A little over a year ago, I started keeping a weekly to-do list on a 4X6 inch index card. I was briefly unemployed and spending the hours of nine to five looking for another job. The card kept me accountable. It also gave me a sense of progress, even when many applications I completed and resumes I sent resulted in nothing.

I've been keeping the list ever since. I don't include any work tasks now that I have a day job again. Instead, I stick to outside activities, like tutoring, visits to the library, and appointments. I tell people I live one week at a time, and I really do. The card is my calendar cheat sheet.

When I was home for Christmas, my mom spent a day going through old papers. One upshot was a box of daily planners than spanned 1982 to 2008. I wasn't interested in her more recent record keeping. I wanted to peek into my mom's life from back when I was younger.

As I've grown up, I've realized how much my parents had their act together, especially in tough times. They married young. My mom was a housewife; my dad worked out of town in the oil field. I was born. My dad took a different local job. My sister was born. My dad broke his neck at work. Life completely changed.

This is what I've been told. My life, as I know it, begins with my dad being in chronic pain. My parents are broke (but not broken) and exhausted. My mom goes to college and becomes the breadwinner, while my dad stays at home. I'm in awe at how my parents were able to switch roles like that and never let on how scared they were.

In my research, I noticed my mom's daily planners were always full until about June. Recorded observations and reminders usually tapered off between one school year ending and another beginning. The entry marking the day I started kindergarten reads: "Amanda's first day. She was tearful and nervous. We survived."

Make that my 10-word memoir.

In another entry on some ordinary day, she wrote: "Ronnie [my dad] woke up feeling really good!"

The record, with its earnest exclamation point, is an artifact of love. When anything's been broken - my dad's body, my spirit, the zipper on a jacket - my mom has always done her best to fix it. She keeps a lot of tape around the house.

I got to know my mom better as I pored over her old daily planners. When she dies someday, I'd like to have them all. That way, I can look back in time on any given day among many years and see what she wanted to remember.

And I'll remember her.

I'm contemplating getting this framed and hung in the kitchen above some liquor bottles I've yet to procure.

I crawled out of bed early this morning to return to work - I hadn't been in the office since December 12. Needless to say, I've spent the day trying to recover.

I dread Sundays, because I have some painful memories of attending religious activities and the day is irrevocably smothered by thoughts of Monday morning. If I'm gallivanting joyously on Saturday night, there's always that echoing faucet drip of a thought that, "Great. Now I'll have a hard time going to sleep on Sunday, and an even harder time getting out of bed bright and early on Monday."

Last night, I found my solution. Wine. And an 88th birthday party. TBID's grandfather, an adorable man (who responded when I asked his thoughts on being the patriarch over Thanksgiving, "It's pretty strange that I'm ancient enough to be called a patriarch") turned the big eight-eight surrounded by food, drink, and family. There was much hectoring of his gal pal, a matriarch herself. TBID got to talking about the best possible topics for family gatherings, Israel and U.S. involvement in 9/11. Unfortunately, other crowd pleasers, like the death penalty and which party-goer should be sacrificed in the event of an emergency, were interrupted by food.

I like TBID's family, because there's always a lot of gentle sarcasm and open neuroses and at least one Woody Allen reference. Last night, his parents were recounting one of their fights before they were married. The one where one parent, perturbed by a stolen tomato, literally tossed some salad at another. The other stormed out of the restaurant, tomato in belly and murder in eyes. There was a similar story about another dining experience in which a scorching hot lobster fell off a plate and into TBID's mom's lap. "Then the waiter said, 'Lady, that's the worst case of crabs I've ever seen!'" TBID's uncle interjected.

At one point, there were some jokes about pedophilia and this description of a documentary in the seemingly-tame-animal-eats-humans-mercilessly category. As I laughed, I thought, "I get it now." This is why TBID will go out of his way and rent a car to go eat sliders at this special spot in New Jersey. This is why he doesn't bat an eye at the weird comments I make. "I think you might be more negative that me, and I didn't think that was possible," he said to me once, beaming.

