Oh wow.

Thank you.

Thank you for your -um- poignant emails regarding that last post.  Seems I was a bit misunderstood.  It's humbling to be misunderstood.  And being humbled is very good for personal growth.  And isn't that sort of the point of all this?  This blogging?  This life?


Many of you thought it was about flaws I find in my friends.  That's not what that last post was about at all. It was not about how weak my girls were, on the contrary, it was about how broken the guy was.

He and I used to work Tuesdays together.  Tuesdays were like a curse.  No one goes out on Tuesdays.  I remember one time the bar was empty, my tables were empty except for one.  The Chardonnay Lady.  She was always there.  The second saddest soul in the whole wide world.  She needed her sixth glass, I couldn't find the bartender. 
He was the bartender.
But then I did.  Find him.  On the back steps.  Crying.  Sucking all the air out of a can of whipped cream.  Another one, an empty one, was at his feet.
"I need help", he said.
"I can't fix you", I replied.

I couldn't.  Not wouldn't.  Not shouldn't.  I couldn't.

Nobody could.
A lot of people tried.
A lot of girls.
A lot of my friends.
A lot of my friends are the kind of girl who tries to fix things.  To heal people.  To help.  To  mother.  To care.  To tend.  To love.

And that's why they are my friends.
I like to write from my gut, to hit publish without proofreading. Maybe I'm not there yet, at a level where my writing is clear enough, my thoughts clear enough to just
Hit
Publish
without worrying about syntax or semantics or sense.

Anyway.

 
I got my new countertops!
They look amazing.
 
Different than the samples, but I'm not bitter.  The swatch was white with silvergrey specks.  The counter is white with what isn't quite navy and maroon but is sort of greynavy and silvermaroon.  I hate to describe it that way because it sounds gross like that burnished patriotic crap you can buy in the seasonal aisle at CVS, but it isn't.  It's gorgeous.  And now I'm afraid to touch it because I want it to stay that way.
 
You know those commercials?
Those ones where the wife is standing helpless in the kitchen while the husband is effing around under the sink?
Where he is reduced to a pair of legs sticking out of the cabinet at odd angles and saying words that are just inaudible, off the mic, because then they couldn't run the commercial, and then he hits his head and we see what the commercial is all about?  Drain cleaner/plumbing services/pain killers?
There is a reason for those commercials.
Maybe we can all laugh about this sometime down the pike.
Let this paragraph be a commercial to you.  One that persuades you to think about hiring someone to do your dirty work for you.
Especially if you live in a house that was built before indoor plumbing came standard, and you are switching from a traditional shallow drop-in porcelain sink to a newfangled integrated deep stainless steel one.
Just saying.
There is a reason plumbers have to go to school to become plumbers and there is an entire double sided quarter mile dedicated to plumbing supplies at the local hardware.
 
So, the walls are painted the most beautiful color of robins eggy Virgin Mary skyish blue, the knobs are updated, the sink and countertop are in, the accessories are gathered, the curtain is hung, and I know what backsplash is going up.  I will drag myself to Anthropologie and get the brackets and to a lumber yard to buy some planks for the shelves and then I'll be done.
 
I'm taking suggestions for new obsessions.  Ones that don't put me in the poor house but make my house look less poor.

Back in my olden days, I worked with this guy jerk douchebag user guy who dated, like seriously, half my friends.

What? I can tell by your face that you've never worked in the restaurant business.
When you work 90 hours a week and drink the rest and sleep from time to time, it doesn't leave much time for normal socialization and getting out there and meeting people.

And no, I didn't, because I was married. 
A married waitress. 
It's like an oxymoron in this town.
I was practically famous for it.
Plus he's not my type, but he's not anyone's type really, but that didn't stop anything. 
I don't know what he had to offer, but people were buying.

Anyway. I worked with this guy who dated like seriously all my friends and really tore them up.  Really.  And when he was done tearing one up he moved to the next and tore her down and when he was done with her he moved on and did it again.  And we all watched it happen and no one did anything about it. 

Weird.
I'm guessing that kind of stuff doesn't happen much in the real world.
Whatever that is.

I don't even know what this is about, why I'm writing this down, why I'm bringing this up, but sometimes I think about that and wonder how and why it happened. 
Was it something in the girls?
Was it something in him?
Was it something in the air?
Did someone lace the drinks?  The drugs?  The days?
Dysfunction, denial, desperation, destitution, deception, depression, distress, dependency, desire.
Those D words can get you down.

The girls are all strong.  Were all strong. 
Now they are all married, or about to be.
Mothers.
Teachers.
Bankers.
Picket fencers, now, all of them.
Moved on and away and above.

Far far away.
Too far away.

And they're coming back,
driving flying rushing back
to Philadelphia. 
tomorrow and the next day
to visit. 
to eat. 
to drink.
to dance
to laugh. 
to remember.
to gather.
Together.

Funny what wins out in life, no? 

Here's to my fatgirls. 
I can't wait to see you all in the same room.
I can't wait to hear your laugh bounce around and around in your wine glass
Your eyes dance above the rim.
The diamonds in your rings catch the flames from the open kitchen.
Your fingers dip in the candle wax as it burns down into nothing.
Numbed from the booze and conversation and past.
Your ears perk at the mention of people you forgot about.
Your head shake at the people you didn't.
Your throat clench at the people you want to.
I want to watch you retake your town.
Your heels catch in the brick sidewalks of University City.
Your toes slide over the gingko that plagues Society Hill.
Your purse swing as you cross Rittenhouse.
Your knees buckle as you sneak a kiss from a horse in Olde City.
Your jacket blow open in that wind that tears around City Hall.
Your scarf stand out against the silvergrey water in the Schullkyll.
As you look over your shoulder to ask us all...
"where are we going next?"

Dear Jacob,

Thank you for puking all over me this morning.  It was totally worth hanging out and going to the "beach" with you this afternoon and having a little picnic in our "bathing suits".

I promise that some day when you are 33 and I'm older than dirt, I'll puke all over you on the nicest day of fall and make you stay home with me and we can "play'n'play'n'eatapplesallday".

You're going to need it.

I love you bunches,
Mom

paddle stomp pivot tap step shim sham shuffle

When I have a hard time focusing, my brain recites an old tap dance routine that I did in another life.
brush toe heel  heel 
shuffle ball change
shuffle ball change
cramproll
cramproll
stomp
ball change...

Something about the way that the teacher's voice would resound through the studio and keep us in line twenty some years ago does the same thing to me today.
Thankfully.

Because sometimes I need to be reigned in.

***

Last night I was watching a show, where a mental health therapist secured herself an internship at a health clinic.  She walked in and there were amok-running kids everywhere, sick&dying&dirty people all over the place, and she looked overwhelmed.  Like she couldn't breathe.   Like she couldn't keep her breakfast down.
Then she read through the files and she couldn't take it.  After a case consult with her co-workers, she got herself a new placement.
"Bitch", I thought. "Elitist" "Snob" "Weak" "Quitter"
A moment later I realized that the average person, especially the average middle-classed well-seasoned white person, has never been exposed to anything like that.
Never had to sit down with a member of the underclass.
In their homes.
In a clinic.
In the streets.
Never had to walk through a crowd of indigent people.
Hold a child who might die because he lacks a social security number.
Read a case record that details the life and the person behind the crackhead, behind the illegal immigrant, behind the welfare mom, behind the bum, behind the gangster, behind the dealer, the whore, the rapist.

Those people, who are hardly viewed as people, start life as children just like all of us.  An awful lot happens between birth and labeling.
An awful, terrible lot.

Seeing things like this has become so much a part of my life that I forget that it isn't a part of everyone else's.
I wonder what my day would feel like to me, at 33 years old if I wasn't a dozen years into it.

I wonder what is right with me because I can handle it.
I wonder what is wrong with me because I can handle it.

***

Yesterday was a tough day in Philadelphia Social Services.

