tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-82664140000987496032024-03-14T04:40:12.805-04:00VersusThis is a darkly humorous bit about life as a rural mother and freelance writer in Western Massachusetts. Little Appalachia, if you will. The title, I feel, clearly reflects how life is coming at me like an overloaded freight train, and my own ridiculous response to it. Me VERSUS all; teenage children, people who want me to work for free, conservative government, food karma, weird menfolk. You'll either laugh, shrug your shoulders, or call DSS immediately. Happy reading.
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15499556587580457418noreply@blogger.comBlogger233125truetag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8266414000098749603.post-89176235871638064372016-06-09T16:26:00.002-04:002016-06-10T06:54:26.634-04:00My heroes have aways been...human<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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When I had my daughter, I felt like a kid myself. A kid raising a kid. I had all of the skills one DOESN'T need to take care of an infant. I could run for miles up a mountain, I could open a beer with a lighter, I could make etouffee with my eyes closed. I could translate ancient Confucian texts...drunk.<br />
<br />
Changing a diaper was...something my older brother had to demonstrate to me in the hospital. Swaddling a screaming 9-pound human, again, I had no clue. The first six months of that child's life were the most terrifying six months of mine. <br />
<br />
I did the only thing that I knew to do. I remembered. I called up the strong memories of my grandmother, who passed away a year before I discovered I was pregnant. I figured, she kept her six kids alive into adulthood, and a couple of grandkids, too, so she'd know. I had long talks with her, wherever she was, about what I should do. I thought back to the times that she held a baby, disciplined a wild toddler, and nudged a reluctant teenager to make the right choice. I had daily 'talks' with this woman, who in life didn't hardly stand five feet tall. (She thought I was a giant at 12.) She was my hero. Her get-it-done attitude, her unashamed pursuit of knowledge, her skills as a gardener, a cook, a master knitter, a patient badass mother, her love of Elvis...she worked nearly every day of her life. One morning she didn't get out of bed to go to work, that's how anyone knew something was wrong. <br />
<br />
One of the last times I saw her, she told me that she always knew I'd surprise everybody. That meant everything to me. And then, in a blink she was gone. I named my daughter after her, because it could be no other way.<br />
<br />
A hero is not a god. A hero has flaws and makes mistakes and hits low points. A hero is human, and yet they rise above their humanness, and still manage to peek over the ledge of impossibility and <br />
see something greater than themselves. <br />
<br />
Imagine that. Having the bravery to see through the thick fog of life as we know it, to the unknown greatness. That's scary shit. 'Cause you really don't know what's going to happen when you step out of that fog, but you're eager to take the leap. <br />
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Maya Angelou, another hero of mine, was unashamedly herself. In fact, she reminded me of my grandmother. Grew up in a desperate way, had a baby too young, faced unthinkable abuse and bigotry...yet, she jumped. Every time she put pen to paper, she jumped through the everyday nonsense and straight into the abyss of truth. She even wrote a cook book. And shared an anecdote about a day when her own mother turned to her and said:<br />
<br />
"'Baby. I've been thinking and now I'm sure. You are the greatest woman I've ever met.'"<br />
At that moment...I decided the time had come to cut down on dangerous habits like smoking, drinking, and cursing. <br />
Imagine, I might really become somebody."<br />
<br />
Just the audacity of that thought. Of becoming 'somebody' in a life of nobodies. It's brave. Sometimes people don't like it. They don't like the ambition, the 'arrogance' of having honest-to-god dreams, and the sheer tenacity to live those dreams out. Some would even call it lunacy. People think that kind of self-assuredness is dangerous. And it is.<br />
<br />
Maya Angelou died just two years ago, and it was the first time I wept, openly, over the death of a 'public figure.' I felt like I knew her. I felt like she knew me somehow. Like we were on that same road together, toughing it out against the haters.<br />
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The second time I have wept openly, was just a few days ago. When, in the deep dark night I couldn't sleep because I was so sore from five days of non-stop training and, to be honest, way too much boxing bullshit, I learned (thanks social media) that Muhammad Ali had succumbed to Parkinson's disease. <br />
<br />
"No. No, no, no..."<br />
<br />
Who could sleep after that? I sat out on the back steps in the pitch black and was shocked at my sadness. Like a big hole just opened up in the world, at least in my world, and what if I fell in? <br />
<br />
Ali had a lot to say. And people didn't like that. They didn't like that what he said had the dagger of truth in it. Of course, his boxing was impeccable. He was easy on the eyes and his work ethic and odd grace made him legendary. But it was his unabashed forward momentum, being only himself, that made him a hero to me, to my daughter, my son...<br />
<br />
"I know where I'm going and I know the truth, and I don't have to be what you want me to be. I'm free to be what I want.” <br />
<br />
Of all the great things Ali has said, and all the quotes and talk show reels I've memorized, imagine that. I don't have to be what you want me to be. <br />
<br />
Heroes are incapable of being anything but themselves. The compulsion to move forward is too great. A hero doesn't just clock in a 10-hour day and quit. A hero is smart, they have vision beyond what the rest of us can see. When a hero is 'too tired', well that's too fucking bad because there is greatness to be achieved and truth to be told, so tired isn't an excuse for not being the thing that you could become. Despite being...made of flesh and bone. <br />
<br />
"You have to be willing to sacrifice what you are for what you will become."<br />
<br />
I am all out of heroes now. They live in the clouds. I won't stop reading Maya's books, or stop watching old clips of Muhammad Ali floating his way to victory and railing against the hypocrites of his time. I won't stop 'talking' to my grandmother when I can't hear her on the wind. But it's sad. These ghosts of greatness. <br />
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Yet, the other day I was watching my daughter from a distance while she played soccer with her brother in a wide, green field. A few kids came and joined the impromptu game and she teased them and played and did foot tricks with the ball and the other kids laughed, never taking their eyes off of her. Even her brother seemed a little mesmerized. <br />
<br />
Maybe it was the sun shining behind her. Or the wild shock of her Afro bouncing on her head, or the gleaming white smile...but it caught me in my chest. And I wondered about this powerful young woman living under my roof...<br />
<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15499556587580457418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8266414000098749603.post-30704056270783814822016-01-06T18:06:00.001-05:002016-01-06T18:07:23.678-05:00New Year, Same Me<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Our MMA class was full to the brim last night.
Everyone was in high spirits at the beginning of the class. What a turnout.
Some were there on a bet, others were there to make good on their physical
promises to themselves. Promises that are made all over the globe the second
that ball drops to mark the beginning of the New Year.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">The bitch of it is you've got to sustain. Without looking
around me, about two minutes into the jump-roping warm-up I could feel the reality
setting in. The collective ‘holy shit, this is going to suck’ of the new
students. I felt their pain. Just over a year ago, I was that guy, quietly
dying inside and fighting the urge to puke. Any trace of cockiness at being a
trail runner, a dancer, a former athlete and lifter, falling into the puddle of
sweat on the mat below me. What the ever-loving fuck was I thinking?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">“Are you making any resolutions this year,” B asks me
sarcastically. She knows.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">“Fuck no. What for? I’m always trying to do better and
to take it to the next level. If anything I should resolve to take it down a
notch.”<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">“Maybe be normal…less…intense.”<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">“There’s not enough hooch on the planet for that to
happen.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Resolutions are things that happen as a result of
circumstances. At least that’s been my experience. And they’re usually
terrifying ones. Life-changers where you pound at your chest, pray, let
tears fall, beg…and then resolve right then and there that this, whatever <em>this</em>
is, is how it’s gonna be, how it’s gotta be from now on. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">A few months ago, my father had open heart surgery for
a deformed valve and an aneurysm that had formed and was on the brink of
exploding in his chest. From the day of his diagnosis to the day of his surgery
(and even now) he was a time bomb. If the aneurysm ruptured, he would most
likely die in 45 seconds. Maybe a little more because he’s a stubborn bastard.
Some days, I half-expected to find him dead on the kitchen floor. I had
nightmares that I would discover his body and his eye sockets would be flowing
unstoppable rivers of blood. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">I could not sleep with these images. I was building my
resolve. It was a reckless promise to myself.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">The morning of his surgery, as we were saying our
goodbyes before he went under I leaned over his hospital bed and quietly begged
him.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">“Please, please don’t leave me here by myself. I got nobody
if you go.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Ob3SfPiyjx0/Vo2cFe5_gzI/AAAAAAAAAbg/TBIdU61RpEk/s1600/prayer%2Bpic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="183" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Ob3SfPiyjx0/Vo2cFe5_gzI/AAAAAAAAAbg/TBIdU61RpEk/s200/prayer%2Bpic.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">He nodded his head. He knew what I meant and he promised that he wouldn’t.
He probably doesn’t remember any of this. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Fourteen hours passed before my father came up from
that goddamn operating room. Gray and small and totally unconscious. My mother
and aunt and I went to ‘view the body,’ the only proof of life was the noisy
whirring of the breathing machine. I felt my legs lose their solidness and I
dropped to my knees by his little gurney. Like God had pushed me down.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">“I had a revelation—well a lot of revelations—while we
were waiting for him to get out of that surgery.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">“Oh, about living healthier, meditating, stuff like
that?”<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">“Fuck no! This me we’re talking about. No, no. I’ve
decided I’m going to do what the hell I want when I want and how I want. You
never know.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">“That sounds…dangerous.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">“I’m just following my heart. The only one who has to
live with it is me in the end.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">“Yeah, ‘cause there will be an end. Especially if you
live like that.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">I can feel how this resolution has changed me. How that
moment has liberated me and wrecked me at the same time. Just like those other
pivotal times, where I just plant my feet harder on the ground and whisper in
my head.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">“This is how it’s gotta be.”<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-b2DB6cyXM7c/Vo2cWxYgyCI/AAAAAAAAAbo/gfPnDLyykP0/s1600/sandy-hook-shooting-aftermath-adrees%2Blatif-reuters.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-b2DB6cyXM7c/Vo2cWxYgyCI/AAAAAAAAAbo/gfPnDLyykP0/s320/sandy-hook-shooting-aftermath-adrees%2Blatif-reuters.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo by Adrees Latif/Reuters</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Long before dozens of schoolchildren were slaughtered in
their classrooms by a psychopath, there should have been a resolution. Yet we
wait, with no resolve with eyes to the fiscal calendar.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Long before a 12-year-old with a toy gun was snuffed
out by an unstable cop, there should have been a resolve to end this one-sided
enforcement of ‘the laws.' Yet we wait, and deliberate and ‘have dialogue’
where there should be action.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Long before…we should have resolved not to displace
more thousands of Syrians from their homes with a war that has no end, then tell
them that there is no room at the inn while we watch their dead children wash
ashore on the beaches of Greece. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">My resolutions are a direct result of circumstance,
not Roman calendars and religious holidays. I don’t wait for April to start
working on my ‘bikini body,’ whatever the hell that means. I won’t wait until I’m
65 to finally enjoy my life. It’s too late. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">When I was 12, my very close friend died. She was 12,
too. We were totally silly, all of us. When we buried her, I could feel that
do-or-die beast being born inside me. I resolved to be less silly, to get shit
done. I was madder than hell. But that’s the year I got serious about music.
And I’ve been playing now for more than two decades on stages, at bars, in my
living room. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-OSr9lkFliJw/Vo2cwxaaxiI/AAAAAAAAAbw/La412l4E9v4/s1600/ireland%2B1990s.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-OSr9lkFliJw/Vo2cwxaaxiI/AAAAAAAAAbw/La412l4E9v4/s1600/ireland%2B1990s.jpg" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">There was this boy, a man actually, who I stupidly
fell in love with one summer. I was 17. I wrote him poems and we talked
about Greek mythology and went fishing and mulled over his obsession with
Ireland…then the summer ended. And he disappeared, cruelly removing me from his
life but not before turning me into a lovesick puppy. I resolved to get to that
green island before he could. And I did, the very next year. It was a drunken journey
to a war torn country, practically dripping with danger, heroin, and violent
romanticism. (Don’t worry, I met another man there, a few actually, took my
mind right off that fella.) <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Once the excitement of the New Year wears off, which
it will—it always does, what then? What’s going to sustain these promises we
make to ourselves? Nothing. Not unless somewhere deep in that promise, is a
raw memory, a moment where the sky cracked open and you had to negotiate who
the hell you were, who the hell you are, to be able to take the next step. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">And still be able to look yourself in the eye. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15499556587580457418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8266414000098749603.post-71095903622888601882015-11-16T16:50:00.003-05:002015-11-16T16:52:44.256-05:00Luck of the Draw"You're really lucky to have the body to wear that."<br />
<br />
"Lucky?" I took another bite of the obscenely large sandwich that I would most likely finish. And the pickle. I would eat the pickle, too.<br />
<br />
"Yeah. I can't wear a dress like that."<br />
<br />
"But you could. You can wear a dress like this anytime you want. Nobody's stopping you. Except you." More chewing. God, I can't get this sandwich in me fast enough.<br />
<br />
"But it wouldn't look the same."<br />
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"Do you even know...what I do...during the week? To my body? Like really know?" I started lifting my hem to show her the shins that were peppered with bruises. I started taking my shoes off to display the medical tape wrapped around each foot and a big toe, to show her the jammed up bones and the knotted arches. She stopped me.<br />
<br />
"Still, you're lucky."<br />
<br />
I tapped at the yellow bruise on my cheekbone, covered by make-up, wondering how this conversation would go if I had a dick dangling somewhere from the middle of my body. <br />
<br />
"Hey brah, looking good. Taking care of yourself. Your arms are sick, man."<br />
<br />
"Thanks, man. I've been working hard."<br />
<br />
"It shows man, it totally shows. Keep it up. Proud of you, buddy."<br />
<br />
Fucking lucky...<br />
<br />
It's a cultural disease, this thing...this fantasy of luck that follows the female species around. I am lucky that my kids are polite. I am lucky to have a pretty thriving freelance business. I am lucky to be able to play music. I am lucky to have all these opportunities. Because when I was born, God shit charmed glitter all over me and determined that I should be lucky. <br />
<br />
Poof.<br />
<br />
And I should be grateful for all this luck. Grateful to the universe. What a good life...<br />
<br />
"Everything will fall into place, babe. It always does."<br />
<br />
My husband has stopped saying this to me. He knows not to say this anymore. The last time he said it, I was marinating in sweat, hallucinating with hunger, bleeding from my knee, and eating unwashed carrots over the sink freaking out about not getting three major checks that were more than a month late.<br />
<br />
"Of course it will fall into place," I growled, spitting out hard peels. "Because I always make it fall into place. I work like a burro to make it fall into place. There is no magic wand. I am the fucking wand, man."<br />
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I have never said to my little brother, who has no body fat on him and can eat like pork rinds and cupcakes all day and not ever look any different, that he's lucky. It's an insult. He's a tree climber. He literally hoists his own weight all day long up giant gnarly trees. And he suffers for it. Every moment of every day. If I told him he's so lucky to be so lean and muscular he'd flick a lit cigarette at me and tell me to get fucked. Then he'd eat a hot dog and something from a box while limping to his truck.<br />
<br />
"You're so lucky to be a freelancer. To work from home."<br />
<br />
Yeah? That right? Cause the work just floats to my inbox every day and all I have to do is write the story and voila, the check comes within the week. Like magic. Other writers know. That to make a living doing this, an actual living, you gotta be a hustler. I mean an honest-to-god hustler. Same rules apply. Right down to getting paid. <br />
<br />
"You gotta make it rain." That's what I say to the kids when I'm depositing checks at the bank. That I've been waiting on. Some I've had to wrangle like a mob boss--street style. Right as my account is about flatten like a dead balloon. Lucky me.<br />
<br />
And the kids. I can't imagine someone saying to a single dad or even a married father, "You're so lucky to have such great kids." Maybe, but I doubt it. Mostly it's "You've done such a great job being a role model to your kids." Or, "look at you, doing your daughter's hair. What a great dad."<br />
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You know who's lucky? My kids. Especially my son. HE is lucky that I have watched him like a bear-hawk for most of his formative years, not taking an eye off him even to take a piss. Because seriously, he would have killed his own self. We are talking about jumping THROUGH glass windows, trying to drive cars out of the driveway, multiple knife and choking incidents (I have fished more food out of that child's throat...oysters and cheese still terrify me), jumps off of hay lofts where I have caught him literally by the loose threads of his clothes. When he told me they got a laser cutter for his inventor's club at school I almost fainted.<br />
<br />
We, all of us men women boys girls people personas whatever, need to get it out of our heads and our mouths that women are lucky for their success. Or anyone for that matter. I have never equated my hard work with luck. That's a dangerous thing. Because that means I am waiting on chance to get me where I want to be, not my own ability and capability to get shit done. If luck is a major part of my equation, then hope is not. <br />
<br />
I can't have that.<br />
<br />
Getting an extra nugget in a 6-piece is lucky. Finding $20 in the parking lot is lucky. Winning at roulette is lucky. <br />
<br />
Having a strong body and endurance is the result of hours of hard work and pushing through the urge to just give up. On one occasions I distinctly remember whipping my water bottle across the parking lot, which was dangerous because I used to be a pitcher, then sitting in my car after a jiu jitsu class. I threw out every insult about every mother I could find (in French) and swore I was never going back to "that goddamn fucking class" and "I'd like to see them push through a dance routine or keep up with me on the trail and do this training, too. Connard!" It was vicious. And stupid. But I went back. And I still keep going back. It's not luck that drives me to that class.<br />
<br />
Luck didn't show up for any of this. There may have been some lucky moments, but I am owning the rest, so I don't lose it. Serious, dig-deep, bitch get your ass out of bed cause you ain't done yet, hard work. <br />
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Just one more mile.<br />
Just one more roll.<br />
Just one more punch.<br />
Just one more turn across the floor.<br />
Just one more hard lecture about real respect.<br />
Just one more early morning drive to the school.<br />
Just one more paragraph.<br />
Just one more night burning the midnight oil.<br />
Just one more day where the pain is unbearable.<br />
Just one more turn with the medical tape.<br />
Just one more payment this month.<br />
Just one more lunch to pack.<br />
Just one more trip to the hospital.<br />
<br />
I can do this. Luck can't. Luck is a little bitch. But I can.<br />
<br />
Aren't you all lucky?<br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15499556587580457418noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8266414000098749603.post-22584272856555008882015-09-17T10:51:00.002-04:002015-09-17T10:53:36.431-04:00Dolo toujou couri lariviere...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I don't know if it's the beignets, the swamps or the voodoo that first drew me to New Orleans. Probably the voodoo. I was at home with the wildness of the place--a place literally floating with the dark history of everything we try to forget; slavery, Santeria, mixed blood, gluttony. I understand these things well.<br />
<br />
There is something so honest about New Orleans. Almost no one is native to the place. Somehow they've wandered in, maybe stumbled upon a big Mardi Gras and never left. Fell in love with a girl reading Tarot at night. Wanted to get away from the social stocks of small town gossip. <br />
<br />
"This place is a fucking mess," says Chris. A big 20-something kid from Jacksonville. He works the front desk of <a href="http://electricladylandtattoo.com/">Electric Ladyland Tattoos</a> on Frenchman Street. He looks like a thug with his big black T-shirt and gauged ears and bronchial cough (he doesn't smoke). But really, Chris is a foodie. He has a seasoned chef's palate. He tells us where to go for the "<a href="http://www.caneandtablenola.com/">real shit</a>." He is excited about my tattoo.<br />
<br />
"That's sick," he says. "Definitely not something a girl brings in here."<br />
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I tell him about our trip to the French Market that day. How it was depressing. How I was so desperate for fresh vegetables, I bought a bunch of unwashed carrots, wiped the dirt on my bare thigh, and started eating them, one by one, while my husband looked on in mild horror.<br />
