Thrombi In My Brain

I have decided that I want Rihanna and Drake's 'What's My Name' to be the soundtrack to this year. More specifically, I want to walk down a street in some wickedly crazy, but somehow spectacular clothes with awesome red hair while people rush to play drums around me. Making this particularly challenging, I need to look ethereally beautiful while doing so. How can we make this happen?

*****

I read In the Cut this past summer. (Yes, I can often be found reading erotic thrillers. Just perusing the Amazon reviews, one boldly states "Not for the faint of heart!" Why, that's the perfect description of me!)

Jane Campion turned the book into a movie, which I haven't seen, but I want to. Because...Mark Ruffalo. That's the only reason one could need, really. Mark Ruffalo.

Last night, what I presume to be the EXTRA-EDITED, SUPER SLIMMED DOWN, BLEACHED AND LYSOLED version of In the Cut was featured on Lifetime, which David and I tuned into for about 3 minutes, until he was all, "What else is on?"

I was trying to give him the rundown on the graphic nature of book, and its...um...more interesting parts. The scene we watched happened to be one of the best in the book, where the two main characters (let's just call them Mark Ruffalo and Meg Ryan) are having a drink in a bar, and Mark Ruffalo starts telling Meg Ryan all the things he can be to her.

If she wants.

"You want me to romance you, take you to a classy restaurant, no problem...."

Of course, it then becomes progressively dirtier, with a few more 'you want me to' items that I cannot in good conscience type out here.

And I was thinking, what a great ringtone that brief monologue would be. If I didn't care about manners and decorum and inappropriateness. (Which I do. Don't worry.)

It can be the ringtone in my dream world where I walk down the street with awesome red hair and drummers and Rihanna and Drake playing in the skies and Mark Ruffalo chatting me up like a naughty boy when the phone rings.

*****

So I didn't get into my first choice nursing school. I guess there were a billion applicants for 3 spots. (The numbers may be slightly different than that in reality.)

So the fact that there were a lot of applicants for a few spots kind of makes me feel better and kind of doesn't. Better because I know that the odds were long. But worse because then I know I'm entirely unremarkable.

I'm feeling okay with this now that's it's not last Wednesday, and it's been almost a week from when I logged in and received a rejection notice telling me to go jump off a high spot because I suck and I'll never be a nurse. Never!

(That same rejection notice also told me that I need to deep condition my hair more often, go to confession already, and get my winter-worn feet some Eucerin and socks, stat!)

I'm still trying to figure out what will happen if I don't get into my other first-choice nursing school (it was a complete and total tie for first).

So this was a bit of a setback. Or at least, it feels that way. I mean, not the definitive end of the world, but certainly a solid punch to the solar plexus. And head. And a hearty kick in the rear.

*****

We've begun reading on blood vessels as we wrap up the circulatory system. I find pathophysiology so bizarrely fascinating, I want to start a binder entitled "Crazy Body Facts To Keep You Up At Night" and fill it with all sorts items that require an anti-anxiety pill just to read.

For instance, each kilogram of excess adipose tissue requires an additional 450 miles of blood vessels.

Yes, you read that right.

2.2 lbs. of extra padding = 450 MILES of blood vessels. Which increases blood pressure and makes the heart work harder to have to pump blood all those extra miles. Of course, as I was stuffing my face with gummy bears last night, this completely slipped my mind.

During Christmas, I had approximately 2250 more miles of blood vessels than usual.

Ah, eggnog.

So delicious, but too good at paving new, unnecessary circulatory pathways in my hip flesh.

Geology

Hannah has taken it upon herself to learn about rocks. With permission, she brought a textbook home from school and started writing down this particular chapter, taking notes like a college student. Its focus was specifically on igneous rocks, the kind created by magma.

I mistakenly say 'lava' and David corrects me.

Location, location, location.

Magma, it seems, resides under the earth. Lava is the term for when the molten rock is on the surface.

I am a bit astounded by this burst of self-directed learning. Not that I don't think my children are capable or curious. They just seem to rely upon me, a lot, for a push and a shove in a general direction other than arms wrapped tightly around my thighs. I like to see all of this. It's like blossoming, unexpected.

I see her with a textbook open on her lap, furiously writing about the Mohs scale of hardness, and I have to stare at her for a while. Sometimes, when you think you know all there is to know about your child, she starts telling you about how your fingernail (Mohs hardness scale ranking of 2.5) can scratch talc (Mohs hardness scale of 1) but not calcite, fluorite, or apatite (ranking of 3, 4, and 5).