One of our children died.
A horrible death.
Beyond an accident, neglect, beyond a beating, beyond beyond beyond.

It's hard on all of us when we lose a child.
We feel anger.  Guilt.  Sorrow.  Responsible.
What did I do wrong that this child didn't make it?

I don't know the family.
I don't work for the agency who tended to them.
I don't work directly for the City.

But somewhere, somehow maybe there was something...

There isn't.  Wasn't.  Won't be.

But I can't shake the feeling.
We can't shake the feeling.

The papers give basic details.
The city and school and agency records give detailed history.
The police and hospital and autopsy reports contain things that shock the most seasoned veterans in this field.

There is a reason you don't get the full story on the news.  It isn't to protect the privacy of the family.  It isn't to protect the the police investigation.  It isn't to protect the social workers who were in the home.

It's to protect your heart.

***

Please teach your children that if someone is hurt they must tell you.  No exceptions.
Please teach your children to tell even when they are told not to.
Please be the mother that all the children can come to.
Please be the father who is not afraid to get involved.
Please be the teacher who pays attention to the slightest changes in your students.
Please be the social worker who takes action.
Please be the nurse who takes special care.
Please be the neighbor who calls 911.
Please be the adult who believes what the children tell you.
Please.

***

This little girl died, small and broken and innocent and tortured and precious.

We all feel so terrible.

But what if she lived?

What kind of teenager would she be?

What kind of adult?

What kind of mother?

Chances are she would be completely ruined.  Completely horrible.  Completely trash in the eyes of society.  Ugly, hated, disgusting, filthy, pig, animal.

We might wish her dead.  Gone.  Away.

But she already is.

Maybe she would have turned to drugs to help numb the pain, to sex to help feel loved, to drinking when those things didn't work.  Maybe she would become a terrible addict, prostituting herself to support her habit.  Maybe she would lose her housing, her belongings, her dignity.  Maybe she would have a child.  A child that would be supported with tax dollars and hope and very little else.  Maybe she would have another kid.  And another.  And another.  What kind of life would she give those children?  Most likely the same kind of life she was given.  And they would give their children, and they theirs.

It just goes on and on and on and sometimes it seems so damn helpless.

Then again, maybe not.

Maybe she would have overcome.

Maybe twenty years from now she will have sat at my desk.  Doing my job.

You just never know.

About anything.

HonestsCrap

I can't get enough of the Honest Scrap award.  Seriously.  It helps me with coming up with something to post, too.  Ten things?  No problem.  One thing?  Impossible.

I always have a lot to get out.

Alix from Casa Hice could quite possibly be the number one reason for my high level of self esteem lately.  She is always showering me with compliments, and I eat them up as fast as she dishes them out.  Sometimes a girl needs that every once in awhile.
I found Alix's blog somewhere, when somebody linked to a post she wrote about hairloss.  I'm losing my hair.  Alix is losing her hair.  I needed to know all about someone else who was dealing with mounds of hair in the drain and the comb.  If someone mentions the slightest thing about  hairloss, I'm all over them.  Asking questions and taking notes.  But Alix is more than a balding buddy.  I really like her blog, and look forward to her posts.  They are silly and serious and sweet and sincere and smart all at the same time.  I like that in a blog.  I like that in Alix.

1) If you don't drink mint juleps, you should.
I do.  With Maker's Mark.  They are good for nice weather because they are minty and cold and good for bad weather because they are minty and warm.  That's the nice thing about bourbon.  It's a multi-tasker.
(I don't have any Maker's Mark left)

2) The best hair, makeup, and fashion advice I get?  I get from my boy.  He has no problem telling me that something looks really nice or something looks really bad.  If it were up to him, I'd be in a dress and heels with my hair parted on the right and dyed dark, wearing blue and brown eye make up with lots of mascara.  And diamond earrings.
The boy has taste.  I look pretty awesome like that.

3) When I was in sixth grade I got picked on by these seventh grade kids.  They were cousins, and they all lived together in a big house, with all their parents.  Like some sort of commune or something.  I ate it for a few days, and then told a teacher when they started getting mean.  When they made fun of me for telling, I railed into them, telling them that they should wonder why they don't have any friends that they aren't related to and when they made fun of my clothes I said things about how I can change my clothes but they can never change their fat white faces and bright red hair and when they made fun of me for living at my grandfather's house I told them that they must be so poor they can't afford their own houses or any water because they all smell like fish probably because their fathers fuck their dirty mothers before he fucks them and it is a damned shame that they have to walk around smelling like their mother's pussy all day. 
Then they told on me for making fun of them.

But I was happy I did.  And still am.  They were mean to a lot of people and no one would stand up to them.
I got in a little bit of trouble, but nothing serious.  I think the teacher was more shocked that little old good girl me knew how to say such nasty things.  He probably wondered what the hell was going on in my house, now that I think about it.

4) I had a great conversation (where conversation is me unloading 100 words a minute and him saying nothing) with my dad the other day in the car.  It was basically me talking about how I'm so disappointed with my _____ and I can't believe that they are the _____ that I got and when you are little and think about your _____ you would never in a million years dream that your _____ would be like that.  And how it makes me feel so bad and sad and mad that those are my _____ but what the hell am I supposed to do because I can't save the entire world nor do I want to try because if I fail at saving my _____ I will feel like I can't do anything right.  So it's gotten to the point that I don't even have one drop of love for my _____ because I can't even like my _____ if I try my hardest.  And that's just pitiful.

I've omitted the nouns to protect the innocent but boy howdy did it feel good to get that out.  And it felt even better to have him say that he understands.

5) Sometimes I wish I had an anonymous blog so I could talk about the things that really upset me.  Like my _____.

6) I was at the park last night and there was a dad there with his 17 month old son and 2.5 year old daughter.  He let them play on the giant jungle gym and his son ended up falling five feet off a platform through an opening in the fencing that was there so the kids could slide down a fire pole.  I didn't see it happen, but I wasn't watching the kid.  Sometimes I do watch other kids, but never in a million years would I think that he would allow his 17 month old son crawl around up there unattended so I was watching Jake (who has only recently been allowed on this jungle gym in the past few months because it just looks dangerous and he is only allowed on the stairs and the slides).  The dad was playing Pretty Pretty Princess Castle with his daughter, 30 or so feet away.  I was close to the boy, and went over and placed my hand on his butt to let him know that someone was there.  I didn't want to pick him up in case his neck was broken.  The dad came running across when I screamed for him and of course he was mortified.  He didn't say anything to me, he was probably just as embarrassed as he was scared.

I was thinking about it, and felt sorry for him.  The kid was okay, as far as I know.  They left after it happened.  I wondered if he thought I thought he was a bad dad.  I don't. Beyond letting his babies play on something they aren't ready for and then not spotting them when they are five to fifteen feet in the air with nary a guard to keep them up there.  That's a little negligent.  But he's a dad and it's his job to let the kids take a risk, right?  And not hover over them like a doting mother hen.
It's how kids develop esteem.
Or something.
I don't know.
I certainly think he should have been in the little playground, the ones for kids under age 5 rather than the one for kids over age 5, considering he had two brats to look after.  The baby gym platforms are entirely enclosed and only 3 feet high.  But whatever.
Then I wondered how I would feel if it was a mother who let the kid jump.  I'd probably think she was a shitty mom.  And that's not fair. 
Accidents happen.  And even if he was doing something that I wouldn't necessarily do, it wasn't his fault that the kid took a header.  Or was it?
I don't know.
But I know that I shouldn't feel sorry for a parent when it's a dad and angry when it's a mom.  That's sexist.

7) I don't really like the other moms and dads at the park much.  I think the feeling is mutual.  Perhaps I'm a bit standoffish, but I never seem to make any friends over there, and the few people I met just weird me out after I get to talking to them.   My standard for a MomFriend is "would I let this person care for my child without my supervision".  I think that's a fair standard.

