There’s nothing like having children to knock most of our lofty expectations and plans into a cocked hat.  Other people’s children are one thing; who among us has not watched disdainfully as someone’s child melted down in public or ran wild in a grocery store or openly defied a red-faced, humiliated parent in front of “people.”

Our own kids are quite another thing.  “MY kids will never behave like that!” said we all to ourselves whilst still there and to each other when we got home again.  “Bad parenting!  We won’t have problems like that when WE have kids.”  Such statements are, naturally, curses that work well, only in reverse.

I now live such things entirely in retrospect, which, bless it, removes most of the traumatic memories and fills our heads with the good stuff.  Looking back, it’s the good memories that make me cry real tears into the photo albums of tiny little girls in fluffy dresses and hairbows, and smiling little boys in overalls and miniature red baseball caps.

The picture of my three-year-old son in a little brown suit complete with vest and tie makes me smile now, because when I focus on his bare feet, toes curling, the memory of how he had hidden his shoes “because I don’t LIKE them” right before our studio appointment has had all the “upset” removed and replaced with laughter.

The picture of my five-year-old daughter with her hair chopped off from the middle of her head to her forehead makes me smile now, too; I remember that little voice telling me with great pride that “I cut my own bangs myself so I’ll be extra pretty for kindergarten” and instead of blushing red when I look at her yearbook I now laugh out loud with delight at that perky scalped little girl  beaming with pride.

Dear Parents:  Don’t waste your energy getting upset over trifles.  A few years down the road and you’ll be laughing your asses heads off over the innocent silliness of your infinitely precious little people.

To be perfectly honest with y’all, I lose my shoes all the time, because I only wear them when I absolutely have to.  I never hid my shoes, but only because it never occurred to me.  My little son’s picture with his tiny bare feet and curled toes is far more true to form than a fully dressed and posed studio portrait would have been.

As for hair, my skills in hairdressing were and still are so non-existent that even a semi-scalping didn’t make my princess look all that different from what she would have looked like with a Mommy-made hairdo.  I did well to manage a curly ponytail cascading down her back.  Two ponytails?  The part down the back of her head was always more crooked than a dog’s hind leg.  The harder I tried, the worse it looked.

I know there were many traumatic things when my children were small, but nothing comes to mind right now.  I just remember those little people nestling and snuggling all over me, and trusting me to keep them alive, fed, clean, and happy.  I did the best I could.

They’re still alive;  they seem pretty healthy;  they’re usually clean, and I hope and pray that they’re happy.  They’re also still speaking to me, and I count that as a good sign.

Now, where did I put my shoes?

Remember, if you don’t take the trouble to find out what’s going on and what people are saying about it, you won’t KNOW what’s going on.  Not to keep updated is to choose ignorance.  Choosing ignorance is one of the most horrible things a person can do, no matter what the topic.  Education is what separates the sheep from the goats, because not to understand that everything is connected to everything else, and that nothing exists in isolation, and how to connect these dots to form ideas and understanding, is to actively choose ignorance.  We can’t help being ignorant about things we’ve never been exposed to, but to choose non-exposure is to choose ignorance.  Oh, and those people who take great pride in refusing to learn?  They are ignorance, personified.  Harsh?  I don’t really think so.  In fact, I have not even begun to express my disgust for people who are able, yet actively choose to be ignorant.  We are all ignorant of many things, but if we continue to learn, to be less ignorant daily, we’re on our way.

Oh, and please don’t forget that ignorance and stupidity are not the same thing.  Not the same thing at all, at all.

Parents, professional educators, and all inhabitants of the planet, simply must keep learning.  If we stop learning, “they” might as well bury us, because such people are as good as dead. Worse, even, because dead people don’t bring others down.  Ignorant people do.

CONSTANT VIGILANCE, as Alastair Moody would say.  To choose ignorance is to choose a kind of death.

P.S.  When I took my beautiful daughter to her college dorm and went back home without her, itself a traumatic thing, “Less ignorant every day” became our rallying cry for her college education.  We still quote it, laughing, when we learn new things and share them.  Why don’t y’all use it, too?

Less ignorant daily.  Bring it on, universe.

