I’ve been trying to post GMBOA Day 4 since last night, and it’s not working. I’m in a hotel with wifi that keeps going out, so it’s taking me forever to respond to yesterday’s comments (and then re-respond because it loses my responses). I want to respond to comments before I announce yesterday’s winner and post a new question, so here’s what I’m going to do.

I’ll post Day 4 this evening and leave it up through Friday. I’ll post the last day, Day 5, this weekend and leave it up at least through the weekend, maybe through Monday, depending on the comments it gets. The GMBOA winner will be announced Monday or Tuesday, October 18th or 19th (again, depending on the comments that come in this weekend).

For your patience, anyone who leaves a comment today telling me about their most frustrating hotel or technology experience will earn one free entry! Woot!

I’m here to post the first Golden Minion Box of Awesomeness contest post*, but I’m having a difficult time getting past something I just read. Something I so disagree with, it’s making the top of my head feel fuzzy (happens when I get really, really, REALLY upset). And it’s not that I just disagree with it; it’s that I think it’s DAMAGING. Ugh. I can usually ignore things like this; I don’t enjoy getting this angry.

It reminds me, to a much reduced extent, of a conversation my mom told me about this weekend, a conversation she had recently with a co-worker, a mother of four:

Mom: “So, what are the kids doing for Halloween?”
Co-Worker: “We don’t celebrate Halloween… We go to CHURCH.”

I don’t think this was really a distinction when I was little. Like, SOME people celebrate Halloween, and OTHER people go to church. As if the people who celebrate Halloween do NOT go to church and/or worship Satan. A Venn diagram with no areas of overlap.

I just don’t understand this. It’s not like Halloween is a religious (or anti-religious) holiday. It’s not even like it’s a real holiday. I can understand not wanting to get involved in the inherent consumerism/materialism/candyism. But that’s not about God. Is it? I mean, unless we’re talking false idols or something. But then I’d make the argument that there are way more pervasive idols that don’t inspire this same level of concern.

I went to a Presbyterian church growing up. And I celebrated Halloween. My church youth group even put on a haunted house as a fundraiser one year. I volunteered a lot of time setting up and working it. It was FUN, and the money went to send kids (us) to a Christian summer camp.

So, what’s the deal? What am I not understanding? Why do some people NOT do Halloween now? And how is that related to God and church? Is it as simplistic as Halloween = sinister? What do you do for Halloween, if anything?

***

This is how the GMBOA will go down.

Each day this week, starting today, I’ll ask some sort of question. You can respond with as many comments as you like. Starting tomorrow, I’ll announce my favorite response from the previous day (and possibly a runner up, depending on my MOOD).

Next Saturday, the 16th, I’ll randomly select a winner for the GMBOA (and possibly a runner up, depending on my MOOD) from my favorites this week.

Remember: Per GMBOA guidelines, this contest is open only to Minions of The Creamery. For instructions on becoming a Minion, check this.

* For more information on the Golden Minion Box of Awesomeness (GMBOA), I would start here or here.

I just noticed that someone I know in not an inconsequential way in real life has unfriended me on Facebook.

Um. What?

I don’t understand this.

But I think I know why.

I think he probably does not agree with me on a lot of seemingly important and divisive topics – politics, religion, etc. – and instead of just “hiding” me like a normal person would do, he just decided, you know, “out of sight, out of mind,” and dumped me altogether.

Because he is Hitler, and I am a Jew.

Seriously. What the hell?

Since when do we have so little in common as HUMAN BEINGS that it becomes untenable to retain even this, the most tenuous of connections? Since when can anyone judge, by something I’ve said or a link I’ve posted, that I’m not worthy of that connection? That he or she can learn nothing from me?

It kinda makes me sick.

Especially because there have been many, MANY times that an acquaintance from high school, for example, has posted a statement or link that shakes my core so completely, something I can’t believe anyone could ever possibly believe or support. But I have never unfriended anyone.

I am a GOOD person. That’s the thing. Whether you agree with my political or religious views or my sense of humor or potty mouth, I find it really really difficult to accept that anyone could disagree with this. But I also know that, depending on whatever religiopolitical philosophy you arm yourself with, you may subscribe to the idea that “different” equals “bad” or “wrong” or even “of Satan,” that your overarching spiritual philosophy may REQUIRE you to view me as flawed, in need of change, or even “evil.”

And that? Is what’s wrong with the world. In a nutshell.

Because I am a GOOD person. Good. I care more about people and fighting injustice and doing good in the world than many of the people I know who would view me this way.

It’s just painful. And it shakes my faith in humanity.

Disclaimer: I wrote this on Thursday, but I’m not posting until now (INSOMNIA) because it’s judgey, and I’m hesitant. Please accept my advance apologies.

Kieran goes to occupational therapy twice a week. I almost never take him because I’m usually at home with the littles. But I’m here today.

Oh, am I ever HERE.

The thing I always notice about this place has nothing to do with the kids, kids who are decidedly “different.”

What I always notice has to do with this. And it’s a secret, so I’m going to say it very quietly.

THE PARENTS ARE OHH EMM EFF GEE NUTS.

