reasons we might hate your kids.

Jenny and I were searching through some old emails this week, mostly laughing about how clever the Highland girls + AV can be, and it took awhile--but we found the megalist of baby names that we hate.

Names say a lot about a person. For example, for obvious reasons, I will never like anyone named Reed, and because of my high school arch nemesis, if you're named Alison, you are going to start your day out on my shit list and then have to move yourself over to the "tolerable" list.

Sorry if I offend anyone with this list. Mostly, it's just a matter of opinion. All of us didn't even agree. It's just like the Kool-Aid fight. Jenny thinks grape tastes good, and I think grape tastes like old horse piss. She hates tropical punch, while I think it was taken from the rivers in heaven.

Here are some snippets:

Why I'm writing back already, though, is to talk to you two about names. This school has a very diverse population--less than 50% white. While I've been wanting to email the two of you--especially you, P, with your always-keen stubborn conclusions on names--is a list of these names.

But I haven't been keeping a list other than in my head, because I'm certain someone would find it, and then I'd have to make up some lie like I was pregnant and keeping a list of names that I liked and could name my new baby. If I had been keeping a list, and if I put new names on it, the new suggestions for my baby's name would include:
1) Shirlicia (sure-li-sha) and
2) Phylisa (fill-i-sa or fill-ee-sa)
3) Pearstina.

These are tame compared to some. Is it just me, or is it hard to trust someone named Phylisa who has a PhD? if you were taking a business class from Phylisa, wouldn't you think, yeah, but your name is Phylisa.

Also, since P mentioned her student Chelsea yesterday, I've been thinking how much I hate the name Chelsea. Don't Chelsea's always just seem like 13-year-ols girls who are inevitably going to have a lisp and remain 13 forever? (Chel-thee).

I also think the name Crystal ranks at the top of my list for trashy names. Maybe because I went to elementary school with a girl named Crystal who had a greasy mullet; maybe because there is a city in MN called Crystal that is near-ghetto and dirty and has a gross airport. But who has a baby and thinks: let's name her Crystal. Like after the type of stemware?

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I think it's because there are so many BAD girls' names. Boys' names aren't really BAD, per se, they're usually just really dull. There are a lot of bland boys' names out there.

I used to like the name Lucy, but then I met a Lucy. Here's snapshot:

35;
lives at home with her parents;
weighs upwards of 200 pounds and is not much taller than me;
carries around a small, irritating dog named Bibble who wears sweaters and dresses up for every holiday;
is obsessed with Pooh, the Lion King, and anything Disney;
still wears tight, revealing clothing despite her body size.

I hate it when people kill names.

I actually like Lily as well. I guess back in the day I used to like Tyler as well, but you're right that now it's kind of out of the question. Thank God I never liked the name Reed. Reed. Who names their kid after that stuff that grows in the muck of a swamp?

Blech, Carla. Let's add "Erin" to this list. Now we've officially named all the gross kids of my babysitter from when I was seven, the one that made me take that throw-up medicine because her kids ate those berries in the front yard.

The name "Todd" is ridiculous. As is "Lyle" and "Randy." Mark and I are both fans of the name Dominic for a boy, but I'm afraid it's becoming too popular. That's why my allegiance is primarily to Simon.
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I like Lucy, P.

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It’s no surprise to me that the people we met in workshop happened to have names I hate: Melody, Patricia, Marge.

Sadly, I used to sort of like the name Tyler. That’s been killed and buried. I like Simon, George, Thom (only Thom, not Tom or Thomas). Girls are much harder for me. I can’t come up with a good one to save my life. Maybe it’s because I think preschool boys are cuter?

Brandi
Janine
Jamie
Andrea (or any different emphasis on the various syllables)
Mandy
Becky
Leslie
Tami
Amanda
Jennie
Kay
Marcia
Rhonda
Callee, Caylee, Kayla, or Krista, and especially "Christa"
Kathy
Joanne
Melody

Also: why would you name your son Adam? Have you EVER met a nice guy named Adam? They're all so greasy! All of them!

