Losing Santa

I get words stuck in my brain like broke-down news crawl. The most recent, "partridge in a pine tree", is an example of that. Sometimes I save those little things (never the liver, tiny and enormous), and sometimes I let them go. I never think they mean anything other than that I love the way words sound. But today, while sneaking a smoke during a dinner with old friends, those partridge words played again and it suddenly seemed to make... um... sense?

I see pine out my back door and a bunch of little chicks inside. Christmas carols are playing, so... Anyone could screw those lyrics up -- partridge in a pine tree -- but my mistakes stick in my craw like a message.

There is a partridge seated in a pine tree. In my pine tree as a matter of fact, and I can see its pointy beak and its beady partridge eyes -- they stare straight at ME. And like the raven warned Poe, and like Dylan sang about the bird at his window with a broken wing, I know this partridge thing means something too: there is a non-believer in my home.

Shudder.

I was in fourth grade, like Bridget, when my grand father said to me "you don't believe in Santa any more do you" and then he gave me a nickel. I have no idea what that nickel was all about, but maybe my stunned silence had something to do with it: a quick reaction to alleviate pain?The truth was that I didn't believe in Santa Claus in 4th grade, but I wanted to and as the youngest, I was prepared to keep "believing" to keep it going. I might have done that until I got married and moved away so in retrospect my grandfather probably saved me from a lifetime of weirdness. Thanks Poppy.

Bridget said today that Chinese kids get the most presents because most toys are made there. She looked at me, eyebrows raised like that red-headed dude on CSI, and I lied, like I'm supposed to, and said, "oh.my.god.bridget. Santa can only make SO much; everybody outsources" and she looked back at me --  are you serious? and also what does outsource mean? and also, whatever mom. 

And then, I swear, she added a wink-wink.

My heart sunk.

She lies when she says she believes and I know she is lying. Secretly, I wink back, but I don't show what I know. I think this year will be the last dance of make believe we do, me and her. 

She is the tiny first baby I loved, the kid who let me be Santa in the first place, and I am so so sorry for this, but I cry sometimes because she's growing up -- which I know is my goal as a parent -- but it hurts and sucks to lose your bearded magic and your ho ho ho. And this is the first time it has ever happened to me. 

And I know it will not be the last.

She will play the part; I will too. Santa Claus will come and when he does, I hope she finds five minutes to doubt her doubters and believe. I know she will do it for her brother and sister.

But if she can't do it for herself anymore, I hope she will believe that there is something even better: we love her just as much as Santa does.

 

What Yankees Learn From Snow and Slush

When it is ninety degrees and you are, say, pushing a double stroller holding a two year old and infant down a Small Town street and also lugging a four year old, no one will stop to make sure you get across the street. They will not slow down to make sure you negotiate the curb okay. They will not offer to carry your bags to the car or give your children a lollipop or stop to talk to you for longer than it takes to ask directions to the bar or the launch or the landing.

But when there is nearly a foot of snow on the ground, everything changes. Even though that first winter season with my three kids is a blur -- a snow-suited, boob feeding, missing mittened blur -- I remember the kindness of strangers. Now that my life is more frenzy than blur (they are 9, 7 and 4), the snow and the way people tend to be when it swamps the Small Town? It's the same.

People talk to each other more. Once the winds slow down and the day breaks into tolerable flurries, the neighbors come out. They chat over snow-plowed mountains in their driveways. They climb into dug out cars and mosey slowly down the road, watching for sledders and errants snowballers, and ask neighbors if they need anything from the store. People seem more comfortable just stopping by unannounced while wearing ear-flapped hats. (I think I offered one of 'em a hot dog today: a HOT DOG!)

At the book store which is a sweet block and half away and down a long steep road in which the so-called traction control on my car actually seemed to work (hallelujah), it was just more of the same. The season and the snow and the Small Town looking the part seemed to bring out the best in us all. 

When I opened the door on the street side, a box truck slowed down and pretty much stopped while I slogged through the slush to get my daughter. We couldn't get to the sidewalk and had to wade down the street, hugging the parked cars as if we were being searched, and the truck just waited. Waited! Waited for us to get to the sidewalk safely. No one beeped. Someone waved and smiled.