8)  Jake got picked on for the first time yesterday by some big kids (kindergarteners.  Their mothers assured me that they were good Catholic School Children and they just don't know what's gotten into them! and they must have heard those words at school! because that is not the way they talk at home.  This ten minutes after they told me they were shocked that I had no plans to send my child to Catholic School because "oh! the kids there are so nice and polite and well mannered and I don't have to worry about little junior at all because I know he's in good hands... God's hands") and it broke Jake's heart and mine but I told him that if he's on the playground and kids make fun of him he can make fun of them back and those kids were stupid little jerks.
The one mom "diffused" the situation by calling her boy to go home, where there was his favorite TV dinner and ice cream waiting since the nun said he was so good at The Blessed and Hallowed St. Nick's today.  The other mom took her kid away and told me over her shoulder that maybe I should reconsider Catholic School because she is having a great experience with it.

If there is one thing I know about Catholic School Children?  Yeah...

9)  My new kitchen counter is scheduled to be installed next Tuesday.  I'm really banking on it to brighten up my kitchen life.

10) I take the boy to swim class soon.  It's gorgeous out.  75 and sunny.  These are the sort of days I live for.  The leaves are falling and the sky is blue and the apples are crisp and the air is too.
I call it Indian Summer.
Feather.  Not dot.

I started the improv class last night.
I didn't die.
Or puke.

It was fun, actually.

But the best part was telling Jake all about it when I came home.  If you could've seen his face...

"mommy!  how was your class?"
"Good!  I jumped around like a monkey and acted like a bear and wiggled while I counted and danced funny dances and got in a big circle with my new friends and we told everyone our names while we did something silly with our hands and took turns singing songs and naming all sorts of cereals and cartoons and states and pretended to argue and pretended to agree and had lots of fun and now I'm back here with you"
"wooooowwwww.  when can I go?  that sounds like it's more for kids and not so much for grownups.  maybe i should go next time."

Improv class?  It's like porn for a three year old.

***

I have a horrible time coming up with "appropriate" words if I have to do it in a split second so that was a bit of a struggle.
Like when Lauren said "birthday cake" and I said "stripper" and another girl (who clearly has the same problem I do) said "ambiguously gay duo" when someone else said "Batman" and I said "Bush Cheney" after she said ambiguously gay duo and then I wondered if the W would have nipples in his Batman suit like in the Joel Schumacher films or if he would go smooth.  And then I kept thinking about how controversial it was that Batman had nipples.  And then I wondered how many people in the room knew why men have nipples.  And then I wondered how many people in the room think it's weird if a dude likes his nipples sucked and then I wondered how many people in the entire city were either getting their nipples sucked or sucking on nipples and I wondered about all the different scenarios that could be unfolding if you added those two numbers up and didn't get an even number.
And then I came out of it round about the time that I was singing It Takes Two while standing in the middle of a circle made up of people I didn't know when I woke up that morning.  Or maybe when it was during my rendition of Heart of Glass and dammit I thought I knew all the words to that song but I totally don't at crunch time so I almost choked and led them in another round of the Hokey Pokey but I had already done that to them once that day and two times is really pushing it so I just made do.
And we all moved on.
And when we had to name a cereal when someone pointed at us (I hate getting pointed at.  But that's why I was there, to move past things like that)? The only thing I could come with was Smurf Berry Crunch.
And we actually had to touch other people.  Like actually touch their hands and their knees.
And we had to make eyecontact with total strangers.
But I survived.
And I had fun.

And that's what counts.

call me Ishmael

My planets are aligned in such a way that I don't really have to do much parenting in front of my parents.

Mom lives four hundred some miles northwest of me.  Dad four hundred some to the south.  When we are all together, it is more of a baby exchange than a family reunion.

Here's the boy.
Here's his bag.
See you next week.
Kisses all around.

Not because we don't love each other.
Of course not.
It's because they don't have much use for me.

Or they just want some time with the number one grandson.
Or something.
Anyway.

I loved to be left alone with my grandparents, so I extend the courtesy to Jake.
And to my mom and dad.

My dad was over the other day and Jake was being a total asshole.
In all fairness, Jake had been on a Whirlwind Tour of America's Southland with Grandma and Grandpa at the Hull for almost a full week and it all came to a grinding halt once he walked through the front door Sunday morning.  Dad flew him back first thing, so he (they) had been up since 4.30 or so.
I don't do well on travel days either.

So I was trying to give Jacob the benefit of the doubt and let him have a bit of leeway with the lip and the noise and the general disgust of being in his own home.  But that ran out quickly.  Just about the time that I took a workbook he wasn't respecting away from him so he decided to look me dead in the eye, ask me what he was supposed to write on, and grind his fat brown Crayola marker into my carpet.

"Ohmygod", I said.  Not because  he marked up the carpet.  The carpet was bought specifically for instances of fat brown Crayola markers being ground into it.  I said Ohmygod (a term I don't really ever use, especially with the boy because it's a swear and he isn't allowed to say it) because I had just had enough.  One week away from the child and he had made up for all the time gone in fifteen minutes.  Tears came.  His, not mine.  "I can't beeeelieeeeeve you don't want me to do my art any mooooooooooore.  Is it because you don't liiiiiiiiike it?".

We had some words.  I hold him very close and talk very quietly and rub his back when we "talk".  It helps both of us calm down.
Every time Jake looked away from me, I looked at my dad.  I wanted to make sure he was getting all this.  I wanted to make sure the man who told me, not twenty minutes prior, that "you know, he was just perfect.  Perfect.  Absolutely perfect.  Not one problem.  Just, wow.  Amazing.  You have a great kid.  I can't believe it".

Jake in the corner.
Dad tells me "he sure does act different when he is with us".
Jake's out of the corner and starting to crap out in front of Tom and Jerry, completely exhausted.

A couple hours later, as I was driving my dad back to the airport, I ask him, "is it weird?  To see your kid parent?"

"There is a lot of satisfaction in it"

And by satisfaction do you think he meant:
A) pride
B) joy
C) nostalgia
D) justice
E) retribution
F) all of the above

I felt it wise not to ask.
So I just laughed.
And he did too.

Parenting in front of your parents is satisfying too.  There is a lot of the F) all of the above type of satisfaction.

It's because:
A) there are things I do much differently than my parents did.  Not because they were terrible monsters, but because there are different/better ways to do things and I try really hard to be different/better.
B) there are things I do much the same as my parents did.  Not because they were wonderful tactics by any stretch of the imagination, but because they are ingrained inside of me just as much as the color of my eyes.
C) there are things that I do because my parents did them because they were absolutely wonderful tactics that absolutely worked when we absolutely were terrible monsters.
D) all of the above.

Exactly.

helper monkeys

Sometimes the goodness in people overwhelms me.
Lately mostly it's been the social workers and therapists and teachers and nurses and even the front desk people at some of the social service sites and recreation centers I work with who have been coming in since July 1 for half pay or without pay, on faith that the state will sort things out and give the money to the city who will sort things out and give the money to the agencies who sort things out and will give the money to the employees.

"I can't just leave the job", they say. 
"The community needs me"
"It's not like I'm doing this for the money anyway"
"I love my job"
"I love the people"
"I love the work"
"I love"

Can you imagine? 
I don't think I would do it.  Could do it.  Not full time, at least.  Not without spending a good deal of my day scouring the classifieds, at least.
And maybe that's what they are doing, but who cares.  They are at their desks, 9-5/M-F, and figuring out a way to make ends meet at home.  Figuring out a way to make ends meet at work.  Some of them have been bringing their kids to work because daycare is too expensive.  And the kids are playing with the kids of the people who are in there for services because they just can't manage to make ends meet at home anymore.

That inspires me.

