a break from reality

Gotta take an indefinite bloggy break. I just promised myself that I would write this other thing (fiction!), and i’d kick myself forever if I didn’t do it. I will miss posting, and the comments and support from amazing people I have met along the way. But I just have to get this story out of my head. Wish me flowing thoughts, inspiration and minimal procrastination.

goodbye Brooklyn, goodbye

Pardon the ugly looking blog. I am messing around with it. Its temporary. I hope.

Yeah, we moved. Out of Brooklyn. The kids have their own rooms, we have a playroom and a friggin dishwasher, and about 5 cars drive down my street every day. And I have a yard, front and back and the house is really, really awesome. A few neighbors came and rang my bell to introduce themselves. Another 5 or so introduced themselves out front while we raked on our front lawn and the kids helped fill the leaf bags. The block is lined with huge sycamores and the back yard has a dogwood tree and a big, big pine tree. Tonight Jack asked us what that beeping noise was. It was crickets. We no longer live in the flight path to LaGuardia, white noise decent every 2 and a half minutes. Our elbows no longer hit the sides of our bathroom wall when getting dressed after a shower. We can make all of the noise we want, there are no downstairs neighbors to complain. No downstairs neighbors smoking pot or cooking steak-um’s or burning some fish thing one girl made once a week. No creepy neighbors, no yapping dog at 5:30 every morning. We get to paint the walls any damn color we choose. Its ours (and the bank’s). A place that belongs to our family, and will be inherited someday. I have been so overcome with emotion over the last few days. Watching my kids ride their scooters up and down the block or playing in the backyard. This is where they will grow up, and I am so thankful to have landed here and be able to give them such a nice home. Ruby rode her bike all over with her friend today. She has never done that outside of Fire Island. We all sat together at the dining room table. We couldn’t all fit in our kitchen in the old apartment. There was some great stuff about living in Brooklyn. Mostly the friends I made. Socializing at the playground will be something ill miss. All the other parents with the same look on their faces, they had to get out of the house with their kids. And Ill miss the Greenwood Cemetary, and Prospect Park. But thats it really. Its funny, after ten years and huge part of my identity wrapped up in being a Brooklynite… I am older now, and want different things for myself, some quiet and some community and a good school district. I will not make my kids sacrifice to fulfil some need of mine to cling onto Brooklyn pride. I am not twenty or thirty anymore, wanting to be in the middle of it all are down the priority list. I just don’t care about that anymore honestly. I never thought I would think this way… but I could care less about Brooklyn. Ive done it, ten years of it. And I have sacrificed a lot to be there. I am just ready to move on. Ill see some of my Brooklyn friends over the next couple of weeks. Ill have to make the effort to stay in touch. We have some friends here too. Lots of drop by’s this week. Its been nice. Our fridge has a lot of champagne in it. (pancakes and mimosas?). Its a huge life change. Already I feel so much calmer. There is so much we want to do to this place. There are four rooms of Ralph Lauren dusty light yellow, and bedrooms with muddy floral wallpaper, a spiral shrub, and some tacky gold fixtures. But nothing major. OK, the grand to fix our chimney aint cheap. But it will so be worth it this winter snuggling up in front of the fireplace. We have many years ahead of us to make the place ours. It already is starting to feel like its ours. I never thought I would have a place so nice. I am so grateful that life has sent me this way and that I am here at this point. I am a lucky girl. And 30 minutes to Manhattan!

my big pants

The time arrived when I needed to admit that the shreds of denim I called jeans were no longer functioning as clothing. I have always dreaded shopping for pants and had the crazy idea to just order something on-line. I noticed that the Gap had “tall” sizes, so I figured that might be where to go (I am nearly 6 feet). I didn’t know they now sold only their own brand, the last time I shopped at The Gap I squeezed myself into a tiny pair of Jordashes in 6th grade. Their site said that the “tall” pants had a lower knee (jeans have knees?) and a longer rise (in their low-rises?). Most pants I try on that fit me end about two inches above the ankle, and my “rise”  (crotch to belly button) is often the problem because the hips in most pants land about an inch or two lower than they should around the waist. In other words, I have been wearing low-rise jeans before they were the rage. So I thought: Yes. THATS what I need! Long low rises and lower knees! So I thought I would order my size and be done with it.

But I had to go to the mall anyway with my older daughter and remembered there was a Gap there and thought I would pop in and try them on just to be sure. I went to the rack and grabbed an 8 and a 10 just in case they ran small. In the dressing room I pulled on the eights and was swimming in them. Swimming. Like I could fit another body in there swimming. I know that I have lost some weight, but I am not THAT thin really. So I tried the 6s’ and then the 4s’. I am not a four! What was going on? Did the Gap just dumb down the sizes so that we think we were smaller than we are? What is wrong with accepting that the average weight of a woman (in the US) is a 14 and just be honest about it and make THAT the size that the tag says. Not make a 14 an 8! Does The Gap think that we are all so disconnected from our bodies or have such distortions about our appearance that we might fall for that? Try on some pants and say “Look at that! I must have lost weight, I went down four sizes!” Maybe so. As I stood and looked at myself in the orange glow of the backlit mirror (and man my skin looked really good in that light) I began hearing the Indigo Girls singing Lie to Me in my head. Yes, lie to me. For a few minutes I can try on clothes I can’t afford and feel like someone who has beautiful skin and am really, really thin (cuz thats what we all want to be right?). Cu’mon baby, liiiieee to meeee! So I took my four’s happily to the counter and paid for them.

But, and there is a but. I should not have purchased said jeans. I realised that when I got home that they didn’t fit me as well as I thought they did. Should I have gotten the 2’s? thats crazy. But the ass sagged. Although they fit everywhere else, I didn’t have the rear end to fill out the ass part. I could have fit a couple more of my own asses in there. OK, so I can admit that I am challenged in that department. Not to be racial here, but I am what some circles of women might call a “skinny white bitch”. But I am shopping at The Gap here! It’s not like I am shopping for a pair of Apple Bottoms or something. The asses in my lineage fell off somewhere back when we all lived on Pangaea. As they moved north and the continents drifted, my skirt wearing, stone throwing, grog drinking ancestors had no need for this thing called “ass” and it just evolved out all together. As Tom says, he is now just a back with legs. Along with “waist” and “inseam” there should also be a “but size” like a bra cup. AA, A, B, C, D, DD, etc. I was pretty sure I would be able to find assless pants at The Gap. I don’t mean without fabric in the ass region, that would be a different kind of store all together, not likely found at the mall. Do I have to shop for white girl pants at Lands End? I can get myself a pair of “mom jeans”. The ones that button above the belly-button, they start an inch below the bra. Jeans where the pockets are so far up they are practically on your back accentuating the space left open below. The hips will balloon out unnaturally and get tight around the ankle. No, not me. I can’t do it. The most favorite pants I ever owned were a pair of perma-press chino style pants in navy. I bought them out of a box on the floor of a small Mobile station on a back road in Georgia on a tour. My curves filled out my janitor/gas station attendant pants, I did not have to fill out pre-made curves. Maybe I just need to go back to spandex, something we will fondly remember from the eighties.

I wondered how this downsizing might be working for The Gap. Anyone that ordered their size on-line must have had to send back their purchase, maybe a few times. What a waste of packaging, energy and fuel. I know that there was a campaign for universal sizing in clothing but I don’t see anything more about it on the internet. Maybe as we got bigger, the market dictated the migration of what was the median. OK, but why re-label it all? Or maybe it depends on the brand and the income level of the purchaser. At Macy’s I am a medium in a shirt, at Target I am an extra small. A person buying a shirt at Target is likely to have a lower income, and more likely to eat a high fat diet and therefore be more likely to be overweight. But what is overweight at this point? Where can we accept the real and natural size of most women and then still recognise that there are overweight people in the world. There is a difference. The plus sized model who posed nude and un-airbrushed in Glamor Magazine this week got all kinds of supportive e-mails. She is the size of most women but still considered “plus size” in the modeling world. But a 12 – 14 is pretty much an average size (depending on the brand). And still the magazines show painted 14 year olds and their concave chests and jutting out shoulder blades as something to aspire to.

I am a tall and thin person. I am just built this way. When I am at the playground with my kids, I get so many comments from total strangers about my weight. How can I look so skinny and have four kids? I usually answer that I am thin naturally and breastfeeding and running after 3 little kids helps a lot too. But I always feel sad that this is a part of our conversation. One woman referred to my weight three times in our ten minute conversation, it made me a little uncomfortable. I know so many women struggle with their weight. And most people do not think a thin person struggles with their weight also but they often do. And I wish there was more support and more acceptance and even admiration of what a woman’s body looks like after childbirth. I try whenever I can to say positive things to women about what they look like after having a baby and make sure to not include weight as a part of it. A woman’s body is so amazing, to have given birth to another human being and have gone through an incredible transition physically, hormonally and emotionally and yet be dependant on the comments of strangers to help us feel good about ourselves is such a shame. I wish we all felt it in our bones, that we are beautiful and strong and not need to feel so inadequate (or too much) all the time.

