Bruise

I asked my mom once whether she has ever had a hickey and she told me that she never has. I couldn't believe it. A hickey is a rite of passage into the underworld of the adult community, it holds major significance in a girl's dating life, and to never experience this is an oversight.

"Never?! Not ever? You are telling me that you have never had a hickey and you are fifty-something years old," I said.

"That's what I'm telling you," she said. She seemed altogether unconcerned about the fact. I understand that you don't want to get a plethora of hickeys, you don't want to be considered a floozy, but on the other hand she has been married for thirty years. That is plenty of time to receive one hickey.

"Have you ever felt a gaping hole in your life that is yet to be filled?" I asked.

Her eyebrows furrowed and she said perplexed, "Why would I want a hickey? All it is is a bruise. There is nothing romantic about a bruise."

Before I continue I must explain my mother. She is the most practical person alive. Her mind is fully logical. She has an a+b=c kind of mind. And so her comment was a very mommish thing to say, it was dead on with what I would have expected her to say and frankly anything else would have disappointed, yet when she said that it blew my mind. It was the most unexpected thing in the world.

"Mom, of course it is a bruise, but it is so much more than a bruise. That bruise represents the fact that a guy was so crazy about you that he essentially tried to eat your skin. How can you call that a mere bruise? That is a bruise created from passion, it is what we call a sexy bruise."

She looked at me as though I were crazy. This was a conversation sans understanding. Where she saw a bruise, I saw romance. There was no communicado on this point. It was just typical of her to take something romantic and strip it down till it was a fragmented, naked thing that was removed of all its glory.

I see my roommate on campus.

She works, i walk.

-you have fourteen days to return this. Here's your receipt.

She's busy.

Customers wait in a globular line.

-Next customer please!

I see her,

she sees me.

-Did you find everything all right today?

We wink at each other.

No one notices.

-That will be fifteen dollars and twelve cents, please.

Hidden communications;

All customers oblivious

to our knowledge

of each other.

This secret between us thrills.

I keep QUIet>

Voluminous Pants

I performed today for the Special Speaker Series on campus, so I'm wearing my professional trousers. They flare dramatically at the bottom, making them voluminous. Although the flare makes my bottom look small, sometimes I do feel ridiculous. I wonder how many people think I look like a hippie.

I walk and my pants hula-hoop around my ankles. Back-and-forth, back-and-forth. Yeah, embarrassing. I feel like a clown in a circus that can make my pants perform magic tricks. I have to remind myself that circus and hippie pants are a state of mind...it's a state of mind, Jen...it's all in your head. That's what I tell myself, anyway.

The Ultimate Bet

Why are the 26 letters of our language named the Alphabet? Perhaps there significance in the name "ALPHABET."

The Alphabet.

The Alpha-bet.

The Alpha Bet.

The Ultimate Bet.

Fascinating. Maybe that is the underlaying message. There seems to be a story behind this name. I suspect that the group of Language-Deciders got together and had to figure out the structure of the written language. They agreed that there must be a specific number of letters that could be used and no other letters could be invented after the set number was voted on.

So the Language-Deciders began to debate the number of letters. They debated for long hours, yet nothing was decided. Finally a fragile old woman in the back of the assembly stood up and declared in a loud voice, "Let us place a bet. We shall place a bet on whether I can do 100 push-ups or not. If I can do 100 push-ups, then the number of people betting 'yes' will be the number of letters we have in our language. If I can't do it, then the number of people betting 'no' will be the number of letters."

This seemed like a reasonable idea. The Language-Deciders all agreed. Everyone carefully cast their bets as the old woman prepared for her push-ups. When all was ready, the old woman got on the floor in the push-up position.

"One...two...three...," the Language-Deciders all chanted as the old woman bobbed up and down, "twenty....twenty-one..."

The old woman was doing remarkably well for her age and strength. Most of the assembly hadn't believed she could even get to 30.

"fifty-one...fifty-two...seventy-six...eighty..."

The old woman was about to make it, she was almost to ninety!

"ninety-one...ninety-three..."

But no! The old woman was tiring out, it didn't look like she was going to make it! Go old woman, go! Everyone began chanting, "Go lady go lady go, go lady go lady go!"

From the back a cry was heard, " Don't give up now Doris!" (This, obviously, was her husband...obviously). With a strained effort the old woman continued.

"Ninety-eight..." PLOP! THUD!

The woman crashed to the ground. She couldn't do it. Bummer.

Well, the "no's" won it. And there were 26 of them. So, there are now 26 letters in our alphabet--which came from THE ULTIMATE BET!

Pretty sure that is the story of the alphabet. I wouldn't doubt it. We live in a psycho world; it could totally happen.

Naptime

Left: Amya, eighteen months old

My neighbor went on a week vacation and asked me to watch her daycare kids. She usually cares for 30 kids, but this week she narrowed the number to 7 for my sake. I have 23 kids less than her, and it's killing me.

I wake up at 6 am and get the house and myself prepped for the kids. The first kid arrives at 7 and the rest trickle in by 9. I spend seven hours entertaining, tormenting, feeding, separating, cajoling, and controlling these guys.

