Everett Maroon's Blog, page 10

Misunderstanding Pro-Choice

Last year I went to the 31st Annual Walla Walla Wine Auction to benefit the regional Planned Parenthood, and was amazed at how much fun it was. Every year they have a theme (last year’s was the speakeasy), and the Marcus Whitman Hotel is transformed for the occasion. Grafting a live auction with wine is a brilliant stroke, because as one’s inhibitions plummet with all of the tastings (there are more than 30 wineries pouring their product there), the number of bids one puts in on the silent and live auction items rockets. When we came to the 6-bottles of Leonetti cabernet sauvignon in 2012, I kept my paddle in the air, thinking I was bidding someone else up, and instead won the wine. This year I knew better, darn it. Also Susanne looked at the ready to grab my arm and get our purse strings out of any melee. I admit I was also excited because this year’s theme was all about a steampunk version of the wild west, and I was curious to see if people would dress up beyond finding a pair of driving goggles and sticking them on a cowboy hat.

Once again we weren’t disappointed with the decorations—the line in was drawn by a hitching post, flanked by a building that read “Jail,” and then we walked under a gate to the trading post, where the wines were in mid-pour. I waved at two of the people I knew working for wineries in the first room, then took a look at the wines assembled for the “cork pulls.” Thirty bucks got donors a grab at the bucket of corks, which corresponded to the bottles on the display. It was a less fancy display than last year, but I saw some great wines on the table. Susanne has great luck with these, and in a flash, she had won a magnum from Dunham Cellars. I pulled a rose. I hate rose. But it will make someone happy at a future gathering, I guess.

We wandered around and found our favorite wineries, me sipping the tastes with our friend Leah, Susanne sniffing at the glasses and snagging a few things from a long table of charcuterie. Then we looked at the silent auction items, promising ourselves that we’d limit our household to two items. We made a bid on two magnums from Rotie (a northern and a southern blend), and another magnum from Waters—Forgotten Hills. I sampled popcorn made with nitro-infused flavors, watched a chef carve meat off of a whole pig, shook hands with folks I knew, and sashayed up to a wall of ice that held tiny bites of seafood. I love you, seafood wall. I’ll see you again, someday.

The first silent auction room closed, and I saw we won the magnum pair from Rotie. Susanne made me promise not to open them until she was all done being pregnant and breastfeeding. I pinky swore, because seriously? I cannot drink a magnum of wine on my own.

Once the second silent auction closed, the auctioneer, a spirited woman with all the charisma of the Dalia Lama and Paul Newman’s love child (see? I made it gay) came over the PA system and began shepherding us into the ballroom for the start of the live auction. We sat at our assigned table and picked at the desserts set for each seat. Nothing beats a chocolate-dipped strawberry in November, amiright? I perused the auction items listed in the guide, knowing which one I was going to bid on before we’d even shown up at the hotel. It’s mildly fascinating in a bored pretend rich way to see which auction pieces go above or below the listed “retail” price in the guide. Trips to faraway places all were gaveled below price, while most of the wines went higher. I mean, it’s a wine auction, right? So that makes some kind of sense, but I’m not exactly a Sotheby’s or Christie’s rat, so I honestly don’t know these things.

There was a break in the middle of the auction for a testimonial, which the organization does most years. It’s kind of a Walla Walla staple. Now that I work in nonprofits in town, I have sat in the same ballroom at least a dozen times to hear the tear-jerker statement from some individual whose life was practically saved (or at least salvaged) by the agency in question. Eight-year-old orphans, former runaways who had no other recourse, adults with severe learning disabilities, I’ve heard a variety of stories and watched people pull out their handkerchiefs at the end, and sometimes I’ve wiped away a few tears of my own. So when a young woman got up to the podium I was ready for anything.

Indeed, her story left me shaking in frustration. But not because of our trying times or the challenges in our world. I was frustrated at Planned Parenthood. She told a story that started with “I told myself that this would be the last time I went to Planned Parenthood,” basically weaving between direct statements that whatever was going on with her, she didn’t want her regular doctor to know. A self-identified born-again Christian, she was clearly engaged in sexual practices about which she felt a lot of shame. At some point she gets married and at some point after that, has an affair. WWJD, person giving testimonial? I knew where this was going, since hey, it’s a Planned Parenthood fundraiser. So the question began to coalesce in the air—how will the religious woman handle an unwanted pregnancy?

Sure enough, she got pregnant from her affair. My mind raced with beaucoup de pop culture references to just this scenario. The Scarlet Letter. Richard Chamberlain in The Thorn Birds. Any episode of 16 and Pregnant. V: The Final Battle. None of these stories end well, so I braced myself a little, but I also felt a sense of impending disappointment, if only because there were probably no alien babies in her scenario. She remarked about how torn she was. (Of course.) She told us the staff were professional and understanding. (Uh, that’s what Planned Parenthood is.) She relayed that they found her a doctor who was also a Christian and who listened to her and her concerns. (I began thunking my head on the table.) Because you know, PP can be a scary place, with “Pro-Abortion” signs on the walls (Susanne said, “I’m quite positive there’s not a Planned Parenthood in America with a poster that reads ‘Pro-Abortion.’”). When the woman got around to telling us that she decided to keep the fetus to term, hardly anybody in the room was surprised. She finished out by declaring herself “against abortion,” and at that point, Susanne had already lost her poker face, and was now actively throwing shade all around the ballroom.

We talked immediately afterward about what had bothered us, and identified several things:

1. This was the wrong audience for this particular testimonial. We’re pulling out our wallets and giving collectively, more than $140,000 to our local PP clinics. We’re probably pro-choice people. I for one would rather hear from a pro-choice individual ON THIS PARTICULAR NIGHT than someone opposed to abortion and choice.

2. This testimonial could have been better contextualized with another testimonial and not used as a standalone story for us. Maybe a doctor from the clinic who has seen all kinds of stories? Someone who could look back on her experience ten or twenty years ago and give us a talk about what positive things choice has done for her? Someone who got an affordable mammogram? Something!

