The bone-chilling horror of the slaughter at Sandy Hook Elementary School goes without saying so I won’t rehash it.  Many friends have echoed my rage and have asked what we can do to prevent this from ever happening again. I can’t sleep anyway, so here are 10 (plus) things you can do right now to help prevent gun violence.

1. Have the conversation
It’s tempting to shy away from having discussions with friends and family about gun control. People can become emotional or aggressive about their opinions and most people don’t enjoy conflict. It’s important to remind yourself and others that your opinion and your vote matters as much as anyone else’s, even if you don’t feel you have a set list of talking points like someone else might. Silence can be a form of complicity.

2. Sign the following petitions

a.  The We The People petition (UPDATE 1/1: This petition has been signed by 197K Americans and is now closed. President Obama has responded directly to this petition via the video posted on this site.) The petition asks President Obama to immediately address the issue of gun control through the introduction of legislation in Congress. This petition is breaking records with its public support.

b. The Demand A Plan petition

Similar to the above, this petition is sponsored by Mayors Against Illegal Guns and demands that President Obama and Congress step forward with a plan to end gun violence.

c. Visit change.org, sign up as a member and sign these petitions:
“Senator Mark Warner: Support Senator Feinstein’s Bill to Ban Assault Weapons”
“US Federal Government: Increase the availability of mental health services now”
“CT Legislature, Please Write and Pass A Bill That Limits Demonstrations At Funerals”

d. Sign this Starbucks petition
This petition encourages Starbucks to prohibit people from carrying guns in their stores.

e. We Are Better Than This
This petition is sponsored by the Brady Campaign To End Gun Violence and is sponsored by a heartbreaking list of 32 families impacted by gun violence. It calls for “respectful and civil public conversation, focused simply on making this the safer nation we all want and deserve.”

f. Tell Walmart to stop selling military-style assault rifles
Walmart is the largest gun dealer in the US. “Tell Walmart to Stop selling military-grade assault rifles and the types of high-capacity magazines used in the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting.” Please take a minute to educate yourself on the difference between “military-grade” and “military-style” assault rifles.  I believe these petitioners mean “military-style”.

g. 1,000 Letters to Obama

An 8-year old girl began this petition in support of the children killed at Newtown. She wrote a letter to President Obama in favor of gun control and is now asking for 1,000 signatures. If you agree with what she is asking, please sign.

h. White House Appointment of a Special Investigator

“Request President Obama appoint a Special Investigator to determine if the NRA has legal liability for wrongful deaths, due to unregulated mass proliferation of weaponry and active deterrence of legislation for reasonable control of the gun industry. ”

i. Gun Control Now 

“As a citizen and constituent of this great country, I am asking that you take a firm stand and make a positive change by restricting access to guns and saving lives.”

k. Protect Children Not Guns

“We insist that you enact effective gun safety measures that will save child lives. You must protect children, not guns.”

3. Send money

a. Consider donating to Gabby Giffords and Mark Kelly’s new Super PAC, Americans For Responsible Solutions. The site makes it easy to donate $25 or more. The Super Pac “…will encourage elected officials to stand up for solutions to prevent gun violence and protect responsible gun ownership by communicating directly with the constituents that elect them.”

b. Consider supporting The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. The site makes it very easy to donate $25 or more.

c. Support the town of Newtown with some of their needs. They need everything from donated school supplies, to the support of local businesses, to helping decorate the Sandy Hook School students’ new school.

4. Contact the White House
Express your feelings and request swift action.

Here is a page specifically designed for you to leave your comments about how we can address gun violence.

You can also Email your thoughts here

Call with your comments: 202-456-1111
Switchboard: 202-456-1414
FAX: 202-456-2461

The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
Please include your e-mail address

3. Contact and encourage the following champions
Thank them for supporting the ban on assault weapons and for supporting other gun violence control measures. Encourage their efforts by offering your support for their continued appointment, either through funding them or by helping to make election calls on their behalf when the time comes. Ask them to consider donating money offered or received by the NRA or gun manufacturers to The Brady Campaign To End Gun Violence.