Web sites (like smallstep.gov) and health programs for kids and adults that focus on obesity remind them that they should excercise and eat healthier food and watch portion control. Although well meaning, a part of it feels a little insulting to me. It seems assumptive that people became fat accidentally and had no idea how they arrived there and do not know what to do to become thin again. It would be nice to see a web-site that did not use dancing vegetables to encourage people to get up and move. But addressed the psychology of weight and the social mindset and cultural differences that affect ones weight. Also the problem of access to healthy food and affordability of healthy food needs to be brought into the discussion. For some people there is just not the ability to change their high fat and sugar diets as easily as is suggested. Kids will eat as their parents eat and if the parents are buying two for five dollar boxes of Entenmans and eating fast foods, the kids are not going to change. If kids open their lunch boxes at school and find Lunchables and cup-cakes, that is what they are going to eat. And if this is what is advertised and displayed as nutritious food in our stores (and its all that little Johnny will eat), it will be what parents buy. It’s a complex problem that doesn’t solely rest on the consumer however, marketing and accessibility play a big role. It is a national mentality shared by all economic and cultural backgrounds. Most of us reach for the processed food and get caught in the cycle of sugar and empty calories for energy. Yesterday I was so tired of food that I had to thaw first or something starchy made in five minutes that I insisted we skip the playground and make our dinner a priority. Tom and the kids went to the fish monger and got some tilapia and we had acorn squash and rice. We all sat together and the kids cleaned their plates. It made such a huge difference in our moods. We are fortunate to be able to get organic vegetables and be able to afford them, they are so expensive in the city. It is so worth the effort to make healthy food, now I just need to learn to cook.

Social commentary tangent aside… the Gap isn’t helping people feel better about their bodies by dumbing down their sizes. Granted, the Gap’s job is to sell jeans, and maybe this “downsizing” works for them for the impulse buyer, but I don’t see it working for them in the long run. I would like to see a company as big as The Gap (they also own Piper Lime, Banana Republic, Old Navy and now Athleta) be honest about the size of women and not skirt around that. It seems like a cheap trick for such a big public company. They should have higher standards, if not be the ones setting the standard. When I get home with my size fours and look in the mirror I say to myself “Why should the folks at The Gap want me to think I am thinner? Is being bigger bad? Do they think I am stupid?” I don’t think that is the idea they were going for. It’s too late to take them back. So now I am going to peruse the internet for some ass pads, and have a donut. I’ve got some big pants to fill.

its good to have goals

In my house we are very goal oriented. On the wall is a chart for “Good Listening” and a chart called the “Poop Chart” where you get a star whenever you make a poo in the potty. If the kids fill up the chart they get (tons of praise) and a special treat of their choosing (within reason, usually ice cream from the ice cream truck). We have words of praise for speaking without whining and using your words well. If you eat your dinner, you get desert. For Ruby, if she cleans her room, is respectful and honest and keeps in close contact, she gets more freedom and trust and sometimes more stuff she wants. If you sit down and talk to her about what she wants to do with her life, she will say that she wants to be a famous actress and if that doesn’t work out, a writer. But first she will travel for a couple of years before college. Eh, well maybe she figures out how in time… But right now she lacks the practical skills to understand that it takes things like money to travel. I think I dread those days (years) the most when she will get a reality check after high school. I did the same thing. I was pretty sure I would go off to a big college and be famous somehow. But harsh reality and lack of privilege blew that out of the water and I resorted to plan B which was pretty much survival. Still there was something in me that made me feel that I would not be satisfied with mediocrity (suburban Jersey) and was determined to get ahead in a career and live in the biggest city I could find (conveniently an hour away). I don’t think it was that I felt I was better than other people, but I knew that I would never be able to sit still in a small town and not need to know what else was out there.

The other day my family and I were driving down Route 286 to go celebrate my Mother’s birthday at my sister’s house. From the third row of the Durango Marlowe said “I hava go pee pee”. And we pulled over into a parking lot of a condo development circa 1980 something so that we could bust out the Pottette right there on the fertilized sod separating one line of parked cars from another. Ruby looked out and said “What is this place… people live here?” For her it was as if we had landed in some alien landscape and she expected the cast of Yo Gaba Gaba to pop out from behind the shrubs and waddle towards the car like zombies. “Um, those are condos, pretty much where most people in the United States live”. She was honestly amazed and said that it looked depressing. This is from my Brooklyn 13 year old who said upon return from summer camp of her co-campers in Pennsylvania that a Brooklyn 13 year old is like a PA 14 year old. And I wondered who was the one more sheltered. I hope she does get to travel after high school, but I hope that she drives across the US and gets a sense of how most people live; and see farms and small towns and industry and get that feeling (as all traveling should) that she (and New York) are not the center of the universe.

As we were parked in the parking lot I watched a woman leaving her brick fronted condo that was next to about 50 others that looked exactly alike, I wondered what her life was like. She looked like she was dressed for work in polyester slacks and a blouse and she got into her old crappy car and drove away. And I wondered if she owned the place or rented. And was this for her a nice home that she had worked hard to buy? Or was she resigned to the fact that with her salary, this was the most that she had hoped to achieve. Or was this a place that was a stepping stone to what she felt was her true potential which was to own her own house someday. I didn’t know this woman or anything about her, maybe she had overcome great obstacles to get to where she was in life. Maybe she was happy and house proud and it didn’t matter at all that her house was the exact same lay out as her 49 neighbors, and that she heard the sounds of the highway and that the area between the sidewalk and the curb was her lawn, and the parking lot in front of her house butted up against a Wallgreens. Maybe it was just enough.  But I judged her anyway and titled (pigeon-holed) her a representative and advocate for all dwellers of early eighties constructed condos everywhere. Maybe because I have spent the better part of a year looking at homes to buy and going through all of the hoop jumping associated with trying to buy one, my mind is focused on this kind of thing. And maybe I make the wrongful assumption that everyone wants to buy a house also. Tom and I would look at houses and decide that one house or another wasn’t good enough, or wasn’t in a good enough neighborhood. We would feel a little guilty walking through a house knowing that it was probably someones prized possession and wasn’t something we would ever consider living in. It was so much easier to look at properties without the owner home. But we had a list of criteria and decided to stick to it and be willing to compromise on some things (like aesthetics, distance to shops, the model of house we preferred, etc) and not on others (like space, school district, busyness of street, neighborhood, etc). Maybe some of it was just where we saw ourselves within a class. And some of it was just a matter of taste. Some part of this decision also had to do with how we were raised and taught what was of value. They were some tough questions to ask ourselves… What does moving up look like and how high up can I get? What qualities of life and standard of living do I think I deserve?

Last year in March the airplane poked out from under the clouds and in its decent, flew a loop around Rio just as the sun was rising. It was a magnificent sight. All of the windows of the endless high rises reflected orange and gold. There were miles and miles of high rises sticking up from the trees below. My face pressed up against the glass of the airplane window while my daughter slept in the seat next to me. The off white apartment buildings ran up and down the hills from the ocean to the mountains. I had never seen anything like this, I had no idea there were so many people who lived here. I imagined the people inside, waking up one by one to start their day. Their whole lives complicated and filled with relationships and histories. I wondered what motivated these people individually to get up and put the coffee on and start the day, what things did they have to do and what achievements did they hope to reach. Maybe a generation or so ago someones ancestors came out of the jungle, or from a small town or up from the south out of slavery hoping for a chance at a better life. People came to Rio because that was where the work was. And this is how they live here. There below me passed a million stories of success and failure, and of achievements and dropping out. If I lived in this town I would live in a high rise too, maybe a newer construction up on a hill, and that would be the best I could hope to achieve. I could not live in a high rise apartment in New York. I don’t care if it had a view, a weight room – sauna and pool and a doorman… it would make me uncomfortable and depressed. I lived in hotels for many years and all that convenience is a little bit sterile for me. I keep thinking of Fight Club and the flaming yin/yang coffee table. Not enough individuality in the cookie-cutter floor plan. Too much Ikea and recycled air.

At my sister’s house my sister asked me if I wanted to stop by a local farm and buy some milk, it was almost two dollars for a half gallon. It wasn’t organic so I said no even though it said on the carton the cows were not fed hormones. I told her I spent $5 for a half gallon of organic milk, and we went through one of those a day in our house. My father who was listening to us said “I don’t know how people can live like that.” And I told him that we didn’t have any choice. That was how much it cost if you wanted to buy organic milk in the city. And people live there because that is where the jobs are …and people’s families.” And that I couldn’t live anywhere else (oh, and that I legally have to live within 15 miles of Park Slope). We make the most of what we can within the parameters we have to work with.

