One of my Dad's Smarter Moments... for class...

 My mother was outlandishly pregnant, so she had no inclination to deal with my father’s stupidity.  I was three at the time, and I remember being in the bathtub when I heard my mother whispering, “What did you do?” in harsh tones.

“Oh, I don’t know,” I heard my father say.

I was too busy eating wax candies to care what was happening in the front room.  My mother suddenly came into the bathroom and said, “We need to go to the hospital.”

“Is it the baby?” I asked.

“No. It’s your father.” The man I referred to, lovingly, as “Not the Mama” was in trouble.  Mother did not tell me the nature of the malfunction, only that there was one.  We did not drive with my father, either.  We followed his rusty, blue truck to the hospital.

“What happened?” I asked.  In the waiting room, my father did not want to look at me.  My mother sat next to me shaking her head.  I had no idea what the issue was, and I had stopped caring by the time my father had gone into and out of surgery.

My mother looked at him indignantly.  “Well?”

My father held up his right hand.  I remember that it was wrapped in bandages.  Strings were tied from his wrist to his fingertips.

I repeated what my mother had said while I was in the tub.  “Not the Mama, what did you do?”

Again, he said he did not know.  My mother played with my hair and said, “Your father cut his hand in half with a circular saw.”

“Brilliant,” I said.  “Not the Mama, that was less than smart.” 

...and this is why you never write about your grandpa's lotion...

The play starts this weekend.  Because of the fact that being Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing is my oldest dream, I am finding it really difficult to wrap my head around this.  It’s easier to think, “Hmm… I was supposed to get married on March 25, and then I never would have been in Much Ado About Nothing.”  But thinking, “This is the first thing you ever knew you really wanted to do.  And it’s all going to be over April 23.”  Now that is depressing.  I don’t like to think about it, really.  I know it’s going to happen, and soon at that.  And I know that I will have time to do things again, but I’m going to have to worry about getting everything done now.  I’ll have to worry about when I’m going to see other people from the play now.  If I think about it too much, I want to cry.  I want to cry over a play.  Really?  Come on now, that’s ridiculous.

I’ve been doing little things to try to make up for it.  One thing in particular is writing new notes for every performance.  The goal is to ease my way out of the play, but I see that backfiring, don’t you?  Oh well, at any rate, the script calls for two love sonnets—one from me, and one from a guy named Justin who’s playing Benedick.  While Justin hasn’t even written out any of his Spanish homework, I’ve taken it upon myself to try to write something new every night for the last scene.  No, this doesn’t mean I’m writing a new love sonnet every night, or even a new love letter.  I was told once never to write anything that I wouldn’t want to be published, so random notes will have to suffice.

The first night, I counted out the lines on the paper and explained that love sonnets are a little useless.  After all, fourteen lines of poetry can’t really contain extreme amounts of affection.  To make it extra awkward, I drew a hidden Mickey on the note.  Justin, in his joy at actually getting a note, promptly lost it.  Boy, am I glad I didn’t end up trying to write a shoddy love sonnet.

Last night, I gave him a list of random facts about me.  This note came from the fact that I was struggling through homework and listening to “Introducing Me” from Camp Rock 2.  It didn’t include anything major.  The list included things like, “I eat tomatoes the way some people eat apples; ironically, I’m not a fan of semicolons; I sometimes sing myself to sleep.”  Nothing profound, nothing to write home about.

My most recent note to him started out about my beloved cat and why the world should love him.  Then I remembered that Justin doesn’t like cats.  I switched gears and decided to write about my favorite smell.  After writing out this letter and smearing some of the smell onto the piece of paper, I realized that I was holding the weirdest thing I had ever written in my life.  And it was about to be used as a one-time prop.  That would end up going to a guy who would read it and have no idea how to respond to it.  Who may consequently think that the letter (not to mention the person writing it) is nuts.  And then, I felt like a moron.

