Luck of the Draw

"You're really lucky to have the body to wear that."

"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.

"Yeah. I can't wear a dress like that."

"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.

"But it wouldn't look the same."

"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.

"Still, you're lucky."

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.

"Hey brah, looking good. Taking care of yourself. Your arms are sick, man."

"Thanks, man. I've been working hard."

"It shows man, it totally shows. Keep it up. Proud of you, buddy."

Fucking lucky...

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.

Poof.

And I should be grateful for all this luck. Grateful to the universe. What a good life...

"Everything will fall into place, babe. It always does."

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.

"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."

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.

"You're so lucky to be a freelancer. To work from home."

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.

"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.

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."

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.

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.

I can't have that.

Getting an extra nugget in a 6-piece is lucky. Finding $20 in the parking lot is lucky. Winning at roulette is lucky.

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.

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.

Just one more mile.
Just one more roll.
Just one more punch.
Just one more turn across the floor.
Just one more hard lecture about real respect.
Just one more early morning drive to the school.
Just one more paragraph.
Just one more night burning the midnight oil.
Just one more day where the pain is unbearable.
Just one more turn with the medical tape.
Just one more payment this month.
Just one more lunch to pack.
Just one more trip to the hospital.

I can do this. Luck can't. Luck is a little bitch. But I can.

Aren't you all lucky?

Dolo toujou couri lariviere...

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.

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.

"This place is a fucking mess," says Chris. A big 20-something kid from Jacksonville. He works the front desk of Electric Ladyland Tattoos 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 "real shit." He is excited about my tattoo.

"That's sick," he says. "Definitely not something a girl brings in here."

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.

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.

"That place has bad fucking juju," he says.

"I could feel it. Crawling all over me."

"It was the slave auction."

"That explains it. Down the river."

"Last stop before Mississippi. People are fucking terrible."

He takes me in to meet Scott, the tattoo artist. Another transplant to this bright, chaotic place. He's excited about the design, too.

"Not very girly." He confesses that he is relieved.
"She's not a girly girl," my husband says. "She'll kill you with her bare hands."

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.

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.

"Chicory reminds me of being poor," I say, after my first bad cup.

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.

"I figured out what that smell is on Bourbon Street." He is almost gleeful with his recent discovery.
"The puke," I say.
"Yes!"
"I was trying to figure out why the street was always wet. It hasn't rained since we've been here."
"I just saw a whole fleet of little pressure washer trucks."

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.

If only.

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.

"No, no," he says, drunk on rye and youth. "You can't be tired yet."

"I'm old," I laugh. He sizes me up.

"Not a chance," he winks, points to my husband and is swallowed by the throng of bad decisions that eat him up.

"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.

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.

"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.

"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.

"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.

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.

"Mais elle a les zye gri!"

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.

"So you like Cajun music?" He seems amused, even smug.
"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.

"For you."
"Merci."
"Revenez bientot a la maison."

I wave. And blush a little. He thinks I'm leaving home 

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.

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.

"Why don't you go back to Ukraine, then," I ask. Maybe slightly defensive, I don't know.

"Nobody can leave this place. Not really."

Killer Bikini

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.

"Get a sporty one," I say. "I'll get one like that, too. We can be twinsies."

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.

She picks a bright aqua.

"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).

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.

Image: Valley News Live

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, screaming for her mother, while a barbarian with crazy eyes and a charlatan's uniform jams his knee into her spine while pulling on her thick, rope braids.

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.

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.

"Why are we going to a self defense class? We already train? You could kill somebody with your kick."

"Babe, the street isn't a Jackie Chan flick. Besides, you need to know that there are other ways to skin a cat."

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.

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.

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.

I see the vulnerable patch of brown skin along the spine that is always in danger of being crushed.

All growed up...?

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.

"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.

"That's fine. You don't have to wear sunscreen. You have choices."

"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?

"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."

Just then, his sister smugly interrupts. "They will probably have an essay assignment for the kids who don't go to field day."

He begins to slather himself with SPF 50. I give her a dirty look.

"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."

"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."

"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."

"So what is being an adult all about?"

"I think it's about doing the right thing...every day. And figuring out how to enjoy life in a simple way."

"Was there anything surprising about being an adult?" This conversation was getting pretty deep. I wasn't even into my first sip of coffee.

"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."

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."

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.

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.

"Try feeding teenagers," was my response. He laughed.

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.

"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?"

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.

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.

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...

So, who's gonna make the right decision then? A cruel grandmother marches her 9-year-old granddaughter around the neighborhood until the kid finally dies of exhaustion...no one notices? No one speaks up until it's too late? Where are the adults?

A teenage boy prays on the innocence of his younger sisters...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?

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.

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.

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..."
These are burdens too big for a child's shoulders. Then they say, "but don't tell anybody, OK?"

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.

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."

I pick up the phone. She sighs, relieved.

Why I Fight

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.

I need to get wraps, I say to myself mumbling over sugarless coffee that is laced with coconut oil 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.

But who am I kidding, I’m still shoveling it in like the excavator on Bob the Builder.

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.

Also, I am usually covered with bruises.

“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.

“Class.”

“What class?”

“Fight class.”

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.

“Do you know what this could be from?” The doctor was really skeptical. Possibly already writing up the abuse report in his head.

“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.

“What class?”

“It’s…it’s an MMA class,” I said. “It’s MuayThai-style fighting and a lot of conditioning and…”

“Combat?”

“Yeah. Kickboxing, but more intense. Way more.”

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.

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.

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.

“You should’ve been a lawyer.”

“I should’ve been a judge.”

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…

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.

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.

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.

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.

“Do you feel sick,” she fusses, in a whisper. “How’s the sweating? Your face is getting white. Maybe you should stop.”

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.

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.

 

Knowing better

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.”

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.

‘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.

“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.”

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.

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.

“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.

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 essay 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.

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.

She’s just a kid.

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.

OR WORSE.

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.

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.

“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…
“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.”

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.
And I wonder. Who’s tolerating who?

The folly of youth...sports

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.

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.

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.

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 sound-proof argument.

Every clash of the helmets made me want to puke. I had a full three months of emergency runs to the bathroom. Every day, headlines 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."

Meanwhile, my daughter, who was just starting 7th grade, was launched into playing JV soccer. She suffered a knee injury 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.

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."

Pee-wee football, guys.

(I think it warrants a second blog about the coach 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.)

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.

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...

I saw a parent last week, he looked more bummed out than his kid. She has to have surgery on her ACL 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.

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.

"Just one," I said. "If you don't like it, you don't have to go again. I promise. Just try one."

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 with such respect in the air with his instructor.

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."

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 Messi. Right in my own backyard.

It's an honor to trip over your cleat balls and bring you frozen corn while you do your homework.