This is Not Me...

I say again: This is not me. This is--at best--an amalgam of me and Dave, but there are definitely things on the list that we drop. And yet, I *know* women like this. Yeah, maybe they only have two kids instead of three, but otherwise this is life right down to the toenails. And I found it hysterically funny. One of the things making the email rounds recently that actually had me laughing out loud for so many reasons (some of even them self-directed).

THE NEXT SURVIVOR SERIES
"Six married men will be dropped on an island with one car and 3 kids each for six weeks.

Each kid will play two sports and either take music or dance classes

There is no fast food.

Each man must take care of his 3 kids; keep his assigned house clean, correct all homework, complete science projects, cook, do laundry, and pay a list of "pretend" bills with not enough money.

In addition, each man will have to budget in money for groceries each week.

Each man must remember the birthdays of all their friends and relatives, and send cards out on time.

Each man must also take each child to a doctor's appointment, a dentist appointment and a haircut appointment. He must make one unscheduled and inconvenient visit per child to the Urgent Care (weekend, evening, on a holiday or right when they're about to leave for vacation). He must also make cookies or cupcakes for a social function.

Each man will be responsible for decorating his own assigned house, planting flowers
outside and keeping it presentable at all times.

The men will only have access to television when the kids are asleep and all chores are done.

There is only one TV between them, and a remote with dead batteries.

Each father will be required to know all of the words to every stupid song that comes on TV and the name of each and every character on cartoons.

The men must shave their legs, wear makeup daily, which they will apply to themselves either while driving or making three lunches.

Each man will have to make an Indian hut model with six toothpicks, a tortilla and one marker; and get a 4 year old to eat a serving of peas.

Each man must adorn himself with jewelry, wear uncomfortable yet stylish shoes, keep their nails polished and eyebrows groomed. The men must try to get through each day without snot, spit-up or barf on their clothing.

During one of the six weeks, the men will have to endure severe abdominal cramps, back aches, and have extreme, unexplained mood swings but never once complain or slow down from other duties. They must try to explain what a tampon is for when the 6-yr old boy finds it in the purse.

They must attend weekly school meetings, church, and find time at least once to spend the afternoon at the park or a similar setting.

He will need to read a book and then pray with the children each night without falling asleep, and then feed them, dress them, brush their teeth and comb their hair each morning by 7:00. They must leave the home with no food on their face or clothes.

A test will be given at the end of the six weeks, and each father will be required to know all of the following information: each child's birthday, height, weight, shoe size, clothes size and doctor's name. Also the child's weight at birth, length, time of birth, and length of labor, each child's favorite color, middle name, favorite snack, favorite song, favorite drink, favorite toy, biggest fear and what they want to be when they grow up

They must clean up after their sick children at 2:00 a.m. and then spend the remainder of the day tending to that child and waiting on them hand and foot until they are better.

They must have a loving, age appropriate reply to, "You're not the boss of me."

The kids vote them off the island based on performance.
The last man wins only if...he still has enough energy to be intimate with his spouse at a moment's notice.

If the last man does win, he can play the game over and over and over again
for the next 18-25 years..."

--Anonymous

It's the weekend, I should post here. The problem is, I have been so busy with working in the glass studio and meeting my ever-mounting commitments that I haven't had much time for life outside of work. If I were still single and childless, there would be no need for this blog at all. I would literally eat, sleep, and work. But I am married and I do have a child and for the child, at least, just because Mommy is busy doesn't mean the pace of her life slows down.

Jessie is in Pre-K now. Her birthday is after September 1 so she did not get to move on with her original classmates, she was held back in the 3 year-old class. Now she is in the first official year of school here in Georgia--the year before kindergarten. She must be in class by 8:30 or she is tardy and Dave has to sign in for her at the office. If she is late more than once a week she can be asked to leave the program. If she misses school more than two days in a row she can be asked to leave the program. Do I really care if she is in the "program"? No. The only reason she is is that the pre-school she has been in for the past two years does the official Georgia thing at four instead of continuing private school.

Besides the... rigorous... approach to tardiness and attendance, there are other new rules to follow which relly have me questioning how much my life needs to be regulated by my government. Lunches, for example, are strictly controlled. We are required to bring a box lunch every other week for field trips. There may be no cookies, animal crackers or "treats" of any kind. No grapes unless they are cut, no sliced carrots. Juice must be 100% juice. You cannot water it down to cut the amount of sugar they get. There are more rules than this but all I have been able to get is a garbled list from her teachers (nothing written) and stories from other parents of inappropriate foods being taken away.

