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.

Not So Thankful and Yes, Thankful Too

(This is the obligatory Thanksgiving post I didn't mean to write and then -- whoa! -- did. I think the early holiday boozing oven fumes are getting to me. So type type type I did and you can read if you want when you can):

I am not so much thankful for the grey hair I don't really think I've earned. I think it was forced on me by things beyond my control, and I don't just mean my kids' being kids or DNA code, but maybe a mix of both and about twelve other things, or at least two*. Still, dudes, when you are 38 and find something grey in your freakin' eyebrow? Maybe if I was a professor of English -- a MALE professor of English -- or some such thing, but c'mon now! Travesty. Not MILFy.

(I am not thankful for the mental image I just created about myself. Let's just call the thing blonde and be done with it. Let's channel someone grey-hair-less and MILF-like and let's make that person me. K? Okay.)

I am not so much thankful that my friends are losing jobs, like Two Busy and Ciii and Manager Mom. It's feeling chronic. I am not thankful that the news everyday might as well be predicting an alien invasion on Tuesday, total world devastation on Wednesday, and I would like to encourage a little less hyperbole on that front. 

Also: not thankful for the yelling I do too much that gets me nowhere, not thankful for spending more money at Target on socks and shite than I do at the bookstore, not thankful for being misunderstood by college roommates who you'ld think might know me better, not thankful for wondering if they were right all along and not thankful for when I realized NO! they were wrong but I still never called, not thankful for fights with the Kid about politics when God knows there are better things to fight about. And make up over.

Not thankful for cigarettes. I swear, I'm not thankful for those. Most of the time.

****

I am so very, very much more than thankful, downright grateful in fact, that my children seem to thrive despite me. Very grateful that Bridget's recent visits to the guidance counselor are more about growing up then actually doing wrong. Very grateful that Rory seems to hold true to herself even as the boys she plays with every day are starting to realize she's a girl. Very grateful that the GFYO is more funny than malicious. Very grateful to still have a buddy to do errands with, have lunch with, especially since I know this is the beginning of the "last firsts" as my friend Kimba has said.  

I am thankful that my young and beautiful cousin is still in remission and totally healthy, and that the rest of my family is too, even my dad, who's had a slew of surgeries but still rambles on. I'm thankful for my mom, who I think might in fact be immortal, and who is probably busy making a Paddle round robin schedule as I type. (I've often thought it was trite when people mentioned "health" as a thing to be thankful for... but I know so much better about that since then.) I am thankful to have two sisters who I like (most of the time) and who can stand with me as examples for my own daughters.

 

I am thankful that my best friends from college (and high school and beyond) are healthy and happy despite what I might have done or never did. I am thankful for the grace of a sweet goodbye I am only just now getting to know and accept.

I am thankful that the leaves have all fallen and I don't have to trudge through them anymore or sneeze at their molding carcasses. I am thankful that I have neighbors with doors as open as mine. I am thankful for a bunch of homies in the Small Town, whose big parties and simple gestures and long conversations make the whole thing better and funner. Yeah, funner: because I like that word more than the alternative two words. 

I am thankful for the fact that I can fill my fridge when it's empty, buy new shoes if someone needs them, go to the doctor whenever we have to, and if I wanted to, I could leave the Kid and marry the Awesome Babysitter, but since I don't want to do that so much, I am thankful that other people can -- at least here, in the great pot-smoking, gay-loving, over-taxing, about-to-be-freezing State of Massachusetts. 

I am thankful for the Book and the friend I am doing it with. 

Also, lastly, I am so, so thankful for a page amongst billions. 

One page, a bunch of words, a few rants (!), some stories, some thinky ideas, a little tuneage: and a trusted new neighborhood of disparate stranger friends who I have never met and might never meet** and who have made the blah blah blah and sometimes yada yada and sometimes OMG a two-way conversation I never imagined I might have. And without getting maudlin, which maybe I already have (dammit), you disparate stranger friends: I am thankful for you.

See you Monday (or maybe sooner, if I get drunk enough and have wifi -- ooo! that'll be good right Carolyn?) but until then, best of everything and please, dear people, my lovely and loved disparate stranger friends, remember as much as you can of what you do so I can read about it next week.

*How mysterious I  seem to be. Hmmm....

** Blogher. Chicago. Just saying. Me and Carolyn: not to be missed. Beer. Wine. Big small talk. Fun. You. 

Bullhorn

Back in the way back day, when we lived in the house on the water, my dad had a bullhorn. I think he got it as a present, but then again, I wouldn't be surprised if he actually picked it up himself at the local hardware store that also sold really nice and preppy tote bags. I miss that place. 

