TMI Thursday: Taking a Break from the Serious

Christine of Red Hat Pottery reminded me in yesterday’s comments that today is TMI Thursday. Have mercy. Is there anything new and just a bit too much that I can overshare? I took it to the family. So? Anything?

I asked MathMan, “What should I write about for TMI Thursday?”

He took a bite of his sandwich and chewed thoughtfully. I didn’t give him time to respond because I was a little hopped up on adrenaline from hunting the wild groceries earlier in the afternoon. “I could write about that buttplug, I suppose.”

He swallowed audibly. “What buttplug?”

“Did I say buttplug?” Damn, I forgot that was supposed to be a surprise.

Thankfully, his phone rang and by the time he was finished with that call, he’s forgotten all about it.

Next I asked Sophia. “What should I write about for TMI Thursday?”

“What’s TMI Thursday?”

“Too Much Information. “

She’s smart that one. “Well, duh, TMI. But what’s TMI Thursday?”

“I put up a blog post containing too much information about something personal.” I explained to her royal highness.

“You should write about how I’m your favorite. Of course, there’s never too much information about that….”

She may be smart, but she’s a one-trick pony. Think I’m kidding? Here are but a few of her more recent lines.

“If I could date me, I would.”
“I’m the princess, Chloe is a zitty ogre and Nathan is an ugly oaf. Either that or a hunchback….”
“You have one child whom you love and two others….”
“You should have a vote on your blog. See which kid is everybody’s favorite.”

I declined by suggesting that she might be disappointed with the results. She merely laughed. I keep her around because she knows just how much wine to pour in the glass. Otherwise, we’d just ship her off to the snakepit already.

The Pussies for Peace were no help at all. They were busy holding yet another tiresome strategic planning session. It seems they are unsatisfied with the litter we’re supplying. I believe I heard one of them mention doing an RFP. I thought about calling Chloe, but quickly realized that I couldn’t possibly bother her with this question. I hate how it sounds over the phone when she rolls her eyes. She doesn’t say so, but I suspect she thinks this entire blog is TMI. I just imagine her asking “Why should Thursday be any different?” Skip it. There’s one more person I can ask….

So I finally approached Nate with my request.

The consummate teen, he answered me visually. He’d just gotten his baseball season buzz cut and was modeling how he’ll look some day when there’s more hair on his back than on his head. He’s quite cold-blooded about the fact that by his late twenties, he’ll be practically bald. Like my brother, Nate plans to just shave his head and be done with it. He’s sure he can be a bald sexy beast. As for the rest of his body, well, I’m his mother. I don’t think it’s appropriate to talk to him about manscaping downtown….

Unemployment Diary: Don’t Wish You Were Here

Since I was laid off and am now counted among the 10% unemployed in the U.S., I’ve found that there are both good points and bad to not being employed full time. While I miss the bit of security the money gave us, I realize now that it was just an illusion. Dang, that sounds cynical. But true. We were barely hanging on to our spot in the American Middle Class when The Disaster struck. (Please note that I’m using the word disaster here with a smattering of irony. Being laid off is financially taxing, but it’s been a gift in a way, too. I’ve been able to think about what kinds of work I want to do.)

We’re in the process of making changes to improve our situation. Those things include, but are not limited to, the following verbs: cutting, reducing, canceling, bartering, accepting, managing, trimming, couponing, watching, budgeting, switching off, refiling, rethinking, repurposing, hanging, discussing, teaching, learning, relearning, valuing, sorting, exploring and looking.

While I search for my next job (assuming there’s one out there), write, and hausfrau my days away, I want to use this space to write about what it’s really like to be part of the New Poor. It’s an idea that the news organizations seem to be picking up on. People who’ve been poor, are poor and assume they will always be poor must be thinking “Seriously? Now being poor is newsworthy?” It is sad commentary on our society that the spotlight seems to be aimed at the plights of those who had and lost instead of those who never had to begin with.

So here we are. We can be counted in that number of people who’ve lost their slippery grip on the Middle Class. We’re kind of free falling at the moment, but we expect a landing (hard? soft?) sooner rather than later. Part one appears to require about six months. Details on that will have to come later.

But the point of this series of posts isn’t to gain sympathy. I don’t want to hear any hang in theres or it’s going to be okay or any advice for finding jobs. Golly, that sounds bitchy, but what I’m attempting to do here is to show in snapshots of real life what happens after you find you’ve dropped over that metaphorical edge. It seems to me that stories about the New Poor focus on some of the more extreme situations – people long out of work, sick, without health insurance……Well, we’re not extreme. We’re not homeless yet. We have a car in decent working order. I have my unemployment insurance and MathMan is still working and we have his health, dental and vision benefits on which to rely. Everyone is healthy.

The changes in our lifestyle come more in the newly ragged edges of things. We’re letting go of things that many of us in the Middle Class had quite taken for granted. We’re re-examining our needs. We’re looking for ways to restructure our lives so that 1. We don’t find ourselves in a similar mess in another ten years and 2. We can be happy in a simpler situation.

So the reason I’m writing these pieces is to give a voice to those of us in the murky middle. We’re the ones who still have barely enough, who haven’t been able to cross the threshold from donor to receiver quite yet, who still have Middle Class muscle memory, who want to think that everything is going to get better and not worse, but who harbor deep fears that this isn’t rock bottom yet. That’s the story I’m trying to tell here.

Thanks for joining me. If you find yourself without much to say in response to these posts, don’t worry. It’s taken me two months to reach the point where I feel like I can finally write about some of these things.

Thanks for being here…..

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If you’ve never been in poverty, I’d like to suggest you give it a try purely as a learning experience. For one thing, and quite obviously, it helps you to understand the very real differences between need and want. But honestly? This just……well. It’s like they say – it’s someplace to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there. I couldn’t even bring myself to say it’s a nice place. It’s not.

I keep hoping that we’re just visitors here. Let me clarify – I’m not talking Third World Poverty. I’m not even referring to the long-term, pre-existing condition of poverty that many people have struggled with either all their lives, or worse, for generations. Let’s see, there must be a word for it. Has some clever person coined a phrase for it yet? It’s rather like being expelled from the Eden that was the American Middle Class. We took a long, bumpy road full of warning signs to get here, but, sugar, we have arrived.