Good times and a Sunday saved, I fell asleep on the way back home, thinking of my own family. Lately, I dream of weird situations with them. My sister becomes a singer-songwriter and sings these weird songs to the tune of "Amazing Grace." My mom does not want me to lose this sheet of paper that keeps blowing away in a parking lot, probably the one at Wal-Mart, where she just needs to pick up "a few things" and will get sidetracked. For two hours. My dad adopts a clown after watching a compelling TV commercial narrated by Laurie Metcalfe.

It's all so crazy and far away and me.

My mom crocheted two scarves for me for Christmas and is working on one now for TBID. Meanwhile, I cannot sew on a button.

Anytime I'm home, my mom asks me to go through the boxes upon boxes I've filled in fits of nostalgic packrattery. Hindsight doesn't always help, because even when I know I didn't miss having that note my best friend in sixth grade wrote me, complete with Cheetos smudges, I get all gooey (though less so when the item is literally gooey). "I can't throw this out," I think. "Someday, my kids or biographers might want to see this."

Uh, yeah. I know that won't really happen, and I aspire to act accordingly. Someday.

But there are some gems I kept. I found an old Time article about angry female music of the nineties. I still have every cd mentioned in that piece, I think. There was also a copy of Anna Quindlen's May 1999 commencement speech at Mount Holyoke College. I was trying to figure out what resonated with me then. This might be it - it certainly does now:

Think back. Think back to first or second grade, when you could still hear the sound of your own voice in your head, when you were too young, too unformed, too fantastic to understand that you were supposed to take on the protective coloration of the expectations of those around you. Think of what the writer Catherine Drinker Bowen once wrote, more than half a century ago: "Many a man who has known himself at ten forgets himself utterly between ten and thirty." Many a woman, too.

You are not alone in this. We parents have forgotten our way sometimes, too. I say this as the deeply committed, often flawed mother of three. When you were first born, each of you, our great glory was in thinking you absolutely distinct from every baby who had ever been born before. You were a miracle of singularity, and we knew it in every fiber of our being.

But we are only human, and being a parent is a very difficult job, more difficult than any other, because it requires the shaping of other people, which is an act of extraordinary hubris. Over the years we learned to want for you things that you did not want for yourself. We learned to want the lead in the play, the acceptance to our own college, the straight and narrow path that often leads absolutely nowhere. Sometimes we wanted those things because we were convinced it would make life better, or at least easier for you. Sometimes we had a hard time distinguishing between where you ended and we began.

So that another reason that you must give up on being perfect and take hold of being yourself is because sometime, in the distant future, you may want to be parents, too. If you can bring to your children the self that you truly are, as opposed to some amalgam of manners and mannerisms, expectations and fears that you have acquired as a carapace along the way, you will give them, too, a great gift. You will teach them by example not to be terrorized by the narrow and parsimonious expectations of the world, a world that often likes to color within the lines when a spray of paint, a scrawl of crayon, is what is truly wanted.

Today my dad recruited two of my little boy cousins to help pick our orange trees. The three full laundry baskets of citrus paled in comparison to previous years.

Below are some ads I found in Corpus Christi's local classifieds publication. They should tell you all you need to know about the town where I grew up.

MILITARY MACAW with cage and gym, 1-1/2 years old, talks. Call for details. ###-###-####.

WELL-ESTABLISHED GIFT and Engraving Business (illness forces sale). All equipment/inventory. Will train. Only $98,000 for everything. ###-###-####.

BIRDS MAKE great Christmas gifts! Call for types and prices. ###-###-####.

BEST TAMALES! We deliver! $7.50 per dozen. Just call ###-###-####.

INTERESTED IN soul travel? FMI contact Echankar at ###-###-####.

I MAKE 1000s of dollars each month drinking Tea. Let me show you how. #-###-###-####.

I stumbled upon this photo tonight when I was working with my external hard drive.

Christmas back home will not be the same without Abby. I still miss her.

The other day I asked one boy for my stuff back and talked to another about a big milestone, flying to Texas over the holidays to meet my family. It makes me a little nervous for a few reasons, all stupid ones that show how neurotic I am.

He can't expect going to Texas to be wildly amusing or interesting. If it were, perhaps I'd still live there. Maybe he and I would have never met. But I worry he'll be bored and secretly feel like he wasted a lot of money. When he steps off the plane and doesn't see a tumbleweed or cowboy, he might feel cheated. And he doesn't celebrate Christmas. What are we supposed to do with him when we're unwrapping gifts and emptying stockings? Loan him the car or have him collect all the bows we're saving for next year? Isn't that kind of awkward?

