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A Time To Go
7 years ago
Tuesday, December 2, 2014
Tuesday, November 4, 2014
Halloween: The Big Lame-Out
Is it me, or has Halloween become more sanitized than a frigging Ebola ward? I hate to sound like an old lady, but times have changed, and not entirely for the better. We are just so freaking uptight nowadays.
Take costumes, for example. In 1983, there were no rules regarding what could and couldn't be worn to school on Halloween. One year my mother, who had recently inherited a nasty old fur coat from a dead aunt, dressed me up as a 'movie star'. I wore a slinky dress that kept sliding down and exposing my kid-boobs, a blonde whore wig, and the aforementioned rat coat. I also carried a 'sophisticated' cigarette holder, attached to which was one of Mom's Parliaments.
It wasn’t at all unusual for boys to come to school dressed as horror movie villains or war victims or 'bums'. One year a boy came into our 5th grade class dressed as Aunt Jemima, complete with blackface and a pillow under his skirt to look like a big, fake booty.
Completely poor taste, yes, but you have to admit, pretty creative.
My daughter’s school doesn’t even allow costumes with fake blood. Notes go home the week before Halloween warning that if a child shows up in a costume deemed 'too scary', he or she will be sent home immediately. Oh, get over yourselves.
When I was little, my mom annually brought my sister and me to the drugstore, where we each picked out a $5 plastic piece of shit costume made to look like a Disney character or super-heroine. This 'costume' was basically a colored garbage bag which tied around the neck, and came with a plastic mask. The mask had tiny nose-holes you couldn't breathe out of, and the eye-holes were roughly cutout slits that often scratched your face. You definitely were in trouble should you wear the mask trick or treating after dark, because your peripheral vision was totally impaired. Whatever, though, you just asked your friend who wasn't wearing a mask to look out for cars.
Now, let's talk Trick or Treating. We used to traipse around the neighborhood unsupervised, a gaggle of kids ranging in age from toddler to maybe 10 years old. Now, the tradition of knocking on people's doors, asking for the one thing you are never supposed to accept from strangers, is in and of itself a weird tradition. But still. It seemed...I don't know, more organic back then. I remember one elderly lady yelling out the second-floor window of her house, telling us to come on in and grab some candy from the bowl in the foyer, because she was too infirm to make it down the steps.
We totally did.
A Mom’s only job back then was to check for razor blades in apples and pin holes in candy bars (in case someone injected some kind of poison into them? That really takes a certain amt. of dedication, by the way). Now, we all accompany our children trick or treating. Granted, we carry travel mugs of wine and vodka drinks, but we still all go.
They even have ‘trunk or treat’ now, where kids trick or treat out of their friends' parents cars all parked in a lot at the church. They even have trick or treating in malls to keep kids off the street. What the fuck is fun about trick or treating in a MALL? What do they give you? Cell phone cases? Sunglasses? Auntie Annie pretzels?
I don't know. It just seems like we might need to loosen the reins just a bit. Halloween used to be dark and somewhat sinister and nasty. But that's what made it fun.
Take costumes, for example. In 1983, there were no rules regarding what could and couldn't be worn to school on Halloween. One year my mother, who had recently inherited a nasty old fur coat from a dead aunt, dressed me up as a 'movie star'. I wore a slinky dress that kept sliding down and exposing my kid-boobs, a blonde whore wig, and the aforementioned rat coat. I also carried a 'sophisticated' cigarette holder, attached to which was one of Mom's Parliaments.
It wasn’t at all unusual for boys to come to school dressed as horror movie villains or war victims or 'bums'. One year a boy came into our 5th grade class dressed as Aunt Jemima, complete with blackface and a pillow under his skirt to look like a big, fake booty.
Completely poor taste, yes, but you have to admit, pretty creative.
My daughter’s school doesn’t even allow costumes with fake blood. Notes go home the week before Halloween warning that if a child shows up in a costume deemed 'too scary', he or she will be sent home immediately. Oh, get over yourselves.
When I was little, my mom annually brought my sister and me to the drugstore, where we each picked out a $5 plastic piece of shit costume made to look like a Disney character or super-heroine. This 'costume' was basically a colored garbage bag which tied around the neck, and came with a plastic mask. The mask had tiny nose-holes you couldn't breathe out of, and the eye-holes were roughly cutout slits that often scratched your face. You definitely were in trouble should you wear the mask trick or treating after dark, because your peripheral vision was totally impaired. Whatever, though, you just asked your friend who wasn't wearing a mask to look out for cars.
Now, let's talk Trick or Treating. We used to traipse around the neighborhood unsupervised, a gaggle of kids ranging in age from toddler to maybe 10 years old. Now, the tradition of knocking on people's doors, asking for the one thing you are never supposed to accept from strangers, is in and of itself a weird tradition. But still. It seemed...I don't know, more organic back then. I remember one elderly lady yelling out the second-floor window of her house, telling us to come on in and grab some candy from the bowl in the foyer, because she was too infirm to make it down the steps.
We totally did.
A Mom’s only job back then was to check for razor blades in apples and pin holes in candy bars (in case someone injected some kind of poison into them? That really takes a certain amt. of dedication, by the way). Now, we all accompany our children trick or treating. Granted, we carry travel mugs of wine and vodka drinks, but we still all go.
They even have ‘trunk or treat’ now, where kids trick or treat out of their friends' parents cars all parked in a lot at the church. They even have trick or treating in malls to keep kids off the street. What the fuck is fun about trick or treating in a MALL? What do they give you? Cell phone cases? Sunglasses? Auntie Annie pretzels?
I don't know. It just seems like we might need to loosen the reins just a bit. Halloween used to be dark and somewhat sinister and nasty. But that's what made it fun.
Thursday, October 30, 2014
More Gems from the Insult Ninja
Watch out for the Insult Ninja. She lurks behind swingsets and sits watching 'Glee' on Netflix, biding her time, just waiting for that perfect moment when you are feeling your most old or fat or disorganized, and then she pounces. BAM!
It can come at any time. On the car ride to school. Mid-flip on the trampoline. While walking the dog. Doesn't matter. She is as unpredictable and arbitrary as a funnel cloud during a Louisiana thunderstorm.
I've just had my hair highlighted. My stylist went a little lighter than usual.
"It looks like you have more gray hairs than you normally do."
I'm having a bad reaction to something I ate.
"Wow. I heard you pooping, like, through the wall."
Getting out of the shower (a most favorable time to strike)
"God, Mom! I really hope my down-there hair doesn't end up like yours!"
And, this one is interactive!
"When I have a baby, will my stomach look like that?"
(Poke, poke)
It can come at any time. On the car ride to school. Mid-flip on the trampoline. While walking the dog. Doesn't matter. She is as unpredictable and arbitrary as a funnel cloud during a Louisiana thunderstorm.
I've just had my hair highlighted. My stylist went a little lighter than usual.
"It looks like you have more gray hairs than you normally do."
I'm having a bad reaction to something I ate.
"Wow. I heard you pooping, like, through the wall."
Getting out of the shower (a most favorable time to strike)
"God, Mom! I really hope my down-there hair doesn't end up like yours!"
And, this one is interactive!
"When I have a baby, will my stomach look like that?"
(Poke, poke)
Tuesday, October 7, 2014
Mrs. Redpants
I lived in NYC for a decade, but I didn't really find my 'tribe' until I had a baby.
This is not meant to be a declaration that, ‘YOU’RE NOBODY TIL YOU’RE A MOMMY!!!’ or anything; it just turned out that I didn’t form any real lasting friendships in the city until I had had my kid. New moms are like frenzied hound dogs, always sniffing around for fresh blood: “Oh! You’re exhausted and wearing a newborn in a sling? OMG, me too! Let’s go to Starbucks!”
I found most of my friends that way.
I’m discovering though, as I get older, that I will probably never be as open-hearted, unguarded, and willing to let people in as I was at that time. I don’t know why. Maybe I’m too busy now. Or too damn tired. Or I’ve just lost faith in humanity in general. Hopefully not though.
I met Kara when we were chasing our toddlers around the local playground. She wore Chuck Taylors, a delightfully wild mop of ‘I’m a mom, fuck it’ curly hair, and a beautiful tattoo that spanned the top part of her shoulder.
Immediately I was all, GOOBLE GOBBLE ONE OF US, ONE OF US. I decided she had to be my friend. We connected instantly, over so many things. The fact that our husbands were both artists who made very little money. That we were on the crunchy side, but were not above feeding our kids mac and cheese when we were too tired to cook. That we adored our children but also liked a good glass of wine with grownups sometimes.
When my marriage imploded several years later, Kara was one of the first people I called. There was no judgement, no begging for juicy details. There was, simply, “Just tell me what I can do.”
It was she who lovingly looked after my daughter so I could go back to work. And she who made dinner for us many Sunday nights (a ritual that became known as ‘Dinner and a Bath’, as we’d pop the kids in the tub after eating and let them pass out while we hung out). She also saw me cry on a park bench more times than I can count. She, along with a small handful of other wonderful people, pulled me through the mire that my life had become.
Now, years later, my quietly beautiful friend is going through some shit of her own. Since we left the city for greener pastures years ago — both of us moving to different corners of the US — I’m not sure I can be there for her in the capacity that she was for me back then. I’m not sure she’d even need me to be, since she’s about three thousand times tougher than most women I know.
Still. I'll be here to help her sail through the mire. And I know, without a doubt, that there will be so much sunshine for her on the other side.
xo
Here's something I wrote a LONG time ago. Maybe you remember this. Oldie but goodie.
http://ferrtileblog.blogspot.com/2008/12/official.html
This is not meant to be a declaration that, ‘YOU’RE NOBODY TIL YOU’RE A MOMMY!!!’ or anything; it just turned out that I didn’t form any real lasting friendships in the city until I had had my kid. New moms are like frenzied hound dogs, always sniffing around for fresh blood: “Oh! You’re exhausted and wearing a newborn in a sling? OMG, me too! Let’s go to Starbucks!”
I found most of my friends that way.
I’m discovering though, as I get older, that I will probably never be as open-hearted, unguarded, and willing to let people in as I was at that time. I don’t know why. Maybe I’m too busy now. Or too damn tired. Or I’ve just lost faith in humanity in general. Hopefully not though.
I met Kara when we were chasing our toddlers around the local playground. She wore Chuck Taylors, a delightfully wild mop of ‘I’m a mom, fuck it’ curly hair, and a beautiful tattoo that spanned the top part of her shoulder.
Immediately I was all, GOOBLE GOBBLE ONE OF US, ONE OF US. I decided she had to be my friend. We connected instantly, over so many things. The fact that our husbands were both artists who made very little money. That we were on the crunchy side, but were not above feeding our kids mac and cheese when we were too tired to cook. That we adored our children but also liked a good glass of wine with grownups sometimes.
When my marriage imploded several years later, Kara was one of the first people I called. There was no judgement, no begging for juicy details. There was, simply, “Just tell me what I can do.”
It was she who lovingly looked after my daughter so I could go back to work. And she who made dinner for us many Sunday nights (a ritual that became known as ‘Dinner and a Bath’, as we’d pop the kids in the tub after eating and let them pass out while we hung out). She also saw me cry on a park bench more times than I can count. She, along with a small handful of other wonderful people, pulled me through the mire that my life had become.
Now, years later, my quietly beautiful friend is going through some shit of her own. Since we left the city for greener pastures years ago — both of us moving to different corners of the US — I’m not sure I can be there for her in the capacity that she was for me back then. I’m not sure she’d even need me to be, since she’s about three thousand times tougher than most women I know.
