Do Not Go Gentle/Happyboy's Positivity

Yes, the election upset me. It's far too easy to fall down the rabbit hole of what could happen. My faith in people's belief in equality was shaken--and I'm not even close to one of the most marginalized groups. I'm a white girl whose husband has a well-paying job. But my family and friends are among those groups--from cousins who are people of color and indiginous people, to my children, cousins, and loved ones who are LGBTQ, to the many women I admire and count myself lucky to know. Like I said, worry for them makes it easy to curl up in a ball--but they aren't, so I won't. I'll take a page out of Happyboy's book.

This guy has been called "wannabe girl", "thing", and a couple of other names this year. He still rocked this Tshirt two days after the election.

My 13 year old boy gives me hope for this world. He woke up Saturday morning with a mission. He wanted to start a Gay-Straight Alliance at the Middle School level. He wanted to take action to show the kids around him that we should be and do better. He researched it. He made sure he had enough students and a teacher. When he didn't get permission at first, he went to the Vice Principal, who explained that it's something they're "working on." He didn't take that for an answer, and he researched and asked his sister for information and pushed and pushed and explained that we don't need this later, we need it sooner, because there are lots of LGBTQ kids hurting and lots of non-LGBTQ kids who want to do something positive and proactive to show those kids that they're wanted at school. The VP called to explain that they are moving forward with it, they just want it to have the right (knowledgeable) teachers, and they want to offer it to more than one school, and they want to come up with a name that is more inclusive to begin with (a less binary one.) Regardless if they were already (unbeknownst to Happyboy) working on it, I'm so proud of him for finding a positive way to deal with all this worry and angst-and not just his own, but that of all his friends. He asked to remain updated on the progress of the program, and I have no doubt that if it loses fizzle he will bring it back to its original verve.

There are so many things you can do: My huaband donates a portion of his check to the Southern Poverty Law Center. We are members of the ACLU. I volunteer with a cosplay group who has worked the Summer Games (Special Olympics), veterans' events, and Making Strides Against Breast Cancer among other things. You can volunteer to escort at Planned Parenthood, or if you're feeling snarky, join the other 44,000 people who have donated in Mike Pence's name, or you can do the same for The Trevor Project.. You can put up a sign that says I love people of all religions and none. You can join a local march for equality. You can wear a safety pin to let people know you support them. You can start recycling, or composting, or invest in and/or support clean energy programs. You can research valid articles on how to help and post them on your social media accounts--because to me, social media is how this election was won. So use that tool and help people with it. The point is: Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night...

Running for Dummies

I took the summer off to polish my novel, work on query letters, navigate the needs of two teens and a three-year-old, and participate in some volunteer cosplay events. Oh, right, and I forgot--to start a new Couch to 5K program that I'm enjoying enough to buy an actual good pair of sneakers. If you know me, you know that thrifty is my middle name, so for me to willingly shell out cash to run is a pretty powerful testament to the effectiveness of the program.

• some new to me Asics sneakers

Since I'm only in week four, and haven't actually run more than sixteen total minutes per session, I preface this with "research for yourself. I'm not a doctor or exercise professional." With that out of the way, I'd like to share some things that helped me in the hopes that it will give another potential runner a head start.

First and foremost, download a good program. There are tons in the Apple App Store, and I'm sure there are for Androids, too, but I went with Active Network LLC's Couch to 5K program. Why? Because I can pick a zombie or unicorn to be my coach.

Active Network Couch to 5K app

Runicorn is supportive, happy, and full of pep. I respond better to positive reinforcement than a drill sergeant yelling at me, but if that's your thing, the app has five different coaches to choose from.

The app is easy, telling you what week you're on, what session you're on, and breaking down your walking and running mileage and speed. Walking? You thought this was a running app! Well, yes, it is, but it's one that's designed to keep you going without hurting yourself--so you start off with a pattern of warm up, walk, jog, walk, jog, walk, jog, cool down, for a total of 30 minutes of activity.