4. Join and Share These Facebook Groups
If  you are a Facebook user, join these causes by liking these first 3 groups then sharing any of their meaningful posts with your friends on your Facebook page. Join the last group listed, One Million Moms For Gun Control.

Update: additional groups below

• MAGIC: Mothers Against Guns Injuring Children

• Time For USA Gun Control: A World Page Condemning the NRA

• Teachers Against Gun Violence

5. Contact These Senators

With an enormous thank you to Mother Jones, here are the stats regarding Senator support for a ban on assault weapons as of 12/19/2012.  Source: Mother Jones “Do your senators support an assault weapons ban?”  Note: I borrowed all of the names and statistics below directly from the Mother Jones site and reformatted it.  Thank you, Mother Jones.

Summary
Current Senatorial total: 99 sitting senators, 12 members-elect, and one member-designate.

• Number of senators who support a ban (as of December 19): 30
• Number of senators who might support a ban: 7
• Number of senators who oppose a ban: 9
• Number of senators (and senators-elect) who haven’t commented yet: 66

Call/email the Senators who oppose the ban
Here is the list of Senators who, since the Newtown massacre, have stated their opposition to a ban on assault weapons (Source: Mother Jones Senate Watch, Dec 19, 2012).

One message to consider sending is if they continue to stand with the NRA on this issue instead of protecting Americans from the tyranny of gun violence, you would consider enthusiastically funding their opponent and/or making phone calls on their opponent’s behalf in both the primary and general elections.  Consider calling them as well as emailing them.

While you’re at it, take a look at the statistics of where the NRA spends its money. If your Senator or Congress member has accepted NRA money, consider asking them to donate that contribution to a victims’ fund or another charity of their choice. Remind them that you will remember where they stand on this issue come primary day as well as election day.

Contact Senators who have not yet stated their position.

The Senators listed below the signature line have not responded with their point of view on assault weapon ban as of 12/19/12.  Search for their webpage and contact them.  One message to consider sending these senators is if they decide to stand with the NRA on this issue, you would consider funding their opponent and/or making phone calls on their opponent’s behalf in both the primary and general elections.

6. Contact your Congressperson

Find your congressperson here. Find their phone number here. Consider mentioning you are a constituent and urge him/her to share their plans for enacting changes in the wake of the Newtown tragedy. If he/she receives NRA funding, ask them to donate it to The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.

7. Boycott Walmart
They are the #1 gun seller in the US.

8. Boycott Wyndham Hotels
Per Amanda Terkel at the Huff Post: “The NRA’s website has a page that lists endorsed companies and services where members can receive discounts. Affiliated businesses include rental car companies, real estate services and hotel chains. Nearly all of the affiliated hotels are part of the Wyndham Hotels and Resorts group. NRA members can receive 10 percent off at more than 6,500 participating hotels in the Wyndham family.”

9. Shut down the money
Call your investment funds and 401k fund owners. Ask whether any of your money is invested in gun manufacturers. If so, ask to change your investments.

10. March on Washington
Show your support for the upcoming Million Children March on Washington. Newtown United is planning this march. No dates confirmed yet. Like their page and Mothers Against Guns and stay tuned for updates. Update: Here is a link to a Facebook page containing information on a planned 1/26 Washington DC march: March On Washington For Gun Control.

List of Senators who have not yet stated their position in the wake of the Newtown Tragedy as of 12/19/12.