3. While this person has a right to frame her story however she wants, Planned Parenthood is responsible for the ambassadors it promotes as the voices of its organization. This woman didn’t represent PP well except via backhanded compliments and unintended descriptions. I’m not calling for extensive grooming of every person giving a testimonial, but there are so many women out there who would sing the organization’s strengths without cutting it down in the next breath. Pro-choice people in Walla Walla have to hear the angry mythology about women’s reproductive rights all the time—can we have one moment in which those erroneous beliefs are not center stage?

4. Other people in town need to hear her story. A nonjudgmental, affordable, full service clinic staffed with expert, caring, and professional people? Who listened to a Christian woman’s concerns without condescending to her? Tell the churches in town! Those of us at the annual fundraiser already know.

I’ll continue to support PP, of course. But I was saddened that this was their choice at the biggest gathering of pro-choice people for the year. It’s like if I stood up at our fundraiser and said, “OMG guys, like anybody can get HIV, not just the gays! Hey, could you give us some money?”

Grumble.

It’s Week 22 and I Haven’t Blogged About the Next Offspring

Let me just come right out and say a couple of things: I love you, unborn second child. I know we often refer to you as a parasitic fetus, but we did that during the first pregnancy too, and look, we’re really super nice to Emile, so it is totally not a sign that we’re unexcited about you. But for my second point, I have to say, I’m sorry. I should have plastered your photos from the ultrasounds all over the Internet by now, and I haven’t. I should have written at least nine blog posts wondering what kind of person you’re going to be someday, and here we are, more than halfway through the gestation process, and here is blog post number one.

In my defense, little fetus, I’ve got a lot more confidence this time around, and if you look at the litany of blogging I did before Emile was born, a lot of the content was really about my insecurity. I wasn’t even sure before Emile if I could effectively swaddle a newborn. Boy was that a non-event!

Also, Emile took a lot of doing and a series of rejiggered logistics to get conceived. We racked up the fertility visits, invoices, sperm donors, and awkward conversations with medical personnel in the 18 months it took us from getting started to getting knocked up. You got all zygotey on attempt number one! You didn’t give me any time to sweat about it, fetus. Where’s the drama in getting what you want when you want it? That’s not going to get a lot of blog attention, you know?

We are ridiculously excited. Clearly you are too, the way you resemble a cat fight in Susanne’s body. It’s almost like a cry for attention or something. Look, do I really need to wade through 3,218 potential nursery room themes for you like I did for Emile? We picked a gender neutral(ish) theme, so it’ll apply to you, too. Just because we’re going to put you in the room behind the kitchen, don’t take it personally. We love you already, even if you’re sleeping in a box. Millions of babies in New York City started out in a dresser drawer for their crib and they’re doing fine today. You can’t even tell they harbor any parental resentment at all!

You will have some new things for yourself. We’re spending $10 on new binkies for you, even if Emile is done with pacifiers by next spring (please, for the love of god). Our friend Jody just bought you your own little hip muslin wraps for swaddling, so every time we bind you up you can think, “This is just for me.” Doesn’t that make you warm and fuzzy inside? It does for me. This time around, I’ll swaddle you with no fear that I’m doing it wrong. I’m pretty sure I remember every factoid from every parenting book I read for Emile. My brain will have no problems with recall, even when I’m sleep deprived. And even if I get something backwards, I’m sure we’ll work through it…together.

Just for your information, tiny pugilist, we are trying to come up with some new name ideas. See, we’re working hard for you! Momma is so glad you finally stopped giving her gigantic waves of nausea, so now she can focus on potential names for you. And Daddy is doing his best not to come up with joke names that incorporate “nausea” in them. But hey, you’ll be beautiful and special to us no matter what your name is. And we’ll be here when the first grade kids pick on you, Pukeina Pukeleanor. Just ignore them.

We are also spending a lot of time reading books to Emile about becoming a big brother. He’s going to be great. We correct him every time he throws his baby doll onto the floor or stomps on its head. He’ll be all over that phase in the next three months, I’m sure. And when he sees you wearing his old outfits, he’ll find such a bond of love toward you. It won’t be like you’re taking his place at all! But just in case, hold onto those extremely effective kicks you’ve been mastering inside Momma. They may come in handy.

In other news, I’m the youngest kid in my family, too! Only two of my siblings don’t speak to me and two other siblings tied me to a chair in the street and said they were giving me away. But hey, that stuff builds character! We are absolutely not going to let Emile give you away. You are ours, little apple. We’re so excited to meet you. When I get to hold you in my arms, I’ll wish you a happy birthday, and I promise I won’t make any jokes.

For five minutes, at least.

Somnambulism Seems Easier

My weekday schedule is something of a failed attempt at ye olde work/home life balance:

7AM — wake, shower, dress

7:30AM—head to office (stopping at post office M&Th)

7:45AM–10AM—work

10:20AM–1PM—childcare for Emile/work out/run errands/housekeeping

1PM–3:30PM—work

3:45PM–4:50PM—write (a.k.a. suck down a latte and try to think)

4:55PM—pick up Susanne

5PM—home/make supper/childcare for Emile/pick up 17,238 small toys/crash on couch to a stupid show like House Hunters

If it’s swim class night, spend one full hour packing a diaper bag, wrestling Emile into a swim diaper, heading to gym pool, splashing for 30 minutes with Emile, wrestling Emile out of a wet bathing suit, driving home, getting Emile to bed. If it’s not swim class night, trying to make and eat dinner and clean up while Emile plays, gets a bath, and asks to read 3,844 different books that you’ve already read more than 98,000 times so far (plus or minus 100).

8PM—put Emile to sleep for the night

8:20PM—do best zombie impersonation while watching fucking House Hunters

11PM—finally conk out after making half-hearted attempt to clean up house after supper

I admit it, this is a challenge to sustain. It may actually be as unsustainable as mountaintop removal for mining, or as unachievable as swimming from Walla Walla to the Indian Ocean. I wave my white flag. Wait. I don’t have a white flag. Not one that’s really white, anyway, as most everything made of fabric in our home has some kind of stain on it. So the best I can do is wave a splotchy beige flag, but it’ll have to do.

