The Evolution Of Kate

Au revoir, mes amis.

2010-12-08T15:07:00.004-07:00

I think we can safely admit now that this blog is defunct. Even though I still often think of things I want to say here, I never seem to make the effort to do so, and as such nobody much makes the effort to read the few sad pebbles that I do shake out of my pockets. Ah, for the days when Ms. Kate Lilac got a full night's sleep and got her daily energy from 3 chardonnays and a pack of smokes. Not that my life was any more interesting then, but I had more to say about it.

What to say now? I'm no mommy-blogger, but I am, for 24 all-consuming hours a day, a mommy. I haven't developed a knack for making that cute or funny, though, so though it pains me somewhat horribly to admit it, it's time to hang up my no-longer-cool-or-expensive ballet shoes and go home. I won't take the page down, because it would be nice to have a place to start over if I ever feel so inclined, and I am quite fickle so you never know, but in the meantime, it's just me and my boring old facebook page. I do make the occasional pithy comment there, so if you want to be my friend-o, you can always send me an email and I might DIVULGE MY TRUE IDENTITY to you and we can become real-life friends of the sort who exchange inanities in the land of social media for oldsters. I promise not to try to make you sell me a plot of land in Farmville or whatever happens there.

katesevolution@yahoo.com

Mad.

2010-11-03T10:40:00.003-06:00

Mad, mad, mad. I'm mad about everything. I'm mad because I don't understand how so many voters are swayed by the absolute nonsense thrown out there by a new breed of power-hungry politicans. Same old story, except now apparently people can win elections with the messages of "no" and "we're angry, durn it" and "we hate smart people; they are elitist and out of touch" instead of offering up any agenda other than "taking back America's values." It's such a thinly veiled threat to return this country to an isolationist, "just folks" kind of land where people know their place.

It just seems so terribly misguided to me.

But anyway.

On a more personal level, I'm mad because I am not going to London. Well, not mad exactly. Resigned, a little bitterly, to my fate. R. and I cannot make plans to get away from the kids without them falling through 48 hours in advance. This time, my stepmom got sick, so they couldn't come out to watch the kids. Of course I feel terrible for her and all that - you can take that as a given - but this is my place to whine about ME so that is what I'm doing. Anyhoo, my mom generously offered to step in and watch the kids while we went anyway, which sounded great, but by then the enticing seeds of doubt about the wisdom of the trip had been sown in the marital noggin, and so we are not going.

We moved the trip to April or May; we'll see if it happens then. There is no reason to think it will, since the universe has had its say and it says:

1. The Lilacs shall not travel sans kids, and

2. America = Roman Empire, Part II.

That universe is a real joker, don't you know.

Um....

2010-10-21T09:21:00.003-06:00

Some people here at work thought it would be funny to take pictures of all the lawyers and superimpose them on various movie posters. Talk about incongruous:

I am the most bored and sour-looking badass in the history of the movies.

Cuter and cuter.

2010-10-18T15:55:00.001-06:00

Professionalism on the job and at home.

2010-10-14T10:27:00.001-06:00

The atmosphere in my office today is toxic. It looks like a law firm – everyone is all suited and booted; looking very professional and, hopefully, employable. Walking by the office next to mine, I could see on my colleague’s computer screen that she was working on her resume. Yes, it’s merger season around these parts, and today lawyers from our acquiring company are here interviewing lawyers and paralegals and staff for positions with the combined company. Ouch. Our general counsel made some noise early on about how these meetings were not interviews per se, but all pretense around that has been dropped and the 30-minute slots are now being called what they are.

I’m as lucky as an employee could be here right now; I don’t have to interview because the person who would be my boss in the new company is the same person who is my boss right now. There is no guarantee I’ll keep my job, but at least she knows me and has given me great reviews for the last eight years. Nonetheless, I am all tarted up like a real lawyer today – or should I say, tarted down. Looking in the mirror this morning, I saw all forty-one years of me staring back at me from a somber shell of expensive, well-cut fabrics. It was so jarring I had to remove my pearl earrings. I still looked like somebody’s mother.

In other news of being somebody’s mother, two people asked me yesterday whether our trip to Asheville had somehow gotten the kids to sleep through the night. I was able to reply joyously that YES, somehow they were doing much better and we had now enjoyed a solid week of decent sleep.

Naturally, I jinxed myself.

I was up 4 times last night with those little rats – responding like Pavlov’s dog to Eeyore’s bellows from the comfort of his toddler bed.

Eeyore: “MOOOOOOOOM!”

Mom, shuffling like a blind mole into their baby cave: “What is it?”

Eeyore: “I’m cold.”

Mom: “Jesus Christ, Eeyore. You know how to pull up your covers yourself. One more time and you won’t get your magnet in the morning.” (Reward system for not bothering Mom and Dad during the night = special magnet, 2 days of magnets = 1 lollipop.)

An hour later:

Eeyore: “MOOOOOOOOOOM!”

Mom, seriously pissed off: “Eeyore? What is it? You’re going to wake your brother.”

Eeyore: “I tee-tee’d. Can you change my diaper?”

Mom, sighing: “OK.”

So there it was, 4 a.m., and I was changing a tee-tee diaper on the bed. There are a few things wrong with this picture, but the one I’ll focus on is referring to a wet diaper as a “tee-tee diaper.” I am an adult and yet this is how I refer to a certain object. I’m southern, which is where the “tee-tee” versus “pee-pee” thing comes in, but still. It’s just one of those sad little reminders of who I am at this stage of life. A lot of cutesy talk is just the way it goes.

Meanwhile, I wonder if today’s southern children still say tee-tee or if that is some sort of 1970’s anachronism. I certainly never thought I would say it again in my life, since once I was old enough to just say that I needed to “pee,” tee-tee was not an expression that just cropped up in my daily conversation. Yet as soon as Eeyore was old enough to have any reason to discuss the matter with me, “tee-tee” popped out of my mouth (the expression, that is) and once again, that’s what it’s called.

Wow, that’s a fairly jarring juxtaposition between my two topics of choice today.

Oh, Helen, you always know just what to say.

2010-10-13T11:04:00.000-06:00

Helen Mirren says that the best thing for good abs is to always keep your stomach sucked in. And for some reason I have been following ol’ Helen’s advice a lot, and with clothes on I do look a lot thinner. Without them, my stomach still looks like biscuit dough that the kitten has repeatedly pounced on, but you can’t have everything. What’s weird to me is that I seem able to motivate myself only when I deliver the advice to myself as “Helen Mirren says…” instead of just “suck your stomach in.” Who knew of her magic properties.

I can’t believe we’re going on vacation in 3 weeks. I had been semi-dreading it, wondering how the kids would do without us, wondering how I would do without the kids, but then a couple of weeks ago R. and I went to Asheville, NC for the weekend for his sister’s wedding and we learned that the answer to both questions was just fine, thank you. Now I’m mostly just excited by the prospect of strolling around Dublin and London, arm tucked through my husband’s, regaining some semblance of me inside my head. Here are things I was able to do on our trip that have been out of reach for the last couple of years:

1. Get through the air travel experience without:
a. breaking a sweat from lugging children and all their accoutrements;
b. having to change a diaper in an airplane bathroom;
c. having a screaming baby kick my drink into my lap;

2. Go to the bathroom without someone running in to sit on the floor and ask me if I am pooping;
3. Eat dinner without having to implore someone ten times to stop screaming, and
4. Read a book for more than the 5 minutes between when I get in bed and pass out with the light on.

But the single best thing I realized while we were away is that there is actually still a functioning mind and personality in this body. Liberated from the non-stop requirement of constant attention to someone else, which keeps an uncomfortable amount of adrenaline flowing at all times, I was able to THINK. Real, full thoughts were in my head, I had complete conversations with others, I was free to peruse menus at my leisure. It was heaven, and now I know it waits for me at Denver International Airport and beyond in just three weeks.

As an aside, have you ever been to Asheville? I loved it! What a nifty, beautiful little town. As soon as I got back to Denver I looked to see if there were any legal jobs advertised there, but no. I have no idea how that place thrives, but it really does.

Developments and a lack thereof.

2010-09-21T09:56:00.003-06:00

Maybe I should be more encouraged than I am, but instead I feel there's a pall over my professional life right now - one that I don't know when will be lifted. My company is going through a merger process right now, and it's not ugly, exactly, but it's not pretty, either.

Yesterday, all the vice presidents of the new company were announced. My boss, who is fabulous and who I think I have a great relationship with, was promoted to be the head of my group. Arguably, this bodes well for my keeping my job, but at the same time the proportion of Newco VPs to my company’s VPs showed clearly that there is likely to be something of a bloodbath in our legal department. There are a lot of good lawyers who need jobs, so maybe I’ll keep mine, and maybe I won’t.

Usually, this doesn’t scare me too much because I have a decent severance package, and we won’t starve for awhile. But, this is ME we’re talking about, so there are certainly times I allow my mind to wander down dark and scary paths, or even just a path where my career becomes yet more mundane. My biggest fear is not that I won’t find another job, but that to stay in Denver, I will have to take a job with some company that nobody ever heard of, doing tedious and irrelevant work. Not that my job is particularly glamorous right now, and it sure as hell isn’t relevant to most people’s lives, but it’s good enough that with some work I could swing it out of its Mommy Track Death Spiral ™ and back towards something at least a little more international in nature. I haven’t found that Denver has a lot of these jobs, and whatever there is will soon become raw meat for the 50 attorneys who will be out on the street.

At any rate, my life just feels like a whole lot of limbo right now, waiting to find out how it’s all going to end up. We can’t move forward with the remodel until I know I have a job, so we’re still crammed into our tiny house that is rapidly becoming a casualty of entropy. If I do keep my job, it will likely be at an offer of reduced pay and bonus, and who knows about promotion opportunities? I would probably ride it out until my kids are just a little older and I will hopefully feel like I can commit more time to my own life.

Sag – it’s all so boring.

Not boring: trip to sister-in-law’s wedding on a week and a half with NO KIDS. Sleep, glorious sleep!

Choo choo

2010-09-10T15:47:00.002-06:00

Giirrrrrrl,

Shit's been busy around here (see, e.g., the above photo of my child (r.) on his first day of school this week). Is it not weep-worthy? A veritable milestone, yea, and one that did indeed reduce the child's mother to quivering jelly. My big boy!

And then there was Challenge Day yesterday. Look it up. It's an 8-hour extravaganza of serious emotion and dancing assholery that consists of about 25 adults spending the day in an airless gym with 100 public school kids (in my case, 7th graders) trying to "get real." There is a show about it on MTV called "If You Really Knew Me," and I can tell you that it was one of the most rewarding experiences I have had in some time. It is quite emotionally draining, and amazing how quickly so many of these kids want to talk about things going wrong in their lives. It was a very heartening experience, and I have nothing but the highest admiration for the people who do this for a living. It's awesome work. When I get laid off, maybe I'll look into it.

Hamish (as opposed to our oldest, Angus - our silly sometimes nicknames for the boys and ones I think I will use going forward just for funsies) made his first two-word sentence this morning. He pointed to the lamp that was not on and said "no light." the boy is a genius!

Shit that's on my mind.

2010-08-20T09:33:00.001-06:00

Wow, do I still hate gum as much as I ever have. There is this hugely-gay-but-married-to-a-woman guy who often stops at the desk outside my office to chat with the desk’s resident, and he is invariably either chewing gum or eating something – in either case, with great, smacking enthusiasm. He’s like seven feet tall, too, so his joyous mastication rings out across the top of all the cubicles and reaches its ropey spit strands across the whole frickin floor.

Meanwhile, as usual I am too tired. I have been up and down 10 times a night for the last couple of nights, as Eeyore has a bad cold and wakes up frequently to call for assistance. That assistance consists of my telling him, “You’re OK, sweetheart,” covering him back up with the comforter that at 2 weeks shy of 3, he ought to be able to just pull up himself, or putting the binky back in his bed that he could have leaned over himself to pick up. I am a class A sucker. But then this morning he walked into the bathroom where I was brushing my teeth, wearing his little backpack.

“I’ve put everything I need in here, Mommy,” he announced brightly.

“What do you have?” I asked, foamily.

“My triceratops and my bunny,” he replied.

Of course!

My baby starts pre-school in a couple of weeks. I wonder if I will cry when I drop him off (I’m pretty sure that on the first day “dropping off” consists of the parents sitting around drinking coffee outside the classroom waiting to see if their kid will flip out and need parental intervention)? Maybe not – I’m actually very excited for him to attend his new school. Eeyore is such a bright and curious kid, I think it will be wonderful for him to have a place to start to really stretch his little mind, make some friends other than the children of his parents’ friends, all that. And the school itself gives me the warm and fuzzies like nobody’s business. It’s all pretty, young teachers with masters’ degrees (feel free to sneer at me, I don’t give a shit), sunshine through big windows and old wood floors, children’s art on the walls, books everywhere. It’s just wonderful, and I can’t imagine my little boy won’t love it.

R. and I have some pretty retro activities coming up. This weekend, we’re seeing Adam Carolla at Comedy Works, and in September we’re seeing both Pavement and the Cult in concert. Hellooooo, rapidly approaching middle age!

I’m sure you have been fascinated by this update. I know I have!

Hey.

2010-08-10T14:42:00.000-06:00

This is lame. I opened my August 2009 file to save it for 2010 and write a new post. My topic: autumn is coming; I’m looking forward to my getaways with R., what I think about London in the fall. And guess what the first post was – a big, fat commentary on things I like about London in the fall.

Christ, I am even more on the hamster wheel than I thought. The only things that change in my life are watching my kids grow up and seeing my body degenerate. Even the things I’m looking forward to this fall are the same old shit I’ve already done. Argh!!

Anyway.

Navigating the 16th Street Mall after my daily, lunchtime trip to the gym, head bent so as not to have to see all the unpleasantness that is that lovely downtown thoroughfare, I thought for the fourteen jillionth time that my bestselling novel ain’t going to write itself. As always, however, I have no character, no plot, no location. That makes writing a little tough.

Today’s incarnation – a London girl moves to Denver (why? Who the f*** knows) and has misadventures with all the outdoorsy types here. Then what – she marries one and moves to the mountains? Where she learns to live without her Kiehl’s and hangs their Patagonia undergarments on a clothesline to dry? Yawn.

“Oh, dear lord,” thought Lucy, as one ski, then the other, started to slip across the snow. “What am I doing!?”

Tom grinned, his big, American teeth as blinding as the expanse of snow around them. “You’ll be great, Lucy. I’ll meet you at the Pub in a few hours, when my race is over. Bye!”

Lucy smiled uncertainly, cheered only slightly by the thought of an après cocktail or three. This “relationship” with Tom was leaving a lot to be desired.

How’s that for a rip-roaring scene? Of course, it is based on an episode from my own sad life, apart from being British, natch. Colorado is notorious for providing safe harbor to emotionally challenged, physically blessed specimens of manhood – guys who live solely to fund their own athletic, outdoor lifestyles. If you want to come along for the ride, great; they really could not care less. The delicate curves of their bicycles or skis provide more romance for them than you ever could.

Yikes.

2010-07-20T11:28:00.001-06:00

You hear stories in the news about unsavory characters knocking on innocent homeowners’ doors with crime on the brain. In my neighborhood, not too long ago there were three teenaged boys who would knock on doors and (1) if someone answered, pretend to be fundraising for a local high school, or (2) if they did not, break in and burglarize the shit out of the house.

Last night, as I was trying to get dinner on the table for the sprouts, our doorbell rang. Walking toward the door, I could see a weaselly, young blond guy standing there with a binder in his hand. The binder had an ADT sticker on it. I faced him through the glass security door, but didn’t unlock it. “Hi,” I said. The blond guy squinted and said, “Hi, I see you have an ADT sign in your yard.” “Yes,” I said. “I’m sure you’re happy with that,” he said, and as I said “Yes,” he suddenly tightened every muscle in his face, like he was trying to explode his skull inside his skin. “WILL YOU PLLLEEEEEEASE LET ME IN TO USE YOUR BATHROOM!!” he spat at me. “No,” I said, scared somewhat shitless. “AARRH…” he replied, and turned away and clomped down the front steps. I watched him as he continued down the sidewalk to my neighbor’s house, clutching and unclutching his fists, red-faced and muttering to himself furiously. I hoped my neighbor was smart enough to keep her door closed.

Chemically yours.

2010-07-19T10:37:00.001-06:00

I’ve been screwing around with the dosage of my happy for a few days, thinking of trying to get off the stuff. The only reason I care to go off it is that I want to know if it’s contributing to the way my body continues to hold onto the last 15 pounds of Haagen-Dazs/baby fat. But after 4 days on a reduced dose, I’ve decided that going chemical-free just isn’t for me, at least not at this point in my miserable existence. In the last 4 days I’ve snapped at my kids, yelled at my kids, gritted my teeth, sobbed, fought viciously with my husband and STILL eaten more than my share of cookies and ice cream. I don’t know about you, but I don’t find any of that desirable or productive - au contraire - and so today it’s back up to full bore happy.

It’s actually pretty amazing to see just how well Lexapro works for me. The only thing I don’t like about it is that I don’t always feel that my mental acuity is quite what it used to be, but the tradeoff is that I am reasonably even-keeled, I rarely get so frustrated with my children that I think I’m doing serious psychological damage, and basically most things just wash over me like water off the proverbial dead Gulf Coast duck’s back (except politics – I can still work myself into a muddy-minded froth over that). I can even be somewhat philosophical about the gut-wrenching toll that having two toddlers can take on a marriage. Even a few days of revisiting the old me was enough to let me know that I don’t want to be that stressed, pointy woman who has an incessant hamster wheel turning in her head anymore. Ever, really. And if that means I will have this doughy midsection forever, so be it.

Hey, I know it’s the cookies and ice cream, OK? And the wine, too. But ain’t no way Mama’s giving up wine with a one year old and a two year old at home, you know?

Sorry, my 2 Republican readers.

2010-07-13T09:28:00.000-06:00

I feel unsettled and testy today. Listening to NPR this morning didn’t help; a story about conservatives in Kansas had my blood boiling, then left me feeling helpless and at a loss about what to do. Not that I try particularly hard, but I simply can’t identify with conservatives. I hear the shit that comes out of some of their mouths, and I’m baffled. Some congressional candidate was motivating the crowd with the statement that when Obama says “Yes, we can,” “We’ll be there to say ‘No, you won’t.” THIS is ideas? THIS is progress for our country? But progress isn’t what’s wanted by these Americans. It’s the opposite; it’s the “return to the America we know we can be.”

What America is that? I have a vague sense of dread about what it would be. My sense is it’s an America where there are no rules for fat, old white men and plenty of rules for everyone else. Enforced “morality” – mine, not yours. Yeah, the good old days. I suppose the difference from 1955 is that now we have the new “feminist” conservative women, who believe that they won’t be stuck back in the kitchen. And maybe they won’t, unless of course they find themselves pregnant at 17 and severely challenged to fulfill any personal dreams they might have had.

I know I’m rambling, but I just hate the situation so much and don’t know what to do about it. Sure, I vote, but that doesn’t count for much these days when there are more stupid mother fuckers with the right to vote than I can shake a stick at. I’d volunteer for a candidate if I thought there was anything I’d be asked to do besides pass out fliers – not high on my list of fun or useful activities.

One bright spark: when I visited my dad this summer, that old Republican told me he, too, was disgusted by what passes for being a Republican these days. He delivered this golden nugget to me by telling me how unpleasant he finds it to be around his siblings these days, because they are the worst kind of knee-jerk, Fox news-loving drones who do no more than spew the latest anti-Obama crap. “They don’t think,” he said. “Sometimes I actually agree with the Democrats.” This from a man who told me when I was 15 that when I “grew up, [I’d] be a Republican, too.” I’ll cling to that.

Flossie.

2010-06-28T10:20:00.004-06:00

We are adding this fur person to our family tomorrow:

1. I am not sure what we are thinking, adding a tiny kitten to our 1200 square foot household that already includes 2 adults, 2 children and 2 cats.

2. But just look at that face.

Existing.

2010-06-24T10:56:00.003-06:00

Man, I barely even remembered how to sign into this thing.

Yes, I have disappeared. I've had absolutely no motivation to blog about a life that rarely changes other than watching my children grow. I happen to love that, but I don't necessarily think it makes for great reading for the outside world. So, I have just been living a very ordinary life and discussing it over glasses of wine on the patio on warm, early summer evenings with family and friends instead.

It's been pretty good, though - we took our first vacation with the kids; to Hilton Head. Here, you can enjoy our view through the blob of bird shit on the window.

It was pretty fabulous. However, two weeks away with not one night to ourselves had me thinking constantly about what it would be like to take a vacation alone with my husband. So I bit the bullet and booked a trip for us to Dublin and London later this year. I know I am going to regret leaving my kids as soon as the plane lifts off, but sometimes you have to just muddle through, you know? Seven days and nights alone with my gorgeous husband, not to mention time to read and think and walk around at a normal pace without having to dart out to rescue one or more small children from various perceived dangers... ah.

I booked it even though we are still hoping to start our house in the next couple of months and even though I could lose my job in the next few months; maybe I booked it because of those things, too. Hopefully all will be "fine," whatever that means, but if my world comes flying off its axis I'd like to at least get in another vacation beforehand.

Playdates.

2010-05-03T16:32:00.001-06:00

One likes to be locked up, one likes to escape...

The same and the same and the unknown.

2010-05-02T20:48:00.004-06:00

Five or six lifetimes ago, I was a young associate in Washington, D.C. I can barely remember the work I did at the inaptly nicknamed "Cruel & Boring" because I was 27 and just figured the career part would work itself out. I did the work as well as I could and then got back to thinking about how I looked in my little suits and who was cute in the summer associate pool and what parties there were to go to. Life was pretty carefree back then.