On the way home from  my sister’s house we took Route 202 in NJ back up North. Along the road were older houses that were not set back at all. Tom said that he could never live in a place where the highway was going through his front yard. I said that chances were that those houses were there when the highway was a dirt road. I thought about the people who lived in the houses, and how maybe the house had been handed down within the family over a hundred years and the family was proud of the house and living next to the sounds of the highway was all they had ever known. My home in Brooklyn is just a row house  in a half working class Irish and half yuppy neighborhood. There are mosquitoes breeding on my roof, my street is getting more and more busy with truck traffic, I have no yard and I pay too much rent. There are many, many people who wold look at my house and wonder how I could live here, and I know that judgementalness hurts. Even though, by Brooklyn standards, I have a big apartment in a coveted neighborhood. My new neighbors downstairs have been showing the place off to friends all week. I would not last more than a week in a rural or suburban setting, I would feel out of place and get terribly bored. For Tom and I, our big goal in life has been to find a nice home to raise our children. This is where we are at. Adults with adult goals. Our own goals take a back seat to what we need for our kids to be healthy and happy. We make decisions that enable us to continue to feed our family before our egos. But still, there is a bit of ego in buying a house. A bit of a declaration of Who the hell do I think I am?

I have been told that one of the ways to stave off depression is to set out attainable goals and achieve them little by little. Start small and eventually build up your self esteem and confidence and eventually get yourself out of the mindset that everything is just an exercise in futility and that life is just pushing a boulder up a hill only to have it roll you over in the end. I am thankfully not depressed these days, but I really should be, considering. My life seems to be a series of lists of stuff to do that never gets anywhere near finished. When once I had a job where I could plow through 300 e-mails a day and practically do two jobs and get shit done yesterday… I now am lucky if I get a shower in once a week. And I am lucky if I get one thing done off of my list over the course of three or four days. I have been stuck in the fast forward passage of time and the molasses of movement that pregnancy/infant/toddler land puts you in for about two and a half years now. I am as task oriented as I was as an Administrative Assistant (I think I was called that), but now I am my own boss and my hours are more, the pay less and now I only eat lunch standing up. Making too many lists of goals seems to be half of my problem, I can’t get past the “shit I gotta do” let alone get to the goals (stuff I wanna do). I used to tell people who were new to being a parent that if they got half of what they wanted to get done, they were doing good. With three little ones, it is now more like less than a quarter if anything off the list. This has been one of the hardest things to get used to. I no longer set myself up with unreasonable goals such as “I will floss everyday” and “I will set my alarm for 5am and do yoga every morning.” As lifestyle choice-y and just plain maintenance as those things are, I can’t ever get it together to do those things daily. I lack the discipline. Strangely enough, I would have a better chance of raising money for and completing a walk-a-thon or organizing the logistics for a world tour for a 25 person traveling party or birthing two large twins than taking a vitamin every day (needless to say, I am not “on the pill”). Some discipline might make me a happier person perhaps. But for now, ill stick to trying to reach 1/4 of my goals. I finished one out of four books I had set out to read this summer, so I am right on track. But the goals to complete a NY Times crossword, jog (or is it called running now) and learn a language has moved so far down the list that I think they have fallen right off the page.

Honestly I have long term goals and a plan and all… but my big personal goals these days are just to try and be a good parent, and raise healthy and happy children. And to try and be a more patient and peaceful person. And to write, and write and write. Without a creative outlet I get depressed. Sometimes a week will go by and I haven’t had the chance to write and I can feel the uneasiness and irritability start to creep in. At this point I know my nature and I should not mess with what gives me balance. The big challenge is that the urge to write and never seems to be at the time when I have a window of free time, and when I do get a window, I feel pressure to hurry up and be creative. As much as I would like to drink a bottle of wine and write by candle light listening to old PIL albums at 4am, thats just not a good idea. I don’t lament the time when I was single and young, now I look forward to being old and my kids are grown and I can catch up on all my reading and writing.

Tom and I have goals set out for the family. Places we want to take our kids and traditions we want to have with them. Right now we have been thoroughly obsessed with buying this house we settled on. We are at the end of the process and half in boxes ready to go.  We found something that fit everything we wanted, now its up to the bank to decide its worth what we are willing to pay. Its a long process, once we are past it we will have taken a huge step for our family and the house will be the foundation (no pun intended) for many ideas and memories to spring from. Even though I will have one foot in semi-suburban NYC, I will still be 4 minutes to the ferry to Manhattan. During the whole house hunt,  Tom and I had the same or similar opinions on nearly everything. It was a relief to feel the same way about where (and how) you wanted to raise your children. Thankfully he never said he loved something that I found awful. And we almost always found the same things to dislike about a house. I am excited to have a house with him. There is so much we could do to make it “us”.  But at our rate of achievement these days, it will take years. And something about us taking our time and growing with the house makes me happy. We already have lists of things we want to do. But there is no rush, nothing on the long list is anything we have to do. And I don’t care if we ever finish really, I will enjoy adding a little every year.

at the beach

will post again soon.

and the whole world has to answer right now. just to tell you once again.

Today was the first time that I ever cried when I heard Michael Jackson’s Bad. Its not that I was a huge fan, I would always say he was amazing, and I tended to defend him if people spoke of him acusatorilly and I felt sad over his slow, slow death, and now over his quick one.

But strangely enough I had a dream about him three nights ago, two nights before he died. 

I was under a quiet overpass in Los Angeles with some homeless people, it was a cold clear night. We were standing around an old oil drum burning wood and paper and anything else that would burn for warmth. The people were nondescript hunched bundles wrapped up so only their eyes could see and were too cold to speak. About six to eight of them just waddled around through the smoke looking around for something to add to the fire. One of the figures was wrapped up in a brown freyed fabric, and it slipped off his head a little revealing his face. It was Michael Jackson and I was shocked when I recognized him. He had a short afro and his nose was his original, broad across his face between two brown cheeks glowing in the fire light. I noticed also that he wasn’t wearing a shirt but didn’t seem affected by the cold. He pulled at the fabric and hid his face again. I said to him “Hey! I know who you are?”, he didn’t respond. I said “You are Michael Jackson, what are you doing here?” (thinking that a rich and famous man could choose to be anywhere he wished), and he said “I am here like you are.” I thought for a second. It hadn’t ocoured to me that it might be strange for me to be there also, but that incongruity seemed small compared to running into Michael Jackson of all people. “But you have to go make music.” (why I used the word “go” in there I don’t know). And he sat down on the curb letting his hood fall back and started scratching at the dirt with a stick he had been using to poke at the fire. He smiled and said, “I am everywhere, cant you hear me?” and pointed to the distance with his stick. At  first I made a smirk thinking that that was a little corny but in the next moment I got what  he meant. I heard his music everywhere as if it was coming from the stars, but there was no sound. I then said “But you shouldn’t be here, you should be…” and he replied “Where should I be?” and he started to laugh. Not a crazy person laugh, but the laugh a child would make. I turned from him and looked around behind me to see if anyone else had noticed the real Michael Jackson sitting in front of me, but I couldn’t see anyone outside of the firelight and I sensed that they had wandered off. I turned back around and Michael was gone and I felt my heart sink. I looked down the dirt road in both directions and there was no sign of him. I stared off in one direction hoping he would reappear. I started to feel angry. I had had Michael Jackson in front of me and I hadn’t asked him anything good really, I had blown it on stupid pointless questions. And then I turned my anger at him. Why had he come to me as a wise old homeless man and had nothing important to say? But thats when it hit me. He wasn’t a wise old man, he was not a teacher. He was a child again and free, and he owed nothing to anyone anymore, not even answers. 

And I woke up peacefully then and smiled to myself and felt as if I had been handed some kind of answer to some big picture somewhere if only I could remember the lyrics. It was only a dream,  I know. But I was left with a feeling of him for a couple of days. He was part Jesus figure, part grim reaper, part clown like as he played in the Wiz, and part Tiny Tim… go figure. I didn’t predict his death, in fact I wondered if it was a predictor of my own. But I was left feeling somewhat blessed or just lucky that I had stumbled upon him, the flash of him, the too bright star that he was.

I do not think of myself as psychic, but I have so many premonitions that it isn’t something that shocks me anymore. That is why when I was 9, my Mother came into the room in the morning to tell me that my grandmother had died, I answered “I know, she told me.” And why when last Thursday, before I heard the news, a passenger in a low riding Honda Civic with his sneakers up on the dash drove past me as I got out of my car and he said to me. “Yo, those are some mad tats. Hey, Michael Jackson died…today. That is some fucked up shit.” I answered “Thanks” and “yeah, I know.” as he drove off.

laundromat by the sea

We spent the last few days in Bay Head, NJ at Tom’s sister’s summer place. It was perfect beach weather for most of it, and when it wasn’t we went to the beach anyway. Around 5pm the beach clears out and the outgoing tide leaves tide pools perfect for two year olds. I love this photo of Jack in mid “but flop”.

The “Kitster” as he is sometimes called got his toes dipped in the ocean for the first time. The first of manny this summer.