I am now officially just making the best out of things that I can. I relish Friday afternoons when my office is closed because I’ve got four gorgeous hours of writing time. This also happens to be precisely when every soul I’ve met in Walla Walla wanders in to the place where I’m writing and strikes up a 15-minute conversation with me. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a talker, of course. And I love to see friends and acquaintances. ButI dribble away my block of creativity and then kick myself at 4:57. Somehow I’m pushing through, ready to get into the latest and greatest book project in my hopper, but I can tell that little pieces of balance are in free-fall, such as sleeping a good eight-hour stretch at night. Emile “Big Boy” Maroon-Beechey has been waking up lately because he has started dreaming, and it requires a good measure of adjustment. A few nights ago he woke in the morning to tell me that there was a “house, up in the air,” and that he was flying in the sky and really liked it. But last night and the night before (24 robbers came a’knocking at my door) he was upset at having dreamed something, and wanted to be consoled at 3AM.

As soon as I was ready to doze off again in my own bed, two cats had some kind of rough sex incident in our driveway. It went on for 20 minutes, but I am not fool enough to try breaking up a cat fight. I mean, I was when I was 12. Important lesson learned the hard way. Then finally, quiet.

Not long after the quiet, a new urgent sound cut through the night.

“Daaaaaaaady! I need rocking!”

I stumbled to my feet, made my way to Emile’s room, and he sighed when I opened his door. In his tiny voice he squeaked his requests: music (Zero 7), Puddles (the dog), binky, rocking chair. His head was a magnet to my shoulder and he was back asleep in under four seconds.

Daddy, on the other hand, was awake until it was time to get up. I’ve yawned through this Monday.

I checked my cell phone once I was dressed, on my way out the door for work this morning. There was a text from Susanne:

Please buy yourself some Breathe Right strips today

Uh-oh. I asked her if I snored particularly badly last night. She confirmed it was god-awful. I asked if I sounded like I was struggling to breathe.

“Then there would have been periods of quiet,” she answered.

Okay, so maybe I wasn’t the only one having trouble sleeping last night.

Episodes of My Favorite Shows I’d Love to See

Love It Or List It—

Hillary to homeowner: So we’re not going to be able to redo your en suite.

Homeowner: What? Why? We gave you so much money.

Hillary: Well when we took out this wall between the kitchen and the living room to give you that open concept, we found a Hellmouth.

Homeowner: A what?

Hillary: A Hellmouth. A break in the boundary between our world and Hell.

Homeowner: You mean, like actual Hell?

Hillary: Yes. The wailing you hear are the actual demons in Hell.

Homeowner: I thought that was just the neighbors.

Hillary: No, it’s Hell.

Homeowner: Well, so what can we do now?

Hillary: Well, Damian has put some new subfloor in and some sheet rock, but I’m afraid there’s nothing we can do to get rid of the Hellmouth itself. Demons will continue to pass through here at will.

Homeowner: This really blows. Nothing came up on the home inspection.

Hillary: Are you serious? You think a home inspector should have realized your house is right on top of a Hellmouth?

Homeowner: Well, I don’t know, I guess so.

… toward the end of the show.

Hillary: So are you going to love it?

David: Or list it?

Homeowner: Well, I’ve thought it over, and Hillary, your renovation is incredible. But I’m going to list it.

David: Terrific!

Hillary: Whatever, David.

Breaking Point

I hope it’s fair to say that I’ve never used this blog as an outright rant before. I’ve posted food reviews, my adventures in publishing and writing, popular culture analysis, critiques of American culture, trans and queer civil rights, general progressive stuff, funny family stories, and promotion for my own work. And while I try to look at things with a critical eye, I actively try to write, even when from direct experience, with an eye toward connecting with other people. I know I’m not an island, and my experiences are not unique (although some of them are certainly uncommon). When I’m feeling particularly pressured or overwhelmed I try to do my processing offline, whatever privacy is afforded me who spends so much time either online or in a small town where everybody knows everybody else.

But I am going to break from whatever form I’ve cobbled here and register a few complaints. If you’re not interested in reading that, I understand completely. I still believe that other folks out there in my universe will have felt similarly and so for whatever that’s worth, you all have my unending empathy.

I am really exhausted. Seriously. I know I preach that I have a great work-home balance, and I do, but I feel like every minute of my day is scheduled, except the hours from Emile’s bedtime until my bedtime. And most of that is spent staring at the television in a zombie trance. The pressure to keep grant money flowing at work, to stay on top of my household’s entropy manufacturer, keep my connections to friends and acquaintances, be there as a mentor whenever it’s requested of me, take care of myself, support Susanne and Emile, and oh, yes, find time for writing, is all a heavy set of objects to juggle. I said this was a complaint, and it is, but I’m genuinely okay with my schedule and responsibilities, even if it is breakneck and a ton of work.

My complaint is less about my immediate workload and lifeload, and more about what increasingly looks like extraneous stress. I’m looking at you, Facebook. I joined the social network in 2007 because a good friend had posted his birthday party pictures there, and I wanted to see them. I thought it would be like Friendster and MySpace, places where I already had accounts but that had never quite sucked me in. I was more of a LiveJournal junkie when it came to flame wars and intense conversations about transitioning and friendship and being the “best progressive possible.” Maybe it’s not even all Facebook’s fault, even as the design of the damn thing is to be as intrusive and all-encompassing as possible. I can get with the idea that I took FB head-on because I was trying to grow my “online presence” as much as possible three, four years ago. And Facebook’s tendrils have grown over time, now watching what I search for when I’m on the Internet anywhere. I made an author page, so I have to throw content that way on a regular basis. I have sweated when I see someone unfriended me, and of course it’s no accident that Facebook never notifies users who precisely did the dumping.

But the world has gotten a lot harsher, more judgmental, less reasonable, since Barack Obama was elected President in 2008. People stopped watching broadcast news and generalist magazines. There are so many choices for consumers all along major media that we have settled into a narrow focus of opinion, a virtual echo chamber that only reinforces whatever opinions we had last year. We’re not growing so much as intensifying, the latter of which is decidedly unprogressive and anti-intellectual. All of this attention on the narrative of polarization, which is an incredible lie about contemporary America, is heightened online, where the wingnuts and trolls live to write inflammatory comments and foster anger. If I’d wanted to keep in touch with old friends from high school, distant relatives, close friends, and coworkers, I am disappointed to so often find pictures of Muslim target practice figures, meme after meme of some reductive political statement, angry comments threads on my own (and friends’) walls, and disproved “facts” about everything from teen pregnancy to the Federal budget to global warming. If I want to click like on a picture of a friend’s new baby, I first have to shuffle past ALL CAPS conversations about what a shit this or that politician is. It gets tiring.

