Evil Hollywood

As I lay curled in a full fledge PMS (or maybe just MS) depression, my S.O. tried to understand what was wrong. I'm sure that I was barely intelligible between sobs, but I think my answer was something like "Why..." (sob) am (sob) I (sob) here?" ImeanwhatismypurposeherebecauseIjustcan'tfigureit
outandI'msotired
(sob)
offeelinglikeI'mafailureateverythingatbeingawife
amotherI'mfailingatmyjobI
(sob)
justdon'tunderstandwhatitisI'msupposedtobedoing
(this last part trails off into a really nice snot snort).

S.O.'s response: "Uhm...so...by "here" do you mean in this house, this city, this state, or...."

You see, this is the reason to be married. With that single question, my S.O. brought me out of my sappy existential funk, because at that point I sat up and thought to myself "leave it to my husband to put a completely pragmatic spin on my despair."

Because, obviously, if we could just pinpoint where "here" is, then we would have hope of finding a solution to the problem. Clearly, I just need the right tool--a socket wrench, perhaps.

Of course, the thing that matters is that he was willing to listen (albeit briefly, before launching into his usual soliloquy about his perspective on things--but he DID listen).

And the way I was feeling is not his fault. In fact I would like to take this opportunity to blame everything on the evil Hollywood people. I'm talking about the people who feed us the myth that every individual is born to fulfill a certain single-minded purpose in life. It was my S.O. who planted this seed--after he realized that "here" was not an actual location, his comment to me was "Does anyone really know why they're here?"

And after overdosing on TV in an effort to quell the last few stress nightmares I've had, I realized the truth of S.O.'s question. TV, movies...99% of those leading men and ladies are portrayed as having some kind of inner truth that "shines through" and reveals their purpose, their reason for existing.

Hollywood is just another form of crack.

Classic Quote for the Day

From the movie "Domino" (2005):

Claremont Williams III, Bail Bondsman: It’s very simple. The DMV is the de facto conduit for all humanity. And every human being that we track down has a record in the DMV database…So we have people on the inside that feed us the information.

Ed Mosbey, Bounty Hunter: Ahh. Shit. And who would know it. The gatekeepers of humanity turn out to be...a bunch’a sassy black women.

Socks
a few minutes of "The Devil Wears Prada"
panties (the kid)
drawhs (the husband)
underwear
A few more minutes of TDWP
pants (hers)
shorts (his)
leaning tower of towels and washclothes
then downstairs for double strong coffee

percolating
9:39pm
CSI: NY (Bruckheimer's throw-away scripts)
watch the last few minutes anyway

with double strong coffee
microwaved soymilk
three shakes nutmeg

Watch the first few minutes of "Domino"

Immediately: why are strong women invariably
portrayed as such dysfunctional bitches?

Maybe because we are. I'm sitting here mad at the world because I'm choosing between reading Bakhtin and sorting socks and underwear. My S.O., having just returned from a male bonding experience constructed from two parts deposition-taking with good-ole boy millionaire lawyers and one part binge drinking and playing poker with high school buddies at a blues-playing juke joint, spent a total of 80 minutes reflecting on how glad he was to be home before grabbing a fifth of Grey Goose and heading out to a party that he "got invited to a couple of days ago" and "just wanted to stop by."

Here's an interesting thought: imagine Bakhtin sitting at home at 10:32pm contemplating whether, for example, it would be a better idea to fold clothes that risked being permanently wrinkled or to put the finishing touches on the draft of ideas about heteroglossia, while his wife went out carousing with a bottle of vodka to keep her company.

Of course, this reeks of friedan-esque "old school" feminist bitching. And of course in theory "it" is not really about double standards. In real life though, that's what it seems to come down to for me.

I had a revelation the other day. Clearly, being married to an "I love my fraternity till the day I die" African American man raised in the Deep South who is now a lawyer at one of the only big (black) law firms in a town that, by the way, aspires to become a big city but just doesn't quite "get" the fact that you can't become a big city with out a TARGET...being married to such a man maybe is not the choice that (in hindsight of course) makes sense for a striving, career-minded Buddhist woman like myself.

There's just one complication: I can't seem to dislodge cupid's arrow from my left buttock.

And when it comes to Bakhtin's intellectual life vs. my pitiful excuse for one...Although he did write "several influential books" in five years' time, he also ended up using at least one of his manuscripts for cigarette paper after having been jailed for his ideas. So, I suppose it's not so bad to continually forget 98% of my potentially brilliant ideas as I wash dishes and fold clothes and sit here enjoying my two coffee caffeine high...

