Thanksgiving

Okay, the date has passed, but I am filled with the need to say so many thank yous. It goes like this:

I have always wanted to own a mason jar. Thank you for anticipating this heretofore hidden desire and filling it with (winter!) daisies. If only I could bring you such cheer now that you need it.

I didn't get a chance to say goodbye, but I wanted to thank you for a lovely party. Dylan had such a great time bouncing around like a goon. Best of luck in Chicago.

I know it was late. I know you were so tired after running around taking care of everyone all day; taking Poppa for prune juice, making Grandma go to the mah-jong game despite her depression, cleaning up after the sick dog. And then taking us to see Shalom Sesame. It was so cold outside and I was hyperventilating, I was so upset. Thank you for bundling up and going out to your car to see if my phone was lost in your backseat. Thank you for being so nice when I called minutes later to tell you I'd found it upstairs. I know you need my ear, and I wish I could give it to you more.

Thank you for making me laugh every day. Today it was blue icing all over your hands and then hiding under the table when I tried to make you wash them. Thank you for telling me you had a secret and whispering it my ear, "I love you." I love you, too.

Thank you for calling me short and cute. It made me smile all day long.

Thank you for telling me again and again that I could always talk to you. Thank you for meaning it.

Circled

So, we're in therapy, and I shake my head yes, but I really mean I have no idea what you are talking about. I come home from a 12 hour day and the kitchen is a mess crawling with food and my husband says I think we have roaches and the therapist says you shouldn't be such a clean freak. It makes me want to take a nap.

Ok, I get it- that I should work on myself before others, that I have a sickness, too. Actually, it has a name: generalized anxiety disorder. I know that this is a term therapists give to relatively sane people so that they can charge their insurance for their sessions. I'm not a total idiot (though I could possibly be convinced that I am), but I hold onto this diagnosis like a rare jewel, shining from my cupped palm. Aha! So there's an explanation (besides my apparent allergy to dairy) for why my hands bleed into the dishes and the keyboard, stigmata-like. And the answer is not that I'm a martyr.

They say other people can't make you feel anything. Only you can make yourself feel and you can decide to feel whatever emotion you want. I feel very weak that I do not seem able to accomplish this task. I leave the therapy session and I am more frustrated than when I walked in, because now I feel like I have not only to actually do everything at home, but I also have to pretend that I'm not so that I'm not called a workaholic and so that my mind can be empty. I try it for a few days: don't make my lunch, let the dishes sit in the sink, do not fold the laundry, leave the toys where they fall, walk on floors gritty from my husband's construction projects. It feels fine mentally to not do stuff - I read, I make a household budget (not not doing something I realize, but something I've wanted to do for a long time), tell my husband he has to deal with the bills this month and the math that lends itself to negative numbers. But it feels a lot less okay when I come down in the morning to the assault of things everywhere in the kitchen, a scurry of little legs and antennae across my counters. It feels less okay when the baby's pacifier is covered in grit. When the numbers still don't add up and we have to go into savings ... again.

The therapist says my husband doesn't clean his pile of clothes because he doesn't give a shit. This is fundamentally true. I am not an idiot (though I am beginning to feel like one), but my question is why doens't he give a shit? Doesn't he want to live in a clean house (I do)? Doesn't he want our bills to be paid (I do)? Doesn't he care that it upsets me (I do)? Isn't it selfish to not do something just because you don't care, when the other person obviously cares so much? Isn't it caring to do something for another person because they will like it, to put your own desires on hold long enough to get your socks into the laundry basket? Why is it so wrong to ask for a little help?

I know I'm not thinking about this right, that somehow, I am supposed to do more for myself and less for my family/house/kids/husband and that magically this other stuff will get done, and then I'm supposed to be all zen and blase about it, but I don't get how this comes to pass. It seems like if I just sit there filing my nails, I'll be surrounded. I feel like I'm drowning and I don't know how to get it all done or allow it to not get done. Is that sick?

Copacetic

Listening to 90's grunge and power pop and screamy angry riot grrrrrl music that makes me melancholy now instead of happy. I feel wrung out.

My best friend is getting a divorce. Or maybe getting a divorce. Does it matter? It just feels all so complicated and messy and grim. I know there was never a time when it was all simple, when we were all just happy. I know that. I used to be angry at my parents and now I'm angry at my husband and I wonder how my parents ever put up with me. Is it any different now? I am clearly angry at whoever has control over my life. But what's the alternative? Life on my own (with two kids) - alone, lonely? That's why my friend's not ready to sign the papers yet, either. It's fucking scary and who knows if we'll ever be happy.

