I am in love with all the angry comments I recieved from my reader article. Seriously, they are comedic gems. Also, I think criticism is a writer's greatest gift. So in celebration of angry readers across San Diego I present you with the top five greatest comments:
1. DEAR SIOBHAN, (who names there kid siobhan anyway?} Hit the road, your not welcome here, this short comment provided by your local local.
2.Please do us all a favor.....move back to the Midwest where you can enjoy your Old Milwaukee and baseball. We have too many like you already. In fact take a few back with you.....ok? Thanks!
3. GO BACK WHERE YOU CAME FROM! Seriously. Nobody is twisting your arm trying to get you to stay. GET THE F*#& OUT!
4. I will take this opportunity to warn her that some passages come dangerously close to being much too passive (command your passages, don't allow them to command you).
5. What's up with the READER placing this waste of space on the front page......???
How about hiring some decent writers to do some real stories....?
Monday, September 28, 2009
Thursday, September 24, 2009
My brother is cool
When I was a kid I thought my brother was the most amazing person in the world. I still think he is pretty awesome! Check him out: My bro
mystery film
I found an old roll of film hidden in the back of our file cabinet a while back. For some reason i was convinced that the roll held pictures of my dad. I don't know why I thought that, wishful thinking perhaps.
Oddly, leafing through those pictures may have been harder then attending my dads funeral. It's funny the way things effect me.
Here are some of the pictures, which despite the sadness I adore!
I've held on to this film for months, waiting for the moment that I could handle seeing the face of my dad during some forgotten moment. I imagined glossy photos of him in the backyard, or at the park pushing Amelia on the swings.
Last week I dropped the roll off to be developed. I waited two whole days to retrieve them. When I opened the envelope up I was bombarded with 24 photos from a camping trip Aaron, the kids, and I took to Big Sur. I loved that trip. We saw two condors, a stag, and a whale all in one weekend. I love the flawless beauty of Big Sur and the excitement of my kids when they hang out in nature. Still I was heart broken. I wanted 24 photos of my dad, the healthy dad who tilted his head back at the kitchen table to laugh over Andrew and Jacob's antics.
Oddly, leafing through those pictures may have been harder then attending my dads funeral. It's funny the way things effect me.
Here are some of the pictures, which despite the sadness I adore!
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
The cover
My story made this week's reader cover. I already have two hate filled comments; go me!
http://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2009/sep/23/cover/
http://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2009/sep/23/cover/
Monday, August 31, 2009
Back to School
There is something slightly humiliating about attending Community College classes in my thirties. Most of the other students look like prepubescent junior high kids whom have just sprouted arm pit hair. The first day of class I felt like I should’ve lathered myself in anti-wrinkle cream and worn less sensible shoes so that I would’ve stuck out less.
In my English class the teacher has us interview each other. When I tell the girl sitting next to me I have three kids she nearly screams, “How old are you?”
“30,” I tell her. She can’t believe it.
I am unsure if I should be flattered that she thought I was younger or insulted over just how ancient she thinks I am. There is nothing like a 19-year-old with blue eye-shadow to make you feel geriatric.
In my freehand drawing class I feel a little less out of place. This class hosts the largest senior citizen population I have come across at Mesa. I think retirees have decided to spend their leisure days learning how to draw. I sit next to a transgendered gal named Ruby who tells me she is pursuing a career in fashion design. Her hands are like mitts and I can’t stop staring at them.
My teacher is frightening. She wears turquoise jewelry and heavy silver bangles. She rolls her eyes a lot. On the second day she kicks a guy out of her class for leaving the room to answer his cell phone. She dramatically removes his equipment from his easel and spits out “Don’t come back in here!” when he attempts to re-enter the room. So much for the Zen art class experience I was hoping for, I think to myself. I feel like I am in a bad Saturday Night Live skit.
My drawing professor spends a good chunk of the class berating us. I cower when she passes my easel hoping she doesn’t stop. On Wednesday, when she sees me erasing something on my sketch pad, she swoops in.
“How far apart should those two lines be?” she demands pointing at my page.
I feel like it’s a trick question. I start to panic. When I say two inches she groans.
“I want you to envision two inches. Don’t tell me using words and measurements. See the lines in your mind!” She lets out a lengthy sigh and glares at me as if my existence annoys her.
Mid-way through the class we walk around the room to look at each others work. My sketches are pitiful. I was so preoccupied with the idea of my teacher helping me again that I spent an hour and half erasing and redrawing a small fraction of the still life that was set up in the room.
When I get home that day I check my art teacher’s reviews on www.ratemyproffessors.com. I am alarmed. Multiple students recommend not taking her class, one says she has no soul and another states that she is a complete and utter loon. I promise myself that in the future I will always check rate my professor before signing up for a class.