I never liked group work as a child.  The same few people always did all the work, and the same few people always sat around, goofed off, “forgot,” turned in nothing, and got the same grade as the rest of us.  Everyone in the group got the same grade, regardless of contribution.  Whenever the teacher started to divide us into groups, half the class would groan and the other half would grin.

It was unfair then and it’s unfair now.  I can still remember the feeling of outrage when this would happen.  I still feel outraged.

Why should good, hardworking students have to support lazy, non-contributing students?  Why should lazy, non-contributing students get the same grade as the students who actually did the work?

One group grade indeed.  Hong Kong Phooey.*

Unfair.  Unfair to the max.

And I may have just described our economic system.  Sigh.

Oh, and as far as the grasshopper and the ant are concerned:  why in the world should we pity the grasshopper?  He chose his way of life.  Let him reap the consequences.

*Bonus points if you know what that means.

P.S.  I wanted to insert a cool picture of Hamlet telling the skull he knew it well, but my blog will not let me upload pictures any more.  Are you an expert?  I need help here.

P.P.S.  My blog won’t show tags now, either.  Is it haunted?

Photoshop faces or abilities or personalities all you want: if you throw glitter on a dungheap, it’s still going to stink.

Before some of you arm yourselves and advance upon my home with lit torches, please be aware that I am in NO WAY discussing SPED.

I am, however, talking about students who refuse to work and parents who still expect them to be promoted, play sports, go to the prom, and wander the halls if they so desire because after all, Billy knows best about what he wants when he goes to school, and that hateful Ms. SkullDroppings has had it in for him ever since he accessed all that porn on her computer during lunch that time.  She didn’t even appreciate his expertise  in picking her lock, or in his mad computer skillz.  I mean, reallllllly.  (Bitch)  (It’s all right, Billy, Mommy understands you.)

Ahem.

A photoshopped picture isn’t really a picture of someone.  It’s only a picture of what that someone wished he/she looked like.  It’s a facade, with all the reality removed.

And any grade, privilege, promotion, award, etc, is. . . well, it’s a facade, too.  It’s fake.  It’s a facade, with all the reality removed.

Ooooh, shiny!  Pretty!

What stinks?

Now don’t any of you be offended. I mean, “euphorically-challenged.”

No one fails a class any more; he’s merely “passing impaired.”
You don’t have detention; you’re just one of the “exit delayed.”
Your classroom isn’t too crowded; it’s just “passage restrictive.”
No student is lazy; he’s “energentically declined.” She has “dawdling issues.”
Your locker isn’t overflowing with junk; it’s just “closure prohibitive.”
Kids don’t get grounded any more; they merely hit “social speed bumps.”
Your homework isn’t missing; it’s just having an “out of notebook” experience.
You’re not sleeping in class; you’re ‘rationing consciousness.’
You’re not late, you just have a ‘rescheduled arrival time.’
You’re not having a bad hair day; you’re suffering from ‘rebellious follicle syndrome.’
You don’t have smelly gym socks; you have “odor-retentive athletic footwear.”
No one’s tall. They are “vertically enhanced.”
No one’s short. They are “vertically challenged.”
No one’s clumsy. They are ‘gravitationally challenged.”
No one’s shy. They are “conversationally selective.”
No one’s too talkative. They are “abundantly verbal.”
You weren’t passing notes in class. You were “participating in the discreet exchange of penned meditations.”
It’s not called gossip any more. It’s “the speedy transmission of near-factual information.”
The food in the cafeteria isn’t awful. It’s “digestively challenged.”

All ways of NOT telling it like it is. I hate euphemisms. I’ve ranted about them before and every year it gets worse. We are not fooling any kids. It’s easy, however, to fool their parents.

More, from an awesome teacher-website the url of which I have lost. If anyone knows it, please tell me and I’ll put it right on here so she can get credit for her wit!