Akaka, Daniel (D-Hawaii)
Baldwin, Tammy (Sen.-Elect, D-Wis.):
Barrasso, John (R-Wy.):
Baucus, Max (D-Mont.):
Begich, Mark (D-Alaska)
Bennet, Michael (D-Colo.)
Boozman, John (R-Ark.)
Burr, Richard (R-N.C.)
Carper, Tom (D-Del.)
Chambliss, Saxby (R-Ga.)
Coats, Daniel (R-Ind.)
Coburn, Tom (R-Okla.)
Cochran, Thad (R-Miss.)
Collins, Susan (R-Maine)
Conrad, Kent (D-N.D.)
Coons, Christopher (D-Del.)
Corker, Bob (R-Tenn.)
Cornyn, John (R-Texas)
Cruz, Ted (Sen.Elect, R-Texas)
DeMint, Jim (R-S.C.)
Fischer, Deb (Sen.-Elect, R-Neb.)
Flake, Jeff (Sen.-Elect, R-Ariz)
Graham, Lindsey (R-S.C.)
Grassley, Chuck (R-Iowa)
Hagan, Kay (D-N.C.)
Hatch, Orrin (R-Utah)
Heitkamp, Heidi (Sen.-Elect, D-N.D.)
Heller, Dean (R-Nev.)
Hirono, Mazie (Sen.-Elect, D-Hawaii)
Hoeven, John (R-N.D.)
Hutchison, Kay Bailey (R-Texas)
Inhofe, James (R-Okla.)
Isakson, Johnny (R-Ga.)
Johanns, Mike (R-Neb.)
Johnson, Ron (R-Wis.)
Kaine, Tim (Sen.-Elect, D-Va.)
Kirk, Mark (R-Ill.)
Kohl, Herb (D-Wis.)
Kyl, John (R-Ariz.)
Landrieu, Mary (D-La.)
Leahy, Patrick (D-Vt.)
Lee, Mike (R-Utah)
Levin, Carl (D-Mich.)
Lugar, Richard (R-Ind.)
McCain, John (R-Ariz.)
McConnell, Mitch (R-Ky.)
Merkley, Jeff (D-Ore.)
Moran, Jerry (R-Kansas)
Murkowski, Lisa (R-Alaska)
Nelson, Ben (D-Neb.)
Paul, Rand (R-Ky.)
Pryor, Mark (D-Ark.)
Roberts, Pat (R-Kansas)
Sanders, Bernard (I-Vt.)
Scott, Tim (Sen.-Designate, R-S.C.)
Sessions, Jeff (R-Ala.)
Snowe, Olympia (R-Maine)
Stabenow, Debbie (D-Mich.)
Tester, Jon (D-Mont.)
Thune, John (R-S.D.)
Toomey, Patrick (R-Penn.)
Udall, Mark (D-Colo.)
Vitter, David (R-La.)
Webb, Jim (D-Va.)
Wicker, Roger (R-Miss.)
Wyden, Ron (D-Ore.)

Everywhere I grew up was on a back road. Some roads were back road-ier than others but they all had the same things in common: they were a stone’s throw from woods, they were traveled during the day by earnest workers and stay-at-home moms, and they were frequented late at night by teenagers and deer.

There was no deer involved in the accident, just a tree and a car the make and model of which I can no longer remember.  At the time I knew all the details, right down to the names of the people on the paramedic team. I even knew all about the rumor that someone had stolen his leather jacket out of his car after the accident. I couldn’t get enough of the details because it seemed impossible that someone we knew was simply no longer where he was supposed to be, so like detectives we hoarded every ounce of information we could, calling each other with updates and theories, as if maybe lining up all the facts in a row like breadcrumbs would eventually reveal The Obvious Reason he was alive just last week but today his heart was no longer beating.

If the Internet ends up being an enormous repository of human experience and memory then I want to add this boy to the collective. He had light hair and a snickering kind of laugh. He liked Lynyrd Skynyrd was always up for a party, whether it was at someone’s house or a do-it-yourself number in a field or down by the river. He liked to spend time at his family’s cabin in the woods. I’m not sure whether he graduated with his class. He took me to his junior prom and when he dropped me off at home and I have a distinct memory of feeling like I was floating up the stairs in my white lace gown, lipstick smudged and cheeks flushed. He was a gentleman despite his seeming rough edges.  My mother did not appreciate his finer qualities, and based on the slim details I’ve shared with you, you may be unable to imagine his finer qualities either, but I say this: he was a nineteen year-old kid when he died. His story ended before its character fully developed.

