my public v. private identity crisis

up until this year, my kids have attended public schools. my husband and i also attended public schools growing up. but when we moved recently, not knowing what area of town we would live in, we opted to enroll them in private schools - mac at a montessori school and amelia at what i refer to as "the academy." i don't know what my expectations were, but i am surprised at how different these two schools are. they are, in fact, polar opposites. amelia's school is everything one might expect from an "academy," right down to its old headmaster who says academy in such a way that it rhymes with dichotomy. the car pool line is packed with escalades and navigators and parent meetings are a virtual fashion show where you would be hard-pressed to find a woman there with flat shoes or unaugmented breasts. mac's montessori school, on the other hand, has a parking lot full of hatch-backs - and i don't mean crossovers, i mean actual hatch-backs - from the 70s. i haven't attended the first parent meeting yet, but i am fully expecting to be passed a bong while we all sing kumbayah. when dropping the kids off, i feel like i need to change clothes between schools. i haven't made many friends yet but surely there are some other hybrids like me out there. i mean, i recycle, but i get botox. i wear birkenstocks with designer jeans. i can't afford the environmentally-friendly vehicle i want, so i am driving a jeep, that's paid for (but regularly stalls in the car pool line). maybe i am over-thinking it, but i think life was easier in public school.

recreational hobos

my children hate the local rec center. i don't know why - other than perhaps it makes them feel like "other children." so i was not surprised when recently, following through on a threat, i made them go there for the day and my son threw an absolute fit about it. he told me that he couldn't go because the last time he was there a hobo tried to kill him. amelia reluctantly joined her class, but mac refused to go. so as i stood there in the rec center lobby trying to explain to him that maybe he misunderstood the hobo's intentions last time, an acquaintance walked up with her two boys, who are the same ages as and go to school with my children. this was great news for my daughter, who likes the boy that is her age but it is terrible news for mac, who upon seeing the other boy starts yelling "oh no, not timmy." well, of course, timmy's mom looked offended but she proceeded to drop her children off (with ease) and was quickly back out in the lobby where mac was still going on about how timmy would try to kill him with a machine gun if i left him there. so this other mom kneels down to mac's level (and i assume she is trying to help me out here and console him so that i can get out of there) and she says to him "well, mac, as i recall, at the spring program at school, it was you and not timmy who was hitting other kids and making everyone mad." at this point, all i could think was "are you fucking kidding me?" so while i was trying to console my son and drop him off so that i could have three hours of peace, this woman was seriously going to stand there and argue with a crying seven-year-old over who was worse - mac or her son timmy? i tried to give her some perspective by explaining to her that before timmy walked up, the hobo had been the target of mac's anger, but she seemed unaffected by this information. for some unknown reason, i apologized to her and then whisked mac away to where the well-adjusted seven-year-olds were happily playing. i bitterly and sarcastically wished his teacher good luck and stormed out into the parking lot, peeled out and headed for starbucks for a $4 cup of transfat-and-sugar-laden peace.

year-round school - making the case

what ever happened to all that talk about year-round school? i, for one, support it. and not just because my kids fight with each other and drive me crazy all summer. okay, actually that is the only reason. but surely there would be some economic benefits. working parents would be better employees, not having to deal with summer camps or temporary babysitters. and teachers would make more money that would go right back into the economy, right? stock in fiskars and crayola would likely skyrocket.

and let's not forget the benefits year-round schooling would bring to the children. i can attest to the fact that summer equals fighting with siblings. the nonstop, obnoxious and sometimes violent, fighting. not only is it dangerous, but surely it is damaging to their delicate, still-developing self-esteem. and for children with no siblings with whom to fight, clearly they need the socialization that only a school classroom can provide.

opponents of year-round schooling (probably just teachers), might ask "what about summer vacations?" as my sister says, vacations are for grown-ups, something you earn - by finishing all of your school. this would provide motivation for kids to stay in school. let's make them earn that weekend of cruising the miracle strip in panama city beach. drop-out rates would plummet.

in closing, economic windfall, psychologically healthier, more motivated kids, diminished drop-out rates, i can't find a downside here.