Life is fun now, too, but it sure as hell ain't drinks across the rooftop bars of D.C., or softball on the Ellipse or lying around on my couch on a Saturday reading a book and thinking about where to hang out that night. Now it's all the nice parts of having my very own little family, but it's also making sure others have food and clothes and a roof over their heads. That's usually only a wormy little feeling at the back of my brain, keeping me from chucking it all in to do... who knows what. But now it is at the very forefront of my mind, and probably will be for some time.

It's what everyone starts their conversations with these days. "Wow, yeah, how are you doing? Are you looking for another job? You must be scared." Yes! I am! I'm paralyzed. There's not much I can do, if I don't want to act rashly. These things can take up to a year to pass all the regulatory hurdles, and there is a good chance I could keep my job. If I do lose it, I certainly don't have a golden parachute, but I do have a pretty generous severance. So I doubt I will go off half cocked and start applying for every shit job out there, but the tradeoff is I will keep on plugging away with a nasty little knot of fear in the pit of my stomach for the next... year? Year and a half? There's no getting around it.

We're trying to pretend it's not happening, at least on one level. The house, for example. Nobody in their right mind would buy a new house right now, but would they forge ahead with their plans to remodel their house and double their mortgage? Because we are! I've decided to rationalize it by telling myself it that if it comes to it, it will be much easier to sell a big, cool, modern house than it would our tiny, nondescript bungalow. But hopefully it won't come to that.

It would be so nice if my anxiety would translate into a lovely lack of appetite to speed along some weight loss, but no such luck.

Home is where I have a house.

2010-04-26T14:47:00.000-06:00

It’s probably been true for some time now, but I don’t think I can call myself a “blogger” anymore. The word implies that the writer blogs on a somewhat regular basis, and I have clearly fallen down on that job if that is what I was supposed to have been doing.

Life has become a full-time job, and I guess it’s time to accept that the women at which I used to scoff, the ones in magazine articles who complained about being stretched too thin, were on to something. Children simply eradicate free time, and in my case they also seem to have eradicated any free brain cells. I have no idea how some women manage to maintain especially intellectual pursuits in their children’s early years, because it turns out I just don’t have it in me. I’ve beat myself up about it for some time now, but I think I am starting to make a temporary peace with it.

And then there’s that other job, the “real” one, the one that pays for food and health insurance and a roof and all that; the one I have been turning up to most days for the last eight years. Well… there’s been a little turmoil here in Corporateland and I’m thinking that to maximize my chances of not ending up on the corner of 6th and Colorado with a sign asking for help and/or informing drivers that Hillary Clinton has a chip in her head, I might want to keep potential excuses to lay me off at a minimum.

And you can bet I don’t go anywhere without my southern accent these days.

A bad habit.

2010-04-14T14:09:00.003-06:00

I don't know what's wrong with me, but I've stumbled into this weird and probably unhealthy fascination with "babyloss" blogs - blogs by parents who have lost a child during the late part of pregnancy, or at birth or very soon thereafter. I read them and I tear up and I feel so awful for these moms, mostly, who have lost so much. Their grief is all-encompassing, and it feels like a stone is pressing down on my lungs reading their words. I would like to get back out of this phase of strange voyeurism that I am not sure why I am in. It's not as if I have so much time on my hands that I need to fill it with stories like these.

Maybe it has to do with the way since having children of my own, I feel everything "sad" about the experience of children so much more intensely - whether it's the sadness of the way a certain child lives or an experience he or she has, or now the pain parents can feel from the vulnerability of loving their children. I have to remind myself sometimes that lots of people live long, full lives, including most people in my family. Not everyone has this sort of catastrophic loss.

Having children is all about extreme emotion, it seems. I can watch my children play or in the process of discovering something and my heart feels like it will burst with pride, or love, or plain old bliss, then I'll be wracked with fear that it could all just disappear. Everything was much easier when my only concern was making sure there was enough room on my credit card for my next London shopping trip.

May I ask...

2010-04-13T14:55:00.000-06:00

There is a program on the local NPR station called “Colorado Matters.” Sometimes there are interesting topics on the show, but often they are beyond mundane and blow away a bit of the pixie dust I mentally sprinkle on my life in Colorado. For example, a day or two ago, when I turned on the car the host was discussing something about the smell of rancid potatoes with his esteemed guest. I only half-listened, as the topic was something less than scintillating, until I heard the host ask, tentatively:

“May I ask… what kind of potatoes were these?”

It was so bad I had to actually repeat it back into the empty car using his same, breathless tone. Like he was asking her to reveal a deep, heartfelt secret.

Anyway.

I am so frigging relieved that spring is here, even if my allergies are on overdrive. I don’t have any kind off soft spot in my heart for winter, despite the skiing and snowshoeing and apple-pink cheeks. In fact, since I don’t ski, and snowshoeing makes me sweat and grunt and generally get irritated, those are good enough reasons in themselves not to like winter. I will make such a good old person in Florida when the time comes. But the last couple of days here have been lovely, if more than a little windy. I made the mistake yesterday of venturing out in a wrap dress, only to have to walk down the street with one hand clutching my skirt and the other grabbing to keep my hair from whipping across my eyeballs. I am starting to understand why women of a certain age, i.e., mine, start to just say fuck it and dress for comfort. Pants, flats, and early onset general frowsiness.

Things to look forward to:

1. Night booked at local charming hotel for frolicking; fun laced with pressure of not having had night alone in 2 years.

2. Two week trip to the south in June, culminating in week at beach and sister-in-law’s wedding in Hilton Head. Downsides are that all of R., Eeyore and I are in the wedding – Eeyore in a tiny tuxedo. I know some people think that is cute, and I’m sure my baby will look as cute as humanly possible, BUT I think it sounds like a total nightmare. A hot summer night at the beach and a 2-year old in a tux? I don’t think this even needs any explaining on my part.

3. Commencement of work on our house? Who knows. The idea is that we will have our permit and financing and start work the beginning of July, but since I said that about this time last summer I am not holding my breath. If it does happen, however, I’ll have plenty to talk about!

Zzzz.

2010-04-08T14:37:00.003-06:00

I look so tired today. I am so tired today. I’m so tired every day.

When is this nonsense with babies not sleeping through the night going to end? I look like shit and I swear it’s keeping me from losing all the baby weight. Well, that and the anti-depressants. Jesus Christ, I have to laugh. What HAPPENED to me!?

Lunch today didn’t make me feel any more human. I met R. and the kids at Pasquini’s, a pizza place near downtown. We ordered, then after too many ups and down to retrieve crayons, milk, straws, whatever, we took turns walking the baby around the restaurant. While R. was away from the table, Eeyore suddenly looked at me with that patented, strangely pained expression that made his next words to me unnecessary:

“I’m pooping.”

Of course you are!

The bathrooms at Pasquini’s were not meant to accommodate mothers, so I had the pleasure of changing Eeyore in the back of my SUV on a busy road. He’s old enough now that he doesn’t think it’s very cool to have his poopy ass hanging out for all to see, so hopefully this will push him even faster towards finishing up with the potty training.

No, there is nothing else going on, unless you count Sesame Street Live on Saturday. Eeyore has asked me several times if Big Bird and Ernie will be joining us for lunch.

F*** you, Universe.

2010-03-22T16:25:00.001-06:00

Ah, the naïveté. The sheer, earnest silliness of a woman who thought she would actually get those two days alone with her husband. What the hell was I thinking? I sure wasn’t thinking that the universe was a larger scale version of the Chinese government, cracking down on dissidents chafing for a little freedom.

Alright, enough of the hyperbole. So we were driving along I-70 on a beautiful sunny afternoon on our way to Vail, excited as could be about our romantic getaway. The car was packed with everything we needed for a great trip, including a lovely gift from my friend of wine, cheese, chocolate, even coffee. Halfway to Vail, the phone rang. It was R’s sister. She had started puking. And puking. And puking some more. We needed to come home. We came home, and she and her fiancé checked into a hotel where she could be horribly sick in peace, such as it was. Then, of course, he came down with it, too, so they were out of commission until Saturday.

Yes, of course I feel terrible for them! Their trip to Colorado was pretty much ruined, and believe it or not they came out because they genuinely wanted to spend their time with our two small boys, God love ‘em. But guess who else I feel REALLY, REALLY sorry for? I mean, seriously. First our trip to New York was scuppered, and now this. I couldn’t even go back to work and save the vacation days, since our nanny had headed to California on her own vacation (which apparently was an absolute blast, yay, glad someone had a good time).

On the upside, neither my kids nor I caught this nasty bug, and I was bummed out enough I lost a couple of pounds. Just call me Pollyanna!

Meanwhile, maybe I am deceiving myself because I’m the mama, but just look at these two. Are they not adorable? I’ll answer for you – yes! They are!

Away, away!

2010-03-15T11:09:00.002-06:00

Oh, I’ve been around, but I’ve just been a little antisocial. I’ve spent the last week or two just being 41 and that’s been enough to keep me occupied. Well, that and eating cake, shopping, drinking and dining out with friends, picking up toys… all that. But I’ve noticed there’s a general lack of posting on most of the blogs I read right now anyway, so everybody else is also clearly occupied with all the more fascinating things in life.

This promises to be a pretty good week (knock on wood). Family is visiting and has graciously agreed to watch our whippersnappers while we head up to Vail for a couple of nights. Vail! Alone! A husband, a fireplace and me! Since our trip to NYC over Christmas was snowed out, this is the first opportunity we’ve had to spend a night without our kids, which means it has been TWO YEARS since we have spent a night without our kids. Well, wait, there was the one night in Charlotte over Christmas, but I was sick and just slept for 12 hours straight so I’m going to say that doesn’t count. So, yes, TWO YEARS. We are due for this.

As part of this little getaway, I think we might get in a little cross-country skiing. I’m trying to say that all casual-like, as if it’s something I do on a regular basis and at which I am skilled. Not so much – I tried it once about 6 years ago, and that’s pretty much the extent of it. In fact, that is almost the extent of all my snow-going escapades: a couple of snowshoeing “adventures” (read: slogging through knee-deep snow, bitching all the way), two ski trips before the age of 14, and one attempt at snowshoeing at age 34 that resulted in the sorest abs I have ever had and a probable concussion. So, you’re not dealing with the most snow-loving of ladies here. Still, my husband loves him some snow, so I am going to slap on a big ol’ smile and give it a shot. Given my circumstances in life, I am expecting to simply relish the quiet of being out in nature without someone practicing his standing skills on my legs.

Going nowhere...? Please?

2010-03-02T14:34:00.000-07:00

This morning I wanted to move to nowhere (with an airport). As I thought about it, I realized I also wanted nowhere to have plenty of cool restaurants and bars, so maybe I didn’t really want to go nowhere after all, but I did have a reason for thinking I did. NPR was a real drag this morning. First there was Mitt Romney selling himself in his Ken doll voice, by proclaiming that Obama has been such a failure. I drove along, repeating, “Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you” as Mr. Romney blatantly lied about what Obama has been doing, but it just wasn’t good for my blood pressure. That story was followed by a piece on “militainment,” a term someone has coined for the military’s increased use of entertainment as a recruiting tool. Apparently the Army put out a video game called “American Army” that allows players to enjoy themselves on a Thursday afternoon by creeping around sandy corners and blowing the heads of other folks. This has evolved into the military’s most successful method of recruitment.

Well, what does that say about society? Nothing I really want to be a part of, or have my children be a part of. Don’t get me wrong, I am not maligning the concept of a military. No, I’m maligning a culture that thinks it’s cool to sit around firing video guns at video people and then think that translates into an opportunity to go play fucking Rambo in the desert. It’s pathetic. It’s pathetic (but predictable) that the military preys on dumb Americans in this fashion, and it’s pathetic that young Americans are so stupid as to be taken in my the timeless propaganda of the military machine.

I’m also maligning a culture that thinks Mitt Romney, or Sarah Palin, or John McCain, or most other vocal Republican politicians are anything but poison for this country. It’s my exhaustion with the never-ending political cycle, and always feeling so angry and disbelieving that all these people truly exist, that also makes me want to escape to a nice mountain meadow somewhere. My family and I would frolic in the wildflowers; Thomas and I could nap together in the sun. Of course, I won the lottery so I can go get some shade in my incredible modern home designed by none other than my beloved husband – and I don’t have to deal with the outside world unless I want to hop a jet to Paris, where I will stay only long enough to soak up the good stuff and remain willfully ignorant of a;; the problems there.

I’m thinking I’ll swing by the Unsafeway after work and pick up a lottery ticket. Nobody ever wins buying a ticket in the lobby convenience store of an office building; it’s got to be from a grocery or liquor store somewhere in Sad Sack, USA. If I really want to up my chances, I’ll go in on it with a couple of factory workers or something, or some young guys signing up to join the army.

Rainy days and Mondays, part two.

2010-02-26T10:40:00.000-07:00

I don’t like getting older. I’m scared by it. It’s both uncharted waters and the great, repetitive forever at the same time.

I’ll be 41 next week, and I can’t say anything good about it. Turning 40 was no great shakes, but 41 is another ball game altogether. It’s lifting one foot up on the ladder in that inexorable climb towards… well, you know. Before 40, I never thought like that. In my late 30’s I was hyper-aware that I had not reached the personal milestones that most women hope to have achieved by then, but I didn’t associate that with death. Quite the opposite, actually, since as a single, childless woman I served no master other than myself. Although I was sometimes lonely, I maintained the youthful attitude that my life was still in front of me – that I still had choices about the way it would turn out.

These days I think about the end of life a lot more than I used to. Even though I hopefully have more than half of my life left, I have such a hard time picturing it other than as this block of time that will just happen and be over. I see it now as punctuated by my children’s milestones rather than my own. By the time they are off to college, I will be almost 60, and then what? I’m reasonably active, so hopefully R. and I will be healthy and can still travel a lot and do whatever interests us, but will it really be as much fun when I LOOK SO OLD?

Maybe it sounds vain and strange, but my experience with the things I love has been as a young, attractive woman. Travel, concerts, restaurants, meeting my husband – everywhere I have sat and enjoyed the world has been as a young person; I have been observed as a young person, as a pretty, young woman. I don’t think it’s unfair to say that making the break with potency of the external-facing part of one’s self is a semi-traumatic event. Until I had children I still felt young and attractive, but on the other side of the big event I don’t feel that way at all. I am self-conscious about my pregnancy-revised body, about my graying hair, about my boring job. Honestly, sometimes I don’t even feel like me anymore. I feel invisible, like I’ve handed over my flag of youth to a new generation. I am irrelevant now apart from making sure I raise responsible, polite, loving little guys who have all the tools they need to create their own happy destinies.

Even as I write this I know I am wallowing it in a bit. I know I still have choices about what to do with my career, how to raise the kids, on and on. I choose to color my hair and try to lose weight in hopes that I can stop freaking out about the physical effects of aging, especially since they will only get worse. But I have had choices for a long time, and for a long time my choices have been to stay put and do nothing, at least on the career/personal fulfillment front. So how do I learn to light a fire in my belly at a time in my life when I barely have time to eat dinner before going to bed? I am daunted.

Don't hate me because I'm no longer beautiful.

2010-02-23T09:45:00.002-07:00

I was looking through some old stuff today trying to find anything to write about for this week's assignment that will be critiqued by the class, when I came across this little gem from 4 years ago. It's actually embarrassing to read - who the hell was I? Such profanity, my, my! And how amusing to have been "thin."

_______

I wish I had a picture of me for you today, because I’d like to know if there’s something strange about the way I look that I wasn’t aware of when I left the house. Because when I walked into the coffee shop this morning, that was the distinct impression I got. I walked in to see two young women seated at one of the tables; well, seated, except they both had their feet resting up together on another chair, all cozy like, and one had her shoes off. So, you know, making themselves extra comfortable, like everybody else having a cup of coffee or a Danish likes to see. As I walked in the door they both looked up at me, looked back at each other and snickered. And really, why wouldn’t they? I mean, I looked really gross compared to them:

Me: tall; thin; longish shiny brown hair; tight True Religion jeans; high, strappy suede wedge sandals from Paris, glowing skin from getting laid on a regular basis.

Other Girl 1: lank, dirt-colored bob; limp, shapeless beige sweater; high-waisted, nasty-colored jeans that I doubt are being unbuttoned other than for the occasional mutual muff dive, washed out skin.

Other Girl 2: unwashed, sloppy ponytail; dumpy-looking figure crammed into an orange hoodie sweatshirt and 4th year med student scrub pants; pink socks and, once she finally put them back on, slip on leather shoes.

So, yeah, I could see why they might be looking at me askance. They were clearly serious, professional girls and I was obviously some brainless supermodel/administrative assistant. I figured we should have a chat, so I bought myself a huge chocolate cupcake with swirls and swirls of chocolate frosting and sashayed on over. Taking a big, licky bite, I said “What’s up, ladies? I noticed you checking me out, and I just wanted to let you know that if you’re looking for a threesome, it’s your lucky day.” Their jaws dropped as I licked the rest of the frosting off of my lips. Then I smashed the cupcake into Other Girl 1’s face, kicked the other bitch in the face and walked out.

Ah, Friday! My road rage was in full force on the drive to work today. I can’t stand when some asshole pulls out in front of you and then slows down to a goddamned snail’s pace. In the parking garage this morning, some jackass turned in front of me on the first floor and then practically got out of the car and carried it on his back all the way up to the 8th. When he finally parked, I parked a few spots down and waited for him to go inside. Once he was gone, I grabbed my baseball bat out of the trunk and smashed all his windows in. I rifled through his CDs but it was only a bunch of shit like Beyonce and an advance copy of K-Fed’s upcoming masterpiece, so I left it there. Then I moved my car so, you know, nobody would suspect me.

_____________

So, yes. Crazy times, apparently.

Guess who is a great big one year old today?

Ha!

2010-02-18T15:35:00.004-07:00

I just dashed off my latest assignment lickety split. I don't know, do you think this is what the instructor was looking for?

Think of a moment when something funny happened either to you or to someone else, where you were present. Now, create a "sensory postcard." Freeze the moment, recalling in that funny moment what you saw, heard, smelled, tasted and felt. Don't tell a story. Tap into the memory of as many of your senses as you can recall. If you need to make some of this up, that's fine. Remember, it's a postcard; keep it brief.

It was really funny when the woman in the office next to me, the one who was promoted to my level two years after me, was promoted above me. When she told me, I saw spots floating in front of my eyes and heard the sound of la-la-la-la-la echoing in my head in that funny-sounding way that happens when you stick your fingers in your ears. I’m pretty sure what I smelled was my own flopsweat, but just to make sure I sniffed lustily under my arm. Yep, it was me. My mouth was awash with the twin tastes of bile and failure. I felt small, like a very small thing of some kind.

The Tea Baggers.

2010-02-16T10:36:00.000-07:00

Um, the “Tea Party”? Worried about tyranny and a despotic government? Where the hell were they when we actually had tyranny and a despotic government, oh, a couple of years ago? Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, the populace of this country becomes increasingly ridiculous and frightening. Seriously, what is the end game for all this? Do they envision some sort of “one if by land” revolution? Then what? Are all these politically born again hicks from Idaho going to run our country? Do they think they can survive without global interaction?

I’m sure I have suggested this before, but maybe we can just have a split where the “intellectual elite” takes the perimeter of the country, and everybody else can have the middle. I would bet money that you’ll find quite a few Republicans choosing the coasts as well. Then the delightful masses can park their Ford trucks in a circle around the edge of their property, pointing their militia artillery out at the rest of us. You know, just in case we ever get the misguided idea that we want to set foot on any part of their Amurica. Then the rest of us can get on with our lives that acknowledge global warming, science, the benefits of internationalism, education, and goddamn arugula, if that’s what we want. I’d be all right with that.

It all starts to fall down a little when you acknowledge there would need to be some trade with the Middlers – we stupid elitists want to grow the industry of green energy, but we need some of the resources from the middle to do so. Not to mention I have a feeling these Tea Party types would get itchy fingers when they saw those asshole elites patting each other on the backs for managing to finally separate themselves from the dumbasses. But man, is it a nice idea.

The joys of...

2010-02-15T16:40:00.000-07:00

Yes, I did fall off the Planet Earth. Where did I go? Nowhere special, that’s for sure! I’m still on the endless treadmill of work, home, Target, Safeway, Whole Foods, places for the kids to experience anything… and for once, I’ve been writing. Yes, writing! It seems this class is actually doing me some good.

I’ve had a couple of assignments that I’ve been using to try and write vignettes, chapters, whatever, of a book. Because that’s what I have to do to change anything at all about my life, right? So I am finally making an effort and I’ve really been having some fun. I can hardly believe it – we’ll see how it goes. I would love to go on about how I hope I’ve turned a corner and all that, but I have been so self-defeating for so long that I am scared to put it out there to sabotage. So I’ll just keep trying to write a little bit every day and pray to my puppet master that something comes of it.

And in the meantime, there is always more shopping for diapers and formula and endless binkies to be done – except the formula is finally about to stop, which should save us about $150 a month. That’s right; Alex will turn one next week! I can’t believe it. My little baby is starting to walk with help, say “mama, dada, bye-bye,” he sings Jingle Bells and he is the snuggliest little ball of sweet baby dough you have ever met. Ohhhhh, I know why crazy people have more babies – because the gross smell of barf and baby powder I always thought I’d loathe doesn’t exist. It’s all heavenly baby skin and shampoo and a head on your shoulder and it all balances so neatly on your hip. Even the powder’s not so bad when applied to adorable baby bottoms (and it disguises the gross smells that DO exist).

