Thank you for this lake, for these friends, for this family, for this life.
Category: Uncategorized
The lesser known bluebird
All day I watched a bluebird flitting around my rental car. After examining my car I determined he was the lesser known Bluebird of Crappiness.
Favorite Lines – Jim the Boy
“During the night something like a miracle happened: Jim’s age grew an extra digit. He was nine years old when he went to sleep, but ten years old when he woke up. The extra number had weight, like a muscle, and Jim hefted it like a prize. The uncles’ ages each contained two numbers, and now Jim’s age contained two numbers as well.”
– Jim The Boy, by Tony Earley
I have not been a writer my whole life: I came to that lately. I have been a reader my whole life, and since starting to put words to paper my love of books has grown. I will be reading or listening to a book and have to stop to re-read or rewind a passage marveling at “how they put that”. That said, I have always loved certain books and certain lines in certain books, so I thought I’d start to share some with you. These phrases, they are my inspiration, and I’d love to share them with you.
This one is from Jim the Boy, by Tony Earley. I haven’t read the book in forever, but I remember loving this line the first time I read it. I even read it to my mom, my partner in book love, so she could hear how wonderful it was this first line in Book 1 of the novel. Earley captures the magic of turning 10 from a child’s perspective in such a unique way. While my daughter has always talked about how many years she has in fingers or hands, I love how Earley describes it in terms of digits, and how ten has the same number of digits as his uncles’ ages: so momentous and yet a mystery there. Why uncles and not parents? I tried to create a similar feel in my story The Fisherman. Earley’s is much clearer though. There is no question about how old Jim is or what Early is trying to convey. But this writing thing, it’s all about learning right?
The book is a great read, and I’ve tucked it away in my backpack to enjoy again. Watch for more favorite lines in future posts!
A Sample of Historical Aftheads
The idea of afthead was one that wouldn’t let go of me. It started goofing off at work, when someone wondered, “What’s that called, that back part of your head where men never go bald?” An afthead of course! We started looking and couldn’t find a reference to an afthead, other than an occasional discussion of putting toilets in the back of boats. We searched domains and found that afthead.com was available for a pittance. The domain searcher said to me, “You’ve come up with an actual original idea!”
For a few months, heck probably years, that statement and the afthead idea drifted around in my head. I looked up the domain. Eventually I bought it, and did nothing with it. It was interesting though. I started noticing that I had a long standing penchant for aftheads. There is something natural, unposed, and real about snapping a shot behind someone’s back. It draws your attention to the scenery, to where the photograph-ee is looking, and it lets their personality shine through.
First there were a series of pictures from Italy featuring my husband’s aunt Bonnie. She passed away almost five years ago, and she was my favorite traveling companion. I love these pictures because they are are so her. She loved to walk, and we walked everywhere together. In the first image she’s climbing down to a city in Cinque Terra. I love her wide-legged stance. She was so strong and so curious about things. She’s reading something, and she has her horribly embarrassing fanny pack on: so practical yet so ridiculous to her then 27 year old traveling partner. If I’d captured her from the forehead side I would have seen a different Bonnie. A posed Bonnie who didn’t really love having her picture taken; I love this image because it is really her.
This second picture is amazing too. We were touring around Rome looking for the Forum and the Colosseum. We were walking and walking with our maps and guidebooks. Every ruin, every old looking building we’d say “Oh! Here’s the Forum” but it wasn’t. It was drizzling, and all the panhandlers who had tried to steal the fanny pack the day before were now selling umbrellas, and Bonnie bought one. We marveled at the multi-talented homeless people of Rome and wondered if they sold umbrellas they had stolen the day before. Finally we turned a corner and both said, “Oh! This is the Forum”. It was obvious. Bonnie then became the methodical tourist. She visited every ruin, would read about it, and study it. I stood back and just took the whole thing in. I didn’t need the same attention to detail; she’d tell me any of the really interesting parts. This left me free to take sneaky pictures of her. In this one she’s reading something, again. I love the umbrella discarded for the reading material, and I love the emptiness of the Forum. It was a mystery to us how anyone could be in Rome and not go out just because of a little rain.
Similarly, I found two sets of afthead images that featured my husband. One set is from our wedding in Scotland, and the other is from our ten year anniversary trip last year.
This one is the day we were supposed to drive to Loch Ness, but we both woke up tired and not excited about spending another day driving. Our bed and breakfast hosts suggested we visit the white sand beaches outside of Mallaig instead. A genius idea. Who knew Scotland had white sand beaches? It was the perfect honeymoon location. Rather than fight tourists and look for Nessie we took off our shoes and relaxed. I also love this picture because we did a lot of hiking that trip, and I spent a lot of that time behind my new husband, unable to keep up with him and angry because he wouldn’t wait for me and angry at myself for wanting him to wait. Ah the joys of new love.
