Wednesday, April 30, 2008

High School Better Than Expected

Last Friday, I returned to my old high school to judge their senior exhibitions. These days, to graduate, one must put together a senior portfolio with the best works from the years and give an oral presentation. I volunteered to be a judge.

I thought they'd ask me what I did, but they didn't. I guess anyone can be a judge. First, we all arrived, and there were hundreds of adults there, all well-dressed. I didn't get the email about how well-dressed one must be, so I was only moderately well-dressed, but a lady (when I asked) assured me I looked fine. Then we grabbed lunch and I asked a couple of military recruiters about joining, for my niece and nephew. Actually, for my husband's niece and nephew, as my own brothers will never reproduce. Niece and Nephew are adrift, one without a job, one in a job with no future, with only a horizon full of illegitimate children and more sponging off my husband's parents to look forward to. Good times.

Truthfully, I thought the Senior Exhibition was going to be a horrible thing. For one thing, said niece has just turned 18 and dropped out of school to be, apparently, a professional skank. But not a good one, because she dates guys who are jobless and living off of other people, rather than at least having some money. I mean, if one is going to be a skank, then be one moving up in the world. Niece has always hated school; I have tutored her and though she is supposed to have a reading disability, she can actually read and pay attention pretty decently, if she cared to. She does not. So my perception was that all of high schoolers must be like her and her friends.

I sat in a room with three other adults-- two women a decade and a half older than me and a grandpa in his 60s or 70s-- and a teacher. The teacher looks EXACTLY like Lindsay Lohan's younger sister, except that the teacher is actually in her 30s, unlike Ali Lohan, who just unfortunately is an ate-up looking teen. Also, the teacher is prettier and probably 50 IQ points higher.

Anyway, the seniors came trooping in. I'd had a few minutes to look over their portfolios, but not enough time to actually read each one (which kind of defeats the purpose of senior portfolio). Each senior was dressed to the nines in their finest business attire. Each had sweaty palms and a broad, nervous grin.

Each one went over their academic careers, their hopes and dreams. They talked about what they'd learned in high school. Here's where my scoring softened: each one had a really hard personal story to tell. One had a friend that committed suicide. One had been working to support her mom. One had been the victim of a sexual assault and, separately, an abusive boyfriend, an experience that she'd parlayed into helping others in the same situation. One's dad had died during his freshman year. One had a teenage sister who had gotten pregnant and left him alone to care for the baby while she went out and partied. Each one had turned their situation around, learned from it, and talked about it without crying.

It was more than any high schooler should have to go through, I thought. Bad things happen to all of us, but I always hope that they'll happen as adults, rather than teens.

Not only that, each one had a mile-long list of the books they'd read and how their teachers had affected them for the better, mostly their English teachers, who were strict and exacting.

When I went to this school, I'd had a succession of horrible teachers who didn't have us do much of any work. In my advanced 10th grade English class, people smoked and the teacher, close to retirement and closer to senility, didn't notice. In my algebra class, the teacher did a 2 week unit on Russia, which she'd just visited, and then sprang some tests on us. My geometry teacher tutored me and didn't understand why I could still only pull a D. And I was in the Gifted program. It wasn't until college that I liked class. In high school, I merely marked time until the bell rang, so I could go make out with my boyfriend.

These kids cared, they volunteered, they had passionate interests. I gave them all high marks and went home, feeling like the world has hope after all.

Monday, April 21, 2008

If a Toy Gets Given Away

If a toy is given away and no kid is around to see it, will they still care?

No. Not usually.

Not for six months, when they remember they own it and ask you where it is and you say, "I don't know, maybe you left it around and we got rid of it," and they storm away and are mad for ten minutes. After all, it's not like the time Cadillac's mom gave away all his good Star Wars figures to the kid up the street, and Cadillac was too proud to get them back. He's still mad about that.

Actually, we moved 6 months ago. We didn't move far, only about 5 miles. Somehow, a lot of stuff went missing. This includes a big Rubbermaid tub of toys.

1) a Kaiya American girl doll and her horse, bought by my dad for Kid 1, probably costing over $200. Kid 1 had originally wanted to get rid of it, I kept it, then somehow it got put into the giveaway pile. Now Kid 1 is bitter, just like her dad was about his Star Wars toys.
2) All our baking sheets.
3) My friend Jen's vast English and American literature collection, that she'd lent to me because I was studying to take the CSET to be an English teacher. She, being a lovely lovely person, wasn't too mad and refused any of my attempts to replace the books (mostly college textbooks), but I promised I'll buy her a really nice wedding gift to make it up.
4) My rollerblades, just because I hadn't used them in 2 years. I was going to! Really.

Mysteriously, all of Cadillac's old grungy Army stuff made it over here, along with head-scratchers like bags o' trash.

