Failing at Chemical Warfare

As part of my on-going green up my life, lower my grocery bills, save the cheerleader, save the world process, I recently made my own laundry detergent.  It has been great.  Seriously.  The stuff works just as well as my old, chemical-laden stuff and it is Teh Cheap.  Huzzah!

Having conquered that, I decided to move on to laundry sheets.  I don't know how this happens, but my house produces more static electricity than any house ever in the history of houses.  Ever.  It's ridiculous.  We walk around all winter looking like we've had our hands on those big sparky electric globes from the 1980s.  (Does anybody know what I'm talking about.)  Frankly, it's not too much better in the summer, which makes me mad, because isn't mind-numbing humidity supposed to stop static electricity?  Science makes my brain hurt.

Anyway, I'd long since switched to theoretically compostable dryer sheets from Mrs. Meyers.  "Theoretically" because I never compost them.  Ever.  They do, however, wind up in balls all over my house for my husband to find and curse over.  He LOVES my housekeeping style.  It's the thing that glues our marriage together.  (Snort.)  I switched from Bounce sheets, which were great for the static cling, but which had all those nasty chemicals and the weird, polyester fibery leftover sheets that you can't compost, theoretically or otherwise.

Those theoretical sheets are really expensive, though, so I decided to move on to something else.  I scoured Crackterest until I found a few ideas and got started.

First, I tried vinegar and some drops of lemon essential oil, which I was promised would cut down static electricity and make my clothes smell fresh.  My clothes DID smell so fresh you could practically hear pre-Teh Crazy Axl Rose singing about them, but they also generated enough electricity to power my home.  (WHY can't we channel static electricity to power our homes?  See:  science, the hurting of my brain.)

Next, I tried a tip involving hair conditioner and rags.  Y'all.  This was about as gross a thing as I have ever done.  First, the cheap conditioners were laden with chemicals and scents that made me gag or question what ocean somebody was visiting to get a nose full of breeze like that.  Shudder.  The more expensive conditioners smelled better and had fewer chemicals, but they were, you know, more expensive.  I opted for the more expensive ones, anyway.  Once home, per the directions I found, I mixed the conditioner up with water in an old diaper wipe container I still have lying around.  The directions called for me to soak a rag in the solution, squeeze out some of the solution, pop it in the dryer and wait for the non-staticky glory to happen.

The static WAS defeated.  But don't get your huzzaher all warmed up, because there were several problems.  First, sticking my hand in a vat of cold, slimy, watered-down conditioner was nasty on a sensory level.  It also caused my fingers to break out in eczema sores and cracks, which isn't very comfy.  Also, I'm assuming because the more expensive conditioner contained plant-derived oils, our clothes (particularly Will's non-100% cotton dress shirts) got oil-stains on them.  At first, I blamed the spots on the children's and my poor eating habits--you can always tell what all of us had for every meal by what's on our shirts.  But then I realized that Will doesn't have a head that spins on gimbals (or gyres...whatever) and that he doesn't ever get grease spots on his clothes, much less on the back of his shirts.  DANG IT.  Out went the conditioner.

Then I found a suggestion to ball up an eighteen-inch piece of aluminum foil and put that sucker in the dryer. This was followed by a metric crapton (for the folks who've asked, this is roughly equivalent to a standard shitload, give or take a few grams) of comments that extolled the virtues of this technique.  Well, okay.  I accordingly balled up the aluminum foil and dried, despite my tocaya's dire warnings.  The result:  le static.  Okay, but, you know, my house is REALLY staticky.  So I balled up another piece.  The result:  le static.  What followed was pretty much a psychotic break during which I balled up an entire roll of aluminum foil and shoved it into my dryer piece by piece yelling, "DIE, STATIC, DIEEEEEEE!"

It didn't.

I don't know where Miss I Don't Know Why All Of You Aren't Using Aluminum Foil Balls To Stop Static Cling lives, but I suspect it is at the bottom of the ocean, because the aluminum foil did not work.  At all.  AT ALL.  (Not that I'm bitter.)