***

Here in Philadelphia we all spent the better part of the last week smack in the grasp of a Nor'easter.  It sucks, sort of.  It sucks if you have somewhere to go.  But if you're bundled up and optimistic, it's not so bad.  Extreme weather conditions bring us all together.  Richpoorblackwhiteyoungoldhappysad we are all walking down the street against hurricane force winds and frigid temperatures and driving rain.  We are all wet and cold and rushing around as fast as we can with our faces twisting us ugly and our noses wiping our coatsleeves.  It's all very humbling and cohesive.  For me at least.  I'm not sure how everyone else feels about it.

We sack up and share umbrellas and loan out the extra scarves and hats and huddle together for warmth at the bus stop and take the time to buy a coffee for the man in the doorway so he can keep his hands and belly from going numb and we run home to crowd on the couch and in the bed under all the blankets and laugh a little bit about how miserable we are because if we don't laugh we cry.

That inspires me.

***

Saturday was Philadelphia Cares Day.  Saturday was cold.  And wet.  And windy.  And foggy.  And cold.  And wet.  And windy.  And foggy.  And cold.

But we were out there, at least a thousand strong.  Maybe more, I'm not sure.  I'm not good at headcounts.  Most people were bunkered down in their cars and in the buses during registration but they were there.

That inspires me.

***

Thousand thanks to Bossy for rallying Lori, Lauren, and I to get our arses out of bed at 6.30 on the darkestwettestcoldestwindiestfoggiest morning of 2009 and haul them to the Mann Center then down to a school we couldn't find because it wasn't a school it was a park that was supposed to be a school but was a park but didn't matter anyway because that site was called off (an hour past the) last minute and then sheltering us in a nice warm car until we got the call to drive down to Alcorn Elementary so we could paint the third floor hall walls blue. 

It was very nice to put my head down that night completely exhausted and knowing we played a part in making the world a little bit prettier.

Oh man.  Every time I think I get this mom thing figured out it turns out that I don't.

And it seems that I don't need to be an artist to be an asshole, I'm doing quite well already.

You know, I've never even considered Jake to be my legacy, per se.  The last post hasn't even been up for 24 hours and already I've gotten a few comments and two emails and three text messages that say something about being good and creating legacies through motherhood.  I never even thought I should be doing that.
Sure he might get the four pennies I have left at the end of my life.  But I hope that he doesn't need them.  And sure he might listen to 30% of what comes out of my mouth when I'm trying to teach him something.  But I hope that he learns things the hard way.  If he hears 30% of my words, I hope it is only 3% of what he knows.  What he lives.  What he passes along to those he passes himself along to. 

I want Jake to be bigger and better than I could ever be.  Than I could ever make him.  But only if he does it all by himself, for himself.  I don't want him living through me, for me.  I want him living along side me.

He may be mine now, but soon he will be his.  Or no one's.  Or someone else's.  Or everyone's. That is what I want. 

I don't want him to feel that he needs to live up to my standards.  I don't care if he is a surgeon or the janitor that sweeps the floor after the guts are messed with.  I just want him to be happy with his work and his life and his level of education and his place in the world.  I just want him to know I love him, no matter.

But holy crap what if that is just a defense mechanism?  What if I have this laissez-faire approach and a que sera, sera mindset because I can't handle the fact that Jacob might not be the prodigal son?  Am I turning my back to a responsibility I have to completely own and influence my child for the next 15 to 19 years?  Just because I don't want to place undue pressure on a child and I don't want to be overbearing am I not doing the right thing? 
Is it wrong to want for my lasting impressions on this earth to be billed as Lora's Contributions and not as Jake's Mom's Stuff She Did Between Laundry Loads? 
He will know I prefer college degrees, and not sleeping around, following age limitations regarding intoxication, doing for others rather than being self-serving, and living a bit before settling down, but my world won't end if he's an 18 year old husband and father working as a mechanic's apprentice in a run down garage where he drinks cheap beers with his secret girlfriend on the side.  Or secret boyfriend.  Whatevs.  I will step in and try to make things a little bit better, sure.  That's what I do.  I get paid at work to do stuff like that, so I know I'm pretty damned good at it.  And I'm pretty damned certain that isn't his fate so I can say stuff like that without second guessing that I'm sealing his fate for him.

Am I selfish?  I mean, more so than other people?  Because I want my life to be more than just mothering my child?  That I don't necessarily tell people that I am a mother when I meet them?  That sounds so terrible when I type it, especially because some days it seems like my life is only mothering my child and now it seems that it isn't rewarding or worthwhile or satisfying.  It is.  But it doesn't make me complete.
I want to be a role model for Jake.  I want him to see that his mother is capable and smart and influential and inspiring (and pretty and gentle and good and able to beckon bluebirds and butterflies with a mere outstretch of her delicate hand).  I want him to be motivated to be better than me, to know that if I can do a little, he can do a lot.  But I want him to do it because he wants to.  Not because he feels he has to in order to make me feel my life is worthwhile.

Plus, what if the unspeakable happens?  What if he dies?  Then what?  Do I fail?  Do I die too?  Do I cease to be important?
And what about when he grows up and leaves home?  And I am left empty and useless.  Then how do I go on?  How do I pick up 18 years of focusing on one thing and go about catching up with society and finding a place I can fit in?  I'm so scared of that possibility.  Those possibilities.  That's why I try to do something else.  I think.  Maybe.  I don't know.  Does anyone?

Is this thing on?

edited to add:
Main Entry: leg·a·cy

Pronunciation: \ˈle-gə-sē\
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural leg·a·cies
Etymology: Middle English legacie office of a legate, bequest, from Anglo-French or Medieval Latin; Anglo-French, office of a legate, from Medieval Latin legatia, from Latin legatus
Date: 15th century
1 : a gift by will especially of money or other personal property : bequest
2 : something transmitted by or received from an ancestor or predecessor or from the past

Early in the summer of 1967, The Beatles released a song called "All You Need is Love".

Maybe you've heard it.

A few months later a band out of Northwestern Indiana was just beginning to hit it big.
Five young black fellows, the littlest one went on to be, well, you know.

Maybe you've heard of them.

In 1967, computers looked something like this:

Phones stayed in the kitchen.  On the wall.  They were the size of a loaf of bread.

What would you give to sit JohnPaulRingo&George down and say
"guys, that song? That little boy?  He will own a sizable chunk of you one day.  And in 2009 he's gonna die and his family is going to make a bit of much needed cash on that song when it is used to- get this- be in a commercial for a telephone.  But more than a telephone, it's a computer.  A computer that fits in your front pocket and goes everywhere with you and does things that you can't imagine.  And the commercial won't even really be about telephones, or computers, or you.  But everyone will know what it is for when they flash the logo at the end of the thirty second spot and everyone will shake their head because this is what has become of you.

"Nowhere you can be that isn't where you're meant to be..
Right guys?  You are meant to be in the pockets of the Jackson family.  Ha ha.  Think about that.  Yoko, are you listening?  You goof.  Anyway...  Maybe I can get tickets to the next show?  Front row?"

***

What have you done that might last through the ages?
Beyond raising good children and recycling and driving fuel efficient cars, I mean.
What part of you might sell out in thirty years?
Might be valuable to someone else?
Would you be okay with that?
Would you feel like a whore?

I'm so weird about that kind of stuff.  What's mine is mine and I don't want anyone else to judge it or touch it or own it or change it or profit from it and if I want to share it with the world I want to do it on my terms.
(This is about writing a book, in a way, by the way.  More on that later.)

I would fail miserably as an artist.  I'd be such an asshole.

So, there is a Cancer Support group next week at the Starbucks on 10th and Chestnut.  It's for people ages 18-45 who are currently undergoing cancer treatment or have a history of any type of cancer diagnosis.
Starbucks is such a douche.

What would I say?  How do those things work?  Is the coffee free?  Is the cafe area closed for privacy?  Is it like AA?

