Diane Mierzwik

February 28, 2010

I am the first to admit that I wear rose-colored glasses when viewing the world. I am a firm believer that you see in the world what it is you are looking for. Looking for trouble, you’ll see it. Looking for harmony, you’ll see it.

What has been a revelation to me this week is the notion that not only do I wear rose-colored glasses, but I also seem to have some form of amnesia. There are things I have no recollection of and am convinced never even happened no matter the insistence of those closest to me.

Now, you may know people in your life who seem to suffer from amnesia. If you have teenagers, as I do, you have probably experienced the form of amnesia I like to call “chore-amnesia”. In my house it goes like this:

“You were supposed to take down the trash today.”

“No, I wasn’t.”

“Today is Tuesday.”

“So.”

“So, it’s trash day.”

“It is?”

“Yes, and you were suppose to take down the trash.”

“I was? Are you sure?”

Another form of amnesia that I am very familiar with because my husband suffers from it is food amnesia. It looks like this:

“That’s a big sandwich.”

“Yeah, but I haven’t eaten all day.”

“What about the pancakes you ate for breakfast?”

“I didn’t eat pancakes today. I haven’t eaten all day.”

“What about the ice cream I saw you eating in the kitchen earlier?”

“Prove I ate ice cream earlier, because I have no memory of it.”

I think that’s what my adorably chubby husband said, though it was hard to understand him because he was talking with his mouth full.

I found out this week that my form of amnesia is poor-planning amnesia.

My son decided to sign up for Water Safety Instructor classes. He was able to take the classes this weekend or in March. He decided to put the classes off until March. I found this odd. Why would you put off something until later that you could get done now? Get it over with so your future has time for other things, is my motto. Or so I thought.

I mentioned to my husband how odd it was that our cherub did not follow our shining examples of a life well-lived and was procrastinating.

“It’s so weird. Why would he do that when we never do that?”

My husband was very quiet. After so many years of marriage to an English major, he has learned to choose his words carefully when he is planning to disagree with me. I have learned to brace myself when he has grown quiet.

“Aren’t you taking classes now when you could have taken them for free four years ago?”

Oh.

On the one hand, I’m rather proud of how I’ve conveniently blocked all memory of the fact that I got myself into this on-line classes mess because of my procrastination. It all seems to be a blur, rose-colored, not there because I’m not looking for it. On the other hand, how am I suppose to avoid these mistakes if I’m not even aware of them?

What mistakes? What were we talking about?

This week I will focus on the things in life that make me happy, and forget the rest.

February 21,2010

Do you ever read what is supposed to be an inspirational saying and think, “What?”

This week, in my “A Woman’s Journal of Inspiration” this saying by Margaret Mead was at the top of the page, “Even though the ship may do down, the journey goes on.”

To which I thought, “What? Yeah, the journey may go on, but not with me because I’d be dead. Drowned.”

I’m a pretty good swimmer, good enough to know that floating on my back is the best way to keep afloat for long periods of time. Not good enough to believe that if the ship went down, I would survive it. If my boat went down, that would be a different story. I can usually see the shore from the middle of Lake Mohave. But, the ship, I don’t think so.

How exactly is this supposed to inspire me, I wondered. Then I began to worry about the other sayings and if I had paid close enough attention to them for inconsistencies.

Then I found this one by Colette, “You will do foolish things, but do them with enthusiasm.” I wasn’t so much inspired by this saying as reassured. It’s nice to know that there are other women out there who make fools of themselves with great enthusiasm. I don’t feel so alone when I wear a bright orange scarf to a conference, piss of one of the presenters and fail to take off the scarf so that pointing me out to all her buddies will be easy. “Here I am, the foolish one,” my scarf said with great enthusiasm. Colette would be proud.

I worried that maybe the book had been published by men trying to trick me. They probably left out the most important parts of the sayings, like the part about how once the ship goes down, the journey will go on because a rescue boat will pick you up and be filled with ruggedly handsome Coast Guards who only want to be sure you make it safely to shore. Or the part about doing foolish things with great enthusiasm in the privacy of your home, not at a two day conference wearing a bright orange scarf.

Then my son came in and announced he had decided on his senior quote. “Do your best, forget the rest.” Not my quote, probably not even Reverend Run’s quote but that’s who I got it from. My son thinks he got it from me.

And I wonder. Someday will someone be reading inspirational quotes and read “Do your best, forget the rest” by Diane Mierzwik and wonder, “Yeah, but what about learning from your mistakes. If I forget the rest, how will I learn and not repeat the same stupid mistakes?’

I’d reply, “You mean a mistake like wearing a bright orange scarf to a two day conference knowing deep in your heart that with your big mouth you will probably piss off someone and that scarf will help you to stick out from all the other well-behaved attendees. That type of mistake?”