I have most certainly without a doubt posted a lot of political stuff online. I’m right in the thick of it, I know. Like everybody else who posts about political stuff, these issues are important to me and I worry a lot about why our elected representatives seem to think they can put their own reelection campaigns above the public interest. But I think I have to disengage at this point. I’m too tired of explaining to allies why they’re being crappy allies, and then being told I owe them an apology. I’m too tired of see friends fight over trivial matters, or having to ask my associates to be nicer to each other on my own wall. I’m too tired of spending emotional energy over crap I can’t control, like what Congress is doing. I am 43 and about to be a parent to two, not one, kids, and I’m a month behind on my manuscript revisions, and there are three more books to work on after this one. And a nonprofit to manage. And a darling spouse to oh I don’t know, maybe get to go on a date with once every other month.

I don’t really have time for you anymore, Facebook. You’re like that relationship I had a decade ago that turned to crap and all my friends kept telling me that the sex had better be fucking fantastic because the rest of it stunk like a dog pile. DTMFA, Facebook. I just can’t anymore. I’ll be better off if we get some space from each other.

The baby is crying for more rocking, so guess what? He comes first.

Short Excerpt from The Unintentional Time Traveler

Short excerpt from the final revision of the young adult novel I have coming out this fall, The Unintentional Time Traveler. This section is from Chapter 18.

Closing my eyes made the experience feel more familiar, even if I knew I was sitting back on Jeannine’s rich friend’s couch and not in a lab. Dr. Dorfman’s voice was strangely comforting even with all of the guilt because of everything I’d put him through. Without seizures anymore, he wasn’t sure if this would work. Sitting still made me almost miss all the years of pills and needles and brain scans, but not really. Maybe I should have been more nervous about the hand-built EEG machine than my own capacity for out of control neuron activity, but I didn’t think the doctor would have subjected me to anything that could hurt me. Even as revenge.

We’d had a long discussion about trying to send me somewhere. Dorfpoodle wanted to have witnesses present who agreed that time travel was at least a possibility. I wanted to see if I could time jump without my own seizures, and I was desperate to see Lucas again. Alive. I prayed to nobody in particular. Please give me time to fix what was so screwed up back there.

“Relax, Jack,” he said. It occurred to me that I didn’t know why he cared to do all of this for us. Was he interested in inventing a time machine? Wanting to prove himself correct? Was he actually delusional? Why were these questions only now just popping into my head?

I considered ripping off the wires, held to my scalp with some kind of hair product instead of the medical putty I was used to. This was crazy. What was I thinking? I should get out of here, explain to my parents that I’ve been stupid and desperate. They’ll have to get over it at some point. Maybe I’ll super enjoy juvenile detention.

I felt an uncomfortable tingle all over my body and heard a low hum in my ears, and then figured I was getting a shock. Oh no.

I opened my eyes but was no longer in the posh living room. I coughed, waving at the dust in the air. Something was in my hands, warm where I held it but colder just a couple of inches away, where I hadn’t heated it with my touch. I tried to get my bearings.

“Hey, Jacqueline, where did you go just then?”

Lucas. It was Lucas talking to me, holding himself up on one brace while he held a small metal box in his other hand. He had a small splotch of grease on his cheek, and his jagged bangs shook as he opened the box, revealing a pile of virgin rivets.

“I was just thinking,” I said, lying. Which I was getting good at, shazam!

“About what,” he asked. We were in the abandoned bank. The car I’d driven away to my mother’s farm house sat in the middle of the room, the hybrid frame sitting on cinder blocks, surrounded by lots of smaller pieces and scraps. I looked at the assortment of metal and understood how it all fit together. I’d drawn much of this configuration down in my bedroom in Ohio, playing around with car ideas. I hadn’t realized it was a kind of training for the time when I could put it to use.

My moment had come.

Lucas stepped closer to me, putting his free hand on mine, which rested on the counter. “What’s going on in there,” he asked again, quietly, in a sexy tone.

I leaned into him and kissed him, inhaling car grease, the nutty smell of old dust, and the soap he used when he bathed. The same soap I’d used when his father had discovered me in the compost pile.

I caught him off guard at first, and then he returned the kiss to me. A blast of warmth went through me, much nicer than electricity, and I pushed harder into him. He tasted delicious and warm. Finally I pulled away to get a breath, and I wiped the smudge of grease off his cheek with a rag from the work bench.

“I didn’t think you’d ever do that,” he said. He looked straight at me, still up close to my face. Was this our first kiss? I needed to figure out the date, or at least the season, but the windows were shuttered.

“I wanted to,” I said. “I want to again.” I was lightheaded.

We drew together and kissed deeper this time, and I didn’t think about anything except how his lips felt, the sense of him holding me, and the explosion inside me. The world nudged its way back into my consciousness, whatever consciousness meant at that point. We were in a fight over the town and people’s lives. Right. We needed to make progress, and this was a distraction. Stop it with the kissing.

“We have to get back to this,” I said, staggering over to the car. I noticed again that I was holding something. Examining the thing in my palm, I saw it was the strange screwdriver from the box in the sewer. Was this another one or the same from before? I mean, later? Oh my god, Time, you’re ridiculous.

“I know,” he said, handing me a curved piece of metal. The blankness in my brain fell away, replaced by knowledge. This was my design, and I knew where it went. I crouched down and screwed it into place under the carriage. Its sister hung on the other side. I was grateful that all I could see from down here were his shoes.

“Are you hiding under there,” I heard him ask.

“I’m working,” I said. But yes, I was hiding, and that was my business. I asked Lucas for a few more of my devices, and he obliged. Tubing for a smokescreen, wiring for a HAM radio. Set a scrape plate underneath to protect the nonstandard wires. Under the car, I cried without noise, thinking about what only I knew would happen to him and the other underground members. My body betrayed me, and my nose filled up. I sniffled reflexively and gave myself away. I’d been planning to come back, I’d convinced myself all of this was real, and now here I was and I had to make everything better. I really really was here.