So today I'm betaking myself to the grocery store to buy a package of Bounce before my laundry finally succeeds in its plan to make me totally insane.  It might have won this battle, but it won't win the war.  As the Filing Cabinet as my witness, it WON'T BEAT ME.

One of Those "I Started Writing Something and It Wound Up Something Else" Posts

*This started out as a funny "Dang, it's hard being poor at the end of January" post and wound up an introspective musing about ending my internet addiction.  Enjoy.  Snort.*

January is a long month any way (sing it with me:  "Thirty days has September..."), but for teachers in our county, it's a reaaaaally long month.  In an effort to help out with Christmas spending, the powers that be pay teachers (and other employees) for December before the Christmas holidays.  Theoretically, this is great:  it loosens up finances for holiday expenses and you don't have to worry about eating whatever you can find out in your yard for New Year's Day brunch.  (I will point out that I actually DID eat something I found out in my yard for New Year's Day brunch.  Yay for mustard green frittatas!)

The problem is that come the end of January, ye old bank account is looking grim.  I know, technically, that this should not be the case.  Technically, we should all have set aside our money for Christmas months earlier and we wouldn't be dealing with this issue now.  Technically, I should be dipping into our winter stores and pulling out the cans of tomato sauce and jars of green beans and running out to the chicken house for some eggs since it's so frickin' warm this winter that my chickens would probably still be laying.  But.  I'm not doing that.

Instead, I'm doing things like trying not to chew my own ears off while Jeffrey whines about having to eat Corn Chex (left over from party mix) agaaaain for breakfast.  (Seriously, Chex boxes are the size of airplane hangars.)  I'm doing things like slinging Rice Krispie (left over from Rice Krispie Treats) boxes at him and yelling, "You want VARIETY?  Have some VARIETY."  I mean, it's great that my kid has a good vocabulary and yeah, yeah, yeah he's a good speller and soooo smart and it's awesome.  Yay.  But wanting more variety at  breakfast?  Really?  BE GLAD YOU HAVE SOMETHING TO EAT, SON.  Don't make me tote out all the starving children in the world.

What?

I can't remember where I was going with this.  The variety threw me off.

Oh, right.  So, we're really not self sufficient or grateful for what we have or capable of entertaining ourselves without spending money.  I mean, if given the opportunity--and by "opportunity," I mean "utter collapse of American civilization to the point of Laura Ingalls Wilder times"--I'm pretty sure we could pull ourselves together and make do, but right now?  Not so much.

Our kids complain about having to eat boxed cereal at the end of the month that's perfectly tasty and healthy for them, other than the fact that it's processed and in a box.

Jeffrey unloaded maybe six pieces of firewood from the back of the truck yesterday and acted like we had chopped his arms off and were dragging him over hot coals and fireant nests.

We live on an acre of land and buy every tomato product we eat.

We look at our weekly eating out as a right we have, not as a treat.

My kids are, right now, sitting in front of the television so I can type peacefully before work.  They could be cleaning their rooms, feeding the dog, or reading a book, but I want them to be quiet.

This is, of course, a recurring theme for me.  My biggest obstacle as a human being isn't lack of compassion or intelligence or loved ones or funds.  My biggest obstacle is lack of follow through.  I make big plans and then they unfortunately sort of shrivel up and die because I don't follow through with them.  This isn't beating myself up:  it's just the truth.

This obstacle has dogged my path (or sat squarely in the middle of my path) my entire life.  Plans to write books, lose weight, plant gardens, yadayadayada litter my timeline.  I don't find it as disheartening as you would think.  At least I've been consistent.

At the same time, it's a little frustrating to think of the way that I would PREFER to live compared to how I live in actuality.  I would PREFER to be on a little farm, writing books in my cozy office and taking clients out to the lavender patch for a photo session until the kids come home from school and we do our chores before sitting down to a home cooked meal that is 3/4 of our hard work.

Now, it's maybe not possible to have that life right now.  My acre is going to have to do until we can afford the little farm.  But there are certainly things I CAN do now.  I can plant a better garden, finally get the dang chickens we've been talking about, sew down that pile of fabric and patterns that's cluttering up my dining room.