This one brings back different memories. I was crazy into triathlon when my husband and I got married, and I remember taking this so someday I could go back to this lake and start Ironman Scotland. I marveled at the beautiful clear water and the perfect roads for cycling. Now I look at this and marvel at how much hair my new husband had on his afthead.
Fast forward ten years and we are in Acadia, Maine for our anniversary. Similar look and feel to our beloved Scotland isn’t it? But with a six year old at home starting a new school we didn’t want to go so far away. This first picture is from one of the hikes we did that we couldn’t have done with our daughter. It was so fun to be grownups for eight whole days. I’m happy to report that we didn’t have one fight this trip about who was walking in front, who was carrying the backpack or which one of us should wait for the other. Ten years of progress.
This one is another “give up the plans for a more leisurely adventure.” The plan was to go rent bikes and ride the carriage roads all over Acadia. Instead we showered, went for a walk on the carriage path, drove up to watch the sunset from a mountain top, splurged on a dinner in Bar Harbor, and watched the stars from a trail-head. That part of our relationship hasn’t changed. We pack our vacations full of plans and dreams, knowing we’ll kick some ideas to the curb and actually have more impromptu fun than our plans would have yielded.
The rest is history. Eventually I tied a blog to my domain and started writing in public. Since then I’ve compiled tons of other afthead pictures, but that’s enough for tonight. Oh, except that first one of Valentina, our resident cat in Lucca, Italy. Oh how I love that brown, warm fuzzy afthead.
Yummies and Yuckies
When my daughter was little our pediatrician encouraged us to start doing “yummies and yuckies” as part of our bedtime routine. Each night we’d all share the best things (yummies) and worst things (yuckies) of our day. Sadly this little tradition has gone by the wayside – I think it had something to do with my daughter’s behavior being a yucky one too many times – but I’m going to bring it back here to catch you up on the life of the Aftheads recently.
Yummy/Yucky #1
- Yucky – my daughter got lice. It finally happened. I’ve been dreading this day and threatening to abandon her at the fire station if it ever happened. (I’m convinced that “safe haven” thing extends to seven year olds, but only if there are lice involved). I didn’t leave her though. I’m mommed up, dumped insecticide on her head, and combed through her long hair for two hours and 45 minutes removing lice, nymphs and eggs. Then for a week after I spent an hour going through her hair and my hair with a literal fine toothed comb – man I really get the imagery behind that phrase now- to ensure we were done with the infestation. She had a really mild case. It wasn’t that bad. I won’t get PTSD, unless those crawly things end up in my hair!
- Yummy – The lice killing chemicals had detailed step by step instructions for dealing with head lice, and vague references to “pubic lice”. I am thankful that I didn’t have to decipher those.
Yummy/Yucky #2
- Yummy – we had an amazing trip to Washington D.C. to kick off our summer. We took my daughter when she was four, and she really didn’t have any context for why our nation’s capital is a cool place. This year she got it. She knows the president lives in the White House. She stood on the step where MLK gave his “I have a dream” speech and recited the first few lines. Making it even more special was that we got to go with her best friend. I’ve got an adorable picture of the two of them, head to head, wind whipping their hair in front of the Washington Monument.
- Yucky – the best friend had lice when we were in D.C. but no one knew it yet. If you zoom in on the Washington Monument picture you can see those little burgers leaping off the friend’s hair into my daughter’s hair riding the currents of the wind to a new fertile land.
Yummy/Yucky #3
- Yummy – Marriage equality happened! I have friends and co-workers whose lives are changed because of this, and I’m so thrilled. I didn’t find out the way I’d imagined, but I got to find out with my daughter and we had a great conversation about what the supreme court ruling meant. It went like this,
Me – “Kiddo, this means people can marry whoever they want. If a boy loves a girl they can get married. If a boy loves a boy they can get married. If a girl loves a girl they can get married.”
Kiddo – “I don’t want to get married. Why do kids have to get married now?”
Me – “No I meant a man can marry a man and a woman can marry a woman now.”
Kiddo – “Oh. I don’t ever want to get married.”
Me – “That’s still okay.”
Then we picked up one of her friends and headed to camp. The two seven year olds had another great conversation about the ruling:
My kiddo – “Hey my mom said that anyone can marry who they want now. It’s a big deal.”
Friend – “Yeah, people can kiss whoever they want. I hate kissing.”
My kiddo – “I’m not getting married to anybody.”
Friend – “Me either.”
Thus the nation changed to be more tolerant, more accepting and more equal, but you still don’t have to kiss anyone or get married if you don’t want to.