I did try to make logical sense of the rules. If they are not concerned about sugar in the juice, I asked, why can't they have sweet treats? The answer is two-part: they ARE concerened about the amount of sugar, and other kids might who don't have sweet treats would, I don't know, feel bad or something because they don't have a cookie. I replied, isn't that the way it is in life? Everyone is different and everyone has something different. Why would we try to project anything else? What really frosts me on this is that we don't do the cookies and cakes thing, I just want to be able to give her teddy grams for a dessert treat. DENIED.

Shoes are also an issue. They have always had this no-open-toed-shoes rule because they might get wood chips in their shoes on the playground. This year that was extended to no Crocs. Why? Because they slip off and provide no support and, well, because it says so in the handbook! No, it does not, I looked. But does that matter? No! Denied!

So that gets me through this year's petty little issues. Jessie is *four years old* and the school system is already a pain. Next year we have to pick a kindergarten. Easiest choice? The public school one block from our house (right around the corner). Never mind that she would be the only white child in the class. We moved to this neighborhood for diversity. I did NOT want her going to the all-white Laura Bush Elementary in Austin either. There we planned to send her to the Lycee Francais d'Austin and have her bilingually educated in French and English there. The closest thing to that here, The Atlanta International School, is neither geographically proximate nor financially realistic ($14K per year for ELEMENTARY school? I don't THINK so!).

We could petition to send her to the Decatur school system, and that would get her through third grade. Then they don't accept "tuition" students. We already pay Dekalb County AND city of Atlanta taxes To send her to Decatur we would have to petition AND pay almost as much as we would for a private school. So what to do?

.................

A month passes...

.................

I think we have found a solution! The Waldorf

Denied!

I am not going to take you there! And you know what I mean if you got here from a link in another post...

A Day Off!

I took today off, at least as completely as I have taken any day off in the past couple of months. I did put the lid for the box into the second kiln, but that hardly counts. I am completely obsessed with the fused boxes, but that is a post for Glass Incarnate (and not today).

We slept in until 8:08 this morning when Jessie stealthily came in and said "Hi!" loudly in Dave's face. I managed to overcome the shock and doze on till 8:30, but Dave was doomed and couldn't get back to sleep so he got up. When I finally stumbled down, I did my 15 minutes in the studio and was free for the day.

We all piled into the convertible, put the top down and cruised through the fine fall morning to the Radial Cafe for an al fresco breakfast. I wanted the special--French toast made from challah stuffed with cream cheese and fresh Bartlett pears smothered in maple syrup--but I just can't eat a big sweet for breakfast. So I had a bagel with lox, cream cheese and capers, J had chocolate chip pancakes, and D had the blueberry and walnut wholewheat pancakes. We shared a bowl of cheese and sausage grits--this is the south, after all. Our server had 15 earrings down his right ear, about 7 down his left, one in his nose and one in his lip. Jessie was completely fascinated and the time spent waiting for our food passed in checking out the piercings of the other patrons and servers in the restaurant. There were a lot to check out.

After breakfast it was back into the convertible and off to the Botanical Gardens for a stroll. We explored the woods thoroughly for the first time and enjoyed the bullfrogs, fish, tadpoles, butterflies, chipmunks and lizards in the children's garden. Jessie, who will not actually eat any vegetables, was very interested in the eggplant, gourds, tomatoes and peppers we passed along our route.

One corner of the children's garden has a little stone grotto with a stream and several little garden gnomes in it. In the back of the grotto is a little door. I am a bad parent. When J asked if the statues were real gnomes I said no, they were statues of the gnomes and the gnomes lived behind the door. Then we had to wait for several minutes while she called to them and tried fruitlessly to get them to come out.

J fell asleep in the car on the way home but woke a few minutes after I carried her up and put her to bed. Drat. Fortunately, she was still low-energy enough that we are all hanging peacefully on the sky chairs on the front porch. Tonight, chicken on the grill, rice and green beans, and the Legend of Zorro on NetFlix. What could be better?

