Category — The History of Me

Lucius: “Here, please, for you.”

Me: “No thank you.”

Lucius: “No, please, take it.”

Me: “No, that’s alright. Thanks.”

Lucius: “Please, it’s a present. It’s free.”

Me: “Okay.”

Lucius: “Wait, it’s a little sticky, let me wrap it. Come, please.”

That’s the conversation I had with the nail product guy 3 quarters through the mall today. I’d already dodged the mineral makeup lady, the flat iron woman, and the cell phone man. I was on fire. Till Lucius, waving a little fuchsia stick in my direction, tricked me into thinking I could just take his sample and keep strolling.

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Yesterday, Caelyn and I were out walking and I almost, sort of had the urge to run. This is only significant because I only have the urge to run when I encounter anyone in the Apoidea family.

(Skip to the bold sentence right now to get to the point of this post and not read my feelings about running.)

I’ve tried running before. My High School buddies C.C. and Jeremy had this great plan for the three of us to run together every week (and memorize Bible verses — strengthen the body, strengthen the spirit), which in itself is kinda weird, but if you knew C.C. and Jeremy you wouldn’t think so. (Or maybe you would.) That venture ended with me telling Jeremy that it was stupid to insist that the only way a memorized verse was valuable was if it was word-for-word, comma-for-comma NIV, because any other translation or a misplaced pause or a forgotten “the” would decrease one’s witnessing effectiveness.

And with me saying, “Yeah, I don’t care about running enough to put up with my lungs burning like this.”

I had a good friend in graduate school who had never run before and just decided after attending a fund-raising event for kids with leukemia that she was going to run a marathon. And she did. She kept trying to get me to run too, but I decided to support a good cause in a way that didn’t involve me running 20+ miles at 4:30 in the morning and throwing up. (If you know the girl I’m talking about, you know she’s way more competitive and way tougher than me. I wish I had the discipline and determination to do something like that.)

It’s not that I’m anti-fitness. It’s not that I don’t think I should take care of my body because God made it. I walk. I do pilates. I cook with healthy ingredients and only eat junk food one meal a week. It’s just that I’m not one of those people who gets “addicted” to exercise, no matter how much I think I should take care of myself or how badly I want to be in shape. And with running . . . .

Well, why don’t I just list my excuses?

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Few people enjoy a “word joke” as much as I do. It doesn’t matter the venue or the type — a turn of pronunciation, a ridonculous definition, a case of made-up vocabulary — they get me every time.

I’m reading The Education of H*Y*M*A*N K*A*P*L*A*N. I’ve known about it for a while (it’s from the 30’s, for goodness sake), but I’ve never actually read it. Hyman is an immigrant in the Beginners Class in the US naturalization program, and his story is one (earnest) word joke after another. There’s some humorous stuff from the English teacher side of things too.

One of my favorite parts so far is when Hyman writes an assigned letter to his brother. He originally signs it “Your animated brother,” but when his class and his teacher, Mr. Parkhill, inform him that he ought not refer to himself as “animated,” he sets out to find the perfect replacement adjective. After rolling through a few common ones, he finally comes up with what he believes is the ultimate answer: “Magnificent!”

The class is in awe, but Mr. Parkhill breaks the spell by pointing out that “magnificent” isn’t really appropriate either. As Hyman leaves class that night, he has a conversation with another student, Mr. Bloom, that is overheard by Mr. Parkhill.

“Kaplan,” said Mr. Bloom enviously, “how you fond soch a beautiful woid?”

“‘Megnificent,’ ‘megnificent,’” Mr. Kaplan murmured to himself wistfully. “Ach! Dat vas a beauriful void, ha, Bloom?”

“Believe me!” said Mr. Bloom. “How you fond soch a woid?”

“By dip tinking,” said Mr. Kaplan.

He strode out like a hero.

Sure, the dialect and the scene are amusing, but what I really like about it is something that’s not on the page — a memory that it conjured up for me.

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Walt started the day confessing how not being in school has made him dumber, and unintentionally (I’m assuming), reminding me that the same is true of me. I thought about commenting on his post, which would’ve probably been the right thing to do, but instead decided to think it through in my own post.

My short response would be: “Yeah, I know what you’re talking about, wh. And I think, maybe, having one or more small children makes you dumber too. Anyway, good thoughts on being a novice after being a master. Oh, and my spelling has gone downhill ever since I quit working for McGraw and being forced to look up any misspelled words in quickly written phone messages.”

“Pregnancy brain” is a real thing, you know. Documented, studied (though never conclusively found to be anything more than perception). But what they don’t tell you is that “infant brain” is worse.

Words are my thing. Short of trying to capture how intensely I feel about something/someone, I’ve never had trouble putting my thoughts together into cohesive sentences and speaking or writing them (though I’m admittedly better at the writing part).

But now? I say things all the time that don’t make any sense. The day after Caelyn was born, my friends Amy and Jonathan came to visit us in the hospital. Before they got there, Chris asked me why they were in DFW. I think I said, “stop by” and that’s it. I thought an entire sentence and only said that part of it. Then they got there and I kept doing the same thing.

You’re probably thinking, “That doesn’t count. You had just produced another human being from your body.” And if you’re in the know, “You were on major pain meds for the c-section.”

Those are reasonable thoughts. I thought them too and then I got home and spent the next 21-months not making sense.

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I gave you fair warning, but I guess it’s still possible that you’ve been wondering where I’ve been, so:

The familia’s been keeping me busy all over this city (er, metroplex).

Chris went to Indianapolis this week. My sister and niece came in on Tuesday and stayed through this morning. (My brother-in-law joined them, after finishing up business in Shreveport, on Thursday.) My parents came in on Thursday evening, as did my grandmom. And they all corralled at my Aunt and Uncle’s house in Dallas.

I was wrong about them not gracing my doorstep, though, so it’s a good thing I cleaned. Here’s a brief itinerary:

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