"the shack" and other stupid books i hated

i was going to write an entry about why i hated the book "the shack" but then i decided that "because it was stupid and terrible" would not make for an exciting blog topic. but it did make me think about books and this book club i was in once. and i know i have said in a previous blog entry that i hate book clubs and other ridiculous reasons women use to get together and drink and gossip - because i think the drinking and the gossiping alone are good enough reasons for getting together. but i was trapped in augusta, georgia and desperate for a social life, so i joined this book club. and while i did read a couple of books that i truly enjoyed, i also read one of the most depressing and horrible books ever (the title of which i cannot recall but the subject matter (child abuse) is burned into my brain forever. it must have been an oprah book - i don't know how that woman stays so positive when all she reads about is death, abuse, poverty and hunger - just when you think no one else can die, someone has a baby). at one of our book club meetings, a girl asked if we could read a romance novel - and at that same meeting, another girl suggested a political biography. how can these two people ever agree on a book? and i find both genres equally offensive. but i suppose the purpose of a book club is to read books that you might not otherwise read, and i guess i would just rather not.

high-five! not so much

today i went for a run on the beach. along the way, i passed an acquaintance who was also running. just as i reached her, i realized she was not waving at me as i had assumed, but was attempting to give me a high five. and it occurred to me at that moment that people can be broken down into two categories - people comfortable enough in their own skin to give high fives and people like me, who not only would never attempt to give a high five but are also incapable of successfully or comfortably accepting a high five. so as i awkwardly lifted my left hand, which was holding my ipod and had a cord draped from it, my friend saw that i was capable only of a no-contact wave and that i was not attempting to reciprocate. to my relief, she lowered her hand so that i was no longer under pressure to return the high five. and in that moment, i caught a glimpse of her face and it looked like a cross between irritation and disappointment. there was no way around it, i had let her down. and it's not only high fives at which i am completely inept - it's all kinds of platonic socio-physical gestures - hugging in particular. in fact, just days ago, i ran into a friend at the grocery store and she attempted a hug. i feel that my awkwardness has to be apparent and yet i am forced to reciprocate all too often. i tend to shrink a bit and uncomfortably hold out my hand or if it can't be avoided, my entire arm. and if forced to hug, i always keep the brunt of the hug on one side, never straight-on. real huggers aren't satisfied with the side hug though (even when you add the pat on the back) that much is obvious. they need full-on frontal contact with the squeeze-back. i don't understand the hugging or the high-fiving. i know that the huggers and high-fivers mean well and i appreciate the thoughts behind their intrusive gestures, i just prefer to use my words to express those thoughts and feelings. for instance, for me, a hug could be expressed by the phrase "how's it going?" or perhaps a jovial "good to see you." and as an alternative to the high-five, one might say "hey. how's it going?" all i'm saying is that there are lots of verbal options here. and while i can't speak for other non-huggers, i can say that i am fully capable of and more than happy to reciprocate a verbal gesture. so let's talk - but don't touch.

blog temporarily out of service

who knew that maintaining this blog would be so much work? well, maybe work isn't the right word. in any event, i haven't updated my blog lately because i have been feeling uninspired and unoriginal. the most difficult part is originality. i have to admit to you now that all of my stories about being a gay boy with OCD growing up in north carolina were stolen from david sedaris. i considered writing a parenting guide - but my entire collection of ideas was written and released already by the authors of The Three Martini Playdate and Confessions of a Slacker Mom. most recently, i am left feeling unoriginal by The Underachiever's Manifesto - a book of mottos that mirror my own, like "It's a simple fact of life that your successes and failures really don't matter to nearly everybody alive." let's face it - i can't say it any better than that.
and so i wait not-so-patiently to be reminded of another randy joe story or for someone to piss me off at the grocery store or to make an ass of myself (which i am overdue for) so that i can call myself a blogger.

scrapbook - as a verb

several years back, when i moved to augusta, georgia, i remember being asked by several people (all women, as i am sure you might have guessed) if i "scrapbooked." after about the fourth or fifth time, i finally asked if scrapbooking was really a verb. this attitude won't get you a lot of friends - particularly in augusta and probably in the south in general. frankly though, i don't need any friends whose sole purpose in life is to make me feel completely inadequate because i have collected my pictures in plain-old albums or worse, in boxes full of envelopes full of pictures or perhaps worse than that - just digital pictures on my computer.

naturally, i have tried to analyze why i am unable to scrapbook. i decided that it comes down to this one thing - i am not able to use gratuitous exclamation points. as you know, i don't even like capital letters - i just can't imagine trying to put that much feeling into a caption. there would be so much pressure. for instance, i am incapable of saying things like "Emma having her Favorite Summer Treat: Ice Cream!" is it really emma's favorite treat? and what if the picture was actually taken in late spring? do all of the letters need to be capitalized or just the important ones? again, too much pressure and thought.

or maybe i can't scrapbook because i am not artsy - or craftsy. and i have never been good at sticker-placement. and like my friend mary ann, i just can't cut my pictures into heart shapes. it just seems wrong. and so, i continue a complete disservice to my children (and other family and friends) by merely collecting their photos in my uncreative, stickerless, captionless, heartless, digital/virtual manner and shamefully, i still think of a noun when i hear the word scrapbook.