<br />
Chris laughs. He tells me where I can get Brussels sprouts that are better than sex. Seriously. Then warns against going to the market again.<br />
<br />
"That place has bad fucking juju," he says.<br />
<br />
"I could feel it. Crawling all over me."<br />
<br />
"It was the slave auction."<br />
<br />
"That explains it. Down the river."<br />
<br />
"Last stop before Mississippi. People are fucking terrible."<br />
<br />
He takes me in to meet Scott, the tattoo artist. Another transplant to this bright, chaotic place. He's excited about the design, too.<br />
<br />
"Not very girly." He confesses that he is relieved.<br />
"She's not a girly girl," my husband says. "She'll kill you with her bare hands."<br />
<br />
I lay flat on my belly, lift up my skirt to just barely decent and the three-hour session begins. Gawkers begin to gather at the window. They are watching the process, taking pictures. I can't make a face, I can't wince. I have an audience now.<br />
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We wander through the streets a lot, at weird hours. My husband is faithful in his quest for finding me decent coffee, undiluted by chicory. <br />
<br />
"Chicory reminds me of being poor," I say, after my first bad cup.<br />
<br />
I get just drunk enough to heat my blood all day. Just drunk enough so that I don't notice when he leaves the hotel room in the morning, but do notice when he comes back with a rich espresso concoction injected with bitters--my request nearly every morning of the trip. The door creeks. He sneaks into the room, sees that I have one eye open and sets the coffee on my belly. I pick it up before my next breath topples it.<br />
<br />
"I figured out what that smell is on Bourbon Street." He is almost gleeful with his recent discovery. <br />
"The puke," I say.<br />
"Yes!"<br />
"I was trying to figure out why the street was always wet. It hasn't rained since we've been here."<br />
"I just saw a whole fleet of little pressure washer trucks."<br />
<br />
The little battalion of green vehicles converges on the French Quarter--while the red eyes are sleeping in other people's beds and in the marble stoops of elegant shops. Washing away most of what happened the night before. <br />
<br />
If only.<br />
<br />
It's nasty, yet there's a certain allure to Bourbon Street to the good time mayhem. It's 1 a.m. The good times are still rolling. I yawn. A handsome, slicked-up college kid flicks my shoulder. <br />
<br />
"No, no," he says, drunk on rye and youth. "You can't be tired yet."<br />
<br />
"I'm old," I laugh. He sizes me up.<br />
<br />
"Not a chance," he winks, points to my husband and is swallowed by the throng of bad decisions that eat him up.<br />
<br />
"Every night is amateur night, here," my husband laughs. Yet, looking in the steamed up windows of blues clubs and strip joints and little gambling pockets, a tiny part of me wants to be lost in there. <br />
<br />
We get into the habit of searching out the street bands we like. There are so many. But I like to stay and listen. I have no interest in shopping. I stay, baking in the heat of midday, balancing myself on the cobblestone, slapping my thigh, drunk on bourbon, smoking a cigarette and just letting this be life. The bands play old hymns on worn out tubas, high jazz on rusted trumpets. It's a miracle. To even be here. Along that horrible, wide mouthed river...at the guts of where sin and redemption dance every day.<br />
<br />
"I don't think I can leave," I say. It is our last few hours in the city. My husband decides to double check some of the streets and smoke his last cigar before we get on the plane. I sneak into the bookstore across the street from our haunted hotel. A true Cajun bookstore. Books stacked high above my head, some in French, some in English. The shopkeeper is hidden in the back.<br />
<br />
"Bonjou. Komen to ye?" He is an older gentleman. Dressed formally, even for this warm day. He seems excited that I have wondered to the music section. None of it in English. I am strumming an imaginary banjo when I tell him I don't speak the dialect.<br />
<br />
"Je suis desole, monsieur. Je ne parle pa creole." I say I am sorry once again, for my lack of the language, and continue to rifle through the music, picking up paper as thin as rice, old songs by old people, from some deep place in the bayou. <br />
<br />
He can't resist following me around the shop, at a distance, commenting on the books I pick up. I like his French. A customer comes in, and they speak to each other in that same refined roughness. I pick up some of what they are saying, I'm not Parisian after all. The customer is obviously an old friend and the shopkeeper hushes him just before the conversation takes on a raunchy lilt. The visitor looks up mischievously at me and gives a little wave. Then he exclaims to the dust in the room.<br />
<br />
"Mais elle a les zye gri!"<br />
<br />
That part I understand. They are picking apart my heritage. I cough in the back of the store to make it known that I was still in the fucking room and the visitor leaves. I bring my purchases to the cluttered desk.<br />
<br />
"So you like Cajun music?" He seems amused, even smug.<br />
"Of course, why would I buy all this? For my mother?" I laugh. He pulls two CDs out of his desk and throws them on the pile. Rare recordings of women singing in the swamp.<br />
<br />
"For you."<br />
"Merci."<br />
"Revenez bientot a la maison."<br />
<br />
I wave. And blush a little. He thinks I'm leaving home <br />
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We get one more coffee for the cab ride to the airport. This time, I ask them to put something stronger in it. Something that will swallow the sadness in my chest. Leaving Treme...leaving the vastness of Lake Pontchartrain, leaving the wrecked neighborhoods by the cemetery, Katrina's signature, human failure. <br />
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The cab driver is from the Ukraine. He talks about the house he lost in Katrina. He talks with such bitterness about this crazy place. The heat, the partyers, the bums, the dirty-as-a-shoe-bottom mayor and the crooked construction bids. <br />
<br />
"Why don't you go back to Ukraine, then," I ask. Maybe slightly defensive, I don't know. <br />
<br />
"Nobody can leave this place. Not really."<br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15499556587580457418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8266414000098749603.post-54225414462299181282015-06-09T12:29:00.001-04:002015-06-09T12:29:15.117-04:00Killer Bikini<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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We have been on the hunt for a bikini for my 14-year-old daughter. She thinks she has found one. I am trying not to be one of those creepy "virgin protector" parents, and yet, she's my baby and it's hard to watch your baby grow up, no matter how progressive...blah, blah. She doesn't want to draw too much attention to herself but she's proud of how hard she's worked this year. She is a beautiful young woman, athletic, tall, a little clumsy.<br />
<br />
"Get a sporty one," I say. "I'll get one like that, too. We can be twinsies."<br />
<br />
She gives me a sharp look. As if you are this tall. As if you are this tan, as if you are this young and have the entire universe in front of you to crack open however you see fit. She doesn't say it. She has better manners than that.<br />
<br />
She picks a bright aqua. <br />
<br />
"It's a perfect color for you," I say. It will be a graduation present for making it through 8th grade. Along with driving lessons in an open field with our old truck (me with my rosary that the pope blessed more than two decades ago; I'm not even a practicing Catholic, but still, you should see how she steers the riding mower). <br />
<br />
I went online to order the bikini. It will be a surprise. And an admission that I realize that she is growing up and that I'm cool with that. And that I trust her to make the right choices. And that I think she should be proud of who she is and how hard she trains at soccer, tennis, MMA, school, life. Kid deserves a bikini at the very least.<br />
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-6WkiwfUytuQ/VXcSpas0-XI/AAAAAAAAASg/km_04EUytAA/s1600/police%252Bpool%252Bparty.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-6WkiwfUytuQ/VXcSpas0-XI/AAAAAAAAASg/km_04EUytAA/s320/police%252Bpool%252Bparty.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image: Valley News Live</td></tr>
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Before I click the shopping site (she has it bookmarked, of course), I do my Monday news troll. And the video appears. There is a girl, she's wearing a bright-colored bikini. She has long legs like my daughter, strong shoulders, bare feet. This girl, who could be my girl, is face down in the grass, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/09/us/mckinney-tex-pool-party-dispute-leads-to-police-officer-suspension.html?_r=0">screaming for her mother, while a barbarian with crazy eyes and a charlatan's uniform</a> jams his knee into her spine while pulling on her thick, rope braids. <br />
<br />
I need to stop here, because I can barely think about this. The bile is lurking at the bottom of my throat. I see her lying there, with her head turned, still as death, and I see vividly the girl I taught to swim. The girl I taught to stick up for herself, the girl who is still the most vulnerable child as much as any other child, and I want to kill that man with my hands. I want to crush his wind pipe and kick his face until it sticks to my shoe and he turns to blood-colored dust. In my mind, he will blow away in the fatted wind of injustice with all of the other pigs who wave their guns at children and see the world as dogs see the world.<br />
<br />
A few days ago, I took my daughter to a self defense class for women. We have been training in MMA together for 8 months, but even I know that you can't punch the lights out of a 250-lb man intent on doing you harm. I'm an extreme, aggressive, confident woman and even I know this. For a fact. My daughter does not understand.<br />
<br />
"Why are we going to a self defense class? We already train? You could kill somebody with your kick."<br />
<br />
"Babe, the street isn't a Jackie Chan flick. Besides, you need to know that there are other ways to skin a cat."<br />
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She is my partner. We take turns being attacker and attackee. She is definitely a fighter. She is stronger than an ox when I try to move her off of me, like lead. But she is a child horsing around with her mother. I am not a pig with a gun pulling her hair and crushing her spine and her youth.<br />
<br />
In my version of the story, I would be there. I would protect her from this vapid evil that keeps her just a little bit more guarded than her classmates and giggly best friends. <br />
<br />
I see the bikini, I try to disassociate it with what I have just witnessed as a mother, a human. She will love it. Other mothers are ordering their daughters this same bikini without a care in the world. They see their gleaming young skin and all of the family fun they will have this summer at the pool and the campground and the ice cream shack. <br />
<br />
I see the vulnerable patch of brown skin along the spine that is always in danger of being crushed.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15499556587580457418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8266414000098749603.post-41603852350650059962015-05-29T17:39:00.002-04:002015-05-29T17:40:54.914-04:00All growed up...?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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My son's face is flushed that familiar rageful pink. He does not like being told what to do, yet, he really needs to be told what to do sometimes. Otherwise we'd have cockroaches playing poker tournaments in his room and we would never have hot water. This particular moment, he is being told to apply sunscreen to his transluscent Scottish complexion before spending an entire day in the blazing sun for his school field day.<br />
<br />
"But I don't need sunscreen, I have a hat." He makes a show of flinging his cap to the ground and glaring at me. I am used to this. His older sister has hardened me to these stare downs. I am a rock, I don't blink. Do your best, kid. <br />
<br />
"That's fine. You don't have to wear sunscreen. You have choices."<br />
<br />
"I do?" He is smart. He knows me. He knows this is a semantic trap, but he walks in anyway. Why the hell not, what's he got to lose?<br />
<br />
"Sure. You can skip the sunscreen and go to school and stay in the office all day while the other kids do field day...or you can shut your mouth, put the sunscreen on, and have a great day outside with your friends."<br />
<br />
Just then, his sister smugly interrupts. "They will probably have an essay assignment for the kids who don't go to field day."<br />
<br />
He begins to slather himself with SPF 50. I give her a dirty look.<br />
<br />
"I can't wait to be an adult," he says, angrily smearing the white liquid chalk across his face. "Then I can do whatever the hell I want."<br />
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"Are you nuts?" His sister squeezes about a thousand tablespoons of honey into her Superman to-go mug filled with cinnamon tea. "Being an adult sucks. You've gotta do all this stuff. Like take care of little shits like us." <br />
<br />
"You know, honey is actually a form of sugar," I say, making a cutting motion with my finger across my throat. "It will rot your teeth. As for being an adult. It's awesome. It's awesome 'til it's not."<br />
<br />
"So what is being an adult all about?"<br />
<br />
"I think it's about doing the right thing...every day. And figuring out how to enjoy life in a simple way."<br />
<br />
"Was there anything surprising about being an adult?" This conversation was getting pretty deep. I wasn't even into my first sip of coffee. <br />
<br />
"I think the biggest surprise is that other people who you think are adults, are actually not making adult decisions. It's...pretty tough when that's what you're up against."<br />
<br />
My daughter nods her head slightly. "Yeah, the grow-ups are the ones doing the really stupid shit lately. Guess we're going to have to follow our own lead."<br />
<br />
It's a wonder I don't put whiskey in my coffee. But then, that would be a pretty bad decision right before I drive them to school. I'm sure people do it. I know people do it. It's un-adult. They're in denial.<br />
<br />
Of course, who hasn't wanted to check out sometimes? Especially the adult population that is responsible for smaller beings. We all know, but some may not admit, that this parenting thing is just...it's sucking the life force right out of me. These little monsters are expensive. And they're not even little anymore. I was talking with a 747 pilot the other day about the 26,000 gallons of fuel that that giant beast eats up on long distance flights. <br />
<br />
"Try feeding teenagers," was my response. He laughed. <br />
<br />
In addition to the food consumption, which, if you are raising two VERY active human beings, is abysmal on the wallet, there is the occasional attitude injection at the most timely moments. Like, right before we get in the car, or, just as I am waking up or trying to head to bed...always some little snotty comment drenched with entitlement and arrogant (faux) wisdom. The boy just asks so many questions I finally end up whipping around, coffee in hand, my face twisted in horrible wrath.<br />
<br />
"Judas Fucking Priest, that's your last question for the day. That's it, you've met your quota. And how am I supposed to know how many fire ants it would take to eat a man whole? Who asks these things? How do you even think this shit?"<br />
<br />
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My language is admittedly not adult. It is shamefully un-adult. I am working on it. There is an elaborate ticketing system that will take effect June 24. It excludes my language in the car. <br />
<br />
It's a delicate balance and I am watching adults tip the scales in the wrong direction. They are giving in to the self-destruction that ruins whole families generation after generation. I can't tell you if this is a phenomenon that is happening only in this generation, or if it just that we see it more in the news or on social media or in a louder consciousness. But it's there. Very loud, and very clear. We are letting 'the others' make the decisions for us, trusting that, well, they must know best. <br />
<br />
They don't know best. Adults make mistakes all the time. But are we learning from the mistakes? It's too easy to blame something else. The addiction, the depression, the desperation, the crappy job, the bad husband, the bad wife, the catastrophically stupid teenager, the coaches, the government...<br />
<br />
So, who's gonna make the right decision then? A <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/05/11/the-fate-of-the-grandmother-who-ran-her-granddaughter-to-death/">cruel grandmother marches her 9-year-old granddaughter around the neighborhood until the kid finally dies of exhaustion</a>...no one notices? No one speaks up until it's too late? Where are the adults?<br />
<br />
A <a href="http://www.vox.com/2015/5/27/8662907/josh-duggar-abuse">teenage boy prays on the innocence of his younger sisters</a>...and instead of in jail, he ends up on a major television network...expecting his fourth child with his wife. Why didn't anyone step in? What about the girls? They are marked for life. It is a life sentence enacted on them by their older brother. And he's no longer a predator? Bullshit. Where were the adults?<br />
<br />
It's 8:30 at night, you've just walked in the door after a full day of work, watching your kid's baseball game, piggybacked with your other kid's tennis match, and you know you have to sign two permission slips, make some kind of a nutritious meal because they're starving, make sure they check themselves for ticks...Do you hit a 30-pack and let them lick the wounds of the day? You could. But you're an adult. I'm an adult. Being an adult means you don't give in to the destructive whim. Of course you want to, we all want to. We all have tendencies. <br />
<br />
There's a monster child lurking in every single one of us. Do we let it win? People are waiting for us to do our job. Small people. People who will do whatever we say. If that's not the most frightening thing in the world, I don't know what is.<br />
<br />
We've had a few 'situations' here, that kind of shit happens as your kids get older by the way. They come home with problems like "my friend isn't eating," or "so and so says he wants to hurt himself..."<br />
These are burdens too big for a child's shoulders. Then they say, "but don't tell anybody, OK?"<br />
<br />
Not OK. I want to pretend I didn't hear that an 8th grader might be contemplating suicide. But I don't. 'Cause I'm a fucking grown up and shit is real now. <br />
<br />
I just tell my daughter, "You're a good friend, but this is too much for you. You're not responsible for fixing this. It's on me now. Let the adults handle it."<br />
<br />
I pick up the phone. She sighs, relieved.<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15499556587580457418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8266414000098749603.post-48241058096489897732015-02-19T12:57:00.001-05:002015-02-19T12:57:10.785-05:00Why I Fight
<br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">I’m looking at my right index finger, and it is
throbbing and stiff at the knuckle, which I have just noticed is pushed down
into the joint. Barely a knuckle at all. I knew this would happen. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">I need to get wraps, I say to myself mumbling over
<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/14/style/the-cult-of-the-bulletproof-coffee-diet.html?_r=0">sugarless coffee that is laced with coconut oil</a> and honey. I have already
devoured two nearly raw eggs like a rabid dragon and am still hungry. I will
wait another hour, once I have finished my coffee, for “second breakfast”. What
you all might refer to as a coffee break. It could be a giant bowl of raw
spinach with olive oil and any kind of nut imaginable and more eggs. Maybe some
cheese and flash sautéed carrots. I try to make it all count.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">But who am I kidding, I’m still shoveling it in like
the excavator on Bob the Builder. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Sugar makes me shake a little. Junk food gives me
heartburn (always has, but now it’s just a torture not worth even a taste) and
booze gives me acute insomnia. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Also, I am usually covered with bruises.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">“What in the fuck happened to your elbows?!” That was
the general inquisition at Thanksgiving. I hesitated and gave a desperate look
to my daughter, who knew exactly what happened. She had similar purple/yellow
markings on hers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">“Class.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">“What class?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">“Fight class.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">The disapproval hung in the air just for a second
before the turkey came out. It was nothing compared to the tension in the emergency
room a few days before Christmas when a doctor with a thick accent told me that
not only did I have two ruptured ovarian cysts but also a contusion on the left
inner wall of my abdomen that went from my ribs to my…Southern States. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">“Do you know what this could be from?” The doctor was
really skeptical. Possibly already writing up the abuse report in his head.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">“It’s that damn class!” My mother said. Despite
numerous “I’m fine, I’m driving myself to the ER, Just wanted to let you know”
texts, she was hot on my tail and would not leave the hospital.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">“What class?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-gAO3Wd3EPjk/VOYi2k0IBGI/AAAAAAAAAOI/mwnhEC7KNZM/s1600/rondarousey.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-gAO3Wd3EPjk/VOYi2k0IBGI/AAAAAAAAAOI/mwnhEC7KNZM/s1600/rondarousey.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">“It’s…it’s an <a href="http://www.mmafighting.com/">MMA class</a>,” I said. “It’s <a href="http://www.tigermuaythai.com/phuket-thailand/about-muay-thai/history.html">MuayThai-style</a> fighting and a lot of conditioning and…”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">“Combat?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">“Yeah. Kickboxing, but more intense. Way more.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">That was the first doctor’s note I ever received with ‘no
contact sports or combat situations’ underlined in the first paragraph under
the treatment category. I was out for two weeks. It was awful. I should’ve been
out for four but who can stay away? I could feel myself getting weaker by the
minute. I could feel myself losing the edge that I fought so hard to gain. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Also, my fight partner is my 14-year-old daughter and
we are incredibly competitive. The thought of her gaining ground…on top of
already being in really good physical condition…na-ah. Wasn’t gonna happen.
Especially when the only thing standing between a good ass-kicking from your
kid is a giant mountain of pride and maybe a little more speed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">MMA is not for everyone. It hurts. A lot. But for me,
what hurts more, is sitting on all of those years where I wish I had known how
to fight for real. Or more importantly, how to control the fight inside of me. Because
there is always so much of it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">“You should’ve been a lawyer.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">“I should’ve been a judge.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">I’ve been fighting for 38 years, to the day. Some of
them were totally unfair rounds where I was too young to even think about
defending myself. I try to forget those fights. God and karma will handle those
fights with those monsters. They will seem like ants in the ring…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Some fights should not have come to blows.