Molly demonstrates problems with spatial relationships.It’s November and she still hasn’t found her cubby.
Sarah exhibits exceptional verbal skills and an obvious propensity for social interaction.She never stops talking.
Paul’s leadership qualities need to be more democratically directed. He’s a bully.
Jonathan accomplishes tasks when his interest is frequently stimulated. He has the attention span of a gnat.
Donald is making progress in learning to express himself respectfully. He no longer uses vulgarities when talking back to me.
Alfred demonstrates some difficulty meeting the challenges of information retention. He’d forget his name if it wasn’t taped to his desk.
Bunny needs encouragement in learning to form lasting friendships. Nobody likes her.
Kenny is working toward grade level. He may even reach it — next year.
Joel appears to be aware of all classroom activities. He just can’t focus on the one we’re involved in.
Sandy seems to have difficulty distinguishing between fact and fantasy. He lies like a rug.
Allie enjoys dramatization. She may be headed for a career in show business. Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus comes to mind.
Takira’s creative writing skills are reminiscent of Socrates. It’s all Greek to me.
Elinor is a creative problem solver. She hasn’t gotten an answer right yet.
Jack demonstrates an avid interest in recreational reading. He “recreates” while other students read.
Mayrita appears to be showing an increased desire to consider demonstrating acceptable classroom behavior. She now appears to know the classroom rules. Some day she may even obey one.
Pablo participates enthusiastically in all art activities. He’s especially adept at throwing pottery … and paint … and. …
Jeremy is stimulated by participation in sequential activities. He consistently insists on fighting his way to the front of the recess line.
Juanita needs more home study time. Could you please keep her home more often?
Michael demonstrates a need for guidance in the appropriate use of time. Three hours a day is entirely too much time to spend picking his nose.
David frequently appears bored and restless. You might want to consider placing him in a more challenging environment. Prison, perhaps?

Yeah, there are a million others.

Have you seen the Top Ten Politically Correct Terms for “Sin?”

10. Mostly righteous on a good day.
9. Ethically non-enlightened
8. Morally Dyslexic
7. Good (if marked on a curve)
6. Bearing a strong family resemblance to Adam.
5. Microsoft Perfection v.1.0
4. Gravitationally influenced (fallen)
3. Motown Motivated (Supremely affected by all the Temptations)
2. Living by trial and error.

(insert drum roll here)

1. Beta holiness.

Did I mention that I hate euphemisms? Euphemisms are for sissies.

I will tell you outright that I am fat, half-blind, clumsy, and dorky. Would these things change if I used different words? No. They would not. Would fancy words make me feel better? No. Spreading icing on a shitcake doesn’t change anything; it just makes you madder if you bite.

I’d list some favorite government euphemisms but I ain’t got all day.

It’s already been a long day. A really, really long hot day.

You know. Mercurially AND chronologically challenged.

(Don’t miss the Perseids tonight!  Wake up the children and take them outside; they’ll remember that and the meteors all their lives long.)

In other words, we attend some conferences for certain reasons, and we attend other conferences for other reasons.  Often, these reasons overlap, and just as often, they do not.  Don’t expect every professional need you have to be satisfied by every conference; you need more than one, to wit, a combo of conferences.

In the long run, however, by attending various types of conferences for various reasons, I have learned far more than I ever learned in graduate school.

At first, everyone at every conference was new to me; even those whose blogs and websites I’d been reading for a while, but had not actually met, seemed new in many ways.   No matter what kind of conference it was, though, I felt I already knew these people somewhat because of their online presence.

Now, since I’m no longer a conference newbie – well, not as much of one as before -  I feel almost as if it’s Old Home Week when I go to a conference.  It’s wonderful to see familiar faces, and just as wonderful to see unfamiliar faces which I know will be familiar at the NEXT conference.  I’m far from being an A-list writer,  but the actual A-list people don’t seem to know how A-list they are and are really, really nice.  (This attitude can be different, though, depending on what kind of conference you’re attending and what kind of expectations you bring to the table.)

I guess you might say I’m thoroughly hooked on conferences.

They have greatly enhanced my ability to do my writing gigs, my social media gigs, my watchdog gigs, my teaching gigs, my help-my-students-become-writers gigs, and my time-to-surf-and-find-new-things gigs.

At each conference, I’m agig agog at the awesomeness of the attendees and presenters.  I’ve never met such smart people in my life.

For a small-town chick like me, it’s been a whole new world.  Alert Aladdin at once.

Another reason I love conferences is that because I’m a small-town chick, there really isn’t anybody close to home who understands what I do for a living.  At conferences, I can have actual conversations with actual people who actually understand!

Conferences help me hone my mad skillz.  Come with me next time and we’ll hone together.

