Random thoughts

Sometimes the main obstacle to writing for me is that I don't have enough related ideas to string together and make a coherent point. Thus, I find it liberating occasionally to imitate one of my favorite writers and simply present some random thoughts:

Sebby glares (see above) when he is concentrating, or playing a role. (A store owner, for example.)
*Glare* "Would you yike to buy some of this spinach?"
"Yes, please."
*Glare* "Okay, that will be fwee dollars."

Do you ever have a really, really bad dream---so bad that no matter what kind of day you're waking up to, you're just relieved to be awake? I had that kind of dream the other night. Horrible. And why, even when you know it was a dream, does the horror of it stay with you for so long?

If you had told me before I got married, that often the way I'd know Sam was home from work was because I'd hear him in the garage belting out an aria from "Pagliacci" (complete with made-up Italian words), I would have been surprised. But it doesn't surprise me now. (Delight me? yes.)

Why do I have the feeling that a certain phrase I heard ad nauseum for the past eight years---"dissent is the highest form of patriotism"---will suddenly vanish from the public lexicon?

My dad is in the hospital getting various things worked on, and when I called to ask him how it was going, he said, "It's kind of hard to just sit around all day . . . but of course, that's the same thing I'd be doing at home anyway." I felt like I should politely disagree, but . . . honestly . . . that IS all he does at home anyway.

Isn't there some line in that song "New York New York" about how it's so good they named it twice? That's how I feel about Sam. So good I married him twice. How did I get so lucky?

Sometimes I inadvertantly mirror people's faces when they are talking to me. One time a mean-looking guide lady in London asked me, "What are you glaring about?" I wasn't meaning to, but it was because SHE was glaring!

Seb was walking around with his backpack full of monkeys saying, "I'm all ready!" I asked him, "Where are you going?" and he answered, "You never know where I'm going to go." Which, frankly, is quite true.

My parents had a Latin proverb up on their wall which they quoted to us all the time: "De gustibus non est disputandum." Meaning something like, "You can't argue about matters of taste." This scripture in Romans (14:3-5) reminds me of that proverb: "Let not him that eateth despise him that eateth not; and let not him that eateth not despise him that eateth: for God hath received him. . . . One man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind." To me, this means: Everyone feels like they are justified in what they're doing. So we shouldn't be so quick to say, "What an idiot---why would anyone do such a thing?!" We all generally do what, in our own minds, we feel is what we should do---or what we must do---at the time. (And yes, we are often wrong. But that doesn't make us crazy, or even stupid, necessarily. We are acting rationally on what we feel.)

People often ask when they see Abe and Seb, "Wow, do you cut their hair yourself?" Which I think is a nice way of saying, "Wow, those are obviously not professional haircuts." And they aren't! Oh, they aren't. I realize that if they at all cared what they looked like, I would no longer be able to get away with it.

My mom disapproves of me letting Seb brush his teeth unassisted. "I don't think they really do a good job until age 5 or 6, so I like to just help them with it." By not helping him, am I (as I like to think), fostering valuable independence and self-sufficiency---or am I just much lazier than she was?

Do you ever wonder if there will really, truly, ever be an end to wiping runny noses? That seems like merely a utopian dream to me.