But there's something so soothing about those crashing guitars, all the sounds mashing together, nothing sharp except the baseline, but loud and pulsing. It's all that feeling. We feel dead now. there's so little left of us, all us old married ladies with our bitty babies. Our souls are thin. I am happy underneath it all, but there's so much sadness and anger and frustration and resignation piled on top that I sometimes don't recognize myself in the mirror. Whose tired eyes are those anyway, the ones with the crow's feet?

And yet, isn't there something beautiful about us, us thin women pushing to maintain careers, community, motherhood, love, friends, family, bodies, and spirits? We used to be the super-moms, but I walk around and see these other moms pushing their designer strollers or wearing their babies on top of their hipster sweaters and they look more like the babysitter than the mother. We've got our jeans rolled up and we're still drinking vodka tonics and accomplishing crow pose and that's got to count for something.

We thought we were pure and indie and destined for lives of art. But it all comes out as poop in the end.

Amreeka for Peace

I just saw a movie about Palestinian immigrants to the U.S. that showed the difficulties of life for new immigrants in general as well as Arabs in the U.S. and in Israel. It was such a human movie. I don't know if I agree with the political stance of the filmmaker on the Israel-Palestinian conflict - or the implied stance, anyway. I am not sure I totally disagree, either. But I do know that it showed Arabs as people. That's almost a ridiculous thing to say. Of course Arabs are people. But we tend to forget. I hear it from my family all the time. They will tell you they're not racist, but they are. They will tell you Arabs get what they deserve (as if all Arabs are one) for what they do to the Jews and to Israel.

I feel like my family is so progressive on so many issues. I would go as far as to call my dad a feminist. It is really painful that they have singled out this one group of people to hate irrationally. I guess hate is irrational. They will say I don't understand, that I am not close enough to the Holocaust to get it. That I haven't spent enough time in Israel. That I am a heretic. Even though the folks on the left probably consider me pretty far right on this issue.

In the movie, the grandmother sings a beautiful Arabic song at the going away party for the soon-to-be immigrants. It is heartbreaking to me how close I feel to that music. It is the melody and rhythm I grew up with - both Hebrew and Arabic. I realize that music appreciation is not a political solution, but it seems to bear witness to the fact that we are cousins, despite thousands of years living in Europe, just as African-Americans are cousins in some way to the cultures of West Africa. How can we kill each other, if we are cousins?

I do not know the right policy answers, but I do know that people need to live free and unafraid and no one in a place that is dear to my heart personally and spiritually is living that life right now. I do not know how to achieve it, but I know in my heart that we have to stop hating each other, we have to want peace. Love is not rational either, but it is better than hate.

I guess I'll get a lot of flack for this, but that's just something I'll have to accept.

Poisons

We don't know what dreams are or where they come from, but we know what they do. Sometimes the stories they create stay with us all day and we can't shake them. Sometimes nice dreams leave us feeling unsettled and some times bad dreams release all the poison you didn't know was stored up inside of you, like when you wake up and find out that the dream was not true and you are flooded with relief with your head so soft and immobile in the down pillow that smells of detergent and your shampoo and your husband's spicy deodorant and your toes are warm and not moving and the sun comes for the first time in days through the heavy wooden blinds and they neighbors are fighting out in the street again but you are not and you reach over and say, "I'm so glad it was just a dream," and your husband gives you his butcher hand and you roll your cheek onto it warm and calloused and you hear the baby in the other room, "Ah -ga-da-ba," and your little boy is still snoring away, and the dream sticks to you in shreds of color, but the rest leaks out like a fierce sweat from a high fever that soaks the mattress, but kills the illness, even though it leaves you exhausted. Like a good fight. Or a good fuck.

It's the end of the world

Foghorn in the distance from my old friend Julie tonight. People do surprise you sometimes. I feel the nostalgia course through my blood thick and pungent as fenugreek. Who was I then, the girl who wanted to marry the skater boy in the REM video?

It seems, of course, that I did marry him, and that there he stays, riding and riding around that great destroyed house, eyes never on the camera, hair always in his tragic face. It is this tragedy that attracts us, that never leaves them, until they come home from work and stare and stare at the tv, making monumental efforts only to sleep over their buddies' houses after they've had operations, while our mothers are still the ones bringing us soup when we're sick. We are still 14 in our hearts, and no matter how angry we are, we are searching for that slick race of pulse when the boy on the skateboard finally tosses his bangs aside and smiles his half lifted lips, his sad, poker eyes dead at us. We married difficultly.

We still love each other, but we are no longer on the same team, and life is too short to wait and wait and wait for that smile. It is no longer enough reward.