It's going to require that I do something that I both dread and look forward to:  I'm going to have to kick my internet habit.  Honestly, I joke about Crackterest, but in the past few days, I've come to realize that I've gone from using the internet as a tool or a way to hang out with my buds to using it like I used to use cigarettes.  It's a time filler and a time waster.  I will literally spend hours sometimes going from Facebook to the Huffington Post to The Pioneer Woman back to Facebook to Pinterest to CNN and then back to the Huffington Post and then maybe a little Twitter.  And then I look up and whoopsidoodle!  The laundry isn't washed and it's time to go get the kids.

It would be kinda funny and "I'm just a housewife sitting around eating bonbons" except that it ISN'T really all that funny and, especially in the winter when I'm prone to the blues anyway, it becomes actually a little bit serious because I feel the blues veering into something more grim and grayish and the constant cycle of internettedness gets a little...damaging-feeling.  Isolating.  Not good at all.

So I'm going partially cold turkey.  Partially because I can't completely disconnect from my computer.  After all, I have photos to edit and blogs to write and a media presence to build and maintain if I want to be successful as a photographer.  Also, visiting with online friends is an important part of the who that I am right now that I'm content with.  But I simply have to wrench myself out of the cycle of surfing that is dragging my down.  I'll be online in the morning before the kidlets wake up and again in the evening after they go to bed, and I might tweet a couple of times during the day, but for now, while I try to get some plans that have become giant rock piles in my path cleared up, that's going to have to be it.

I'll see you around, of course.  Just...not as much.

In Order to Make It Through the Election Season

...there are a couple of things we need to discuss.  See, I've been engaged in a series of "debates" on Facebook.  It's that time of year, you know...the earth is stirring, the sun is coming back, and folks are acting like asshats because the election season has begun.  In the past twenty-four hours, I've been accused of being ignorant (TWICE...lawsy), on drugs, stupid, and un-American.  I've also been advised (by the same person) that I should pray to God that we get a God-fearing man in the White House next year.  Sigh.

I can't say that the way in which I engaged my...er...debate opponent was nice.  But the truth is that I'm just ANGRY.  (This next part is taken directly from a Facebook convo I've been having, so if you and I are Facebook friends, look away or file your fingernails or go get a snack while I go on this diatribe.  Just skip to the list, mkay?) I've spent three years listening to lies and half-hidden bigotry and insults regarding the man for whom I voted. I have been called ignorant, un-American, a sheep, and a friend of Satan (in whom I don't even believe.) I've ground my teeth and tried very, very hard to be as level-headed and kind to the people with whom I disagree as I can. I have tried to rise above the muck that gets slung at me day after day after day by people who call themselves Christians or who say they love me. And I'm sick to death of it.

I'm tired of trying to come up with yet another way to explain the first amendment (never mind the 14th or 10th) to people who claim they want absolute freedom from the Federal government while demanding an evangelical Christian president, Congress, and Supreme Court. I'm tired of asking for proof that our president is Muslim or Kenyan or Communist or Socialist. I'm tired of arguing that the president is, in fact, a black man because his father was from Africa. I'm tired of people bringing up the president's childhood and then saying that a candidate's past means nothing--in any context. I'm tired of trying so dang hard to act as Jesus instructed his followers to behave in Mark when I'm not one of his followers--and his followers call me stupid or ask if I'm on drugs. I'm tired of ignorance masquerading as intelligence, of meanness masquerading as debate, and of prejudice masquerading as righteous fear.

So I've simply decided to let my anger have a little free rein. If folks want to come at me with thoughtful, reasoned, intelligent, fact-based criticism (and there is PLENTY to be had, I know) of the man for whom I will vote this year, I will engage them likewise. However, if the best somebody has is lies about a man's religious belief and skewed facts about job performance they got in a chain email...let's just say I'm going to let my inner Morrigan out for a bit.  