"Hi my name is Lora and I was told at age 27 that I have cervical cancer but no one would treat me because if they treated me properly I'd never be able to give birth even though I've never had a desire to be a mom so they just monitored it and patted me on the shoulder and said 'everything looks the same as it did so we are just going to hang on and see if you change your mind about being a mommy' because our healthcare system is run by Conservatives who find more worth in a sick woman who can risk her own life by pumping out babies4jesus than they do in a well one who isn't fertile anymore.
Put your hand down please.  Of course I saw more than one doctor.  I'm not retarded.
So they just monitored it and periodically cut out the nasty chunks at these in-office procedures that would leave me bleeding and cramping for weeks and then when they finally decided to properly treat me I accidentally got drunk pregnant the week before so they let it go for two more years through the pregnancy and when they lost my test results in the shuffle of my doctor leaving and the practice getting a new office space and -
Put Your Hand Down, Please.  My doctors were at Pennsy.  You know, the best effing GYN hospital in like the free world?  Yeah, that one.-
and so they let it go and it got so bad that someone had the sense to give me a proper gouging  and even though it didn't magically disappear it seems that now, two years after the Big Real Surgery I might be all better."

breathe.

"Yes I have cancer in my vagina, but stop looking at me like you think I got it from a virus.  I don't look at you funny when you talk about where your cancer is.  It doesn't always have to come from a virus you know.  It's not fucking sympathetic when I say 'I have cervical cancer' and you say 'oh, my sister had that too, the one with the warts and stuff, right? She was so embarrassed.'.  Wrong.  But so what if it was anyway?  Icky stuff can happen to your crotch when you get laid.  Big deal.  It can happen to anyone, I'm just lucky it didn't happen to me.  And you are so. fucking. fat. from the crap you shove in your mouth every ten minutes because it's the only way you can deal with the fact that your mommy never hugged you enough when the other kids called you out on being a geek.  Stop judging people for repercussions of shoving something in their crotch.  At least they can hide their scabby genitals.  You can't hide your level of disgusting gluttonous gelatinous self hatingness self indulgent-ed-ness...
Moving on.
Cervical cancer turns you into a fucking pariah.  Herpes gets more respect than cervical cancer.  Sometimes I wish I had herpes.  It's more normal and less stigmatized.
I'm so tired of people.

"And breast cancer campaigns.
I'm so tired of breast cancer campaigns.
You have no idea how tired of breast cancer campaigns I am.
Like society is doing us girls a favor that it finally recognizes that we can actually be physically sick and not just mentally hysterical.
Girls score a point!
Girls 1
Boys 18098
Cute, though, that we can talk about tits, finally.

"Breasts breasts breasts breasts breast breasts breasts.  Pink pink ribbons ribbons donations pink fuck.
"Save the ta-tas"
"Fight like a girl"
"Save second base"
"Real men wear pink"
I could puke.

"When can we finally talk about vaginas?  And cervixes and uteruseses.  Maybe when we can start acknowledging vaginas people will finally start getting treated fairly and completely and with respect.
Six years of maintenence is five years too many.

breathe.

"So here I am, maybe hopefully fingers crossed that I'm at the end of all this and you know what?
It's scary to be done.
Getting cancer cut out of you removes a lot more than scabby lumps of cancer.

"If I don't have cancer, what do I have?
If I'm not a cancer patient, does that make me a cancer survivor?
Do I have to be?
Can't I just forget about it altogether?
Pretend like I'm just me, and always was and always will be, and that I didn't just go through that?
If I don't have doctor's appointments six times a year, who will make sure I'm still okay?
Where do I channel the anxiety?  The hope?

"Without the cancer to concentrate on, I notice the arthritis more.  What used to be a dull and constant ache now meddles in my daily life.  'I'm still here', it knocks.  'I will not be ignored", it whispers.
'Fuck you', I say.  'You aren't the boss of me'.
'What about me?' screams the migraines. 'You didn't think I was gone for good, did you?  You blamed me on the stress of your rotting lady parts for the past few years, but I have another cause.  I've been here longer than the cancer.  Remember the scans and the x-rays and the poking around the doctors did when you were in kindergarten?  I've been here for a long long time.  Let me remind you of how your grandmother died of a brain tumor 25 some years ago.'
'Fuck you too', I say.  I've been dealing with you for 30 years and I've decided to seek some professional advice and professional advice has come a long way since 1980".

"And me?', asks the rest of the world.
'You I can deal with, in small doses', I say as I step up my work ethic a few notches.  'I've been neglecting you a bit while I hid out in myself for awhile but I'm back'.

"And me?', says Jake.
"I don't know what the hell to do with you, so let's for funsies just run each other into the ground for the time being.  It's really nice to know that I'm healthy enough to watch you grow up."

breathe.

"Thank you."

breathe.

And then I would probably just leave because I don't want to/can't handle to hear anyone else's sob story and heartache and I just really needed to get all that off my chest to people who would listen and understand.

Is it okay to wish someone were dead?
Of course not.

Because we speak a Gentler English.

Is it okay to wish someone would just let go?
Of course it is.

Because no one likes to see a loved one suffer.

Same thing, really.  Just different words.  Different tact.  Different approach.

My grandmother is not doing well.  I can't remember a time when she ever was, really. 
Arthritic.  Heart issues.  Those things don't go away, they just become more complicated.
I think she was almost or about 40 when my dad was born.  He was 21 when I was born, a few days away from 22.  She was always older than the other grandmothers. 
Always older.
Not that it stopped her from doing anything. 

No one else's grandmother got on the floor to play with us.
Or took us to the library.
The big one downtown and the smaller branches all over town.
Just so we could see the differences.
Or collected shells and leaves and fishbones with us on the beach.
And tadpoles and worms and violets in the yard.
Or let us pick the vegetables out of the garden and the cherries off the tree.
Or climbed the dogwood to show us how it's done.
Or let us use the typewriter.
Or the sewing machine.
Or the stove.
Or the sharp knives.
Or the big old good KitchenAid mixer
Taught us how to bake, making sure that we knew it is more important to make a good pie than it is a good meal. 
Apple
Peach
Mincemeat
Cherry
Blueberry
Rhubarb
all in the same day.
You could only tell them apart by the fruit picture we poked into the top crust.  Tiny little lacerations in the shape of
Apples
Peaches
Mincemeats
Cherries
Blueberries
Rhubarbs
How do you poke a mincemeat?  You don't.  You just do your initials.  So everyone knows who the baker is.
No one else did these things with us.

She did. 
"Pain is just a part of life", she would tell us.  "Just learn how to work around it".
She did.

I don't understand why she is still alive.  She lost her husband more than two years ago.  She can't walk.  She hurts.  Her children don't live nearby.  They are all doing well.  Just as their children are.  And their children's children.  Her friends are mostly gone.  Her brothers.

Sometimes I bet to myself that it was the way she was raised.
Hellfire and damnation. 
No drinking no dancing no music no fun.
Ever see that Kevin Bacon movie where he moved to a weird little town and all he wanted to do was dance! but no one else would dance? 
That's how she grew up.
Sometimes I bet she's afraid to go.
The way you were raised never seems to disappear.
No matter how old or smart or different you get.

Her parents shunned one of her brothers when they found out that he smoked cigarettes and went to a moving picture show.  Didn't speak to him for months.  Didn't want the badness to rub off on anyone else.  Didn't want the badness to reflect their parenting.  Their faith.
That's not the way they raised him, they said under their breath as they shook their heads, which were bowed in shame and prayer.
I love that story.
The bad seed brother laughed about it as he told that story.  My grandmother can't believe he had the gall to pull it off, they weren't raised that way and her hands would shake when as he told that story.

Her parents were disappointed that she married someone who collected jazz records.  Who didn't graduate college.  Who only wore shoes with leather soles because he might find himself on a linoleum floor, or maybe a waxed wooden one. 
Perfect for dancing.
Perfect for burning in hell.

I wonder if there is a place in her heart that tells her brain that she is going to hell for something she did.
Like didn't press a crease in her socks or missed a spot on the drapes when she took them down to scrub the evils of summertime breezes out of them.
I mean seriously, I can't imagine what kind of nonsense was drilled in her head while growing up.
If I believed in hell and thought I was going there, I might want to hold on to all the pain and suffering of life too.

