24/7

For the whole month of November, inspired by Fussy , I will be posting to this blog every single day . Please hold your laughter till the end. National Blog Posting Month is the creative spawn of National Novel Writing Month. By participating in the latter, writers are forced to produce an entire manuscript in a 30-day span. I am not so delusional as to think I can pull that one off, so I am instead embarking upon the former: a program designed by Fussy in hopes that "the act of putting something of yourself out for the world to see every single day will make writing become a more fluid, natural, and integral part of your day." As fluid, natural and integral as I'd like to consider my words once they are committed to the computer screen, I cannot claim that my writing process is any of those things. So I welcome the NaBloPoMo inspiration and I hope, however naively, that the forced dedication of the next 30 days will extend far beyond that in terms of my literary fo...

Late fall in New England is a shaking off of skin. What was ruddy is a skeleton. The vestiges of what was once green and sunny whip away in the wind. On short country straightaways, lines of trees reach out with gnarled limbs to pull us into the raw. At the end of October, porches don't creak with the weight of lingering feet. The heat is all from within, where fires or televisions crackle in a bluish light. Dead leaves spin in a vortex of crisp dustiness against the cavities of gabled homes. Tiny goblins hang from trees. If you listen closely, you can hear the ringing of so many phones in support of local politicians on both sides of a hotly contested race. We drive calmly, as always. The dog presses her nose against a window that is viscous from sightseeing. The baby sleeps in her carseat. I turn onto another road designated "scenic." There are flanneled farm stand attendants hawking gourds. I can tell they are closing up. With a nudge to the heat knob on a many buttone...

This photo answers a couple questions you may have. 1) When are you going to show us pictures of your purple house , anyway? And 2) What does your front door look like? (Okay, so even if you aren't wondering about that, Wordgirl is). I was worried when we had our house painted last month that it would remain the shocking purple color manifested in the first strokes of wet paint. Luckily, it dried into a darker and more pleasing--but almost as shocking--blue. This photo does not do it justice. [ Note: the brown windows still need to be painted cream to match the trim. That might happen sometime this decade. ] There's a new family of six that moved in next door right around the time the painters set up shop outside our antique Cape Cod-style home. The other day, at the clothes line situated next to the fence that divides our property, my neighbor told me that our house is now the landmark against which town residents pinpoint the position of any other home, building or truck st...

A public service announcment for message board users in English speaking countries the world over: If you want someone to take a quick look at a photo, link or message you've posted, the correct phraseology is this: Take a peek . It is not: Take a peak . I offer up this mnemonic in a last ditch effort to save a perfectly innocent word from extinction: Correct: Tommy took a peek while Janie took a pee. Incorrect: Tommy took a peak while Janie took a pea. Please, for the love of the OED, get this right. Spell check will not save you.

SHE SAID: It is 58 degrees inside the home from which my husband and I are working today. I am sitting next to him at the large desk in our den. I look him up and down for signs of hypothermia, but I see none. His lips are ruddy. There are no visible goosebumps. If his quick and accurate two-finger typing is any indication, he is not too numb to feel the keys. I, on the other hand, am losing blood pressure by the second as my body fights to preserve heat. My sweater drawer is just out of reach upstairs. If I go up there, the baby will wake up from her nap. My only option is to sit here in the ice cold lap of indignation as I try to understand why my husband won't let me turn the heat on. HE SAID: Here's an idea. Go outside, grab a shovel and start digging until you find oil. Either we'll be able to afford all the heat you want, or, you'll be nice and toasty from the effort. It's a win-win. 58 degrees is only cold if you think it is. Spend 4 years in a 100 year old...

Photo courtesy of Lauren She toddles. Almost fifteen months from the day she first set foot on Earth, she began making her own treads. I know she's no trailblazer, but the implications in her own small sphere are enormous. My daughter is making her way in the world. Her gait is precarious. Each step seems too light to hold her, but the halting weight of one foot against the ground, then the other, pushes her forward in a baby gust. I stop counting the movements; it seems as if she will go on forever. Then her confidence falls out from under her as she folds to a neat stop on her knees. This is how she will get where she's going. It's literal now, but soon enough the baby steps will mean something different. It's careful exploration. It's tentativeness. It's the way one feels out a world where solidity, texture and layout is uncertain. Her first day of school. A part in a play. A sleepover. A test. This is how she will learn, by pushing herself on her own terms...

I love words. I always have. I remember being four and seeing a faded hexagonal shield with white block letters that no longer reflected the light so well. I remember each separate letter. And—I swear, this is true—I remember the word. Not my first said word. It was my first read word. “S-T-O-P!” I was in dad’s little Nissan truck with the white cap. I strung each letter together. I came up with a word. I didn't heed its meaning, though, because once I started reading, I never stopped. The written word lends tangibility to emotion. Things that are hazy become real; the fleeting becomes permanent. A word can be funny, serious and sad. I read a lot of words now in the form of weblogs, particularly those of other mothers. One of my favorites is Redneck Mommy . She serves up heaping portions of real life to sit back and savor, and she doesn't forget to pass the puns . Sometimes I read her posts and laugh, sometimes I cry. There are times I go to her site and have both those react...

