Pre-loved woman

Really, God?

2012-02-10T11:39:00.000-08:00

Dear God,

I don't hate being a woman. Thanks for the hair, makeup, pedicures, clothes, and vagina. But menopause, really? Let's just go through my menstrual history.

First you made me wait. I was the last of my friends to get the curse. Did you even hear those prayers? They lasted three years. Then came the hemorrahagic years of of anemia, white-pant avoidance, and worry. Next came the amenorrhea caused by starvation, resulting in whole other levels of worry. Things eventually normalized, if you consider normal a week every month of tender breasts, major bloat, insomnia and moodiness, followed by a week of leak worry. (Oh, and tampons cost $8 a box now. That adds up, God.) Haven't I suffered enough? Apparently not.

Two weeks ago I began waking up at night in a puddle of my own sweat. At first, I blamed it on Big Guns. I thought he turned the heat up. I'd throw off my moist covers only to realize it was freezing in my room. Then these hot flashes, more like flash floods of sweat, started happening during the day, all day, over and over again.

The spark begins in my solar plexus, where my pilot light apparently lives, then spreads upward like the Santa Ana winds until I'm sure my hair is on fire. I rip off all my clothes, grab anything to fan myself, and sweat. Even my calves sweat. In minutes, it's over and I start shivering.

You have thrown some compassionate people in my path, I'll give you that. My therapist had plenty of sympathy. She said it gets easier, that the first two to five years are the hardest. Two to five years!! She offered me her industrial size hand fan. She's small and it covers half her body. She told me a story about driving somewhere and having 23 hot flashes in the space of an hour. We laughed and laughed. I still laugh when I think about us jumping off the bridge and opening our t-shirts to enjoy a final, cool burst of air on the way down.

Intelligent design? Fuck that. This is a faulty design. An unnecessary glitch. I wish Eve had told you about it. And she probably would have, but by the time she figured out your error, she'd already eaten that apple and I'm sure her guilt prevented her from saying anything to you.

If I have to go through this, then could you please make it as brief as possible? I'm sure you have some pull in that department.

Thanks,

Eileen, I dress for sweat

Heidi Klum and Seal?

2012-02-07T11:57:00.000-08:00


They look happy, don't they?

There are some couples I kind of expect to divorce. And then there are couples like Heidi and Seal who I assumed were happy and fulfilled. (What's it say about me that I have fantasies about other people's lives?) I should thank them for demonstrating that I can never know what a marriage is like from seeing pictures of it in People magazine. I can't even know what a marriage is like when I know the people.

This is NOT right.

2012-02-06T13:33:00.000-08:00

Behold the Brownie Burger. These little delicacies are actually brownies sandwiched between two peanut butter cookies and dressed with coconut "lettuce" and red "ketchup" icing.

I'm not opposed to food masquerading as something in the same flavor category, i.e. tofurkey. At least they are both savory. What really turns my stomach is when the food jumps categories. I'm all about whimsy, but this is just white trashy. (Although, shockingly, the Brownie Burgers came from Martha Stewart!) It subverts the sensory process of eating.


Spaghetti and meat ball "cake."

Candy "sushi." Yum.


Meatloaf and mashed potato "cake."

A little program in the day.

2012-02-02T10:45:00.000-08:00

When my marriage was taking its last breaths and I was freshly sober and working with my first sponsor, I was an anxious, paralyzed mess. Here was my self-fulfilling prophesy fulfilling itself, years of self-evident beliefs becoming truth: My husband did not love me, I was unlovable, people will always abandon me, nobody can be trusted, everybody lies.

My young and grace-filled sponsor gently, insistently reminded me that everything happened for a reason, that it was God's plan and that it would be okay. I would be okay. I did not believe her. To believe her would have meant I had to shift my perceptions in cataclysmic ways. This would have required a 7.5 earthquake.

Instead, over the years, I've experienced minor temblors and my view is starting to shift.

I need to hear something hundreds of times before it sinks in. At every meeting, people talk about faith. I had no faith, but thankfully I didn't need it because the rooms are full of proof. People can tolerate difficult life changes--divorce, death, loss, and unmet expectations--and be okay, even learn something from the experience. Some, in hindsight, even begin to view the trials and enormous roadblocks thrown into their lives as gifts. This is the proof I need. Proof of faith.

Now I have some proof to share. The last three years have been difficult--end of marriage, financial fears, two teenagers--but I am okay. Work has showed up when I needed it to pay my property taxes. Here's the thing: I believe that I will be taken care of, although what I'm given may not always be what I want.

I wrote this in the margins of page 65 in my big book: Willpower is my thoughts. Life is action.

For me, willpower is not pushing myself to go to the gym or pass on dessert. It's the voice, not always kind, that's trying to direct the way I feel about things: You will never find the job you want because you did not go to a good university; nobody will want your novel because it's not great literature; nobody will want your novel because it's not commercial enough; your stories only get published in tiny literary journals where the editors/undergrads will publish anything.

I have spent years of my life worrying about things I can't control, namely the future, but also other people, climate change, politics, and the economy. I believed that life was a veil of tears and full of hardship or luck, there was no in between. I was going to die fighting or win the lottery. Everything I had was given to me by mistake or as a payment for something I was going to have to pony up for in the future. This is my will talking. The action to keep that will in check? I make a gratitude list and, suddenly, things start looking like gifts.

“The outer conditions of a person’s life will always be found to reflect their inner beliefs.” ~James Allen

I just read that quote on Tiny Buddha. You can read the whole post, but basically the writer says that our lives are shaped by experiences which we then turn into beliefs. For instance, if you spent your whole childhood being fed a food, say strawberries, that made you sick, you would eventually believe all strawberries were bad and avoid them. When you read the newspaper, you would give extra attention to stories about e coli outbreaks--See? your self would think, Strawberries do make people sick!

Maybe the strawberries your family fed you were always bad? Maybe you just got unlucky? But avoiding strawberries as a child served you well. Now that you're grown up, you're missing out. If you want to enjoy shortcake and smoothies and sorbet and a lot of other lovely things, you have to challenge your beliefs. This is very SCARY and there is no way around the scary part. Sorry.

It helps to hear stories from other people who have eaten strawberries and been okay. It also helps to have a lovely woman hold your hand and tell you that you'll be fine. I will be fine. I am okay, no matter what happens.

Sending my baby out into the world.

2012-02-01T12:55:00.000-08:00

I'm preparing my novel for its launch into the cold, hard world. Part of that process is a one- to two-page synopsis of the whole enchilada, which I have written and re-written numerous times. It's much harder than it sounds. I worked for a couple days then released it to my writing group. We met at our usual place: Hong Sings, where the food is nearly as bad as the decor: beige walls, fluorescent lights, and the faint smell of sewer if we sit close the restrooms. When it was my turn to be critiqued, the group went silent. I could tell they were searching for something nice to say when one mentioned the nice font. I was crushed, but managed not to cry until I got to my car. I'm taking this novel to the SF Writer's Conference in two weeks in the hopes of landing an agent and my group had nothing nice to say. What a waste of $695. This is the hard part, letting your work go, which is why I've had it on my laptop, finished, for over a year. I'm prolonging the honeymoon phase.

I didn't look at their comments for two days and when I did I noticed I'd sent the wrong file, an extremely old draft, not even a draft, a stream of conscious-gibberishy piece of the dog's lunch that I hacked out long, long ago. It didn't even make sense to me. I resent the correct file and they loved it. I'm at peace again, until I start getting rejected by agents. Just see what happened to my friend, Simone. Ouch is right.

For when you're bored.

2012-01-20T16:12:00.000-08:00

What is it about Writers and Kitties? They are like peanut butter and jelly, much better together. I used to smoke and when I quit I thought I wouldn't be able to write another word. Cigarettes weren't my muses; it was the kitties. I have three now to keep all my bases covered.

William Burroughs and kitty tripping the fuck out.

A writer friend of mine just got an enormous book deal. She made it look so easy: sent her stuff to one agent, got signed, finished the book, agent loved it, sold overnight, getting picked up all over the world. How many kitties does she have? Two.

Quick rant. I have to go to a meeting.

2012-01-13T18:27:00.000-08:00

Would you give me away?

But I can always squeeze in a rant, especially when it has to do with ex's girlfriend. Ex was just here to pick up Mario and asked if I knew anybody who wanted a dog because gf needs to get rid of hers. She's too busy. What kind of a woman gives up a pet because it doesn't fit in her life? Is that any kind of a woman I want near my children. She already gave up Dog 1. Imagine what that was like; Dog 2 has probably been on his best behavior for the last year, but to no avail. He's getting his walking papers anyway. This explains why she doesn't live with her teenage son. He's probably really inconvenient. For a brief moment, I'm glad to be me.

Look out for flying hammers.

2012-01-10T16:41:00.000-08:00

From The Fix:

Top 10 Most Addiction-Prone Careers
1. Food preparation and serving (17.4%)
2. Construction (15.1%)
3. Arts, design, entertainment, sports, and media (12.4%)
4. Sales (9.6%)
5. Installation, maintenance, and repair (9.5%)
6. Farming, Fishing and Forestry (8.7%)
7. Transportation and Material-Moving (8.4%)
8. Cleaning and Maintenance (8.2%)
9. Personal Care and Service (7.7%)
10. Office and Administrative Support (7.5%)

This is from a 2007 SAMSHA study. It's interesting that advertising is only #3 and construction (heavy machinery, anyone?) is #2. Where is the legal field? Lawyers are notoriously alcoholic, but they probably lie about it.

White woman parenting: No, your kid isn't that cute.

2012-01-06T10:53:00.000-08:00

I asked my friend S how her kid was doing in school and she said he'd gotten two "Asian Fs." For all you non-Asians out there, an Asian F is an A minus.

With the release of the Tiger Mom book in paperback, I started pondering what the cliches were for white parenting. I didn't ponder long because it was demonstrated for me in my local post office a couple days ago.

I was in a line with almost a million impatient people. At one of the two open stations, there was a Coach-bag-carrying/big-diamond-and-Tory-Burch flats-wearing white mom with her two youngsters.

This mom, ignoring the fact that people were waiting, was telling the postal worker that her daughter had recently come here on a field trip and asked her daughter to stop twirling in the aisle and tell the worker what she saw. Really? As if the worker doesn't already know what goes on in her office? You know what? I wouldn't care what a six-year-old thinks of my workplace but, unlike me, the worker remains pleasant. Of course the mother is harried. Although she probably was a lawyer or ran a company a few years ago, she's having a hard time keeping track of her two kids and trying to remember if she needs stamps or not. Just as this transaction seems it's finally coming to an end, the woman calls her son over. Apparently he likes to swipe the credit card through the machine. She lifts him up. It takes two times, but the little genius finally gets it and throws the mother's credit card, which falls behind the partition so that the worker has to move all her equipment to retrieve it. The mom admonishes her little precious and tells him that next time he swipes her card--there is going to be a next time?--to hand her the card and not just throw it.

If Asian parenting can be Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, white parenting seems to be Lullaby of the Pushover. What's wrong with white people that we believe other people will think our children are as cute as we think they are? They aren't. I can say this because I'm white. I have two boys who happen to be really cute and smart and talented and special, but I know now that not everybody agrees with me, especially impatient patrons in the post office.

This does a lot to cheer me up.

2012-01-05T11:10:00.000-08:00

Suri's Burn Book

I read the whole blog in two sittings. Knock yourself out.

Shit goggles firmly in place.

2012-01-05T10:30:00.000-08:00

Today's view extends beyond my writing. Instead of seeing beauty or grace, everywhere I look I see things that are dirty, wrong, fucked up and not working in my life. For instance, Big Guns' hearing. He left his coffee in the microwave and it's been beeping for ten minutes. He's standing a foot from the microwave. I'm three rooms away and each beep sounds like a foghorn. I would like to remove his coffee and throw it at him.

The day started with driving Clooney to the humane society for neutering. The traffic was in top form and my windshield was so filthy I was driving by faith. The woman ahead of me had two chihuahuas. The vet tech came out and asked the receptionist what they charge for expressing anal glands because one of the chi chis really needed it. What kind of mistake did God make in designing dogs that they need their anal glands expressed? And what exactly are anal glands? This is why I'm a crazy cat lady. That's absolutely shit goggle material.

I've eaten close to two pounds of See's candy in three days and, as promised, all but one candy cane. I have a store credit at a little boutique in my neighborhood and stopped by yesterday but didn't find anything because I don't want new clothes; I want a new body. They did not have one in my size, not even for full price. Shit goggles.

Let's hope that tomorrow is better for me and Clooney.

Cul de sac thinking.

2012-01-01T14:16:00.000-08:00

From The Year of Magical Thinking: Didion writes about seeing that fall has arrived in Central Park and realizing that, back at home, "There is no one to hear this news, nowhere to go with the unmade plan, the uncompleted thought." She quotes C.S. Lewis:

"I think I'm beginning to understand why grief feels like suspense. It comes from so many impulses that become habitual...So many roads once; now so many cul de sacs."

So often I will see something--a sweater, say--and think ex will like that, or read something and wonder what ex would have to say about it, or want to share something I've written with him. Every time I turn on the light to read in the middle of the night I think about how he hated it. Every time I get angry, I think about how he hated that, too. Habits developed over twenty years are hard to break.

Oh the arrogance.

2012-01-01T00:56:00.000-08:00

I was in Target today to purchase cat snackies and walked down the Xmas aisle where everything was 70% off. I picked up a $1 box of green apple and strawberry flavored candy canes, which was fine because a) they aren't very Xmasy and b) we'll eat them by next weekend. But I also picked up bows and wrapping paper and gift tags for NEXT year.

I've never done this before because it seems so presumptuous. It's like I'm mocking God or something--I dare you to take me. I just stocked up on Xmas paraphernalia for next year! Plus I'm making this huge assumption that I'll be around and celebrating Xmas next year. Doesn't that scream arrogance? It's not that I'm afraid of my number being called, it's just I'd be so embarrassed when my heirs discovered the stash of supplies in my closet--And she never even got to use this paper.

What I'm reading.

2011-12-26T22:11:00.000-08:00

Joan Didion's The year of Magical Thinking. I am only 50+ pages in but the way she describes her reactions to the death of her spouse--numbness, inability to focus or read, denial--is very similar to the feelings I had when first divorcing. Speaking of death, here's a sad story about a our shark.


This is what my house would look like if it were underwater, sort of.

Big Guns and I spent over an hour assembling (and reassembling her after discovering I'd put her motor on backward) her, then running out to the store for fresh AAA batteries. She's super cool and Q got to play with her for all of five minutes before "swimming" her out to the car where she floated away from us. There were so many moments we could have stopped it--jumped higher, thrown our coats over her--but before we knew it she was above the roof, then above the neighbor's oak tree, then floating high above San Carlos swimming toward San Jose. On a happier note:

Baby Kitten and Clooney.

I'm still filthy with beautiful kitties. Here they are enjoying what we call "ice cream" but what is a tiny dollop of whippy from a can, which may explain their girth. Now that I think of it, they are both shaped a bit like the shark.

2011-12-20T11:03:00.000-08:00

I have this box of angel cards that I've been consulting a lot lately because I will do anything--anything--to find answers to life's BIG questions such as "What should I do now?" In one form or another, this is the question I ask daily.

