"Cool" Has Left the Building

Whatever illusions I ever had that I somehow could be considered "cool" (and believe me when I say the word "illusions" is an accurate one) have flown the coop in the last month or two. (Actually, in a "meta" sort of way, this belief that the alleged status has only just left me is another prime example of the word "illusions").

Let's be honest. Anyone who wears stretch denim or dribbles in her panties after a hot bath or considers a seven-letter Scrabble play a real coup already qualifies as clinically delusional.

Still. . . .

I have my holdouts. My aces in the hole, as it were. Like my scooter. (Which I just sold to a "good" friend.) Or my music collection. (Which is comprised of a combination of nearly-extinct vinyl, cassette tapes and cds.) Or my "i > u" t-shirt. (Which I'm wearing right now as I type this and bought at a website called ThinkGeek.com).

These culminating events may not represent my "Come to Jesus" moment so much as they have become my collective "Do Not Pass Go. Do Not Collect $200" notification.

For at least the past 20 years, I have made a musical "senior tape/cd" for my graduating students. Used to be that the students would anticipate this gift with the same giddiness that a starving college student anticipates two-fers and free appetizers on a Friday. Or a Saturday. Or a Tuesday. Once upon a time, my musical compilations were revered by my seniors. Now, I'm afraid, they are simply endured. Like a $25 savings bond from the grandparents.

"Really? Gee, thanks."

Absent of cable television, a shower, and the knowledge of how to text (more or less, the knowledge of what my grotesquely underused cell-phone number even is), I am, in fact, the antithesis of "cool." Rather, I'm this sad combo platter of "utterly irrelevant" and "just a tad bit pathetic."

And I'm now in danger of becoming invisible, unregistered, un-Google-able. Like 7-Up in the '70s, I've become the uncola of humanity. Only without the self-promoting commercials and uncola nuts.

And so, I seek to make peace with this new me, the one for whom there really is no 21st-century peace. No longer sought out by niche advertisers (unless you count Depends and AARP), in danger of becoming a target of employer "early buyout" programs, soon-to-be recipient of discount movie passes.

Peace, though, as we've learned innumerable times from the history books, is not an easily attainable state of being.

Jane's Incomplete List of Really Great People

Now that Time magazine has published its Time 100, highlighting the most important people in the world today, I thought I'd do my own list, much shorter and possibly important only to me. Below is a short (read, "incomplete, so don't feel bad if you aren't on it") list of some excellent folks in my life and the lessons they've taught me.

My dad, Jim Raglin
Lessons learned: It is possible to be friends with Democrats AND Republicans. You can use humor to heal wounds and, when necessary, to wound heels. A well-told story is a beautiful thing. Sing loud, even if you have a lousy singing voice.

My mom, Sally Raglin
Lessons learned: Motherhood is not for sissies. Art is essential to a good life. So is music. Strength endures, even as bodies fail. You are still beautiful, even when you accidentally tuck your skirt into your panty hose.

My oldest brother, Mike Raglin
Lessons learned: When you get an inheritance, throw a great party for your friends--that is money well spent. Live large and don't worry about failing. Joy is infectious. So is AIDS.

My husband, Mark Holt
Lessons learned: Kindness is not a gender-specific thing. Nor is parenting. Or the love of musicals. And, sometimes, even Plain Janes get the good-looking guy.

My son, Eric Holt
Lessons learned: Babies are really patient teachers. Curiosity is Miracle Gro for the mind. Even serious thinkers have a bad dance move or two inside them. Children make their parents better people, something they'd never achieve on their own.

My daughter, Allison Holt
Lessons learned: Just because you've done something once doesn't mean you know what you are doing the next time around. Loyalty is not for sissies. Beauty is way deeper than the epidermis. Love cannot be contained.

My friend, Andrea Kabourek
Lessons learned: Cancer sucks, but you don't have to. Humor heals (see "Jim Raglin" above). Sometimes, getting up in the morning is a very brave thing to do. So is hang gliding over Turkey. But who wants to live a life without those things?

