No one can snatch my sheep out of my hand

My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. John 10:27-28

My Take on the Wall Street Journal Article About YA

Yesterday I watched Twitter explode in response to a Wall Street Journal article by Mrs. Meghan Cox Gurdon, entitled "Darkness Too Visible." In the article, the author makes the argument that YA is rife with all flavors of depravity and peddled by editors eager to "bulldoze coarseness and misery into children's lives."

My initial reaction to the article was incredulous amusement--when my agent sent me the link, I assumed I was going to be reading something well-informed and balanced. However, it was immediately apparent by the contemptuous and smugly dismissive tone that this was a completely one-sided opinion piece.

OK. The lady is entitled to her opinion.

The problem I have is if her opinion is mistaken for thorough, well-informed analysis.

Here there be dragons. Or, er,
OCD and depression. BEWARE.

Her argument: YA is full of "hideously distorted portrayals of the way life really is." And then she targets several books (most of which I have read, some of which I have discussed here on this blog) that include main characters grappling with mental illness, trauma, or substance abuse. She implies that describing these struggles in "stomach-clenching detail" is harmful to teens, and further implies  books that either omit or gloss over these conditions are preferable.

To which I say: huh?


Guess what? One in five teens has a diagnosable mental illness. Anxiety? Thirteen percent. Mood disorders? Seven percent. Disruptive behavior disorders (this includes ADHD and conduct disorder)? Ten percent. And that's just a few categories. In EVERY high school classroom, there are at least a few adolescents struggling with one of these conditions, not to mention abuse, bullying, dating violence, or other trauma.

To pretend these individuals don't exist is offensive. To imply books written for teens should not include them--as if their experiences are not real, as if knowing what they really go through is harmful to others, as if reading books full of sunshine and light will fix them--is highly distressing. And, I'll say it: harmful.

I mean, is that the message we want to send to teens? Let's brush kids with problems under the rug? Let's only tell the stories of well-adjusted kids from two-parent homes? If you read about someone doing drugs, having sex, self-mutilating, feeling depressed, going through a trauma,  or living the brutal reality of poverty and violence, you'll be messed up or catch a mental illness like a bad cold?

There's NO empirical evidence to suggest that is true.

Mrs. Gurdon asserts that reading about a behavior, such as self-mutilation, gives teens ideas they do not otherwise have and encourages them to try it. Although she probably didn't know it, she was referring to the concept of social learning, a well-tested theory which postulates that human beings learn through watching others engage in a behavior and get rewarded for it. An example: teenage girls might watch ultra-skinny models vaunted for their beauty and portrayed as living glamorous lives, and get the idea that starving themselves is a good idea. There is evidence to suggest that is, to some extent, true (though the mechanisms behind eating disorders are MORE COMPLICATED than that by far, or every girl in the US would have an eating disorder).

However, is that really the case with YA? For those of you who read this blog regularly, you know the kind of books I read. Nearly all of them are about mental illness or trauma. I've read dozens of them. Not once have I read a YA book that glorified unhealthy behavior. YA authors are brilliant at showing the complex consequences of their protagonists' choices. No, the writers are not preaching. But OH YES are they showing realistic outcomes. Do they cultivate sympathy for their characters? Absolutely. Do they show their characters getting out of situations unscathed? No way.

If someone publishes a peer-reviewed prospective study of how reading specific content in YA leads directly to the portrayed behavior (while controlling for other predictive factors, of course), I will humbly eat these words. Until then ...

Mrs. Gurdon also laments that YA books that realistically portray mental illness or disturbance might normalize this stuff.

To which I say: ARGH.

Again, recall how many teens experience mental illness. Think about what they face. In one study, ninety percent of kids diagnosed with a mental illness (and taking medication) reported experiencing some type of stigma. They were socially isolated and felt ashamed of their conditions. Do increased feelings of shame and isolation help a person to heal? One guess as to the answer.

Research shows that the more middle schoolers and older teens know about mental illness and its treatment, the more healthy their attitudes become. Research also shows that fostering empathy is an important tool to prevent bullying. Based on my observations, YA does two things relevant to those research findings: it shows kids they're not the only ones going through this stuff. And it shows all kids the perspectives and experiences of others with whom they share the world.