The angels appear to have their own agenda. Sometimes I'll pick a card that suggests I focus on my spiritual life or a card that suggests I spend some time in nature. Yesterday I picked Francesca, who had this to say:

What do you desire right now? Visualize it, and it will come about. Negativity will block your progress. You have been asking God and the angels, 'What is next for me?' Yet, we have been waiting for you to make that decision for yourself? This is why you have felt stuck lately. The impasse occurs because you are afraid of making a 'wrong' decision. We can help you to decide, but ultimately, the next chapter of your life is up to you. This is a period of your life that is unscripted.

Your desires are like a painting that you create upon the canvas of your life. Like an artist, you must decide what the theme, background, and foreground will be within your picture. Take some time out to meditate, pray upon, and contemplate this important decision. Be creative, and maintain standards for yourself. But remember: If you don't make a decision, that's the same thing as deciding that everything shall remain the same.

Nice punt back to me. I want the angels to tell me what to do next: send your novel to (insert name of agent). Even still, it's kind of spooky or miraculous. Although, who isn't afraid of making a wrong decision?

If you're stubborn like me, you'll live with that wrong decision for 17 years before making a decision to change, if ever. How do you know when something is right? Wouldn't it be great if we had a sign, a green light that shone out our belly buttons when we were headed in the right direction?

4:22 first day of vacation.

2011-12-19T16:25:00.000-08:00

Still in my pajamas. Things are looking promising that this year will be a lot like last year.

The public mostly sucks.

2011-12-13T13:21:00.000-08:00

Mario cleaned out his closet a few months ago. You can see it, right? His closet is tidy and pristine but in the center of his room is the monstrous pile of clothes he no longer wants. They filled two garbage bags and sat by my front door to go to the Goodwill for another few weeks until I went through them and saw that several of the pants were barely worn. Bright lights goes off. EBAY.

For years, my boys exclusively wore the Boden Techno Zip-offs, $40+ new and always sold out so I'd buy every color as soon as I got the catalog. One year, I made the mistake of purchasing the camo ones in every colorway, plus orange and green ones. (God, I'm sorry; this story is even boring me.) I listed eleven pairs in varying states of wear from practically brand new to several rounds on the playground. My buyer paid $40 total. I just got an email from her complaining that they were not as expected--not barely worn but played in, a button was missing, stains on hems...

I don't know about other moms but when my sons wear pants they look like they've been to war. Trust me, lady, I wasn't trying to deceive you. And yet, I still feel like shit. She didn't even thank me for the extra pair I threw in for free that I found when I was boxing up her pile of pants.

I think people expect way, way more than they pay for and my Ebay days are firmly behind me. People suck.

Movie review: Melancholia

2011-11-23T12:58:00.000-08:00

I dragged Big Guns to see this film on Sunday night. There were only nine of us in the theater, which was awkward. (I'll explain shortly.)

I stand by my previous assessment of Lars von Trier and I still have a love/hate relationship with him. His films are so hard to watch, but riveting and I can't not watch. I don't know how he reaches that deep, disturbing place. It's not the subject matter. Plenty of movies have been made about depression and injustice and the evil people are capable of, but his are more visceral. I suppose I could try and analyze them frame by frame, but I would have to take breaks to smell flowers and pet kittens to prevent myself from drawing a warm bath and opening a vein or two.

Lars does not shy away from ugly or difficult. He makes you stay with it even as it gets uglier. It's gut wrenching and painful and frustrating watching his character, Justine (who he supposedly based on his own self) be depressed. You want to kill her or hospitalize her. (Here's why it was awkward to see with Big Guns; he was so emotionally involved and distraught, he started yelling at the screen: "You bitch!" "Don't do that." "What's wrong with her?") The story is also about her co-dependent sister who married very well, but continues to rescue and care for Justine. The third main character is the huge planet, Melancholia, previously hidden behind the sun and which may or may not crash into and annihilate Earth. (It's a metaphor for how depression--or melancholia--destroys everything.)

Like a student film, it's beautifully indulgent and rich with imagery. Like a Lars von Trier film, it upset me and made me want to dream a new ending.

Drugs: a chicken and an egg thing.

2011-11-16T11:44:00.000-08:00

The agency I work for created these ads as part of a bigger campaign to curtail meth use in the U.S. They were directed by Darren Aronofsky of Requiem for a Dream fame, which, I guess, qualifies him as the drug director. The fact that he doesn't seem to have had a drug problem doesn't diminish the power of his work and these spots are powerful and disturbing, no question about that. They made me squeamish, uncomfortable, and just plain grossed out--almost too much so because I was detached from the experience. I could not relate. There was one ad that came close; a teenage girl at a house party approaches a group of kids smoking meth and asks to be included. That desire to fit in is so strong at that age.

I never used meth, nor was it ever offered to me and so I was completely detached from the experience of watching these ads. I suppose the idea is to scare kids straight, right? You show them the worst possible outcomes--physical deterioration, prostitution, death--and hope that it deters them from ever picking up. But what these ads fail to recognize is that death and depravity are part of the attraction; along with getting high, self destruction and annihilation are goals, not deterrents. An accidental overdose looks better on a death certificate than suicide. Get it?

For that reason, I'm not sure this approach works. It makes all the adults in the room feel good, but I'm not convinced it will thwart a drug addict from picking up.

Maybe I was more cynical than the average kid, but I remember having derision for anti-drug messages. (Then again, I came up during Nancy Reagan's "Just say No" years, which we mocked mercilessly. I even dressed as Nancy for Halloween and my friend accompanied me as a pre-sober Betty Ford.) This is what we knew then: the people behind the anti-drug campaigns were old and out of touch and didn't care about kids; they just wanted to control our behaviors. How else do you explain the continual slashing of education budgets and services to youth but a willingness to dump millions on ad agencies to produce anti-drug campaigns? What I know now: the agencies who benefited from the great fortune of cranking out this noble work often celebrate by getting good and high on legal drugs: alcohol.

I don't have an answer. I don't know how you stop an addict from acting like an addict. I only know what works after. Maybe these ads are not meant for addicts but for casual users, in which case what's the fucking point? Spend the money on schools.

The day of the O.D.

2011-11-02T21:25:00.000-07:00

A close friend of mine in the program relapsed on my DOC. Not just a slight relapse, but a full, f-ing hospitalized/say-goodbye-to-your-friend overdose. Thankfully it didn't end in death, but what a way to cycle through an enormous range of emotions in 24 hours -- disbelief, shock, terror, grief, fear, fear, fear, worry, hope, relief, confusion, anger. Now I understand why the left behinds of addiction and suicide ask, "How could you do this to us? Wasn't my devotion enough? Why? Why? Why?" Here's the answer: "Because I'm an addict." Addicts don't take drugs, drink or O.D. to hurt others or spite the people in their life; they do it because it's their job when the Beast is running the show.

I feel a bit like a patsy. I'm angry that somebody who was advising me on my program was using while I was struggling with life. It hurts to be lied to. A part of me wanted the tables to be turned, for me to be in a bed pumped full of fentanyl and propofol and let somebody else do the worrying. Now I know what it feels like to be on both ends of the disease. Either way, it really sucks. Damn.

Nurse Jackie.

2011-10-21T12:10:00.000-07:00

I can't get enough of this program and have been gulping down/mowing through/inhaling season one just like a good addict. Not that it isn't hard to watch Nurse Jackie snort and swallow my DOC. In fact, I hate her and want to slap some sense into her thick, foggy head.

All the characters are fabulous, including her daughter. Hello anxious, little OCD girl. That would be me at ten. And there's Jackie, wrapped up in her addiction, fucking around, pretending like nothing's wrong, running all over the people who love her. That would be me at 40.

I highly recommend. (Available through Netflix).

Yep.

2011-10-19T15:06:00.000-07:00

I had a lull in work and took a moment to read an essay on one of my favorite sites, The Fix. The writer described sobriety in such a true way:

I’d work hard. I’d drink caffeine all day and sleep not much. I’d feel in control. My emotional range was reduced to the narrow band between “mildly annoyed” and “quite pleased.” I’d go to parties and nights out with low expectations, and leave before eleven. My nights would feel a bit worse than normal. My mornings would feel a bit better.

As I work through my fourth year sober, it's painfully clear that this is the new status quo: dullish. Never having fun again was one of my greatest fears when I first gave up my DOCs (drugs of choice). I still have fun, but it's not like it used to be. It turns out I'm quite conservative in my behaviors without my DOCs. On the other hand, can I call that old kind of crazy fun truthful if it was always/mostly chemically altered?

I am grateful that I no longer have to shoulder mountains of shame and regret, but I also don't get to shake it off in a delirious, wild release. Sometimes I miss it.

"Your life is too empty--try our drugs."

2011-10-08T09:21:00.000-07:00

This was the subject line of a spam in my mail box. I had to read it numerous times. My reactions went like this:

What?! How did they know?

My life is too empty. I wonder what kind of drugs they have?

WTF?

When they worked, I loved drugs, and smoking, and alcohol. Put them all together? Hoo boy. Party of one. The problem is they worked for such a short time. That elusive balance where everything was just right--not too full, or sloppy, or agitated--lasted minutes. Life is way too long to deal with that. Now I eat too much and have a closet full of shoes. I could probably wear a new pair every day for three months. (I'm going to go count.) No balance issues there.

Oh, and my other problem--I know things in relationship land must not be hunky dory because I've started that old problem about fantasizing about other men. It goes like this:

Sam (not his real name) is kind of cute. He probably wouldn't eat all the peanut butter and not tell me.

Fred (not his real name) is divorced and has a 9 to 5 job and probably eats dinner at a normal time and can go places on the weekend.

Cue my internal video of me and fantasy man attending art openings and walking through parks holding hands and making dinners together. The light is golden and fuzzy and I am very thin and wearing really nice shoes.

I got myself to a meeting last night. The alcohol~~ism~~ is gone, but the crazy lingers.

Through the looking glass.

2011-09-23T13:59:00.000-07:00

It took two years, but I'm definitely on the other side, the down slope of divorcing. I'm not in the verdant, peaceful valley, but everyday is no longer a struggle and slog. I do not wish ex ill will. I have compassion for his human struggles and--hallelujah--I do not want to get back together with him, even though it would help me financially. Fuck the finances, I say, and the angels laugh and sing. "Now she gets it. The world is full of abundance and uncertainty and cute kittens--lots of cute kittens. What is finite is clean air and water." That's when I stop listening. I can't go straight from divorce to fixing the ills of humankind. I'm going to take some time to revel in this new place. With my new kitten. Behold, the handsomeness of Clooney, the world's cutest kitten.

Soon I will learn to crop so you don't have to see my wrinkly mug in Clooney pics.

Brazil nuts are good.

2011-09-02T11:54:00.000-07:00

I've spent my whole eating around them in the nut bowl--first the cashews, then the pecans, then the almonds, then the peanuts until there was nothing left but a pile of Brazil nuts, which I left. Now, after 40+ years I discovered that I love them. It makes me wonder what other things I need to revisit? Might okra be tasty? Is it possible that Melanie Griffith is a great actress?

Dealing with rejection.

2011-08-25T11:13:00.000-07:00

This is from "Tiny Buddha." They send daily emails full of inspiration and wisdom. Today's is perfect for all my artist friends who struggle with rejection. (Or maybe that's just me?) I'm also filthy guilty of putting tons of weight in other people's opinions, especially people who've been published.

Tiny Wisdom: Not Taking No for an Answer

Aug 24, 2011 10:25 pm | Lori Deschene

“Never allow a person to tell you no who doesn’t have the power to say yes.” -Eleanor Roosevelt

Many times in life we ask questions of people and then put way too much weight on their answers.
We ask people we admire if they think we have what it takes, and then consider their opinions fact. We ask people we respect if they think we should take a chance, and then follow their advice as law. We ask people if they’ll take a chance on us, and then interpret their response to be a reflection of our potential.
Other people can’t tell us how far we can go. They can’t tell us how our talents could evolve. They can’t tell us if our risks will pay off. Other people’s “nos” aren’t what limit our future–it’s our own “nos” that do that.
The other day, I read an interview with television producer and former American Idol judge Simon Cowell. He admitted that if Lady Gaga had auditioned for the show, he would have instantly rejected her because of her over-the-top persona. Like her or not, Lady Gaga has emerged as a force to be reckoned within the music industry–a bona fide record-breaking pop icon, who likely isn’t going anywhere any time soon.
Odds are she heard her fair share of “nos,” as does anyone with a dream.
Sometimes we hear “no” before we even get a chance to contact the person we really want to reach. We hear “no” from assistants, and publicists, and agents, and associates, and a number of other gatekeepers. Those “nos” are rarely final since a gate is made to be opened.
We can take all these “nos” and use them as proof that we shouldn’t move forward with our goals. Or we can learn from them, release them, and then keep moving ahead, driven by a deep internal yes that refuses to be ignored.
Today if you come up against rejection, remember: This does not mean “no.” It just means “not this way.”

Down days.

2011-08-16T11:31:00.000-07:00

Getting older and sober I realize that there are days when it's best not to read anything I've written. Whether it's a lack of protein, sleep, endorphins, or serotonin, I'm stuck wearing a pair of shit goggles today. The last two stories I opened to revise literally made me gag and convulse in horror at the shitty, navel-gazing prose. I'm sure that better writing can be found in a 15-year-old girl's diary. I couldn't press command "q" fast enough.

Unfortunately, I don't have an answer for what to do instead. Eat candy and hope tomorrow is better.

It's all about anticipation.

2011-08-12T00:05:00.000-07:00

I recently read somewhere--Lucky magazine or some other fine literary journal--that for most people the anticipation and planning of a vacation is more rewarding than the actual vacation.

There have been times in my sober life when I have missed the anticipation of going out for drinks or to a party more than I think I've missed the actual drinking. That's not true; I'm a liar. Alcohol and opiates were excellent lovers and I miss them, but I did get a special thrill leaving work on a Friday evening to meet people at a bar, or putting on a new dress and heels to wear to a wedding reception. The anticipation of what I was going to drink--icy martini or fragrant goblet of red wine or BOTH!--was delicious. Caroline Knapp describes it well in her memoir, Drinking: A Love Story. I recommend it. I suppose these moments are nice to remember because they are the befores. You know, before I started stumbling around, singing too loudly, repeating myself, or thinking I was really funny or looking super sexy on the dance floor. Let me just say, yuck. Not a great look for a middle-aged mom.

I still get a thrill leaving work on Fridays and heading to a party but now I'm mostly excited about the cake.

Other people's musings on the creative life.

2011-08-11T15:22:00.000-07:00

Ira's cute, isn't he?

I'm reposting this from a trail of links I followed like breadcrumbs: "via" which was posted "via" and who knows where it originally was printed. Fer sure we know that it originated in the mind of the always insightful Ira Glass. All my writer/artist friends will surely relate. Some were successful at a youngish age, other gave up and took steady, lucrative jobs. I wasn't officially published until I was almost 40. Take it away, Ira.

Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.
— Ira Glass

Woody Allen said it another way:

Eighty percent of success is showing up.

Thomas Edison:

Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.