Missing

I was surprised to look down and see your toothbrush was not there. I shouldn't have been.

Then I looked in the linen closet and your travel case was gone, too. It almost made me rethink things.

She Sews Those New Blue Jeans

Just finished cleaning the kitchen, top to bottom.

Baby has a cold. Poor thing. Can't sleep. Keeps losing her pacifier because she can't breathe through her nose.

Dylan came back from his sleep over with his grandparents and immediately began hitting me. Later, when we were playing in the basement, the baby crawled across the room and my mom clapped for her. So Dylan had to show us how fast he could crawl. My heart breaks. There is not enough love in the world for him.

Must work now. Make lunch. Pay bills. Write New Years Cards. Start non-profit. Write novel. Make love to husband. Lose 10 pounds. Be glamorous. Fly.

Off to email land ...

Monsters revisited

I just reread the first monsters entry and it seems so cold. It is true that those numbers stress me out, but it is the underlying emotions that are the true monsters. It is not so much the logistics of daycare, the numbers on the scale, or the negative balance in my bank account, but the fear that I am not a good mother, that my children will be traumatized and ruined, that I have no self control, that I am weak, that my life and its attendant bills are beyond my control, that all things are chaos spinning just beyond my grasp, and that my husband and children, too, are out there, uncontrollable, not submissive to lists, rules, or the world as I seek to draw it - these are the things that keep me up at night.

Which is scarier - that these fears are true, or the fact that my mind is comprised of these fears?

Frogs

I stand in the doorway of the basement bedroom and breath in the deep smell of mold and oak. The dark is soft and surrounds me, as if it is made of the breath of my sleeping children, for they are the ones inside the room, and I am filled with both the knowledge that they are completely safe and at peace, and also the deeper pit of truth that these are merely momentary states of being. Motherhood surely is the breaking of delicate teeth on such a hard rock beneath the gush of juice and peach fuzz to which George Eliot referred.

I hold their little hands, the dimples beneath my rough thumbs, and it is all I can do to keep from breaking their little fingers in this overpowering love. If Mary Gordon did not know the emotional life of motherhood would be such physical sensation, then she was a fool. I knew what to expect in that regard; what I don't know is how to contain or channel it. The rush that comes over me could cause me to beat my children senseless or crush them with my kisses. Perhaps it is me, their own life and love giver, who stands the greatest danger to them, as Lennie Small was to his victim.

It is wet here in Vermont and all day Dylan was promised frogs. There were none at the nature preserve today and he bore up incredibly well for a three year old. So later, when his uncle found one in the garage, it was only the man's sense to give him directions ahead of time - cup it gently in leaf litter, then let it go back into the puddle, then wash your hands with soap - that preserved the tiny brown thing's slippery life. Dylan was practically hyperventilating with anticipation. It was all I could do to keep from crushing him into the moment, as wildflower into a scrapbook.

Monsters

Dylan is obsessed with monsters. And we call Joey "Miss Monster". But the real monsters are, of course, within us. It seems to me that no sooner do I finish scanning the shadows on my child's dark bedroom wall, than I am suddenly locked into my own, staring at the ceiling as my husband snores beside me, and numbers flip over and over in my head. How many calories have I eaten today? How many dollars have we spent? How much is coming in? Are there any unexpected expenses: tickets, discovered wages from the IRS, cracked macbook screens?

I add up the columns again and again in my head as the passing headlights march across my ceiling, wavy from the blinds, their sound sources muted by the air conditioner, which surely is costing more than we can afford in utility bills. Again and again the columns do not add up. Again and again, I run through the drop off and pick up times times, the daycare locations, the number of hours I am supposed to put in at work, the modes of transportation. Again and again, there seem not to be enough hours in a day. Which leads to spending more on quick meals, which leads to more calories, which leads to more columns that don't add up, which leads to knots in my stomach, which leads to a short temper when Dylan won't brush his teeth and Joey won't play on the floor for one single minute so I can just button my pants. Which leads me to yell at my husband when he comes home with a parking ticket, which leads me to eat chocolate, which leads me to lie in bed awake at night, which leads me to write this blog.

And then it is sometimes the light of day that kills the monsters. We are on vacation (another set of monsters to be left for a different entry). Larry was up half the night with his own monsters; he feared he'd overbid on a job and wouldn't get it. I calmed him a bit by telling him he was wise to bid a bit higher because he was 1) worth it and 2) not turning any profit by lowballing all these estimates. But, as with checking under Dylan's bed and in his closet, I can do very little to assure my husband there are no monsters. When he checked his email this morning, he found he had gotten the job (and I think at a very fair price, in the end). His sigh of relief was the breeze across our day, a physical sensation all five of us could wind our fingers through.