But here's the thing: each kid is an individual with strengths and vulnerabilities. So is every parent. What will be good, even redemptive and life-changing, to one teen will be triggering or disturbing to another. Just like everything else, literature isn't one-size-fits-all. When parents come into my office and ask if roughhousing or video games are okay, for example, I do NOT say, "no." I answer based on my knowledge of the child (and the parent). And the answer is not AN ANSWER. It's a discussion. A collaborative consideration of the individual kid, parent, and environment.

With teenagers, it's a more complex conversation. At that point, it becomes a matter of negotiation and problem-solving rather than one of parent-decides-kid-obeys (actually, ideally, parents begin having problem-solving discussions with their children long before adolescence--the earlier you're in the game, the more likely your kid is to keep letting you play). Parent-child communication--and appropriate parental limit-setting-- protects kids from all sorts of risks. Parental autocracy? Doesn't.

What I've seen many, many YA authors suggest is that parents should read alongside their kids. These authors are NOT saying every kid should read every book. Rather, they are saying parents should talk to their kids. Decide together (and the older the teen, the more freedom he/she has to make independent decisions). Have frank discussions about the material. Be open and receptive and don't freak out. This is the approach mental health professionals happen to advocate as well.
All right, I'm done.

Have you read the WSJ article? What did you think? Are you concerned about teens being desensitized? That mental illness or substance abuse will be "normalized"? Do you find there is a dearth of light-hearted or "innocent" books out there? Are you a parent? Are you having to negotiate the world of books with your kid, and how are you accomplishing that?

They Could Have Been the Worst Four Years of My Life

The years of 2003 to 2006 could have been the worst four years of my life. My health was literally disintegrating before my eyes.

Although I had been gradually going deaf since my late teens, in 2004, my thirty-eighth year, I lost all hearing in my left ear. This crippled me. I had to leave the church band, could not engage in social dialogue, stopped listening to music (one of my greatest pastimes), could not hear the television, and almost drove my family crazy asking them to constantly repeat themselves. Otosclerosis, an inherited disease that causes the calcification of the bones of the middle ear, was the cause of this ailment. Yet of equal concern to me was the accompanying tinnitus. Although both ears suffered from it, my deaf ear produced a cacophony of continuous, ‘deafening’ sounds, including roaring, thundering, grating, and an extremely deep humming that was extremely unsettling.

Not long before losing my hearing in one ear, I was diagnosed as suffering from complex partial epilepsy, confirmed by undergoing MRI and EEG scans. Prior to this, I had never heard of this condition, thinking the partial-seizures to be a symptom of depression. At this time I ceased taking anti-depressants and took anti-seizure medication, which had (and still has) quite horrid side effects. I lost interest in almost all of my hobbies, entered a continual state of exhaustion, and both short term and long term memory deteriorated significantly.

During these years a recurring injury received from my childhood worsened to the point that I was frequently afflicted by agonising, throbbing pain for ten hours a day, for up to three months at a time. (An operation in 2006 healed this injury.)

It was a Sunday morning in November 2004, when I had come down with the flu for the sixth time in a row, (which may have had something to do with burning the candle at both ends recently…) that I reached a crossroads. With the deafness, epilepsy, injury and apparent inability to return to any semblance of health, I felt the crushing weight of despair threatening to descend upon me. This was the last straw.

I had a choice. My life appeared to be in a state of utter disarray. I could succumb to despair and slip into the miry pit of depression, or I could turn to Jesus and rely upon His strength in my weakness, as He said to Paul in 2 Cor 12:9, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness."

I chose the second option. While I drove down Canterbury Road that November summer morning, I waited upon Jesus and recalled something I had heard in a sermon. My life was like riding in a bus, and the bus driver was Jesus. I was comforted by the fact that the bus driver always knew the destination and how to get there. This was my situation in a nutshell. Although my life appeared to be a complete mess and out of control, this was not the truth. The truth was that Jesus was in control of my life. I had nothing to fear. Jesus said in John 10:27-28, “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand.”

So rather than let these burdensome troubles drive me to depression, I surrendered them to Jesus and placed my trust in Him. The pressures faded away and hope, joy, and peace prevailed.

May I ask you, the reader, a question here?

Considering the breadth of my troubles at this time, does it seem too easy?

I know the Bible says in James 1:2 to ‘Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds,’ but trust me, although I reach this place eventually, this is not my initial reaction to trials!

Perhaps you are wondering why it did not take me days, weeks or months to learn to cope with these trials. How could I, after going through so much, ‘seem’ to shrug off their debilitating affects and yet live a normal life?