It's foreign to me, this concept of letting my child define my very existence. This means I am a stranger in a strange land, because the cloying glory of being somebody's mommy is all around me. I belong to a local newlywed message board, where members will often use their own names to sign off at the end of each post. A lot of them are only weeks or months removed from their wedding day, still blushing in the bridal afterglow. Others have been married for several years. But it's almost universal that as soon as they become--or even decide to become--mothers, their own signed identities disappear and "Mommy to So-and-So" replaces them. It is easy to forget the given names of these women and to think of them only as they relate to their children. Frankly, I get very uncomfortable when I think of my own mother behaving in such a linguistically sacrificial way. It's a lot of pressure, knowing that I am my mother's EVERYTHING. Or that, semantically speaking, ...

The day The Partner left for his business trip, I was overwhelmed by the urge to paint the living room. This was momentous on many levels, not the least of which is the lazy level, where I subsist on a daily basis. What was more amazing was that I went to local paint store, procured the necessary supplies, and came home to begin stripping the wallpaper from our living room. By that evening--the first of his three away--I had almost all the paper removed. I surveyed the scene with contentment and thought I just might be able to finish the project before his return. Perhaps my subconscious wanted to prove that I could do it myself. I have come to rely on The Partner for everything, not out of necessity, but sloth. Though this generally bothers him more than it does me, I guess his constant allusions to my incompetence and lack of motivation began to lay a little too thick on my psyche. At the end of my first day's work, I was pleased with my progress and the prospect of this first su...

My husband is on a business trip and I am sick. Until yesterday, I took for granted the gift of having someone else in the house while I am ill. I realize now I never had any appreciation whatsoever for the toast and tea my mother brought to me faithfully whenever I got sick as a child. Whether she brought the tray to my infested bedroom or to the living room couch upon which my sick self would alternately sprawl out or huddle, fetus-like, it always arrived right when I needed it. When matrimony transferred to my husband the role of primary caregiver, I instilled in him the importance of these toast and tea deliveries. He carried out his duties admirably. I was not so much grateful as satisfied. This weekend he left for California and I came down with a laundry list of maladies best not described here. I almost vomited into The Boss's oatmeal as I spooned it as fast as I could into her birdlike mouth. Two day's worth of dishes are piled into the sink, where they will remain unt...

It is time for my ten year high school reunion. Apparently, nobody cares. I called my upper-secondary alma mater to find out how best to determine if any plans for our tenth reunion were in the works. The ever-helpful guidance secretary imparted these words of wisdom: "Call your class president." Ah-ha. I nodded thoughtfully into the phone. "I see. Who the hell was my class president?" "I don't know." "And, even if I was able to remember the identity of this mystery president, how would I contact him or her?" "I don't know." "Um hmm, um hmmm." I rubbed my chin in thought. The phone line went static-y. "So the school is not able to offer any resources whatsoever in this regard?" "No." But it all makes sense, really. The Guidance Department never did a thing to help guide me out of school; I have no idea why I thought they'd be of any assistance whatsoever in drawing me back. I was on my own. The ...

I have no freaking idea what to write today. Since reality just isn't cutting it, maybe a little fiction will get my motor running. *** This morning, on my way to work, I saw the Grim Reaper driving a Saturn Vue. It was bumper-to-bumper on the Mass Pike as I glanced up at my rear view mirror to see a pair of dark eyes staring back. He was all dilated pupils, the blackness spilling out into his irises, his eyebrows, his receding hairline and the mole on his right cheek. His skin was so pale that I should have been able to see each blue vein. I sucked in a breath and looked down at the plastic grill riding my own bumper. He had Connecticut plates. For the second time in my life, I knew something with complete certainty. The first time was when I met Pete D’Ambrosio in person after chatting online for six months. Him, I knew I would marry. This time, I knew someone would die. Since I was the one inching through Boston’s morning rush hour with Death on my tail, I could only assume it w...

The Partner is looking for a new job. A day job, that is. He's under contractual obligation to remain in his other position until death do us part. I'm not sure if The Partner has an exalted idea of what he's worth or if he's truly underpaid, but the fact of the matter is that he has received several recent offers, and none of them are up to snuff. If I worked outside the home, or more productively from home as a freelancer, it would be a different story. The Partner would not have to be as picky about landing a salary that allows a family of three to sit at the dinner table each day, clothed, under a non-leaky roof. For all intents and purposes, the burden of that responsibility is on him. Instead, the jobs for which he was so qualified and for which he was enthusiastically extended an offer will end up going to recent college grads of the single persuasion, or professionals with their own partners to share the burden of living in a state that dictates surging numbers...