- Yucky – I kind of forgot that everyone wasn’t anxiously awaiting this ruling. Its made some people I really love and care about pretty angry. While that doesn’t change my feelings it does remind me that change is hard and this ruling doesn’t mean that every individual has become more tolerant and more accepting.
Two more days of lice hunting and we can claim the infestation over. Maybe then my head will quit itching and I’ll have time to write again.
Spirit Animal
I work in a pretty conservative organization, so I was shocked at our strategic planning offiste when my new director recommended we start off sharing our “spirit animal.” We were to write down our choice on an index card and then pass the cards to him so he could read aloud all of our spirit animals to the group.
I was delighted with this little task, but couldn’t decide if I should take it seriously, make a joke, or be an ass about the assignment. A variety of options passed through my mind: owl, Loch Ness monster, cat. Then someone in the room said, “We should have picked our patronus” and I wrote down unicorn.
The mixture of animals our leadership team picked was pretty cool and diverse: fox, penguin, Canadian goose, sea lion, otter, turtle, mouse, deer, dolphin, desert sheep, baby robin and duck-billed platypus were all in the mix. (I said we were a conservative organization, not lacking creativity.) I was the only mythical creature and when asked to explain why I picked a unicorn I said:
- “Because a unicorn seems like it might wear rose colored glasses.”
I am a bit of a Pollyanna at work. I think things are going to work out and that people are trying to do their best and in the end things will be okay. This perspective is a bit unusual in my organization, so I wanted to pick something that conveyed that optimism.
- “We could really use more magic at work”
Who can’t use more magic at work? Pixie dust, Star Trek transporters, a pope who believes in climate change, and miracles all are welcome additions to my tool box.
- “I wanted something different from everyone else.”
I am an individual. I want to stand out and be noticed for the things that make me special and valuable.
By the end of the day I really liked this weird exercise. We referred to our own and other’s spirit animals throughout the day. We acknowledged the accuracy of choices and suggested modifications. At one point my spirit animal morphed into unicorn mold. Something about my growing and sticking to things, like mold. So the final evolutionary step of my spirit animal is a magical sparkly rainbow mold with spiky horns. Be careful not to step on me.
What’s your spirit animal?
E-mail divorce
I am going to share an image with you. I predict that you will have one of two responses to this image:
- Nothing
- Your eye will start twitching and you will run to find your own phone just to ensure that those little red numbers aren’t really there… Dear God is that 5,793 UNREAD EMAIL MESSAGES?!?! The horror….
In case it isn’t obvious, I am in camp 1. This is a screenshot of my phone. I leave e-mails unread, voicemails unlistened to, I have no earthly idea what Redbox wants to tell me 77 times, and none of this bothers me. My husband is in camp 2. He has a sparkling clean, organized, empty inbox. He clears up all those calendar items, whatever they are. Mostly, our relationship is pretty symbiotic. He deletes stuff he needs sometimes, but I can find that precious message in my heaps of electronic data.
Today we reached an impasse. We have had a shared e-mail address since we have had e-mail. We’ve managed our oil and water methods by keeping two outlook accounts where he can delete everything and I keep everything. However, a year ago we bought a crappy computer, moved to gmail and our system fell apart. Two outlooks was too much for the computer to handle so he took over the e-mail management. He moved everything into folders I couldn’t search and kept the inbox at a 50ish e-mail limit, thinking that was a compromise. But this was no compromise. This was him managing our joint inbox his way, and I hated it. So today we’ve had our first divorce in our relationship. 6 years after going to shared money, 10 years after getting married, 15 years after buying our first house, and 18 years after our first date I am leaving him and our shared e-mail. He gets custody, and I’ll have some visitation rights while I move my electronic stuff to my own place. We’ll still have some shared responsibility, but really it’s better for everyone this way. Me, my husband, and all those poor messages who have been stuck in the middle this past year. I can’t wait to watch my 5,973 unread messages start growing again.
Finish something
It’s been quiet on the Afthead blog lately, and for a very good reason. I’ve been writing elsewhere. I went to go see one of my top 10 favorite authors, Neil Gaiman, speak at an event called Pen and Podium. For two hours he told us stories of becoming a writer, read to us from his newest book of short stories, gave advice to aspiring writers, and answered questions from the audience. It was surreal to see him standing up in front of me. Normally his melodic English accent emminates from the heat vents in my car while he narrates his audiobooks. I took away four things:
- He said that all aspiring writers should call themselves writers. If you are writing you are a writer.
- He said that all writers should write something, finish it, and get it out “there” wherever there is.
- He told a story about how if he hadn’t become a published author he imagined he would find himself at 80 saying, “You know I really think I could have been a writer.”