Still. I'll be here to help her sail through the mire. And I know, without a doubt, that there will be so much sunshine for her on the other side.
xo
Here's something I wrote a LONG time ago. Maybe you remember this. Oldie but goodie.
http://ferrtileblog.blogspot.com/2008/12/official.html
Friday, October 3, 2014
Suck My Fat One, Apple.
Hey. Shout out to the makers of all i-products for simultaneously improving and taking a gigantic dump on my day-to-day life.
I’ve been what has been called a ‘Power User’ of Apple products for some time. I LOVE my iphone. I can pay bills, watch shows, even order cat food and sex toys, all while waiting in the carpool line at school or crouching on the toilet (sorry guys, but a great many of your photos and status updates have been ‘liked’ by while peeing, and if you say you've never done this you're lying through your teeth). The abilities of this miraculous little handheld device continue to amaze and confound me.
My ex husband was, until recently, one of those ‘Not gonna drink the Kool Aid, Samsung All The Way’ kind of anit-iphoners. Yeah, I just switched gears here to talk about my ex. But I'll come back to the point. The man, when I knew him, liked to think of himself as an against-the-grain kinda guy.
Then he switched cell plans and all that changed.
I didn’t realize until recently how a very small percentage of companies in this world are keeping us uncomfortably close in our connections to one another, pretty much every second of every day. Facebook, Twitter, Google, and Apple in particular have enabled us to basically live our lives in plain sight of the entire world; we can be as transparent and public as we choose in everything that we do. This is what my mother would call a 'velvet trap'.
Facetime is one of those apps that I'm just not sure about. When it first came out, I, like everyone else, marveled at the way we could effortlessly have 'OMG It's just like the Jetsons!' video chats with any other iphone user in America, at any time, all from the palms of our hands. I could sit out in my yard and chat with the tops of my parents’ heads while we all drank wine on separate sides of the country (for people in their 70s, my mom and dad have embraced the handheld revolution in a most kickass way, although they are still working out the kinks. Still, kudos). I have to be honest though; the sheen has kinda worn off this brand new penny for me. Facetime is not really my thing. I have never been much of a phone person, so throw in having to brush my hair or obsess over seeing my batwing upper arms in the little mini-screen of myself while I chat with someone, and it's a no-thank-you for me.
Lily's Dad LOVES it, though. Oh my god. And this is the conundrum.
I moved thousands of miles away from my ex husband years ago, and pleasant side effect of the physical distance has been my lack of involvement in the variety of antics he gets up to. We aren’t connected on any kind of social media, and we communicate sporadically and businesslike, via text messages and emails mostly, to transact any comings and goings involving our daughter. I like it that way. I imagine he does as well.
Then the guy got a goddamned iPhone and discovered FaceTime. And I was fucked like a homeless cat in a dumpster behind a Chinese restaurant.
After moving into the home of a nice divorced woman with an adorable toddler, and finally securing a full-time job, my ex husband has apparently 'gotten his shit together'. Bravo. However, now that he has discovered Facetime, it's like he and his new family are in my fucking living room EVERY SINGLE NIGHT.
I did not sign off on this.
Somehow, Facetiming is different than Skyping once a week from the home computer, because you don't need an appointment to do it. And Lily, who can't sit still, carries the iphone from room to room to room, chatting and laughing with her father's giant face and louder-than-necessary voice, and there is no escape for me unless I hide in the bathroom and pretend to be having a stomach attack (which I did last night). They all cook dinner and sit down to eat, and we are witness to it. They do dishes. They put the toddler to bed with stories. They watch their favorite TV shows. Constantly. It's exhausting.
I'm not sure what to do at this point. I think any attempt on my part to limit the amount of Facetiming would probably make me seem like a bitter old harpie exwife beyotch who just wants to drive a wedge between my ex and his child, and that is truly not the case. I just don't really need it in my peripheral vision every freaking second, ya know? Not exactly sure what the prudent move would be here, y'all. Advice?
I’ve been what has been called a ‘Power User’ of Apple products for some time. I LOVE my iphone. I can pay bills, watch shows, even order cat food and sex toys, all while waiting in the carpool line at school or crouching on the toilet (sorry guys, but a great many of your photos and status updates have been ‘liked’ by while peeing, and if you say you've never done this you're lying through your teeth). The abilities of this miraculous little handheld device continue to amaze and confound me.
My ex husband was, until recently, one of those ‘Not gonna drink the Kool Aid, Samsung All The Way’ kind of anit-iphoners. Yeah, I just switched gears here to talk about my ex. But I'll come back to the point. The man, when I knew him, liked to think of himself as an against-the-grain kinda guy.
Then he switched cell plans and all that changed.
I didn’t realize until recently how a very small percentage of companies in this world are keeping us uncomfortably close in our connections to one another, pretty much every second of every day. Facebook, Twitter, Google, and Apple in particular have enabled us to basically live our lives in plain sight of the entire world; we can be as transparent and public as we choose in everything that we do. This is what my mother would call a 'velvet trap'.
Facetime is one of those apps that I'm just not sure about. When it first came out, I, like everyone else, marveled at the way we could effortlessly have 'OMG It's just like the Jetsons!' video chats with any other iphone user in America, at any time, all from the palms of our hands. I could sit out in my yard and chat with the tops of my parents’ heads while we all drank wine on separate sides of the country (for people in their 70s, my mom and dad have embraced the handheld revolution in a most kickass way, although they are still working out the kinks. Still, kudos). I have to be honest though; the sheen has kinda worn off this brand new penny for me. Facetime is not really my thing. I have never been much of a phone person, so throw in having to brush my hair or obsess over seeing my batwing upper arms in the little mini-screen of myself while I chat with someone, and it's a no-thank-you for me.
Lily's Dad LOVES it, though. Oh my god. And this is the conundrum.
I moved thousands of miles away from my ex husband years ago, and pleasant side effect of the physical distance has been my lack of involvement in the variety of antics he gets up to. We aren’t connected on any kind of social media, and we communicate sporadically and businesslike, via text messages and emails mostly, to transact any comings and goings involving our daughter. I like it that way. I imagine he does as well.
Then the guy got a goddamned iPhone and discovered FaceTime. And I was fucked like a homeless cat in a dumpster behind a Chinese restaurant.
After moving into the home of a nice divorced woman with an adorable toddler, and finally securing a full-time job, my ex husband has apparently 'gotten his shit together'. Bravo. However, now that he has discovered Facetime, it's like he and his new family are in my fucking living room EVERY SINGLE NIGHT.
I did not sign off on this.
Somehow, Facetiming is different than Skyping once a week from the home computer, because you don't need an appointment to do it. And Lily, who can't sit still, carries the iphone from room to room to room, chatting and laughing with her father's giant face and louder-than-necessary voice, and there is no escape for me unless I hide in the bathroom and pretend to be having a stomach attack (which I did last night). They all cook dinner and sit down to eat, and we are witness to it. They do dishes. They put the toddler to bed with stories. They watch their favorite TV shows. Constantly. It's exhausting.
I'm not sure what to do at this point. I think any attempt on my part to limit the amount of Facetiming would probably make me seem like a bitter old harpie exwife beyotch who just wants to drive a wedge between my ex and his child, and that is truly not the case. I just don't really need it in my peripheral vision every freaking second, ya know? Not exactly sure what the prudent move would be here, y'all. Advice?
Monday, September 29, 2014
Sweep the Leg
I’ve always been one hell of a sleeper. My favorite pastime, besides constantly bemoaning the relentlessly sticky South Louisiana humidity, is crawling into bed at night with a bag of veggie booty and passing out face down and drooling into a good book. I am still trying to figure out a way to work an 8 hour day from my bed. I think it’s absolutely possible.
I used to be able to get by with less sleep, though. Now, less than 6 hours and my whole body and soul punish me for it. I get so cranky I actually growl to myself while getting ready in the morning— a feral dog slapping on moisturizer and scratching at mange. At this moment I am so exhausted I actually think I can hear my hair growing. I down two, three cups of shitty work coffee, feeling it souring in my stomach, wishing I could just bypass my mouth entirely and mash the grounds to a nice paste I can inject right into my arm or between my toes or my eyeball or wherever it is people inject things into themselves.
Usually I make more of an effort to get good sleep nowadays because I know what a vile and worthless piece of bitchy excrement I am when I don’t. Being sleep-deprived is what I would envision a bad acid trip to be like, but with more yawning. I speak from the dank bowels of experience in this area because
I spent the first two years of Lily’s life without any real, substantial sleep.
‘Sweep the Leg’ was a game conceived in a state of serious sleep deprivation. I created it when Lily was about 18 months old, an age where she was big enough to kinda grasp bipedalism, but not so sturdy that she could get anywhere fast without falling down a lot. The game quickly became a favorite in our house; we’d come home from the park and instead of laying down to a sweet nap like other toddlers I knew, Lily would demand, ’SWEEP THE LEG, MAMA! SWEEP THE LEG!’ and for the next two hours, I’d lay on my back in the middle of our giant, king-sized bed and pretend to be asleep. Then Lily would jump up and down next to me and shriek like a maniac. Without warning, I’d reach out and literally swipe both her legs, so that they’d fly out from under her and she’d tumble onto the bed in a giggling heap of hysterical glee. I think even then she was an adrenaline junkie; there was this insane thrill she got from never knowing when she was going to be completely wiped out. I loved the game too, because it was the only game I could play with my kid where I got to lay like a corpse. It was a setup that worked well.
That is, until one day I accidentally fell asleep mid-game and swept a little too far. Oh, I will never, ever forget the sound she made hitting the floor. It haunts me still. Nothing in the world stings like hearing your kid in pain. Except when you’re the dumbass who caused it. Then it’s a million times worse.
She ended up being fine. Just a little surprised. And probably her feelings were hurt more than anything, that Mom could actually over-sweep and send her to the floor on her butt.
That day I learned an important lesson, and was never sleep deprived again!
That’s a big, fat lie. But I think that might’ve been the last game of Sweep the Leg we played for quite a while..
I used to be able to get by with less sleep, though. Now, less than 6 hours and my whole body and soul punish me for it. I get so cranky I actually growl to myself while getting ready in the morning— a feral dog slapping on moisturizer and scratching at mange. At this moment I am so exhausted I actually think I can hear my hair growing. I down two, three cups of shitty work coffee, feeling it souring in my stomach, wishing I could just bypass my mouth entirely and mash the grounds to a nice paste I can inject right into my arm or between my toes or my eyeball or wherever it is people inject things into themselves.
Usually I make more of an effort to get good sleep nowadays because I know what a vile and worthless piece of bitchy excrement I am when I don’t. Being sleep-deprived is what I would envision a bad acid trip to be like, but with more yawning. I speak from the dank bowels of experience in this area because
I spent the first two years of Lily’s life without any real, substantial sleep.
‘Sweep the Leg’ was a game conceived in a state of serious sleep deprivation. I created it when Lily was about 18 months old, an age where she was big enough to kinda grasp bipedalism, but not so sturdy that she could get anywhere fast without falling down a lot. The game quickly became a favorite in our house; we’d come home from the park and instead of laying down to a sweet nap like other toddlers I knew, Lily would demand, ’SWEEP THE LEG, MAMA! SWEEP THE LEG!’ and for the next two hours, I’d lay on my back in the middle of our giant, king-sized bed and pretend to be asleep. Then Lily would jump up and down next to me and shriek like a maniac. Without warning, I’d reach out and literally swipe both her legs, so that they’d fly out from under her and she’d tumble onto the bed in a giggling heap of hysterical glee. I think even then she was an adrenaline junkie; there was this insane thrill she got from never knowing when she was going to be completely wiped out. I loved the game too, because it was the only game I could play with my kid where I got to lay like a corpse. It was a setup that worked well.
