One-sentence dream synopses

(My family will tell you that these are the most concise renderings of any dreams I have ever shared, ever, and you should be grateful the telling isn’t taking half an hour each over dinner. I read something in Carolyn Parkhurst’s Dogs of Babel that inspired the construction.)

I experienced clairvoyancy and escaped the Klansmen. I was lost in a blue, foreign airport. I was lost in a night-time shopping mall. I was lost in my friend’s giant estate house. I crawled up a tiny staircase and through a tiny door into a regular-sized room. I was wandering a department store with my father at Christmas. I impressed my ex-boyfriend with my intelligence or foresight. I could grow people in a filing cabinet. I was on the run but the bad guys shot me. Aliens or terrorists bombed my town. Giant ants walked on two legs in my backyard. My house caught fire and I saved the stereo. My best friend sat on a horse and looked down at me. I forgot the baby. A skunk clawed and clawed me. I took photos with a tiny Polaroid camera. I breastfed the baby. The South bombed New York. My Decemberists album came to life.

July 6, 2008 | Filed Under neuroses | 8 Comments

I just won the gold in Feeling Sorry For Myself

Things are kind of difficult these days. Cormac was up five times last night — 10, 11, 1, 4, 5. Screaming his adorably irritating fool head off for no discernible reason. Then my day starts and it’s pretty much child-wrangling for nine hours, at which point I change clothes and go to work in a night office (very unlike the night kitchen, understand). Then I come home and read for an hour and go to bed, praying to get a few hours’ uninterrupted sleep before waking up and doing it again tomorrow.

I can barely keep up with the laundry or the dishes. My children are woefully under-entertained. I cant’ really write about my feelings here or anything more than superficial “I went to the dentist” crap because I would like at some point to secure a new job, if we ever move to Pennsylvania, and I know I’m quite Googlable and, despite being and excellent worker and knowledgable in my field, nobody wants to hire (or insure, healthwise) a visual journalist who writes about her chronic bowel disorder or introversion or how she hates snobby rich women at J.Crew standing around blocking the aisles as she tries to maneuver her chain-store suburbo-stroller (GOD how rude). Blogging used to be a great outlet for me, but these days the drowning economy has me terrified to write anything controversial or revealing or less-than-self-complementary for fear of never getting hired again. Are all the blogging mothers out there full-time SAHM-ers? Or otherwise disconnected from the corporate world? How can this be? Perhaps I just need a college-ruled notebook and a mechanical pencil instead of the internet.

I think most (all? a lot?) of it is A.) taking care of two kids under three is the hardest thing I have ever done in my life, and I have taught high school, and B.) ongoing, maddening sleep-deprivation. I feel trapped at home with the children and unable to pee in private, much less spend time working on hobbies or yoga, and — well, I’m feeling rather sorry for myself. I know that there are things I should be doing to foster my support network, but instead I have let friendships lapse or wilt because I can’t bring myself to try to have a phone conversation with two monkeys screaming in my ear. I can barely get the house tidy enough to invite our friends over. Thinking of hiring a baby-sitter makes me practically narcoleptic. There’s a church right up the street that is probably crawling with youngish moms, but then I’d have to overcome my blazing atheism and pretend to believe in the Good Book.

And to top it off, I feel like a failure at failing because my own mother did this stay-at-home mom thing six times over. Six kids. I only have two and I want to put my head in a blender.

I love the little buggers, obviously. I hear they are quite cute and entertaining from an outsider’s perspective. But nine hours a day (only nine! some moms do much more) with just a high-pitched screeching for company has me in tears every night at 2 a.m. for that last head-patting trip to the kids’ room.

I have so many things I want to do. I know I could make some really great sewn objects if I only had a half-a-tick to myself.

And this doesn’t even address the larger and more pervasive late-quarterlife crisis, in which I ponder the uselessness of humanity’s short time on earth (i.e, “What’s It All About”) and my own particular brand of uselessness in particular. It’s coming to terms with the fact that I am never going to write a book, because somebody else has already written a book. What’s the point. I do not have the Type A personality needed to translate blogging into a lucrative career. In fact, I might as well be Type Z, and that doesn’t translate into much of anything except feeling exquisitely put-upon and wishing to retire, hermetlike, with a cup of coffee and a Do Not Disturb sign on my sewing-room door.

I think that’s my curse in life. To be able to see greatness from a distance (other people’s greatness, I mean) and appreciate it and all the hard work it entails and enjoy its fruits but with the full, depressing knowledge that I could never duplicate it, either through inertia or because a certain somebody needs to have his bottom wiped AGAIN, wtf.

April 21, 2008 | Filed Under motherhood, neuroses | 23 Comments

One of those annoying meta posts

Was reading Reader’s Digest today. On page 154, there’s a story about cleaning up your online presence for present and potential employers’ benefit — for example, taking down that photo of you totally wasted on Cinco De Mayo, or whatever, so that you do not come across as a complete inhibition-lacking tippler to people who may want to offer you gainful employment.