This morning on the radio, I heard Garrison Keiller talk about Andre Dubus II, who had this to say about the writing life:

"A first book is a treasure, and all these truths and quasi-truths I have written about publishing are finally ephemeral. An older writer knows what a younger one has not yet learned. What is demanding and fulfilling is writing a single word, trying to write le mot juste, as Flaubert said; writing several of them which becomes a sentence. When a writer does that, day after day, working alone with little encouragement, often with discouragement flowing in the writer's own blood, and with the occasional rush of excitement that empties oneself, so that the self is for minutes or longer in harmony with eternal astonishments and visions of truth, right there on the page on the desk; and when a writer does this work steadily enough to complete a manuscript long enough to be a book, the treasure is on the desk. If the manuscript itself, mailed out to the world where other truths prevail, is never published, the writer will suffer bitterness, sorrow, anger, and, more dangerously, despair, convinced that the work was not worthy, so not worth those days at the desk. But the writer who endures and keeps working will finally know that writing the book was something hard and glorious, for at the desk a writer must try to be free of prejudice, meanness of spirit, pettiness, and hatred; strive to be a better human being than the writer normally is, and to do this through concentration on a single word, and then another, and another. This is splendid work, as worthy and demanding as any, and the will and resilience to do it are good for the writer's soul. If the work is not published, or is published for little money and less public attention, it remains a spiritual, mental, and physical achievement; and if, in public, it is the widow's mite, it is also, like the widow, more blessed."

That is why, even as the rejections pile up and the novel gets re-written again and again and I spend more money on my craft than I'll ever make, I continue to do it. Because there is nothing as worthy of my time and, besides, what else am I going to do? Jog? I often wonder what gets non-writers out of bed in the morning?

Stop for beauty.

2011-08-05T11:22:00.000-07:00

You have to read this.
I think of all the people I know, my mother would have stopped and listened. (Maybe my aunts, too.) She pays attention and doesn't let context cloud her perceptions.

RIP uncle W.

2011-07-27T22:09:00.000-07:00

My uncle died yesterday, but not from the disease. He was sober for 30+ years. Here's one of my favorite stories about him.

We were all gathered around my aunt's dinner table. I must have been around eight because I was walking around the table asking each relative to tell me what their favorite color was. Things like that are only important to eight-year-old girls. The answers I got went something like this: "blue," "blue," "green," "teal," until I came to my uncle. He looked at me and said his favorite color was "clear." Then he laughed.

My uncle was into mind expansion and this blew mine. My tiny thoughts went something like this: Wrong, uncle, clear isn't even a color. Or is it? Maybe what he's saying is all colors are equally beautiful and it was wrong for me to ask a person to choose one over another?

Honestly, I didn't even have a favorite color and here was a grown up telling me I didn't have to.

I'll miss your wacky sense of humor, Uncle W.

Let's Ben Franklin-fy divorce

2011-07-19T14:35:00.000-07:00

Now that I seem to be going down the other side of the mountain of pain that is divorce, I've been thinking about whether it's worth it or not. What price divorce?

Pros
Walk away from the problem that is your ex
Not having to spend the rest of your life with an extremely depressed, sullen person
Have the whole bed to yourself
Two child-free weekends a month
Popcorn for dinner

Cons
Have to give half of everything to the man who's divorcing you: house, 401K, savings, children
Children have the stigma of coming from a broken home
Must go back to work in the worst economy EVER
Chosen career is full of people young enough to have come from your womb
Must dye hair and get Botox to fit in
Dating
One year of active pain and bursting into tears at inappropriate times
Another year of chronic, low-level pain
Temporary loss of sense of humor
Feeling like a victim
Feeling guilty
Feeling unlovable

Ben Franklin would say divorce is not a good decision. Am I that much happier all things and losses considered. Not really. Ex will have to speak for himself. However, I was forced to use his bathroom when I went to pick up Mario at his apartment the other day. (Mario said his toilet was not working.) On the counter, unavoidable and glaring, was a bottle of antidepressants, those same pills ex refused to take even against his doctor's wishes. This muddies things; if he's happier divorced from me, it's a chemical thing.

Life with ex, summed up by Aristotle.

2011-07-05T11:00:00.000-07:00

“Criticism is something you can easily avoid by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing.” -Aristotle

Nowadays, we call this kind of behavior "not being present," which is just a weenier, kinder/softer way of saying "stop being a weenie." I like Aristotle's take on the subject.

I've moved into a clearer space, not of blaming myself or blaming him, but seeing what wasn't my part. This is a difficult thing to do when the person you're living with doesn't ever actually DO anything.

It does get easier.

2011-06-27T21:34:00.000-07:00

After two years I'm starting to feel unmarried. It's not something I think about all the time, I'm not angry as often, I actually can see the rest of my life without ex.

I just have to take a little moment to mention that it sort of helps that 1 out of 3 people, after I tell them I have separated, ask me if ex came out of the closet yet. Back when I was engaged and working at Gap headquarters where every man was gay, ex came to pick me up one day and my fellow gay writer pulled me aside the next day to tell me he that he hated to break the news to me, but my fiance was gay.

What does it say about me that so many people thought I'd married a gay man? I love gay men, but I didn't want to marry one. I feel sorry for his girlfriend who, now that I think about it, is slim-hipped like a boy.

I don't want to think about this anymore. I'm going to go eat a drumstick. Alert! The industrial-sized boxes are back in stock at Costco. $12.99.

Gems from boredom

2011-06-23T11:42:00.000-07:00

As a writer, I often multitask. I put the part of my brain that is writing headlines on a burner to simmer and go surfing the web. (I can't even remember what I did before the Internet? Talk to people?) I found this young whipper snapper's site. He was born in 1985, the year I graduated college. And he taught me a few things.

I've always felt a bit conflicted about email and Facebook and the constant barrage of online crap that keeps me from doing. (There was a time in my life when I wouldn't even go to movies because I felt I should be out experiencing life, not watching it happen.) Now I waste hours online, some of it helpful, lots of it not. I've reconnected with people who drifted away and always wondered about (hello old boyfriend, former fiance, past co-worker) but I also fall into a comparison trap (she looks better, his house is bigger, she's more successful.)

Ev experiments and one of his experiments was to untether from Facebook. Here's how he put it:

Overview: I began to notice in late 2010 that my interactions on Facebook were keeping me from being present in my own life. I knew what everyone else was doing, except the person across the table from me. I had 1,000+ friends, and couldn’t figure out where they’d all come from. Dunbar’s law states that a human mind can only have 150 connections, so I knew something was wrong. Facebook’s “Like” function kept drawing me back into the application, distracting me from my own life. So, I decided to quit.
Intention: Quit Facebook in order to be more present in my own life.
Length: Initiated in Dec 2010 –> Indefinitely.
Results: Many extra hours in my life to be present with the people who are actually in my life.

I don't think I could disconnect, but it's interesting to think about.

Back in the snake pit.

2011-06-21T21:50:00.000-07:00

This time around I'm sitting next to very, very nice people. It's just amazing how the wrong personalities can mess with my fragile inner peace. Although she is young enough to be my daughter, my new desk mate talks quietly on her cell phone (although my hearing is failing), says hello and goodbye, and sometimes asks my opinion about design. This shit makes a difference, especially when you are fighting the feeling of being the biggest loser in the world since you're older than dirt, a fucking dinosaur in advertising agency years (where do the nearing 50s go in this biz? Rehab? Hollywood? Suicide?), and you spent your ladder-climbing years carpooling and picking Cheerios out of your carpet. Alas. I get up, get dressed, and start every day thinking I'm going to write the best monitor topper Intel has ever seen and all those tattooed hipsters can kiss my saggy, spreading bottom.

Literary rejection: the other white meat.

2011-06-17T14:56:00.000-07:00

Got a decently long email rejection that went on for pages outlining my small, embarrassing mistakes and the larger problems with my story—no style, nothing that says this is Eileen Bordy. (And I had worried my story was all style, no plot.) I had misspelled freshman and made other "miscalibrations" (This isn't a word, but poets like to make words up and they can when they have degrees from Harvard.) I was aghast and awed.

At first I felt this editor was an overeducated prig who recommended I read people I’d never heard of—Cyril Connolly's book is in my bag right now--but then I came to admire him for his attentions to lil ol’ me. I must have something to elicit this reponse. So I googled him.

He is a renaissance man, not just a poet, but a designer of posters and books who edits several literary journals, writes esoteric blogs and quotes more writers I’ve never heard of. He translates books from German and Spanish. (He's probably a musician, too.)

There was something about his formerly skinny child-self and now schlubby academic that made me feel depressed. Possibly I felt deflated for lacking the training and intellect he worked so hard at inflating, but it was that black hole feeling I get when I'm around an active addict and our divorce attorney. He uses so many words, quotes so many people, puts up so many ideas, and says so little--a man hiding behind his intellect. He is also a committed atheist and organizes meetings for atheists (a form of church?). If he didn’t believe in words, I would have cried for the emptiness of him. And then--boom!-- I get it; he is ex.

How a short dinner with ex can make things okay.

2011-06-03T11:49:00.000-07:00

Dylan likes a sun-warmed walkway.

Kitten likes a warm bed.

Mario had a learner expo yesterday evening, which is hippie speak for a school open house. I roasted a chicken, mashed potatoes and invited ex to join us for dinner and asked if he'd make gravy. I arrived home to him in my kitchen, pulling a bowl from a shelf for beans. The gravy boat was filled and the sink too with the dirty roasting pan. Just like old times. We were like old times. He was quiet and seemed depressed and I, flaming co that I am, thought it was my fault and tried to lighten the mood by talking. (My emotional tourettes kicked in.) Ugh. I know he has so much to offer his kids and so many interesting thoughts swimming around his big brain, but they get stuck on their way to his mouth. It breaks my heart. But I am grateful I don't have to fix that problem anymore.

P.S. On a happier note, I included gratuitous cute cat photos.

Real-life fantasy.

2011-05-29T09:23:00.000-07:00

My fantasy did sort of happen. No, not the one where ex gets run over by a train, or the one where ex begs me to take him back, or the one where Matt Damon calls saying he read my story and wants to turn it into a movie. The fantasy where the CEO, in this case just the Director of marketing, sees my copy for AOL and asks, "Who wrote this?" in a Judy Garland/get me that girl kind of way. It didn't result in a full-time job, but it made me feel happy. (Y'all can pick yourselves up off the floor; you haven't heard me say happy in--what?--ever.)
I watch two and three-quarter DVDs last night: The Switch, Venus, and The King's Speech. All good. Reviews up on the public blog soon.
In my quest to torture, I mean enrich (I was going to do that odd blog conceit where the writer strikes through words. Have you ever seen that anywhere else besides blogs?) my children, I'm taking Mario to see Smuin ballet. Alvin Ailey would have been a better choice but it was four times the price and in Berkeley. Mother of the year award: it's not even my weekend with the boys.

Missing Ex.

2011-05-23T11:23:00.001-07:00

Sometimes I wish ex was a complete motherf****er, sociopath, psychopath meanie because then I'd never miss him and that would be easier. He isn't and there are days that I'm full of remorse for my past behavior and wish he could forgive me and we could go back.

Apples and oranges.

2011-05-09T09:11:00.000-07:00

At my second interview, I was given a math problem of the word variety, i.e. a train leaves the station going 35 miles an hour and hits a 19% grade and is carrying a full load of passengers but 20% of them are overweight how long does it take to go 200 miles away? That kind of question. I was interviewing for the job was for editorial content manager. Here's a tougher question: how are these two things related? I'm not terrible at math, but I was flummoxed thinking there was some trick I was missing, some other reason I was being asked this, for instance maybe I was being filmed for some new reality show: Interviews Gone Awry, true tales of sweat and squirm.

On a more excellent note, as a lucky alcoholic I got to see Annie L. of Marin speak at an AA meeting. (For those of you not in the know, that's Annie Lamott.) She was terrific, of course. She makes recovery look like fun. That meeting was preceded by an Al-Anon meeting. Ex is a card-carrying member, but I've never been to one. The take away, their big catch phrase is the three Cs: didn't cause it, can't control it, and can't cure it. Now you know all there is to know about that program.

I'm not due back at AOL until Thursday. My fantasy of the CEO finding my copy on a printer and exclaiming "Who wrote this recruitment ad? It's genius. Hire her on the spot and pay her whatever she wants" didn't happen. No, my copy is making its rounds but mostly being ignored by the people who are supposed to be approving it. Happy Monday.

Oh shit.

2011-05-05T08:17:00.000-07:00

I think I was a better writer when I was drinking. Drunk, hungover, high on whatever, I had this singular focus and could ignore my aching ass and the cries of my hungry children and stinking guinea pig cages. Now? I have sober-onset ADD. I can't stop multitasking. What if I can never write anything good again? It reminds me of this guy I met in the house--he was a professional sommelier. How sad is that? Finding out your an alcoholic sommelier? He said he thought most of them, and chefs, were. I suppose if you drink enough, the cucumber eventually turns into a pickle. See? See what I mean? This post was about my inability to focus and I've just proved my point.

People just like me.

2011-05-04T10:05:00.000-07:00

How, how did I never find this blog? Or this yahoo group? Of course there are middle-class, functioning, suburban mothers (and fathers) struggling with this disease just like me. Of course they're gonna blog about it 'cause that's what some middle-class, functioning, suburban mothers (and fathers) do. I mean, I practically started the trend. Years ago, I published a popular essay in Brain, Child called On the Rocks: Mothers who Drink, (how's that for "center of the universe/alcoholic thinking?") in which I ponder the boredom and stress of staying home with my kids and note that I only make it through each day with the medicinal wonder of nightly cocktails, then my drinking buddy went and joined AA. It took me something like eight more years of pondering before I took my seat at the table where I so clearly belonged.

Anyway, these blogs are terrific for women/men/parents pondering the tough questions about when enough is enough and whether or not one wants to be a member of THAT group. I didn't want to be a member of that group! No way! I was a loner and an individual and a free thinker! Nobody was going to tell me how to live and--God forbid--to pray. It was only after a couple years of sobriety that I realized I had been beholden, devoted, even genuflecting (if you consider crawling to bed a form of genuflecting) to my own god of addiction--the Beast--for years. I thought I was in control but he was running the show and he was an asshole. (I say "he," but my beast is gender neutral. He looks a bit like an ugly doll but furrier.)

Second interview at the little electronics distributor today. Fingers and toes crossed even though I feel a bit like I'm slumming or, at the least, settling. Talk about getting "right sized."

A tiny rant about ex and remorse for my bad parenting.

2011-04-29T10:55:00.000-07:00

I can't tell you how many times I was warned by therapists and lawyers and friends not to ever say anything disparaging about ex in front of my children because it would backfire on me and the children would immediately defend and cling to ex. I believed/I believe all of them. I know this. And yet, I still do it. I think I'm being sneaky about it, but Mario sees right through it and--text-book true--defends his dad as if he's parent of the year or saint.

(Here's an example. Mario and I are driving to meet a friend to help her with Photoshop.
Me: I'm so busy. I have to finish an assignment after we get home.
Boy: Why don't you write during the day?
Me: I was in meetings all day.
Boy: You should be writing. When dad's at work, he gets stuff done. He works really hard. (Or something like this.)
Me: Yeah, well he didn't have to do anything else, did he? I actually had a problem with how much he worked. (I wanted to say it destroyed our marriage, it was his drug and escape, he had no boundaries. Kudos to me for not saying this.)
Boy: He goes in early.
Me: You think 9 is early?....and on and on.)

I don't know what's wrong with me--lack of emotional maturity or self discipline? A black, ugly soul? Do I want my boys to dislike their dad? Do I want to be the favorite? Is this even a competition? No. No. No.