She never spoke of her faith, and I wonder if she lost it a bit (a lot?) after she left home.  Maybe she saw how silly it all was once she got out of Iowa and saw that the rest of the world wasn't living like that.  She never talked about God or Jesus or Sin or Purity.  Never once.
Never told us to say our prayers.  Just told us to
Be Good
and
Study Hard.
Education was her greatest virtue.  She pressed it upon me to the highest degree.
She wonders when I'm going to Buckle Down and get my PhD.
My Masters is worth nothing, in This Day and Age, she says.

Sometimes I wonder if she is afraid she will get into heaven and her husband won't be there.  He never bought into any of it beyond saying grace before dinner.

sugar in the coffee
cream in the mix
spoon in the coffee
spoon in the mouth
spoon on the saucer

"sit down and eat, Sara"

Godblessthisfoodtoourgood
Inchrist'sname
amen.

knife in the butter.
butter on the food
food in the mouth
chew everything 27 times
helps with digestion

salt in the hand
salt in the tomato juice
juice down the hatch
helps with digestion

Watching that man eat was an art.  A predictable, comforting, ritualistic art.

But he never bought in to the beliefs.
There is a rumor going around the family that he found Jesus on his deathbed, my (very religious) father by his side.
This rumor is propulgated by my (very religious) father, who probably sleeps better thinking that his dad got Saved! at the eleventh hour.
I call bullshit.
I think his acceptance- assuming there even was one- was Gentler English for
"Shut the hell up, boy, can't you see I'm trying to die here?"

When I die, I want to enjoy it.  The sounds, the smells, the sights that your brain produces as it shuts down.
I don't want someone yammering in my ear about what they believe what happens next.
I don't care what happens next.
I care what happens now.
I want to watch my life pass before my eyes and live it all over again.
One last time.
In peace.

What is this about anyway?
This post?
This life?

I just want her to let go. 
I want to stop wondering how much pain she is in every time I think of her.
I want to stop wondering if her brain is torturing her soul.
Or if it's the other way around.
I want to start forgetting the way she looks and feels now and start remembering the way she looked and felt then.
I want her to stop the way she looks and feels now.

I wish my grandmother was dead.

oh, honestly

Did I ever tell you that someday I'm going gather up all my lady friends and start a commune?
It's not really my idea.  It's Diane's.  But I'm going to make it happen.  As soon as I can find some land and a giant dorm-style farmhouse with bathrooms attached to each bedroom and a huge cafeteria style kitchen and a ten car garage.

I'm going to invite the Well Read Hostess.  And she is going to bring her books.  And there is going to be plenty of time for us all to read them uninterrupted by tugs at our apron strings because we are going to set up a co-op childcare system where the little ones will always be learning or doing something under a very watchful and responsible and trustworthy eye. 

I think she would come.  I think she likes me.  And she knows me in real life.  She likes me enough to give me this:

WRH talked about how this kind of award makes her squirmy.  About how it implies that other people are liars, or maybe that other people assume that other people are liars by nature, and an honest person is a rarity or that maybe "being honest" is code for "TMI".

I know I am a TMIer.  But I'm okay with that. 

I like how sharing a bit too much about me can draw a bit too much out from you.  I love knowing a bit too much about you.  I know I complained a bit ago about how people tend to spill their guts to me, and sometimes it can be annoying, but only when it's unwelcome.  Like when I'm trying to relax and all of a sudden I get bombarded with information about how your kid got raped repeatedly when all I wanted to do was talk about the weather and ask how the new school year kicked off for you and yours.

This award is sort of like the other Honest Award, where you have to be honest about yourself. 

With respect to oversharing, here we go...

1) Music influences me in ridiculous amounts.  I understand those kids who blame music for thier suicide attempts and those others who claim it saved their lives.  When I'm feeling a bit wrist slitty, I only play music with lyrics that I can't understand.  Brazilian Pop is good.  So is French Folk.  Not that I'm feeling wrist slitty or anything.  But just in case you get this way too, I thought I'd share my coping method.  Right now (like NOW now) I'm listening to Rufus Wainwright's Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk.  I feel like he wrote this for me.  Like he sat down at his piano with a picture of me and stared into my eyes and really thought about who I am while he put the arrangement together.  When they make a movie about my life, and Drew Barrymore (right?  I think she could do me well even though we aren't really all that similar) plays the lead, this is the song that will play as the ending credits roll.  Did you know that credits rolled at the beginning in the olden timey movies?  I think I'm going to request that for my movie.

2) I'm sitting in my living room waiting for the countertop template guy to get here.  He's due any minute now.  I'm getting Formica.  White Spex.  With an integrated sink.  Here's heres to no nasty seamlines.  I absolutely despise that crack between countertop and sink.  It fills up with disgusting gunk that can only come out with a toothpick.  If one more person asks me why I didn't get granite, I'll scream.  It's becuase I think it's tacky/trendy/trashy.  Like poorly done blonde streaks and brown lipliner and a fake Louis Vuitton purse and high heels with a J Lo tracksuit.  Just because I live in South Philly doesn't mean I have to live like South Philly.  It may be durable, but I'm not going to live here forever.  I hate the way it looks.  Period.  Just because it's expensive doesn't mean it appeals to my senses.  I prefer a nice brightclean kitchen over something dank and gothy that looks like it came out of Satan's Quarry.  Or New Jersey.

3) When I posted about living in filth the other day, I don't really.  My house is usually quite neat, all things considered.  (read: Jake).  I was just dealing with the seams and caulk in my kitchen and bathroom.  So disgusting.  You know what else grosses me out?  Those Bathfitter dealies that you order and they bring in and put OVER THE EXISTING MOLD AND MILDEW AND LIME AND GRIME THAT IS GROWING IN YOUR OLD TUB AND TILES.  Where is the healthy choice in this home renovation technique?  Do you know what happens when  you seal up mold and lime and grime?  It doesn't go away.  Just because you can't see it doesn't mean it's not there.  Put your kid in your new fiberglass tub and think about that for a minute.  It's like a pushup bra for your shower.  The sad and sag is still going to be there at the end of the day.

4) I only have two pairs of pants that I wear to work.  I work five days a week.  I do laundry once a week.  I only have one pair of jeans.  I wear them while I'm doing laundry.  Gross, right?  I've been living with two or three pairs of pants my whole life.  It's not like they smell bad or have stains, they just aren't freshly washed every time I wear them.  I also don't own any sweat pants and I have one pair of pajama bottoms.

5) I say pa-jam-a.  I hate when people say pa-jahm-a.  I also hate when people say words like "comfortable" and "compass" with the same "com" sound as "compromise".  It's very common around these parts.  Then again, people also regularly say "beautyful" and "attytude", and shop at "daKmartses" and "daAckamee" and things like "yous guys" instead of "you" and "dems over dere" instead of "those" so it isn't like I'm surrounded by grammatical rocket scientists.  I don't know how people get through the fourth grade sometimes.

6) I'm a little bit angry lately.

7) There is a tiny piece of crepe paper still on my ceiling left over from my birthday.  I keep it there because I had such a great time.  One of those times where I reprioritized everything into what's important and what's crap and I don't want to lose site of that.

8) I start my Improv class in a couple weeks with my friend who doesn't use her  name when she blogs.  My anxiety is just about gone.  I'm just exited to start.

9) I've been telling this story to everyone who listens to me, but it's funny so I'll put it here.  I got carded going into the bar the other day and the bouncer said "oh, you have the same birthday as my stepdad". 

"Oh, August 15th is a good day to be born", I said. 

"Yeah, yous were born in the same year too.  Cool, right?", he replied.