Metaphorical or otherwise. I should’ve been the better woman and walked away or
just put my hands in front of my face and recognized that what my partner
needed was to throw a couple of punches and be done with it. That I didn’t need
to take any swings or kick with my dominant side. I know better now. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">The physical price of the training is…well, let’s just
say today I’m having trouble managing flights of stairs and using my legs to
get up (and down) from a seated position. That includes visits to the bathroom.
My toe has a mysterious gash that won’t heal. My feet are so calloused and
unfeminine I can barely stand to look at them. My shoulders, which were already
wide to begin with, are ropes of muscle around bone. My nose has finally stopped
throbbing from the “accidental” contact my daughter made with my face a few
weeks ago.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-_JJhoANAsrk/VOYikvQ9QDI/AAAAAAAAAOA/PBN78JocmAU/s1600/old%2Bcar%2Bin%2Bdesert.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-_JJhoANAsrk/VOYikvQ9QDI/AAAAAAAAAOA/PBN78JocmAU/s1600/old%2Bcar%2Bin%2Bdesert.jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Literally every single bra I own is too big. And I pee
all the time because all I do is eat eggs and down water…all day. All night. In
fact, it’s dangerous for me, this class. I take a medication for seizures that
prevents me from sweating. Do you know what that does to a person in the middle
of a brutal conditioning session? I can almost feel the acid taking over my
blood. I’d rather sweat to death than wonder if this is gonna be the night I overheat
like a 20-year-old Pinto in the middle of Vegas.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Thankfully, my fight partner recognizes the signs and
even while she’s kneeing me in the chest she’s asking if I need water. Or a
band-aid. Or a break. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">“Do you feel sick,” she fusses, in a whisper. “How’s
the sweating? Your face is getting white. Maybe you should stop.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Each time, I tell her I’m fine, and that I really will
let her know if I’m not. That is the irony of the bruises, the aching muscles,
the cracked skin. I will always finish the fight in there because it’s worth it
to me to know that I can do it. It is giving me the grace, slowly of course (because
I’m more stubborn than an old jackass, this I’ve been told) to pick my battles
once I take the gloves off. Fighting is so hard, gaining ground takes so much
effort…it had better be worth it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">With a teenage daughter made out of fire and a son
made out of wind, both living under the same roof with a mother made out of timber…it
has to be worth it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15499556587580457418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8266414000098749603.post-72878228377954055972014-12-04T11:57:00.001-05:002014-12-04T11:57:21.981-05:00Knowing better<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ndKoBAbYHJg/VICP9i2QiBI/AAAAAAAAASA/__ogDL2EJ7A/s1600/anna%2Billustration.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ndKoBAbYHJg/VICP9i2QiBI/AAAAAAAAASA/__ogDL2EJ7A/s320/anna%2Billustration.png" /></a></div>It’s time to talk about this. Time to come clean. If you don’t like it, tough shit, it might be time for a little self-examination. If you agree, then it’s time to do something. Get uncomfortable. Tear your ass away from that chair and that Instagram account and that cocktail recipe you’ve been meaning to try from Pinterest and get fucking real. Because for everyone else, shit just got real. Or, as my daughter says almost every day of her adolescent life, “Ma, the struggle is real.”<br />
<br />
So, what’s real? Here’s what’s real, on the ground. On my ground. Where I walk every day with my kids in tow. And if you’re sick of hearing it, which many of you have expressed that you are…let me tell you…we are sick of living it. EVERY DAY. It’s not a figment of my imagination that when I let my daughter roam the aisles of the grocery store to help me do the shopping that she is stared at, followed and in some cases, glared down—especially when I send her to the health and beauty aisle for the expensive face creams that she and I both insist on purchasing. That we share. <br />
<br />
‘Cause we share everything. We sip from the same mug of coffee, she pilfers my sock drawer, I steal skirts from her closet, she watches re-runs of “Full House” in the same bed where I’m reading a recycled farm magazine. Some people think we are sisters. Most cannot even fathom that we are blood. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-z19TVZd48So/VICRXZn-ChI/AAAAAAAAASM/FqKpwRGuzwQ/s1600/IMG_0360.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-z19TVZd48So/VICRXZn-ChI/AAAAAAAAASM/FqKpwRGuzwQ/s320/IMG_0360.JPG" /></a></div>“We look exactly the same,” she says, pulling Moroccan oil through her springy curls. She hands me the bottle so I can use the oil on my wild “stick” hair she calls my “Cherokee ‘fro.” <br />
<br />
But, to the outside world, to this culture that I am struggling to raise my children in and against, we are one thing and one thing only. Black and white. Night and day. Not child and mother.<br />
<br />
A few weeks ago we made the mistake of going to the mall. She loves to shop. I’m not a fan. But I choked back my hatred of chain stores and took her into…god help me…Delia’s…to shop for trendy graphic tees. A wardrobe essential for her, who wants to fit in. There were at least 10 other girls her age in that store, not to mention a packed cluster of six giggling and hovering around the jewelry section. And yet, while my daughter obliviously wandered the place looking for that perfect thing, a sales clerk was hot on her heels at every turn. <br />
<br />
“Can I help you with anything…?” became the battle cry of that experience. Every store—every single fucking store—seemed like it had a designated clerk assigned to following my kid while she blithely shopped for skinny jeans, T-shirts and, because she is mine, the perfect ‘ugly Christmas sweater just for fun.’ I pretended that she was a Saudi princess and that these people were waiting on her hand and foot because of her exquisite beauty and regal stature.<br />
<br />
But we all know the truth. We are all part of the truth, whether you want to admit your complicity or not. Your complicity in the complete plundering of the innocence of kids because of the color of their skin. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, or you don’t care, there’s this <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/28/racist-preschool-suspensions_n_5627160.html">essay</a> highlighting the disproportionate rate at which black students (as young as preschool age) are disciplined over their white counterparts. Wanna know why? There is a perception, apparently, that somehow a 4-year-old child of color should “know better” and is less innocent than his/her white peers. <br />
<br />
Can you get your head around that shit? I’ve been prepping my 13-year-old for months about watching "Schindler’s List" in school. She’s going to be a wreck.<br />
<br />
She’s just a kid.<br />
<br />
But, bit by bit, I’ve felt compelled to warn her about things. About things that I’m guessing other mothers don’t talk to their kids about. I am the one chipping away at her innocence for the sole purpose of trying to protect her. It’s unconscionable. But, it’s my job. I cannot trust that society will watch out for my kid when I’m not there. Because it won’t. The same police officer that will help your white daughter back to her sorority house because she’s had a few too many is the one who will look at my daughter like a piece of dirt, and bloody her lip and throw her in jail…or worse.<br />
<br />
OR WORSE.<br />
<br />
We have a problem in this country. And that problem translates into the kind of anxiety that no one wants to understand. Because, as a mother, my thoughts naturally go to the worst place possible. Most mothers go “there” occasionally. We have to, to get that horrible shit out of the way and move on with our day. <br />
<br />
Where your thoughts have stopped, mine keep going to the routine traffic stop where my daughter is a new driver—probably speeding if she is anything like her mother. The car will be searched for drugs. She will be roughed up, handcuffed, and possibly injured, or what the hell, shot. Forget a fucking citation…that’s for other people’s kids. That’s for ‘good’ kids who don’t know any better.<br />
<br />
“I think there is a huge difference between calling someone a nigga’ and a nigger,” s/he says, in between drags off a cigarette. I am stunned. The air is heavy. I can’t breathe. S/he is a cop. S/he has a gun. These are the thoughts…<br />
“Why don’t you ask my daughter,” I say, slowly. “I’m pretty sure she won’t notice the difference. They both sound the same to me, especially coming out of your mouth.”<br />
<br />
I suddenly remember my daughter’s third grade social studies folder. And a packet she brought home, entitled ‘Teaching Tolerance.’ We should be grateful that society puts up with us. <br />
And I wonder. Who’s tolerating who?<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8266414000098749603.post-66553221881749293072014-09-30T12:34:00.002-04:002014-09-30T12:34:46.883-04:00The folly of youth...sports<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-JmFhO62XjYE/VCrZ7U-rS0I/AAAAAAAAARY/tXyUkLUylMw/s1600/lucian%2Bsports%2Bblog.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-JmFhO62XjYE/VCrZ7U-rS0I/AAAAAAAAARY/tXyUkLUylMw/s320/lucian%2Bsports%2Bblog.jpg" /></a></div>My insider posse is crossing their demonic fingers hoping for a blog about this wedding I've got coming up in five days. There have been some too-good-to-ignore events and comments and gaffes and I will give them my full attention before the big day while they are still fresh in my mind (and raw in my soul). As a teaser, 'dis bitch don't wear white...no way, no how. I'll leave you with that.<br />
<br />
But there's something else pretty fresh on my mind as well, a little more pressing, and it needs to be addressed before we all put away our football/soccer/other contact sports jerseys for the season. Before winter settles in and we all start the mad frenzy of trampling each other at Walmart to get a hooker-murdering video game to jam in the sugar-filled stocking of our darling 5-year-olds, we need to address...or rather I need to address the madness that has become youth sports in America.<br />
<br />
Be warned, this may offend all people. Also know, that I am the mother of two sports-oriented children and I have tripped on, rolled over, and accidentally washed those goddamn cleat balls. My grocery bill has tripled, my laundry machine is in constant use, my car smells like ball sweat and cat urine, all of my frozen vegetables have been rendered null and void because they are now used to ice knees, shoulders, necks, ankles, backs and groins. We lovingly refer to one particular bag as "crotch corn". So know this, since the time they could walk, I have been a "sports mom." I am not speaking from some didactic point high above. My lawn is filled with divets where soccer moves have been practiced over and over. I have been forced into playing goalie, catcher, pitcher, lineman, quarterback, attacker and slide tackler.<br />
<br />
Here's the deal. Common sense in youth sports is dying a quick death and we, the parents, are letting it happen. Straight up. I had inklings of this when I reluctantly (think teeth being pulled out through your butt) allowed my son to play pee wee football when he was 9. He had been playing soccer up to this point and decided it wasn't his thing (while his sister excelled and he scored accidental goals for the other team and chased butterflies at half field--for years). It was a disappointment to me. And a horror. I knew a little bit about head injury statistics and what have you. But not enough to arm myself with a <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/29/traumatic-brain-injury-homelessness_n_5227637.html">sound-proof argument</a>. <br />
<br />
Every clash of the helmets made me want to puke. I had a full three months of emergency runs to the bathroom. Every day, <a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/erikmalinowski/at-least-six-high-school-football-players-have-died-from-hea#2uaxtav">headlines</a> from high schools across the country blasted across my computer--Junior dies from severed spine, head injury renders varsity player brain dead, paralysis for college all-star. And yet, my son played on. He complained of neck pain about three weeks in. Then migraines and more nosebleeds...the machismo ER doctor just gave my son a manly clap on the shoulder pads and said "Welcome to football, kid."<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-o3CHG1NVWkw/VCraG6OWAXI/AAAAAAAAARg/eV5r8ZSnvmg/s1600/anna%2Bsports%2Bblog.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-o3CHG1NVWkw/VCraG6OWAXI/AAAAAAAAARg/eV5r8ZSnvmg/s320/anna%2Bsports%2Bblog.jpg" /></a></div>Meanwhile, my daughter, who was just starting 7th grade, was launched into playing JV soccer. She <a href="http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/125/2/410.full">suffered a knee injury </a>about a month in. I demanded that she baby it. Ten days on ice, no practice, elevation, Advil. Our house was starting to look like an infirmary. But they loved their game. Each one, despite the obvious trauma, loved being on the field. Yet my concern, was not with my daughter. Her coach was great. She insisted that the knee heal. She saw into Anna's future, and didn't want this to be a game-ender for her. Football, on the other hand, was a totally different beast. Play 'til you puke. Play 'til you bleed. Play 'til you die. One kid broke his arm. He was back on the field in two weeks. Another fractured an ankle--back out there three weeks later. My son had a bad lung infection at the very end of the season, so couldn't play the last (unofficial, mind you) game of the season. His neck was still bothering him, he was on antibiotics, coughing. We still drove an hour to the game so he could support his team. He sat the sidelines (in the rain/snow) and cheered. And do you know what his coach said to him. To this little 9-year-old kid..."You should be suited up and out there with them..." gave him a look of disgust and walked away. Nine years old. <br />
<br />
Three ambulances came to that game. A pee-wee fucking football game. Parents cheering and screaming and some yelling at their kids to get back out their and "how bad does your leg really hurt, c'mon, toughen up, it's the last game of the season."<br />
<br />
<a href="http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2013/11/40_percent_americans_ban_youth_football_robert_morris_survey.php">Pee-wee football</a>, guys.<br />
<br />
(I think it warrants a <a href="http://blog.sportssignup.com/blog/bid/136202/What-Makes-Someone-a-Bad-Youth-Sports-Coach">second blog about the coach </a>calling the kids "retards" and the assistant coach screaming at his ex-wife, for all to see, calling her a "fucking cunt" in the parking lot while she was dropping off their son to a game on a nice sunny Sunday at the home field...but I digress...they still coach, by the way.)<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-FhN8NbFvcfM/VCranD5Pp_I/AAAAAAAAARo/WqKi9Ue6Mo8/s1600/lucian%2Bbaseball%2Bsports%2Bblog.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-FhN8NbFvcfM/VCranD5Pp_I/AAAAAAAAARo/WqKi9Ue6Mo8/s320/lucian%2Bbaseball%2Bsports%2Bblog.jpg" /></a></div>It was such a relief when he decided to join baseball. Yes, the games were excruciatingly long. But it was fun. The kids were having fun. They hung out, they learned the game, they did a little conditioning. They were kids. I, as the traumatized mother of the previous football season, was amazed at the difference. Nobody got hurt. Not too bad anyway. And my daughter played her first season of tennis. The knee flared up, as I expected. But, again, there was a general mutual feeling of understanding that it was our jobs, all of us, to keep the kids safe, teach them sportsmanship, and preserve their bodies while they grow into athletes of their own choosing.<br />
<br />
Now, fall, again. No football for Lucian. His neck hurts. Still. His pediatrician just shook her head and said "You want your son to be a battering ram? These injuries don't get better if you play more. They get worse." I almost got the sense that we were borderline child abusers even allowing him to play the one season. And who's to say we weren't? Who's to say we all aren't? What the hell are we waiting for? A death blow? My 13-year-old has an orthopedist. She plays entire soccer games without a sub. She's still growing. And people keep asking me why she's not on the weekend league in addition to the JV team. Are you nuts? Because I want her to actually be able to walk on Monday. Look into the future...<br />
<br />
I saw a parent last week, he looked more bummed out than his kid. She has to have surgery on her <a href="http://www.usyouthsoccer.org/news/acl_injury_and_the_female_soccer_player/">ACL </a>and will be off the field for 10 months. She's not even 17. Did it just so happen that this child had a freak injury, or is it from years and years of constant play: practice every day, games during the week, games on weekends, school league, special spring league while also playing another sport, skiing then rushing off to basketball practice or vice versa...do we honestly think that this stuff won't somehow catch up. And not to us, but to them? What about plain old burnout? I would be heartbroken if Anna decided one season that she was just done playing soccer. Heartbroken. I love watching her play. But who can blame a kid for calling it quits if they've played for three teams and on weekends since they were 8 years old? I'd say fuck it, too.<br />
<br />
In this case, it is up to the parents to look into the horizon. We are dealing with growing bodies, and growing bodies are fragile bodies. My daughter's knees can't keep up with the rest of her. So, it's my job to watch her gait during games, it's her job to respond to pain. They will only love the game so long as the game loves them back. If you force them to play it, be prepared for backlash. I know plenty of parents who force their kids into sports. I admit, I practically begged Anna to go to one tennis practice. <br />
<br />
"Just one," I said. "If you don't like it, you don't have to go again. I promise. Just try one." <br />
<br />
It's not even the end of soccer and she can't wait for tennis. Am I stoked? Of course. Would I have forced her to go? No way. Same goes with my son. I asked him if he would be willing to try martial arts/self defense as a substitute for football (we don't like to have idle seasons around here, the devil finds work...) He said sure. Now he's in his second month of MMA and loving it. On his own terms. And no ambulances in sight. And <a href="http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2011/12/11/ufcstyle_jiujitsu_a_positive_force_in_lives_of_troubled_youth.html">with such respect </a>in the air with his instructor.<br />
<br />
They say that youth football will be obsolete by 2020. That the injury rate will be so high, it will be banned forever into eternity. But why wait until others make the decisions for our kids? Why wait until your kids knees are torn to shreds internally and they've had three concussions and one shoulder surgery and foot reconstruction to finally say, "Shit, they're just kids. Maybe we should let them be kids. And play sports the way kids play sports."<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-H2NpaKVlIm8/VCrbH0AjO2I/AAAAAAAAARw/MiQv7a4_Qrs/s1600/kids%2Bfishin%2Bsports%2Bblog.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-H2NpaKVlIm8/VCrbH0AjO2I/AAAAAAAAARw/MiQv7a4_Qrs/s400/kids%2Bfishin%2Bsports%2Bblog.jpg" /></a></div>It's not the Olympics, people. Very few get to the big leagues. Sports scholarships are infrequent. And fickle. I thought the whole point of all this was to keep fit and build character, not to burn bodies and kill dreams. Let them play. Let them compete. But in the end, always, in the end; You are in charge. So be in charge. You think it doesn't kill me, this baseball-obsessed former pitcher, that neither of my kids has taken the mound or has even an inkling of interest in doing so? It stings. It stings that they both hate basketball (oh love of my youth) and fishing and archery and competitive singing and Irish punk bands and neither has any interest in learning how to play the piano. Kills me. But I won't live out the wayward dreams of my youth at the expense of their bodies. Or their own dreams. I run this ship. To me, you are <a href="http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/football/29401482">Messi</a>. Right in my own backyard. <br />
<br />
It's an honor to trip over your cleat balls and bring you frozen corn while you do your homework. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8266414000098749603.post-49370697879068963112014-08-11T08:19:00.001-04:002014-08-11T16:16:03.319-04:00A single, sensical pebble...or, stop supporting potato salad online!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-vF5bDUMCqiU/U-ium_6QiSI/AAAAAAAAAQU/8C3w9YW-4do/s1600/hammock.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-vF5bDUMCqiU/U-ium_6QiSI/AAAAAAAAAQU/8C3w9YW-4do/s200/hammock.png" /></a></div>Ahh, summer. Anesthetizing summer, where each raw nerve and astute observation is somehow made numb or less sharp by the alluring scents of grilling meats and potent flora. And what we should see and do see is often shaded by big, leafy trees that leave us longing for a nap and a book in the sleepy heat.<br />
<br />
