I love reading other blog posts that describe what the do when they’re on vacation. Skiing, hiking, and ziplining or some such nonsense. Isn’t ziplining a word? I thought that’s what it was called, but since I’m terribly uncultured in the art of vacation it’s just a crapshoot. My version of a vacation is usually going up to see family and friends in the Chicagoland area and dining out and eating with family. See how this works? Life in my family revolves around food. Eating is far more sexy to me than taking a cruise and letting the kids watch IMAX movies and whatnot.

Right here and right now I am going to apologize for overusing the word ‘whatnot’. It’s not my fault. One of the summer reading books I’m enjoying is an audible book that I’m listening to on my iPod. It’s Kathryn Stockett’s “The Help” and listening to it is affecting my non-existent southern accent because for the rest of the day I will suddenly add extra syllables to words. Early on in my listening one of the characters used the word “whatnot” and now I am killing that word. And whatnot.

Let me share my very sexy life with y’all for a moment. Today, I spent time cleaning out my refrigerator and there were too many things that had to be thrown away without me documenting it for my shame to be shared throughout the land. I am pretending that I am a princess today and it really helps to clean out your own muck while wearing a tiara. TRUST ME. So, I’m cleaning it out and listening to “The Help” and then my phone dings at me to say I have an email and I read that I was nominated for an honor at the closing ceremony for BlogHer this year. You can find the post here with all the other entries. Someone nominated me and I don’t know who it was, but thank you nonetheless and whatnot.

The blog entry that was nominated was “I’m Black Irish and I’m Proud” and it might be weird to say, but it’s one of my favorite posts that I’ve written and also one that was painful to write. Also currently on BlogHer is a piece on cyberbullying by Gina Carroll that I got interviewed for a while back. It sums up my frustration with dealing with it as an administrator and yet doesn’t even come CLOSE to the mess that this little gal is in right now. I watched the videos this morning just shaking my head that an 11-year old had that much power over what she was putting out on the web and then her screaming father reminded me all too well of the kinds of things I might hear when they want us to clean up the mess. She is a complete brat and plays with her bangs so much I kind of want to make her cut them off, but that’s neither here nor there.

A friend of mine also emailed me today that she nominated me for the Black Weblog Awards and reminded me that since they are now taking nominations I should go ahead and pimp myself out so there you have it and whatnot. If you’re inclined, please nominate me for Best Personal Blog.

Do it because you love me. Do it because I have no food in my refrigerator. Do it because I said please.

And whatnot.

Some marvelous things happened this week. One of my favorite parts about having a blog and sharing things online with friends (yes, I said FRIENDS) is that people read my words carefully and generally care for me. That’s a really nice thing to have in life anyway and I am blessed with some pretty fantastic friends, online and not.

First, my mom is feeling better and getting around nicely and losing lots of the water weight she’s been carrying around. Small blessings for health, I say. It’s made me far more aware of my own health and I’m exercising a lot and eating more vegetables and trying in general to be positive. Would you believe that I even tried a little bit of ice cream and that it didn’t make me violently ill now that I’m lactose intolerant? Weird. I can’t explain that one.

Next, I had some friends over this week for a movie night that was supposed to be outside on the projector but Mother Nature graced us with blazing heat so we settled for modern A/C  in my living room to watch  “I’m Gonna Git You Sucka” and shared wine and guacamole and black bean & corn salsa and Hypnotiq. The only thing I will say about that is that it pays to be friends with really young people who’ve just come off the college scene because they know how to make The Incredible Hulk drink from Hypnotiq (mix it with Hennessey) and do you know what happens then? THEN, you have a real party where you do dramatic readings of Twitter streams and it becomes a hilarious event. (I would upload some pictures from that night, but my cord is missing that goes from my camera to my laptop) (there should be a word for what that cord is, but I don’t know it). We have decided that next time we will view that blockbuster chick-flick, “Spice World” which is supposedly a great film. Yes. Film.