Bay Head is an upper crusty town south of Pt. Pleasant. Think pastel shirts and patchwork plaid shorts. There was some great yard sale findings on our wagon ride to the bakery at 8am. We missed Joe Biden at the bakery by an hour or so. He was in town with his wife for her birthday. The cottage we stay in behind the main house is also referred to “the laundromat by the sea”, we pack the car up with all of our bags of laundry. The kids have tons of freedom and are allowed to run free up and down he stairs and outside. They don’t ever get to do that in NY and they were tentative about going out alone. They are definitely city kids. The local municipal trucks are bright yellow as are some mid-life crisis sports cars. Jack & Marlowe called them all taxis. I think Tom had the most fun digging holes at the beach, jumping the waves, playing on the slip n’slide and riding the crazy bus on “the boards”. We hit the boardwalk on our way out of town. Marlowe got in trouble for sticking her hand in the water on the boat ride. How can you not want to put your hand in that water? They rode the boat, the choo choo, the airplane, the pink elephant, the hot air balloon and the crazy bus. Oh and a little pony cart ride where you rung the little bell. The mini roller coaster swoops past it and Jack looked at it and pointed and said “that one”. I think the pony cart ride is a thing of the past now. Jack does all his rides with a serious face. He is focused on everything. But we got him laughing spinning the hot air balloon around. Marlowe is a future roller coaster enthusiast for sure.
I love the beach in Jersey. I love the smell of the cedar shingles heating up in the sun, the sandy feet, the airplanes dragging signs up and down the beach, the outdoor shower, the after beach nap on the king bed with the white sheets with the curtains waving in the breeze. I could never live in a land-locked or lakeless state. I love that my kids have this to grow up with. Tom grew up having family here near the Manesquan River and he looks forward to making it a part of his kids childhood. I don’t know about the waterskiing thing… but I look forward to it too.

a shower on the upper west side

I went to my friend Diane’s wedding shower last night. It was held at her mother’s house in one of those high-rise condos on West End Ave in the city. This weekend is an alternate shower at the Mother-in-Law to be’s house in NJ. I sense dueling alfa Mom stuff here. I didn’t ask. Diane and I have been friends for about 10 years. She used to date my ex husband’s brother. So as someone said at the shower we “ditched the guys and stayed friends”. Diane seems pretty straight and a like a typical girl. When you first meet her, you wouldn’t think we would likely be friends. But she is awesome and has a great sense of humor and is super motivated in business (she owns a successful motorcycle school), and is non judgmental and we get along really well, although I hardly see much of her we are both so busy.

I had not been to a shower in a long time and forgot that this was the subdued family tea party type of thing. There was a lot of family there, I didn’t know anyone there other than Diane. I met everyone, mothers, aunts, sister-in laws, grandmas and a couple of her friends. I grabbed a crystal cup and ladled in the spiked sherbet punch and grabbed a chair. A woman sat down next to me and we started talking. She looked almost exactly like Sandra Bernhard, and her personality mirrored the character Sandra played in the movie The King of Comedy. I pictured myself as Jerry Lewis looked, duct taped to the chair as she went on and on about what, I can not tell you…  something about her sister being a born-again Christian and that her gay son was living with her and working at the Gap and that she is into juicing, straight vegetables every morning, yada yada. She was actually very nice even though later she smacked me in the funny bone with her ring when I gave away a hint when we were all playing a wedding shower game. Diane had to guess what her husband to be (Joe) would answer to certain questions posed to him in advance, a-la Newlywed Game style.

Before the shower I couldn’t figure out what to get her for a gift. I had looked on her registry at Bloomingdale’s and wasn’t sure if shower/wedding etiquette dictated that I was to bring a registry gift to the shower or that was supposed to be for a wedding gift. I could not b’elieve the stuff on there: Michael Fina pattern china, Donna Karan silk sheets in pewter, $250 pillows, tons of All-Clad cookware and Le Creuset bakeware… I couldn’t find the answer on marthastewartweddings.com so I asked my sister-in-law and she said to bring a shower gift geared toward the bride at about $30. Since I think of myself as a damn good gift giver, I went on-line and bought her a $100 gift certificate for The Brooklyn Kitchen, redeemable for cooking classes or upscale kitchen ware. I felt it was a thoughtful gift and something she might actually do, being that the place is a few blocks from where she works. I never had a shower or a registry. Most of my best friends live scattered around the globe and I would have wanted them there, I also hate the attention, especially all of that kind of girly attention. We didn’t do a registry because our wedding cost way more than we had to spend on it and we needed the cash. We were that couple ripping open cards on our wedding night in order to pay the band, and writing checks asking people to please wait a few days to cash them. Looking back we don’t regret it, we loved our wedding and were glad we chose to have the fun wedding we wanted instead of getting stuff. I told myself that we would collect some vintage pattern of china as it was more our style anyway. Something 50’s.

So when Diane opened her presents they were indeed things from her registry. Now I am not the most feminine of women, and I really don’t think I am materialistic at all. But man were those towels fluffy! I can’t cook, I don’t even like to cook and I was getting all excited about her presents as she passed them around. Holding up and admiring the cutting boards, and opening and closing the shiny tongs.  No really, I am fine with my Rachel Ray set… but does Le Creuset now make their stuff in black?! How cool would that be to pair it with pots in Caribbean blue? What would I possibly need these pots for? Making mac n’cheese, frozen ravioli? I even found myself salivating over her shiny new All Clad slow roaster, big enough to take a bath in. It would take up over 50% of my available counter space and we don’t even eat meat! It is the most impractical thing I could own next to a lawnmower. Diane told me all about the time she needed a recipe for Moose Chili and I thought of Sarah Palin and her love of Moose Stew and I thought I may be psychotic and or possessed with some other personality other than my own to be INTO this discussion. I was acting like a woman who just loved domestic life. Who wanted to wear one of these sexy aprons sold on etsy. Who made a moist pot roast, who smiled as I disinfected, and who’s socks were whiter than white. But oh those pewter sheets! … they were so shiny! And her pillows so fluffy. That gravy boat was so adorable. I had no idea I was having female bonding time and I was relating to these women on a level I don’t think I ever had before. The woman with the green wool skirt suit with the ruffled shirt, sensible shoes and a hairy mole on her face said that her gift had a theme. It ended up being “something to drink, and something to eat”. I found myself smiling as if to say “now isn’t that clever”. I really thought so at the time. I was really enjoying these women’s company and I really did have a lot of fun with the whole thing. I think I just surprised myself at how much of a girl I was. And it felt good to think for a short time that women make their men happy by cooking for them, and that it is our role. And that married life was just that simple. Diane was a total sport too. I caught her using the words “honking” and “mother of all” when referring to her slow cooker. Diane said that her fiance only ate meat when she met him, so this gift from the mother-in-law was quite the passing of the torch.

There is nothing wrong with getting nice stuff. I prefer to give a list of things I need to my family around Christmas and my birthday. But if you are going to look around my house and decide what you think I need or think I need replaced, I would prefer to be asked about it first. I prefer a cool thoughtful gift actually, preferably one thing of quality over a quantity of things of less quality. I do not like the mentality that it is a sin to spend money, however the addiction is met when tons of things are bought at TJ Max and Marshalls just because they are on sale. (THEY ARE NOT ON SALE FOLKS!!!) Maybe this Christmas ill add a silver wine coozy to my list of desirables, and the fluffy towels in “bone”.  Tom laughed at me last Christmas because I was going to ask everyone just to donate money to a charity in my name instead. There is no way my family would have gone for that. The record world have scratched and the party-goers would have stopped dancing. You can not upset what is and will always be. Tom knows that I prefer tickets to something, a trip or a class as a gift over something physical. But I guess I like nice things as much as the next girl and I should just admit that maybe I am just picky.

Diane liked her present though. We planned on taking the cooking class together. She said that we should bring a bottle of wine, and I said that maybe we shouldn’t take the class on “chopping” then. I should really learn to cook. I frightened everyone at a Memorial Day picnic a few days ago with the story of my macaroni salad fiasco. I tried to reassure everyone that I didn’t reincorporate anything that fell on the floor back into the mix. For Diane’s shower we were to bring our favorite recipe and add it to a homemade book of “tried and true” favorites. I thought about including my repertoire of cold cereal, toast and popcorn, or some white trash favorites but decided it wouldn’t be that funny. So I put in a recipie for Zucchini Bread I like to use. It really does last about 2 hours in my house before it is demolished, so it wasn’t something I pretended to make anyway. Sandra next to me put down her recipie for juice and put it in the “Starters and Sides” section misinterpreting “starter” for “breakfast”. All that time in a room of women talking about food and domestic stuff made me want to throw a Tupperware party (do they still have those?). Maybe a bento box party instead (did you know there is a bento box community? And lots of great bento blogs like Lunchinabox.net?). The next thing you know ill be wearing pearls and mopping in my heels cooking a Tofurky in the oven. Or ill get crafty and make something with a hot glue gun, fabric strips and some Styrofoam balls. It could happen.