Now the classic and simple definition of poverty is: /n/ the condition of having little or no money, goods, or means of support; condition of being poor; indigence.

(Looks around the four bedroom/three bath split level in a working class subdivision and scratches her head….)

Okay, maybe we’re just dipping our toe into the pool of poverty, but we’re much too close for comfort and it would be a breeze for anything to shove us face first and fully clothed smack dab into the deep end.

Now we find ourselves on the fringes. We’ve become those people you hear about. We’ve spent most of our adult lives living one paycheck away from disaster. And then bam! That one paycheck went away. Now we’re struggling to put food on the table and gas in the tank so that MathMan can get to his jobs (Yes, jobs. He’s coaching now, too.). We’re currently discussing all sorts of ways to cut back further, squeezing the turnip just a bit harder, and adjusting our family’s lifestyle to accommodate our role as the New Poor.

I’m still grasping for the good things here. While I was raised by parents who remembered the Great Depression, I am product enough of the prosperous times to not have learned the lessons of the past. In trying to protect us from knowing the humiliating poverty in which they grew up, my parents neglected to let us have many opportunities for self-denial or restraint. They were hardly extravagant, but we lived comfortably enough. Sure, we heard the word no. My family was far from wealthy. We had things, but they were second best kinds of things. The swimming pool was above ground, not inground. Our friends went to Clearwater Beach while we went to Opryland. We got the Coleco instead of the Atari and the cars we drove were always used and so on.

We were rarely, if ever, deprived in any real sense of the word. Except, our parents didn’t talk to us about money or money management. In that regard, we were grossly let down, as were many of our peers, I suspect.

Today, as my family navigates its way through our financial challenges, I hope that we will do right by our kids and teach them how to avoid the mistakes we made. Because, don’t get me wrong, we made many many mistakes over the years. We tripped on through our days assuming that there would be a brighter future. We counted on pay raises, increased property values, and ongoing employment. We envisioned the classic American Dream of work hard, keep your nose clean, do good and all will be okay. Except that doesn’t begin to compare to the trouble you invite when you begin adulthood with student loans, have more kids than you can afford, take too many risks (or not enough maybe?) in the workplace and live not extravagantly, but far enough beyond your means so that you leave no cushion for the lean times.

I know that some of you have known real poverty, First World or otherwise. I know that many of you learned the lessons to be frugal and to save. Others of you either absorbed this knowledge, despite your own relatively comfortable upbringings or you possessed a sense of natural frugality. I know that among you, there are some who have never known a day’s want and you never will. Each of us carry our own experiences and, hopefully, we can both cope with ours and understand and appreciate, to some degree, the experiences of that person over there.

What we take away from our experiences and how we use the knowledge is subject to the whims and foibles of we humans, but there’s no denying the fact that some scrap of something is transferred to us. This little trip into poverty has shown me something that I hadn’t really quite grasped until I experienced it.

To live with the barrage of reminders that you’re lacking something (even if you’ve never had it, the world via peers and school and television will let you know you’re missing something) is crazy stressful. I can feel it. Instead of a sense of happy reunion when the kids arrive home from school, I feel dread. They’re going to be hungry and I’ve got to make sure they don’t eat up all the items I’m saving for their lunches tomorrow. I know that Sophia is going to ask me again for the five dollars for the chorus pizza dinner and point out that the D.A.R.E. program tee shirt money is due on Friday. Nathan won’t stop growing and his one pair of jeans are now two inches too short. “Let’s just hang on a bit longer. It’ll be shorts season soon.”

I try to imagine what it must be like to live with this all the time. It’s exhausting. It’s frustrating. It is exactly what it’s called in some circles – grinding. It wears you down. It’s not easy to live here and not be affected by all kinds of expectations. The kids have pretty much learned to stop asking for things. Nevertheless, there are things they need, not just want. That’s when it goes from being an opportunity to learn to outright frustration for all involved. They feel like they’ve learned the difference between need and want and you’re rewarding them with just another reminder that “we can’t afford it right now.” I feel like a failure.

(I’ll be writing about how schools don’t make things easy for the poor or the new poor in a later post.)

Over the last few weeks, the best I can do is find those genuine teachable moments and voice the very real hope that we are just visitors here in the poverty place. I remind them that while we’re here, we should stop and feel. Let’s remember what this feels like. If and when we come out the other side, it’s important that we don’t forget this. We must remember. I want the chance and comfort to forget, but I want to remember because in remembering we’ll know that it’s better to deny ourselves that tiny extravagance so that we can set aside a bit of money for safekeeping. More importantly, though, I think it will help us to understand what it’s like for so many who would trade us for even a day to have what we have now, while we feel like we’re doing without.

I’m not the most deep thinking person, but I can tell you that I’m working to find meaning in all this. Maybe it’s to keep from completely despairing. Maybe it’s a distraction from that creeping fear that this isn’t quite so temporary. Whatever it is, I know that I have to believe that we’re just visitors here. That’s why I’m sending postcards like this one to myself.

Don’t wish you were here…..

Tristeza

After many years of not reading for pleasure, I began last year to read novels and books of all kinds. You can see my reading lists (have read/want to read) here if you want proof. I know how some of you are.

So I’ve finally discovered the work of Michael Chabon. Oh sure, we had a brief flirtation when I listened to approximately eighteen minutes of The Yiddish Policeman’s Union (read by Peter Reigert who I loved in both Animal House and Crossing Delancy) on an audio book. MathMan was listening to it during his commute and allowed me into that secret world one day.

The other day at the library, I picked up Chabon’s Manhood for Amateurs: The Pleasures and Regrets of Husband, Father and Son. First let me tell you that I can be both enchanted and chagrined by this piece of nonfiction art. On the one hand, I’m compelled by Chabon’s side of the story when it comes to telling how it feels to be a guy (in every sense of the word) in today’s world.

Born in 1963, Chabon’s reminiscences of childhood are very familiar to me. I was born in 1965. I remember the days of Wonderama and Wacky Packages and long, winding days covering the town and adjacent countryside on my orange Huffy bicycle with the “banana seat, sissy bar and apehanger handle bars.”