The only reason these afflictions did not drag me headlong into depression’s merciless grip was because I had already been down that road, back in 1990. It began with an eight-month period of living hell which included an endless cycle of debilitating anxiety attacks, chronic insomnia, crippling feelings of guilt, low self-esteem, utter despair at what was happening to me, and much more. As the days turned to weeks and then to months, I was crippled by the fear that this ‘thing’ that had overcome me would never lessen or end.

Here is an extract from my diary dated February 20th, 1990. (At this time, I had no idea what was wrong with me.)

Oh Lord, when will this end?
Day after day, I remain trapped
In this endless personal hell of pain and confusion.
I want to get out of myself!
To be someone else, anyone but me.
The me I know is gone, yet somehow I am still me.
I must escape from myself, but
I'm trapped in a suffocatingly small, dark room.
I know there is sunlight outside.
I run, push, and strive to reach that light,
But the room comes with me--I cannot get out!
Why? Because I am the room.
Jesus, for what reason have you allowed this?
Where are you? How long will you remain silent?
They say that others who have been down this route
Have left signposts along the way
To help those like me find the way out.
But where are these signposts?

By His grace and provision, Jesus helped me overcome depression and live a normal life again. And in learning how to cope with depression, Jesus set me free so that I need never again succumb to its depths. Galatians 5:1 ‘It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.’ In conclusion, it was because of what I learnt during my trials of the early 1990s, that I was able to endure the trials of 2003 to 2006 and through Christ, overcome them.

The purpose of this blog is to encourage all (myself included!) undergoing trials and tribulations to establish Jesus Christ as the cornerstone, or foundation upon which to build our lives, and through His strength, endure and overcome those trials in order to live life to the full. John 10:10 Jesus says, “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”

Download a pdf booklet of this blog's articles

(All verses from NIV)

The Versatile Blogger Award Now Tattooed on My First Born Son!

I didn't know WHAT to do with this shiny new award I just got from the delightful Cherie over at Ready. Write. Go. (Honored I am, indeed!)

At first I thought this might be some kind of master Ponzi scheme. If I give five people awards, and they give five people awards, and so on, and so on, we'll end up with really thick and lustrous hair, or maybe in prison! I wouldn't like prison. Unless I had really shiny, nice hair, which I could sell for contraband so that my fellow inmates could make knock-off Barbie dolls and sell them, to others who would then re-sell them to still other people...oh, I digress.

So I thought the best thing to do with this nice award was to display it to my neighbors, in case they forget to read my blog. So I took my kid to a tattoo artist and had this done. He was upset, but I was proud and pleased.

Relax, everyone, this is not really my kid! He doesn't even look like me, man. No, I never saw that kid, I swear. I got this photo off Flickr. He has only TWO teeth and I have lots. Where are you taking me?

Without further adieu, the rules of this blogger award are:

1. Thank and link to the person who nominated me.
2. Share seven random facts about myself.
3. Pass the award along to 5 new-found blogging buddies.
4. Contact those buddies to congratulate them.

SEVEN FACTS

1. I have never tattooed a child. I am Caucasian with a wee bit of Native American tossed in the pot, and that kid is not mine.
2. I was once painted green, and I have updated my profile photo to share that, in honor of my new green award! Green is my favorite color, too. Especially when featured on a Lilly Pulitzer outfit.
3. I lived in Athens, Greece for a year at age 13.
4. I can play guitar but...
5. My singing is frightful. (I'm working on it, though.)
6. I have a costume trunk in the attic that contains wig, fake animal noses, and all manner of marvelous tag sale finds.
7. In elementary school I decided I wanted to be called "Pony," hence the true origin of this blog's name.

And the award-ees! I'm betting that a couple of these peeps have this award already (I searched but could not find it), but if I am first to hand it over, GO ME! (By the way, I feel sort of shy and goofy giving this award. Shucks. I like these people!)

1. Anita Howard
2. Angela, aka The Starving Novelist
3. Bethany, aka Rookie Riter
4. Mary Frame, aka Marewolf
5. Holly VanDyne

The Manny Diaries Chapter 13 I Found My Smile in Two Gallons of Mezcal

"Miss Jennifer! Miss Jennifer! I'm going to buy ten chickens tomorrow!"