Diane and Joe’s wedding is in Vermont. I wonder if they will have Moose as one of the meal choices? I look forward to dancing with grandma and the hairy moled aunt. We have bonded and can now unashamedly rip it up knowing that we all secretly pined over a tea service and some tongs together.

twit

What is this twitter thing? Do I have time to write whatever randomly pops into my head and “tweet” it. (Or is it “twit”?, or is twit past tense.. I have twit. Or I have twat… nooo). I have to say that on Facebook, I am not so sure I really care if so and so is “tired” or  ”at work”. I can barely keep up with my own list of stuff to do, or should be doing, I can’t get my order of operations down and I am bad at chronology.. all I need is someone else’s shit to do (or doing in this case) in my head. I admit I have posted a status here and there, and often find some of my friends status’ very funny. And I love to hear about a friend doing something unusual (Akimi: Im on a boat!) But I am finding Twitter a little confusing. The threads are hard to follow. And a lot of random stuff people say makes no sense to me whatsoever. It is almost as indecipherable as my teenage daughter’s text messages when I am one of several people she is texting at the same time. I get that micro-blogging could become addictive. It would satisfy some sort of OCD in me where I am always boiling down and labeling all of my thoughts and actions, and it would give me practice in generating impromptu one-liners. But it also seems to be a window into our lazy-lazy brains. We fill up space and time in our heads with repettitive thoughts and random meaningless stuff. Trying to be present in the moment and posting where you are (in the) now seems like a “mindfull” and healthy thing, but allowing ourselves free  reign of our thoughts and then enabling our lazy thought habits by making our pointless rambling in our heads become important… and important enough to be made public, doesn’t seem healthy to me. It seems like crack for the mind and ego. (As I sit here posting my husband is playing Call of Duty on the X-Box, yeah… THAT’s not crack for the mind and ego, eh?). I haven’t posted anything on Twitter yet. Although I was psyched that Brian Lehrer is following me (only because I am following him). I am not sure I need another time-suck on my hands when I really don’t have much time to suck at this point. If I get to a quarter of my stuff I need to do in one day I am lucky, so twitting may be on permanent back burner. I could just see me at the playground, ignoring my kids while they climbed up the ladder to the slide because I was tweeting from my cell phone. That would be some bad parenting. My only other “free time” would be when I am in the bathroom, and the posts might get pretty boring from there. Ill stick to macro-blogging me thinks. I may write somewhat minimally due to my hatred of overly flowery adjectives. And my haiku posts are… short. (So is Twitter posting like writing a haiku? Be creative and express yourself within its limitations? 5,7,5 syllables or 120 characters?) So I can relate to the direct route to getting one’s point across. But sorry, I need some character development… a climax and a conclusion at least. What you are doing every second is just not THAT interesting, its not all newsworthy. I took the internet access off my Blackberry. It just stressed me out. I didn’t need to see all of my e-mail all the time and be that accessible. So I sure as hell don’t need to know that so and so is “watching Lost” or that so and so is “on line at the bank” in real time. I am not totally against the self-indulgent part of it, this blog is in fact all about me, my thoughts and feelings and my life and the people in it and people I come accross. Who knows, maybe twitter will be my new hobby, I can annoy everyone with all of my disjointed random thoughts. To hell with that pesky yoga and that annoying reading. Faster, better. shorter, now! 

 

My friend Tony’s blog iJamming has a very funny post about his trip to England, written as if he’d twittered it in 150 characters or less after so many people told him he should join Twitter.

haiku day #1

two week stomach flu
woke up to a new season
seven pounds lighter

i need new music
rediscovered radio
what year are we in?

whatever happened to eddie?

So I was sitting at a cafe a couple of days ago having a very delicious crepe and a cup of coffee. I had an hour of free time to hurry up and relax. A new cafe opened up in my neighborhood and is owned by a parent of a kid that goes to my kid’s day care, so I wanted to patronize. I do what I usually do when I have a window of solitude which is to spend the time writing in my notebook. Its part journal, part lists of stuff to do, part scrap paper and part ideas that pop into my head. I am not yet someone who wi-fi’s, I still take pleasure in the analog version of writing sometimes. So as I sat there waiting for my order to come up, the waitress stood out front and smoked a cigarette with the door wide open blowing in freezing smokey air. When I put on my jacket and put up its fuzzy rimmed hood, it didn’t register with her that I was doing so because I was freezing. Through the smoke walked Josh. And he announced that his name was Josh in a way that made me wonder if that was his real name. It was too perfect for him. Said too loud, overcompensating for his tall geeky awkwardness, and said as if he had spent years at Princeton only to hone the delivery of his name “Josh”, said assertively, yet softly on the lengthened “shhhhhhhhh” following the “Jahh”. He said his big name to everyone that worked there apologising for being late to his meeting with the owner. The waitresses were folding menues at the back with the owner’s husband and he sat himself down and proceeded to talk loudly about himself for a good 15 minutes. 

Josh works for a major free newpaper in the city here, but had been working for them for only 2 weeks. I assume he was working as someone sent out to dig up ads from businesses, not do a restaurant review. He was formerly a headhunter at a firm in LA, and had recently discovered stand-up as an outlet. “Stand up?”"” are you sure? This guy chatted up the waitress in his loud nasaly voice and I sensed no bit of “funny” in there. No sarcasm, no wit of any kind. He drew no attention to irony and his delivery was as irritating as a honking goose. He seemed like the kind of guy who could hold a long and genuine conversation about cats. I thought that maybe he was just using a line he used to try and pick up girls, but he mentioned that he had a girlfriend in there somewhere. Now I have one friend who does stand up, and I have never seen his stuff. But he is a funny guy. You can feel the funny around him. He shows this capacity in his perceptions of every day life and how he reports it all back. When you are around someone who is “funny”, their humor rubs off on you and things that weren’t funny before are now funny. Everything becomes something to be made fun of and everything seems ironic and laughable. I could tell. Josh was completely funny-free.

Josh then told the waitress stuck in this conversation that he had a blog. A comedy blog. Titled (and I paraphrase) “A comedy blog for generation X’ers and beyond”. Ffff..what? Entshuldegung? I almost spit out my coffee. If you have to title your blog a “comedy blog”… how funny can it be? This guy was as boring as Wonder Bread. I was pretty sure the waitress was imagining herself in one of the scenes from Airplane (where a guy on the plane bores anyone to death that he sits next to), pouring gasoline on herself. But no, she piped up with an admission that she too had a blog that was “funny”. Aaaagh! Does everyone have a blog these days? Shall we all exchange URL’s now? I kept my head down in my notebook, pen going, looking busy. Don’t look at me, I am not a joiner. I did not want to be included in their conversation. I sensed them looking at me (as a fellow writer) and my talking with them would have felt as natural as if we were all to burst into choreographed song and dance. A musical about blogging right there in the cafe. Thats what we need.

Josh remarked that blogging was “a lot like stand-up”. Um, no its not. Its writing, and if you are doing it for a laugh, you are going to wait a long time to hear one. (Although I have seen people write things like “ha Ha Ha ” in comments… but you know what I mean.) Being humorous seems like an entirely different thing than comedy. Maybe in the comedy vs. tragedy sense of it all. But not all attention to irony , sarcasm and wit is meant to be comedy. Sometimes it is on the verge of being sad, sometimes even mean, sometimes meant to make the reader feel uncomfortable and maybe angry, all that with a minute pinch of underlying love for life and joy. I refuse to think of my writing here as “comedy”. One of my favorite comedians is the late George Carlin. He was able to take what we all took for granted as being normal, and delivered it back to us in a way that revealed the rediculousness of it all. And it all seemed so obvious when he said it. As if we had been thinking the same thing the whole time but couldn’t find the words. I saw an interview with him, and him speaking candidly about his craft was just as riviting as his routine. He spoke in all seriousness and you never expected him to burst into schtick. It was because he had gained our respect as an intellegent man. And because his everyday persona and and his stage persona were inseperably meshed. But when he spoke, his powerful perception rubbed off on you, and you felt able to “get it” when before you were maybe a little confused about it all. He would have made a good preacher, if he didn’t dislike organized religion so much.

One of my best friends named Josh (but pronounced in a very unpretentios way) worked at a comedy club in Manhattan doing audio. His favorite part of the job was when he did sound for a church without a church who rented the space for their mass. It was a non-denominational church and progressive thinking in that its doors were not closed to anyone. I wonder how many times the echoes of the preacher or the camedians ran on similar themes. And I wonder how the observer might forget where they were for a second… church or comedy club. How many messages were helpful or useful, …how many hit home.

Maybe the funniest people in the world are like Josh from the newspaper that has a comedy blog. Maybe the funniest part about him is the part that he doesn’t know is funny. Maybe comedy is when we try to be funny, and humor is when it just is funny without effort. There are various blog awards out there that have “best humor blog” as a category. Humurous writing is lumped in with blogs about funny photos of pets. I think I would rather win the “hottest mommy blogger” award. Its good to have goals. 