I love summer. The blade is dull. Summer is the flame, we are moths...insert more cheesy metaphors here.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ZD_SXJRmoIs/U-iwpI3e-LI/AAAAAAAAAQk/493VfiPBi7c/s1600/gaza.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ZD_SXJRmoIs/U-iwpI3e-LI/AAAAAAAAAQk/493VfiPBi7c/s200/gaza.jpg" /></a></div>But shit is happening all over the globe. Real shit. Big serious shit that is incomparable to about 90% of the conversations I have on a daily basis. I cringe at myself sometimes, I cringe at the words spewing out into a cauldron of conversation. I see what people are posting about their daily lives and think, "Jesus Christ, Gaza is on fire and we really have the audacity to <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/body-image/">give a shit about body image</a>...still?" But these things are important, all things are important to all people. <br />
<br />
Perspective. Perspective. Where did all the perspective go?<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-iMmXSwOvz0Y/U-ivxw8RVjI/AAAAAAAAAQc/lqglJir7vv4/s1600/vineyard.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-iMmXSwOvz0Y/U-ivxw8RVjI/AAAAAAAAAQc/lqglJir7vv4/s200/vineyard.png" /></a></div>I think we should all be suffering from a little bit of survivor's guilt. Maybe even shame at times, for choosing to ignore the vast sea of suffering that roils right at our feet while we play in the sand. Maybe I should stop trolling the web at night. Nothing sets off my insomnia like a GoFundMe page for an already privileged white kid wanting to raise funds for his/her private school education. Or a litany of posts about the sad state of affairs in third world countries interspersed with numerous pictures from a second home "on the vineyard", a trip to the American Girl Café, and then another post about women's reproductive rights. Then "This stuff in the Middle East is awful" and "Those poor girls in Nigeria" then "Great waves in Malibu today..."<br />
<br />
We've all gone totally batshit crazy. Or, perhaps, it just <i>appears</i> that we have. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-j4IWe_wI9go/U-ix3EaAfMI/AAAAAAAAAQw/7a1x246-Tws/s1600/gymnastics.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-j4IWe_wI9go/U-ix3EaAfMI/AAAAAAAAAQw/7a1x246-Tws/s200/gymnastics.jpg" /></a></div>Where are the causes? Is anyone getting behind a cause anymore and sticking to it? Does anyone feel the weight of their privilege when their <a href="http://www.gofundme.com/">GoFundMe</a> site pleading for money to take their kid to a trumped up beauty contest/state gymnastics championship is flanked by one where <a href="http://www.iberkshires.com/story/47057/North-County-Community-Rallying-Round-Ailing-Infant.html?new_footer=1">a baby needs life-saving cancer treatment</a>? Who hits a donate button on a multi-billion dollar museum expansion project but deletes a newsletter asking for small donations to stamp out local hunger? <br />
<br />
Our hearts are bleeding and good for us, but I can't help but wonder if we're bleeding into a drain sometimes. There is a logical order to things and the older I get, the more I wonder about the logic.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-C82MYOoBwaI/U-izIxGYHlI/AAAAAAAAAQ4/Xm0_aM7ZT-U/s1600/pointe+shoe.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-C82MYOoBwaI/U-izIxGYHlI/AAAAAAAAAQ4/Xm0_aM7ZT-U/s1600/pointe+shoe.jpg" /></a></div>Let's teach kids math by getting a big grant to have dancers come to the math classroom and do integrative dance to incorporate algebraic concepts...<br />
<br />
That's admirable. But you've gotta figure that at least 46% of the kids in that math classroom haven't eaten breakfast and are probably too hungry to give a shit about dancing around. They can't learn on an empty stomach. Empty stomach=empty brain. <br />
<br />
Guess which one will get the money...ballerinas attempting to teach right angles.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5GY6NocJPpg/U-i0CBOV1_I/AAAAAAAAARA/SqIY9lVN-lQ/s1600/dalai+lama+mosquito.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5GY6NocJPpg/U-i0CBOV1_I/AAAAAAAAARA/SqIY9lVN-lQ/s320/dalai+lama+mosquito.jpg" /></a></div>No one really knows how to save the world. We think we do. We wish we did. But there is a way to start that makes sense. There are priorities. Somehow. Start with life, then take it from there, I guess...<br />
<br />
Stay tuned.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8266414000098749603.post-37960067985518904802014-07-18T10:30:00.000-04:002014-07-18T10:34:31.591-04:00Hey, bulldog<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-AECm0Hopemo/U8kmPibOjSI/AAAAAAAAAPw/EMqYdiEcuj0/s1600/atomic+wedgie.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-AECm0Hopemo/U8kmPibOjSI/AAAAAAAAAPw/EMqYdiEcuj0/s200/atomic+wedgie.png" /></a></div>When I think of bullying two images come to mind: an atomic wedgie in some locker room in Texas and the collective groan of my former teacher colleagues at yet another staff meeting on said subject. Bullying has some new creative pseudonyms thanks to today's wild social network dictionary. Slut-shaming, cyber-bullying, mean girls, you name it -- it's bullying. I always thought that getting pushed around was a rite of passage that, once you cleared high school, would be over. Once we scaled the awkward hurdle of youth, we would no longer have to defend our every eclectic habit. Our every choice. Our every breath while mortar fire besieged the foxhole of our fragile existence.<br />
<br />
I was, of course, wrong. Even big people get goaded and pushed around. Like a dry dog turd on the lawn that gets nudged with a sneaker, but never fully picked up and thrown. Cowards.<br />
<br />
I've had a couple of bullying incidents recently that were so passive-aggressive they were laughable, hardly threatening, hardly bullying, right? Nobody got hurt, no wedgies were delivered. But the premise was there, lurking just beneath the civilized surface. Do this, no, do this, why don't you do this? Oh you're not going to do this -- you're the c**t then. <br />
<br />
We were all finally seated, surrounded by a nice meal of a fresh salad from the garden. My gentleman friend had grilled up a nice steak. It was a perfect night. We served ourselves. I doled myself a healthy portion of salad and just got my first bite in my mouth. The avocado practically melted. It was so good...<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-LnADemsj7ag/U8kn0pCXwbI/AAAAAAAAAP8/CglP0bMjeYo/s1600/bigbite.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-LnADemsj7ag/U8kn0pCXwbI/AAAAAAAAAP8/CglP0bMjeYo/s200/bigbite.jpg" /></a></div>"Hey, aren't you gonna have steak?" My soon-to-be-in-law #1 asked. <br />
<br />
I fucking hate it when people ask me questions right when I'm diving in to my dinner. <br />
<br />
"Um" Hand up to mouth, chew quick, avoid getting said avocado stuck in throat. Crunch. Chew. "Um, no. All set."<br />
<br />
"It's really good steak," said in-law number two. "You should try it."<br />
<br />
"I'm good with salad. I love it." Charging steady into my second bite.<br />
<br />
"So what, you're not eating meat. Jesus Christ, is it because it's not <i>organic</i>?"<br />
<br />
I really just wanted to eat my salad and talk about...NOTHIING...<br />
<br />
"No, it's just that I stopped eating meat at Lent and really haven't..." I let the sentence trail off while I deliberately chewed with my mouth open and full of salad. I didn't put my hand in front of my mouth. Just chewed, talked, had to explain myself. The vicious, saber-tooth creature inside me wanted to turn the conversation around--for all different reasons. <i>Why are YOU eating red meat, of all people? </i> <i>Ya know, this salad is a little different because it's comprised of more than just iceberg lettuce, so...</i><br />
<br />
But that would be bullying, wouldn't it?<br />
<br />
I remember this time, it was a Friday in winter. I had put a roast in the crockpot with the intention of taking it to my then brother-in-law's house for dinner. The weather started to get dicey by noon, and by 5 p.m., just as I was supposed to head out and meet everybody at the little house in Hillsdale (with dinner in tow) it was down right stupid to be on the roads. I called my then-husband, who had a 4wd Nissan and who had picked our daughter up from daycare.<br />
<br />
"I don't think I can make it. The driveway is barely passable. The road isn't even plowed. And Route 23 is a mess."<br />
<br />
"Well, I'm almost there. And you've got the dinner, so...just drive slow."<br />
<br />
"But I don't think it's safe. Honestly, the driveway is...is like an oil slick."<br />
<br />
"Why do you have to put up a fight about everything? Everybody's relying on you to bring the roast. Just drive slow."<br />
<br />
I risked my life and limb to bring those drunks a goddamn roast that night. I piled the crockpot, the dog and most of my anger in my tiny 4-cylander Hyandai (before the changeover) and slid backwards down the driveway, nearly over the embankment on the other side of the road. The kind neighbor saw that I was stuck in the snowbank across the road and pulled me out with his plow truck. I drove for 1.5 hours, white knuckling it the whole way. The dog whining in my ear as the tiny car fishtailed and slid its way to the brightly lit house, where, of course, no path had been shoveled. Beef juice dripped into the snow from the crockpot and I remember thinking, "shit, I nearly just died. I'm an idiot for driving here."<br />
<br />
Of course, it was agreed that I should leave the car there that night, because it was just too dangerous to drive it in such weather. Yet no one objected to me driving it there...<br />
<br />
It's a matter of convenience, this bullying thing among the big people. Because we let ourselves be pushed around, or we push other people around for different reasons. Maybe we think it's for their own good. We're just trying to help. To be supportive...to "show" them "the right way." We do this a lot with the older folks in our lives. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9SSUpJ9TC_k/U8kpBpG_4oI/AAAAAAAAAQE/aQCzIUyqhVg/s1600/blinkinglights.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9SSUpJ9TC_k/U8kpBpG_4oI/AAAAAAAAAQE/aQCzIUyqhVg/s200/blinkinglights.jpg" /></a></div>"Ma, the speed limit's 55 you can..."<br />
<br />
"Don't tell me how to drive, Jesus, I've been doing this longer than you have."<br />
<br />
"You may wanna stop for this guy in the crosswalk. Ma, Ma, blinking lights!"<br />
<br />
"I see them!"<br />
<br />
Should I be telling my mother how to drive? Absolutely not. Can I help it? Absolutely not. Is it bullying? Probably...<br />
<br />
It's bullying when another adult, friend or foe, tells you you need to quit smoking. No shit. Like that's not completely obvious. But if you fire back with, "yes, I do. And you need to quit feeding your ass and hitting the tanning bed every 10 minutes and crying like a 1930s silent film star" guess who wins the asshole contest. You got it. <br />
<br />
<i>On a self-righteous side note here, I have, with a few lapses in sanity and judgment, said goodbye to cigarettes. This is the first week in four months where I have not had a single craving for one. It's been hell. And whoever says you can replace cigarettes with food is a total jerk liar. There is no substitute for a best friend.</i> <br />
<br />
The line is fine because we think we've reached civility. We're not giving anyone an atomic wedgie or a bloody nose, so it's acceptable to not accept, to push the last buttons, to poke the bear--if that's what you really want to do. My daughter tried that once, on the sidelines of my son's football game.<br />
<br />
"Ma, you're cheering too loud. People can hear you. Shush..."<br />
<br />
"You didn't just shush me. I'm cheering for my son. On game day. I know you didn't just shush me."<br />
<br />
"Yeah, but you get too into it. And you laugh too loud, too." She uncrossed her legs and gnawed on a Skittle. I pasted my hands to my thighs.<br />
<br />
"Do you think I got this far because I let people tell me how to be?" She shifted uncomfortably. My voice started to rise and rise...<br />
<br />
"Ma, I'm just saying..."<br />
<br />
"You just saying what? That I laugh too loud. I cheer too loud. You kiddin' me? You can't tell me how to be. Bigger men have tried. Don't ever think you can. I don't tell you how to smile or how to cry or what to laugh. You're a crazy fool. Go take a lap around the field. Get rid of some of that attitude. You're lucky I'm laughing right now."<br />
<br />
I watched her saunter-huff to the concessions stand for more junk food. The father sitting next to me was chuckling to himself.<br />
<br />
"They can't tell us what to do," he laughed. "And it's getting to the point where we can't tell them what to do."<br />
<br />
I can't wait.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8266414000098749603.post-14568322464745030392014-04-17T08:28:00.001-04:002014-04-17T08:28:25.937-04:00FlabvocateNormally I feel pretty good about what’s going on in the morning (after coffee and a shower, of course.) I can heave up this miserable pile of humanity, even on a snowy (fucking April) day and make it presentable to the world. Of course, some days are better than others. Some days, I get in a few more sets with my little dumbbells, a longer stretch…no pressure. Whatever there’s time for. Some days, I am practically eating a yogurt in the shower and asking my 10-year-old to start the car while begging my daughter to pack me a lunch.<br />
<br />
“Put anything in there, I don’t care. Just do it now. We are going to be late.”<br />
<br />
Those mornings make for some interesting hair. It’s a crap shoot. Farrah Fawcett-Tina Turner love child or Eponine dying in the rain. Either way, we’re leaving the house.<br />
<br />
NO MATTER WHAT. <br />
<br />
So when I think about my little dumbbells, and my weird, Herculean hikes, and the Frankenstein scars, and the big feet…well, I don’t really think about those much. In fact, I usually only think about the imperfections of the shell I live in when I’m trying to make someone laugh. Usually a friend who is worried about her imperfections.<br />
<br />
“God, I got a full visual of my face yesterday…it was just…”<br />
<br />
“I used two mirrors. I don’t even know how people look at me.”<br />
<br />
“How did my nose get so big?”<br />
<br />
“Where did my chin go? My teeth must’ve ate it.”<br />
<br />
“Oh stop…you’re gonna make me go off the road.”<br />
<br />
“I’m serious. Where did it fucking go? And the back of my hair…How long has that nest been there? Why didn’t anyone tell me about the nest. It’s a miracle my neck can hold it all up. My neck is pathetic. It’s not even a neck. It’s…”<br />
<br />
“A golf tee.”<br />
<br />
“Exactly.”<br />
<br />
Funny, right? I actually feel better. We are laughing. It’s cool, things are cool. Then we go and eat our weight in really good food, including orange zest EVOO cake and life just feels good.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-iJUUWVSnlcI/U0_FhwdeMzI/AAAAAAAAAPM/fuByAYu3DdE/s1600/kim+kardashian+photoshop.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-iJUUWVSnlcI/U0_FhwdeMzI/AAAAAAAAAPM/fuByAYu3DdE/s320/kim+kardashian+photoshop.png" /></a></div>So why then, do I not feel this confident when the Huffington Post inundates the web (we’re talking deluge via FB, Twitter, smoke signals) with “body image empowerment” stories. We're supposed to feel good, right? That's the point of paying a writer to scrawl out 600 words on how <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/29/jennifer-lawrence-doritos-american-hustle_n_4690678.html">Jennifer Lawrence ruins her white set gowns with Dorito dust</a>. <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1176390/Working-class-bullied-fat-Kate-Winslet-insists-So-KNEW-young-actress-say.html">Or how Kate Winslet was a "fat kid" in school</a>. Or how the cellulite on Kim Kardashian's thighs was photoshopped out of a cover shoot.<br />
<br />
Oh, phew, I feel so much better now. Thanks, newsfeed, for the coiffed photos of beautiful women in expensive dresses leading the charge in favor of feeling good about myself while I sit here in my 10-year-old yoga pants knowing it's only a matter of time and gravity before my boobs will rest solidly in my lap and that the veins in my hands are starting to look like the highway clog entering L.A. <br />
<br />
But thanks for placating me with the <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/16/4th-trimester-bodies-project-ashlee-wells-jackson_n_3757793.html">photo montage of post-partum moms in black panties and bras holding their smiling infants</a> and toddlers. That takes the sting off a bit. Nice black and white noir shots, good lighting... Close, very close, and very brave. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-TNSHJxy6m1M/U0_HG2ru95I/AAAAAAAAAPY/Bqx7knj_srk/s1600/corpse+bride.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-TNSHJxy6m1M/U0_HG2ru95I/AAAAAAAAAPY/Bqx7knj_srk/s320/corpse+bride.jpg" /></a></div>If you want hyper real, try a dimly lit bathroom at 3 a.m., full color saturation--so you can see the nice purple-silvery stretch marks that will never go away, bags under the eyes so deep Tim Burton should be calling to cast you in his next morbid Claymation film. Now that's body image reality. Oh, and don't forget the clinging baby...but wipe that smile off his face because he's just puked all over himself and you and you're both going in for a bath. No black bra, no soft light, no luxuriant hair.<br />
<br />
But it's all good, 'cause he still thinks you're cool. And his big sister (age three) will be leaning over the bath tub, while you are bathing the puke off your broken naked self and the baby, and she will point to different parts and ask hilarious questions.<br />
<br />
"Why do you have hair there?"<br />
<br />
"What are those? What are those in the middle of those?"<br />
<br />
"What's he got there?"<br />
<br />
"Why are there drawings all over your skin?"<br />
<br />
"What's a tattoo?"<br />
<br />
"You're belly is really floppy. It floats! Cool!"<br />
<br />
Here are the real body image warriors. Stick with them. They will tell you the truth, build up your armor, and never steer you wrong. And if anyone says anything bad about your shell, they are trained to kill. But don't expect Disney-esque miracles of enlightenment.<br />
<br />
"Nice dress, Ma. I like the color."<br />
<br />
"Thanks. It's black, though."<br />
<br />
"Yup. Like I said..."<br />
<br />
I'll take it. I'm sure Dorito dust looks good on black. <br />
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8266414000098749603.post-55031551356951033682014-03-24T08:53:00.000-04:002016-08-18T14:10:24.318-04:00Human terroir<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-DwY5prb0g4w/UzApLyanDAI/AAAAAAAAAOk/zQAB-ZglZGg/s1600/terroir4coffee.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-DwY5prb0g4w/UzApLyanDAI/AAAAAAAAAOk/zQAB-ZglZGg/s320/terroir4coffee.jpg" /></a></div>
So, there is this word that I’ve been swirling around in my mind palate/palette for a while now. It pertains to all things I love, not least of which is coffee (followed by bourbon, chocolate, wine and cheese and not necessarily in that order). Of course, it is a French word, because for some reason English does not have that all-encompassing quality that other tongues do when it comes to creating a scene as opposed to just saying what a thing is.<br />
<br />
<i>Terroir</i> is one of my favorite words. I use the term more in my head than I do out loud (I know how to pronounce it just fine, by the way); maybe because it would sound ridiculous explaining to my brothers that I think Dunkin Donuts coffee tastes like shit is that there is no sense of terroir, that the beans are roasted with a bunch of chemicals and mixed together in a whorebed of greasy casings and unnatural flavorings.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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“I can’t taste it anyway. I can’t taste the difference between black coffee from the Mobile or from some fancy café.”<br />
<br />
At least they are honest. It makes me cringe and have sympathy heartburn pains.<br />
<br />
<i>Terroir</i> is this: a sense of place; the sum of the effects that the local environment has had on the production of the product.<br />
<br />
So, if your Bolivian coffee tastes remotely of chocolate and black cherries and mountaintop, that’s because that stash of beans is surrounded by those elements and in a good bean, you will taste the flavors of the geography around it…you will taste the story of the place. It’s there, somewhere. For coffee geeks like me, it’s transformative. I drink good coffee because I want the experience of the coffee, not just the caffeine. I want to be transported to the tiny farm on some fog-covered hillside in South America. Or, if it’s a good French roast, a street café in Provence, watching the world go by while I sit back and sip and just be.<br />
<br />
People rely on these moments. Mothers rely especially on these moments. It never fails that when I go into the furthest room of the house with my coffee, just to sit on the sun porch for a few minutes before the day explodes into work, school, permission slips, baseball, robotics, etc., that one of them will follow me into the room, guns blazing.<br />
<br />
“What’s the most powerful car in the world?”<br />
<br />
“I don’t know. A Bugatti?” Sip, sip. I can almost hear a Saint’s Day parade at the top of Machu Picchu…<br />
<br />
“What’s the fastest Formula 1 car? Who drives it? Where’s the most dangerous track? Do you think I should be an architect or a race car driver?”<br />
<br />
Moment…slipping…away…<br />
<br />
“Architect. That way I can sleep at night. Go brush your teeth.”<br />
<br />
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I know full well he will try to continue the conversation with a mouthful of toothpaste from the top of the stairs.<br />