If the world ever acknowledges the skill it takes to keep up with housework, stay gainfully employed in several tenure-track positions, stay married without becoming a substance abuser (caffeine doesn't count) and raise a daughter who could possibly be the next Picasso...

then I will be the next fucking Einstein.

The Best Part of My Day

A. and I play this game--well, not a game really. Is it a routine? A special mother-daughter ritual? Yeah, a ritual. It's called "The Best Part of My Day."

At dinner, or while she's in the tub, or after I give her a hug and a kiss good night, I will say "So--what was the best part of your day?" She doesn't do it often, but sometimes if I'm lucky she will say "I think the best part of my day is right now." And then, other times she'll insist that the best part of her day is thinking about tomorrow.

Anyway. Then she'll ask me what the best part of my day was. It's a struggle sometimes, and I wonder what, if anything, it teaches A. when I say "hmmm...." and gaze off into the distance for several long seconds.

I didn't have to do that last night. S.O. and I had dinner at Captain D's and he gave me a glimpse into his thoughts about his future at the Law Firm. Everything is not roses and yet, standing there talking to him in the cool December air, cold enough at last to see our breath, I felt renewed. Maybe...maybe like a bored nine-year old who, while waiting at the bus stop, looks down and finds a matchbox car sticking out of the dirt.

After we talked, I decided to spend the rest of the money from a gift card I'd gotten at the December meeting of the Sassy Black Ladies' Book Club (a snazzy affair with a sit down dinner and gift exchange). I bought a pair of earrings (that at their original price would have cost more than most of my shoes) and a shirt to wear to the Law Firm boss's holiday party on Thursday.

Here's the kicker: as I was walking into the department store the guy ringing the Salvation Army bell turned and said "You are the most beautiful woman I've ever seen."

If I could capture the feeling I had at that moment and bottle it, I'd make a million bucks. Confetti and chocolate could have been falling from the sky. That whole thing--the conversation with S.O., the compliment and the shopping was, hands down, the best part of my day--even when the shiny compliment was tarnished a tad when the Salvation Army bell ringer added "If you could go back in time you'd be my girlfriend."

The Bitch Who Stole Christmas

Growing up, every year my father swore that this would be the Christmas that we would NOT be getting gifts. Of course, there was no room in the manger for a well-meaning idealist like him—bless his heart. Pitted against giants like the JC Penney and Sears Wishbooks—and later, the big daddy of them all, the sacred Toys-R-Us Toy Book—he was doomed to fail. And he did. Year after year, after year.

Ultimately, I fear that this Christmas failure was what sent him careening into spending the prime years of his life as a weekend alcoholic. He was a living irony. In trying to save us from the consumerism of Christmas, we branded him a long-haired hippy scrooge. What sane parent could stand up to that kind of abuse?

Which leads me to the subject of this post. Last night I told a dear friend that I had decided that I would not be sending cards, stringing up lights, getting gifts or putting up a tree. “It’s too stressful!” I tried to explain…And, failing that, I attempted to conjure my father’s rhetoric about commercialism.

Silence on the other end of the phone. Then: “You have got to be kidding me. Are you sick? In the head? No, seriously, are you all right? Do I need to come down there?” Admittedly, I was caught a bit off guard. Stammering, I told her that last year, due to some weird change-related anxiety, I had S.O. get a REAL tree, we put up lights and garlands, did the whole pine potpourri thing, played Christmas music, put up all of my cute little Christmas teddy bear knick knacky things, sent gifts to all of my family members, wrote cards, bought gifts for co-workers, acquaintances and all of A’s cousins…and…it wore me out.

I spent the month of December flinging myself between Walmart and Target and the Dollar Store and Family Dollar and the Grocery Store (aka the one Kroger in our town—capitalized because none of the other stores here can really hold a candle to it, even if they do carry every pork product known to man). So I attempted again to convince my friend.

Again, silence (albeit a more brief moment). This friend, imbibed with the Christmas spirit verbally flailed me, stopping just short of calling me an irresponsible mother. “Think of your child!” she implored, “Christmas will be magical for her for just a short while longer and when that moment has passed, you’ll be wishing you’d put up a fucking tree because you will have given her the basis for years of therapy.” It was like she was performing some kind of holiday exorcism. As she talked I felt an unnamed power coercing me into dragging out the gingerbread house that someone gave us in 1998. “The power of Christmas COMPELLS you! The power of Christmas COMPELLS you!”