There’s this one mom who’s an obvious homeschooler. Not that there’s anything WRONG with that. **I** used to want to homeschool, back before I realized **I DO NOT ENJOY THE COMPANY OF CHILDREN.**

But. There are two types of homeschooling parents. There are the ones who are totally normal and laidback and into unschooling and who homeschool for really great reasons and do really AMAZING things.

And then there are the ones who homeschool because OMGIdon’twantmykidsocializingwithyourgrossslashimmoralheathenchildren.

(I can already tell this is going the way of the divisive post. Sorry about that.)

The ones who would say today something that was said to my own early-20s mom about me when she was living at her parents’ house in the midst of getting divorced from my dad:

“Mediocrity breeds mediocrity.”

(NO SHIT. THIS WAS SAID. ABOUT ME. AT LIKE AGE 4. I KNOW, RIGHT?!)

Anyway, these wackadoodles are disproportionately represented among parents whose children require occupational therapy services, I have to say.

I was just sitting next to one of them. When I walked in, she was sitting with her daughter, probably six, the sister of the one who needs OT (presumably, the “normal” one), with a manila folder. Inside the folder were black and white line drawings, dutifuly colored by the little girl at some other time (we don’t color pictures at OT), of children engaging in various actions.

Mother and daughter sat on the couch for a good 30 minutes, sounding out the action words on top of each drawing, over and over, before the daughter asked to go play (and, incidentally, began using her voice in a way that SHATTERED MY EARDRUMS).

This is a waiting room for kids. There are toys in this room. Fun toys. And kids often bring OTHER toys. To share. But this poor child had WORK to do.

This has nothing to do with homeschooling, either. I’m not saying that it’s BECAUSE of the homeschooling that she had this work to do.

It’s because her mother is such a freaking MOTHER, all the freaking TIME. To the point that she wants to both homeschool her children AND work with them on reading in a setting in which any rational adult would sleep, check Google Reader, COMPOSE A BLOG POST, whatever.

Everything she said to her children was measured and positive and perfect. Everything her children did was measured and positive and obedient.

I just don’t understand it. I don’t understand not wanting to say a single cross word. Or, really, not SAYING the cross word you want to say. Not getting exasperated. Not wanting to read anything – please, ANYTHING – unrelated to action words over children’s line drawings. I don’t understand bringing a manila folder to OT. I don’t understand always looking perfect and always having clean children. I don’t understand children who are persuaded by simple, kind words. Children who always follow the rules. Children who don’t annoy other kids with their insistent judgey judgments of their own rule following.

I’m sure the OT woman is not always perfect, but I DO think she TRIES to be.

I can’t imagine anything more exhausting.

I’m at a conference in Denver. I had dinner, alone (liberation!), at an okay Thai place. Two-for-one drinks, but the food was just meh.

I’ve had a headache since I got here, possibly from the altitude, possibly from anxiety, possibly from the cab driver who not only charged me fare for three passengers (long story… $122.40), but also dropped me off at the WRONG HOTEL.

I remember now that I hate conferences. I remember now that I can’t stand people who think they’re very important. I remember now that there are A LOT of very self-important people at conferences.

The whole idea is stupid. I mean, 10 years ago, when I went to these conferences as a graduate student, people collected papers. You’d go listen to a paper presentation, and then you’d go pick up the paper that went with it. It was almost a game, like collecting baseball cards. But now… who wants a freaking stack of papers?! Email it to me, please, and I *might* read it. It’s just arcane. And at a conference that focuses in part on new technologies…

That said, there are some REALLY smart people here. I live and work with some really smart people, but I don’t ever really engage with them in the way that one does at a conference like this. It’s nice. It makes me want to be better.

I don’t feel like I’ve ever really done anything well or deeply. I have such broad interests – I realize when I come to a conference like this – that I don’t ever become expert at anything. It’s taken me a long time to be okay with that. I’m almost 34 years old, and I’m finally okay with myself.

I know this is scattered… I had two beers, people. What do you want from me?

Just kidding. On that last post.

Still drunk. Ignore me. I’m stupid.

There are things that are so beautiful in the world, but the world is still flat, and I’m still a misfit.

*****

And this probably makes it worse.

*****

Whatever. I’m probably sobering up.

Gwen Bell asks “Album of the year: What’s rocking your world?”

I might answer her later. Right now, she annoys me.

Not a good day today. I’m completely stuck in my head, analyzing everything I’m thinking, saying, doing. No idea if I’m overanalyzing or just analyzing. Either way, it’s painful. And it’s only noon.

I also keep having these weird flashbacks to my dreams last night. Hannibal Lecter was involved, and not as an analogy or metphor. Seriously. WTF.

I’m at Kieran’s OT appointment. There is a crazy lady in here talking to the billing people. Unfortunately, she mentioned she moved here from Vermont, and may have just completely revised my idea of Vermont in one fell swoop.

On the way over, I was listening to the satellite radio “New Wave” station (erroneously named, as it’s really mostly 1980s pop). Kieran was not amused with my yelling “James Brown!” to Tom Tom Club’s “Genius of Love.” But, hey, this song is my singular reason for enjoying Mariah Carey’s “Fantasy” (a song in which she sampled Tom Tom Club fantastically). Suck on that, grump.

