Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Death and Taxes
Nothing's certain but death and taxes... and your mother driving you and your sibs crazy. I really shouldn't say that, for I know lots of people who don't feel that way. My friend the Senora and her brother and sisters adored their mother, who, I might I add, never offered opinions on how they could improve themselves. I once worked with a woman my mother's age who still got choked up whenever she mentioned her late mother even ten years after her death. My sister-in-law and her twin are exceptionally close to their mother, a hippie-cum-guidance counselor. This was just never meant to be for me. My mother has never been the cheerleaderly, soothing type. She never will be.
Vic, my sister, called me as I left the salon after getting a haircut this afternoon. We were concerned about filing our income taxes, wondering how the extra money we inherited from our dad's passing would affect us financially. Tom-- far less heartbroken today-- recommended that however we file the proceeds from the sale of the house, we do so similarly so as not to irritate the IRS or otherwise draw attention.
Unfortunately, Vic can't seem to stop irritating my mother. The woman drives me crazy, too, but I decided last year that I'm done letting family, mine or Trip's, make me upset. I also reminded Vic that we already lost one parent with unresolved issues and, more importantly, feeling regret over how we had misunderstood him. I'm going to try to just have more patience with my mother, viewing her as a toddler who doesn't know any better yet. So far so good. When I was a toddler, though, one learned by getting a smack across the ass.
Earlier this afternoon, Tom thanked me for all my help... with his cell phone an' that. (Yes, I did help him figure out his cell phone with enthusiastic and unrequested input from a couple of study hall chaps who insisted that Tom needed a QWERTY keyboard for his texting pleasure. ) I don't know how much help I was with "that." I wanted to avoid all "that," especially when I checked in on Tom early Monday morning. He said he had been up at camp drinking whiskey, and he hardly ever drank. Great idea. He was a man who liked being married, who needed to be wanted. This whole thing reminded him of his high school girlfriend who dumped him after four years when he was in a car accident and lost his scholarship to play football. Then, of course, was his wife. Now Amelia. He was so upset Saturday that he drove to her house, but she wasn't home.
This gave me pause, it did. Tom's camp is probably at least half an hour away through mountains and over windy roads. Probably even further away than that. It seemed a little creepy to me, a little dangerous. I told Amelia. She knows, and Principal Stan knows, so it's out of my court. Tom knows it was dumb, and he asked me if I thought Amelia would be open to talking to him. He's not mad at anyone, just himself.
I'm starting to see why. Last night I was on the treadmill, and Amelia called me, wondering what I thought. She was a little pissed at having to worry about Tom. Her daughter, a new mom, wanted her to be nice. Her son said philosophically, "You snooze, you lose." Amelia had asked Tom to escort her to her son's wedding, and he hemmed and hawed and then had a family thing. He never once asked her how the wedding went.
He didn't want to try anything, he explained yesterday morning, before he could give it his all. Does this mean he's been waiting for his mother to die? She's pretty healthy. I wonder if she offers opinions. I just bet she does.
Right now I'm washing clothes from the recently completed school play. I volunteered to help with costumes for the play, a comedy based on the premise that Aesop expected all the fables to be rolled into one. This involved simply going to thrift stores and ordering shit online, and now washing everything. I meant for the kids to leave only the clothes that came from the school, but somehow I have stray socks, dress shirts, and t-shirts from last year's play. Most of the time you can't get them to listen, but this time-- they hyper-listen.
That's the other thing that's sure-- middle schoolers will rarely interpret things as you'd like.
Vic, my sister, called me as I left the salon after getting a haircut this afternoon. We were concerned about filing our income taxes, wondering how the extra money we inherited from our dad's passing would affect us financially. Tom-- far less heartbroken today-- recommended that however we file the proceeds from the sale of the house, we do so similarly so as not to irritate the IRS or otherwise draw attention.