If you don't enjoy experiencing me go all three-aspect on you, I suggest you do the following:

1. Don't pretend that you are interested in any sort of intelligent conversation if you want to tell me that monotheism is compatible with science during a political discussion.  Because...really?  The only monotheistic religions present in the Western world right now feature a dude getting swallowed by a whale and living to tell about it, a god making people out of seven different colors of dirt, and a deity who is killed and is buried and then comes back.  All of that sounds to me, with respect, like science FICTION, but not, in any way, science.  If you want to believe that science and monotheism are BFFs, I suggest you consult Galileo or the lawyers in the Scopes monkey trial.  I am not in any way knocking monotheism (follow your bliss, my friends), but to say that it's compatible with science is to have basically missed the last...er...500 years or so of world history.   During that time, monotheists regularly enjoyed imprisoning and/or making social pariahs out of scientists (many of whom were "good" Christians, Jews, or Muslims.)  Again, I am not trashing monotheism.  But to suggest that monotheism is more compatible with science than, say, an earth-based faith during a political conversation is baseless and missing the point of monotheism at best and, at worst, makes you look like a complete idiot.  I do not suffer idiots any more.
2. Don't try to make any of the following terms mean the same thing:  conservative/Republican, liberal/Democrat, liberal/atheist, conservative/Christian, progressive/liberal, liberal/asshat, Republican/asshat.  There are liberal Republicans (the ones who believe that Americans deserve equal treatment under the law regardless of societal norms.)  There are conservative Democrats.  (Helllloooo, Ben Nelson.)  There are Republican atheists who take the separation of church and state seriously.  There are liberal Christians who can (and do) cite numerous Scripture for their political beliefs that dictate the party for which they vote.  I know a metric buttload of conservative Pagans.  Two of the biggest turds (in terms of political discourse) I know are a conservative Republican and a progressive Democrat (and watching them snipe at each other makes me want to eat my own face.)  Our Founding Fathers were progressive:  they sought PROGRESS away from a stifling political system.  They also owned slaves and didn't count women as human beings when it came to political representation.  They were Christians who refused to give our country a religious affiliation and who, when drafting a motto for our country, came up with one that is pretty much Communism in a nut shell.  My point is:  do your dang research and stop listening to what "they" tell you.  
3. Pretend I didn't yell, "My president has got BIG BRASS CAJONES!" during the State of the Union Address.
4.  Ahem.
5. Don't argue with me that a person's private life is their private life and shouldn't have any bearing on their presidency and back that argument up with the statement that you have to have a person who prays the way that you pray in the White House and that a president's college transcript should be public domain.  I mean, you CAN argue with me about that, but then I'll have to point out your vast hypocrisy and make you all flustered so that you type in all caps. I'd hate to do that, mainly because it causes eye strain, but also because it makes you accuse me of smoking Teh Drugs, and I don't smoke anything these days.  Heck, I don't even smoke my own Boston butts.
6. Don't blather on and on about entitlements and then complain that you're going to lose your Social Security.  I mean, I don't want to lose my Social Security, either.  But if you don't know what the word "entitlements" means, don't use it, mkay?  Further, do me a favor and don't pretend like the public assistance programs aren't screwed up seven ways to Sunday, mainly because the states do a craptastic job of monitoring how money is spent.  In fact, how about everybody actually figure out how public assistance works in their state before they start talking about it?  THAT would be awesome.  
7. Don't tell me that the past doesn't matter.  Seriously.  Because that means that you have no concept of...um...anything, particularly if you are a believer in a monotheistic religion that centers around a man who rose from the dead roughly 2000 years ago.  Because that was a looonnnng time ago.  Or if you are a believer in the Constitution, which was written roughly 200 years ago.  Or if you were ever at any point in time affected by things that happened to you more than one second ago.  OF COURSE THE PAST MATTERS.  Gah.  What Newt did twenty years ago?  Matters.  What happened to Santorum's family 10 years ago?  Matters.  How President Clinton lied about Teh Oral Sex in Teh Oval Office?  Matters.  If it didn't, we wouldn't still be talking about it.  
8. Don't be mean and don't lie.   I guarantee somebody will get their feelings hurt, or be mean back at you, or expose your lies.  That somebody will probably be me and I will CACKLE at your discomfiture as you backtrack and finally resort to calling me "ignarant."  I do not ENJOY getting angry at you when I go on Facebook, but I am no longer rising above it and asking myself what Jesus would do, because while I've got much love for him, it is baldly apparent that some of his most vocal followers discount the red parts in the Bible, so I'm giving myself permission to ask what my high school debate coach would do instead. She was a steel magnolia in every sense of the word and she was not above telling somebody exactly how much of an idiot they really were.
9. Don't point out the way a person salutes (or does not salute) the flag, goes to church or doesn't go to church, is like you or is not like you is the criteria of being a good president.  However, you may use aspects such as intelligence, voting record, military experience (or lack thereof), college education, marital status (you heard me...I loved me some Bill Clinton, but I honestly don't believe that we'd be in the mortgage mess we're in or be suffering under DOMA if he'd kept his junk in his drawers), diplomatic aptitude, and political history.  I'm cool with that.
10. Don't cite any email you got as fact.  Don't tell me straight up that you haven't verified something but you're going to post it anyway.  (You're doing this to stir the pot and, dude, that pot is about to boil over, so back away from the damn pot.) Don't tell me you "believe" something as an argument in a political debate.  I believe that a rock I found on the farm contains the essence of Mother Earth.  Do you think that makes it so?  No?  Then don't tell me you believe our president is being funded by Islamic extremists unless you can trace the money trail for me.

