Claire, as we prepare to get off the plane: What does feminist mean?
Me: Oh my god, Claire. Feminism is the belief that women are human.
C: …but women are human.
Me: *expressive shrug*
C, firmly: People who don’t think so are crazy.
Me, risking stinkeye from fellow passengers: We don’t use that word, honey. It’s not fair to people with mental illnesses to liken them to non-feminists.
In Sydney. It is, as everyone has already said, way too cold to be Christmas. Best moment so far: Ric saying “Lovely to see you too.”
The beautiful old house has been sold and we are staying in the flat, which is full of pleasingly familiar furniture and paintings, and also offers far less plummeting scope to (for example) five-year-olds with no sense of their own mortality and absent-minded people who just turned eight. (I find this lack of peril restful. Our family has a strict no-pummeting policy.)
Oh, that reminds me, new blog feature.
Q: How should I invest my retirement savings?
The eight year old replies: Why not just retire straight away?
Email your questions to yatima@gmail.com. Happy Doctor Who Christmas Special Day to all!
Today we will learn about feel. This is another important skill in riding that I have been wrong about all my life. Turns out it’s not about keeping your hands still relative to the horse’s withers. It’s about keeping your hands still relative to the horse’s mouth.
Play along at home! You will need:
If you don’t have a seven-year-old girl, find your most over-scheduled and under-slept friend and borrow theirs.
Now, take your seven-year-old girl. Pick up a strand of hair from each side of her head. The strand should be about the thickness of a rein (that’s 15mm for civilized people, five-eighths of an inch for Americans.)
Ask your seven-year-old girl to throw her head about like a cantering pony.
You need to maintain the exact same gentle, consistent pressure on her hair. Too loose and the pony will run away with you. Too tight and the pony will get angry and buck you off (and your seven-year-old girl will speak sharply to you, or cry.)
You may notice that this is impossible, and requires precognition! Keep working on it. I am.
God-daddy G: “i don’t know why she needs a godfather when she already gets advice like “there has to be a way to overthrow the plutocracy without being a horrible rapey douchebag”. You HAVE TO LEAVE ME SOME WISDOM SPACE!”
Julia is emerging as a systems thinker.
“Daddy, how does [x] work?” she is wont to exclaim.
“Daddy, how do brains work?”
“Daddy, how do TVs work?”
“Daddy, how do nerves work?”
“Daddy, how does a computer work?”
“Daddy, how do eyes work?”
Me: “Eyes?”
Julia, scornful: “I ASKED DADDY.”
Work dinner with people Jeremy knows. You know how terrified I am of other chimpanzees – you may even have seen me bare my teeth at them in an abject signal of submission. But Konrad and Alyssa are extremely nice and funny. They have an excellent joke about a Rabbi Weasel, and they laughed when I described the Apple Newton: “Of course, this was years before you were born.” Alyssa took Claire and I took Julia and we had piggyback races down the hill. As Claire was falling asleep, she said: “I loved it when Alyssa gave me a piggyback.”
I skived a little this morning and took the Mister to the peerless Sandbox Bakery before work. That end of Cortland Street is a reliable source of street crazy.
Very Well Dressed Woman: Is that your boyfriend?
Me: This? Um.
VWDW: Is he your boyfriend?
Me: We’ve been married for eleven years.
VWDW: Do you have a family? Do you have children?
Jeremy: Yes.
Me: Two girls.
VWDW: Having any more?
Me and Jeremy, in unison: No.
VWDW: God came into this world as a child. God came into this world as a consuming fire.
Me: …there is that.
VWDW: I don’t know about families.
And then she walked away.
Me: You know, technically I think she’s right.
Jeremy: Yes, you do.
Last night before we went to sleep we piled all her presents on the end of her bed.
I am not a fan of mornings. But if you have to wake up, it might as well be to the sound of your big daughter saying, “Wow! Cool!” and your little daughter squealing: “This is the BEST BIRTHDAY EVER.”
Later there was dim sum, and later still cupcakes; but me, I am still grinning like fule over that squeal.
You can be
whatever you want to be
for Halloween!
Oh that’s just a zombie!
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
It’s just a kid, it’s just a kid,
A kid a kid a kid a kid a kid a kid
I know it is!
Let’s go and check.
Oops!
It’s just a kid.
It’s my little brother.
Let’s go away!
When will
the sun
shine through the year?
The bright sunny days
I love them
I love the sun
I love my mother
coming with me
The sun bright shining
The sun bright shine in the world
Do I sound miserable here? Someone asked me today if I was going through a hard time! I’m ashamed to say I laughed. Oh, my heart is breaking for the all kids who committed suicide this month, and I just sobbed my way through several relevant bits (ETA Milo’s is the best), but the reason the It Gets Better project slays me dead, every time, is precisely because I was bullied and it did get better, so much better, better than I could possibly have dreamed. Not only do I live in a city that, if it were human, I would have a helpless girlcrush on and want to make out with all the time, just look at this place, I mean, damn, I’ve had at least two occasions in the last twelve months – Jeremy’s last birthday party and the Labor Day picnic – where about five hours flowed past in real bliss. Didn’t even know that was possible. I’ve been worried my blog is getting too sappy, because I am just nauseatingly cheerful and fulfilled right now.