Not right!  Not that I look at the 18-22 year old set as my peers, exactly, but I don't look at them as my children either.  But I guess if the kid was closer to 18 and his mom had him young, and married someone a few years (okay 2 years) younger than herself, it could totally happen and not even be pathetic.  All the girls who had babies in high school or right after have 15-18 year olds now. 

Poor things.

I also got carded last Thursday, and the doorguy apologized to me when he handed me back my license.  "Sorry ma'am", he said, "I didn't know you were so old"

Ha!

10) This is what I'm looking at right now:

This time of year, this time of day, maybe isn't the all time best time to take pictures in my living room, but I like looking at my stuff nonetheless.

I like my stuff.

Also, this made my day today.  It's nice to be taken off guard and read nice things about yourself. 

If cleanliness is next to godliness, then I am living in sin.

National Fire Prevention Week

You know how nuts I am about fire safety, right?  Stemming from poor fire safety education when I was a kid? 

I'm trying to do things differently with Jake.
I want him to be relatively issue free when it comes to keeping himself and his belongings in one piece.

Because I'm a headcase and I can't talk about house fires and stopping and dropping and rolling without breaking out in hives, I leave it up to Firefighter Dayna and Sparkles the Fire Safety Dog who have taught Jake (and me) everything in the world about fire safety.

Making things easy for me this week, Sprout is doing it up right for Fire Prevention Week by having special programming all week.

Fireman Sam, which is one of Jake's favorite things to play and shows to watch has been revamped and modernized, and I am quite sure that Jake is going to be upset about this.  My boy doesn't like change.  But, I'm sure the message will still be there and I'm going to force it upon him.

Maybe they got rid of that momma's boy ginger kid Norman.  I hope.  Or at least toned him down a bit.  Sprout?  HIT Entertainment?  Are you listening?  My child wants to do bad bad things because of this character.  When you market to the 2-5 year old set, please remember that they absorb EVERYTHING presented, even the negative stuff so you really have to be careful what you are slapping into your shows because I'm spending more time explaining why Norman is a bad boy than I am able to talk about the good points of the show.  Thanks.

This is the time of year we are starting to kick the heat on and making fires and being romancy with the candlelight.  Please make sure that you do your part in keeping your babies from suffering a firey death by making sure your duct work is clear (check your dryer ducts while you are at it) and your registers are clean and your furnace is in good shape and your smoke detectors work and your candles and matches and lighters are out of reach and your wires are healthy and your breakers are capable of breaking and your fingers are crossed and your chimney is swept and your escape plan is intact and your hot water tank is not full of birds (more on that another time) and and and.

And I'm going to go breath in a paperbag now.  One treated with fire retardant, just in case.

When the moon is in the seventh house, and Jake's behavior aligns with my budget, and the weather matches my sunny disposition, I take the boy out for a nice brunch.

Nice like where your orange juice is freshly squeezed and poured into a wine glass.  Nice like where your nice ramekin containing a nice three egg scramble costs three times more than three dozen eggs at the farmer's market.  Nice like a little plate of cheeses and fruits is complimentary with your meal, provided that your child is adorable enough and smiles at the waitress.

Obnoxious, sure.  But you can only teach your child so many proper table manners when most dinners at home are served "like a pincninc" on the floor or straight out of the pizza box, and most restaurant experiences include crayons and two hundred other families with 2.5 screaming brats a piece.  Modeling one's behavior on that of the typical patrons of the local chains will not get one very far in life.

Plus, I like fancy stuff from time to time and maybe thirty years from now the tables will be turned and the boy will be taking his mother out for a nice brunch once or twice a month.  And a nice brunch is such a normal thing to do in this town.  The streets are practically swelling with brunchers until dusk on Sundays.  It's like the cool thing to do to get a table around 11 in the morning and don't budge until bedtime.  It's part of our culture or something.

And we are making memories.  And traditions.  What good is living if you aren't doing it well? 
I tell myself to justify dragging my kid downtown just so I can be a part of it all.

I would rather spend $20 to split a nice plate of eggs scrambled with fines herbes, a side of brioche, and Neuske bacon for the boy than piss away my extra $20 on something that shines nicely under the lights of Target but has no use in my home once it falls apart in the wash or spend $10 on a plate of greasy garbage at the dinor for me and another $10 on a plate of subpar pancakes for Jake and we walk out feeling like crap after eating three bites of our respective crappo breakfasts. 

Quality over quantity reigns supreme.

Anyway.  Blah blah snobbery blah, we usually go to places where there are a few other children.  I don't like to be that mom.  The one who drags her kid into an adultsonly locale.  It usually works out well for us.  The parents are pretty good at keeping the brats at bay and the kids are pretty good at behaving in a nice place.

Yesterday, however, I was absolutely appalled at the behavior of the children who were brunching next to us.  Even more so at the parents.  Even Jake was upset by it.

Look assholes, we are all paying way too much to eat here, at a sweet little table by the park.  Just because you are spending $20 on a damn crepe doesn't entitle your kid to throw it all over the sidewalk.  It certainly doesn't give you the right to tell him to "leave it there, that the girl will be around to clean up after him".

And the kid who is speaking "French"?  He sounds like he should be wearing a helmet.  Please don't encourage him to speak his weird brand of fifth grade Fronche when he is ordering.
The restaurant is French.  The waitress is a black girl from West Philly.  The busboys are clearly Mexican.  No one speaks effing French here.

No one wants to hear your loud kid sounding like an idiot.  They are laughing at you in the kitchen, btw.  I know this because I used to be a waitress and I know who gets laughed at in the kitchen.
Oh, and the guy who needed to take a phone call so he gave his boys (I'm guessing about 5 and 7 years old) a ball and told them to go play?  Douchebag.  Your kids are playing catch out of your sight.  On a busy downtown street.  This city is safe, but not to the point where you should send your fat spawn into traffic.

I hate people.  I really do.  I especially hate tourists and I'm going to stop eating in restaurants attached to giant hotels.  There is such an irresponsibility that comes along with vacationing, isn't there?  Fun while it's mine but I don't want to see it when it's not. 
Bring on your tax dollars, but please dine elsewhere. 
Sometimes segregation can work.  Maybe I should call my Congressman. 
"Good evening.  Two please.  Seat us with the locals please?  Oh yes, I'll wait until something becomes available.  The tourists bother my eyes and burn my lungs.  Food doesn't taste very good when I can smell them.  Thank you."

My poor sensitive child couldn't stand the braying noise of the kid practicing his French.  Had a hard time handling children playing on the street.  And asked me to talk to the one mother for making someone else clean up her son's mess because we should all be cleaning up our own messes.

But the music?  He loved.  He sat back in the sunshine and just listened.  With his eyes closed and his fingers tapping on his chair.  Some sort of French classicish jazzy burlesque stuff.  I asked the host if they sold a CD, but he said it was just some random generation off a website that caters to restaurants.  If you are a music person and have any idea what we were listening too, please let me know.  The boy went nuts for it.  There were flutes and trumpets and pianos in most of the songs.  It was tres great.

And the food?  He loved.  "this is better than mcdonalds, mom.  can you put these green specks in my eggs at home?  thanks for taking me to fancy breakfasts.  i like our time together at these places.  you're the prettiest mom ever".  That's my boy.  Always strangely appreciative and polite and overly complementary.

I like the little moments where I can almost see the man Jake will be.
Funny what a plate of eggs can bring out.

Sometimes he comes off a little bit Hannibal Lechtery though.  That's creepy.
But sometimes he is so sweet and refined and gentlemanly it makes my heart swell.
I just hope he doesn't grow up to be a parvenu like these people I accidentally surround him with from time to time.

Or a cannibal.
That would be bad too.

who put the antifreeze in my carburator?

The twinge of a headache on Wednesday should have been my first clue.

The way it started above my eye and wrapped itself around the back of my ear, into my neck, then across my whole scalp until it returned to my forehead.  Throbbing so badly it hurt to keep my eyes open.  Closing them was even worse.