I am not talking to any one person here.  Well, that's not true.  There is one person in particular who got me riled up over the past few days, but I doubt highly that this person reads this blog.  So.  I don't care if you are conservative, liberal, Democratic, Republican...whatever.  Don't be an asshat.  Because then I'LL have to be an asshat, and I promise I can be a bigger asshat than you.  I don't WANT to be an asshat.  

But I have to be honest and tell you that being an asshat felt so dang goooooood yesterday.

I'm back to being all civil and junk today.  It feels more like myself.  

But just to let you know, my inner Morrigan is awake, y'all.  She looks a lot like my high school debate coach.  

Defiantly (You'll Understand at the End)

If your kid is an Aspie and you watch TV, chances are that you are aware of the show Parenthood, because it features a kid named Max who is an Aspie.  On the whole, I like the show and the portrayal of Max.  I mean, sure, I wish somebody would talk to the writers about IEPs (muhgawd, that kid needs an IEP), but mostly, it feels fairly "real" to me.  What I think the show does best is, first of all, not portraying Max as some kind of angel trapped in a circumstance outside of his control.  He's frequently a butt--like a lot of people are--and his family doesn't act pious about loving him.  Second, the family's frustration and awkwardness and, yes, embarrassment over Max's behavior is so perfectly portrayed that it's all Will and I can do not to break down in sobs during the Max-centric episodes.  One episode not too long ago had Max participating in a Math competition.  The excitement and worry and awareness on the faces of the actors portraying Max's parents was so TRUE that I had to cover my head with a pillow.

It's hard for folks who don't live with Aspies to understand, but things like Math competitions or class parties or Sunday school talent shows are pretty much mental horror shows for some of us.  There are the other competitors who might not know your kid, the other parents, the other teachers, the kids you know are mean to your kid...all of those people are little bumps over which your family must travel.  You can't NOT do that stuff; that stuff is what people do.  But you don't look forward to it with your video camera out.  You think of it as a challenge that must be met to get to the other side of the weekend, to the snuggle time on the couch or the video game marathon in which your family is whole and perfectly happy, unwatched and unjudged by the outside world.

That sounds pretty dramatic, doesn't it?

Today, Jeffrey competed in the school spelling bee.  He got second place in his class bee a few weeks ago, and that meant he had to compete in the school one.  As in, get up on stage in front of people.  As in, not fall over or pick his nose or yell into the microphone or zone out or spazz out or cry because he lost...I sort of went into a state of shock over it.  I may or may not have hyperventilated.

This morning, I wanted to barf.  BARF, I tell you.  I was nervous.  Jeffrey was...indifferent.

"I'm nervous.  But it's okay,"  he said.  I only nodded, because of the barf-wanting.