My journalism teacher, Jim Schaffer
Lessons learned: Stand back and let students think and do for themselves (still working on this one a bit). Don't build walls where you can put in a door. Journalism gives a voice to teens, who seldom feel their voices matter much. Teaching journalism can be lots of fun.

My journalism hero, Molly Ivans
Lessons learned: The rules of grammar are not etched in stone. Texas is at once both wonderful and horrifying. Ditto for Texans. A woman can be brash and brave and groundbreaking, just by telling the truth, rolled in humor. Cancer sucks.

My spiritual guide, Anne Lamott
Lessons learned: God is funny and, on occasion, maybe a little profane. "Us and Them" is not a God thing; it's a rotten human thing. "Warts and all" pretty much describes everyone, so we might as well get over the warts part and get on with things.

I know there are lots of other folks out there who deserve the nod. It's just that I'm starting to nod a bit myself. So consider this a starting point.

Of Synapses, Science and Spirituality

I'm a wee bit in love with science, and "Smithsonian" magazine is the rolled-up "Playgirl" I tuck underneath my mattress each night.

The May 2011 issue is a cornucopia of mind-bending tidbits, and I'm left breathless after each article. Just a few of the facts that have left me panting this week:

--During long migrations, it turns out that birds have nothing over the silver Y moth, which travels just as fast as its feathered friends. Its key? Like a persnickety jet pilot, the silver Y waits for and flies in ideal conditions, using jet streams and tailwinds to make up for its lost time on the proverbial runway. And don't even get me started on Monarchs, some of which have been displaced as far as a thousand miles from home base, only to find again their invisible road home to Mexico.

--German naturalist Alexander Von Humboldt was described as the "last universal man," meaning he was the last human to have a grasp on all the world's knowledge. I cannot even imagine such an accomplishment. Nowadays? We have specialists. Personally, I root for the few generalists who are still out there, swimming upstream against a society that emphasizes singular know-how over excellent "Trivial Pursuit" gamesmanship. Had Von Humboldt been alive today, I'm pretty sure I'd have a poster of him in my bedroom.

--In 2002, someone salvaged a medical kit from a 2,000-year-old shipwreck...and the contents of some of the vials were still dry! Turns out these were the only existing samples of medicine from antiquity. Science historian Alain Touwaide got some samples from the vials and discovered that the DNA was still good. As I read more about Touwaide, who is fluent in 12 languages, he seemed to be a viable candidate to replace Von Humboldt as the "last universal man." I think I will make a website to push for his nomination.

--Thanks to "Smithsonian," I now want to vacation in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, even if local Yups will make fun of me while I'm there. Pristine waters, sandstone cliffs, multi-hued waterfalls, architecturally-beautiful hamlets and virgin forests are calling my name. Too bad gas is $4 a gallon. . . . although I'd guess that the Yups would disagree with me on this point.

--And then I read about memes--ideas, behaviors and styles that spread from person to person like a bad case of swine flu (I mean, H1N1). I had to read this article slowly, its ideas thick and heady. When I finished, I was reminded of "Botany of Desire," Michael Pollen's mind-boggling book about the power of attraction. In it, he proposes that the most successful plants in nature had to figure out how to become sexy crazy to other beings in order to thrive. It was a stunning read. In fact, the chapter on apples still sends shivers up my nerd spine. And now I read about memes, ideas that take on a viral nature, spreading from one person to another, and leaving those people changed from the experience. Almost makes viruses sound...sexy.

When I read about scientific discoveries, I am always left in a state of wonder. Science never fails to amaze me. It also never fails to make me feel a bit closer to God, whose existence, for me, gets all kinds of street cred every time a tiny little moth or a catchy fast-food jingle or a 2,000-year-old baby aspirin wends its way into my brain.

Turns out, both science and God are all about wonder.

Let's Do the Time Warp

My apologies for the weather of late.