He says I really underestimate him and that he wants to meet the loved ones of the one he loves. (That's me, apparently). It all sounds a little hippy dippy.

Am I crazy?

He'll be the first guy I've dated as a full-fledged adult who I'm bringing home. And he's such a tall loudmouth New York foodie. I think my family will love him, actually.

Best of all, I'll be able to point from relative to relative, county road to county road and say, "This? This? This is where all the crazy comes from."

Maybe he should visit.

My parents were in dire financial straits most of my childhood, and I had no idea. I knew my dad had been suddenly injured in an accident, breaking his neck and acquiring myriad other injuries in the process. My stay-at-home mom entered the workforce. Otherwise, she wouldn't have a degree, much less an advanced one that allows her to prescribe drugs.

I never felt the insecurity that kept my parents awake nights. Sure, a child can't really understand the high rushing water of debt or cliff-edge rubble of the legal system. But a child can go hungry and know that something is wrong or feel emotionally neglected or see parents transform in desperation.

As an adult, I can't believe my parents held things together as well as they did. Somehow, I thought my life was normal. I never imagined having a dad who went to work everyday or who wasn't in chronic pain. My mom worked harder than most adults ever will, like a modern Rosie the Riveter who saved the day as Daddy went to war. She was a role model, but not an anomaly. My dad became a Texan Mr. Mom, which you really didn't see much of back then and maybe not even now. (Once my piano teacher asked me, "Is there a mom?" I shot back, "Of course!" I hadn't just wished myself there).

So my parents are good at sticking together and making things seem just fine when they are not even just.

I forgot that somehow when I first heard that there was a lump in my dad's neck, on the inside of the same neck that's been broken, which happens to be the same neck fostering squamous cell skin cancer. My dad said he didn't think it was anything; my mom agreed. She gave me more details, and I wanted to ask those questions that reek of Terms of Endearment:

Is he going to die? Is he not going to see me grow up to be anything beyond what I am now? What will the world be like without him?

Anytime I get anywhere near those thoughts, though, I feel like someone has kicked me in the windpipe. Not to mention the bizarre tapioca of tears and snot that start congealing on my face. Needless to say, I didn't seek any answers.

So my dad visited me in New York and the lump came with him. He mentioned it hurt when he swallowed, a dull reminder of his mortality. He eventually went back home and sold my childhood home, so he wouldn't have to deal with renters anymore. His surgery was postponed.

Meanwhile, my mom occasionally told me the surgery was most likely not a big deal. Her reassurance was a favor I welcomed. It helped me focus on the insignificant crap that I usually think about, like "What time should I set the alarm for?" and "Where do I want to go on Saturday night?" and "When will I have time to explore all this stuff that interests me?"

The answers: Who cares? Doesn't really matter. Maybe you won't. The point is, you're alive and healthy and probably have some time. Shut up already.

Friday was the big day. My parents went to the hospital, like in the days. Maybe not the good old ones, just the days. The surgeon was late. My dad most likely yearned for his peanut butter crackers. I checked my phone constantly, making sure to crank up the ring volume.

My mom called, and I was ready for a prognosis. Nothing. He had just been put under. It occurred to me that I heard something in her I have maybe never heard before - she was scared like she knew she might be indefinitely. Her worry lay thinly veiled by composure, like a blemish under make-up.

That's when it fully clicked that I'd kinda been duped again.

They didn't want me to worry, because there might not be anything worth worrying about. There were two possibilities: 1) My dad had infected lymph nodes that needed removing or 2) skin cancer had begun growing inside him and spreading roots into his muscles.

I'd heard the options, but they skewed so much on the side of the second one that I believed it. My dad would be okay, because he has become extremely good at it.

I waited a bit longer and got another call. My mom still didn't sound normal. "He's okay," she said. "I am so relieved." It was the longest short sentence I've ever heard her say, and we're from the South, ya'll.

