The Brattychick

Cole: (pointing at whiteboard) Ipad sign up 4:20! Heidi: What? Cole: Ipad sign up 4:20! Heidi: Ugh. Why are you in high school? Cole: I don't know. Heidi: Stop saying that.

I'm depressed again. Maybe it's the weather. I'm finding myself dragging through days. I'm having to pep talk myself out of a nap and hurl internal abuse at myself for the stupid procrastination that keeps happening. My oldest son just turned 16. If he leaves for college when he is 18, I have less than 2 years to finish training him to be a functional adult and a thoughtful roommate. I want my children to feel empowered and capable. I spent the weekend refining their adult skills: cooking, baking, buying textbooks online, organizing a closet, using bleach. I wanted to provide a nice life for them. I'm still in college and by the time I am able to provide a better life for them, they will be gone. That makes me so sad. I feel like I'm 19 again. I'm living just the way I did then, except this time there are 3 children in my tiny apartment, stretching my tiny budget. I wanted them to have better. I wanted to do better for them. And what of the rest of my li...

In response to "Mommy, what is my chore today?" "I write these things down so I don't have to answer your questions."

I love the water. I used to think it was just the ocean, but since moving very near to the Potomac, I have realized I am not just a saltwater fish.  I commute using the George Washington Memorial Parkway which follows the river and is actually a National Park. I am so in love with the river that I have nearly run off the road on several occasions because the river is distracting me. Reagan National Airport is along the Parkway and there are train tracks that run along side it and cross it at one point. I consider it a perfect trifecta if during one trip I see a plane, a train and a boat. It makes me so incredibly satiated when this happens. All of those people, going somewhere else. So many ways to go. So many places. This was taken today at  Gravelly Point . Parts of the river are frozen with fresh snow on top. Aside from a couple of taxis waiting for calls from the airport, and many seagulls, I was alone. I know it's freezing, and the wind along the river ta...

Dexter: Look at that sign. It says Cord for Board. Heidi: Yeah. Dexter: it should just say cord board. Because that's what it is. It's a board.

This whimsical coming-of-age novel was so beautiful. The story is told through photographs, youtube videos, snippets of text messages, newspaper clippings and other odds and ends. The harder you look, the more you glean from its pages. It could stand alone as a coffee table book. You could almost flip through the pretty pages absentmindedly and not take in the story, almost. There is a story there though. Frank and Glory fall in love. From his drawings and almost brutish persistence, I have trouble knowing if he is in love or just lonely and in seventeen-year-old-boy lust. At times Glory is vacant and distant. Their love seems to ebb and flow, like love does. I enjoyed listening to the various songs on the mix cds that the lovers made for each other while I was enjoying the novel. That really added an extra layer to multimedia experience that this book was trying to produce. It really gave you a very tactile experience. There were some links that did not work, which was disapp...

Although I went into reading this book knowing that it was a graphic novel about the Holocaust, I really could not fathom how that was going to play out. I wondered if the seriousness of the event would be dampened or if it would be some sort of dark comedy. The book is definitely not a comedy and never makes light of its tragic subject. Maus was generally a critical success and won many awards including the 1992 Pulitzer Prize. I have to admit that this was my first graphic novel. Being a virgin, I did find that I primarily focused on the words rather than the pictures. I had to train myself to take the drawings into account. I eventually was able to read it effortlessly the way I believe it was intended. Maus’ author, Art Spiegelman, has received a some criticism over the way is father is portrayed. There has also been much discussion over the use of animals to portray humans and more specifically which animals are used to depict particular races. I did not find this to be a s...