greece and then Rome. It’s out of hand.

Tomorrow I am going to make some pizza dough. The boys will have to hold it up in the air, supporting it with their fingers. We are going to stretch it out larger and thinner, and see why it might be hard to hold together a massive empire. We will then split the empire in two, and if any drops on the floor the Visigoths, Vandals, and/or small dogs will swoop in and gobble them up. And pretty soon it will be a big blobby jumbled up mess, and that will be the end of the Roman empire.

Then they’ll have pizza for lunch.

At dinner I told the boys that tomorrow Rome must fall. They were disappointed, but didn’t beg me to change my mind like they have for the last few weeks. They were fine. But later, as I was tucking him in, Graham’s eyes welled up and he started crying. He buried his face in the pillow whimpered that he wants to fix Rome.

“And Mama? I do not mean just study about it. I mean we need to actually fix the real ancient empire and put it back together.”

And he started crying again, harder this time.

Graham is generally a kid with a light heart. A nice lady in the internet sent us some cute little sets of worry dolls not long ago. The boys adore them. Graham pulls his out and looks at them and thinks. Finally he tells the dolls, “Well? I guess I really don’t have any worries.”
Meanwhile on the top bunk is another kid who has far more worries than dolls, such that he has to go back to the first ones and reassign them, sorry, nevermind what I told you earlier, this is a much more important worry…

Now, honestly? He was just really tired. And also I’m not sure that putting the Roman Empire back together would be a good idea, no matter how fancy the aqueducts and arches of the world might become. Bob Sagat in Full House would have handled it perfectly. “I’m sorry, Steph. But I have to be honest: historically, countries don’t like being forced to live under imperialist rule.”

But Bob was a better mom than me, and his kids were a lot less weird (Kimmie notwithstanding).

I just realized! The secret real reason that parents tell their children “You can be anything you want to be” is because these conversations always come up late at night when it’s very important that the kids to go to sleep so that mommies and daddies who love each other very, very much can spend time together in their bed watching marathons of Dr. Who on Netflix.

I just also realized that maybe drama like this is why schools don’t normally cover ancient history until kids are older and less likely to cry over the end of each civilization.

So yeah, what could I do? I hugged Graham tight and kissed his wet cheek and said, “Well. If you wanted to when you grow up, you could help put the Roman Empire back together.”

“Really? And can I REALLY? I want to DO that. Because it was very beautiful and I am going to be one of the people who does that.”

“Awesome. Now go to sleep, sweetie McPumpkinpants.”

“I love you, Mama. And please tell me when I am big enough and and and just? Tell me when I have studied enough about Rome to really do that.”

“I will.”

Then he had to kiss my nose before he flopped down and fell asleep, warm in the knowledge that one day he can reassemble an ancient civilization because his mother said so.

Tomorrow we start the Dark Ages. Any ideas for fun children’s activities?

Recent dreams:
We somehow grew a new kind of fruit that had giant tumors growing off of them. The tumors were delicious! You could cut them off, eat them up, and the fruit would keep on growing.

There’s also a new recurring dream about traveling and then deciding to move to: England, Southern France, Austin, Canada, middle America, and/or one of many strange cities that don’t exist. In these dreams Kevin and I take a trip somewhere new, then get lost on the trip. Night arrives, someone seems to think we should be nervous but we feel calm. We keep going, get more lost and it is wonderful and strange. We run into family or people we know, then continue on our way, still lost and still breathing in the differentness of the new place.

Then we decide it might be nice to move there, so we start to look at apartments and things for rent. The places are always up flights of stairs, always strange and flawed and absolutely perfect. It’s a pretty literal dream about this alternating restlessness and peace that we have about where we live.

I also have a lot of fun dreams about religion that would offend… well, almost everyone we know. Last week I dreamed that a lost bible story resurfaced where God was saying “You people are frustrating and sexist. Before Jesus, I sent four daughters over the span of 200 years and no one even noticed.”

In the dream that was very very funny.