Archive for the 'Daily Living' Category
354 Days
That’s how long I have until the terrible twos are officially over. Pray that they end sooner than that because, I really don’t know if we’ll make it.
I did have some relief yesterday after our horrifying excursion to the Green Hills Mall. My mom is visiting and she likes to shop. A lot. For those of you non-Nashvillians, let me just sum up the Green Hills Mall by saying it is the complete antithesis of Wal-Mart and has the exact adverse reaction on me. The sheer smell of the wealthy, botox injected freaks makes me undeniably nervous and grumpy. Some days I can enjoy it for all that it is and isn’t – some days I am mature enough to consider it all as good material for the art that I will one day make again. Yesterday, though, was not one of those days. Apparently, it was Uberbitch day and my two year old was not welcomed. Nor was I for that matter, but I have gotten used to that – I don’t look the green hills mall part and I’m pretty sure I hadn’t washed my hair that day.. A big no no. It was just a ridiculously awful day and I wasn’t in the mood for anything even remotely challenging.
So, anyway, my relief came when we arrived home and my mom pulled out The Little Mermaid that she had bought my daughter the night before at Target (did I mention that she like to shop?). Much to my chagrin (I have a thing with the Disney princesses.. I’d kick all of their whiney, drippy, overly accentuated asses if only given the chance) – my daughter was thrilled. But it didn’t last long.. no no no.. It didn’t last long. Within ten minutes she was begging (begging!) me to take it off saying “hate mrrrmaid.. hate mrrrmaid!”. I still can’t figure out what upset her about it, but all she had to do was ask once. My grin was ear to ear the rest of the night. Of course, my mom was miffed. She can’t understand why I can’t just let the kids have all the candy and television/movies that they want. She thinks I am slighting them because I want them to think a little higher up the food chain than I was taught to. Poo, I say. She hates Ariel, all on her own! I had nothing to do with that. Of course, she writes it off to early brainwashing – basically, I may as well have removed her uterus as far as my mom is concerned. GASP! What kind of girl doesn’t adore the Disney Princesses? Mine. mine mine mine….
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Why I Love Nashville..
Picture it: A beautiful, bright sunny Wednesday morning.. I’m driving my two year old down Broadway… We pass the usual Jeff Foxworthy posters for CMT – they used to bug me, now I just consider them part of the skyline and respect them for their kistch value.. It was too early for the usually entertaining ten gallon har wearing tourists – I would be a liar if I said that it doesn’t make my day, my WEEK, when I see foreigners (will I get in trouble if I admit it’s only the Asians tourists that make me jump with glee) who have gone and bought the buy-one-get-two-free boots at Boot Corral, aforementioned ten gallon hat and chaps and are proudly practicing their John Wayne strut down the steet…. We drive past Tooties and toward the river – at this time of day, things seem… neat. And, admittedly, any time of the day I really can say I get a hoot out of the “theme” of this city.
So, this morning, I see something that has made Nashville quite possibly the freakin coolest place on the face of the Earth in my book. Two men – both about forty of fifty years old each wearing long trench coats, chaps, boots with spurs (with SPURS!!), black cowboy hats and – here’s the clincher- they were SERIOUS about it.. These guys looked like they were right off the set of the The Good, The Bad and The Ugly… I actually snorted a giddy ”yes!” as I drove by and entertained the idea of circling the block just to see them again.. Seriously, it made my entire day. Where else can you see grown men dressed up like my son used to when he was four – it’s beautiful if you think about it, without laughing, for a minute.. Men getting to play dress up again and a whole city that doesn’t even blink an eye over it…. ooooooooh I love this city. Now if there were only a place where we ladies could walk down the street dressed like Liza Minelli in Caberet.. Who says there’s equality in this world?
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Here We Go Again…
So, those of you on the edge of your seat wondering when and if we are going to finally get a TV – your time has come! But we are entirely hiding it from the kids. Does this make me a bad person? Really, it is all Lost‘s fault. I’m grotesquely obssessed unlike any other series since The Monkees. It’s no joke.