Racing to the Red Light

Driving home last evening from getting pizza with Dave and J in Dave's car, I was in the mood for the Indigo Girls and put on "All That We Let In", a gentle poignant song from their last album. Halfway through J pipes up from her carseat in the back, "Daddy, put on Racing to the Red Light". It has replaced the Black Eyed Peas "Let's It Started" as her favorite song. So after "All That We Let In" finished, Dave put on James McMurtry's "Racing to the Red Light". Let me tell you, it is very disconcerting to hear your four almost five year-old singing along to this song (and she knows most of the lyrics):

Racing to the Red Light
by James McMurtry
(Listen)

I'll quit my job
and leave this place
Got a guitar in a machine gun case
I'll make no judgment,
I'll let it all pass
Looking at the world through bullet-proof glass
The access road backed-up to the ramp
They won't let you in and they don't give a damn

Racing to the red light
Momma says to get your face to the fire
Put the guitar down, put the clothes in the dryer
Put the guitar down, quit making it ring
A little bit of hope is a dangerous thing
A dangerous thing, well I shoulda known
Gotta quit doing it soon as I'm grown
Gotta get my hands back down in the dirt
If you liked what you're doing, it wouldn't be work
If you liked what you're doing, it wouldn't be good
Nobody else in the neighborhood's got that kinda money,
That kinda pride, and we're all pretty well satisfied

Racing to the red light
Racing to the red light

Two fifty worth of gas on pump number five
A lottery ticket and a Colt 45
Scratch it right off, cash it back in
Just give me five more somebody gotta win
Somebody gotta win, it happens all the time
Ending up spending your every last dime

Racing to the red light

I'll quit my job and leave this place
Gotta guitar in a machine gun case
If I play it just right I can live like a king
A little bit of hope is a dangerous thing
A little bit of hope, a dangerous mind
Cut your throat for your space in line

Racing to the red light

(Buy)

A Very Dark Post

I awoke this morning from dreams that my four year-old daughter had been kidnapped and abused--it goes without saying, but I will write it anyway: this was the worst nightmare I have ever had. The worst part of the dream was the aftermath. She was found after four months or so of being held. I was so happy and so relieved to get her back, but then I saw how much she had changed because of what had been done to her and how it would stay with her and taint the rest of her life, maybe ruin it. That knowledge crushed me.

I know that the dream was probably triggered by the recent reporting on JonBenet Ramsey and Natascha Kampusch, but it started me thinking about survivors of violence. How do you, how can you put your life back together after any kind of long-term systematic abuse? What do you become if you survive? Everyone deserves the opportunity to grow up and live without fear, without violence, and without pain. But how many people in the world actually live that reality? Spin a globe, put your finger down at random and see what you see. And that's only talking about physical threat. What about growing up in an environment of petty rules and restrictions with no freedom or potential. Do you stop dreaming after awhile? How long? How many places in the world is that situation the norm? Spin the globe again.

Der Struwwelpeter

When I was about 12 we helped some friends with spring round-up on their ranch. It was a really big ranch in the Big Hole Valley in Montana. I was over the moon because it meant I got to ride a horse all day and there was nothing I would rather do at that age. Round-up consisted of bringing all the cows and their young calves down to the ranch yard and checking over the calves, branding and vaccinating all of them, de-horning some or all (I don't remember which) and castrating most. My memory is vague on the details. I remember chutes and the throw-down of calves, but mostly what I remember is how very quick, methodical and efficient it was back on this ranch where all cattle were free-range (was there any other kind?).

That's mostly what I remember until lunch anyway. We were in the ranch house and I found a copy of a very old children's book. I don't know if it was a modern re-print or an original edition from the 19th century--either would have been reasonable in the setting. I don't recall all the stories--even shock-headed or slovenly Peter, the one the book was named for--and I couldn't say whether it was in the original German or if it was the English translation by Mark Twain. What was etched permanently and vividly in one little corner of my brain, however, was the picture of the little boy getting his thumbs cut of by the scissor-man because he sucked them. I hadn't even been a thumb-sucker and I was traumatized.

On and off over the years I have thought of this story, and though I don't know what made me think of it this time (yesterday), I obsessed on it enough that I went to the Internet. In my search I found the complete text and pictures, several printed versions of the complete stories from early 20th century editions to current paperbacks (I purchased one with the original German version and the English translation and the original illustrations). I also found biographies of the author, essays on the cultural context of the writing of the stories, comparisons to other children's literature of the time, and lists of other works supposedly influenced by these stories including Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Edward Scissorhands.