Anyway! Just felt I should clear that up. Today was really great. Claire, Julia and I Internationally Walked to School for cute keyrings and stickers. The webinar I gave in the morning went exceptionally well. I had a vat of Blue Bottle coffee and a very delicious bit of salmon at the reliably nommy Boulette’s Larder, right on the Bay, with several of my favourite people. In the afternoon I fooled around a little with amusing work, and then I came home to run the first math circle session for Fall. All the math parents just lovely, and even better, half of them already knew each other and were overjoyed to catch up. The new space is pretty much ideal, and it’s about sixty feet from my front door. I was able to sneak away during the third session, have a sit-down dinner with Jeremy and the kids at home, and be back in time to lock up. Now I am blogging with the MacBook on my left hip and the Beeblebooble curled up on my right. Oh look, and there’s a new MythBusters, and Jeremy just brought me tea and chocolate.
Riding lesson tomorrow! Oz Farm this weekend! Tickets to Zoe Keating next week!
Woke up hungover. Had a date night with the Mister last night. We went to Mission Beach and split a bottle of sangiovese. Mission Beach is really just an epically good place. I had a perfect arugula and peach salad, a fantastic bit of filet mignon on a bed of corn, English peas, black-eyed peas, mushrooms and garlic cloves with port jus (I wasn’t sure about the black-eyed peas but they gave the whole dish an incredibly rich earthiness and texture) (“Jus.” “Jus.” Jus.”) and a key lime pie. I ate too much, actually: I’ve been subsisting on salad and lean meats for a while, and can’t pack away three courses with my former aplomb. Then we went to see Exit Through the Gift Shop at the Roxie. It was funny.
This morning we had nothing in particular planned, so when Jeremy suggested that everyone come down and watch me ride I pointed out that we could swing by and see Robert and Gayu and Hari; so we did that, and had a yummy lunch (in Sunnyvale! I KNOW) and then I rode and Failed To Suck, and then there was a bouncy castle at Webb Ranch so of course we had to stop so the girls would bounce. I left my phone in the car where Jeremy was napping so I didn’t get a picture, but I looked at the bouncy castle which was unusually clean and bright rainbow colours, and the girls – Jules in her blue gingham dress, Claire in her leopardskin skirt and NYPL tee – and thought, I should remember this. A perfect moment in a perfect day. Let me keep it.
Now the chicken is roasting with yams and carrots and kale, and the girls are colouring, and it’s another pretty awesome moment actually.
Julia: “Mama, are rainbows really real?”
Me: “Yes, Julia, rainbows are real.”
Julia: “OH MY!”
Seven hours and 38 minutes until I get home.
On mornings when the timing works out – not all mornings, but definitely the best mornings – the whole family walks down Eugenia together, the girls in school uniforms and non-uniform tights and boots, their bright backpacks on their backs, and Jeremy and I in our serious grownup Linux hacker and industry analyst standard city equipment.
J and the girls take the bus south, I go north. The buses are frequent so there’s usually not enough time to wave, but one morning last week, Mission Street was empty for a while. I waved, the girls waved. I waved. They waved. I blew kisses, they blew kisses, I made heart shapes with my hands, they made strange squashy shapes with theirs.
Then we all paused. Still no bus. Awkward.
I made jazz hands. They made jazz hands.
All three of us started to dance.
We danced and danced. We boogied. We step-ball-changed. We twirled. Julia, especially, twirled.
For ten minutes, on two sides of Mission Street, we got our white girl funk on.
When my bus finally arrived I saw a woman on the other side of the street solemnly high-fiving Jeremy and the kids.
Claire and I had a sleepover at the Cal Academy on Friday night, which was completely brilliant. “Can I eat whatever I want?” “Knock yourself out, kid.” We staked out the absolute primo position – under the tree in the African Hall – and woke up to birdsong, and the shadow of a leopard. We had watched “Night at the Museum” to get into the spirit of things. “It’s going to be SO AWESOME,” I kept saying: “the penguins and the butterflies and the alligators are going to COME TO LIFE.” To which she replied only: “MA-ma.” No one does disdain like your seven-year-old daughter.
Saturday was nuts: we were out of the museum by 8; Claire made it to wushu, and Salome and I made it to the Farmer’s Market, but only after being distracted by two of more than sixty simultaneous garage sales on the hill. Next year we will plan accordingly. She got a lamp and a very nice grey sweater vest. I got a pink bag I am not sure about, and Mary Janes and a cardigan and a brocade cushion cover that I am perfectly sure about, all for $8.
After the market we went to Julia’s! Kinder! Barbeque! Then Claire and I battled traffic to the Container Store, where I got baskets for the shopping bags and shoes that otherwise litter our entry hall. The baskets are a perfect fit! I am enamoured of my new, clutter-free entry hall. Jan, who arrived while the girls were at swim class, only asked “Why do you have so many shoes anyway?” I came late to the stereotypical shoe love, but I am making up for lost time. The girls were beside themselves with delight at seeing Jan.
Yesterday I rode Bella over fences, and we did a big course, and rode it better than we’ve ever done before, so that was insanely great. Then Danny and Liz and Ada came over and we had roast chicken with two kinds of yams and potatoes and carrots and a salad with spinach and yellow cherry tomatoes and squash blossoms. And it was very delicious.
Danny is thinking of buying Albion Castle in the Bayview and making it his supervillain lair. I pointed out that it would be almost unworkably far away from Mission burritos, and he said that tapping the Alameda-Weehawken burrito tunnel could be his first crime.
This morning Julia started kindergarten. She was radiantly brave, and gave me a huge grin and a thumbs-up as she marched into her classroom. I got something in my eye. I have two schoolgirls now, and no more little kids.
I’m thinking. I’m thinking about women. I’m thinking about my body, about beauty, about politics, about my daughters, about the war. I am thinking about the books I want to write. I am thinking about the weekend. I am thinking about my childhood, and my Daddy, and the future. I am listening to a lot of music.
preoccupations