Right now mine are Simon (boy) and Samantha or Caroline (girl--only I'm sketchy about this one, because I don't want a "Sam" or a "Carol"--actually girl's names are hard in general, there are so many of them). Thank god you emailed me! I was bored enough to be googling "Tahitian Treat." Remember Tahitian Treat?

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Crystal
Brianna, Briana, Bri, Bree
Fallan
Courtney
Monica
Mackenzie
Madison
Kimberly (Kim will do, thank you)
Meredith
Krystyna
Chris, Chrissy, or any variation on Christina
Jessica
Nikki
Misty
Summer
Angela
Lindsey, Lyndsey, Lyndsie
April
Kayla
Valerie

I hate fewer guy’s names.
*

What would you add to the list, eh? Go ahead. Nobody will get mad at you. I'll name some of my cousins and aunts:

Cindy
Becky
Patty
Karen
Jeanette
Nancy
Shelly
Nikki
Carla
Gaylon
Scott
Keith
Stacy

My brother Travis was almost Adam, but my aunt gave birth to her boy a couple of months before my mom did. She named him Adam. I'm glad I don't have a brother named Adam.

Also, hated from last year's most popular names:

Aidan
Bradan
Kadan
Jaden
Elijah
Galvin
Tristan
Chase (honey, let's name our boy after the dog in that Homeward Bound movie!)
Keegan
Sebastian
Hayden
Zander
Micah
Asher
Maddox
Hunter
Gage
Colton
Finn (?)

Cailyn
Caitlyn
Kaylee
Addison
Aleah
Arianna
Kylie
Alanna
Annalise
Sadie
Faith
Riley
Ashlen
Payton
Avery
Autumn
Brooke
Aaralyn
Aurora
Taylor
Alexia

Kind of pessimisstic, I suppose. Let's guess how many of these kids will be in my classes this fall. Actually, these will be my students:

TOP NAMES OF 1992

Michael
Ashley
Christopher
Jessica
Matthew
Amanda
Joshua
Brittany
Andrew
Sarah
Brandon
Samantha
Daniel
Emily
Tyler
Stephanie
James
Elizabeth
David
Megan

Hi, August. Welcome.

A year ago, I was half-packing, starting my second day at Graywolf, sitting in that St. Paul loft-like office in the dog day heat, addressing hundreds of envelopes to famous author's addresses across the country, mostly to East coast cities, exploring new books from the "Hurt Books" shelf, shoving them in my bag before walking the couple of blocks to my car, thinking of writing websites the next day, wishing I could write a poem, thinking of how I'd handle the call at work, the criticism, the time managed with the publishing house versus the job. I was listening to MPR all day, still listening for updates on the bridge collapse. I wasn't thinking of lesson plans or books to read, I wasn't thinking of checking my grades, or financial aid, or painting a room blue and an adjacent room some sort of cream coffee color, I wasn't thinking of finding cats under my porch, or appreciating thunderstorms because there are no sounds in the country, and I wasn't sure where I was going, I wasn't in love with anybody, and I wasn't having such vivid nightmares every night, and I was thinner, and I was just finding out about a Graywolf editing job I was qualified for and wouldn't get because so many people were qualified for it, and I was wondering, if offered, whether I'd take it because it paid only 20K a year.

He keeps his socks on.

I'm at Caribou, in Albertville, sort of waiting for the day to end so I can go to bed and wake up and drive over to the Jenny in Green Bay tomorrow, embark on another summer, another August adventure, which we embrace because soon school is starting. I wasn't going to blog today, but then I read X's post about home, and I'm not thinking of home, persay, but I'm thinking of school and I'm thinking of last year, and I'm thinking of where I am, was, whatever. And now I'm next to two girls at the coffee shop, and they're reminding me of the students I don't have yet. There is drama, drama, drama. Dra-ma.