I am still angry at the fucker for not loving me anymore and leaving me and spending only eight days a month with his kids, which is so little time as to be the perfect parent since you'd have 22 other days to be tired, cranky, depressed or angry. I also fucking hate him that he's going to be in fucking Oregon with his fucking girlfriend at the fucking Shakespeare festival for his son's birthday. He missed the other son's birthday last year because he was in fucking Italy with the fucking girlfriend. I don't think he's a particularly selfish person, he just looks that way on virtual paper.

Back to work. Take note, Mario; I'm writing.

Bad neighborhood but the rent is cheap.

2011-04-18T07:51:00.000-07:00

As a freelancer, every new gig brings on the anxiety of the first day at a new school. It helps if you know somebody at the place, which has usually been the case for me, but not today. I start a new gig at a big company where I know not a soul except the nice woman I interviewed with. I've lost more sleep and hours worrying about this gig than the length of it---2.5 weeks. I'd like to be able to jump forward in time when I'm leaving a happy client and there is a check in my hand.

Speaking of anxiety, I spent the weekend alone and in my head, always dangerous. Well, that's not completely true, I turned on the radio long enough to hear a guy talking about cults. I checked out his site and found myself deeply mired in reading about cultic behaviors and various organizations considered by some to be cults including the Forum/EST (duh) and AA (what?), including this man's site.

I have heard AA called a cult before and agree that some groups are more zealoty than others. There are big book thumpers and 12 steppers and hard liners. Frankly, the founders of AA were a bunch of entitled, narcissistic, sick, white men mother fuckers. Apparently a lot of AA's principles came from the Oxford Group, founded by a latent homosexual/former Lutheran minister asshole who was quite pleased with himself and stayed in very nice hotels on other people's dimes.

Do these facts make the group any less effective? Can we escape the taint of Bill, et al.?

I have a problem seeing Bill W's picture hanging on the wall of meeting rooms, as if he's some kind of savior. (And where did the anonymous part go?) I also have a problem listening to people share in meetings, the ones who thank their "higher power who they choose to call God," who attribute anything and everything, from their life to this morning's toast, to God. It's the hyperbole that bothers me. All the group does is help people find ways to manage the struggles associated with being human in ways other than with drugs and alcohol. Period. It is not a religion. I hope it's not a cult because, frankly, I (and maybe other vulnerable fuck ups like me) am ripe for somebody to come along and tell me how to live. You bet if the right person came along, one who didn't look like Bill W. but more like Pema Chodron, and offered me a plan for guaranteed happiness and relief from anxiety and myself, I'd attached myself to her barnacle style. If only.

Watch while I pull an economic recovery out of my hat!

2011-04-11T08:54:00.000-07:00

This explains a few things. Robert Reich published a piece yesterday: Why aren't we getting the truth about the economy.

We are all so desperate for good news that any growth is touted as a sign of recovery--even on NPR--and yet, it's not happening. The only recovery I notice is the annoying kind--a bit more traffic on the streets and freeways--and the pathetic kind--a few companies actually respond to me when I apply for jobs, then I spend $15 in gas and two hours of my life interviewing for a position that 50 other people want including some young thing right out of college willing to work for peanuts and stay up all night.

I do have a fairly steady stream of freelance but I should mention that I'm working for one-third to one-half my previous hourly rate.

In the words of Mr. Reich:

...consumer confidence is plummeting. It's weaker today on average than at the lowest point of the Great Recession.

Real hourly wages continue to fall, and housing prices continue to drop. Hourly wages are falling because with unemployment so high, most people have no bargaining power and will take whatever they can get.

But isn't the economy growing again - by an estimated 2.5 to 2.9 percent this year? Yes, but that's even less than peanuts. The deeper the economic hole, the faster the growth needed to get back on track. By this point in the so-called recovery, we'd expect the economy to be growing by 4 to 6 percent.

Consider that back in 1934, when it was emerging from the deepest hole of the Great Depression, the economy grew 7.7 percent. The next year, it grew over 8 percent. In 1936, it grew a whopping 14.1 percent.

So why aren't we getting the truth about the economy? For one thing, Wall Street is buoyant, and most financial news you hear comes from the Street. Wall Street profits soared to $426.5 billion last quarter, according to the Commerce Department.

Yes, Mr. Reich, it goes to prove my thesis that people are pigs and rich people are the piggiest.

We are emotional creatures.

2011-04-10T05:53:00.000-07:00

I heard Eve Ensler read this on the radio in my car yesterday and wanted to pull over and jump up and down and shout because she challenged a belief I didn't even know I had. One of the rites of passage for me in becoming a woman was feeling shamed about my emotional nature and, in turn, feeling "grossed out" by other girl's emotional outbursts. Frankly, one of the reasons I felt happy about having boys was so that I wouldn't have to deal with a teenage girl. Eve busted that bullshit apart. She's shining a light on that dark place. I found this poem liberating. Take it away Eve....

I AM AN EMOTIONAL CREATURE
I love being a girl.
I can feel what you're feeling
as you're feeling it inside
the feeling
before.
I am an emotional creature.
Things do not come to me
as intellectual theories or hard-shaped ideas.
They pulse through my organs and legs
and burn up my ears.
I know when your girlfriend's really pissed off
even though she appears to give you what
you want.
I know when a storm is coming.
I can feel the invisible stirrings in the air.
I can tell you he won't call back.
It's a vibe I share.
I am an emotional creature.
I love that I do not take things lightly.
Everything is intense to me.
The way I walk in the street.
The way my mother wakes me up.
The way I hear bad news.
The way it's unbearable when I lose.
I am an emotional creature.
I am connected to everything and everyone.
I was born like that.
Don't you dare say all negative that it's a
teenage thing
or it's only only because I'm a girl.
These feelings make me better.
They make me ready.
They make me present.
They make me strong.
I am an emotional creature.
There is a particular way of knowing.
It's like the older women somehow forgot.
I rejoice that it's still in my body.
I know when the coconut's about to fall.
I know that we've pushed the earth too far.
I know my father isn't coming back.
That no one's prepared for the fire.
I know that lipstick means
more than show.
I know that boys feel super-insecure
and so-called terrorists are made, not born.
I know that one kiss can take
away all my decision-making ability
and sometimes, you know, it should.
This is not extreme.
It's a girl thing.
What we would all be
if the big door inside us flew open.
Don't tell me not to cry.
To calm it down
Not to be so extreme
To be reasonable.
I am an emotional creature.
It's how the earth got made.
How the wind continues to pollinate.
You don't tell the Atlantic ocean
to behave.
I am an emotional creature.
Why would you want to shut me down
or turn me off?
I am your remaining memory.
I am connecting you to your source.
Nothing's been diluted.
Nothing's leaked out.
I can take you back.
I love that I can feel the inside
of the feelings in you,
even if it stops my life
even if it hurts too much
or takes me off track
even if it breaks my heart.
It makes me responsible.
I am an emotional
I am an emotional, devotional,
incandotional, creature.
And I love, hear me,
love love love
being a girl.

Let's bitch.

2011-04-07T14:30:00.000-07:00

This blogger got a book deal. So did Emily somebody from Cupcakes and Cashmere. I'm sure these girls work very hard and post daily but how many fashion/lifestyle books from bloggers do we need? I know, unlike clean air and water, that money is one of those unlimited resources (my woo-woo sources told me so) but publishers are stingy and according to them there is a finite and miniscule amount of it to spread around. I'd much rather see them using it to fertilize books by these bloggers: Rude Man on Ice, Simone Says, or The Yeast I Can Do. Not just because I personally like these people, but because I'm all for variety. And humor. And I already know how to wear colored tights.

Mindful/less Monday.

2011-04-04T10:05:00.000-07:00

Have you ever been plagued with low-grade anxiety. It's a feeling as if I've forgotten something, a term paper or a child at school, but can't remember what it is. I've had that feeling for a couple of days. Nothing's any more wrong than usual, but I just can't pinpoint the origin of this fear and worry. So I went to Beyond Blue and got this:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. –Marianne Williamson

Maybe the origin of my anxiety is that I'm Wonder Woman, about to win the lottery (I did dream about the number 38 million last night), and get a wheelbarrow full of acceptance letters from literary journals and a book deal? Or maybe I'm just a good person who continues to do the next right thing? At this moment, that is mulching the garden.

Ex in dream!

2011-04-02T10:36:00.000-07:00

A nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live here.

The preamble: ex was here picking up Liam. He was wearing a shirt with a quote on it in Italian: Dante's famous "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here." Taken literally, a person wearing that shirt is warning people that if you get involved with wearer, i.e. ex, you should give up hope of ever feeling happy again. He should have had it on when I met him 20 years ago, although I probably would have fallen for the tortured artist act. Obviously I would have because last night I had a dream that ex was flirting with me a la Big Guns. (I hope it doesn't mean I want a combination of the two of them, some sexual intellectual?) Let's just say the dream makes me look magnanimous and that I'm hoping ex is able to get in touch with the human side of him--the part that isn't his brain. BTW, Italian is the fourth language he's become fluent in. I think he's trying to find the one language that ultimately, finally, allows him to express himself and be present and live in the moment. Good luck with that.

Ahh spring.

2011-04-01T23:44:00.000-07:00

I love spring. I do. Just when I think I can't stand it another minute--the mud and weeds and grey skies--the sun comes out and the flowers bloom and my yard smells like candy and everything's right with the world. The weeds can wait until next weekend.

Does anything smell quite like a spicy, fruity freesia? These are mixed with Santa Rosa daisies, the flower of the decade. They are all over my neighborhood.

Some kind of lowly geranium, but loverly all the same. Pretty pretty pretty.

My crabapple tree is amazing! It's a blaze of blossoms! A magenta firework!

The color!

After a minute or two, Dylan magically appears. He loves the garden as much as I do. Good kitty. Look at him, he's pretty magnificent, too. They really go together.

Dylan in the grass.

It's not about the pants, pt. 2

2011-04-01T07:04:00.000-07:00

I realized that I forgot to include the epiphany that followed the last epiphany post. For 18 years, I thought my problem was ex but it turned out all along that my problem was me.

It's not about the pants.

2011-03-30T09:11:00.000-07:00

I had one really good epiphany while parenting about ten years ago. I was trying to get my oldest, who was three at the time, dressed and out the door for preschool and he was not cooperating. He was on his bed in his Blue's Clue's undies crying, whining, and shaking his head while I frantically held up pant options.

"How about these? These? Why not these? Yesterday you loved these pants; they have Thomas the Tank Engine on them!" About the time I was ready to give him back, it dawned on me: this was not about the pants. I asked him if he needed a hug and he said yes so I gave him one. Then he got dressed and we went to school.

Sometimes what we think is the problem, isn't really the problem.

The cut. What?

2011-03-29T14:12:00.000-07:00

One of the ways I make the time go by until I end up in the pine box is reading emails sent to me by New York magazine re: fashion. It's branded "The Cut." Get it? You cut fabric to make fashion/you cut lines of cocaine which I'm sure helps keep models skinny/this is the news worthy to make it to my mailbox--so many meanings in that little name. But why do I read it? Why? (She asks, banging her head against her desk.) I feel superior because I think to myself "Thank God I'm not part of that scene!" but that's a lie, because by reading the emails I am a fringe part of that scene, which makes me even more pathetic, just being a fringe and not, say, a hemline or zipper. Here's a particularly stimulating headline:

Olivia Munn Wore a Bright Blue Marchesa Dress

Seriously? Who the fuck is Olivia Munn and who the fuck cares what color dress she wore?

Baby fever.

2011-03-28T11:36:00.000-07:00


Above-the-waist old man pants.

Everywhere I look women are having babies or being pregnant: Faux Fuschia, Rachel Zoe, all those Spice Girls.

I did not like puking AND STILL gaining weight for nine months. Once I had my boys and was home with them, most of the time I was so bored I thought I was crazy. Seriously. I talked with my doctor. Even still, I'm missing those days. I never thought it would happen to me.

Here are a few photos. This is how old I am; my children's baby pictures are on film, i.e. negatives and paper. I had to photograph a 35mm print with my digital camera then transfer it to ye old laptop. (Oh, soon after the photo on the right was taken, we got a digital camera, but ex has all the photos on his laptop.) Mario is still cute, is he not?

Those cheeks! That mouth!

Heh heh.

This was before the days of blogs and Facebook. Back then, all I had to reach out to other adults was my telephone and dial-up email. (These things could not be used at the same time.) I often wonder if I wouldn't have felt so lonely and isolated had I had an online community back then. And online suits me because apparently I only like other moms digitally, not in person. I did have a subscription to Brain, Child for a sanity check, and actually published a few pieces with them. Those editors understood the downs of parenting--long, unpaid hours, the doubts and struggles. (The ups, after all, are a given--cuteness, recreation and procreation of a better self, blah, blah, blah...) But that magazine arrived only monthly and I was finished with it in a few days. I also had brief respites with Anne Lamott and my What to Expect the First Year book, but no daily dose like what is available today.

Psst: The secret.

2011-03-22T08:26:00.000-07:00

How had I never heard of The Secret? I must have been drunk or changing diapers during this fad.

Desperate for entertainment on Sunday eve, I watched a documentary about it. I'm a magical thinker but I'm also a half-measure kind of gal so even though I expected my LIFE as I knew it to change forever, I was also eating dinner in bed and flipping through Lucky magazine.

What's the secret? What the angels, my woo-woo mentors, mothers and Jesus have been saying for years: ask and you shall receive and reap what you sow.

It's all about manifesting and making vision boards and sending out positive vibrational energies. It did get me thinking that my son's teacher is right: I'm negative. If The Secret Keepers are right, I'm screwed.

It's official: I'm not an optimist.

2011-03-18T15:23:00.000-07:00

I went on an all-day field trip yesterday with fifty 12- 13-, and 14-year olds. The odyssey went like this: hour-long car drive with five teenage boys to Tiburon, ferry trip to Angel Island, 6-mile hike with two snack breaks, ferry trip back to Tiburon, car drive home. One would think that agreeing to do this would make me, if not an optimist then, at least positive, but several times my son's teacher--a very cheerful and optimistic woman--mentioned, in the kindest, cheerful, optimistic and sarcastic way what a sunny disposition I have. I don't remember what I said to elicit these responses. Well, I remember one thing. A kid was complaining about his sore neck. One mom said it might be his heavy backpack (we were instructed to bring BIG lunches.) Cheery teacher mentioned that he might have slept wrong. I said it was possibly meningitis.

I am not a chihuahua.

I am cynical, like Dylan. It's not an entirely bad thing, is it?

We were blessed with beautiful weather. Imagine what I would have been like had it rained as the weather service predicted? There was enough complaining already (and not from me).

I went to the doctor for a check up and I'm officially ten pounds heavier than I was three years ago. She suggested sorbet instead of ice cream (again). I said that when I have a part-time job with great benefits that pays $100K a year AND a book deal we'll talk about my diet.

Having major fantasies about two weeks in a remote cabin with electricity and no internet to do the final edits on my novel and whip out a synopsis.

2011-03-16T06:58:00.000-07:00

I read this little article in Psych Central at 5:30 this morning. (My oldest had to be at school by 6:30 for a field trip.) It made me want to rewind my entire life and re-shoot it. I think I have mentioned how ex accused me of being incapable of intimacy our entire marriage. This is why.

