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Is there a difference between feeling sorry for someone or taking pity on someone?  I can’t quite figure it out.

Lately I’ve been noticing people passing out pity for things that don’t strike me as pity-worthy.  Take parenthood, for example.  I was at a birthday party for a little girl and ended up grazing at the food table alongside a woman I didn’t know.  “Which one of these is yours?” she asked, making a sweeping gesture towards the gaggle of kids running around in circles with no apparent purpose.

“Um…” I looked around and tried to focus on the whir of children.  “That one.  And… that one.”  I pointed to my two boys as they zipped by squealing with laughter.

“Oh. Two boys.  Wow,” she said.  “I’m sorry.”  And then she laughed a little.

I crinkled up my brow a bit.  “Don’t be.  I’m not.”

Turns out that she was the mom of a little girl, a little girl she adopted from China.  So clearly she chose her child.  I didn’t actually get to choose my boys, but honestly I wouldn’t have changed anything even if I could.  It’s not that I think things would have felt any less right if I had had a girl or two, it’s just that … well it seems pointless to spend any real amount of time even pursing that line of thinking, you know?  It is, as they say, what it is.

So what circumstances do merit pity?  Illnesses, I suppose, are pretty universally regarded as unfortunate.  And accidents. A run of bad luck.  But other things seem kind of subjective.  You want to be careful with saying things like, “Dude.  Sorry about that haircut,” because there’s every chance that homey likes that mullet that you just immediately assumed was a botched hair style.

I guess in general, I’m thinking of being a little more careful when doling out my sympathy to others.  Maybe, just maybe, others like the boxes they’re in, whether they chose to be in them or not.

This evening as I was scratching Kai’s back at bedtime, I commented in an off-hand kind of way, “I wonder why I even bother scratching your back at night.  The second I leave your room you pop right out of bed and monkey around for another half-hour or so.”  I wasn’t really expecting an answer.  I mean, I know why I do it:  cuz it’s our thing.  I like spending that time one-on-one, with each of the boys, at the end of the night.  Plus they’re just so gosh darned cuddly at this age.  I love it.

I wasn’t expecting an answer, so I was surprised to hear Kai respond back, in as matter of fact of a voice that can be expected of a four year old, “Well you never actually sing to me…”

I thought this over for a moment and then started singing Rock-A-Bye-Baby.

“No,” he stopped me.  “Not that one.”

“Oh, um.  Okay.  How about this one.”  I started with Mama’s Gonna Buy You A Mockingbird.

“Nuh uh.”

I was stumped for a second — those were my two stand-by lullabies.  So I dug deep.  And I ended up back in 1977.  All the way back to the seven-year old me, serenading my parents in our livingroom in Morristown, New Jersey, so proud that I had finally learned all the words.

I finished the first verse and noticed that Kai had seemed to settle down.  Who knew Debby Boone was so soothing? Another verse and a chorus or two later, and I tiptoed out of his room across the hall to Colin’s room.

“Hey,” I said, as I shooed him into bed.  “Kai asked me to sing him a song tonight.  Want me to sing one to you too?”

“Yeah,” he said, “What song?”  I told him.  “That’s a bad name for a song.”

“Well, sure,” I agreed.  “But it was a big hit in its time.”

He shrugged and snuggled down in his sheets.  And I began again.  Quietly, softly.  So many nights, I’d sit by my window.  Waiting for someone to sing me his song. Colin turned his face to watch me as I sang to him.  He had a strange little look on his face.  In the dark it looked almost like he was… smirking?

“What?”  I stopped, suddenly a bit self conscious.  “Is it bad?”

“No!  It’s good.  It’s a pretty song.  And you sing so pretty too, Mom.”

Aww…

The lyrics lack even one iota of subtlety — the word “cheesetastic” comes to mind —  but there’s clearly something about the tune that has stood the test of time, at least with the four to six year old age bracket.

Tonight was the first time in a long while that the boys actually stayed in bed after I left their rooms at the end of the night.  As I walked down the stairs, I pictured them drifting off into a deep sleep dreaming about sitting at a window, looking longingly for someone to come along to light up their lives…

Get it?  Flu?  Shoe?  Waiting for the other shoe to drop?

In addition to the ultimately productive discomfort of starting a new job about a week ago, I’ve been battling a bit of a cold.  Around me, people are dropping like flies — M. to the left of me was officially diagnosed with H1N1 the day after getting a flu shot, A. to the right of me had to leave work in the middle of the day because she was feeling queasy and ended up in the emergency room that evening with a 106 degree temperature.  (She soaked in an ice bath for a good amount of time, but has no memory of any of it.)  And me?  All I got was this stupid cold.

It seems that all anyone is talking about these days is H1N1.  Balloon boy offered a brief respite from swine-flu-mania, but we seem to have picked up right where we left off.  AHH!  Run for the hills!  H1N1 suuuuuuucks!

And this is stupid of me to say, I know, but at this point, I’m tired of living in fear.  It’s like, All right, already – bring it! At least then I could stop worrying about when or if it will get me…

Hear that sound?  That’s me knocking on a giant block of wood.

During the Q & A portion of the evening at the “Intro to Cub Scouts” meeting this evening, the antogonist in me came thiiiiis close to raising my hand and saying something like, “My six year old son thinks he might be gay.  Is that a problem?”  But I’m proud to say I resisted the urge.  See that?   Mama’s learning how to screen her thoughts a little!

Progress!

I can’t be the only one out there who actually enjoys falling off the wagon from time to time.  Doing things that are good for me really does feel good while I’m doing them, but it’s still an effort all the while.  So when I find myself off the wagon, I take full advantage of it.  When I stop watching what I eat, I really stop watching what I eat, and I have a blast.  When I stop exercising, I really stop exercising.  And just a few weeks ago, I started smoking cigarettes again, just a little bit… though I have to admit that I have a harder time just enjoying smoking because it is just such a sucky thing to do.

