Dear Kid,

It’s Sunday morning. Dad is out weeding the Back Forty (feet, not acres). Booker is lying in the grass supervising. I’m hoping that we’ll have tomatoes before November this year, but given past experience and when the seeds went in, I’m not taking them off the grocery list just yet.

It is going to be brutally hot today, and no one has figured out how to air condition three feet around me. (You are free to steal my idea of a personal outdoor portable air conditioner, develop and market it, and keep your mother in the style to which she would like to become accustomed.) I’m toying with the idea of going out and working in the gardens anyway, but I’m leaning more toward attacking in-door chores. I thought about starting to clean out my closet, but I don’t think I’ve had all the right shots so that’s going to have to wait until I get full haz-mat gear.

Important point: it is not possible to do everything.

It is possible to do a lot, it is probably possible to do more than you think you can, but it is not possible to do everything. Living means making choices (although to be clear, it is not a choice to spend all day watching TV today).

As hard as I try, I have not managed to clone myself or be in two places at once. If anyone ever figures that out, I guarantee it will be a mom. And so we choose. We divide and conquer. We make the best decisions we can in that moment. (At least, we hope we do.)

At college, you will have to make choices. To take This Class or That Class. To go to dinner or nap. To meet with a study group or hang out with friends. To do a little work daily or try to catch up all at once. Soup or salad.

Some choices are easy. Some seem easy but have far-reaching consequences.

It’s your choice. Make it a good one.

In my experience, the more you think in advance about who you want to be and the kind of choices you want to make, the more likely you are to make choices you are happy with.

So take a few minutes, now, during college orientation, during the first week of school (or all of the above), and think about what you want to be during the next four (or so) years, about how you want people to describe you, about what you want to experience and what you don’t want to go through.

Here’s to choices you can look back on with pride.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

Some People Are Unhappy—Their Miserableness Isn’t About You

According to Wikipedia, Gilbert & Sullivan’s Princess Ida satirizes feminism, women’s education, and Darwinian evolution, which were controversial topics in conservative Victorian England.

According to me, Princess Ida is about smart women, cross-dressing, and cranky royalty in the form of King Gama. The best part of the operetta (imho) is when King Gama sings:

Oh, don’t the days seem lank and long
When all goes right and nothing goes wrong,
And isn’t your life extremely flat
With nothing whatever to grumble at!

(The recording for your listening enjoyment:)

This is particularly useful for singing to small children who are particularly grumpy. (Yes, it has been sung to you. If you don’t remember, that probably means either you haven’t been very grumpy lately or I’m a rotten mother for not inflicting more Gilbert & Sullivan upon you. Or possibly both.)

The POINT of all this is that I have been thinking about grumpy people today and wondering why some people seem happier when they are unhappy. There are people who seem to simply relish the misery and disappointments in life. Don’t get me wrong—I know unfortunate things happen and we can’t just ignore that. But I don’t understand the people who feel the need to inflict their misery on others. Especially when “their misery” isn’t even really theirs.

I was talking with someone earlier today–her life is just a big ol’ bag of drama. Drama with her brother’s life, one family member causing drama with another family member, drama between two neighbors, drama between two colleagues…you get the point. None of these really have anything to do with her directly; she has chosen to take on the burden of the stress. I should explain that she is not observing or commenting on the situations–she owns them. It is a habit with her. Once one drama/tragedy/problem is solved, another one always seems to pop up. There are always multiple “catastrophic”  situations in her life. And she generally shares them. At great and gory length.

It’s not obvious (at least it’s not obvious to me) why she wants to “own” all of these problems. Perhaps it makes her feel more important; perhaps it’s a control thing; perhaps she just likes wallowing in the misery of it all. What I do know is that her involvement in many of these situations is a choice. She is choosing much of the stress and choosing to respond to it in a very involved sort of way. The stress of it all causes her to frequently lash out in ways I don’t think she intends.

