Six Flags Over Crazy

As I wrote yesterday, I actually enjoy Texas drivers. Texans drive fast, really fast, no matter how many cars are clogging the roads. When you combine dense traffic, breakneck speed and an out-of-towner driving a less-than-nimble minivan, the very last thing I need to deal with is stupid street names. To get to my hotel, I take Six Flags Drive to Road to Six Flags Street. No, wait. Road to Six Flags then Six Flags, right? Maybe. These roads border the Six Flags over Texas park on two sides, but then one shoots off West and one goes South, so you really don't want to get them mixed up. Thankfully, Six Flags itself is a brilliant landmark.

Another orienting landmark is the International Bowling Museum and Hall of Fame's monumental bowling pin with rotating stripes. If I had not screwed up each and every time I have left the hotel, I would never have known there was such an institution. As luck would have it, I've passed it three times. I confess to feeling a bit like Clark Griswold as I take wrong turn after wrong turn only to be confronted yet again by skyscraping roller coasters. Look kids! Six Flags! International Bowling Museum!

In the same general where-is-the-damn-hotel locale are two enormous stadiums. Perchance there are some important sporting teams in the area? If you are coming in for a game, enjoy guessing whether you want Exit 28B / Ballpark in Arlington or Exit 29 / Ballpark Way. Also, be warned that while Ballpark Way will get you to Rangers Ballpark, Stadium Drive does not actually go to Cowboys Stadium.

Bulletproof

I'm sitting in a hotel room in Arlington, Texas, by a window overlooking a closed amusement park. It took six hours to drive here today, and at the last minute, I veered from my directions skirting Dallas and instead drove right through its heart. Dallas is notorious for its heavy, mad traffic and jumbled, confusing exchanges, and I wanted to prove I could still handle it. I never used to blink at racing along in fast traffic on major city roads, and I wanted to feel like the person I was before I got so damn old and responsible and soft. Keeping pace with the high speeds, navigating fearlessly, slipping into the groove of the commuter rush: it was euphoric.

That was my life almost ten years ago, tearing down the highways around the Bay Area, free, bold, answering to no one. The person I was then didn't make meal plans and to-do lists. She had all the time in the world, and her choice of how to spend it.

Just as I was reveling in my invincibility, a song came on the radio that made me miss my boys. It wasn't a sweet, childish song, of course; they have their dad to inform their musical taste. It was Bulletproof by La Roux. Paolo knows every word, knows the song well enough to make up alternate goofy lyrics, and Luca belts out the chorus. Bulletproof, hah! At this point in my life, I couldn't be more vulnerable. I no longer exist in exclusivity; my husband and children are part of me. I am saddled with demands, stretched thin, and chained tight, because I am loved. I do not long for the days when no one waited to hear I had arrived safely.

When I'm away from home, sitting in an empty hotel room, she's so close to me, the person I was. Sometimes I like to check in with her, to step back into the stream of a faster, more reckless life, to feel young and unencumbered, but these are moments of nostalgia, not regret. Living without a net or an anchor is no way to spend your whole life, and I knew that ten years ago with the sunroof open, music screaming, going 80 down the highway.

Book Recommendations: Novels of the Romantic Poets and the Bronte Sisters

The last two books I read were really enjoyable, both historical fiction accounts of famous authors.

I first suspected Jude Morgan's Passion: A Novel of the Romatic Poets would be silly, poorly written or melodramatic - probably all three. The cover does not inspire confidence. I was pleasantly surprised to find such a strong, well researched novel, with vivid characters and amazing storytelling. If you have any interest in Percy Bysshe Shelly, John Keats or Lord Byron, here is a novel about the women who loved them.

Following close on Passion's historical heels is Emily's Ghost: A Novel of the Bronte Sisters, by Denise Giardina. While I had a hard time liking the characters, I appreciated that the author was not trying to make me like them. I also enjoyed the introduction by Giardina of subplots I did not anticipate, such as mill worker rebellion. I can't really say how much of a behind-the-Bronte-novels peek this is. I would have to read biographies of the Brontes in order to know what is real and imagined. I half don't want to know because Emily's love story ends tragically, as it must.

What I found most remarkable about both novels is how they moved me. Knowing beforehand that these creative, poetic lives were snuffed out too soon did not save me from being devastated when it took place in the novels. I could not help wishing it would turn out some other way.

Between these two books, I lost count of the characters who died of consumption. I read most of Emily's Ghost in the middle of the night while sitting up with Luca. His four-week-old cold has moved down to his chest, making him cough and wheeze like a consumptive. It was disconcerting to hear his rattling lungs while reading of Emily's and Ann's deaths from consumption and no surprise I could not find sleep even after finishing the book and turning off the nightlight.

Greater or Less than Hungry Crocodiles

Sam ran upstairs where I was folding laundry to ask me the trick for remembering the greater-than and less-than arrows. When the arrow looks like an L that means less than, I told him. He only knows the crocodile trick, whatever that is, so he asked me to help Paolo with his homework. I joined Paolo at the table and casually glanced at the directions at the top of the worksheet. They used the crocodile trick, too, so I began my explanation: The crocodile's open mouth always faces the smaller number. It's a great, big, mean crocodile, and he's going to chomp the puny little number. Got it? We worked down half the page before I noticed something was awry. The L-arrows weren't indicating what they should. What the...?

Now, you math geniuses were probably groaning several sentences ago, but I am not one of you. I am of the species Liberalus Articus, and my kind do not understand your strange symbols. My people study dead things and words. So. I re-read the directions and, sure enough, the crocodile chomps the bigger number. Fine, have it your stupid way. Completely mortified, I had to reverse my prior explanation to my trusting child and have him redo the worksheet. Never mind what I just said, I told Paolo, the crocodile isn't mean, really, just hungry, so it's going to chomp the bigger number. If you were really hungry, would you eat two cookies or twelve cookies?

Once homework was done, I lashed out at Sam for putting me in charge of math, when he knew I didn't know the crocodile thing, and he did, and now Paolo is probably totally confused and won't get into college, because these are the types of building blocks an entire education is built on, and I've blown it. He was not surprised at all by my fervor and retaliated by reminding me that he came to get me because he knew his grasp on the subject matter was shaky, and I seemed very sure of myself, and this is what happens to children with two Liberal Arts-educated parents, so we should have known the day was coming when we couldn't help with math and science studies.

Yes, but I didn't expect the day to come while our child is in first grade.

Mad Love

Love is...

Not being offended when the 2010 World Cup commercial comes on, and I shush you, turn to the TV and raise my arms in victory at the clips of the Italian team celebrating after the 2006 final.

Mad Love is...

Knowing I will have the same reaction every day until June, but never changing the channel or rolling your eyes.