Tell It To COACHIE

I have bought me a treadmill.

Reasons why this is ridiculous:

1. All over this military post there are gyms full of treadmills that I CAN USE FOR FREE.
2. All over this military post are safe, wide, and well-maintained sidewalks that I CAN USE FOR FREE.
3. I have had a longstanding belief that I shouldn’t buy things that are readily available (on a military post anyway), such as playground equipment, because we really don’t need our own and environmentally speaking, why buy stuff that is already FREE just so you can have it at your own house.
4. Although my bedroom in this house is large enough to accommodate it, I’m not convinced this will be our last foray into military housing, and who knows if it will fit in the next house. (I mean, of course we can make it fit, but it will probably have to be jammed in somewhere and look ugly).

Reasons why I bought it anyway:

1. The funk. Although I am unhappy with my current state of fitness, have plans to attend the Kentucky Derby in the spring and a college friends’ reunion in the fall, and know that exercise would improve my worldview, I still cannot seem to get my butt out the door. Although I don’t feel weepy and sad, I do feel tired all the time, and my least favorite part of the day is getting out of bed. I know that exercise helps me out of the funk, and yet still I can’t seem to get my butt out the door.
2. The weather. Missouri is freaking cold. And windy - today the windchill was -9. And when it’s not too cold, it’s raining. And almost always, it is gray - the kind of gray that makes you want to crawl back into bed. Although I could bundle up and go out in it, I don’t want to. I hate being cold.
3. The time. For some reason, even though the girls are at school full time and Marty has 3 days of mornings of preschool and one day warehoused in hourly care, I never seem to have any time to myself. Even the few childfree mornings I have are often erased by someone’s puking or some teacher’s request for help. I’ve got all the freaking housework, laundry, cooking, and shopping to do and then of course, there’s this blog, which I could discontinue but at the moment I really don’t want to.
4. The routine. The HP was told when he started this job, that he wouldn’t be traveling much and yet he has been gone for a week or more for the past three months and has week-long trips on the schedule in the next two months. I can’t get into a routine that involves going out by getting up early or staying out late, because it will always get interrupted and then I’ll have to overcome items 1-3 above to get started again.
5. The money. I suppose I could join a gym that has childcare or I could put Marty in hourly care more often to free up more time for myself, but all that costs money and doesn’t really deal with items 1 to 4 above. I inherited some money from my godmother a few years ago and sensibly put it in the bank. What am I saving it for if not something like this? I have no idea.

All of the reasons for buying the treadmill seem sensible enough to me, and still the guilt persists thanks to all of the reasons that buying the treadmill is ridiculous. Hopefully, with the thing sitting right next to my bed, I’ll feel compelled to use it faithfully and that will help the guilt lift. Something must be done about the funk and the weather and the time and the routine. Maybe this will be the fix.

(Is this treatise the work of a normally functioning mind? I’d say the jury is out on that one.)

Quod si non his tantus fructus ostenderetur, et si ex his studiis delectatio sola peteretur, tamen (ut opinor) hanc animi adversionem humanissimam ac liberalissimam iudicaretis. Nam ceterae neque temporum sunt neque aetatum omnium neque locorum: haec studia adulescentiam alunt, senectutem oblectant, secundas res ornant, adversis perfugium ac solacium praebent, delectant domi, non impediunt foris, pernoctant nobiscum, peregrinantur, rusticantur. - Cicero* (my favorite book quote)

Last year I began a list of “Books Read in 2007,” got caught up rereading The Once and Future King, set that aside and basically forgot to write down anything I read all summer, and then abandoned the list. In September, in a fit of I don’t know what - Missouri ennui?- I ordered 5 books from Barnes and Noble. As always, I ended up with this list based upon what books had won or were nominated for awards and were also available in paperback. Typically I follow a very strict regimen of alternating between fiction and nonfiction when I read, but in September, in a fit of I don’t know what - Missouri escapism? - I ordered these five fiction books. About halfway through the third one, I realized and regretted my error. I’m just not a big fan of fiction, because it almost always disappoints me. Behold:

1. The Inheritance of Loss - Kiran Desai. It won two awards and seemed promising, but meh, I didn’t really like it and I can’t even remember enough about it to give you a synopsis. It would never come to mind for me to recommend it. I’d rather reread Interpreter of Maladies.
2. The Echo Maker - Richard Powers. This won the National Book Award, and actually for the first 4/5 is very interesting, about a guy who wakes up from a coma and remembers everything about his life, except that he is convinced that his sister is an imposter. But the end of the book just falls apart, with characters doing things that are, well there’s no other way to put this, out of character. Usually, I’m sad to get to the end of a good book, but in this case I was just annoyed by the end and wanted it to be over.
3. A Disorder Peculiar to the Country - Ken Kalfus. A National Book Award Finalist about a married couple who each thinks the other has died on September 11th and is happy about it. It turns out they both survive and then their lives fall apart. I hated it. Maybe I’ll never be ready for a comedy about the aftermath of September 11th, or maybe I’m just too unsophisticated to appreciate satire. Either way, I found this book depressing and I don’t think the time will ever come when I want to read an entire book about people treating each other like crap, even if it’s supposed to be funny.
4. Eat the Document - Dana Spiotta. It follows the lives of two people who accidentally (actually it wasn’t an accident at all, it turns out they knew someone was in the building that they were about to blow up) killed someone during their radical 60s days and then were on the run for 30 years or something. I don’t think this was nominated for any awards. I think I bought it because it was recommended on a page with one of the other books and because it only cost $4.48 for the hardback version. Once again, meh. I guess if you are interested in the whole counterculture scene you might like it, but I’m not really much of an anarchist, so I found the whole thing a bit boring and pointless.
5. The Zero - Jess Walter. This one is also about the aftermath of September 11th, and starts out with the main character waking up after trying to kill himself. Apparently he is a cop who was working at ground zero, but now he blacks out all the time and each time he wakes up he is somewhere different, he can’t remember how he got there or what he’s supposed to be doing and he’s basically carrying on two separate lives, one of which he knows nothing about. I guess I’d recommend this book, except the reader doesn’t get to know what’s going on either, and I find that a little annoying. Plus his alter ego seems to be a complete psycho. And the ending is a bit upsetting.

After working my way through all of these disappointing books, I didn’t know where to turn next. Fortunately, during the fall we watched the movies Capote and Infamous in quick succession. Inspired by this, the HP gave me two Truman Capote books for my birthday. I read one of them, Summer Crossing, before the end of 2007. It wasn’t good plotwise, and completely falls apart at the end, but it was still enjoyable because it was short and because he’s such a great writer (a great writer who never intended to publish this, because he knew it wasn’t good), and because I occasionally in my head I read it as if it was narrated by the HP doing his best Truman Capote impression or by Fido from Olive the Other Reindeer.

It’s always the ending isn’t it? No one really knows how to wrap things up, and maybe that is why I find fiction so disappointing.

I don’t really know how to wrap up this post either, except to say that so far 2008 has been much better for books. I plan to bore you with that list shortly.

Consider yourself warned.

*Though, even if there were no such great advantage to be reaped from it, and if it were only pleasure that is sought from these books, still I imagine you would consider it a most reasonable and liberal employment of the mind: for other occupations are not suited to every time, nor to every age or place; but books are the food of youth, the delight of old age; the ornament of prosperity, the refuge and comfort of adversity; a delight at home, and no hindrance abroad; they are companions by night, and in travel, and in the country - Cicero

Yeah, yeah.

Honestly, what’s better than a post that leads off with modified Milli Vanilli lyrics? Uh, NOTHING.

Anyway, I have the beginning of a post filed away but I couldn’t finish it. Why not? Why that would be because of the “snow day” which was actually a “bit of ice day” which was so minor that the HP successfully took the kiddies to school only to be met in the parking lot by the principal who said something along the lines of “Uh, yeah, that noisy, flashy rectangular thing in your house? You can use that to find out when school is cancelled.”

