About Me

My name is Missy (Michelle, actually) and I currently live in Tucson, Arizona with my husband and two young children. I was dragged here to the desert by my lovely husband, Marti (yes, with an “i”) in the Spring of 2002, a few months after my son was born. I just turned 32 and am now officially “middle aged.” Like many wise women, I married a man younger than myself (by four years). He’s hot. I like him. He’s mine. *update: I just found out, women like me are called “Cougars.” How cool is that?*

I am originally from Idaho and grew up like many in my area — conservative, evangelical, right-wing Christian. I later attended a very, very conservative liberal arts college, a decision that caused me to drink a lot of beer and study English for a full four years. I also became a card-carrying Democrat there, something my family insists comes of letting women go off and go to those liberal schools, and I expect my family to forgive me any day now. Regardless, I managed to graduate, move to Japan and get a job there after school.

No, I did not speak Japanese. I was an English major. I spoke Kafka.

I went overseas to teach English. Since I had already had an overseas trip to London (and hated living in the city), I decided to request a rural location in Japan. After reaching Tokyo in a large jet, I spent a few days in an extremely expensive hotel (courtesy of the Japanese government) where everyone spoke English, and then flew to Kagoshima, in a much smaller jet. The first startling fact I noticed there was that almost no one spoke English and the menus were not translated. From Kagoshima, I met my supervisor and we both got into a much, much smaller twin-prop plane and flew to Yoron Island. I spent most of my flight trying not to stare at a huge, cancerous-looking mole on his arm, and missed the fact that we were headed into east of nowhere. However, I was distracted from The Mole when we descended to land in what looked like a sugarcane field. It was at this time I began to have an idea of what I had gotten myself into. Needless to say, nobody spoke English (except my supervisor with The Mole). Later, of course, I learned Japanese, and a little Yorongo as well (see Scott’s page below for a short Yorongo dictionary).

I could fill this blog with all the adventures I had on the island — deep sea fishing, snorkeling, diving (without a license), driving my motorcycle (with a license), finding human skeletons and drinking inordinate amounts of shochu, the preferred drink of islanders and alcoholics. I occasionally refer to a sunset or a child or something amazing that happened while I was there, but other than the name “Misheru,” which is the Japanese pronunciation of my given name “Michelle,” this blog is not about Japan. For a good website with wonderful pictures, see Scott’s website. He also has a band in Portland and apparently helped the Yoron Kariyushi Band go to LA to perform.

Regardless, after a marathon, some tropical skin disorders, a lot of shiatsu and two and a half years, I married a sweet little Marine corporal stationed on Okinawa. We met in the airport at Korea, coming back from a trip home.

I came home to Idaho to get married, like all good rednecks of course, but not in the fire hall — I wanted someplace fancy. We were married in a church, by a real live minister, and afterwards ate Subway sandwiches and Albertson’s wraps cut into neat little shapes, the height of fashionable eating in Ontario, Oregon. After the wedding and a short honeymoon in lovely McCall, Idaho (it really is a nice place), Marti and I packed nearly everything we owned (minus books) into my Ford Festiva, otherwise known as the smallest American-made car ever, and drove to Washington, D.C., where we were immediately attacked by rabid politicians wandering the streets unsupervised, otherwise known as Republicans. Later, we paid more than my current mortgage (on a house + guesthouse + fenced yard) for a 480 square foot apartment 8 miles (read: 45 minutes drive) from Washington, D.C. The apartment was advertised at 550 square feet, but later we discovered that included the balcony, or what we liked to call “the guest room.” We fit record numbers of relatives and Japanese visitors in that apartment over the next year.

I found a wonderful job at CSBA, a think-tank that advises the government on issues of terrorism and national security. It was a nice, peaceful job when I started in May, 2001. Four months later the first plane ripped through the World Trade Center and we sat momentarily stunned in front of the T.V. as the second plane crashed through. Since one of our analysts had predicted this type of terrorist attack some time previously, we were no longer a geeky, studious little non-profit but the cool kids on the block. I got to meet a lot of really cool military and intelligence people, all of whom never knew I existed, and I learned a lot about how Capitol Hill — and the government — works. Enough to know I should be more paranoid about writing about myself on the Internet, but oh well.

The next February I had Ben, a whopping 9 pound 14 ounce child (that’s 4.5 kilos) who outgrew his newborn clothing in about five minutes. I remember feeling desperate when he dropped to 8 pounds 12 ounces — I thought he was going to waste away (Marti still torments me about this). Marti finished his tour with the military and stayed home with Ben for a couple months while I worked and we tried to keep from starving to death on one income in Washington, D.C., a fact that caused us to take in a roommate to pay for our newer, cooler apartment that was 900 square feet and cost exactly twice the amount of our current mortgage. We tormented her with poopy diapers and discussions about breastfeeding until she returned to California, poor girl. Then, finding that we really were going to starve in D.C. unless we both worked, and that I should have signed up for childcare sometime during the Nixon era, we decided Marti should go ahead and take a job here in Arizona, land of cheaper housing and Hispanic relatives.

Hence, the desert, where we enjoy beautiful sunsets and unbearable summer heat.

We’ve been in Tucson since 2002 and I have held a variety of odd jobs — volunteer at the Desert Museum and for ALERT, wildlife field technician for the university, E-Journalism instructor (yes, I taught kids how to blog and no, I am in no way responsible for the My Space phenomena. No mea culpa), Library Associate (whatever that means) and my strangest job of all, mom to Benjamin and Maya (born slightly smaller at 8 pounds 10 ounces in May 2006).

I no longer drink heavily, get naked with strangers or do any other typical college-age stupidities, so I guess I am all grown up now. But I still like to talk about it sometimes. That’s not why I have this blog; I have this blog in an attempt to navigate the difficult world of both adulthood and parenting. Nudity makes better conversation (and better money, incidentally) but it doesn’t teach toilet training or pay the bills, so here I am.

Anyway, I hope you like the site. Come back and visit anytime, and if you’d like to subscribe to my feed — great! I have a special link up top, just for you.