A young life was subtracted from the greater whole on a back country road over twenty years ago. The rest of us paused to attend the memorial service, and then we went on. We went on to get diplomas and commutes and to experience the Chicken Dance and 9/11. We named our newborns, we clean our gutters and experiment with Zoloft or Botox or Beringer. We love recklessly and steal wifi and get promoted and laid off. We join gyms and watch fireworks and get cat scans and passports. We’re annoyed when we’re forced to park far from the entrance to Target.

New bark has long since hidden the black scar on the tree.

Sometimes Gimme Three Steps pops up on my playlist and I think how unfair it is that he never got the chance to be annoyed at having to park too far from the Target entrance.  He never got to finish his story, whatever joyful or painful plot points it may have held.  But I guess my anger about him missing out on something so trivial says something about this whole thing we’re all doing — our entire experience — and that is this: that even in our worst moments of fury or despair, the sum of it all is good.

I’m telling you, people, it is good.

I like to think he would have agreed.

I could totally do that too, I said to myself.  I will make writing fit into MY schedule instead of waiting for miraculous hours of alone-time to appear!

Genius.

I am famous in our marriage for having spirited if flawed ambition as evidenced by the time I decided I could easily run a 5K Town “Trot” with no formal training and many post-baby pounds. I came in last place in. the. entire. town., right after two 72 year-old veterans recovering from hip surgery and barely managing to keep pace about 2 meters in front of the race ambulance.

Or there was the time I was pregnant and thought it would just take “a couple of hours” to paint the downstairs of our home. 23,123 hours and 1 metric ton of human tears later, Fab and I almost called Dr. Phil and that show where they come in and finish the home maintenance-related mistake you started.  And then there’s the time that happens every week when I arrange our family’s weekend schedule: of course we can get from Los Gatos to San Francisco in 15 minutes! Surely I can clean the entire house after gynmastics and right before our friends come for dinner!

In my defense, your honor, I’m usually extremely high on caffeine when I make these resolutions or else it’s a very special time of the month for me. Sometimes its both, in which case Fab has a major work project to finish at the office with a sleeping bag and a flask of oh-my-God-my-wife-is-insane juice.

All this is to say that forcing novel-writing into my daily schedule lasted exactly one-quarter of one Saturday morning gymnastics class. I felt so crappy sitting next to the other mothers, typing away as they chatted and cheered for their kids that I finally closed my Mac book saying apologetically to one of them, “Work – you know how it is! Just had to catch up. But I’m all set now. All caught up!”.

Spineless, I know.

On the bright side I did manage to get 20K words down. They’re not great words, but they are 20K more words than I had before.  Maybe I could finish a draft of the novel draft over July 4th weekend. 

Yeah. I could totally do that!

I enjoy being employed, so I don’t blog about work. I don’t blog about church because then you might file me under Religious. I don’t blog about any of the standard deeper parenting challenges in order to protect our daughter’s privacy. I don’t really blog about marriage because I prefer to stay married, and I don’t blog about body issues because let’s face it, I don’t even really know you people.

My friends and I often talk about starting a Super Secret Blog to post this rich material, messy in-law stories and all, but then we don’t because other priorities get in the way like actually living instead of writing about living.

I have noticed, however, that the novel I’m writing is somehow covering many of the aforementioned topics.

And oddly, one of the characters is named Malyssa Flennan.

I haven’t posted much lately because I’m writing a novel.

I have a hard time typing that sentence, let alone saying it out loud. Writing a novel puts me in great company with the earnest-looking Crazies down at the coffee shop.

I’m writing a novel.

I have thirty-nine cats.

I’m a part-time actor.