Saturday, April 19, 2008

This Novel Thing Might Actually Happen

Last week, I sent an email to Elaine Markson, of Elaine Markson Literary Agency. I'd called and the lady who answered told me the email, then told me to go ahead and send the ms. or query. Well, Elaine emailed me back and said to email her the ms, and she'd read it right away and give me feedback.
Wow.
So I did that on the 14, and on the 16th I was on the phone with Cadillac, talking about how I was ready to go back to work because I didn't think I could take another summer with our dear, lovely children, who, though they are smart, are lazy and can't do anything for themselves. Getting them to do anything takes an act of fortitude that only Cadillac can muster. Not me, the Absentminded Writer.
Call waiting beeped and I clicked over, only seeing for a second that it said Elaine Markson.
She tells me that she read it and LOVED it and she read it in one sitting, and asked me about myself, and all these other things, and I was trying to answer her and thinking, "Someone actually likes this!" and meanwhile, my Kid 3 is peeing in the Ariel panties she just put on and starting a low whine because Mommy's on the phone. And I'm talking to Elaine as though she's not Alice Hoffman's agent, as though she's not someone who can launch me and finally get me out of this purgatory i've been in for the past three years. She sounds, in fact, a lot like my dear editor (not at a pub. house, the one I pay), the one who referred me to Elaine, in fact.
I tell her about the background of my book, HOW TO BE AN AMERICAN HOUSEWIFE, and she says that she knew I must be half Japanese because there's too much detail.
So I probably sound pretty cool, because Elaine says, "I don't know if you want to wait until you hear from everyone--"
I stop. "I would like you to represent me."
"Really? Wonderful!" Elaine laughs and sounds so happy, and I'm so happy too, because finally someone sounds like I'm helping them rather than the other way around, and because finally someone gets me.

This conversation makes the email I get later in the day not matter:

Thank you for thinking of us to read How to Be an American Housewife. I read the sample pages with great interest and while I like the premise I am sorry to say that the novel is not right for our list. My concern is that Sue is not yet likeable enough to pull the reader into the novel. While we need to understand that she is unhappy and frustrated in order to appreciate her eventual evolution, her likeability must immediately transcend her discontent, so that we feel for her and root for her as she begins to work toward creating a happier life for herself.

We wish you the best of luck with your work.


Easter Road






For Easter, good Catholics that we are, I suggested we take the family on a road trip to the Anza-Borrego desert and forgo church (gasp!) because going to church on a holiday is its own special kind of hell: so crowded that I feel nauseous, 2 of our 3 kids crying or making a fuss in general. So we in fact rarely go to church, which I confessed to the priest one time, telling him about how we couldn't hear mass in the crying room because of, well, all the crying. He said we had to take care of our kids first. I liked him.

Anyways, off we went to the desert, planning a picnic. A French picnic, because Kid 2 believes that French know how to cook. They had a French picnic at school, with cheese and bread; he said, "Mom, let's go visit France, you can be an artist and I'll eat. France will be my food life!!" He then warned me, "But I can't have wine." Yup.

Cadillac thought that it was more north than east, so he drove us up and up and up the 15, then thru Wynola/Julian. At some point in Escondido, I looked at the map and wondered aloud where the f he was going. The route meandered 2 lane up and down mountains, until I felt sick.

Finally, near julian, we stopped to pee, at some grocery store at the junction of two highways that we always stop to pee at. By this time, Cadillac's circuitous route had added an extra hour's so of driving. I bought a sandwich; the kids claimed they weren't that hungry, so they got chips.

I'd looked at the Borrego website that morning for their Wildflower Report. Lots, they said. We finally got there and there were-- daisies. Big whoop. Like here.

The place was swarming with wildflower touristas. We found a place to park by the Visitor's Center, then walked in and peed and looked at the exhibits. The place was packed, the AC nearly non-existent, and everyone in there seemed to be anti-deodorant.

Then we found a picnic area in a copse of fat palm trees. Me and the girls staked out a bench while Ethan said he had to pee again, and Cadillac took him off.

So the girls and I messed around, waiting, and then I heard beeping. More beeping, then my name, bellowed. Something had happened. I picked up Kid 3, who wailed, and said, "Let's go!" to Kid 1, and we raced across the sandy dust back to the car.

"I'm writing a letter," Cadillac growled. "That park ranger wouldn't let me get out to get you. Now I don't feel so bad that our son threw up all over the outside of the bathroom."

Oh. Apparently a morning spent eating candy, going on mountainous roads, and then eating Fiery Cheetos isn't good for a little tum-tum.

We drove to a closed mall parking lot and gave the kids enough food to tide them over. Kid 2 felt better once he had some baguette in him, and back we went. I'm sure Kid 3 was wondering why the heck we'd wasted all that time driving to the desert, but there you have it.