In my English class the teacher has us interview each other. When I tell the girl sitting next to me I have three kids she nearly screams, “How old are you?”
“30,” I tell her. She can’t believe it.
I am unsure if I should be flattered that she thought I was younger or insulted over just how ancient she thinks I am. There is nothing like a 19-year-old with blue eye-shadow to make you feel geriatric.
In my freehand drawing class I feel a little less out of place. This class hosts the largest senior citizen population I have come across at Mesa. I think retirees have decided to spend their leisure days learning how to draw. I sit next to a transgendered gal named Ruby who tells me she is pursuing a career in fashion design. Her hands are like mitts and I can’t stop staring at them.
My teacher is frightening. She wears turquoise jewelry and heavy silver bangles. She rolls her eyes a lot. On the second day she kicks a guy out of her class for leaving the room to answer his cell phone. She dramatically removes his equipment from his easel and spits out “Don’t come back in here!” when he attempts to re-enter the room. So much for the Zen art class experience I was hoping for, I think to myself. I feel like I am in a bad Saturday Night Live skit.
My drawing professor spends a good chunk of the class berating us. I cower when she passes my easel hoping she doesn’t stop. On Wednesday, when she sees me erasing something on my sketch pad, she swoops in.
“How far apart should those two lines be?” she demands pointing at my page.
I feel like it’s a trick question. I start to panic. When I say two inches she groans.
“I want you to envision two inches. Don’t tell me using words and measurements. See the lines in your mind!” She lets out a lengthy sigh and glares at me as if my existence annoys her.
Mid-way through the class we walk around the room to look at each others work. My sketches are pitiful. I was so preoccupied with the idea of my teacher helping me again that I spent an hour and half erasing and redrawing a small fraction of the still life that was set up in the room.
When I get home that day I check my art teacher’s reviews on www.ratemyproffessors.com. I am alarmed. Multiple students recommend not taking her class, one says she has no soul and another states that she is a complete and utter loon. I promise myself that in the future I will always check rate my professor before signing up for a class.
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Holy heat
I know I shouldn’t complain about the weather when I grew up in Chicago, a place where the humidity could melt your face off. But it’s hot! We don’t have air conditioning because in the 70’s, when my home was built, they were okay with discomfort. America had yet to become the land of indulgence that it is now. Kids did not ride around on electric scooters and kindergarteners were not pushed around in strollers. They were okay with sweaty pits back then.
In my house we suffer. My kids kick their sheets off in the middle of the night and have beads of perspiration on their foreheads in the morning. Sometimes I lounge around in my underwear and tank top. As a result, my kids may be permanently damaged because no one wants to see me in undergarments.
My Midwestern relatives act annoyed when I mention that it is over 85 degrees outside. They need to shut it. They blast their air conditioners all summer long. We spend a lot of time at the pool avoiding our sauna like home. My daughter’s hair has an unmistakable green tint to it. I am going to need to cut it. “But mommy I have to have princess hair, you can’t cut it,” she whines. What I want to know is where did she come from? I barely brush my hair and always sweep it up into a messy pony tail. As a kid I played in the dirt, never with Barbies. Sometimes I feel like her and I are a cosmic joke. The girly-girly stuck with a mother who has no problem wearing pajamas in public. She is so going to hate me once puberty hits!
My daughter takes swim lessons at the Tierrasanta pool from a 20-something named Kyle. He has a tattoo on his torso of the fine state of California. He wears green sun-block on his face. “I don’t like him!’ my daughter pouts after her first lesson. “Why not,” I ask. “I don’t like his look!” At four my daughter is already a snob. My son did the same thing at her age. He went from having a beautiful blond swim instruction to a pudgy faced one. After his first class with the new teacher he told me “I am never going back there!” Is it my fault that they are this way, I wonder. Am I as shallow? I feel like I need to read a parenting book before they turn into complete jerks. Maybe when they are preteens and have bad skin and B.O they will pull it together and start chanting the mantra “all that matters is what’s on the inside.”
I force swim lessons upon my kids all summer long. I want them to be strong swimmers. My mom enrolled me in swim lessons just once when I was little and never again afterward. I think it may have been because I was an embarrassment. I was the kid in the class that screamed and flayed around a lot while hyper-venalating out of fear. When kids were bad in my class they were not rescued by their parents. They sent in the lead swim instructor, a man in an American flag Speedo. There is nothing more terrifying than a man in a Speedo. He would force me into the water and dunk my head under. To this day I still detest Speedos.