Did I go crazy there for a second? As excited as I am to see how my little guys are going to turn out, I just love who they are now and it’s sad to know they’ll never be little babies again. And that the older they get, the less they will show their love for their mom. Or feel it? I don’t know. These days, when I put Ian to bed and turn out the light, I lean over to stroke his hair and rub his back. He grabs my arm and says “Stay here” or “Don’t go” and closes his eyes and looks so peaceful and sweet. Sometimes he reaches up and pets my hair, too. He’s so unguarded. It’s such a shame that as humans we cut all that off at some point.

Sigh.

Yankee Swap.

2010-02-01T11:24:00.003-07:00

Yes, they did get the worst haircuts I have ever seen this weekend. But they still are as cute as pie.

In other news, perhaps you remember my old "yankee swap" post I am so obsessed with. for my assignment this week for my writng class, I turned it into a story:

_______________

It was a very nice party, as parties go. I knew the hostess, Laura, only tangentially, but had decided that if she had taken the trouble to invite me I should at least see if she had also invited any attractive, single guys. Laura and her husband were not really my type but were very rich, so I figured that could balance out and deliver a better evening than staring at the TV, eating mac-and-cheese straight from the pan.

It was Christmastime, and Laura and her equally loud and beefy husband were in their element. Their lavish existence was funded by his successful Christmas ornament business, and the house was decorated to remind everyone of just that. They didn’t own any old dime-store type of business, either; their ornaments were the huge, brightly colored monstrosities that rich women with no taste snatched up like penny candy at Neiman Marcus. Laura, or more likely someone in an apron and sensible shoes, had covered the 17-foot Noble fir in the vaulted entry hall from top to toe with the hosts’ own wares, and the result was a towering cone of tackiness that if it had fallen over would have slashed all of our skin to ribbons. Fat-cheeked, mischievous squirrels on a sleigh and a snooty lap dog in an ermine-lined Santa suit were detectable among the nauseating barrage of colors, if you could force yourself to look at it long enough.

After handing my coat to Laura (careful to tuck the fraying cuffs out of her view) and taking in that abortion of a tree, I thanked her for her invitation and waited for her to introduce me to someone – anyone - that I might know.

“I don’t think there’s anyone here you know,” she brayed, grabbing my arm and pulling me tightly to her side in what must have been a sign of chumminess amongst her crowd. Her white teeth glowed cheerily in the festively lit room.

“I love your tree,” I lied.

“Oh, Kate, thank you so much,” Laura gushed, “it is beautiful, isn’t it? If you look around, you’ll see we’ve arranged more ornaments in all kinds of unexpected places – I’ve been taking some lessons from my interior designer.”

“She must really be something!” I tried to inject some credibility into my voice.

“She really is!” Laura smiled, satisfied with my reaction. “Here, let me show you where the drinks and food are – get something quickly because we’re about to start the Yankee Swap! If you hand me your gift, I’ll put it under the tree.”

Laura’s invitation had mentioned something about this “Yankee Swap,” and indicated that each guest should bring some sort of gift for the exchange. Not being a Yankee myself, but having observed the quirks of a few in my time, I figured the natural way to have approached it would have been to rummage through the attic of my family pile for the most useless piece of unwanted junk I could find and try to foist it off on someone else. But since I had no steamer trunks full of old snowshoes and sculling oars from Gramps’ days at Groton to choose from, I bought a decent bottle of wine and called it a day. I doubted anyone would complain about having to take it home instead of a broken alarm clock or somebody’s dog-eared copy of the Catcher in the Rye complete with adolescent insights scribbled in the margins.

Pointed in the right direction by Laura, I made my way over to the dining room table. Next to the food tends to be where I spend the duration of most parties; particularly if I don’t know anyone. You can count on most guests filing by at some point, and if they look interesting, I might assume an open expression to show myself as receptive to a conversation. If they don’t, it’s easy enough to look intent on whatever gussied up pig-in-a-blanket I’m shoveling into my mouth, or on reloading my plate. If that doesn’t work, there’s always excusing myself for yet another drink.

Speaking of drinks, the sideboard was set up next to the table with every alcohol imaginable, so before diving into the food I decided to make myself something special. “Take tarts when they’re passed,” my grandma always used to say. Hmm. A Tom Collins? A Manhattan? Some of that punch? No, definitely not that – there appeared to be some sort of animal floating on its side in the pink spume on the punch’s surface. Closer inspection showed it to be one of my hosts’ Christmas ornaments, a plump, little mouse. His smiling face bobbed in and out of the punch.

I settled on a scotch and soda, making a mental note to find out the name of Laura’s designer so I could be sure never to call her. I mixed my drink with my finger and turned back to the food with my finger in my mouth, not wanting to waste any of the very good scotch. I might have made a little too much of a sucking noise, I don’t know, but as I surveyed the table, I suddenly noticed a petite woman with straight, dark brown hair caught back in a ponytail looking at me with a faintly disgusted expression.

“Yes?” I said, maybe a little more belligerently than one should at a party.

The woman gave a dainty shudder and turned away.

Fine, maybe some people don’t lick their fingers at a party, but is it really that big a deal?

I loaded up my plate with some of almost everything on the table, noticing that Laura had set out yet more ornaments as rests for the various serving pieces. Cheese knives balanced on overturned Santas and snowmen, smears of Brie and camembert across their faces. A spoon from the spinach dip rested between a kitten’s paws, slopping green sludge down her side.

I was starting to wonder why I had come, especially since I had yet to spy any eligible bachelors. All I had seen so far was a bunch of married men I couldn’t even tell apart, so indistinctive were they with their glasses and receding hairlines, their plaid shirts and khakis.

As I looked around for a place I could make myself inconspicuous while judging people and stuffing my face, Laura’s voice blew like an air horn across the room: “Time for the Swap! Everyone pick a number out of the can, and get comfortable!” Some of the guests ran to Laura like they had been shot from a cannon, so excited were they to start the game. I noticed that the girl who had judged my social skills was among those in heat to get started. She pushed aside a man in front of her to get closer to where Laura stood with a Chock Full O’ Nuts can, and plunged her hand into its depths. The man looked at her askance, but as his face reflected recognition, he smiled weakly and said, “Oh, it’s you, Amanda. I should have known.”

Amanda fluttered her eyelashes at him and said, “Don’t you just love a Yankee Swap!?”

After everyone else had chosen his number, I reached into the can for my own: Number 38. Since there were about 40 guests at the party, Laura explained this meant I was in a prime position to take home one of the best gifts at the party:

“In case some of you don’t know how the Yankee Swap works, I’ll remind you.” Laura assumed her best head girl, jolly-hockey-sticks stance as she projected her voice to the crowd. “The person who drew the lowest number gets to choose the first gift from under the tree. The next person can choose either to take another gift from under the tree, or to take the gift that the first person got and let that person choose another gift. As more people open gifts, there will be more to choose from for each higher number. The person with the highest number can either open the last gift, or choose from all the other gifts that have already been opened. Everyone clear on how it works?”

I swear I saw spittle in the corners of Amanda’s mouth.

I poured myself a large glass of chardonnay and sat on the floor, since Amanda and her coterie had taken the sofa and all the chairs for themselves. A guy I hadn’t seen before sat down next to me, holding a wrapped gift. He had more hair than all the married guys I had seen, so I stole a quick glance at his left hand. No ring. I checked out his face and was encouraged, but reserved judgment until I could be sure there would be no girl soon joining him. No point getting one’s hopes up prematurely.

“I like my gift so much I’m not sure I can bring myself to give it away,” he whispered to me.

“That seems to defy the spirit of the Yankee Swap,” I whispered back. “What did you bring?”

“A bottle of sparkling red wine,” he said, smacking his lips appreciatively.

“Like pink champagne?” I asked hopefully.

“No, it’s really red wine,” he disappointed me, “just sparkling. It’s kind of fizzy.”

“Surely you could pick up some more at the 7-11?” I suggested.

“You think I’m kidding,” the good-looking guy with a full head of hair smiled, “but it’s really good. If nobody takes it from me, maybe you can try it.”

“I think the likelihood of anyone taking it from you is pretty small,” I said with what I hoped was a flirtatious smile, figuring enough time had gone by without some woman coming over to flash me a dirty look or piss a circle around him. “I’d be willing to give it a try.”

We settled down as the first few people selected gifts from under the tree. Apparently there were other guests who didn’t have the benefit of an attic to raid, as one girl looked doubtfully at a bag of “penis pasta” she held tentatively between thumb and forefinger, and one of the married guys sat with a coloring book and a box of crayons in his lap. His mousy wife noted to him in a stage whisper how nice it would be to take his present home to little Maggie, and he rolled his eyes with a sigh of resignation. No penis pasta for that guy. I took a slug of my wine and noticed the pleasant way the guy next to me’s thigh fit in his jeans.

“What’s your name?” I asked him.

“Peter,” he said.

“Peter,” I repeated. “I’m Kate.”

“Hello, Kate,” said Peter. He gave me a look I chose to interpret as interested, but then I realized he was looking past me at the ongoing swap.

“Do you know her?” I asked. Peter was looking at Amanda as she wrapped her arms tightly around a two-foot-high plastic leprechaun, hugging it to her chest. It was the kind of kitschy decoration you can plug in and it lights up, and it was revolting.

“We know some of the same people,” Peter answered. “I’ve never met anyone more competitive in my life. Someone told me that in high school, she broke another girl’s leg with her lacrosse stick during a game, just because she had heard the girl liked her boyfriend. Since it was her own teammate, she was able to play it off as an accident.”

“She sounds delightful,” I observed, hoping to God she hadn’t set her sights on Peter, or worse, that they hadn’t already slept together.

Over the next hour, Peter and I chatted and watched Amanda go crazy over the filthy leprechaun that everyone kept referring to as a “gnome.” Occasionally someone would choose it on his turn and come to take it away from her, and she would cling to it for too long and generally be a bad sport about handing it over. Then she would pick it again whenever she had a chance. This happened several times, and as we were nearing the last of the numbers, I could see Amanda’s shoulders straightening as she sensed her victory was within reach.

Laura called out “Thirty-eight?” and it was my turn. Everyone turned to look at me, and I pretended to look around the room as if I had so much wondrous bounty to choose from.

“Tempting…” I smiled sexily at one interchangeable husband holding what looked like a rusty, old hand mixer. His wife glared at me and slid her hand onto his khaki-clad knee. I winked at her.

Spying my own unopened gift under the tree, I announced that I would open it.

“You’re going to open your own present?” Laura asked in a tone that made it clear that was simply not done.

“Not really,” I said, turning directly to face Amanda. I smiled at her as she clung to the gnome; just enough so my incisors pointed out daintily over my bottom lip like the sweetest little fangs.

Amanda looked at me balefully. “I’ll take that,” said I. She clung to it like a life raft.

“Pass it over, honey,” I said.

She held it tightly, perhaps thinking she looked cute as she clung to the rotten, peeling leprechaun. Or maybe she was past that; her face was flushed and damp, and really, she looked a little unhinged. Everyone watched us, fascinated by the social faux pas being played out before them. I reached out and pried the hideous plastic figure from Amanda’s grasp. She still held a piece of paper in her sweaty hand.

“It’s no good without the instructions,” she said with a defiant tilt to her chin, dragging it out until the bitter end.

“Then give me the fucking instructions,” I replied.

The party broke up soon after, and Peter and I retired to his place for some sparkling red wine. I liked it.

Oh happy day.

2010-01-22T11:36:00.002-07:00

Here’s a little something I don’t care for: people who work at bridal salons. Actually, I can narrow it down to people who work at one particular bridal salon in Charlotte, North Carolina. The reason I find myself interacting with this breed is because I have the honor of being the most decrepit bridesmaid in my sister in law’s Hilton Head wedding this summer, which means, of course, that I have to get “the dress.” I haven’t even really looked at this particular dress I’ll be sporting, but my recollection is that it’s reasonably attractive as far as these things go. I don’t really see the point in analyzing it too deeply, because it is what it is, which is to say a bridesmaid’s dress – something that will be worn once and then find its way into my sons’ dress-up bin along with the cowboy hats and that weird headlamp thingy. Still, having worn my share of ill-fitting frocks in the past, I’d like this one to fit properly. Apparently, however, that’s not going to happen.

Earlier this week I endured my own personal humiliation of measuring myself with one of those cloth tape measures. I barfed a little in my mouth as I transcribed my measurements, which are less the prototypical screen siren than Russian nesting doll. I dutifully faxed in my form, plucked a chocolate out of the bowl next to the office fax machine, and put the whole unpleasant episode out of my mind. Until I got home that night, that is, when I found a syrupy, full of question marks kind of voice mail waiting on my machine.

“Haaaaah, I’m calling for Kate? From the bridal shop? I’m callin’ because I think you might have, um, maybe measured your waist incorrectly? And I wonder if you could call me and we could see if maybe you did that wrong. Because what you wrote just doesn’t make sense. So if you could just call me I’m sure we can get this fixed?”

Yeah. I’m sure you can see where this is going.

So I called back the next day.

Dippy Southern Bridal Salesgirl: “Oh, yes, haaaah! Thanks for calling back. Yes, so, I think you maybe didn’t measure in the right place. You’re supposed to measure your waist where it curves in the most.”

Kate: “Right, yeah, that would fit the definition of a waist.”

DSBS: “Well, I’m just thinkin’ maybe you didn’t measure right, because this just doesn’t make sense. Your bust would put you in a size 6, and your hips would put you in an 8 or 10, but your waist would put you in like a 12 or 14.”

Kate: “I don’t understand that. It’s not like my waist is bigger than my hips.”

DSBS: “Well, we tend to wear our pants down on our hips.”

Kate: “OK, so then what’s the problem? Obviously I have a fat stomach. You’ve never encountered that before?”

DSPS: “Oh, no! That’s not what I meant! Your measurements are perfectly within the range of, uh, normal!”

Kate: “Well, then, what do you mean? You’re the expert. If you’re telling me that the 8 I normally wear is wrong and that I need a 14, then order me the 14.”

DSPS: “Weeeelll, how about we compromise on a 12?”

Kate: “Whatever. If that’s what you think my belly requires, then get the 12.”

“DSPS: “Ohhh! I’m sorry! Thanks for calling us back.”

Doesn’t that sound like a delightful exchange, just designed to a T to make a girl feel all dainty and sweet? I swear to God, southern girls are sometimes just the assiest people on the planet. And before you get yourself all in a twitch remember I am a Georgia girl myself so I can say it if I want and it makes it TRUE. I just don’t understand why they needed to call me about that - just make the fucking dress, don’t ask me any questions, and I’ll do my part and look like a sack of potatoes on the big day. It’s a time-honored tradition.

Parenting without a license.

2010-01-18T15:28:00.001-07:00

You've kind of heard this before, but here's what I churned out in desperation for my first assignment today:
___________________

Why is it that we require permits for all sorts of other skilled or dangerous activities, like jumping a motorcycle over fifteen monster trucks, but not to engage in what is arguably the most difficult and dangerous activity known to man: parenting? Leaving aside the most obvious offenders, the horrifying, abusive parents who shouldn’t even be given a pen to fill out the application, what about the rest of us? Shouldn’t we at least be required to pass a few simple classes? Nothing prepares today’s rootless parents for the terror and humiliation of raising small children, but some basic training for the onslaught would go a long way. Soldiers aren’t sent into battle without a few weeks in boot camp, for Christ’s sake; why are we?

I wish my children had arrived clutching little manuals in their tiny, red fists. Then instead of wasting all those hours watching daytime TV and poking idly at the Shar Pei folds of my vacated belly, I could have spent my post-partum depression learning how to be a mom. I couldn’t rely on the forty-five “definitive” manuals on child-rearing that I had bought, each telling me something completely different about how to turn my little cavemen into polite, law-abiding members of society. With so much conflicting information I’ve been left to cobble together suggestions from each into a giant, play-doh wad of failure.

If you’re bored on a Saturday and you have a mean streak, the grocery store is a great place to witness all sorts of people’s failures as parents. The other day, I put on a good show for the crowd at Whole Foods when I took my two year old son in with me to buy a bag of cat food.

Two year old: “Mommy, I want to walk.”

Me, adopting a fakey, commiserating tone I knew would be useless: “Honey, we’re just here to get some cat food. I’m going to hold you and we’ll get out of here.”

TYO, with a needling whine that acts as a head-snapping beacon to adults: “Noooo! Don’t hold me!”

Me: “Ok, how about you stand here while I lift this 30-pound bag of cat food, then I will pick you up with my other arm and we’ll go! Whee! Doesn’t that sound like fun!?”

TYO: “OK.”

Me: “Thanks, buddy!”

Why I was fooled by his easy acquiescence, I have no idea - probably because I had no alternative if I wanted to get that frigging cat food. If I had been willing to buy cat food that didn’t have “other cats” as one of its ingredients, I could have tossed my kid into a cart at Safeway and we could have called it a day. Instead, as I kneeled to grab the soul-satisfying kibble, off he ran. Before I could stand up, his rubbery little legs had carried him all the way into the next aisle. I knew he was there because I could hear his gleeful, piercing shrieks, and so could everyone else.

By the time I caught up to him, our faces were both red; his with the exertion of outrunning me for the length of the store, mine with humiliation. As I had chased him up and down the aisles, trying to appeal to him in an authoritative hiss that I hoped, magically, only he and no one else would be able to hear, everyone had turned to look at me with expressions either pitying or appalled. I scooped my flailing, bucking child up sideways into my arm and marched him to the check-out line. The old woman in front of us glared at me disapprovingly as my son somehow escaped my grasp and hiked himself onto the conveyor belt. “Hello,” he said to her as he passed her on his way to the checkout clerk. The old hag’s expression told me she wouldn’t have put up with such nonsense. “Hmm,” she opined through sour, pursed lips.

“Lady,” I said, “I know that you and I are both thinking that I’m that mother, the one who can’t even control a two-year old. And I’m sure things were much different in your day, when you would just cuff your kid on the head if he acted up. But have you been to Wal-Mart lately? If you think slapping my kid would solve the problem, I suggest you go take a whirl through their aisles and see how well that’s working out. So I’m kind of at a loss.”

The old shrew narrowed her eyes at me and, emphatically grabbing her change from the clerk, turned on her heel and walked away.

“Mommy, that lady is so meeeeeeeean!” said my kid, climbing back onto my hip as if the last 10 minutes hadn’t happened. “You’re nice.” As I kissed his head in reprieve, he rappelled off of me and darted towards the door.

You want me to do what?

2010-01-15T11:08:00.000-07:00

I’m not sure why I ever thought promotion was something that just happened if you were good at your job. I had no basis whatsoever for thinking that, since I don’t recall ever witnessing that particular chain of events. My main exposure to promotion has been in the context of making partner in a law firm, where nobody who was ever simply good at his job ever made partner. Promotion in a law firm required something more (or different), and what was “good” was something of a moving target:

Partner: “Kate, thanks for coming in. As you know, you were being considered for partnership again this year.”

Kate: “Were?”

Partner: “Well, yes, I’m sorry, ‘were.’” You did great work this year, but when the partners met in a conference room at an expensive resort for a few hours between golf matches and spa treatments, when the dart hit your name we decided you needed a couple more years to really, uh, evolve into partnership material.”

Kate: “I see. You said the same thing to me two years ago, and in response to your concerns I brought in several new marquee clients, increased my revenues by 500%, won the two Supreme Court cases I argued, and received an offer to become a D.C. district court judge. What else could I possibly have to do to make partner?”

Partner: “Well, uh, you know, uh, Janet’s out today and I really need someone to pick up the cake for my son’s birthday party this afternoon.”

Kate: “Excuse me?”

Partner: “Or you could just blow me.”

More realistically, my observation was that dorks, no matter how good their work was, didn’t make partner. That’s simple grade school psychology – the popular kids only want others they perceive as being just like them to belong to their club. In the context of a law firm, that usually means elevating people with borderline sociopath personalities to the status of partner, while creating new, fake categories of “promotion” for the people they don’t like personally but can’t afford to lose. They don’t want to share their money or even a drink with these mere mortals, hence the establishment of “non-equity partners” and “of counsel” roles. The ostensible trade off for this middling placement in the hierarchy is that the counsel can find time to coach his daughter’s soccer team, while the illustrious partner can continue to occasionally attend one of her games without ever taking his eyes off his PDA. And everyone is “happy,” at least the partners.

It turns out the corporate world isn’t a lot different. I think that’s probably OK with me for the time being, but maybe I will reconsider when I have any spare time to care.

Not so funny after all.

2010-01-12T13:15:00.001-07:00

My writing class started today, and it took about five minutes to realize I had made a poor choice by selecting a course on humor writing. As with my last class, the first order of business was to post a bio of one’s self. Before doing so, I read the five or six that had already been posted.

Oh, dear.

Everyone clearly felt the pressure to be capital F FUNNY (say this with a sing-song falsetto and throw in some jazz hands to really get the idea), and none of them actually were. It was obvious that whatever I threw up there would similarly reek of strained desperation, so I just held my nose and jumped in. And surprise, surprise, mine sucked as badly as everyone else’s - only in a more self-conscious and stilted manner. Like a butler in a posh household suddenly asked by the gentleman of the house to perform karaoke for the guests.

I’m not sure how I am supposed to get through this class. I paid $400 for it; I have to do something! Maybe I will just write whatever I want each week, regardless of the assignment. What’s the teacher going to do, fail me?

Kate: “Here you go, Teach, enjoy!”

Teacher: “Kate, you’ve submitted an essay on the child soldiers of Darfur.”

Kate: “Well, it just wasn’t a particularly funny week. Maybe next time.”

My assignment this week is to think of five things I find absurd about the world and write a 500-word essay about one of them. It sounds easy, but suddenly I can’t think of anything absurd. Let’s see:

1. Conservative commentators (that’s a gimme).
2. Those shoes that seem to be designed for those of us with cloven hooves.
3.
4.
5.

Hmm. Not doing so well. Perhaps I had better take a nap and see if something comes to me in a dream.