Such were some of the first words that Manny spoke when he finally reached me by phone from his new home in Oaxaca, Mexico. And boy, did he ever sound drunk. Happy drunk, mind you. Ebullient drunk. Almost giddy with drink.

"Ten chickens! Like, 20 cents a piece. Hey! Do you know you can get two GALLONS of Mezcal here for only $16. Two gallons! Not that I'm drinking anything because, man, I'm about a mile high up in mountains and it's beautiful and I don't need to drink or do anything bad at all. Nyet! Nyet!"

Will he name one of his new chickens "Bun-Bun"?

Was that Russian he was speaking? Yes, he revealed to me that he can speak about 10 different languages fluently. Never once while he was staying with us had I heard him speak one word that wasn't English or mangled English.

"Any Eastern European language there is, I can speak it. I don't like to tell people because they will get an impression of me," he said. "Like a wrong impression or a weird impression, you know?"

It seemed odd that a man who forgot how to pronounce words like "guacamole" and called a "beet" a "parsnip" and a pork loin "that other meat--the meat, you know the one, that's not chicken and not beef, dammit, what's that called?" would have such a facility with languages. But I didn't argue.

"Nyet!" he said again, and then: "Dammit! There I go again. It's so confusing, all these languages going around in my brain."

"How about Spanish? You learning Spanish?"

"Yeah yeah! Uno, dos, tres, nachos!" I laughed. "What, what?" he said.

Mexico was treating him rather well. He loved it there, after only two or three days. He could see the President of Mexico's house from where he stood! The food was fresh and good and unbelievably cheap. He repeatedly remarked on the cheap price of the Mezcal and then quickly added "not that I'm drinking it" after every reference. He mused about the two gallons of Mezcal that were about to be delivered to his casa, and sniggered gleefully over the cheap price. "For cooking. And maybe a sip with lunch. Just a splash," he coughed.

He insisted that we all come down for a visit and live like kings. Heck, we should all just move down there permanently, because it was heaven on Earth. "Those boys can run wild in the agave fields!" he said. "It's the safest thing! A mile of space! They would be perfectly safe to just run wild. Except there are these burros...these really big burros. What are they called? Burritos...OXEN. I mean, bulls! You don't pet those guys. They could gore you."

That is one big Burrito!

The trip down had gone perfectly. His large bag weighed two pounds over the weight limit, but the woman in the baggage area had winked and waved him onward. The Federales treated him kindly and laughed at his jokes, despite the fact that he'd been gurgling free double Absoluts on the plane (apparently Aeromexico hands these out for free, plus hot breakfast. What an airline!) "I would not be escaping from anything, of course. Who the hell wants to escape TO Mexico?" the Manny snorted at customs, as they all laughed and waved him through.

His new landlords met him at the airport and took him out for dinner: A huge meal with tequila shots that amounted to about 8 dollars total for three people. After this he became really chatty and mentioned that in Vietnam, he had killed 163 people. Apparently, they keep a tally. It's considered a sort of honor, a point of pride. I think it has haunted Manny his entire life.

"That's a lot of dead people," he said, almost soberly. His landlady had hushed him and said, "Let's not talk about that, okay? Not out in public and not to other people, at least?"

"I almost screwed my pooch there, Miss Jennifer!" he said. "163 people. That's a lot." There was a long moment of silence and then he was off and running again:

"Do you know how salty the salt is here? And how sugary the sugar? I took a big lick of a salt pile and it was so salty I almost threw up. They have mountains of salt! Your dad, I mean your husband, would hate all that salt. The sugar is just so sugary. And the sun? I'm brown like a beautiful Mexican girl! I've found my smile. I have finally found my smile. There is nothing better than this. Do you know how much free booze there is, Miss Jennifer? I mean, I'm so happy, I'm not needing to drink at all. Just a little with breakfast, lunch, and dinner, you know?"

From left to right: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner.

He called back about 10 times in the next two days. He sounded a little lonelier; he asked to speak with the boys and they all shouted things like "We miss you!" as we poked them and pointed at the phone. He'd received his chickens and was prepping to name them. They each produced about one egg per day. He thought he might name three of them after the "little guy, the middle one, and the big one," our sons.

"You really ought to come down here. I'll pay for your trip! I'm working on a new business plan. Pretty soon I'll be making 10K a month. Hey, did you know that you can get a meal down here with eggs, beans, chorizo—all you can eat—plus three shots of Mezcal, all for three bucks?"