It’s only through the backward lens of time that I realize how lucky I was to grow up at that time, in that place. The town was small, along the Ohio River and backed by a hilly rural landscape that always seemed to offer a pleasant combination of security and adventure. And adventure we did. Those were still the days when kids were turned loose on a summer’s day. There were no bike helmets, no water bottles, no insect repellent. Childhood hadn’t been robbed of its fun by overly cautious adults who were willing to trade their last scrap of sanity for control over their children’s lives down to the most minute detail. Shoot, we took off and only came back for lunch and dinner and then, finally and reluctantly, we’d heed our parents’ demands to come in and take a bath before bedtime.

Sometimes we bothered to stop in and say hi to my mom at the courthouse where she worked. But more likely than not, we didn’t bother. She was busy and we were doing our kid things.

Some days we rode to the other end of town to visit Mamaw Hewitt. You might find her sitting snapping beans or shelling peas on the back porch glider. If you were lucky, she’d offer you a couple of Chips Ahoy cookies. If you were super lucky, you got a half a Three Musketeers bar and an icy cold Coke from one of those little bottles she always bought at the Kroger. Coke is just right served in the aluminum tumblers.

On your way out, you stopped by the barn to see Papaw who would be tinkering around with his lawnmower repair business. You passed the time of day for a few minutes, fetched whatever tool he requested and collected your quarter.

Yes, we were pretty dang lucky.

Now the negative part of reading Chabon is this: I read his beautiful prose and fret about my own writing. I realize that it’s all stylistic differences, but I worry that my own stripped down writing will be too lean, too stark, too See Jane. See Jane run. Run, Jane, run to ever actually get published. Like any writer, Chabon isn’t every body’s cup of tea. I understand that. And I know that any future audience I might have will read my writing for what it is – lean, stripped down, loaded with dialogue, vague on descriptions.

Could I be any more arrogant to even compare my own style to that of a Chabon? I’m so ashamed.

Now you’re wondering about that word Tristeza, right? Or maybe not. Well, I’m going to tell you about that anyway because it’s from a passage in Chabon’s book that struck me hard. It’s a great word. It’s a theme, actually, for a lot of things. It’s the ribbon that binds the book I’m working on right now.

Having studied French, I recognized it immediately (triste: sad) as the Spanish or Portuguese for sadness, but like many of the words in Chabon’s work, I wondered about the more nuanced meanings of it. Unlike some of the words (irascible or execrable, for example) that I looked up in the dictionary to get their complete meaning, the nuance (those kinds of words – you generally know what they mean, but you’re not completely sure), Chabon saved me the trouble. In reaction to a college friend telling him that he lacked tristeza, Chabon decided to go out and get some. He was good enough to describe just how he could do that:

A study of the available literature – or part of it, since the available literature occupied half the world’s library shelves and three fourths of the attention of its poets – seemed to suggest that one indispensable precursor to the production of tristeza was regret. There were others – grief, exile, loss – and along the way, I might reasonably expect to acquire them or at least get a few leads on their whereabouts. Bu regret was the one prerequisite for heartbreak that I could hope to ensure a steady supply of. All I needed to do was start making mistakes, but I must do so diligently and clearly, taking full advantage of all my opportunities. I must put my trust in unreliable people, take on responsibilities I could not hope to discharge, count on impossible outcomes, ignore blessings that were right under my nose while expending my youth and energy in the pursuit of dubious pleasure. I must court disappointment, miscalculate, lie when the truth would serve better and tell the truth when the kindest thing would be to tell a lie. Above all, I would have to stick to a course of action long after it was clearly revealed to be wrong.

After I picked myself up off the bathroom floor (really , people, where do you think I do most of my reading?), I wiped the tears of laughter from my eyes so I could reread it. Did one have to work at tristeza? That someone would seek out those things seems ludicrous. I’m a magnet for them. I’ve elevated gaining tristeza to an awkward art form. Or maybe a science?

If that passage doesn’t describe the last few years of my life, I don’t know what does. But then, no….it really describes an entire life of missteps, bad decisions, firebreathing consequences, acquiescence to fear, denying realities, succumbing to inertia, intellectual laziness, and adventure. Yes, adventure. Because this life has been that, too.

Oh, I don’t mean the get on a plane and go touring adventure. That would require some level of sophistication and financial means, of which I’ve never possessed. No, instead, it’s been more of a pack your things and move without knowing where you’ll live adventure. The oh looky! we have some garbanzo beans, bran muffin mix dated 2005, some left over canned peaches and a bit of horseradish in the fridge. I can make dinner from that…. kind of adventure.

As much as it’s been a commercial disaster, my life has provided me with plenty of homegrown entertainment over the years. Here’s hoping that the publishing world will see it that way, too.

In Search of the Giant Pink Sea Snail. And a Clean Kitchen Floor

I think I actually made the grrrr sound this morning as I crawled around scrubbing the kitchen floor. Yes, we own a mop, but the mop is neither as useful in actually cleaning the floor nor does it give off the same Cinderella-esque air of poor pitiful me for which I seemed to be aiming.

Of course, being like that on my hands and knees also made me a most tempting target. I commend MathMan for not delivering the kick I so richly deserved.

I was in a mood. And I really couldn’t explain it except that maybe it was a combination of mini-hangover, chronic Hell I’m Fat! back pain, and a spike in my blood sugar courtesy of a bowl and a half of stale Yucky Charms.

Decent, healthful food is in short supply at the moment.

Perhaps I should blame the media. I mean, heck, we could blame the media for damn near everything these days. Did you see that silliness surrounding that golf player yesterday? I didn’t, but I watched some humorless twit from ABC giving her opinion of what it all meant to the guy on PBS. Wow, PBS, is that the best you could do? I was just sitting there eating my gourmet dinner of a hotdog with mustard waiting for Rick Steve’s Europe to come on and I had to suffer through a second hand account of the golf player’s apology via a woman who was quite pleased that she wasn’t invited in the first place because the inability to ask questions was such an affront to her standards as a journalist? Wasn’t it bad enough that I had to eat a hot dog because of the slim picken’s around here? Renew my membership, indeed.

Lord, where was I? Too many nitrates or is it sulfates these days? … Oh yes, I was doing a Sarah Palin. Blaming the media. Oh, I don’t mean the media as in the paparazzi that I’m always having to ask Sean Penn to come and put in its place. I’m referring to the media that I quite willingly invite into our bedroom on lazy weekend mornings.

