Today would be a good day to clean, as I have the house to myself for a few hours. We have company coming over on Sunday for Easter brunch, and it would be nice to have the house looking reasonably clean for the occasion. However, the cleanliness half-life of my home is slightly less than the half-life of mendelevium-257 (5.52 hours), so by Sunday it will appear as though I have done nothing to prepare for my guests, making them feel unwanted and unloved. Clearly the optimum time to clean the house would be at about 4:00 a.m. I have actually been known to wash the kitchen floor and clean the bathroom at midnight, but you can’t vacuum when the rest of the house is sleeping. Plus, the combined energy of my dogs, child, and husband seems to create messes even when there’s ostensibly no one there. It’s either that or a poltergeist.

So what’s the optimum time to clean the house?

There is a gentleman of indeterminate age who’s a regular at the Y. Let’s call him Sam. He’s of Lebanese descent, grew up in North Africa, and has lived in the US for decades. He’s a sweetheart and a total flirt. It’s somewhat heartening to have someone tell you you’re beautiful, especially when it’s 5:45 a.m. and you feel like Ugh on a popsicle stick. I generally see him when we’re swimming. We chat here and there in between laps. He told me I have a wonderful backstroke.

This morning, in between laps 11 and 12 (mine) he said I was a strong swimmer (this is more evidence of his flirtatiousness because I’m not a strong swimmer) and said, “You probably started swimming when you were six years old.” I replied that actually I had didn’t have swimming lessons as a kid and more or less taught myself when I was older. Sam said that was how he learned too. He grew up near the sea, so “We go to the beach and you just learn.”

Between laps 17 and 18, Sam was chatting up the woman in the lane on his other side. She and I had talked for a few minutes while waiting for the pool to open, so I felt comfortable saying, “Watch out for Sam. He’s a player.” Same protested that he wasn’t flirting at all. I said I just didn’t want her to get hurt like I had. Laughter and more laps.

When I was done swimming and was just about to get out of the pool, Sam said, “The coral and the fish in the Red Sea and the Mediterranean Sea are so incredible. You can’t duplicate it in a photograph or a movie, you have to be there to see it. It is so beautiful. You can never see it unless you can swim.” We stood there in the water, less dressed than we’d ever be with any other casual acquaintance but comfortably talking. He again waxed poetic on the beauty of the coral reefs are and how nothing can compare to seeing them in person. I told him I would add swimming in the Mediterranean Sea to my List of Things to Do in This Lifetime. As I was getting out of the pool, he raised his right hand and said, “Okay, I confess, I was flirting with you.”

I’ve been working on a new novel and struggling a bit with the voice. Yesterday, I posted the following on Twitter:
@SusanPetrone gets 1 jelly bean for every 100 words she writes on the new novel. #cheapmotivation

I received the following tweet in reply from the Jelly Bean Factory:
GourmetBean Jelly Bean Factory
@SusanPetrone Send us a copy when it’s done, and we’ll send you back a Jelly Bean Machine! #morecheapmotivation

I love the sound of this deal, however, I’m at the beginning stages of this novel. I’m maybe 8,000 words into what will grow up to be a 100,000-word book (give or take a dozen or so jelly beans). If I keep to this method of motivation, I’ll end up consuming approximately 950-1,000 jelly beans over the next 12-18 months, as that seems to be my standard germination process for a novel first draft.

I suppose I could take a draft of the I’m-not-sure-if-it’s-genre-or-what manuscript that’s been sitting around taking up space, and send them that, but as I am an honest Puck, I won’t. The jelly beans are motivation for the writing of this book. (By the way, the working title is The Sweetheart of the Hobby Printers of America.*)

My question to the Jelly Bean Factory: Is there is a time limit on this offer? I’ll write as fast as I can, but it’s still gonna be a while before I have a draft to send you. Please advise, and thanks for the added incentive to get this first draft written. You’re good eggs. Or rather, beans.

*Back before there were bloggers or zinesters, there was amateur journalists, who wrote (and frequently printed on their own small hand presses) short journals that were were distributed through hobby/fraternal organizations. They’re still around–check out the American Amateur Press Association or the National Amateur Press Association. This novel is about one of the rare female hobby printers. Not only can she set type, she’s a real pip.