The last time he called was June 21. I recall that when he had been gone a few days we took note of a strange sort of melancholy, almost as if we had been at a funeral. "I feel as if someone has died," I said, in the parking lot of Trader Joe's. And then there was the thought: He has gone there to die. We will never see him again.

We will never see him again.

Never again will I be worried that, upon stepping out of the shower robed and towel-turbaned, that Manny will sight me and recoil and stammer his way into a doorframe. Never again will I see the plate of fresh-cut fruit that he has laid out for the boys at 6 am, making sure there is an ample supply of red apples (the only ones youngest son likes!) in proportion to green apples, along with cuts of watermelon and pineapple. Never will I see the chaotic mess he has made of the kitchen after a stir-fry extravanganza, with drippings down the edge of the stove. We won't hear him moan and cry out: "The pain! The pain!" as he plods up the attic stairs to his dark aerie.

I hast barfed profuse filthy dishware whilst I wast cooking.

Here is what I wonder on this rainy, desolate, wind-cooled night: As he steps out beyond his meager possessions (wok, pot, coffee carafe, lemon squeezer, spoon) and looks past the casa to see the burros plodding along, carrying firewood against the sunset, is he perhaps, strangely, the happiest of beings? Does he know even one sure thing that we do not, if even for the briefest of moments? He has claimed his smile. He knows better, perhaps, than to expect its certainty each dawn.

We dream a fiction. We can never really know the truths that fools and madmen hold in their dark, stung, longing hearts.

Why are my panic attacks worse at night

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Where is My Stop Anxiety At the Party Plan

Yikes!

I have just realized that the party I mentioned getting so ultra confident for is coming up pretty quick! Remember how I want to go and not be plagued by anxiety constantly like I usually am?

I am not anywhere near prepared!

I have got to get into high gear with great conversation topics and strategies and ways to relax and BE ME while I am at the party.

This is time to research and get advice.

I will post everything I find out here --- everything I am able to find out from popular party divas and hostesses and from plain old research.

Please send me advice.

How do you stay relaxed in social settings, how to you speak to others so that you hold their attention, how do I meet new people with ease and not go into complete panic if I have no one to talk to for a few minutes....

The Books That Feed My Brain

This month's Sisterhood of the Traveling Blog question came from Deb, who asked: What type of book do you read for writing inspiration, and why? Do you read fiction or non-fiction, and what genres? Mysteries and YA, or archeology and astronomy?

Laura's answer is here, and Lydia's is here. Deb will be up next week. As for me ...

I've learned a lot about writing and storytelling from other writers. I've been knocked flat by the beauty and power in their prose, by the intricacy of their plotting, the individuality of their characters. I've gotten hooked by ideas that just wouldn't leave me alone. A few things that have inspired me (to name only a few of many):

The stark rhythms and brittle fragility of Wintergirls, by Laurie Halse Anderson.

The lyricism and longing in Shiver, by Maggie Stiefvater.

The exploration of identity and loyalty in Camo Girl, by Kekla Magoon.

The flat eeriness and dread of Descent Into Hell, by Charles Williams. 

The conceptualization of the afterlife in The Great Divorce, by C.S. Lewis.

The frightening ease with which good people become evil in The Lucifer Effect, by Phil Zimbardo.

The phenomenal pacing and timing of The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins

I could go on and on, but I'll stop there. How about you? What books have inspired you and why?

A Man in My Attic and a Rodent in My Ceiling

This past weekend we heard a scuttling and skittering inside the kitchen ceiling, occasionally rattling the lightbulbs in their sockets. The sound travelled, moving from the area right above the kitchen table, to behind the cheesy Nu-Econo Brik facade, then settling above the various cupboards. There was a lot of scrabbling. Something was alive in our ceiling.

"That's a big cricket!" said my five-year-old.

"It's a RAT," said my 10-year-old.

"It sounds like the Shawshank Redemption in there," I said.

"That's a RACCOON," said the man who lives in my attic, turning to me with dark, beady eyes that were alight with the scientific realization that he'd just stumbled upon. "And you know that raccoons are bad-ass motherfuckers. They have these little hands, like real little HANDS, and they just...jump at you without warning! They jump at your neck! And they clutch and bite. They have rabies. Oh, did I say motherfuckers? Fuck! I'm sorry about that."

Raccoons are real bad, whether you are drunk or stoned or sober as a judge. It doesn't matter! They'll tear you to bits!