Once we got into the store, I sent my kid on her way to pick and choose. I advised a stranger/Gramma on books for an 8 year old. I think she would have hugged me and maybe even kissed me after I hooked her up, but we are yankees and we don't do that.

Instead, what we do is talk longer to one another in public places after a storm. We make eye contact like it's the first time we ever had eyes and then, we consider a stranger to be less strange. It's the best we do of intimacy and because of Mother Nature, we seize it when we can.

We get buried, we dig out, we eventually go out, and then when we do, we look around for other human beings because we have just survived and in that moment, we are equal. In some dysfunctional New England way, the snow that we love to moan about connects us. 

Not so much in a kissy lovey let's be all friendly and close kind of way, but in the way that we in New England roll.  When it snows, the Kid will help a neighbor shovel and I will make eye contact with strangers for real and all of us in the frostiest of times will know that underneath the gloves and scarves and hats and the everything that binds us and separates us, and is.. well, ugh.. it's just that it is: we like each other. A lot.

But we will never speak of it. Ever. Until it snows again.

Six Things Before Six Days Before Christmas

1) My kids are on Christmas crack and what with the predicted snow storm, it's another half day tomorrow: awesome. It's not like I have anything to do. 

2) My sisters are in the full season of their awesome bitchiness (as in: making fun of cousins' pictures in seasonal cards and such). I know it doesn't seem falalala, but all I want is to see the pictures they speak of and I wonder why I haven't received them.

3) The Kid is coming home late tonight, and what with jet lag and overnight shoots, he will spend the rest of the day in bed tomorrow. I have tried to clean and organize and by that I mean: I emailed my friend for a few hours and decided, whatever. I feel bad about that now. I did put clean sheets on the bed, but there is no way I will be able to keep those desperate for their Daddy kids away from him. 

It's gonna be like offering up candy by a string strung from the moon. 

4) Santa has wrapped his big old ape arms around me. There is nothing bitchy I can say.

5) Please refer to number four.

6) But then again.... Oh, I kid. 

What I got is this: there is a kind of magic in words that you who read this know. But there is sometimes something that transcends words and makes tiny moments realer than you ever thought they might be. My virtual gift to you? 

FIND THOSE.

Who You Calling Scaredy Cat?

When I say that I pretty much never lock my doors and sometimes leave at least one wide open (all night), I hope you will not consider this a Small Town cliche. To prove it, I'll add that I have lost all the keys to the house (except for the one to the basement door, which is more like a gateway to spiderwebbed hell) so even if I wanted too, I couldn't lock the doors. Unless I was inside all of them. Or wanted to get back inside through the gateway to hell.

But in the interest of avoiding a home invasion nerve-raddled freak out while 3v1 solo, I have taken to locking the doors at night. Locking 'em. Double-checking 'em. Leaving lights on. Don't lock anything at all during the day which is really pretty stoopid since the bad guys probably come right on in while I'm out and are currently hiding in the basement as I type. (Oh good god: did I just say that out loud? Think happy thought, think happy thoughts.) (Duh. Why would would anyone spend any more than one or two minutes down there in hell with the spiders and one stinkin' lightbulb and ten years worth of crap.) (See? All better now.)

So last night, while I had one child in my bed, two others in another bed down the hall, and me all happy with my Vanity Fair, everything quiet and cozy and tucked away, I heard voices. Loud voices. A man and a woman. Talking. IN MY HOUSE. 

I reached for my home defense mechanism phone and shushed my thumping heart to listen. I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP, I shouted to myself, silently, THERE ARE PEOPLE -- TALKING -- IN MY HOUSE! 

I do a weird tip-toe/run type of thing down the hall to get the two other kids and figure I will drag them back to my room by their hair since they sleep like frickin' logs and I can no longer carry them.  And then I will barricade the door (with what? a table? Vanity Fair? piles of laundry? oh my god oh my god) and then I will call the police and open the windows and scream for my neighbors. But not wishing to scare them, I spend 2.5 seconds wondering what I might scream and think is "oh yoo hoo, oh yoo hoo, neighbors? hellooooo? good evening? THERE ARE SCARY BAD PEOPLE IN MY HOUSE! WAKE THE EFF UP AND COME AND SAVE US ALL!"

And while hovering over the children wondering ala Sophie's Choice which one to save first, I hear the words "flat iron." Wha? Did the home invader just say "flat iron"? As in flat freaking iron that I use to burn my neck get all prettified? 