I’ve never thought about tickling a penguin before, yet here it is. Proof positive that penguins are ticklish and humans are anthropomorphizing suckers for cute baby animals.

Like most people, I like penguins. They have that cute waddling walk and a complex social structure. They slide around the ice on their stomachs and swim like little tuxedoed dreams. What’s not to love?

I think the danger is when you start to love penguins too much. I’m a huge fan of Lyle Lovett, however, something about this video disturbs me. But then again, who am I to come between a man and his penguin?

I went to a Class A minor league baseball game last night.

While it’s tempting to have the above be my entire post today (for a cheap laugh), it would not do justice to my love of the game. Frankly put, I’ve loved baseball much longer than I’ve enjoyed looking at cute young ballplayers. Last night was cold and clear. No clouds, just three-quarters of a moon. The temperature was about 42 degrees (my friend Stephanie checked weather.com on her phone and announced that the wind chill was 38 degrees). There were maybe a 150 or 200 hardy souls in Classic Park watching the Lake County Captains play the Dayton Dragons. In row K, section 114, you’re just behind the third base line and less than 100 feet from home plate. In a ballpark with very few bodies to absorb the sound and a cold, crisp night, the crack of wooden bat hitting horsehide ball was a sound made tangible. Monotone though it may be, that sound is music to my ears. Oh my soul for the crack of the bat, for the sight of a stark white fly ball against a black sky, for some beautiful 19-year-old kid making a graceful diving catch for the pleasure of a 150 frozen fans.

I’ve been officially unemployed for two weeks and found myself in need of a little pep talk this morning. According to Webster’s Dictionary (the actual printed book), the word “pep” is a noun meaning “energy, vigor, liveliness, spirit.” I used to have a science teacher who called me Peppy Petrone, apparently because I typically have energy, vigor, liveliness, and spirit. When I was in elementary school, my teachers called me “enthusiastic.” Today they’d probably call me ADHD.

The first thing that comes up when you Google the word “pep” are the Pep Boys–Manny, Moe, and Jack. We all know them. They add energy, vigor, liveliness, and spirit to buying auto parts.

Interestingly enough, the Pep Boys are not the first image that comes up in a Google image search. Instead you get Pep Guardiola, a Spanish football manager and former player. I’ve never heard of him before, but he is rather easy on the eyes,  making me feel slightly more energized, vigorous, lively, and spirited than I did half an hour ago. Mission accomplished.

I got up early and went to the Y to go swimming before taking the kid to school. When I got there, the Aquatics Director told me that the pool was closed because one of the filters was broken and the water was too cloudy.

“If the lifeguard can’t see the bottom of the pool, you can’t swim,” he said.

“Who cares about cloudy water?” I replied. “I swam in Lake Erie in the ’70s, man*.” Despite my exhortations, I didn’t get to swim this morning.

*This is not to disparage Lake Erie. It is much cleaner now

I will admit to having something of a potty mouth, although in recent years I have dramatically curbed my tendency to use colorful language in both written and spoken speech. Partially because for years my mother told me that I’d never meet a nice man if I swore all the time and partially because I have a small child and don’t want her using salty language. I will confess that I have dropped the F-bomb in front of her a couple of times in the midst of great frustration. The first time she was about three and we were making butternut squash soup.  Once the veggies are cooked, you need to put the whole thing in a blender to puree it. First, I spilled some of the non-pureed soup. “Oh fudge!” I said, rather proud to have used a nice non-offensive exclamation. I cleaned up the mess, poured some of the soup into the blender, and let the kid press the button. That’s when I realized that whomever had cleaned the blender the last time had not tightened the bottom, thus soup was leaking out all over the place. “Fudge!” I said again. The whole time, the little one is standing on the step stool next to me, helping cleaning up and being a fine little helper. She got to press the buttons on the blender (a task she takes very seriously). When the first batch was pureed, I poured it into another pan. It spilled. And some of it splashed on me and burned my hand. And that’s when I dropped the first F-bomb in my child’s presence. And then she said it. “Fuck!” with the  happy lilt that comes when a little kid learns a new word.