And then I have to widen my thoughts of her a bit, to include this information that she swallows and regurgitates, happily, for me.

I took geology a long time back, just about half my life, and I remember being underwhelmed. In fairness, I was pretty much underwhelmed with everything back them. It was interesting, in a vague Christ-Almighty-is-this-place-old kind of way. But I was a bit of a bummer back then, flopping this way and that. I generally went where I needed to go, but wasn't necessarily thrilled at being there.

I remember the labs, and scratching rocks. I remember the film on vulcanologists, and the narrator talking about an unlucky team of them engulfed by a pyroclastic flow. Not that I needed an impetus to reject vulcanology as a course of study, but I still remember soundly rejecting any career that could find me enveloped by an insanely fast moving cloud of hot gas. No thanks.

Geology, as much as I could happily skip out on lecture, did leave me with at least one distinct impression. I can never look at the open face of a cliff the same way. All I see is layer upon layer, each signifying an insane length of time in the life of our planet.

It's humbling. We're small. And big. If that makes any sense.

Our professor took us on a field trip to the nearby Mendon Ponds Park, where we could see for ourselves the way the land was shaped by glaciers. Mendon Ponds -- with its kames and eskers, its drumlins, and a kettle hole chillingly named 'Devil's Bathtub' -- is visual proof of moving ice and what it leaves in its frozen wake.

I never did anything with geology. It was just a class to take.

Actually, no. I amend that. I did one thing with geology. I turned it into a story that won my college's fiction prize. The field trip, the lab spent scratching rocks, even the doomed volcano-chasers. I turned my disinterested interest into something resembling a plot. It worked, apparently.

I tell Hannah there are rock-collecting kits, rock-smoothing kits. I tell her that when it's spring we can look for rocks by Darby Creek.

Later today, we'll print out pictures of rocks that she'll bring in to show her class.

Something about it all stirs me up. I want her to hold onto these things. Interests that make us quirky individuals. Hobbies that utilize a focus.

What I know is that it's most likely just a blip, a brief burst of something, and that's okay. There will be lots of other bursts, of things I understand and things I don't. I just want her to continue reaching and exploring.

And if it's an exploration of all that exists beneath our feet, and things solid and shiny we can hold in our hands, layers we can peel back for clues and stories we can tell...all the better.

It's 11:00am, and I Feel Like Drinking

I am here to discuss my frustration with prerequisites.

I am so tired of being a part-time student.

You know what that reminds me off? When I was pregnant. I was all like, "I can't wait to give birth already," and Dave would be like, "Just wait. You'll be wishing you were pregnant again when the baby is crying for 5 hours straight."

And then I was like, "God, why do you have to rain on my parade of heartburn and severe pelvic pain?"

Why I'm frustrated specifically is that I need one remaining class, required for entry into BSN programs, and that one final class is one that I have to take during a summer session because all Spring 2011 classes (and wait lists!) are entirely full.

That wouldn't necessarily be a problem. I was thinking that I might have to spend part of my summer, prior to entering nursing school, in the lab. I just didn't think I'd have to spend 12 fucking weeks in the lab. Usually, summer courses are 6 weeks. I spent six weeks last summer learning the lovely principles of General Chemistry II. I survived.

But you might think that 12 weeks would be more manageable, and hence, a better experience, and you'd be right! Completely right!

Unfortunately, there's a beach house in North Carolina with a sizable deposit made on it, ready for rental during the waning days of July. By my family. My entire family.

Do you know how much I'm looking forward to that vacation? Do you know how much my girls are looking forward to that vacation? Do you know we've never taken a long family vacation, other than long weekends to see family?

I know, it's hard to get all worked up over it all on my behalf. One day, I'll be able to take a vacation. Right? Right?

I'm certain I'll have LOTS of time as a full-time nursing student. And then as a nurse, working full-time!

And do you know what happens if I can't manage to get into Microbiology during the summer?

Because I'll be trying to register at 12:01am with the rest of Delaware County and kids in neighboring schools who'd rather pay $500 for a science than $3500 and often times, the registering system crashes and by the time it comes back up, sections are full!

It's so much fun. It's like a virtual stampede, an online mob, and no one gives a fuck about what YOU need, because everyone else needs it too. I am not a special snowflake. I am one flake on a snowy hill filled with flakes.