In almost exactly a month, I'll be listening to girls like these telling stories, I'll be eyeing them as they walk through the hallways in their "booty shorts," with their young-girl asses hanging out of them, which are against school policy, and I'll be an adult authority. I will be the boss. I will be in charge of establishing my rules of authority of gaining the respect someone in my place of authority deserves. I'll be listening to a girl who just got played by her boyfriend, that he cheated on her, and I'll be listening to them in the hallways as they call the new girlfriend to inform her that he keeps his socks on. Tell her he keeps his socks on! She says to her friend, on the phone. She jumps up and almost spills her coffee, jumps in front of her friend as she is such a bitch! on the phone. I'll be wondering how different I feel in my teacher clothes, in my classroom, in my teacher role, I'll be trying to remember how I thought of my high school teachers when I was that age. And already, I'm thinking as I walk around in public--I am not a civilian, I am a teacher. If these girls knew I was a high school teacher, would they act differently right now? Would they say sorry, Miss P, as I gave them disapproving looks from up here on my high heels and my tiny pedastal that they try to knock down everyday? These girls don't stop talking, talking, talking. Imagine homecoming week. Imagine once prom comes. I am an adult, and I am old, and they are just talking, talking, talking.

In a month, I'll be on bus duty, lunch duty, hallway duty. I'll supervise field trips, and say things like your brain is a muscle. We're starting from the beginning in this class, and you need to know that the more you work your brain, the stronger it will become and this class is meant to prepare you and don't be afraid of Shakespeare/poetry/novels/essay tests. My students will worry about AP tests, but only when their cell phones aren't ringing in class and their booty shorts aren't going up their asses and someone in the hallway is talking about them, from behind them. They'll use the words drama and whatever and phrases like bitch, let's step outside, and they will light up cigarettes to their post-school jobs. They will get coffee on the way to school, just because they've discovered coffee as 16 and 18-year-olds, and they will rush out when the bell rings in order to savor as much daylight as possible. They will have after-school sports and won't get their assignments done. They will still be talking about each other. There will still be drama. I will be their teacher. They will be the first thing on my mind, I'll be the last on theirs. I sort of can't wait. I have an impulse to buy little positive stickers and aggressive red pens.

We've got a month before it goes down. Two weeks before then I'm in new-teacher training, learning how to break up student fights, handle threats from otherwise quiet students, manage parent/teacher conferences. Until then, I've got too much time, and then, when I'm there, I'll be wondering where all of the time went.

Mystery cat!

Not to be confused with "Mystery Pants":


(File Photo)

This morning when I woke up, a storm was finally pushing its way into Elgin. The first storm we've had in over a month. I was drowsy, especially a post-nightmare drowsy, and when I came into the kitchen to pour my bowl of cereal, I was pretty sure I'd heard a cat meowing. So much that I thought the cat might even be the in house. I opened the front door, and I said here, kitty! here kitty! and no kitty came. So I closed the door. This happened a couple of more times. I emailed James and said, are you hiding a cat in the basement? And the neighbors are going to start to think I'm crazy, opening the door every 5 minutes and calling for a cat that isn't there.

Four hours later, the storm is gone. The air is sticky again, it's the middle of the day, and I might want to go running, so I open the door to see if the air is too humid. It is, by far, but now the rain has stopped and the mewing is much louder.

I think the mews are coming from underneath the deck, but they're not. Turns out, the lily bush is mewing. I part the jungle of bushes with my hands, and a little head is poking out. A gray head of a tiny baby kitty, and he wants me to be his friend. And so I become his friend.

I got a bowl of milk, I got my camera. He wouldn't drink the milk right away, but I put it on my finger and he'd lick it off and then he eventually upgraded to the bowl, taking sips at a time. He purred like a chainsaw when I held him, and when I wasn't holding him, he mewed like a broken record.