Unfortunately, Vic can't seem to stop irritating my mother. The woman drives me crazy, too, but I decided last year that I'm done letting family, mine or Trip's, make me upset. I also reminded Vic that we already lost one parent with unresolved issues and, more importantly, feeling regret over how we had misunderstood him. I'm going to try to just have more patience with my mother, viewing her as a toddler who doesn't know any better yet. So far so good. When I was a toddler, though, one learned by getting a smack across the ass.
Earlier this afternoon, Tom thanked me for all my help... with his cell phone an' that. (Yes, I did help him figure out his cell phone with enthusiastic and unrequested input from a couple of study hall chaps who insisted that Tom needed a QWERTY keyboard for his texting pleasure. ) I don't know how much help I was with "that." I wanted to avoid all "that," especially when I checked in on Tom early Monday morning. He said he had been up at camp drinking whiskey, and he hardly ever drank. Great idea. He was a man who liked being married, who needed to be wanted. This whole thing reminded him of his high school girlfriend who dumped him after four years when he was in a car accident and lost his scholarship to play football. Then, of course, was his wife. Now Amelia. He was so upset Saturday that he drove to her house, but she wasn't home.
This gave me pause, it did. Tom's camp is probably at least half an hour away through mountains and over windy roads. Probably even further away than that. It seemed a little creepy to me, a little dangerous. I told Amelia. She knows, and Principal Stan knows, so it's out of my court. Tom knows it was dumb, and he asked me if I thought Amelia would be open to talking to him. He's not mad at anyone, just himself.
I'm starting to see why. Last night I was on the treadmill, and Amelia called me, wondering what I thought. She was a little pissed at having to worry about Tom. Her daughter, a new mom, wanted her to be nice. Her son said philosophically, "You snooze, you lose." Amelia had asked Tom to escort her to her son's wedding, and he hemmed and hawed and then had a family thing. He never once asked her how the wedding went.
He didn't want to try anything, he explained yesterday morning, before he could give it his all. Does this mean he's been waiting for his mother to die? She's pretty healthy. I wonder if she offers opinions. I just bet she does.
Right now I'm washing clothes from the recently completed school play. I volunteered to help with costumes for the play, a comedy based on the premise that Aesop expected all the fables to be rolled into one. This involved simply going to thrift stores and ordering shit online, and now washing everything. I meant for the kids to leave only the clothes that came from the school, but somehow I have stray socks, dress shirts, and t-shirts from last year's play. Most of the time you can't get them to listen, but this time-- they hyper-listen.
That's the other thing that's sure-- middle schoolers will rarely interpret things as you'd like.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Gun School and Despair
I really don't have time to be writing this. I really should be doing the following: making seven-minute frosting for Trip's mom's birthday cake; laundry; gathering up tax stuff; preparing goat-cheese veggie lasagna; showering, perhaps?; and calling Tom Creighton, the 50ish algebra teacher on my team at school.
I need to call him because yesterday he called me. Three times. I was at an NRA sponsored Women on Target program taught by my first Sipesville friend, Duck. I sat with 29 women of all ages and backgrounds, all of whom were interested in knowing how to handle a gun-- not because we are afraid that Obama is personally coming for our firearms, although the people at the pistol club where it was held believe that. We were there out of curiosity, safety, and a desire to check off an item on our bucket lists. We were a supportive, interested bunch. We cheered for each other when we plinked off balloons. We talked about yoga-- three of us were there from my yoga class. We took notes. We smiled for a picture, holding our targets and a big banner that read "Shoot Like a Girl."
Meanwhile, Tom was calling my house, and no one was there to answer. He left sad messages, then more messages apologizing for the previous messages. He was on his way to camp, and he probably wouldn't have cell service, but he was just having a really, really bad weekend. He was sorry. I was hoping he didn't have a gun with him.
He had had a bad Friday, too. He wandered into my study hall during his planning period, looked sorrowfully at me, glumly, then mumbled that this just wasn't the time. He was sorry, then went back to his classroom across the hall. Of course I followed.