I woke up entirely too early this morning. Since it isn’t Bed In Day yet I didn’t suggest that we go back to the mystery DVD we fell asleep to last night. No. We save those for Sunday. Instead I turned on the Turner Movie Classics, my go-to channel these days.

We watched the movie version of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. Well, we got as far as (SPOILER ALERT!) Caesar being stabbed and Marlon Brando, I mean Marc Antony, carrying him out for the Romans to see and then…….zzzzzz.

That showoff MathMan noted that in the half of the movie we watched, he caught at least five quotes that people still use today. I told him to shut the hell up. He’s the math guy and I’m the words person and I’d only caught the stars* quote and something about the eyes of March. I won’t have him upsetting the balance of talents that make this household run like the well-oiled machine it is. He gets Pythagoras. I get Billy S.

Matching wits wasn’t going to make for nice stuff this morning. We were already having issues with keeping the blankets in order. And I was struggling to stay awake long enough to hear the Render Unto Caesar line, which I’m only 67% 47% sure is a line from that play. Besides which I was terribly distracted in my own muddled ways. When I wasn’t staring at James Mason’s sexy sexy forearms with that delicious wrist cuff, I was dang near swooning over Greer Garson’s and Deborah Kerr’s fabulously long and lustrous locks.

And then I had to ask the question that was burning in my mind. “Did the Romans really run around in tablecloths and can we bring that style back?”

Well, we missed the end of the movie because we fell asleep again. A bit later, we woke up and
had a quick breakfast in bed with Rex Harrison and Anthony Newley starring in Doctor Dolittle. I remember thinking, even as a young’un that if Rex Harrison had just taken the damn dress and bonnet off the seal, you could have cut that movie by about ten minutes. Not to mention canning most of the music. Anyway, as we were watching and I was consuming a great deal of sugary cereal, I had a flashback to my childhood. I think we had the Little Golden book of Dr. Dolittle or maybe a child’s record of Talk to the Animals. Whatever it was, grown up considerations and obligations crowded out the memory and the moment was gone.

Lately, that’s happening more and more. I can’t complete a sentence or a thought before something comes swooping in to crowd it out. MathMan would tell me that it’s a numbers thing again. The longer you live, the more memories you accumulate and the harder it is to maintain your tenuous grasp on your thoughts. He’s a helpful devil, isn’t he?

Anyway, I started to tell you about how the media affected me. Honestly, I don’t remember where that thought was going (nowhere), but I’m happy to tell you that the kitchen floor remained clean for approximately one hour seven minutes and forty-eight seconds. Sadly, that’s just because I so frightened the children when they first attempted to cross the kitchen threshold that they stayed well clear of it until I was gone.

Effective though it may be, it’s a mighty traumatic thing to behold a mother, wildhaired, bra straps showing under the ill-fitting black tank and the lavender pajama pants four sizes too big crawling around quoting Shakespeare to herself. It was probably overkill to bare my teeth and growl, but I wasn’t taking any chances. I wanted that floor to remain clean at least until I could haul myself to a stand and survey it for a second or two.

Simple pleasures, people. It’s all I ask…..

*“Men at some time are masters of their fates: The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings”. – (Quote Act I, Scene II).

Adventures in Real Parenting: I’d Sell My Soul for a Jelly Donut

Or a lifetime’s supply of grape KoolAid.

Picking up the story from yesterday….

Nate arrived home from school. I actually got up off my ass and greeted him with a breezy “Hi! How was your day?”

Now the trick here, as many of you know, when you’re dealing with this kind of animal in the wild, you don’t want to make any sudden movements. The fourteen year old male wishes to remain invisible unless he’s in need of clean sweatpants, that jacket you told him fifteen times already to pick up and hang on the coatrack or he’s got a desire for sustenance and he doesn’t want to turn off the video game and fetch some.

So I didn’t follow him around or get all up in his grill. I accepted with measured enthusiasm his reply of “Fine.” I stood at the top of the stairs and watched as he tossed his backpack into the corner, yanked off his North Face and jammed his earbuds back where they belong. I remained there until he appeared settled, the remote control in one hand, the iPod Touch in the other.

Step one = accomplished.

I went to my office and waited approximately eight minutes, at which time, I stood, took a deep breath and headed for the living room. I felt like I was preparing for a turn in the Cage. I swept through the room, not making eye contact (very important) and puttered around in the kitchen for a few seconds before calling out, “Does anyone need anything from in here?”

Sophia, who was ensconced on the love seat under a throw was just waking from her little catnap. Were she not asleep, young master Nathan wouldn’t have been able to pinch the remote without a fight. Sophia has learned to hide it under her butt or a convenient throw cover. “I’m good. I had a hotdog when I came home.”

It was true, she had. I could see the evidence on the kitchen table. The paper plate with the horrifying grease spot, the ketchup bottle resting upside down to cut down on that splat of liquidy stuff that just ruins things. She seemed to have some innate sense that she was not the focus of our current parenting angst and thus was willing to provide certain services for herself. She perhaps understood that compared to the brouhaha surrounding her brother, her negotiations for things would be just more wasted energy. She’s a smart girl like that.

I waited for Nate to answer, but none came. I poked my head around the kitchen wall. Oh, yes, that’s right. He had the earbuds in. (At this point, a thinking person might wonder why he’s listening to music and has control of the remote. I have no answer except to say that, like me, sometimes he prefers to watch the action on television without having to hear the inanity of it all.)

Nathan removed his earbuds and looked steadily at me. “Did you need anything from the kitchen?” I tried to keep just the appropriate amount of cheer in my voice without being too over the top or without giving off the vibe that I would be annoyed if he did make a request.

“Nah, I’m good.”

I went about reheating the chicken noodle soup from a couple nights previous. I had some, Sophia had some. Nathan, our pickiest eater, went into the kitchen and foraged for this and that. He came out with an array of things that I preferred to ignore. Choose your battles, choose your battles….

There were some negotiations between the children about what to watch on the television and then we all settled into our chosen spots to stare at the flickering screen and shovel food down our gaping maws.

Typically, and I’m a bit embarrassed to admit this, I would simply retreat to my own room to eat in peace and watch some old movie on TCM while leaving them to chew the carcass of what ever poor beast they’ve brought down in front of programs such as Cake Boss or It’s My Wedding and I’ll Spend Myself and You into Oblivion for It If I Want To. I’m fighting battles enough with food these days. I don’t want my dinner hour punctuated by tearful spoiled brides to be or my appetite stoked by Buddy and his obscene cake porn. Mmmmmm cake…….