A bit defensive are we?

People! There's no softer, easy way or any substitute for feeling your feelings. You must feel them. Apparently, it won't kill you.

A few tidbits. (If you're seeking mental health and a fulfilling relationship, you should read the whole thing.)

When you avoid feeling the emotions of vulnerability that are a natural aspect of being human, unwittingly, you become the cause of your own suffering.

When, in order to avoid these feelings, you blame others or events for the pain you feel inside, you act in ways that are contrary to the best interests of your relationship.

When your relationships are on the line, so is your health and your happiness.

The choice is clearer now thanks to recent advances in the study of the brain. Will you take the helm as the captain of your life, as the agent and creator of your experiences, or remain a passive onlooker reacting to and hoping to avoid crises, perhaps even thinking of your self as a victim of certain persons or circumstances?

Yeah, now you tell me.

Brace yourself--encouraging words.

2011-03-11T07:19:00.000-08:00

To help you carry onward in difficult times from my gal, Therese Borchard:

A Japanese proverb: "Fall seven times, stand up eight."

ABuddhist saying, "If we are facing in the right direction, all we have to do is keep on walking."

A quote from Mary Anne Radmacher: "Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, 'I will try again tomorrow.'"

It's tomorrow.

My new obsession.

2011-03-10T09:19:00.000-08:00

According to this young scion of fashion, we can now wear slippers with our pajamas in public. Are you listening, N?!? Life gets better and better. I'm in my pajamas right now, but I don't have a pair of these:


Image from The Man Repeller

You know why? Because they cost $395?! Who buys slippers that cost $395? The Man Repeller. And she's only 22. And a college student. I'm thinking trust fund. My slippers...No, I'm not going to show them to you. They're too gross. An old, beat-up pair of clogs that I also use for gardening. (Not of the Crocs variety; I still have some dignity.)

I am sick and missing Pilates today. I am still unemployed, or underemployed if you count the freelance I'm currently doing for half my usual hourly rate. Let's just say it would take me a couple of weeks after taxes to buy myself a pair of Stubbs & Wooton slippers. What are they made of? Velvet woven from the nostril hairs of baby pandas?

Oh man.

2011-03-04T08:03:00.000-08:00

When I was pregnant with my oldest, ex and I were fully expecting he was a girl. We just couldn't imagine ourselves raising a boy because we're both such "girl" people. I had a dream that I gave birth and it was a boy. I looked at him and said, "You get back in there. You're not finished yet. You're supposed to be a girl." According to a new book, my dream was very prescience.

Credit goes to my friend D for finding this interview Piper Weiss Shine had with Dan Abrams, the author of Man Down: Proof Beyond a Reasonable Doubt That Women Are Better Cops, Drivers, Gamblers, Spies, World Leaders, Beer Tasters, Hedge Fund Managers, and Just About Everything Else.

Abrams--a man!--looked at tons o' research that, in addition to the list above, proved that women live longer, tolerate pain better, are better doctors, and less corruptible and gullible.

Don't worry, dudes. There are some things you excel at:

Men are better at parking, they’re better dieters, they have better distance vision, they read maps better. One study suggests they even treat their friends better.

His last thought:

Overall I found that men's biggest problem is that they’re too confident and women’s biggest problem is that they’re not confident enough. Truth is, I think the evidence is overwhelming in favor of women.

That's certainly my problem, little miss who-would-hire-this-piece-of-shit-that-the-world-revolves around so I'm happy to shine your shoes and no, you don't have to pay me minimum wage.

Oh baby.

2011-03-03T23:09:00.000-08:00

This made me happy. I got to meet, hold, sniff, and rock my friend C's new baby, Aveline. She is so petite and sweet. I haven't held a newborn in quite a while. (And never one this tiny. At a month, she topped the scales at 8 lbs. My babies were 9 lbs. at birth.) She's a little hazelnut (which is what her name means) of love.

In a word, exquisite.

She's studying the quality and values of the sunlight; her dad is an artist.


Don't hate me because I'm beautiful. Hate me because I have great style.

After her lunch and diaper change, I got to walk/rock her to sleep. Those babies fight it and I just love the feeling when they finally give up the ghost, shudder and drift off to dream land. I hope I get invited back.

The Monday Thursday

2011-03-03T09:06:00.000-08:00

When I worked full-time and had kids, I actually looked forward to Mondays after spending the weekend with them. Then, by Friday, I missed them terribly and looked forward to the weekend. That was a nice cycle. Now it's all cattywhompuss and today feels like Monday and I'm always missing and needing a break from my boys.

Liam and his friend Kaia and the famous Yule Log cake at Christmas.

I saw the divorce lawyer yesterday. He commended me on getting along with ex. He's been in the biz for 30 years and has seen some horrific stuff. He says most divorce lawyers have good marriages because they've seen the horror divorcing people inflict on each other. Be afraid. His stories! Humans are greedy and sometimes we get it in our heads that the only thing that will make us happy is to annihilate our exes. When divorcing, the way to do that is with money and custody of the children. Those are your weapons. He also said that this depression/recession is soo deep, the biz of divorce has gone the way of the housing market. People simply can't afford it and are staying in shitty marriages until the economy picks up. Good times.

This week I'm pondering how we decide we no longer love a person or if we're just irritable and need a nap. We had a marriage counselor once who told us that the opposite of love was indifference, not hate. The opposite of irritation isn't murder, is it? I'm thinking I need a vacation, but some would say that my whole life is a vacation 'cause, you know, I'm not working, just worrying about not working.

I'm off to take world-famous Cheese House sandwiches to my friend C who just had a precious baby girl. So sweet, so petite. Pictures tomorrow. Have a nice Monday/Thursday.

10 forms of twisted thinking.

2011-02-24T07:59:00.000-08:00

I am one twisted mother. I have been told so many times by so many professionals and lay persons that my main problem is the way I think, so I had to re-post this item from Therese over at Beyond Blue. I think I have more than 10 actually because I'm an overachiever and really special. See? There's one right there.

Both David Burns (bestselling author of "Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy" and Abraham Low (founder of Recovery, Inc.) teach techniques to analyze negative thoughts (or identify distorted thinking) so to be able to disarm and defeat them.

Since Low's language is a bit out-dated, I list below Burns' "Ten Forms of Twisted Thinking," (adapted from "Feeling Good") categories of dangerous ruminations, that when identified and brought into your consciousness, lose their power over you.

1. All-or-nothing thinking (a.k.a. my brain and the Vatican's): You look at things in absolute, black-and-white categories.
2. Overgeneralization (also a favorite): You view a negative event as a never-ending pattern of defeat.
3. Mental filter: You dwell on the negatives and ignore the positives.
4. Discounting the positives: You insist that your accomplishments or positive qualities don't count (my college diploma was stroke of luck...really, it was).
5. Jumping to conclusions (loves alcoholic families): You conclude things are bad without any definite evidence. These include mind-reading (assuming that people are reacting negatively to you) and fortune-telling (predicting that things will turn out badly).
6. Magnification or minimization: You blow things way out of proportion or you shrink their importance.
7. Emotional reasoning: You reason from how you feel: "I feel like an idiot, so I must be one."
8. "Should" statements (every other word for me): You criticize yourself or other people with "shoulds," "shouldn'ts," "musts," "oughts," and "have-tos."
9. Labeling: Instead of saying, "I made a mistake," you tell yourself, "I'm a jerk" or "I'm a loser."
10. Blame: You blame yourself for something you weren't entirely responsible for, or you blame other people and overlook ways that you contributed to a problem.

Depression and addiction. Or Lincoln and me.

2011-02-22T16:57:00.000-08:00

Although drug ads would have one believe that depression can be cured, it's beyond the scope of medicine, encompassing the physical body and the mind, which makes it exactly like addiction. Both are chronic diseases that need to be managed daily. Both have, at some point, taken a person to her knees in defeat. Both require the sufferer to admit she is powerless and to turn the care of herself over to a higher power.

I recently read this article, which is a synopsis (although it's an Atlantic piece, so it's still long) of a book about Lincoln's depression. To compare my depressive/addictive nature to Lincoln's is like comparing a mosquito bite to full-blown psoriasis, but I could relate to the guy.

Lincoln: "They meant to set up a standard maxim for free society," Lincoln said, "which should be familiar to all, and revered by all; constantly looked to, constantly labored for … even though never perfectly attained."
AA: Progress, not perfection.

Lincoln: "Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it."
AA: Do the next right thing.

I hear many drunks in meetings identify themselves as "grateful alcoholics." I used to think they were grateful to be sober, but now I see what they mean is that they are grateful for the gift of their disease. Lincoln, too, seemd to come to believe that his disease was not a curse, but a gift.

It's a pity that it would be an uphill battle for a great man like Lincoln to be elected today. Aside from the fact that the camera didn't love him, once People magazine ran a story about his black dog, the race would be over. The public views depression and alcoholism as character flaws and weaknesses, which is too bad because both diseases, when being treated, result in a person who is rich in humility, has examined her soul, and taken responsibility for her actions. I wouldn't mind seeing more of these traits in my elected officials.

Die young. Stay pretty.

2011-02-20T09:11:00.000-08:00

The headline on this week's Parade magazine, paragon of useful information:

PARADE REVEALS THE SECRETS TO A LONG LIFE; DO YOU HAVE WHAT IT TAKES TO GO THE DISTANCE?

My thoughts (right after Ooh, yum cake!) were I sure hope not.

What's with the big desire to live endlessly long lives? The things I enjoy--exercising, shopping at Forever 21 and wearing clothes meant for teenagers, eating high fat/low fiber/high sodium meals--are typically things that can't or shouldn't be done by old people.

Let's face it, most of life is a veil of fucking tears. What's the attraction to prolonging the misery?

Here's the bad news, according to this article, some of my behaviors are predictors of long life: unmarried, chronic worrier, introverted, active. Fuck. I don't, however, have a fulfilling, successful (or existent) career at this point, so staying unemployed isn't all bad.

Maybe I'll change my mind some day and want to live to 97 like my neighbor and Big Gun's dad. She's doing OK, but as far as I can tell, his biggest enjoyments are the three squares his caregiver mashes up on a plate and serves him, even though his doctor has ordered that they have to be low in salt/sugar/fat/flavor to ensure he lives even longer. Not my idea of nirvana. I'd take an early death over that, but ask me again in twenty years.

An ounce of prevention.

2011-02-16T08:20:00.000-08:00

Dear married or engaged people,

After you bring your significant other a coffee and tell him/her how smashing hes/she looks, read this article.

Love,

your divorcing friend

2011-02-14T09:37:00.000-08:00

This article ran in Sunday's SF Chronicle. It cleared a few things up for me. I have been confused why some economic news appears to be good, retail sales are up, traffic is increasing, homes continue to sell, ex gets a 45K bonus, and yet Big Guns and I still can't find good jobs. I've been waiting for the proverbial "trickle down," which is like waiting for Santa. True capitalism and free markets will never work because people are selfish pigs. We're pack animals. We live in herds or groups or communities or whatever you want to call it and part of the responsibility of living in these herds/communities is taking care of all our members. Fucking rich people.

Secret mormon mother stalker.

2011-02-13T22:51:00.000-08:00

So my friend Sandee sends me this link to an article about feminists who obsessively read blogs written by Mormon women. I have plenty of character defects, but I was fairly certain that wasn't one of them.

I regularly read several blogs written by really cheery moms--the type that I hate in person--but they aren't Mormon, at least that's what I thought. One mentioned going to church but also talked about going to bars so I was thinking she was Catholic. My bloggers don't look like Mormons; they don't have piercings or tattoos, but they do wear army boots.

Post article, I started noticing the tells, like multiple children and mentions of missions and husbands who get advanced degrees and the wife still stays home. (Who pays the fucking bills is what I want to know? God, I guess.) I'm not exactly a feminist, but OMG I've become Mormon mom stalker. Why? I'm held and repelled. I hate optimists, yet I'm attracted to the belief these women have that it's always going to be OK. They never worry about money. They never question their choices. And they do nice crafts.

Reading them is like watching an episode of "Friends," where good looking underemployed people live in fabulously decorated apartments (no hand-me-down Ikea sofas) and wear perfect clothes (never the same thing twice) and never talk about the cost of living. Is that what it's like to be Mormon? Right now it sound like a never-ending ecstasy trip.

The reason I keep coming back is probably because I never have to have coffee, I mean caffeine-free diet Coke, with any of them.

One more thing today that I'm obsesssing about.

2011-02-10T17:37:00.000-08:00

Ex emailed me to tell me his company gave him a 45K bonus. WTF?! That's over twice my spousal support for the fucking year! More than most people's salaries!

He didn't know if he was supposed to share it with me. I wanted to say You should give me the whole enchilada because I pushed out your two 9-lb. children without drugs then kept them alive and healthy until they were both almost adults.

I checked with a friend, then a lawyer friend and both said I would probably not be entitled to any of this. Then I bit the bullet and contacted my own lawyer who said "Not so fast, missy. Let's not forget Smith Osler. Certainly you put something in your settlement about Smith Osler."

I don't remember. Do I even have a final settlement? Do I really have to go back through painful paperwork? Yes, I do, but let's just say that I'm not going to get excited about any extra income coming in. Two days ago I was envisioning a vacation outside of my own backyard and the ability to pay for my new crown (not the royal kind, the tooth kind).

As Big Guns keeps reminding me: it's just money. We are the same people with or without it. It doesn't change our characters.

Well no, it doesn't change most people's characters but it has a tendency to make me crazier. Have you seen those videos of lab rats sucking down nicotine? Sort of like that.

Squeamish people look away.

2011-02-10T15:49:00.000-08:00

The procedure went as well as can be expected when a sweet, young doctor is sticking needles in your eyelids. I didn't feel the cutting stitching but I could smell my flesh burning as it was being cauterized and the blood dripping into my eyes. Apparently, I sailed through in record time. It was all over in 30 minutes. I was groggy from the valium and anti-puke pill plus the whole idea that somebody had cut through my eyelids. I could see light when he sliced even though my eyes were closed. Creepy.

Anyway, I came home and rested and, because I'm not very good at resting, I got up and made a pot of soup then decided to take a pain pill (my drug of choice, BTW) since I was having a bit of throbbing and it's always best to nip that in the bud. I ate a bowl of soup, chatted with mom (although I couldn't look up), ate another bowl of soup, started to feel "off," headed to bed, but only got as far as the hallway where I fainted.

Fainting is an odd thing. It's like the lights just get turned off. I've done it three times before--doctor's office, my own bathroom, and a crowded movie theater lobby. I'm practically a professional and, indeed, did not hurt myself this or any of those other times. I mean I could could fall on an ax or the corner of a bookshelf or something, but I just crumple delicately to the floor. At least that's how I imagine it.

Here's a photo. Forgive me. I look like Frankenstein. I am ashamed and embarrassed that I did this to myself. Was I that bored?

Is a Monday with no work better than a Monday with work?

2011-02-07T10:38:00.000-08:00

I can't decide. I suppose they suck equally but for different reasons. Hands-down winner for the suckiest Monday is driving your sullen teenager to an 8 a.m. ortho appointment, then having to wait 1-1/2 hours with no coffee. I gorged on three weeks worth of People and the latest Redbook magazines. The only thing I remember: a story about mom who killed her two teenagers for being "mouthy." The rest is a blur of diet tips, toning exercises, and ways to attract and keep a man. Oh, here's a thing I love: when they tout some cheap blouse from say, Forever 21, and tart it up with $300 pants and a $1,500 bag. Chanel anything can make an old newspaper look rich. Suck on.