Seems my desire to slow down time has actually interfered with the arrival of spring.

It's not that I don't want sparkly, warm weather. I just am feeling a bit clingy about some things--and some people--these days, and if delaying spring can create the illusion that these people and things will stick around a little longer, well then, so be it.

Eric Bo Derrick--Lincoln High School Senior

I'm not a terribly sentimental mom. Heck, drop "sentimental" and the "ly" and you'd probably be getting a little closer to the truth. But I find a larger and larger part of my brain reserved with "Eric" thoughts these days.

He's really not a bad thing to fill one's brain with. Smart and funny and hard-working, he's six weeks out from finishing high school. And then? And then he's another four weeks out from a solo trip to Sweden.

(Did I mention that Eric is kind of brave and knows how to speak Swedish?)

After that? After that, he leaps into his own life, both feet forward, no longer "occupant" of this house, but rather "hungry visitor with a load of whites."

I will not get in his way, but that doesn't mean I'm anxious for these days to whiz by.

Gigi

Grandmothers had been in short supply in my life until I married Mark and inherited his fine grandmother, Evelyn Carlson, whom we call Gigi. She moved here after her husband Harry died and has spent the last 8 or 10 years of her life surrounded by her daughter, Cynthia, her grandchildren and a whole slew of great grandchildren.

She is funny and feisty and falling apart. In the hospital with pneumonia, it is hard for us to know what to feel right now. She is 97, after all. She has lived through droughts and depressions, world wars and the world wide web.

I do not know if she will live through this, though, and that makes me struggle with my sense of time. And place. And family.

Hobbes the Hobo Dog

Just in the past few days, it seems that time for Hobbes is accelerating. Thus the reason I do not want spring to have sprung. He falters on stair steps, winces when I pick him up and barely has noticed that, today, he went without our afternoon walk.

He has only been in my life for five or six years, but he has dug in those long claws and hooked them firmly around my heart.

There is something especially hard about watching an animal decline. It feels like an issue of trust, for some reason.

And so, I will spring not to come.

Andrea (she's on the right, next to that creepy clown)

Of all the aches in my days, my ache for Andrea is the one that makes me question my time-delaying super powers.

For her, just a month into what will be a long fight against leukemia, I hope that time will run downhill. For her, I hope that the days are but mere moments, collectively piling up without notice until, suddenly, it's fall again and routine has found its way back to her.

For her, I will allow the sun to shine tomorrow. For her, I will let warmth come over us once again.

At least for one day.

Plato Meets Dante--Hell's Bells!

Had an other-worldly experience today. Come mid afternoon, I realized that I felt more at home in Italy, speaking nary a word of that language, than I did at Plato's Closet in South Lincoln.

What is Plato's Closet, you ask.

Imagine Dante's Inferno with designer jeans and tiny, tight-faced, label-splattered mothers and daughters. Oh, and me and Allison. At Plato's Closet, the "Almost Haves Who Do NOT Want to Be Mistaken for Have-Nots" can compete over a $200 pair of jeans (marked down to $45!!), worn only a few times by someone just a little richer and a tad bit tighter.

It is the middle class's Goodwill without all that pesky charity.

And I could have used a little sweet charity, come 3:30. My ten-minute shopping meter had expired a good 15 minutes earlier but here I was, sitting in a pleather-and-chrome chair, while Allison shopped for some snappy bargains.

I mostly stared down at my practical, kind of man-like shoes ($100 Josef Seibels, on sale for just $30!!), and rugged Woolrich pants (can you say "gansta"?!), wondering how I'd gotten so lost.

To my right were two more-middle-aged-than-they'd-care-to-admit women, whom I assume were sisters, and one of their teenaged daughters. One of the women, with a multi-colored mop of hair, was furiously going through one pair of fashionable jeans after another, each time emerging from her portal to get the inspection tour. (Note: I have NEVER required the input of others in order to decide if a pair of jeans fits.) Her skin was unnaturally dark--even the mild muffin top she sported had a tan to it--and, when I got a close glimpse or two, I could see the wrinkles that her creams had somehow overlooked.