That’s his terroir. Toothpaste, cherry tomatoes and wood smoke are the overtones. He’s young, so things haven’t had a chance to deepen quite yet, but my guess is that he will have a floral quality to his skin and that his feet will always smell like soil and maybe a little bit of rubber from the years on the trampoline.<br />
<br />
“You’re friggin’ nuts,” my daughter says in her most eloquent, pre-dawn tone. My theory on human terroir has lost me some credibility while we drive to school.<br />
<br />
“I think about it all the time,” I say, turning down the radio that Lucian has just cranked to the ElecArea station which nearly gives me a heart attack. “It’s too early to feel like I’m in a nightclub in Berlin,” I say.<br />
<br />
“So people have smells, is that what you’re saying. People are smelly because of where they live?” <br />
<br />
“Well, that, too…but no. People will always carry the essence of how they grew from season to season. Like, this year, we had a lot of bonfires and campfires, so we are smoky. And we ate a lot of raspberries so there is a tanginess…sweet but sharp.”<br />
<br />
I make eye contact with her in the rearview mirror.<br />
<br />
“Very funny,” she says. “So, some years, can people turn bad? Can they be shitty and ‘taste’ like bad coffee?”<br />
<br />
“Sure. I knew I guy who smelled like onions and bad Chinese food. It got stronger as the years rolled by.”<br />
<br />
“That’s a lonely smell.”<br />
<br />
“It is. Very lonely.”<br />
<br />
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I think back through the years of our terroir. How we’ve nearly ruined it with chemicals – Prozac, bad bourbon, cigarettes, Hamburger Helper, urban dust – and wonder how much of it we can hide in the final cupping. What will that last sip reveal? Will the despair of diner coffee overpower the longstanding presence of sawdust and cherry tobacco and fresh herbs from years of toiling in the garden? What a shame that would be.<br />
<br />
Lucian pipes up, his 10-year-old face is ethereal like an alabaster statue.<br />
<br />
“It’s not just the terroir [his pronunciation is more like ‘terror’], Ma. It’s how you prepare it, too. Sometimes people can have really good smells that are ruined by a crappy coffee maker.”<br />
<br />
We drive by a flooded, icy field overrun by water seeping out from the Housatonic River.<br />
<br />
“Toxic terroir,” my daughter says under her breath. “Totally toxic.”<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0Sheffield, MA, USA42.1099885 -73.35514360000001941.9214935 -73.677867100000014 42.2984835 -73.032420100000024tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8266414000098749603.post-61685046699561904582014-03-03T17:32:00.001-05:002014-03-03T17:33:52.883-05:00Making a face<i>This past Saturday, a group of us mother-writer-warrior types gathered to give a reading as the opening event for the <a href="http://berkshirewomenwriters.org/">Berkshire Festival of Women Writers.</a> The prompt was given to us awhile ago and was inspired by Taylor Mali's poem, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxsOVK4syxU&feature=kp">What Teachers Make</a>. For the group of us, we were asked to consider "what do mothers make?" We make messes, we make babies, we make babies cry, we make muffins and shitty one-dish recipes from Pinterest, we make fun of ourselves, we make coffee...We make essays. In case you weren't there to catch the live reading, here's my thoughts on what this mother makes.</i><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-KjQz5NCRWz8/UxUAB6srxoI/AAAAAAAAAN0/DxzVdqzxppU/s1600/anna+straight+hair.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-KjQz5NCRWz8/UxUAB6srxoI/AAAAAAAAAN0/DxzVdqzxppU/s320/anna+straight+hair.jpg" /></a></div>I try not to make a face as the hairdresser runs a flaming hot iron down my daughter’s jet-black hair. What she is doing defies gravity. The afro that my girl came off of the bus with, the one we have all come to love and recognize from afar, is transformed into a smooth airstrip. She is only 11, but the hair makes her look 15. I sip my coffee. The winter sun disappears behind the trees. The afro is gone.<br />
<br />
“What do you think?” They both look at me expectantly. My daughter’s eyebrow is raised, the hairdresser is excited. I am trapped.<br />
“You look beautiful,” I say. “You look beautiful.”<br />
<br />
And she does. She is a stunning child. Always has been. Now, with the hair, she looks more like me than ever, but brighter. So much brighter. I try not to make a face.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-W3iEELPyKXc/UxUAYsGc7UI/AAAAAAAAAN8/5ng7ssZpVuA/s1600/anna+sax+afro.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-W3iEELPyKXc/UxUAYsGc7UI/AAAAAAAAAN8/5ng7ssZpVuA/s400/anna+sax+afro.jpg" /></a></div>In the car, my coffee is gone. My mind is stuffed with sadness. My girl, the puffy-haired queen who came into the world fighting and screaming for her life, is disappeared and a woman now occupies the passenger seat. <br />
<br />
“What do you really think, Ma?” Half of her face is lit by street lamps. The other half is a mystery.<br />
<br />
“I really think you are the most beautiful girl I have ever seen. No matter what your hair looks like.”<br />
<br />
I want to stop the car. To sweep her in a never-ending hug. To somehow make her understand the fierceness in me. But I keep driving. I try not to make a face.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nCm5J5VBEIg/UxUBhhzgl1I/AAAAAAAAAOI/cSnvF-fw-ww/s1600/me+straight+hair+sand+box.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nCm5J5VBEIg/UxUBhhzgl1I/AAAAAAAAAOI/cSnvF-fw-ww/s400/me+straight+hair+sand+box.jpg" /></a></div>My mother was good at not making a face. First, in fourth grade when I finally insisted that my waist-length Pocahontas hair needed to go. She made the appointment, she took me to the hairdresser; She watched as nearly two feet of my childhood was hacked from my little head and slithered down my back to the floor. She said she liked it. I was happy. She was happy. We went home happy.<br />
<br />
My father nearly wept. “It’ll be much easier to manage,” my mother said nonchalantly from the kitchen. I watched my father’s face. “I’m still me,” I reassured him. “It’s still me. Besides, you shaved your beard.”<br />
<br />
The haircut didn’t have quite the effect I was hoping for. I still had to do dishes. My mother made me wear stupid, Victorian-era outfits that I deliberately tried to sabotage at school. The yellow corduroy mini-dress mysteriously torn at the seam. The calico pinafore with the behemoth collar became filthy during a muddy kickball game. <br />
<br />
“What happened to your dress?!” My mother always exclaimed, horrified.<br />
<br />
“I told you, we had gym today.” I looked with envy at my brother’s overalls and t-shirt and short hair. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-yDG9AFShzXA/UxUCcb4RIII/AAAAAAAAAOQ/R1PtEyonKZo/s1600/anna+cape+cod.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-yDG9AFShzXA/UxUCcb4RIII/AAAAAAAAAOQ/R1PtEyonKZo/s400/anna+cape+cod.jpg" /></a></div>I tried not to make my daughter wear anything, remembering my mother’s attempts at disguising a cactus as a lily. For years, everyone thought my girl was a son. Her soccer jerseys and denim shorts did little to dispute the fact. Her afro was universal. I thought she was beautiful then. Even when people would ask “how old is he” I would correct them.<br />
<br />
“SHE is eight,” I would say. I would say it with the same conviction when strangers asked if she was my foster child, or if she was adopted. They did not see the mirror of my face in her face. They did not see that we were of the same cloth. Hers was a bit darker, sure, but the eyes. The high cheekbones, the stubborn set of the mouth. <br />
<br />
“SHE is mine” I said, so many times. I wanted them to know that I made this beautiful creature. That I alone and young and without resources raised up a healthy child in a sea of hard times. She was mine and I was hers.<br />
<br />
I make her come with me everywhere I go. She tugs at my sleeve. Even now, as a teenager, she tugs at my sleeve while I am deep in conversation with this writer or that official or this teacher.<br />
<br />
“Ma, we should go.”<br />
<br />
I look right through her, mid-conversation. My eyes are ice and the air sucks out of the room (or the café, or right there on the sidewalk). The moment becomes awkward for everyone but me.<br />
<br />
“Don’t interrupt me,” I say quietly. “Not ever.”<br />
<br />
I nearly make her cry. She backs up slowly, just far enough to escape the frigid air, but close enough because she knows there is no place to go. And she knows that I will make her squirm in the car once the public pleasantries are finished. Her brother waits. He is patient with his mother who “knows everyone.” He makes me smile. In return, I make him a lot of hot chocolate. I cut him slack.<br />
<br />
She makes no bones about my favoritism. If she only knew, if she only remembered what I made for her. The space that I carved out just for her. I made her a pink bedroom and I slept in the living room. I made her soups and cassoulet and soft biscuits, anything that would put a slow smile on her face. I poached eggs, I melted crayons, I took every small step with her; She never trailed behind me.<br />
<br />
I made up the difference. I made her as proud as she made me.<br />
<br />
Now, we are in the car, I am lecturing her. I make her cry.<br />
<br />
“You are not the only person living in this house,” I yell. Her brother pretends to read the registration to the truck. My voice makes him uncomfortable.<br />
<br />
“You have no right to treat anyone this way,” I am at full blast now. “Especially the people you live with. The people who are closest to you.”<br />
<br />
She makes a face. “I’m not listening to this anymore.”<br />
<br />
Then I put the nail in the coffin: “Is this how you show your love?”<br />
<br />
We make amends after she gets off the bus. By the end of the day, we are speaking as if no rift occurred. As if the divide of psychological damage had been crossed by one bowl of matzo soup and one joke and one goodnight hug.<br />
<br />
I make sure she knows that I love her. Because I do.<br />
<br />
Later on in the week, I make a phone call. To the school. <br />
“There is a group of them,” I say. “They’ve been calling her names on the bus. In the lunch line, behind her back. Sometimes to her face.”<br />
<br />
“What kind of names,” they ask.<br />
<br />
“Names like nigger,” I say. I make them uncomfortable. The word makes me sick. I want to go to each one of their ignorant houses and make them pay. Stuff their words into their foul mouths and make their parents weep with shame at how they have raised their children to speak to my daughter. The light of my days. The queen of my life. I make a sound in my throat. They assure me, they will take care of it.<br />
<br />
I ask my girl about it. I ask her ‘how’d it go at school.’ She wasn’t going to tell me about the nasty remarks. <br />
“It doesn’t make any difference to me,” she says between handfuls of popcorn. She is making a mess. I try not to notice. We are, after all, having a serious conversation.<br />
<br />
“What do you mean it doesn’t make any difference?” How can she be so blasé when I am ready to go door-to-door ripping people’s throats out with my bare hands? This kind of rage makes me bulletproof. <br />
<br />
“They’re not going to make me feel bad about myself, or make me get bad grades or make me lose my confidence if that’s what you’re worried about,” she says. She’s so on to me! My New Age mom attempt at preserving innocence and self-esteem and authenticity. I make a face.<br />
<br />
“I can’t change who I am. They choose to be who they are,” she says. I wish she’d close her mouth while she chews. “I feel bad for them. I’m the one making a future for myself. Who gives a shit what a bunch of rednecks think about me?”<br />
<br />
She’s made her point. I walk away, dumbfounded at her clear vision. Ruthless, but clear.<br />
<br />
I make myself a cup of coffee and listen to her and her brother fight about what to watch for movie night Friday.<br />
<br />
“How about Nemo,” I say from the kitchen, gripping my coffee, waiting for a fight.<br />
<br />
“Good idea,” she says. I hear the DVD case pop open. <br />
<br />
I made the right decision. For once, I made the right decision. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8266414000098749603.post-2360082792766240702014-01-31T10:15:00.000-05:002016-08-26T15:40:22.157-04:00Lean the other way<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Last night my friend 'A' sent me a link to an article, <a href="http://www.berkshireeagle.com/business/ci_24995159/gender-geography-women-paid-differently-different-parts-country?source=nav">this article to be exact</a>. She was understandably enraged. These kinds of articles and news bring out a primal anger in most women I know. It’s similar, I think, to something James Baldwin wrote about in his potent essay, <a href="http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&frm=1&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CDUQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fenglish.duke.edu%2Fuploads%2Fmedia_items%2Fbaldwin-native-son.original.pdf&ei=TLfrUv66A4XuyQHK8YDwBA&usg=AFQjCNFD3a063_JbuLPm83H4bi_oJTvG8A&sig2=TvBUV45D3Uj2OhnDUzKsWg">“Notes of a Native Son.” </a>In that essay he remembers his dead father as an embittered man, stuck, by force, in a free-radical world of blatant racism and zero opportunity. Baldwin was headed that way himself, until an eye-opening experience in a night club shattered a tumbler full of whiskey, a mirror, and Baldwin’s growing hate. This was no way to live.<br />
<br />
And he’s right, this is no way to live. But, as it stands right now, the doors seem permanently locked. The glass ceiling of equal pay is out of reach, and all I can do is sign petitions, rail vocally and verbally against this bullshit lack of balance, and cross my fingers that legislation will eventually pass that will bring my people, women, closer to equality.<br />
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It is 2014. Women make less than men. Period. And we wait. And women like me wonder what the scenario will be for our daughters (and our sons) in 10 years. My girl is weeks away from turning 13. A year away from signing her work papers and then delving off into the working world. One that sits atop a slick ramp. It’s not even ground. How do I prepare her for that? Or do I say nothing at all and let her figure it out.<br />
<br />
“Screw this <a href="http://leanin.org/">lean in </a>shit,” 'A' said to me after reading the article. “We need to floor it!”<br />
<br />
We do. We really do. I’ve been doing a little research for a project far afield of my usual writing life and the numbers for our humble county loom large and irreversible for women. And, being a writer and longtime observer of timelines and such, I know that these numbers, when projected onto the wall of the future, can produce some serious problems. Generations will be affected by this. Whole communities will fall, if we don’t reverse the tide. <br />
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Statistics only have meaning if you see yourself, or someone you love somewhere amidst the mathematical equation of human existence. When the equation reads: Women in Massachusetts earn on average, 22% less than men for full time work, women in Berkshire County earn roughly 24% less than their male counterparts. Additionally, Berkshire County reports a significantly higher percentage of female households (no husband present) with children under the age of 6 than the other three Western MA counties and the state average. Aaaanddd Berkshire County girls under the age of 5 have a poverty rate twice the state average (16%), at 34.8%. <br />
<br />
The language is clean, practically medical, but the image is of flesh and blood and losing ground. A majority of women are raising kids on their own as the sole breadwinner of the house, yet they are paid significantly less than their male cohorts AND they and their children live in poverty. <br />
<br />
Poverty, by the way, sucks. Ask me how I know. As any one of us women how we know. My friend 'B' gave a chilling explanation of how she stayed so thin raising her kids. It was the same story in my house, and in thousands of others across the county.<br />
<br />
"Oh my god, who could afford food? The kids ate dinner and basically I ate what was left on their plate."<br />
<br />
Can you imagine surviving on the leftovers of a toddler? I can. So many mornings, I'd lap up the last three bites of Cheerios, suck back the milk at the bottom of the bowl, then off to school we went. We kept the apartment at 55 degrees, sometimes cooler, in the coldest winter on record. And have to be thankful that we had a roof over our heads and that we hadn't run out of coffee or eggs or, god forbid, oil.<br />
<br />
And none of us, were looking for handouts. Me and 'B' and 'A' reminisce with shame about the WIC checks, the angry people in line behind us at the grocery store, the stupid blue SNAP card that you could see from outer space, the judgment on the faces of the cashiers. Once, someone made a comment about my WIC purchases, and how they were taking too long. (By the way, WIC covers baby formula, peanut butter, cereal, milk, the basics so to speak.) I whipped around in a red rage, not prepared to ignore the comment. <br />
<br />
"Would you rather we starve," I asked. "Are there no workhouses, no prisons?"<br />
<br />
I finished up my transaction, my blood boiling. I was about to leave, then came back.<br />
<br />
"I work," I hissed at the fella in the polyester khakis. "Full time. All the time. I went to friggin' Yale. Maybe if I made what you were making you wouldn't have to wait in line so goddamn long." <br />
<br />
Not a proud moment. And not the last time.<br />
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Women don't want handouts. We are proud folk, the many that I know, and for all of that pride this system funnels us into prideless measures. The kids have to be fed. The rent has to be paid. We do what we can, knowing that if we made 25% more our lives would be totally different. What we wouldn't do with even $5,000 "extra" a year. <br />
<br />
The myth of the alimony-sucking, child-support chasing freeloader is part of the problem. The other part, is simple. Pay us what you pay them. Why is that such a difficult move to make in the legislature? Pay us what you pay them. Free up the healthcare system, save millions on food stamps and subsidies and emergency assistance. <br />
<br />
And watch as the next generation thrives because their mothers finally got a decent, fair wage. <br />
<br />
Because we've fucking earned it. <br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8266414000098749603.post-21342229763340165342014-01-07T15:26:00.001-05:002014-01-07T15:26:37.604-05:00A lived life<i>About a year ago, I was asked to provide a list of ten things that have inspired me in my life; things that caught me off guard, buoyed me up, or brought me low. The pitch was that these vignettes would then, by some miracle, be turned into performance pieces that would run for a whole week to warm up the frigid mid-winter night. So, without much thought that these little vignettes would be performed for the public, I wrote them, sent them out, and then invited my mother and my boyfriend (now fiancée, he proposed on Christmas night, story to follow soon) to the performance. These little scenes of MY LIFE, my actual life, were laid before us all. Complete with music, actors, action, and some tears. So here it is, in no particular order of importance, my unofficial year in review. A life lived, and more scenes yet to unfold...<br />
</i><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-fU374-hw_aY/Usxe1PMOrMI/AAAAAAAAALE/94AmVbq6Xq8/s1600/Spain-Seville-Vintage-Flamenco-Dancers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-fU374-hw_aY/Usxe1PMOrMI/AAAAAAAAALE/94AmVbq6Xq8/s200/Spain-Seville-Vintage-Flamenco-Dancers.jpg" /></a></div><b>The admiration of a younger man</b><br />
I had always admired his thick black hair from afar. He struggled a lot, and that struggle was made more romantic by his Spanish accent and his sad brown eyes. My heart always flipped a little when we would go to the restaurant and he would be at our table immediately, and the way he knew my name, and said it like he meant it. He and I talked a lot about love. His broken heart, my broken heart, of course, he was too young. Like six years is that big of a leap, but I have morals, you know. The divorce was awful, I never told him about the divorce, I didn't want him to think I was hinting at some impropriety. <br />
<br />
Of course, at my age, what is improper? Truly? <br />
<br />
I felt my eyes on his face a little too long. I didn't want to be one of those pathetic “older women” drowning in lust and loneliness. I stayed away from the restaurant to avoid even the possibility of feeling my own patheticness. Two years later, I was with my appropriately-aged, balding boyfriend when I saw my non-lover. It was my 35th birthday, he was drunk and he stopped us both in the street. <br />
<br />
“This might make you both very uncomfortable,” he slurred, “but I asked for her number when I heard that she was single. I was very serious.” He turned to the boyfriend and shook his hand. “You are a lucky man,” he said with that adorable accent. “I should have asked for her number sooner.”<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-TQL5ZO3LkWk/UsxfJyN9fcI/AAAAAAAAALM/LTIDvG1zcxg/s1600/IMG_0909.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-TQL5ZO3LkWk/UsxfJyN9fcI/AAAAAAAAALM/LTIDvG1zcxg/s200/IMG_0909.JPG" /></a></div><b>Upon realizing that everyone is transfixed by my stunning daughter</b><br />