I've worked with Tom for 16 years, half of those in a classroom right across the hall from his. He cares deeply about kids learning math. He comes in early so they can get help before school. He's dedicated to his community (he lives over 40 miles away and drives over a mountain every day to get to work, a mountain that becomes extremely treacherous in snow, fog, or rain), church, and family. Until his uncle, a contractor, died a few years ago, he worked alongside him, almost full time on top of teaching. He has a tax business. He's a martyr.
When I came into his class, Tom sat at his desk, head in hands. I sat down and asked him how things were. Tentatively, he spoke a word or two, then stopped. I waited.
Tom is disappointed in his life, to say the least. His wife had affairs, but he didn't want to put out his kids, so he did the right thing and let her stay in the house. It's rumored that he lived upstairs, she downstairs, but I don't know if that's true. Fast forward 15 years or so, and he found out that due to some oversight by a lawyer, he wasn't really divorced. He hit the lawyer, who filed charges, which the judge threw out. (The best part of all is that his ex-wife knew they weren't really divorced and didn't say anything.) This same ex-wife threatened to kill another math teacher in my building, Amelia Liddle, when she accompanied Tom to a family wedding.
Amelia is the reason Tom is so despondent. She's been dating a very nice man for a few months now, and Tom discovered this. He'd had always hoped something would develop with Amelia, but, as he said, he never let it. Wouldn't make the move. Wouldn't move away from his ex-wife and family (who seem to refuse to acknowledge this divorce-- when Tom's dad died, Tom and she were listed in the obituary as Mr. and Mrs. Tom Creighton, supposedly because that's the way his dad wanted it.) He bemoaned his inability to break away from his family, his inability to say no to any project the church wanted done for free, his inability to insist that his brothers step up to the plate and help take care of their parents. On top of this, there is a tumor growing on Tom's optic nerve, and this tumor may ultimately take his sight. He gets treatments, but they leave him sick for days. He chose not to have surgery because of a 50% chance of losing his sight, and his doctor has said to avoid stress. This simply is not possible for Tom, the poster boy of stress and bad luck and bad decisions.
I empathized. It's hard to take a risk with an old friend, especially one you work with. It's hard to make people do what they should do, especially when you fear things that need to be done won't get done. When he said his daughter was worried about him and tried constantly to make him go out and do things, a red flag went up for me.
He reminds me of my dad, a more educated version of my dad, a more docile dad. I shared how different I feel my dad's life would have been if he had talked to someone, something he actually admitted to me during the last year of his life. I shared how Vic and I worried about him lots, how stress and unresolved sadness ate him from the inside out. "It's okay to ask to help, to see a counselor," I encouraged. Unfortunately, it was time for the next class.
Please don't think I'm coldhearted, sitting here typing while a friend may be holed up in a camp in the Pennsylvania Wilds. I called Principal Stan last night at 10 o'clock when I got the messages. He and I both agree that Tom wouldn't hurt his daughter by doing anything to himself. I told Stan that I think Tom may need the Employee Assistance Program, that I'm extremely worried. I've called him twice, but had to text because his voicemail box was full. I'll keep trying.
If I'm being honest, though, I have to admit that last night I threw back my head and wondered aloud to Tripper if I would always have depressed middle-aged father figures in my life. Wasn't that supposed to die with my own poor father? The Senora's purpose in life, it seems, is to attract rich older men who want her to take care of them. (I think she should take one of them up on it, myself.) My lot in life is to worry that non-rich older men are going to blow their heads off.
I need to call him because yesterday he called me. Three times. I was at an NRA sponsored Women on Target program taught by my first Sipesville friend, Duck. I sat with 29 women of all ages and backgrounds, all of whom were interested in knowing how to handle a gun-- not because we are afraid that Obama is personally coming for our firearms, although the people at the pistol club where it was held believe that. We were there out of curiosity, safety, and a desire to check off an item on our bucket lists. We were a supportive, interested bunch. We cheered for each other when we plinked off balloons. We talked about yoga-- three of us were there from my yoga class. We took notes. We smiled for a picture, holding our targets and a big banner that read "Shoot Like a Girl."