Short 'n' sassy.

2010-01-11T13:47:00.001-07:00

I never want to have “no-nonsense” hair. If for some reason I ever feel the need to have short hair, I would much rather take the artfully messy, attempted gamine route than go the way of the humorless, wash-and-go man-woman. Because it is humorless, isn’t it? Who do you know who has both a sensible hairstyle and a fabulous wit? I can think of no-one who fits that category. And hey, call me a hopeless perpetrator of stereotypes, but I’m going to go even further out on a limb and say that as a rule, women who have no-nonsense hair also:

1. have a dreadful sense of style;
a. pantsuits, twinsets, and loafers for one subset
b. football/hockey jackets and bad jeans for another.
2. call other women “gals”;
3. are strident in whatever their area of personal interest may be, be it work or their child’s right to prayer in the classroom;
4. lack a stereotypically minimal level of femininity – remember Jamie Lee Curtis’ aerobicized bod? Even in cocktail dresses and skimpy lingerie, it was incongruous, wasn’t it? It’s hard to imagine her or any other neatly clipped anti-sylph soaking in a bubble bath while eating chocolates and reading a trashy novel.

Yes, I like to generalize grossly, but who doesn’t? Of course I can think of one person who defies this stereotype, but it’s the exception that makes the rule, right? (What does that expression mean, by the way? It makes no sense.)

So this is exciting: today a federal court in San Francisco begins hearing a challenge to Proposition 8, that triumph of bigotry that was passed by a not-so-caring public in the 2008 California elections. This morning on NPR, one citizen of California was quoted as saying that Californians are tired of wasting the taxpayers’ money on a ridiculous issue like this where “the people have already spoken” through Prop 8 about how traditional marriage should be between a man and a woman. Well, honey, that’s tough, because even though you may have voiced your opinion, and even if that opinion is apparently shared by a majority of the people who voted on the issue, that doesn’t make it right and it doesn’t make it constitutional. Our l’il ol’ legal system is designed to keep the occasionally misguided majority from getting the last word when to do so would violate the Constitution (see, e.g., Brown v. Board of Education and Loving v. Virginia). Maybe you could stop wasting everyone else’s time and money by focusing on more important issues like eradicating world hunger or minding your own business.

At least this is what I am hoping; that when our conservative Supreme Court is faced with this case on appeal, they won’t be able to deny that to deny a person the right to marry is to deny that person equal protection under the law. Separate but equal is inherently unequal, y’all.

&^#&$^#&.

2010-01-05T11:44:00.000-07:00

With my drastically improved brain chemistry, I rarely feel any road rage anymore. I wouldn’t say the anger I used to experience while driving ever rose to the level of causing me to do anything reckless, but it was still of fine, blood pressure-raising caliber and always incited a muttered recitation of some of the most creative combinations of nasty words I could summon to mind. This morning, when a woman in a tinny little Honda “Fit” cut me off, I recognized it as a situation where I would in the past have felt my temper flare. Instead, I felt a small, muted “grr” somewhere deep inside, and some idle contempt for her car, but not much else. Wondering if I could summon up some good old fashioned vitriol, and after a quick glance in the rear view mirror reassured me that my kids weren’t in the car, I self-consciously shouted, “Bitch!” just to see how it would feel.

Ugh. First, my lame invocation bounced rather thinly around the interior of the Santa Fe, reminding me that my own car is kind of flimsy. Second, the ensuing bitterness in my mouth was as if the word had squirted straight out of a piece of Freshen Up gum, filling my mouth with a dulling, lukewarm venom instead of with a burst of sweet, minty flavor. So clearly, shouting obscenities is useless when there’s no feeling behind it. It sounds half-assed and silly.

Stranger, though, was the physical reaction in mouth, which quickly spread straight upward into my brain. Is that what non-depressed people always feel when they say something mean, or was it just a quirk because it was contrived ugliness? Either way, it felt bad and decidedly unnecessary, and made me wonder WHO AM I? Having children and popping anti-depressants has made me a big old sap.

Meanwhile, I have yet to report on our Christmas trip. We survived the airplane travel, although man, it is it a pain in the ass to get through security with two small children and all their accoutrements. Once in Charlotte, we had a great time with family, and it was a pleasant change to have other people around who actually wanted to entertain our kids. A couple of highlights from an otherwise fairly typical (although strangely devoid of dysfunction) family holiday were:

1. Our trip to NYC was cancelled. Asshole snowstorm. (OK, just learned, some calling of names still feels familiar and good. Maybe this morning’s existential brain fart was only because I hadn’t yet had breakfast.) The only upside of having our long awaited romantic getaway ruined was that I was sick anyway, so our trip would probably not have been as fun as it should have been. Instead, R. and I booked a room at the Ritz and spent an evening watching a Broncos game at a bar and eating Thai food. That was followed by a bath in the awesome tub (for me; I was sick, after all), a 12-hour sleep in our fabulous bed, and room-service breakfast. All in all, quite a heavenly fallback provision.

2. There is a group of schoolchildren in Charlotte that idolizes Ian. One of R’s sisters is a teacher of 4th graders with special emotional needs, and she has been telling them about her little nephews for months. She asked us to come by her school one day so her students could meet the boys, so we did. We fully expected the kids to ignore us and our children and generally to continue on with their lives, but we could not have been more wrong. When R’s sister introduced Ian to her class, you would have thought a rock star or the Messiah had entered their midst – seriously. A delighted call of “Ian!” lifted the rafters, and many of the kids rushed up to see him and even to touch him. One boy grabbed Ian’s hand and announced that Ian wanted to hold his hand, while others just lightly touched his back and peered at him wondrously as if he were a benign little alien. The kids spent the next 20 minutes showing Ian around the classroom and finding fun entertainment for him, never seeming to realize he was much, much younger than they. One girl asked if she could take his picture with her cell phone.

With all of this adulation, you would have thought our two year old might be scared or at least befuddled – but no. He acted as if such behavior was perfectly natural and verily, his birthright. It was really something to see, and extremely sweet. It made me happy that that there is place for kids whose emotions are a little more fragile than the average to be nurtured and nurturing; where nobody makes fun of them for being kind-hearted and gentle.

My year in review.

2009-12-31T11:03:00.004-07:00

I’m kind of envious of ol’ Dooce, who can take pretty pictures and stick them together with a hip soundtrack to tell you about her fabulous year. I’m a shitty photographer and wouldn’t know the first thing about trying to make an appealing slideshow out of them, so the best I can do is toss you a few snaps and summarize the year as: “I feel like the luckiest woman in the world.”

I pretty much operated in a sleepless blur this year, the constant hum in my head pierced only occasionally by a particularly adorable laugh or some woman telling me her child slept through the night at 8 weeks. I feel like I have yet to completely emerge from the cottony fog that descends at childbirth and, from what I read, seems to lift from most women by about the 3rd or 4th month (presumably in conjunction with their kids learning to sleep through the night). By then, other mothers are writing sharp exposés in magazines, bending into skinny yoga poses and otherwise getting back to their hard-charging selves. Any mental acuity I have is exhausted by my job and making sure nobody eats the cat food or sticks a fork in an electrical socket, so that when night rolls around the best I can do most nights is to pour myself a glass of wine and fall asleep during the 9 o’clock news. Somehow, though, when my mom pointed out at Christmas that I am the happiest she has ever seen me, I can't find it in myself to deny it. If I believed in a god, I'd say I've been blessed. The only things I don't like about my life for the most part I have the power to change (apparently you just have to live through the whole toddler thing).

Still, there's some room for improvement. I’ve got my humor writing class starting in January, in an attempt to recapture an ability that I think used to show up on occasion in my writing. I’m trying the 300th “it’s not a diet, it’s a way of life, and one I can see myself following forever” eating plan in an attempt to lose the remaining 10 or 15 pounds I can blame on Ian, Alex and Haagen-Dazs. And most importantly, I want to have more sex.

“Er….,” you say, but come on. It’s incredibly easy to let parenting become a life led in parallel with your spouse as you each attend to the seemingly endless needs of the smallest additions to the household. And not to be crass, but it’s become clear to me that sex is the most important way to ensure that your marriage (or “my,” if you prefer to think this doesn’t apply to you) remains strong. I think there is something of a chicken and the egg problem here, since to generalize grossly I’d say men need physical intimacy to feel emotionally intimate, while women often need the opposite. But the end result is the same – if you’re not having enough sex with your spouse (whatever “enough” means for you both), you are likely losing out in the emotional intimacy arena as well, even while you still share quick shoulder rubs and discuss the day’s news over a mutually appreciated glass of your latest favorite wine. Plus, you know, I’d really like to be in a position to stop caring about whether my friends with small children are telling the truth when they say how often they sleep with their own husbands.

So there’s more sex on the agenda. If you’ve ever met my husband, I think you’ll agree this is not exactly a hardship; it just requires a conscious decision to remember that it’s a lot more fun to shag than to clean the kitchen for the 5th time that day. I’m not sure how one can get so bogged down in the crappy minutiae of life that that most simple fact gets lost in the shuffle, but so it can.

I hope your new year brings you lots of happiness!

Workity work.

2009-12-10T21:06:00.000-07:00

It’s funny to watch the dynamic between coworkers on opposite sides of the table during a negotiation. If you met these people at a social event, would colleagues be huddled together making snickering asides and taking a generally confrontational tone toward each other, or would they be trying to bond over the canapés?

I have a different perspective today than usual. Somehow, the cardinal rule of face-to-face negotiations has been broken and I find myself seated smack dab in the middle of the customer’s team at the opposite end of the room from my own. This leaves me alone to face all questioning solo, and to sit quietly to overhear their whispers.

There’s not much more to say about it than that, other than that if you are a lawyer you would be taken aback by the subpar level of lawyering going on in this room, and I don’t mean my own. Santa’s not going to bring me any presents for saying something so nasty, but since of course there is no Santa I’m not going to lose too much of my precious four hours of interrupted sleep per night on that.

In other news, I have been working frantically to be able to get out of the office for the next two weeks. I’m not sure why it’s always so that the week before a vacation is especially awful, but at least I will have our nice, relaxing flight to North Carolina on Saturday to cap off the fun. Just three seats filled with four people: two rigid and mortified adults and two squirmy, bellowing, and likely pooping children. I’m prepared to cast aside any self-satisfied, TV-free parenting for the day (or even more so than other days) in favor of hours and hours of Elmo DVDs, if it will help to keep things calm. That and one opiate-like pacifier and hopefully our only concern will be keeping Alex entertained. Which I can’t even imagine – what the hell are we going to do other than let him stand on our laps and bounce forcefully up and down? For three hours. I can’t imagine he’s going to snuggle in and snooze. I have been living in terror of this day for months now.

But work: this year we were asked essentially to write our own evaluations; to provide what we think are our strengths and weaknesses, etc. I loathe that kind of exercise because (1) I don’t love to brag about myself (no, really), and (2) especially when I don’t really buy what I am saying. All that normally makes for a pretty weak self-evaluation, but for some reason I decided it would be a good idea this year to follow up my short, sweet self-endorsement with the suggestion that the time was nigh for a promotion. My boss told me a few months ago it would likely be a couple of years until I was considered for the next level of bureaucracy in this middle-management hell, but I figured, what man would sit around and take that as God’s law? So I decided to more forcefully request a seat at a new table of drones. After all, there is no partnership in a legal department; just that same corporate jockeying for the brass ring of the meaningless vice-presidency playing out in shitty office spaces across this great land. If you’re going to bother to go in-house, you might as well play the same pointless game as everybody else. If anything, it’s almost like your average unpleasantly ambitious lawyer’s wet dream – “sure, you were promoted to partner, but that was only the once. I’ve been promoted TWICE.” Of course, then you start talking $$ and you realize that two promotions doesn’t get you much more in the end than cold, wet sheets.

Thanksgiving leftovers.

2009-11-30T14:36:00.000-07:00

Oh dear lord, there are less than two weeks until I fly cross country with a highly active two year old next to me and a squirmy, mercurial 9-month old on my lap. This is my biggest nightmare mortification scenario EVER. Not to mention just plain old exhausting, what with the strollers and the diaper bags and the running off and laughing and the general there-will-be-no-magazine-reading nature of the whole ordeal. I just have to remember that no matter how bad it is, it is at least for a finite period of time and when it’s over there will hopefully be a large glass of chardonnay waiting for me. Not to mention several sets of eager hands waiting to bounce the exalted ones on their knees for 2 weeks.

You know, twice in the last week I have used adjectives when writing this blog that, had I not looked them up in the dictionary before posting, would have resulted in literary embarrassment. The first example is the worst: I referred to my kids as succubi, thinking it meant they were sucking the life out of me. Er, no. I would have been referring to my tiny children as “demons assuming a female form to have sex with men in their sleep,” and I think that would have been perhaps less than accurate. Then above I wrote “bounce the prodigal ones,” harkening back to the expression “prodigal son” which I vaguely thought meant favored or something similar. Again, no – it means “recklessly spendthrift,” which isn’t at least directly true. I guess you can tell I don’t read the bible, huh.

Speaking of which, this weekend I took Eeyore with me to the library to pick up some books I had reserved. I rarely do this, because he is like a loud, motorized butterfly among the stacks; flitting and buzzing and shouting about books and how nice the library looks, but this time I did. He acted as anticipated, but he also alit briefly on a shelf of books from which he wanted to choose a book. He spied one with big, colorful photographs of animals and held it up: “How about this one, Mommy!?” “Sure…. Oh, no,” I said. He had chosen a big picture book of “Farm Animals of the Bible.” Is it wrong of me that I automatically removed it from his hand and said brightly, “Not that one!” My knee-jerk reaction was to avoid exposure to anything using the word “bible,” but really, it was only a bunch of pictures of donkeys and stuff. I guess I just don’t want to get into the discussion yet about what is the bible and what is God and why don’t we go to church and on and on. I’m not sure how we’re going to deal with that.

The good news is if my kids ever choose on their own to be Christians, they have both already been emergency baptized as Catholics by their grandparents. Apparently “emergency” baptism by laypeople is permissible in extreme circumstances such as those in our heathen little home – since our children’s fates were in jeopardy due to our callous renunciation of organized religion, my dad was able to save their souls while giving them baths in the kitchen sink. God takes ‘em where he can get ‘em!

Giving thanks for exhaustion.

2009-11-24T11:44:00.002-07:00

Thanksgiving: why am I dreading what is supposed to be such a mild-mannered, inoffensive little holiday? Perhaps because the thought of trying to prepare dinner in my tiny house with two little attention-suckers at my knee is thoroughly depressing. It’s not like they’re going to ooh and ah over my dressing and gravy, either, so why am I bothering? I had been relieved of all this angst when a friend invited us to join her for the big day, but a couple of weeks ago she rescinded her invitation because one of her other friends who would be there “wasn’t up for a lot of people.” I can’t really blame my friend for capitulating to her other friend’s antisocial request, as this is the other friend’s first Thanksgiving alone since her husband died last year, but it does leave me back in the unwanted position in which I started. And, let's just be honest here, maybe a little irritated with the antisocial friend.

My plan has been to cook just a few things from my family’s traditional repertoire: a turkey breast, dressing, and asparagus casserole. Then R. said he wanted the sweet potato concoction with marshmallows on top (although he graciously allowed we could make one half with the brown sugar and pecan topping I prefer), so we’re having that too, plus (if R. makes it) a pie. So that should take the better part of Thursday, and then we will sit down around the table and have a family dinner that will be less than relaxing. And if you think I should just be thankful to have my little family around the table, let me just ask you – have you ever tried eating dinner with one kid who insists on:

(a) sitting on his knees just far enough from the table that all foods end up on the floor,
(b) feeding himself with his hands, no matter what the food
(c) feeding his brother bites of his own food, perfectly sized for lodging in a baby’s throat,
(d) shrieking,
(e) getting out of his chair repeatedly to play with a toy or look in the fridge for an item of food or drink not on the menu,
(f) interrupting any attempt to conduct a conversation on a topic not of his choosing,
(g) sitting on my lap to more easily kick his brother or reach the light switch,

and another who:

(a) has to be fed or watched like a hawk while he feeds himself,
(b) rubs his eyes when his hands are covered with anything wet or grainy, which is to say constantly,
(c) shrieks gleefully to copy his brother,
(d) dances in his high chair by rocking side to side, forcing you to spend the entire dinner singing to him, and
(e) has been known to fall asleep while you are sticking a spoon of something in his mouth?

Okay, fine, of course I am thankful for all that. It’s pretty great. But I could get the whole experience with McDonald’s hamburgers and fries, and not have spent the entire day cooking.

I just had a revolutionary idea – even though I have bought the ingredients, I’m bagging it. I’ll roast the turkey breast, because it’s easy, and I will make the dressing the night before, but other than that butterbeans and canned cranberry sauce are going to have to round out the festivities. Does that make me sound like Scrooge? If so, you are welcome to join us for dinner as long as you agree to cook everything else. See you there!

I want.

2009-11-20T10:05:00.000-07:00

Goddamn Rue La La. Why is it that the only time I find something there I really want, my credit is all sucked up in my fifth return process? My last purchase was a Vera Wang gray cashmere cardigan marked down to $250 from $1150 (are you f*&*% kidding me?), thus exhausting my Rue La La credit. The problem with this item is it fit as if I were wearing the cardigan of somebody’s 6’2”, 250 pound grandpa; is that considered fashionable these days? I didn’t think so, so it’s currently making its way back to Kentucky or wherever it came from. Today they have a Taryn Rose boutique, with a fabulous pair of boots marked down to $250 from $675. I considered pushing the ol’ “buy now” button for about five minutes, but then came to my senses and remembered I have two small children, drive a Hyundai and live in a city where I could wear stonewashed jeans and white tennis shoes out to dinner should I ever lose my mind and feel so inclined. Just the thought of that made me die inside a little bit. Am I closer to looking like that than I think? I should have just bought the shoes and chalked it up as necessary to save me from suburban, maternal entropy.

Instead, the item I most recently spent money on was a night guard. Apparently I spend most nights acting out dreams of tearing antelope flesh from the bone with my massive jaws. Last night was my first night sleeping in it, after walking around the house with it in my mouth for awhile pretending I was fourteen. It’s a strange contraption, snapping onto my bottom teeth with a satisfying, plasticky click. Sleeping in it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, although it does seem to cause one’s mouth to generate an unseemly amount of drool.

I’ve made my first dinner reservation for New York next month; at DBGB Kitchen & Bar. Has anyone eaten there? I’m not convinced yet that it’s where we actually will be having dinner, having as it does both an overemphasis on sausages and an appearance akin to a bomb shelter, but it did get a good write up in the Times so it has that going for it. Other than that I’m compiling a list of shops I want to visit, so between thoughts of shopping, food, martinis and sharing a bedroom with my husband with neither of our children lying between us watching the Wiggles and smelling like diapers I am getting positively feverish with excitement!

A smile for the good life.

2009-11-19T13:09:00.003-07:00

Oh, sweet candy corn, I love you so; your first, delicate taste of honey that with every jam-packed mouthful builds into a sugary, chemical wad of paste. Why do we eat you only at Halloween?

Damn it. I just wedged two pieces of candy corn under into my mouth to resemble fangs, intending to snap my picture for your viewing pleasure, only to realize that I lost my blackberry in a bar last night. Luckily, the girl who found it is meeting me later, since I feel horribly unplugged from the matrix without it, but that hardly helps me now.

Yes, last night I found myself at the intersection of Hipsterville and Working Woman Lane, in the bar at Root Down. That place is crawling with armies of young urbanites with tattoos and expensively messy haircuts on the one hand, and herds of drab female office workers letting their husbands put the kids to bed tonight on the other. It’s not really a successful mix so much as an uninterested coexistence. Last night, however, my place at the intersection was more literal than figurative. I was there with a woman I work with, W., and another woman, C., that I met through W. but have become friends with on my own. W. is 8 years older than I am; C. is 8 or 9 years younger. W. and I get up every day and serve the needs of our kids and head off to work. C. is a free spirit and is heading back to France this weekend to continue life with her American artist boyfriend. She described their house in the countryside to me last night, and it sounded like perfection.

It’s old and made of the local stone and there is nothing to do but read in front of the fire and have sex. And make art.

I could do that.

I wonder what it would be like to be the person who can avoid the traditional trappings of American existence: the house, the car, the mall, the narrow world view. Even if you do have that bone in your body, it’s still a different ball game once you have kids. Then you have to be creative to make that kind of life work and still get your children the education and stability they need. I guess it’s made up of attempts at sabbaticals from “real life.” When I lived in Paris as a kid, one friend of mine was there with her dad who is an architecture professor at Penn. I don’t know if he was teaching or writing or doing nothing at all, but they had a nice apartment where I was exposed exhaustively to Peter Gabriel and explanations of what life was like in Philadelphia. Sometimes my mom and I would go out for Chinese food with my friend and her dad, and Siobhan and I would sit at a separate table. I’m sure our parents thought it was worth the tab not to have to share their table with two 14-year old, self-obsessed little girls.

As an aside, France doesn’t really understand the concept of doggie bags, so when we would ask for our leftovers at this restaurant they would very sweetly create aluminum foil packages in the shape of swans for us. The graceful silver birds would leak their sticky contents all the way home.

Anyway, clearly there are ways to finagle a life abroad for a year or two, but whether or not it can be orchestrated to include lots of time for art and sex is another matter entirely. Maybe when the kids are older, but then you risk your children enjoying the same things.

I got my phone back. The girl who brought it to me was from an army, not a herd.

Pain and faithlessness.