Anyway. Long story short: in the end, I folded, just like my father did. I understand now the true meaning of guilt Christmas. Now if I could only find my Alvin and Chipmunks record…

So I haven't written in almost ten days. I've been busy counting the crumbs of petrified food that have accumulated under A.'s table. It's harder than one might think, since some of the food has been there long enough to take on the color of our carpet.

Just kidding...sort of.

Since my mother-in-law graciously watched my daughter every night last week, I am now in the netherworld of meal planning-- a delightful place--full of food fantasies and the excuses to make those fantasies real because "the kids will LOVE it" (these fantasies usually involve large amounts of cheese). I will soon be picking up my mother-in-law's other two grandkids from another magical world, the world of "aftercare." A. knows this place well, as she is often the last of her classmates to leave it.

I am THIS close to abandonment of all work plans and a complete surrender to my inner domestic goddess. Now that I think about, I doubt that I have ever possessed an inner domestic goddess. Frankly, I would happily settle for a toilet cleaning elf.

A Heavy Heart

So tonight my father-in-law called, he wanted to buy S.O. a shirt and tie set for Christmas. Hesitantly, I had to tell him that I doubted he’d be able to find one in S.O.’s size. He said “I thought he said he’d been losing weight.”

I started feeling emotional. Why?

S.O. called me a lot today—at 3:45 when I thought he was traveling the three hours back from his court appointment, turns out he was already at home. He’d called me at lunch time too, maybe before starting the drive home. When I walked in the door at 5:30, S.O. was watching TV, looking so sad. I asked if he wanted to talk about his day and he said “Not yet.”

So I made dinner (A is with Grandma tonight), we played two rounds of Tivo-ed Jeopardy. S.O. mentioned a few times how sore he was feeling from the physical therapy appointment he had yesterday for his back, and he asked me to put him to bed. We walked upstairs, I helped him into bed, gave him a hug and a kiss and turned off the lights. He told me how nice it was to have me in his life.

S.O. is struggling, and it makes me sad—for him and for myself. As I hugged him, touched his forehead with my lips, the thought passed through my mind—I need to look into life insurance. He was denied life insurance because of his weight.

I understand, now, that I’m sad because I know S.O. needs to have life insurance. Not in the way that every parent needs it. I am afraid that one morning I will wake up and he will have died from a heart attack, or a stroke. I’ve been resisting calling people to see if S.O. can get a policy because I’ve been in denial. Just like I’ve been in denial about how unprepared I am to have another baby.

A while ago, I had taped the fortune from a cookie to my computer: “Don’t let the things you love slip away.” I had been wondering what it was, exactly, that I love.

Tonight I realized how very much I love my S.O. Last night as I was cleaning the kitchen I also realized the extent to which I am in love with my family. There are times when I have wondered, especially when there is so much I want to accomplish in my work, what the meaning of my unending laundry and kitchen duty and cooking and vacuuming could possibly be.

So last night I was meditating on this while sweeping the floor, and it dawned on me that we’re creating something that I never really had growing up.

A dad and a mom and a kid, together through hard times and good. I know it was best for my parents to split, but I think it left me with a lasting desire for constancy...stability. Which might be why I have a tendency to be obsessive and why I’m feeling so afraid right about now.

Before I hung up the phone with my father-in-law, that same fear prompted me to ask if he and his wife could say a prayer for my S.O.

Not much more to say than that I suppose. Except that now my daughter is home and she has given me a kiss on the forehead, and taking my head in her hands, she told me "That is to protect you from tigers and lions and elves."

And fear.

Second Baby Blues

I would really like to smoke a joint.

Like a bookmark, this thought opens me to a familiar page, one with the word “escape” written at the top in capitalized, bold letters. I’ve been having this desire a lot lately, and since a physical escape seems unlikely…enter the illegal substance fantasy.

In any case. It’s 11:30pm on Sunday night and I should either be cleaning the kitchen or in bed. Instead, I’m thinking about a second child (perhaps another reason for wanting to fire up a doobie?) The realist in me says that if I can’t stop procrastinating about washing A’s hair, should I really be thinking about taking on diaper duty all over again? Another reality check: at a recent conference, I asked an un-tenured acquaintance of mine how in the world she manages, with a son who is almost three and a five month old daughter. Without a blink, she answered "we have a nanny and we've made peace with the fact that that's where my salary goes for right now." Looking back, I'm almost certain the thought bubble above my head containing the word "FUCK!" was actually visible.