I love airports, and I love riding on airplanes.  Or, would that be riding IN airplanes?  See, students, prepositions are quite important.  If I were to ride on an airplane, I’d be in all the papers under the headline “Nutter Straddles Boeing 747″ or some such.  Or, would that be, I’d be WITH the headline, or ACCOMPANIED BY the headline. . . .   PREPOSITIONS, people!

I love meeting people.  I’ve met the nicest people on planes, in fact.  I love it when they turn to me and strike up a conversation, or just smile and mind their own business.  I firmly believe that most people are good people: kind, fair, considerate, and eager to help others.  I also firmly believe that all people have a right to what they pay for, and NO right to what someone else has paid for, without prior permission from the person who paid.

The thing is, when I saw this woman shuffling down the aisle – or perhaps UP the aisle, or through the aisle (take your pick) I knew exactly where she was going to sit.  Right.  By.  Me.

Beside me. Near me.  Attached to me.  Glued to me.  Pressed against me.  Melting against me like a caramel in the sun.  A really, really big, sweaty caramel.

I have never cared for political correctness.  I think it cheapens and weakens the language, and turns situations that fully earn the attention deserved by idiocy and selfishness  into something that believes it merits sympathy, and catering to, rather than derision, or possibly (shudder, and what were you THINKING!) common sense.

So here it is, and bring it on.  This is not a new issue; people have been debating it for a long time.  Where do I stand?  Right here.

Perhaps it is time for airlines to sell their space according to the amount of space each passenger will need.  Not weight, although I know they used to in the beginning, and maybe it was wiser than the “equality” of now, with all seats the same size and price; I think airlines should sell the space by measurement.

Perhaps there should be a row of different-sized seats at the ticket booth, and a description of such including measurements, on the internet, and people could “try on” the seats, and the passenger will pay for whichever size suits his/her, well, ass.  Or needs.  Small ass, small price.  Huge ass, huge price.

Parents with small children could purchase an extra-large space to accommodate their children and “things.”  People who want to work while flying could purchase an extra- large space.  People who just plain don’t want other people’s elbows touching theirs could purchase a large space.  And – here it is – large people could purchase an extra-large space so they don’t trespass on someone else’s paid-for space.

Small people with no accouterments could purchase a small space.

Average people could purchase an average-sized space.

All passengers would be required to stow only ONE piece of whatever above his/her own rented space.  In other words, the space over one’s seat belongs only to the person in that seat. Nobody has a right to space above anybody else’s seat. (I hate it when I try to stow my one bag above my seat and discover that someone from the back of the plane took my space.  USE YOUR OWN SPACE. )

And if you weigh 395 pounds and your right buttock and side-boob cover more than half of the body next to you, you should be required to pay for the space you are covering, and the crushed person should get a discount.  So much money per square inch of ass, for example.   If you are over or under-sized, why can’t you inform the airline of this fact BEFORE entering a plane that’s at capacity?  And why should anybody have to share paid-for space with someone else who didn’t pay for that space?  Kevin Smith, indeed.  And he wasn’t as large as my seatmate’s right arm alone.

This woman, today, reached over and pushed up the armrests, and somehow sidled herself into the middle seat.  When she sat, only her buttcrack well, what else could one call it? was in her own paid-for space; one buttock was in my lap and the other was in the lap of the man on her left.  Her body pushed me against the wall and window so hard, my cheek was smashed against the glass.  Her side-boob and upper arm covered over half my body, and on her other side, the body of the man by the aisle.  The two of us were unrecognizable; I was mashed against the wall and window, and the man was mashed and pushed almost into the aisle.  My left arm was underneath her and I had to leave it there because the only other place for it was on top of her boobs.

Milk of human kindness, etc. etc. blah blah blah.  She was trespassing into spaces that weren’t hers.  She should have been required to buy three tickets.

Am I being unreasonable?  I don’t think I am.  However, I think she was.

Please don’t beseige me with “wah wah wah” because I don’t care to hear it unless you’ve got a better argument than “self esteem. “  People should be required to pay for the space they take over, on an airplane.  Period.  Whether the passenger requires more space for children, workspace, breathing room, or ass – those people should be required to pay for that space.  If it turns out that the flight has space to spare,  these people could be given a refund for all but one purchased seat.  Otherwise, in a packed plane, let people pay for whatever space they cover, and people who cover less space should pay less than people who cover two or even three spaces.