I dropped him off at the school and went home to put on some mascara and take a couple of shots of mescaline.

Heh.

I didn't, really.  I played about seventy-nine games of Bejeweled Blitz, though.  It's my new mescaline.

When I got to the school, Jeffrey was onstage.  Fidgeting.  Twitching.  Blowing into the microphone.  I swear to Pete, it was all I could do not to run onstage and grab him and run far, far away.  I sat down in my seat and immediately starting Tweeting.  It was the only thing I could do to pull my shit together, y'all.  It was that or tackle the lady beside me who had a pack of Marlboros peeking out of her pocketbook.

The first round went by.  He spelled his word and sat down.  He sat down with his legs up in the chair, looking like a little owl, but he sat.

The second round went by.  He was loud, and he stood too close to the microphone, but he spelled his word and sat down.

Third round, check.  We had a moment there when he started picking his nose (OH MY GAWWDDDD, JEFFREY, DON'T PICK YOUR NOSE....), but he caught my eye and desisted with the spelunking.

Things get hazy now, because kids started misspelling words.

The other kids.  The ones that weren't my kid.  They misspelled words, but he didn't.  He fidgeted, he commented on how one girl who went out might have been using the British spelling, he looked around aimlessly, but he spelled his words.

Finally, it was down to him and a girl.

My boy.  And a fifth-grade girl.

He misspelled a word.  He didn't cry or freak out or get spazzy.  He said, "Aw, mannn," like every other nine-year-old in the world and sat down.  The girl spelled the word right.  And so that was the end and I was so proud of my guy, so proud that he sat down and he stood up and he spelled like a man on fire and

That wasn't the end.

The girl had to spell a word.  She misspelled it.  Jeffrey spelled it right.  The contest went on.

Y'all.  I don't know a whole lot about spelling bees, but I know that what I sat through was the longest and most intense spelling contest I have ever dang seen.  It was emotionally draining.

At one point, Jeffrey had to spell choreographer.  He spelled it DRASTICALLY wrong, mispronounced it and stood there for a second while the judges tried not to crack up.  He rolled his eyes and grinned--GRINNED--and said, "Uh.  I know that's wrong.  Come on."

Everybody laughed and he sat down.

It went back and forth and back and forth for yeaaarrrs.

Once when he sat down, he spotted a bug crawling across the stage.  "Oh, my stars and garters," I said to myself, "PLEASE don't let him jump up to identify it or yell out loud that there is a HUGE roach or tell the guy beside him the bug's genus and phylum."  He didn't.  He just sat there and watched it.  I was afraid it would break his concentration, but he pulled himself together for a couple more rounds.  (After it was all over, his principal and I were talking and she said, "Listen, I almost jumped up there and stomped the damn thing."  I luff her.)

I looked toward the back of the cafeteria near the end of the competition and all of his teachers were there, sitting in a line, cheering him on, laughing at his foibles, because HE was laughing at them.  He was a complete natural, grinning and goofing and being...charming.  He was kinda charming, my friends.

The girl stood up to spell "defiantly."  But she misspelled it and here came the Critter.  (His teacher told me later, "When she said 'defiantly,' I said, 'Oh, shoot.  We GOT this!'")

He spelled the word right, of course.  And then he got "interpret."

"I-N-T-E-R-P-R-E-T.  InterPRET," he said, unaware of the irony.

"Congratulations," the lady said.  "That's correct."

And he sat down.

My heart was pounding.  Everybody was looking around.  The lady in charge of the spelling bee leaned toward the lady calling out the words and said, "You need to tell him he won."

So she did.  And he said, "I did?  Cool!"

I cried, y'all.  I couldn't help it.  It might seem like a small thing, the school spelling bee.  But trust me when I say that mine weren't the only tears shed.  See, people love my boy.  And they have watched him struggle before.  Jeffrey had first grade at this school and it ended badly and nobody wanted it to.  I was very bitter and angry and sad.  I wasn't alone in that, either.  And now, to see him do so well, to hold himself together for forty minutes and WIN something is...well, it's just sublime.