That is, until one day I accidentally fell asleep mid-game and swept a little too far. Oh, I will never, ever forget the sound she made hitting the floor. It haunts me still. Nothing in the world stings like hearing your kid in pain. Except when you’re the dumbass who caused it. Then it’s a million times worse.
She ended up being fine. Just a little surprised. And probably her feelings were hurt more than anything, that Mom could actually over-sweep and send her to the floor on her butt.
That day I learned an important lesson, and was never sleep deprived again!
That’s a big, fat lie. But I think that might’ve been the last game of Sweep the Leg we played for quite a while..
Friday, September 26, 2014
Sage Advice for Single Parents
I had a conference with Lily’s 5th grade teacher the other day. The woman locked eyes with me across the table. I became painfully aware of my ass oozing out on either side of my child-sized plastic seat. Uh Oh, I thought. What now?
Then she smiled. A mothering kind of smile. And a warm jelly of relief flooded my whole body.
‘Lily…oh, Lily is a delight. She has such a strong sense of herself and such good self esteem for a girl her age..whatever you’re doing, keep it up. you’re doing it right.’
‘Oh, thank you,’ I said, resisting the urge to reach over the table, cup her face in my hands and plant a hugely inappropriate kiss on her pearly pink lips. She might as well have just handed me a book deal or a winning lottery ticket; her words were a McDonald’s sundae sprinkled with xanax. The relief was so potent, I wanted to just get up and walk out right there, toss a pile of papers in the air on my way to the door, and say, ‘SEE ya Motherfuckers, I WON.”
My life so far has been pretty good, all things considered. I have very little to complain about, but as far as big accomplishments, massive milestones and the like, I haven’t had a real shitload to put on my Life's Resume. I can say with complete honesty that so far, Lily is really my highest accomplishment. My mad Momming Skillz are by far my greatest source of pride. Kind of ironic, since becoming a single parent was definitely the hardest thing I have ever done in my life.
I remember sitting in my therapist’s office many, many moons ago, contemplating the idea of kicking out my then-husband. Her sage advice: ‘No matter what you decide, just remember that being a single parent is the hardest thing in the world.’ I was like, hey, screw you, lady. You don’t live with the guy.
She was right, though. And wrong, too, in some ways.
Here is MY sage advice for anyone considering walking this path:
1. Don’t mourn the loss of your social life too much.
Find a nice teenager on the block who will hang at your house for a few hours after your kid is asleep if you want to go have a cocktail or scream in your car or something. Personally, I’ve never been much of a social butterfly. I have a book club once a month at my house, so I get to see my lady pals and drink and talk about vibrators and periods and afterward I just crawl into bed. It’s kind of awesome.
2. it’s helpful to have a granola bar/cookie/trail mix stash in the console of the car for the times you forget to pack breakfast.
Also, flip-flops or sneakers, for those times you rush out of the house wearing two different shoes. I also keep tweezers in there b/c once in a while I will glance at my face in the rearview at a light and Jesus Christ.
3. Know that people will assume things about you.
People might assume you’re lonely, or that what you really want, more than anything, is another husband. If your married friends tend to be insecure (and we can all be sometimes), they might even worry you’re after THEIR husbands. Or that your disease of divorcedness is a highly contagious swine flu that they might catch if they hang out too much with you.
Your ex’s family will especially have ideas about you. Remember that these are based solely on what your ex is telling them about you, so their opinions are a weeee bit slanted. Also, it doesn’t matter what these people think. Lets just hope that they keep these opinions to themselves around your child, biting their tongues as you have almost bitten yours into Swiss cheese many times.
4. Speaking of tongue-biting…
Yeah. This is the biggest challenge ever. Maybe you and your kid’s father are on great terms, so this one doesn’t apply. I have a friend who traveled to Disney with her ex and their kid, they like each other that much. That’s not my situation. Take it from me, I struggle daily with the urge to blurt out one of the multitudinous depraved things Lily’s dad did during our marriage, especially when she is on a tear about how much better it is at his house than at mine. Not doing it can be cruelly difficult. But doing it will have even more disastrous results.
5. You will feel guilty.
A lot. No, all the time. Like mostly every second. I even have guilty dreams. Last week I dreamt that I went on vacation to Jamaica with my boyfriend and came back to find out that Lily had started smoking crack. I also lay in bed at night NOT sleeping sometimes, running through all of the things I must be doing wrong: Am I loving her enough? Too much? Preparing her for the real world? Teaching her not to loathe her body? Enabling Daddy Issues? It never ends. And you can’t even take an ambient because what if the house catches on fire and you’re too zonked to get your kid out of bed? Then what, huh???
6. You can’t do it all, but you can do SO much more than you ever thought possible.
When I go through my day, I’m amazed that I was able to get as much accomplished as I have. When I was in college, I would sometimes spend entire Saturdays laying on the couch, smoking pot and watching movies. Today, the idea of wasting a day sickens me. Not because I think it’s a bad thing to do, but because THERE IS SO MUCH THAT HAS TO GET DONE. Truthfully, I usually go to bed at night feeling pretty smug that I managed to feed, clothe, support, teach, play with, and listen to a small, ever-developing person, while also keeping our house from disappearing under a pile of laundry and cat litter. Multitasking is no joke. Today I hopped out of the shower to iron a school uniform while dripping wet with soap in my hair. I don’t recommend this, by the way.
7. It can be amazing.
I always think about that old Peace Corps ad from the 80s, where they say it’s the ‘Toughest Job You’ll Ever Love’. It’s true. Any parent will tell you that, but doing it on your own is especially tricky because, duh, you’re doing two people’s jobs by yourself. But here’s the cool part: You are your own sovereign nation. You have nobody to defer to, nobody who needs to be consulted on the big decisions. There’s nobody with whom to share a bathroom. No weird, kinky items show up on credit card statements. Bills get paid because you are the one earning the money to pay them.
8. Remember that this is all so temporary
Some day, sooner than you think, she will be gone. Grown up, set out to live her own life, which is exactly what should happen if you’ve done this whole crazy thing right. You will always be her mom. But some day, you’re going to remember what it was like to be a lot of other things too. You'll have more time than you do now. So don’t worry about the stupid scarf you don’t have time to knit, or the memoir that is sitting in pieces on your computer desk, scratched up to hell with red pen (these are hypothetical). There will be time. It will be worth the wait.
Then she smiled. A mothering kind of smile. And a warm jelly of relief flooded my whole body.
‘Lily…oh, Lily is a delight. She has such a strong sense of herself and such good self esteem for a girl her age..whatever you’re doing, keep it up. you’re doing it right.’
‘Oh, thank you,’ I said, resisting the urge to reach over the table, cup her face in my hands and plant a hugely inappropriate kiss on her pearly pink lips. She might as well have just handed me a book deal or a winning lottery ticket; her words were a McDonald’s sundae sprinkled with xanax. The relief was so potent, I wanted to just get up and walk out right there, toss a pile of papers in the air on my way to the door, and say, ‘SEE ya Motherfuckers, I WON.”
My life so far has been pretty good, all things considered. I have very little to complain about, but as far as big accomplishments, massive milestones and the like, I haven’t had a real shitload to put on my Life's Resume. I can say with complete honesty that so far, Lily is really my highest accomplishment. My mad Momming Skillz are by far my greatest source of pride. Kind of ironic, since becoming a single parent was definitely the hardest thing I have ever done in my life.
I remember sitting in my therapist’s office many, many moons ago, contemplating the idea of kicking out my then-husband. Her sage advice: ‘No matter what you decide, just remember that being a single parent is the hardest thing in the world.’ I was like, hey, screw you, lady. You don’t live with the guy.
She was right, though. And wrong, too, in some ways.
Here is MY sage advice for anyone considering walking this path:
1. Don’t mourn the loss of your social life too much.
Find a nice teenager on the block who will hang at your house for a few hours after your kid is asleep if you want to go have a cocktail or scream in your car or something. Personally, I’ve never been much of a social butterfly. I have a book club once a month at my house, so I get to see my lady pals and drink and talk about vibrators and periods and afterward I just crawl into bed. It’s kind of awesome.
2. it’s helpful to have a granola bar/cookie/trail mix stash in the console of the car for the times you forget to pack breakfast.
Also, flip-flops or sneakers, for those times you rush out of the house wearing two different shoes. I also keep tweezers in there b/c once in a while I will glance at my face in the rearview at a light and Jesus Christ.
3. Know that people will assume things about you.
People might assume you’re lonely, or that what you really want, more than anything, is another husband. If your married friends tend to be insecure (and we can all be sometimes), they might even worry you’re after THEIR husbands. Or that your disease of divorcedness is a highly contagious swine flu that they might catch if they hang out too much with you.
Your ex’s family will especially have ideas about you. Remember that these are based solely on what your ex is telling them about you, so their opinions are a weeee bit slanted. Also, it doesn’t matter what these people think. Lets just hope that they keep these opinions to themselves around your child, biting their tongues as you have almost bitten yours into Swiss cheese many times.
4. Speaking of tongue-biting…
Yeah. This is the biggest challenge ever. Maybe you and your kid’s father are on great terms, so this one doesn’t apply. I have a friend who traveled to Disney with her ex and their kid, they like each other that much. That’s not my situation. Take it from me, I struggle daily with the urge to blurt out one of the multitudinous depraved things Lily’s dad did during our marriage, especially when she is on a tear about how much better it is at his house than at mine. Not doing it can be cruelly difficult. But doing it will have even more disastrous results.
5. You will feel guilty.
A lot. No, all the time. Like mostly every second. I even have guilty dreams. Last week I dreamt that I went on vacation to Jamaica with my boyfriend and came back to find out that Lily had started smoking crack. I also lay in bed at night NOT sleeping sometimes, running through all of the things I must be doing wrong: Am I loving her enough? Too much? Preparing her for the real world? Teaching her not to loathe her body? Enabling Daddy Issues? It never ends. And you can’t even take an ambient because what if the house catches on fire and you’re too zonked to get your kid out of bed? Then what, huh???
6. You can’t do it all, but you can do SO much more than you ever thought possible.
When I go through my day, I’m amazed that I was able to get as much accomplished as I have. When I was in college, I would sometimes spend entire Saturdays laying on the couch, smoking pot and watching movies. Today, the idea of wasting a day sickens me. Not because I think it’s a bad thing to do, but because THERE IS SO MUCH THAT HAS TO GET DONE. Truthfully, I usually go to bed at night feeling pretty smug that I managed to feed, clothe, support, teach, play with, and listen to a small, ever-developing person, while also keeping our house from disappearing under a pile of laundry and cat litter. Multitasking is no joke. Today I hopped out of the shower to iron a school uniform while dripping wet with soap in my hair. I don’t recommend this, by the way.
7. It can be amazing.
I always think about that old Peace Corps ad from the 80s, where they say it’s the ‘Toughest Job You’ll Ever Love’. It’s true. Any parent will tell you that, but doing it on your own is especially tricky because, duh, you’re doing two people’s jobs by yourself. But here’s the cool part: You are your own sovereign nation. You have nobody to defer to, nobody who needs to be consulted on the big decisions. There’s nobody with whom to share a bathroom. No weird, kinky items show up on credit card statements. Bills get paid because you are the one earning the money to pay them.
8. Remember that this is all so temporary
Some day, sooner than you think, she will be gone. Grown up, set out to live her own life, which is exactly what should happen if you’ve done this whole crazy thing right. You will always be her mom. But some day, you’re going to remember what it was like to be a lot of other things too. You'll have more time than you do now. So don’t worry about the stupid scarf you don’t have time to knit, or the memoir that is sitting in pieces on your computer desk, scratched up to hell with red pen (these are hypothetical). There will be time. It will be worth the wait.
Wednesday, May 28, 2014
Lemme Stand Next To Your...