I stand up. My hearts returns to a regular rhythm. I am listening to an infomercial that is blaring from the TV in the playroom. Naturally, I have the only reaction required at a time like that and no, not the one where I wonder why a couple of robbers are watching hair product infomercials in my playroom, but the other one: I.just.get.pissed. 

I stomped downstairs, slammed the off button on the machine, and flipped the bird at the neighbor across the street who clearly has some kind of rogue remote control, the kind that is heart attack inducing at midnight. I returned to my warm, child-filled bed and got back to reading about Tina Fey and what she considers to be her "big ass."

I shoved the lump over to the other side (I love her but please), heard some sleepy kid sighs from the other room, turned off the light, and realized how very little of my amazing incredibly brave heroism these kids will ever know. 

Does My Butt Look Big In These Pajamas?

I am not a morning person. 

There has been nothing about me that has found the beauty in a sunrise (unless it's after an all-nighter and then I gotta kinda squint to see it while I high five some partner in crime). I have never heard anything melodious in a rooster's crow and think mostly, SHUT IT rooster, you nag. There has never been anything at all that is morning-like or -esque or -ish that I have liked, and in fact, if not for coffee and the occasional bacon, egg and cheese and the Three Short Drunk People, I am pretty sure noon would be my Morning. Noon or maybe 11 on an especially busy day. 

(I think this is why the music business suited me like the suit people wear when they find a suit that fits them perfectly. No one likes an early-rising rock star.)

This morning, at the ungodly 7:10 am, I found myself downstairs and hustling through some idea of short order cookery and also finder-of-missing-things-extraordinaire, and I thought: can not these children see how misplaced I am here at this hour? And naturally, they could not.

They were like they usually are at the crack of ass: hopped up on sleep and good nature and talk talk talking more than I think anyone should talk when decent people are asleep. And by decent people, I mean: me.

In the interest of managing all their expectations, I got it done while half-dressed (and half-awake) and after the girls left, I hustled the GFYO to pre-school in what might be considered "pants" but are really pajamas. Maybe not so much pajamas and maybe more the clothes one would wear when one anticipates never leaving the house. Elastic waist, flannel, saggy in every way. 

In the driveway, he said, "are those your exer-sis-size pants?" and naturally he can't pronounce the word because it is a foreign word and I say no. 

He says, while he approaches the door to the car, "are you wearing your pajamas to school?" and I think about that for a minute and I weigh the many options I have to respond and I say, yes. And then I add: it's because I went to college and after you do that, you are totally allowed to wear your pajamas anywhere.

My sweet GFYO, my new partner in crime, he climbs in the car with me and we ride the two point five minutes to his school. He says nothing; I say nothing (what with it being now 8:25 in the morning which is like three hours before I should be waking up). 

He hangs up his coat on the hook with his picture taped on it and he turns to me and he says, "mom!" and I say "yes GFYO" and he says, "mom, I am SO going to college."

And I say I hope so and I also say I know you will and I kiss his cheeks and send him off and out and on his way. And then I drive home. I think there is not so much more that I could accomplish in one day and while I consider the lure of my duvet and my pillow for a while, I beat it back. 

I drink more coffee and I race off to another day. I put on pants with a zipper and I carry on.

Santa is a Woman on Fire

It is week one, t-minus one more, of 3v1 solo-time. 

We were supposed to go to the mall, have lunch, have fun, but I cancelled it due to bad behavior. Naturally, the punishment was worse on me. It was a long ass day with three kids (since I also cancelled play dates too; sorry neighbor kids). And it's cold enough that I can kick them outside for short bursts only. But I have to be a mean mean mom because this fighting and tattling and constant crap must end.

My sisters were older than me by 6 and 7 years so the sibling fight club is kind of new to me. It would be completely foreign if not for my friend Amy, who was the middle of five kids under five, and when I think of them all, I remember nothing but a cloud of dirt hanging over them, Pig Pen style, as they kicked the crap out of each other on the rug or in the yard or at the beach. Amy's sister once glued the pages of Amy's diary together and for a long, long time, that was the height of cruelty to me. How dare she? All.those.memories.... I think we were 11 at the time.