• Runicorn is the best!

Here's where I have to warn you. I did a lot of research after my first two runs--because I was in excruciating pain, and because I figure Google was made so that I could learn everything I want to know about anything. (Seriously, people. It's your friend. It's like a library at your fingertips.) I had spent two sessions in a row with terrible hip, knee, and shin pain--and I thought that was how running was supposed to feel. It's not.

In my research I found three problems--the first is that I wiggle my hips while I run--one drops lower than the other, and that causes undue stress on the lower legs because your hips aren't doing their job of supporting your upper body. So all 170 pounds of my body were crashing down upon my shins, giving me awful shin splints (yes, I just told you my weight. I'm going to tell you something about numbers soon, so bear with me.) I corrected this by consciously holding my hips even on the next several runs. Yesterday when I ran I realized that my body had finally succumbed to muscle memory and my hips stayed in place without me actually focusing on it.

My second problem was that I was crossing my arms over my body as I ran. All the people who look like they're having fun jogging do it. Apparently, it can also cause pressure on your lower body. According to Prevention.com your arms should go back and forth at a 90 degree angle parallel to your body, not across it. My knees, which don't like to pivot, we're very happy when I discovered this trick.

The last problem was my stride. Your body should be be above your foot as it strikes the ground, and if it's behind it you may find yourself with some pretty intense shin splints. I shortened my stride length to a very short one for now, and once I did the shin splints seemed to disappear. I also invested in a pair of new to me Avia sneakers which work with the way my foot moves when I run (you can check your pronation here: http://www.runnersworld.com/running-shoes/the-wet-test.)

Fixing those three problems gave me a good physical start on running--but something that surprised me was that running isn't only physical. I'm not even talking about the endorphins you produce while exercising--though those are pretty great! I'm talking about the difference I feel depending on where I run, as well as when I run and who I run with. Obviously, this will be different for everyone. But for me, I run much more effectively by the beach. While I can get my run done in my neighborhood, I'm thinking more about getting through the run and getting home to finish this, that, and the other whereas on the beach I'm focusing on the beautiful shoreline. I feel supercharged after running at the beach, as if I've absorbed the sun, wind, and waves through my skin.

I also find that my runs are different when I run with a partner than when I run alone. When I run with my brother, I'm motivated to go further and run faster because I'm competitive, and I also get to chit chat with him while walking. I find that when I run alone I have less motivation to match his pace, but that I also pay more attention to my own technique to make sure I'm creating good running habits. In my opinion, both running alone and with a partner are essential--and again, I know that it will be different for everyone. But I feel like I benefit from running with someone and running alone in completely different, equally important ways.

Lastly, I'm going back to that number: 170. It's the most I've weighed in my life. But while, in the month+ I've been using the Couch to 5K program, that number has changed little to not at all (despite eating healthy and under the necessary amount of calories to lose a pound a week), my body is absolutely changing. My legs are stronger and firmer; my arms are more toned; and my waistline is suddenly visible. I look in the mirror and see a strong person instead of the number. Each time I finish a session, I feel motivated to go run again. Don't get me wrong: there are some days I finish and feel like this:

• I might be dead in this picture. I'm not sure.

I'm an injury prone woman with celiac disease, joint pain, and severe anxiety, I have three kids and am writing my second novel, so it's not inconceivable that I won't have a day here and there where I'm just glad to get through it. But I've stuck with this one long enough that it's become one of my favorite things to do. I hope this encourages you to try the Couch to 5K!

• Feeling strong!