The unfolding of these events brings home to me again how much life has changed because of the Internet. Sure, we say everything is now at our fingertips, but how much are we able to step out of our daily context with that knowledge and really see the impact that that access has on what we do (how quickly we do it) and how we think? I remember again the old set of Encyclopedia Britannica we had in the basement when I was growing up and how its contents defined my immediate access to knowledge. Less immediate but more complete was the library.

The library was a relatively complete but very slow gateway to learning. First you would go to the card catalog and search on subjects. For items that looked promising, you would write down all of the necessary information on a small slip of paper with the stubby pencil provided. Then you would go to the stacks or to the librarian and gather together all the books and periodicals which contained the references to the subject you were researching and you would go through those books and periodicals to find the references. Sometimes those materials would reference other works that might be interesting and you would have to go back to the card catalog or the librarian to see if the library had those works. If it did not and you wanted them badly enough, you might be able to request an interlibrary loan and wait a few days or weeks to get them.

Gathering information and learning used to require patience and a lot of effort. Now the amount that I can find to cram into my brain and cycle through it is limitless and immediate. And I don't even scratch the surface of what is available on the Internet. I don't think even Bruce Sterling gets more than a micron deep into the surface of what is available and he is a far more sophisticated surfer than I am. Next time one of the networks decides to do another reality show they should make one called Lost in (cyber)Space. That would be a far more interesting reality than Survivor or the Apprentice.

Quote of the Day... part deux

Me: I'm gong to Chicago in early December
J: I want to go with you. But I hope I don't get any boo boos while I am there.
Me: Why not?
J: Because Gramma Mary K pulls them off.
Me: Pulls off the boo boos?
J: Yep. Uh no, pulls off the bandaids (severe ripping motion) and I cried and cried, and I had to scream!

Quote of the Day

Me to J: What are you doing?
J: I am making a paper gun.
Me: Why are you making a paper gun?
J: I like guns. I like to shoot people so they can play zombies with me like Shaun of the Dead.

A King-Sized Bed

I had every intention of writing this when I got up this morning full of love, well-being and exhaustion, but the day got away from me and I was almost completely derailed by someone swiping my coffee and the purple stapler we were getting for Jessie at Target after breakfast (they were in the cart and someone took off with the cart. How rude!). If it had not been for a lovely laid-back lunch at Osteria and the prospect of more lazing and a nap this afternoon, I might have lost all inspiration.

The entire family went to their respective beds early last night, and I slept hard until sometime after 2:00 am when I was woken by the rattle of the Tums bottle in the bathroom. I turned and found J cuddled up on my right side. When she came into our bed was a complete mystery as we had both slept through it--maybe she had too. Upon coming back into the bedroom Dave asked if he should spatula her back into her bed. I said no, she was fine for awhile.

So he climbed back into bed on the other side, and soon I drowsed to a symphony of soft rustlings and snorings. The rest of the night I didn't sleep well, but I slept happily. I had my own bout of heartburn necessitating a trip to the Tums bottle, and I finally did break down and ask Dave to spatula J about 4:30. It didn't take though--she was back in with us within the half hour and this time I just let her stay.

Sleeping sandwiched between two very warm bodies is not conducive to restful sleep in the hot summer. Nor are the occasional blows to eyes and nose from outflung little hands and elbows. But though the sleep was not restful, it was peaceful. About 3:30 I started to have an anxiety attack about one thing or another and I just clamped firmly down on it and said not here, not now. I will think about that issue in the morning, and if I feel it is a problem, I will deal with it then. And that was that.

The peacefulness came from the decision that I didn't Have to get to sleep as the morning would bring Sunday and I could sleep in if I were so inclined--or I could even nap in the afternoon. I could just enjoy being close to my family. So I reveled in the cuddling from the left alternating with the cuddling from the right. Only once did I end up squished with a big arm around my waist and a little arm around my neck at the same time. It was so good to get such a long reminder of the really important things in life. Some people may say TGIF, but not me. I am all about TGIS.