How is it that sex and monsters are so closely woven?

Seriously Dude?

Presented 7/17/2010, WPA Conference, Philadelphia. Part of a panel with and grad student mentors and mentees.

Seriously Dude?

I want to use Liz’s discussion of the power structure of the academy as a jumping off point for my own talk. As a graduate student and a teacher, you are sandwiched already between the power levels of your professors and your students. Adding the layer of grad student mentor creates a double-decker effect, if you will. As a creative writing masters candidate – as opposed to the more “serious” literature and rhetoric PhD candidates – I found myself having to contend with a fifth layer to my sandwich. I believe we “creative types” contend with this kind of rhetorical bind throughout our careers, which often (and in my case certainly does) includes both creative and other work: academic, administrative, pedagogical, etc. Is what we do – our creative work - serious, and can we be taken seriously as creators, as students, as teachers, as academic thinkers, as workers?

I think Liz’s point that the approach to mentoring – and the discipline she found inherent in that position – can be taken with a bit too much gravity. What she was able to impart to me was a bit of levity. For all the reasons above, and especially because I was unsure about my own ability to teach, particularly my ability to lead a classroom and keep it in order, I approached the classroom and its attendant issues of discipline with entirely no sense of humor. When students texted in class, I threw them out. When students fell asleep I stopped class to point out their evil ways. If students brought computers to take notes, I was constantly checking the screens to make sure they weren’t looking baseball stats or IM-ing. When homework was late, I dutifully marked it in my little black book.

Not that they should be doing these things. They show a lack of respect for the instructor and the material. But what was my approach to be? How was I to gain that respect? As in a terrible case of male penis envy, I seemed to need to prove how big mine was. I believe I thought I was taking the “walk softly and carry a big stick” approach, but I began to realize it was coming off as a case of “little dick in a big dick world.”

I felt like a fraud. For one thing, who hasn’t nodded off in class themselves? I used time during boring class discussions to write my grocery lists. For another, I didn’t really care if they checked their Facebook accounts instead of discussing the rhetoric of reality television. Their grades would reflect their levels of effort. I was reacting out of principle, and as I have learned from dealing with my 3-year-old son, that is rarely a practical or productive approach to discipline. I would have hated an instructor like me.

I brought my problem to our teaching circle. I asked Liz what I should do if a student fell asleep in class. Her answer shocked me. She said she never wanted to embarrass anyone (I had been trying to do so in hopes of discouraging similar behavior) so she would ask another student jokingly to prod the sleeper. That way, she said, everyone felt like they were watching out for each other, and she became part of the group, rather than the disciplinarian. They made it into a light joke and laughed together, but not at the sleeper. This was a revelation to me. Liz was not suggesting that her students were her colleagues. I understood that. But she was suggesting that the power structure I carried in my head was both untrue and unworkable. It was making no one happy.

Basically, I decided to lighten up. Texting in class is annoying, but it’s not the end of the world. The holier than thou attitude – I was up until 2am preparing these notes, so it’s the least you can do to pay attention to me – was getting me nowhere. Instead, I took notes from my 13-year-old stepson. When I do something that annoys him, he looks at me as if I am crazy and says, “Dude – really?” It is usually enough to make me stop and laugh – and stop doing the thing that annoys him.

I tried it last semester when I caught one of my students – I kid you not!- watching a movie on his iPhone. The rest of the class was engaged in group work, so I was not their central focus. I stood over him for a minute before he realized I was there. When he looked up I said, “Seriously dude? Not cool.” He shut off the iPhone and apologized. I believe this served as a wake up call for him. He had already missed several assignments, and after class that evening I received an email saying he would be dropping the class. Of course, I would have preferred the wake up call to have been one that got him motivated to work harder, but I feel that he got the message: – he was seriously not taking the class seriously, dude, and that was not going to fly. Most importantly, I felt like I had delivered the message well. I stuck to this method and the class became enjoyable. I felt most of my students liked and respected me, and I began to like and respect most of them. At the end of the semester one man even thanked me for “actually” teaching him something. That was cool. Seriously.

More Like Kuan Yin

From a free write linking yoga to writing teaching/practice at a conference. Next entry will be the paper I presented about my own teaching, very much related to these thoughts about power and letting go:

Prompt by Pema Chodron, The Power of Patience: "There's a slogan that says, 'one at the beginning and one at the end.' That means that when you wake up in the morning you make your resolve, and at the end of the day you review with a careful and gentle attitude , how you have done. The path of developing loving-kindness and compassion is to be patient with the fact that you are human and that you make mistakes. That's more important than getting it right. And, interestingly enough, that adds up to something: it adds up to loving kindness for yourself and for others."