This is a video from my friend Alex who started taping Patrick doing these dramatic readings of DeShanee’s tweets. The background music is “Ashokan Farewell” because we were doing this a la Ken Burns.

You’ll also see friends Jeanette and Steve and Lynne as the camera (a la Ken Burns, remember?) pan slowly across the kitchen table. I spent most of my time finding new funny ones for Patrick to read and covering my mouth with my hands and laughing. Good times.

To cap off all the great things that are going on at Chez Mocha Momma I want to do a birthday shoutout to my friend Karen of Chookooloonks (you can tell she’s my friend because I mention her like all the time) who is happy to announce that she’s 43. I, however, am happy to announce that she wants nothing more for her birthday for you to go out in the next 24 hours and do something for yourself. Her words and an image from her book campaign below:

It could be having a great meal, taking a perfect bath, reading that book on your nightstand that you’ve been meaning to read, booking that holiday you’ve been tempted to book or just lying in the sunlight for 30 minutes.  Whatever it is that will make you happy today, please go do it.  In fact, I beg you to go do it.  I’d love to think that on my birthday, people all over the world are ensuring that they’re having a great day.

The comment I left for her was:

For your gift today I will do the following:

work on my book and devote a full 2 hours to writing

take a jacuzzi bath today now that I actually have a jacuzzi bathtub

give myself a pedicure

do one of those home facial kits that I’ve had in the bathroom cabinet for too long

read from one book on my nightstand (you caught me!)

and love the people in my presence with a fierceness (smothering with kisses, hugging, telling him pointedly that I love them).

So, Karen, my dear sweet, encouraging friend of a certain age, these are your gifts today. They are done in your honor. I love you. Happy birthday.

xoxo

Since I’ve moved, I now have a writing space where I am practicing daily to devote 2 hours to that craft. Devoting that much time to writing means that I can’t always put up a blog post and I’m willing to sacrifice that time. Many other things happen there like messing around with my colored pencils and organizing my bills and doing crafty workbook-y stuff in the book “How You Do Anything is How You Do Everything”. It’s a very Zen-y, Buddhist-y, self-discovery type thing that helps me work out some kinks and I highly recommend it since this is my second time through it. I like to think of it as my Artist’s Way with crayons and glue sticks.

My messy desk that somehow doesn’t contribute to my messy mind.

Besides that, I sit and look out the window where I have placed a photograph from Karen of a sunflower that she gave me years ago. It inspires me to see it and to read her words from time to time. (Maybe I’ve mentioned that? I’m not poking around in my archives to find out, though.)

The sunflower in my window.

Finally, a bit of good news that came for me from a friend I met in California years ago when I was there for work. Her name is Lara and she’s quite beautiful. Let me show you a picture of her she used for a post that makes me crack right up when I see it.

Anyway. Lara. Well. Remember how a few posts ago I was all woe is me? Well, this friend did something amazing. Lara sent me an email this week about a windfall of money that she received and she wants to buy me a plane ticket for BlogHer in August. It’s really hard for me to accept things like this especially since I resolved that I wouldn’t go and stretch my budget too far. After many conversations about her wanting to do this and how she didn’t know what she was supposed to do with it and how I just wasn’t sure about it, she convinced me. I usually hate publicly whining about things, but then I was talking to Karen again (REALLY. SERIOUSLY. I CAN’T GET ENOUGH OF THAT WOMAN.) and she said that for her birthday I must accept and she keeps teaching me to accept things, good and bad, and that all of those things contribute to the forward motion of life we’re in so, for whatever reason, I AM GOING TO ACCEPT AND GO.

Happy stuff, y’all. Accept and go.

Have something happy or positive to share? Please do. I can use all the goodness you can spare.

Dear 20-Something Kelly,

Well, now those teen years have really seemed to bite you in the ass, haven’t they? Here you are with a couple of kids already and you’re still trying to enjoy and figure out your 20s. What’s done is done. We won’t try to backtrack now. Not only will it do you no good, but you will start to get down on yourself for being irresponsible again.