"Whud you just say?" said the 8-year-old. He turned to me with glittering eyes and a wide-as-shit smile. "Did he say the F word?"

"Yeah, lil' what's-yer-name," said the man from the attic, huffing a mouthy breathful of bourbon at us. It was noon. "You. You. The Middle One. You're a real smart lil' shit. OH! I did it again." And he slapped his hand to his mouth and opened his eyes wide like a girl caught with her skirts blown up over a grate.

Why do I have a drunken, perhaps mentally unstable, 63-year-old man living in my attic? Well, he's not there at the moment, to be honest. He left on Saturday evening to go live on a pig farm.

Maybe I ought to back up a bit.

OK. So this fall, our friend wanted to move back east from California and he needed a place to land for a while. We needed a bit of backup childcare, so we agreed to make an arrangement. He'd stay here and work on selling his vast modern art collection, pick up the boys from school, cook the occasional meal, and so on. We'll call him "the Manny." Or Manny for short. We weren't thinking too clearly but, hey, we were willing to give anything a shot. Our long-term marvelous nanny had moved back to England in October and we were eager for an alternate childcare solution that didn't break the bank.

It started out pretty well. Manny proved himself to be an exceptional—nay, a gifted—cook. The man has a natural way with food and it's a true passion of his. He buys fresh food and turns it into genius creations. I think it's a calling that he might have missed thus far. Food was his art. He even dreamed about it.

It troubled me just a little bit that he couldn't remember my three sons' names after a week and that he preferred to refer to them as "the children of the corn." He also wondered whether, instead of "time outs," we ought to try "duct tape and dark closets."

I was horrified, but he grinned like a Lumpen Jack o'lantern.

"Kidding. Aw, I would die for those boys. Die for them."

His jokes were hardly appropriate and he had no linguistic filter, but I pretty much knew that he would, indeed, lay down his life if it came to it. But try explaining that to a local pal who wonders, "Who is that homeless man who shambles your boys to school? Is he some relative or what? Why does he look like crazy Bill Murray in Caddyshack but with long, dank hair? Is he, like, a Vietnam vet?"

Yes, he is, and you do not want to know what he saw while in service.

"I don't wike you," said the five-year-old to him one day, rudely.

"Willya listen to that shit!" he responded. "Lil' sons o' bitches. Man, I do love 'em, though! I really love 'em!"

But he also had other loves. Liquid loves.

When he first arrived he informed us that he no longer drank alcohol and that, when he quit months prior, he “shat his pants regularly, sweated his guts out, and had horrible shakes.” But, he’d be delighted to have a beer just tonight, thanks! One beer turned to two. Two turned to a bottle of wine. A bottle of wine turned to a bottle of vodka. Things started to go down the slippery slope.

One Monday afternoon, I received a phone call from him. He was about four blocks away and claimed that the “food was too heavy to carry home.” He sounded…off. Weird. He said his legs hurt. He was slurring and mumbling. I decided to leave my 10-year-old in charge and drive the few short blocks to acquire him. There he was, sitting by the side of the road, surrounded by deflated shopping bags, looking every inch a demented homeless man. I opened the car door and he started like I had shot him. I beckoned him in. He finally made his shambling way into the car, and, once he was in, I realized he stank of booze.

“Have you been drinking?” I asked.

“Oh no, I been taking some Vitamin B-12!” he said. “It messes you up real bad.”

Uh-huh.

Then he said: “A lot of these housewives around here got real fat asses. But you got a fine one. Oops, don’t tell your husband I said that.”

Right.

Once we arrived back at the house he asked me to unpack the groceries. He lurched around, hurling pork chops hither and thither as he attempted to get them into the pan. All the while he was guffawing and babbling, and the boys kept coming into the kitchen to see what the ruckus was about while they were supposed to be doing their homework.

I had to go and check email. (All this was happening during my workday.) While at my computer, I heard a suspicious “unscrewing and gurgling noise.” Our guest had poured himself a “cockytail,” as he called it, and was now lurching about the house yelling happy obscenities and hurling stuffed animals at the boys. I came in to arrest the chaos and was struck in the eye by a beady-eyed turtle puppet.

The boys got more and more excitable, as boys do. I smelled pork chops grilling. This could not be my childcare situation!