Anyhoo, back in the way back day, our house was affectionately known in the summers as Camp MyLastName because there was always some combination of me and my sisters friends there, hanging out, uninvited but welcome. There was a little power boat and a little sail boat and coolers that never seemed to empty of cheap beers in cans. My sisters friends who were post-collegiate would read the New York Times and eat lobster rolls and nurse hangovers. My friends, teenagers then, were just grateful to be included. And drink cheap beer in cans without punishment. (I mean, we were almost 18 and the law hadn't been 21 that long.) It was the 80s and I felt pretty untouchable and lucky. Life was kind of good but with a really, really bad soundtrack.

So my dad played nothing but Willie Nelson or Johnny Cash or sometimes Bonnie Raitt. And he had his bullhorn.

While the rest of us lounged in beach chairs all over the lawn, little groups of chatters or readers or hangers on, he would sit in the shade of a weeping cherry tree, invisible to the boats passing by. And he would hit the button on the bullhorn and rate each machine passing by. 

A cigarette boat with a name like Honey Titz would get a blaring "FOOOOOUUUURRR!" but a Hinckley would hear "You My Friend Get a Ten." He would also comment on other things: "Stop Kissing!" he would bellow, "More Sunscreen" he might shout and the ever popular "SLOW DOWN!!!!" which was the only embarrassing holler we would all participate in. 

It was mortifying but also pretty freaking funny and none of us ever budged from our chairs even as we cringed in them. When my boyfriend would dock his boat to hang out, my dad would critique the entire exercise for all the harbor to hear. I'm really surprised that boyfriend ever came back. But then again, there were those coolers... 

I'm not sure what had me thinking about that today, since it's wet and cold and windy and I can't even remember summer. I think it's the nostalgia of the season: holidays past and whatnot. And my dad's in Italy, where's he'll be through Christmas, just like last year and I doubt he plays around with a bullhorn anymore. 

I think I should get one and hide out in an upstairs street-facing bedroom and heckle all the kids walking home from school. "Where's your helmet?" I might say, or "Do your homework first thing" or the ever popular "SLOW DOWN!" 

I am nothing if not a lover of tradition.

Pinball Psychology

Tonight, my head is like a pin ball machine.  (I actually just wrote "ping pong balls" which should give you a good idea of where I am: words.... nice... wait! Not those words... Wait! What?)

I wish I had the decent excuse that many people have -- being stressed and busy with food prep and travel -- and while the truth is that I do have those things, it's not just that that flips the flippers in the brain and sends the balls flying.

I just know that tonight, bells are being rung and lights are being flashed and I better hit the button like a thousand times or the balls will drop... oh shit, the kids need to get to bed ... and the tenderloin in the oven!... and the Book! and then well..... the ball shoots pass, like a speeding bullet, and sinks into the hole. One down. One lost.  

I can't catch them all, that's true: but still the ricocheting balls remain. 

And I think I am growing up enough to know that I own those balls. The day to day ones come and fly past and I get that and I'm good with letting most go by. But I own the ones that remain and clunk around in the machine, going nowhere.

It's those balls that keep ringing the bells, bumping the bumpers, breaking my heart. I could have shot them out. Or let them sink. I haven't. I didn't. After all the words I said or could have said, after realizing there was nothing I could ever say, after every misstep since then, every ugly glance, every silent hour, every place I put blame that wouldn't stick... what's left is a girl feeding one more stinkin' ball into the chute.

(It seems so petty to sum up a feeling like this in pinball metaphor.)

(She stands back; she takes a breath.)

***

The game has never been about the balls. 

It's only and always been about the paddle.

 

Wardrobe, Food, Family=Fun?

I had to buy yet another new wardrobe for Rory who is seven and as Giant as the Giant Four Year Old. Eleven inches in two years! Twenty one pounds! She has surpassed her nine year old sister and will probably soon be taller than me.

Bridget on the other hand needs to be weight-checked in two months.

I alternate between obsessing about the one who eats too little and the one who is constantly coming downstairs in some hackneyed punk rock I got dressed in the dark with my eyes closed outfit because -- whine with me please -- "nothing fits mooommmmmmm!". And nothing does fit. And so I hand the outgrowns to the older sister who needs to cinch 'em up.

And then I head to about sixty five different places because R will not wear just any clothes. They can not have a butterfly or a fairy or gasp! be pink. They can not be shiny or sparkly or (her words) "glowy." I aim for solids, because in her world, stripes go with plaids go with tie dye, and since I don't hassle anyone about clothing choices, it just makes the morning less stressful -- in a visual sense -- on us all. Whatever she wears will come home filthy and probably ripped, so cheap is at the top of the criteria list, too.