So I will leave you in suspense until tomorrow regarding the contents of the upcoming post (and I recommend that you sleep soundly, because it is barely interesting and not at all revelatory) but I will provide you with the following two little items:

1. Remember the little post about Joshua attacking our computer? Well, we have begun calling our Tivo “Joshua,” because it keeps taking over the TV and recording things without asking. When Tivo first came out, people would joke that just because you asked it to tape one episode of “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy,” suddenly all of the Tivo suggestions were gay porn. Ours is even creepier. A few days ago, I finished reading James Tiptree, Jr. - The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon. She was a sci-fi writer who used a male psuedonym to get published in the male-dominated sci-fi world of the 60s (I chose the book, as I always do, based on the fact that it won an award, not because I am well-versed in the sci-fi world of the 60s, but I will tell you most enthusiastically that it was an awesome book). At one point she becomes very interested in Star Trek and even writes a teleplay for it, but decides not to submit it. I, unlike certain people who may have married into my family, am not a watcher or fan of Star Trek. Yet Joshua, for no apparent reason, recently recorded two episodes of Star Trek. Is there a probable explanation for this other than a plot for a 2008 sci-fi book? How did he know what I was reading?

2. I feel bad about Heath Ledger.

So there you have it people. Since Lauren had a stomach bug this weekend and since I am never actually allowed to be alone, I imagine Aislinn will wake up puking tomorrow. If by some miracle she does not, I’ll see you then.

Here, that is, not actually in my house.

Last year I bored everyone with my resolution to fix up the blog, make it better and pay more attention to it. I didn’t quite stay on the bandwagon the way I could have, although I think it is improved compared to this time last year. I am too cold and windblown to make any resolutions this year, but I do have one blog change to announce:

From here on out, to the best of my ability, all comments will (eventually) recieve an answer from me. I know some people (like me) hate to have something they’ve said go unacknowledged, so from here on out, you won’t need to worry about that here. Your witticisms will be remarked upon, and you will no longer have to wonder if I’ve noticed or appreciated them. I’ve even managed to find a Wordpress plugin to let me do just that.

Also, I’ve put up some flickr pictures in the sidebar there, just to make things a little more colorful and so that everyone can get regular doses of our adorable (rapidly growing) children.

See, this year it’s all about you, making you happy that you came by. Aren’t I so nice? (if you disagree, please don’t feel compelled to put that in the comments.)

Look, it’s a picture of my bed:

Although I don’t pretend that this is a high point of interior design, I don’t think it is a low point either. It’s comfortable, it’s warm, and each night when I go to sleep in it, I feel like it’s a pretty happy place to drool. I spent a lot of time on ebay tracking down the curtains behind the bed, because like every freaking army house, we had fewer smaller windows in our last house, and by the time we got here and I found out that I needed more, Target had discontinued them. Every now and then I look at them and think, “I like those curtains, even if we don’t need this many in our next bedroom, I could definitely use them somewhere else.”

If only I’d known what the curtains were hiding.

Early last week, as I was removing the Christmas candles from the windows, I found out what was lurking right above my head:

I realize that the photo is a little dark, but that is mold - gross black mold, all over the window sill. I suppose when the weather got cold and I noticed that all of the windows were perpetually steamed up, I should have considered some of those microorganism facts I learned in Biology 101. Then again, the everpresent steam on the windows and condensation on the sills was a topic among the neighbors at our Christmas party, and no one mentioned the mold.

I’ve never lived in such a steamy place before (indoor speaking - having lived in DC, obviously I have lived in a steamy place). Fortunately, two members of our family received weather stations for Christmas, and one of them measures indoor humidity:

This helpful USA today article informs me that “a home that is too wet — where the humidity is greater than 50% — can be a breeding ground for mold, rot, pests such as termites and cockroaches, and condensation.” I know the picture above says 49% right now, but earlier today it said 52%. We’re doomed.

Here is the other half of the window sill behind our bed, complete with bleach sprayed on it, evidence that I did in fact clean it up.

I checked all of the other rooms and cleaned them up too. Fortunately the living end of house gets a lot of sun, and the window sills were pretty dry and clean. A mold website informs me that apparently this type of mold is not toxic, although it is allergenic - and maybe that is why I wake up with a hacking cough every morning (it may be psychosomatic, but I swear the cough is nowhere near as bad as it used to be).

The mold website also says the mold can be “easily controlled through regular housekeeping.” HAH! As if that’s going to happen.

*Honestly, it took everything I had not to name this post “Thar’s Mold on Them Thar Sills.”