I once went food shopping with my friend and her 2 year old daughter. As we navigated through the bakery section, I watched her toddler ask to be moved from the cart's front seat to the basketed back, which was growing full with groceries. My friend plopped her daughter on top of a few boxes of cereal and some greens and we were on our way. My first inclination was to question the logic of such a move. Wouldn't 30 pounds of toddlerhood smush almost any bag of cruciferous produce beyond recognition, or at least beyond use? But before the thought became real in the form of hasty words uttered from a naive mouth, reality set in. Who really cares? Though childless at the time, it didn't take me more than a few seconds to realize that a few crimps in a Cheerios box or a footprint in the pre-packaged chicken breast were a small price to pay for a free and happy child. I began questioning my own preconceived notions about propriety and limitations. Certainly, children need to und...

They're lucky to have each other, these girls of mine. Even if they don't know it yet. Photos courtesy of Lauren

Yesterday, I had my first Real Life rendezvous with a Blogosphere buddy . Having met my own husband through AOL Instant Messenger, it's the kind of situation to which I am no stranger--but it served to remind me of the unique relationships that are built when familiar screens trandscend cyberspace and become a very real part of life. I had no doubt that Lauren and I would get along famously. I just knew it. I think I've been reading her blog for almost a year now, and in that time I've gotten to know her AMAZING photography , her friends , her boyfriends , her freakishly strange luck, and her ability to make ordinary people and situations seem extraordinary. How could she not be--as they say a little to the east and a little the north of here--wicked cool? She's generous, too. She shared her photographic gifts with me in the form of a ton of pictures of The Boss and The Boss's best friend, Roxie. In turn, I will share some with you. I love the Internet for the way ...

A freakishly perverse scene unfolded in the neighboring town last week when, according to newspaper accounts , a man cornered a six year old child at knifepoint and proceeded to remove the boy's shoes and socks and slice his shoelaces. All this played out in full view of several neighbors, who watched as the boy extricated himself from this attempted kidnapping and ran home. At that point, the child's father and some neighbors went into action. The perp made a few deluded turns around the block in his pick-up truck before the group was able to stop him, using their bodies as human shields. The Norwich Bulletin newspaper attributed this quote to the boy's father: " He would've had to run me over in order to get away ." In a relatively small, rural region riddled with convenience store robberies, parking lot hold-ups , and attempted kidnappings, I am freakin' freaked out. Drugs feed part of the problem in this area, which serves as a convenient rest stop not...

When I was small, my mother would get me ready for bed, pulling a nightgown over my head and folding back the covers in a straight, clean diagonal--a perfect pocket in which to slip my exhausted, squiggly body. Then she would read to me. Sometimes, if it was a book I had heard enough times, it would be me doing the reading, not by eye, but by memory. My favorite book was Holly Hobby , its pages filled with calico-frocked girls and blue-jeaned boys. I remember the rhyme of the text and all the shades of yellow in the illustrations. On one page the sun was replaced with cerulean rain drops, and Holly Hobby danced under a blue umbrella. That is the way I remember my childhood--yellow and blue, but mostly yellow. *** I was sleeping over Kelly's house one night when we were nine. We were camped out in Red's bedroom on that hot summer night, sprawled under the arctic blow of the house's only air-conditioner. Downstairs, a drunk voice and a panicked one reverberated thoughout the...

I was not an exceptionial high school student. I was mediocrity personified during college. Only now, as the 28 year old mother of a one year old, am I coming into my own as an individual and a writer. This is why I have a special respect for those whose self-awareness and motivation brings them to a much earlier understanding of, and appreciation for, their special place in this world. Today, I'd like to point you toward the blog of a high school senior here in Connecticut's Quiet Corner. She is delight and insight. She is gramatically correct. She writes with a relevance that speaks to people of all ages. She reminds me that though I'm no longer a kid, I'm not totally grown up, either. Having selectively blocked out my entire high school experience, reading Pamela Suzanne's blog allows me to view the frustration and confusion of adolescence through a much more optimistic lens. Forgotten mindsets and ideals come back. I can see more clearly where I've stayed t...

As a member of the Blog Exchange , I invite a guest blogger here to 24/7 on the first of each month for a little variety (being, as it is, the spice of life). Please welcome this month's guest blogger, Christina , who will be participating in a sort-of debate with yours truly on the issue of violence in the media. You can find me over at her site today. More info about this whole blog exchange thing can be accessed at the bottom of this post. Without further ado, here's Christina. . . ******** I know I'm not the perfect mother, who doesn't let her child watch any TV until 2 years old, and then after two, only a very limited amount and only educational programming. OK, I've got the last part, at least. Cordy has watched some TV since she was very little, but we limit her TV to only Playhouse Disney or Noggin . I admit that she probably watches too much TV. She can quote parts of Blue's Clues, she sings and dances to the Wiggles, and she adores Pablo of the Back...