I can have do drive myself crazy about the other one who seems to be giving a new name to "picky eater." I know I shouldn't. Laying off is what all the books say to do, and frankly, after trying the bribing and the begging and the threats, not doing anything seems to make the dinner hour fifteen minutes happiest. Happier. (You can really get a hang up about your culinary skills when cooking for children.) 

Since I have been size M most of my life and never much cared about that, and since I seem to be just about the only person I know who can't find the way to the gym or the boot camp (6am? Um, nothanks), and since I personally enjoy everything from truffle oil to Taco Bell, I cannot for the life of me figure out where this tooth-pick food-hater gets it. 

I mention this all because the Big Feast approacheth. And inevitably someone will point out how little the older one eats and how messy the younger one is. The GFYO will probably wipe out down the stairs or break something or generally distract our attention for a few short minutes, but the comments will come. And I won't have the answers or any answer so I will smile and say something about Obama or Palin because nothing says tension-free family gathering more than a little political gamesmanship between the token "socialist" (ie: me) and most everyone else in the Kid's family. 

But at least we won't be talking about my kids. And you gotta be thankful for something.

Swimming or Drowning

The GFYO missed his last two swimming lessons because, despite his tough ninja style, he would not go past the locker room. Would not budge. Cried. Would not.take.one.more.step.

He finally confessed that he doesn't want to "race" so I said OMG you little nutcase gently, there's no racing little man -- it's just pretty much putting your face in the water and learning how to swim. The dude sinks like a smiling, blissful stone and yet in his infinite wisdom, figured I'd enrolled him in swim team and was expecting kick turns on the 200meter butterfly.

Today, he went. Today, in his swim cap squeezed to the top of his head like a yarmulke, he actually swam -- unattended by human or flotation device. Then he did a perfect kick turn and broke the individual medley record. Actually, he didn't do that, but as I kinda knew all along, that little bugger has been fooling me from the get go: he just likes it when I haul his life jacket everywhere we go. So now I think he can probably read too and also do laundry, but why bother since he has me to do his bidding.

I told Rory the good news and she high-fived him from across the seats in the car. And then the following commenced:

R: Now you can swim in the pool in South Carolina. But I will watch you anyway because you will probably get tired and drown. Then I will scoop you up and pat your back. You might drown again so mom might have to come but the thing is YOU WILL SURVIVE because you can swim now. I have drowned like eighty times. Maybe a hundred. The thing is: don't go in the deep end.

GFYO: OK.

R: And maybe wear your life jacket for, like, the first few days because I'll probably be busy and stuff and won't see you if you drown.

GFYO: OK.

R: But anyway, good job.

And you know what? She's right. Because it's a good day if you can swim and don't drown, kind of like it's a good day if you have your driver's license and don't kill some innocent bystander. Everything's relative: swimming or drowning included.

And speaking of doing more swimming, go here and let ciii of Goat and Tater know you got his floaties. 

Weather Report

There are icicles on the weather dude's weekly chart. The entire word "Wednesday" is frozen over. This means only one thing: we are about to enter the Missing Mitten Zone.

Akin to the Bermuda Triangle and the place where socks go, the Missing Mitten Zone shows up at about 7:45am on the first freezing morning and lasts until about five minutes after the last school bell has rung on the first day of Spring. Buckets, baskets, those see-through shoe holders that I've tried hanging on the back of doors, clips, safety pins -- nothing works. The Missing Mitten Zone trumps Missing Ballet Slipper Zone, Missing Shin Guard Zone, Missing Shoe Zone, Missing TV Clicker Zone, and Missing Permission Slip Zone. 

And four year old boys who insist on wearing gloves but are totally incapable of putting all the right fingers into all the right slots and can't open car doors on sub-zero mornings because three fingers are jammed into the pinky slot of said gloves thus rendering the hand entirely useless and who will then rip off the annoying glove and throw it the driveway where it will inevitably get buried under leaves or blow away -- breathe -- will cause parents to enter another zone: the You Know What Just Put Your Hands In Your Pockets You'll Be Alright Zone. 

All The People at This Party

Since I am not sure there is a cure for the song stuck in my head (the song offered on video below, that I hope you will play before you read the following), like Helter Skelter, I am taking Joni's back. 

Cue: music (yes, YOU: click it):

All the people at this party

I think Bedhead has a lot of style

Freeman has stamps of many countries

I had a passport; Waltz smiles...

Laggin's friendly, some are cutting

Sometimes I'm watching Kristin from the wings:

Maybe FADKOG, Infant, and Uncool are giving to get something?