Meanwhile, Tom was calling my house, and no one was there to answer. He left sad messages, then more messages apologizing for the previous messages. He was on his way to camp, and he probably wouldn't have cell service, but he was just having a really, really bad weekend. He was sorry. I was hoping he didn't have a gun with him.
He had had a bad Friday, too. He wandered into my study hall during his planning period, looked sorrowfully at me, glumly, then mumbled that this just wasn't the time. He was sorry, then went back to his classroom across the hall. Of course I followed.
I've worked with Tom for 16 years, half of those in a classroom right across the hall from his. He cares deeply about kids learning math. He comes in early so they can get help before school. He's dedicated to his community (he lives over 40 miles away and drives over a mountain every day to get to work, a mountain that becomes extremely treacherous in snow, fog, or rain), church, and family. Until his uncle, a contractor, died a few years ago, he worked alongside him, almost full time on top of teaching. He has a tax business. He's a martyr.
When I came into his class, Tom sat at his desk, head in hands. I sat down and asked him how things were. Tentatively, he spoke a word or two, then stopped. I waited.
Tom is disappointed in his life, to say the least. His wife had affairs, but he didn't want to put out his kids, so he did the right thing and let her stay in the house. It's rumored that he lived upstairs, she downstairs, but I don't know if that's true. Fast forward 15 years or so, and he found out that due to some oversight by a lawyer, he wasn't really divorced. He hit the lawyer, who filed charges, which the judge threw out. (The best part of all is that his ex-wife knew they weren't really divorced and didn't say anything.) This same ex-wife threatened to kill another math teacher in my building, Amelia Liddle, when she accompanied Tom to a family wedding.
Amelia is the reason Tom is so despondent. She's been dating a very nice man for a few months now, and Tom discovered this. He'd had always hoped something would develop with Amelia, but, as he said, he never let it. Wouldn't make the move. Wouldn't move away from his ex-wife and family (who seem to refuse to acknowledge this divorce-- when Tom's dad died, Tom and she were listed in the obituary as Mr. and Mrs. Tom Creighton, supposedly because that's the way his dad wanted it.) He bemoaned his inability to break away from his family, his inability to say no to any project the church wanted done for free, his inability to insist that his brothers step up to the plate and help take care of their parents. On top of this, there is a tumor growing on Tom's optic nerve, and this tumor may ultimately take his sight. He gets treatments, but they leave him sick for days. He chose not to have surgery because of a 50% chance of losing his sight, and his doctor has said to avoid stress. This simply is not possible for Tom, the poster boy of stress and bad luck and bad decisions.
I empathized. It's hard to take a risk with an old friend, especially one you work with. It's hard to make people do what they should do, especially when you fear things that need to be done won't get done. When he said his daughter was worried about him and tried constantly to make him go out and do things, a red flag went up for me.
He reminds me of my dad, a more educated version of my dad, a more docile dad. I shared how different I feel my dad's life would have been if he had talked to someone, something he actually admitted to me during the last year of his life. I shared how Vic and I worried about him lots, how stress and unresolved sadness ate him from the inside out. "It's okay to ask to help, to see a counselor," I encouraged. Unfortunately, it was time for the next class.
Please don't think I'm coldhearted, sitting here typing while a friend may be holed up in a camp in the Pennsylvania Wilds. I called Principal Stan last night at 10 o'clock when I got the messages. He and I both agree that Tom wouldn't hurt his daughter by doing anything to himself. I told Stan that I think Tom may need the Employee Assistance Program, that I'm extremely worried. I've called him twice, but had to text because his voicemail box was full. I'll keep trying.
If I'm being honest, though, I have to admit that last night I threw back my head and wondered aloud to Tripper if I would always have depressed middle-aged father figures in my life. Wasn't that supposed to die with my own poor father? The Senora's purpose in life, it seems, is to attract rich older men who want her to take care of them. (I think she should take one of them up on it, myself.) My lot in life is to worry that non-rich older men are going to blow their heads off.