You did the most responsible thing you could. That will serve you well later in life. Keep doing it.

Explore your body more. It’s already given life to four human beings by the time it was 23 and the damage (read: stretch marks) is already done so just find out what you like about your body. You have a great derriere and really shapely legs. Wear more short skirts while you can.

Ask more guys out on dates and look for the older ones because the boys your age won’t be able to handle the kid thing. I’m so proud of you for hitting on that hot professor when you were working a party for the university. He was smart and attractive and you’ve never dated a guy named Roger before. Don’t worry that he turned you down. He was flattered. More importantly, you stepped out of your comfort zone. Well done, Kelly!

It’s okay to ask for help from people. Do that more often and stop being such a martyr. Which reminds me: read The Hero Within early in your 20s and recognize that you’re on a journey. Identify with any of the six archetypes and recognize that you’re constantly moving in and out of those phases.

Cut your damn hair. The split ends are horrible. Long hair is NOT your pride nor is it your glory. Please quit getting your hair relaxed because it’s killing it. Learn more about your natural curls because once you figure out how to get them to behave you will absolutely love it and will look amazing.

Here’s something you do well: you laugh a lot. You have fun. Your sense of humor will get you through quite a few things to come in the future so keep developing that. Don’t be embarrassed by your hearty laugh. Later you will realize that it’s infectious.

School for you will always be hard but someday you will learn that there are two types of students: 1) those to which learning comes easily and 2) those who have to work really hard. You are the second type. But! I have news for you! You will learn best by talking through it. Find people in your classes who will converse with you about the subject. This will come to you much later than it should have so I’ll remind your 20-something self of this right now: you are smart. You are intelligent. You are brilliant even. It’s right and proper for you to feel it.

You will always be conscious of racism. Call it like you see it. This will make other people uncomfortable, but in the best of circumstances you will open a dialogue to talk about it civilly.

Take more advice from your parents. You stole parenting from them in your teens and made a mess of that, so remember to ask them for advice because they won’t know how to give it to you when you’re acting all know-it-all-ish. Show some humility.

Figure out what love really means to you right now. Do it! Right this second! Ask yourself what it means to have people love you, tell them by what means you feel loved and then either accept it or move on.

In your late 20s you will find a tumor in your ovary but it’s nothing to be scared of because it’s benign. Push on your doctor more to take the time to find it so that it doesn’t grow and get so big. Be an advocate for your health. Oh, and ask for that yeast infection medication EVERY TIME the doctor prescribes you an antibiotic. Weekend yeast infections are a pain in the…well, you know what.

Set boundaries with people you think are your friends. You will be able to stand up to them when they try to guilt you and pull the Christian Card because by the time you’re in your 30s you will recognize it as an excuse to treat you like shit and take no responsibility for themselves. You will identify it much quicker later on in life, but if you could learn this earlier would you please try?

Get a pre-nuptial agreement. No, it’s not unromantic. It’s practical. What else have you been but practical? You will wish you had this later on because your definition of “fair” will change from what it is now. People grow and change dramatically in a marriage and it will absolutely mortify you when you learn what “fair” means to other people. That pre-nup would have saved you a lot of heartache.

Stop doing those sissy runs and really do something long distance. In the metaphorical sense, you may have to run very far to see who comes after you.

Wear more flowers behind your ear.

Having a breakdown is not a weakness. It is a sign that you can’t handle it all yourself.

When you get that big lump of money that one year (you will know the one) you should buy yourself a great computer and add to your lens collection for your camera. It won’t be a selfish thought, it would be an investment. But you won’t do that. You’ll do something else that is also important, but then you’ll be sad that you didn’t take care of yourself later on. Forgive yourself.

You are loved plenty. Accept it. Take it in and drink it up.

Something you do really well is stand up for yourself. Push harder on that and it will be practice for later in life. It will not make you a bitch, but people will still call you one. Don’t let that bother you at all. Just because people say it doesn’t make it true.