When Whiskey gets attention

Bossy and Jonniker running down,

Cusp's got things no one knows --

I take the lampshade as my crown.

One minute I am happy

Then Heather's crying on someone's knee

I say laughing and crying  -- Aimee

WAIT? it's not about me?

I told you when I met you Meg and Minivan

I was thinky

Cry for us all Rho

Cry for Myself in the corner

Thinking she's nobody

And Jesus behind his Joker

and stone-cold X behind her fans

and me in frightened silence

waiting for Carolynnnnnnn.

I felt like I was pretending Nash's Mom

then JenW... woke me

Sass seems to have a broader sensibility

I'm living on nerves and feelings Two Busy

Like Merecat, Patty and Cii -- word

showing up at Deeples parties

waiting to flip the bird.

It's not a lack of humor, UncoolKevin,

that keeps the sadness at bay, 20Something:

it's throwing the lightness on these things, Floyd,

laughing it all away, Lori

laughing it all away,

Manager Mom is laughing it all away.

I'm laughing it all away.

Getting All Politically

I feel like it's been a while since I've really railed and raged. Stand back, peeps, because I am pissed...

I think in our collective election hangover you on the right can still keep reading ( yes, I'm talking to you Kid), we cried and cheered and celebrated but as it turns out, the world around us did not fall off its axis. I think in our yada yada woohoo big whoop good times wow kind of thinking, we missed the big picture. Ours is in fact not a New America.

Take California. Take Florida. For god sakes, will somebody take Arkansas and give it to another country? In the midst of our self-congratulatory moment in the burning sun (or in my case, rain), do we not see how in fact backasswards our nation is? 

Women, black people: if you do not know that you have arrived, and yes, I am thoroughly and willingly throwing myself under the large ass tractor trailer headed my way, but OH MY GOD: it is your own damn fault. Title 9? The Civil Rights Act? Nothing has been made perfect for damn sure, but things could be a helluva lot worse. 

While laws do not make perfect the acts of man (or The Man), they give credibility to our complaints. They give us leeway and access and cause. But there are those who walk amongst us, most of the time right damn beside us, who do not have any legal foot or even toe to stand on.

How can I as a woman, as a feminist (there: I said it), raise daughters and a son in a supposedly equal opportunity world when others (and maybe even them) (who knows?) are denied the rights we take so perfectly for granted? Explain to me how I can explain the "civil" in civil rights or the "equal" in equality when that is not in fact true for everyone? 

This is not about religion or a bible or any of  that. This is not about your private feelings about homosexuality. This is about equal rights under the law. Marriage is not about God or romance at the end of the day (unless you choose it to be so, and dude, I hope most of you do), but about protection. Marriage is about protecting property and children. It is a legal construct. Nothing more, nothing less. Our constitution insists on equal protection under the law. In banning the rights of marriage to some citizens, we are denying the rights granted to all of us to some of us.

And that, fundamentally, is wrong.

The New America we supposedly woke up in is the Old America to gay and lesbian people across this nation. I can not pat myself on the back for anything (even though I live in Massachusetts) (where by the way decriminalizing small amounts of pot won overwhelmingly) (and will save a lot of lives, in my humble non-smoking pot opinion) because our country, our freedom loving, New American country has serious work to do.

And that concludes Ms. Picket's rant. Pick it up if you can. 

****

PSSST: You may have seen this from Keith O, who I generally consider to be over dramatic for my liking, but still: have at it.

All Lost in the Supermarket

I mentioned earlier today that I had forgotten the joys of grocery shopping with three small children. What with school for the older two full time, and play dates I am not obligated to attend pre-school for the GFYO a few mornings a week, I can pretty much manage the buying of food (no one will eat) all by my lonesome.

Today, since we honor Veterans Day here in Massachusetts by taking the day off from organized education, and since the cupboards were really pathetically bare (stale Triscuit anyone? limp carrot?), off I went with the Short Drunk People for an hour or so of public drunkenness at the local food store. Thankfully, we saw no one we knew. 

It is not that my children are any worse or more spazzy than other kids in grocery stores. It's just that they are mine and so I get to highlight their shenanigans because I consider it my RIGHT and my DUTY.

For instance, those coupons dispensed in those little machines are not coupons but tickets and for some reason, the more tickets you get the better. Tickets to what? to where? Who the fuck knows, but they want them and must have them.

Also, produce baggies are not so much for say, um, brussel sprouts or broccoli, but better used as blow-up whacking instruments. I know this because for a good twenty minutes Rory* and the GFYO blew-up and whacked. Creative play? Perhaps. Utterly annoying? For sure.