Yeah, just forget it. It’s not like I’m going to stop having a big mouth any time soon. Besides, orange looks good on me. No, that would be the end of my inspirational quote because I’m a fan of mistake-amnesia.

This week I will focus on what I do best, and forget the rest, like drowning or doing foolish things with great enthusiasm.

February 14, 2010

I am a firm believer that you teach people how to treat you. So, as I spend my 26th Valentine with my partner, if it wasn’t all I hoped it would be, I only have myself to blame.

I remember the night before a Mother’s Day when hubby got home at 9:30 and I asked, point blank, if he had bought me something. He complained that he’d been very busy, what with his two jobs so I could stay home with the cherub. I handed him his car keys and pointed to the door, “Walmart is still open!”

I remember my birthday when I made it very clear that I wanted a solatire blue sapphire ring and when I opened the velvet ring box to find a band of sapphires, I burst into tears and threatened divorce.

I remember the Christmas when I had pretty much given up on the idea that I was ever going to get exactly what I wanted from hubby, let alone above and beyond, so I bought myself a dress I’d wanted for some time, wrapped it up, opened it on Christmas and waited for hubby to be all confused. But not my hubby, he took full credit until I confessed I had bought it for myself. (This is the same husband who spends most of Christmas asking everyone, “What did we get you?”)

I even complained one time to my mother-in-law about how she hadn’t trained her son, my husband, very well. She retorted, “He was fine until I gave him to you.”

Yes, you teach people how to treat you. And this year I got roses from hubby. Not a dozen long stem roses. Not  a half dozen roses from the guy at the off-ramp to our house. Not a single rose wrapped in cellophane with the mini-mart prize tag peeled off.

No, I got Tuscany Superb, Empress Josephine, Celsiana, Queen of Denmark, Old Blush China and many more roses, all bare root, all planted with MiracleGro Rose Planter Mix, all with sprinklers at their base, and all slowing leafing out. Fifteen roses bushes in all and I didn’t lift a shovel, or even pick up the roses and planter mix. Hubby did it all by himself.

Count me lucky, or hubby well taught. Either way, I have had a fabulous Valentine’s Day. I can’t wait to see what I get in another twenty-six years!

This week I will teach others how to treat me, by treating them the way I want to be treated.

February 7, 2010

I never learned to cook. I could probably spend lots of money on a therapist to explore the many reasons I never learned to cook – feminist movement, lack of patience, bad recipe reading skills – but none of this changes the fact that my friends are more familiar with where cooking utensils are in my kitchen than I am.

My failure as a cook has never bothered me. Even when I got married and the dear hubby poked his form tentatively at a piece of chicken and refused to eat it, I was nonplussed because I saw my way out of ever trying to compete with his mother in the cooking front.

Mr. Braxton, my ninth grade English teacher, said once, “There are people who eat to live and those who live to eat.” He was implying that my 90 pounds of budding womanhood ate to live, and I suppose it’s true. My camp mates at the river trip in Blythe went along with my plan to eat everything cold out of cans for the week or out of a cereal box, but weren’t too happy when they caught me being fed pancakes by the other group of campers.

A bowl of cereal, Raisin Nut Bran to be exact, is my idea of a perfect meal. My husband, who happens to be a lives-to-eat kinda’ guy, also is happy with a bowl of cereal because he is forever on a diet. But the kid, now that is where this smooth sailing of an eating plan gets a bit choppy.

As a baby, he didn’t cause too much trouble, pop out a boob or open a jar of mushed sweet potatoes and feed the darling with that cute little spoon covered in plastic padding. Even mixing cereal and producing crackers I did well. Then the toddler went off to a swank preschool with catered lunches and we had “sack lunch” for dinner. Public schools even feed the kiddies hot lunch and I was happy to pay months in advance to be sure my darling was getting at least one hot meal a day.

He can drive now. The cookie jar is full of fives and tens so he can eat anywhere he wants – from Del Taco to TGI Friday’s – fine by me as long as I don’t have to cook.

So count me surprised when he came home a few months ago and pleaded for me to cook for him. “I’m an athlete. I can’t eat out all the time.”

So I went to work preparing the three things I know how to make – chili, shit on a shingle, and macaroni and cheese with toasted sandwiches. This got us by for a few weeks. Then one night he came into the kitchen and said, “This again?”

So I conferred with his dad. What else could we cook? The darling happened to be in the room eavesdropping.

“It’s not that hard,” he muttered.

“Then you cook for us,” I retorted.

“My life is perfect. I live in a great house. I have great friends. School is good. You guys are good. The only thing I would improve in my life is dinner time. When I’m a dad….”

I half-listened, letting him wind himself down with his reverie. When he finally grew quiet, I simply pointed out that sometimes beauty is only recognizable because of the flaws.

“What?” he grumbled.

“Tuna casserole tomorrow,” I said loudly, with conviction. “With potato chips sprinkled on top!”

This week I will remember that beauty is in the flaws.