The Old Notebook Dilemma

The other day, I mentioned my mental grab-bag of odds and ends. In order to keep my brain from becoming overstuffed and untidy, I have a physical grab-bag annex: I always carry a notebook. In my notebook, I jot down ideas I have, interesting things I see, things the kids say and do, books people suggest to me, movies that cross my mind that I'd like to see again, snippets of conversation. As I use these up--order the books from the library, watch the movies, write about the snippets--I cross them out, very untidily.

Eventually, the notebook is full. My notebooks aren't worth keeping--by this point, they're just 50 pages of scribbles peppered here and there with things that didn't get crossed out.

Before I toss the old notebook into recycling, I have to decide what to do with the leftover odds and ends. Maybe there's the name of a book that hasn't been released yet; I'll copy that to the new notebook. Maybe there's an idea I had that I haven't had a chance to write about but that still feels like it has potential. I transfer that, too. But then there are things whose moment has clearly passed, or that have been transferred from notebook to notebook enough times that it seems likely I'll never actually do anything with them--like the pasta maker you bought 20 years ago and have moved to three houses in two states without ever making homemade pasta. As tasty as that pasta might be, it's time to let the machine go.

For some reason, the notebook I just filled is not just peppered with leftovers. It's chock-full of leftovers. Page after page, mostly crossed out but with one or two things I haven't done anything with but am not quite ready to pass on. It feels like too much to transfer, but also like too much to just let go of.

This is my dilemma. It may seem inconsequential to you, but I haven't solved it.

Maybe I'll see if I can clear a few of them now. Here we go, taking them in order:

The note says: "real" amigurumi. You may know that back in April I started learning to crochet little animals. This is a hobby based on a Japanese craft called amigurumi. Here is a bat I made for the Lego Savant the other day:

 

I hadn't been doing amigurumi long, a matter of weeks, and someone saw a few pieces I'd made in person for the first time, instead of in photos on Facebook. "I didn't expect them to be so big," she said. "Aren't real amigurumi supposed to be very tiny?"

 

I was amused, and by browsing on-line I found that there is in fact controversy and arguments about what makes real amigurumi. According to various people, little crocheted animals can be disqualified for, yes, being too big, but also for having a body that is not a simple tube. A dachshund I made, with a shaped torso, wouldn't qualify by this definition, but neither would the bat above because the legs and head are crocheted as part of the body instead of separately and then sewn on. Head/body proportion can be used as a criterion, and one definition I saw says that amigurmi always have "eyes and a mouth," even if they're inanimate objects like a carrot or a cupcake. My poor bat is disqualified again--no mouth.

 

I don't care, honestly. I'm tired of arguing about "real" this and "real" that. It's always a form of judgment, and of making yourself feel better by shoring up some identity you've chosen. I shouldn't have been surprised to have it turn up so soon in a new community. I plan to just keep crocheting little animals out of cheap yarn with my "g" hook, and will leave the question of whether any given knitted or crocheted stuffed animal is "real" amigurumi to the expert panelists at the International Tribunal for Settling Amigurumi Disputes.

I have a note from two months ago, when we were at TransHealth. Most people at conferences take their nametags off when they leave the conference venue, and Raider and I were initially doing this when we wandered off into Philadelphia to get lunch. But we found that we often spotted people who were recognizeable as also from TransHealth, but none of them clocked us, so we weren't getting the friendly nods and smiles of recognition we craved. So we started keeping our nametags on.

This is an issue in my whole life. Even as a lesbian, I tended to be femme, so not as spot-able as a butchier woman. And now, roaming the world with my husband and children, absolutely nobody sees us and thinks, "Look at that nice queer family! I'll give them a friendly look of recognition!"

Yesterday in Saugatuck, I saw many men who seemed gay to me. This is not a surprise in Saugatuck. But, as usual, there were no shared glaces with us. I decided that we need more words for "hello" in the English language, and one of them needs to mean, "I think you're probably queer, and I'm glad to see you."

Word Boy wanted to play a game yesterday where we took turns telling each other interesting things we knew about animals. On one of my turns, I talked about some insects I read about that are born already pregnant, and the baby bugs are born by eating their mothers from the inside. Of course, by this time they are also already pregnant, and it is their fate, also, to be eaten alive from the inside.

The Tiny Tornado's comment: "I wonder what it tastes like."

I have a note to write about the Tiny Tornado, race, and urban spaces. That's a big topic. I'll transfer it to the new notebook.

There's also a whole post on the parent support group we attended at TransHealth.

I have a note that, in response to the many many books that reassure children that it is OK to be different or special, I am going to write a book called, "It's OK To Be the Same." It's going to be about how, by discovering things you have in common with people, you can form connections and make community, and how all people have things in common.

Let's see (flips pages)...gender stuff...gender stuff...gender stuff.

At the Chinese restaurant where Word Boy ate his giant crab there was also the biggest lobster I'd ever seen. It is no exaggeration to say that its pincers were as big as my head. We asked our patient and long-suffering server if such a lobster could actually be eaten. He assured us that it could. A large group might order it, he said, but a lobster that big couldn't be cooked, so the chef would prepare it for them raw, as sashimi.

We found this very interesting. I didn't think to ask how much it would cost. Or how they would kill a lobster that couldn't be boiled.

Gender stuff...gender stuff...gender stuff...a page of things I think I'm ready to let go of...

 

Ha, here's a note that parenting the Tiny Tornado is a very good thing, because it frees us of the illusion that we are in control of our kids and the things they will do.

 

The Tiny Tornado is working on self-control, though. I posted the following two things on Facebook the other day:

 

I look up to see that the Tiny Tornado has made a stack of three stools and is trying to get to the top shelf in the living room. "Tiny Tornado," I say, "what are you doing? Are you trying to get something that I already told you you couldn't have?"

Tiny Tornado: "Yes."

And a bit later:

Tiny Tornado comes to find me. "Mom, I need a chair."

Me, suspicious: "What do you need a chair for?"

He closes his eyes tight and his lips move. After a moment, I can hear him saying quietly to himself, "Don't say it. Don't say it. Don't say it." Eventually he opens his eyes and says, "Mom, I just need it."

The other night, I knocked the coffee maker off the counter. Fortunately, I was holding the carafe in my hand, but hot grounds spilled everywhere. Raider told the kids, "Don't come in the kitchen for a couple of minutes. There's a mess, and we want to let it cool a little before we sweep it up."

A couple of minutes later, I see the Tiny Tornado standing at the threshhold of the kitchen. He is putting one foot forward, almost past the threshhold, and then pulling it back. He does this a few times. Catching me looking at him, he says, "I am trying to stop myself."

This is the beginning of something exciting, if he is really trying to work on mastering his impulses. Perhaps it will come to fruition in a few decades.

Someone is nagging the heck out of me to go grocery shopping. We're out of everything but what he cares most about is cookies. Guess I'd better get to it.

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