Three children under the age of ten can discuss the merits of different types of "fruit" flavored gummy snacks for longer than your average senator can filibuster. The fish department on the other hand elicits gasps and speed walking, and also from Bridget*, a kind of stunned silence that a mother would even consider "making" her children eat something so "gross."

The word "gorp" (you know, the trail mix your mom probably made with peanuts and raisins and M&Ms) resulted in what will forevermore be known as the Gorp Song. It included many made-up (or misused) words, some lame beat boxing, some attempts at break dancing (in aisle 6), and the scorn of other shoppers.  

The good news? The cupboards are less empty and we made it out of there, all four of us, with a dollar to spare for the (I mean, really: it's NOVEMBER) bell-ringing Salvation Army guy. We loaded the goods in and then they loaded them all out. We put the food away, divided up crackers into ready-for-school-lunch individual portions, discussed how we would not eat all the "fruit" flavored gummy snacks in one gluttonous feast when in fact, we have REAL fruit to gluttonously eat, and we marveled at our accomplishment. Well, actually, I marveled; every one else went outside to play.

The bad news? No booze section in that grocery store which puts a little damper on the one-stop-shopping, you know what I'm saying?

****

* Oh yes. I am leaving the initials behind (except for the GFYO because I just dig that little moniker of his) because "B" and "R" never sounded like them to me anyway, so there you have it.

   

How Romantic is That

The weekend saw me crying one day at a funeral and the next day at an engagement party. I said to the Kid that I felt like I was an interloper at both.  He said no one invites a voyeur. 

I'm trying to make that a compliment, and I think it was, and anyway: this is an awesome song. 

THIS is not about THAT

This is NOT about politics.

This is not about anything historic or ideological.

This is not about the news. 

Or soccer. Or the PTO. 

This is not about what I did today, or yesterday, or about what I will do tomorrow.

THIS is about this tiny minute and nothing else. 

This is about the rain slamming against the skylight and the leaves like kamikaze birds making a final flight. This about the three kids who think I can't hear them upstairs (in bed?) but I do. This is about me doing nothing about it and hoping someday, my gamble pays off and they end up loving each other as grown-ups. 

This is about the hum of the click clack on the keyboard and how that sounds like the post office workers in Africa that I heard on a cassette tape once in a music class in college. 

(This is NOT about worrying that I left a canvas bag full of soccer balls and other crap outside in what is now a full on downpour.)

THIS is about this tiny minute. It is about me turning off the radio and the television and the everything else and sitting here, in THIS minute, all by myself (at least in this room) (where I am, for now, all alone). This is about me listening to something other than than every one else and every thing else and just for right now, listening to nothing. But the click clack. And the rain.  

This is about being quiet in a fury of sound, in a fury of hoopla and chit chat and emails and phone calls, and all of the other things that make noise.

THIS is about this tiny quiet minute, this one little bit of time, this thing I can have and make silent and untouchable. I wonder if anyone can relate to that, and I hope that they do. I wonder if life is about more than this -- tiny minutes -- and I think that mostly, it isn't.

Because right now, in this minute, this tiny minute, when my children are at last, finally asleep, and when I can hear in the quiet how truly lucky I am to be living here, in this house, right now, at this time, at this very stinking minute -- everything else can find the back door: I am just happy and grateful.

That's what this is about.

What To Do While Waiting

1) Do not check polls on any number of web sites. This is much akin to diagnosing a cold with a google search. You will log out with the plague or colitis.

2) Consider reorganizing a coat closet. An attic. The pantry.

3) Call old friends, yawn, sigh and say "So.... what's going on? Anything new with you?"

4) Pick through left-over Halloween candy. Arrange Skittles in a colorful row. Add M&Ms. Then Dots. Invent new art form.

5) Windex the inside of your car's windows. Because you can. Because, why not?

6) Let your children vote on what to have for dinner, exercise your veto powers, and finish with a hearty "and that my little friends is a beautiful thing called Checks and Balances!"

7) Catalog your catalogs. Fill up the recycling bin. Feel good about doing your part. 

8) One word: solitaire.

9) Ponder the number nine. If you say nine nine times, it sounds weird. Try it.

10) Type type type. 

Repeat 1 through 9 (minus #6, because that would be, um, dumb and involve lots of cooking), throw in a 11) cocktail and breathe. It's a pretty awesome day to be American, yo.

Life Sneaks Into Boring

I wrote five sentences and deleted them. I do that almost... never.

Typically, I sit down to the screen and wonder what I could possibly say and so, just start typing. I hit delete when I spell words incredibly wrong but mostly just, yeah....go.