The auditorium is thick with breath and body heat. It seems like the whole town and their spawn have turned up for this 6th grade holiday music concert. Babies cry, elderly grandparents squirm and sweat in the self-contained humidity of the place. Suddenly, the whole room goes dark as pitch and the choristers file one-by-one onto the shabby risers. <br />
<br />
They are all shades of pink and white dresses and black dress slacks; all heights and various stages of awkward gawkiness and obesity. It's a tough age. On the top riser, in the very back, shining under the lights, is a tall girl in a plum dress. Her hair, a barely contained Afro, holds a purple flower. She smiles and sings and giggles a little in between songs. No one can take their eyes off of her. No one. The audience is transfixed by her. I am transfixed by her. Such a beauty. Later, after the concert, people comment. “She's so grown up,” they say. “She's such a darling. What a beauty. I couldn't stop watching her.” <br />
<br />
I see the girl in the foyer after the excitement dies down. A head taller than her peers, light years away, it seems, from their round faces and awkward smiles. I catch her eye. In the light, she is even more beautiful, like something in a museum, some ancient tablet filled with an inexplicable energy. I want to be nearer to the girl. She smiles broadly at me and waves. The sun comes up even though it's dark outside.<br />
<br />
“Hey, Mom,” she says, “Could you hear me singing?”<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-lZrR7CJdBeE/UsxfoPw3CYI/AAAAAAAAALU/ZcWHSrgJ9nk/s1600/dead-tree.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-lZrR7CJdBeE/UsxfoPw3CYI/AAAAAAAAALU/ZcWHSrgJ9nk/s200/dead-tree.jpg" /></a></div><b>The true origin of pleasure</b><br />
The blonde crying in the corner is starting to irritate me. So is the young hipster/cyclist who claims he has “nothing better to do on a Friday night.” I regret leaving my socks out in the hallway, outside of the supposed sacred space where we have just finished an hour and a half of qi-gong and meditation. My face hurts from crying all afternoon. Twenty children are dead in a town I have never heard of until today. The people surrounding me are childless, sad, but relatively unconcerned, it seems, with the tragedy. One has just come out of a 7-day silent retreat somewhere in the mountains. A tanned, long-legged beauty came back from her trip to paradise early. I guess the beach wasn't doing it for her. She says she missed her mother. The meditation instructor looks familiar, I've met him before, he was living in a housing project, high as a kite, talking to me about struggling as a single father. Now he is here, he is clean. I am ready to bolt and not come back. The candles are burning low, the roses in the middle of the room are dying, my eyes are closed. Then a voice, his voice, low and a little too chill, slips through the silence. <br />
<br />
“Remember, pleasure grows on the tree of sorrow.”<br />
<br />
I breath hard and sigh. That explains everything.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vg2xU6bRKHo/UsxgC-2IlcI/AAAAAAAAALc/_lvJBiSWAtM/s1600/lesbian-same-sex-marriage.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vg2xU6bRKHo/UsxgC-2IlcI/AAAAAAAAALc/_lvJBiSWAtM/s200/lesbian-same-sex-marriage.jpg" /></a></div><b>The right to love</b><br />
I went to my first lesbian wedding in D.C. It was beautiful, the brides were stunning, the flowers, the turquoise and orange cake...everything made me smile, and I got to wear a big ol' southern hat and wasn't in the least put off that I missed the Kentucky Derby because we were in the middle of the ceremony. A few months later, the country is exploding with weddings. New York, Washington, men and women who have spent a lifetime loving each other beyond the limits of culture, suddenly they are married and the world knows. I scrolled through at least 100 pictures of weddings that were a long time coming. I've always been a softie for true love.<br />
<br />
<b>The tie that binds</b><br />
It always happens in the deepest, muddiest hours of the early morning. Just after midnight. I guess that's when he decides that he's too drunk to do anything but drive himself to the hospital. Of course, I will go, even though I have vowed a thousand times not to, to “leave his ass there” for all eternity. What has he ever done for me these last 10 years besides borrow money and ask for favors? But I go, of course I go, and I will most likely go every time, because I do not see a drunk with dirt under his fingernails, red-rimmed eyes and in sore need of a toothbrush. I still see a little boy with hair so blonde it shone gold in the sun, bare-chested and thin, and grinning from ear to ear because his big sister fixed his cap gun.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-KeJlfMftOAg/UsxgSsrPgoI/AAAAAAAAALk/5qAhI4NenOc/s1600/IMG_0948.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-KeJlfMftOAg/UsxgSsrPgoI/AAAAAAAAALk/5qAhI4NenOc/s200/IMG_0948.JPG" /></a></div><b>The perfect man</b><br />
Soon, my son's voice will transform from the sweet, barely audible bird song to the thug-like drone of an adolescent pre-man. That is why, every day when he jumps off of the bus and comes bounding across the driveway to give me a hug, every day when I lean down and notice that he is smelling my hair, as he has done since he was a struggling infant, I remember what it is like to have the unconditional love of a good man. And I forgive him for dismantling nearly all of the kitchen appliances before 6 a.m.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Young farmers</b><br />
The blazing heat rises off the fields before 8 a.m. Today, this is not New England but a Georgia plantation. But work must be done. The veggies need watering, the chickens need feeding, the coop needs cleaning, and the water needs to be changed. Oh, and then there's the weeds. All of those straggly soldiers that popped up during last night's rain. Out in the field, just behind the July haze, three young farmers, each with a college degree and a somewhat privileged past, are bent over a shriveled spinach row, heads adorned with bandanas and straw hats and sweat. From the road, it looks like a resurrected ritual.<br />
<br />
<b>A good cup of coffee</b><br />
“Mom, you really need coffee in the morning, don't you?” <br />
He has set up about 80 feet of plastic Matchbox racing track across the kitchen floor, and a make-shift bridge above connects the two counter tops. <br />
<br />
“Yes, I really do.” I duck under the bridge, my knees creak and the shoddy structure shakes. I can smell the rich brew and taste it's nourishment. Thankfully, it is after my first sip that he lands the remote-controlled helicopter directly into the brimming bowl of cereal.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-a_XM639t_UQ/UsxhWX7I3GI/AAAAAAAAALs/1lrHAS7qikw/s1600/thor.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-a_XM639t_UQ/UsxhWX7I3GI/AAAAAAAAALs/1lrHAS7qikw/s1600/thor.jpg" /></a></div><b>My third baby</b><br />
The foal is standing out in the field alone, his head low to shield his eyes from the driving rain. I see him every day, motherless, his lean legs carrying him to grass and water where he can find it.<br />
<br />
“How old is he,” I ask, admiring his stout shoulders. He could be on Roman battlefield. He is so noble.<br />
<br />
“Three months. They wanted him weaned right away. I'm surprised he is still alive. My guess, he won't make it much longer.” <br />
<br />
His name is Thor, and I sneak out to him every night at dusk to feed him, to lead him around with the makeshift rope bridle, to escape my life in the house of expectations. Sometimes, I've had a bit too much brandy, but Thor doesn't seem to mind. He runs to me when I call him. He nips at my shoulder, I bite his neck to teach him boundaries, just as any mother would do. He is mine.<br />
<br />
“How much do you want for him?” I ask the woman, the same woman who demanded that he be torn from his own mother, the big lady who eats organic food, believes in Montessori schooling and teaches yoga and compassion out of her living room.<br />
<br />
“Well, he is a good dressage prospect, I'm thinking at least $1,200.”<br />
I hang up the phone. Less than a minute later her husband calls.<br />
<br />
“I'm sorry about that,” he says. “My wife has no idea what she's talking about. We'll take the $300. And thank you for taking care of him. I feel so bad about...”<br />
<br />
“You should stick to dogs,” I say and hang up again.<br />
He is mine. And I am his. It's a simple story for once.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TN9o1ZLeQRk/UsxiOKHeB_I/AAAAAAAAAL0/7AXvPyZo2Gc/s1600/striped+bass.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TN9o1ZLeQRk/UsxiOKHeB_I/AAAAAAAAAL0/7AXvPyZo2Gc/s1600/striped+bass.jpg" /></a></div><b>Hooking the big one</b><br />
At 4:30 a.m. the boat slowly backs out of the dock, and the lights of the town fade as we head out into the Sound. The water is a black glass under a purple sky. The handsome skipper gestures to the swivel chair welded to the boat.<br />
<br />
“Ladies first,” he says. I put out my cigarette on the bottom of my shoe and take a seat, gently easing the pole into my hands. <br />
“I'm left handed,” I tell him. He shrugs his shoulders.<br />
“Not today, you're not.”<br />
<br />
The line is hissing in less than a minute, and I pull and reel and pull and reel, sweat gathering at the small of my back. My arms burn, there is already a crude pattern of scrapes on the inside of my wrists. I see the silver belly getting closer to the boat. I have him. I have him all to myself.<br />
<br />
“It's a big one,” the skipper smiles.<br />
<br />
For once, I have no interest in talking to a good-looking man. My focus is on the bass. He is the one I want. The last five feet of the line is the hardest fight. But, he is up, and in the bucket wriggling, defeated but beautiful.<br />
<br />
“That's at least 25 pounds or more,” the skipper says, clapping me on the shoulder and handing me my smokes. “It's gonna be a good day for you.”<br />
<br />
“What'd I tell ya,” the captain yells from his perch above us. “The women always catch the monsters.” <br />
<br />
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8266414000098749603.post-65741954872853669102013-12-02T11:35:00.000-05:002013-12-02T11:35:23.710-05:00Happy Hunting<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HgLjVNKiNKU/Upy0bN8cb0I/AAAAAAAAAKU/B7IQHTj4jqk/s1600/hunter+in+stand.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HgLjVNKiNKU/Upy0bN8cb0I/AAAAAAAAAKU/B7IQHTj4jqk/s200/hunter+in+stand.jpg" /></a></div>The way my brother tells it, it was a quiet morning in the woods. Just him, his shotgun, a few cigarettes and a weak sunrise. From his old tree stand, he spotted a decent-sized buck, quietly took aim, and shot the thing in the pre-dawn light.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-DwFgMepCDzQ/Upy0jAmgWTI/AAAAAAAAAKc/thWLBRUsPOs/s1600/buck+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-DwFgMepCDzQ/Upy0jAmgWTI/AAAAAAAAAKc/thWLBRUsPOs/s200/buck+1.jpg" /></a></div>Unfortunately, the deer didn't drop to the wet ground. He ran. Fast. Bounding from bush to bush, staggering at times, and leaving a trail of blood and broken sticks for my brother to follow. Which, as any good hunter would, he did. The distance he covered to track the deer has been a subject of debate and memory for years. A mile and a half through the frigid winter. Where he found his target finally, and summarily dead. He should have been overjoyed...the smell of venison stew filling his nostrils as he hoisted the near 200-lb creature (again, this detail may be the victim of fuzzy memory) and dragged it out of the woods on foot. The entire time, while he is imagining the waft of venison steaks filling his kitchen, the deer had other plans. <br />
<br />
"I noticed he didn't smell right," my brother recalled in his 50th retelling of the tale. "He stunk. Bad."<br />
<br />
The stink didn't go away when they prepped the deer for skinning and butchering in the woodshed. His impressive rack was a footnote to the odor coming off of him. <br />
<br />
"I knew it was gonna be bad," my younger brother chimed in. He was there in the tiny woodshed to "help" clean the impressive beast. "That smell was ripe. It had a tangy, piss smell. As soon as they opened it up we all ran out of the shed and started f***king dry-heaving in the snow."<br />
<br />
It is unclear what the smell was. In earlier accounts, my older brother (we mercilessly refer to him as "the huntsman" for this and other tales of bad luck with deer, one involving getting a truck stuck in the middle of a cornfield, the other referring to a sheetrock knife that didn't quite do its job...)swears he shot the thing through its bladder. In other renditions of the story, the buck already had blood poisoning from a previous hunter's bullet, and my brother may have done the poor thing a favor.<br />
<br />
Either way, the loss of all that meat was a tragedy. We all felt it because we were all guilty of smelling the imaginary venison wafting through our homes as we prepped a pioneer Sunday dinner. My brothers felt bad for the thing.<br />
<br />
"I can't imagine running through the woods shot through the pisser," one said. "I mean, man."<br />
<br />
Of course, given it's impressive antlers, my older brother did take one trophy from the ill-fortuned hunt: The head. Bucky is mounted on the living room wall. He looks a little greyish and mangy. Not the bright-eyed noble stag of cabin lore. He is a monument to an effort. And the only part of that deer that wasn't laid to waste in the woods behind my brother's house. <br />
<br />
"Not even the huskies would go near it," he said of his pack of sled dogs who are opportunists when it comes to food of any kind.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-z1pVB94RM1Q/Upy0yMkUjlI/AAAAAAAAAKk/eoTpM1SD7iI/s1600/martha+and+turkey.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-z1pVB94RM1Q/Upy0yMkUjlI/AAAAAAAAAKk/eoTpM1SD7iI/s200/martha+and+turkey.jpg" /></a></div>It is the opening day of shotgun season here. I've already heard the irregular pops off in the woods. Our abandoned road is busy (sort of) with trucks full of hunters hoping to snag Bambi's father before the big freeze sends us all inside, unable even to hunt for root vegetables or anything wild. I hold out hope that I will be sizzling up some venison sausage in the coming weeks. But I know that food karma trumps my sausage and my desires for a hearty breakfast courtesy of nature's wild.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-33pn3S-n-L0/Upy04UZ6JcI/AAAAAAAAAKs/BGYAeGZrtWQ/s1600/foodweb.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-33pn3S-n-L0/Upy04UZ6JcI/AAAAAAAAAKs/BGYAeGZrtWQ/s200/foodweb.gif" /></a></div>Food karma has been driving my eating habits for a long time, since I was pregnant with my first child nearly 14 years ago. It has become impossible to purchase meat from the grocery store. Even the Thanksgiving table is a source of anxiety, wondering where that turkey came from and wondering about the nature of his death (and life) and what kind of bad juju I'm putting into my body while trying to enjoy the tender dark meat. What if it suffered terribly? What if its life was one of complete misery jammed into an industrial pen, waiting to die? I think this. I feel bad. I say prayers of thanks to the turkey and hope that it hears me. And that my guts are not immediately entangled in a karma battle that plays out on the bathroom floor ('cause that's happened, too).<br />
<br />
The food chain is exactly that. It is a chain, snapped snugly around our human wrists. If we pull on the chain too hard, it's gonna hurt like a bitch. If we don't pull at all, we starve in a sense. I am chained to the lives of these animals (and vegetables, let's not forget the karma of Monsanto that is spreading havoc across the world with cancer, dead honey bees, obesity and the ousting of small time farmers) and my need to know outweighs my longing for neatly packaged bacon. <br />
<br />
We will make it through the winter, with or without Bucky. My freezer is full of meat from the farm just down the road and fish that we ourselves yanked up from the water (and I silently prayed over as their throats were being cut and their heads were tossed into the sea, chum for the birds). It's a small gratitude for a big sacrifice. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-vK7dIOSSiTI/Upy1Bxu2kpI/AAAAAAAAAK0/gSi3HVUweBE/s1600/karma.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-vK7dIOSSiTI/Upy1Bxu2kpI/AAAAAAAAAK0/gSi3HVUweBE/s200/karma.jpg" /></a></div>Bucky watches over us, his eyes seeking us out across the living room. Conversations over coffee are conducted under his nose. Birthday cake is devoured across the room. Meatballs are speared with toothpicks. As I am chewing on a hamburger, I swear I see him wince. Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8266414000098749603.post-68911112152448538102013-11-14T12:07:00.001-05:002016-09-06T08:33:35.116-04:00Let her loose<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-vMev_7ObONc/UoUBveaVW3I/AAAAAAAAAJs/hZY9ehpEcuw/s1600/thelma+and+louise-400.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-vMev_7ObONc/UoUBveaVW3I/AAAAAAAAAJs/hZY9ehpEcuw/s1600/thelma+and+louise-400.jpg" /></a></div>
There have been numerous opportunities to escape this madness. My friend A and I were driving on the NY state thruway, up into the Adirondacks, and we saw the sign for the Montreal exit. She slowed down. I started breathing funny.<br />
<br />
"God, just do it," I said. <br />
"Montreal?" The car was crawling in the right lane.<br />
I paused, lit a cigarette, exhaled and sighed a long, sad sigh.<br />
"Nah. Wouldn't be far enough."<br />
"So true."<br />
<br />
I'm not sure what I meant. "It wouldn't be far enough." Certainly, at some point, family members would come looking for me. My cell phone would heat up with texts and calls and frantic voicemails--Where are you? Are you OK? Do you want me to send your father? Nichole, this is your mother, get your ass back here right now...I would have to ditch the phone in a motel toilet. Then keep driving.<br />
<br />
But how far would "far enough" really be? How far would I have to run to drown out the cacophony of responsibility and obligation? Because it's not the external sound of loved ones and friends that cuts through the desperate desire to just keep driving into the sunset. <br />
<br />
It's the piercing scream inside. The one that would go on forever if I (we) left it all behind, took up a new self, and never looked back into the wake of what I had created.<br />
<br />
"I could fake my own death..."<br />
<br />
"Nah, your Ma would find you."<br />
<br />
I had a classmate back in grammar school. We were all totally jealous of her...or "totes jelly" as my daughter would say, which continues to drive me nuts. That and "whatevs" and "adorbs." <br />
<br />
Totally fucking nuts.<br />
<br />
Our envy, turns out, was unwarranted. Her beauty, her great perm, her amazingly expensive collection of high-top Reeboks couldn't fill the void that her mother left when she jetted off to Hollywood, leaving my classmate and her little brother floating aimlessly in a state of motherlessness. <br />
<br />
It's one thing to be fatherless...I mean, 35% of children in this country (actually, most likely the number is higher) are being raised by single mothers. This is not to say that not having a dad around is cool. Cause it isn't. Good dads are solid and fun, average dads at least make you feel safe and not listless. <br />
<br />
But no mom. Who is tethering you to the earth? Who is making sure that your soccer uniform is clean for the third day in a row and that your pants aren't too high at the ankle and that you hold the door for elderly people and that you drink a full glass of water upon waking up and that you take your Vitamin D every day, twice a day in winter 'cause you're white and black? Who? <br />
<br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-6QtG6NPB940/UoUC-VYO7yI/AAAAAAAAAKE/lzV16RvtjRc/s1600/angelou-430.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-6QtG6NPB940/UoUC-VYO7yI/AAAAAAAAAKE/lzV16RvtjRc/s320/angelou-430.jpg" /></a></div>
I always felt empathy for my friend. With her mom choosing to be so far away. I talked about it with my mother once, while she was fixing yet another shirt that I'd ripped. <br />
<br />
"Those poor kids. They'll never forgive her."<br />
<br />
But as I close in on 40, and my daughter rages alternately between tenderness and narcissism and my son fights me on every shower and homework assignment and my job prospects as a writer are limited and I can't get Ethiopian food or crawdads...running away seems to have its merits.<br />
<br />
I look at that mother from years past, fleeing to that greener pasture, and how can I judge her? I mean, I can, but it wouldn't be an honest judgment. Who doesn't seek adventure? A new lease on life? Maya Angelou left her young son back in the states while she toured as a dancer for "Porgy and Bess." All through Europe, gone and gone. She had a blast. Took lovers of all nationalities, saw the world, drank good wine, hit the beaches in Greece. And not once did she seem to regret the decision. She made a good living. She supported her son while he lived with her mother.<br />
<br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-yo5c-DES_As/UoUCMC9BLcI/AAAAAAAAAJ8/ibsFKmHz8l0/s1600/ItalyBeaches-400.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-yo5c-DES_As/UoUCMC9BLcI/AAAAAAAAAJ8/ibsFKmHz8l0/s1600/ItalyBeaches-400.jpg" /></a></div>
The other day, I made an off-hand remark about going to Italy for a few months on a writer's retreat. I was daydreaming in front of my mother. She didn't look outwardly horrified but...<br />
<br />
"Oh god, you couldn't leave the continent. You'd be too anxious about the kids. You'd never be able to relax. And forget taking a lover."<br />
<br />