What I Did On My Summer Vacation

There is a good reason why there are songs about Chicago. The weather may suck dead slugs through a straw, but it is an incredibly vibrant and beautiful city the first of June. I was up for a show at the Prairie Arts Festival over Memorial Day and instead of driving right home, I stayed for a little vacation.

Dave flew up a couple of days after the show (Jessie drove up with me) and we stayed with his parents in Montgomery. A couple of days we lounged and relaxed (reconfiguring a home network and networking computers counts as that for me) but two other days we played tourist. The first day Dave and I took the train in, had lunch at Frontera Grill and then met up with the rest of the family at the Shedd Aquarium to see the Lizards. (Lizards ate my spouse!).

After seeing the dolphins, lizards, sea otters, beluga whales and (nesting/courting) penguins we took the free trolley to the Art Institute (didn't go in this time) and then headed for Millenium Park just north of Grant Park and the AI to see the art and gardens.

I will say one thing for Mayor Daley 2, the city is really coming alive under his tenure. The following pictures are of the sculpture affectionately called "The Bean" by the locals (it's really the Kapoor sculpture), Crown fountain and Lurie garden. It is impossible to capture the size and feeling of the Pritzker Pavillion so I am just linking to the official site for it. The official Millenium Park site is also worth a look.. We finished the day with dinner in Greek town at the Greek Isles before driving home with the parents.


The next day we again took the train in, but this time we went early in the morning and checked into the Westin hotel on Dearborn just north of the river. For Chicagophiles this used to be the Nikko Hotel... very nice. It was till pretty nice, and purchased on priceline.com, could not be beat. After getting settled we took a taxi to Watertower place on north Michigan Ave. and shopped our way back to the hotel. After a quick lunch we cabbed it to the Field Museum for our reserved tickets to the new King Tut exhibit. Very disappointing. If you were alive, sentient and saw it in '77, don't bother. If you weren't, get a good book.

After a nap, dinner was back at Frontera with Stuart & Andrea. We ate continentally (dinner after 9:00) and tumbled into bed like a pile of kittens (for the prurient, just Dave and I) to sleep until riding to catch the train back to the parents.

Sunday morning we packed up and headed for Nashville. Monday morning at 7:30 in Nashville we picked up the Odyssey and its shiny new transmission and coasted on home

Update on the DOGS

First a quick update on the dogs (from yesterday's Glass Incarnate): The landlady for Alvin and Belinda called Belinda yesterday and Belinda insisted Alvin was coming over daily and feeding and watering the dogs. Bullshit. When they had no water at 9:30 am for the rest of the day and it was in the high 80's yesterday... Sadly she gave them the heads up there was a problem and they came late last night and cleared out a bunch more stuff (looks like cabinets torn out and on the curb this morning) and took the dogs. I was really hoping they would get adopted and go to a better home.

The female pit bull was still chained up as of early this morning, but she is not out in the yard now. I am going to keep an eye out and if they try to chain her up again I will call again. I lucked out and the complaint from yesterday was not filed in my name so I do not have to worry about repercussions. When we were walking into A & B's backyard I pointed out the pit over the fence to the animal control person and since she was able to see it from there, she filed the complaint herself. Of course when they think it's safe and chain the dog up again I will have to call in my name... but one bridge at a time.

In the middle of yesterday's dog excitement the neighbor on the other side told me that he saw a rat ran under the fence into his yard from the neighbor on his other side. This is another yard with four dogs chained/caged 24/7. The people who live there own the house and have lived there for about 40 years. I talked to them about the barking when we first moved in, and they were receptive but really didn't do anything. Other long-time neighbors told me that many people have complained over time about the yard (it is full of trash, junk cars, rickety sheds... you get the picture) and dogs (chained and caged) but nothing ever comes of it. That might be about to change as my neighbor was quite distressed about the rat and is also bothered by the garbage smell, the barking and the flies emanating from the yard. This being Georgia in the middle of a lush early summer, the verdure obscures the trash. But you can still see a bit of junk truck, trash, shed and one of the many kennels in the yard through the trees.

The times they are a changing. Next (after the vacation news): pics of the new screened-in porch (just in time for West Nile season!).

Life

I really should be waking my child and getting her to school, but we are both suffering little sniffly colds so I am going to let her sleep just a little while more. She has plenty of time ahead of her where she will have to wake for someone else's schedule. (I can't stop thinking of Jodi setting five alarms to get her up every work morning Yeee!)