I’m calling on behalf of the campaign for Dr. Ron Paul for president.

Most novels embarked upon are never finished, and probably only .0321 percent of finished novels are actually published. It took two expensive therapy sessions for me to realize that being published is not the point, and that it is okay to ignore my unhelpful inner dialogue and just start writing a novel. It doesn’t have to be summa cum laude work and my performance will not be evaluated quarterly, the work just has to matter to me.

A writer friend wanted to know what it was like to write a novel, so tonight she asked me to write this post because she struggles with a similar fear of failure and lack of time that keeps most people from seriously considering the idea.

I told her it was like running a marathon. You stretch your skill and test your stamina in an effort to reach an impossible goal, while the voices in your head are like pot-bellied spectators holding signs at every milepost that read “TMZ has more readers than you ever will!” and shouting, “You’ll finish this just like you finished reading A Tale Of Two Cities!”

Sometimes it’s lonely, solitary work that makes what happened to Jack in The Shining seem perfectly reasonable, and other times the words that pop onto the screen are small miracles: a character will say or do something you didn’t plan yet is somehow exactly right, or the idea for the next scene appears to you in a dream and you realize that you are  supposed to be telling this story.

All the while you hit “Word Count”, subtracting your progress from an improbable target, wondering whether those assholes on the side of the road are right.

It was late May, and it had not been a particularly good month for me. I was confused about my teaching role at the Institute, my apartment was crawling with roaches and I was growing tired of wearing a skirt and heels everyday in order to fit in with the culture. I needed the comfort of wearing jeans without being thought of as unprofessional and the ability to reference Jenga or Fluffernutter in conversation without explanation. I needed to visit some Americans.

Peace Corps Ukraine headquarters was located within a mile of the train station and served as a kind of transfer station for volunteers. Volunteers came into the main office in Kiev from their villages for some native English conversation and a jar of peanut butter which, at that time, could only be found at certain back alley kiosks in Kiev. Likewise, the Kiev volunteers left their posts to distance themselves from the siren call of the capital’s expat community amenities, to drink with (and deliver peanut butter to) their friends in the villages. On this particular day I was in the latter camp, on my way to visit a friend teaching at an institute in the grey, industrial coal mining town of Donetsk.

After I’d caught up on the latest gossip at headquarters, I hitched my enormous blue vinyl backpack over my shoulders and headed to the path that would, in five minutes or so, deliver me to the train platform. The path lead between several sets of drab, concrete apartment buildings, and while it was not a completely desolate area, it was relatively rare to see other people along the way.

About halfway down the path I spotted him. He was lying supine in the middle of the path — clean-shaven guy about twenty years old. He wore sneakers, black jeans, a belt and a button-down, collared shirt. There were dark stains on the front of his chest and blood on his forehead and he was unquestionably dead.

I looked around. There was no one. That’s the funny thing about Peace Corps. There’s no filter between you and the real world anymore. I understood that conceptually when I joined, but on this, like many other occasions, I found myself looking around for the adult in the room.

I turned, ran back to the Peace Corps headquarters and told the receptionist, a Ukrainian, who – and I am not making this up – filed her nails as I explained the location of the body. She said she would call the police, which was good because I certainly didn’t know the Ukrainian word for “murder”. There was nothing more for me to do except return to the train station if I wanted to catch the train on time.

So I did. I walked down the path again. I walked right toward him and stopped when I came upon him, because it seemed somehow disrespectful to walk right by a human body. He hadn’t been dead long, I could tell from the lack of flies and other insects. I noticed how much younger than me he was. His eyes were closed. The words “someone’s son” came to mind. I said a little prayer to myself because that also seemed like the right thing to do, but the only prayer that came to mind was the Hail Mary and it fell entirely flat which, in retrospect, is always true of the Hail Mary in my experience. I left him behind and that night and I cried myself to sleep on the top bunk of the train.

Later I’d heard that several other volunteers had reported the same finding after I left, but that no one had attended to his body until well into the evening.