But, boy, did they know their jeans! It's possible I felt a wee bit scared by this fashionista trio.

For the record, I own one pair of Liz Claiborne jeans, bought after my friends Marti and Laura pestered me to hang up the Wranglers. Even though I bought those jeans nearly 8 years ago, I still consider them "new."

On the verge of a social-class asthma attack, I got up and roamed a bit, but found no refuge after overhearing a grandma pester her elementary-aged granddaughter in aisle two (skirts and capris).

"You will NOT wear that thing on MY watch!"

"But, why, grandma?"

"Because a PEDOPHILE will find and ravage you, if you wear those things!!!!!"

I was dizzy by the time we approached the checkout girl, and Allison was being a good, if not slightly disappointed, sport, holding two shirts that soon would be hers (originally, like, a WHOLE BUNCH of money, but only THIRTEEN DOLLARS today!).

We headed to the car and she commented on how obnoxious "those people" were. I casually said something like "I bet it made you glad I am your mom, huh?" She sort of snuffled out an answer that I'm telling myself was a "YES!" and we made our way to Shopko--OUR people--to buy us some ink for the printer and a $2.99 set of tongs for the kitchen.

After making our purchase, I lingered a bit, letting the glorious scent of Lysol and plastic fill me up and renew me.

Jane's Journal of Idiotic Moves

April 14, 2011
6:10 a.m. and I'm bleeding like a Long-Island liberal into the sink of our first-floor bathroom. A minute earlier, I had been outside, enjoying a morning stretch with Hobbes the Hobo Dog.

Somewhere between the stretch and the bloodbath, I had decided to put a big rock atop our hot tub, anticipating the windy storms of this afternoon and evening. We have three hefty rocks mixed among the river rocks near the patio and I reached for the nearest one, forgetting about the long, dark frame of the hammock.

It was a clumsy, short pole dance, one requiring more of my nose and right eye than my pelvis and legs, though they, too, collapsed temporarily.

I squealed like a penned pig, an odd, high-pitched noise escaping from my lips.

As I splashed cold water on the wound, I sputtered a request to Allison, who was upstairs.

"ALLISON! I, uh, need your help, I think. Can you bring down an old sock and fill it with ice?"

It's a cool-looking wound, as wounds go, surprisingly neat and scalloped-shape. Nothing for a doctor to sew back together, I guess. And my eye's only a bit puffy and red. Like a low pollen-count eyeball day, really. Aside from the gaping nose wound.

Early January, 2009

When it was time to buy a new stove, I discovered they'd made several upgrades since we'd last shopped for one. (This is a regularly-occurring phenomena in the Holt household, where "new" cars are cars that were bought in the current decade and "new" jeans are jeans bought from a store that has only been out of business for 3 years).

The new-fangled stoves are mostly flat-top ones, free from the bulky burners of yore. Makes them much easier to cook on. AND much easier to break with a candle that falls from the cupboard just above the stove. But that's another story.

One other thing you should know about these new-fangled flat-topped stoves is that, when you turn a burner off, the pretty red glow of the burner disappears right away, too.

For us slow, visual learners, who are just old enough and tired enough to need to lean on things, this is not really a good thing.

That night, I was whipping together a little dinner for the fam, as well as for a friend of Allison's, who was spending the night. As I reached to the back burner, I leaned my hand on the front one, looking for support or warmth or comfort. All I got was warmth. One out of three. . . . and the sickest-looking handful of blisters that you have ever laid eyes on.

I spent the rest of the night wincing and icing and levitating and cursing and squeezing and maybe just a wee bit of weeping was thrown in there, as well. I slept with my hand wrapped in an elaborate ice-filled contraption, elevated above my head. I woke the next morning to the world's newest mountain range, and the only one, to date, made of flesh.