“I have a right to fly, boo hoo, just like everyone else, wah wah.”  Sure you do.  But if you take up more than one seat, you should have to buy more than one seat.

Honest to boo; I didn’t even have a place for my feet.  I rode the entire way with one foot resting on top of the other.

And now, let it begin.  More people will side with this woman than with her victims.  Why is that?  I’ve been wondering that for a long time now.

I’m not a mean person; really, I’m not.  Well, not usually.  But I do believe, and quite firmly, that on a plane, nobody has a right to an inch that someone else paid for.  You want it, or need it?  Buy it.

School will be starting soon – or maybe it already has – for most kids, and each year at about this time I like to re-run this post about an issue that really, really makes me want to kill somebody and put his/her head on a post in the WalMart parking lot bothers me a lot: community supplies in the classroom.

When I was a little kid, one of my favorite days of the year (besides Christmas Day) was the day the newspaper posted the list of required school supplies, and Mom took us to Crowder’s Drug Store to buy them.

I loved looking at that list, and Mom always let me be the one who got to put the little checkmark beside the items as we put them in our basket.

Prang paints. Check. Paint pan. Check. Rectangular eraser. Check. Blunt-tipped scissors. Check. Etc. Check.

On the first day of school, I loved bringing my beautiful shiny school supplies into my new classroom, and I loved arranging them all inside my desk. I loved to look inside my desk and just savor the sight: all those cool things I could draw with and paint with and write with. . . and they were mine, all mine, and nobody else could touch my things unless I gave them permission. Me. I was the boss of my desk things. I took such pride in my school supplies, and mine were usually still looking pretty good even at the end of the year. They were mine, you see, and I had a vested interest in them; therefore, I took pains to take care of them. Back then, down in lower elementary, the school supplied only the special fat pencils and the weird orange pens.

When my own children were little,  I looked forward to Buying School Supplies Day with just as much delight as I did when I was a little kid. New binders. New pencils. And the most fun of all, choosing the new lunchbox. My own children loved the new school supplies, too. I think it is of vital importance that all children have their own school supplies; it is the beginning of them learning the pride of possession and the importance of caring for one’s own things in order to keep them for any length of time.

It’s not like that in many schools nowadays. I learned, to my horror and dismay, that many teachers do not allow their students to have their own supplies now; the little sack of a child’s very own things is taken from the child on that first day, and dumped into the community pot for all the kids to dip into and out of. There are no “my scissors,” there is only a rack or box of scissors for everyone. “Look, there are the scissors I picked out at Walmart; my name is engraved on them; I wish I could use them but they’re so cool, other kids grab them first every time. . . .”  There are no more personalized pencils or a child’s favorite cartoon character pencils to use and handle carefully; there is only a big on chewed-on germ-covered pencils grabbed at and used by everybody in the room.

And since nothing belongs to anybody, who cares about taking good care of them?

I fully understand that the community pot of supplies is much easier for a teacher to control. I wasn’t, however, aware of the fact that teacher convenience was any kind of issue here. I taught in the public schools for 26 years and I never expected things to happen for the convenience of me; that wasn’t why I was there.

I fully understand, too, that some children’s little sack of supplies won’t be as individualized or cool as another child’s sack of supplies.  I know for a sad fact that some children will never have their own little sack of supplies, at least, not one brought from home.  That’s life; that should not even be an issue. Some children’s shoes aren’t as cool, either; do we throw shoes in a box and let the kids take pot luck with those, too? I understand that in some classrooms, a child’s packed lunch is sometimes taken apart and certain things confiscated or distributed, lest some child have a treat that another child doesn’t have.   When my kids were in grade school, my mother would occasionally stop by at lunch time with a Happy Meal for them – and for me! – and I was told this had to stop because other children didn’t have that option.  Well, you know what, my children were often envious of another child’s dress or shoes or lunch or cool pen, but I would never have tried to ensure that other children would never be able to have anything my own kids couldn’t have.  Good grief.  Such insanity!

Teachers should keep an eye out for those kids who don’t have supplies, and the school should supply them, but after that point, they become the child’s own and he/she should be required to take good care of them, just as any and every kid should be required to take care of his/her things. Children who take good care of their things should not be required to supply children who had their own things but didn’t take care of them properly. As a little child, I was horrified at the thought, and as a parent, I’m even more horrified.  It was like a reward for being negligent! Every year, I donate tons of school supplies to my neighbor’s children’s school; I’m delighted to do this,  and I recommend this to all of you.  Perhaps, if schools have enough donated supplies, our little children will be allowed to keep their very own supplies once again.