That Hamilton Thing

Image credit: Wikipedia

For months I didn't quite understand the Hamilton hype. I knew it was special, and that the unique decision to have women and people of color tell the story was groundbreaking, but I didn't get why so many people loved the story of founding father Alexander Hamilton. In fact I must confess, when Roffey began playing the Hamilton soundtrack around the house, I thought, "ok. This sounds decent. I don't hate it." I loved the concept of the play; I love Lin-Manuel Miranda....but I had nothing to connect it to my heart. Then my son Jason decided to sing "Wait For It" with his friend for the talent show. He began singing the lyrics to practice, and listening to that one song over and over. One line caught me: "If there's a reason I'm still alive when everyone who loves me has died, I'm willing to wait for it."
I've lost my Dad and two of my brothers, and lately, my mother has been sick. That line stabbed me, drove straight into my heart, and left me on my knees. I drove around bawling to that song, to that one line. I ran to it, slapping my feet to its rhythm.
I began to listen to other parts of the story. The connection between Burr and Hamilton began to dawn on me, where one of them took the loss of their family and turned that into driving ambition and no fear of what people thought, and for the other it led to caution and fear of wasting a legacy or a life. I could identify with both, they're both familiar kinds of grief.

Most people most likely fall for Hamilton for the drama, or the music, or the love stories or the history; I fell for the pain, that feels so similar to mine. And most importantly, the hope in the middle of that--"Look around, look around, at how lucky we are to be alive right now."
How lucky we are to be alive right now.
Suddenly the story was so much more than a theatrical rendering of a founding father. It was a testimony to what we can do with grief-- let our light burn out, as it did for Hamilton after his son died, or use it to reach for the stars and go for it (so long as we don't stand still, a la Burr.) The moral of the lesson: do not throw away your shot.

Slay At Home Mom's Brothers

Bathrooms Aren't The Only Problem

My son is in the seventh grade, and he likes to wear pink shirts, long hair, and earrings.  If you live in the Northeast, you might ask, "So what?" No big deal.

And, for the most part, except for a few comparatively small moments, it hasn't been a big deal.  But recently there has been a surge in media coverage about transgender people and their use of the bathroom.  My son isn't transgender--that is, he doesn't feel like a girl in a boy's body.  But he doesn't identify with any of the boys around him, all of his friends are girls, and he would rather shop in the girls' department for clothes.

Last weekend, after school, two boys asked him if he was a girl.  Taught that some people are just curious, he answered politely, "No, I'm not a girl.  I'm a boy."

The boys didn't believe him, and in not believing him, began treating him the way they thought girls should be treated.  I can't use the language they did without my stomach churning and my heart pounding; but suffice it to say that it was tantamount to rape speech. At best it was sexual harassment.  The statement one boy made to another, "No, he's not a boy, he wants to be a girl. It's okay if he wants to be a little girl," was followed by what sexual thing should happen to him because he "wants to be a girl."  Prior to this they had grabbed at his backpack a few times, and I don't know what would have happened if he didn't text me with an urgent message.  I rushed to the school--I didn't even stop to put on my shoes.  The boys were being taken inside by an office assistant.  When I picked my son up, he got in the car, holding himself together until we drove away. He told me what happened, shaking and sobbing and telling me he didn't want to go back to school.  

Infuriated, shaken, I called my husband, and he called the school (because my husband, when angry, is icily succinct, whereas I get so mad that the words come out jumbled and unclear.)

The school administration, to its credit, handled everything incredibly well, not balking for a moment at taking things seriously and dealing with the situation quickly and conscientiously, involving both the parents and the police.  I have no complaints about the outcome of the actions the school took, and was relieved to hear that the parents were as horrified that their children said and did these things as the administrators were.  

But my mind dwells on the fact that we have so much media coverage about transgender issues, but no real education on what being transgender (or for that matter, gender-fluid or gender-neutral,) actually means.  We have sexual education.  My son knows what happens when you go through puberty and you get a morning erection.  He knows how to make babies.  But it's not a priority for the school system to teach children how to treat another human being who doesn't identify the way they do--some don't even know how to treat another human being, period. Our children deserve better.

"But my child goes to school to get an education." 