So, truthfully, I know the answer to my second-kid question. I’m not ready. My husband is not ready. Damn it, damn it, damn it.

I want so much to be ready. All Buddhist aspirations aside, it might not be a bad idea to start praying “to be ready” and stop trying to gather rationalizations. For example, I have a friend who has said that having a second child might be a good idea, if only for the simple fact that taking care of me and/or my husband when I/we get old is something no child should face alone.

There are other rationalizations, the principal one being age-related. I’m 36. Unlike other colleagues, I simply cannot wait until I make tenure, because I don’t want to have a child that is ten years old and another child that is 2 months old. I know there are women out there who may have kids a decade apart, but PLANNING to do it that way just seems insane.

Of course, this is taking a lot for granted. Like the idea that we can still easily get pregnant. And since I can’t remember the last time we had sex, I probably shouldn’t be making any assumptions. Yes, perhaps I am putting the cart before the horse. Perhaps I should be thinking about having sex.

Which just goes to show that personal revelations can happen at any moment: Thinking about having sex is way less stressful than thinking about having a second kid. I think I’m ready for bed now.

Coping with the Holiday Season Through Hollywood Versions of the Holiday Season

• A Christmas Story (1983)
• A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving
• Charlie Brown's Christmas (1965)
• Bad Santa (2003)
• Bishop's Wife, The (1947)
• Die Hard (1988)
• Die Hard (1990)
• Dr. Seuss's How the Grinch Stole Christmas (1966)
• Dr. Seuss's How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000)
• Elf (2003)
• Family Stone, The
• Frosty the Snowman (1969) (TV)
• Hannah and Her Sisters
• Home Alone (1990)
• Home for the Holidays (1995)
• It's A Wonderful Life (1946)
• Jack Frost (1998)
• Jingle All the Way (1996)
• Lethal Weapon (1987)
• Love Actually (2003)
• Look Who's Talking Now (1993)
• Man Who Came to Dinner, The (1941)
• Miracle on 34th Street (1947)
• Muppet Christmas Carol, The (1992)
• National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation
• Nightmare Before Christmas, The
• Pieces of April (2003)
• Planes, Trains and Automobiles
• Polar Express, The (2004)
• Preacher’s Wife, The
• Santa Clause, The
• Scrooged (1988)
• Silent Night, Bloody Night (1973)
• The Snowman (1982)
• Trading Places (1983)
• Very Brady Christmas, A (1988) (TV)

Feel Good-ers

• The Preacher’s Wife
• Love Actually (Not for Kids)
• The Family Stone (Not for Kids)
• It’s a Wonderful Life
• Home for the Holidays (PG-13)

Good for Kids (and Adults Too But You Know What I Mean)

• The Snowman
• The Polar Express
• The Santa Clause
• The Muppet Christmas Carol
• Elf

Good for Kids (and Adults Too…) -TV

• How the Grinch Stole Christmas
• How the Grinch Stole Christmas
• Charlie Brown Thanksgiving
• Charlie Brown Christmas
• Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer
• Frosty the Snowman

Best Comedy (Not for Kids)

• Trading Places
• Scrooged
• Planes, Trains, Automobiles
• Home for the Holidays
• Bad Santa

Action

• Die Hard 1
• Die Hard 2
• Lethal Weapon

Untitled

Selfishly, I hope that you find yourself thinking, "what is this life."
Last night I was searching for someone to listen to. Tonight, my daughter asked me why the moon follows us and I didn't know the answer. A told me that I know everything, but the only thing I knew then is that I would never again see that moment. I would not be (not even the next day!) that person I was for her tonight, as she stood with a towel wrapped around her, leaning against my chest, encircled by my arms.
I feel now as if my heart wants to burst, wants to shed its skin and become something more than I can imagine, expanding into an infinite space I cannot name.
I want to understand why I feel most at home when my husband and daughter are asleep and I am trying to make sense of my life at quarter to three on a Saturday morning.
I want to love the you that is me that is the world that is all that has yet to be reflected back to me from a reflection of a reflection of a reflection. I wonder if I keep writing if clarity will appear. I feel as though I should visit Eugenia, the almost 90-year old retired art professor who I met a year ago at a Christmas party.
I am afraid to even try to put into words half of what I feel and think and see and I wonder if I am alone in this.