We are all feeling much better now. I spoke to my dad the evening of his surgery, and he was chipper. "I'm glad it wasn't cancer. I'd have been a goner!" he shared. As if I needed reminding.

My dad scraped by once again, no pun intended. He looks like Frankenstein with his neck cut open and stapled shut with a plastic tube of bodily fluids poking out. I know, because they sent me pictures that I am considering putting on Facebook. Just kidding.

I don't know what it means that I remained so calm through this. I don't think I'm gullible. I'm just committed to the hope that everything will be fine just like it always has been until one day - one I hope is far, far away when I am wiser and my dad has ear hair upon ear hair - it is not.

I get that from my parents.

After getting an email regarding Hurricane Dolly and then seeing storm coverage on Yahoo!, I decide to call home and check on my parents. I leave a message and then hear back from my dad immediately.

Me: Hey! What's going on with the hurricane?

Daddy: There's a hurricane.

Me: Okay... So you guys are alive?

Daddy: Yep.

Me: Is it raining?

Daddy: Yep.

Me: Did Corpus get evacuated?

Daddy: Yeah. We're evacuating.

Me: You guys are going to evacuate?

Daddy: Yeah, I just evacuated my office and went to the living room.

The 1 train, which could connect me to the 2/3 train and get me home, isn't running. I realize I will have to go to another train station nine blocks away or just walk home. It is almost 10 p.m., and I feel like hunger is drilling holes into my brain.

So I call my mom.

Me: I'm exhausted and starving and the 1 train isn't working, so now I'm walking home. I think I'm just gonna order a pizza...

Mama: You should do that.

Me: But what if the delivery guy gets to my apartment before I do? Maybe I should just go to the store and wait for the pizza. Maybe I could convince the guy to give me a ride to my place on his bike.

Mama: [much laughter]

Me: No, I'm serious.

I like this photo of my cousin Jessica.

That pout is hereditary.

Dear Amanda,

On Saturday, you will be 25. Just 24 years ago, you blew out frosting-flecked candles while flanked by all your loved ones. Now you will be packing your things from a small apartment in New York City - so small only a few loved ones can fit into such a place at a time, provided that they keep rotating bathroom occupancy - into a truck. You will move to a place with more walls and doors than you dreamed you'd have anytime soon. Even though you long escaped the protective clutches of home, it's the first apartment you ever chose all by yourself with no one else's input. You will have no one else to credit when you finally have space for a couch, no one else to blame when you have to carry it up three flights of stairs.

I'm writing this letter to you - to me - in order to record some thoughts I've been having about this quarter-century mark and what it means for us. Sometimes I try to imagine what the next 25 years will be like, if you are fortunate enough to have them, and who you will be at 50. Honestly, my head spins thinking about two-year leases and waterproof mascara, but I know I need to set some goals and think of what you may need to hear one of these days. Below are some things you might want to consider sometime, from Amanda at almost 25 to Amanda at any age after:

1. Never forget where you came from. You will always be a Texan, you will always be able to affect an accent, and you will always think authentic Mexican food is best served by tattooed ex-convicts. You are the product of two lines of working-class people who have struggled to make ends meet and live day to day. This is not a liability. It is part of who you are.

2. Think of all the help you've received from strangers who owed you nothing - your mentor, Life Coach, and countless educators who have helped you achieve your dreams semesters after you were in their classes. Be one of those people to at least one younger person you meet. Maybe he or she will remind you of when you needed a contact or friend, or maybe the circumstances will be completely different. But do it without wondering what you'll get out of it. Do it because you were lucky to have various people fill that role for you.

3. You will lose the people you love. You'll break up with a lover or a handful of them, because things will change for the worse. The law may have to be involved someday, along with lots of boxes, tears, and paperwork. You will get over it. In a matter of time, you will laugh and it won't be done bitterly at yourself and what you thought you had. You will also probably find someone else with whom to share your laughter.

4. It is certain that people you love will die, and you will never be ready for that. It will scar you forever, and you will struggle to remember their voices. (They're easy enough to forget with people who are still around, people with whom you could still talk if you had the desire or courage). Love while you can and try not to take for granted the good things, the annoyances, the fact that you have been fortunate to have your loved ones as long as you did. Maybe I should say do, for death never breaks the bonds between people, the chains between hearts.