Today, on the final edge of a weekend in which there was so much to do that I never enjoyed any of it as much as I should have or could have, and which might have been blog fodder, other shit happened. 

Parents died (not mine). 

Babies died (not mine). 

Emails came that made me cry about things that had nothing to do with the dying. 

Life sneaks into my boring. It sneaks in and finds its insidious home. 

The minute I say the news is dull: a bomb goes off. The minute I say we are so lucky: someone gets sick. The minute I decide that I will never have anything to write about ever again: parents die, full-term babies die and I wonder how I could have ever dismissed the dullness of the life I live.

Mine is the dullness of the every day that lots of other people want to have. Mine is easy, relatively, and despite the closet full of bones, it is good.  

Mine is the life most people have: mostly boring, decent, and safe, but all of us -- all of us know, it's fleeting: round the bend, turn the corner, who knows what might happen? 

No one goes through life untouched. No one.

I want to start believing in a God, because I need someone to protect those people, that poor mother, their other kid, the adult children of Alzheimer's and yeah... hmm... -- dude -- I want someone to blame.

Scariest Thing Ever Would Be...

Well, I think you know where I stand on that, and with a scant short time to go, sorry dudes, but I gotta get this out there before the kids come home and the candy buzz kicks in and the soccer tournament on Sunday. Oh, and another costume party for which I have no costume (can one be the "financial bailout" twice? in a Small Town? I think not).

People of the internets, I am feeling kinda scared about Tuesday.  I am suspicious of the polls: polls are math and science and stuff and I get all queasy about it. So much for October Surprise. What about November Demise? I don't want to see that happen. 

So, two posts in one night -- see below -- and redundancy to boot. 

It's not over until it's over, so....

Wingman

So a few years ago, Barack Obama embarrased a young reporter -- a reporter who was trying to impress a certain pretty young thang -- by mistaking said reporter for a college student. Obama made some comment about the dude's "baby face" and everyone hardy har har'd, including the pretty young thang. Reporter dude was mortified, but all was made well after he received the following phone call:

Boomp3.com

I mean seriously people? Isn't it time we had a president like this? 

Have fun with all the witches and goblins and ghosts and Hannah Montana's coming soon to your front door. And save some candy for November 4th. 

Pumpkin Carving In One Act

Set: plastic carving knives, spoons, bowls, newspaper, pumpkins, Short Drunk People, Ms. Picket. Ice coffee. 

Scene: Short Drunk People deliver rapid fire dialogue at well-intentioned Picket as Halloween countdown clock ticks away.

And.... action!

Mom! Mom! Mom! Mommmaaa! Mom! Mommy!

Mine has hair! 

That's not hair; it's guts.

It's hair! It smells! It's hairy!

It's not hair, GFYO: it's guts.

Guts bleed: mine has hair. Stinky hair.

Can I eat it? 

(No.)

Can I make a witch? What about a vampire? 

(Picket to R: Make whatever you want. But looking at it for thirty minutes is not helping.)

Oh. Well, mine's gonna be funnnkkkkyyyy!  

No! Mine is funky! FUN-KEY. 

Mom's making yours so it's whatever mom wants to make.

(GFYO thinks.)

Mom, make mine FUN-KEY. 

Can I have a knife?

(No!)

(Two seconds pass in silence.)

(Carving knife is slammed on table by nine-year-old.)

I SCREWED IT UP! I HATE MINE! I QUIT!

(Nine-year-old storms off.) (Sigh.) (Nine-year-old returns.)

(GFYO is bored and wanders away.)

(R stares at pumpkin.)

What do witches eyes look like? Like this? (Attempts a glare but mostly, goes cross eyed.)

Do you know that it's a horrrrible time to sell a house?

(What?)

A horrible time. To sell a house. Did you know that?

(Um yes. Why do you know that, B?)

'Cause I'm down. To funky town.

MAKE MINE FUN-KEY yells the GFYO from two rooms away.

I'll probably be sitting here for like two days. I'm just gonna sit here with this pumpkin and wonder about it. I'm just gonna be sitting here forever. Looking at this pumpkin.

(Picket to R: Then put the little knife in and go for it. Just see what happens.)

Yeah, that's what I do and look, I made the dude from Monsters Inc!

But you were like crying ten minutes ago and like... quit.

Whatever, R. At least I'm done.  

MOOOOOOMMMMM! She's SOOOOO ruuuuuuuuude!

Am not.

Yeah you are.

(Picket: Enough! This is fun, people!)

She has the good knife!

I do not. I'm gonna pick out all the seeds and we can roast them.

You don't even like them!

Yes I do!

Nooooo, you don't.