This is also a response to my post from last night (boy that was a creepy movie)

I like the idea of being gentle with myself. I like the idea of being gentle with my students. I like the idea of being gentle with my child, realizing that he, too, has to make mistakes in order to grow. I need to realize that I am asking him to understand very complex and adult ideas that make automatic sense to me because I am acculturated to the rules of our society; he is not yet. For instance, why can't he paint on the wall? Why can he write with chalk on the wall painted with chalkboard paint, but not on the other walls? What if it looks nicer after he paints it? What if the chalk just rubs off? Why? Why not?

How can I apply yoga (and humor) to all of these things? How can I be compassionate for myself, and extend that to those just beginning to know how to be and create in a new world (for my son, the world of middle class American culture. for my students, the world of reading, writing, and critical thinking. actually, they are all learning to think critically). What would Super Nanny say to such an approach? How do you make something hard go easier, as in yoga when you relax into the pose? How do I make my pose of teacher/mother better, more elegant by relaxing into it? Both positions seem utterly un-relaxing. How do you breathe into a tantrum or a sentence with no verb? Is it just a matter of keeping my cool? I don't think it's a matter of giving into everything or accepting chaos. How do I keep from getting angry/frustrated? How do I deliver loving-kindness to these other people? How do I make it happen for myself?

I think part of my sadness about Dylan is the separation necessary in our relationship right now. It's the good, productive kind of tension that will help him develop his independence. Joey brings me such joy because we are symbiotic right now - and I mean biologically through nursing. She is my little leech.

I didn't even notice Dylan's new independence until Larry pointed out that he was helping himself to something in the fridge. That's scary for me. It's hard to let go of the control of him asking for something, just as it is hard to let my students discover new modes and voices on their own. But it is good. I recognize that, even if I have to cover my mouth and sit on my hands. It is nice to sit back and watch him; my students, too, when they have a new interpretation or slant on language. How do I prevent myself from reflecting myself onto them? How to allow them the space to create their own identities as people and writers. And then, how do I trust that it won't all fall into chaos? Well, trust, maybe, just as I trust being upside down in handstand, literally accepting an inverted view of the world. Sometimes it is good to leave off your own perspective and see things with inverted eyes.

when you have too much anxiety to sleep, write a list

Anxieties:
not being able to afford the house
being away from my kids
dishes
keeping finances in order
getting a job
not getting a job
fixing up the house
having another baby
not having another baby
losing baby weight
new neighbors
writing
not writing
putting my foot in my mouth
when is the next paycheck coming?
why do I open my mouth?
how will we pay for this house?
paying for day care
tickets
cracked computer screen
bills
credit card
living beyond our means
pissing people off
making everything more complicated than it has to be
apologizing too much
messy situations
Dylan attacking me while I'm nursing the baby
Waking up in the middle of the night worried about my kids and money
Waking up in the middle of the night to a screaming baby or Dylan with wet pajamas or night terrors or needing to pee in the potty or wanting a drink of water
Trying not to wake Larry up
Dylan not listening
pumping milk
the scale
the credit card statement
the end of the month
the morning, when it starts all over again
re-reading this list

Fears:
Not being a good mother
being a bitchy, controlling wife
not doing enough for my parents/grandparents/aunt/mother-in-law/sister-in-law
that Dylan loves Larry more
That I don't love my kids enough
That my husband doesn't love me
That my husband does love me, but doesn't like me anymore
that other people don't like me
That I'll never get hired
That my children will grow up too fast
That I will spoil them
That I am too harsh on Dylan
That I love them all too much
That I will never publish anything
not being a good friend -- always taking from others
that I am not an understanding person
not a good listener
too entitled
too demanding
too focused on my own needs to attend to my children or my husband
that my grandparents will die very soon
never being able to kick up into a handstand
not being a grown up
becoming middle aged
becoming boring
becoming stuck in my ways
being all business
not laughing enough
never again going out until 3 in the morning without worrying about having to get up in the morning
caring about such things when I should be focused on the important stuff (read: responsibilities)
that I am not working as hard as I should be and Larry is working too hard to make up the difference
never getting a break
that we are so lucky that our luck is bound to run out soon

loooong days

All winter, I dream about summer. Now it's here. Boy is it ever. Hardly a day not in the 90's.