5. As I write this, you are still so young with so much to experience. Will I even be able to recognize you 25 years from now? What about 10? Maybe you'll have kids, a spouse, a book deal, a house. Maybe you'll have none of these things. (I'm not even going into the fact that you will always have a mixture of pleasant and unpleasant circumstances that govern your life). Whatever you do, I wish you every happiness you grow to want. Trust that you can make some things happen. Other things out of your control can be survived.

I was going to close with some silly reminders, like "No mom jeans ever!" and "Take lots of pictures!" and "Make sure your having lived makes the world better, even if in a tiny way." But you know some of what to do and will figure out the rest. Maybe you can tell someone like me all about it someday.

I love you and am very excited to watch you grow.

Love,
Amanda

I'm getting a new sister!

She'll be born at the end of May.

The bras hanging from the ceiling vibrated to the heartbeat of bass and the staccato cracks of the bartender's bullhorn. "Redneck Woman" blared from the speaker where I sat, drinking a rum and coke and watching the bachelorette party girls shimmy.

I was thinking I was probably the only person there who has ever really identified with Jeff Foxworthy's schtick. I mean, I do have an uncle with a pet raccoon. At one time, I was related (by marriage) to a grown man everyone called Rascal.

TBID was very uncomfortable. He pronounces "Barry" and "berry" differently, poor thing. There were no tables or chairs - just a dirty, crowded floor and splintery walls. He stood by like an outsider, ears nearly bleeding from the nasal twang. By the time "Save a Horse (Ride a Cowboy)" came on and the wannabe hicks tried to fake a Cotton-Eye Joe, TBID had reached his limit.

"How about 'Save a Metrocard (Ride a New York Jew)'?" he suggested.

It made me laugh. I said, "Alright. We can go."

We went somewhere with couches and chichi cocktails and a chocolate chip cookie cake. But I still couldn't get that song out of my head.

It's your birthday. You're 23. We're getting old.

I've remembered your bedroom's constellations of clutter long since you packed away the dolls, chose solids over patterns, and began closing your bedroom door at night.

The best and worst of me lies somewhere in that body that never quite caught up to meet mine. In your mind, under the hair that's always been thicker somehow. It's so dark and exotic in comparison, I convinced you that you'd been adopted.

You took a lot of lies with trust; you'd believe in what no one else saw. I don't even think it makes you gullible anymore. Just special. A sister, if not a good friend.

Each year, I'm so much happier that somehow we grew up together. That you never mentioned when I enjoyed playing Barbies. That you didn't hold grudges too long. That you give my dreams another home, my memories a greater aperture, my life more meaning.

Can I be you when I grow up?

My sister, Megan, and I are discussing our high school classmates. Turns out, almost everyone is married and/or has kids. Except us.

Megan: Even Crystal is engaged.

Me: Crystal?! No.

Megan: C'mon, Man, she's a catch.

Me: Yeah, like you'll catch something if you sleep with her.

Megan: [pretending to recite a wedding vow] "I promise to always share my topical ointments with you, as long as we both shall live."

Me: "With this genital wart, I thee wed."

Megan: No, no! "With this genital wart, I thee spread."

Me: Niiiice.

Dear Abby,

You died Saturday. After having a few spells that may have been seizures, may have been small strokes over the last two weeks, you were feeling better. Mama prepared your breakfast and Daddy bathed you. Later, you went to the backyard and fell asleep next to the firecracker bush. You never woke up.

You once taunted the neighbor's dog from that bush, acting much tougher than you actually were. The only person you ever bit, to my knowledge, was Megan. One Thanksgiving, she leaned down to hug you and you snarled grumpily. Mid-snarl, you accidentally bit a tiny piece of Megan's lip. She bled a lot and needed stitches. Megan cried and cried, because she thought Daddy would want to get rid of you for what you did. He didn't, though he did curse and raise his voice. You slunk to your bed mournfully, but were forgiven. Megan's lip still has a scar.

Before you became part of our family, you led other lives. Your parents were show dogs with fancy names and impressive pedigrees. In fact, your AKC registered name is Abigail's Eyes. After a brief stint as a show dog, you failed to produce expensive puppies. The breeders who owned you sold you to a woman named Sue. She thought you looked sad, as if you knew the people you were born to didn't love you.

