2004-01-28 - 2:45 p.m.

On the internal soundtrack: "Close to You", The Carpenters

Friday, January 23rd, 2004

I figured I'd try that 100 Things meme. I'm going to do it in pieces. Here are Numbers 1-20: Early Childhood.

1. I missed being a honeymoon baby by about a week. They got me next time.

2. I was born on December 3rd at 3:33 in the afternoon. But when I was a kid my lucky number was 4.

3. First thing I did when I was born was crap all over the delivery room floor. My father loves to tell this story.

4. When I was at the crawling stage, my father accidentally left the apartment door open and I fell down a flight of wooden stairs. Apparently I was unhurt -- they didn't take me to the hospital -- but my father was so angry with himself he punched a hole in the door.

5. The first house I remember living in (we had an apartment my first year that I have no memory of) was a teeny cape cod. It seemed huge to me. We moved to my parents' current house when I was six. I went back to the first house as a teenager and was stunned at how cramped and tiny it was.

6. I remember sitting in the finished basement one day, looking at a favorite book involving a woman who ran a daycare for a bunch of animals. There was a slide involved. This is my first memory of being able to read. I think that something must've clicked in my head that day, when I finally matched the words I would hear to the letter combinations on the page.

7. When I was living at that first house, I was best friends with the girl one house over. We are still friends. So are our parents.

8. One day we were playing dressup, and I got the bright idea we should flash the passing cars. She wasn't interested. I took off my underwear and lifted my dressup skirt every time a car went by. A man driving by in a long white car called me naughty.

9. Later my mother scolded me for having done this. The neighbor across the street had tattled. I was annoyed, and felt no remorse.

10. I have one younger brother, by 3.5 years. He is a very sociable extrovert with a huge network of friends, has a fluid concept of time, and loves to spend money on the finer things in life. I am an introvert, an anal-retentive planner, and am a saver. Yet the way we think is astonishingly alike.

11. I remember the day he was born (I went to my grandma's to spend the night), and I remember the day we brought him home from the hospital. My dad drove the Buick, my mom sat in the middle with my brother on her lap, and I sat by the door. This was back before carseats.

12. Until I was about 14, I wanted nothing more out of life than to read. When friends would come over, I'd eventually say, "Hey, let's read." They all thought this was a terrible idea. I don't do that anymore, but I have friends now who would probably have thought it was a great idea if I'd known them then. :)

13. I didn't know what the word "fart" was for a surprisingly long time. I was trying to ask my mother something about them and called it "a burp from my bottom". Poindexter says, "You were very sheltered."

14. My parents gave me a bike for Christmas when I was 5 or so. It was a purple Schwinn. I thought it was brand-new and was completely ecstatic. I didn't realize until years later that it was a used bike (and rather dated, at that).

15. I used to run around "bare tummy" in the summertime.

16. I'm very clumsy in the morning. When I was 4 or 5, I stumbled into the door jamb and gave myself a black eye. I had to stay in the hospital overnight for observation. I was in a crib and they gave me a rubber glove filled with ice to put on it. I was miserable and wanted to go home.

17. I went back for another operation when I was 6 or so, to put tubes in my eardrums and remove some adenoids. Prior to that I used to snore horribly; now I can't snore. I try to, but all I can produce is a breathy noise.

18. The tubes and the problem that necessitated them have nothing to do with my hearing loss -- they checked. It's hereditary.

19. I used to suck my thumb. I made a decision one day to stop. Then once I was watching a scary episode of "The Incredible Hulk" and caught myself sucking my thumb again. I stopped.

20. When I was little my favorite Crayola color was "sky blue".

Sunday, January 25th, 2004

We went out to our favorite restaurant for brunch. The restaurant is gay-owned and generally gay-friendly. Poindexter took a shower beforehand after having been grubby all weekend. He came into the office, all clean and dressed, struck a goofy GQ pose and said, "There's gonna be a lotta queer eyes on this straight guy!"

In the restaurant there was a woman who came in with a baby in a carrier. She had this demeanor like "LOOK AT ME! I HAVE A BABY!" And she sat next to the baby and looked adoringly at it. Her husband showed up a moment later. They talked to each other occasionally in between her staring adoringly at the baby. When we left the restaurant, I told Poindexter, "She was acting like she just got the baby yesterday, but the baby is at least a couple months old. I started thinking maybe she just adopted it, so she DID just get it yesterday." Poindexter suggested that maybe it was the first time they'd ever taken the baby out to eat. Could be. The restaurant is also very family-friendly, with kids being oohed and ahhed over by the people who work there, so perhaps she was expecting more attention. The place was pretty much deserted, though, probably because of the horrible cold weather. It was 13 degrees when we left the house. And yes, I know to you people up north this is a normal balmy nearly springlike day BUT I LIVE IN PHILADELPHIA FOR A REASON, WHICH IS THAT IT IS NOT FREAKING MINNEAPOLIS!!! WHEN MINNEAPOLIS COMES TO PHILADELPHIA IN JANUARY I AM NOT HAPPY.

Anyway. Back on the new mother. Do you ever do that? See people acting a certain way and it strikes you as odd or unusual or off somehow? And you try to figure out exactly why you think that? Maybe she was just REALLY in love with her baby, or maybe she shows it more than most other young parents do. Who knows.

Wednesday, January 28th, 2004

Two nights ago we finally got around to trying our fireplace. It worked great. I had bought a plastic-wrapped package of logs with a starter brick at the grocery store (sad, I know), and the brick didn't work, but he got it going with just newspaper. It probably helped that the logs already in the fireplace had been there for at least a year and a half, probably much longer.

I had bought a fireplace tools set at Home Depot also, a cheap set for $20. I realized belatedly that it didn't have the tongs -- only a poker, shovel, and brush. I asked if he wanted me to return it and get one with tongs, and he said, "I don't need 'em. Those are for amateurs. I'm an expert."

When he went to stoke it the first time, though, it went out. I spent a lot of time deviling him after that.

Evelynne: I thought you were going to stoke it, not put it out!
Poindexter: THIS IS YOUR FAULT! YOU DIDN'T BUY ANY KINDLING!
Evelynne: There's a starter brick in there. What do you need kindling for? I thought you were an expert.

And later, after he got it started again and went to get a brownie:

Evelynne: Hurry up and get back before the fire goes out!
Poindexter [laughing]: Fuck off!
Evelynne: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Once the fire settled in I sat on the couch and he lay with his head on my lap and I tickled his chest. It was soooooooooo niiiiiiice. I've been wanting to have some nice mindless bonding time with him, but I've been so obsessed with thinking about organization and renovation issues that I had trouble getting my mind to quiet down. The fire did the trick.

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