But last night, I remained in the room and watched the DVR’d South Park (again with the South Park) so that I could enjoy the pleasure of the company of my two children. Chloe, as you may remember, has left the show. She now makes only occasional appearances as the college-aged daughter. MathMan is supplementing his salary as a baseball coach. So there we were, we three, enjoying our meal in front of South Park. I was just about to get seconds on the soup, which I did not need, when Michael Jackson’s nose fell off. I don’t care if it is a cartoon. That was enough for me.

I deposited my bowl into the dishwasher and sauntered back into the living room. This time, I sat next to Nate, again with a minimum of eye contact, and leaned back on the sofa to enjoy the rest of the program. He lay down and propped his feet on my legs. I took that as a good sign.

“So, what’s on your agenda tonight?” Oh, tactical error. Too, um, momlike. Shoot. Did I blow it?

“Lots of homework. I’m supposed to go play basketball at T’s house and then I have to work on my research paper.” His eyes never left the television, but I was fully aware that he’d not mentioned church. Not once. And it was Wednesday night.

“So no church?” I was willing to risk it. I didn’t want to push, but I didn’t want him to think I’d forgotten.

“Nah.”

I noticed that Sophia was taking it all in. She was being cool about it, of course, as is her way, but all of her angst receptors had swiveled in our direction while her eyes stayed glued to the t.v. waiting for the scene where you actually get to hear Kenny’s voice and see him without his hood.

“I’m sooo thirsty.” Ah, the plaintive bleatings of a child who wants something, is fully capable of providing for himself, but is still unwilling to rise from the sofa and produce.

“There’s KoolAid.” I wanted to be helpful, but I didn’t want to tip my hand too soon. I was thinking back to someone’s comment about the church’s enticements of cookies and other delectable refreshments…..

“A’right.” He didn’t move.

“Would you like for me to make you some KoolAid?” I looked at him directly this time. If I was going in for the kill, then I was going to have to make sure that I was aiming directly at the target. If I’d had a tail, it would have been swishing back and forth, back and forth.

“Would you? That’d be cool.” He returned my gaze. Was he going to dodge me?

“Hey, let’s make a deal. I’ll make you KoolAid and you stop calling yourself a Christian.” Would he take me seriously?

He froze. I counted silently while I waited. He was considering this. Five, Six, Seven….

“A’right.” He smiled.

“Really?” Was this a trap? Was I about to get hoisted on my own petard?

“Yeah, really. The whole thing’s pretty stupid anyway.”

He’s as capricious as his mother. I cannot say otherwise. But this gave me hope that we’re on the right track. He’s got my attention. Those people who want to influence him without my knowledge or consent are going to have to wait a little longer. I’ll spend every Wednesday night watching programs of his choice if I have to. But I promise you and him this – they won’t get to muck around in his head without going through me first.

Adventures in Real Parenting: Not With My Son, You Don’t

I am troubled.

Wait. You already know that, don’t you? Let me begin again.

If I have a soul, and that’s a big IF, it is troubled.

Parenting conundrum. The thinky kind. What a pain in the brainpan.

Remember in the old days how kids would hide porn mags under their mattress? Well a couple of weeks ago, I found a bible like thing under Nate’s mattress.

You see, Nathan has been going to Wednesday evening youth group at the local Baptist church. At first, I assumed it was social. I was fine with him going with the group to feed the homeless a couple of weeks ago. I fully support the good works that the church, any church, does.

However.

I mentioned the bible-ish thing to MathMan who reacted with a touch of horror. He wasn’t that thrilled with my cavalier attitude about Nate going to the Wednesday evening things at the church and now here was the direct result of that insouciance I’d displayed. I’d dropped the parenting ball.

The other day, MathMan, Nate and I were riding in the car when MathMan very casually asked,”So are you a Christian now?”

And Nate replied simply, “Yes.”

Screeeeeeech!!!! What? Wait. What?

I asked him yesterday what being a Christian meant. He couldn’t really answer me. Uh huh.

I know many of you are Christians and you have to know that this is not a personal attack on your religion, but, um, NO. No, no, no, no, and NO.

And for those of you thinking “well, there could be worse things,” I beg your patience. Of course, there could be worse things, but this cuts at the heart of the parenting role for me.

We’ve raised our kids in a culturally Jewish household. By that I mean, I was raised in a Protestant home, but I am not a believer at all. Attending church was a punishment for being a pill during the week. We were not regular attendees, by any stretch. And my parents were never ever ever part of the in-crowd clique that every church seems to have.

To tell you the truth, I am incapable of that kind of suspension in reality. I wouldn’t want to worship the god that some people talk about. Wait, scratch that. The whole idea of worship is foreign to me. I am areligious. Kind of like asexual. Faith? What’s that? MathMan, who doesn’t talk about god and such, was raised as a Jew. We have identified as Jews for the kids’ entire lives, when pressed.

While it is true that when we moved to Georgia, we did not seek out a Temple nor did we continue with the religious/cultural education of our children, I certainly do not approve of the brainwashing my son appears to be undergoing. I repeat, brainwashing.

Rumor has it, he’s been “saved.” From what? Don’t bother answering that. I think it’s all a pile of wishful thinking. You die, you’re dead. End of discussion for me. And for now, for my kids. When they are adults and capable of understanding what they are buying into, then they can decide for themselves.

I’ve been turning it over in my head – why is this bothering me so much?

Here’s the thing. I would never bring my friends’ kids to my house to share with them my beliefs or lack thereof. I would never dream of telling the children of other people what they should believe. That is completely inappropriate.

So now I’m between a rock and hard place. (Note: I’m writing and speaking for me only. I’m not speaking for MathMan.)

“Nate, I want to tell you something. I’m not angry. I’m not attacking you, but I need to say this.”

“Okay.”

“How do you think (name deleted)’s mom or (name deleted’s) mom would feel if I invited their kids over here every Wednesday night so that I could ‘share’ with them how my way of life, my way of believing or not believing in my case is the best way. How do you think those moms would feel?”

“Bad.”

“And how do you think all of this is making me feel?”

“Bad.”