He was someone’s son, and I still think about him and his family from time to time.

Our daughter: Mommy, is 45 more than or less than 35?

Me: Oh honey, that’s a great question! 45 is more than 35 because if you have 45 of something — like apples — then you have more of that thing that if you had 35 apples.

<pause>

Me: So you see, 45 is definitely more than 35.  Do you understand that?

Our daughter: Then you’re speeding.

Before we go there, it’s also worth noting that American Girl dolls are 3rd on her Christmas list. Topping her list are “A pare of wings that can flie me”, followed by, “A babee that looks and akts totulee reel.”

It’s a tough job, lowering a child’s holiday expectations. It’s especially tough for someone like me who loves the Christmas warmth and spirit so much that if I could, I would take off the entire month of December to prepare our lives for the magic of Christmas. Once December 1st rolls around, I keep the Vince Guaraldi Trio’s A Charlie Brown Christmas on repeat, and I even modify my zero-tolerance Martha Stewart policy **just enough** to peek at how she’s decorating her Christmas tables this year. For further verification of my Christmas-o-philia, check with my husband who has only recently become able to discuss the topic without rolling his eyes.

A fly on the wall of our home these days would hear lots of patient conversation about Santa’s time and sled-size constraints, the limits of his workshop production capabilities and how, given the global scope of his role, Santa can be magic in some ways but not in all ways. But I won’t lie. It’s challenging to explain how Santa can make 12 tons of reindeer fly through the night sky like equine ballerinas, but that enabling a 35-pound child to fly with a pair of magical wings is somehow out of his skill set. The best response I can muster is “Well, if he lets you fly, then he’d have to let all children fly, and then there would be all kinds of kids running into each other in the air and maybe getting hurt”. Even as those words leave my mouth I see my complete lameness reflected in her eyes, and that reflection of lameness is the very cross of parenthood that, when you were pregnant, no one bothered to warn you about having to bear.

The most recent “Santa” conversation resulted in my doing something I never imagined doing, which is to specify the general number of presents she can expect.

I know. Stop judging.

It’s obviously awful because hello, Christmas is about the world having been given the gift of peace and love and how nice it is to be together as a family to celebrate that message. But everyone standing on the parental front lines knows that this particular gift doesn’t market-test very well to your child’s demographic. In our case, a number range had to be introduced because otherwise she believes that any item circled in one of the kajillion toy catalogs that began arriving at our home recently are somehow automatically “asked for” of Santa and therefore “shall be received” from him, despite conversation #23 Santa’s Production Limitations and conversation #56 Santa and God: Yes, They Know Each Other But They Give Different Gifts When You Ask. I don’t want her to be disappointed on Christmas morning, because that scene seriously harsh my Christmas buzz, (not to mention hers) and somehow it doesn’t seem right to have to take a Xanax to ease Christmas morning. Xanax is for the family dinner later in the day. It says so right on the bottle.

I don’t know how to keep a child’s Christmas expectations on the simple side. It’s easy to see how, when you run out of patience explaining Santa’s worldview and talent limitations, you could resort to something like, “Let me tell you something, missy: Laura Ingalls received an orange and a peppermint candy in her stocking – and by the way her “stocking” was probably an actual sock that she wore on her foot every day – and her Christmas day was the best day of her short life.” But I don’t go here because it’s too soon for me to become my mother, and also because our daughter would immediately ask for a Laura Ingalls catalog.

So this Christmas she’ll probably receive an American Girl Doll and a few American Girl Doll accessories, along with some crafts and some books and the single, lone reasonable item she has asked for (“a poncho”). I’ll probably throw an orange and a peppermint candy in her stocking for my own amusement because it will be 5AM and in some countries getting dragged out of bed so early is considered elder abuse. But all we can do at this point is continue with our patient, lame Santa-related explanations in the hopes that our expectation-setting will result in the ultimate gift of a peaceful and loving Christmas morning.