I went up to the stage and he jumped down and I might have wanted some Hallmark "triumph over adversity" moment, but Jeffrey gave me a quick hug and said, "I want a cookie."  Right.  Cookie.

I called Will, who told me to bring Jeffrey to see him, so I went to his classroom so he could tell the kids he'd won, and when he walked in, they cheered for him.  LOUDLY.  They called his name and congratulated him and asked to see the dictionary he won as his prize.  It was all I could do not to collapse on the floor.

Again, this may seem like a small thing.  But...I don't get moments like this.  I get a lot of moments where Jeffrey holds himself together and THAT is the winning.  I get moments where Jeffrey doesn't pick his nose or insult anybody or have a meltdown and everybody high fives.  I'll give you the obligatory, "But I have good moments and I love my kid and I'm proud of him and the ribbons and awards and accolades his peers get don't touch my happiness."  But I'm not being totally honest.  I'm proud of my boy every day of his life, but other people don't get the chance to be proud of him and I have never seen Jeffrey's peers praise him and tell me, "He's so smart.  You must really be proud."  (Can I get a "Wow, that's some good parenting!" for the mama and daddy of the kid who said THAT to me?)  It was fricking AWESOME to watch him win.  It was awesome to be his mother at that moment, the mother of a winner.

IT WAS AWESOME.  It was a tear-jerking, smile-inducing, high-fiving, moment and EVERYBODY at that school felt it.

By the time we got halfway to Will's school, his principal had already emailed everybody who had ever come into contact with my kid and my mother-in-law called me so excited I was afraid she was going to pass out.  Even as I write this, former teachers and principals and folks who knew him "back when" are FBing me and calling with love and happiness for this WIN!

You know how I feel about some of the things that have gone on in Jeffrey's schooling.  It hasn't always been pretty or smooth.  There have been many, many, MANY times I've felt isolated and defeated and hopeless.

But not today.  Today, I was part of a community and we had all gotten Jeffrey to a point where he was a winner and moving on to bigger and better things.

And if felt awesome.

Tomes on Tuesday: A GROWN-UP KIND OF PRETTY by Joshilyn Jackson

My reading pizza

What?

You don't have a reading pizza?

Sigh.  Okay, a reading pizza categorizes the books you enjoy reading.  It could just as easily be a "reading bar graph," but I dislike all those angles.  It could also just as easily be a "reading filing cabinet," but I don't want to cause anybody any spiritual confusion, so I'm sticking with "reading pizza." 

Anywho, my reading pizza is generally divided into four parts.  This doesn't mean that I don't occasionally swerve off and take a bite out of, say, a mystery calzone or a paranormal romance bread stick, but, generally, these are the genres that are my "go tos."  My cheeses, if you will.  

Like this:  

You will note that I've helpfully added examples of my favorite authors to help you better grasp this concept.  (I'm nothing if not helpful, right?)  

Now, you know when you order a pizza (a real pizza, not a reading pizza) (in case you were unclear) that's half pepperoni and half mushroom and onion and occasionally a pepperoni will migrate over to the mushroom side, creating a delicious crossover taste?  That happens on reading pizzas, too, as you will note below:  

As you can see, the A Gracious Plenty cookbook falls under both nonfiction AND Southern Literature, as you can find recipes within of a decidedly Southern flavor, as well as quotes about food by Mark Twain and William Faulkner.

Terry Kay is a writer known both for his grasp of Southern life as well as his embrace of those things which you can't see, but sense are there.  (Uh.  Magic, y'all.)

Joshilyn Jackson is not.  

I know, I know. I just really wanted to use the reading pizza thing, mkay?  Ms. Jackson falls squarely in the "Southern literature" quadrant of my reading pizza and I love her for it.

Known for her ability to draw in readers by creating characters they know (or for her ability to translate an alien culture to folks living outside of the region), she has once again created a perfect little world in A Grown-Up Kind of Pretty.

The world is not perfect as in it's all sunshine and roses and happiness, though.  It's perfect in that the characters react to each other in real-feeling ways, the situations in which they find themselves are dramatic without feeling too "made up," and the environment in which they live is solidly built.  