I nodded. Yet I could smell the Mediterranean as the bus pulled up and ejected my two ragged children from its squeaky bowels. I imagined myself there, alone, writing, hitting the beach, smoking, drinking good coffee and wine, wandering through vineyards...blissfully alone.<br />
<br />
"Ma, what's for dinner?"<br />
"What are we doing tonight?"<br />
"I need new ear buds."<br />
"Can we go to Olympia?"<br />
<br />
"C'est va, guys. My day was good. Thanks for asking."<br />
<br />
I'm in too deep. I know what I'd miss while sunning myself on volcanic rock. I would miss my daughter's first goal ever in soccer. I would miss the look on my son's tuba solo (yeah, they actually have tuba solos). I would miss my nephew's first varsity football game. I would miss random Instagram messages from my niece where she has a dog nose and a flower crown. I'd miss watching my papa get tipsy on egg nog at the Reveillon.<br />
<br />
I'd be lying if I said the urge has gone away. It never does. Sometimes at night I count the years until my son graduates from high school. And I think of ways to fill those years with travel to obscure towns and islands and experiences and people...until I can finally disappear into the nighttime throng on Frenchman Street or some remote beach in Sardinia--pen, paper, bikini, thick-haired Adonis with a Ducati...<br />
<br />
"Ma?"<br />
<br />
"Yeah, papi?"<br />
<br />
"Can I live with you until I'm at least 25?"<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8266414000098749603.post-9540489338409493152013-09-23T14:19:00.000-04:002013-09-23T14:19:54.067-04:00Not accounted for<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-akQW2wJisNE/UkCEE_RtUqI/AAAAAAAAAJM/g1YgzdNS1RA/s1600/Principals_Office.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-akQW2wJisNE/UkCEE_RtUqI/AAAAAAAAAJM/g1YgzdNS1RA/s200/Principals_Office.png" /></a></div>I had a distinct and healthy fear when I was a teenager (and before and after) that if I did something bad, something bad would happen in return. I wish I could say that I was sophisticated and wise enough, at that point in time, to understand the workings of karma. I was not. I lived in the moment as most youngsters do. I did, however, understand the workings of consequences. That was made plain before I was old enough to walk. If I hit my brother, I would go to my room and lose a favorite toy. If I sassed a teacher, I'd be made to sit in the corner of the classroom, or, on rare occasion, take residence on the bench of shame outside the principal's office while they phoned my mother. <br />
<br />
As was the case with most of my peers, I'd rather face the principal than my parents. <br />
<br />
And it's not as if my folks were violent, unpredictable people. Spankings were economically doled out for those times when I simply didn't listen to the 3 or so verbal warnings prior to my offense. As I got older, the consequences of my actions remained relevant. Caught smoking or drinking...there goes your social life for at least a month or more. Or worse, expulsion from school, or even worse, getting kicked off the team, whatever team it was. The knowledge that I wouldn't be pitching for a softball season, or allowed to go out with my friends, or to get a ride to work kept me pretty much in line. Sure, I still did the stupid shit that kids do, but the risk was so high -- in my mind at least -- that it had to be worth it. And eventually I did get in trouble, and for the most part accepted the consequences of being and idiot. <br />
<br />
I got caught, I paid my dues splitting wood and in social exile. I didn't get caught, I spent months worrying that eventually I would. Basic stuff.<br />
<br />
Not so basic, it would seem, in this era of enablement that has completely paralyzed our country. Recently, a local story caught my eye and my ire. Apparently, <a href="http://www.wgy.com/pages/chuckandkelly.html?article=11670767&desktop=true&desktopviewduration=72000">nearly 300 high school students broke into the home of former NFL player Brian Holloway. Holloway was at his primary residence in Florida</a>. This residence is in New York state. Anyway, long story short, the little shits trashed his house, pissed all over the floor, broke stuff, and basically had a drunken free-for-all. And, of course, they posted their criminal antics in real time on Facebook and Twitter. Good going, dip shits.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-mPv-YuYUYww/UkCEi1-tQrI/AAAAAAAAAJU/zjUnkF2tz08/s1600/cleaning-with-a-toothbrush.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-mPv-YuYUYww/UkCEi1-tQrI/AAAAAAAAAJU/zjUnkF2tz08/s200/cleaning-with-a-toothbrush.jpg" /></a></div>Holloway did NOT press charges. Instead, he put a call out to the teens and their parents to help him clean up the damage and do some community service work. Guess what, one kid showed up. One out of 300. And some of the parents are threatening to SUE Holloway, ya know, the victim, for identifying the kids online. (Actually, I think he just identified the schools they go to, based on, ya know, their tweets.) I don't know who to slap first, the parents or the kids...You figure that's nearly 600 parents who did not respond to an opportunity for their kids to learn a lesson and NOT be arrested. I'd be all over that with several hundred 'thank yous' on my lips for Holloway. My kid would be scrubbing his goddamn floor with a toothbrush. <br />
<br />
Where have we gone to, folks? Where is the dignity in doing what is right and accepting responsibility for what you did wrong? And you're going to unleash your child on the world, send him/her off to college not knowing that there are consequences for everything. That Mommy and Daddy will not be there to save your ass when you get yourself into hot water. <br />
<br />
I have been a high school teacher. And I watched as over the years, the parents of my students became increasingly enabling. One parent, who was a guidance counselor at another school, called me and told me that she hated me because her son was failing a film class. A film class! You know, where you watch movies and take notes and just be chill and learn stuff. I told her I'd called, sent notes home, so why is she surprised? <br />
<br />
"I never got those notes," she stammered. I knew she was lying. Immediately. But still, at the end of the day, I was "strongly encouraged" to allow her son, a sports player, an honors student, blah blah blah, to make up the work so he could pass. At the end of the session, he "passed" the class by one point. <br />
<br />
"Thanks, Ms. D." He handed me his nearly empty notebook.<br />
"Don't thank me," I said, not even making eye contact. "Thank your mother."<br />
<br />
He turned a million shades of red. "You'd do the same for your son."<br />
Then I made eye contact.<br />
"That's where you're wrong, man. I wouldn't. I'd watch him squirm and fret and fail the class out of sheer laziness. Lesson learned. That's my job. To make sure the lessons sink in. But I'm not worried about my son. He's not the baby here."<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-u7W861FxmRk/UkCE9-KCizI/AAAAAAAAAJc/0G3x4A-TW-g/s1600/stock-photo-5410376-talk-to-the-hand.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-u7W861FxmRk/UkCE9-KCizI/AAAAAAAAAJc/0G3x4A-TW-g/s200/stock-photo-5410376-talk-to-the-hand.jpg" /></a></div>He moved to say more, I just put up my hand. "Enough. I'm not getting paid to make you feel better about yourself. Good luck in the real world."<br />
<br />
I don't know whatever happened to that kid. I think he dropped out of college, lives with his parents, still borrows money. Probably like a majority of other teens who never learned the right lessons. We have a whole generation of pansies coming through the ranks right now. Kids in their 20s who can't hold a job, still have their mothers call in sick for them, have never paid for rent or groceries. They have nothing to be proud of. Least of all themselves. They never learned those lessons. They never learned that when your ass is on fire, you're the only one who can douse the flame. Or make it bigger. Your choice. It's your choice every single time.<br />
<br />
My kids know I've got their back. They also know, beyond doubt, that I will not be the one who swoops in and rescues them from themselves. You don't clean your room, you don't go to the sleepover. You don't do your homework, you don't go to football practice. Simple as that. <br />
<br />
It scares me to know that those 300 kids may have avoided life's most valuable lesson. And that one day, they will be walking the same streets with my kids. <br />
<br />
Nobody ever said parenting is easy. It's not. But it's simple. Do the right thing. Every time. And your kids will follow.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8266414000098749603.post-25343547128302666192013-09-19T09:33:00.001-04:002013-09-19T09:33:18.239-04:00Taxing the taxedI meet the start of the school year with increasing dread. While I'm delighted, and I mean totally effing delirious, that the kids are off to those hallowed halls again, and I can have a moment's peace, I basically sit in wait for the forms to come home and the great march towards poverty to begin. And it always does. Not a week goes by where I am not spending $80-$400 on kid-related stuff. <br />
<br />
Your kids are spoiled you are thinking. I know that's what you're thinking.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ZSMUVLYeW1Y/Ujr8T9BqV0I/AAAAAAAAAIk/AjMMfRc9oVk/s1600/images.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ZSMUVLYeW1Y/Ujr8T9BqV0I/AAAAAAAAAIk/AjMMfRc9oVk/s200/images.jpg" /></a></div>I wish. I wish it were that simple. Let's begin, shall with, with the "supply" list that comes home every friggin' summer, and gets longer and longer as they get older. Glue sticks, gel pens, flairs, ball point pens, paper, erasers, pencils (yes, goddamn pencils), a scientific calculator, 18 composition books, 15 three-ring binders, scissors, index cards....it's unreal. First, we raid last year's pencil boxes...then off to Staples with the lists. It is a trip that requires a black coffee in a milk-jug sized to-go cup. At the door of the store, the kids each grab a basket. The sales clerk is about to tell me that there is no food or drink allowed in the store, but I stare him down. My face says, I'm bringing this coffee in. And if you don't let me, I'm leaving these kids here. They've just had an ice cream cone.<br />
<br />
And then I unleash the hounds into the aisles. It takes about 40 minutes (minus the time it takes to rip my son away from the tablet/laptop display where he is playing games, his basket still empty save for one lonely pink eraser. We check things off the list. I begin to do the math as the baskets fill up. I add in my head so that I won't have an actual heart attack at the checkout, or worse, exclaim some mortifying expletive that I cannot take back.<br />
<br />
Compass, check. Rulers, check....$223...Check?<br />
<br />
I wait until we get in the car to have a fit. Now, I've worked as a teacher for many years. Many years. And whenever I ran out of paper, or pencils, or needed scissors or tape, I went down to the supply room on Wednesday mornings with my modest list and was given exactly what I needed, which in turn was handed over to my students. Little blue journals, pencils...nothing fancy, but the basics. And I seem to recall when I was in school that these things were supplied to us. My mother bought us each a Trapper Keeper (design of our choice) and off we went. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IP3BUhhbjGE/Ujr8gXExnFI/AAAAAAAAAIs/s51kgB85LzU/s1600/untitled.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IP3BUhhbjGE/Ujr8gXExnFI/AAAAAAAAAIs/s51kgB85LzU/s200/untitled.png" /></a></div>Why the hell am I purchasing pencils for my kids? F***ing pencils?! What school doesn't supply pencils for Chrissakes? And after all this money is dumped into the school experience, then the paperwork starts coming home. Form after form that needs signing. Does your child speak English? Well, why don't you ask her. Will you be able to volunteer to be a classroom aid? I thought they paid people to do that, as per, you know, the law. Here are the fundraising packets...can you please start selling this wrapping paper and cookie dough immediately...oh and these magazines. And volunteer for the spaghetti dinner that is in two days. Oh, and you gotta make the spaghetti, too. Buy it, out of pocket, make it, then serve it...<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-15xW2dkSeiA/Ujr8qm_A-fI/AAAAAAAAAI0/F6J4_uKpE-I/s1600/IMG_4418.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-15xW2dkSeiA/Ujr8qm_A-fI/AAAAAAAAAI0/F6J4_uKpE-I/s200/IMG_4418.gif" /></a></div>This week, I got an email that nearly sent me off a ledge. It was innocent enough. From the band director, whom I respect deeply. Kids are marching in the parade, they're gonna need to show up in uniform to meet the bus, etc, etc...scroll down..."if you haven't already purchased a uniform for your child" they need a white tuxedo shirt (to the tune of at least $40), special band shoes (I wrote the check for $22 last week), black slacks (at least $30) and a black bow tie (what, like $10?). <br />
<br />
When I played in the marching band, we all got measured and were given uniforms to wear for the year. Oh, and the school provided me with my sousaphone. The uniforms were itchy, mustard yellow, and some had sweat stains, but whatever, they were FREE. Because it is a public school and things should, you know, for the most part be FREE. Like pencils and shit. Oh, and I also shelled out another $15 for a soccer jersey. Even though, of course, they already have jerseys for both home and away games, but they want different ones 'cause "these are old." <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-6zogCPcp4_o/Ujr8zT3e9wI/AAAAAAAAAI8/KYC5XNpHaAI/s1600/505-primrose_pilgrim_girl_costume.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-6zogCPcp4_o/Ujr8zT3e9wI/AAAAAAAAAI8/KYC5XNpHaAI/s200/505-primrose_pilgrim_girl_costume.jpg" /></a></div>I used to wear my aunt's dresses to school. Those were old. I looked like a friggin' pilgrim for almost all of second grade.<br />
<br />
My question is twofold: 1) Why are we being made to pay for such basic stuff that has long been supplied by the school? and 2) Why don't these coaches and teachers and band instructors and PTO peeps sit down and tally up what it is they are demanding of us every year? They would probably pass out. Shit, I'd pass out. That's why I don't keep the receipts. <br />
<br />
Yes, I know what you kidless conservatives will say....just don't buy it for them. The kids will survive. <br />
<br />
Do you know what being "that kid" does to a child. They crave normalcy at every turn. They just want to be like everybody else. You're setting them up for many uncomfortable moments that they will need to unravel in therapy (which you will be paying for).<br />
<br />
The other day, my friend B sent me a text. To put this into some kind of context, her son is an avid Boy Scout, and football player. She's been there throughout, to all the fundraisers and spaghetti dinners, etc...ON the very same day that I will be carting my daughter (and her very expensive rental alto sax) to and from a parade, she will be manning the Scout booth with her son. But she doesn't wash her hands of her duty after that.<br />
<br />
FUCKING SCOUTS, NOW THEY NEED HELP AT THE FALL FESTIVAL IN OCT!<br />
<br />
Apparently there is a new rule this year that every parent must volunteer for at least two Scouts events every year. A rule. <br />
<br />
Do you know what this is doing to parents who want to be involved to the extent that they are able? This massive heft of expectation and money and time? It's making us less enthusiastic about, well, everything. If I didn't have to shell out hundreds of dollars on stuff the school used to supply, I'd certainly have a little more free time to say, serve spaghetti. But as it stands, now I need to work several more hours to make up for the money I just blew on fucking pencils. Pencils, people.<br />
<br />
The cookie walk is coming up for the holidays...that's the one where you spend at least 30 buck on ingredients (or store bought cookies because they want at least 3 dozen) and then buy them back from the school. <br />
<br />
Looks like we're gonna be eating a lot of spaghetti this year. <br />
<br />
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8266414000098749603.post-27336122406324960162013-08-08T13:30:00.001-04:002015-11-20T17:45:11.974-05:00Just In Case You Were Curious<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I don't know anyone as lucky as me when it comes to the texting department. My day is riddled with messages that, on many occasions, have sent coffee flying out of my nose. Usually the best messages arrive when there are throngs of professionals around me, serious and planning this mag or that issue. I know now not to even look at my messages. Since my laugh is utterly too loud according to my twelve-teen daughter, you can imagine the sound that my snickering guffaw makes down the marbled halls of, oh, let's say the Met Museum. Or worse, the tiny basement office of a human resources office...en route to do an interview. I don't know if it's a good thing or a poor reflection on my character that people send me these texts, know, I'm sure, that I'll laugh until I cry. And I can just see them on the other end of their iPhones, waiting, hoping my reply will be as witty and inappropriate.<br />
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For instance, take my friend Jamie, who, a few months ago sent me a text while I was in the waiting room of the doctor's office.<br />
<br />
GOT THAT PUBLIC LEWDNESS CHARGED REDUCED. COMMUNITY SERVICE. I STILL CAN'T BE THE ONLY ONE WHO HAS TAKEN A PISS ON A NEW YORK SIDEWALK! AT 2 A.M. ANYWAY, I'M GONNA TRY AND GET CENTRAL PARK DETAIL, ALL THE CELEBS DO THEIR COMMUNITY SERVICE THERE.<br />
<br />
He is an opportunist, Jamie is. Always looking on the bright side. I want to write a play with him someday. About life, liberty, hairy bears in New Jersey, and strategies for not blowing a piss test.<br />
<br />
And then there is B. My sarcastic equivalent who happens to understand my genetic code for "nervous stomach" problems. She too shares those desperate moments in Barnes and Noble or the supermarket. With children in tow, of course.<br />
<br />
THOSE DD COFFEES ARE LIKE NINJAS!<br />
<br />
I can picture her flying down to the basement of her old office building, to the scariest most abandoned bathroom on earth, the clock ticking like a scene from a Hitchcock film. Tick, tock. She also sends me some <a href="http://www.peopleofwalmart.com/">lovely images from the People of Walmart website</a>, usually around lunch or dinner time, so that I can properly gag at man's fashion and hair and hygiene decisions (or non-decisions). My response is the usual journalistic query:<br />
<br />
WTF IS THAT? CAN YOU EVEN IMAGINE WHAT HIS HAIR SMELLS LIKE? AND WHO FORGETS TO WEAR PANTS TO THE STORE...? I'VE BEEN CLOSE, BUT JEEZUS...<br />
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There really needs to be a book, or at least a website, that catalogues these texts. Think of the million hysterical comments we are missing. The profound insight. Even my daughter sends me, well, some of her best material. And my gentleman friend, whose random "sexting" messages usually blow up my phone while I'm visiting with my grandmother or at parent teacher conferences, is relentless. Just recently he dropped the Don Juan from Jersey messages in favor of a picture of the 'action' he was getting off our back porch. Three raccoons perched on our dome light, climbing up the side of the house. The accompanying text conversation (since I was across the state "glamping" on the Cape, while listening to a bratty-ass kid cry for 48 hours straight):<br />
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FUCKING RAMBO UP IN THIS PIECE. I DON'T THINK WE ARE GONNA HAVE ANY MORE PROBLEMS WITH THE RACCOONS...<br />
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WHY?<br />
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I TOOK CARE OF IT.<br />
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YOU USED THE AIR RIFLE DIDN'T YOU....(at least fifteen minutes elapsed)<br />
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I'M GONNA MAKE A NICE RUG FOR MY emoticon of a balding man....<br />
<br />
The entertainment never ends. Just as I doze off to sleep, a fellow writer will text me a) a grammar question and/or b) that he's finally getting a piece. Good for him. Anna will text me from the other room that she doesn't want to clean the litter box.<br />
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TOUGH SHIT, KID.<br />
<br />
YEAH, LITERALLY. THANKS, MOM.<br />
<br />
Endless material. Endless. <br />
<br />
There is no moral to this story, btw. Wear pants when you go out. Don't pee in the street. And watch out for laxative coffee.<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8266414000098749603.post-52645145246676849252013-06-12T14:44:00.000-04:002013-06-12T14:44:50.005-04:00This Coat of Many Colors<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-W6eYIHbjEgE/UbjBE8ORXjI/AAAAAAAAAHU/o-q-WZqi2MA/s1600/9909waldorf.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-W6eYIHbjEgE/UbjBE8ORXjI/AAAAAAAAAHU/o-q-WZqi2MA/s320/9909waldorf.jpg" /></a></div>There has been an interesting debate boiling over in our house. Actually, it's not a debate, it's more like the kids looking for answers while I try to remain neutral and somewhat politically correct while making my own stance known...to remind them that I'm human, of course. It began not too long ago, in the usual spot (the kitchen island) at the usual time (butt crack of dawn, before the school drop off). My daughter was sipping her <a href="http://www.chai-tea.org/recipes.html">chai</a> -- not homemade this time -- and shaking her head. I tried to look busy packing lunches, pretending I didn't see her chagrin.<br />