2009-11-18T11:55:00.003-07:00

Do you ever keep reading something you know you shouldn’t, that no good can come of it? For me, the topic is usually something awful that has happened to somebody; something I don’t want to ever happen to me. Today, I happened upon a blog by a dad whose daughter would have just celebrated her second birthday if she hadn’t died a few months ago. He started it when she was born and he became a stay-at-home dad. Now it’s somewhere for him to let out his grief. His wife has one, too. They are excruciatingly painful to read, but I couldn’t stop. They are trying so hard to keep moving forward in their lives.

No matter how painful it is to read about, it can’t be anything compared to experiencing it. I have one old friend who lost a daughter when she was only six months old, although I didn’t know him when that happened. When he told me about it, I could appreciate that it had been an awful experience for him and his wife, but I was unable to truly empathize; to feel it viscerally. Not ever having spent that much time with children, I didn’t have it in me yet to truly appreciate the value of a tiny little life, only just starting to be lived. Now that I do, I’m embarrassed by my old self.

Of course, when I go down the road of my newfound empathy with other parents, it can be tough to watch or hear about all sorts of things. I haven’t yet learned to steel myself completely against images of children starving to death; their mothers swatting flies away from their dull, listless faces, or from photographs of small children smiling from their hospital beds; machines and tubes and teddy bears everywhere. It could all be so overwhelming if we didn’t have some built in mechanism to shut it out and continue on with our own existences. And we do, although I don’t expect that mechanism to do much good when it’s our own child who has suffered.

I have such a hard time understanding how people can believe in a benevolent God. It's all well and good when you're thanking him for your game-winning touchdown, but when he's taking your child away? What's so benevolent about that? The only faith I have is in the inherent goodness of the people I've been lucky enough to surround myself with in this life. Beyond that, I can't comment.

The road always traveled.

2009-11-17T12:00:00.003-07:00

California was much as I expected: I put on my eager-to-please persona and got through the day. It was long hours of work punctuated by the consumption of bagels. When else but during a meeting would you ever eat more than one bagel in the space of a couple of hours? But they were Noah’s Bagels and they were good and I’m perpetually bored and hungry so I ate them.

My plane left sunny San Francisco and landed in snowy Denver. Yay. Sometimes I wonder why I live here, since the older I get the more I dislike winter. It snowed all weekend, and on Sunday I bundled Eeyore up and we went in the back yard to build a snowman. I only had time to lob a couple of snowballs at him and build the bottom of the snowman before he announced he was cold:

Eeyore: “Mommy, I want to go inside.”

Kate: “Honey, we’ve only been out here for as long as it took me to get you dressed. Are you sure?”

Eeyore: “Yes.”

Kate: “Would you like to take a walk?”

Eeyore: “No. I want to go in and have some cocoa.”

A boy after my own heart. So we went in and I made him cocoa in his special mug and we had whipped cream on top and it was pretty great. Thank God there are some sweet moments to temper the incredible crash into willfulness we’ve had recently. I can’t believe we are in the midst of the big, fat cliché of the Terrible Twos in our house.

On another note, the other day I realized I have been driving the same path to work for the last SEVEN YEARS.

Sure, sometimes I take the road that takes me by Einstein’s, or down by the Safeway to get their discounted gas, but mostly it’s just seven straight years of the same thing, every day. That’s just depressing, and unless something changes I’m likely to be following that same path for the next 25 years. Then I’ll retire and they’ll give me a watch and I’ll be 65 and shopping at J. Jill and CHRIST.

But today I signed up for a January “humor writing” class at Gotham Writer’s Workshop, so tomorrow, the world.

Step outside the four corners.

2009-11-11T15:47:00.000-07:00

Here I am in sunny California, on a somewhat surprise business trip. I’m out here to negotiate a really high-flying deal with a SUPER exciting company. You know, the kind that normally involves two days of sitting in an airless conference room, sizing each other up in a somewhat hostile manner. However, I have an almost pathological need to get some kind of favorable response from the “other side”; some indication that not only do they see me as a person, but that they would pay money to see me perform at a comedy club should I chance to revisit their fair city, or at the very least invite me to a dinner party. As far as I know, this particular technique is not taught in any negotiations class, nor should it be. When I’m lucky, it results in a friendlier atmosphere for negotiations, but more often the other side is a humorless bunch of stiffs who sit around oversized tables all day for good reason.

If my attempts at lightening the mood are met with resistance, I will usually just shut up other than to make my points and wait out the day until cocktail hour. Ah, cocktail hour. That is the one nice thing about the kind of work I do now; most people who work for companies want to hang it up at 5 to get home to watch reality TV or go bowling, or, sometimes, to drink cocktails. When I was with a law firm, being locked in a room for two days meant just that, and maybe someone would bring in some beer from the law firm kitchen around 7:30, and maybe not. Then there was going to the printer, which was a different story altogether: endless hours of excruciatingly boring work, but more snacks than any young associate could ever eat. How nice that I measure the success of my career by the amount of food and drink made available to me.

Somehow on this trip I have ended up driving a Prius. I care about the earth, I really do, but I think Priuses are a little silly-looking and it’s not a car I would normally choose to drive. However, after the clerk at the Avis counter somehow tricked me into (1) renting it (I’ll spare you the details), and (2) pre-purchasing a full tank of gas, I found myself out on the highway in my overpriced, surprisingly peppy little tin can. The first thing I realized after driving the car for a half hour or so is that it’s unlikely I will use two gallons of gas zig-zagging back and forth around the Bay Area, let alone the eleven I paid for. It must kind of suck to work for a rental car agency and have to try to upsell to people as if they worked at the Starbucks drive-thru: “Good morning; would you like to try our venti peppermint mocha caramel macchiato with eggs and turkey bacon?”

Being here without my whippersnappers, I’m sure I’ll have time to post again soon…

So then I says...

2009-11-05T11:53:00.001-07:00

I had a conference call this morning, and I am coming to the horrified realization that I might be one of those lawyers who sounds like they are talking just to hear themselves talk. Sometimes, like today, it’s as if I am standing back from myself in my head, listening to myself go on and on about whatever useless-in-the-grand-scheme-of-the-universe point I’m so desperate to make. “Kate,” I tell myself, “please be quiet.” On occasion this translates into my abruptly clamping my lips together, mangling the sentence I had been showing off. I don’t think I oversell a point; just that I take longer to make it than strictly necessary.

I need to know the answer to this. I’m going to conduct a scientific poll of three people and I will get right back to you.

They are taking long enough to answer that I think I have an answer.

Oh, dear.

Ten minutes later: Two answered “no,” but I could read the “yes” between the lines. One came out with it: Yes. She tried to play it off like it was a nice thing brought on by birthing children, like before I’d been some tight-lipped battleaxe so that this was just a friendly improvement.

I’m more concerned than ever about my performance these days because it’s that joyful time of year when companies contemplate how to cut $$$$ from their books. And by $$$$, I mean real live human beings with mouths to feed and mortgages to pay and Christmas a-comin’. As usual, I don’t have any reason to think I’ll be one of the unlucky ones, but you just never know. It makes me feel all nasty and powerless inside. Who is hiring garrulous commercial lawyers these days? Nobody, that’s who.

So for the sake of getting through the day let’s just assume for now I miss this round of head-chopping. In the meantime I’ll work on my brevity in work conversations. Let’s take an example of before and after.

NOW:

Customer’s counsel: “So Kate, how’s the weather out there?”

Kate: “Oh, it’s beautiful! We’re supposed to hit 75 degrees today. That’s why it’s so nice to live in Denver – it can snow one day but it’s completely melted the next. Keep the snow up in the mountains, that’s what I say. I’m really not one for cold weather. I don’t ski, either, but it’s nice to be up in the mountains and look around and drink cocoa and all that. I don’t know what I’m going to do when my kids are old enough to ski and I’m going to have to be up there all the time. Have I told you my husband’s an architect? He’s going to design us a house up there one day, and then I will probably just stay back at the house and make chili for everyone while they’re out getting cold. Although I get kind of jealous just thinking about it, like why do they get to be out having fun but I’m just the galley slave back at the house? But it’s scary thinking of trying to learn to ski when the rest of your family is already really good at it, you know? God, sometimes I am just so self-defeating.”

CC: “Right…”

LATER:

Customer’s counsel: “So Kate, how’s the weather out there?”

Kate: “Fine.”

CC: “I read about all that snow. Has it melted?”

Kate: “Yep.”

Brief and to the point. So they’ll think I have some kind of socialization disorder, but as lawyers they run across that with half their colleagues every day.

Bonjour, Kettle. C'est moi, Pot.

2009-11-04T11:36:00.004-07:00

Having children is so frigging expensive. Putting aside the obvious, like child care and enough diapers to outfit a small nation of naked-butted children, you really start to feel the pinch when it comes to travel. We’re going to North Carolina for Christmas, which means we will be flying. Right there, add one $500 ticket for Thing One (I will be balancing Thing Two in one hand and a $6 soothing alcoholic beverage in the other). Then there’s the need to rent a grandparently ride instead of the cheap compact car that would have been adequate When We Were Two. Add to that 2 rented car seats, and that’s an extra $300 for the car rental. What happens when the kids are old enough that we have to start renting those interconnected hotel rooms you don’t read about on nice hotel websites? Sigh. It’s enough to make me run out and buy a pair of Jimmy Choos in backlash.

Speaking of which, did you see that Jimmy Choo is doing a line with H&M? I won’t actually be taking advantage of my 10-minute time slot to check out the wares, however, because we don’t even have an H&M in Denver. That’s right – some strip mall near Dulles airport has one, but not the capital of the entire state of Colorado; no sir. No Trader Joe’s or Harris Teeter, either – sometimes this place seems like such a wasteland. Maybe THAT is my calling: to open Denver outposts of all my favorite shops from around the world. I’d need to buy up a whole block of property somewhere like Wash Park, and do it up UK high street style. Anchor tenants would be Marks & Spencer and Trader Joe’s, with cheerily lit branches of Waterstone’s booksellers, Prêt à Manger (the UK version, not the watered down NY version), all the high street favorites like Next and Oasis, a nice big Monoprix… ah. It sounds like a little bit of heaven to me, although who knows if I would still be as enamored of those places if they were filled with the same people as this:

CLICK HERE

Views like that tend to temper the experience a bit. The worst part is that many of the People of Walmart really do look like that. I don’t go to my local Walmart too often, because there’s nothing I want there that I couldn’t get in a more attractive version at Target and not risk being carjacked in the parking lot, but really it’s because I get overwhelmed by the clientele. The checkout lines are always so long, so I’m stuck for a good long time observing an aspect of America I’d rather not think about. And before you get a head of steam going to tell me about how poverty isn’t pretty and all that, I know. So I have a lot of guilt and conflicted feelings sandwiched in there with the revolted awe. But seriously, look at some of the pictures on that website. Does a low income have to translate into THAT? The answer is no. Not having much money might lead to little education about nutrition, which can translate into shopping carts full of Doritos and Mountain Dew, but it doesn’t have to lead to the results of those nutritional transgressions being mapped over with a crazy web of tattoos, jean shorts and a buzz cut. I mean, really; how many times have you been in line behind someone at Walmart where it takes you a good minute of staring before you decide that yes, she IS a woman? Don’t lie – a lot.

No, we're much classier around these parts:

This American life.

2009-11-03T16:51:00.001-07:00

Well, despite my best efforts I didn’t quite get around to writing last night. Perhaps that’s because I actually made no effort whatsoever. Instead, I met some friends after work for a couple of glasses of wine at this place, then closed my eyes and pointed the car towards home. After saying goodnight to the boys, making dinner for and fighting dispiritedly with the husband, who had enough time to write? Not me; I barely had time to brush my teeth before succumbing to blissfully solitary sleep.

And now it’s today.

Oh, my; someone just laughed in the hall and it took me straight back to my grandmother’s house in Marietta, Georgia. One of her daughters has a very distinctive laugh; she shares it with nobody I know except for her one sister from whom she lives right down the street. It’s like a seal’s bark, and it’s really not Southern and it’s really not pretty. Neither of those girls seems Southern to me at all, and yet they were the only 2 of my grandmother’s six children who were actually born in Georgia. It’s interesting that they share the same flat inflection of their California parents and siblings, even though they were raised in the same crickety cradle of leafy green summers that I was.

Speaking of the South, they are finally selling sweet tea at McDonald’s and Wendy’s here in Colorado. And I’ll tell you what – they are nothing like sweet tea back home. You know, stop me if I’m repeating myself, because I’m obviously a hamster on a wheel that says the same shit over and over, but really, the tea thing is a disgrace. I’d say they are not only using a different brand of tea out here, but God only knows what chemical slop of high fructose corn syrup they’re dumping in it. At least in Georgia they have the good sense to use something that at least tastes like Karo syrup, whether or not it’s the real thing. There is no comparison. Which is probably just as well, or I’d be ordering it every day. As it is, I’m usually happy to stick to the chemical nightmare that is Diet Coke to wash down my “All American Cheeseburger Meal.” Which it is – All American circa 1956 or for small children, consisting as it does of a simple cheeseburger and a small order of fries. A truly “All-American Cheeseburger Meal” is one of those 1500-calorie monstrosities with 2 all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun, which I can no more imagine ordering these days than one of those giant turkey legs so prevalent at all the Denver food and culture festivals (no comment).

Food. Time to go home and try to think of yet another easy, healthful meal for two tiny tots. Chik’n patties, you say? Yes, that kind of cop out sounds just about right for tonight.

A diet book for my life.

2009-11-02T10:34:00.001-07:00

I was reminded this weekend of how stagnant I have become by both my mother and my husband. Each made an offhand comment that caused me to rumple my mouth in a chagrined, Kermit-The-Frog expression. It wasn’t their intent to embarrass me; they were just stating the facts.

I bought a book on Friday called “Your First Novel.” It looked like an interesting, practical guide to getting started on the true calling I continue to believe is buried in me somewhere under the layers of cotton wool and self-defeat. When I pulled it out of the bag to show R., he said, “Oh – a diet book for writing.” What I understood him to mean was that I have about thirty different diet books and a fat ass. Or, more politely, that I have a tendency to buy books about a subject but not actually follow through on their contents. I talk about wanting to be a writer; I do nothing about it. Buying this book is just another fruitless exercise in self-deception.

Yesterday, I was chatting with my mother and mentioned I was trying the “No-S Diet.” “Oh yes,” she said, “I remember you telling me about that a year or so ago.”

Is it any wonder my teeth ache constantly from my ever-clenched jaw? I am treading water, generating just enough buoyancy to keep my children afloat while I forget about my own interests in favor of freaking out about how there is no way I can cook Thanksgiving dinner with two small children so maybe we just won’t celebrate it this year. Bo-ring.

I see what is wrong with this picture, but how does anyone find time to put their own needs first while not sacrificing the growth and happiness of their kids? Do you just say “today I will skip this 4th round of dishes?”

My assignment for tonight is to write a blog entry completely unrelated to self-flagellation.

Boo!

2009-11-01T15:14:00.002-07:00

It's not ironic.

2009-10-31T10:46:00.003-06:00

If you’d ever like to be reminded just how old you really are, and I can’t think why you would want to do that, but IF YOU DID, then I suggest you wander into an Urban Outfitters. Urban Outfitters was around when I was a teenager, and my 14-year old self spent plenty of Saturday afternoons poking around the M Street store, looking for ways to waste my allowance. Twenty-five years later the store is pretty much the same, which is to say that it sells some reasonably cute, hipster clothes and a lot of ironic t-shirts and ironic posters and ironic furniture and pretentious classics for the young, urban readers among us. Of course, the hipster element is belied by the fact that the store has an outpost in almost any urban shopping mall, which lets me know it was probably the same level of cool when I was 14, too.

My point, though, and I did have one, was that when I walked into the store the other day I felt like I had been hit over the head with my own irrelevance. The doughy young clerk folding t-shirts near the door struck the tone for me with a decidedly unimpressed sneer. Even her pimples regarded me mulishly. I was tempted to moo at her. Instead, I walked through the store, eyeing the various displays of clothes too tight, too short or made of material too unforgiving for a frame that has been stretched out from providing a crash pad for two separate human beings. I didn’t even touch anything; what was the point? If I ever have occasion to wear a tiny, ironic t-shirt again, I have several in a bin in my basement. I guess I need to give up the ghost and donate them to some overprivileged 15-year old they were designed for in the first place.

It’s hard to make peace with bidding adieu to one’s youth. But when my personal trainer says perkily, “I thought you were 35!” not realizing her marketing plan doesn’t have quite the ring it was probably supposed to, I have to face the facts. And the facts include the requirement that I stay out of stores for our up and coming young citizens. I’m sure I’ll be back in them soon enough anyway, shopping for the next generation.

Huh?

2009-10-22T16:09:00.001-06:00

Pretty soon you’re going to drop me from your list of work time-wasters, if you haven’t already. I have an excuse, although it’s not one I’m happy about. My head is in a fog. Any energy I have for thinking goes into my job, and the rest of the time you’d be forgiven for wondering if maybe I’d been in a car accident or something since the last time you saw me. I just don’t feel that right in my head.

I hope it’s all simply attributable to the now 8 months of horribly interrupted sleep, and not to the anti-crazy pills I am on. Because while the bone-tiredness hopefully one day will be gone, I really, really don’t want to give up my happy candy. However, if it means exchanges like the following also go away, then maybe OK:

Kate, in an email: “They were supposedly happiedly married. I can't remember how to spell happiedly. Is that a word?”

Kate’s Friend: “Uh, do you mean “happily’”?

Kate: “Mmm. Perhaps.”

And everything about my head is like that now. When I drive to work and hear an interesting story on NPR, I think I should write about it that day. By the time I am at the office I have very little memory of what I heard or what sort of opinion I should have about it. My mind is like the floating tentacles of a jellyfish, pale and ephemeral and sort of prehistorically unchanging below the ocean’s surface. Shit, that doesn’t work, because with jellyfish you’re expecting that diaphanous, billowing creature to suddenly tense up and sting the crap out of you. There’s no caffeinated spark behind the marshmallow fluff that passes for my brain these days.

Although, the more I write here the more I feel reassured it’s just the exhaustion and not the potentially lobotomizing antidepressants. I can almost feel my brain tuning up below the fog; like a pencil sharpened with one of those old-fashioned, hand-cranked sharpeners.

I sound nuts, but for somebody who considers herself pretty sharp normally, it feels so strange. I don’t think about the future anymore, and I rarely think about the past. Everything is very much “now” – as in, “now” we are going to the park, and “now” I will be feeding you dinner and “now” I will be cleaning the kitchen for the 4th time today and “now” I will be tucking you in and reading you stories and giving you the requested “up-hug.” Part of that is not so bad; I have wasted way too much time in my life not living in the moment and instead obsessing about what should be different that would make me happy. Well, now I actually am happy, and I know it because when Ian asks me every day, “Mommy, are you happy?” I am able to honestly reply to him that I am. Even when I see myself in the mirror and I see that I am finally starting to look my age; that all this is taking a physical toll on me, I’m still happy. Just a little concerned about when I am going to get an important part of my brain back.

The ends of the spectrum.

2009-10-05T11:53:00.002-06:00

Try not to look at my granny hand as you revel in this cuteness:

Although, honestly, what is up with that hand!? I’m 40, not 85. I remember when I was a kid, and I’d look at my mom’s veiny, 30-year old hands from behind my smooth, youthful eyes and see it as a reflection of the great chasm between our ages (23 whopping years). I couldn’t even imagine being old enough to have age reflected on my body, and 30 was OOOOLLLLLD. Of course, I had no idea that having veiny hands wasn’t even an issue of age; it’s just a genetic trait and one which I inherited.

The other day I was looking at my own children’s perfect skin, still so fresh from creation as to be plump and unblemished. I wondered how old they will be when they start criticizing me for my age: Mom, you are so old and so out of touch and your clothes are horrible and please don’t make me be seen with you, gross gross gross gross gross. Not yet, at least, although I do get plenty of giggles from Ian when he drives a little fist into the doughy non-resistance of my tummy. Ha.

I wonder if boys are as casually cutting as girls are, or if they just view their mothers more as fossils to be ignored. I’m sure there will be plenty of snide comments on a wide range of comments, but I don’t know whether boys waste time remarking on a parent’s physicality. Or, whether it’s more of a same-sex thing, and R. will be the target of the boys’ sartorial disdain. Ooh, I can hardly wait to find out; to endure the good time I put my own mom through.

Here’s another picture; rest assured that they don’t share a bed. No, Ian is pretending to like Alex for ten seconds because it means he can enjoy a relaxing hit on a pacifier. Ian isn’t allowed to have a binky unless he’s taking a nap or down for the night, so he likes to climb into Alex’s crib and pretend it’s his naptime, too.

Hanging by a thread.

2009-10-02T14:47:00.000-06:00

As I started my file for “October 2009” this morning I realized it’s been four years since I started this blog. Four years of spouting off to the world about the silliest or most distracting things going on in my mind, which according to what I glanced over this morning has rarely carried a lot of intellectual weight.

October 2005 found me trying to make the best of being somewhat lonely through music, alcohol, cigarettes and lame interactions with lame guys, all described in my tough-chick persona that clearly belonged to someone who came of age in the Breakfast Club years. I think it’s fair to say that the way my life has evolved since then has mellowed me a lot, and thank God for that. I think all that bravado would have aged poorly. It’s not like I didn’t have the gooey center even then that would allow me to cry at Disney movies and Hallmark commercials, but now I don’t have the energy to keep up the hard candy shell. My kids would just hit it and eat the pieces.

On another topic, another thing about me that is apparently dissolving is my cornea. I know, that’s a nice segue, isn’t it? Today my eye was bothering me enough that I dragged myself into my opthamologist, only to learn that the little corneal scratch I had a couple of months ago has morphed into another abrasion. How can that happen? Well, apparently it’s not uncommon for the cornea not to heal properly in the first place, and if you have dry eyes then when you sleep your eyelid can attach to your slightly roughened cornea and when you wake and blink, pull off corneal cells. Yuck. Now I have to apply a greasy ointment to my eyeball every night until the tube runs out, followed by nightly gel drops until I die:

Doctor: “Use this until it runs out, then you’ll need to use these gel drops for the rest of your life.”

