Reading: David Eggers, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and Joan Ohanneson, Scarlet Music: Hildegard of Bingen, a Novel

Moving: Weights except arm extensions and curls. Treadmill: 5' at 3 mph and 15% incline. Elliptical: 10' at level 15 with two 2-lb. handweights, then 5' at level 12 with weights, then 7.5' at 12 w/o weights--22' altogether and those bad minutes. Four days off matters. So does today's being a fourth Monday.

Viewing: Kites in the park.

Listening: that Green Day song "ER" used.

6 March 2000: Parents

I called my mother this morning. My doing so probably doesn't help to reinforce the idea that her calling me at that time is unacceptable. She got the wallet-size Glamour Shot and she thinks it's very nice. Does she tell me that because she really thinks so or to reassure me that she loves me anyway or what? I have improved somewhat; that second possibility wouldn't've occurred to me a few years ago. "I know you're not much of a make-up person..."

Granny's sister (ten years younger) visited her at her--home? institution? facility? and didn't like it. If that's the case, she could have done more for DEW's morale than to let her know it; what options does she think her older, iller, poorer sister has? BJWL said she wouldn't "entertain" DEW's fears before she moved--does this mean my mother refused to listen to her mother's concerns at all? That's how it reads. That she rode roughshod over my reluctant grandmother? I picture this dialog:

"Well, I don't know, what if Squeaky--"
"Oh, you'll love it, you just have to give it a chance."
"Yes, but what about--"
"You're just going to go into this with a bad attitude and you'll be in for a world of hurt. I shut my ears to it."

That's roughly parallel to my conversations with BJWL if I doubted or questioned anything she was in favor of. "In for a world of hurt" was both of my parents' favorite warning phrase.

I called her at 6:30, after my cereal (crunching=bad). At 6:45 I got up to put together an outfit. She was yammering away and I figured I was safe for the 90 seconds I'd be in the bedroom. With her impeccable timing, though, she paused, waiting for a response. "Just a sec," I said.
"What?"
"'Just a sec,' I said. Hold on a minute." Now back in the living room, I explained, "I was just telling you to hold on a sec because I had gone into the bedroom to get my clothes and I didn't want to talk and wake up RDC. Now I'm out of the bedroom and back in the living room and talking to you again, see?"
"Are you still talking to RDC?" she asked.

She's not deaf at all. No sirree bob.

She told me she's going to school again. At Mitchell (a wee liberal arts school in New London) or one of the community colleges, I asked? No, a class taught by someone she goes to church with on the Bible. I told her I mean to read the King James translation one day--and I do--hoping that would appease her. She began to tell me how it's a greatly spiritual work. That seems like such a cop-out word to me. Inclusive to the point of wishy-washy. To her credit, she tried to stop herself ("I try not to tell you these things because you don't seem to want to hear them") but couldn't ("There is certainly a god out there").

Whatever; I'm taking a class at CFU. I'm not going to point and jeer at the setting or instructor, only at her deliberate misrepresentation of whether this is an academic class from an accredited authority.

The day progressed: Work. Bad workout. Peanut butter M&Ms. Finally! No longer do I need to buy a bag of Reese's and another of plain M&Ms and mix them. They also might explain why after six weeks my weight hasn't changed and nor has its distribution. Either despite or because of the chocolate and sugar rush, cramps set in with a vengeance. Home. I finished Eggers on the bus, talked to RDC, watched the news.

Then my father called.

I don't know how they do this. Weeks can pass without my talking to either of them but then I usually wind up talking to both on the same day.

He got the wallet-sized Glamour Shot too, of course, and neither he nor Sheryl liked it. Ha. "You're much prettier natural." I thanked him. "And younger-looking."
"I know! That photograph aged me five years! I'm almost 32; I don't have five years to waste!"
"More than five years, I'd say. More like ten."
"Well, we'll compare it to me then and see."

He's pleased I'm looking into school. He didn't say anything against the fact that if I did the UCD ed program, I'd teach in urban (read inner city) schools with "diverse" (as UCD put it) student populations (read: nonwhite people whose first language isn't English). He liked Riverhorse that I gave him for Christmas. Sam's shedding. Dubya's an imbecile.

Oh my. BJWL's embrace of the religious right might mean she'll no longer vote D. I grew up in a Labor Democrat's house and BJWL, with her marvelous Zelig qualities, was also a Labor Democrat. Now I've got my Libertarian/Jerry Brown/Ralph Nader/Forgettable Socialist Candidate/but Democrat in practice thing going on, and BJWL emerged from her Dittohead-Ross Perot phase and might well become an R. Wow.