I hate this part of being a parent. I don’t want this to be about me, but you know what? It is. I am this child’s (and at 14, he’s still a child) mother. I have tried to be broad minded. I’ve let him be exposed to different avenues of thought. I figured that it wouldn’t hurt him, but now I’m not so sure. The fact that within a couple of weeks, he’s been persuaded to “join” this kind of thinking, this belief system that runs counter to mine is not something I’m happy about. Of course, when what one is defending is a lack of belief, it’s kind of hard to go up against something that promises you that you can do whatever you want and still go to heaven as long as you’re “saved” and agree to hate the right people (that’s the Baptist angle, at least).

Sophia is concerned. She’s getting second hand the information about what’s being done to Nate at these church things. I asked her what it all means, because Nathan is reluctant to talk about it now. She tells me that their mutual friends interpret “saved” as carte blanche (my word, not hers – she’s sophisticated for an 11 year old, but not that sophisticated.)

Here’s her take on things. “I think Nate is at an age where he just wants to fit in.” And, of course, she’s right. I completely understand. But what if this isn’t like the skateboarding fad? Or the skinny jeans? Or the redneck look that swept some segments of his crowd? What then?

Sorry, Christian friends, but this is when I have to be honest with you. This whole affair smacks of cultism. Just because you belong to an “acceptable” cult, doesn’t make it any less of a cult. The minute this kid starts “believing in creationism,” we’ll be conducting a full on intervention. I mean, INTERVENTION.

See – here’s the thing, again. I don’t tell you what to believe. I simply want my nonbelief to be respected. I don’t go out and hold meetings trying to convince people to not believe. I suppose I’m more a humanist than anything. I do believe that people can know and practice the difference between right and wrong without any religious overlay to their actions. I don’t need the promise of reward or punishment to keep me from doing or not doing things. And no, I’m not afraid to not believe. I don’t feel a void. The thing is – were I to pretend to believe, isn’t that just as hypocritical as anything you can imagine? If god is as omniscient as y’all say, then he’s going to know I’m lying anyway. Look – even as I little kid, the whole praying thing seemed silly to me.

But I would never tell you that you shouldn’t do what you want with your own spirituality or whatever you call it. Understand? Now please, grant me the same.

Here’s what I don’t like about this.

1. It’s disrespectful to MathMan and me as Nathan’s parents. My permission for him to attend the social functions was not permission for these people to “save” him or baptize him.

2. It creates a rift within our household. This boy, with very little education as to what it all means and with no communication with his parents at all, has been encouraged to deny his family’s belief systems and values.

For example: When he was telling us about a talk they’d had about sex and he used the word “shame.” Oh no. Sorry. We’re not going there. Shame and sex are not to be mixed together. That’s pure bullshit stuff right there. Sex is a biological function. Yes, there are moral aspects, but the aspects I’m far more concerned with are practical. STDs, pregnancy, etc. Shame? No.

That’s the kind of head game nonsense we’ve never played with our kids. I would never approach such a serious topic with such a weak argument. Shame? Oh, please. Let’s deal with reality. You don’t want a baby now, if ever, and you definitely don’t want to get sick. Those are reasons enough for not fucking around. Literally. Shame can be dealt with quite easily when you’re saved. I’m sorry I did it. Boom! Problem solved because I’m saved! That baby? It’s yours. You are stuck with it. Herpes? HIV? Yeah, pray that away, sugarplum.

Look – I don’t even approve of our kids using the words ‘whore’ or ‘slut’ when talking about sex. Those words are reprehensible. They are shaming bullshit words that have no place in real discussions of sex. That’s how seriously I take this part of the religion stuff. That part harms far more than it helps.

3. We are still this child’s parents, but since he’s been under this new influence of youth ministers, etc., I’ve gotten a distinct feeling of distance from him. MathMan thinks it’s typical teenage boy stuff and perhaps it is, but I am worried. I don’t like it.

The bottom line is this – for those of you who follow a religion that recruits – back off. You may think you’re helping people, but I don’t see it that way at all. Let people come to you if they want. But this business of recruiting teens? Stop it. They are highly vulnerable to the social aspects of what you do. Meanwhile, you’re sucking them into something that they are not able to fully understand. So not cool.

Doesn’t your bible list those commandments? And isn’t one of them to honor the father and the mother?

Well, then, please do that.

Rant probably not over.

Unemployment Diary: Who Are You? Who, Who, Who, Who?

I was being all careful. Grown up. As in panty hose. Okay, they were opaque black tights, but it was cold out today by Georgia standards and my one pair of black emergency nylons have a run in them that I could not strategically cover up. Not even with the skirt that hit below my knees.

I did manage to wear matching earrings. It’s something.

I painted my nails clear and my cuticles weren’t too horrendous. I bothered to straighten my hair and put on makeup. I went a little nuts and painted my toenails bright red. Yes, it occurred to me that no one in a job interview was going to ask to see my toes, but one can never be too sure in these competitive times.

I talked a blue streak to MathMan about how I was going to keep the real me hidden behind some modicum of respectability, some facade of acceptable professionalism. In other words, I was prepared to be someone else to get through this interview because, let us face it, shall we? My style isn’t what you’re going to read about in articles about how to get the big raise, how to hang on to your job or even how to get one. At WalMart. I’m an outlier and not in a good way.

So there I was in the parking lot of the big building, tugging the sweater over my head and putting on the suit jacket. I remembered to change out of my flats and into the smart black pumps that just rocked the opaque tights. Yes, my ankle was a wee bit lumpy. Like hell I was going to cut off the leather ankle bracelet.

I love buildings with public restrooms on the first floor. Hair smooth? Check. Black jacket and skirt gone over and plucked free of lint and stray hairs? Check and check. Tights tugged up so they aren’t drooping? CHECK. Teeth? Lipstick free. Lipstick? Chose the dark pink over the raisin or ruby red. Sigh. Nose no longer running from the cold? Check. Hang on… booger check! All clear. Phew! Wouldn’t want to miss that part of the self-inspection.

I was ready (or not) for this job interview. “I’m as ready as I’ll ever be,” I said to my reflection in the mirror. Up to the third floor. Casual conversation with the receptionist who made a nice impression. And then the HR Director fetched me for the Q&A.

I spent the next two hours being myself.

Doh!