Just recently I realized that every important thing that happens to me doesn't necessarily need to be shared with my parents. I know, I know, perhaps a little late at the tender age of 41, but...yeah.
As the product of a closely-knit family of oversharers, I've typically told my family EVERYTHING. Not sure why, but I feel like every weird, wonderful, humiliating or painful event isn't really and truly HAPPENING to me until I've broadcast it to my mom and dad.
It has come to my attention, however, that it isn't necessarily appropriate to pick up the horn and impart absolutely everything to my parents, who are 3,000 miles away, retired, and after spending their lives validating everything I've ever done, might actually deserve a little down time.
I'm realizing that not every milestone, be it good, bad, or terrifying, needs to be passed on to the elders. Like, say, for example, when your house catches on fire.
I guess I can say I've had my metaphorical housefire-cherry broken. As a child, having my house go up in flames was absolutely my biggest fear. Well, next to cobras. Also, the white witch from Narnia. Escalators, for a time. And my sister being abducted by a serial killer.
Anyway, fire safety being paramount, I would vigilantly palm closed doors 'just in case' they were hot before I entered a room, and would be the first to knock over the family dog in order to reach the nearest exit if dinner got a little smoky on the stove. Funny that, given these proclivities, the only thing I felt when my fire alarm went off the other night was irritation.
My house's fire alarm system is a little high-strung. It's been known to whine if the back door is open and the grill is going in the yard. It doesn't like certain scented candles. Generally, when I hear it, my first instinct is to want to smack it with a bat. So when I lit an incense and went into my bedroom to savor my few kid-free moments (Lil was down the street at her friend's house), I didn't exactly hustle out to the living room when the alarm started to chime. "Fucker," I muttered, trudging out to see what the trouble was, grumpy as a teenage boy whose bathroom masturbation time has been cut short by his kid sister's need to pee, like, now.
I saw the smoke just as the ping of the alarm graduated into an urgent wail--I'd never heard it do this before, and the siren was deafening, like a hundred foghorns and ambulances converging on my living room at once. In minutes, the room had filled with gray, turbid smoke, curling furiously toward the ceiling from a fire -- A FIRE -- that was fast leaping up the wall.
You'd think this would be the time when a dramatic 'impending danger' soundtrack would play, wouldn't you? But it's shocking how utterly silent a fire really is. The only sound was me yelling, "OH MY GOD THAT IS NOT HAPPENING", over and over, which I tend to do when the fight or flight instinct is supposed to kick in for normal people.
I don't remember every detail of the next few minutes, but I do remember thinking briefly (if not absurdly), 'What would Michael Landon do?', since I generally look to Pa Ingalls as my go-to crisis guru. So I grabbed a blanket from the laundry room and hastily threw it over the fire. The flames retreated beneath a cloud of smoldering black vapors, rising up to the ceiling like hateful spirits. They stained the wall and ceiling a sticky black and coated my nostrils and throat in the savagely toxic odor of THINGS THAT ARE NOT MEANT TO CATCH ON FIRE.
As the alarm continued to wail, I suddenly thought, I should probably get the animals out of the house.
Oh, and probably me too.
Somehow I grabbed my phone and gathered the smoldering blanket, eyeing a melted plastic picture frame in the rubble. I realized that the incense stick must have somehow set the frame on fire, as it was no doubt a cheap-ass Family Dollar purchase, painted with a ridiculously flammable shellac probably not legally manufactured in this part of the world.
Stumbling outside, I called 911. Have you ever actually had to do that? punch in the numbers 9-1-1? I hadn't. I always wondered what it must be like to be the poor person on the 'actual 911 recording' you see on reality crime shows, and now I do. It sucks. I felt like someone else was talking for me, giving my address, describing the situation. Yes, a fire. No, it's out. Yes, I'm outside. Within minutes I heard sirens in the distance-- such a commonplace sound, really. I tend to hear sirens outside and feel a sense of comfort that they aren't coming for me.
Except that now they were.
Three fire trucks pulled in front of my house and men started streaming out. It's weird, but my first instinct was to hug one of them. "THANK YOU!!!" I wanted to cry, "THANK YOU FOR COMING! OH MY GOD, YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE! THIS IS SO SO NICE OF YOU! ARE YOU THIRSTY? HOW ABOUT SOME FLAVORED SELTZER??"
They marched inside and thoroughly inspected the entire house, even going into the attic to see if some residual smoke/damage had spread (it hadn't). They brought in giant industrial-sized fans and blew the caustic hate-smell out the open windows (and with it, 2 inches of black ash that covered everything in the living room. Amazing how even a small fire can cause SO much damage). By then neighbors had started coming out of their houses, rubbernecking to see if there might be anyone passed out on the lawn or trying to jump to their death from an open window. My friend Khipi pulled up and I crumbled into her arms. Jeremy arrived a few minutes later and I pulled him close, so grateful to have people in my life willing to just come and BE with me.
I caught the reflection of my tear-and-soot-smeared face in a window and sob-laughed. "Do I look hot right now?" I asked Jeremy. "Like, in a Little Match Girl sort of way?"
We all cracked up because it felt like the right thing to do.
In the end, there was only cosmetic damage to the wall and a small part of the ceiling. The firemen told me it was lucky that I acted so quickly and put the fire out before it spread. The dog was panic-stricken but safe in the yard, and the cats, I don't think, even noticed a thing. Lily was safe at her friend Molly's house, and it seemed, for now, we had dodged one very hot bullet.
As the firemen were leaving, I still felt compelled to throw myself at them in gratitude. Maybe I could send them a fruit basket or something, I thought. I mean, really. They deserve it. A bottle of wine, a thank you card. Something.
I got through the rest of the night with the help of my loved ones and a large jug of wine. But it was everything I could do not to call my folks. It seemed unnatural, wrong, to keep this from them.
But I didn't call.
I'll tell them about it at some point. They'll probably read this post and go, "WHAT THE HELL?? A FIRE?!?!" but by then the danger will have long passed and it will be just something that happened, no big deal. I'm ok not sharing this with them, because they've spent their lives trying to protect me from unpleasantness and pain and worry. And I think it's time I start doing the same thing for them.
As the product of a closely-knit family of oversharers, I've typically told my family EVERYTHING. Not sure why, but I feel like every weird, wonderful, humiliating or painful event isn't really and truly HAPPENING to me until I've broadcast it to my mom and dad.
It has come to my attention, however, that it isn't necessarily appropriate to pick up the horn and impart absolutely everything to my parents, who are 3,000 miles away, retired, and after spending their lives validating everything I've ever done, might actually deserve a little down time.
I'm realizing that not every milestone, be it good, bad, or terrifying, needs to be passed on to the elders. Like, say, for example, when your house catches on fire.
I guess I can say I've had my metaphorical housefire-cherry broken. As a child, having my house go up in flames was absolutely my biggest fear. Well, next to cobras. Also, the white witch from Narnia. Escalators, for a time. And my sister being abducted by a serial killer.
Anyway, fire safety being paramount, I would vigilantly palm closed doors 'just in case' they were hot before I entered a room, and would be the first to knock over the family dog in order to reach the nearest exit if dinner got a little smoky on the stove. Funny that, given these proclivities, the only thing I felt when my fire alarm went off the other night was irritation.
My house's fire alarm system is a little high-strung. It's been known to whine if the back door is open and the grill is going in the yard. It doesn't like certain scented candles. Generally, when I hear it, my first instinct is to want to smack it with a bat. So when I lit an incense and went into my bedroom to savor my few kid-free moments (Lil was down the street at her friend's house), I didn't exactly hustle out to the living room when the alarm started to chime. "Fucker," I muttered, trudging out to see what the trouble was, grumpy as a teenage boy whose bathroom masturbation time has been cut short by his kid sister's need to pee, like, now.
I saw the smoke just as the ping of the alarm graduated into an urgent wail--I'd never heard it do this before, and the siren was deafening, like a hundred foghorns and ambulances converging on my living room at once. In minutes, the room had filled with gray, turbid smoke, curling furiously toward the ceiling from a fire -- A FIRE -- that was fast leaping up the wall.
You'd think this would be the time when a dramatic 'impending danger' soundtrack would play, wouldn't you? But it's shocking how utterly silent a fire really is. The only sound was me yelling, "OH MY GOD THAT IS NOT HAPPENING", over and over, which I tend to do when the fight or flight instinct is supposed to kick in for normal people.
I don't remember every detail of the next few minutes, but I do remember thinking briefly (if not absurdly), 'What would Michael Landon do?', since I generally look to Pa Ingalls as my go-to crisis guru. So I grabbed a blanket from the laundry room and hastily threw it over the fire. The flames retreated beneath a cloud of smoldering black vapors, rising up to the ceiling like hateful spirits. They stained the wall and ceiling a sticky black and coated my nostrils and throat in the savagely toxic odor of THINGS THAT ARE NOT MEANT TO CATCH ON FIRE.
As the alarm continued to wail, I suddenly thought, I should probably get the animals out of the house.
Oh, and probably me too.
Somehow I grabbed my phone and gathered the smoldering blanket, eyeing a melted plastic picture frame in the rubble. I realized that the incense stick must have somehow set the frame on fire, as it was no doubt a cheap-ass Family Dollar purchase, painted with a ridiculously flammable shellac probably not legally manufactured in this part of the world.
Stumbling outside, I called 911. Have you ever actually had to do that? punch in the numbers 9-1-1? I hadn't. I always wondered what it must be like to be the poor person on the 'actual 911 recording' you see on reality crime shows, and now I do. It sucks. I felt like someone else was talking for me, giving my address, describing the situation. Yes, a fire. No, it's out. Yes, I'm outside. Within minutes I heard sirens in the distance-- such a commonplace sound, really. I tend to hear sirens outside and feel a sense of comfort that they aren't coming for me.
Except that now they were.
Three fire trucks pulled in front of my house and men started streaming out. It's weird, but my first instinct was to hug one of them. "THANK YOU!!!" I wanted to cry, "THANK YOU FOR COMING! OH MY GOD, YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE! THIS IS SO SO NICE OF YOU! ARE YOU THIRSTY? HOW ABOUT SOME FLAVORED SELTZER??"
They marched inside and thoroughly inspected the entire house, even going into the attic to see if some residual smoke/damage had spread (it hadn't). They brought in giant industrial-sized fans and blew the caustic hate-smell out the open windows (and with it, 2 inches of black ash that covered everything in the living room. Amazing how even a small fire can cause SO much damage). By then neighbors had started coming out of their houses, rubbernecking to see if there might be anyone passed out on the lawn or trying to jump to their death from an open window. My friend Khipi pulled up and I crumbled into her arms. Jeremy arrived a few minutes later and I pulled him close, so grateful to have people in my life willing to just come and BE with me.
I caught the reflection of my tear-and-soot-smeared face in a window and sob-laughed. "Do I look hot right now?" I asked Jeremy. "Like, in a Little Match Girl sort of way?"
We all cracked up because it felt like the right thing to do.
In the end, there was only cosmetic damage to the wall and a small part of the ceiling. The firemen told me it was lucky that I acted so quickly and put the fire out before it spread. The dog was panic-stricken but safe in the yard, and the cats, I don't think, even noticed a thing. Lily was safe at her friend Molly's house, and it seemed, for now, we had dodged one very hot bullet.
As the firemen were leaving, I still felt compelled to throw myself at them in gratitude. Maybe I could send them a fruit basket or something, I thought. I mean, really. They deserve it. A bottle of wine, a thank you card. Something.
I got through the rest of the night with the help of my loved ones and a large jug of wine. But it was everything I could do not to call my folks. It seemed unnatural, wrong, to keep this from them.
But I didn't call.