MOOOOOOOMMMMM! She's so mean!

(Picket to self: lalalala, go to happy place, think happy thoughts, lalalalala.)

Mom, I think GFYO has a knife.

(Picket, chasing GFYO: GIVE ME THE KNIFE!)

Mom, is mine funky? Like funky funky funky? 

Mom, how do I make blood? Can I make blood? Would blood be cool?

Mom, the kid on the news? It says he shot his head with a gun!

(Picket: Oh my god, where's the clicker? Turn off the TV!)

Mom, is mine funky, super funky? Mom, is mine the best, Mom? Mom, I lost my math packet! Mom, I'm hungry. Mom, when's Halloween again? Mom, I don't even think this looks like blood! Where's my math packet? Mom, Mom, Mommy, Mommaa, MOOOOOOOMMMMMM!

(Picket: OH. MY. GOD. Give me all the knives: we're done.)

Carving ends. Short Drunk People disperse. Guts and hair and knives and newspaper everywhere. Ice coffee tossed. Icy beer cracked.

Mom?

(WHATTTTT?)

I love carving pumpkins. Can we do it again tomorrow?

So Much Trouble

Dude(s) (?): I used to make mixed tapes.

This is better. 

Back in the old days Matt Pond PA was work. Now? Not so much.

Today was a crazy day. When I sat down to a screen that is more familiar than my own face, it was a lucky thing to see his email. It was a hallelujah for me to have a moment that was about nothing (and also everything) and to end up with this/his song.

Remembering what music is, I remind you: hit play, settle in, enjoy.

Alien

The Giant Four Year Old did not approve of the alien costume I had just spent hours an hour sewing hot-glue-gunning and could not be convinced otherwise. Until R put it on and worked it yo which hit the GFYO where it hurt: he is a performer after all (seriously, go watch that) and so he would not be outshone. From there on out, it was a solid twenty minutes of karate chops with all FOUR of his arms. I was pleased and slightly annoyed simultaneously, which is also a good summation of most of my days.

The Alien slunk up a few quiet hours later. Mom? he said. Uhhuh, I said.

I need a new friend.

Why? I said.

Because I don't have any.

While I didn't anticipate the GFYO saying that, I definitely didn't figure that kind of sucky news would come from a boy with four arms and twenty fingers. Maybe from a boy with snot pouring down his face or something like that, but definitely not from a fierce Alien kinda kid. Not from the GFYO.

I am pretty sure the dude has friends. I know he does. I think he's just tapping into some sense of his own...well, mortality is the wrong word: maybe its a sense of "i am not the ruler of every frickin universe I touch" and frankly, that's not necessarily a bad thing. 

Which is not to say I didn't internally freak out and start madly mapping out the play dates I would make. I did both those things. The Alien's four arms were flapping around as he tried to find the words to tell me what his brain was whirling with -- something along the lines of "you don't know where their houses are" so how could he possibly go over to play -- and maybe something about last year's BFF finding a new BFF -- and today there was something convoluted about what would happen if no one likes his toys which I considered just a ploy for more toys. Kids got game. And it should be noted, also got a $2 action figure.

Truth is, the whole thing is a little upsetting. Because he's four, because I lamely, wrongly figured boys didn't stress this stuff, and because, while I think the drama will be over before the weekend, it just sucks when your kid feels like ass. 

Just sucks when your kid has four super cool Alien arms that move in tandem and look nothing like the socks they started out as and you only have two human arms that, though they can hug and cuddle and stuff, will not be able to solve all the problems in his universe. Ever.

Plus, there's no "beaming up" option for earthlings like me.

There is however buckets full of candy round the bend, which works on all species I'm told. 

****

PS: I realize my recent mentioning of R's MRI might have caused some stress. Let it be known the pictures were of her arm, from an old injury (or something), and that she is perfectly healthy otherwise. Your kindness and concern does not go unnoticed. 

Ruthie's Daughter

This was not what I figured I would write today; in fact, I was so tied up in the meeting I had and the meeting I missed and the fending off of one problem and another all day, I figured I wouldn't write at all. 

But then the petty middle-schoolish anger I hold onto (can't let go of) (another story, another day) ruined most of the end of the hours, and it was enough of an anger that I wanted to write about THAT, and then thought better of it after talking to Susie, and so decided not to, then decided TO do, and then bed time happened. 

There is nothing liking tucking in three kids to suck the venom out. 

So I thought I would write about R's MRI this weekend and how her painless riding in was my utter torture. I am not good at math, but I counted each breath she made in the tube because I was sure she might stroke out, or I would, and so, someone should be -- at least -- counting. 