I'm also feeling a bit selfish, like I just wanted some time to breathe this summer, before diving into the next two years. I'm looking SO forward to these two years, to finally being in nursing school and feeling like I'm getting there, after being in school since 2008. But I just wanted a few weeks to chill. One of those weeks I had intended on spending on the beach with my husband and kids and the rest of my family.

So I'm feeling just a bit annoyed and weepy right now. Really annoyed and weepy.

Walkers, Geeks, and Zombies, Oh My!

How do you think you'd fare if the world were ending?

Yeah, I like to consider shit like that.

I seriously think it's one of the reasons I work out. I need to be able to run fast and maintain that pace. Endurance, my friends. It's all about endurance.

Well, that and being able to jump a car and fire a gun. (Note to self: learn how to jump a car and visit the firing range, soon.)

Now, if the apocalypse comes and it's divine in nature, we're all pretty much screwed. I may see you in heaven, or I may see you in that other really hot place I'd rather not spend eternity in.

But if the end time is purely a human creation (as is VASTLY more likely -- I'm looking at you global warming deniers!), do you think you'd survive, at least for a little bit of the post-apocalyptic nightmare?

Now that Lost is over and I feel like Damon Lindelof and J.J. Abrams unsatisfactorily screwed me for six seasons (Thanks guys! Glad I put the time in!), I've been looking for another drama to take its place.

And I found one, though I'm not exactly sure you could accurately call it a drama.

(You won't find these guys on Grey's Anatomy!)

When I heard AMC was creating a TV show based on the comic book series The Walking Dead, I was all over that shit.

Out of all the horror genres, zombies have to be my favorite. Who can forget the cemetery scene in Night of the Living Dead? Or the remake of Dawn of the Dead, where the survivors holed up in a mall head up to the roof to see the building completely surrounded? Or the driving scene in the funny Shaun of the Dead, where the car full of people keeps driving into zombies littering the roadway?

Shaun of the Dead even has Dawn in it from BBC's version of The Office.

(Spoiler alert: She doesn't make it. Very sad!)

So AMC's The Walking Dead is kind of like a horror/drama with a teensy bit of dark humor thrown in. You know, if you find jokes about organ donation -- while the survivors are coating themselves in zombie entrails to avoid smelling like the fresh human meat that they are -- humorous. Which, I completely do!



The show's hero, a police officer named Rick Grimes, wakes in a hospital bed after being shot by a criminal he was pursuing. How much time has passed is unknown. When he walks through the corridor after stumbling out of bed, you get a feel for how much has transpired while he was comatose.

Corpses litter the halls, the hospital looks like a war zone, and one set of double doors is padlocked shut, with painted-on words warning "Don't open, dead inside."

("Oh shit, what did I miss?")

Outside, the scene isn't much better. Military vehicles sit unoccupied, piles and piles of bodies are covered with plastic, and no one is around to tell him exactly what is going on.

Rick manages to find with some survivors, a father and son, who fill him in as best they can. Looks like something bad has happened. Like, really freaking bad, and there aren't many living people left. There are, however, a lot of these guys.

(These folks are totally NOT bringing you brownies to welcome you to the neighborhood.)

The zombies are ever present, and truly frightening. They stagger along, shuffling and stumbling, looking for food. If they catch a whiff of you, all sweet-smelling and alive, they'll pursue.

And it's terrifying.

There's a great scene where Rick rides a horse into Atlanta, thinking that he can find help there, and perhaps his wife and son, who are missing.

(Welcome to Atlanta! Spoiler alert: the horse doesn't make it. Again, very sad!)

He does manage to stay alive and hook up with some other survivors, some of whom are very unsavory.

And here we find the crux of the drama. What happens to people in complete crisis mode? Supplies are limited, or unattainable. Hideouts will most likely be discovered, eventually at least, by the walking dead. Who takes charge? How is society to be reorganized? And certainly, not only decent, law-abiding people have survived.

(The guy with the gun pointed to his noggin is an asshole. Trust me.)

So how do you not only survive the zombies, but each other? Well, guess what guys, I'm psyched to find out, and hopefully, the series will prove to be more satisfying than that other one about a plane crashing on a mysterious island. Because I'm totally holding that grudge.

Reach Out

I still have my grandmother's phone number programmed into my cell. I pass it by every time I go to call my friend John.

Or my parents.

I just scroll down and there it is.