Kate: “Forever!? You mean, IN PERPETUITY!!??”

Doctor: “Uh, yes, Kate, if that's how you'd like to phrase it.”

Tonight my husband and I and my ragged eyeball are going to see the movie “Paris” at our favorite movie theater – the one where they sell you glasses of decent wine in real glasses that you can take into the theater. Since we last saw a movie there, the thought of seeing a movie in one of those big ol’ movieplexes teeming with wretched, pimply-faced teenagers (or, in the one near our house, teens with guns shoved into their britches) just hasn’t held the same appeal. Popcorn goes just as well with chardonnay as it does with diet Pepsi, my friends – maybe better.

Blind in one eye.

2009-09-30T12:15:00.001-06:00

I’m falling apart. I’ve lost count of how many weird lumps and bumps and pains have turned up in different spots on my head in the last couple of weeks. Today my right eye hurts again, and the vision in it is a bit blurry. Since that’s my “bad” eye, if I hadn’t been through this a couple of months ago I would be panicking. When my vision suddenly got very blurry then, I ran to my retinal doctor to have it checked out – only to discover I had an eyelash growing inward that was acting like a dirty windshield wiper on my cornea, scratching it up. They plucked it with tweezers – very advanced science.

Anyway, it turns out months without sleep will send a person into early decrepitude. I can only pray that the last two nights, during which both children have slept reasonably well all night long, are not a fluke. This has been a LONG road. We tried Ferberizing Alex, only to discover that the supposedly gentler method of coming in at increasing intervals did nothing but enrage him. Every time I came in to let him know I hadn’t completely disappeared, his furious screams would ratchet up another few notches, he’d shake his clenched little fists, and generally make himself incredibly unappealing. After a few nights of that unsuccessful tack, we said, “Fuck it.” Who was it helping for us to keep getting up to reassure him that Mommy and Daddy were there for him when it only served to make him madder? So R. reverted to his earplugs, and I just stopped waking up. I don’t want to jinx things by saying that maybe we’ve crossed the bridge, but… please let it be so.

So what do you think about this Roman Polanski thing? I have to say, I am amazed that he has so many “supporters” who think it’s terrible that he was arrested after all this time; people who think that 30 years of making films somehow eradicates the fact that he repeatedly "had sex with" a 13-year old girl after plying her with drugs and alcohol. As if his “art” cleans up the filth of rape, like so much Lysol. What about the fact that he’s basically been on the lam for 30 years, specifically to avoid incarceration for his crime?

Apparently there was some question about the objectivity of the judge in his original case, and whether he was about to renege on a plea bargain agreement that had been reached. I suppose that could explain Polanski’s feeling the need to flee, wondering if he was about to have to do hard time. However, it doesn’t excuse the original act, and it doesn’t make the act of his fleeing legal. It seems to me that at this point he should just face the music; after all, he is a celebrity of sorts, with some incomprehensible wellspring of sympathy from the film community on his side – how much time would he have do anyway?

It's me, already.

2009-09-22T14:21:00.006-06:00

Hello, my friends. This is called "lousy parenting."

Everyone knows you don't just leave a baby with a propped bottle. How can you bond when you're not holding them? How can he drink when the bottle is pointed the wrong way? Ah, he can stand to lose a few pounds anyway, and denying kids human touch toughens them up. Plus, who would even want to hug a kid who looked like that?

So, yeah, it's been awhile. But given the state of my last couple of weeks, which includes a full family bout of the swine flu (or some other flu with exactly the same symptoms) and busy, busy work, well, I've been lucky to even think any words much less put them to paper.

I had been waiting to write about this, because it was supposed to be a surprise for R's birthday, but then he guessed it and it's a little spoiled from that perspective but will still be fun in the end:

We're going to New York for a couple of days in December. Yes, we're leaving our darling children with their extended family in Charlotte while we jet up to that chic gateway that is the Newark airport and get cracking on 50+ hours of solid fun and romance. I snark, but in reality I am terribly excited. How long has it been since I have traveled anywhere at all other than to the hospital? Granted, those little 4-day "vacations" were pretty awesome, what with the blood and the painkillers and the unfamiliar babies, but they weren't quite a trip to New York.

I can't believe I am getting so crazy for a two-day vacation, but I'm betting that if you too have or have had small children you know exactly of what I speak. Love 'em - but I also love my husband, and man could we use a little break (I'm still hopeful for a trip to the Caribbean in March, but we'll probably need to spring that proposal on Grandma after she's had a chance to deal with this one). It seems like forever since we were alone together, and in fact it's been about 16 months. So this will be nice.

If things had gone according to plan, this Friday I would have been giving R. a birthday card with a copy of a reservation for Saturday night at the Ritz in Beaver Creek. Since I had been going on and on about how much he would like his present, a night at the Ritz would have been nice but likely a bit of a letdown since we've been there several times before. Then, as we were seated alone at some bar in Vail on Saturday night, I would have handed him another card - this time with the tickets to NYC and a copy of our hotel reservation. I was very pleased with my plan, which now that I think about it benefited me awfully nicely as well.

But alas. I was so stupid as to leave a copy of Lucky magazine open on the table, foolishly opened to a page of New York boutiques. Now, I don't think most men, seeing a copy of some random fashion mag opened to a page of stores would have automatically leapt to the conclusion that their wife was taking them to NY, but that's my darling!

"Is my birthday present a trip to New York?" he asked as he came into the room. I could feel my jaw clench and my eyes glass over.

"No," I said.

"Yes," I said.

"God damn it," I finished.

I suppose I could have stuck with "no" and he would have believed me, but then when I gave it to him, he would have just been like, "I guessed that." So I just went ahead and told him, and even though I had pictured we would chatter about it excitedly every day from now until December, we've barely mentioned it since. He hasn't had time to even think about it (again, with the swine flu), but hopefully soon we'll start to figure out what to pack into our short adventure.

Here's the hotel where we're staying: Ink48. It's in Hell's Kitchen, which I'm told is an area of town much improved in the last few years. I got a great deal at this place because it's only opening this month, which means it could be a total cluster when we're there, but it looked pretty nice. It's a Kimpton hotel, which usually means I'll like it.

Uh-oh. I just looked it up for the website and now it's opening November 1. Hmm.

Lack of sleep breeds discontent and profligate spending.

2009-09-10T14:27:00.003-06:00

Rue La La strikes again. My credit just gets larger as I impetuously buy things and return them. This is what I fell for today:

Yes, I know. Kind of cute, kind of tacky, kind of instantly dated. But hey, they only cost $40 after applying my credit, so why not, right? At this rate I’ll soon be able to use my credit to buy a Gucci handbag.

Meanwhile, my smallest child is the devil. Last night he screamed non-stop from 2 am until 5 am, at which time I finally fell down on the Ferberizing job and plugged his pie hole with a bottle. He promptly fell asleep, which means I, too, could have promptly fallen asleep at 2 am if I had only cut out the nonsense in the middle. To make matters worse, he has developed a hideous new pitch to his screaming that I’m surprised didn’t have the neighbors calling 911 on us. Needless to say, this development in the sleep-taming wars sucks – particularly when it’s inflicted on two parents still suffering from the Swine Flu or a cold or whatever.

I’m getting the sense that whatever rewards there are to being a parent could be quickly squashed by all the complete and total shit you’re expected to endure, unless you put some serious Pollyanna-power-of-positive-thinking strategies to work:

“Just think - if I hadn't stepped in this steaming pile of horse crap, I would never have found this little gold nugget! We’re going to be rich!”

Oh, and I forgot to mention I got this girl's haircut:

Inmates running the asylum.

2009-09-09T13:31:00.004-06:00

Um, ew. So Nicole Richie had another kid, which she gave another completely frightful name: Sparrow James Midnight Madden.

What is it with these celebrities and their bizarre naming conventions? Where do they even come up with these things? SPARROW? This is a little boy's name? Thank God they at least threw a "James" in there for him to fall back on when he is old enough to reclaim his own identity.

It seems to be a requirement now that even the most normal-seeming parents have to pick sucky non-names; see, e.g., Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner's choice for their daughter "Serafina." OK, it's not the worst of what's out there (Apple and Moses' mommy, I'm talking to you), but it's still silly. Do they consult with each other before landing on their chosen moniker ("Jada, Tom and I are thinking about "Suri" for our baby's name. You haven't heard that anywhere else, have you? It means something in Jewish, I think."), or do they get drunk and write nonsense words on little scraps of paper that they take turns pulling out of each others' asses?

Anyway.

Things have been pretty grim in our house full of normal-named people. We were all bed-ridden this holiday weekend, and because I have contracted such delights as West Nile Virus in the past, I'm inclined to think we were all touched by the piggy flu. There were varying degrees of symptoms among us, but there were plenty of bodily fluids to go around. Which is always nice. What was nice, in a sad little way, was curling up on the couch with Eeyore to watch marathon episodes of Elmo's World. He was happy as a sick little clam and I got a little rest. Unfortunately, Alex is already a teevee fanatic, and even if I face his bouncy seat away from the screen he contorts himself to look back at it. So I just choose sometimes to suck as a parent and face him more conveniently so he doesn't strain his neck. I mean, he's going to watch it either way, right?

Now we are recovering and there will be less TV and more normal activities. Ian's latest phrase, which gets me every time, is, "I LOVE that, Mommy!" It can be about anything, from a song such as Ring Around the Rosy ("I LOVE that song!") to last night's turkey burgers ("I LOVE that hamburger, Mommy!"), so it behooves me to offer up a variety of delightful experiences such as those rather than to stifle him with incessant viewings of that scraggly red monster.

Yum yum globalization.

2009-09-03T10:28:00.001-06:00

This is just bizarre to me:

That, my friends, is a Whole Foods store in my old neighborhood in London. I knew there was the big outpost in the Barkers building on Kensington High Street, but I didn’t know that American Corporate Organic had started to reach its pebbly Twiglet-tentacles out into Zone 2. That’s just surreal.

I remember when I was a kid living in Paris and the excitement I felt when a lone store opened that sold (at exorbitant prices) American staples such as Kraft macaroni and cheese, Oreos, and Nestle chocolate chips. Before that my mother had let me load up my suitcase with such culinary delights whenever we took a trip back to the States. Otherwise, I would have had to make do with snacking on my Parisian concoction of potato chips in a dip I fashioned from mayonnaise, mustard and some paprika, or with the giant bars of Milka chocolate I would devour in an hour of sitting on the couch after school watching French music videos or playing Atari.

By the time I was an adult and living out in my neighborhood of Battersea known as “Between the Commons,” there was plenty of processed American kids’ food you could buy at specialty shops in central London, but not too much out in my neck of the woods. That was OK with me; by then my love for UK supermarket fare had long surpassed any desire for the chemically created “food” I’d learned to crave from a childhood full of Saturday mornings in front of the TV. I could dither in a Marks and Spencer food shop for hours, loading my basket with chicken tikka masala, jacket potatoes with tuna and sweetcorn, and other such exotic ready-made fare.

Organic food wasn’t really on the radar as a big marketing tool in London in 2001. There was one sort of “health-food” shop in Notting Hill that had a grotty ambience I associated with dreadlocks, B.O. and bedsits, even though it sold expensive meat and produce and probably had quite a wealthy and “enlightened” clientele that spent its winters on yachts in the Balearic islands.

Now, however, it appears the push to market the expensively healthful, whole-grain lifestyle has arrived in England full force. Ain’t globalization grand! Now I just need an unadulterated version of my favorite Prêt-à-manger right here in Cowtown.

Busy bees.

2009-09-02T15:03:00.003-06:00

Oh, dear, but things have been busy around our house. Exciting goings-on:

1. Eeyore turned 2.

We opted to have an “end-of-summer barbecue” for our friends with kids rather than a strictly child-oriented birthday party, and ended up with a kind of limp mish-mash. It was successful enough for the kids, who ran around the yard chasing balls and blowing bubbles and smearing Elmo cake on their faces, but it wasn’t quite the adult party I had imagined. In retrospect that probably ought to have been apparent; making sure nobody loses a tooth (which one girl did while trying to pry the plastic plug out of a water pistol with said tooth) doesn’t lend itself to drinking with abandon. And I’m not used to the vibe of a backyard party not fueled by alcohol – Mormons must have very dull parties indeed.

2. Ferberizing Baby.

We started this last night, since at 6 months Baby has become ruler of the household with his need for firm butt-pats, liquid refreshment and pacifier-reinsertion upon waking in the night. R. and I have created this monster while trying to keep him from waking up his brother when he wakes during the night (they share a room), but while we have managed to preserve Eeyore's sleep we have totally ruined both Baby’s and our own. So last night began the whole “progressive waiting” thing where you let the baby wail his miserable head off and you visit him at intervals of increasing length until he passes out from despair over the fruitlessness of his attempts to summon parental love and affection.

He cried for about an hour last night, but what would have been comical were it not 3:30 in the morning was the sheer fury in his screams. He wasn’t whimpering with sadness or fear; he was PISSED OFF that there was nobody there to stick that binky back in his mouth for him, or peel his grapes, or whatever it was that he wanted. It’s our own fault for getting him used to having slaves, but it’s time to nip it in the bud. We’re having to conduct this operation by moving him into a crib in the living room when he wakes, which probably makes him even more out of sorts. The whole thing blows, frankly, but we can’t back down because we need sleep desperately. I bet I could drop 10 pounds just by sleeping through the night for a week. And avoiding the malted milk balls at the shop near my office, but that’s another issue altogether.

3. Happy Anniversary.

Today is my wedding anniversary; 3 years ago today R. and I got married in an outdoor square in Savannah. That evening we drank pink champagne, celebrated with our families, and later sat alone together in our crowded hotel bar, still gussied up in our wedding togs. What happened next is a gigantic blur, but it involved a trip to London, getting knocked up, and then that’s pretty much all I remember until this:

Autumn.

2009-08-18T15:32:00.003-06:00

It is cool and gray and a little rainy outside and I love it. The cooler, damp air is soothing after hot, dry days that leach all the water out of my hair and skin and make my eyes ache from the brightness. The weather today is like a cozy, dewy cloud all around me, and excites me with the prospect of the upcoming season of day after day of snuggly gray sweaters.

I ducked into Peet’s at lunch, and the smell of freshly brewed coffee was warm in the air. People were clustered around the few small tables, huddled over their coffee cups and talking animatedly about subjects of apparent great interest. You know me – not content to take in the scene on its face, I was instead transported back to the perpetual autumn of London and the pleasure of ducking into its coffee shops, pubs, wine bars and tea rooms for a little bit of cheer to brace oneself against the bite of yet another gray day. Perhaps because it is so often cold and rainy there, the British seem to have gotten coziness down to a science. It’s largely as simple as the use of warm lighting that spills out of picture windows into the chill of the street, but there is also something about the décor. For example, this is a picture of the bar in my favorite hotel in London, the Cadogan.

In the winter, by 5:00 pm it is solidly dark outside, and this room glows with the warmth of the lamplight on the polished wood and the small, silver dishes of nuts and crisps. My mother and I settle back against our cushions, usually with various shopping bags at our feet: Waterstone’s, Cath Kidston, Selfridges… always a good day. The bartender brings my mother her whisky and ginger ale; the small pleasures factor amplified by the use of Schweppes American ginger ale – a ginger ale with less sugar and a stronger tang of ginger than one would ever find Stateside. A champagne cocktail for me; a rough sugar cube dissolving under its iodine splash of bitters, merrily spinning thin ropes of the tiniest bubbles towards the surface. Really, that is my idea of heaven.

Do you ever just completely disappear into your mind? Writing that, I was practically there, ready for a fun conversation with my mom. I’m sure we’d be discussing the books we bought and whether we wanted to keep our reservation at whatever happening new restaurant I had painstakingly researched from the comfort of my office or just walk over to the Enterprise.

But then I snapped out of it, and guess what: here I am at work and the sun is back out and I have a conference call in 30 minutes and then it’s home to a teething baby and another sleepless night. But that is what vacations are for, right? To give you memories to trot out when you need them most.

Mom Jeans (and Everything Else.)

2009-08-13T14:45:00.000-06:00

Have I mentioned to you that I am doing “Body for Life”? Probably not, because it’s queer that I’m doing it at all, plus I’m only doing a sort of half-assed version that handily avoids the dietary deprivation and focuses instead on the weight-lifting and cardio program. Which undoubtedly means that I will continue to sit here 20 pounds above my desired weight for another 5 months, but at least I will have rippling muscles underneath the flab, the wrinkled belly skin, and the map of spider veins across my legs. Sweet!

(Yes, yes, I am feminine beauty incarnate and amazed at “what my body is capable of” bearing two gorgeous, healthy children; hear me roar, blah blah blah. Give me back my perky boobs.)

The Body for Life book includes lots of pictures that are supposedly taken at the beginning and the end of the 12-week journey. The sad-faced, lank-haired couples limply holding hands between their rolling hips and doughy bellies are replaced with dynamic, muscle-bound specimens with big grins and small swimsuits. The floppy skate wings and hairy ham hocks that were their arms are replaced with sleek, toned triceps and stringy biceps; the Pillsbury Dough Boy tummies with rock-hard abs. One can only assume they are now having loads of athletic sex. Twelve weeks to this kind of change seems exceedingly unrealistic, but the book makes the claim that it IS possible (if you only believe, Virginia).

I haven’t taken a “before” picture of myself because I feel a little too much like those sad sacks in the book, and I don’t really care to have that memorialized. If by the end of my own cookie-popping 12-week journey to physical perfection I have that kind of miraculous transformation, I will, however, don my skimpiest bikini and flaunt it for you. I can say this because I know there is no chance in hell that’s going to happen. I don’t have the will power to swing serious exercise AND a diet. Oh, let’s just face facts; I can NEVER swing a diet. The moment I tell myself I have to eat a certain way, I rebel against myself and start loading the sweets onto the conveyor belt to my stomach. I can’t stand this ornery, self-defeating quirk about myself, but try as I might I have yet to find a way to outwit myself.

I don’t really want to have to start hosting Denver Fashion Week for Moms, though, so maybe I need to figure this one out.

While I am away.

2009-08-11T15:39:00.002-06:00

Downbeat in America.

2009-08-11T10:39:00.001-06:00

Is there really any good news in the world right now? All the headlines are such a downer, from the state of our economy to the Taliban to the typhoons in Taiwan. Bob Herbert of the New York Times writes an especially upsetting editorial today: American unemployment is an even bigger issue than is being reported, and will ultimately lead to an unraveling of the domestic fabric. Apparently the unemployment statistics for young people are even higher than for older workers, meaning that

“When joblessness reaches these kinds of extremes, it doesn’t just damage individual families; it corrodes entire communities, fosters a sense of hopelessness and leads to disorder.”

How on earth can all of this be solved? What’s going to happen to the large number of young people who are losing traction in the job market? How are they going to establish careers or even steady jobs? Are people who do manage to get good jobs or even cling to crummy ones going to pass them by for the long term? How will they feed their families? How can this not result in higher levels of depression, of crime, of suicide?

God knows I don’t have an answer to any of this. It’s frightening. I know if I lost my job I’d be in a very scary place indeed, even though I tell myself that as a well-educated lawyer I’d certainly find something somewhere, sometime: “Hi, can I get you started with a venti sugar-free, fat-free, no-foam, extra-dry, extra-hot caramel latte?”

When we drove to Aspen a couple of weeks ago for our misguided stay in a lovely condo just off the slopes in Snowmass, we stopped for lunch in a little town called Fairplay. Fairplay is like lots of other rural towns across the country that haven’t been able to capitalize on any kind of charm; there’s not a lot of money there and it shows in the landscape and on the faces of the people who live there. The only place we could find to eat was a Pizza Hut, so in we went. The room was pretty dumpy, and there was only one young waitress tending to the two or three families who had stopped on their way to somewhere else.

Our waitress could not have been nicer, and she fawned over Ian and Alex. It turned out she had two children at home the same ages as they are. Once I learned that it was all I could think about even as I ordered diet Coke for me and milk for Ian; as I cut the tasteless, cardboard pizza into Ian-sized bites. Here we were, blowing through town on our way to Aspen, of all places, and here she was working for what couldn’t have been more than $50 a day in tips. We both had the same mouths to feed and needy, soft-skinned little bodies to clothe. Not for the first time, I marveled at how the luck of the draw affects us all. I had the good fortune to be born into a well-educated, reasonably financially secure family, which gave me the ability to create the same thing for myself (you know, until the downward spiral of the economy whips me into its vortex), and now hopefully to provide that same foundation for my own children.

If you start at an educational and financial disadvantage from birth, what are the odds you’re going to end up fulfilling your potential? Obviously, some people do, and conservatives like to make much of pulling one’s self up by the bootstraps, but overall I think it’s fair to say the deck is pretty well stacked.

Travelogue: Saturday night in Denver.

2009-08-10T11:28:00.001-06:00

I reread my last post last night and I actually cringed. Talk about overuse of foul language! I’ve long been someone who swears like a sailor, but maybe having to temper that around small children has finally had a positive effect on me. When I was younger, my mother (at whose knee I gained all I know about language, foul and otherwise) told me once that the danger of swearing too much is that it can limit your ability to come up with other, more apt or creative words when called upon to do so. She was right, not that I stopped cursing. It’s probably better for the world that I am not a broadcast journalist. I would be the one pursing my lips and rolling my eyes when I disagreed with someone, crying about all the highway accidents and abused kittens, and of course, tossing in frequent instances of “fuck that.”

But unlike the Kate of yore, who had no such compunction, now seeing “shit” and “fuck” over and over again in one paragraph just looks like kind of cheap. Perhaps, at 40, I am becoming a lay-dee.