I'll tell them about it at some point. They'll probably read this post and go, "WHAT THE HELL?? A FIRE?!?!" but by then the danger will have long passed and it will be just something that happened, no big deal. I'm ok not sharing this with them, because they've spent their lives trying to protect me from unpleasantness and pain and worry. And I think it's time I start doing the same thing for them.
Wednesday, February 12, 2014
Those aren't really skinny jeans; they're too-tight jeans that don't look good on your butt
My daughter actually said this to me today when I was getting dressed. I am living with an insult ninja. It seems that every morning lately I must steel myself against a varied and colorful barrage of indignities, hurled like Chinese throwing stars, not from an abusive partner or bitchy co-worker or vindictive celebrity gossip site, but a from a knock-kneed ten-year old sitting cross-legged on my bed. She turned double digits and the filter button on what comes out of her mouth just sort of broke.
It's not bad enough that I'm my own worst critic – after a weekend diet of nachos and wine and an exercise regime consisting of draping myself across the couch and watching "Glee", my jeans DO feel a tad like sausage casings, so I choose a flowy top that will be sure to cover my puffy midsection. Also, I will admit that I tilt my full-length mirror against the wall at an angle that makes my reflection look a little bit thinner and taller, because it helps me start my morning off in a proper frame of mind. What do you want from me? I do what I can.
But now my daughter, speeding down the luge to adolescence, feels the need to critique everything about me, and it's like living with Joan Rivers and my bathroom is the red carpet. No area is off-limits, being it my outfit or my boot-heel-height, the age-appropriateness of my hair color, or appalling lack of eye-makeup.
And don't even get me started on Lily's critiquing of my child-rearing style. ("Haley's Dad lets HER watch Freddy Krueger! Molly is allowed to Facetime on HER IPOD TOUCH!!! UGHHH!) Always I am reminded of my shortcomings in the Momming Department, these sentiments constantly punctuated with requisite eye-rolling and shoulder slumping that really drive home the point that her life, like, totally sucks.
I read an article today that likened tween (I hate that word) girls to folks suffering from multiple personality disorders. I laughed out loud when I read that, because it rang so terrifyingly true. Over the last few months I have treaded very lightly around my daughter, worrying that too much sarcasm or the wrong question about a boy in her class might embarrass her right into having her first period all over my kitchen floor.
It's as if suddenly Lily woke up and found herself with such an overdose of emotions and opinions that she had no choice but to release them constantly and without any filter, for fear of absolutely imploding. She suddenly is experiencing life with such an intensity I worry sometimes that her head will pop off her body from all the drama-tinged adrenaline.
So I try to talk to other moms. Seems that this is a relatively new but all-too-common trend: our girls are growing up a lot faster than they used to. One mom frowned, "Oh yeah, she tells me I ruin her life just about every day." A co-worker with two teens suggested her behavior could be fueled by hormones in flux. So we went to the health food store and bought some overpriced "Power Teen" vitamins. The hot pink label on the bottle boasts lightning bolts and a sexually ambiguous girl skateboarder. Seemed like a good place to start. But god forbid anyone know that she's taking them. Though it's great to think about being older and cool, Lily is horrified by the things that are about to happen to her body. She's looking forward to growing up, I think, but scared of it too.
That makes two of us.
It's not bad enough that I'm my own worst critic – after a weekend diet of nachos and wine and an exercise regime consisting of draping myself across the couch and watching "Glee", my jeans DO feel a tad like sausage casings, so I choose a flowy top that will be sure to cover my puffy midsection. Also, I will admit that I tilt my full-length mirror against the wall at an angle that makes my reflection look a little bit thinner and taller, because it helps me start my morning off in a proper frame of mind. What do you want from me? I do what I can.
But now my daughter, speeding down the luge to adolescence, feels the need to critique everything about me, and it's like living with Joan Rivers and my bathroom is the red carpet. No area is off-limits, being it my outfit or my boot-heel-height, the age-appropriateness of my hair color, or appalling lack of eye-makeup.
And don't even get me started on Lily's critiquing of my child-rearing style. ("Haley's Dad lets HER watch Freddy Krueger! Molly is allowed to Facetime on HER IPOD TOUCH!!! UGHHH!) Always I am reminded of my shortcomings in the Momming Department, these sentiments constantly punctuated with requisite eye-rolling and shoulder slumping that really drive home the point that her life, like, totally sucks.
I read an article today that likened tween (I hate that word) girls to folks suffering from multiple personality disorders. I laughed out loud when I read that, because it rang so terrifyingly true. Over the last few months I have treaded very lightly around my daughter, worrying that too much sarcasm or the wrong question about a boy in her class might embarrass her right into having her first period all over my kitchen floor.
It's as if suddenly Lily woke up and found herself with such an overdose of emotions and opinions that she had no choice but to release them constantly and without any filter, for fear of absolutely imploding. She suddenly is experiencing life with such an intensity I worry sometimes that her head will pop off her body from all the drama-tinged adrenaline.
So I try to talk to other moms. Seems that this is a relatively new but all-too-common trend: our girls are growing up a lot faster than they used to. One mom frowned, "Oh yeah, she tells me I ruin her life just about every day." A co-worker with two teens suggested her behavior could be fueled by hormones in flux. So we went to the health food store and bought some overpriced "Power Teen" vitamins. The hot pink label on the bottle boasts lightning bolts and a sexually ambiguous girl skateboarder. Seemed like a good place to start. But god forbid anyone know that she's taking them. Though it's great to think about being older and cool, Lily is horrified by the things that are about to happen to her body. She's looking forward to growing up, I think, but scared of it too.
That makes two of us.
Monday, November 18, 2013
I Miss Writing
I miss writing so much. It feels like I'm missing an appendage, maybe something small, like a finger...not so big like an arm or a leg. Nothing you absolutely cannot survive without, but something that makes the day to day seem easier, more fluid, somehow.
I have been so busy trying to keep my head above water I maybe forgot how to swim a bit. I definitely forgot how to float. I would give anything to just sit back on cool lapping waves and just drift. On a purple blow-up floatie. That'd be divine.
Lately I have been feeling my heart pounding a little harder. I worry about high blood pressure but probably I have about ten years before that's really gonna be a problem.
I literally start to panic when the sun goes down b/c I know that the day is going to be over soon and I have only completed a portion of what's on my 'to do' list.
I probably need to slow down.
I have been taking my dog for a walk at night with Lily and those are my most serene moments...those and the times we spend piled up in my bed when we get home from work and school and I strip off my clothes an slip into yoga pants and the three of us just jump onto the bed and grab at each other...the dog, who is all mouth, tries to get a hold of us in any way he can. He is so excited for the attention and contact. Lil, still in her plaid uniform, does a silly dance and tucks her head down so Ted can nuzzle the hell out of her. These are the moments I am trying to hold on to. These are the things that I need to keep me tethered when I feel like I'm just going going going and I don't see any end in sight...
I have been so busy trying to keep my head above water I maybe forgot how to swim a bit. I definitely forgot how to float. I would give anything to just sit back on cool lapping waves and just drift. On a purple blow-up floatie. That'd be divine.
Lately I have been feeling my heart pounding a little harder. I worry about high blood pressure but probably I have about ten years before that's really gonna be a problem.
I literally start to panic when the sun goes down b/c I know that the day is going to be over soon and I have only completed a portion of what's on my 'to do' list.
I probably need to slow down.
I have been taking my dog for a walk at night with Lily and those are my most serene moments...those and the times we spend piled up in my bed when we get home from work and school and I strip off my clothes an slip into yoga pants and the three of us just jump onto the bed and grab at each other...the dog, who is all mouth, tries to get a hold of us in any way he can. He is so excited for the attention and contact. Lil, still in her plaid uniform, does a silly dance and tucks her head down so Ted can nuzzle the hell out of her. These are the moments I am trying to hold on to. These are the things that I need to keep me tethered when I feel like I'm just going going going and I don't see any end in sight...
Monday, October 7, 2013
Sometimes You're Just Mrs. Bucket
Hey moms: do you sometimes find yourselves feeling like Mrs. Bucket? Not the quirky, buck-toothed, Tim Burton Pixie played by an extra camped-up Helena Bonham Carter; that one never resonated with me. I'm talking about the greasy-nosed, red-straw-haired Mrs. Bucket from the 1960s, the one who slaved all day washing strangers's clothes in a hot steamy vat of something resembling cream of celery soup for probably a dollar a day. The one who wore a scratchy-looking, worn-at-the-elbows sweater and made cabbage water to feed her extended family of parents and in-laws who all shared a bed in the living room/kitchen. The one who called a loaf of bread 'a real banquet'.
THAT Mrs. Bucket. Ever feel like that?
I do.
I did today, in fact. Scooping laundry out of the washing machine and dumping it into the dryer for the seventh time since I got home from work (OH, how many times have I walked away without remembering to turn that motherfucker on, only to return the next morning to a sodden, musty pile of dank towels and school uniforms?!!)
I clutch my aching back and hum REM's "Finest Worksong" while simultaneously calling out spelling words to test the kid, and keeping one eye on the stove to make sure dinner isn't getting more burned than usual...
That woman, Mrs. Bucket, that is, seemed to me the epitome of every failure a woman could possibly face, all rolled into one overwrought, exhausted wretch of a human being.
Mrs. Bucket days are the worst. I think the only bright spot in this whole miserable scenario is that there is, luckily, a tomorrow. I can pack it in and get a good night's sleep and there will be coffee and a sunrise in my future, and clean hair and a worn pair of jeans and my favorite boots and tomorrow I get another shot at doing this all over again...
Here's to keeping Mrs. Bucket at bay.
THAT Mrs. Bucket. Ever feel like that?
I do.
I did today, in fact. Scooping laundry out of the washing machine and dumping it into the dryer for the seventh time since I got home from work (OH, how many times have I walked away without remembering to turn that motherfucker on, only to return the next morning to a sodden, musty pile of dank towels and school uniforms?!!)
I clutch my aching back and hum REM's "Finest Worksong" while simultaneously calling out spelling words to test the kid, and keeping one eye on the stove to make sure dinner isn't getting more burned than usual...
That woman, Mrs. Bucket, that is, seemed to me the epitome of every failure a woman could possibly face, all rolled into one overwrought, exhausted wretch of a human being.
Mrs. Bucket days are the worst. I think the only bright spot in this whole miserable scenario is that there is, luckily, a tomorrow. I can pack it in and get a good night's sleep and there will be coffee and a sunrise in my future, and clean hair and a worn pair of jeans and my favorite boots and tomorrow I get another shot at doing this all over again...
Here's to keeping Mrs. Bucket at bay.
Wednesday, August 7, 2013
Things I learned this summer
Man, I cannot believe the summer is practically over. My summer, anyway. The rest of y'all still have like a month of it left. Actually, we down south have about 4 months of it left actually, so I win.
Ever since Lily and I moved to Louisiana - gasp! - four years ago, her dad and I concocted a harebrained yet workable arrangement which allows her to spend the school year with me, and the summer with him in New York.
It's a good deal, I think. Since I chose to take my kid and hightail it thousands of miles away from all of our family, I inadvertently put myself in a situation where I don't get a lot of relief at those times when I'm ready to lose myself in a single mama pity-party, so the summer, for the last three years anyway, has been a bit of a respite for me. OK more than a bit. It's fucking ruled.
Lil gets to go and live in the mountains and hang with her cousins; she enjoys healthy activities like swimming, tending her grandmother's vegetable garden, bonding with her dad, and generally cavorting the normal kid-in-the-summer way that our subtropical climate does not allow. I get to read more, not buy groceries, and join my boyfriend in bloody-mary-soaked brunches that sometimes extend to dinner time on Saturdays. My batteries get recharged and by the time fall rolls around, I've undergone a much-needed attitude adjustment and am ready to take it all on again.