This weeked I will venture out to Circuit City and other places of fine technological gadgetry and purchase a TV. Then I will venture out to various furniture shops and antique shops to purchase a peice of furniture that will cleverly disguise my initial purchase from earlier that day. The cable man should be here sometime around noonish on Tuesday so that I can be set to go Wednesday night, 8pm. I don’t know that I have looked forward to anything so much in quite sometime.
Thus ends the life long debate – To TV or not to TV. I guess I’m a sellout but, it’s for a good cause – which would be my sanity. Having that one night a week where I allow myself to get sucked into another world might just be the tonic I need to let go of some stress, lighten up and remember how to chill out.
Posted in Daily Living, Mental Environment, Technology, TV and Pop Culture | 1 Comment »
France Can Wait…
My mom comes into town next week. I am thrilled by this, of course. But, like most mothers and daughters, we have a, well, sort of unbalanced relationship. We are best friends with complicated insights about one another. Let’s face it, your other best friends never wiped your butt or saw you pick your nose AND your other best friends never came right out and said you were screwing up your life, even when you weren’t. It’s not bad or good, it’s just complicated. We can get under each other’s skin unlike anyone else, sometimes.
My mom’s side of the family is notorious for showing love by, how can I put this nicely, being mean spirited assholes to each other. My mom and my aunt have moved away from this type of behaviour but, essentially, it is a free for all at family reunions. If someone has a soft spot, you can bet your last dime that it will be laid out and peed upon before the day is through. Making fun of each other is what they do. We’ve all gotten used to it and try our best not to retaliate.
And, even though my mom has steered away from this terrible family tradition, she still manages to pull out some aces on me when we are together. Currently, she finds it riotous to call me a yuppie. I can’t recall I have ever heard her laugh as hard as when I told her I was folding laundry and then I was going to playgroup later that day. “Ooooooh, looks who’s the minivan driving yuppie! Who would have THOUGHT!”… Yeah. So, I take a deep breath. “Mom, it’s not a minivan, it’s a crossover SUV/wagon – there’s a difference.”
My identity is something I am very protective of. Not my “image” or my “style” – don’t get those things confused. I have clung to my indentity since I can remember. My ideals, my strengths, my opinions, my art, books that I love, people that I care about, places I have been – all of these things have created who I am, obviously. And, I will admit, I had great diffuculty finding my way once I became a mother and, even more so, when I became a stay-at-home one. But, I feel that – despite the suv/wagon crossover and the fact that I drive through starbucks occassionally and the fact that I only get to work in the studio once a week - I have stayed my course and can honestly say that I am becoming a better person and, yes, a good mother and wife. I understand that the me of ten years ago would likely wage a protest if she ever heard the me of now say that it was important to be a good wife and mother. BUT, the me of ten years ago had never met the wonderful people that are my husband and kids, so how could she have known how important it would be?
So, why should it bother me when my mom prattles on about – “oh, lisa, remember – you were supposed to be living in France right now being an eccentric artist! Ooooh, how the times have changed!!!”. Why does it bother me? It just does. I guess because I want my family to understand that, sure, I mourn those things. I feel sad, daily, about the youth that I didn’t have because I had a baby at 21 years old rather than to give it away (or worse). I guess I want to know that at least she thinks I have worked it all out the right way. And, maybe the chortling is her weird, backwards way of giving it to me. Hell, I don’t know. I just know that France isn’t as important as it used to be – but it will be again one day. And, making a political and philosophical arguement out of everything isn’t something I have to do anymore, not because I’ve gone soft-yuppie, but because I live it rather than talk about it.
So, I guess I’ll take this as an opportunity to let her in to my world a little bit more. I know we will have a blast. And, I know that she really does approve of my life – more so than anyone else. Maybe I can find a funny thread in her jokey-jokes. We’ll just have to wait and see, I suppose.. I know she means no harm.. I guess it’s just my achilles heel. Damn it, I guess this means I have to do more growing and finding my own confidence and crap like that. Why can’t it be some one else’s turn to learn a lesson for a change???