Monday, March 09, 2009
God Help Us
As I age, I am recognizing my hot spots-- not hot flashes, yet-- but those people, places, things, and ideas that I am prejudiced against... the things that make me mad. You might call them hot buttons, I guess. I know, for example, that I've been prejudiced against homeschoolers, Bobbi McCaughey, and the Duggars. (I've rescinded my disdain for the Duggars. I wanted to hate them, but I just couldn't when I actually watched the show. They are sincere, non-judgmental. They would accept me with open arms.) I've been a food snob, a drinking snob. I've really been a condescending bitch in my life. I know this.
One of my hot buttons is evangelical Christianity. This button was installed for me, like for so many people, by my family. In my church, being a fundamentalist Christian meant being one of the only people in the world who actually got religion right. It meant being smug. It meant lacking compassion. It meant that dancing was sinful, but clogging was all right. It meant that people with schizophrenia had demon possession. It meant burning books, t-shirts, and cassette tapes. It meant WIVES SHOULD SUBMIT TO YOUR HUSBANDS! It meant wanting sinful uneducated people who fornicated and had babies out of wedlock to find Jesus, but to visit him somewhere else, especially if they were poor and black. It also meant converting the rest of the heathen world.
My aunt has been converting heathen Catholics in metropolitan South America for over 25 years. She does not seem to know that her son's Facebook page features a hookah. She does not seem to know that he liked reading The Anarchist's Cookbook and hurling fiery packages out of upstairs windows. If she does know this, it hasn't put a damper on her confidence that she knows what's right for the rest of humanity. I love my aunt. She was so great to me as a kid, and still loves me madly. I'm very lucky. When she invited me to join Facebook, I did so with the intention of maintaining the page primarily as a way to keep in touch with people, especially family (something I've been pretty bad at), without much emphasis on politics, religion, etc. I know that I'm prejudiced against what my aunt does for a living, but she's never expounded on anything to me-- at least not in the past twenty years. Once, when I was visiting her in Manhattan, she did consider having me go harass two gay men holding hands since they probably wouldn't bother a little girl.
There is a student in my class whose parents are also missionaries. I don't get what church they represent, if they do mostly social programs or religious projects, what their schedule is. I get that they're nice people. I get that their daughter, a lovely, smart, athletic, well-spoken girl anyone would be proud to call a daughter, doesn't want to go. She wants to play on the volleyball team. She wants to go to school dances. She wants to go to the mall. I think she should be allowed to do this.
Recently we discovered another reason she doesn't want to go to the mission field. A few years ago, she was molested. For awhile she held it together. She got straight A's. She posed for newspaper pictures. She told newspaper reporters how lucky she was to get to go the middle school AND be with her parents on the mission road, the best of both worlds. She was a good Christian girl. This year, however, she came to school late most days. Stopped doing homework. Became withdrawn. Turns out that lately she's become promiscuous, too. She went to my principal and guidance counselor, unable to keep up appearances any longer. "My parents think I'm up here," she said, holding her hand, palm down, about a foot over her head. "I'm really down here," she added, bringing that same hand down towards the floor. "I want to let them know what's going on."
The parents were called in, and the daughter told them, as she wanted. Her father put his head down on the table and cried, told her it was all right, he was there, her mom was there. They loved her, they always would. They'd work through anything. I asked Stan if the family was going to hold off going to the mission field in light of their daughter's issues. "Of course not, Chrissy,"Stan told me. "These people think it's god's will or something. I've never seen anything like it."
I have. I can hear their discussion. This is Satan's way of trying to keep God's work from getting done. We have to forge on, let Jesus take care of it. If she just lets Jesus into her heart again, all her problems will disappear. This is an opportunity to minister to others. The real problem is public schools. If we had only sent her to Christian schools, it wouldn't have snowballed. This is just a test.