The best part of summer is the long, long days. Even at 5pm this evening, the sun was high in the sky. I took Dylan on a bike ride (he was in the kiddie seat of my bike, not riding his own). This was after a full day of hanging out with relatives and then hanging out in the basement playing board games after they left. We rode through a random street party with a punk band and some bizarre kind of bubble maker. Toothless women were eating pasta salad (???) and smiled at us as we swung by. Anarchist kids that looked like West Philly imports in their cut off black denim vests and dirty dreads (and the sweat - sweat is so West Philly for some reason) waved to us with bubbly hands. This made me glad to be done with my 20's. But it made me miss going to shows.

We got to the river and sailed by the boats, the tourists, the clean brick of Center City. But in the back of my mind, I couldn't help hearing miss Joey Rose cry, and worried that she would be waking up from her late nap and that Larry might not hear her in the basement, where he was surely ensconced, watching a Sopranos episode.

We got home and Joey was still not up, which made the day seem to stretch even longer. I felt tropical, wished we had our hammock up, wished for a fruity drink and a swirly straw. Wished for time and space to stretch out, be accountable to no one. For the pleasure of doing nothing. But I made myself rally, cooked some fish and salsa, mopped the floor, vacuumed, unpacked more boxes.

As soon as the day seemed to finally wear itself out and I got Dylan down, who should wake up but miss Joey. And so the day kept going. Larry put in the medicine cabinet and took a jog (a jog? whose husband is this?) while Joey and I played. Finally, her little eyes turned red and she began to whimper towards sleep. It was 11 o'clock. I was ready to fall into bed, ready to get up and do it all over again tomorrow.

In the moment 2

It's like a bad summer movie sequel, but this one goes like this:

Fireworks at Penn's Landing
Even the baby is smiling
They look like they will land on us
They shoot into our eyes
The breeze off the river
The familiar chords of Appalachian Spring

Later the baby will be so excited she won't close her eyes until after midnight
Later the three year old will have a meltdown (could it be the 5 scoops of ice cream he devoured at the all you can eat ice cream fundraiser?)
and the tween will escape to the shelter of video games
and there will be fights about whose turn it is to fold the laundry, put away the dishes, change the diaper, get a cigarette break
Later there will be bodies touching beneath the circular breeze of the fan, as the traffic grows loud and soft, loud and soft, again and again beneath us

Although these are things we could anticipate
We don't know them and we don't conjure them
We just watch the green and gold and blue and red
sparkle down on the five us
together

summerland

I want to write about being in the moment.

I was at yoga today (first time in a month -- hooray!) and I was trying to be in the moment, to be on the mat, to feel my body, and the room around me, and let my breathing anchor me. But I was so caught up in the directive that I began to let my thoughts drift to why I seem never able to be in the moment and to those few times that my somatic experience is so overwhelming that I can do nothing but be present.

We just went on vacation. Well, vacation is a relative term. It was very nice - a trip to the Chesapeake Bay to stay with some friends and then we stayed on after they left and Larry painted the vacation house while I hung out with the kids. It was very much a vacation while we were all hanging out together. It was great actually, and though it is not the place I would choose to go to rent a house (I'm much more of an excitement, adventure type traveler than an r and r type), it was great to be in a great big house with a great big group. Truthfully, I was more than bored by the end of the week and ready to get back home, where, banal, it's true, my life and all its list of goals lay waiting for me to swing back into action.

The height of the weekend for me was the single moment of action. Perhaps I should begin by saying that I have had almost no sex drive since Joey was born, which is very different from when Dylan was born. My life has seemed so externally up and down and my stress level has been so high between working, moving, and two kids. Now, suddently my stress level was way down, Larry and I were able to enjoy each others' company in h the face of having nothing to get accomplished. By the bay, the still waters inside me began to move. I was feeling sun-drenched, lithe, easy. With the chance to hand off the baby, I felt suddenly able to move, to let my arms and legs stretch. I found myself wrestling with Dylan. I felt myself drawn towards the great blue waters.

So when a neighbor swung by the pier I was standing on and tried to convince som guys to go for a ride on his jet ski, I spontaneously raised my hand. The driver instructed me to grab a life jacket and meet him on the beach, which I did. I hopped on and grabbed the strap as he indicated. We turned out - towards what? Boats passed at what had seemed to be from land very contained speeds - a yacht, a sailboat. "This is going to be bumpy," he said. Did I mention that I'd never been on a jet ski?

"Holy shit!!!!" We rode the waves way off into the air. We collided back again with the water, and then off again, catching air. "Whooo hoooo1" I screamed into his ear. I had just eaten some guacamole and was certain my breath was terrible, but here is where my mind just couldn't get one over on my body. My mouth just opened up and sounds just flew out. It was terrifying and freeing.

