I Am Danny Zuko

Remember the scene at the end of Grease when Danny Zuko shows up at the carnival in a letterman's sweater and the T-birds say to him, "Where did you swipe the letterman's sweater?" and Danny replies, "While you were out stealing hubcaps, I lettered in track." The T-birds are stunned and Danny is proud and then everything works out really well for Danny because Sandy shows up wearing skintight pants and a leather jacket and smoking a cigarette and then dances with Danny in the Sugar Shack. I want to be Danny Zuko. I know you're thinking that I just want to be the one to peel the leather off Sandy and, while I did want to do that very thing when I first saw that scene in my youth, I'm not talking about that right now. No, I want to show up at work someday in my letterman's sweater and say, "While you were all mired in bureacracy, I wrote two books." And then dance sing and dance and take off in my flying car.

Working full-time and parenting full-time and writing full-time is a lot of full-time. It turns out that it's hard to write a book, especially when you are more like the T-Birds than you'd like to admit. The past several months of the Loft Foreword program have been confusing and humbling and, to be honest, I'm a little lost. The more I write the more I seem to lose my place. I know that part of this is that I haven't been blogging as much and blogging is what helped me develop my narrative voice in the first place. I want to blog but I'm busy stealing hubcaps and running track.

So, what am I to do? What do you do center yourself? How do you find your way when you're lost? I have to figure this out or I'm going to show up at the carnival as Putzie rather than Danny and I can't live with that because you know I want to be a stud.

Caffeine and Common Sense: A Modern Day Story Problem

If train A leaves station X at 5:30 p.m. and is traveling east at 27 miles per hour and train B leaves station Y at 7:10 p.m. traveling west at 19 miles per hour and the engineer of train A is wearing brown shoes while the engineer of train B is wearing black shoes but a brown belt. At what time do engineer A and engineer B meet to talk about their footwear and accessories? I always hated story problems. I could never wrap my mind around them and would often end up weeping in frustration. When I wasn't weeping, I was stomping around the house bemoaning the fact that I was going to fail algebra which would keep me from graduating from high school which would keep me from graduating from college which would guarantee that I would end up working in the food court at the mall for the rest of my life. So much hung in the balance with those freakin' trains!

A series of events transpired last night and, as I was trying to think about ways to tell you about them, I realized that the best way to convey what happened would be through a story problem. So, let's explore this modern day story problem:

Person A is tired. Person B is tired as well. Person A has 6 things to do in 5 days and person B has 9 things to do in 5 days. Person A has X amount of energy and person B has 1/4 of that amount. Person A then goes to do one of the things on her list and, while doing that, buys person B a grande latte. When person A returns, she gives person B the latte and person B sets the latte on the front radiator. Approximately 1 hours passes before person B remembers the latte. Person B then drinks the latte at 5:30 p.m. and eats 4 chocolate chip cookies. At approximately 11 p.m., person A and person B go to bed. Person A pulls up the covers, says goodnight and rolls over. Person B does not feel tired. Person A is facing east. Person B faces east as well and pokes person A 11 times. Person A finds this mildly amusing for approximately 3 minutes. Person A then tells person B to stop. Person B stops but then begins jumping up and down on the bed at a rate of 4 jumps per second while laughing maniacally.

Now, here are the questions relevant to this problem:

1. How many minutes does it take for person A mood to turn sour?

2. How long does person B jump on the bed before incurring the wrath of person A?

3. How many times does person A have to tell person B to stop before person B recognizes that she can't?

4. After person B leaves the bedroom, how long does she sit on the couch watching You Tube videos?

5. What times does person B finally fall asleep?

6. Are person A and person B still in a committed and loving relationship?

Good luck and make sure to show your work!

Reunited and It Feels So Good

So...Luisa came back yesterday - despite her better judgement. She took a cab from the airport right to the martial arts studio where the kids were having class. I smiled at her and then she sat by me and then I patted her back (because we are super sexy about PDA) and then she told me she was tired. At least she didn't say she had a headache. Traveling for work wears her out which is so weird because her traveling wears me out too. It's so nice that, after all these years, we still have things in common. We sat there chatting with some other parents and I asked her if she wanted to go get some coffee. She said that she didn't. I told her that she was cute and then explained that I meant get me some coffee. Strangely, she did not want to go get me coffee. This caught me by surprise. After we had gone home and put the kids to bed, I gave her a big hug and then asked her to check my hair for lice. She did not want to check my hair for lice. I explained that my head was itchy and I was pretty sure I had lice and she said that my scalp was probably just dry from a recent sunburn and I insisted that I had lice and that I could feel them doing little licey circus tricks in my hair. She sighed heavily and then told me to sit at her feet so she could see my scalp better. She then checked my hair and declared me lice free and then I told her that her efforts seemed half-hearted and that I was not sure that I trusted her assessment and insisted that she check again and then one more time for good measure. This is what a reunion looks like in our house - one monkey comes home and then picks at the scalp of the crazy monkey until the crazy monkey is satisfied.

Then, we went to bed and that's when things really got exciting because I threw caution to the effin' wind and took the down comforter off the bed. I know, right? W.I.L.D. Luisa fell asleep instantly and I resisted the urge to wake her up and ask her to check my back for irregular moles. I'm kidding - I wouldn't ask her that. Usually when I wake her up, it goes something like this:

Me: I think [insert child's name] has [insert obscure disease transmitted by an animal that is not native to this state].

or

Me: Are you mad at me? I think you might be mad at me because I keep waking you while you're trying to sleep.

But last night, I said nothing. Sure, I still woke her up but I didn't do it with words. I kissed the back of her neck and then sighed loudly and then flopped around in the bed until she woke up. Totally different.

Today - we're both tired. We just get each other, you know?