Late August 2000
I went through a glycerin-soap phase, buying buckets of the clear, waxy stuff and transforming it into bejeweled, personalized, stunning creations--or so I tell myself. Anyway, it was a lot of fun and I actually enjoyed thinking about, making and buying soaps during this time in my life.

One night, I found myself home alone and decided to take a long, soaking bath in our clawfoot tub. I was excited to use the new soap I'd just bought at TJ MAXX, some mango-infused fancy bar from a faraway country. Somehow, it had ended up out of the tub, wedged between one of the tub's legs and the bathroom wall. I reached down to pick it up, immediately noting its exfoliating texture.

I didn't give it another thought until I started to scrub my bum, which felt even more bum after soaping it up. By then, I'd already cleaned most of my body, periodically stopping to consider just what kind of oatmeal additive could make a soap feel so rough and tumble.

I backed off the scrub-a-dub plan a bit, then, and called it good, having addressed the major players, at least.

Our mirror was directly across the tub and it was hard not to notice myself as I emerged from the tub. Hard, not because I'm a looker, but rather because I looked like I'd just endured thirty lashes.

Which kind of explains why I uttered "Good Lord!"

What I had thought was an exceptionally exfoliating soap turned out to be ordinary soap covered in tiny bits of broken glass. Apparently, one of the kids had brought in and broken a glass during a recent bath, and missed a few pieces or twenty. All of which magically ended up on that bar of soap.

From my neck to my ankles, and most places in between, I was covered in long, red scratches.

Even though it was the hot end of summer, I wore long sleeves the next day, unable to face my colleagues and students with what was a most befuddling truth--that I had cut myself repeatedly with a bar of soap.

To help stifle the blows of humiliation, I offered students $10 if they could guess how I incurred such injuries.

"Rabid cat?"
"A fall into thorny bushes?"
"Knife fight with a new gang member?"

Now that I think about it, I should probably bring $10 to school tomorrow, too, because no one's going to believe how I got this gash on my nose.

Rock-Island Recollections: Happy Trails, Indeed

By the time I'd finished reading the obituaries this morning, I decided to put down the paper and live a little. I was long overdue for a bike ride on the trails, and the Purple Hawaii was going stir crazy in the shed.

Even a clever Sunday crossword has nothing on a great bike ride.

And it was a great bike ride (although I'm not sure there is such a thing as a bad one).

Topping the hill of my street, I was greeted by flowering Bradford Pears set against the green backdrop of Woods Park. My bike hummed beneath me, delighted to be doing its thing once again. We wended our way through the parking lot, and headed to 32nd Street, where I checked in on my friend Martha's old place, its front garden still well tended.

A block from Capitol Parkway and the gibbons broke into song, their sonorous howls beckoning the apartment neighbors from their Sunday beds. I peaked through the Zoo's fence, and caught a glimpse of a camel shaking off the sleepies.

Ten minutes in, and I was on the Rock Island, my favorite trail for both nostalgic and scenic reasons. I scanned the cell-phone tower for a hawk or two, and then turned my sights on the trees and fields, the silence broken by the whirrrrrrr of red-winged blackbirds.

Crossing South Street, I noted the ominous cat scratchings of the notorious Country Club gang. Their neo-Fascist graffiti plastered the back of Leon's, created, no doubt, while one of their moms kept the Suburban humming in a nearby parking lot.

Ah, so be it, I thought. (This is the contented mindset only possible while riding one's bike on a perfect Sunday morning.)

Jungle-throated Flickers, jousting male Robins and carousing clans of Cedar Waxwings outnumbered the people, which was fine by me. The trail was buffered by assorted Magnolias in various stages of bloom, ranging from papery whites to righteous purples. Shocking yellow outbursts of Forsythias cried "Look at me! Look at me!" And I did.

I honked a hello at a single Goose as it flew over, gave a nod to a lone Blue-Winged Teal meandering in the creek below me, and said my "good mornings" to my human trail-mates, all of whom returned the favor.