As I downed my coffee and grabbed my take-away bag of half inhaled carrot cake. I was a little angry that my hour of me-time was shadowed by a loud talker. But I had to remember that it was not my living room, and when you go out to a public place, you open yourself up to the possability/likelyhood that someone will ruin your expectations. And yet still, it gave me fodder for this post, so why complain? Funnily enough, I found this George Carlin bit on YouTube after I wrote this post:

out day

Well, tomorrow is “out day” as my OB likes to call it. I was at her office today and as my twins played with the scale, curtain and blood pressure pump and velcro, she looked at me and said. “Um, well you are half way there and I am surprised you’re not in labor and it should be pretty fast being number 4 and all… and what do you think about just coming in tomorrow, breaking the water and getting things moving.”
What a smart lady. I am all for having things take their natural course, but being that I am really almost there anyway, that sounded like a good idea. Natural timing might be in the car on the Brooklyn Bridge and that is an anxiety I can take out of the equation now. For some reason I have had about 5 people tell me about births that happened in cars in the last couple of days and I am starting to wonder if that wasn’t a bit of a nudge from somewhere to do this differently. A hospital birth was something we knew we would do. We knew we wanted the doctor that delivered the twins to be there and that was more important to us than where. And the more I thought about it, I liked the idea of laboring without the mayhem of the twins and family logistics around us. Here, there would be no quick exits.
So we are going in tomorrow night. Me and the little guy being night people and all, and with the full moon and decrease in barometric pressure with the oncoming storm.. we should be in good shape. Who knows what helps it all. My closest friends are all sending their positive thoughts, lighting candles and toasting wine or whatever they want to do too. Ill take any help I can get. Although I think I have everything I need to do this. At the twins birth and a bit with Ruby’s birth, I relied heavily on my dry sense of humor. I thought that it was me disassociating with my body, but now I think that wit it is just a part of me and ultimately was really helpful in lightening things up and staying positive.
I look forward to it. When I had the twins, I was standing for 12 hours with back labor, and had severe pre-eclampsia (HELLP Syndrome) where my blood cells were turning to mush, and I hadn’t slept the night before or eaten in 24 hours and was pretty much beyond what I thought I could do and then some, and my doctor handed me a cup of herbs and said “it isn’t any worse than you thought, it is only as bad as it is.” Which is a pretty Buddhist way of looking at it for an OB. Although at the time I was prepared to hunt down the anesthesiologist in the hallways myself. Somehow a small thing can pull you out of the fear and help you find more strength that you didn’t know you had. I hope tomorrow I am able to find this strength and take it one moment at a time.
Wish us a happy and healthy birth if you want and ill be checking back in as a thinner mother of 4. Four!

secretary of sedentary

There is a tiny dot in the exact center of my TV screen. It is not in the pixels or a part of an image. It is what we have in this house when the new war game on X-Box called Call of Duty comes out. This dot allows Tom to aim his weapon of choice at a target before the site comes into focus. In real life, in war your vision would not have such a sticker, but this is not real life. This is you, sitting on the couch with a beer in a frosty mug, eating salty snacks and talking on the headphones to other men via the internet in your unit, who are doing the same thing. Rude and insulting comments are plentiful but so are references to people they work with, and the pause button used after one player says… “Dude, I gotta step out for a second, I have to go get a beer/take a piss/talk to my wife.” Many women in the US go through a few months of diverted attention and one word answers around this time of year: football season. But thankfully I live with a man who likes baseball. So this fall, instead of John Maddon’s voice booming over the sound effects of the visual graphics, it is the sound of gunshots, gruff commands and people dying with one of three canned death sounds. Most of the time it is all through Tom’s headphones as not to wake the kids thankfully.

There is a playback that shows you who shot you when you are killed multiple times. This is so that the player can learn from their mistakes, or be inspired to kill more. This new version is modeled after WWII, and the commercial for the game says “Like nothing you have ever seen before.” Yup, I thought… the boys to men (and all the grey area in between) that play this game have never seen WWII, and even if a player has or is presently involved in active duty, they have still never fought like they did in WWII, and won’t again.

Now Tom can be the most loving husband and caring father, give the gentlest of kisses and sing the most lovely falsetto emulating Morrissey in the shower. But he is after all, a man and whatever way you look at it, he still desires camaraderie of his friends and doing things that appeal mostly to men. Like blowing things up, war games, standing in freezing cold surf casting a fishing pole at night, giving people a great deal of good natured yet brutal shit and drinking beer and eating pickled and spicy or salty snacks. This is something that must be hardwired or maybe its just the testosterone. What do I know? But it does remind me that there are differences and make me think that a woman in charge of ending the war in Iraq, establishing relations with Russia, Afghanistan and Iran, among other giant peace keeping tasks in the world today… may be a really, really good idea. Hillary may have the most difficult job in front of her if she takes the position of Secretary of State. But it is an opportunity of a lifetime, and also in the lifetime of this nation to make a huge impact on history. And last I heard, the Clintons are not ones to shy away from opportunity and hard work.

It is not that I think a man would just walk into the position with a “kill em’ all” attitude. (You can buy a T-shirt that says “Kill em All and let God sort em out” at the Strategic Air and Space Museum in Nebraska if you are looking to do some early Christmas shopping). Many men are renowned for their mediation and diplomatic skills. Just look at the amazing things Martti Ashisaari has done in his lifetime (winner of the Nobel Peace Prize 2008). But maybe, just maybe we need a woman’s touch and I don’t mean candles and drapes and a splash of color. Maybe we need someone in there that has a different perspective and approach and if there is anything about her being a woman that may contribute positively to it, than fantastic. A colleague of Martti Ashisaar’s was asked why they thought he was so good at negotiations and mediation between two waring people. And it was said that he learned a lot about both cultures and their histories, and then showed each side a huge amount of respect for their culture and things that were important to them, so that each side going in to talk felt that Martti was on their side. Women are known to be good mediators because they have an ability to be better at feeling empathy and compassion. Maybe Martti, a square looking businessman type in his 70’s had a feminine side he didn’t even know he had. It is not that I think we need to feel empathy and compassion towards people, especially those guilty of terrorism and genocide. But I would like to think that a woman may have the ability to sit between each side, or meet with someone and command respect and at the same time be careful and calculated in her approach, yet bring to the table an understanding and respect for the negotiation process as well as an ability to look at the multiple levels a person or culture may have… emotionally, behaviorally, morally and what layers make up each one’s identity. And perhaps be successful in her ability to be convincing more than a man might. Maybe, maybe. It seems like a really good idea to me.

I don’t call myself a feminist at all. I do not advocate that women are better than men. I think of them capable of the same things but in different ways. And women better at some things, and men are better at some things. I am not just wanting Hillary to be SOS just because she is a woman either. I think she would be perfect for the job regardless of her gender. And honestly, as much as I secretly wanted her to wipe the floor with Sarah Palin in a debate. I was much more impressed that she did not take the bait of the media to point to sexism when discussing her.

Thankfully I don’t live in a relationship anymore that shames me for having emotions, or strong emotions. My perspective is always influenced by my emotions. They are inseparable. And having strong emotions does not make one “irrational”. It makes one honest and the emotional component of things has value. But it took me many years to learn this. Now I am not saying that I think we should have a SOS that says “fine then, be that way” and storms out of the room in tears. We need someone tough as nails. But someone tough also recognizes that strength is not found in suppressing one’s emotion, but feeling it and pressing on anyway. We shall see, I hope she takes the job.

So Tom and I for this season… the “its cold out and we are expecting a baby any day now season” have settled into our sedentary, hermit like habits (other than his winter surf fishing) and we have our stations of entertainment (TV, computer, books, x-box) to pull us through our days until the crocuses come up. So for Christmas, I am thinking that I may get Tom only “as seen on TV” gifts. The suction handle, roto tiller, a tub of oxy clean, a Life-Alert necklace, a chin-up bar and a Barak Obama commemorative plate. And hopefully he gets me something that keeps me occupied, like some knitting needles and yarn. I can look like one of those New Yorker women with their goofy knitted hats with the ear flaps and long caterpillar puffy coats buying cans of cat food at the grocery store. Single women with time on their hands and cats. Actually, with 3 other kids, time on my hands has not been something I often find myself with. Maybe I can get some of that. I am no Clinton, I am not in a pant suit up early in the morning go-getting. I am in a hormonal fog, nesting and moving furniture and trying to mentally prepare for an infant in my life again and feeling the stress of the expectations around the holidays vs. what I can actually do right now. Tom has been joking that for Christmas he is getting me a “get in shape after childbirth” trek in the Himalayas with some nice sherpas. Or season lift tickets to a ski slope in the Poconos. Yup, thats perfect. There will be hills and mountains involved in my near future however, but not like those pretty snow capped ones. I look forward to it. Its better than working off a $20 million campaign debt, thats for sure. Anyway, when not reviewing the labor progress, the countdown to the end of the Bush administration has me plenty occupied. Ill take a hot tea (an hour of world news, sugary snacks) and some fuzzy slippers in the meantime though.

the morning after

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

View from Redhook Container Terminal, Brooklyn, NY / Photo: Tom Ferrie

I have to admit that months ago, I didn’t think it was possible. I figured that the religious right in this country was growing so much that it outweighed the possibility for much else then a shifting “moderate” line to the right. And frankly it scared the hell out of me. I remember 4 years ago, walking around Brooklyn after G.W. had been re-elected and sensing a deep sadness in the air I had not felt since the ashes of the World Trade Center rained down on us for weeks after 9/11 here. I had given up my faith in this country to see past their hatred and fears and try and see a better way to live that didn’t involve an ugly, ignorant and damaging form of nationalism.