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My Britney Spears Moment…
I can honestly say that I, since high school, I haven’t worried much about impressing people. The parental cliques on the school playground make me nothing more than amused and damned happy that I have better things to do than to gossip about my own friends and complain about my husband. I am very comfortable with my typical outcast position with these people – I like that they think I am weird and too “different” to get to know. I like that they stare in disgust at my ten year old puma tennis shoes as if they were covered in elephant dung. And I adore the ugly, ugly fact that once I bought a car that met their approval and they all wanted to “hang” with me that I took great joy in sincerely showing no interest at all. My point is that I am far beyond really giving a crap who thinks what about me or my kids, especially from the PTA or PTO or whatever they call themselves these days. That being said, let me tell you about my most recent Harris Teeter trip. I may as well have been barefoot, had a cigarette hanging out from between my knocked out teeth and pregnant – because that’s about as classy as I felt.
It was a bad, bad time of the day. You know, that 430pm time of the day when you just want to crawl under a rock and hide but instead you decide it would be the perfect time to load the kids in the car and go grocery shopping? I was tired, the kids were tired and I was starting to get that constricted feeling in my throat and that twitchy look on my face. I decided that, instead of shooting menacing looks to all the women in suits calling their children “dahhhling”, I would bury my face in the newest edition of OK! Magazine while we waited in line. I had no idea that Anna Nicole’s son died and I was having a quiet moment of reflection while I simultaneously wondered when Katie was going to freak out and murder Tom Cruise in his sleep. While I am in deep musing over the going ons in Hollywood I hear, “Um, Hi Lisa”..
I look up. It’s her. It’s the leader of the cool kids on the playground. The ex-lawyer, lexus driving Molly Ringwold of Eakin PTO. And I casually put down my magazine – “Hey, June, just, you know, catching up on Anna Nicole – did you know her SON died”. note about lisa when she is caught off guard by someone that she knows hates her: she starts talking about shit she really doesn’t care about. incessantly.
“Yeah, so I guess it was a car accident”.. and as I am blathering on about it, I notice she is looking at my children with great distaste. I knew that were covered in dirt – I actually let them play at the playground and only wiped the dirt off their faces, leaving the hands and clothes nicely covered - the HORROR.. Her kids had apparently had several costume changes since school let out because they looked pristine and like they just walked out of a Janie and Jack store. But, when I looked back at my kids (whom I had been only moderately paying attention to until her sneers prodded me into taking my nose out of OK! Magazine) I saw, to my own malaise, my two year old daughter had apparently swiped a ten foot long beef jerky and was peeling the plastic off with her teeth and devouring it and my son was doing the pee pee dance while singing “should’a gone pee but now I ‘ll have to find a tree to go pee ooooonnn….” with great operetic flare.. I turned back around and she was walking away – “Ummm, ok, well – see you tomorrow!” I beckon – hoping she’ll nod some kind of affirmation that I wasn’t the most disgusting, negligent parent on the face of the Earth. She just looked over her shoulder, hiked up her Prada bag and said “um, yeah, whatever”.
To make matters worse, when I got to the car I looked in mirror to give myself a little happy Stuart Smiley affirmation but, found that I couldn’t. Once I looked in the mirror and saw the really nice piece of basil that was stuck in my teeth from my afternoon snack with Maggie AND my bra strap hanging out from under my tank top (that was, prior to the shot of afternoon heat a mere undershirt), I had to admit that the situation didn’t look good for me and my “image”. I can honestly say, I was mortified. I am sure that she will go back and relay this information to all of her PTA pals – but that’s not the part that really bothers me. The part that really bothers me is that she thinks her world is reality. I mean, I guess it is her reality. But it’s not my reality. Why couldn’t she just leave me alone and let me finish reading my trashy article about whether or not Anna Nicole’s son was on drugs and leave my daughter to her beef jerky? Why call out my redneck moment like that? Seriously. Just get in your SUV and drive lady. Just get on wit’cha bad botox injected self and let me have a bad afternoon in the privacy of my OK! magazine.