Nonetheless, I know that I’ll eventually get back on track with all of these things — sooner rather than later — but for the most I do enjoy not having to exert so much effort to do the right thing, at least for a little while. It’s a decadent kind of laziness thing.  And, at heart, I’m a lazy, decadent kind of woman.  And it’s just so comfortable down here off the wagon…

image from: http://www.flickr.com/photos/helenethierry/

Do you believe that everybody knows everything they’re ever going to know from the moment they are born?  And that they then spend the rest of their lives rediscovering what they already knew already?  It’s an interesting — if ancient — idea.

Asking questions, some say, is the key to leading people back to what they already knew in the first place. I’m intrigued.  Not convinced that I necessarily buy into it, but I’m intrigued nonetheless.

My dad had a favorite little story that he used to tell about my early communication skills.  As he told it, one night as we were sitting down to eat dinner, I surveyed the meal that had been set down before me and proclaimed, “Sometimes I like broccoli.” That was it.  The real meaning behind my statement, he explained to me, required a bit of deciphering.  Sometimes she likes broccoli.  So that probably means that sometimes she doesn’t like broccoli.  Now is this one of the times when she does?  Or is she trying to tell me, instead, that while she does sometimes enjoy broccoli, tonight is not, in fact, one of those times, and therefore there will be no eating of the broccoli this evening?

It’s a kind of round about way of getting a message across, but eventually he did understand my meaning:  no broccoli for me tonight, Dad.

As I’ve grown older, I’ve learned to be a little more direct.  I find it’s just easier all around, and really leaves much less room for error. For example, earlier this summer Charley mentioned that he would be out of town on business on my birthday.  Now a younger me may have spent some time batting her eyelashes, dropping strategic hints about things that he could do to make up for the fact that he wouldn’t be there with me to celebrate me turning almost 40.  But I’m a slightly sleep deprived working mom of two young boys, and frankly, I didn’t have the energy.  So instead I just laid it out there:  “Well then you should at least send some flowers.”

And, wouldn’t you know it?  I got a beautiful bouquet of flowers on my birthday from my thoughtful husband!  See?  It’s a win-win.  I was happy because I got exactly what I was hoping for, and he was happy because he didn’t have to guess about what I wanted. It may be slightly less romantic, but it certainly is more direct, and ultimately, more effective.

With all the challenges that we all face each day in the normal course of things, it just seems to make sense the lessen the chances for disappointment where possible.  So when I can, I let people know what I need and I try to do so in the clearest possible way.  Really it takes much less effort.  I still don’t necessarily always get what I want, but at least if I don’t, it’s less often because my needs weren’t understood in the first place.

Yes, I like me some good sudoku, but after years of counting to nine, it’s nice to mix things up a bit.  And so I give to you…  Ken Ken.

For some reason, as much as I enjoy words, I’ve never been able to really appreciate crossword puzzles.  Scrabble, yes, crossword puzzles no.  And then suduko came along and sucked up at least a few hours of every week for, oh, the last few years or so, until eventually I started to lose interest.

I wonder if there’s any truth to the idea that number puzzles like this make your brain stronger.  It’s like aerobics for the mind.  Which, if true, then makes it the only kind of workout I get these days.

Man, I need to start running again…

image from:  http://www.kenken.com/playnow.html

Oh wait, it’s not cicadian rhythms, it’s circadian rhythms — the idea that our bodies are in tune with the natural cycles of the seasons.  So in the summer, when the sun rises early, we rise up early, and during the short days of winter, our bodies want to slow down more.  I’m definitely feeling it these days, as we turn the corner into autumn.  This morning I could barely drag myself out of bed, and I was fifteen minutes or so into my commute to work before the sun peeked up over the horizon.  While this schedule suited me just fine over the last few months, I find myself wanting to shift things around more now.

Wouldn’t it be nice if our everyday schedules could accommodate these changes in our body’s cycles?  I had hoped, for a while there in the late 1990’s, that the whole mid-day nap thing would catch on.  Sadly, it was not to be.  It all seems kind of artificial, this whole 9-to-5 idea.  We’ve gotten so used to it that I think many of us just assume that it must be this way, but I wonder if somewhere on a parallel universe somewhere people are  getting up when they feel like it, resting when they feel like it, and still living productive enough lives.  

image from: http://3.bp.blogspot.com

There’s an old school barber shop in downtown San Mateo, next door to one of my favorite sushi spots.  Peeking in through the front window from the sidewalk, it’s like a blast from the past with the barber shop pole, the dude who gives haircuts with a straight razor, the worn, mismatched chairs, and the porn.  Really, really old issues of Playboy, and antique Penthouses, all proudly laid out in the front waiting areas for the customers to … what?  Read?  Um, “enjoy”?

I’m no prude, don’t get me wrong, but there’s something about public porn consumpiton that strikes me as odd.  I mean, despite what people tell you, they’re not just reading Playboy for the ariticles.  They’re looking at boobies.  And not just for the sure appreciation of the beauty of the human form, but for the benefit of Mr. Peepers.  So if the magazines work, if they do the job that they were intended… well, then how comfortable is it for anyone when Joe Customer is summoned to the barbers chair with a pup tent in his pants?  How does that conversation play out?

“Hey Joe, you ready for your… Whoa!  Dude! Watch where you’re pointing that thing!  You need a minute?  No?  You sure?”

Some things go together naturally.  Mac and cheese.  Sonny and Cher.  But barber shops and porn?  I’m thinking not so much…

image from: http://imgs.inkfrog.com/pix/newretro/