On Second Thought

Okay, I take it back. I hate the Obamas. That Michelle Obama has some nerve sending me an email about obesity just after I typed the nutritional information for the two servings of chocolate covered raisins I consumed yesterday into my Sparkpeople page. Not to mention the two servings of malted milk balls that don’t count because no one actually saw me eating them.

Who does she think she is? I mean, Laura Bush never tossed her cigarette into the White House’s backyard and strolled into her office only to sit down and compose and send offensive emails out to the masses. Did she?

Michelle Obama and her long, lean self can stick it. I’d be much skinnier if I were six feet tall, too. She shouldn’t be shaming me with her faux concern about fat people.

I’m gonna need some pie to recover from this outrage.

DCup Escapes!

It’s been a while since I did one of these. I should be working on the revisions of the manuscript, but at the moment, I am too revved up to write. I’ve got things on my mind and those things are keeping me from focusing. Not to mention the fact that I’ve been Mrs. Edith Errand today and now it’s already after 2pm.

This morning I ranted and raved at Mr. Golden. It wasn’t at him, especially, because things have been so domestically calm of late. Rather, I ranted and raved and he listened. Mostly he listened because I did my pontificating and bloviating (don’t get any bright ideas, he was already dressed) as I got out of the shower and performed my toilette. (That’s lotion, makeup, hair, not sitting on the can with a book in one hand and my cellphone set to Facebook in the other, in case you’re thinking something icky.)

Mr. Golden, or rather MathMan, calls that the Naked Lisa Show. I honestly don’t get the appeal. I hate what I see in the mirror, but if he likes it, who am I to quibble? I have whole bunches of other people I’d rather offend.

And so there it is – I want to offend and yet, I hold back. Why? I have no idea. I guess it’s the Libra in me, the middle child, the peacemaker. But honestly, some people are just dang getting up my nose. I don’t know if it’s the willful ignorance or the repetition that’s making me more crabby, but the fact is, I’m coming close to having to remove myself entirely from the world for a while because – good heavens! – there’s an amazing amount of, of, annoying stuff out there.

Let’s just take, for example, those who are blaming President Obama for our current mess. Really? How on earth do you come to that conclusion? I want to give space for each side’s opinion (see astrological and birth order info above), but for fuck’s sake, really? How can you be a thinking, educated adult and not understand that we are where we are because of Republican policies? I’d call them failed, except they aren’t. They’ve done exactly what the Republicans want them to do. They’re gutting the middle class. You know it’s easier to control people when you have a little uber rich top tier and a whole bunch of poor people, right? It takes a strong, educated middle class with a little leisure time to think instead of just having to devote all their resources to survival to make a democracy or a representative republic, if you will, work.

So those Republican policies of deregulation and trickle down and all that other free market nonsense? Yeah, it’s worked. But in whose favor? And now there are people, some of them my friends and family, who want to scorn President Obama and the Democrats for not fixing the problems fast enough? For heaven’s sake, grow up. You think the Republicans are truly looking out for your best interests? Check your bank account. If you’re not a millionaire, you’re fooling yourself.

I guess this is what happens when you keep it pent up. Eventually, it’s all going to come out.

And before you go all “But the Democrats!” on me, yeah, yeah, I’m so not thrilled with them either. Their conclusion that they should move more to the right or bend to the will of Republicans couldn’t be more misguided.

But here’s the thing. Politically, they are the bad boyfriend. You know they cheat and they don’t put much thought into what you might like, but sometimes they get it right. Republicans are political wife beaters. You know you’re going to get the shit kicked out of you and then you’re going to have to listen to them tell you why you deserved it.

That’s why I continue to vote for Dems. Oh, and the fact that even though this current crop of Dems is far from stellar – I do still believe in DemocratIC policies. I believe in leveling the playing field through strong economic policies, public education, affordable higher education, fair taxes (that’s fair, as in each pays their share, not The Fair Tax which is regressive). I believe that when everyone’s lot improves, that includes mine. I believe that our government can and does work, especially when it’s not being dragged down by people who want to get elected so that they can show us how bad the government is. Oh, and to personally profit from it, of course.

I’ve stopped paying attention to the daily rundown of the he said/she said of our political theater, but that doesn’t mean I’ve stopped caring. I care very much. I worry, in fact, because I see us as a nation in decline. We’re more interested in spending for war than education and health care. We’ve become such a bunch of gun-toting pussies that collectively we would rather trade our liberties for our security. We’d rather fret that that guy over there might have something our tax dollars paid for than understand that we all benefit from the common good.

And that’s the shame of it. We’re far more interested in being against things than for things. I mean, if you could show me the evidence that supports the notion of giving to the rich so that they can trickle down on the poor – I’d be for it. But I’ve seen no evidence to support it. If you could show me how having an election system loaded with money and lobbyists has benefited We the People, then I’d be happy to shut the hell up about publicly funded elections. But seriously, if someone gets elected courtesy of scads of cash given by corporate donors, which phone calls do you think will be answered? And do you really think most of our elected officials are doing the right thing or are they doing what will get them re-elected. Those are not always the same thing. Sometimes doing the right thing would require that they don’t do what their corporate donors wish. I don’t see much moral fiber or character on Capitol Hill on either side these days. Certainly not enough to say ‘non, merci’ to the smell of money…….

But I look around and see shuttered businesses and empty storefronts and houses on short sale and razor thin classifieds and I know my own story (I was laid off after the recession was declared over). I can’t see it. I cannot see how anyone with a lick of sense can possibly believe that this is the result of anything but the Republican policies that we’ve been treated to since George W. Bush took office and reigned supreme for much of that time with a Republican-controlled Congress and later, a weak Democratically-controlled one.

The steam is going out of me again. I’ve said my piece. It’s a waste of time, of course, because just as I know what I know, others know what they know and if they don’t know, Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh or Sarah Palin will tell them. Don’t believe your lyin’ eyes. All of this is the fault of Barack Obama (they wouldn’t deign to call him President Obama) and the Democrats. Vote Republican!

Yes, please do. I cannot imagine how much worse things can get, but please do vote Republican. Because if a revolution is going to happen, a whole lot more people are going to have to be made extremely uncomfortable (Do you have any idea how much fun it is to choose between electricity and water? Which can we least cope with having shut off?) More Republican “leadership” will surely guarantee that.