I mean, sure, writing about the senses can be awesome.  This note could have potentially been 

normal had it not been for that fact that it is about the lotion that my grandfather used to use.  It was a girly lotion from Crabtree and Evelyn, and I currently own what I believe to be the last bottle in existence.  The scent was discontinued when I was in 4^th grade, so when the quarter of the container that I have is gone, the smell will disappear into family history.  I wrote about how the lotion smells like learning how to recognize trees in the area, sitting at my grandpa’s desk while he played computer games, family parties.  These are things that won’t mean anything to anyone else. But to me, that lotion smells like all of my happy childhood memories.

So what’s the moral of the story?  Not sure.  Don’t write about lotion?  If you are going to write about lotion, make sure the person who reads about it gives a hoot?  If you’re going to write about lotion, make sure you are at least passionate about it?  Never ask your folks what hotdogs are made of?  At least the LAST one makes sense.

Because every blog needs a good Wuthering Heights rant...

When the seasons change from winter to spring, I get the horrible urge to read gothic British literature… To be more specific, I get the horrible urge to read Wuthering Heights under a tree until I have to go inside and read it by candlelight.  I’m not sure why.  Maybe it’s the fog that rolls in around dusk and makes me want to yell “HEATHCLIFF!” from the top of a hill.  Maybe it’s the dark skies that make the grass look particularly vibrant.  Maybe it’s the thought that people are going to be running around all twitterpaited once spring has sprung—this one probably makes the least amount of sense since it's been eons since I've participated in a good spring twitterpaited romp...

At any rate, something about the season clicks with me.  In fact, I ended up buying a copy of Wuthering Heights today for this very reason (I also bought Robinson Crusoe, Rebecca, and a collection of essays by Emerson.  The important book, however, is Wuthering Heights).  It’s a paperback that won’t be ruined if I write in it, and it smells new.  It’s officially the third copy at my disposal right now.  The first copy is a maroon-bound paperback that is sitting on the bookshelf outside of my room.   I’ve had it since I was homeschooled and lived in the camper (and suddenly everyone realizes why I am the way I am).  The only writing I was allowed to do in that copy was underlining words I didn’t know.  The second is a cheapo Scholastic copy from the 1970’s.  The pages are yellowing, and the cover has a picture of Heathcliff’s head floating over a very manly woman (who we can only assume is Catherine) standing on a hill.  That copy lives in my grandparents’ upstairs bathroom (if I ever stay in that bathroom for a little too long, that’s why). 

My mother had me in tow all day, so this copy has been sitting in my ugly green bag with Rebecca since 2pm.  When I finally had a moment to myself, I walked outside the misty spring air.  Needless to say, every freaking tree seemed to be begging me to sit down and read.  But no.  With two late papers and two assignments due at midnight, there was no way I can do ANYTHING.  Skipper Elyse In-Way-Over-Her-Head Winter strikes again!   

All I want to do is read about how whatever souls are made of, Heathcliff’s and Catherine’s are the same.  In spite of how unromantic and emotionally incompetent I am right now, ***SPOILER ALERT!!!*** I want to get my vicarious-passionate-doomed-woulda-coulda-shoulda-married-my-best-friend-but-I-totally-copped-out-and-married-the-rich-guy-which-consequently-wrecked-everybody’s-life-romance on! And dagnabbit, when did I get so hyphen-happy?

Side note: is it really a spoiler alert if the book’s been in print since 1847? Honestly, you’ve had plenty of time to read it. You have no excuse, and I no longer feel sorry for spoiling the story for you.

What’s wrong with me? And it’s not even like I’d want to date a guy like Heathcliff. I’m ridiculously tired of pissy men who take everything personally and then decide to date and ultimately marry your sister-in-law when they love (potentially read “are straight up obsessed with”) you. Ok, so it’s not entirely relatable right now. That's probably more of a high school phase anyway.

Moral of the story, gang: I’ll be much happier once my homework is done and have a chance to read Wuthering Heights.