OMG, GRE?!

ARRRRG! 

So, Prucilla will commence with the fretting for a year…  Either take the GRE, and subject test again, or get off her kiester and publish some stuff–anything.  Prucilla doesn’t like the GREs, no sir, she doesn’t like them one bit.  My first experience was just before graduation.  Brainiac that I am, I decided to take the GRE and subject exam on the same day…  EIGHT HOURS of a crappily constructed exam later, I emerged from the hall mindless, and blind, with nary a clue as to who I was or how I got there.  It has been a recurring nightmare, actually.  Sitting in the exam hall, taking an exam where you are given a paragraph and asked, “which author would be most likely to have written this?”  Yes, you are correct.  The above passage has nothing to do with any of the listed authors, but the egos that wrote the exam think that they can channel any author they wish, and you should be able to figure out which one didn’t, but could have, written the passage.  I will continue to have nightmares about this exam until I retake it, and then probably forever after.  I shudder just thinking about it.

I am not known for my exam-taking prowess.  Nor am I known for my ability to let go of my words and allow the floodgates of rejection letters to pile up in my mailbox.  I know, they are just words, but they are me.  I am the words, and it is difficult to separate that.  It’s very different to construct a technical article, or a manual…because it has nothing whatsoever to do with me, but asked to write something and sell it…eek…it never seems to get out the door.  It’s bad to be an introvert.  Very bad.  It’s even worse to allow these things to take up the bulk of my time in thought and anxiety… 

I don’t want to be referred to as, “an aspiring writer.”  That makes my skin crawl with ickiness.  It’s what you say to a kindergartner who’s just handed you their first story (mostly comprised of pictographs).  But, as I have yet to really turn anything worthy of admittance at the U of A or UNM, I suppose I have to eat that term, and take all of the lumps with it. 

So, anyone have any publishable topics?  I’m all out.

Satan’s Onion, out.

Old people can’t just go wherever they want.

It’s true.  We can’t.  Or we would just be all over the place, willy-nilly.  We need to be reined in and controlled, and I can feel this as the windows narrow around me while I try to squeeze through.  Maybe I just need to lose that last five pounds, and buff up a bit?  Likely, but it still won’t widen those windows.  Really, the problem is that now that I have been contracting for so long, I just don’t want to work for anyone but myself…and the contracts are getting fewer and smaller here.  A few years ago it also became clear to me that I am not really great at anything other than things people aren’t willing to pay me for–being a student is one of those things.  So, as I am now nearing the end of my MA, and thinking ahead to where/what I want to do next, my options, I realized, have significantly narrowed from what they were in those bright and shiny days as an undergraduate. 

This time around, I’m not sure if I want to strike out toward an MFA in creative writing, or a PhD in Literature.  I know, I hear you…I hear it every time I see my in-laws or neighbors, or anyone I know here: “what are you going to do with that?”  Well, one of my neighbors has an upturned camper in his yard.  What is he going to do with that?  One could argue that it is a quite active, nay, thriving, mosquito hatchery.  So, maybe I am like the mosquito hatchery of education?  Nobody’s really quite sure what I am still doing there, but I seem to be busy soaking stuff up, and constantly turning out crap.  Wow, that was an analogy gone wrong. 

I know that I am just digging myself a hole to hide in from books that I need to try and sell.  I just can’t quite let go of them.  Mostly, at the top of my mind is this nagging question of where I want to be next.  I keep looking at the schools, houses, jobs, etc…thinking about it, and when I think I am on the verge of making my escape…nap-time is over, and Lego’s happen. 

I have a completely irrational attachment to my Lego creations.  Well, anything created with blocks, really.  I don’t think I have ever experienced little hands bent on destruction before…and certainly not of whatever I was building.  I have almost made some really awesome things…almost.  I only get so far, and then…all is in ruins.  The “building inspectors” tear that which I have lovingly created asunder with not as much as a wince or a nod. 

When I was a kid, maybe nine or ten, I watched in disbelief, mortification, and abject fear as a friend of mine, against all odds, launched a carmel into the eye of our sitter.  What made it so bad was that the sitter was a highschool football player, and the older brother of the kid I had agonized and pined for with all of the drama suited to an adolescent, from the first time I saw him, until they moved to Tucson (about 10 years?).  We were crazed youths on a sugar high, and by the time the caramel was launched, we had no control over our movements.  It was right after Chris, the sitter, shook up a can of soda and poked it with a knife.  The caramel actually made its target.  It hit Chris square in the eye, and hard.  What would he do?  He was huge!  He could squash us!  It was terrifying!  We waited, frozen.  I don’t know if he was pretending to have had his feelings hurt, or if they really were…  but nobody got hit.