“Okay, come out from under there,” Lucas said.

“Don’t tell me what to do.” It was a reflex, I’m sorry I snapped at you.

“You are so headstrong. I just want to talk to you.”

“You can talk to me fine from there.” So what if I was childish? I focused on tightening bolts and screws with a pair of pliers on the ground. They were heavy, and my arms started shaking with muscle failure. In so many ways I was different as Jacqueline, and I liked that. But okay, I wasn’t a big fan of muscle fatigue.

I heard a clatter, and Lucas crashed to the ground, his face in an odd half-grimace, half-smile.

“I like seeing you when I talk to you.” His hair fell over his face, and I saw he’d torn his shirt at the elbow.

“You are a ridiculous person,” I said.

“Are you calling me a cripple?”

“Most certainly not. I’m saying you’re ridiculous. I think that’s self-explanatory.”

“First you kiss me and then you won’t look at me,” he said. “What’s going on, Jacqueline?”

“Can we please discuss this later? I need the oil pan.”

He laid there, continuing to look at me. I’m not ready. I thought I was ready but I’m not.

“Do you need help getting up?”

Lucas frowned.

“Sometimes you really are insufferable, Jacqueline.” And then he stood up, slid the hunk of metal over to me, and left out the back door of the bank. Well, let’s just add being a jackass to the list of reasons to sob.

At least he’d given me some space to cry. I didn’t want to be in someone else’s body, after months readjusting to mine. But I did, too. I wasn’t sure what any of this made me, even as I felt such a strong pull to fix situations that I suspected were at least partly my doing. I was drawn to Lucas but I also worried that what we were doing was wrong. Sanjay would disagree with me, but he wasn’t here to talk about it, either.

I crawled out from under the car, wiped my eyes, and looked around the room. The last time I was here the car had tires and was ready to use, but didn’t have a HAM radio, for sure. So was I earlier or later than the day we roared out of here to Jacqueline’s mother’s house? But more weird, if I was only just now coming back to put in a radio, how were the wires already in place? That didn’t make any sense.

I went in search of Lucas. I whispered his name instead of shouting in case one of Traver’s people was nearby. He called back to me, and I followed the sound.

He was up in a tree, probably thirty feet off the ground. His crutches were propped against the roots. He clearly had not learned his lesson from the last go round.

“What are you doing up there?”

“What do I ever do up here,” he asked. “Come up.”

He had much better upper body strength than I did, but I was light and apparently nimble. I made sure my feet and hands were well planted before taking any new step, but I winced as the sharp bark broke through the skin on my forearms.

“So sensitive,” Lucas said, inspecting me. He leaned in to kiss me.

“Wait,” I said.

“Must you do everything backwards,” he asked.

“What do you mean?”

“The man is supposed to lead, like in dancing.”

“Well, that’s an old-fashioned way to see it,” I said, before I remembered we weren’t in the 1980s. Of course this was his opinion. “Look, I like you. I just have fears.”

“Because of our predicament?”

No.

“Exactly,” I said, lying. Because I’m really a boy like you, or at least I used to be, or I am when I’m in another place and time but here I am from the frigging future and oh by the way I’ve completely fallen for you and I don’t understand a bit about any of it.

“Well, that’s a good point. But I fancy you and I can’t change that.”

“I wouldn’t want my own space if I didn’t really like you.” At least this was mostly true.

This time when he leaned in to kiss me, I didn’t push him away. But it was less intense than before, mostly because I had to put some of my energy into balancing myself on a knobby branch. He sat back, staring intently at me.

“I better quit before I fall out of a tree again.”

What Could Happen in the Breaking Bad Finale

The characters are dropping like flies, with few people left standing. At the Emmy Awards last Sunday Bryan Cranston and Anna Gunn were giving viewers hints about the series’ last episode. Words like “apocalypse” and “Greek tragedy” have been bandied about, suggesting there are many more fatalities to come, in one last 48-minute episode. Seeing as Heisenberg left his drink on the bar after watching Charlie Rose (who doesn’t get livid at Charlie Rose? Amiright?), we may even tally Elliot and Gretchen Schwartz among the dead by series’ end. So what are the remaining possibilities for our band of nerdy thugs, white supremacists, and broken family members?

Possibility #1: Walt goes to kill Todd and Jack at their meth-making enterprise, and finds Jesse still alive. And Jesse finally seizes on the chance to kill Walt, so he grabs Jack’s gun and gets his would-be mentor dead in the face. Likelihood: High that Walt figures out where the newest meth lab is located, low that Jesse gets to end Walt’s life. Much more likely that Jesse, who was originally slotted to die in Season One, finally is killed.

Possibility #2: Walt goes to kill Elliot and Gretchen, but first wants to record them admitting Walt’s role was much larger in the formation of Gray Matter than they’d said publicly, and this hesitation costs him the chance at actually destroying them and their reputation. Either the DEA shows up, or the FBI, or the white power posse of Jack and Co. Likelihood: Medium that we get to see Elliot and Gretchen face to face with their dissed ex-partner. This may be one of the loose ends Vince leaves us with, evidence that in Walt’s cancer-ridden quest to set a terrible, overbearing legacy for his family, he loses everything he’s worked for—the love of his family, the money he earned, his morality, and not only Walt’s reputation but Heisenberg’s as well.

Possibility #3: Jesse escapes his captors again, this time successfully, and he meets up with Walt in Jesse’s torn-up house, where he finally kills Mr. White. Likelihood: Low, because Gilligan has already indicated that Jesse will never get to see justice, at least in the world Walter has created. This season, Jesse lamented:

Mr. White – he’s the devil. He is smarter than you, he is luckier than you. Whatever you think is supposed to happen, I’m telling you, the exact, reverse opposite of that is going to happen.

Possibility #4: Walt goes to reconcile with Walt Jr., and Skyler kills him while he’s there. I would love to see Skyler, who has been tortured emotionally for five seasons, finally get to take out her World’s Worst Husband Nominee. She has certainly danced over the line from innocent to involved to requesting hits on other people, but she has managed to keep at least a few shreds of her original ethics (remember when her biggest problem was Ted’s embezzlement?). After years of people hating Skyler, I am behind this option wholeheartedly. Bonus points to Anna Gunn if she kills him while he’s blathering on in an attempt to manipulate her. Likelihood: Medium mostly because Walt really, really wants his family to love him again, before he dies. He still lays out his bacon in his birthday number, Skyler’s little sweet gift to him each year.