So, today's topic is Real Life... Somehow not what I expected. No matter what you do, you do it the same as you do everything else. There is no magic state of differentness--eventually it's all the same. Wherever you go, there you are. How odd. No wonder the existentialists were such a grumpy bunch.

I have spent my entire life waiting to get There and do... Something. Well I am Here, I am doing what I want--cubicles, mandated traveling for my job, and somebody else's rules are a thing of the past--and it is the same, I am the same, as before. With few exceptions, I am just as happy/unhappy as I have been my entire life. There has been no magical transformation or noticeable ascension to a higher state. And I expected one. I think a lot of people do.

We think "I would be happy if I could have/be X". What a crock. (For me the last one is "thin") We get X and nothing changes. The young girls who yearn to be married and have babies as the solution to their dissatisfaction with life are not going to be happier if they get what they wish for. They carry their unhappiness along with them and wonder what went wrong. Intellectually I know that, and yet I have still been waiting for a major life change of my own for the past 30 years. I have been waiting to do something, get something, and suddenly be a different person, a happier person, a less stressed person. Hah. That's not to say I am not a different person, I am. There were just no chutes and ladders in the process of getting here: It's taken 30 years of incremental change, change so slow it can only be seen by looking back at my attitudes, beliefs and actions in times before.

So what's the point? The point is that, unless we are in the middle of a really shitty life patch dealing with divorce, death, a really crappy job or relationship, etc., right now it's as good as it gets: We are no less happy than we will ever be. When we achieve our goals there will be a momentary spike of euphoria and then we will go right on being fundamentally the same us we are right now.

Is that a bummer? No, it's actually liberating. It's permission to stop waiting for something better and to live in and be happy in the now.

Would it be better not to have goals? After all, if we are going to feel the same, what's the point? I think the solution is not make shortcuts to our goals a goal. There really is something to be said for being comfortable with the passage of time and enjoying the journey.

As I write this I wonder how many cliches I will eventually cram into it, and right behind that thought comes this one: They are cliches because people repeat them to death. People repeat them to death because they believe them. Maybe they knew something all along that I am just now coming around to. Here's one more to savor:

Life is what you make it.

Baxter

Better late than never, I announce the addition of a new family member: Baxter!

He is an approximately four year-old cocker spaniel rescue who joined the family officially last Thursday. Bad habits include sock and toy chewing, but they are well compensated for by his quiet affection, ferocious protection, and tidy 23 lb package (he weighs less than Jessie does, Huzzah!)

Baxter came to us via our new deerhound groomer. We were considering adopting him when we lost Splinter and that put all plans on hold for grief. But Baxter needed a good home, and adopting him just felt right. The only one not thrilled is the cat--sorry Loiosh. I know you are the first and eldest, but you really need to be a bit more flexible. So welcome Baxter!

The Joys of Technology!

I come back to Stranded in the South, and not to rant! I meant to write a lot more about the social ills which plague me, but evidently I purged the plague with Caitlyn and have no more bile right now for The Compact. Instead, today I celebrate!

First news, there is a new iMac in our house. Dave found the Delicious Library last week and that was the straw that tipped over the camel. He took the bluetooth scanner to work today to scan in all of his computer books. When we have the book, cd and dvd collections all scanned, we can sync them to our iPods and never leave home without a complete list of everything we have (no more standing in Best Buy going "Do we have this on dvd?"). More importantly, if we ever need the list for insurance purposes it will be up to date. And it has a built-in lending function!

The iMac makes me feel like I've hopped into the century of the fruitbat in a big way. The first clue that Kansas had gone bye-bye was at the Apple store when the salesman said "Here is the 17" and here is the 20"." And when I said "Nice monitors, where are the computers?", he replied, "These *are* the computers" and proceeded to show me the USB and firewire ports on the back and the cd/dvd drives in the sides of the sleek, flat monitors. Everything came in one little box.

Other tech which makes the headlines this morning is our friend Jonathan's Guitar Hero for the PS2. The pics are of Jessie learning to play, but we all took turns at it and I can see where it would become addictive. On the way home Dave told me about a similar game called Dance, Dance Revolution (I know, where have I been?) and it may be the ultimate answer to the, hrm, weight issue... We'll see.