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"I gotta say, Mom, I'm not a fan of <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/11/is-this-grade-school-a-cult-and-do-parents-care/265620/">Steiner</a> moms."<br />
<br />
WTF? Where was this conversation going? Certainly we've chatted about education in the past. All the cousins go to different schools. Some public, some private, each parent trying to navigate the best way through the whole education thing.<br />
<br />
I slug back my coffee, which I've treated with standard bleached sugar, having run out of the raw stuff...and money to purchase said raw stuff. Agave is now way out of my financial league.<br />
<br />
"Why do you say that," I asked. This is leading somewhere. There is an anecdote in here. I know this child too well.<br />
<br />
"They're so, just, perfect. Or they think they're perfect, and that their kids are perfect. It's a sham."<br />
<br />
"OK, so what happened?" <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2kN2_vvweyA/Ubi_x62sZ1I/AAAAAAAAAHA/xeKdIrlm-_k/s1600/iPod+ban.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2kN2_vvweyA/Ubi_x62sZ1I/AAAAAAAAAHA/xeKdIrlm-_k/s200/iPod+ban.jpg" /></a></div>As my 12-year-old tells it, with her hormonal flair for drama, she was at a "Steiner gathering" with her dad. She's hot and cold about these gatherings because she is always the oldest child and usually the only girl, and is pretty removed from the younger set. We've all been there. All the kids were playing, her brother in the mix (he's the 'badass' public school kid, apparently, because he is allowed to play video games on Saturday mornings) and Anna pulled out her iPod to kill some time. A "Steiner mom" at the gathering rolled her eyes and made a snide comment about 'electronics, Anna, really?' And huffed off. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-dQnJRtAM184/Ubi_XJ2IoQI/AAAAAAAAAG4/9oNWFyW2JM0/s1600/maypole.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-dQnJRtAM184/Ubi_XJ2IoQI/AAAAAAAAAG4/9oNWFyW2JM0/s320/maypole.jpg" /></a></div>"So what did you do?" I asked, nervous.<br />
"Don't worry, I didn't sass her or anything." Phew<br />
"Did you say anything to her at all?" <br />
"She came back and apologized to me for giving me an attitude about the iPod. I'm still not sure what the big deal is. It was my weekend, too. Sorry I can't dance around a May pole and sing Kumbaya in German."<br />
<br />
I stifled a laugh. Then went on a mini-schpeel about how everyone has different rules in their homes and you need to respect those rules, etc. Anna just shook her head.<br />
<br />
"Yeah, but that doesn't mean that their rules or their lives are better than everybody else's."<br />
<br />
True that, kid. Just a few week's prior to the iPod incident my son was beaten with a curtain rod. By a 'Steiner kid.' He had the marks on his back to prove it. I was enraged.<br />
<br />
"Did you tell an adult? Why didn't you beat his ass?! That's ridiculous."<br />
<br />
"Mom, he's little. And his parents wouldn't have done anything anyway."<br />
Anna piped in, "They're snobs. I think. They don't believe in video games. Or hot dogs. Or disciplining their kids. But they can drink beer and sneak cigarettes like bikers."<br />
<br />
"Well, if I had ever had the money, I would've put you both in Steiner school," I said. Worried about the backlash. "It was a toss up between that or saving for college."<br />
<br />
"I'm glad you didn't," she said. "Otherwise I'd still be crying like a baby and have no math skills. And by the time middle school rolled around, I'd be screwed. Public school made us tough."<br />
<br />
"Yeah," said her brother, chomping on a homemade granola bar. Yes, I make granola bars on a weekly basis. So you can see my angst. I am always on the teasing end of my mothering habits; no lunch meats (nitrates), no T.V. (except for movie nights and the occasional Myth Busters episode), no desserts, no commercial-brand cereals, organic milk, no store-bought meat...it's kind of exhausting actually. I wish I had the mental freedom to just say 'fuck it' and take them to Pizza Hut twice a week--throw a Lunchable in their backpacks and be done with the whole thing. But cartoon bubble thoughts like 'cancer' and 'obesity' and 'depression' loom over my taxed momma head.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wyjEWKMRbN0/UbjAM7SSD3I/AAAAAAAAAHI/JYORLFzBNhc/s1600/gogurt.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wyjEWKMRbN0/UbjAM7SSD3I/AAAAAAAAAHI/JYORLFzBNhc/s200/gogurt.jpg" /></a></div>I thought I was doing well, but, there's always going to be someone sitting over in a lawn chair, at a function, judging me, my kids, my 'way of life.' Just as I tsk and shake my head when I see GoGurt commercials and some of Anna's classmates wearing make-up and spaghetti straps at a band concert, another parent is tsking and shaking his/her head at my more-than-occasional use of cuss words and the fact that I let my kids shoot air rifles and listen to K'naan. Or that I don't let them eat Lucky Charms, or drink Coke, or let them go to sleepovers at 'questionable' houses. <br />
<br />
I just sigh, suck air through my teeth, and repeat a million times, "To each his own. To each his own. To each his own..." while I wait for a good moment to sneak a cigarette while they've gone off to bed after their grass-fed, farm-raised meal. And try not to choke on my own irony. <br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8266414000098749603.post-11205639462115682182013-05-10T14:23:00.000-04:002013-05-10T14:23:09.148-04:00Sting Like a Bee<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-1UbmEwqGLmg/UY04MKU8heI/AAAAAAAAAGU/8ERYu6_7QXQ/s1600/carpenter_bee_hole.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-1UbmEwqGLmg/UY04MKU8heI/AAAAAAAAAGU/8ERYu6_7QXQ/s320/carpenter_bee_hole.jpg" /></a>We have these really aggressive carpenter bees that tend to hang around the back steps like they own that piece of the 'hood. They're pretty cocky, and have been known to bounce off my son's head while he runs screaming into the house, ditching his backpack and whatever else he is carrying into the yard. I've tried to cajole the boy, saying that they won't sting him. But he'll have none of these half-truths. He practically begs me to walk in front of him to protect him on his journey from the car to the porch.<br />
<br />
"Aaaaah!" His scream is like a pre-teen girl's. "Moooom, come help!" <br />
<br />
Of course, the sounds coming from him are terrifying...and they have the gut-twisting pitch of a baby that's been dropped or pinched its finger in the door (or pinched its chin in a zipper; all of which have happened to my own children many times). <br />
<br />
"Lucian, relax. They're not going to sting you. I sit out here all the time and they have never once come near me." Another half-truth. The little buzzy bastards get pretty darn close to scope me out. I just blow smoke at them.<br />
<br />
"That's because they're afraid of you," he says, matter-of-factly. "You're meaner than they are."<br />
<br />
I laughed at the off-color compliment. It is an honor that my son, who is a man in the making, thinks I'm tougher than a swarm of bees. His sister shares his sentiments, I think. She's had a cold of late and when I told her I thought it was allergies because I've had the same headache for nearly 5 days, her jaw dropped.<br />
<br />
"How do you do it? You don't even act like you have a headache. Nobody would know that you have a headache right now."<br />
<br />
What a badass, right? Me with my bee repelling force-field and my stoicism in the face of a chronic migraine...I wish. It's hard to explain to them, that for all of my physical rigidity in the face of their worst fears, I'm a total wimp. And I blame them, completely, for my wimpness. They are the source of it, just as they are the source of my Herculean strength.<br />
<br />
My friend B (ironic I know, but I'm now talking about a real person, not an insect) has two teenage sons. Growing up, she was a mild girl, really quiet and well-behaved. Even as an adult, she's calm, hilariously funny, likes girly things and exotic food. But do not cross her when it comes to her boys. Suddenly, B will sting. Hard.<br />
<br />
"I never really stood up for myself, didn't want to ruffle any feathers," she said, sipping coffee and being careful not to drip any on her vintage, lacy blouse. "But man, after I had kids...having kids will make a fighter out of any mother."<br />
<br />
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-e-yYJvUC_Uk/UY05cEpUlyI/AAAAAAAAAGg/8IFSVO8n_LQ/s1600/braveheart_wallpapers06.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-e-yYJvUC_Uk/UY05cEpUlyI/AAAAAAAAAGg/8IFSVO8n_LQ/s320/braveheart_wallpapers06.jpg" /></a>Then I must be a fucking gladiator. I see myself, from the inside, as a bare-chested, lean-hipped warrior, painted for battle--because battle can come at any time. When I hear Johnny Cash sing "<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66QcIlblI1U">Ain't No Grave</a>," I hear my anthem when my children need me. No matter the situation, I am there, dirty, armed, and baring teeth.<br />
<br />
On the outside, I am wearing a white linen dress, nautical sandals, and pink bobble earrings. Gotta take the enemy by surprise.<br />
<br />
If the kids knew this, they'd be scared, I think. But if they knew, even for a second, how much power their existence has over mine...that would produce the greater fear. We've often had "what would you do if..." chats in the car, usually on the way to school. It makes them a little prickly in their seats.<br />
<br />
"Mom, what would you do if the only way to keep us alive was to cut off your own arm?" My son is usually the purveyor of these cataclysmic scenarios. He's in third grade, and going through a heavy 'end of the world' phase. <br />
<br />
"Then I'd cut off both my arms. And my legs, just to be on the safe side."<br />
<br />
Anna's jaw drops. "That's awful. Lucian, stop asking Mom such awful questions."<br />
<br />
"Would you die?"<br />
<br />
"Lucian!" <br />
<br />
"No, no, it's OK, Anna. Yes, I'd die. But I'd die knowing that you'd be safe. Otherwise, I'd die of a broken heart if anything happened to you."<br />
<br />
He is still mulling over the whole death by broken heart thing. But then again, he's never had children. He doesn't remember the day, when he was just two years old, that he went missing in a crowd of thousands at a harvest festival. He doesn't remember that I scooped up his nearly six-year-old sister like she was a tiny bird, and pushed my way frantically through a sea of people, screaming his name, not recognizing the sound of my own voice. It was a desperate sound, a howl. He doesn't remember the look on my face when I saw him walking to me from the Lost and Found table. Or when I nearly passed out with relief and kneeled on the ground and held his sweaty little body so tight that his hat flew off and he lost a shoe. I sobbed relentlessly. <br />
<br />
"It's OK, you gotta calm down. He's here." A friend, and non-parent said. "Everybody's looking at us."<br />
<br />
Indeed a small, confused crowd had gathered. But the mothers knew. They knew exactly what happened when I dropped to wrap my son in my iron grip. And they were crying, too. Relieved that the fortress would not fall, at least, not that day.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8266414000098749603.post-52785644599081954822013-03-14T13:55:00.003-04:002013-03-14T13:55:54.780-04:00Tell Her About It...<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-rTiAdd3ZUqg/UUIJlUFRIAI/AAAAAAAAAFs/3IrCNaWHUJ8/s1600/brinkley+joel.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-rTiAdd3ZUqg/UUIJlUFRIAI/AAAAAAAAAFs/3IrCNaWHUJ8/s320/brinkley+joel.jpg" /></a>I was listening to Billy Joel the other day while baking yet another dozen blueberry muffins. (I've got a lot of cooking projects going on most days, not wanting anything to go to waste.) The music got me to wondering what every happened to <a href="http://www.billyjoel.com/">Billy Joel</a> and his bombshell wife, the fabulous -- though too teary-eyed -- <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/christie-brinkley">Christie Brinkley</a>. What ever happened to them? The rest of us little people thought that the Jersey boy had it made in the Antiguan shade when he married the beautiful blonde. It was as if one of his songs had come to life; Uptown Girl meets a boy from the wrong side of the Hicksville tracks, gets married, rides off into the Hudson sunset while synthesizers and rock drums beat in the urban distance.<br />
<br />
Nothing is ever that good, it seems. Rumors flew, did Joel cheat? What a fool? C'mon every man in America would've given his left (or right) nut to be with the Sports Illustrated demi-goddess. My brother was madly in love with her. It was the 80s and Christie was the prize. Now I know what happened to some of the Cover Girl ads that were ripped out of my mom's Vogue magazines.<br />
<br />
I guess fairytales don't last forever, not even if you have great musical talent and perfect make-up. Fairytales take a lot of maintenance. Like we're talking Brazilian waxing-type maintenance. And ironically, the onus isn't always on the "ugly one" to make the relationship work. Perhaps Christie was too cool to the touch. That happens far too often in most pairings. One is too cold, and one is too hot. The chi is all messed up and the yang murders the ying. <br />
<br />
I am supremely guilty of being frosty, as it has been pointed out again and again. It does not occur to me to dole out grand embraces and to steal kisses when no one is looking. I don't gush, I don't bat my eyelashes, I don't initiate much hand holding. It's not a punishment (I'm much more creative than that). I just don't think about doing these things. Maybe it's because I've been on my own for so long, even when I wasn't technically "alone" that that stuff just, somewhere deep in my cavernous mind, well, isn't important. It's the rosettes on the icing on the cake. Totally superflous, and silly, like potted daisies and doilies on the coffee table.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-uxvTv0tAzmw/UUIOivnaL0I/AAAAAAAAAF8/gqpk908Qouo/s1600/daisies.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-uxvTv0tAzmw/UUIOivnaL0I/AAAAAAAAAF8/gqpk908Qouo/s320/daisies.jpg" /></a>Well, maybe not that bad. And besides, I'm learning pretty quickly that people cherish their daisies...especially in the winter as a centerpiece to a dull table. And that doilies remind us of our grandmothers who hand crocheted each one for an Easter brunch with the family. It isn't enough to just be comfortable in the fact that we love and are loved. It isn't enough to make popcorn and plop down next to my lover thinking that my nearness and the popcorn are enough. Or that vacuuming the entire house is clearly my way of saying, "I love you." 'Cause let's be honest, it's not. It's my way of saying, "Jeezus f**** Chr****!! This place is a catastrophe." Really no thoughts of love there. <br />
<br />
Even the Dalai Lama, the most spiritual, seemingly grounded man in our modern world, knows that affection is a roaring fire when compared to the tiny candle flame glow of most other human conditions and concoctions.<br />
<br />
<i>"We can live without religion and meditation, but we cannot survive without human affection."</i><br />
<br />
I was told that you need <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/carolynrosenblatt/2011/01/18/magic-touch-six-things-you-can-do-to-connect-in-a-disconnected-world/">12 hugs a day</a> to sustain a happy life, ward of depression, maybe even combat cancer. It didn't seem like that much until I counted how many of those hugs I give and how many I receive. Apparently, in the deep subconscious of my dark mind, 12 is a frivolous "too many." But would it be too many if you actually knew how many hugs you would have given and gotten by the end of your life? What if you're only 36 hugs away from no more hugs? Same goes for kisses, reassuring pats on the back, handshakes, and yes, of course, sexual encounters. <br />
<br />
It's a horrible thought. But, maybe inspiring for this frosty wordsmith. Just this morning, my boyfriend called me saying he had been in a minor accident. No injuries, no seriousness -- but it struck me about a half hour later. "I didn't kiss him before he went to work." In fact, he came to ME before he left and tried to give me a hug. I returned it with a hurried lame-ass squeeze and breezed by him saying something about forgetting to pack lunch money for the kids.<br />
<br />
That's not going to be his last memory of me. Or the thing that sends him off to a day of unknowns. It's time to take more care. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8266414000098749603.post-22744277390735371912013-02-15T09:40:00.001-05:002016-01-25T17:24:56.789-05:00Cruel intentionsWe all have those standout moments in school, the kind that either make you are break you or put a carcass around your neck and toughen you up. I had so many, from first grade, right on up. Some felt like Olympic gold -- bases loaded, we're up by one, I've thrown two strikes and three balls...bam strike three; on to the tournament. Others felt like tuberculosis. They were those cruel moments where, as a kid, I couldn't breathe because of my lack of ability to handle the meanness of my peers. And they were f***ing mean. None of this anti-bullying campaign when I was growing up. It felt like kill or be killed, even in the cruddy confines of our tiny, run-down elementary school. <br />
<br />
First, of course, were the teeth. I've always had big teeth. It's a family trait, supposedly they are charming now. But then, my god, a day didn't go by that somebody, usually the same somebody and his cronies, would make a nasty comment about my teeth. Of course, the first time it happened, I was floored. And hurt, and couldn't come up with a response. I had no idea that others found me ugly. My grandmother seemed to think I was pretty cute, my teachers never said anything about my teeth. It probably didn't help that I was taller than any other human being in class, skinny as a rail, and pretty smart. <br />
<br />
By sixth grade, the teeth thing was nothing new. I just let it roll of my back, or worse yet, would say something more cutting. Something like "At least I can fix my teeth. There's no hope for your brain, SPED." Yeah, it was that low. The kid(s) who pricked at my confidence were the very same who were taken out of class for special help with reading and math. An eye for an eye, right? I had my tough skin now. And when the braces finally came off the first week of ninth grade, I thought for sure that I was totally fixed. That the taunting was over. I was golden, right?<br />
<br />
Cruel illusions. Really. We had all melded into our unbroken groups by that point. I tried to mingle among the pods of "types." I had my athlete friends (I played three sports for awhile, then finally knocked it down to softball, lifting and a shitload of hiking); my theater friends (Shakespeare productions and a few high school musicals); my work friends who were older and taught me how to make a killer penne, play chess, and love good wine (and roll a joint behind the French cafe I worked at); my family friends. But no matter how many alliances there were, no matter how many bonfires and whiskey flasks surrounded us, there was always, at the most unsuspecting moments, some kind of useless cruelty that went along with the whole culture. Even my close friends, my "peeps", who had all pretty much outgrown me by a foot, called me "Shortround." I just learned to deal with it. It even made me laugh at some point. Sure, sure, Shortround. No problem. I just ploughed ahead, kept up with the grades, and the sports, and the jobs, and prayed that I'd make it out alive. Ugly, it seems, but alive.<br />
<br />
Things went well. Sort of. Nobody minded me in college. In fact, it seemed that I drew quite a crowd (of mostly men) in my 20s. I had no idea why, what with the big teeth and all. Even after I had my daughter, there was no sudden drop off in dates and phone calls. On the eve of my wedding, I was teaching high school and the younger (like way younger) brother of a former nasty classmate of mine congratulated me.<br />
<br />
"Yeah, I told my brother that you were getting married and he just couldn't believe it," he said, defensive on my behalf. "He couldn't believe that someone would marry YOU. I told him you were an awesome teacher," he blushed. "And really pretty."<br />
<br />
"Thanks," I said, the wind knocked right out of my bridezilla sails. <br />
<br />
But then I got to thinking. That mean, nasty boy. I remember him. He was a short little troll of misery that walked around berating everyone and everything, but we let him do it. A good student, sure. A star wrestler, yup. But, in the end he was a dick. And all I could think was, well, I'm glad I'm not marrying him. <br />
<br />
I wonder if anyone every married that a**hole? <br />
<br />
I'm not above it. None of us are. There's still a little bit of that terrified, beat up, awkward kid in me yet. It's a bitter solace I take in seeing some of the people from those days. Some of them are fat. Some of them are alone. Some have kids and jobs, some don't. Some drink, some have criminal records, some finally grew up, some didn't. <br />
<br />
We all made it somehow, but just barely. It's an ugly business. The silver lining...success? Good looks? A solid marriage? Kids? I wish I could know for sure. <br />
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For the record, on the eve of my 36th birthday, I'm pretty thrilled about my big shiny teeth. The better to smile on my even shinier kids. Who will knock your kids right out of the water with their gorgeous brilliance.<br />
<br />
Na, na, na--meanies.<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1