We hit the smoother waters of an inlet full of green, green marsh grasses and long legged birds. The driver sped up and my stomach lurched into my throat again. I managed to calm down only when I stepped outside myself. "You're a good swimmer," I told myself and you're wearing a life vest." Then I realized that at this speed, hitting the water would be like hitting the pavement from 10 stories up. The only thing between my present reality and that momentary fantasy was a thin red strap and I held on for dear life. I wanted to puke and cry, but the wind was on my teeth and animal sounds continued to fly from somewhere deep within me. They were sex sounds, primal and beyond thought.

I was grateful when he cut his ride short, possibly to end the agony of my garlic breath hot in his ear, and dropped me on the soft sand. But felt loss, too, as I always do - the moment - again - was gone. During the ride, all I could think was "get me back" and now I was and wanted to be out there again. "My husband's going to be jealous," I said. He looked at me quizzically. "I mean - of the ride."

Roar!

My son is a monster. I am almost ok with that, and then again I sort of feel like I'm in the mom-o-sphere of 12 step programs and I've just admitted my painful secret. I know this is some kind of extension of the terrible twos, but I truly felt like a terrible mother when he threw sand on Maddie today and made her cry, called his buddy Dutch a baby, and then ran around punching and kicking all of the adults. I should add that he was wet, sandy, and naked from the waist down as he did this.

He is just wild!

It's not like I don't give him boundaries. And yet, I'm definitely into not having too many boundaries -- I think. Sometimes I wish one of those super-nannies would come to my house and unknot this terrible mess. He just has so much anger in him. It's painful to watch. And hear. His latest lovely phrase is "fucking stupid." Nice, right? I'm trying the ignore it and it'll go away strategy. So far, not working. But nothing works.

Probably the most painful is the daddy-ness of it all. Daddy is cool. Mommy is ... well there are some not nice words for what mommy is. Not his buddy, that's for sure. Like last night he woke up at 2am with a nightmare and all he wanted was daddy, but I didn't want to wake Larry. He cried and cried for daddy, but eventually he fell asleep in my arms. Boy, I felt second rate. I guess I'm the "lay down the law" and Larry's the fun dude. But Larry is not one of those dads who just lays all the hard stuff on the mom, not at all. He disciplines him and keeps him in line, and Dylan listens to him.

And Dylan is also aggressive with Larry, too (not just with me, I mean). Tries to hurt him, push the limits. Larry says I over-react and that his anger comes from that. Perhaps I do, but I don't think that's the source. Is it his little sister? Is it all on her? That's a lot for a 5 month old too shoulder. It's so painful to see him so angry, and it kills me to have to discipline him constantly. I want to say yes, not no. I want to hug him, not yank him off of his friends, or his father, or - the worst - his helpless baby sister.

And yet, he is so scared of monsters. Nightmares every night. Fear before bed. We have to check under his bed dresser, behind the door. Monsters monsters everywhere.

So I go to test out strollers at Buy Buy Baby a few weeks ago and I see this display of books about different jobs. You know, each book is about a different profession: doctor, fireman, etc. And the books are cut out in the shape of the person, so the cover is almost a little doll. And, of course, most of the professions are men. Except, and I am not kidding you, princess and ballerina.

I do not think you have to be a feminist to appreciate that this is just not cool.

So I talk to the manager, Matt, who is very VERY nice and he says he will talk to the buyer for me. Two days ago, he actually called me back and says the buyer told him there are other books "for girls" but these have not sold well. They are nurse and teacher.

So there you go. Our professions are apparently still limited to the only acceptable ones as of 1920, with the exception of the imaginary profession (I don't think you can actually get a job as a princess, right?). And the idea that boys would actually be interested in reading one of the "girl" books is apparently preposterous - why would a boy want to read something with a girl on the cover?

Let me also point out that these are books aimed at 3-year-olds. Say what you want about nature vs. nurture, but there is no acceptable argument that justifies only showing our boys and girls that women have 4 acceptable and feminized professions. And we wonder why there's a math divide along gender lines! We wonder why women take on "caring" professions that pay less. We wonder why girls want to be princesses (and we wonder why women are so convinced that they can change men, just like in the fairy tales). Could it possibly be from the media they are exposed to? Sounds crazy, I know.

And, by the way, just for a reality check: The trash collectors on our block are often women, there are two female fire fighters at our local fire house and both of them fought in Iraq. We are friends with male nurses, teachers, and dancers ... but no male princesses, I have to admit.

Do me a favor. Buy feminist kids' books and keep your mouth open when you see crap like this. I am disgusted.