My eldest boy ran up and Manny said, “What’s the fuck is up with this little monkey?” My boy raised his eyebrows at me in a questioning manner that said "Who the fuck have you hired as our nanny, mother?"at which point Manny smacked him atop the head with a flat palm. Gently enough, but enough to register a small ticking time bomb in my brain: This situation must end, and end quickly.

The next thing I knew, my 5-year-old was wailing that Manny had smacked him on the buttocks with a plastic scimitar.

“I did not do that!” Manny protested.

“I saw you do it,” squealed the 8-year-old.

“Tattletale!” said Manny. And he lunged, guffawing and exhaling clouds of alcohol, at the boys, who squealed merrily and escaped. They thought it was a lot of good fun, actually. Fortunately.

I did something I never do on a weekday. I begged my boys to quietly watch television, while I furiously texted my husband. 

Next chapter: Manny goes into the city, and vanishes from the radar.

Postscript: The kitchen rodent has now been heard in the second-floor ceiling.

The Manny Diaries Chapter Fourteen Someone Whacked Me on the Head and Stole My Pants

The Manny has had a spate of bad luck lately, but I want to reassure all his fans that he is absolutely fine, despite the rather ominous tone of this post's title. If I were more verbose, the title of this post would have been "Someone whacked me on the head and stole my pants, shoes, and underwear, and then some ladies found me lying stone cold naked from the waist down in a bush," which is decidedly worse. Because who steals underwear?! And why leave the shirt and take the skivvies?

This is so much more acrobatic than it must have really looked, and my Photoshop is poo, but how long do YOU want to Google terms like "Hairy male legs protruding from bush" before you have to permanently clear your browsing history and take a scalding shower? 

But let's back up. A while back, we got a phone call from Manny, who had suffered a stroke/seizure sort of thing and was slurring and hiccuping uncontrollably. Luckily, the stroke/seizure sort of thing had occurred while his kind landlord, Rudolfo, was on hand unstopping the toilet.

"Apparently, you're not supposed to put TP in the toilet in Mexico," says Manny. "Because I got it all clogged up. Why do they call it toilet paper, anyway? If it doesn't go in the toilet what kind of paper IS it?"

Manny suddenly keeled over and whacked his head on the floor and commenced bleeding and writhing. He related the story as such:

"I fell flat on my head. I almost died! I was bleeding out on the floor! Rudolfo, he sticks his wallet in my mouth so I won't bite myself. But it's too late. I already swallowed some of my tongue! I mean, a big chunk of my tongue! I think I swallowed it!"

"So anyway, Dora, my landlady, calls the Red Cross. She says to me, you're not going to die today, and especially not in my apartment. Meanwhile, my skull is cracked open. It was too much! Did you know that a quarter-inch of my tongue is missing because of the crazy-ass seizure I had?"

"The Red Cross tell me I have brain enamelies. I was fledge-e-ling around all over the floor. My arms were in the air! I bit my tongue off! My mind is crazy! The Red Cross told me that my tongue will fix itself."

He seemed okay, though, and fairly jolly despite what had happened. The Red Cross didn't charge him a penny. He hiccuped and blamed it on the "brain enamelies." He didn't drink anymore, of course!

He went on, sharing more details of his life in Mexico:

"So then, the lady with the scorpion tattoo calls me. I met her at the Learning Library—all the gringos go there. She tells me about the guy who put scorpions in the Mezcal. He cuts their stingers off. Charges $250 a bottle. Hey, my eyes are doing weird shit. There is a guy here who is trying to sell me an AK-47. I've gotten old, and OLD! One day this crazy German chick shows up at my door. She wants to sleep with me!"

"Did you sleep with her?" one of us asked.

"You know I'm a private guy! I don't like to talk about that stuff! How dare you ask me! Yeah, I did.

See, I'm glaringly honest about everything now. I'm like a retarded child! And I'm not drinking a drop."

Then he started talking about how awesome Mexico was and how we all had to come down and live there because it's so beautiful and so safe and marvelous. He planned to rent a beach house. He hoped that we would serve as his "memory," because his brain was doing weird tricks and couldn't remember things properly anymore. 

It might have had a little bit to do with the night, a few weeks later, when someone whacked his skull with a crowbar and took all the clothing off his nethers. He was lost, walking around dazed in some neighborhood, when someone gave him a whack and left him slumped in the weeds, free of pants and shoeless.

"They even took my underwear," he said. "The Red Cross made me some paper towel underwear. I still have a big dent in my head. Like a HOLE in my head, Miss Jennifer. It was awful."

