A lived life

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...

The admiration of a younger man
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.

Of course, at my age, what is improper? Truly?

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.

“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.”

Upon realizing that everyone is transfixed by my stunning daughter
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.

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.”

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.

“Hey, Mom,” she says, “Could you hear me singing?”

The true origin of pleasure
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.

“Remember, pleasure grows on the tree of sorrow.”

I breath hard and sigh. That explains everything.

The right to love
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.

The tie that binds
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.

The perfect man
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.


Young farmers
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.

A good cup of coffee
“Mom, you really need coffee in the morning, don't you?”
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.

“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.

My third baby
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.

“How old is he,” I ask, admiring his stout shoulders. He could be on Roman battlefield. He is so noble.

“Three months. They wanted him weaned right away. I'm surprised he is still alive. My guess, he won't make it much longer.”

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.

“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.

“Well, he is a good dressage prospect, I'm thinking at least $1,200.”
I hang up the phone. Less than a minute later her husband calls.

“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...”

“You should stick to dogs,” I say and hang up again.
He is mine. And I am his. It's a simple story for once.

Hooking the big one
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.

“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.
“I'm left handed,” I tell him. He shrugs his shoulders.
“Not today, you're not.”

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.

“It's a big one,” the skipper smiles.

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.

“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.”

“What'd I tell ya,” the captain yells from his perch above us. “The women always catch the monsters.”

Happy Hunting

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.

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.

"I noticed he didn't smell right," my brother recalled in his 50th retelling of the tale. "He stunk. Bad."

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.

"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."

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.

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.

"I can't imagine running through the woods shot through the pisser," one said. "I mean, man."

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.

"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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

Let her loose

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.

"God, just do it," I said.
"Montreal?" The car was crawling in the right lane.
I paused, lit a cigarette, exhaled and sighed a long, sad sigh.
"Nah. Wouldn't be far enough."
"So true."

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.

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.

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.

"I could fake my own death..."

"Nah, your Ma would find you."

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."

Totally fucking nuts.

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.

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.

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?

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.

"Those poor kids. They'll never forgive her."

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.

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.

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...

"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."

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.

"Ma, what's for dinner?"
"What are we doing tonight?"
"I need new ear buds."
"Can we go to Olympia?"

"C'est va, guys. My day was good. Thanks for asking."

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.

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...

"Ma?"

"Yeah, papi?"

"Can I live with you until I'm at least 25?"

Not accounted for

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.

As was the case with most of my peers, I'd rather face the principal than my parents.

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.

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.

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, nearly 300 high school students broke into the home of former NFL player Brian Holloway. Holloway was at his primary residence in Florida. 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.

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.

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.

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?

"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.

"Thanks, Ms. D." He handed me his nearly empty notebook.
"Don't thank me," I said, not even making eye contact. "Thank your mother."

He turned a million shades of red. "You'd do the same for your son."
Then I made eye contact.
"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."

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."

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.

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.

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.

Nobody ever said parenting is easy. It's not. But it's simple. Do the right thing. Every time. And your kids will follow.

Taxing the taxed

I 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.

Your kids are spoiled you are thinking. I know that's what you're thinking.

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.

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.

Compass, check. Rulers, check....$223...Check?

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.

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...

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?).

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."

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.

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.

Yes, I know what you kidless conservatives will say....just don't buy it for them. The kids will survive.

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).

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.

FUCKING SCOUTS, NOW THEY NEED HELP AT THE FALL FESTIVAL IN OCT!

Apparently there is a new rule this year that every parent must volunteer for at least two Scouts events every year. A rule.

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.

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.

Looks like we're gonna be eating a lot of spaghetti this year.

Just In Case You Were Curious

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

THOSE DD COFFEES ARE LIKE NINJAS!

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 lovely images from the People of Walmart website, 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:

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...

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):

FUCKING RAMBO UP IN THIS PIECE. I DON'T THINK WE ARE GONNA HAVE ANY MORE PROBLEMS WITH THE RACCOONS...

WHY?

I TOOK CARE OF IT.

YOU USED THE AIR RIFLE DIDN'T YOU....(at least fifteen minutes elapsed)

I'M GONNA MAKE A NICE RUG FOR MY emoticon of a balding man....

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.

TOUGH SHIT, KID.

YEAH, LITERALLY. THANKS, MOM.

Endless material. Endless.

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.

This Coat of Many Colors

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 chai -- not homemade this time -- and shaking her head. I tried to look busy packing lunches, pretending I didn't see her chagrin.

"I gotta say, Mom, I'm not a fan of Steiner moms."

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.

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.

"Why do you say that," I asked. This is leading somewhere. There is an anecdote in here. I know this child too well.

"They're so, just, perfect. Or they think they're perfect, and that their kids are perfect. It's a sham."

"OK, so what happened?"

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.

"So what did you do?" I asked, nervous.
"Don't worry, I didn't sass her or anything." Phew
"Did you say anything to her at all?"
"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."

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.

"Yeah, but that doesn't mean that their rules or their lives are better than everybody else's."

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.

"Did you tell an adult? Why didn't you beat his ass?! That's ridiculous."

"Mom, he's little. And his parents wouldn't have done anything anyway."
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."

"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."

"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."

"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.

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.

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.