Possibility #5: Holly accidentally kills Walt as he tries to get his family to run away with him so they can start over. Sure, they’ll start over, just without Heisenberg. Likelihood: High, if only because Vince loves a sudden spark of funny in the midst of his tragedy. Besides, he’s made a running commentary about children and violence/guns already in this series, with the character of Tómas, the child drug dealer, the violence surrounding Brock, and the shooting death and cover up of Drew Sharp. At this point in the narrative, anything is possible.

Possibility #6: Walt kills himself with the ricin. Likelihood: Near impossible, because that is not Walt’s style. And if he wanted to give up, he’d have only needed to keep nursing his drink in the Granite State and wait for the Sheriff to arrive, not take the risky move of going back home to pull the ricin out of the wall. We all know Heisenberg’s days (or maybe hours) are numbered, but his death won’t come at his own hand.

Possibility #7: The Feds find Walter and corner him, and he doesn’t make it out of the standoff. Likelihood: Medium mostly for the plausibility of the plot points. And it would be a great statement about Walt, at the very end, not getting to keep control over his universe. But it’s also flipping boring.

Whooping It Up

My flight down to Los Angeles at the end of July was nice, because I’d upgraded to first class, enjoying three or four drinks and a lovely nap in the oversized seat. I’d never flown first class before, but for $50, and after my fatphobic encounter the segment before (from Walla Walla to Seattle), I was content to pay a little more. I may have spoiled myself forever.

Flying back to the Pacific Northwest was not as luxurious. Sure, I had an aisle seat, so I could stretch out my wonky legs, but right behind me some white dude coughed the entire 2-hour flight. Every sixteen seconds, cough. Reading a book, consuming the seven tiny pretzels handed out mid-flight, nodding into a microsleep, these were all interrupted with coughing and hacking. I craned my head around but didn’t see so much as a phlegm-moistened tissue in his hand. Middle-aged cough machine there was just spewing his whatever all over the plane.

Turns out, on August 4, flying from Los Angeles to Portland, Oregon, I got coughed on by someone who had whooping cough. In all likelihood, anyway. Giving him the stink eye, as I and many of the passengers around me did, failed to silence him or motivate him to request a mask or barrier for his illness. By the next morning I had a tickle in my throat. Two days later I had a fever, and three days later, so did Susanne and Emile. We presumed we’d picked up a head cold or mild flu, and as we’d all been running around far from home, Susanne and I figured we were simply run down a bit. That first weekend back together we settled in and got as much respite as possible for a busy family of three.

And then I got the stomach flu. It was as awful as those things go. Twelve hours later it hit Susanne. Thankfully it spared Emile, but our household was reeling from all of the biology. Even the earliest days of parenting with the sleep deprivation were easier than trying to chase after a sick toddler while also being sick. When week two of our diseased state rolled around, I called the doctor’s office to tell them about Emile, who was still coughing and not eating well. They had their litany of questions, some of which were alarming, like did his lips ever turn blue or had he stopped breathing. Stopped breathing? I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be all laissez-faire in this phone call if my child had ceased a critical bodily function. Or at least, I would not have waited two weeks to ask if there was at this point any way to help him.

Turns out the family practice doc had a cancellation, so we went in that morning and Emile turned purple screaming as two nurses held him down and shoved a probe up his nose all science fiction-style. They were looking for whooping cough and a few other things. I had declined one nurse’s offer to stand out in the hallway because I don’t know, I want to be there for him and I blithely figure he won’t associate his grave pain with me. Watch this crap come up in therapy when he’s 15. Next we went to the X-ray in the lab down the hall, and he screamed again as I held him still for two chest films. Daddy loves you, buddy. Now don’t pull so much as I restrain you. Terrific.

I scooped him up and tried to soothe him with a ASK ME ABOUT FLU SHOTS sticker and some pets to his head. We also got a small book about rain and puddles, and then we were back home. Susanne had gone to Chicago for a political science conference, so I wrangled him for the next few days, enjoying our adventures together and whittling down my energy stores. Late at night Susanne and I would catch up with each other, so it was at 11PM or so when she told me that she’d had a 30-minute coughing fit at the conference during the panel she was supposed to lead as discussant. She’d done her duties from the hallway right outside the room. I tried to imagine it. *Cough cough* Okay so how did you use grounded theory *cough cough* in your analysis?

I got a phone call the day after the doctor visit to say that Emile had RSV but no pneumonia. I ran around town with him, picking up a nebulizer and other medication, stifling my own coughs and trying to keep him entertained. No wonder we all felt so awful. Susanne flew back home and we picked her up after watching the plane land. Emile demanded that more planes should land so he could witness them, but this is Walla Walla and there are only three flights a day. Would that we lived at Gravelly Point, kid.

My usual weekday routine is tight but manageable: I work from 7:45-10, come home, do child care for Emile until the nanny show up at 1PM, then go back to work until 5. Sometimes I slip in an hour of writing time. So in my virus-laden brain I left behind my computer at work and took Emile with me to go back to the office to get it. And just as I was leaving my office, where all of the immune system-suppressed people come on a regular basis, my phone rang. The doctor’s office. A week after our visit.

“You all have whooping cough. You need to go home right now. You are under a 5-day quarantine. The health department will be calling you.” Whooping cough, despite our vaccinations, despite the fact that Emile only sees one other kid on a daily basis. I sighed.

Emile clung to my trousers, which is his new thing when he sees strangers close by, or like, 100 feet away. I tried to answer all of her questions that she had for me, and then a dump truck rolled up next to us and I couldn’t hear her. I yelled into the phone to give me a minute so I could get us in the car.

I stopped by the pharmacy to pick up our prescriptions, which hadn’t been ordered yet. Damn. God knew who else I was infecting just like, breathing in the same room with them. I gave them my credit card information so they could deliver the drugs to us. Yay for small town pharmacies who enjoy memoirs by fat transsexuals. (True story.) I scooped up Emile and we got back in our infested car. I called Susanne and told her she had to join us at home. She dashed off a few emails, wondered how many political scientists she’d passed whooping cough on to, and grabbed a bunch of books. I called my office and made arrangements for coverage.