I can tell you her area code was 315. I can tell you the rest of the numbers, but it probably belongs to someone else now. Sometimes I'm tempted to call it, just to see how many times it rings. Or to see who answers. And I could tell that person that I used to be good about calling her, despite how often she'd try to get me off the phone, because she didn't want me to spend money on that. On her voice. And of course, I could tell that person that's the one thing I want to hear, and sometimes cannot fathom that my chance is gone.

I can now go for days without thinking about her. But not much longer than that. Not weeks. Something will always happen. Her mass card will peek out of my wallet, or the girls, going through my jewelry box, will see one of the pins she gave to me. And they ask questions.

I've had two dreams that I remember. In one, she was younger, wearing horn-rimmed glasses, and looking sadly at me. I woke up wishing that my brain hadn't conjured that one up.

In the other, Lillian brought her to me, through a doorway, and said, "Look, it's your grandma."

Friday morning, at Hannah's Halloween party, I saw an older woman that reminded me so much of her. There was something about her face that caught me by surprise, even though I was certain she wasn't Italian. Maybe the shape of her nose, and how her hair was styled.

There are times when I'm in my in-laws' house, and I see a picture of my mother-in-law's Eastern European mother, smiling and in her late 60s, and I can see my grandmother there. They look strangely alike.

Driving to school the other night, I heard the Four Tops singing Reach Out, and there she was. Well, actually, both of them, my grandmother and grandfather, because at some point I'd heard this song at their house on a radio, or with them in their car, and hearing it again brought back the love that is there always.

And what it also brings back is the sight of them on their patio preparing green beans for freezing, or the smell of their house, the candy dish, or the raspberries along the fence line behind their garage. I think of these things and the love comes, and the longing, and it fills everything, right up to the entire surface area of my skin, and then I think I must release some of it.

The love and the longing, like scent molecules in air. It clouds and disperses, and I wipe away some tears and go about my business of being. Here.

In the Spring after her death, while we were raking the front yard, the kids were laughing and playing around us, and when I looked up and saw my girls, I also saw something else. In my head, I could see my grandparents sitting in their patio chairs watching their great-grandchildren romp around, giddy with Spring fever. I knew exactly what look my grandfather would have upon his face, the same face that seldom revealed much. I knew that he'd smile and nod. And my grandmother too, nodding her approval and love and affection with each bob of her head. It all left me a little breathless, like I'd been granted a gift, but the kind that you open and take in quickly because it will melt away.

I've been thinking about departure. I see the previews for Hereafter, and yes, I'd like Clint Eastwood to answer for me what happens after death.

Do you feel lucky, Kelly? Do ya?

I'd like to ask him and Matt Damon and the lady that survives the giant wave that swallowed up Indonesia. Where are my grandparents? Where is my husband's brother? Where did they go? I will take the light and love category, that set of beliefs. I will take the foggy but infinitely bright reunion, where the once sharply defined human form becomes amorphous. All the better to float around in complete happiness with.

I will take Heaven for $1000, Alex.

That's what my grandmother believed in.

This morning, while I was grocery shopping, someone said her name. And I smiled as I walked past the cold chill of the freezer cases, with a cart full of whatever.

That's the way they come back. That's the way they say hello, using the only voice they can.

That's what I believe in.

Happy Birthday Lillian

Dear Lillian,

For bloggers who often write about their children, I have committed one of the cardinal sins of the blogworld.

Your birthday passed, without the ubiquitous letter I was supposed to post. I kept meaning to sit down, and it was certainly on my to-do list, but I had two tests in the span of a week, out-of-town guests and a party to plan, lots of things to bake and cook. It fell by the wayside.

Well, that, and every time I considered how to begin, I kept coming up with things like:

To my beautiful demon, or

Dear Child-Who-Keeps-Waking-Me-Up-At-4:30am-To-Use-The-Bathroom, or

Dear Lily, You're getting a little bit nicer these days, or

Birthday Girl, I'm almost over the PTSD brought on by your infancy.

And then I was like, birthday letters are supposed to be nice and lovely and filled with flowery language singing the praises of one's child. Not a run-down of all the things you were supposed to outgrow after turning 4.

But listen, I don't think there's any crime in telling the world that you're still a...challenge. You have been from the get-go. Most kids are, in their own unique snowflake kind of way.

Our chief priority is getting you to understand the world is a better place if we're all not assholes to each other. This includes trying to get you to realize you shouldn't close your sister's arm in the car door, or draw on her pictures, call her a poop poop, or throw things at her. I mean, I know she's not perfect either, but I'm estimating the bad behavior is really about 80/20, and guess who's the 80?