Posted in Daily Living, Mental Health | 1 Comment »
It’s Like Dominos
Something happens with comfort and luxury. You start becoming self involved and isolated in your experiences as a human being. Hold on a sec while I explain.
So, I have this new car. A car that, size wise, makes sense for my family but is counter to my beliefs as a primarily anti-resource exhausting person. We can fit our kids and our dog in it and travel safely from here to anywhere in the country. I made an addendum to my ideals just by buying the car and, now, when I hear about the oil crises, global warming and the war I get mad at myself – but not enough to give up my new creature comfort.
In this car that I drive - despite my stronger, more intelligent inclinations to not drive it – I have XM radio. XM radio further catapults me into a state of seperation from my normal informed decision making self. Granted, you can listen to news stations on XM radio, but I have opted for the more entertaining channels that both me and the kids love. We are entertained but altogether too distracted for my own liking. My husband made the comment this morning that we should get rid of XM radio because I no longer listen to NPR, which was, prior to XM radio, my staple for news and information and, yes, even entertainment. Yeah yeah, sure, it’s easy to say that it is not the actual XM radio but my decision to not listen to the news stations or NPR – you’d be right, I guess. All in all, though, I feel like it is a distraction that I fell for. My husband made another comment, shortly after the request to pull my mind-numbing-listen-to-old-80′s-songs-all-day-xm-radio, that we have nothing to talk about because of the fact that I am now absorbed in nothing but old pop songs that really weren’t good twenty years ago but that I am, now, completely absorbed with for pure nostalia anyway… Gaw! How rude. But, after I got over being completely offended that my husband implied that I have, ideally and intellectually, become a wet noodle – I had to agree. I spend my day driving around in a very comfortable car thinking about nothing more than why Tiffany started to suck in 1986 when she started out so strong only a year earlier. And, how the Cars could’ve been a great band but in the eighties they really started to sell out and make music for Mtv rather for the greater good of music itself.. I do move on to more intriguing topics like how Micheal Jackson used to be great and how it is so apparent on any of the songs from Thriller – and I wonder, a lot, what went wrong.
But, I missed Hugo Chavez calling our president the devil. What else am I missing?????????
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Does This Make Me a Quitter?
Wait a minute.. Wait a damn minute… I am sitting here in Fido on 21st, the village in Nashville.. And, as I was preparing to write a blog about my nearly definate decision to yank my son out of the psychotic world that is Cub Scouting, I overheard something that made me want to leap over my cheesy grits and coffee to rip a man’s face off. In his infinate self importance, he (a lone man, with no company – most certainly because he is such a crappy human being) decides to take the largest table in the place. It seats eight and he decides that he is important enough to bypass all the two tops for the largest table in the place – I suppose he may need that much room for his grotesquely large ego.. but never mind that.. A gentleman walks up and says “Hey, would it be ok if we took this table? I have twelve people joining me..” and the guy actually stood up and said “really, well, I suppose.. how many kids do you have coming so that I know how far to sit from you?” and gave the guy the slimiest smile I have ever seen.. I think the guy thought that it would be a funny thing and that the guy would laugh – because when you are rich and self important isn’t EVERYBODY supposed to think you’re funny? But the guy replied “actually, we have three kids and they are all well behaved”.. Anyway, the douchebag schlepped off to the other end of the cafe where I can only hope he will spill scalding hot coffee on his five thousand dollar khaki pants and loafers. I hate to use lame computer jargon but, wtf ?!?!