Remember that you’re not solely a mother in your 20s. You are a woman and you are becoming one quickly. Embrace that womanhood.

Take a multivitamin and eat more raw foods.

With love,

39-year old Kelly

*With gratitude to Ellyn Spragins and her “Letters to My Younger Self” and to Cassie Boorn’s blog project which ended up on NPR featuring a picture of my dear friend, Karen of Chookooloonks.

Somewhere out there, in this vast universe of ours, there is a woman getting all the good karma possible. She must be stealing it from me because I can’t believe sometimes how it all just rains shits in my life. Something fantastic will happen and then it seems to stop, back up like a garbage truck with shirtless men hanging off of it, and then proceeds to take the trash OUT of the can and place it all over my driveway.

This is me feeling sorry for myself. It’s not an unusual routine, it’s just that I don’t write about it often.

And do you know WHY I don’t write about it often? Because I hate those bloggers who write sticky sweet posts with fabulous pictures and happy, happy, joy, joy posts about the greatest things on the planet (things like sweet potato fries or really comfortable shoes that also look incredibly fashionable) and then they pour out their hearts about the horrible, terrible, no good, very bad thing that happened to them and everyone comes rushing to their aid in the form of a thousand comments of “Hang in there, kid!” and “You don’t deserve this!” It all makes me wonder about the whole karma thing. I don’t think about it all that often, but recently a friend of mine asked if I could do something with her and I couldn’t because there were things pressing on me. There were other responsibilities. And then I mentioned to my friend, named Susan, that I also had to take care of my mother. “You know, you’re going to get some really good karma from doing that.”

Later, that same week, I had the Orkin folks come out and take a look at my new house because we must have brought every bug known to man into this place when we moved it including, dare I say it, las cucarachas, which are just about the most disgusting form of insect ever especially when you step on them barefoot in your living room and then you have to cut off your foot because cleaning it with acid just won’t do the trick and hey, this one footed look is all the rage in France, isn’t it?

The other reason I don’t write about the woe-is-me blog post is that there are really strange people reading my blog. Not YOU, but there are others. Weird in the way that I either work with them or they know me from my previous church or they are just nosy but not at all invested in my life. When I moved to this house it seemed like the entire neighborhood knew I was coming. “Oh, I heard you bought that house!” someone said to me. It made me remember that this is a small town and that people talk. Truly, this is a wonderful area, don’t get me wrong. But I’ve already seen a neighbor fall over drunk in front of me and smack her head on the pavement in front of my house. Twice. No lie. In fact, my favorite person who lives near me is a darling Indian woman who gasped when I told her what I did for a living and said, “Oh, my goodness! I cannot believe I am talking to an assistant principal! This is so very wonderful!” It’s not that she’s impressed with my position, but she instantly was warm and welcoming and asked if I liked to eat samosas and didn’t strike me as the gossipy kind. Plus, she always says “Hello, Kell-y!” to me in a sing-song voice with her perfect English sprinkled with her adorable and quite likable Indian accent.

Oh, and another thing for people-who-know-me-and-read-me-but-don’t-really-talk-to-me: if I use an alias on the blog here and then you bring up a story to me in person and use the alias and not the real name but then you tell me that you don’t really care about my blog and that’s why you don’t read it then I’m going to have to call bullshit on you. I will also think you’re a creeper. Stop doing that. It’s silly.

Oh, and one more thing about that since I’m in the mood to address it. Maybe you should stop talking about how you’d like to invite me to things because of my online Internet presence and about all the good I can do for you or your organization because stuff like that does get back to me and it makes me feel used. And don’t pray for me to use my blog for Jesus. Yeah. I heard about that one, too.