And the universe said to snip my eyes.

2011-02-04T15:50:00.000-08:00

A year or so ago, one of my fabulous nieces, the one who works for the plastic surgeon, mentioned that I might want to consider having my lids done. Another of her aunts had it done and she said it was a quick and easy procedure and she was AWAKE the whole time.

"You were awake while somebody cut your eyelids?!" I asked. I'd like to say I considered having it done for a minute or two, but the possibility of signing up for this didn't cross my mind for a second. Until I saw this picture:

At first, I blamed my bassett-hound dog eyes on my iridescent eye shadow that seemed to highlight an area that didn't need any attention called to itself. I spent 45 minutes with a Sephora beauty expert to locate a non-sparkly shadow. The first one she offered up was called "smudge pot," and clearly meant for some firm-lidded young thing. How many times have I heard "skin loses its elasticity as we age?" It's not true. The skin on my eyes is extremely elastic and capable of seismic shifts--I think I could stretch it all the way to my ear. I eventually found a creamier version that I could glide across my highly movable eye canvas.

This was not enough for the Universe. My Pilates partner works in the plastic surgery field and apparently the resident surgeon who's currently rotating through niece's office is a wunderkind, the best of his field! And he's leaving in two weeks! If I was ever going to do it, now was the time.

Next Wednesday I will go to Palo Alto and return sans two little crescents of my eyelids--those I'm leaving behind like extra baggage.

I will then be sporting a bandage across my face for the next five days and orders not to elevate my blood pressure too greatly, i.e. no exercise. Expect many pathetic posts. I hope this is not a slippery slope I'm stepping onto.

2011-01-30T19:13:00.000-08:00

My aunt posted this article about why diets don't work. I read the whole thing because a) my family is size obsessed and b) I could easily substitute "food" for alcohol or underwear shopping or opiods or caramel apple Sugar Babies.

There are physiological reasons why diets fail: dieting, like drinking a bottle of wine a day or shooting heroin regularly, changes your body's regulators so that you don't know what you need except for MORE MORE MORE. (I am not a scientist or smart even and this is a gross oversimplification.) However, her solution, the one she imparts to clients seeking help for disordered eating, is to start being mindful about eating, helping clients identify if he or she is eating because of hunger or something else. Many clients are so removed from their bodies (and emotions) that they have a hard time knowing what real hunger feels like. I could relate to this idea of being detached. This particular addict/alcoholic couldn't tease out of my white noise of emotions what I was feeling--anxiety? fear? happiness?--just that I needed something RIGHT NOW! to assuage them.

She doesn't ask her clients to stop or alter their eating, just to think. No judgments are attached. (This is where our programs differ; I had to stop with the wine.) Her goal is not to make her clients skinny; in fact, she debunks the "research" that says that Americans are dropping dead from being overweight; that it isn't, as most people believe, a death sentence to be overweight. Her goal is to get her clients to a point of acceptance about their sizes, appetites and emotions. In short, to let go of the outcomes and accept their truths.

In my short time in recovery, this is what I've come to accept: that life for me is pretty much completely about acceptance. I'm not the prettiest or thinnest or smartest girl in the room. (Although I can say that a lot of the time I was the drunkest.) I am not the world's best mother. I am occasionally funny. I married a person who was the right guy for me in 1991, but not the right guy for me in 2008. I am often worried and quick to anger. I'm hugely defensive and have big, ass fears of looking like an idiot. I will get more rejections, guaranteed. I have no idea what the hell I'm doing most of the time. I am human and have no control over anything. Stuff like that. And it's starting to be okay.

Dead pets.

2011-01-26T12:21:00.000-08:00

You'd think I'd be good at this by now, having witnessed some major deaths in the last two years, mainly Big Gun's mother and my marriage. But losing our two guinea pigs in the last two weeks also signaled the end of a part of my kids' childhoods: the end of the small rodent era. (Well, those kept as pets, at least. Kitten continues to bring home juicy rats.)

The house is full of phantom Chippy and Giselle chirps and squeaks. When I enter the kitchen in the am, first thing I do is look toward the spot where their cages were. It will take time to get used to living without the little furries. They are under the redwood tree with all their predecessors. The day after Chippy's interment, Kitten and Dylan were hanging out there. According to my pet psychic friend, our redwood tree is a sacred portal. Nice.

On to the next chapter, which will soon include driving and picking out colleges. I gave the older brother of a friend of my big boy's a ride home the other day. He's choosing between Harvard, Dartmouth, Yale and some university in Vancouver. He says the decision hinges on what's the most affordable! Compared to what? Paying off the deficit?

Where do kids come up with this stuff?

2011-01-21T14:40:00.000-08:00

A friend's daughter got sent to rehab for, get this, over-the-counter cold medicine! How old am I that I didn't even know about this? Apparently, if you take enough Robitusson--something like 30 pills or a couple of bottles--you get a high akin to LSD. I know because I googled it and Dateline had done a segment on it a six years ago. I asked my teenager if he'd heard of such a thing. "That's old news," he said. Maybe I am as stupid as he thinks I am. Then I asked him where he'd heard of it. He replied, "South Park."

As a teenager, I would have considered South Park educational. Legal, OTC drugs? Yes! I can see myself driving to ten different pharmacies with a fake cough and buying one package of Robitusson at each one, so as not to arouse any suspicions because that's the kind of addict I am: self conscious and shame averse. I think my friend's daughter just stole the stuff and for that she's doing a year in rehab. My teenage addict thinks "poor kid." My adult in recovery thinks "lucky kid." I hope she gets it.

Coffee with ex: a glimpse into how things could be.

2011-01-16T18:19:00.000-08:00

I asked ex to meet me for coffee and he agreed. I'm embarrassed to admit that I was excited about it, like first-date excited, even though I know better and don't want that anyway. I think I was excited about the possibilities of actually having a conversation with him because--another gift to be grateful for--I no longer want him to contract ebola and bleed out in front of me.

I arrive at the Starbucks. (Where would future and former couples be without Starbucks?) I sit down. He stares at me. Silence. My emotional Tourettes kicks in and I start spewing my hopes for the future, that we--me and Big Guns, he and his chia pet--would be comfortable socializing, being in the same room together. Basically, I came out of the gate too fast. He was physically taken back and I had too explain that I didn't mean we'd all go out to dinner that evening, but was talking about the boys' birthdays. At any rate, it took the wind out of my sails. Right, this is ex, after all. Same old, same old. He kept me in check all those years, for good and bad. He was an anchor and a jail. He tempered my impulsivity, but also was a wet blanket.

I was able to shut up for a few minutes and let him talk, which is difficult for me. I suppose I've always been afraid of what he's going to say, like "I'm gay," or "I don't love you," or "I can't believe you haven't read James Joyce." Overall, it was a good talk and I left feeling freer and more confident that we had made the right decision. Who am I kidding? I felt happy I could have a civil conversation with my boys' father without anger or regret or resentments. It was a miracle! To quote the Big Book, "we will be amazed before we are half way through. We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it."

Things could be worse; I could be Sarah Palin.

2011-01-12T17:47:00.000-08:00

Even though I'm an alcoholic and unemployed and have gained five pounds in the last two weeks, at least I'm not Sarah Palin. How self deluded, defensive, greedy and downright annoying can a person be? Of all people, I know how hard it is to admit when you've made a mistake, but, trust me, you'd look a lot better if you'd just admit that using a target, even as a metaphor, for going after political rivals might not have been the best idea.

At my worst, cross-eyed drunk, angry, mean, and defensive--I can think of one boozy evening at my sister's house where I told my boys what a jerk their dad was and that if we got divorced, it would be his fault--there was still a part of me that knew I was cross-eyed drunk, angry, mean, and defensive. I blame a lot of my inability to say "I'm sorry" on my drinking. Hey, Sarah, what's your excuse?

Movie review: Blue Valentine

2011-01-09T11:51:00.000-08:00

Ouch. I recommend this movie to any young (or old) hopefuls excited about marriage, although I suspect that they won't see themselves on the screen. They will think "That will never be us," just like I thought it would never be me, that I'd never be repulsed by the sight/sound/smell of my beloved.

This movie has one of the most horrific, drunk sex scenes I've ever had to witness. I've been the partner in several just like this, but I've never had to sit there and watch the action with a large, greasy bag of popcorn on my lap, stone-cold sober.

It's an up close movie, very tight and introspective. Even the camera shots are all cropped-in and pore observing. In fact, it's so emotionally constricting that after seeing it, you'll want to run out of the movie theater and dance wildly in the street. I felt like walking to Nola's, a bar around the corner, and chasing the last 2 hours out of my head with tequila shots. I ate falafel and hummus instead.

I also saw True Grit this week and it's a fine movie, just as good as the first True Grit (who would have thought that John Wayne's performance could be improved upon? Who would have had the guts to even try? Jeff Bridges, that's who. Bravo, Jeff.)

This is how prayer works.

2011-01-04T16:37:00.000-08:00

In the program, we are advised to pray to our higher power (which can be whatever you want: he, she, nature, or a group of drunks--G.O.D. Get it? I'll just refer to it as HP). It takes some of us years to a) accept we are alcoholics, b) accept there is an HP, and c) actually pray to him/her/it. In the past, my prayers have been short and of the desperate variety. They went something like this: "Help. Amen." I was too afraid to ask for anything, fearing I'd look selfish or ask for the wrong thing ("Dear HP, Please hook me up with a new Lexus. Amen and thanks.")

Anyway, the last couple of days after reading Lit, I've been trying something new: instead of asking for anything, I list the things I am thankful for: the health of my children, parents, friends, and bf; Mario's sense of humor; my pets; the fact I have a nice place to live and enough money to eat, turn on the lights, buy new clothes, and go to the movies. I even thanked God for my appetite, that I never starved to death from anorexia like that poor, beautiful 20-something model I recently read about. More than once as I was piously thinking of things to be thankful for, my mind wandered and began constructing the day's outfit or pondering what I'd seen on TV the night before: Why did Dexter do that? It doesn't come naturally to me. Yet. It's only been three days.

After a couple of weeks of emotional dumpster diving, I started to feel better. And then--with eight years of writing and six months of active submissions under my belt--I get my first acceptance. Coincidence?

What I wore while my children were in Colorado visiting the other grandma.

2011-01-04T08:10:00.000-08:00

(I actually made a pie chart but can't figure out how to copy here. I worked on this issue for several hours--Luddite!--while wearing my pajamas (of course). (UPDATE! My friend, N, sent me a pie chart!!! Thank you, N!) By my calculations, the children were gone for 120 hours. Here's a breakdown of what I wore in that time:

If I calculated what I ate, I'm sure my sugar to protein/carb ratio would rival the pajama to street/workout clothes. Maybe I should be like my friend, N, and jump on the pajamas in public trend?

I, the drinker

2011-01-02T09:29:00.000-08:00

I'm reading Lit (highly recommend it) by Mary Karr. Here's a quote:

I keep getting drunk. There's no more interesting way to say it. Only drunk does the volume crank down. Liquor no longer lets me bullshit myself that I'm taller, faster, funnier. Instead, it shrinks me to a plodding zombie state where one day smudges into another--it blurs time.

Sing it, Mary. Starting in high school, I used to joke about how I just wanted to hurry up and get this life over and be on to the next one. It wasn't until years later that I enlisted alcohol's help with that and the years flew by in the drink of an eye. I was living with a miserable person who I thought was miserable because of me. I had a few sober hours where I carried a rock of guilt, then cocktail hour came and I had a brief respite and the world seemed sparkly and I was, like Mary says, taller and funnier and, for me, skinnier and happy--I was going to make it to my silver anniversary and we'd dance at our son's weddings. But then I picked up the rock of shame and my load was so heavy there was nothing to do but get drunk again.

Fortunately, the days are clear and long and full of feeling now. Unfortunately, the days are clear and long and full of feeling now.

Beauty's ass.

2010-12-31T12:03:00.000-08:00

This week's Doonesbury story line got me thinking about this roommate my two bf's had years ago. She was a true beauty even without makeup, a younger Michelle Peiffer. Her her looks were a kind of currency for her and she traded in it. I envied her confidence and asked her once what it was like for her to look in the mirror. Did it feel good or did she just see the single eyebrow hair that was out of place? Although she was from Kansas, she had a southern-ish accent, which made her even cuter, and she said something like, "Golly gee, I just see a big ol' ball of flaws. I have some cellulite on my ass." I asked how she could see the back of her legs in the bathroom mirror. She demonstrated for me by jumping up on and toilet, grabbing a hand mirror and bending over. And she looked really good doing this.

Restless.

2010-12-29T17:39:00.000-08:00

I'm feeling a desperate need to move. Addicts have to be careful of these feelings and examine whether they are just us trying to fix things by pulling what is called a "geographic," which is an attempt to run away from our problems, i.e. ourselves. Here is my problem:

My living room. I've rearranged it so many times there are no configurations I haven't tried. It's not working for me anymore. I hate it. I avoid it. (At least I think that's why I'm spending most of my time in bed.) Should I paint the walls? Burn it down?
You know those people who have their house decorated and then it stays that way for 20 years? I don't get them.
On a happier note, here's my niece and her new baby. He's a typical boy: rambunctious and noisy, but oh is he cute. She's not bad, either.

34 worthwhile minutes.

2010-12-28T16:34:00.000-08:00

Anna at Door Sixteen turned me on to Kanye West's short film, Runaway. Yes! Anybody who puts ballet to modern music has my vote. Watch it here.

2010-12-28T15:53:00.000-08:00

This is really nifty. It's just not the same with rain.

BF is a bear.

2010-12-27T09:37:00.000-08:00

Big Guns couldn't be any more different than ex on so many levels.

Ex was like living with a mouse. He tread softly on this here earth, calling as little attention to himself as possible. Big Guns is a noisy, grunting bear. There are medical reasons for some of it.

He had a tracheotomy years ago and has scar tissue in his throat so the slightest tickle sets off some choking PTSD and he must, MUST clear his throat. This is no ordinary throat clearing, but a clear-the-room-I may-bring-up-a-lung. He has a big chest, which I believe magnifies the sound like a well-designed concert hall. This chest has the same effect on the numerous grunts, groans, and oy veys he makes when he moves.

And the gas. It's frightening, horrifying, and amazing. The length of each outburst has to be record-setting. (I assume somebody keeps records of these things.) They sound productive and I worry about the bed sheets; so far, so good, thank god.

It all takes some getting used to.

Why shopping malls are full of addicts.

2010-12-18T10:37:00.000-08:00

I had one of those moments yesterday. I spent the afternoon at Mario's school's winter celebration and ex, like he does every year, begged off for work reasons. (For the record, he's a mid-level manager at a software company; not, you know, Obama.)
That evening, Mario has ex on speaker phone as ex is supposedly commuting home from work, but I hear his girlfriend in the car. Mario says they commute together. It doesn't matter. My head begins to inflate like a balloon with anger and jealousy, my two go-to emotions.
This morning, these emotions are still with me and as I was "flipping" through Psych Central, my favorite psychology blog, I clicked on this link addressing a man's desire to rid himself of his anger and jealousy toward his estranged wife.
I ended up relating more to this guy's scandalous wife, who deceived and lied to her trusting husband for years. That was me. I was incapable of being honest that things were not OK in paradise; I didn't want to risk dealing with ex's sadness or anger when I told him I wasn't happy and had started thinking about other men. I deceived my trusting husband.
I no longer felt anger and jealousy; now I had a head full of shame and guilt. This did not feel like progress. What does the addict do with all these feelings swirling in her stinking thinking head? This addict notices a photograph of a woman in the newspaper wearing a frilly scarf and thinks to herself: Oooh, I think a new scarf would make me feel right as rain.