While Sue loved you, she also loved many other dogs, including a few yippy lapdogs and a large rottweiler. You were jealous of the attention the other dogs received and compensated with aggression and withdrawal. Sue was diagnosed with cancer when you were seven years old, already a mature bulldog by any standard. Mama treated Sue and got to know her very well. Both animal lovers, they talked a lot about you and the other dogs.

When Sue was close to death, she started looking for caretakers for her pets. Her children and friends claimed their favorites - the small dogs were especially popular. No one wanted you.

"I'm telling you, she's a bitch," Sue told Mama. She wanted to be as up front as possible. "She wants to be the queen bee, the only dog." Though we had another dog at the time, Mama was sure things would work out.

The day you came to live with us, Mama brought you home after work. I hadn't paid much attention to the conversations about a new dog, because Mama has always rescued stray cats. Nothing special. Daddy would sigh wearily, but accept it, especially because they lived outside and kept quiet as long as they were fed. I figured adopting this sick woman's dog would work out the same way. But when I saw you, I knew something different would happen. I'd never put a name to the type of dog you were. Now I knew what an English bulldog looked like and the personality the breed seems to embody. I thought you were the cutest thing I'd ever seen.

The first night at home, you were pretty quiet. You growled at our other dog a few times, but otherwise lazed around. You were allowed to stay inside. While I lay in bed, you walked in my bedroom and gazed expectantly at me. I knew you wanted to sleep in my bed, but I'd never let a dog do that before. My family had never had an inside dog. I told you to sit, and you sat for who knows how long before you tried the same thing in the other bedrooms. Mama and Daddy agreed to your request. You snuggled between them and Daddy grumbled the next day that you found sprawling across the top of his legs most comfortable. "I don't know if this dog's going to work out," he said. It was just like his sighs about the cats.

You settled into our family so well, we forget there was a time you weren't part of it. With us, you lived in two different homes. You'd ride in the bed of Daddy's truck to McDonald's, where Daddy ordered you a hamburger "plain and dry," the way he likes them. We called you by a handful of nicknames, including Flabby Abby, Arfy, and Abber Cadabber and included you in Christmas card photos.

Some of my favorite memories involve you and large bodies of water. I remember taking you to the beach, where the smallest waves would completely soak your stout body. You loved it and must have felt safe with us, considering that bulldogs can't swim. You weren't graceful, my clearest recollection of that being the time we took your leash off at Guth Park. You walked to the side of the pond to scope it out and promptly fell in with a large splash. It was three feet of water; you sank like a rock. I screamed and Mama ran into the pond, which happens to have the sludgiest, most feces-ridden water this side of the Hudson River. When she grabbed you and sloshed you over to the edge, I was still hysterical. "Will you grab this dog?!" she hollered. I pulled you up by the front paws. When you got back on land, you shook your entire body and acted like the whole thing never happened. That near-death experience was literally, water off your back. Mama looked a fright and tried unsuccessfully to wring the muck out of her clothes. I laughed about it for a long time.

There are so many other little things about you that I remember, and honestly, I wish there were more. In the last years of your life, we didn't live together. But when I went home, there you were. I'd call out your name and hug you across the breadth of your chest. My - our - family's love has always been a constant, no match for differing time zones or countless miles. For the last few years, I treated our goodbye hugs like last opportunities to hold you. You were a geriatric dog, Abby. I knew you wouldn't be with us forever.

But it still hurts that you're gone. I feel like I'll have to learn how to walk through the front door of our house again. Is it possible to do it without calling your name, without listening for the sound of your toenails on the tile? My family hasn't eaten dinner without your begging for scraps under the table since the twentieth century. When I go back, home will not be the same without you. I'm sure I'll choke up next time I see others walking their bulldogs. Honestly, tears spring to my eyes at much smaller things these days. I miss you so much and am just getting started.

I learned a few days ago that Abigail means "father's joy." You, however, were everyone's. I will spend the rest of my life telling people about you and how maybe you rescued my family more than we rescued you. You are loved now and forever.

Love,
Man

Abby




Oct. 24, 1994 - Feb. 9, 2008