Yes, I feel it is a test. It's a test of how serious they are as parents, not how serious they are as Christians or as part-time missionaries. I realize that unfortunately lots of people in lots of places and vocations brush over their children's problems, paralyzed with fear and heartbreak and guilt. Most of those people, though, aren't trying to dictate what the rest of the world does, who can use birth control, who must have a baby, who can get married, who is going to hell.
One of my hot buttons is evangelical Christianity. This button was installed for me, like for so many people, by my family. In my church, being a fundamentalist Christian meant being one of the only people in the world who actually got religion right. It meant being smug. It meant lacking compassion. It meant that dancing was sinful, but clogging was all right. It meant that people with schizophrenia had demon possession. It meant burning books, t-shirts, and cassette tapes. It meant WIVES SHOULD SUBMIT TO YOUR HUSBANDS! It meant wanting sinful uneducated people who fornicated and had babies out of wedlock to find Jesus, but to visit him somewhere else, especially if they were poor and black. It also meant converting the rest of the heathen world.
My aunt has been converting heathen Catholics in metropolitan South America for over 25 years. She does not seem to know that her son's Facebook page features a hookah. She does not seem to know that he liked reading The Anarchist's Cookbook and hurling fiery packages out of upstairs windows. If she does know this, it hasn't put a damper on her confidence that she knows what's right for the rest of humanity. I love my aunt. She was so great to me as a kid, and still loves me madly. I'm very lucky. When she invited me to join Facebook, I did so with the intention of maintaining the page primarily as a way to keep in touch with people, especially family (something I've been pretty bad at), without much emphasis on politics, religion, etc. I know that I'm prejudiced against what my aunt does for a living, but she's never expounded on anything to me-- at least not in the past twenty years. Once, when I was visiting her in Manhattan, she did consider having me go harass two gay men holding hands since they probably wouldn't bother a little girl.
There is a student in my class whose parents are also missionaries. I don't get what church they represent, if they do mostly social programs or religious projects, what their schedule is. I get that they're nice people. I get that their daughter, a lovely, smart, athletic, well-spoken girl anyone would be proud to call a daughter, doesn't want to go. She wants to play on the volleyball team. She wants to go to school dances. She wants to go to the mall. I think she should be allowed to do this.
Recently we discovered another reason she doesn't want to go to the mission field. A few years ago, she was molested. For awhile she held it together. She got straight A's. She posed for newspaper pictures. She told newspaper reporters how lucky she was to get to go the middle school AND be with her parents on the mission road, the best of both worlds. She was a good Christian girl. This year, however, she came to school late most days. Stopped doing homework. Became withdrawn. Turns out that lately she's become promiscuous, too. She went to my principal and guidance counselor, unable to keep up appearances any longer. "My parents think I'm up here," she said, holding her hand, palm down, about a foot over her head. "I'm really down here," she added, bringing that same hand down towards the floor. "I want to let them know what's going on."
The parents were called in, and the daughter told them, as she wanted. Her father put his head down on the table and cried, told her it was all right, he was there, her mom was there. They loved her, they always would. They'd work through anything. I asked Stan if the family was going to hold off going to the mission field in light of their daughter's issues. "Of course not, Chrissy,"Stan told me. "These people think it's god's will or something. I've never seen anything like it."
I have. I can hear their discussion. This is Satan's way of trying to keep God's work from getting done. We have to forge on, let Jesus take care of it. If she just lets Jesus into her heart again, all her problems will disappear. This is an opportunity to minister to others. The real problem is public schools. If we had only sent her to Christian schools, it wouldn't have snowballed. This is just a test.
Yes, I feel it is a test. It's a test of how serious they are as parents, not how serious they are as Christians or as part-time missionaries. I realize that unfortunately lots of people in lots of places and vocations brush over their children's problems, paralyzed with fear and heartbreak and guilt. Most of those people, though, aren't trying to dictate what the rest of the world does, who can use birth control, who must have a baby, who can get married, who is going to hell.