The time apart is hard, make no mistake. It's very strange being a full-time single mother who is joined at the hip with her adored, possibly overindulged, attachment-parented offspring, and then suddenly being allowed to act like I did in my early twenties for a summer break. I go through the self-flagellation that goes along with letting ones nine-year old spend two months away from her. However, I think given the choice of a summer spent riding bikes outside and catching lightning bugs vs. two months sitting in some poorly air-conditioned rec room at the Y while the temperature outside verges on deep-fry, any fool would want the former for their kid. Since I work full time, and we live in a part of the country that has absolutely inhumanely high summer temperatures, it really is a no-brainer. New York it is.
The summer is also a nice time for me to reflect and allow myself to learn lessons that I otherwise might be too busy sticking my head up my own ass during the school year to figure out. Lke:
1. It's okay sometimes to drink alcohol at brunch, come home, take a nap, wake up, eat dinner, and binge-watch Netflix till bedtime. THIS IS GOOD FOR YOU.
3. You can make all the 'must do over the summer' lists you want in order to create the illusion of some sort of control over your life, but you will never get to everything. Maybe two things. One.
4. Since you have a kindle now and are all fancy and shit, and suddenly find yourself with a little extra time on your hands to read the 85 books on your Goodreads list, that doesn't mean it's wise to download a shit ton of them over the course of one month. Amazon ain't the library, dumbass . That shit adds up.
5. No matter how much you will it , your ex still isn't going to get his shit together and at least once in the coming school year you are going to be more than tempted to engage in that inevitable, icky exchange of hate-texts because he hasn't paid the school tuition. Try and stop yourself. Just pause…see if you can find that floating-in-a-sensory-deprivation-tank zen you reached this summer when your morning routine consisted solely of hitting snooze several times, slapping on some eyeliner, and driving to work while listening to NPR.
You can do it, girl. I know you can.
That's it for now. I get my little one back in two days. See y'all then.
Ever since Lily and I moved to Louisiana - gasp! - four years ago, her dad and I concocted a harebrained yet workable arrangement which allows her to spend the school year with me, and the summer with him in New York.
It's a good deal, I think. Since I chose to take my kid and hightail it thousands of miles away from all of our family, I inadvertently put myself in a situation where I don't get a lot of relief at those times when I'm ready to lose myself in a single mama pity-party, so the summer, for the last three years anyway, has been a bit of a respite for me. OK more than a bit. It's fucking ruled.
Lil gets to go and live in the mountains and hang with her cousins; she enjoys healthy activities like swimming, tending her grandmother's vegetable garden, bonding with her dad, and generally cavorting the normal kid-in-the-summer way that our subtropical climate does not allow. I get to read more, not buy groceries, and join my boyfriend in bloody-mary-soaked brunches that sometimes extend to dinner time on Saturdays. My batteries get recharged and by the time fall rolls around, I've undergone a much-needed attitude adjustment and am ready to take it all on again.
The time apart is hard, make no mistake. It's very strange being a full-time single mother who is joined at the hip with her adored, possibly overindulged, attachment-parented offspring, and then suddenly being allowed to act like I did in my early twenties for a summer break. I go through the self-flagellation that goes along with letting ones nine-year old spend two months away from her. However, I think given the choice of a summer spent riding bikes outside and catching lightning bugs vs. two months sitting in some poorly air-conditioned rec room at the Y while the temperature outside verges on deep-fry, any fool would want the former for their kid. Since I work full time, and we live in a part of the country that has absolutely inhumanely high summer temperatures, it really is a no-brainer. New York it is.
The summer is also a nice time for me to reflect and allow myself to learn lessons that I otherwise might be too busy sticking my head up my own ass during the school year to figure out. Lke:
1. It's okay sometimes to drink alcohol at brunch, come home, take a nap, wake up, eat dinner, and binge-watch Netflix till bedtime. THIS IS GOOD FOR YOU.
3. You can make all the 'must do over the summer' lists you want in order to create the illusion of some sort of control over your life, but you will never get to everything. Maybe two things. One.
4. Since you have a kindle now and are all fancy and shit, and suddenly find yourself with a little extra time on your hands to read the 85 books on your Goodreads list, that doesn't mean it's wise to download a shit ton of them over the course of one month. Amazon ain't the library, dumbass . That shit adds up.
5. No matter how much you will it , your ex still isn't going to get his shit together and at least once in the coming school year you are going to be more than tempted to engage in that inevitable, icky exchange of hate-texts because he hasn't paid the school tuition. Try and stop yourself. Just pause…see if you can find that floating-in-a-sensory-deprivation-tank zen you reached this summer when your morning routine consisted solely of hitting snooze several times, slapping on some eyeliner, and driving to work while listening to NPR.
You can do it, girl. I know you can.
That's it for now. I get my little one back in two days. See y'all then.
Sunday, July 28, 2013
Talking to God in my car
I suppose I'm what you'd call a Recovering Catholic. I was raised in a culture heavily saturated in good white people christian values; I spent every Sunday morning confused as hell as I tried to decode the important lessons in scripture readings while trying not to end up getting physically separated from my sister, who always started out sitting next to me, but ended up somehow making me laugh uncontrollably at some point during the mass.
My ass bones ached from being planted on splintery pew, and I gazed dreamily at a stubbly-chinned statue of a half-naked man whose alabaster skin was covered in blood and whose rib bones stuck out in a way that I was shamefully envious of. This man, I was told, knew everything. He was the only child of God and Mary, who for whatever reason decided to come together on this one and only occasion and create a superman who would come and go in the blink of an eye, with the sole purpose of cleansing us of our earthly sins by dying a brutal and grotesque death and then coming back in his human form to save us all.
Well, those of us who believed all that, anyway.
Catholicism still confounds me. My relationship with faith has been meandering and complicated; once I got to college, I began to question the things I'd been taught. I had an atheist roommate whose family decorated their Christmas tree with flowers and pictures and had a Pagan sun sitting on its top, rather than an angel. I dated a Lutheran guy. I stopped going to church. It just didn't make sense to me anymore.
I remember having an argument with my mother on the phone after I'd graduated college, but hadn't actually gotten around to leaving my college town just yet. I was working at a hotel and was being forced to work Christmas eve and was trying to explain to my family that no, they didn't have to wait to go to church with me on Christmas day; I was only going to be driving home for the afternoon and they liked the midnight mass on Christmas eve with the candles and shit, and it totally wasn't a big deal if they went without me. My mother wouldn't hear of it.
"Of course you're going with us. We'll just go on Christmas afternoon."
"Mom..." I began, feeling conflicted but also stupidly self-righteous and every bit as know-it-allish as a 23 year old with an English degree working in a hotel in her college town.
"I'm... not going to go. I'm...I'm just not Catholic anymore."
After a stunned silence, my mother responded, "Well, of COURSE you're Catholic! I mean, you were BORN Catholic!"
I considered this and decided not to engage in what I knew would be an argument I'd regret having. There was no point in explaining to my mother that while I was born Italian and Irish, Catholicism was something that I was free to choose, and I was now choosing not to be a part of it anymore. Unlike to me, religion made sense to her. It was important and part of who she was. My turning my back on it was like turning my back on my family, on her, on what she'd taught me. I think I ended up doing something passive-aggressive like coming home way after all the masses were over, just so I wouldn't have to have the conflict. Now I understand more what it meant to her to have me go to church with her.
Anyway. I've spent the last 20 years being really okay with my decision to abandon the Catholic faith. I didn't baptize my daughter but instead chose to have a hippie-inspired naming ceremony in a public park in Queens, serving vegetarian food and listening to latin music from a the boom box of a homeless guy who wouldn't go away til we gave him a plate of food.
Despite my lack of taste for organized religion, I've never stopped believing in God. Or a higher power. Or the Universe. Whatever you want to call it. I don't even know what to call it, really. I have always had faith in a greater plan...maybe some divine blueprint for every person's life that we can't be sure of but can help explain things like pain that seems pointless but ulitimately teaches us something. Or the unadulterated love we can feel for another person. I talk to God a lot. Mostly in my car, when I am alone. It's like free therapy and no one tells you you're actually fucked up and should change things about your life.
For me, it's all I need.
My ass bones ached from being planted on splintery pew, and I gazed dreamily at a stubbly-chinned statue of a half-naked man whose alabaster skin was covered in blood and whose rib bones stuck out in a way that I was shamefully envious of. This man, I was told, knew everything. He was the only child of God and Mary, who for whatever reason decided to come together on this one and only occasion and create a superman who would come and go in the blink of an eye, with the sole purpose of cleansing us of our earthly sins by dying a brutal and grotesque death and then coming back in his human form to save us all.
Well, those of us who believed all that, anyway.
Catholicism still confounds me. My relationship with faith has been meandering and complicated; once I got to college, I began to question the things I'd been taught. I had an atheist roommate whose family decorated their Christmas tree with flowers and pictures and had a Pagan sun sitting on its top, rather than an angel. I dated a Lutheran guy. I stopped going to church. It just didn't make sense to me anymore.
I remember having an argument with my mother on the phone after I'd graduated college, but hadn't actually gotten around to leaving my college town just yet. I was working at a hotel and was being forced to work Christmas eve and was trying to explain to my family that no, they didn't have to wait to go to church with me on Christmas day; I was only going to be driving home for the afternoon and they liked the midnight mass on Christmas eve with the candles and shit, and it totally wasn't a big deal if they went without me. My mother wouldn't hear of it.
"Of course you're going with us. We'll just go on Christmas afternoon."
"Mom..." I began, feeling conflicted but also stupidly self-righteous and every bit as know-it-allish as a 23 year old with an English degree working in a hotel in her college town.
"I'm... not going to go. I'm...I'm just not Catholic anymore."
After a stunned silence, my mother responded, "Well, of COURSE you're Catholic! I mean, you were BORN Catholic!"
I considered this and decided not to engage in what I knew would be an argument I'd regret having. There was no point in explaining to my mother that while I was born Italian and Irish, Catholicism was something that I was free to choose, and I was now choosing not to be a part of it anymore. Unlike to me, religion made sense to her. It was important and part of who she was. My turning my back on it was like turning my back on my family, on her, on what she'd taught me. I think I ended up doing something passive-aggressive like coming home way after all the masses were over, just so I wouldn't have to have the conflict. Now I understand more what it meant to her to have me go to church with her.
Anyway. I've spent the last 20 years being really okay with my decision to abandon the Catholic faith. I didn't baptize my daughter but instead chose to have a hippie-inspired naming ceremony in a public park in Queens, serving vegetarian food and listening to latin music from a the boom box of a homeless guy who wouldn't go away til we gave him a plate of food.
Despite my lack of taste for organized religion, I've never stopped believing in God. Or a higher power. Or the Universe. Whatever you want to call it. I don't even know what to call it, really. I have always had faith in a greater plan...maybe some divine blueprint for every person's life that we can't be sure of but can help explain things like pain that seems pointless but ulitimately teaches us something. Or the unadulterated love we can feel for another person. I talk to God a lot. Mostly in my car, when I am alone. It's like free therapy and no one tells you you're actually fucked up and should change things about your life.
For me, it's all I need.
Tuesday, July 2, 2013
Home Improvement
Sometimes I wonder how it is that the universe saw fit to approve me for a mortgage.
I'm not exactly what you'd call handy.
In fact I'm a girl who, years ago, managed to completely clog the industrial-strength toilet in my NYC pre-war apartment; this building had a septic system that had seen the likes of giant rodents, probably, and chicken bones, childrens' toys, and all manners of assorted trash. Yet with one tampon I managed to bring the efficient superflushing of this well-oiled system to its knees. My super was regularly knocking on my door with a frozen 'Ima Kill yous' hate-smile twisted on his lips (he was from eastern Europe. Please excuse the crude attempt at an accent coming from his face). In other words, I was not a person who should be trusted with her own real estate.