I think we are the only culture in the world that hates children. It reminds me of every time we go out to dinner we have to gaze apologetically at the kidless people around us because our kids are daring to speak and, gasp, be kids.. And, perhaps I am becoming prone to fistfighting, but I almost knocked a woman out at Target when she actually said very loudly so that, undoubtedly, I would hear “That woman’s kids are about to make me crazy”.. Granted they were making ME crazy too but, come on! They weren’t doing anything particularly unsavory, just throwing popcorn and singing the happy birthday song very loudly.. Ok, maybe it was particularly unsavory – but still. They are kids and attached to those kids are parents who could use some sympathy or understanding (or help!) for the love of god.. Or how about just taking kids for what they are instead of expecting them to be little adults and behave as if they are as self-important as the man in the ugly over-priced khakis. I hate to say it, but the times when I encounter people who actually revere children as being beautifully welcomed into a public setting are foreign.. Everyone else (i.e. my fellow americans), including other people with kids, either politely acknowledge their existence or, as I witnessed this morning, have no problem outwardly decreeing that they think children are a plague upon the earth. Seriously, there is something frighteningly wrong with that on so many levels…
And, yes, I am thinking about making the little boy quit cub scouts. I am trying to be part of the adult team but the reality is that they scare the living hell out of me. On the flip side of the weird hate children culture, there is this culture of adults that think that being good to kids is treating them, albeit very dedicatedly, like soldiers who have to conform to some weird pledge and some very outdated and horrifically, uncomfortably tacky uniform. I am not saying that all cub scouts is like this and I do see the good that can come from it. I know lots of people who were in scouts (myself included) and loved the experience. This, however, is not the same. I can’t really put my finger on it – all I can tell you is that when I am there I don’t get a warm fuzzy feeling about the direction my son is taking. And I certainly don’t get a warm fuzzy feeling from the adults – they put out this very perfectionist, rules and doing things by the book are the most important things in the world deal that really really makes me want to run.. Think Heaven’s Gate – just a different uniform. I know I have a problem with organized groups – I know this about myself and I am facing my demons. But, I don’t think that it is my bias. I think these people are really, truly creepy. They give me the willies. I think we will go to one more meeting tonight just to see if, maybe, things are better.
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She Works Hard For Her Money…
What a treat! Donna Summer came into the restaurant the other night and, you know what? She has remarkable bangs! Truly. And, not only are her bangs remarkable, but she looks better than ever. It brought several rushes of childhood memories back (standing in front of my mirror, hair brush/microphone in hand, listening to the Bad Girls album, wishing to god I was a beautiful black woman instead of a skinny, nerdy white one) and I felt an intense urge to break into “Love to Love You Baby” the entire time she was there.
With all the famous Nashville folks that we have rolling in and out of the place, I must say, this was the first time I felt star struck. Sure, Nicole Kidman and keith Urban were pretty – but that’s about it – they had no influence on the person I am today. And even though Scott Hamilton is a great figure skater and quite a nice guy – I just can’t say that he pulls any weight in the sexy, strong, teaching the young girls how to shake it department. But Donna Summer – I salute you.
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Miraculous Encounters of The Mommy Kind
Something that I never thought would happen HAS! I have met a group of mothers that I don’t feel completely frightened by. They don’t wear “workout clothes” (pajamas) everywhere they go. Even though they adore their children, they don’t find it necessary to brief those around them on the inner workings of their kids’ digestives sytems or mental/behavioral advancement. They don’t have cars that could house twenty when they only have one child. They don’t talk about their husbands as if they were talking about their fathers. They don’t sing retarded “clean up” songs with a crazy, jack nicholson look on their face. They don’t look you up and down, with menacing judgement, when you hand your kid a quarter at 8am to get m&m’s from the gumball machine just so you can have a two minute conversation with the person selling coffee. They don’t resent their families because they “gave up the career” or they can’t be themselves anymore……. Au contraire… They are women who have kids – not just moms. Before you lash out – let me say, I think that being a mom is super incredible in itself. It is the best job in the world blah blah blah.. Of course I think that, silly – I am one, afterall. Just let me vent. If you don’t think most parents are crazy weird, then stop reading.