- He mentioned a project that he “didn’t have time for” so he stopped reading before bed and wrote 50 words before he went to sleep.
I’ve heard the first one before and really struggle to embrace that message. I don’t feel like a writer, and when all the writers gathered around after the session I didn’t chime in about my blog and my novel. However, the other three really made me sit down and prioritize. I’ve got a novel to finish, and while I love this space and love my friends I’ve made here – you especially Amie and Kathy – I also need to keep writing there. So I took a break from Afthead and churned out 4500 words in 9 days, bringing me to a whopping 83,800 words in my novel. (Not a Stephen King-esque pace, but darn good for me.)
I think I can be finished in another 7,000 words (10,000 tops) and that would be a great first draft length. I’m a taker-outer, not a putter-in-er so I can get my novel to 80,000-90,000 words on a second draft. I’m so excited to have momentum again and I feel like I can keep it knowing I can write 50 words a night, if nothing else.
When someone you idolize gives advice, you take it. Also, Neil Gaiman is now my BFF because he replied back to a tweet I sent him, so I really have to pay attention to his wisdom.
End of School – Pain or Pleasure AKA Introvert or Extrovert
In the Afthead house we are plowing through to the end of the school year. Combined with Mother’s Day and little Afthead’s birthday, this time of year is non-stop parties, events and social obligations. This past weekend’s schedule for my family was:
- Friday – School, soccer game, family birthday party
- Saturday – Soccer game, arts festival at school, performance of Frog and Toad at school, sleepover
- Sunday – Soccer game, birthday party with 10 girls
Note that we only have one kid! How is this schedule possible? We made it, and Monday morning I dropped my exhausted daughter off at school and trudged back toward my car. When I saw a mom who I knew had a soccer party for 15 boys Sunday night I was excited to commiserate.
I started the conversation, “I hear you had 15 boys on your trampoline last night. You must be crazier than I am. I only had 10 girls and a swing.”
She looked at me and said, “Oh, it was so amazing last night. I looked at all those kids and all those families and just thought about how lucky I am. The kids got along so well, and the families were so great. I am just so grateful for this amazing school and these experiences we get to provide our kids.”
I think I may have managed a grunt in reply, which was way better than what I was screaming inside: “WHAT IN THE HELL ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT LADY?!? AREN’T YOU TIRED AND CRANKY AND OVERWHELMED FROM ALL THIS STUFF!?!”
On the drive to work I evaluated the situation and, before I felt too bad about my reaction, a light came on in my dazed attic. I am an introvert. When things get crazy I want to lock myself in with my family and hide from the world. Sometimes it gets so bad that I don’t even want my family. By Monday I did not want to make small talk with some almost friend about how lucky we are. I wanted to hide, but her gushing made perfect sense. She is an extrovert. She was probably so energized by her weekend of soccer, festivals, performances and parties that she was ready to explode, but in a good way. Not the way I was ready to explode.
I tested my theory at work. Sure enough my mom friends who are extroverts thought my weekend sounded amazing and glorious. My introvert friend said, “this time of year is just survival mode” and she is so right. It makes me sad that I can’t revel in this situation. I want to be able to find utter joy in the past weekend, but I can’t, and that’s okay. I am so fortunate, but I am not lucky. I could use a week between each one of the events so I could be present and recharged and delighted for every one of them. This time of year the extroverts are lucky. I am going to avoid them until school is over.
Rebranding a dreaded dinner
We have a favorite dinner at the Afthead house. It’s called “a feast.” How do you make such an amazing meal? Let me tell you. You take everything out of the refrigerator and put it on the counter. Then you heat up the food that is still edible. You add in some crackers, pepperoni, and cheese. Then make quesadillas from the very last bit of cheese. (Don’t grate your fingertips!) Here is our feast from tonight:
Then you make it really special. You put a big beach towel down in front of the TV in the basement, or in the back yard, or some other non-traditional-dinner spot. Tonight we watched hockey playoffs during our feast.
“Wait a second!” I hear you shouting. “We have that same dinner. It’s called leftovers and we serve it at the table with sides of complaining and whining. You tricked us!”
“Cast off leftovers! Let that dreaded word never cross your lips again!” I shout back. Now, In a week, have your first feast. Make it mostly loved food with a few leftovers thrown in. Two weeks later put in a few more leftovers and a few less mini-corn dogs and potstickers. (Randomness is crucial to a successful feast. It should trascend rules of geography and cuisine.) Before you know it you’ll make entire meals out of food in your fridge, and let me tell you, magic will happen. Tonight I had mini-meatballs dipped in green chili which was a never before tried delicious combo. This is no trick. It’s a feast!
Afthead 