Which is not to say that I did not try to get my chops in with my sisters. I did. I used my mouth -- surprise surprise -- but that was stupid: they would hold my forehead at arm's length while I chomped away and snarled and tried like some rabid baby lion to bite them. I never even got a nibble in, what with the arm of an older stronger sister (who was laughing) holding me back. I resorted to snooping through their rooms when they were gone. 

I spend a lot of time alone in this parenting thing, what with the Kid's crazy schedule, so when I tell you that I hit the fucking wall today, it is not so much because he's been gone, it is because it was just that bad. In a desperate tired moment, I evoked the Santa threat and initiated a kind of Christmas boot camp. In the lowest moment, I said that if I were Santa I would re-think my route and my naughty list. 

I feel only half-bad about that. 

The good news? The house is sparkly clean because I can be fierce with the cleaning supplies when I am pissed. I am sure it will look like this for twelve hours or less. I can't imagine how we'll get through another long cold day tomorrow. Maybe we'll try to do the mall again. Maybe I'll take them on a walk, Bataan style. 

Santa is a bitch sometimes. 

Especially when she's looking through her photos for a picture for the freakin' Christmas card she hasn't gotten together and finds this one and thinks -- really? you can't sleep in your own beds alone and choose instead to snuggle into this tiny one with the brother and sisters you scratch and claw and tell on and claim are ruining your lives? really? it's like that? I mean, look at you! Crammed in there and nice and quiet and cozy and completely not fighting! 

I think I should take this picture and glue it to your freakin' foreheads so you remember exactly what Santa is trying her very hardest to remember right now: that you are sweet and sugar plummish and worth it.

Even when I am pretty much sure that all of you Short Drunk People should spend the night in the car. 

The Way Karma Works, Or, Religion and A Girl

I was not raised with religion, except for the religion that we "didn't do" religion, the same way we also didn't say "I love you" the way some other families did. My father was a philosophical ex-catholic atheist and my mother was like her mother: she said we believed in Santa Claus.

I get nervous around churches, especially big ones with stained glass. Despite my lack of christian training, there must be something in the blood: I feel guilty when I step inside. I am the daughter of a non-believer, whose dad said "you don't need to bow your head; just be quiet and respectful" and so being the dutiful daughter, I do it still. I'm all awestruck and chin-up in a church and scanning the room for other disbelievers (sinners?) like me.

But philosophy or the love of it and my mother's paintings? That is a kind of spirituality that is more about living things. It's about morality and a knowing kind of participation in life and not about where your body goes when it dies. And that worked for me as a kid. It worked for me less as a thinky college student trying to make up her own kind of religion, but I think that's part of the process of growing up. I didn't so much lose my religion -- I wished to find one -- what with rebellion and the way it goes. 

I ended like most kids: right back where I came from. I am still scared in churches and wondering if anyOne is watching and get, well, thinky like my dad and paint words like my mom.

 

 ***

Today, a little bit of mine and theirs and Buddha and God and some divine force of Mother Nature collided for me. It was raining (of course) and I had a blind date with a grieving woman.

I spare the details, because they are not my details, but I will say that afterwards, I couldn't stop thinking about why bad things happen and reasons for it and karma and the whole thing about God. 

I have decided that bad things happen to good and bad people all the time, senselessly and totally devoid of reason. I have decided that it's what happens after something bad happens that measures our role in the grander scheme. That's when karma is either a blessing or a bitch. 

***

I wanted to shake things up? 

I think just saying that I did a couple days ago made some of the ripples of blessings around this grieving woman touch me. Because today my sister who has never loved music as much as me sent me three songs to hear -- and I dug 'em. Because today my other sister said I told a story that was the gift she was waiting for. Because today a friend, my comrade in grown-up tomboy, shared with me something that made her cry (in a good way) and that made me cry (in a good way) and that I passed along, which I never ever do, and it made other people cry (yeah, in a good way).

Maybe it's God or Buddha or Mohammed or who knows. Maybe it's magic. All I know is that today I believe some dots I couldn't connect were connected by someone or something that is not me. 

And maybe that's karma, yo. 

Maybe.