Later, playing highschool tennis, I was really angry at my doubles partner for losing so many games, so I picked up the ball and served it as hard as I could, and aimed straight at her butt.  I never ever would have made that shot…but by the grace of God, Heidi had a butt-welt that read NOSLIW.

I recalled that little memory because I was laying on my back, holding Finn in the air, and decided to toss a little plastic ball to Liam.  There is no way that physics could possibly have allowed for that ball to hit Liam on the head… and yet, it did.  Poor little guy.  I know I was more stunned than he was.  I still can’t think of how that happened.  He just stood and blinked at me for a while before he unleashed his cry of pain, anger, and disbelief that his mother could do such a thing to him.

So where was I?  Ah, yes.  So, I am wondering now, where do we go?  My heart has narrowed the list down to a probability of two places:  back to the ‘Burque, or out to Tucson.  UNM or U of A….  But who will take me, and for which degree?  And there, again, is the burden of that narrowing window…  Man, I have got to get the the gym.

On the plus side, I think I have decided to stop growing my eyebrows out, and reign them in with a good waxing…maybe I should even get a new haircut…

How many “o’s” are there in “Stupid?”

Some old photos, long overdue for posting, and quite worthy of procrastination…

Uncle Jon is rockin’ the trapper look.  We couldn’t take a stroller in, so we had to carry the boys.  Not so much trouble with Finn, but boy, that sack of bricks (aka, Liam, chub-scout, Jamon) got paranormally heavy after just one flight of stairs.  Katy definitely has the better deal here.  The boys had a blast, and so did I…even if we did a bit too much in one day.  It was great to spend time with Jon.  We miss him so!

The dog in the background must be a relative of Will’s mother’s dog, Mulberry.  Funny, Mulberry.  She’s named after the trees whose pollen invokes my asthma and attempts to make me an ex-human this time of year.  Coincidence?  I think not.  “Stoopid” dog. 

The dog is actually named after an outrageously expensive handbag.  Which makes her even stoopider, as far as I am concerned.  I don’t know why I am taking out my agressions on the dog right now.  It just feels good, so I am rolling with it.  She even likes to remark on what a terrible mother I am.  She saw that one of the boys wanted more milk, and because I couldn’t hold one and get the other one rounded up and get another bottle made, she decided to take over.  She was actually trying to get Liam to nurse her…which enrages me every time I consider that.  One more creature telling me that I am not doing enough of something well enough…  Stoopid dog!

The next time she bites at Finn and Liam’s feet, she is going to get it.  I am not real sure what “it” will be yet…but “it” won’t be pleasant.   

Ah, Mike.  I know how you feel.  Really, he isn’t nearly as disgusting as the cows with six legs, or another head where their udders should be, etc.  He’s kinda reassuring, though admittedly, in a super-twisted way.

Long week.  Lovely weekend to all,

Pru

Vicar in a Tutu…

It seems to be Finn’s favorite song…today anyway.  He’s got great taste, that Finn.  He can play my ipod like it’s a hand-held video game–he can even access functions I had no idea were available on it.  Today, he boogied to: David Bowie, The Smiths, a little LCD Soundsystem, and oddly…Rasputina.  Really, I think he is trying to delete the Neil Gaiman folder, because that’s what he hears when I try to make him take a nap (if he can hear above his own screaming).   

So, as I write this next paper, I am contemplating textual cannibalism.  I cannot decide whether to liken the author to a chef or a high priest, and following that decision, the text that surrounds another text is either pastry or the digestive juices of flies (you know, it all has to do with making something easier to consume…tenderizing, or cloaking).  Considering that the topic is indeed a form of cannibalism…I think I will opt for the high-priest and flies. 

Sally tells me that after children the mind never really returns…and that has saddened me greatly.  My mind was always more of a steel seive than a steel trap to begin with, and now I have come to writing about flies and being excited about knowing odd, horrible, and disgusting facts about the French Terror.  Taphophila has not usually come in handy for me…so, um…hooray…? 

Finn said he liked the poem I chose to open the paper with though…at least, that’s what I think he meant when he enthusiastically said, “bad dog.”  It was either a response to the poem, or he was referring to me.  Liam?  He was too busy walking around the house, with stuff.  He loads his arms up with “stuff” now.  It used to be that the boys carried their toys in their mouths when they were crawling (well, they saw the dogs do it), but now he can carry things in his mouth and hands! 

Eating Poetry Mark StrandIEating PoetryInk runs from the corners of my mouth. There is no happiness like mine. I have been eating poetry.The librarian does not believe what she sees. Her eyes are sad and she walks with her hands in her dress. The poems are gone. The light is dim. The dogs are on the basement stairs and coming up. Their eyeballs roll, their blond legs burn like brush. The poor librarian begins to stamp her feet and weep. She does not understand. When I get on my knees and lick her hand, she screams. I am a new man, I snarl at her and bark, I romp with joy in the bookish dark.