Last night I was moved to tears when I watched hope spread across the faces of over a quarter million people assembled in Grant Park, Chicago. And also when I watched the faces moved to tears while they recognized that they had just witnessed a huge positive historical event and felt pride in being a part of making that happen. And I was happy to hear sounds of cheering in the streets, and car horns honking in my usually quiet neighborhood. But mostly I cried because my faith in democracy and the people in this country was restored. A movement toward change was heard loud and clear, not unlike the Civil Rights movement or the protests against the Vietnam war… but done by speaking out from within the system by simply casting one vote at a time. Yes, this was not just an “election”, but indeed a “movement”.

It was a close race. And I know it will be a difficult task for the next President to convince the voters who voted Republican to trust him, and feel comfortable with the choice this country has made. Some will not ever be able to do this as I think the threads of fear and hatred run deep into our identities. At different times throughout the campaign, I tried to put myself in the shoes of those supporting the Republican ticket. I tend to put on my anthropological hat to feel safer thinking outside my comfort zone and it was a big challenge. But I found that I liked John McCain in many ways. I liked that he was a bad-ass as a youth and I liked that his ideas and convictions made him often unpopular within his party. I admired his service and commitment and his desire to make this country a better place. But as I watched a campaign without a strategy use only tactics, I was left disappointed and often embarrassed for him. I think it was a week or less before the election, and I really wanted him… not to win, but to end his campaign with some dignity I thought the character of the man should be remembered for. I already understood that his campaign was plagued by the poison of Karl Rove’s politics and the splintering of the identity of the GOP brand. But I still continued to think that underneath was a man who was above all of that. And that is when his camp started distorting what Senator Biden had said on the stump. In an interview, McCain looked earnestly at the interviewer and emphasized ” and Senator Biden said “make no mistake, senator Obama will be tested…” I realized then that he thinks like much of the fear based base that support him. To think that Joe Biden had the power to predict a threat like that made me realize the distinction between my viewpoint and that of the Republican religious base like no other. Even if he was referring to the threats on our country to see a weakness and go after him, the same plaguing of paranoia existed. See, I can understand how a person can believe with all of their heart that life begins at conception, and I can understand how someone may believe that more jobs would be created by giving tax breaks to large companies. I don’t agree with the Republican viewpoint pretty much across the board, but I can understand it and even respect it. What I can not understand or support is the mentality that we should motivate people to vote by playing on their irrational fears and hatreds. The GOP has won elections in the past by dividing people, and I am so happy that many people were able to see through all of that and make a better choice. Political Science majors, pundits and strategists will study the reasons why it failed for a long time (at least until 2012) and I will leave it up to them to figure it out. I have had enough.

As this day went on, I started to feel relieved that the election was over and that we could move on. That I didn’t have to cringe at all of the anger and demonizing from John McCain, and at the audacity of his running mate. I began to feel happy and hopeful that we had finally woken up and demanded better. And that lives would be saved indirectly from making that choice. And that this country could start to evolve past the right and the left and find our common ground. The global reaction today (um excluding Russia) showed how that hopefulness radiated outside of our borders and throughout the world. I do not see President Elect Obama as arriving on a white horse to save us all. But one must admire his ability to motivate people and bring them together. We had become resigned to taking what we were handed, and he in effect changed the country and provided us with what we needed to feel as if we had a say in it all. His job will be difficult and met with many obstacles. But it is finally a step in the right direction, and I am honestly hopeful for the first time in a long time.

Tom and I spent the day with a bit of a political hangover. We kept the TV off and reflected to each other on our sense of calm and enjoyed the quiet, like it was New Years Day. We spent the day with family but if we didn’t have kids, would have spent the day in bed, ordering in, stealing kisses and watching old movies. I was happy to be with family however. We took the kids to their music class in the morning and then had a big spaghetti dinner with Ruby in the evening. Everything was as it usually is, but we felt different somehow… as if we were living in a new country. One that felt like the US, but had the potential to see beyond our differences domestically and act internationally as a whole nation with intentions to bring about peace instead of only advancing our power. I have learned a lot about mass media, and this country during this election process. But mostly I have learned about myself and why I think and feel the way I do about issues. In my older years (ok, I am only 39) I have been more and more motivated to speak out and act on things I feel are injustices around me. And I know that this election has helped give me the hope that things can change if we make the effort, and I look forward to more active days ahead.
Just have to have this baby first….

I hate you and all of the hateful haters that love you.

It is hard not to notice that the last days of the campaign for the US Presidency are filled with all kinds of slinging and finger pointing. The debates got many of us watching who are already sure of who we are voting for, but wanted to catch the best reality TV out there. Better than the Great Race, Lost or American Idol. I had the same reaction to it I did when my parents took me to a bull fight in Madrid when I was a kid. I cringed with the passes and near misses and sat on the edge of my seat wanting to turn off the TV from the uncomfortability of it all and be shocked by all its gore. (actually, thinking back it was the people cheering at the bull, wishing for its annihilation that upset me the most).

I agree with what Warren Buffett said on the Charlie Rose Show. That we should have the top two economists up there debating instead. But what kind of ratings would that bring? Not much. There are plenty of catch phrases that I will not be sad to see go after this election: “fundamental”, “Joe six-pack”, “Joe the plumber”, “hockey Moms”, “from Wall Street to Main Street”. I am a little pundited out too. How journalism can milk a story is amazing, God is there anything else going on in the world? How can CNN teter on the edge of sensationalistic journalism without being obvious? How can they be bias without looking bias at all? I have been fascinated with mass television media’s depiction of the race for the Whitehouse. MSNBC and Fox News, are obvious about their leanings, and their polarity is frightening. But its often the “un-bias” reporting that I suspect and mis-trust the most.

I am a big fan of Link TV’s program called Mosaic. It brings parts of TV news broadcasts from the Middle East, translated into English. I also watch DW (Deutche Welle) News on Link TV as well. Its good to have a window into another country’s media perspectives on the events of the world. It is nice to step out if the game show feel of the US media and be informed of other things going on in the world.

One reason I have not written in awhile was that at first I found myself only wanting to write about what I hated about Sarah Palin. Its true. She is partially to blame for my blog’s screeching to a halt while I stood there with my mouth open in shock and disgust. I found that if I was writing what I was thinking, I would have to rename my blog the “I hate what Sarah Palin Represents and Here is Why blog”. And I just didn’t want to go there. I also didn’t want to be reactionary and figure out what it really was that I disliked, disrespected or just didn’t understand. The hatred and racism I have seen expelled at some Republican rallies has really creeped me out. Yes, I believe that the recent negative statements by John McCain (or allowed to be delivered by his representatives), with his allegations of Barak Obama being in cahoots with terrorists and a socialist has brought out the ugliest most hateful extreme side of his fan base. Sarah Palin was such a stupid pick for the Republican Party (although I thought she wasn’t initially). She may have cut the momentum of the Democrats after the DNC, and appealed to the evangelical voter. But her ineptitude and obvious unpreparedness for the job was a huge mistake. Its a shame really. As much as I believe that John McCain is an honorable guy and his service to this country can not be matched by many people… I have lost any faith in his decision making mainly due to his pick as running mate as well as the slippery slope of hatred his campaign has decided to take.

After Sarah Palin’s debate with Joe Biden a few weeks ago. I found myself scratching my head wondering Why? why Why??!!! How could this woman be a 72 year old’s heartbeat away from the Presidency of the most powerful country in the free world? I felt that this woman was completely over her head. And the folksy winking and cutesyness was a shame. I did not find it made her a “real person” in fact it left me feeling as if I had been drenched in political slime and there was only so much of it she could deliver without it being obvious that she was compensating for her complete lack of experience and qualifications for the job. Look, its not her being “herself” and its not just an “Alaska thing”, its a political persona, and it does not show me strength and intelligence, it shows me an example of what women do that they don’t need to do to get ahead if they KNOW THEIR SHIT! Someone who votes Republican said to me that she has done so much for women and that she was admirable and was such a powerful force when she spoke. I couldn’t disagree more and was kind of surprised when I quickly responded “I don’t see anything in her I would find admirable in a woman at all.” This got me thinking as to why I felt so adamant about this. I figured I would get it out of my system in one big post, and here is what I came up with:

First is that to me she represents “many deaths”. I know this sounds severe but the way I see it, she does from the dead moose in her pie to the hundreds of dead wolves she allowed to be shot (by “aerial gunning”) in her state to boost trophy hunting, to the deaths of women who don’t get proper care in Wasilla, Alaska who were victims of rape and incest that were charged for their own rape kits by the police department (in effect detering the woman from having a valid court case and affecting her woman’s right to choose the morning after pill or from choosing an abortion), to the high rate of abortions caused by teaching abstinence, to the deaths caused by botched abortions if abortion is forced onto the black market, to the suicides and murders of women who become pregnant in the case of rape or incest and are not allowed access to abortions, to the deaths of many children caused by neglect and abuse if forced to be brought into this world and raised by people mentally or physically incapable to do so, to the thousands and thousands more deaths of our American soldiers and Middle Eastern civilians caused by this country’s distorted view on what it means to win and be powerful, and how many deaths will be caused by her ineptitude if ever given authority over this country’s peace keeping, or war fighting agenda.