And yet, here I am.
Two years and I've managed not to flood or blow up or burn my little house down; in fact I've even managed to keep it in rather good working condition, save for a few minor repairs I've had to pay the good people of Louisiana to help with, since I tend to look at two wires coming out of a machine and melt into an overwhelmed heap of anxiety.
So when I decided it'd be cool to take up all the stinky wall-to-wall carpeting in the bedrooms of my house, I thought, hey. Here's an opportunity for me to learn how to do household-y things and get that sense of satisfaction that can only come with knowing you did it all on your own (with the help of my boyfriend, of course. Ok, he did most of it).
All in all, it went great. The carpets came up and we hand-laid some very convincing-looking faux-wood laminate in each room. The cats fretted at now having no viable places to revenge-urinate and I learned what it was like to sleep without being violently awoken by dry-coughing up whatever dusty parasites had been living in the rugs for the 20 year lifespan of my home.
All I needed to do now was buy quarter round. For the layperson (because I'm all home-improvementy and shit now), this is that little wooden stick thingy that goes between the wall and the floor and makes it seem like maybe a professional actually installed your floor. I took measurements of each room and brought them proudly to Lowes so that I could purchase the final leg of this very impressive project.
But when I got there, it was awful. I'm not even sure what happened. Suddenly I felt like a small child lost in a giant city, looking up at these impossibly tall skyscraper aisles, packed floor-to-ceiling with HARDWARE. I wandered, mouth slack, praying that no one could tell how confused I was and figure out that I actually did not belong there.
I must have stumbled around for a good ten minutes before a kindly teen employee asked if I needed help. I nodded and mutely palmed my sweaty sheet of measurements into his hand, looking up hopefully. The kid had to do a bunch of conversions from inches to feet on his iphone (DUH, why didn't I think of that?!!) and finally pointed me in the right direction.
But when I found what I needed I realized I would need a special cart to carry the 8 feet pieces of wood to the cash register, and then, omg, get it in my car somehow. A beefy, red-faced contractor in a dirty LSU tee shirt looked at me mockingly and asked if I was actually going to put install all the quarter-round myself. What I heard was, 'Hey there, little lady. How's about you walk those tits next door to Target and buy yourself a nice tea kettle and leave the man-shopping to dicks like me".
I urgently needed to get out of there. And so I did.
I literally speed-walked my humiliated girl-legs out the sliding doors, leaving behind all of my haughty, do-it-yourself gumption behind to rot with the sawdust in the store.
Ashamed, I jumped into my car and sped home, feeling like a world-class asshole.
I'm not sure what came over me. I just got so freaked out.
Anyway. A couple days have passed, and I'm ready to try it again.
Gulp. Wish me luck, y'all.
I'm not exactly what you'd call handy.
In fact I'm a girl who, years ago, managed to completely clog the industrial-strength toilet in my NYC pre-war apartment; this building had a septic system that had seen the likes of giant rodents, probably, and chicken bones, childrens' toys, and all manners of assorted trash. Yet with one tampon I managed to bring the efficient superflushing of this well-oiled system to its knees. My super was regularly knocking on my door with a frozen 'Ima Kill yous' hate-smile twisted on his lips (he was from eastern Europe. Please excuse the crude attempt at an accent coming from his face). In other words, I was not a person who should be trusted with her own real estate.
And yet, here I am.
Two years and I've managed not to flood or blow up or burn my little house down; in fact I've even managed to keep it in rather good working condition, save for a few minor repairs I've had to pay the good people of Louisiana to help with, since I tend to look at two wires coming out of a machine and melt into an overwhelmed heap of anxiety.
So when I decided it'd be cool to take up all the stinky wall-to-wall carpeting in the bedrooms of my house, I thought, hey. Here's an opportunity for me to learn how to do household-y things and get that sense of satisfaction that can only come with knowing you did it all on your own (with the help of my boyfriend, of course. Ok, he did most of it).
All in all, it went great. The carpets came up and we hand-laid some very convincing-looking faux-wood laminate in each room. The cats fretted at now having no viable places to revenge-urinate and I learned what it was like to sleep without being violently awoken by dry-coughing up whatever dusty parasites had been living in the rugs for the 20 year lifespan of my home.
All I needed to do now was buy quarter round. For the layperson (because I'm all home-improvementy and shit now), this is that little wooden stick thingy that goes between the wall and the floor and makes it seem like maybe a professional actually installed your floor. I took measurements of each room and brought them proudly to Lowes so that I could purchase the final leg of this very impressive project.
But when I got there, it was awful. I'm not even sure what happened. Suddenly I felt like a small child lost in a giant city, looking up at these impossibly tall skyscraper aisles, packed floor-to-ceiling with HARDWARE. I wandered, mouth slack, praying that no one could tell how confused I was and figure out that I actually did not belong there.
I must have stumbled around for a good ten minutes before a kindly teen employee asked if I needed help. I nodded and mutely palmed my sweaty sheet of measurements into his hand, looking up hopefully. The kid had to do a bunch of conversions from inches to feet on his iphone (DUH, why didn't I think of that?!!) and finally pointed me in the right direction.
But when I found what I needed I realized I would need a special cart to carry the 8 feet pieces of wood to the cash register, and then, omg, get it in my car somehow. A beefy, red-faced contractor in a dirty LSU tee shirt looked at me mockingly and asked if I was actually going to put install all the quarter-round myself. What I heard was, 'Hey there, little lady. How's about you walk those tits next door to Target and buy yourself a nice tea kettle and leave the man-shopping to dicks like me".
I urgently needed to get out of there. And so I did.
I literally speed-walked my humiliated girl-legs out the sliding doors, leaving behind all of my haughty, do-it-yourself gumption behind to rot with the sawdust in the store.
Ashamed, I jumped into my car and sped home, feeling like a world-class asshole.
I'm not sure what came over me. I just got so freaked out.
Anyway. A couple days have passed, and I'm ready to try it again.
Gulp. Wish me luck, y'all.
Friday, May 27, 2011
Back...ish
It's been a retardedly long time since I've updated this blog. I have been a little busy.
Well, a lot busy. Also, since I've discovered twitter (username: krissyface73...follow me! And just watch the hilarity ensue!!), I generally only have enough energy for 140 characters worth of bullshit every day, and that has sort of satisfied my need to express myself. But I do miss you, blogger...I do...
Since we last met, I have watched my small fry graduate from first grade (it was so cute, but I'm glad they won't have another 'ceremony' til 5th grade, b/c, really? Pomp and Circumstance for 7 year olds? Really?), gotten a new job and bought my own house. That's right, lovelies. This bitch be a homeowner. It's kind of alarming to imagine any bank that would give me a mortgage, but it turns out, quite a few were willing to take a chance on a girl like me and cross their fingers and toes that I'd make my monthly payments which, so far, I've been able to do.
So the tone of this ongoing yarn that is a (basically honest) chronicle of my (sometimes awesome, sometimes downright scary, mostly fairly status quo) life will, you'll notice, shift a bit, as I'm no longer the sassy single mama in NYC but a homeowner in the deep south.
Really.
I know, I can hardly say it with a straight face, either.
So stick around for riveting tales of Kristin shopping for the right garden hose!!
Killing fire ants!!!
Baiting mouse traps with peanut butter!!!
Getting drunk on her porch swing while listening to peeper frogs!!
I promise this time I'll try and stick around more.
xo
Well, a lot busy. Also, since I've discovered twitter (username: krissyface73...follow me! And just watch the hilarity ensue!!), I generally only have enough energy for 140 characters worth of bullshit every day, and that has sort of satisfied my need to express myself. But I do miss you, blogger...I do...
Since we last met, I have watched my small fry graduate from first grade (it was so cute, but I'm glad they won't have another 'ceremony' til 5th grade, b/c, really? Pomp and Circumstance for 7 year olds? Really?), gotten a new job and bought my own house. That's right, lovelies. This bitch be a homeowner. It's kind of alarming to imagine any bank that would give me a mortgage, but it turns out, quite a few were willing to take a chance on a girl like me and cross their fingers and toes that I'd make my monthly payments which, so far, I've been able to do.
So the tone of this ongoing yarn that is a (basically honest) chronicle of my (sometimes awesome, sometimes downright scary, mostly fairly status quo) life will, you'll notice, shift a bit, as I'm no longer the sassy single mama in NYC but a homeowner in the deep south.
Really.
I know, I can hardly say it with a straight face, either.
So stick around for riveting tales of Kristin shopping for the right garden hose!!
Killing fire ants!!!
Baiting mouse traps with peanut butter!!!
Getting drunk on her porch swing while listening to peeper frogs!!
I promise this time I'll try and stick around more.
xo
Thursday, December 9, 2010
And I'm 12 again
It's amazing how the brain works. It stores everything that's ever happened to you, but without you realizing it. Like a camera behind your eyes. You're the Big Brother of your life. Nowhere is this more evident than in dreams. Dreams are incredible; somehow the protective wall that keeps us from going insane during consciousness comes down in sleep and we remember everything...the way a 13 year old boy smelled when he leaned so close to whisper something to you. The way it felt when the popular girl reduced you to a pile of ash with a simple glance and a word about the stain on your shirt. The way you were so self-conscious about how your tummy hung over the lip of your too-tight jeans. Dreaming of junior high sucks.
Monday, September 6, 2010
Labor Day
I was at a birthday party with my kid the other day. It was at one of those huge enclosed play-areas that smells like old cheese and armpit and where your kid peels off her socks and screams 'HURRAH!' before skittering off and kicking you to the curb for two hours. You're left to sit huddled on a gym bench with the other moms and you all chat and pretend to have more in common than the fact that your children were all born in the same year. Yay.
Actually, I like Lily's friends' moms. Most of them are really kind and friendly, though I'm still getting used to the southern culture of, oh, what do you call it again? oh yeah, manners. In comparison, my New York mom friends and I were disgustingly candid. We would sit on benches in the public parks of Queens, slurping coffee and bitching about everything from the inefficiency of our vibrators to our partners' bathroom habits.
The women I've met here are a bit more reserved. I don't think it's a bad thing; it's just not something I'm used to. I've had to be a little more careful in sharing all the wigged-out details of my life here. Hell, maybe that's an improvement. Perhaps it's even a sign of my own maturity. Imagine?
Here's an example. One mom, a native of Colombia married to a cajun guy (what?) was talking about how, while visiting family in Colombia this summer, her daughter learned all about sex while hanging out with older children. She started apologizing profusely to the other mothers in case her daughter 'told our kids about how babies were made'.
The other moms seemed genuinely troubled by this. One mom said, 'Weeeellll, I told my daughter that God takes a little bitta Mama and a little bitta Daddy and puts it in Mama's tummy. Then when the baby's ready, the doctor just cuts it out. I had a C-section, so I have a scar and everything.'
She was commended on this while I just clamped my fucking mouth shut. I was the mom who, when asked where babies came from, sat her 2 year old down in front of Dr. Google and looked at pictures of the human anatomy, explaining intercourse in primitive, scientific detail. I didn't pretend that menstrual blood was 'a cut in Mommy's hiney' (as one mother put it), and I nursed Lily until she was old enough to ask for it.
I'm not saying I hold the keys to good parenting (obviously, have you met my kid?), I'm just saying that I did things a little differently. I'm happy with the results, but I don't always remember that my methods of parenting might be considered a little bit...against the grain.