Most serendipitously, I received the following joke in my email today. It comes from my former boss Carole. She must have known that this kind of thing was on my mind. Thanks, Carole, for sending it. It made me laugh. It was bitter laughter, but it was a laugh, nonetheless.

LOST WOMAN

A woman in a hot air balloon realized she was lost. She lowered her altitude and spotted a man in a boat below. She shouted to him,

“Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago, but I don’t know where I am.”

The man consulted his portable GPS and replied, “You’re in a hot air balloon, approximately 30 feet above ground, elevation of 2,346 feet above sea level. You are at 31 degrees, 14.97 minutes north latitude and 100 degrees, 49.09 minutes west longitude.

“She rolled her eyes and said, “You must be an Obama Democrat.”

“I am,”replied the man. “How did you know?”

“Well,” answered the balloonist, “everything you told me is technically correct. But I have no idea what to do with your information, and I’m still lost. Frankly, you’ve not been much help to me.”

The man smiled and responded, “You must be a Republican.”

“I am,” replied the balloonist. “How did you know?”

“Well,” said the man, “you don’t know where you are or where you are going. You’ve risen to where you are due to a large quantity of hot air. You made a promise you have no idea how to keep, and you expect me to solve your problem. You’re in exactly the same position you were in before we met, but somehow, now it’s my fault.”

Adventures in Real Parenting: Perhaps Silence

Vignette #1

The setting: Dialogue from South Park is on in the background…Sophia is in the living room, I’m in the kitchen testing out a new recipe.

Guy with goofy voice #1: So we just watched each other masturbate. That doesn’t make us gay, right?
Guy with goofy voice #2: No. We’re not gay. It’s just some innocent experimentation.
Guy #1: So nothing has changed between us, right?
Guy #2: Right.

Me: Doesn’t this embarrass you?
Sophia: Nah, this is just stupid stuff.
Me: I would have died if this stuff was on with my parents around. Heck, I’d still die if I had to watch this with Grandma or Grandpa around.
Sophia: That’s because they are your mom and dad.
Me: But why doesn’t it bother you around me.
The look she gave me might be described as incredulous. “Um, because it’s you? I don’t know. Now be quiet, I like this part.”

I need to work on my pursed lips and bugged eyes, I guess. I mean, I wanted to die when a minipad commercial came on the air when I was watching t.v. with my dad. And he was perfectly happy to pretend I didn’t have girl parts or a period. To this day, I’m quite confident that he thinks my three kids are freaks of nature, created by some act of Monsanto genetic engineering or something. Who knows what he carried in on his clothes from the Monsanto plant he worked at for thirty plus years?

And it was no more fun when those commercials came on when my mom was in the room. With the utmost delicacy, she would pull the pursed lips, bugged eyes thing and, occasionally, wonder aloud if anyone in the house needed any of those “things.” There were words for those things, but she wasn’t about to use them.

One just hoped that she’d not forget that there was a boyfriend in the room, too, when she blurted out such a question.

********

Vignette #2
“So how was your day?” He took a large bite of the peanut butter and jelly sandwich he’d just made.

I looked at the crumbs on the counter and stifled a sigh. They were just crumbs, after all. “Fine. I wrote some. I read some.”

He chewed and nodded. I could hear him swallow. He started to take another bite and stopped. “I found a book at school that doesn’t bore me.”

“That’s excellent. Did you bring it home?” I reached for the washcloth that hung over the sink and turned on the water, waiting for it to warm. The water always took such a long time to warm in this house.

“It’s in my bookbag. It’s a suspense. Kind of.” He took another large bite and with it, his sandwich was gone.

“Cool. I’m so glad you’re finally finding things to read. I love to read. I didn’t realize how much I’d missed reading for pleasure.” I wiped the counter, sweeping the crumbs into my hand. A sigh escaped my lips. A glob of strawberry jelly was hanging precariously from one of the drawer pulls. I thought about asking him to be more careful, but stopped. Maybe it would be nice to just have a conversation without it turning into me nagging, him denying any responsibility. Sometimes I got very weary of the need to parent and teach, just I’m sure he got tired of the constant correction.

“So what are you reading now?” He was standing in front of the open refrigerator. I remembered my own days of coming home from school, being ravenous, making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for myself and my brother so we could eat them as we watched Popeye cartoons and The Flintstones.

“It’s a book about the girl who inspired the story Alice in Wonderland.”

“Huh?”

“Historical fiction. I haven’t read many books like it, but it’s good.” I rinsed out the washcloth and hung it back up in its spot. “Don’t keep the fridge open too long, okay?”

“So what’s the book about?” He grabbed a yogurt and shut the refrigerator door. He peered at the lid to check the date.

“I told you. It’s about the girl who inspired Alice in Wonderland. It’s about her life, her relationship or rather her friendship with Lewis Carroll, the author, and about her life when she gets older.”

“Oh. Did we ever read Alice in Wonderland? I don’t think so.”

“You know, I don’t think we did. I don’t remember reading it all the way through. It’s one of the books you just know the whole story, more or less, but I don’t think I ever really read it.” I shrugged. It was true. I recognized the characters, had seen the Disneyfied version at some point, understood the cultural references, but I’d never actually read the book.

“So there really was an Alice?” I was surprised that he was taking an interest. The older he got, the more I worried that we’d have fewer of these conversations. My worrying was for naught. We were both talkers. Hopefully, we’d never stop having conversations – no matter how shallow or deep they might be.

I watched as he stirred the yogurt with a spoon. “There was. She was one of the daughters of the Dean of Oxford. Her name was Alice Liddell. And Lewis Carroll, the guy who wrote the story, was actually a professor named Mr. Dodgson.”

He spooned some yogurt into his mouth and thought for a second. “So Alice wasn’t his daughter, but he was friends with her? How old was she? How old was he?”

“Yeah, it was a little strange. Turns out, Lewis Carroll was a bit of a pedophile. A lovable pedophile, but a pedophile nonetheless. He liked to take pictures of little girls.”

His eyebrows shot up onto his forehead. “That’s just gross.” He pointed his spoon at me.

“I know. Parts of the book are a bit creepy to read.”

“Yeah, you wanna know what’s creepy? Hearing your mom say lovable pedophile. That’s creepy.”

“Point taken. Want to talk about something else?”

“Nah,” he dropped the empty yogurt container into the recycling and tossed the spoon into the sink. “Let’s watch South Park.”