It's a valid concern.  But one to which I respond that if we have something called Health Class, isn't mental health just as important in every way as sex education and nutrition? I'm not talking about transgender issues or LGBT issues, because I don't want to promote the false ideology that those are mental health issues.  I'm talking about bullying and sexual harassment. The stress of being harassed wears on the human psyche.   And it's not just my son. Yesterday, as Happyboy walked home with a female friend, members of a sports team walked behind them and said things like, "What's that? You want Happyboy's (blank) in your (blank)?" You can insert your own nasty words. He and his friend moved out of the way and let them pass, and they left, laughing. 

There's a part of me that wants him to just hit someone. "One good hit," I think, my mama-bear instincts kicking in, "and they'll leave him alone."  He took Martial Arts for two years, but for him, actually hurting someone was always a problem. He's a gentle soul, an artist, and why should he have to give that up because some kids are acting so miserably? 

      Some of Happyboy's art

The school is planning a seminar next year that will address issues of harassment, bullying, cyber-bullying and their consequences--and I do appreciate that. But I long for the day when my son can go to school to get an education without fear of feeling different. When being yourself is as lauded as being part of a team. When he can go to the bathroom without people looking at him as if he's in the wrong place. When it doesn't matter if you're transgender, cisgender, gender fluid, or don't identify with any of those.  My son isn't transgender, and I don't want to appropriate those struggles; but some of the basic challenges he faces are often similar to those of transgender children. I think about that often--that if he goes through this and he's not even transgender, what must children who, on top of this kind of harassment, have to emotionally navigate having a body that isn't the one they identify with have to go through? In this day and age, where many more children are feeling confident enough to express themselves in more than just the ways society deems appropriate (read: blue & trucks=boy or dolls & pink=girl), we need to make sure that school is a safe space for them, a place where they can learn without fear of being called out for differences. And maybe even a place where someday all of our children can go to just get an education.

Birthdays and Balloons. Or: Ode To My Comic Book Brother

How do I tell you about my comic book brother?

Today's his birthday, the 46th from birth and the 15th from death.

15 seems like an eon, "get over it already!", 

But you can't get over missing a limb, or an organ, or your heart.

Sunday driving isn't the same without car dancing

Comic book movies fill me with love and sorrow on your behalf 

(Where are Nick Fury and Thor? Two of the baddest badasses

And why are Inhumans masquerading as mutants?)

Nobody shares the same stories that we did

Nobody shares my birthday, I thought I'd love that

But birthday candles and cake can't compare to the wishes I make

They always involve some kind of dream reunion

You and Dad and Charlie, Lily says you're up in the stars

Because I can't believe that Heaven isn't too far away

You would've loved all these nieces and nephew, Godchildren who would have blessed you

If only life hadn't had so many other plans.

I frequent our place in Quincy, the kids think it's "their" store now, too

I can't walk in the door without seeing your face, even the guy is the same... 

It took me 30 years to ask his name, but you know, the one with the ponytail and glasses

I'm too afraid to ask him if he remembers a boy with Brillo pad hair, because if he doesn't it will break my heart.

Sigh. It's your birthday. We'll send up balloons.  Balloons used to soothe me so.

Now every balloon is a minute, and there are too many balloons behind us, and too many balloons to go.

Because I fucking miss you.  I had to say fucking.  Nothing else was strong enough.

I have too many things and people here to want to go, to die any time soon...

But that just makes me ache a little more, because I know, I KNOW what it means:

Balloons, and longing, and missing you, and wishing you'd visit my dreams.

PS: Thanks a lot for making our last dance together YMCA. I look great bawling to the Village People.

PPS:  Happy birthday, Jay.  I love you. I miss you.  Come visit my dreams.

A Weekend of Memories

I've been focusing on some positive things to get me through the weekend (after which I'll be having a very important meeting at Happyboy's school.)

So.  Here are my (mostly) happy thoughts... 

Today is the day (20 years ago) that Roffey proposed. It was my grandparents' wedding anniversary. (BTW, it was the smartest decision I ever made, saying yes even though he didn't have the ring yet.) We aren't celebrating it, but it always serves as a reminder of how long we've been together and what things we've weathered together.

