Anything Said: May 2007

Monday, May 28, 2007

Enjoy your barbecue. No, seriously, I mean it.

Meh. It's Memorial Day. The husband is working, as usual, and I am at home mired in dirty diapers and teething and nap refusal, feeling very cooped up and Kept and pathetically sorry for myself. So sue me.

On Thursday I am leaving for New York City, to attend a conference on behalf of my library. I'm staying with Laurie and arriving a whole day early so that we can frolic in the city and eat pizza and do other non-diaper-related things. On Friday, I get to meet Lizzy for drinks, and then Laurie and I are going to get our geek on at Grey Gardens. And all weekend I get to walk around the conference center meeting authors and avoiding other librarians and collecting free tote bags and stalking Stephen Colbert. To say I am in desperate need of a good time is to tragically understate.

Complicating the whole affair is the fact that I am terrified of leaving Cletus the Former Fetus for four whole days. An annoying twist, I know. It's not that I'm afraid she won't be taken care of; my mother-in-law is coming to stay with my husband for the entire time that I'm gone. Without my sedentary influence to temper their collective enthusiasm, Cletus will probably be fully outfitted in baby REI gear, eating GORP and kayaking across Lake Michigan by the time I get home. She'll be minded and loved enough for 40 babies. It's just hard to imagine missing four whole days of her life. And, while unlikely, what if something were to happen to her while I was gone? What if she fell and hurt herself and I wasn't there to comfort her because I was busy standing in line for Tim Gunn's autograph?

There's really no "break" from parenthood, is there? Even when you flee the progeny, you're still bound to the obsession you have for your kid by some kind of invisible chain.

I promise a full report, including famous people sightings and Snippets of the Overheard Conversations of Librarians Trying to Be Social Creatures, when I return.

Friday, May 25, 2007

It'll freeze that way

Happy long weekend, suckers.

p.s. Does anyone know why my baby monitor will pick up the cries of every other neighborhood baby except for my own?

Sunday, May 20, 2007

Sunday night fever

Sorry I've been turning into a once-a-week blogger. I'm, like, the person in your book club who always bring a 2-liter of old soda from her fridge or a bag of Tostitos to the monthly get-together every single time, even though she totally eats two helpings of everyone else's homemade baked goods. It feels lame, but it kind of fits right now.

So this weekend the husband and I went downtown to see Wicked. Have I told you what a back-of-the-cafeteria geek I am for musical theater? I wish my life was set to song and spontaneous dance. When I was in junior high school, I spent my evenings listening to the Phantom of the Opera soundtrack on cassette while desperately trying to curl my bangs in front of the mirror. In high school, I rocked a drama-nerd lifestyle. I was a singing and dancing nurse in my school's production of South Pacific. There were, like, nine of us, and we each got one line, and we had to group sing "I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Out of My Hair," and we had to use fake tanning lotion to turn our skin brown, except that I didn't know how to use the shit and I didn't wear gloves while applying it and ended up playing the role of Special Nurse With Orange Hands. Then when I was a junior I was in Godspell. My GBFWWIWTILETHWOFID (Gay Best Friend With Whom I Was Totally In Love Even Though He Was Obviously Fully Into Dudes) played the role of Jesus; he was overweight and wore a costume that consisted of a purple sweatsuit and white tails. The play was all 1970s counterculture and biblical in an oddly inoffensive way, and we cried a lot in rehearsal and thought we were doing something Very Important. And then my senior year we did The Secret Garden. I played Martha the Scullery Maid, and because the director was a first-rate hardcore psycho that meant I had to cut my hair and take Cockney lessons. For reals. I was also totally in swing choir for two years, but that's a blog entry for another, darker day.

Anyway, my point is: we went to see Wicked and it was like fifty kinds of geeked-out Awesome.

Can I tell you how hard it is to focus when your husband is in the other room watching Office Space and you feel some kind of gravitational pull sucking you towards the television, even though you already know pretty much every line including the ones in the soundtrack songs?