Second is that I feel she represents “a liar” I know that saying someone is a liar is an un-PC thing to do, or is possibly looked at as name calling. But when I watch… after the investigation into troopergate was released stating that there was an ethical violation and that she abused her power… her say that she is “very, very happy to be cleared of any legal or ethical wrongdoing” while looking the American people straight in the face. This is lying. Stating that Joe Biden is against clean coal is lying, stating that Barak Obama is involved in voter fraud and is taking away Americans right to vote is lying (please note that voter registration fraud is different then voter fraud, the people paid by ACORN to make a quota turned in fraudulent names to get paid, all are being investigated and none of the fraudulent names will be showing up to vote on election day, and John McCain was the keynote speaker at an ACORN rally on 2006 stating “this room is filled with what makes America great”). I am sorry, but to me lying is lying and a liar is a liar. But what I have found, amazingly so, is that people find they are OK with being lied to as long as they feel the person lying is in line with their agenda and has good intentions at heart. This allowance for distortion is used by both parties unfortunately and accountability for miss-statements should in fact come with penalty.

Thirdly is that to me she represents “white privilege”. And I paraphrase anti-racist activist Tim Wise almost entirely here: White privilege is when a woman gets married at 18, eight months before having their first child, and having that child then get pregnant at 17 and that people say that they have good family values and no one should judge them because “every family has challenges”. But a minority family having babies as minors and out of wedlock are viewed as an unsavory statistic and example of moral deficiency… White Privilege is where you can earn a degree in journalism by attending 5 colleges in 6 years and you are considered educated enough to possibly govern this country, where a black man who came from a poor family who worked his way up through Columbia and Harvard, becoming the first black president of it’s law library is considered not fit for the job and an elitist or handed his diplomas because of Affirmative Action. White privilege is having a husband who is a member of a political party who’s motto is “Alaska First” that wishes secession from the United States, and this is overlooked, but if Michelle Obama decides to stay home with her children and misses a 9/11 memorial, she is considered as being disrespectful to this country… White privilege is having a future son in law who calls himself a “fuckin’ redneck” and likes “shootin’ shit” for fun and is considered an “All-American Boy”, where if he were black he would be called a “thug.” …White privilege is when you refer to racism as a “light burden”… White privilege is when your experience with guns is that they are things used for sustenance killing and trophy hunting used by good people, and the bad people who use them for robberies and drug deals is a minority problem. A problem you have no idea what you are in for if you lift bans on handguns and allow the loopholes that make it easy for anyone to attain weapons to continue or grow larger… Where you can put down someone who worked as a community organizer who worked on issues like school reform, an 8 hour workday, the poor’s right to vote, the right for women to vote or to ban child labor as insignificant compared to a mayor of a tiny town (the meth production capitol of the US) and an 18 month Governor of a state with a population that of the lower 5th of Manhattan…OK, I could go on and on…

But what REALLY bugs me about Sarah Palin… As if that isn’t enough. Is that she breeds hate. She is a big step toward polarization of this country when we need to come together. I think that ignorance and fear = hate. And she plays on the ignorance of people. She fodders the notion that she is a good Catholic and on the side of the “good people”, and that God himself prefers her and her party over any other. She allows statements like “kill him” and “terrorist” to be yelled at rallies without stopping the person and correcting them for their hate speech. She makes people think that they should be afraid for their way of life if Barak Obama were elected. That terrorism will reign free and we will be controlled by blacks and muslims and will be living in a socialized government. (what Barak Obama has is a “tax plan”, there are many of them. If you choose to define socialism as the government dispersing its money as it chooses, than we already have that. And following that definition, McCain voted for that with the bailout package, and asking the US to buy up mortgages.) She feeds on peoples fears of their own God, and uses that fear to make people feel they are voting against their God to vote Democrat. She feeds the idea that we are not “winners” if we do not stay in Iraq and fight the war John McCain is obsessed to win at any cost just as George W. Bush did. (And one could argue it is an obsession of John McCain’s projected from his time in the Vietnam War and his belief that we could have won it. See the Atlantic Monthly article titled The Wars of John McCain). And to me, using our fears to gain the support for a mismanaged and misguided war was criminal. People put the “support our troops” ribbons on their cars and waved American flags from their houses if they were pro-war. It was the biggest example of propaganda that I have ever seen in my lifetime. It implied that people against the war were not supportive of the troops and it divided this country and bread hatred. She also spreads the idea that there are “Pro-American parts of this country” implying that everyone else is what? Un-American? A ridiculous notion shared by Minnesota Representative Michelle Bachman, that Barak Obama was “anti-American” and the Seanators should be investigated to see who was “pro-American and who was not”. Gov. Palin’s apology on CNN for someone’s misinterpretation of what she meant as “patriotic” has only given her license to continue to speak in such polarizing ways. It is sad. This week they are using the word “welfare” which is a catch word for blacks and minorities. She should take a look at the statistics on race and welfare. (pssst… “whites” use welfare too!). I thought Colin Powell spoke clearly and directly to this hatred issue in John McCain’s campaign in his endorsement for Barak Obama this week.

So, that.. in one disjointed post is what I think of Sarah Palin. Whew. It was good to get that out. I wanted to write a letter to the Republican soccer mom’s who vote for Sarah Palin, but I thought the better of it. I figured that those people hold on to the idea of voting for someone that is “just like them”. But the only bottom line that I could come up with was “Well maybe someone just like you or you shouldn’t be vice president either.” I have to admit that I was offended by the idea that Sarah Palin waved the “Any woman can achieve what I have” flag at the RNC. To me, she looked like a woman who misunderstood what makes a woman admirable in her success. There should be no overcompensating with your sassiness or cuteness, there should be achievement caused by intelligence, the ability to be fair and make good decisions.. not by being someone who feels achievement is gained through having to be a “barracuda”. Do women HAVE to have this image to succeed? The women I admire don’t need to go there at all. I saw an interview with Madeline Allbright recently. She is someone who is well respected among her male piers without needing to be anything but smart and honest and have a strong character with the ability to also have humility. I see none of this in Mrs. Palin.

When Frank Luntz, a Republican pundit journalist spoke on a panel at the NY Public Library in 2006, the subject was Deceiving Images: Propaganda in politics. He had a lot of amazing things to say. But what I thought was most interesting was that he said that he left the business of politics for one reason, and that was because he saw real hatred in people. And he didn’t think that we were ever going to succeed fully as a Nation until we left that behind and found the importance in our similarities. I agreed with him when he said that and agree with Barak Obama’s statement “That we can disagree without being disagreeable.” (having spent 4.5 years in a NY divorce court… this should be painted on the wall behind the judge). I also was moved by Joe Biden’s mother’s teachings on equality. And that no man is greater than another. THIS is where I feel we need to go.

So I wondered about writing this anti-Palin post for a long time. Was I being a hater too? Was I being just as bad as the Republicans screaming “terrorist” at a rally? Or was I as bad as one of the guys who feel that if they are a Veteran or someone who’s family has lived here for a few generations, that they automatically more American and can speak derogatorily about anyone who is anti-war as “un-American” or “not patriotic”? (yup, this is hatred folks!) Am I speaking hatefully about people who’s viewpoint on a women’s right to choose is different than mine? I don’t think so, I do not feel any hatred toward those women. I do not feel hatred for Sarah Palin. I feel frustration and anger at the hatred she represents. And frustration and anger at the bigotry, and nationalism and righteousness disguised as religion that people have. But I do not hate anyone. I do not think I am any better than anyone. I think that we have walked into “Upside-down bizzaro world” and “what is black is white and up is down.” to quote MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow. And somehow we need to clarify and point out that hatred is hatred in the way that we know how. I blog about it, although I might have preferred to use my usual sarcasm and attention to irony I usually choose. Too late now. This post is VERY different then hatred and propagating the whole conspiracy theory thing, and the evil vs. good idea, and using people’s fears to polarize them.

I hope after this election, wherever the chips may land… whoever is elected will work very hard to cross party lines and speak out against the fear and hatred that has torn this country in half. I hope that the crude tool of democracy can be used to strengthen us as a nation. And that I can get back to writing about all the happy flowery subjects I usually write about.