Tomorrow's news: Baxter!

Part 1 of the Tirade: Caitlin

Yesterday I spent a not-quite-committed-to afternoon off catching up on current happenings in my little North American corner of the world. Most of the current socio-political cultural news I get is from my friend Lize who is very well-educated, passionate, literate and liberal, and who writes Prematurely Grey. The hot topics there which I followed off into other corners of the Internet included the latest in the Mommy Wars (enter Caitlin Flanagan) and and introduction to the Compact.

I was also sucked in by the mainstream media reportage of the "silent birth" of the Holmes-Cruise baby and it drove me to read more about Scientology to find out (better late than never) what all the fuss is about. I could go off on a rant and a tangent here about Tom Cruise and the really stupid, damaging things he has said, but this post is about Caitlin Flanagan and her damaging stupidity. Tom will get his turn later. I will just say now that I am glad I am not Katie Holmes' mother as I do not think I could have smiled and kept silent as I watched my daughter skip off blithely down the path of self destruction with him.

It is not surprising that Caitlin , the justly reviled author of "To Hell with All That: Loving and Loathing Our Inner Housewife", would show up multiple times on Prematurely Grey, nor that her opinions would send Lize into an outraged spin. I admit to being bothered more by her success peddling her shtick than in the outrageousness of the shtick itself. There will always exist people who spout seductive and destructive philosophy which is grabbed as a life-line by those casting about for validation and well-defined answers. And certain adaptations of said philosophy could actually improve some people's lives. That's what religion is all about, after all. And I completely respect another person's right to his own beliefs. What I absolutely, positively cannot abide is a hypocrite. And a rich, smug, self-righteous hypocrite with every purchased support system in the world is the worst of all.

As I write this entry, I find myself getting all riled up by the same things that outrage every other thinking, educated, liberal woman who is exposed to Caitlin's views. I start to write about how her ideas are just wrong... but that's not the point. The focus must be on why she should be dismissed out of hand--and it's not about her views and whether or not I agree with them, it's about the money and the mouth. She has plenty of both, but they are not co-located. It's also about the scalabilty of her "solution" and its lack of personal relevance to most women in this country--let alone the world. Finally, to think that being a better mother--or anything else--can be determined by one factor and works the same for everyone is insanely naive.

How can one even think of giving the time of day to a woman who--while ardently preaching that women should stay at home and take care of their children, their men and their hearths--by her own admission does not cook, does not clean, was not the primary caregiver for her children before they went to pre-school, and who has a very active professional career that she runs "from home" with the help of a personal organizer? She doesn't even have the honesty to confess "Do as I say, not as I do". Instead she holds herself up to be a better mother and wife because she is home at roughly the same time her children are and sees it as her duty to give her husband regular blow jobs.

And just who is her target audience? In this country where personal wealth is measured by the ability to buy things and hired staff is a luxury of only the truly rich, her lifestyle is so alien to most of us that I can't even begin to see how it could possibly scale to the real world. When she writes about mothers staying home or not and she refers to women of her acquaintence, she is referencing the top 1% or the top .5% of the economic tier in this country. While some of us get someone in to clean the house every couple of weeks (and consider ourselves fortunate) they have housekeepers, cooks, personal assistants, personal organizers, personal trainers, nannies, gardeners, etc. The experiences, deprivations and benefits of growing up in that kind of environment cannot be boiled down to does Mommy work outside the home or not. Mommy may very well stay at home with the children--while serving on several charitable boards and participating in other philanthropic activities. Don't let's kid ourselves; it's no less work and she's no more available.

Finally, I have to say what bothers me most about people taking Caitlin seriously (and they must as she wrote/writes for the Atlantic monthly and the New Yorker) is that her views show a fundamental lack of understanding of the complexity of human life and human relationships. There is no one solution that works for everyone. To sniff and call a woman a worker bee because the woman says "she has to work" when she might very well mean she wants to work shows a clear lack of understanding of the differences between individuals. Just because Caitlin has no drive does not mean that no one else does either. How obvious does it have to be that we are more able to enrich the lives of those around us--including our children--if we are happy? If someone is not happy because she is doing what she is 'supposed to do' rather than what she wants/is driven to do, how pleasant is she to be around and how good a caregiver is she?