Is it any wonder I said yes? He wore those jeans in the summer.  

Tonight, I get to see my amazing niece Joybabe in concert. Joybabe and Madlove are my oldest brother's daughters, and I have crazy, embarrassing, sloppy old love for them.  The universe has thrown a lot at them lately and through grief, stress, and too much adulting they have taken all the punches and still kicked the universe's ass.  Joybabe is playing the flute tonight, and helping to raise funds to support the arts.  It reminds me that she's growing up, and will be 16 in August, which is both inevitable and unacceptable(!), and that my brother would have been so proud of her for taking up her instrument again.  I'm proud of her, though her sister Madlove, who shares a room, does not have a mad-love of the flute. 

All the whackadoodles together.

And tomorrow, my family will gather together to send up balloons that we write on to my brother Jay, who would have been 46 years old.  It will be 15 years in July since he died of Meningitis, and still not a day goes by that I don't think of him in some way...as Lily says, "Uncle Jason is in the stars with Uncle Charlie and Grampa."  They're having a party up there.  Jay and I used to share our parties when we were kids, because we were exactly 2 years 1 month apart. I think some part of me is always subconsciously unsatisfied on my birthday, not because it wasn't great, but because there's a missing piece.  This year, Coffeeguy loved his birthday so much that he has taken it as a personal challenge to make mine amazing (more on that in another post), and my biggest fear is that I'll have a great time and still feel incomplete. Or, I don't know, maybe that I won't.  My birthday is always tied up in Jay, and our birthdays together, so that missing piece is kind of a reminder that he's still here inside my heart. (Don't worry, Coffeeguy, it's still going to be awesome!)

My brother's and my birthday.  [Side note: I know, today the feathered headband would be known as cultural appropriation--but it was the 70s, and also, we had a super-cool uncle who was a Wompanoag, so at the time it seemed more like we were being "cool like Uncle Ronnie" than anything else.]

So that's my weekend, after which we get to go up to Happyboy's school to address an incident that is too painful to write about right now.  How is your weekend shaping up?

How to Grow Old Ungracefully

My daughter found four white hairs in my head on Monday night.  I'm not ashamed to say that it was pretty upsetting at that moment.  I've never had to dye my hair (not that I have to now) to hide white/gray hair.  

I'm noticing the wrinkles around my eyes--which are getting a little deeper each year.  But as I told my 15 year old, I've earned them.  I've earned the fine wrinkles and I've earned the white hairs (oh, I'll still hide them, dammit, and I'm not ashamed of that, either. I'm not even ashamed to feel bad about growing old.  I've earned the right to do that, too.) 

I'm almost 44 years old and I've been to more funerals than my 90 year old great-aunt--and she's the last surviving of 9 siblings.  I've beat cancer and dealt with crippling anxiety.  For the most part, the grief that is always waiting to pounce is outdone by the positivity in my heart (my good friends and close family know I can bring the negativity too, but I'm working on it.)  That's not to say that I can in any way see a positive in the deaths of my family members--but I can focus on the way my brother's beautiful girls are growing up, the way my younger brother and I shared so many Sunday drive-to-Dad's memories, or the way my children have my father's dimpled chin. 

So yes, I have some white hairs and a few new wrinkles.  But I also live my life to the fullest, doing exactly as I please, writing and geeking as I like.  Despite the appearance of the white hairs or the wrinkles I don't feel too old to volunteer or cosplay or enjoy life.  I've learned the lesson that life is just too short to skip out on doing anything you love because you have a few off-color invaders on your head (eww, I'm not talking about lice--if you have lice, please, skip out on attending public events & get treatment.) 

Getting older is still, I'm sure, going to be hard for me--I may be 29 at heart, but after three kids my body doesn't always feel the same.  But I've done more to further my personal happiness this year than I have in a very long time, so I'm going to share a secret with you--I'm 43, and I'm just getting started.

Crinkles and all.