Lovely, bookish, evening to all.  Gotta go get more coffee.

Pru

Word-Nerds and Sausage.

Our very own “Pop,” (father-in-law) won the regional crossword championship!  If you haven’t seen “Wordplay,” we suggest you do…it makes the whole crossword-puzzle-championship-thing much more interesting to the non word-nerds.  So, Pop is now heading to the National Championship in Brooklyn!  

On to the sausage part of the blog… I did what should have been unthinkable yesterday…(Okay, so my mind works in mysteriously “unthinkable” ways on a regular basis, which my father likes to remind me).  I took out my old jeans…and eek…squeezed myself into them.  They actually fit, though I am not sure who the jeans are referring to with the “lucky you” printed on the inside of the fly.  That made me laugh pretty hard.  “Lucky you” that you don’t have to see that.  I am still pretty much stunned that the jeans fit…though not nearly as loose as they had before (still have about eight pounds to go, what with the holiday visits (read: social drinking) and all of mom’s fabulous but oh-so-bad-for-you-food).  So, maybe nobody who saw them on me was particularly in awe, but I know it bothered my mother-in-law, so it was well worth the squeeze.  I guess I am starting to look and feel like my old self again when strangers don’t think the boys are mine.

Well, now that the holidays/birthdays are completely over, I can concentrate on trying to forget the terrible things my father said to me, and try to make myself feel like an adult again.  It comes to mind that my family is one that likes to put you down so you don’t ever feel too good about youself.  They want to make certain you are humbled/humiliated…not sure which.  It comes from both sides, and now in-laws too.  So, I am stuck with trying to resurrect Prucilla from torn bits.  Even my own grandmother said to me, upon seeing me with my newly born boys, “You are pretty, but you will never be as pretty as your mother.”  I am aware of that.  I looked like an L-7 nerd in all of my highschool photos…whereas my mother looked like a model.  What’s more is little bits like, “You’re lucky he’s still with you, I don’t know who would put up with your shit.”  Or, “You are a hard person to live with, (Yet another gem from Dad)” or, “None of my children married the people that I wanted them to.  None of them married as well as they should have,” (a lovely quip from my mother-in-law, who must have forgotten who she was speaking to?)

I promise I will get back to the business of being Prucilla and writing…it’s just going to take some time to get my brain back, to get my confidence back…to remember who I am.  I guess that is a promise more to myself than anyone else…given that my site is mostly frequented by Dutch and Asian spammers.

Lovely week to all,

Pru 

Go Meat!

Yup, the commercial for “Hilshire Farms’” lunchmeat is all that will get my little Finn to eat now.  Why?  Because he likes it when I look like an idiot.  A better “Why?” would be, ”why do you know the song for this commercial?”  I have no idea, but when I say, “Go Meat, meat, meat (that salad rocks, the best, make it easy at your desk, it’s second to none, just add lettuce and your done…)” Finn eats, and Liam laughs.  Even as I write this, I am shamefully aware and embarrassed of the ridiculousness, and the element of insanity that it portrays.  I have a terrible mind for the incredibly stupid or the frighteningly insane; which is why I know all of the words to most of the “Ishtar” songs. 

I just know that as of this last year I have done more inane, ridiculous things than I have ever done before.  I do these stupid things, and then imagine their friends telling them (a la Darcy), “Well, your mother’s pretty interesting.”

This week, I was recalling a conversation with “Thermo” about writing and what we leave for our children.  I have been keeping a “journal,” but it is more like a compilation of memories, histories, and random thoughts.  Thermo’s idea was to write himself down into a book, so that Padraig knows who his father is/was.  I don’t think that is possible.  We always write for an audience.  We always change our stories to match a perception that we have of ourselves, or want to have of ourselves.  I think it is flawed for me to expect that they will ever know who I am from a journal, and yet I am terrified that they will find out who I am from my writing.  It’s okay if they know that I am insane, I just don’t want them to be scared of me or what passes for “thought” in my head.  I hope I appear as silly insane, and not criminally so.

Speaking of criminalizing, everyone who hears that we let the boys watch the “Baby Einstein” videos or the weather channel, has something derogatory and terrible to say about it.  I can understand not allowing your children to watch TV until they are two-years old if you live with an extended family, have a full-time nanny, or someone to constantly interact with them…but I don’t.  I have stopped feeling badly about letting them watch TV too.  Now, I look at it as evening out the playing field.  I mean, I don’t want them to be too much smarter than the rest of their peers, and if they didn’t have some form of ADD, well, how would they be able to relate to all of the other kids?

All I know is that when they become teenagers, I am going to pick them up from school in a really awful car with a “La Cucaracha” playing horn and a megaphone.