I have no idea how old he is, but I think he's one of the kittens that Farmer Reed's cat, next door (1/2 mile down) had not to long ago. I'd thought all the kittens were dead, by the violence of a Tomcat. And if he does belong to that cat, how he made it down here, I don't know. But he found our big green bush, and he hid there from the rain, and when I'm not outside, he hides there again from whatever else he's afraid of.

He didn't seem too keen on the milk, so I decided to bring him food. I found Shoestring potato chips left over from last weekend's barbeque. (Hey. If they're good enough for Chad, they're good enough for a stray, dirty cat who is missing half his tail and lives in a bush.)

Well, it was either that or marshmallows. And the kitty seemed to like them. For a guy who weighs less than a bag of licorice, he really can't complain.

I just don't know what to do with the kitty-kitty. I left him some shoestring chips outside, which officially will make me responsible for the cat's ridiculous salt intake and high cholesterol, and I've left him some milk, but it's getting very warm very quickly. And I've pet the shit out of him (and also had to touch him to get him to eat not just because he was soft) so I don't know if the mother will take him back. But he seems old enough to fare for his own, yes? I know nothing about cats.

All I know is that when I flipped him over, I saw a tiny circle of what I think is a testicle. So I've named him Johann.

I know this is morbid. I know, you guys.

I drove home, back to Elgin, late last night after a long day with the Good Doctor at Valleyfair. It was a fast drive, but I was sick of my music. I started listening to the sad songs. It was a sad song sort of evening.

And I found, and I've decided on, the three songs I want played at my funeral.

I'm not dying, that I know of. I don't have any sickness, not even a cold or a canker sore, and I'm not thinking of offing myself or anything. (We'll save those feelings for when the school year starts.) But isn't this something that it might be okay to think of? Isn't it okay to think about the songs you want people to hear while they think of how your existance changed their own lives? And I don't have a will. The only things I have of value are---well, I have nothing of value. I have a guitar that needs the neck adjusted, and I have hundreds of books and old scratched vinyl (most of what technically belongs to my father) and enough clothes to clothe a small African nation, if they wear between a size 14 and 16. My TV probably won't work come February, and my parents would probably just throw my bed in the guest room we'll have once Craig finally moves out of the house. I just want to write this down in case something happens. Plus, I would assume that at my funeral you guys would read sections of my blog, for a laugh, or to let my sister know how often she drove me crazy so she can change her life for the better. Maybe she'll become a nurse. Or better yet, a non-smoker.

There are three songs that I command be played at my funeral. I'll let David choose the order.

1) "All Things Must Pass" --George Harrison.
2) "Life Without You" --Stevie Ray Vaughan.
3) "Moonlight Sonata" --Mr. Beethoven.

Sure, "Moonlight Sonata" is also the song I would someday like to have at my wedding, as I walk down the aisle. That's kind of weird, sure. It's also cool to love and die to the same song. To be "very in love" and "very dead" while the same song is playing.

Whatever. You're totally thinking of your own songs right now.

Lil'.

One of my many impossible wishes would be to observe my Mankato group of friends as a bunch of elementary schoolers.

You know. The Muppets had Muppet Babies. Scooby Doo had that stupid spinoff show with the Scooby Doo kids. Tiny Toons, even that Lil' Bush show on Comedy Central.

Why can't that be us? I mean, what would've happened if Lil' Jean met Lil' Christina and Lil' Jenny on a playground in third grade? And then, what if Lil' Chad showed up and we all went to his house to play Nintendo and Barbies? And Lil' Darren stood in the corner and tried to get all of the girls to play his disgusting version of Show & Tell. And Lil' Christina gets mad at Lil' Liz for using her crayons in class because they are all "not sharp" anymore, and Lil' Liz doesn't care and turns the crayons into a science experiment and melts them with electricity or something. And then Lil' Liz explains the physics of it while Lil' Christina starts crying, but Lil' Ben comes over and consoles her. And he's always walking around with that basketball tucked under his arm because he's so cool. And Lil' Truman pees on the floor.