Disposable undies. Not the finest.

During the incident, the poor man bit his tongue again. Maybe a wee little chunk went down the gullet?

But he's still in fighting form, despite the fact that on top of all this, he had a heart attack not too long ago. The Red Cross told him he probably had the heart attack because he stopped drinking so suddenly that it shocked his system. "Remember that day you picked me up on the side of the road?" he said. "That wasn't alcohol. It was my HEART."

But, mind you, he is not drinking now. Ahem. His landlords are the kindest people possible—much unlike his previous landlords, who kicked him out for giving the Mexican workers free beans and rice. The Mexicans shouldn't "get used to the idea that they get anything for free."

"You don't do that to people, that isn't right," he said. "He told me, you will either be shot or arrested. So I left."

He's a good person. He delivers meat to some of the local men, whose wives reportedly hate him because all they serve is beans and rice, and he shows up with steak and mushrooms.

"My life right now is the best thing that's ever happened to me. I pay $235/month to live here. And they feed me three meals a day," he said. "Oh, and I'm about to get married to their niece. She's only 25, and she likes me. Her name? What? No, I didn't forget her name, I just don't remember it. She likes me a lot! We're going to move into a bigger place. She wants to take care of me!"

Manny had just been to a 9-year-old's birthday party, where he had been offered alcohol, and he vociferously refused. Purportedly.

"I'm so much healthier. Listen to how I'm talking. This is not crazy! I feel so much better. I am healthy! I am not worried about drinking too much. I love it so much here. They knock on my bedroom window at 11 at night and bring me tostadas. This is a good world. This is a good place."

The April Fools Day Prank I Pulled on My Mom

My mom has a habit of collecting newspaper clippings about awful tragedies and worrisome things that her children need to know about, putting them in envelopes, and mailing them off to us. 

Over the years I have gotten clippings that pretty much tell me I am going to DIE at any moment because the world is full of dangers. And clippings about bed bugs. My mom may have a specific fear of bed bugs. (One time, in fact, one of her bed bug clippings randomly wound up in a box of clothing that we were trying to sell at a tag sale in our yard. Most unfortunate! Nothing sold, and we could not understand why.)

Anyway, when it came to April Fool's Day I realized that the best person to prank was my own mother. (There will be more blog entries about the pranks I have pulled on my mother, because this is rich fodder indeed.) I decided to prank her with an email, even though she doesn't read email (my dad does, and he prints them out and hands them to her). So I thought, how about a [blank] of-the-month club? What would really give my mother a good laugh, once she figured out the prank? Ideas included:

Bag of Organic Matter and Compost of-the-Month Club
Something Dug Up at an Archaeological Site of-the-Month Club
Things That End in "Ork" of-the-Month Club (January: A Spork! February: Pork!)
Exotic Meat Nugget of-the-Month Club

But my brilliant sister came up with the perfect scheme. Bad News of-the-Month Club! (aka Clippings-of-the-Month Club, for more sneakiness). 

NEWS FLASH: I just got an email signed from my mother stating that she "does not wish to receive this service. Please remove me from your list." Maybe the Bag of Organic Matter of-the-Month Club would have been more favorably received?

Here it is:

Dear ______,

All sorts of need-to-know news is generated every single day, and some of it can be quite alarming: Articles about foreign bug infestations, infectious diseases, political plots, malfunctioning children's toys, cars that suddenly accelerate without warning, and so much more. But it's impossible to keep up with all the absolutely crucial stories that YOU really can't miss.

That's why we created Clippings-of-the-Month Club! Our dedicated team of editors works tirelessly each month to comb media sources, local and worldwide, to bring you the stories that you need. We inform. We educate. We help keep you safe and alert to what's going on in YOUR world.

And thanks to a special gift from Anonymous, you've been signed up for a full year of Clippings-of-the-Month Club absolutely free!

Each month, you'll receive a fresh bag of newspaper clippings delivered right to your door. You'll find stories that amaze, educate, and startle you. We guarantee that you'll want to share these headlines with everyone you know, especially your loved ones. It's truly "can't-miss" news. Here are just a few examples of the kind of news you're going to get every single month:

Please tell a friend about Clippings-of-the-Month Club. We hope you enjoy your year of astounding, amazing, and hair-raising news stories.

Best,

Juniper Crane

Clippings-of-the-Month Club Co-Founder