They make a good point.

If you are my age or younger, a great deal of your socializing and network-maintaining is done online. The internet, and one’s presence thereon, is something that comes naturally to us and that brings us a lot of enjoyment.

Many people of a certain generation will not understand this, the drive to keep on social-networking, to post public photos of yourself looking stupid. To them, it’s airing dirty laundry, it’s embarrassing, and it’s improper. I get that, too. I’m closing in on 30 and while that is, by most accounts, Spring Chicken territory, I have also felt the first confused breezes of being surpassed by the next generation and of no longer being the Youth that the Youth Culture is talking about. I have yet to fully grasp how the hell one uses Facebook, for example. It makes no sense to me and I suspect it never will.

But blogging is also, as noted previously in my five-year-anniversary post, one of my favorite and longest-standing hobbies. I like sharing what I’ve cooked or sewn or thought about. Sometimes those things are not appropriate for a business setting. Sometimes those things include copious low-class language. But — and here’s the thing — I believe it’s OK to have hobbies that don’t adhere to the dress code.

This line is a line I continue to walk. It’s difficult; I believe the best bloggers — the best writers — are those people who bare it all, who dig deep and offer up all sorts of honesties and truths. Those are the best people to read, and they are the people I always go back to. I don’t feel comfortable in doing that, in being embarrassingly honest. I admire those who can but I tell you right now that I don’t have the balls. I don’t regret that, either; I know I share enough as it is, and I also know that I end up sharing more than I consciously realize.

But look where it’s gotten me. Scores of new friends and acquaintances, a lucrative blog advertising deal (oh wait), the chance to catch up with the girl who used to give me a ride to high school in tenth grade, the opportunity to flex my creative muscles (even if I find them weak and flabby, it’s good exercise). I wouldn’t keep doing it if I didn’t get tangible, positive results.

All this to say: Yes, we know. This generation does get it. We put a lot out there. But we get a lot back, too.

Though maybe it wouldn’t hurt if we hid the camera, put down the beer and tucked in our shirt.

March 19, 2008 | Filed Under create, geek, neuroses | 1 Comment

Reasons I dislike story hour

Other people’s kids
Other people’s kids’ moms
wondering how to hit on the one cool mom for a mommy date* without seeming, you know, too desperate
the clapping
the singing
not doing the clapping or the singing and feeling like an ogre
trying to get there on time
trying to get out of there without incident or accident

And yet, I feel it’s my motherly duty to my preschooler to get him out of the house and in the company of other kids his age. The sacrifices we make …

*mommy dating: the process whereby one mom tries to pick up another mom at a mom-like location (library, tot lot, story hour) for future friendly activities with the children. I suck at it, way more than I sucked at regular straight-people dating, and that was pretty bad.

March 13, 2008 | Filed Under motherhood, neuroses | 5 Comments

Reading: How to prepare for a recession

How to prepare for a recession. (Move to Canada! Then turn around and blow all your extra loonies and toonies on super cheap American goods. Wait, that’s not on the list. Hmm.)

This paragraph from the NYT struck me, all the way down at the end of the story:

“We want people owning homes. But oftentimes, to be able to do so requires literacy when it comes to financial matters,” Mr Bush said. “And sometimes people just simply don’t know what they’re looking at and reading. And it can lead to personal financial crisis, and that personal financial crisis, if accumulated to too many folks, hurts our country.”

I agree. So I’m reading a lot about personal finance lately. It’s a mom thing, really — I look at those sweet cherubic little children of mine, and I think, “When I don’t feel like strangling them, I feel like providing for their future.” And seeing as I’ve never been formally educated in the matters of personal finance — no business degree for me, just Hard Knocks University — it only makes sense for me to turn it into an academic question, read a bunch of books on the matter, and reassure myself that the sky is not falling.

Working OK so far, I suppose.

January 22, 2008 | Filed Under check it out, neuroses | 5 Comments

Ah, no, but seriously, I do

Wish I were religious, I mean. I wish there was some sort of supernatural Great Big Dad Person, or Kind Bearded Toga Guy, that I could give all my troubles to. I wish I could march down to church, close my eyes and fold my hands, and feel something other than awkward.

I imagine really faithful people have got to be pretty relaxed, right? So what if life sucks — then you die! Heaven and that. Win win.

It’s not just Christianity. Or any of the “Top Three.” I would feel equally as silly sitting in, say, a buddhist temple. The closest theory I can allow as possibly, marginally acceptable to my worldview is that of Bronson Alcott and the, what were they, Romantics? The Oversoul. That notion that all humanity is connected. That we are all in it together, as a family. A big, stinking, mismanaged family.

Sigh.

So. Anyone got any good tips for getting started on yoga? Local yokels with advice?

January 4, 2008 | Filed Under baltimore, neuroses | 13 Comments

Our not-made-in-China Christmas

You know what? It’s hard! Very hard. First of all, all the toy recalls and lead-paint scares. Scary.