Mad for Mad Men.

2010-12-15T23:36:00.000-08:00

In the last four days I have showered, eaten, and watched three seasons of Mad Men -- that's something like 30 hours of television. I haven't seen disc 4 of season three yet. I'm saving it. I do this with books, too. (Not Jodi Picoult, but good books.) I'll read 250 pages in a day and a half then take a week to read the final ten pages. I just don't like to see good things come to an end.

Oh, Don Draper. I think I love you. Any guy who's so gentle and kind with his kids and brings a dog home and drinks whiskey for breakfast and is so solidly good looking but still makes heart-breaking idiot mistakes (don't sleep with your daughter's teacher!) that keep him firmly, flawedly (just made up that word) human...well, he has my heart.

My camera broke. This blog will be image free until a new one is acquired. I wanted the Canon Rebel but it's $700! Who knew? Any suggestions?

Multicultural me.

2010-12-06T19:08:00.000-08:00

This year's tree. A vast improvement over last year's. $60 from Home Depot! I went to three fine Xmas tree establishments before I found it.


A pan of stringy, potato-y goodness. I had to beat the boys back with a spoon dripping with hot grease to keep them from eating them all before dinner. Repeat performance on Tuesday.

On Sunday I put up the tree, played a few Xmas carols on the piano, and cooked up a big batch of latkes for the Hannukah gig at Big Gun's dad's house, where dinner was catered by Chili's. Except for the Chili's part, this is how we do it in the SF Bay Area.

Xmas spirit.

2010-12-04T14:05:00.000-08:00

I'm sitting in bed, mowing through a bag of mini Reese's peanut butter cups (which have a higher chocolate to peanut-butter ratio and are almost a perfect food) and reading Anne Lamott's book of essays, Plan B: Further Thought on Faith. I'm pissy and brooding because all my people are busy doing other things--working out, playing with their cousins, going to San Francisco to "hang out--and nobody is able to accompany me to get the Christmas tree. I've waited a week. I'm ready. The furniture's moved and the stand is sitting there empty, a big gaping, empty maw. Then I read this passage from Anne, who was talking about George W. but could have been talking about my thoughtless family:

But Jesus kept harping on forgiveness and loving one's enemies, so I decided to try. Why couldn't Jesus command us to obsess about everything, to try to control and manipulate people, to try not to breathe at all, or to pay attention, stomp away to brood when people annoy us, and then eat a big bag of Hershey's Kisses in bed?

It's almost like an intervention from God, no?

Movie review: Black Swan

2010-12-03T18:46:00.000-08:00

I took myself to see this and it wasn't easy, not just because of the difficult subject matter but because it's only playing in San Francisco. There was a big lunchtime crowd in the theatre; Mick LaSalle reviewed it in the Chronicle this AM. He gave it a little man sitting up and laughing -- almost his best. He did say that Natalie's performance was Oscar worthy.

My take: It wasn't the movie I expected or wanted but I enjoyed it. No, enjoy isn't the right word. It worked me; my stomach was in knots. I've taken enough ballet to have flashbacks throughout. Ballet is truly a strange and pathetic world that hasn't changed much. Is it because the dancers look like 12-year-old girls--no curves or breasts and big, hollow, hungry eyes like those paintings from the 70s--that they are treated like little girls pitted against each other, lied to, bribed and manipulated? As much as I hated reliving that, I would have liked more of it and less of the gore, some of it is real and some of it is, apparently, in our deranged heroine's head. I felt the entire audience look away in horror when she picks at her hang nail, pukes or has to pull her deformed toes apart. What bothered me is that her psychotic break has nothing to do with ballet. (We're led to believe that her crazy mother--played y Barbara Hershey--and the stress of ballet exacerbates her fragile mental state, along with, I'm imagining, her severe hunger.) She sees things that aren't there and she'd be seeing these same things if she was an iron worker, I think. I believe the movie would have been stronger if there was less crazy and more ballet. The ballet world is crazy enough. Believe me.

The costumes were designed by those famous, once-local designer sisters, the Mulleavy's of Rodarte. (You know them; they did a line for Target--nearly the apex of success.) The sets were fine--loved Natalie/Nina's apartment. I really like the actress who plays Lily, Mila somebody. She was in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, which I also recommend. She's the dancer I wanted to be; she understands and accepts the insanity and doesn't take it all that seriously. She can be happy for the other dancers and seems to be able to revel in the joy of moving. (In all my years of dancing, I NEVER met a dancer like her, BTW.) She is the ideal.

Go see. Take your man. The gore makes it a movie a dude's dude will sit through.

Pas de Duex

2010-12-03T07:45:00.000-08:00

I've wrote this story a couple of years ago and have been re-working it and, in light of Natalie Portman's new movie, Black Swan (which I'm dying to see) I feel the need to inundate the world with more ballet misery. How can such an amazingly beautiful art be so painful? Read on. Movie review tomorrow.

PAS DE DEUX

Bridget was standing in a Marie Callendar’s trying to decide between Coconut Cream and Key Lime. The young man behind the counter was staring at his fingernails; he could care less which pie she ordered, although he might find it gross that her plan was to eat the whole thing right out of the logo-stamped tin while standing at her kitchen counter. Maybe she would set her purse down before picking up a fork but she wouldn’t take her coat off.

“I think my son would prefer the Coconut.” She looked at the young man’s nametag. “Thank you, Kyle.” She did not have any children.

Kyle walked over to a large metal box with a pump. He turned her pie with one hand as he squirted whipped-cream rosettes on top of the custard. The contraption looked sturdy and functional; it reminded her of something German. Kyle finished and she smiled at him. She hadn’t lied completely; she did have a family—a cat and a husband until the divorce papers were signed.

She felt her trench coat flutter from the suction of the front door and turned to see her former ballet teacher entering. She hadn’t seen Madam in over twenty years. She panicked, sucked in her stomach muscles, straightened her spine then looked for a place to hide. She had imagined running into her someday, but expected it would be in I. Magnin’s or at a museum, not Marie Callenders.

Madam was holding tightly to the forearm of a young man, obviously a dancer by his turned-out feet and thighs, which were straining against his jeans. The dancer made sure Madam was steady before he let go and spun around to pull the door closed.

When Madam turned to watch him, her whole body moved. She was as stiff and flat as a cardboard doll. Even still, with her purple coat, matching turban and preternaturally long neck, she was the most elegant thing in the room. Granted, the restaurant had been decorated in the early 80s, all oak, earth tones and calico in an attempt to make it feel homey. Madam didn’t do homey. There was nothing soft or approachable about her.

The dancer turned back and grabbed Madam’s elbow. Madam always had a young male dancer in tow. The boys were rare and Madam fawned over her small cadre, inviting them to dinner and stuffing them with pierogis and lasagna. They were allowed to pad their bones with meat. Contrary to Tchaikovsky’s ballet, the boys were the swans. The girls were storks--skinny, abundant, pink and disposable. They’d even gossip like birds in the dressing room at the ballet school, talking about food the way men talked about women, alternating between lust and hate. One bragged about a recipe she had for soup that had no calories – that in fact burned calories when eaten -- but she wouldn’t share it.

The dancer was guiding Madam toward the hostess podium. Madam was ethereally thin -- her wrist a tiny stick, her ankle a bird’s bone. Bridget could have picked up her pie in one hand and Madam in the other and carried them both out of the restaurant. Everything about Bridget felt enormous around Madam, even her own name was round and bulbous, filling the mouth when spoken. That alone should have been her first clue she’d never make it. Who ever heard of a ballerina named Bridget? It was the name of a stripper or a waitress at Marie Callendars.

She remembered being at the barre for ronds de jambe when Madam lifted the needle off the record, strode over to her and grabbled her buttocks with a claw-like hand.

“What is this?” she’d asked in her deep, patrician voice. None of them could place her accent, which sounded foreign although there were rumors she was from Brooklyn. “Are you saving for winter?”

Bridget knew the only thing to do was nod in agreement and so she did.

By seventh grade, she had stopped eating and dreamt about food, nothing decadent, just buttered toast and soft-boiled eggs.

Once she was accepted into the corps de ballet, Madam said she’d need to lose ten more pounds. Bridget had curtsied and thanked her.

Her mother asked her if she might be anorexic. She’d read about it in Time magazine. Actually, what she’d said was, “You’re not one of those anorexic girls, are you?”

”I wish,” Bridget whispered.

“What?”

“No,” Bridget had yelled. Her mother didn’t understand. She’d been a swimmer and was now a tennis player with the thick legs and massive forearms to prove it. She told Bridget how she used to eat a grilled cheese sandwich and a milk shake after school and still have room for dinner, as if gluttony were something to brag about.

Another dancer -- not the soup-recipe girl but the one who went on to dance with Joffrey ballet and died of heart failure in her twenties -- shared her secret for weight loss when they were waiting for their turn to do grand jetes. Soon Bridget, too, had peeling, chapped lips and red knuckles from disposing of unwanted calories. She ate and puked until her teeth started rotting and her dentist eyed her suspiciously, but she couldn’t keep those ten pounds off.

That was more than fifty pounds ago. Bridget realized that Madam probably wouldn’t recognize her and so she gave up the idea of escape and watched Madam and the boy shuffle along the burnt-orange tiles. Their walk was a macabre pas de deux.

When Bridget’s purging and dieting program worked, Madam would put her in the front row during the adagio. The rows were supposed to be arranged by height--shortest in front, tallest in the back--but they all knew Madam would place the boys and her favored girls, no matter height, in the front row.

“You,” she’d say, “here,” and she’d point to a spot on the floor, sealing Bridget’s fate.

The last year or so of dancing, Bridget was banished to the back row where she watched the buns on the other dancers’ heads bouncing along in their tightly wrapped hairnets. She thought were an awful lot like the dancers themselves--delicate, strong and nearly invisible.

While she continued to receive minor corrections from Madam, an adjustment to her port de bra or something, the front row eluded her, and she longed to be insulted and humiliated by Madam again. If it was a contest about who hated her more–and she believed it was–then she won. This was the dance.

Madam and the boy reached the counter at the same time that Kyle set her boxed pie on the counter. Madam had shrunk but her features were still defined.

Bridget was 22 and had been dancing for 14 years when she quit. One morning while driving to rehearsal she passed the off-ramp that took her to studio. She continued driving until she reached the city where she found a park and sat on a bench. She never called. She just stopped showing up. It wasn’t a choice. Something had just died. She entered a period of mourning during which she ate loaves of buttered toast and dozens of eggs. She cut off her hair and grew a colony of pimples around her mouth. She got rid of her bathroom scale. She stopped listening to classical music and still couldn’t see a ballet.

She kept her head down as she searched through her purse for her credit card.

“I’ll be right with you,” Kyle said to Madam as he took Bridget’s card. She could smell Madam’s perfume, L’Air du Temps. Bridget bought a bottle for herself years ago but only to smell, not wear. The bottle had two crystal birds on the lid. They were either kissing or fighting.

Madam turned her body to say something to the boy and saw Bridget. Her eyes were large and grey, but shrouded in a cloudy film. Bridget wondered if she could even see clearly but Madam smiled, “I know you; you were one of my dancers.”

“Yes,” Bridget said, “Bridget.” She began to curtsy but Madam stumbled toward her, pushing the boy aside, then put her arms around her in a sort of hug. She was tiny as a child but bonier.

Madam pulled back and looked at her. “How are you, dear?”

“I’m fine, thank you,” she lied.

“You’re married?”

“Yes.”

“Children?”

She looked over to see if Kyle was listening but he was staring at the credit card machine. “No.”

They stood for a minute looking at each other. Madam smiled dumbly. Bridget thought she might be going senile. She signed her receipt and picked up her pie.

“It was nice to run into you,” she said to Madam. “Nice?” she thought. She felt her belly jiggle. She prepared herself, that fleeting moment before a difficult lift or jump when the dancer drops her character and you see her fear and determination.

“Actually,” she said to Madam, “I’m not fine.” She was holding her pie in front of her like a shield; it felt huge. She shifted it to a hip, wondering if she could count how many pies she’d eaten since she’d last seen Madam. How many diets she had failed.

Madam raised one eyebrow. “You look fine to me.”

“I’m ruined inside. My therapist thinks you gave me PTSD. I’m bulimic. Divorcing for the second time.” There was the humiliation, as comforting as the scent of Madam’s perfume. But Bridget was tired of the familiar. “Why did you hate me?”

“I didn’t hate you,” Madam said. There was a hint of frustration in her voice.

“You never invited me to dinner.”

The young dancer moved closer, as if to protect Madam but she held up her hand to hold him off. Her fingers were spread like a dancer’s, her pointer finger straighter than the others, her arm automatically assumed first position. The body never forgets.

She stared at Madam’s knobby knuckles and yellow nails. “Didn’t I have talent?”

“Talent is overrated. Hard work is what matters.”

“It’s all I wanted.”

“We don’t get something because we want it.” Madam waved her hand toward the glass case of refrigerated desserts. “It’s not like choosing a pie.” But it was like choosing a pie, Bridget thought. After a certain point, everything was subjective: pumpkin over berry. Rosine over Bridget.

“It didn’t have to be that way,” Bridget said and she meant it. She realized she probably never would have been a professional ballerina, but she could have enjoyed her small slice.

Madam lifted her chin slightly. She hadn’t changed. Bridget didn’t know what else to do.

“Goodbye, sweet pie,” she thought and opened her fingers, releasing her grip on the box. She watched the happy logo as it fell toward the orange tiles. It hit with a splat. The corners Kyle came loose and whipped cream exploded onto Madam’s pumps and her own red loafers.

“Oh!” Madam said, looking genuinely surprised.

Bridget stood there trying to figure out if this was progress.

The young dancer leaped to the counter and grabbed a handful of napkins, then bent over to wipe Madam’s shoes. Watching him, Bridget heard Madam’s commands in her head: “Bend from the hips, imagine there is a metal rod inserted in your spine.”

Bridget picked up her destroyed pie and set it on the counter.

Madam looked at her. “I’m only sixty-on but I can’t bend over. This is what the ballet did for me.”

“Goodbye, Madam,” she said and lifted one arm above her head and executed a beautiful, graceful curtsy, bowing so low that her nose touched her knee.

_________

Madam was frustrated. Just getting out of the car and walking into the restaurant had been difficult, then a former student at the front counter had dropped the pie she was carrying and now she had to stand her waiting for Luke to finish wiping whipped cream off her shoes.

“Your booth is ready,” the hostess said.

“No booth. A table.” She needed a straight-backed chair, not a bench that had been kneaded into mush by a succession of large bottoms. The hostess led her and Luke to a table and set menus on the table.

“Enjoy your meal.”