Blues, Confession, And More Snowglobes

Yet another day of doing n.o.t.h.i.n.g. Puttered. Wandered. Ignored the home phone that was ringing. Moved a stuffed santa from one couch to the next. Couldn’t find his pants and thought, who cares? Helped with homework. Which sucked. I shouldn’t bother helping Bridget with anything because she will just scream -- “Why do you always want me to be perfect?” -- which is exactly what she did tonight while working on her letter to Barack Obama, as in “Hey Barack, get some smart people together and fix the war, k?” which made perfect sense to me but I guess it was my tone and suggesting that we not refer to the president elect by his first name.

I don’t have to cook a second dinner at least, since The Kid left today for LA. Won’t be back until next Friday. Which is wildly effed up, Christmas-y timing wise and all, but frankly I am sorta relishing the solo time (and the fact that he has a job). Still, “solo” is a relative word. Solo in my case is a three-versus-one kind of solo.

The truth is I am bored. I am bored of almost everything. Bored of my house, bored of my car, bored of the teevee and the radio and the news, bored of music (even!), bored. Bored of the boringness that runs laps through my head. Bored of being on a track of boring, which is so completely and utterly boring.

The truth is if I force myself out of the house, for the non-obligatory kind of things, I get bored of my boring thoughts that I will have nothing but boring things to say. That's the kind of mother of God boring I speak of. 

Which I realize sounds a bit like a bigger kind of Blues. Pretty sure it isn't. Been there, at least once before, and this just feels like... malaise, a word that stands in quite elegantly for, um, "bored."

So I sent my friend some pictures but not every picture tells a story (so says Rod Stewart) and sometimes pictures are not always the story you wanted to tell or even the real story or maybe even any story at all. Sometimes, a pretty picture is just a pretty picture, a bunch of pixels strung together. Sometimes, a pretty picture is snowflakes flung about and hanging in some weird sticky liquid place, waiting for someone else's imagination to make it what it should be or at least how you wish it was. 

The pictures I sent did not tell a story that was "boring" or "bored" or "ho hum" or "whatevs." They seemed so completely carpe diem and engaged and I don't think I am either thing right now. Still, I'm glad I sent them, because as it turns out, after I confessed the feeling of fraud, I discovered that the boring thing seems to be a minor plague upon the land. Seems I am not the only one living in Boreville.

Maybe I need to shake up my imaginary snow globe and see another picture, a new pretty town all my own, a city on a hill, a whole new world of possibilities. Maybe I should shake it up and the scene will change with the snow and where it lands. The whole thing -- the boredom, the blues, all the blah blah blah -- maybe it exists in my fist. If the tiny world under glass is mine, right here in my grip? Then I should know that whatever it is I need or think I want, all I need to do is flip it over, shake shake and see what happens.

Maybe this is exactly why I write. Because I like manipulating words, twisting them, turning them upside down in my mouth and over and over in my brain and coming out in the end with a whole new something I never expected. Maybe I need to do that right now. Maybe I am.

Insert your own snow globe.......












here. 

Oh, and happy shaking.

I Had Nothing to Do With This

These are the letters I found this morning, outside of the girls' rooms. This is not a bribe (CarolynOnline) I swear but seriously, if this doesn't tip the scales in my favor (for her Elf giveaway), then honestly, I don't know what will.


The back said "I LOVE CHRISTMAS!"


Please note that she is offering not only a "comfortal" sleeping spot AND crackers and water (those elves are such gourmands!), but also the excitement of a play date with other elves. 

If I don't get those damn elves shipped to me pronto, someone (named Carolyn) is going to pay!

Snowglobe 1

My nine year old niece collects snow globes, which I think as far as collections go, is a pretty awesome one. Snow globes are uniformly loved. Tip 'em over, shake 'em up, and some magical beautiful place appears, a miniature version of perfection under snow, a fairy tale in glycerin and under glass. Plus, every gift store in the world sells some version of a snow globe, making her hobby much easier had, than, say, rare coins or fiesta ware, which I don't think most nine year olds are into, but whatever.

This weekend, the Small Town looked snowglobe-ish -- especially this morning, when the Town Criers (aka: the Short Drunk People) alerted us to the season's first flakes. The GFYO said it was "raining snow" and I didn't correct him, because I liked the phrase and also because it was the nicest kind of snow: windshield wipers could handle it, shovels could stay hidden. It was the painted kind of snow that covers up all the dirt and drudgery of the Fall and makes the leafless trees look less lonely and more like sculpture in the sky. It's the best kind, because it was the first one.