We had a quick little discussion about good words and bad words, and I went more than a year without saying it in front of her. Then the three of us–the kid, the husband, and I were coming home from somewhere. I was driving, and as I pulled our too-long car (it’s a fine car, it’s just too big for my liking) into the too-filled-with-stuff garage, the front bumper tapped the shelving that was against the back wall. Without thinking, I said It. From the back seat came a little voice asking: “Why did you say ‘fuck’?”

After my husband stopped laughing, we had another little talk about language and how sometimes grown-ups use bad words when they get frustrated or angry but that it’s ugly language and we’d all try not to use it.  For the most part, I haven’t (I’m still a Cleveland sports fan, after all). But once in a while, the F-bomb must drop.

April is National Poetry Month, and I’ve getting a poem a day emailed to me from Knopf Doubleday Publishing. The one for today is actually a letter written by Emily Dickinson to her cousins shortly after her mother died. It’s a lyrical pondering on the passing of a life. My favorite lines are: “There was no earthly parting. She slipped from our fingers like a flake gathered by the wind, and is now part of the drift called “the infinite.”

We don’t know where she is though so many tell us.”

As a writer and as a human, those lines make me swoon. After my own mother died, I was barely able to construct a coherent sentence, much less write something this lovely. My mom died nine years ago, but I still think of her often. She died well before my daughter came along, and I wish the two of them had had a chance to know each other. They would have been silly crazy for each other.

I know there’s a tendency to idealize people after they’re gone. I remember my mother as a fount of infinite patience and understanding and encouragement–qualities I often feel I lack. She had her bad days and her imperfections, although I wasn’t aware of them when I was small (who is?). I know myself and my shortcomings. It seems impossible to me that my own child will grow up and idealize me in the same way. But if when I’m gone my child writes something like this to one of her cousins, I’ll consider my parenting job well done.

To Louise and Frances Norcross, November, 1882

Dear Cousins,
I hoped to write you before, but mother’s dying almost stunned my spirit.
I have answered a few inquiries of love, but written little intuitively. She was scarcely the aunt you knew. The great mission of pain had been ratified—cultivated to tenderness by persistent sorrow, so that a larger mother died than had she died before. There was no earthly parting. She slipped from our fingers like a flake gathered by the wind, and is now part of the drift called “the infinite.”
We don’t know where she is, though so many tell us.
I believe we shall in some manner be cherished by our Maker—that the One who gave us this remarkable earth has the power to surprise that which He has caused. Beyond that all is silence…
Mother was very beautiful when she had died. Seraphs are solemn artists. The illumination that comes but once paused upon her features, and it seemed like hiding a picture to lay her in the grave; but the grass that received my father will suffice his guest, the one he asked at the altar to visit him all his life.
I cannot tell how Eternity seems. It sweeps around me like a sea…Thank you for remembering me. Remembrance—mighty word.
“Though gavest it to me from the foundation of the world.”

Lovingly,
Emily

Twenty-some years ago, my friend Polly and I used to meet at 6:00 a.m. to go biking around Shaker Lakes (a gorgeous short string of small lakes, woods, and wetlands/marsh connected by an all-purpose trail). By cycling standards, we didn’t go far–a total of maybe six or seven miles door-to-door. But the rides were less about the exercise and more about sharing with a friend a time of day that many people seem to hate.

The early morning holds promise. You haven’t screwed up anything yet or lost your patience or your temper.  No one has wronged you or cut you off in traffic or taken the last donut. The day is yours for the taking. We only have so much on this earth, so many hours in a day. I like being awake. Getting up early seems to add more hours to do the day. I’ve gotten some writing done already, and it’s only 6:30.

Polly and I decided that getting up early was actually much cooler than staying up late. All the hipsters stay up late. Sometimes I’m pretty sure I’m waking up while most of my friends are going to bed. Lots of people gripe that they “can’t get up that early” (however early “that” may be). If not everyone can do it, then it must be exclusive, so all the hipsters should be falling all over themselves to wake up at 5:30 and see what the world has to offer, right?

Or maybe not. I kind of like keeping it exclusive.