By 9 am I collapsed on the couch--ignoring the cheerful screams from the other room--and thought, "This is what mothers do, except no one comes to take the kids away at the end of the day. A mother's job never ends. It is ForEver." It was a horrifying realization.

The fact that women volunteer themselves to this is baffling. My mom says it is different when they are your kids; I'm telling you it better be or I'm not choosing this for my career. Give me an office and boss any day! Really, motherhood should be considered a career; it is a career that takes 24 hours of the day, if not more.

I rallied myself for lunch time and hope gleamed fresh in my eye. I knew that once lunch was over i was hitting the best part of the day.

The clock chimed one o'clock and I walked in the play room grinning.
"Naptime!" I shouted joyfully. I skipped the youngsters to their beds, slapped the light off, threw a movie in for the older kids and--Hallelujah! The house is mine. Best time of the day, peeps, right here. Soak it in.

Rupert

Mom, Amy, and I found a baby sparrow on our driveway today. It fell from its nest and sat passively on the cement. I ran to get the black rubber garden gloves and gently placed him in my hand.

We named him Rupert. He is a tiny bloke and is the size of a silver half-dollar that is stretched into an oval. His feathers are a dull mustard yellow and black wing tips. He has stubby yellow eyelashes and long white, straggly eyebrows.

We went to Zamzow's to see if they had bird food, luckily someone donated baby bird feed to the next customer that needed to take care of a wild bird since they didn't need it anymore. We plan to redonate it back to Zamzow's after we are done with Rupert.

Rupert is astonishingly unafraid of us. He sits on my finger comfortably without any qualms. I can set him down right beside me and he will stay. As soon as I leave he will roam the yard, but if I sat with him he would stay in one place all day. Rupert is becoming an expert aerial navigator. This morning he wasn't able to fly, and now this evening he is able to glide 5 feet.

We lost Rupert in the afternoon. He started wandering the yard and we figured we'd seen the last of him, but then I found him hours later clinging to the honeysuckle on our deck. He let me pick him up and I fed him again. I'm hoping that he will be able to fend for himself and survive now; I will continue to check the yard and feed him if I find him. I put Rupert back on the honeysuckle. I hope to see the little bugger again--he was cute.

Caricatures of Classmates

Every Wednesday evening I have a Physical Science class that lasts for 3 hours. The class is difficult, confusing and monotonous, which means that it is a perfect time for self-reflection. Occasionally the hours of inward wanderings are punctured by the sight of a fascinating creature: the classmate. Each week I am repeatedly drawn to the same three classmates.

The first two classmates are actually a pair. I don't know their names, so I will be bold and give them names that I deem suitable. The first is Travis. Travis is brown haired, average-build, hooded eyes, and white skin that suggests hours of basement videogame playing. He wears t-shirts that tell grim and shadowy stories and a skull-shaped ring on his hand. Travis, in and of himself, is not a fascinating creature. It is the combination of Travis and his companion that creates the entertainment.

Travis is always joined by a small female. I name her Stephanie. When I first saw Stephanie I assumed she was a brilliant girl that graduated from high school early and is now attending college at the tender age of twelve. I conclude that this isn't the case; she is just an unusually small girl with a haircut that enables her young looks. Stephanie is 5' 1" tall, her blonde hair falls to her shoulders like spaghetti, and she has perfectly round glasses. Stephanie even dresses like a young teenager, which only adds to the confusion. All these factors add up--you think she is twelve years old.

At the beginning of the semester Travis and Stephanie were always separated by a single seat and a muttered comment to each other was rare. There was little contact between them. However, I saw potential for these two; I felt that by the end of the semester a romance might be forged. I was right.

Tonight is the last day of class and the romance is fully bloomed. I believe that Love realized the end of class is looming and She forced the paralyzing boredom aside and pressured these two to hook up. Tonight, for the first time, Travis and Stephanie sit side by side with joined fingers and tender eyes. Without the impending shadow of semester's end who knows if Love would have pressured itself to the surface.

The dull passion between these two have created a pleasant distraction from my boredom. The absence of this distraction would have forced me to pay attention to something that matters, like the lecture. Thank heavens I didn't have to pay attention to the lecture; I'd hate to be caught doing something useful. The idea makes me sick.

The third, and last, classmate sits in the far left column of seating.

On the left and a few rows in front of me sits an 80 year old man. He is majoring in family history (I'm impressed he'd come to college...that has to be intimidating). I like to think his name is John Flam. Before class starts John Flam hunches over his text book and scrutinizes the text using a massive magnifying glass that dangles around his neck. Class starts and he glares his bushy eyebrows at the teacher. Halfway through the lesson he begins picking his nose. Picks his nose then rubs his head. That's the process. Pick rub, pick rub, pick rub. Every once in a while he pulls out a tissue and gives his nose a few slow wipes. It creates a fascinating rhythm: pick rub, pick rub, pick rub, pick rub wipe, wipe, wipe, pick rub, pick rub, pick rub wipe, wipe, wipe, wipe. In this dull, monotonous class this man and his rhythm create action and, I like to think, passion. Thank you, John Flam. Thank you.