I sent some photos of the weekend in the Small Town to my friend who lives in a snowless, concrete city and I started to regret it almost instantly. Every.single.one seemed sweeter than the next. It irked me, even before she got a little jealous; it irked me, because even though I knew she knew what I was doing (sharing, wishing she were here), all of the pictures seemed too pretty and too cute and like some anonymous postcard of quaintness, a snow globe of sorts, something under glass and not quite real. 

All small towns are pretty, well, pretty much the same. My Small Town isn't much different, though it looks better sometimes, especially now, especially in pictures, but it suffers like all the rest. Just like some sparkling cities (some on Hills, some below the Mason-Dixon, some before and beyond the Rocky Mountains), my Small Town has fault lines that threaten to shake everything up. There is competitiveness and loneliness and greediness and unkindness that live in between everything well-intentioned and decent and good and lovely. 

Beauty on the outside does not mean there is not ugliness underneath, just as ugly on the outside can beget the most amazingly beautiful things inside. I've seen that, actually, with my own eyes.

More. Later. Until then this song I have been waiting for:

Small Town Ho-Hos (and a Hangover)

The Small Town is getting all Rockwellian. It's so scarily charming: the old houses lit up and sparkly from the inside out, the wreaths on every lamp post, and tomorrow Santa and the Mrs will come in on the Lobster Boat. If I had ear muffs and a muffler, I would don them. Maybe throw some white skates around my neck. 

Last night was the kick off: wine and wine and wine and some rum punch in an historic building crammed with homemade gingerbread houses. There were older gentlemen in tweed, ladies in Burberry, and me in my nicest jeans. There was cheer and good tidings and naturally, the whole thing rolled into a bender at a Small Town bar even though me and my neighbor pinky swore we wouldn't. Pinky swearing never works. Not with all the Rockwelliness and the wine. And the beer. And the... well, yeah, the beer. 

Here's the thing about Small Towns and Christmas time: it's one long credit card fueled drunk until January 2. It's gets dark and cold at like what? 3:00pm? so you gotta get things twinkly and dressed up in pine swag and ogle candy houses that look better than the ones you live in. You gotta forget your pinky swearing and stroll over to the pub, belly up with your neighbors and all your new friends, tell your secrets and some jokes and take the long way home.*

*Not because you meant to, but because you were too busy chatting and hahaha-ing to realize how far out of the way you had walked. 

Charity abounds! Like the guy buying all the drinks at the bar, and the very nice anonymous person who pulled all the plastic, newspaper stuffed ghosts off my tree (and left them on my doorstep). I appreciate it all. Actually, I appreciate the drinks more than the passive aggressive "it's christmas Picket! the ghosts gotta go" but hey, whatever. It's Christmas time and I got love in my heart and probably more booze coursing through my veins than blood. 

Tomorrow the tree comes in and the lights go on and it will be a Christmas miracle when my head stops pounding.

Spit

I speak of the card game, lest you were getting all gaggy thinking I might be contemplating saliva. (Which I could and maybe I will. But not today.) Today, I speak of the card game Spit and more importantly, the fact that the girls have been playing it nonstop since we returned home from our three-day endless drive multiple family multiple location Thanksgiving shenanigans.

They are playing it obsessively because their equally obsessive mother, aunt, and older cousins are one more hand of Canasta away from Gambler's Anonymous. That's right: Canasta, the card game of bronzed gin-swilling grannies everywhere. There wasn't even money involved, yet our furious shuffling, scoring, shouting, cheating was world-class. 

It used to be Mahjong and Rummy Cube for my mom and my aunts and I remember them playing games all afternoon too. (It was kind of a rite of passage when you were invited to the table to learn, aka: get your ass kicked.)  

The good news is that though it's clearly a genetic problem, it appears to be a situational disease, occurring only (but always) on family gatherings for them, and apparently, for me too -- except for that one time when me and my Vineyard friends, kid-less at the time, limitless in what we could do any damn night of the week, played freaking Canasta for hours upon hours upon hours. I know. It embarrasses me too. Canasta! Eegadsta! No kids and that's what we did? (There was also Dry Marco Polo but I am pretty sure I was sworn to never explain the deets on that one...) (Did I just write "deets", like, out loud? Oh gawd.)