I don't eat well when I have a headache.  Whether it's a true migraine, the ones that make my nose bleed until I gag.  That make me gag until I vomit.  Whether it's a tension headache, the ones that make my eyes burn until they flood with tears.  Either one renders my neck useless.  The pain causes the tendons to buckle.  I can't hold up my own head, forget using my throat.  They make me so sensitive to noise that certain pitches make me gag until I vomit.
I feel it's best not to eat.  The wrong additive will send the headache spiraling until I can't function.  Until I crumble under the weight of my head.  Under the weight of the pain.  Sometimes I don't make it to my bed and I'm forced to rest where I fall.

And then of course there is the puking.  It's inevitable at the slightest misstep of pain management.

That was Wednesday.
The worst pain came in the middle of the night, which is best.  I'm already lying down.

It was no surprise to me that I had a tender stomach Thursday.  I hadn't eaten well or much.  My nose bled into my guts all night.  A small trickle.  Nothing that could be managed by anything more efficient than lying on my back and letting it drain down my throat.
Go about my day, pretending that my mouth didn't taste like pennies.
11 am.  I couldn't tell if I was nauseous or starving.  I guessed the latter and ate a sandwich.  The fear of preservatives and sulfites had passed.  Once the pounding and blinding flashes stop I'm free to eat as I please.

Noon brought me back to the office.
Diarrhea?  Can't be.  There's nothing in there.  Plus, I'm not the diarrhea type.  I'm more of a hold it up there kind of girl.  Anal retentive to the last drop.  In every sense of the word.  In case you were wondering.

There is nothing that humbles you more than a cases of the pukes&poops (P&Ps) on the job.  The desperation to find a place to throw up while you're on the pot and your pants are around your ankles brings you to that level of disgusting humanness that we work so hard to deny.  The stall doors are 18 inches off the ground.  My bare ass 10.  People sharing the restroom begin to stare.  To wonder.  To worry.  There was no time to pull up my pants if I didn't want to throw up on the floor.  There were people two feet away from me.  I didn't want to splash my lunch on their fancy shoes.
I was in the only stall without one of those Wall Mounted Feminine Hygiene Disposal Units, thankfully.  It's not like you can clean those out too easily and since it's basic nature to place your puke in the first container in sight, it would've probably ended up in there.  And I would have ended up scooping it out because there is no way I could make Heloise, our daytimeofficecleaninglady clean up a dozen tampons expanded to full capacity with my puke and someone else's blood.
Can you imagine?  The horror.  Makes me want to puke just thinking about it.
Somewhere in my youth or childhood, I must have done something good, for I didn't take a wildly large and liquid crap all over the ladiesroom floor while I was hunched over the toilet.
Can you imagine?  The horror.  Makes me want to puke just thinking about it.

Glass of water, a good teethbrushing, a few Tums, and a couple saltines later, I felt as good as new.  I assumed it was a violent and public end to the wicked headache and went on about my day.  I went on about my day with my head held low.  I was a little embarrassed.  Luckily everyone who saw what happened was a mom.
That makes a huge difference.  Moms can handle puke and poop and bare butts, even in the most public of places.

Thursday night, feeling fine, out with my number one birthday girl.  I didn't drink much, only a small amount.  A medicinal amount.  If there is a such thing, and I do believe there is.

Friday morning wake up was groggy.  I blamed the lack of sleep.
"Five more minutes, Jacob.  I'll be up.  I promise."
Five minutes was all it took for every orifice I owned to start oozing with fluid.  Tears and snot and, I sweartogod, earwax came pouring out of my head. 
Then the puking.  Crabfries and water, mostly.  Then the peeing.  Out of my butt.

I always think I'm too healthy to be sick.  Too strong.  Too busy.  Too pretty.

I was anything but all day Friday and all morning Saturday.  I was sick.  Weak.  Sedentary.  Ugly.

It was so bad I couldn't take Jake to get his flu shot Friday.  Dave took him.  I've never been bothered by watching my baby get shots.  He always bounced right back after a minute or two, no big deal.  That photo is proof positive, taken an hour or so after his first round of shots.  I guess he was a few weeks old, maybe less.  Get him home and he's a little miffed, but nothing more.
But my baby has never been a person before.

Used to be I was secretly glad when he got them.
"I hope that hurts", the most evil part of my brain whispered.
I hope that needle hurts the way labor hurts.  
The way C-section recovery hurts.  
The way late and sleepless nights hurts.  
The way getting my sore tits sucked on hurts. 
The way listening to you scream for hours hurts.  
The way changing my life for a twenty pound leach hurts.  
The way _____ hurts.  
And _____.  The way _____ hurts is the fucking worst.
I hope that needle hurts like that. 

"Thank you doctor.  Oh no.  He will be fine."
"Poor poor baby, come here.  I'll kiss you better.  Mommy loves you more than anything.  Don't cry.  It's all over."

But now Jake is a real live person.  My favorite real live person in the whole wide world.  I can't stand to watch needles go into real live people, especially my favorite.
Every second of gut wrenching, head pounding, room spinning, ass baring, nose bleeding, and humiliation was worth it just so I wasn't the one watching a needle go in my boy's arm.

But word is he didn't even cry.
I did, two miles away.
I could feel it.

you can come back baby

By a weird twist of fate, I scored tickets to see Sunny Day Real Estate tonight.  Last night. 
I saw them before midnight, making it yesterday.

By a weird twist of fate, I scored tickets to see Sunny Day Real Estate last night.
At the Troc.
Where the kids go.  But because I carry ID these days, I can get upstairs. 

Lauren and I:

(it always takes a couple tries because I have the world's smallest head and I need to figure out where to put my head next to someone else's in order to make us look like two normal people and the cameraphone thing never helps matters- if only I could remember to bring a real one out with me)

and her sister and her sister's boyfriend jumped on the 23 from the Pope and headed downtown to see the show for Lauren's birthday. 

The music made me feel like it was my birthday.

15 years ago.

Teen angst.

I have more pimples now than I did then.  Life is funny like that.

And I have very few things figured out since then.

In fact, I may have known more in the nineties than I know now.

Now I'm just sorta bouncing around here.

Making it look like I'm a grown up.

I hope no one finds out.

We threw some gang signs.

This one is code for two old chicks at the show who have to live out tomorrow with telltale handstamps.  We accumulated more as the night wore on.

We threw some whiskeys, but ladies are never photographed with drinks in their hands, so you'll have to use your imagination.  I like Powers.  She likes Jameson. 

It's like the war of the Irish.

Speaking of the Irish, surprises of all surprises, Lauren's boyfriend secretly came home from his super sweet temp gig of rocking Bawno(you probably spell it different) to sleep at night and making sure his days are full of rainbows (srsly, that's actually his line of work) early to wish her the happiest of birthdays.  Even more sweet?  He found an unclaimed pair of Prada sunglasses lying around the tour somewhere that we all got to try on.

I've never worked a You Too tour, but I'm pretty much sure that when you get paid to piggyback ride the premier KBE around, there aren't too many pairs of unclaimed Prada sunglasses around that aren't, well, you know.  That aren't belonging to that guy who wears really expensive sunglasses all over the place.  Most people keep track of their expensive accessories.

Crazy, right?  What a way to score a pair of shades.

I want designer sunglasses.

But I want to be sure that they aren't going to be mostly worn by a three year old who has a penchant for tossing them aside when the next best thing comes along.

Like a McQueen or a rubber band.

Someday.

Then we walked down to the bar and got another drink and I snuck  some crab fries (real ones, not just fries with Old Bay, but fries with jumbo lump crab and cheddar and Old Bay) before heading home.

It's not so bad being us

Being me

on a Thursday

in October.

Remember awhile ago (I'd link, but that takes time.) when I said that I'm working on enjoying who I am NOW rather than grasping at who I was? 

It's working out pretty well for me, but it's sure nice to have an old skool night every now and then.

We'll see how I feel about this in the new skool morning.

Four hours from now.