Until now, it has been a steady flow of coridial acquaintance-ships – I can only think of two mothers, up to now, that have made me feel like I could be upfront and honest. One is my age and has three kids and we pull together when we can. The other is a little older with two kids and lives far, far away in boston. So, I know it’s not an age issue – just a personality thing, I guess. I have met young mothers my age who, well, have sort of cashed it in. And the other mothers – they are great but they are usually in their forties or fifties and while I appreciate them, I just usually don’t have a lot in common with them other than the child factor. And even that is barely “in common” – they are usually the ones that have very weird rituals that you know they got from a parenting book or from Barney the Purple Dinosaur. Maybe one of my faults is that I treat my kids a little too much like grown ups but, COME ON, every instruction you give them doesn’t have to be sugar coated with a song and a reward and a creepy grin of superior parenting skills, does it??? And, as someone who has a majority of other things, besides my beloved kids, that make me me, well – it’s nice to find others who like to talk about something besides poop and cradle cap. And, just as I was starting to think it didn’t exist, I stumbled upon it and found that it is everything I ever thought it would be.
So, yes, we will talk about our children – because that is, afterall, what mommies do – but on a very frequent occassion we will let the conversation wander away from them into other things. We will talk about the books we are writing, the paintings we have sold, the sculptures we are having a hard time finishing because we don’t want to tear ourselves away from our babies, the concerts we will be giving, the research grants we are applying for, the graduate program that is kicking our ass. We will make martini dates and go out dressed just as cutely as the other non-child, twenty eight year old- thirty year olds in the room – even if we are secretly thinking that the 19year old girls across the room should be at home, in bed, at this hour and, quite frankly, dressed a little more modestly. We will make lunch dates at the indian buffet with our munchkins and make fun of the frat guys who are just there to watch the racey indian music videos they play all day. We’ll talk on the phone. We’ll go on day trips. We’ll go on walks. It will be heaven. I feel like I have just walked into a fictitious, fairytale land where jogging suits or prada diaper bags or scary sing-song discipline are forbidden. Sigh…. Let the good times roll.
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Making Room
A year or so ago, my husband and I had a long (weeks long) conversation about how to get past being moderately satisfied with your position (in every aspect) to becoming truly satisfied and fulfilled. We set out on a journey, five years ago, that put us through much, unforseen struggle. Being artists, we knew it was going to be hard but we really had NO idea. Several years later we are doing really well – there is stability and satisfication in just about every realm of our life (knock wood, knock wood, knock wood). What we can now see (god bless hindsight) is that the change (from struggling/ but still moderately happy to feeling in control and damn happy) happened because we, responsibly, made room. That conversation that I mentioned was specifically about pinpointing the things that, although might be paying the bills, were not conducive to getting ahead. The two major instances were me working during the day. I wasn’t working at a job I particularly loved or wanted to make a career out of – but it had benefits, so we stuck it out. My paycheck basically went to the nanny. My husband juggled five different adjunct professor positions at five different Universities and several night time/weekend community education programs. It was random, at best, and only moderately reliable but it too paid the bills. What are jobs WEREN’T doing were allowing us to say “yes” to other opportunities or projects that might lead to other opportunities. We were quickly becoming that statistic of American families that work but don’t really live. So, very responsibly (we do have two kids to think about), we started culling the things we could and then made big changes altogether. And, even though it is about making room, it is also about making a decision. Not being aware that you could be doing more with your life is an easy trap to fall into and we almost did. Being aware that you could be happier and not doing anything at all is even worse.
I totally don’t mean to lecture – but now that I have reread what I have written I realize that is what it sounds like. I am, really, only thinking outloud. It is that time, for me, again. Time to cull the things holding me back and embrace the things that will get me to my next step: graduate school. And it’s not just graduate school. It is getting my son into a better school. It is getting my husband into better galleries. It is finding a home to buy. All my bemoanings about time this past week have been because I am at the beginning of a new journey and I guess I am feeling impatient. I just have to take a step and a breath and make some room for all that I hope is coming next.
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