So the girls half-ass shuffle and messily deal and maybe cheat and play and play. I step in for a couple hands, because I am a good mother after all, and it dawns on me that Spit is a math game -- a math freakin' game -- and I begin to feel all redeemed in passing along my card playing problem. An educational activity they are playing together? Who knew I was that good of a good mother? 

So I sneak off to read philosophy shower and fold laundry (in that order if you must know) and I am so very, very pleased with my... my... well... I am very pleased with just.about.everything. 

Then: it comes:

First a shout, then some words, then a crash, then another crash, and while I wish to hide under my bed, I am not that fast it appears because there they are, all red-faced and pissed off, with the GFYO in tow, because he loves him some good drama.

Let's just leave it with the immortal words of Kenny Rogers: you need to know when to fold 'em.

Beginning an Imperfect Story About Music

(I am not quite sure where this is coming from or where it is going, but hours of Annie Lamott in the car and a few days with my younger cousins and nieces and nephews got me thinky about what it was to be the younger me. Which, you know, got me thinky.)

(Why am I explaining myself so much lately, all preamble-ish? Why am I constantly making up words? Because it's funner?)

What I remember mostly about being a kid on the verge of being something else is the smell of my records. Even new, right out of the store, they smelled dusty and worn out and like they owned me.

A new record was the beginning of a beginning: the needle down just right, the scratch, the scruff, the sound cranking out. I spent countless hours laying on hot Mexican tile and later on the wall to wall in my own room, listening. Listening. Quiet. 

The poems I wrote were questions answered in the lyrics of the records I loved. There was poetry everywhere, I told my mom, but on the record player most of all. Elvis Costello's words, that I scrawled down on paper as quick as he sang them to prove to her what I meant... because that's what I meant when I was six and called that thing I wrote a song... because this is what I meant when I said I wanted eight more dollars to buy a new record. For a while, other people's songs were all the writing I would do.

(Annie Lamott says little children sing all the time because they have not learned the difference between language and music. I listen to music when I write, but no one else hears it.)

When I was a kid on the verge, I was haunted by music more than any boy could haunt me. I put the record on in my bedroom, laid down next to its cover and read every word like an anthropologist, examining everything my eyes could see as much as my ears could hear.

Who were these people who "produced," who were these people "thanked" and since my guitar lessons were going increasingly down the toilet, how could I be that person who wasn't shaking the tambourine but shaking the hand? 

I read books about musicians, magazines about musicians, and did hauntings of my own in dirty caverns in Cambridge that sold records from England -- The Wooden Tops, Cocteau Twins, World Party. The names, even now, roll out and off the tongue like candy.

I listened to Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell and Joan Armatrading and I spent a lot of time imagining what love was like, like they made it sound. And when I was less on the verge, but actually kind of over it, being 17 and all, I tried to find that thing for real. Instead I found a Jim Morrison whose name was Jay, James Morrison in fact, which was weird, and he was, for a short and sweet time, all of the songs. 

The Kid showed up and it was perfect timing. When my cassette tape of Bleach fell out of the pocket of my ratty Deadhead backpack, the Kid picked it up and said, "You like Nirvana?" and so we pooled our money and bought more cassette tapes of more bands: The Lemonheads, The Jayhawks, Jonathan Richman. Even now, the names sound like road trips we took, like candy. 

I figured out how to shake the hand so we started to get shiny discs for free! Morphine, Bob Mould, Big Star, Golden Smog, Alejandro Escovedo, Josh Rouse, the McGarrigles. Even now, the names sound like a resume, like a lifetime ago, like candy.  So we haunted rock clubs together, me and the Kid, on guest lists, and he became my permanent Plus One. 

Jay closed the garage door on himself, when he was just 28, like he said he would. I shouldn't have been surprised, but I sobbed torrents and left work early. 

There are songs for that, and I am sure I own them, but I have never found the perfect one to sum it up. I haven't found the words in any song to explain what he did, to explain it away. Even now, with the Pod and the Tunes and the instant access to the things I have always and forever loved? Even now, with a floor of my own to lie on and listen? Even now, I can't find the one lyric, the only melody, the tiny taste of something so so sweet that it will make all that bitterness go away.