Here's something new: we're up and moving. At the end of next month. We're fleeing the mice and the perma-leak and the nonexistent parking and running in the direction of a big old Victorian about five minutes away. We're renting the first floor, and it's out of our price range and potentially awesome/slash/potentially full of crazy old house headaches. It's around the corner from the vet and the playground and the farmer's market (it's a big corner) and has got a big front porch with a sweet swing, a fenced-in backyard, an on-site parking spot of our very own (this is key!), and these wacked-out sliding oak pocket doors the likes of which I have never seen. I don't know. I'm optimistic, but I'm a girl who's had her heart broken by one too many apartments. We shall see.

And that is all. My new Bust magazine came in the mail yesterday and I need to go make out with it. Hey, does anybody else miss Sassy magazine?

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

I only bark the truth

Whaddup, bitches! Frodo the Pug is in the hizzouse.

Yeah, that's right. Remember me? The firstborn? It's been awhile since I guest-blogged at y'all, but I'm backity-back, large and in charge. No seriously, I'm totally large, as in I went to the vet last weekend and she was all "You're fat," and I was all "I know, dude, I'm totally neglected; I used to get walks and now my people just throw treats at my crate," and the vet was all "No treats for you!" and I was all "Jigga-woof?"

Things have really changed around here since She Who Shall Not Be Named showed up. Last year around this time, I was rocking three neighborhood strolls a day and hitting pug parties on the weekends. Now all I hear is "No Frodo!" and "Frodo, that's the baby's toy!" and "Frodo, why must you burrow into my crotch right now?" (Answer: because I've got a nap scheduled from 1-4, followed by 30 minutes of eating hairballs and begging for scraps, so now is the perfect window for burrowing, OBVIOUSLY.) I don't hear you telling that baby no when she grabs my tail, or crawls across the room to steal my Nylabone keys, or tries to slap stickers all over my fur.

All I'm saying is this: I'm trying real hard here. I make nicey-nice at every possible opportunity. I swallow my pride. I lick the baby's face. I don't gnaw off her fat little fingers when she sticks them in my eyes. And dudes, I am TOTALLY chill when, after I spend a half-hour of my valuable time sitting at attention beneath her high chair like a damn fool, all "alms for the poor, might i have a crust of bread sir," she doesn't even throw me a single solitary mother-loving sweet potato puff for the love of God would it be so hard for you to spare just one?

It's looking more and more like this baby's sticking around for the long-haul, and even though I was not consulted AT ALL on this decision, I'm prepared to deal with it on the following terms: 1.) I want people food, specifically cheese and noodles, delivered twice a day to my bowl with no questions asked. 2.) Stop calling me fat! It's rude and insensitive and misogynistic. Plus, it's not like you all are the picture of fitness, not naming any names here MOM. It's not baby weight if you eat a box of molasses Archways -- oh shit. Was that out loud?? And 3.) I'm not sharing my toys unless she shares hers.

I'm hot 'cause I'm fly, you ain't' 'cause you not --

Woof, Frodo

Tuesday, May 08, 2007

Grouchier than you

This week, I am officially over the following:

1. My workplace. Last week we had a mandatory staff inservice that featured A) big paper, in association with group sharing; B) chair yoga; and C) a keynote presentation on "customer service" delivered by a guy who owns a grocery store, which may not have been so offensive if, oh I don't know, I worked in a grocery store.

2. The random alumni listserv I was somehow recently subscribed to by my alma matter without my knowledge or permission. Every day for the past week or so my inbox has been flooded with messages from "Doug, Class of '65" and "Ed, Class of '72" and "Blah, Class of Mehhh". They want to meet for lunch downtown. They want to start an alumni health plan. They want to do group service projects. I love my college -- I met my husband there, and the friends who are my family now -- but guess what? I no longer attend.

3. "24". Jack Bauer, we're breaking up. I cancelled my tivo season pass. I fall asleep every time I even think of watching an episode.