It's completely not easy being 5: having snacks brought to you, school days involving paint and glitter and dry-erase boards, watching Curious George and going to friends' houses to occupy afternoons.

(Wait a second, that sounds amazingly easy AND magical. It's a world I want to inhabit, now.)

But I have seen some improvements. You're at least willing to entertain logic. If I give you the chance, you'll often make the right decisions. You apologize more willingly for your infractions these days, and somehow you're sticking to your decision to be a vegetarian despite having one day that was full of bacon. That one is difficult for you. You love animals and want to protect them, so why do they taste good? It's a question I'm unable to answer for you, love.

God knows, you keep me all kinds of entertained.

The night before your party, we were all watching a stand-up routine by Jim Gaffigan on Comedy Central. It was generally kid-friendly, and you and Hannah enjoyed the bit about camping, and how crazy the entire concept is. Listening to you both laugh at his mannerisms and inflections killed me. On the way up the stairs to bed, you tried out your own routine on me, borrowing heavily from the material you'd just heard, and trying your best to mimic his every blank look and perplexed affectation. It's funny how sometimes you crave an audience. That's your personality: song, dance, comic bit, you like to have people's attention.

Except when you don't. Like when people sing Happy Birthday to you. I had to hold you for this year's song. One day, I believe, my children will be able to hear that tune without crying.

Lillian, I give you a hard time. And you give me a hard time. But I love you and couldn't live a day without you. (Well, maybe a day or two, provided you were hanging with your grandparents. I'd try that.)

You really are so special, and I know one day your creativity and assertiveness will suit you well, and turn you into a kick-ass woman.

Happy 5th Birthday, belatedly, on the blogosphere, to my girl.

Love, Mama

Untitled Miscellany

What I have is nothing.

Nothing to give you, at least.

It was totally supposed to not be raining today, so the meteorologists are a bunch of lying liars. I just completed my application to the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing, and instead of feeling relieved, I feel like some sort of poseur. Seriously, Kel? Seriously? (If you cannot tell, it's one of my 'off' days.)

I'm counting down to the cats. I have about two weeks until Anatomy & Physiology foists a dead cat upon me, ready for me to make sagittal or transverse or God knows whatever else kinds of cuts to, and I have to say, I'm disturbed less by the idea of cutting a dead animal than thinking about exactly where that animal came from. That bothers me.

And I'm a dog person. Probably these are cats from kill shelters? I don't know where else they'd come from, unless people who've had their cats euthanized can consent to donating their bodies to science? I find that less plausible than my former idea. Maybe because it's raining, and I'm feeling not-so-very confident in the world.

Also, I burned the hell out of some apple muffins this morning. Their bottoms were as black as coal, which is highly undesirable in a baked good. Although I'd like to pretend otherwise. (What, you've never heard of Martha Stewart's 'Mostly Fine Except for the Hideously Blackened Bottom Muffins'?) They actually were tasty and moist, if you ate it with a fork and stopped 1/2 inch above the bottom. Which is so NOT how to eat a muffin.

This led to three smoke detectors going off at the same time, and I frantically ran back and forth between rooms trying to fan them with an old New Yorker. Finally, I had to climb a chair and just take them off the wall. I had really good follow-up skills though, after finally ridding the house of the smoke. I actually went around and put all three back in their places, ready to call me out on my iffy baking skills some other time.

In other news, I've started and stopped an open letter to gay kids like seven times. Maybe eight. Why? I don't know. Well, I know the 'why' in terms of why I'd be writing one. Because I don't want any more kids to jump off bridges or hang themselves in their rooms or shoot themselves in the head. I don't know why I keep stopping the letter. It's really an epidemic, and we're sending these kids horrible mixed messages. On one side, there are the people I consider the smart ones, telling these kids they have value and inherent worth and need to stick around. And then there are the others, who are in favor of silly policies like Don't Ask, Don't Tell or who campaign on overturning such silly policies, and don't. When we're still trying to define what makes a legitimate couple, on a state by state basis...it's all rather disheartening. And we want to do something about bullies at the school level. Wouldn't the top be a great place to start? Government? Laws? Equality? I feel like wishing for a superhero to save bullied kids is actually more plausible than waiting for anyone in government to actively make a change that will stick.

It's raining, like I said. Maybe I'll try again when the sun comes out.