Luke began to sit down before noticing that Madam was standing by her chair and jumped back up to and help her into her seat. They ordered the grilled chicken. She would take half of hers home for dinner tomorrow but Luke would finish his. She like watching her boys eat. They shoveled food in with gusto, guiltless and childlike. Her girls ate like little birds, picking at their food, chewing every bite, adding up calories as they swallowed. She knew the routine. It bored her.

That was one of the reasons she never invited the girls to dinner, but there was more to it. All her girls came from money. They lived in large houses with vast lawns and swimming pools that never got used in hamlets called Hillsborough and Atherton. The small house where she and had Lenny lived for the last thirty years would not fit their little girl dreams.

“What was up with that student?”

“Bridget.”

“She seemed upset.”

“She’s a girl.” She set her napkin in her lap. “They’re always upset.”

She tried to remember if Lenny ever forgot to pull out her chair. She’d met him when they were both in the corps de ballet with American Ballet Theatre. They traveled with the company and saw the world together, throwing sweats over their leotards and running out between rehearsals to sightsee. They stayed in shabby hotels with communal bathrooms, but they performed in grand theaters in front of invisible audiences whose mélange of expensive perfumes wafted up to the stage.

They married, then retired and started their own company. In the early days, they lived in the studio’s office with a toaster oven and a sofa that became a bed. She would open all the windows in the morning to air the place out before the dancers started arriving. After they had a full class schedule and staged their first ballet, they had enough money to buy a double-wide trailer which she decorated using her nimble fingers, sewing machine, braided cord and chintz. Nobody had to know that the floors underneath her carpets were scarred linoleum.

The waitress brought her tea and Luke’s milkshake.

“I probably shouldn’t have ordered this,” he said as her unwrapped his straw.

“You worked hard today.”

“I think I’ve finally nailed the entrechat six.”

“You are close.” The boy’s accent was atrocious and made her smile. The waitress set their meals in front of them.

“Close?” Luke spit out his straw. “You hit six or not.”

“You could jump higher. Eat your chicken.” Nobody would ever mistake her for maternal but she played that role with her boys. He would eat his dinner and work on his jump. He would not go home and cry because she suggested he could improve.

She and Lenny had talked about having children but it never happened. There were months when she didn’t have her cycle at all. It was hard to plan for a pregnancy when she wasn’t ovulating. Her doctor had asked her if she was eating enough. What did he know of a dancer’s life?

“When did that woman, Bridget, dance with you?” Luke asked between mouthfuls.

“Years ago.” She tried to do the math and snorted. “Probably before you were born.”

“You’d think she would have got over it by now.”

“Over what?” She stopped separating her meal into two piles.

“Over you.” Luke blushed then grabbed the passing waitress and asked for a glass of water.

“What do you mean?”

“Your high standards. Some people have a hard time with them.”

“Then they aren’t cut out for this life.” Dancers, even former dancers, could be so dramatic. Bridget was definitely wrong about one thing. She didn’t hate her girls. If anything, she loved them too much. She was trying to protect them. They didn’t understand how difficult it was going to be for them. Girls were a dime a dozen. It took more than talent to stand out in this world. She worked harder than all of them.

“Aren’t you going to eat?” Luke asked her.

She looked at her plate. He had finished half his meal and she hadn’t taken a bite. All these years of training had paid off. She had forgotten to eat. She lifted her fork to her mouth. Not all her girls were like Bridget. Certainly there were others who were fine and successful -- the one who danced with the Stuttgart ballet and that other one who was with Joffrey ballet.

“What was the name of the girl who went to Joffrey?” she asked.

“The one who died?” Luke asked.

“Oh.” She’d forgotten that part. It was in all the newspaper, including the name of Madam’s ballet school.

She shifted in her chair. Her hips ached, but pain wasn’t the problem. She could ignore pain and hunger and had been all her life. Her problem was the lack of flexibility. That felt like a betrayal. She’d had always had supreme control over her body, manipulating her limbs into positions that seemed impossible. Now she couldn’t bend over to cut her own toenails. She was hardening up like a piece of clay left in the sun.

She swallowed a lump of chicken. “What’s is it like for you?”

“What’s what like?”

“Dancing. The ballet. What’s it like for a man?”

“I don’t know, like flying.”

“Sometimes I wished I’d been a man.”

“Why? Except for Baryshnikov, women are the stars.”

“Men don’t lose their toenails.” Before she met Lenny, a non-dancer had asked her to the beach. She was embarrassed about her feet, especially the fact that she’d lost both her big toe nails from dancing en pointe. The night before, she’d painted the skin where her nails used to be with red polish.

“True, but there are fewer roles for us; it’s not like the corps is full of men.”

After they opened the studio, Lenny had quit dancing. He decided to run the business end of the studio and that’s what he did. He just hung up his shoes and never looked back. She couldn’t have done that. Dancing was her life. And yet, dancing was slowly taking her life. She was riddled with osteoporosis and arthritis, bones like balsa wood and joints like rusted steel.

When Lenny died six years ago his body still looked hale and healthy. He’d taken the garbage out for her an hour before his heart attack. He never even looked sick.

Luke was staring at her.

“What?” she asked, annoyed.

“Are you going to have pie?”

“No. Go ahead.”

“What do the girls say about me, Luke?” The boy looked up from his pie. He had whipped cream on his lip.

“Nothing.”

“I know they talk. Tell me.”

He swallowed. “I’m serious; they're too afraid to say anything about you.”

Lenny was the kind one. She saw him chatting with the girls at the front desk. They brought him cookies. He tap danced for them and made them laugh. She had grown to resent him -- the one true and good thing in her life. That last morning, she had admonished him for not tying the top of the garbage bag properly. She’d seen the bag by the front door; he left it there and went to get his shoes.

“Lenny!” she’d screamed down the hallway even though the house was small.

He’d popped his head out of their bedroom door.

“It looks like a monkey tied this bag. The trash is going to spill into the can and attract flies.”

He’d just stood there. When she was done, he’d bowed, smiled, said, “Whatever you say, Madam.” It’s like what Bridget had told her, it didn’t have to be that way.

“Are you all right, Madam?” Luke asked her nervously.

She looked up and was realized she was crying. She never cried, not even at the funeral; she’d been composed and dignified, Odette in Swan Lake. She greeted people, thanked them for coming, then went home and drank a bottle of scotch.

“Was it that woman?” Luke looked around for somebody to help him.

She shifted in her chair--her hips—she should be lying down. “Maybe it’s all this calico.” She smiled at her joke. If it weren’t for these hips, she could float away up into the brass light fixtures and disappear.

Luke stood. “I’ll take you home.” He came around to her chair and helped her up. She linked her bony arm through his and collapsed into him.

“Lift me.”

He cradled her legs with his other arm.

“Oh Luke,” she said, blowing a wisp of cottony breath toward his cheek, “It is like flying, isn’t it?”

THE END

Odds and ends. Mostly odds.

2010-12-01T11:37:00.000-08:00

Have you seen that movie, How to Get a Head in Advertising? Left unchecked, my anger is like a tumor that grows off me and takes on a life of its own. I stop having a say in any matters. It speaks first and loudly. Eventually, it's all people see.

That's where I was on Monday. Then I went to a meeting and the topic was coping with anger. Sometimes you have to be in a room full of women and hear their same struggles to have the wherewithal to grab hold of your own head and pull it out of your ass.

Just read an essay of Anne Lamott's about her dog dying and cried like a baby. I will never get over the death of my beloved cat, Julian, the great orange lion.

It's my friend D's 70th birthday--Happy Birthday D!--and I feel like a shitty friend having sent no card and not been present in the last three months. (Work is so great for me, like a drug, really. The weeks fly by, nobody asks how I'm feeling, it's an enormous repository for me to place my blame--everything is his/her/the building's fault--then I get a paycheck. Like any drug, it ends and guess what? My life didn't transform into a princess fantasy while I was working. I didn't wake up Monday morning to handmaids and foot soldiers. The same old--dirty guinea pig cages, bills, clogged gutters--was here the whole time waiting for my return.)

I chatted with ex's gf on Thanksgiving. (I stopped by after dinner to say hello to my boys.) In my head, I'd written her to be some combination of Mother Theresa, Tina Fey, and Grace Kelly. In reality, she's just a person. Slightly boring, not very funny, a bit intense--perfect for ex.

Speaking of boring and not very funny, I've been working on my novel. I'm not sure how much more I can look at it. I'm thinking it's time to face the abject terror of the blank page and start something new. Onward.

The grass is always greener in my ex's yard.

2010-11-24T16:00:00.000-08:00

I spend a lot of time feeling sorry for myself. On top of that I have an active imagination and I'm an excellent story teller. For instance, I tell myself this story about how ex and the new gf go out for fancy dinners every night at beautifully decorated restaurants and drink exquisite cocktails out of sparkly glasses and throw back their heads and laugh, laugh, laugh at their luck that when they dumped their alcoholic spouses they found each other. (Ex even has a full head of hair in this story.)

My story makes me feel jealous. Apparently, I like feeling jealous because when I try and rewrite this one they just end up drinking cocktails at the beach, or in Italy, or in a sewer. Sure I hate them but I hate them more that they are normies. (That's what we AAers call people who can have one or two and stop.) She's me before. A better, normal me. Honestly, when I see them together the first thing that crosses my mind is "Get your hands off my husband."

My contracting gig ends tomorrow and clearly I need to hit up a few meetings. As Zig Zigler (A long time ago I was engaged to a guy who made me read his book, How to win Friends and Influence People) says, "I need a check up from the neck up. I'm suffering from a hardening of the attitudes." Because another story I'm starting to tell myself sometimes is that maybe I misdiagnosed that little drinking problem of mine and that maybe I can have a martini now and then. Maybe I drank too much because I was unhappy and now that I'm so grounded and at peace...I know, even the logic doesn't work. It's all story.

Happy Thanksgiving.

She's prettier, she's a better writer, she's published two

2010-11-19T14:29:00.000-08:00

I wrote about Suzanne Finnamore once before. She's prettier. She's a better writer. She's published three books. And now she has succinctly summed up how shitty divorce really is. I could only hate her more if she was marrying my ex. (Yes. She found true love for the second time.)

I save old purse calendars.

2010-11-18T13:26:00.000-08:00

This is why I don't have a smart phone. I keep my old pocket calendars to look back on. This day one year ago I had an appointment with ex at the marriage therapist and then hosted the tea for my son's school's book fair. It seemed so unemotional. Where were my messy interiors? I flipped back two months to the time he moved out. That month I had noted his mother's arrival and departure flight times (Yes! The month he decides to leave his marriage of 17 years is also the month he invites his mother to come stay for two weeks!), more therapist appointments, the first day of school, and then, the most telling detail, this is the month I started marking the weekends "NK" for no kids and "K" for kids. In my calendar I appear to move through the grief process and life changes like a German--efficiently and tidily. If only.

Engagement fever!

2010-11-16T11:56:00.000-08:00

It's scary what jealousy does for divorced folks. It appears that Jessica Simpson got engaged to her boyfriend just a week after her ex announced his engagement. Coincidence? This pre-loved woman thinks not.

I know I've said that divorce is about money but it's also about reaching relationship nirvana before that bastard/bitch who left you. I'm told it's normal. A friend who's been divorced for something like 12 years told me she still wants her ex to burn in hell. I wouldn't go that far, but it slays me when ex appears happy with his new girlfriend. Even though I don't want him back, I don't want him to be happy. Ever. And if I happened to be enjoying a Costco-sized bag of Fritos and Diet Coke* and read in US Weekly that ex was getting married I just might go out and drop 100K on an engagement ring, too.

However, I don't think Prince William's engagement has anything to do with Jessica or Nick. I think he's just in love.

*not the actual food Jessica was eating.

Oh Nora, this is just what I need to read today.

2010-11-10T12:00:00.000-08:00

You can read the whole thing here if you want (and maybe you should if you're thinking about divorce or thinking about talking to someone who's divorced or thinking about getting married) but this is what sang to me:

But I can't think of anything good about divorce as far as the children are concerned. You can't kid yourself about that, although many people do. They say things like, "It's better for children not to grow up with their parents in an unhappy marriage." But unless the par ents are beating each other up, or abusing the children, kids are better off if their parents are together. Chil dren are much too young to shuttle between houses. They're too young to handle the idea that the two peo ple they love most in the world don't love each other anymore, if they ever did. They're too young to under stand that all the wishful thinking in the world won't bring their parents back together. And the newfangled rigmarole of joint custody doesn't do anything to ease the cold reality: in order to see one parent, the divorced child must walk out on the other.

I can't tell you how many people told me it's better for my children to be with parents who are divorced but happy. Really? This I know: my kids don't give a shit if I'm miserable, suicidal, and their dad dislikes me so much he can't even stand to share a bed with me and sleeps on the couch. No, all they care about is that we all live under the same roof. An intact family. Period. People don't seem to believe me when I say I would have stayed in a much, much worse marriage not to have to split my family apart but it's true. I'm not a martyr --(OK, I am but not in this case)--I just value my children's happiness more than my own marital bliss which, even if I was married to Matt Damon I know would be tested regularly. Matt's got moods and probably misses the toilet bowl occasionally like every other man I've ever lived with.

This would be a fine place to end and I should but I'm feeling pissy this week. Every day at lunch I head off walking toward the bridge thinking it would be a fine day to jump but turn around before I'm halfway there because apparently all I needed was fresh air. Anyway, my mistake was marrying a guy who didn't share this value. Although he told me that Hollywood love was just that--make believe--I think he was projecting, trying to convince himself of this. And you know, I have realized that the other major character flaw he accused me of throughout our marriage--extreme judgment --was also a projection. I have proof. I went to a therapist and a psychic to work on my judgment issues and they both said I didn't seem to have any. (Of course, there were plenty, back up a dump truck, of other issues to work on but judgment wasn't one of them.) Take that, ex! For twenty years he hid behind this mild, academic demeanor but underneath was judgment dude. Mr. Judgment. His dismissive comments about my choice of television programs, certain family members, even the kind of cheese I bought should have tipped me off but that's the beauty of projection. You keep the people around you off balance, accusing them of things you don't want them to notice about you. Politicians do it all the time. It probably doesn't work on people with strong centers who know who they are. That's not me. Yet. Ex is 50 today. We all get our comeuppances.

4 PM on November 2...

2010-11-02T16:11:00.000-07:00

20 years ago, I was about to get married. At least I think I was; I can't remember what time the actual ceremony took place. Isn't that weird? I could tell you what we served (game hens with dried apricot stuffing), what I wore (Scaasi satin), and probably the names of all the people who attended. There was a lovely band with a red-headed singer who told me I had the most beautiful wedding dress she'd ever seen and she'd seen a lot of them. The caterer sent us back to our hotel with two extra dinners in a basket. I wanted to go down to the bar and continue partying with my friends. Two years ago in therapy Alan admitted that he had grave reservations about the marriage because of my desire to be with my friends and not with him: that for him, that was the sign that he'd made THE MISTAKE. I didn't go downstairs; we stayed in our suite and I accidentally locked the door that connected our two rooms -- me on one side, him on the other -- and had to call housekeeping to help us. Maybe that was the sign I'd made THE MISTAKE? Over the next 18 years, the signs got bigger -- Getting polluted at ex's Xmas party and flirting shamelessly with his boss makes spending part of my wedding night in a bar with my friends seem downright cute -- but we got just better at ignoring them. And that, people, is the true mistake.