When I was a child, I had very little that was my very own. Everything that was supposedly mine was expected to be shared with anybody else in the house that wanted it at any given moment. But at school? In my desk, in my very own desk, were things that were inviolably mine, and I can not even describe for you the sensations that went through me when I looked at those things that my teacher had ruled were mine and only mine. Kids who violated another kid’s desk were quite properly labeled ‘thieves,’ and they soon learned what happens when a person put his hands on property that was not rightfully theirs.

Things are very different now. I hate it. The rare teacher who takes the time and trouble to allow his/her students to have their own things is often castigated by the other teachers who are taking the easy ‘community property’ route. Kids are sharing more than gluesticks and pencils, too; I don’t even want to THINK about the incredible pot-o-germs they’re dipping into daily. Gross. My child using a pencil some other child gnawed? I guess so, because teachers who don’t want to bother with a child’s private property are forcing the kids to dump it all in the pot for everybody to use. “Don’t be selfish.” “Share.” Well, you know what? I don’t like that kind of forced sharing. I had to share everything, EVERYTHING, and that little pile of school supplies was my only private stash of anything. I do not feel it was selfish, or is selfish, to want to keep school supplies that were carefully chosen, to oneself.  Children who have their own things learn to respect the property of other children.  Children with no concept of personal property tend to view the world as a buffet of delights awaiting their grasping, grabbing hands.  Both tend to grow into adults with the same concepts learned as children.

This business of everything being community property in the classroom causes problems in the upper levels, too. Junior high, high school, even college students, are expecting things to be available for them without any effort on their part. Upper level students come to class without pencils, erasers, paper, etc, because they’re used to having those things always available in some community bin somewhere in the room. They have never been required, or allowed, to maintain their own things, and now they don’t know how to. The stuff was always just THERE, for a student to help himself to. And now that they are supposed to maintain their own, they really don’t know how. Plus, why should they? HEY, I need a pencil, Teach, gimme one. No, not that one, that other one there.       Indeed,

Well, it worked down in the lower grades, with community property. You just get up and help yourself; everything in this room is for me, ain’t it? Gimme that pretty one, I want it.

But guess what, kids, it’s evil enough down in the lower grades, but it doesn’t, or shouldn’t, work at all when you hit the upper grades. I’d like to have a penny for every hand that tried to help itself to things on my desk, because, well, they were there. I’ve even had students who opened my desk drawers, looking for supplies. Not poor kids who didn’t have any; just a kid who didn’t bring any and expected everything to be supplied because, well, down in the elementary, everything WAS.

Oh good grief, teachers, let the little kids keep their own things, put their names on them, and learn how to be responsible for them. Secondary teachers and future employers will greatly appreciate it.

I know that in some cases, it’s not the individual teacher’s decision – it’s a corporate mandate.  This is even more evil.  It’s like a national plot to make future generations needy and dependent and reliant on others to fulfill all their needs. And don’t we already have more than enough of THOSE people?

Let me sum up, as Inigo Montoya would say:  Community school supplies are wrong on every possible level.  Period.

Parents, if I were you – and I am one of you – I’d buy the community bin stuff at the Dollar Tree instead of the overpriced educational supplies store in the strip mall that the school supplies newsletter instructs you to patronize.  Send them to school and let them be dumped into the bins for mass consumption and germ sharing.  Then you and your children go shopping and pick out the good stuff.  If your school informs you that it’s against their policy for any of the children to have their own supplies, you inform the school that you don’t give a rat’s ass about such a policy; you did your chipping in and now you’re seeing to it that your children have their very own stuff and that you expect your children’s very own stuff to harbor no germs except your own children’s germs, which will be considerable, but that’s another topic.  What’s more, if your children come home and tell you that their very own supplies are not being respected and are in fact being accessed by others without permission of their rightful owners, you should high-tail it to that classroom and raise bloody hell.

I am happy to see to it that all of the children in the room have adequate supplies, but I can’t stress strongly enough that each child needs and deserves to have his/her very own personal private stash of supplies that nobody else can ever touch.