Lil' Kristin won't play outside because she doesn't want to get dirty, and all of us--all of us--are so jealous of her Girbaud jeans and pink shirt we want to cry. Lil' Matt is drawing cartoons in the corner. He's secretly Teacher's favorite.

Of course, the Lil' Good Doctor is here, too. I know for a fact that he got in trouble a lot during his elementary school days for pinching girls in the butt really hard and claiming that it "was a bee!" That's what he'll be doing. He'll be hanging around Lil' Darren talking about body parts, and he'll be best friends with Lil' Jean but sometimes in the winter he gives her white washes and she cries and snow comes out of her nose.

Then Lil' Jean and Lil' Jenny command--command--that someone take them out for pizza so they can cash in their Book It! buttons. And then Lil' Jean has a birthday party and everyone makes their own puffy paint t-shirts and watches some movie that is about 4 ages more mature than they are, like Adventures in Babysitting. Lil' Chad starts crying at the party because he misses his mom, and it's a sleepover, but Lil' Darren refuses to go to bed because he's had way too much Mountain Dew, and then Lil' Liz and Lil' Jean and Lil' Jenny and Lil' Christina play Girl Talk, but the zits are all gone because Lil' Darren stole them and put him down his pants in hope that the girls would go searching for them.

WHY CAN'T THIS REALLY HAPPEN? Why can't Lil' Jean, Jenny, and Christina start a uniformed system where they swap Babysitter's Club books and then assign themselves characters in the book, so when something happens to that character it is detrimental to our personal lives? I get to be Stacey. Jenny is Mary Ann.

Christina, you have to be Kristy.

The great night was more than worth the Friday morning after, when I drove to the gas station half-drunk, purchased Tylenol...

...then threw up on the way home, by getting out the Intrepid, running to the curb and spewing chewed carrots and pink booze from my throat; it was worth more pain relievers, more throwing up, the ride home with more stops at the gas station wherein I walked in in my pajamas--little blue sleep shorts, an over-sized Zeppelin t-shirt, and no bra--it was worth not putting the contacts in so I couldn't see what was coming at me during the ride home, it was worth the drop-drip of a bathtub faucet punching my hungover brain with each drop-drip, it was worth the conversation the gas attendant started about bottled water even though I clearly reeked of whiskey, it was definitely worth the cold water I dumped all over my head the hour and a half home, the cold water that kept me from both falling asleep and/or having to stop the car to throw up again.

It was a good night. A good, good, good, good, good night.

Weeds fear me.

The weekend before I went home for the 4th of July week, I spent Saturday with Chad and Sunday with the flower bed. For about six hours, I pulled weeds—every single weed—out of the front-moat of the house and piled jagged green stems in the lawn. Then I threw them all in a garbage bag, and then I tilled the soil, planted flower seeds from a shake box, and watered by using my thumb over the end of the hose to create a hefty, cold spray.

James and I also planted shrubs along the east side of the house—sharp, good-smelling Prince Wales Juniper.

And a tree in the backyard with the purple-grape-skin-colored leaves that I forget the name of. James laid fresh gravel in the driveway, by bringing one and half tons home in the red truck at a time. We measured where posts should go for the deck that will be built this Saturday, the deck that goes along the south end of the house and will be wide enough for grilling and sun-lounging and full dining, and carved a wide path into the formerly untouched acres of land that go back to the creek. Well, this is the part that James did with his lawn mower and weed eater while I got use of my garden hat in the front yard. He chopped through the long grass, curved through it, until he reached sort of an oasis of creek. He’d build a bench, he said, and put it back there, so we could park ourselves right next to the water when we needed to hide away. We decided where the fire pit would go, which will be next to where we put in the horseshoe pit. And then we commented about the day before, Saturday, and Chad. His impeccable horseshoeing skills are enough to make a girl blush. (And if you’re me, enough to make a girl threaten to shove horseshoes in dirty places or to beat one aside the head with them.)