Back to karma, shall we? So, the Orkin guys points out that I have some mold and rotten drywall in the basement and see here? This thing? It’s a hole that’s starting to form and it’s getting bigger, you might want to have that checked out. This leads to a panicky Who do I call for such a thing? Is this a cosmic joke? Buy a new house and have to fix this already! but then I calmed down after snorting a line of crayon dust (the color was cerulean, I knew you might ask me that question) and realized that this is probably because of the air conditioner which I am running at all times and the previous owner didn’t really run at all so this is where the condensation is building up. (Much as I would love to proofread this post and take out all the run-on sentences I will certainly NOT do that right now.) Let me just shorten this next part:

1. Contractor/fixer-upper guy comes in. It’s condensation. Buy a dehumidifier and empty that sucker daily.

2. Pull down drywall. Oh, look! The rubber hose around the pipe has little teeth marks! You have mice!

3. Fix, re-rubber piping, put up new drywall, sand, paint, voila!

Karma also got me for teasing my son about the vaginal itch cream because the very next day I got bitten by a buffalo gnat right next to my eye which then created a cellulitis and I had to go to the doctor to get put on an antibiotic just in case and the whole left side of my face looked about 20 years older than the right side.

Karma: Take THAT!

Me: Okay. You win.

Besides the fact that I’m singing “La Cucaracha” around the house now and trying to squeeze in all sorts of fun things for my super short summer month, I am regrettably unable to attend BlogHer in New York. I already have the ticket to get into the conference, but no easy way to get there and pay for an expensive hotel. There’s no point in expressing how sad this makes me because I badly want to see people and get/give hugs to people who have become such good friends. My only excuses are las cucarachas y ratones and caring for a sick parent and paying for an expensive divorce that still isn’t settled yet and a new house payment. I’m thinking of how funny (just not Ha! Ha! funny) it is that I wrote this nearly a year ago about saving money and not begging for sponsorship to attend blogging conferences and here I am making the responsible decision. I will go ahead and quote myself from that post: I simply cannot go.

Karma just isn’t all that funny.

Last night we hosted an interesting little soiree. It was a going away/birthday party for one of the best friends I have ever had. I feel the need to emphasize this point by adding …in my life at the end of that sentence because Tammy is so very important in my life. She’s a fellow educator and we met at college many years ago. Now, I feel the need to add …many, MANY years ago to that sentence because looking back now I realize how long ago it really was. (Incidentally, she’s the friend I mentioned in this post who organized my entire bathroom linen closet when I moved in a month ago.)

Me, Tammy, and Monica. They are both so tiny that they make me look like a giant standing next to them.

Trying to make new friends after high school is hard enough to do when you go away to college, but trying to do it with a 3 year old kid in tow seemed nearly impossible for me since I couldn’t party and go to keggers every weekend like everyone else. (Right? Is that what they did? I don’t know.) Tammy made it easy for me and we were inseparable at school. We both finished college at the same time, but she later transferred to the U of I which was about 45 miles away from EIU where we started and then came back to Springfield to begin our teaching careers together at two different high schools here.

Three years ago, Tammy came to me and said that she had to finally get out of this town. She’d grown up here and worked here and left only for college. She’s well traveled, though, as a history teacher and takes students to Europe on a regular basis. She got so many students to sign up one year back in 2003 that the company she went through gave her a $1,000 stipend for spending money or a free trip for someone. Tammy called me and invited me to go but I insisted that she take Mallory, who was a high school sophomore, instead because I knew I couldn’t afford to send her at the time and that I’d take my own trip to Europe someday. For those keeping score, I haven’t gone yet. Tammy was, without a doubt, the only person I trusted to take my child across the ocean.

Tammy told me she wanted to move to Hawaii and get a teaching job there. Three years ago I nodded my head and dreamed along with her, sighing the whole time. “Wouldn’t that be nice?” Two years ago, she told me again that she wanted to go and I could see that she was getting more serious about it. Last year when she told me, she asked me for a letter of recommendation. “Well, shit. You’re serious, aren’t you?” and then she had a Skype interview this year with the school administrators and got the job. The woman who interviewed her called me at my office one day to ask more questions about Tammy’s ability to do this and I gave her another glowing review and it was so incredibly hard knowing that my best friend could get this job and leave for Hawaii. I know she won’t be coming back.