I'd planned on going to church this morning, but now I'm thinking "What's the point?" Even if my minister brought his "A" game (and he usually does), he'd be hard-pressed to outdo the sermon I'd just witnessed.

And I'm pretty sure God would agree.

Of Mothers and Redwoods

A Redwood tree doesn’t hit adolescence until it’s around 600 years old. I learned this stunning fact in the book I’m reading, “The Wild Trees.”

At 83, my mom is on the back side of life as a human, her adolescence nothing more than a faded memory. I visited her in the hospital yesterday, after she’d had surgery, and was taken aback by her wispiness. She looked like she was sinking into the hospital bed, her body a crumpled collection of achy parts.

In “The Wild Trees,” the author recounts a story of a handful of Redwood climbers who clamored up a 2,000-year-old titan, eventually nestling themselves in its nooks, 30 stories off the ground, to spend the night in it. In the middle of the night, they realized just how old this tree was, as it swayed in a gale wind. Trying to decide if they should descend in the darkness and rain, they eventually chose to wait it out, bargaining that this tree had lived through 2000 years of storms and it certainly would live through this one.

A few months later, one of the climbers discovered the shattered bones of the tree, collapsed on the forest floor.

I was visiting my mom just a few hours after her sinus surgery, which the surgeon described as “difficult but successful.” As I headed to the hospital, I knew not to expect the mom I usually see—classy, beautiful, put together. But that doesn’t mean I was prepared to see her so not put together.

It’s difficult to see my parent suffering, even if I know that it’s temporary. Stranger still, though, was seeing my mom as an old person. It’s a shocking realization, and it made me realize just how much I’d been fooling myself.

When the nurse came into the room to check her vital signs, she talked to my mom in a slow, even, slightly pitched voice—the kind of voice we reserve for little children and old people. I stayed by my mom’s side, holding her hands and not saying much. Repeatedly, my mom, in her post-surgery haziness, pinched open her tired eyes and mumbled how smooth and warm my hands were. She said how nice it was to hold her daughter’s hands.

I had to agree.

M&Ms Melt in My Mouth--Leaving My Hands Really Clean!

Had I been born 2,000 years ago, I so would have been a Pharisee. A forgetful one, albeit, but a Pharisee, nonetheless. And, really, doesn’t “Pharisee” have a nice ring to it? Certainly sounds better than “hypocrite" . . . .

Granted, I don’t look that hot in a robe, but I’ve got the whole “letter of the law” thing down pat, so I readily would have accommodated those flowing threads, because it’s important to dress the part.

Here I am, halfway through Lent, and I really haven’t changed that much, despite having gone almost 4 weeks without candy. Even if I'm not really giving up Milky Ways for the Lord, exactly. That would be lame. But, believe me when I say that me going almost a month without candy is like a crack addict going three days without a fix. Or a teen boy going ten minutes without thinking about boobs. Any way you look at it, it’s pretty freaking amazing that I have resisted all things Nestle for this long.

So, where’s the whole “Pharisee” thing come into play? Turns out, mostly on my cookie sheet. And I’ve framed it all in a clever riddle.

When is candy not candy? When it’s in a cookie.

See, I’ve been pounding monster cookies like there’s no tomorrow. And, at this rate, "no tomorrow" is a real possibility. But my supremely-honed Pharisaic conscience is as clear as a spring morning. How? Well, I've convinced myself that an M&M undergoes changes--scientifically-proven changes!-- when nestled among cupfuls of white flour and brown sugar.

Some people would claim that I have no more given up candy than Rush Limbaugh has given up his housekeeper’s Oxycodone. But, here, I respectfully disagree with my naysayers, my inner Pharisee coming to my rescue.

If I can pull off this whole “no candy, unless baked into a cookie” thing, it’s possible I may be ready for bigger things. Like a career in politics or talk radio. Yeah, I know--both already are rife with long-robed rapscallions. But most of them are men.

We need more boobs in politics and talk radio. And I just may be the right boob for the job.