(And just so I don’t sound like a douchebag, I admit that I had to look all this stuff up. I am not a musical prodigy, as much as I would like to be. P.S. I also learned that Tom Tom Club has a website. They still tour and stuff. And amazingly, it does not appear that they do so on Rascal scooters.)

WTF. This woman just walked in with her daughter, and I want to smack her in the face. Seriously. The kid is like 10 years old, and she’s talking to her like she’s 2. “Are your footsies hot? … Ooooh, I haven’t had a good hug today! … Is Baby Doll staying here or going back with you? … I might go get a drink while you’re back there, okay?”

Oh. I’m sorry. Have we not met? I’m Kieran’s mom, ShutTheFuckUp.

I just wrote an entire goddamn blog on my Blackberry, and then lost it. This says something about the kind of weekend I’ve had… about which I was trying to say something in the original blog. Bah! Humbug!

I’m flippin’ *tired*, yo.

When I woke up, I thought it was 4:50-something, and not that that wouldn’t have been bad enough, but I actually read the clock wrong, and it was 3:50-something. I was having dreams about one of my students from last year, my very favorite student ever. I even woke up, went back to sleep, and had more dreams about him. I hope he’s okay. He’s one I worry will either (a) be shot while buying or selling some kind of illegal substance or (b) shoot *himself* when he’s not feeling the effects of some kind of illegal substance.

I can’t sleep now anyway. I’ve always had insomnia problems, but they’re intensified right now, probably because my fetus weighs 38 pounds.

But really, more like 2 1/2. And he should be around 16 inches long. That’s freakin’ huge. If he were born now, he would live. That’s just insane. I guess I’m going to have three kids soon. We should get a carseat.

This week is Spring Break. But not really. We’re trying to completely renovate our backyard. When we bought our house two years ago, the backyard was a disaster, and with our two equine dogs, it’s only gone downhill from there. Brad tore down the fence Monday, and we fertilized and rototilled yesterday. We’re going to try to semi-level it today and then put up a new fence and either do grass seed or sod. Okay. I’m even boring myself…

The point is that I’m tired and overworked and anxious, and the kids are cranky because of the time change and because they never spend this much time together… and we’re not doing anything fun, so they basically fight all day long… all of which makes me want to scratch my eyes out. I have no patience these days either. Clearly.

An hour or so ago, someone backed a truck up to our backyard and got out. I’m fairly certain he was scoping to see what we have out on our porch to steal (my Converse, Brad’s rubber Hawaiian sandals, a trowel, some needle-nose pliers, a wrench, three water hoses, a shovel, a metal bowl for the dogs’ water, and one of those push fertilizer/seeder things). And this is only the second night we haven’t had a fence. I can’t wait until we can get out of this house.

But really, at the same time, I don’t know how that will ever happen with the amount of debt we have, especially in student loans. We were only ever able to get this house as part of a weird government program (Teacher Next Door through HUD). And really, that kicked ass… I love our house. If we could move it with us, I would. The house itself is great. But we’ve got to get out of the Grove.

I’m happy we haven’t had a home invasion (or at least burglary), but here are some of the things that have actually happened in the two years we’ve lived here… (1) The sound of gunfire. I actually don’t hear gunfire as much any more, but it still happens occasionally. (2) *Actual* gunfire being exchaged in between our house and the house next door. This happened one night when we were asleep in our bedroom next to the giant window by which this was happening. Someone apparently was trying to steal our next-door neighbor’s car, and I guess he came out with a gun and ran after them. (3) A brick through our bedroom window. Same big window. This happened while we were at work. The brick, along with a lot of glass, landed right in the middle of our bed on a pillow. This was probably done by a kid… The walkway in between our house and the house next door is a thoroughfare, especially for kids walking to and from school. (4) Someone trying to open our bedroom window while we were sleeping. This was freaking creepy as hell. I was having problems sleeping, as usual, and I looked over and saw a man trying to open our window. Scared the shit out of me. The weird thing was that the whole thing was SO deathly quiet… Both our dogs were sleeping next to the window and didn’t even hear it. They’re *very* protective and would easily have scared him off, but neither of them woke up. I was trying to figure out what to do, when luckily, Brad came out of the bathroom. When he walked out with the light on, the guy ran off. But I swear, I NEVER heard a sound, even when he ran away. It was so creepy. (5) Someone trying to shoot our dogs. Our next-door neighbor told us about this. Someone drove a truck up to our 6-foot fence and hung over the fence, shooting at our dogs. (6) Being egged. This has actually happened twice, but one of those times, we were in our van. The other time was just the other night. I was reading to the kids in our bedroom before bed, and I heard this huge SMACK! against the window. Scared the shit out of me (again).

All these things have happened with an alarm system, a giant motion-detecting floodlight next to our garage, and two giant (and seemingly ferocious) dogs.

And sometimes we don’t get mail… Brad and I have dubbed it “No Mail in the Ghetto Day.” I mean, really, even the mailman has to take the day off. You can’t drive one of them backwards-ass trucks with a hangover, fool. Shiiiiit.