But this was not the worst part of the week. So okay, we’d had a stomach bug, RSV, and also pertussis. We were supposed to stay home from Wednesday until Monday morning. We were told that the antibiotics would make us not contagious but would also not help us feel better. Friends heard about our quarantine and brought over food. Thank you, friends. Really. Thank you so much.

On Thursday we were watching television—what else does one do in quarantine—when a weather alert flashed across the screen. Walla Walla hasn’t had any major major storms since I’ve lived here, although I’ve heard several mentions about a huge thunderstorm in 2007. It did have that month-long snow, now that I think of it, but damn it, that was different. I considered the storm warning for a full six seconds after it left the screen, and then moved on. But at 5:30, a strong wind pushed out of the south, not the usual direction for wind in this area, and an 80-foot pine tree in the side yard fell down, snapping our power line in a bright flash and landing on our car. The lights went out as I was changing Emile’s diaper. Everything in the house was silent, after the echoing boom of a multi-ton tree falling, that is.

We walked out to the front lawn looked at the downed lines and the car. Oh my stars, the car. It was swamped in pine branches. All of our neighbors had their lights on. So it was just us? Susanne walked a little closer to a neighbor who’d come out to see what had happened, and stepped on a bee, which stung her in its death throes.

Someone has got to be kidding, I thought. I need a redo on this terrible week.

She limped inside, and I used my iPhone’s camera light to see well enough to get the stinger out. After sprinkling on baking soda, we picked up our phones again to tell the world that our power was out, because of course the world wanted to know this. One of Susanne’s colleagues came by with pizza (their power was out too, but not from our tree). Neighbors two doors down brought us fresh baked cookies. I mean, they were still warm. It was hard to tell what they looked like in the candlelight, but they tasted great.

Cookies in the dark, with pertussis. That was our Thursday night.

On Friday morning we could assess the car. It looked like the tree branches had hit the roof and then rolled the tree away. The scratches all along the driver’s side were also only mainly in the clear coat. After a series of phone calls and tweets to Pacific Power, a couple of trucks bobbled along into our driveway, along with an electrician, and about a day later, our power lines were reconnected. We coughed our way through the power outage, and we coughed during its restoration. I ordered in a boatload of Thai food, and the spice level didn’t phase us because we couldn’t taste much. We played with Emile’s toys and surfed the Web, and I picked up 60 levels in Candy Crunch Saga, a truly horrible, evil game.

On Saturday some friends showed up with a couple of chainsaws and hacked at the top of the tree nearest the car. They cleared away some of the branches and I moved the car out of the driveway, into the street. I will never again entertain the notion of buying one of those little pine-scented trees for the rear view mirror.

On Sunday I tried not to pace. I took the last of the antibiotics and waited to feel better. They call pertussis the “Hundred Day Cough” because even though the pills stop one’s ability to infect others, the bacterium continues to be active. Coughing has not left us. We have gone through something like 16,780 tissues. But our car drives, our refrigerator hums, and our kid is back to taking walks down the block in which he picks up and hands us every single twig and leaf he sees.

Whoop, whoop.

Fair Thee Well: A Trip to Walla Walla’s Frontier Days

Every Labor Day weekend, Walla Walla hosts “Frontier Days,” a combination of agricultural fair and a sanctioned rodeo. While the fairgrounds are mostly empty most of the year, in late August they begin filling up with hundreds of horse trailers, pickups filled with crafts and food, and truck after truck of carnival ride equipment. White fences are cleaned, exhibit halls swept out and dusted, food stalls prepped with supplies, and power cords dragged every which way to light up the evening hours with seasonal entertainment. Living here since the late summer of 2008, Susanne and I have never gone to Frontier Days, usually because that’s also when the national political science association’s conference is held, far from Walla Walla. But this year I stayed behind with Emile, and bought some passes for us to the see fair and the rodeo.

Now then, before people balk at the idea of the city boy and his offspring venturing into such a rural experience, I am no noob to the rodeo. I went to Girl Scout horse camp in South Jersey twice, sleeping in two-week stints in an overgrown tent, and I’ve gone to at least a dozen rodeos in the Northeast—though truth be told, my favorite is the Atlantic Gay Rodeo, in which, among other events, cowboys and cowgirls chase goats around the arena to get pink underwear on their butts. I’ve gone to county fairs since I was a kid, some of them enormous, like the Montgomery County Fair in Maryland. Three hundred bunnies, all in competition for a blue ribbon.

But let’s get real; it’s been a long, long time since I’ve ventured into this kind of event. A decade, maybe? My benchmarks for country fairs and rodeos well, they are perhaps different in faded memory. Parking was easy, and only $4 (the Rotary should charge more), across the street from the fairgrounds. We strollered in around 5:30PM and Emile pointed to the things he found most interesting. I wheeled him over to the dairy building, checking out the cows (“udders!” “moo cows!”), then to the building with goats, all of which looked nonplussed at the stream of visitors. There were a lot of kids in cowboy hats and Wranglers.

I tried to see the fair through my former child’s eyes, and ignore the very large Republican Party tent (which was brimming with people) and the Walla Walla Democrats tent (which had one person at the counter). I also avoided showing Emile the various religious symbols we could peruse or buy, sticking to the animal exhibits and their associated 4-H awards. The sheep, for example, were bleating like this was their one lifetime opportunity to be heard outside of their requisite farms. The goats, on the other hand, were quiet cud-chewers.

We drifted over to one of many stables, and checked out the horses. Emile waved and said “Hi, horsey,” to most of them. Some of the horses acknowledged him, which was nice for him (not sure how the horses felt about it). I’d gotten it into my head before buckling Emile in the car that I wanted to get him a cowboy hat, so we started combing the fair for hats. There were plastic hats, baseball caps, foam cow udders that were extra weird because the teats pointed skyward, but no actual cowboy hats. What on earth?