I thought I might write about the soccer game and the cheating by the Big Bad Dad but I'd already decided that was 1) boring and 2) a boat load of potential real life problems for me. 

So basically, if you eliminate the anger and the kid shit and the trashing -- for me, for today, for any day: there was nothing I could write about. 

THEN, then, like a beacon of inspiration, my mother, Ruthie's daughter, sent this:

"And the line of strong, insightful sometimes querky (sp) women continues. You made me feel the love, smell the salt water and reminded me of how distressed she would have been. But Ruthie would have pragmatically moved on and would have dwelled on the incredible, beautiful progeny, the next sunset and the next amazing storm."

That was it: three sentences from my mother. Three sentences that took the whole entire crap day by the neck and whipped it right the fuck around, then slammed it to the floor, stood upon it's neck, with a steel toe, like a thug of knowingness, like a thug that has history on its side, and said, listen -- missus -- listen:

Do you see it? Do you feel it? The next sunset -- it will come; it will mean a new day. You can't stop it! Move onward. Brace yourself. Storms come, they pass. DEAL.

Ruthie's daughter should be proud.

***

Memory marches with life, but not hand in hand: as life moves on, memory moves in another direction. But it creates its own territory, its own living, breathing space in life: it swallows parts and leaves others to rest. It is, however, not life; it is, however, not you. 

 

Some More Truth

Remember when I told some truth? I'm doing it again.

***
My grandmother, who is dead now, who died two months before I got married, just before the seams came unstitched, just in time, her name was Ruthie and that's what we called her, not Grammy or Gramma or Nana or Tootoo, but Ruthie. We called her by her name.

Ruthie loved sirens from cop cars and fire engines. If she heard a wail of adventure, she'd snuff out one of the two butts she had smoldering and race to her car, a Ford Bronco with blue shag carpet on the floor boards. Sometimes she'd take me.

Oh damn, she'd say. A false alarm.

Ruthie loved storms most of all. When one would whip up in the summer, she'd cover me and my cousins in plastic tarps and wrap us in rope onto a wicker couch that sat on her partially covered porch so we could feel the fury of a storm on the ocean. She was sober then, she was sober all my life, but when I got drunk for the first time, I wondered: could anyone be that passionate -- sober?

She could be. She was.

She tied us to a bench, on a porch, because it was awesome in the most literal sense and because we wanted her to. She untied us before the wind ripped off our faces.

The rope was to keep us from washing away, my cousins and I said. But Ruthie knew better: we would never wash away. The rope was just a candle for a ghost story. It made the thing more scary, the danger more authentic, and when we shuffled inside, wet and brave and confident, I bet she snubbed her cigarette out, self-satisfied and proud.  

(I am only guessing at the cigarette part, because I don't know for sure. I don't know a lot of things for sure. Memory and reality rarely meet. Sometimes one pulls for the other.)

Ruthie was a matriarch who ruled with a sponge. She was an engineer and an artist. She was function in a whirlwind of her own chaos. Her capacity to charm us was second only to her ability to know us.

It all collided in the gifts she gave. Like the sewing trunks filled to the brim and the blank cassette tapes (twelve of  them!) and the giant, massive Christmas cookie dough ball wrapped in Saran, wrapped in a bow, tempting me and my cousin to devour in one sitting. Her gifts always had a note on the outside that hinted what was inside: "You will 'ache' to leave this behind."

She was a drunk for most of my mother's life. Her husband was a drunk too. They got sober shortly after I was born -- in a city on another ocean with other storms that had different names, very far away from them both.  While Ruthie's daughter was biding her time with a man whose promise was bigger than any typhoon, I was being born at the exact stroke of midnight and choices were made.

Years later, after I left for boarding school and my parents owned my grandmother's house, my mother and father would tie themselves together with another rope, trudge off the porch against the wind and surf that had already eaten up half the sea wall and most of the lawn to get a better look at the storm. It was a hurricane that time. They would soon retreat for higher ground through waist-high water, a soggy rope between them, binding them, with the potential to kill them both. I wasn't there, but I saw the pictures and mostly what I saw is a version of a three-legged race that would eventually, metaphorically, go unbearably wrong.

Ruthie died before her daughter's husband failed her daughter.

She tied us to a wicker couch with rope so we would see how beautiful lightening can look on the ocean and how ferocious the wind can be when it forces boats into submission. I'd like to think she did it because she knew how foolish we would be the older we got, how over confident and stupidly secure we'd become: our legacy, our heritage, our genetic fucking code.

I'd like to think she was bearing us up for what we could not control, for what was bigger than us, as if her version of the storm could steel us from everything else. 

It didn't. It couldn't.