Do I seem overly obsessed about this topic?  Darn right.  The very concept of community school supplies makes me so furious I become incoherent.  Which is apparently happening right now so. . . .

I’ve always thought that a person’s home should represent that person.  Perhaps I have carried this a bit too far in the decor (heh) of my current home, but hey.  I happen to like having all those bookshelves in the bathroom, and having push-button talking pictures on the walls in there.  I like my orange sofa and my red chair.  I am able to comprehend that they do not match, but the liking compensates for the ferocity of their clashing.  I like more than a dash of funk in my surroundings.  I want my house to be tasteful but groovy.

I read somewhere that having lots of pictures of friends and family members framed and hanging or sitting about the house isn’t cool.  Says who?  I LOVE seeing beloved faces on the walls and on the tabletops.

Sometimes I look at the pictures of rooms in magazines and sigh; they’re just so, well, RIGHT.  The colors match and the accessories match and there’s not a pile of shoes in sight.  In fact, those pictures seldom show any indication that anyone actually lives in those rooms.  I think this is because no one does.

In houses wherein people actually live, there are signs of life.  There is the pile of shoes under the table (well, that’s where I keep my shoes, anyway) and there are magazines, and there are books with markers in them, and there are laptops on the coffee table beside little piles of earrings.  The cushions have been known to live most of their lives on the floor or tossed behind the sofa.  Sometimes there’s an indentation on one end of the sofa arm because if the sofa is comfortable, people lie down on it.  Why isn’t there ever any cat hair on the furniture in those pictures?  What’s a home without a cat?

The kitchens are always pristine in magazine pictures.  You never see bowls of cat food and spilled water on the floors.  You never see spilled cereal mixed with cat hair and dust under the kitchen counters.  People walk across kitchen floors barefooted and never have to stop to flick off “something” clinging to the sole of their foot.

You never see ten thousand boxes of half-eaten cereal sitting around in a magazine picture.  The tables are always absolutely clear and clean, with perhaps a bowl of fruit or a vase of fresh flowers.  In my house, a bowl of fruit would last about ten minutes, and although I love fresh flowers in the house, I chose to have cats, and cats love fresh flowers, too.  In fact, they refer to a vase of fresh flowers as “the salad bar.”  Sigh.

Also?  Those magazine rooms always have curtains at the windows.  I’ve never had curtains.  However, I will have them soon enough.

We’re moving.  But I digress.  I’m also scared of the concept.

Having only to choose, and it’s a choice we are all free to make, I have chosen to LIVE in my house and to encourage others to do likewise.  We could do better, naturally, and not a day goes by when I don’t wish for just a little touch of magazine perfection, but ultimately?  We live here.  And if you stop by – and I certainly hope you do – I want you to make yourself at home, too.  Keep your shoes on; YOU are more important than a speck of dirt your shoes might track in.  (I never feel really welcome if I’m told to remove my shoes.)  (If you have white carpet, that’s a choice YOU made.)  (Not even if it were free.)  (Nope.)  I love my guests more than I care about a carpet.  Besides, I’d rather vacuum up a little dirt later than have to smell your feet all night.

I am always so very sorry for children who live in a house with white carpet, unless the adults who chose it aren’t really all that fussed about keeping it white.

We are currently downsizing to the max here.  My big house is packed to the gills with the accumulation of many years, and the house we are renovating from the skin out is a LOT smaller.  I am not a person who can live sanely with clutter and piles of “stuff,” (I read magazines with scissors in hand and the minute I finish, it goes in the recycle bin) and my husband saves everything.  You’ve seen “Clash of the Titans?”  (The original; not that insipid remake.)  We are the Titans.  I am also the Kraken.  And I have been released.

You’ve been warned.

People have been shopping at my house via FreeCycle like mad these past few months.  Do any of you need anything?  Whatever it is, I bet there’s one here, somewhere.

In the meantime, come on in. The love seat is occupied, but you can sit on the orange sofa. Put your feet up on the coffee table. Sure, you can take your drink into the living room. We live in this house. While you are here, you can live in it, too.

Pity the house that discourages comfort and living.  Pity the sanitized magazine house.

I much prefer a home.

Dear house in town: Steel your nerves.   We’re coming to turn you into a home.  (I’m sure you’re already breathing easier with all that ghastly wallpaper gone.)