And then today, I discovered that the greenhouse was having a clearance sale, that perennial and annual flowers were 12 cents a piece, that shrubs were marked 75% off, and that I had an empty back seat:
I went outside and planted for about four hours, played in mud, watched the sun go down, dumped top soil into a new pot and an old pot and filled them with begonias and petunias,:
wished I’d had bought one of those little gardener shovels, developed an appreciation for fertilizer and marigolds:

(look at that! dirt on my face, even)

and really got use of the gardening hat. It’s funny that I bought that thing ironically in the spring, that I’d always told myself I wanted a green thumb. But I know dick about flowers. I know dick about flower food, partial shade/partial sun, about shrubs or trees, or even what’s near death or a salvageable mum, or vine, or traveling petunia. But I had a good time this evening, all by myself in the front lawn, bent over either on my knees in the sharp grass or with my ass in the air, and the mosquitoes stayed away as I watered more and pulled more weeds and rocks from the flower bed.

Plus, I promise there is something romantic about planting half dead flowers in July, picking the crunchy curled-up leaves from the still-green stems, forcing the soft petals open with your fingers just so that bit of red or white shows from the road, rubbing and scratching the roots from the bell of dirt where they gather and spool around each other, pulling black dirt over the roots and marrying them with the new soil, tousling the top soil out of the leaves like you’re goofing with a toddler. I know there’s a poem in there somewhere, and I have a little crush on each half dead flower in the garden. Plus, I overheard the greenhouse guy say that the flowers that weren’t going to be sold today or tomorrow were going to be thrown in the dumpster. And: enter the same feeling I get when I go to the humane society. I sort of felt it was my mission to save these little guys. They’re so cute and innocent, these begonias! Why should they have to die, just because nobody has room to plant them? I suppose I came home with too many flower crates, like the spinster English teacher comes home with too many cats, and I suppose I talked to each flower and maybe even kissed a couple of leaves for good growing luck like a big weirdo, but at least the flowers aren’t getting thrown away to dry out and brown next to a half-eaten, stale box of Fruity Pebbles.

*
Regarding Saturday before I went home for the fourth, to sequence this post annoyingly out of order, I have to mention a couple of things. First of all, I sort of made a pie. With the help of James, who helped with the top part:

And Chad, who ate the pie, whilst reading Tampax instructions in French at my request:

The pie was raspberry, and with the new pie dish Jenny gave me, I promised that the crust would be homemade. (And I shaped my part into a country that the others had to guess. It was Somalia, but it didn’t really look it. James made Australia, which was obvious.) We had some difficulty sorting out some pronoun confusion in The Joy of Cooking, but we worked it out and the pie was amazing.

It was the next morning that brings me to my second point, which is ‘Smath:

‘Smath has been mentioned on this blog before, briefly, about its misuse of grammar. On Saturday, I found the game at the Goodwill for $2, and knowing that Chad was coming to visit, I bought it. If you can’t tell from the picture, ‘Smath (THE GAME THAT MAKES MATH FUN!!!) is played like Scrabble, but with equations. (We all know that Liz would love it.) The game took a good two hours, which was enhanced by delicious pancakes and about 4 cups of strong coffee apiece.

‘Smath! The Game That Makes Math Fun! was won by James, who dominated with 416 points (although Chad gave him a “douche penalty” that left him with negative points) and Chad came in second with 2 hundred some, and my tricks of 1 + 9=10 landed me in third place (hey—I thought I did alright, given that math is stupid) and I didn’t even break 200. Also, I’m pretty sure that ‘Smath! The Game That Makes Math Fun! was voted Retard’s Choice back in ’89 and ’92: Yeah.