A clump of aides to Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers and state GOP delegates blocked our way forward, and one of them noticed us and said we looked a little lost. I told her I was on the hunt for cowboy hats and she pointe behind us, and in that moment I marked the first helpful thing my Congresswoman’s office has done for my family. (Because hey, we don’t need another attempt at rolling back health care reform.) I thanked her and we made our way to the sole cowboy hat-seller on the grounds. I shelled out $15, and Emile wore his new hat for two minutes. Win some, lose some.

I rolled Emile around for another hour, looking for any cooking contests, like pie baking or canning. I’d heard there were photo contests, but I never discovered them. We saw a small pen with miniature ponies. They were all saddled up and ready to give rides, but Emile still seemed too small for such things. However, we dawdled and watched them for a while.

Time for the rodeo, so I dropped off the stroller in a little cage at the base of the grand stands—thank you little stroller cage at the base of the grand stands—and I climbed with Emile and his 20-pound diaper bag up to row O. With fifty extra pounds in my arms, the sweat started streaming down my head by row G. Emile pointed out all of the people who looked like other people he’d met before, so as I huffed and puffed up the stadium steps, he’d call out, “Uncle Jeanne, Grandma!” At least one of us was enjoying the ascent.

We turned around to face the rodeo field, taking in the rodeo clowns in on the ground, looking at the announcer’s tower, and marveling at the very large screen at the side of the field. The screen was new to me. The garrulous announcer (I mean, what else would he be) told us that it was “Tough Enough for Pink” night, which was some kind of breast cancer effort that employed sexism as a motivation for donations. Or something. I tried to ignore the message.

Next out came a real life wagon from the “pioneer” days of Walla Walla, and as part of the reenactment, the team of four horses got caught up in the hitch, with legs stuck in uncomfortable places and the whinny here and there of upset animals. And that was how the rodeo opened. I searched my recollections of rodeos for instances of animals in distress—other than the roping, bucking, and hogtying—and couldn’t come up with anything. The elected leaders in the area, all of them Republican, trotted by the stranded wagon as handlers tried to remedy the hitch, and then the County Commissioners, who were on the wagon itself, finally could circle the field and exit. It took ten minutes for the horses to get back in position.

Then the rodeo really started, with all of the racing around by this local queen and that local princess over. It was like watching a community near to us but that we’re not a part of, and my sense of alienation was nearing omnipresence status. I just wanted to enjoy the rodeo! But somehow I only saw reminders of my outsider status. Bucking broncos interested Emile, but he couldn’t understand why we were clapping for people falling down. I made a mental note to look out for sudden bouts of clapping the next time Daddy trips in front of him.

Next up was a roping competition. Three or four contestants in, the rider jumped off his horse to tie up the calf and his horse reared up and started running away, dragging the young animal by its neck. We watched for at least half a horrified minute as the contestant and the clowns tried to clutch at their knives to cut the line and free the calf. Was I supposed to let Emile see this or cover his eyes? What were we here for? Did he even notice?

I started feeling guilty. It’s one thing to see animals that have been raised by young people displayed for their prowess in nurturing animals (even if it’s for human consumption at the end of the process), but to see stressed animals in dire situations for our entertainment, well, maybe I wasn’t the Girl Scout at horse camp anymore. I mean, clearly I’m not. I want Emile to feel like he’s a part of his hometown, because I enjoyed knowing my town’s history growing up (Hightstown represent!). But I’m not sure the ethos of Walla Walla is its annual event. Perhaps I should focus more on the caring people we see in our community every day.

In other news, it turns out that Emile loves his cowboy hat.

Conversations with Emile

The following are excerpts from actual conversations with my kid.

EMILE: I having a baby.

ME: You are? You’ll be a big brother and a daddy?

EMILE: No dad, I be a big brudder, a daddy AND a mommy.

#

“Daddy?”

“Yeah, buddy?”

“I saw a horse.”

“You saw a horse today? What else did you see?”

“Tennis. And a horse.”

“You did, yes. Did you see a cow?”

“Uhh, no.”

“You didn’t see a cow? Did you see a sheep?”

“Uhh, no. No sheep.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m pretty sure we saw horses, and cows, and sheep, and goats. What sound did the sheep make?”

“Oink.”

“Come on, the sheep said ‘oink’?”

“No. Emile funny.”

#

EMILE: (after waking up an hour beyond bedtime and looking outside) It’s dark outside.

ME: Yes, the sun went down.

EMILE: Is bedtime outside.

ME: Yes. And it’s bedtime inside, too.

EMILE: Daddy, why so dark outside?

ME: (I grab a piece of cereal and hold it up close to the dining room overhead light) We are on a planet out in space, and we move around the sun, but we also rotate, so sometimes the bright light is on the other side of us. (I move the cereal around deftly, rotating and revolving at the same time) When it’s on the other side, we are in nighttime and it is dark outside.

EMILE: That’s a Cheerio.

ME: Yes. It’s a Cheerio. It’s a metaphor.

EMILE: Emile have it?

ME: It’s stale.

EMILE: Emile want it, daddy. Daddy please.

#

[LATER THAT EVENING]

ME: Okay, it’s time for bed.

EMILE: I want some milk and cracker. I want some milk and cracker, Daddy.

ME: Okay, I’ll get some for you.

EMILE: Daddy be right back.

ME: Yes. (exits to kitchen, returns with a fresh bottle of milk and one round cracker. hands them to EMILE.)

EMILE: Thank you, Daddy.

ME: You’re welcome, buddy.

EMILE: I eat in crib.

ME: Okay.

EMILE: Daddy sit in chair.

ME: You want me to sit in the chair?

EMILE: Daddy rock.

ME: You want me to rock myself in the chair?

EMILE: Yes.

ME: Okay. (starts rocking)

EMILE: I lost the binky.

ME: It’s right next to you.

EMILE: Where binky go? Where binky at?

ME: (stands up, goes to crib) Emile, it’s right here. (picks up binky and hands it to EMILE.)

EMILE: Thank you, Daddy.

ME: (sitting back down) Okay, buddy. Drink your milk.

EMILE: I lost the cracker. Where cracker go?

ME: You cannot have lost the cracker. You just had the cracker.

EMILE: Where cracker go?

ME: Emile, I am not going to hunt for things all night.

EMILE: It’s a game, Daddy.

ME: Oh (laughs)

Susanne tells me I have made a very cute monster.