As if. I even hate the word “lady.”

How was your weekend? I have little recollection of mine, other than I had an actual date with my husband on Saturday night. First we went to the Mayan for a movie, (500) Days of Summer, which was delightful not only for the movie but because they treat you like a grown-up and sell you wine in a real glass that you can take into the theater! They even had reasonable selections; it wasn’t all Corbett Canyon or some other dross I wouldn’t even cast a glance toward at the wine store. [See, normally I would have said “shit” or at least “crap” there – dross is instead a delightful 50 cent word; baby steps.] After the movie, which wasn’t as good as I had expected but was still pretty cute, we walked down the block for a drink at a quirky place, Beatrice and Woodsley. It’s sort of fairy tale woodchopper meets girly cottage in the forest. Finally, we moved on to Sushi Den, which as I’ve mentioned before has the best sushi I have had in the U.S. It’s odd that should be true in a totally landlocked cow town, but the owner’s brother has another restaurant back in Japan and so twice a week chooses fish from the markets there and has it flown here. I assume they have another good source somewhere since otherwise by day 4 they wouldn’t be a very popular restaurant. Then it was back home to pass out from lack of sleep. So romantic!!

Self-indulgence.

2009-08-07T10:36:00.003-06:00

So I tried again today with the Rue La La – I had a nice credit for my return of the misguided Marc Jacobs bag. Today was Vera Wang Lavender, and I bought these 2 delightfully discounted pieces:

I really wanted this:

But where is a 40 year old mother of two with a pretty non-existent social life going to wear it? That could make me a little sad in concept, but for the fact that I’m not sure I ever had a social life that would have given me occasion to wear this more than once a year anyway.

R. and I have halfway decided (okay, 7/8) that next March or April we are going to dump our kids with his mom and sister in North Carolina and jet on down to the Caribbean for a few days. Just saying “jet” sets me off in my fantasy world where I choose an overly expensive resort and justify it because (1) it’s only 4 nights, not the usual 7, and (2) we’re so tired and in need of romance that we deserve it. Sure, “deserve it.” Why not? People starving in Africa and a few blocks away from us, but we deserve a luxurious trip to Anguilla or some such. Putting liberal guilt aside for a mo, a pampered beach vacation sounds fabulous.

Now for the trouble of figuring out where to go. It takes a long time to research those pesky islands, trying to find the magic combo of fabulous beach and reasonable airfare. Why does it cost so much to fly to the Caribbean? Once you factor in the last 10 miles of sea plane or speedboat or whatevs, it’s really quite prohibitive. That’s presumably why those of us in this half of the nation who have to consider budget usually just go to Puerto Vallarta. The one time I went to the Caribbean on a budget (aka the only time I’ve ever been to the Caribbean), I ended up at a semi-dump in Negril, and I’ll just say it wasn’t to my liking. White plastic pool chairs and non-stop requests that I either buy pot or give up my watch because I’m a rich American = less than satisfying experience. This time, I’d like to experience the plantation shutters and 4-inch thick chaise cushions of my fantasies.

OK, back to reality, or at least to August. There was a piece on Colorado Public Radio this morning about a conservative group that is demonstrating against the “stupid” proposed health care changes espoused by our president. Many of the comments were made by old people already receiving government assistance who think that benefits should not be extended to others: “it’s not an entitlement.” OK, so, give it up, then, you old bat, is what I have to say about that…. I especially enjoyed this comment from one younger woman: “To think that we can make these kinds of changes to health care is a fantasy… like global warming.” Ah yes, that old saw. I swear to god; do these people know how greedy and/or ignorant they sound?

Which reminds me, on CNN last night they were showing the results of some poll that says Americans give Obama about a C for his first 200 days in office. Are you fucking kidding me!? The man has been working non-stop since his first day in office to make significant changes in government policies and programs to better Americans’ lives, and is measurably improving the way in which we are perceived by the rest of the world. I’m kind of dumbfounded that the populace thinks that somehow a new president is supposed to be a Superman who can eradicate overnight all the shit perpetrated on this country in the last 8 years. There is a LOT to clean up. And then there’s the pooh-poohing of his actual governance; Christ! Not only do I support a lot of the choices he has made, I also give him a lot of credit for daring to forge ahead with politically difficult issues like revamping health care. I just appreciate so much having a thoughtful, measured person in office; someone who I genuinely believe can make this country better. I wish the frigging Republicans in Congress would sit down and shut their goddamned, showboating mouths and let some shit get done.

Home sweet home.

2009-08-04T14:36:00.002-06:00

Mmmm. I just scarfed down a satisfying lunch of cottage cheese and blueberries. I’m trying to think of it more as a kind of prototypical 1970’s country club luncheon menu selection than as the dietetic soul-destroyer it really is. Yes, that’s me with my kelly green, knit shirt dress, hair caught back in a brightly patterned, pink Pucci scarf, daintily forking tiny morsels of the pale, blobby mess from betwixt the folds of the watery iceberg leaf on which it was served. It’s really all I need, darling, as long as you pour me a gin and tonic to wash it down.

Meanwhile, it seems like quite a few bloggers are on hiatus here in the dog days of summer. It’s vacation time, or at least it used to be before I had kids. Around this time every summer, I’d be gearing up for the annual trip to Hilton Head – planning what novels I would take, making sure I had a thick Dell book of variety puzzles and a blue ball-point pen, adding another bikini to my collection. Oh, how times have changed. Vacation this summer was a long weekend at my mom’s (which was fabulous – no kids meant I slept and read and drank wine before 8 pm) followed by a nonsensical three-day trip to Aspen with R. and the kids.

I say three day; that means an entire day to make the 4 hour drive to get there, one day there, and another day to make the drive home. And could I really tell you much about Aspen now? I could tell you there’s a nice playground a few blocks away from the main downtown area, and that there is a pizza place in the Highlands area that has NO customers in the evenings, which sadly made it perfect for us. I think that pretty much sums it up. It turns out that when you have 2 kids under 2, it’s really better to just stay at home and save your shekels. At least at home one has all the paraphernalia necessary to deal with the constancy that is small children; on the road there is inevitably something missing. In our case it was both a crib and a pack-n-play, meaning that Ian slept in the king sized bed with Daddy and Mommy, until Mommy had to move to a twin bed in the guest room around 4 am to feed and snooze with Alex.

It was too bad; our condo was really nice and Aspen looked like it would have been lots of fun if R. and I had been on our own. I could happily have filled my day with perusing the blandly extravagant shops and hanging out at any of the cute restaurants with outdoor patios; as it was, we just wheeled our land yacht of a double stroller right by them and sighed.

Now we are home and today some good news – the Zoning Board granted our appeal for a variance. Our house can be built as R. designed it! Now comes getting the plans finalized for the actual building permit, getting financing, finding a place to rent, packing up and moving out for 6 – 9 months, and finally moving back in to our fabulous, modern home. The fireplace in our room will make up for not seeing Aspen again for at least 5 years, right?

No appetite.

2009-07-22T15:26:00.001-06:00

One summer evening a few years ago I was at a rooftop bar in DC; maybe Perry’s in Adams Morgan. I was talking with some guy who had a pretty good appreciation for himself. After some idle chat, he asked me what I did for a living. I asked him to guess.

Guy: “I’m pretty sure I can tell what you do.”

Kate: “You can? What’s that?”

Guy: “You’re a teacher.”

Kate: “Huh! A teacher! Why do you say that?”

Guy: “You’ve got that hungry look.”

Kate: “Hungry; wow. Hungry… And what do you do?”

Guy: “I’m a lawyer.”

Kate: “Right…”

Guy: “I’m right, right?”

Kate: “No.”

*Update: apaprently I have posted this before, which means I am running out of memories. Hmm.

Sporadic memory lane.

2009-07-21T13:31:00.001-06:00

When I was sitting on the couch at 2:30 this morning, feeding Alex, my mind drifted back to my high school days in Palo Alto. It seems like a lifetime ago, and … ugh, it was. I’m more than twice as old as I was when my mother and I moved out there the summer before my junior year in high school.

In some ways it was an unfortunate couple of years. I had been very happy back at my small, private school in Washington, D.C., and it was a big change to suddenly be at a huge public high school in California, with all the typical cliques you might imagine. I spent my two years there wishing I had been able to better infiltrate the “in” crowd, which a little surprisingly consisted of the kids who would all be heading off to Stanford, Berkeley and the Ivy League schools. Those were the same people I had been friends with in D.C. (although at my school by 11th grade we were pretty much done with the “popular” group nonsense as everyone had known each other for so long), but here I only managed to sort of hover around the periphery. Instead, my high school fate was sealed the first day of class, when I walked into the administrative offices and met another new girl.

Stephanie came from a background pretty different from my own. Her mother had hair like Brigitte Nielsen’s, sported inch-long fake nails, and supported herself by sharing an apartment with her overweight, pasty boyfriend who sold Amway products and wore a lot of brown polyester. In contrast, my mother had been a model in New York before later practicing law in Paris and then joining what would become the most renowned law firm in Silicon Valley. Nonetheless, we were both new to town and had not made any other friends yet, and so we latched on to each other.

Stephanie had an elaborate makeup routine that I found fascinating to watch. She wore foundation and powder, and she curled both her eyelashes and her bleached blonde hair. She and her mother had moved to Palo Alto from Texas, and she told me that’s just what girls did down there. I, on the other hand, wore nothing unless it was for our Saturday night sorties to underage, underground clubs in San Jose, when I obscured myself behind the palest ivory foundation, black-rimmed eyes, red lips and half a can of Aqua Net.

I’m not sure why, but I can’t really remember the ins and outs of our two years together; only a few snippets here and there. For example, we:

1. Bought vodka by my waving wanly at the liquor store clerk from the car while Stephanie told him her mom was sick in the car but had sent her in to buy booze;

2. Worked together at the bakery across the street from our high school. Sometimes she wouldn’t ring up what she sold and would pocket the money instead.

3. Went to a bonfire out on the beach at Half Moon Bay one night in summer. She drove as usual, since for some reason I didn’t get my license until I was 18. That night, I thought it was the coolest thing ever to be a teenager in California.
4. Went with our friends to our prom at some place called Cocoanut Grove in Santa Cruz, with an after party at the illustrious Glass Slipper Motel on El Camino.

You know, it’s not that there was anything that bad about my time in Palo Alto, or that Stephanie and I got up to anything worse than I would have with anyone else. It’s more that I wish I had made friends I would have liked to have kept in touch with. The friends I ended up making there were ones I made more through her than on my own; at least those I hung out with most. Now, when I go home to visit my mother, I have nobody to call.

Awww.

2009-07-20T21:50:00.000-06:00

Dear Diary.

2009-07-20T10:58:00.000-06:00

Today’s post reads like the crummy diary entry of a 40-year old wife and mother who you would never even guess once had a high-flying and semi-fabulous existence. Of course, it’s fabulous for me in a different way, but it sure as hell doesn’t read like it.

TRAVEL UPDATE:

Assuming I remember to take my camera/reattach my head, I should actually have something bloggish to share over the next couple of weeks – real life, actual TRAVELS!!! This Thursday I am going to the Bay Area to visit my mom for the weekend. Who’s going? That’s right – “I” and I alone. Three full days without children, which translates into: sleep, books and uninterrupted conversation on topics other than poop and merry-go-rounds. So of course every time I think about it all I can think is how much I will miss them. Maybe that will wear off when I get one night’s sleep that doesn’t require me to get out of my bed multiple times to address another call of “Mommy, Mommy…” or prepare “waffle! eggy!” at 6:30 a.m. But I doubt it.

When I get back from Palo Alto, R. and I are packing up the car with the kids and all their shit and going to Aspen for a couple of days. This will be our first road trip with both boys, and given Alex’s recent inclination to cry incessantly in the car it has the potential to suck. Still, once we get there it should be fun, if only because I’ve never been there before. Actually, I’ve never been much of anywhere in Colorado, despite having lived here for more than 8 years. Since Aspen is known for its good restaurants and shopping, walking around with a fat baby wedged in a Bjorn on my chest and holding hands with a fairly wild toddler might not have been my first choice of ways to experience its delights, but it’s better than sitting in our house for yet another day and so we’re going.

MEDICAL UPDATE:

So until Thursday and the start of my limited domestic travels, I will be sitting at my desk trying in vain to focus through the greasy film of antibiotic ointment on my eye. For four days I have to squirt a ribbon of erythromycin onto my eyeball every 4 hours to heal a scratched cornea. Saturday I noticed that the vision in my right eye had become blurry, and because of my medical history with that eye (a detached retina 5 or 6 years ago) I freaked out. I called my doctor’s practice, and they had me come into the office at 9 on Saturday night to see the doctor on call. Since I had been planning to crack open a bottle of Cloudy Bay that evening I was a little bummed, but hey. Anyhoo, after much examination of my “sluggish” pupil and thankfully flat retina by a rather good-looking (my vision wasn’t THAT blurry) young doctor, I was informed I had an eyelash growing inward that had been scraping my cornea with every blink. He plucked it out with tweezers and sent me on my merry way. How lame can you get? The poor doctor had to see me and basically perform an aesthetician’s job just because of my history. And now I have greasy goop oozing anew from the corner of my eye every four hours. But my eye still works and for that I am thankful.

It's 4:20 somewhere!

2009-07-14T15:28:00.001-06:00

Our latest nanny has quit after a scant 5 weeks; her husband has been transferred to California and they are moving at the end of the month. But I am not writing this to whine about how hard it is to keep good child care; no. In fact, we have already found someone we are pretty excited about to replace her. No, I’m just writing this to let you know that what I’ve heard is true: the current generation of young people looking for employment is as dumb as a box of rocks when it comes to the kind of shit about themselves they put out on the internet for public consumption.

When looking for a new nanny, I stumbled across an ad on Craiglist for someone who looked very promising. She was a college student majoring in international studies, with 10 years of experience working with kids. She seemed smart and enthusiastic, and I contacted her. We traded a couple of emails, and when she addressed her email back to me as “Hi, Wendy!” and said “2 and 5 years old sound like the PERFECT ages for me!” I didn’t want to hold it against her – after all, she spoke so enthusiastically about how she was going to work with my nonexistent five year old. We set up an appointment to meet for this morning.

And then I Googled her.

The first thing I saw was her Twitter feed, which had been updated three hours previously to inform the world that she had just scored some chronic; “fuck, yeah.” There were enough other cheesy references to pot (“Having a great 4/20!”) in her posts to indicate she has something of an affinity for the stuff.

The next site was her myspace page, complete with a sultry photograph of her showing the tops of her obviously bare breasts. The page was plastered with images of marijuana leaves and in her information section she told me and the world she was looking for other burners because she smokes every day. Additional statements like “I was bi before it was cool” and the news that her dog is a pit bull completed the jolly image of this person who wanted to take care of my children.

Now honestly, I could not care less in the abstract if someone smokes pot (although I’m not going to hire them to watch my kids when they proudly admit they do it every day and their myspace page looks like the inside of a teenaged boy’s room from 1973). Nor do I care if she is bisexual, although I’ve always thought that straddling of the middle ground was sort of a fakey construct by girls who think it makes them sound cool. I’m less thrilled with the pit bull – I don’t need pictures of my children’s beautiful faces plastered across the evening news as the latest victims of this “misunderstood” breed.

No, it’s more that this girl was stupid enough to think the world ought to know these things about her, and presumably accept her for “who she is.” After I sent her an email canceling our interview, she sent me an indignant reply latching onto the marijuana issue like I was some sort of asshole who thinks it’s OK to get politely tanked on gin and tonics but who thinks smoking weed is the mark of the beast. I gave her a little spiel about how she’s naïve to think that having that kind of stuff about herself on the internet isn’t going to interfere with getting jobs. I knew it wasn’t really my place to tell this person she ought to think about shaping the fuck up, but I did it anyway.

Reminiscing.

2009-07-08T12:19:00.002-06:00

Have I ever told you anything about my college boyfriend?

My college boyfriend and I started dating about halfway through our freshman year, and broke up about halfway through senior year. Despite our wholesome, youthful love for one another, the actual feeling of which escapes me now, I decided that I would spend my junior year abroad. I would spend the fall without him in Rome, and then we would reunite in Paris in the spring.

My boyfriend, Eric One (Eric Two being my law school boyfriend), came to visit me halfway through the semester. As my program was located in a convent, we had to pretend he was staying with one of his fraternity brothers also on the program, and that he was not shacked up with me in my damp little garret with a crucifix on the wall and geckos darting across the bathroom floor. After a few days of dancing around the issue, Eric One told me that while I had been away he had slept with a girl he had dated briefly before me. I had the requisite feelings of anger and hurt, but then there was an earthquake in San Francisco (where our families lived) and I was able to distract myself with that until he went home.

After he left, I had a lot less compunction about acting on a vague crush I had been nursing on one of my fellow students. Handily enough, it happened to be Eric One’s same fraternity brother. Not for me, the handsome, devil-may-care Italian boys zipping around Rome on their scooters, honking their horns and whistling appreciatively as they whizzed by! No, I had chosen instead a typical repressed Connecticut WASP as the object of my desire. Still harboring some guilt but mostly just feeling fucked over by my boyfriend, I spent a couple of lackluster afternoons alone with my irrepressibly boring classmate. Frankly, he was so dull and I had enough guilt that I didn’t bother to sleep with him, but that didn’t stop him from telling anybody who would listen that he had, in fact, nailed me. One person who listened attentively was Eric One.

The next semester, we were in Paris and ostensibly trying to put it all behind us. We had coffee to drink and boulevards to stroll, and we had as romantic a time as two clean cut Americans who had cheated on each other could have. Since I can’t remember the time I spent with him there at all, it must have really been something special.

I do remember clearly, though, that for our spring break we rented a car and drove with some friends down to Cannes. We had an apartment overlooking the ocean, and we spent our days exploring and our evenings sitting around drinking and telling stories. One night we all sat around the dining room table and played some game; one of the guys was very funny and told a story that made me laugh so hard I peed right there in my chair. Still laughing, but also sort of crying, I made everybody turn away as I backed out of the room carrying the chair with me. But I digress.

One day as Eric One and I were lying around chatting, he felt he needed to get something off of his chest. Back at school in Connecticut, he had refused to believe that I hadn’t slept with his fraternity brother – why on earth would HE lie? – and what with the pain of that and all, one night he got drunk and screwed some girl I didn’t know. He was drunk though, so that kind of excused it, right?

The next fall, I was at a formal at St. Anthony Hall, his fraternity. The girl Eric One had slept with was there. I was a senior now, though, and I had magically gained from my year abroad some sort of self assurance I had been lacking in my earlier college years (although probably not as much as I think if I was still with my louse of a boyfriend). As I was dancing with some friends, my ever-present cigarette dangling from my fingers, she sidled up to me and asked me for a light. She looked at me challengingly, and I raised an eyebrow as I pulled out my lighter. She leaned in toward me, and a swath of her shoulder-length hair that she had pulled behind her swung forward. As I looked back into her eyes, I lit the flame. Just as I could smell the tips of her hair hissing and crackling like the fuse of a firecracker before it hits the payload, I snuffed the flame.

“You bitch!” she cried.

“I am,” I said, and turned back to my friends.

After we broke up, I remember seeing Eric One around campus with a black eye. Apparently he had started dating some girl whose ex-boyfriend had walked in on them fooling around and had punched him in the face. Ouch!

More dirty laundry.

2009-06-25T11:47:00.002-06:00

This headline from MSNBC this morning is just embarrassing:

“You have the ability to give magnificent gentle kisses.”

The article goes on to reveal the “salacious” details of email exchanges between Governor Mark Sanford and his Argentine mistress. Except it’s not really like that; it’s kind of a sad little tale of someone who has clearly fallen in love. The tone of the emails is romantic and yearning – I half expect these two to have written poetry to each other.

What a disaster. From a political perspective, this is probably the end for the eccentric, conservative governor from South Carolina. Being a Democrat, I’m just as happy to have a Republican presidential hopeful out of the field of competitors. But on a human level, I feel a little bad for the guy. You have to have some pretty extreme emotions to think that as the governor of a state it’s worth the risk of jetting off to frigging ARGENTINA for a week, without telling anyone where you’re going, to be with/break up with your Argentine lover. I’m sure he didn’t expect to find himself in such a situation. But here in the good ol’ United States of America, if you want to be a politician you have to be a little more careful to hide your peccadilloes from the world.

But now he’s learning, if he didn’t already know, that nothing good ever comes from cheating on your spouse. It’s hard to know whether you are following your heart or if you are blinded by infatuation and lust; you can only learn that in the aftermath of your destruction. Because destruction is what happens, isn’t it? Mr. Sanford says he is trying to work things out with his wife, and maybe he will. But this is a pretty bitter pill for her to have to swallow; particularly as it is played out in public complete with the script of her husband’s loving words to another woman. Not to mention the likely end of his political career. That’s a pretty big price to pay for one’s love, or lust, when with a little restraint he could have handled it a lot differently.

Back in my pre-marriage days, I learned a little something about cheating that after a lot of self-examination has crystallized into a strict but easily observed policy of "not for me, thanks."

1. People don’t cheat when they are happy at home. I really don’t think that someone new can just waltz into your life and you are suddenly, magically in love if you are truly committed to someone else. Don’t pretend “this just happened.”

2. If you meet someone to whom you feel a magnetic attraction, force yourself to think before you leap. You’re an adult, you do have that capacity. If you still want to act on your feelings, then you need to end the relationship you are in first. Don’t ever think you can have it both ways, because you can’t. The person you are about to betray will find out, probably because you are going to feel compelled to unload your own guilt by telling them yourself. Then this person who you have loved and who loves you is going to feel that much worse than they would if you had just had the decency to admit you weren’t happy and wanted to end the relationship. And if you are thinking you can just keep it secret and when it’s over you can get back to your real life, well, then… yuck. You’re deluding yourself, on purpose.