*

The week off was good. I spent most of it at home, talking to Bourbon, my brother’s dog. I took him to the pet store, he shit on the floor, we got him a new name tag. He hogged the bed and pawed and growled in his sleep, I tried to move him from the exact middle and he put all of his 15 pounds into not moving an inch, and I wished so badly for my own dog to cutely complain about. Travis and I went to a greenhouse, bought my mom a crawling vine with purple flowers since she killed the potted plant I gave her for mother’s day (like in two days—yeesh) and then I convinced him to help me photocopy some work for class if I’d buy him fireworks. He lit off the fireworks without me. Also, I bought a lottery ticket and made him scratch it off, claiming that if I lost he’d be grounded. I lost; I also don’t have the authority to “ground” my brother, which is ludicrous.

David and I spent a good day watching movies, such as, finally, Teeth, the movie about a vag with teeth. It was pretty awesome, and on a scale of “No Penises” to “Severed, Rotten Penises eaten by dogs,” it gets a 10 for severed, rotten, dog-eaten. On Thursday Shan and I went to Matt’s new restaurant, which is Caribbean BBQ, and I ate some of the best food I’ve ever had in my life, such as deep fried corn bread and the best fucking Macaroni and Cheese that has ever been created—with bacon, with creamy, luscious cheese, tender noodles. I know it’s just Mac & Cheese, but I fucking swear on anything that there is no Mac & Cheese better. Shan and I scrounged around Stillwater, popped into antique shops, commented on old-lady smells of them, tried to fix $100 Star Wars alarm clocks that should work if they cost that much, and ate about 90 pounds of Salt Water taffy. (Oh, and Shannon, you were right about the white one—it didn’t taste like anything! What the hell flavor was that?) And on Friday I spent the day with David’s family at his sister Lisa’s house, and we drove around on the boat, ate shredded pork, and had 7 desserts apiece. That night, after my 4th of July nap, we met a friend of his for fireworks in Minneapolis. His friend lives downtown (with a gorgeous dog named “Yellow Dog,” a yellow lab) and we first watched fireworks from 10 different cities in the big skyline (they were far away, of course) and then went down to the St. Anthony bridge to watch the Minneapolis best. They were, of course, spectacular, and I was grateful for the silly patriotic music they always play in the background. Thank you, Lee Greenwood.

On Saturday, I spent the day with my family for my grandmother’s 90th birthday, which is quite a feat in and of itself, and also because for 90 my G-ma looks pretty damn good:

I'm grateful for my time in Elgin, because it's got me thinking about all the time I spent on the farm as a kid. I've been looking at old pictures lately and realizing that I'm more like my family than I've ever really thought. I think my grandpa's been watching me plant flowers and sort of laughing to himself, like--you're one of us, kid, you are.

My cousin gathered pictures from the entire family—the ten kids—for a slideshow, and it was absolutely amazing looking through the old photos. My dad complained that a funny photo of him grabbing himself wasn’t included in the show, a lot of pictures weren’t that were really funny, but I guess we were keeping clean for grandma—but these are some of the gems:

Family portrait:

Guess which one is my dad.

Grandpa on the farm, with 4/10 of the kiddos.

This is my grandma and her dog Snoopy in one of my favorite pictures. Dad said she used to wrap him up in that damn towel after every bath. Snoop was sort of the dog I had while growing up--he was around from when I was a kid, a young 'un and lived I swear for 20 years. My dad said he was an asshole, but what I mostly remember is whispering "Snoopy" at the dinner table so he'd run over and prop himself up on your leg with one ear up, one down. He also used to sneak over the "neighbor's house" when their female dog was in heat, and he'd come home walking all proud.
See? I loved Snoopy from the beginning. That's my cousin Stephanie with my aunt's dog, Pooh, who was sort of a slut. Also, it is evident that I need to have a talk with my mother about this haircut I had going on during the early elementary ears: Dear mom: Why do my bangs go back behind my ears so it looks as though I have a mis-cut mullet? It's okay for hair to cover my ears, you know. I guess I can be forgiving because that one-piece jumpsuit with the snaps on the shoulders is pretty fucking cool (until little Jean has to go to the bathroom that is).