Especially considering that at 3, Lily was wedging babydolls up her dress and reenacting birth scenes with her friends (several times I walked into her room to see her on her back with a stuffed dog between her legs, screaming, 'ARRRGHHH!', while her pal Lucas, ever the relegated to role of 'Dad', yelled, 'Push! Push! I can see the head!').
Lily nursed her babies and stuffed animals and carried them in makeshift 'slings' I fashioned out of ripped up sheets. She was like a baby earthmama, and I didn't see anything wrong with it.
I still don't, but I am realizing more and more that there are a variety of ways to raise kids, and my way isn't the only way. Hell, maybe it isn't even the right way, but it seems to have worked so far. If anything, I'm becoming more open-minded living in Louisiana. Maybe even more than I ever was in New York. I think that's kid of kick ass.
Actually, I like Lily's friends' moms. Most of them are really kind and friendly, though I'm still getting used to the southern culture of, oh, what do you call it again? oh yeah, manners. In comparison, my New York mom friends and I were disgustingly candid. We would sit on benches in the public parks of Queens, slurping coffee and bitching about everything from the inefficiency of our vibrators to our partners' bathroom habits.
The women I've met here are a bit more reserved. I don't think it's a bad thing; it's just not something I'm used to. I've had to be a little more careful in sharing all the wigged-out details of my life here. Hell, maybe that's an improvement. Perhaps it's even a sign of my own maturity. Imagine?
Here's an example. One mom, a native of Colombia married to a cajun guy (what?) was talking about how, while visiting family in Colombia this summer, her daughter learned all about sex while hanging out with older children. She started apologizing profusely to the other mothers in case her daughter 'told our kids about how babies were made'.
The other moms seemed genuinely troubled by this. One mom said, 'Weeeellll, I told my daughter that God takes a little bitta Mama and a little bitta Daddy and puts it in Mama's tummy. Then when the baby's ready, the doctor just cuts it out. I had a C-section, so I have a scar and everything.'
She was commended on this while I just clamped my fucking mouth shut. I was the mom who, when asked where babies came from, sat her 2 year old down in front of Dr. Google and looked at pictures of the human anatomy, explaining intercourse in primitive, scientific detail. I didn't pretend that menstrual blood was 'a cut in Mommy's hiney' (as one mother put it), and I nursed Lily until she was old enough to ask for it.
I'm not saying I hold the keys to good parenting (obviously, have you met my kid?), I'm just saying that I did things a little differently. I'm happy with the results, but I don't always remember that my methods of parenting might be considered a little bit...against the grain.
Especially considering that at 3, Lily was wedging babydolls up her dress and reenacting birth scenes with her friends (several times I walked into her room to see her on her back with a stuffed dog between her legs, screaming, 'ARRRGHHH!', while her pal Lucas, ever the relegated to role of 'Dad', yelled, 'Push! Push! I can see the head!').
Lily nursed her babies and stuffed animals and carried them in makeshift 'slings' I fashioned out of ripped up sheets. She was like a baby earthmama, and I didn't see anything wrong with it.
I still don't, but I am realizing more and more that there are a variety of ways to raise kids, and my way isn't the only way. Hell, maybe it isn't even the right way, but it seems to have worked so far. If anything, I'm becoming more open-minded living in Louisiana. Maybe even more than I ever was in New York. I think that's kid of kick ass.
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Smells
I have taken up jogging. Sort of. That's not why I haven't been writing. But I'll pretend that it is.
The thing is, you get so into it once you realize you actually CAN do it...the running, I mean; you do a 5 minute stretch, then 10, then all of a sudden you're RUNNING for TWENTY MINUTES STRAIGHT, which is quite a feat for the girl that always puked during the 600 yard dash in elementary school. I'm not athletic. At all. I mean, I was always picked last for teams and the boys in school actually took pleasure in pegging me in the face with that godawful red dodge ball that made the tinny BWOING sound when it bounced off your head.
So, being able to take up jogging, and actually KEEP jogging has been, for me, an accomplishment.
But I took a couple weeks off...you know, shit happens, you go on vacation, you drink too much red wine and can't fathom making your bobbly legs doing more than carrying you to the coffee maker. And getting back on the horse is hard, my friends. Haaaaard (thatswutshesaid).
The last couple days I've been trying to run again. And since we've had a couple cool days here in Louisiana (like, under 90), breathing has been pleasant and easier (the humidity doesn't make it feel like your lungs are coated in hot, sticky caramel). I've also noticed that the scents in the air have been more pervasive and powerful.
I don't know why the olfactory sense memory thing is so incredibly strong, but tonight I felt like as I did my 30 minute loop around my suburban neighborhood, I re-experienced about 4 or 5 different moments of my life. Like, actually felt like I was there.
I ran past an orange tree, and the blossoms--thick and tangy, saturated the air around me and I was in my grandmother's Florida backyard all of a sudden, locusts ticking as I practiced with my cousins for the play we were going to perform for our parents that night. It was to be "The Wizard of Oz", and my cousin Simeon was directing, and, of course, I was going to be Dorothy. My sister, cast as the tin man, would later cry as we tried to wrap tinfoil around her 5 year old body and attach a funnel to her head. We would make a yellow brick road out of 200 napkins and later, while watching "The Muppet Show", Kermit would sing 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow', and we would take it as some kind of cosmic sign.
Then I passed a rosebush, and the sweet, delicate scent took me back to eighth grade, when I first started wearing Tea Rose perfume (still do). I was the mayor's wife in our production of "Bye Bye Birdie" and the mayor was played by a sad, unfortunate, short kid who would for some reason develop a fixation on me in college and actually stalk me (more on that in another post. He also friended me on facebook. I was like, really? um, no thank you.)
The stench of garbage oozing out of an overflowing can reminded me of summers in New York City, and having to wake up at 3 in the morning to walk my neurotic dog, hoping that I didn't get raped and wondering why the hell I didn't own a can of pepper spray.
What is it about scents and why do they affect us so strongly? The hold a smell has over me is really, really incredible. I love it though. I love that I can smell Estee Lauder's Youth Dew and think of my mother in a linen dress and diamond stud earrings, going out on a date with my dad on a Saturday night and feeling so sad over being left/excited about having a sitter/amazed at how beautiful and feminine my mother was. That to me, is a pretty powerful thing. Don't you agree?
The thing is, you get so into it once you realize you actually CAN do it...the running, I mean; you do a 5 minute stretch, then 10, then all of a sudden you're RUNNING for TWENTY MINUTES STRAIGHT, which is quite a feat for the girl that always puked during the 600 yard dash in elementary school. I'm not athletic. At all. I mean, I was always picked last for teams and the boys in school actually took pleasure in pegging me in the face with that godawful red dodge ball that made the tinny BWOING sound when it bounced off your head.
So, being able to take up jogging, and actually KEEP jogging has been, for me, an accomplishment.
But I took a couple weeks off...you know, shit happens, you go on vacation, you drink too much red wine and can't fathom making your bobbly legs doing more than carrying you to the coffee maker. And getting back on the horse is hard, my friends. Haaaaard (thatswutshesaid).
The last couple days I've been trying to run again. And since we've had a couple cool days here in Louisiana (like, under 90), breathing has been pleasant and easier (the humidity doesn't make it feel like your lungs are coated in hot, sticky caramel). I've also noticed that the scents in the air have been more pervasive and powerful.
I don't know why the olfactory sense memory thing is so incredibly strong, but tonight I felt like as I did my 30 minute loop around my suburban neighborhood, I re-experienced about 4 or 5 different moments of my life. Like, actually felt like I was there.
I ran past an orange tree, and the blossoms--thick and tangy, saturated the air around me and I was in my grandmother's Florida backyard all of a sudden, locusts ticking as I practiced with my cousins for the play we were going to perform for our parents that night. It was to be "The Wizard of Oz", and my cousin Simeon was directing, and, of course, I was going to be Dorothy. My sister, cast as the tin man, would later cry as we tried to wrap tinfoil around her 5 year old body and attach a funnel to her head. We would make a yellow brick road out of 200 napkins and later, while watching "The Muppet Show", Kermit would sing 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow', and we would take it as some kind of cosmic sign.
Then I passed a rosebush, and the sweet, delicate scent took me back to eighth grade, when I first started wearing Tea Rose perfume (still do). I was the mayor's wife in our production of "Bye Bye Birdie" and the mayor was played by a sad, unfortunate, short kid who would for some reason develop a fixation on me in college and actually stalk me (more on that in another post. He also friended me on facebook. I was like, really? um, no thank you.)
The stench of garbage oozing out of an overflowing can reminded me of summers in New York City, and having to wake up at 3 in the morning to walk my neurotic dog, hoping that I didn't get raped and wondering why the hell I didn't own a can of pepper spray.
What is it about scents and why do they affect us so strongly? The hold a smell has over me is really, really incredible. I love it though. I love that I can smell Estee Lauder's Youth Dew and think of my mother in a linen dress and diamond stud earrings, going out on a date with my dad on a Saturday night and feeling so sad over being left/excited about having a sitter/amazed at how beautiful and feminine my mother was. That to me, is a pretty powerful thing. Don't you agree?
Friday, August 6, 2010
So
Hey, Dudes. I haven't written anything on here lately because I haven't had anything interesting to say. Still don't, obviously.
Why am I getting all these spam comments in Chinese?
I'm going to the beach for a week with my awesomely insane family and I hope that I will enter a more enlightened state whilst there, a la Eat Pray Love or some shit like that. Talk to you soon.
Love,
Krissyface
Why am I getting all these spam comments in Chinese?
I'm going to the beach for a week with my awesomely insane family and I hope that I will enter a more enlightened state whilst there, a la Eat Pray Love or some shit like that. Talk to you soon.
Love,
Krissyface
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Just my two cents.
I was driving through the great state of Texas the other day, where everything, they tell me, is bigger. Even the pro-lifers, apparently. I mean, if I'm to go by the multitude of bumper stickers I saw on the I-10. Jeez, man.
Now, I'm happy for you to practice whatever religion churns your butter and helps you be a better person, get through this crazy life of ours, yada yada yada. It's when you splash your beliefs on the back of your car that I get my hackles up. Especially if the information you're proclaiming isn't exactly accurate.
The bumper sticker in question had a large face of an angelic looking little blonde-haired-blue-eyed baby smack in the middle of it (why are they always white babies? I mean, they are, though) and said, "ABORTION STOPS MY BEATING HEART!"
Now. Let's be fair here.
No, it actually doesn't.
No, 6-month-old baby with a couple of brand new teeth and the ability to smile and giggle and suck from a nipple and breathe on your own...no, abortion does not stop your heart.
Now, take a photo of, say, a date-sized fetus, all veiny and pulpy and grey looking and put that on a bumper sticker, and yes, I'll agree. An abortion would, in fact, stop that heart from beating. But it's funny...I've never actually seen a fetus on a bumper sticker.
Now, I'm happy for you to practice whatever religion churns your butter and helps you be a better person, get through this crazy life of ours, yada yada yada. It's when you splash your beliefs on the back of your car that I get my hackles up. Especially if the information you're proclaiming isn't exactly accurate.
The bumper sticker in question had a large face of an angelic looking little blonde-haired-blue-eyed baby smack in the middle of it (why are they always white babies? I mean, they are, though) and said, "ABORTION STOPS MY BEATING HEART!"
Now. Let's be fair here.
No, it actually doesn't.
No, 6-month-old baby with a couple of brand new teeth and the ability to smile and giggle and suck from a nipple and breathe on your own...no, abortion does not stop your heart.
Now, take a photo of, say, a date-sized fetus, all veiny and pulpy and grey looking and put that on a bumper sticker, and yes, I'll agree. An abortion would, in fact, stop that heart from beating. But it's funny...I've never actually seen a fetus on a bumper sticker.
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