As I was driving home, searching for someone to call, so that I could listen to a voice...I was rudely, sweetly interrupted by the moon. I craned my neck to the side, and leaving a greasy smear, bumped my head against the glass. I looked again and again at the sky, wondering what it was that made this feel so familiar. The rounded, glowing, misshapen bowl, visible through a ragged scrap of cloud. Was it familiar because this was the winter sky so much like the one I saw when I was seven, walking back through the woods with my mother and stepfather, still high from a dinner party with their friends? Was it real because I had seen it driving home to my father's house on one of those fall nights of my first semester in college?

Would you even believe me if I said that I recognized it because I felt God in me. Looking up, I felt that I was looking down at a celestial ocean. The veiled moon hiding beneath an ice floe, surrounded by other bits of ice clouds in a dark water so very close. The moon--a sweet, spooky, luminous eye, looking down/looking up, following me home.

My Day

5:14pm.

Started the day at 7:11am, when S.O. informed me that he had a physical therapy appointment at 8am (he may have actually told me this at 11:48pm the night before, but it didn't register until he woke me up--could it have been the fact that last night when he told me I was actually asleep? Anyway). I woke A up, hustled and bustled her to school. S.O. went to said appointment, came back with breakfast goodies from McDonald's. Had some nice hang out time with S.O. Used the car to go pay the rent for our home and the rent for the stuff that doesn't fit in our home while he was in the shower. Answered emails. Answered more emails. Looked up movie reviews on rottentomatoes.com. Answered more emails. Postponed meeting to discuss revisions that I had not yet done. Had a phone meeting. Watched the latest Tivo-ed episode of House over a late lunch. Had another phone meeting with the person to whom I was supposed to send the revisions about why I didn't send the revisions. Had another phone meeting. Had another phone meeting, which was interrupted by my cousin-in-law calling to tell me that her daughter's birthday party is TOMORROW. Continued phone meeting.

And now I'm sitting here, amidst the rubble of the day (empty coffee cup with nutmeg silt running up the side, empty McDonald's bags, junk mail, bill stubs, misc. very important work documents) wondering if I should use the last 10 minutes before hubby and sweetie pie get home to try to make my home look less like the hovel it is, or whether I should attempt to get to what I was actually supposed to work on today--a grant proposal that I had promised myself I would submit in November.

Or, I could rewash the clothes that I washed on Wednesday (probably now cemented to the side of the washing machine) and look at more movie reviews while I contemplate what birthday present I should get for my cousin-in-law's daughter.

I'm sensing a theme here.

Favorite Things--A Revised List

Time to write
Earl Grey Tea
Corduroy
LouLou Prada Perfume
Hearing my 2 ½ yr old daughter say "I love you mommy. I like hanging out with you." (She’s now 4 ½ and says things like “I didn’t respect that to happen!”)
Body Butter + Matching Pyjamas on sale from Walmart for $11.00
Short Stories
The PMS Peanut Butter Binge
A head massage/brutal scalp exfoliation facilitated by the acrylic nails of the shampoo lady at the Walmart Style Salon (yes, it seems like an oxymoron to me too)
Crème Brulee (so much so that I take pictures of the best with my cell phone)
Internet Window Shopping
Movies-action, kung fu, smarmy romantic comedy, drama, science fiction, sub-titled…
Walking waking at sunrise
A hug from my S.O. and/or daughter
Laughing at myself (luckily, I get multiple opportunities to do this every day)
Feeling attractive despite unshaved legs and a belly pooch that sticks out almost as far as my boobs
People who make me think about things more deeply or in a different way (Well, okay. I don’t enjoy realizing how close-minded I really can be, but it’s like oatmeal with raisins—it’s good for you even though it looks yucky , and if you dig in deep enough, it’s pretty sweet…)
My mother. Had me when she was 19. Divorced my father when I was four. Wrote me wonderful letters throughout fourteen years of “joint custody” (now, maybe THAT'S an oxymoron). Was a stay-at-home hippy mom turned midwife while I and my brothers and sister grew up. Went back to school and became an Ob/Gyn at 50. Divorced my stepfather a few years ago. Has a heart bigger than Lake Michigan and laughs at my jokes.