4. The mommy war, in general but also particularly as it is played out in the writings of mom-bloggers. If I have to read one more offhanded description of day-care as "leaving my baby with strangers" I think I might, I don't know, leave my baby with strangers. You and I both know it's not that simplistic. Parents who choose daycare don't leave their babies with strangers any more than parents who take their toddlers to preschool -- daycare, if it's done right, means putting your child in the care of a skilled and caring professional who you have interviewed, observed, spent time with, obsessed over, and who you trust. It's complicated and bittersweet and I don't know a single working parent who hasn't labored over the decision.

Most of the moms I know are of the stay-at-home variety. I don't feel any guilt about my decision to work (I reserve the guilt for pretty much every other aspect of my questionable parenting skills), but sometimes, and I'm just being honest here, I wish that some of the energy I spend validating the choices of stay-at-home moms could boomerang back in the form of honoring the difficulties of the working mom's balancing act.

And really, here is where I start to get pissed, because now I'm playing into the dichotomy when what I want to do is refuse to participate. This idea that there are two kinds of moms, those who work and those who don't, is absurd and offensive and a FICTION. What there really are are parents, moms and dads, and this idea that there is some Rite Of Passage Choice that all moms must face while dads sit on their thumbs is a made-up notion that I would like to rock hard enough to escape from. It pits women against each other; it creates an us vs. them mentality where we all sit around and secretly judge each other and I hate it. I just hate it.

5. My post-pregnancy stomach, which won't go away even though I stick steadfastly to my chocolate and carbs and chocolate carbs diet and work out at least once a year.

Wednesday, May 02, 2007

Hair apparent

Bon Jovi night on American Idol -- was that, like, a gift to me from a suddenly nurturing universe?

So, Cletus the Former Fetus's hair is getting out of control. She is starting to look a bit like a dirty hippie. Observe:

Anyone who knows me know that I lack the Girl Gene, that biological code that bestows the ability to style hair and apply mascara and care about shoes. My own hair is supershort; I did grow it out long for my wedding some years back, but kept it constantly shellacked into a rock-hard ponytail simply because I had no idea what else to do with it. The best -- really, the only -- thing I've been able to do for Cletus is to brush all of her thin, wavy hair to one side in a little baby-comb-over, then clip it together with a barrette. A barrette, might I add, that I didn't even know enough to buy; Cletus' aunt brought over a package of them one day and placed them in my hand, silently but pointedly looking in Cletus' direction, all "no judgement, no judgement, BUT..."

At my moms' group gathering yesterday, it seemed like all of the other baby girls there were sporting teeny little hairdos: side ponytails, colorful bows and headbands, even mini-braids. Now, I'm not saying that I necessarily want to start obsessing over my kid's hair, nor do I want to instill in her the idea that my approval of her is in any way tied to her appearance. She'll get enough of that from the torture chamber that is The Eighth Grade. But what happens when she's two, and she wants me to make her hair look pretty? What is a style-impaired mom to do?

There should be some kind of seminar: Basic Life Skills You May Have Missed, a refresher course for moms with daughters. It could cover things like: Moisturizer -- What Is It and Where Do I Apply? (Seriously, I don't use any, and my skin is apparently going to crack like an eggshell and peel away.) Basic Science For Liberal Arts College Grads Whose Classes Were All Called Things Like "Gender and Tourism". (Because what do I do when toddler Cletus asks me how trees grow leaves, or what keeps the stars in the sky? So help me I will NOT tell her to ask her father, even if he is a fucking biologist.) And the capstone session: Those Bitches Who Can Put Their Hair In a Bun Using Only A Pencil Without Looking In a Mirror, And Why We Hate Them.

I'm not that worried about teaching Cletus about sex and relationships and all that -- that stuff, I at least feel qualified to handle. Or at least I will, when she's 35 and at an appropriate age to discuss it. But come the day when she wants to try on lipstick, or have her hair french-braided? I got nothin.

What do you think: should I get the hair cut, or just learn to operate a headband?