And then I started looking. Everything is made in China. I went to J. Crew the other day, when I was at the mall. All that stuff? Made in China. Martha Stewart’s new line at Macy’s? China. I came home and looked at our clothing tags and the bottom of our dishes and tags on our linens and marks on our toys: China. Wow.

This is all well and good for China.

But my inner proletariat says, Buy American! And my inner handcraft hippie says, Buy Handmade! And my inner Ma Ingalls says, Make It Yourself!

So I said to myself this holiday season, I am boycotting Made In China. Money where my mouth, et cetera.

And then I promptly came down with some sort of mysterious intestinal ailment. No energy to stay up late or run around town. It’s enough if I can manage to be vertical during the day.

All I have purchased so far is a Playmobil pirate set (made in Germany!) for Owen. I have, let’s see, one evening this week where I am not working or prepping for a diagnostic procedure or traveling to the cornfields of the Midwest. Do you think I can find a local toy store stocking a toy appropriate for a six-month-old that does not contain higher-than-acceptable levels of lead, arsenic or cadmium, preferably having been made someplace reassuring, like the Czech Republic? Failing that, do you think I could sew together something in under an hour and a half that could passably have come from “Santa’s workshop”?

I really, really hope you say yes.

December 17, 2007 | Filed Under daily grind, neuroses | 13 Comments

Can’t wait ‘til I’m 30

I’m not kidding. I’m 28 right now and I feel like, Damn. I’m still in my 20’s. I am a 20-something. I should have shiney swingy hair and wear glossy lipstick and heels and pants that fit properly. Come to think of it, I should probably work out more. (Er, at all.)

I should be drinking dry martinis and hanging out at cocktail lounges and wearing dresses. Right? And then I get confused. That is what 20-somethings do, no? But — is there babysitting at the cocktail lounge? Or maybe it would be OK if I just set the baby monitor right here, I swear it’s not very loud, I just want to make sure he’s still breathing. Also? Just so you’re aware? My other son is over there at the coat check, rifling through your pockets, and if you wanted to keep that $20 you should tell him.

But 30! When I’m in my 30’s, I won’t feel bad about letting all my grays show. I mean, I let them all show now, and I love them, but when I’m in my 30’s I won’t feel bad about it, like I’m letting down all the people who look at my head. When I’m in my 30’s I can be like, Just step, because I am a mother of two, and if I feel like wearing yet another Patagonia fleece-Chuck Taylor combo, I will.

I feel like you’ve earned the right to be yourself, when you’re 30. In your 20’s you’re still (still!) suffering from Late Late Adolescence, still trying to sort yourself out. And even if you have two kids and a husband and a mortgage, you don’t necessarily feel like a grownup.

But that changes at 30, right? That’s when I’ll feel like an adult? 30, right? Rock.

December 9, 2007 | Filed Under neuroses | 19 Comments

remember when I used to sew?

Me neither. It’s been at least a month. I cannot get more than 10 minutes to myself at a time. Long enough to read — but not reply to — my e-mail. Then Mac wakes up from whatever pathetic excuse for a nap he was taking or Owen realizes that I am not coloring in his Shrek coloring book with him or the doorbell rings or a telemarketer calls or someone needs food or a diaper check or a bathroom break and there’s so much shit that needs to get done and No. Damn. Time.

Seriously, the Amazing Non-Napping Kids, that’s what I have. I have been letting Mac cry it out in the middle of the night lately because I am just too tired to drag myself out of bed. He won’t nap unless it’s in my arms or the car, and I just don’t have that much driving to do. And you can’t sew and drive at the same time.

If you have a toddler, and that toddler uses a binky, for the love of all that is good and right in this world do not take that binky away. If you do, your toddler will never nap again. Take it from me. Do not do that to yourself. And if you can get your newborn to take a binky? DO IT. Mac will not. He will only nurse to sleep or take a bottle. No binky. Do you know what that means? It means Maternal Involvement is required for sleep. Every time. Every time he wakes up, every time he is tired. It’s cruel.

And hey! There he goes again. I sure enjoyed this 10 minute span of time. Thanks for sharing it with me. See you in 18 years when I kick his photogenic little bottom out of the house.

December 1, 2007 | Filed Under baby, motherhood, neuroses | 8 Comments

Permission to make a mistake, Cap’n?

On the phone with a good friend the other day, talking about all this Modern Day Anxiety bullshit, when I was gently reminded that sometimes? People make mistakes. And guess what? Nobody died. It isn’t the end of the world, no matter how much I think it might be.

Just granting myself the human right to fuck up now and again has taken a huge load off my shoulders. That and all the awesomely awesome comments from friends and strangers in the last, oh, however many days it’s been that awesomely awesome people have been helping me out. Thank you all. I feel better, despite any manic closet-cleaning episodes to the contrary.

November 28, 2007 | Filed Under neuroses | 2 Comments