One last question, where is Caitlin's husband in all of this besides providing her a meal ticket and getting regularly serviced? If I were a man reading her columns/book, I would be outraged at the diminished place I was given in today's family. My husband is a supreme caregiver and we equally share the roles and responsibilities of life management, householding and childraising. And we don't have sex because it's my duty--we do it because it's fun.

Caitlin, the Compact, Censorship and Shaping Things

Coming Soon. This one takes more than stream of consciousness.

Night Terrors

What is it about the middle of the night that makes everything you think and feel more intense? Writing this entry is the last thing I do now before getting ready for bed. And I hope with every exhausted cell in my body that tonight--for the first night in four--I do not wake at three, four or five a.m. victim of an attack of anxiety, remorse, guilt or depression.

When I wake in the night, whatever I think of is so much more intense than it is in the daylight. It seems that anything I fear is bound to come true. And I tell myself that it really isn't so--I am overreacting. I rationalize. I focus on releasing my muscles one at a time. I breathe. I think Happy Thoughts. I try so hard to relax... and I can't let go of whatever woke me.

I wake, more often than not, heart pounding. And lately I immediately panic because I am awake at the dreaded hour and I fulfill my own prophecy that I will not get back to sleep before the birds begin their sleepy song and light tinges the sky around six-something a.m.

Last night I lay and listened to Dave breathing and to his little night rustlings for over an hour. I felt so alone and disconnected. I fretted about everything, and cried about not getting Splinter to the vet in time. Finally I slid over across the great expanse which is our kingsize bed, I put my arm across Dave's chest and my nose against his shoulder. And I felt everything let go. I eased back to sleep. Maybe if I can hold tight to how I felt right then, I can keep whatever might come to hound me tonight at bay, and I won't wake till it's time to get up and get the Sprout to school.

In Memorium

Splinter

March, 2001-April 14, 2006

He was The Perfect Ferret:
Inexaustibly Playful, Inately Gentle, Infinitely Tolerant, Insatiably Curious
Taken too quickly and too young.
We will miss him,
and lay him to sleep
under the weeping willow
in the backyard.

Sleepless in Atlanta

In order to post here I need to launch a browser. My homepage for Firefox is CNN.com. Some days I wonder what I am doing writing little bits about a little life in the midst of uranium enrichment by Iran, the playing of the tape of the last moments of flight 93, the loss of the glaciers in Glacier National Park and the virtual extinction of the polar bear in my lifetime. Of course these headlines share space with reports that Madonna and Guy Ritchie's marriage is on the mend so I can console myself that I am not the only one to write inanities. At least we appear to be done with Jessica Simpson and Nick Whatsits--and Brittany and (is it?) Kevin.

After the second night in a row of almost no sleep I am in a definitely pensive mood this morning. Last night Seraph (deerhound #2) decided she had to go out at 2:30 am. I had already let her out at 10:30 so I was a bit cranky at being woken up. The neighbor's dogs also had a sleepless night and barked on and off for several hours. I couldn't let Seraph out into the yard for the night as the contractors were due at 6:30 this morning and I did not want to have to get up again to let her in. So I ignored her as long as I could and then I put her on the back deck. That worked for about an hour and then she decided she just had to go down into the yard. So I got up, got decent, went out into the front yard and wrangled the gates closed so I could put her out there.

Then Jessie woke up from a nightmare about dinosaurs eating other animals eggs and I spent some time listening first to her nightmare and then to her preferences of dinosaurs. At first she liked the tyrannosaurus rex best--large meat-eater, but when I told her about the speed and cunning of the little meat-eater--the veloceraptor--she decided those were her favorites. She went back to sleep to dream of hunting prey in the verdant jungle.

Other parents look down their noses at us for letting her watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer. But The March the Penguins caused a week of nightmares from the leopard seal eating the mother penguin. XXX, Blade, Buffy, Alien vs. Predator, Sean of the Dead (her current favorite movie--it's about zombies in London) elicit no such response; she sleeps like a baby after them. "Kid appropriate" movies. Huh.

I just got back from PetCo where I bought a doggie door for the new shed. The builders are going to put it in for free for me as they had to give me a 3" smaller door than was specified due to the window placement. I am thrilled. Seraph had better watch it or she may find herself relocated to the back yard permanently.