About a million years ago when I was in high school, I worked at Wendy’s. I remember distinctly one evening when I was asked to wash pots in the back. I was at the sink, grumpiest person on the planet, talking in my head about how miserable life was, when the restaurant got busy and I was called to work at the drive through window. Because I was talking to people, and because it was my job to be cheerful, I pretended I was happy. Funnily enough, in just a few minutes, I WAS happy.

Yes, “ick” happens. But often you can choose how you respond to it.

Hope you are choosing a happy day.

Love, Mom

Bonus: If You Give Me Your Attention (also from Princess Ida). This is the one where he sings, “Yet everybody says I’m such a disagreeable man, and I can’t think why!” It seems appropriate, so I’m including it.

Seriously, it’s making my teeth hurt

Dear Kid,

Don’t get me wrong. I love technology. Love social media. There are people who have suggested (in a kindly way) that I have a slight addiction to Twitter and Pinterest. And maybe LinkedIn. Perhaps even Facebook. I believe in blogs—I work on blogs and websites all day long. Often far into the night. So I am anything but a Luddite (any opponent of industrial change or innovation –definition provided for your learning convenience).

BUT

my poor little head is about to explode and scatter disgusting bits of brain all over the room.

I just read a guest blog submission that was sent to the fabulous Girlfriendolgy. I’m guessing the author thought it was written in English. It wasn’t written in any language I recognize. It wasn’t that it was written in British or some other widely recognized version of the English language (like Canadian). No, no. This was written in Garbage. Rule of thumb: If you’re not sure, get  someone else to proof read your work.

The author only had a nodding acquaintance with the concept of grammar, and had clearly never contemplated putting together a string of related sentences. She obviously preferred the just-put-down-words-and-let-the-reader-worry-about-it approach to writing. Or perhaps she had studied at the school of if-I-sound-snooty-enough-someone-will-take-me-seriously. (I didn’t.)

It wasn’t that it was written too informally (idk, maybe that would have helped). It was almost that the author was trying too hard to be impressive. Rule of thumb: If you don’t know what a word means, don’t use it until you’ve looked it up.

There are times for writing formally (class assignments especially in college, lab reports, requests for a raise) and there are times for writing very informally (texts, scribbled notes on scraps of paper and message boards). Most communication (like blogs) falls somewhere in between. While each type of communication has its own rules (rule for early morning: use nothing more complicated than a nod and a grunt), nowhere will you find the rule “write badly and use bad grammar.”

You will be stunned [sarcasm font] to know that I sent it back with a request to rewrite (or destroy).

Hope you are having a wonderful, well-grammar-ed day.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

I just read an email from a teacher at the High School that made my teeth hurt.

A teacher–did I mention that part, O Best Beloved?–a teacher, presumably college educated, someone trusted to educate our young people (most notably your sister at this point in time)–abusing the English language.

This teacher–still with me on the part about it being a TEACHER who we’re talking about?–substituted the word then for than.

Now before you say anything, let me point out that this is not the first time this particular teacher has made this particular mistake, so there is no excusing it by saying that she just “oopsed” as she was typing too quickly. Let me also point out that even if that were the case, she was communicating to students and parents and should proofread her work (as she no doubt expects her students to do).

Dear World: then and than are no more interchangeable than men and man, pen and pan, ten and tan, or shredded wheat and corn flakes (I haven’t had breakfast yet).

Is it wrong of me to expect that people responsible for education should be able to model decent grammar?

Apparently, I do not have the authority to make the teacher in question write a paper about the correct use of the word ‘then.’ Nor do I have the right to try to get her to pronounce the word accurately (which would help with her spelling).

Wonder if she reads this blog? Or if I can anonymously send her the link to this post?

Better to have a great day than a lousy one. But if you have a bad day, then I hope tomorrow is better.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

Is it just me, or has the whole world lost it?

I just read the article Why Eye Contact Still Matters In The Age of Email which basically laments the “new” rudeness that has emerged now that teens and college students are spending so much time on their electronic communication devices. The article suggests that because people are communicating in ways that are not face-to-face they feel a freedom to be rude. (It also suggests that because “everyone is watching” people are no longer willing to take risks, but that is a discussion for another day. Tomorrow perhaps.)