My daughter Amelia is the kid in the class who wants to do everything first and better than the rest of the kids. If the instructor wants her to do 20 head bobs she does 30. The rest of the parents sit in the bleachers next to me with digital cameras and words of encouragement. I might be too aloof. Maybe that’s why she is a little insane and up in everyone’s face with her crazy competiveness. When I wave and try to behave like the other parents and say “you’re doing a great job honey.” Amelia gives me a puzzled look as if to say who the hell are you and what have you done with my real mother. For the most part I remain quiet and silently watch her being peppy and over the top while inwardly chuckling.
When her class is over she behaves like a child that has just attended a slumber party where she has only gotten 2 hours of sleep and eaten her weight in candy. She’s a mess. She whines that she is freezing and hungry and exhausted all at once. She spends the next thirty minutes sitting next to me asking when her brother’s lesson will be over. It must be excruciatingly tiring to be her. I don’t get her mood swings, mostly because I have always been such an under-achiever.
In my house we suffer. My kids kick their sheets off in the middle of the night and have beads of perspiration on their foreheads in the morning. Sometimes I lounge around in my underwear and tank top. As a result, my kids may be permanently damaged because no one wants to see me in undergarments.
My Midwestern relatives act annoyed when I mention that it is over 85 degrees outside. They need to shut it. They blast their air conditioners all summer long. We spend a lot of time at the pool avoiding our sauna like home. My daughter’s hair has an unmistakable green tint to it. I am going to need to cut it. “But mommy I have to have princess hair, you can’t cut it,” she whines. What I want to know is where did she come from? I barely brush my hair and always sweep it up into a messy pony tail. As a kid I played in the dirt, never with Barbies. Sometimes I feel like her and I are a cosmic joke. The girly-girly stuck with a mother who has no problem wearing pajamas in public. She is so going to hate me once puberty hits!
My daughter takes swim lessons at the Tierrasanta pool from a 20-something named Kyle. He has a tattoo on his torso of the fine state of California. He wears green sun-block on his face. “I don’t like him!’ my daughter pouts after her first lesson. “Why not,” I ask. “I don’t like his look!” At four my daughter is already a snob. My son did the same thing at her age. He went from having a beautiful blond swim instruction to a pudgy faced one. After his first class with the new teacher he told me “I am never going back there!” Is it my fault that they are this way, I wonder. Am I as shallow? I feel like I need to read a parenting book before they turn into complete jerks. Maybe when they are preteens and have bad skin and B.O they will pull it together and start chanting the mantra “all that matters is what’s on the inside.”
I force swim lessons upon my kids all summer long. I want them to be strong swimmers. My mom enrolled me in swim lessons just once when I was little and never again afterward. I think it may have been because I was an embarrassment. I was the kid in the class that screamed and flayed around a lot while hyper-venalating out of fear. When kids were bad in my class they were not rescued by their parents. They sent in the lead swim instructor, a man in an American flag Speedo. There is nothing more terrifying than a man in a Speedo. He would force me into the water and dunk my head under. To this day I still detest Speedos.
My daughter Amelia is the kid in the class who wants to do everything first and better than the rest of the kids. If the instructor wants her to do 20 head bobs she does 30. The rest of the parents sit in the bleachers next to me with digital cameras and words of encouragement. I might be too aloof. Maybe that’s why she is a little insane and up in everyone’s face with her crazy competiveness. When I wave and try to behave like the other parents and say “you’re doing a great job honey.” Amelia gives me a puzzled look as if to say who the hell are you and what have you done with my real mother. For the most part I remain quiet and silently watch her being peppy and over the top while inwardly chuckling.
When her class is over she behaves like a child that has just attended a slumber party where she has only gotten 2 hours of sleep and eaten her weight in candy. She’s a mess. She whines that she is freezing and hungry and exhausted all at once. She spends the next thirty minutes sitting next to me asking when her brother’s lesson will be over. It must be excruciatingly tiring to be her. I don’t get her mood swings, mostly because I have always been such an under-achiever.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Minus one
My mom stole Andrew for the summer. He was supposed to be gone for two weeks but it has stretched into something much more extensive then that. It has been over three weeks since I have seen him. I miss the little man. I have agreed to allow him to stay until the end of the month. Last night he attended his first ever magic class. I am afraid that he will come home and be bored to pieces.
Amelia and Jake are a mess together. Amelia is bossy with him and Jacob loves to torment her. I am hoping that the two of them pull it togehter and learn to be normal within each others presence. That may be asking too much though. Without Andrew it feels like the balance of our family is out of whack.
Here are photos from our summer so far:
Amelia and Jake are a mess together. Amelia is bossy with him and Jacob loves to torment her. I am hoping that the two of them pull it togehter and learn to be normal within each others presence. That may be asking too much though. Without Andrew it feels like the balance of our family is out of whack.
Here are photos from our summer so far:
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