Ok, trying to update this thing regularly.

It's raining tonight, but I was out with Len ... without any kids!!! so I walked her up to the bus stop just for the thrill of walking around without other people attached to me. I should be following Weight Watchers since I did not lose any weight last week (only been on the program 2 weeks -- too early to give up) but Len bought me delicious chocolate chip cookies and a latte and I said screw it. Plus, I had to eat huge amounts of food today because I was so nursing hungry. Or maybe because it was a yucky afternoon of hanging around the house (and around the kids and Larry, who was doing work on our house) that I just snacked. But I don't think so - I think I was starving. I haven't been full in weeks, even after a big meal.

So, I just walked around in the rain and felt everything lift and it was gorgeous. I got home and Larry was crabby, and I was like, hey, I'm going upstairs to do job apps - see ya. I felt kind of bad because I think he really needed to talk, but I just needed to not be needed for an hour. I need to be alone with me. I need to need me. I need to fill my own needs for a while.

And they never turn out to be just my needs, anyway. I mean, I'm applying for jobs to keep my family afloat, not upstairs painting my nails. Not that there's anything wrong with painting my nails -- I need to do that stuff more. It's so hard to justify it to myself, though. It seems I have so little time with both kids sleeping (and when I'm not at work) that I have to use every precious second. Larry doesn't get that - I mean men don't, not just my poor put-upon husband. He can watch hours of t.v. and not even think once about the dishes in the sink or stay up late and not think about how he needs sleep because he's going to have to get up to nurse all night and then get up with the baby in the morning and get everyone ready to go in the morning. He can just get up, put his clothes on, and walk out the door. So he doesn't get why I'm stressed in the morning. And he doesn't get that in order to not be super stressed in the a.m. (and be late for work), I have to get everything done the night before. So, he thinks I'm a workaholic. But if I suggest I would be less of one if the dishes were done, the clothes were folded, and the lunches magically made for me .... well, that's nagging :)

I've decided to make this more of a mom in the city blog and to start posting regularly again.

It's interesting, because we've basically just had a watershed moment, when we decided to buy a house 3 blocks from where we currently live. It's a great house and everything seems to be going smoothly. I feel like a real grown up in some ways (I usually feel like I'm about 12 years old in terms of maturity level and accomplishments) because it's a major house with a major mortgage, one I'm not entirely confident we can afford the monthly payments on, but it also seems like my job is going to work out and larry's biz is picking up (I am so proud of him - and he'll probably kill me for saying that - but I constantly get such positive feedback about his work, and it seems like he's really found his niche), so I'm hopeful that we can do this house thing (and if not, I guess we're screwed). Hopefully here, necessity will be the mother of invention.

Anyway, we did look in New Jersey and the areas are nice and it would be nice to have trees and good school options and be close to my folks without needing to take the bridge and all of that. But it just all seemed so neat and clean and perfect in this way that didn't allow for any of the good grit we are used to. It was all so white, too. I guess our neighborhood is pretty white, and I feel like something of a racist that we did not buy on the other side of broad, but come on, there were crack pipes in the house we looked at! I'm always on the defensive - I know. But the thing with the taxes in NJ meant that we had to look at smaller houses and in the end they weren't much bigger than the house we already have or they were just gross or in industrial areas. Because what we want, or at least I want, more than anything is to be not just in a neighborhood, but in a community. Maybe I need to be in a community that has some adversity to weather, because I really love the way my community is coming together to solve its problems and I want to be a part of that. It makes me feel like I have a meaningful life and that I'm surrounded by dynamic people.

It all goes back to that Woody Allen line: It's important to make a little effort in life once in a while. Otherwise, we're all just sitting around in our pajamas watching tv and being carted from place to place in our hovercraft eating junk food. i don't want a junk food life. I want to make effort. Maybe that's why I'm always making my life more complicated than it needs to be: alternative work schedules/childcare arrangements, volunteering, cooking when i could order pizza, creating programs at work when i could just clock in and out. Writing. Having kids. Having kids definitely complicates life, they create hills and valleys out of the flat line of life, and god those valleys are fucking hard, but oh those hills can make you cry with sweetness. I want my kids to see a life of effort. I want them to know its not about tv and junk food and hovercraft. So we don't have a driveway, we have to improve our school, we have to walk to our "backyard" otherwise known as the playground. But when we get there, all our friends are there and we don't have to play alone.

I don't want to play alone, no matter how much house I could get for my money.

If you think I'm nuts (and why not, my husband and family are certainly convinced I am) then check back for more insane rantings about the people who jog vs. the people who buy their groceries using a double stroller.