You may also observe the haircut here, as I wear the favorite dress of my youth--a pink shiny thing that I wore when I did my homemade dance routine to "Everybody Dance Now" by C&C music factory and performed it for my parents. (And commissioned my brother Craig to learn the rap part of the song so he could participate too.)

And here, at my first communion, next to dad and his amazing mustache, in front of our awesome wallpaper.

And, again. Looking at the cake instead of the camera at my cousin's birthday.

The grandparent's wedding photo--and both of them are pretty hot--

And they're still at it years later, which is both cute and gross. And who took this picture? C'mon.

Grandpa in the 40s with the eldest daughter, Mary Jane:

And this picture makes me laugh because it's my mom with a bunch of my cousins. Because my dad married a girl so young, and because we're a huge family, my mom is younger than some of my cousins. So, I guess for this picture they were like: Hey Barb (she's the one with long hair in the back and in that cool plaid shirt) why don't you take a picture with the rest of the kids? I'm sure she was totally happy about it, too. At least she wasn't wearing a magenta velour top, like cousin Pammy.

The great thing about being so damn Polish, as we all are, is that everyone’s a dupa, and you can see where I get my nose from, and finally, I can sort of see where too. A lot of these I hadn’t seen. I sort of get those essays now, the ones where the narrator finds stuff out about her family and it miraculously explains who she was even though she knew nothing prior. In fact, I find myself wanting more. I want to talk to my grandma about all of the dogs she had, and loved, and babied. I want my grandmother’s bread recipe more than anything, those loaves she pounded out on the kitchen table with a handkerchief over her head, but she hasn’t written it down. She doesn’t know what goes in it at what time or how much. She just does. It just needs. And second-best, I want her coffee cake recipe—the classic family coffee cake that appeared at every family event from my birth until she left the farm when I was 20, and that as a kid I actually thought tasted like coffee—but it takes a whole day to make. My aunt made it for the birthday, and I asked her for the recipe, and she said we’d have to get together for an entire day for me to learn it. I suppose there’s a poem in there somewhere too, but maybe there’s more of an awkward day of me watching the swears around my over-religious aunt Jeannette, the one all of the brothers nicknamed “ca-ca” because she didn’t know it meant “shit” in Spanish, the one who told me when I was young that watching scary movies would cause the demons from the movie to invade my soul (I stayed out of the scary movie section of movie stores for years—I didn’t want to look at a movie cover and get possessed by an evil plastic doll).

I suppose this is where I’m done catching up. I have 8 days of school left until a month off for the rest of the summer, the month I’ll spend trying to understand the curriculum, watering the flowers, and finally doing all of that reading and essay editing and poem writing I’ve been wanting to get to. And painting the house, and the large barbeque, and a trip to Wisconsin for a week, too. It will be a good month, as it has been a good summer. I find myself confused most mornings, and I talk myself out of it by saying in my head: “You’re not going to the cube. You’re doing what you want, and it’s for yourself.” And then I feel better. But still, everything—even my vision, oddly—is a bit foggy, and I’m sort of searching for lost days like they’re hiding in the couch cushions. I don’t remember some mornings, or afternoons, and I don’t know what will happen to me when fall comes, or even next year, if I’ll get the job I want (as everyone at my cousin’s wedding said—“yeah, but the job market’s rough—are you even gonna get anything?”) but I’m convincing myself to live in the moment, to take in the little things I never realize I wanted. Like greenhouse clearance sales, like the neighbor’s corn that literally one can watch grow (and I never believed all those farmers and their tales) in the backyard, or even like the rows and fields along Olmsted County Road 21 that I watch when I drive into town. The corn is so thick now, so dark that as you drive by and the wind blows it looks like the Wave. Little hands ripple across the hills, and it even continues on as it moves to the lighter colored crops, the bright green of the soy. Or, I think sometimes the crops look like acres and acres of fabric, up close, stretching out or being shaken.