The story is told in first person by three different characters.  Ginny Slocumb (known as Big) is the matriarch, a forty-five-year-old grandmother who had her own child at age fifteen.  That child is Liza.  Liza was a wild one, a free spirit who ventured into drug abuse after having her own little girl at age fifteen.  A few months prior to the opening sequence of the book, Liza suffered a debilitating stroke. 

Liza's child is Mosey, who has spent her whole life being conditioned to NOT fall victim to the Slocumb curse that seems to come along with turning fifteen.  Mosey is a good student and a sweet child, it would seem, but her fate seems less certain when the willow tree in Big's front yard is removed, revealing a long-buried secret that threatens the security of their little family.  What follows is a journey to do many things:  hold the family together, discover the secret of the bones found in the front yard, find love (in Big's case), make friends, keep friends...basically what people do every day.  (With the exception of the bones.)  

Jackson does many things well in this book, but the best things, in my opinion were:  

1. Fleshing out the secondary characters.  From the lecherous high school football coach to the icy Baptist social queen, from the poor girl living on the wrong side of town to the cuckholded (and adulterous) wife, you've met these people.  And either loved or hated them.  That Jackson can engender that love and hatred in her readers means she is a champion of characterization, which is so often missing from books today.  (MOSTLY--see below)
2. Making a far-fetched situation seem plausible.  Many of Jackson's works hinge on a mystery that must be solved or an identity that must be ascertained or a life that must be risen above.  A Grown-Up Kind of Pretty is no different.  But whereas sometimes authors seem to have to invent scenes or devices, because Jackson portrays her characters so strongly, she rarely has to do this.  (MOSTLY--see below.)
3. Making the environment a character in and of itself.  I can't speak for other regions, but in the South, we are intimate with our environment.  We have favorite trees, favorite hills, favorite winds.  It might be because we are privileged to be able to be OUT in our environs most of the time, but we think of the places and objects around us as important.  Mourning a tree (or using it as a hiding place or a way to mark sacred events) is normal for us. 
4. Picking a book cover.  Goodness me, the cover of this book is gorgeous.  Everything from the (blurry but obvious) open arms of the subject to the slight browning of the apple tucked into her belt is perfect.

I like this book.  It probably will go on my book friends shelf.  BUT there are a few caveats:

1. Mosey uses the word "retarded" (or variations thereof) a lot.  Enough that I started wincing about it.  I understand that teenagers do fling this word around as a light-hearted insult (bleagh), but it infuriates me when they do it.  So it was hard reading it over and over again.  I THINK I know why Jackson did it (I've created an excuse in my head), but I wanted to give a heads up to those of you who are bothered by it.
2. A rather pivotal character in the climax of the novel does not behave in a way that previous clues about her make you think she would.  In fact, her behavior was rather jarring to me, not because it was awful, but because I expected it to be.  This was the lone point of characterization weakness I found, but it made me feel like the climax was a bit "made" and not "reached naturally."
3. A rather pivotal object used during the climax of the novel was found in a way that seemed odd to me.  Again, it seemed an issue of having to create a tool rather than the tool showing up naturally.  Especially given the other actions of the object's owner, I couldn't really understand why the owner would have the object in the first place.  (Consider it a point in Jackson's favor that I can't be more clear about this without giving giant plot parts away.)
4. The climax was physically powerful, but it was the weakest part of the story from a story-telling perspective, which was a bit of a let down.  Part of it, I think, was that the narrative had already given away so much that the situation itself HAD to be extreme.  Does that make sense?  It was almost as if, by figuring out the story beforehand, the climax was something the reader had to get through before the resolution could take place.  The resolution was GREAT, but the climax?  Not so much.

Those four things, for me, were not enough to detract seriously from my love of the story.  I don't think (from a literature teacher standpoint) that the climax should be something a reader feels underwhelmed by, but my love for the characters and their places far overreaches that quibble.  

If you're looking for an engrossing read with lovable (if flawed) characters who ooze Southerness, run out and read this right now:     .