Tammy loves her cherry pie. I mean LOVES.

I decorated the whole house last night for a Luau and made sure all guests wore a lei. After a lovely dinner of pasta alla carbonara, asparagus with Hollandaise sauce and her favorite, a cherry pie, I stood up to give her a speech:

Twenty-some years ago I walked into a lab class that almost all college Freshman have to take. We had a lecture part and a lab part for this class. Maybe it was Biology? I don’t know. (I looked up at Tammy and she rolled her eyes and said, “Life Science. Ugh. I hated that class!”) But we were on our own to figure out the materials and complete the labs. It was a sink-or-swim course.

Luckily for me, in walked Tammy. Shyly, she asked me, “Do you know what you’re doing?” and “Do you have a pencil?” We teamed up from that moment and tackled the labs. She wanted to know what floor I lived on in Carmen Hall, the all Freshman dorm that new college students had to live in. That’s when I told her about Mallory and explained that, because I had a child, I had to live in the Married Housing apartments on the opposite side of campus.

Stories that Tammy can tell you from this time include:

1. When we became Alpha Phi Alpha ’sweethearts’ together.

2. Not carrying Mallory across the campus like I did because she said, “I’m no sucker like your mother, girl, you know how to walk! You’ve got two legs!”

3. Trekking across The Tundra from her dorm to her classes.

4. Babysitting Mallory for me when I needed to go to class or the library or to write a paper and when I came to pick Mallory up once and found that Tammy’s entire floor was out in the hallway with crayons and coloring books so they could all color with Mallory.

5. Eating homecooked meals at my apartment, and…

6. Introducing me to and FORCING me to please call this guy who liked me and would later be my husband and ex-husband. (Tammy sheepishly looked up at me during this part of the speech and mouthed the word “Sorry” to me.)

Later, she would just solidify her place in my life as my best friend. She never forgets my birthday, she shoots me straight and hard with the general bullshit of life, and she encourages me to feel like I’m worth all the good stuff in life. She let me confide a secret to her when we met as 18 year olds about placing Maddie for adoption and she was the first person I called when Maddie found me.

I let her confide in me about her own adoption and the complicated relationships with her two mothers. (This is a rather bizarre story from when Tammy was 16 years old and accidentally met her biological mother at the hair salon.) She let me dare to be great. I watched her greatness soar to become Horace Mann’s Educator of the Year.

I held her when her mother died. She held me back because it took so long for me to find out and make the trip from college to see her. She is an aunt to my children. She is opinionated and won’t take shit from anybody. Her concern for people isn’t always easy to see unless you’ve been allowed to reside in her heart. After twenty plus years of friendship I know where in her heart I live with her.

We toasted her after that. To Tammy. Thank you for your friendship. Then, of course, there was lots and lots of crying.

As usual, partygoers invade the kitchen at a party. I bought this house was for this reason.

She is married to an incredible artist, Shawn, who has to stay here on the mainland for 4 more months until their dogs are cleared to leave for Oahu since it’s a rabies-free island. He is a great guy who loves and adores her and I have vowed, along with our friend, Monica, to take care of him with meals and packing until he’s ready to leave since Tammy leaves tomorrow to go and find a place for them to live and get ready for the upcoming school year. One of my prized possessions is a painting by Shawn entitled “The Mighty Acorn” that he gave me after seeing all the artwork hung on the walls of their house.

It makes me happy to look at this painting. Plus, it’s yellow and I love that color.

I now have a really good excuse to go visit Hawaii and have promised myself that Europe can wait, once again. That’s not regret talking. Naturally, it’s one my bucket list of things to do someday, but now I have set my sights on Hawaii because my best friend will be living there.

Aloha and mahalo, Tammy. You will be unbelievably and sadly missed in our daily lives.