Cheating on a spouse isn't for me. The repercussions are just too huge and lousy. Not to mention that if I really wanted to cheat with anyone, it would be my husband; I’ve never met anyone before who was the whole package the way he is. I feel pretty lucky to be able to say that.

Things are pretty cute around our house.

2009-06-24T16:46:00.008-06:00

Ian is playing "soccer" now, which is downright adorable. Basically, practice is a bunch of kids running in different directions, some crying and none of them paying any attention whatsoever to each other. I like the picture where Ian looks like captain of this erstwhile "team."

Vanity also requires me to point out that the female leg in the picture is NOT mine.

The freedom to dump my brain in your lap.

2009-06-23T10:49:00.005-06:00

I wonder what I was thinking yesterday, posting such a personal fact about myself. I’m not embarrassed about it or anything, but nor is it really something I actively wish people knew about me:

New Acquaintance: “Kate, tell me something about yourself!”

Kate: “I support a woman’s right to choose … I mean, like, REALLY support it.”

NA: “……oh.”

I racked my brain yesterday evening to think if there is anyone I know who reads this blog who would be shocked and dismayed to learn that about me if they didn’t already know, and I think it’s possible there might be one or two. So, if you are one of those people, I’m sorry you had to hear it at all; much less in this forum, where you thought you’d just see some more cute pictures of my kids and read increasingly inane snippets about my hamster wheel of a life.

Enough of that. On to the news.

WORLD NEWS

What do you think is going to happen in Iran? Clearly, the election will not be annulled and Ahmadinejad will, at least for now, remain in power. But what of all the emotion the election has stirred up? That won’t just go away because Iranians have been told to sit down and shut up. People continue to protest, but is life there really bad enough to endure the bloody revolution it would take to … to what? Overthrow the government? Allow women to sing in public or choose not to cover their hair? Put a halt to tyranny? It’s hard to envision how this will play out.

Once again, I am glad to live in a place where, at least for now, we know freedom. Sure, we had eight years there where those in power were working toward something a little more like the Middle Eastern ideal, but thankfully the Puppetmaster and his little monkey didn’t rig the last election and we found ourselves with a human being with a functioning intellect as our president. Let’s not take it for granted, since it's what allows me to write and post this drivel and our global audience (minus our friends in Iran and China, of course) to waste a few minutes of their workdays.

FINANCIAL NEWS

Unbelievably, a couple of old colleagues of mine, one of whom was also a friend (at least in the chummy at work sort of way), have been accused of and will be standing trial for insider trading. Holy christ!

ENTERTAINMENT NEWS

A couple of things:

1. R. and I are going to see Phoenix this Thursday at the Bluebird. Phoenix are an awesome French band that you may have seen (1) on Saturday Night Live, or perhaps (2) sitting around playing guitar in the movie Marie Antoinette (the lead singer is married to Sofia Coppola). Or maybe you just know their music and love it like I do. I’ve wanted to see them in concert for some time, and I can hardly believe they’re playing here in Cowtown!

2. There is a new movie I want to see, which is nice because there hasn’t been a movie I’ve wanted to spend $60 on a babysitter to see for some time: Moon. Have you heard of it? It’s a sci-fi movie starring Sam Rockwell as a mining engineer who for the past three years has been stationed on the moon by his creepy corporate employer, mining a gas for energy use back on Earth. Tangentially interesting, particularly given the subject matter, is that it’s directed by Duncan Jones, who is David Bowie’s son (who changed his name from Zowie Bowie). It looks like an engrossing alternative to all the mindless summer crap that’s out there right now.

Tornadoes and other modes of obliteration.

2009-06-19T11:49:00.000-06:00

It’s a day before the start of summer, which will hopefully mark the end of a spate of weird, Midwestern weather here in Denver. Over the last couple of weeks, there have been hailstorms and tornados every day; home video footage of which we’ve been shown on the local news each night as one dumbass or another has thought it would be cool to drive right on up to the edge of the swirling funride to Oz.

Sure, it’s a bummer that people’s homes are getting ripped out of the ground, but what irritates me most is that these storms only move in as I drive home from work. It’s nice and sunny all day as I sit in my office, only clouding up and cooling down in time to scuttle our nightly plans to eat dinner in the back yard. Worse, all this rain has meant that we now have mosquitoes, something that we are usually blissfully devoid of here in Colorado. Except for the summer a few years ago when I got the West Nile virus, of course, but that was a rather extreme exception.

Meanwhile, in news from outside the borders of my increasingly dull existence, WTF is going on with North Korea? How is their belligerent boot-stamping going to end well for them? I’m really not sure what their endgame is here – just to show they are a world player because they are so powerful they can create nuclear weapons? Because waving your missiles around every time you want something from the world probably isn’t the best way to get the rest of the world to want to do things your way. Particularly when we can call their bluff pretty much anytime we want to by obliterating them from the face of the planet. Granted, they might take South Korea down with them, which I suppose is what they hope we will not be willing to risk, but I think they overestimate America’s tolerance for their shenanigans. For now, we can continue to swat away their threats like a pesky fly, but that probably won’t be true forever. I wish the Dear Leader would down a bottle of his beloved Courvoisier and drive one of his Bentleys off a cliff and leave the rest of the world, including his starving, tortured countrymen, in peace.

And then there’s Iran. Not surprisingly, I am right on board with President Obama’s approach to the current turmoil in that country: to remain more or less silent on the subject and let Iranians work it out for themselves. I can’t stand hearing the new, cornpone-accented voices of the Republican Party droning on about how Obama looks weak because he’s not making some forceful statement about the situation in Iran. Really? Because all that forceful shit George Bush put us through went down so well on the world stage. And why do we need to say anything when our ongoing political/diplomatic positions with respect to Iran should make it quite clear how we’d like things to turn out? We don’t need to give anyone more fuel for an anti-American fire. I’m not saying anything new here, but it does drive me crazy to hear a few vocal Republicans shouting for more of the same. We have a new president, f-f-f-folks, elected by a large majority of the American people. Can we try his way for a little while?

La la la la la.

2009-06-12T15:12:00.005-06:00

I have the attention span of a flea these days, and every time I plan to write something for this blog, my mind skitters off and I can’t complete the thought. So I don’t write. It’s time for me to exercise a little willpower over my gray matter, though, and work to whip it back into some semblance of an adult, functioning brain.

But let’s start slow.

Have you heard of Rue La La? This business has an interesting concept that is clearly designed to get silly women (like me) to buy shit they never needed. Every day their website displays two or three new “boutiques,” each selling one brand of clothing or accessories at heavily reduced prices. Perusing the boutiques (which you can only do if you are a member – how exclusive!), I get the impression that the merchandise isn’t always the most coveted items from a designer’s line. In fact, I wonder if it’s like the January sales in Europe, where in addition to the good stuff the stores are clearly trying to empty their storerooms of the last several years’ worth of crap nobody wanted to buy the first time around. Still, the designers/brands themselves are desirable, including as they have in the last few days Marc Jacobs and 7 for All Mankind, and next week, Tory Burch.

In each boutique there are only a few of each item, and as they are sold a tag under each product proclaims “Only 6 left!” or “Sold out!” All of which lends an air of exclusivity and desirability to the clothes and accessories that they would undoubtedly be lacking on the sale racks. Which is what led me to buy a Marc Jacobs purse without reading the description adequately, because the one I really wanted was SOLD OUT, this one was the shoulder bag version of the one I wanted, and there were ONLY 2 LEFT. I can’t even find a picture of the bag on the internet, it’s so undesirable. Here’s the one I really wanted, which in retrospect was still not wholly desirable:

So I impetuously bought the one so ugly that no one has the energy to photograph or sell it, it arrived, it was indeed the ugly stepsister to the original, and now I can only return it for a credit because it is so exclusive! Live and learn.

In other, equally fascinating news, you should try the recipe on the cover of last month’s Bon Appétit. It is fabulous.

Maybe I should hire Bristol Palin - she's experienced.

2009-05-07T10:29:00.001-06:00

My newly found serene, beatifically smiling Madonna thing has been put to the test this morning, and appears to actually have some staying power. Here is the delightful development of my morning:

5:50 a.m.: Ian wakes the house with his crying/whining for Mommy. I stagger into his room, bleary-eyed and furious (in a subdued, edgeless sort of way) to instruct him that he can read in his bed, but that it isn’t time to get up yet. He says, “Poop” and promptly begins his OCD rotation of three pacifiers between his mouth and both hands. “Fuuuuuuu….dge,” I say, hefting him onto the changing table for a foul introduction to the day. I put him back in his crib and repeat my instructions about reading in bed, but he bursts into whiny tears. I tell him that’s how it is, and go back to bed. I lie there unable to sleep because he continues to scream and wail and his room is an unfortunate 10 feet away from ours.

6:25: I return to his room, head pounding, and lift him out of bed.

6:30: The kitchen sink is backed up. We’re going to need a plumber.

6:45: As Ian eats his breakfast, I check my Yahoo email account for the first time since Monday. There is an email from our nanny. She is giving us notice that she is quitting to work full time for the other family she nannies for. She is due at our house at 8:00.

8:00: The nanny arrives and tearfully looks for me to make her feel better about screwing us over. She really, really likes us and thinks Ian is wonderful, so that’s a relief.

I suppose the good news is that a month ago I probably would have blown a gasket over this sequence of events, but this morning I barely even care (other than that Ian really likes our nanny, so that blows). It’s just another set of inconveniences in a life full of them.

Who AM I?

On a couple of completely unrelated topics:

1. I have a book recommendation for you: “In The Woods” by Tana French. It’s an Irish mystery/detective novel – sort of. It’s creepy and well written and it’s one of the most entertaining books I’ve read in awhile.

2. Bristol Palin – WTF? Seriously, what is she doing? She’s wandering around New York promoting abstinence on the tee vee, her grinning monkey of a father in the background dandling the results of her decided lack of abstinence on his knee. This reminds me of the kind of women who have an abortion and then come out the most vocally against it. “Hey, I know I had the freedom to make that choice, but since I regret it so much, it’s obviously wrong and so I would prefer to make that choice for everybody else.” In this case, it’s more “Hey, I sure had fun hooking up with my good-looking but slow boyfriend, but if I publicly proclaim the error of my ways then maybe my mom will still have a chance to bamboozle the remaining Republicans into voting for her for president!” So, not really the same thing after all, but still kind of fucked up.

Cinco de Mayo Clinic.

2009-05-05T11:28:00.000-06:00

So here I am, celebrating Cinco de Mayo with an industrial-sized vat of hand sanitizer. You never know who has been feeling up my keyboard in my absence. I can’t imagine the celebrations in Mexico are going to be too festive tonight, with everyone either sitting alone in their houses in mortal fear of their neighbors or daring to go out only to discover that you can’t drink through those paper face masks.

Have you noticed that Americans have a funny way of getting all hyped up over a scare then forgetting about it just as quickly when they aren’t immediately affected themselves? I’m sure the cantinas around this country will be positively heaving tonight with randy youngsters freely spreading saliva all over each other with not even a fleeting thought of their own mortality. But I guess that is what being young and carefree is all about.

I, on the other hand, am no longer young or carefree, and now that I am dosed to the gills I’m not too hyper about anything, either. Yes, the anti-depressants are quite a find. I’ve been pleased to discover that even though I don’t get too down or pissed off about anything anymore, I am still capable of feeling the good stuff. I was worried that Lexapro was going to eliminate both ends of the spectrum, leaving me a lobotomized sack of boredom in the middle, a vacant, grinning automaton in Mom Jeans, but it appears I am still able to get all squirmy with bliss when I nuzzle into my little boys’ necks and laugh out loud during 30 Rock. I remain a little concerned that I’ve lost my ability to skewer unsuspecting objects of my disdain with my own nasty barbs, but if that’s the cost of having a more peaceful mind, I’ll take it for awhile.

I wonder, is this what other people feel like all the time? Well, probably many people do since so many of us take these drugs, but what about the people who are just sailing through life without a prop? Why do so many of us feel “off,” harboring enough anger and sadness to justify fucking with our brain chemistry? Is it something that has appeared only in more modern times, with all its fast-paced, over-achieving loneliness, or is it instead simply inherent in humanity? Maybe even Jesus and Gandhi could have benefited from an SSRI.

The plight of a working mom.

2009-05-04T16:34:00.002-06:00

It's my first day back at work, and I miss:

SGO

2009-04-16T20:52:00.009-06:00

So, a few things.

1. It is supposed to snow here again tomorrow; 8-12 inches. Excuse me, WTF? It is mid-April, and it was in the low 70's the first 3 days of the week. Now, granted, Eeyore does look cute as pie in his little boots that are not even close to being snow boots but are good enough to totter around in for one's first experience in this world of "nooooooo!" (snow), but it's practically summer, for Christ's sake.

2. I've been doped up for a week now, and although I've read you're not supposed to really be able to tell for 2 or 3 weeks, my impression is that the happy candy is working. I don't exactly feel like myself anymore, as I have not gotten truly mad or even particularly irritated ONE TIME all week. Even in traffic, which is probably a first for me. I mean, I am the queen of giving the finger when I should not, and spewing a long list of the foulest profanities at someone who dares to drive the speed limit in front of me.

This is not actually me on the user-friendly Lexapro, but rather me ... drunk. It's a while ago; who can afford to get drunk when she'll have to get up and feed a baby in the night? But you get the idea.

3. I joined Weight Watchers today. Not my idea of a good time, but it was time to be proactive. I've been working out and eating pretty well, but I haven't lost a pound in 5 weeks. I'm not sure how that can be, but apparently it's not uncommon for oldsters like me who have their second baby. I look like I am sporting a terribly unattractive beer gut. I will spare you any representative photo of THAT.

Expect a cheerier me.

2009-04-08T20:34:00.004-06:00

I had my 6 week post partum check up today, and it won't likely come as much of a surprise that tonight I join the legion of medicated Americans as I pop my first 5 mg of Lexapro. It turns out new mothers don't necessarily need to feel as overwhelmed and irritable, as concerned that I will never truly enjoy my life again, as I do. There just might be way for me to actually enjoy my life right now, as it is.

I've long been interested in taking an antidepressant, but I've fought it because of worries about side effects, or just a thought that the part of my personality that makes me "me" might disappear - leaving me interchangeable with any wash-and-go soccer mom in Kansas who wears high waisted jeans (and not because she saw them in Vogue) and button-down shirts. The time has come, though, to take the risk and give it a try. The possibility that a happy, relaxed me could be around the corner is too enticing, and I'm tired of thinking that the best years of my life are behind me or at best unavailable to me again for at least the next 4 or 5 years.

As for side effects, I am definitely a little worried about the sex thing - I can't really afford a loss of libido when it's hard enough to create an environment conducive to grown-up activity in a tiny house full of little boys, toys, laundry, and increasingly, dirt. What I'm telling myself, though, is that if anything, this could have a positive effect on my love life: a happier and more relaxed Kate is a Kate that will be more willing to spend time on the fun stuff when I find myself with an unexpected 15 minutes than to try to finish folding all the baby clothes still sitting on the dining room table 24 hours after removal from the dryer. My doctor even affirmed it had that effect on her when she had to go on it after her second child, so there you have it!

I took my first pill half an hour ago; I'll be interested to see if I have any of the unpleasant effects my doctor told me to look for (lightheadedness, nausea).

Six weeks.

2009-04-06T12:54:00.006-06:00

Alex is six weeks old today, and I am about 400 (give or take). This shit is aging me at a rapid clip. It is incessant. If one of them is napping, the other one is eating (Alex)/screaming (Ian)/pulling my hair (Ian)/twisting the baby's leg (Ian)/grinning while committing some previously unpracticed violence (Ian). Yes, I have a textbook toddler who despises his adorable little brother and takes every opportunity to show it. I guess it's fairly classic; any attention is better than no attention. Although we still shower him with love and affection and the 3000th reading of Goodnight Moon, the interloper takes his share as well and that is apparently unacceptable. I don't know what I would do if Alex wasn't the sweet little guy that he is - two babies on overdrive would send me to an early grave.

But there's lots of good news, too:

1. I am still fat.

2. My company is in the news as rumored to be looking to sell the business unit I support.

3. No vacations planned until June 2010.

I really should have done this at 25 and gotten it over with.

Down the rabbit hole.

2009-03-22T08:00:00.004-06:00

Oh, hi.

If you've been wondering where I am, it's a neat little place called HELL. If you'd like to try it sometime, may I recommend the path we took: add one newborn baby to a household already bursting at the seams with the ego and toys of one 18-month old, stir, and voila. It's that easy. These seemingly innocuous ingredients combine like a high school chemistry experiment, resulting in complete and utter chaos. No sleep, tantrums, depression, brain death. And yes, that's just me.

I am so tired I could vomit, and right now both kids and I have a horrible cold. R. and I are each operating on 3 or 4 hours of sleep a night, none of it acquired in one stretch. The baby is fussy, and the toddler hates having him around. To show his displeasure, he has arrived at the "terrible twos" a few months early.

All this adds up to wondering why we subjected ourselves to this. Do I love them? Yes. They are pretty cute about half the day. The other half of the day is pretty rough, and when viewed through the lens of serious sleep deprivation it's even worse. I am seriously considering anti-depressants.

Newest addition to the planet.

2009-02-27T23:13:00.001-07:00

Having a baby is a surreal experience. The part that makes it coolest:

38 weeks and counting with the small portion of my brain that is still operational.

2009-02-11T10:56:00.002-07:00

I’ve got my head down and I’m plowing through the days until my role as landlord is through. This little person is sapping so much from me at this point that each morning when I wake up to find I’m still pregnant I can scarcely believe it. How did I not go into labor in the night? He clearly wants out – he knocks on the inside of my stomach like he’s rapping on the door of a house: “Let me out, damn it!” Walking is painful and to be avoided, as my joints are all stretched out and achy and the baby has dropped low into my pelvis. I waddle like a duck. I only have a few shirts that even cover my belly at this point, which protrudes much more than it ever did with the first one. I feel like shit – no glow here – and I am mentally through with this invasion of my body.

And yet … nothing.

Anecdotally I know this is always the way it goes; you don’t think there is any way you can tolerate another day, and the baby still isn’t born for 4 more weeks.

So in anticipation for the big day, whether it comes today or on schedule for the 23rd, I’ve been keeping myself busy:

1. Familiarizing myself thoroughly with the entire HGTV lineup so that when I am burrowed deep into the couch for the first 8 weeks of Alex’s life, sobbing, I’ll have home renovation to focus on instead.

2. Leafing through magazines.

3. Practicing the alphabet with Ian so that he has some knowledge to build on before he loses the individualized attention for the rest of his life.

4. Marveling at how swollen my legs get – like my stomach, how does the skin not just pop open like a roasted bird?

5. Reading myriad diet books in anticipation of needing to lose 50 pounds – yes, FIFTY. Hopefully, most of that will just come off on its own in the first couple of months, as it did with my first pregnancy (how? Physically I don’t really get that), because the prospect of dieting is so fucking dismal I can hardly bear it. And of course, I have my 40th birthday promise to be healthier but also easier on myself, so a strict diet doesn’t necessarily fit in there. To that end, I think I have settled on some version of the “Best Life Diet,” the Bob Greene diet that really focuses more on embracing a healthy lifestyle than rigid self-denial.

So, a lot of really interesting stuff.

But here’s something cute.

Moving forward.

2009-01-28T07:33:00.002-07:00

I have really allowed myself to wallow in the mire for some time now. Sure, a few months after Eeyore was born I dragged myself to a “butts and guts” class at the gym twice a week, and went out for the occasional drink with friends, but other than that I have permitted myself to live in a constant state of self-pity and with a whining lack of self control. “Everything is so haaaard,” I have said to myself and others, “how do people ever get it together with little children?” I have abdicated responsibility for myself, pretending I am a puppet whose strings are yanked by the universe, and I am really, really tired of it. It is an unsatisfying way to live.

Now I am about to turn 40, and it finally occurred to me that I could use that as a catalyst for positive change in my life. While the issues I would like to address are basic, I have allowed them to take on such a monumental, mythic role in my life that addressing them will take a real commitment; a commitment that an adult of 40 ought to be able to make. I’d like to have a little more strength of character than I have shown in the past in making some decisions about myself and sticking with them.

So what do I want to do with this resolve I will somehow find deep within myself? Well, like I said, it’s basic. I just want to learn to take care of myself, so that I can feel physically and emotionally healthy, and like I am in control of my life rather than the other way around. That encompasses three main goals:

1. To eat better and get enough exercise to have a healthy, fit body that feels good to live in.

2. To somehow corral the whirling mess of stress, apathy and childishness I have cultivated in my life and bend it forcibly into submission. I’m not dumb enough to think I can get rid of it completely, but I’m hoping that by accepting the need to partially live in the moment and partially set some rules as to how I can do a few things for myself first, I can reach a happy balance.

3. To be kinder to myself. No one is a bigger bully to me than I am. In addition to not criticizing myself for all my perceived physical imperfections, that also means not beating myself up if I go another year, or forever, without writing a book or doing something else I had decided would give my life worth meaning. I need to recognize the meaning in my life as it is.

Don’t I sound terribly New Age? I’m the farthest thing from it; I just want to enter my middle years with a little more purpose than I’ve shown in the last few years. My late 20’s and early 30’s were lived purposefully to the extent that I arranged an interesting international career and lifestyle for myself, but for much of my late 30’s I have been a little lost at sea. My career became somewhat less glamorous, and of course my previous blog chronicled my less than satisfying romantic adventures. Now my life is completely different with a gorgeous fireball of a husband and (almost) 2 children, and it seems like it’s time to figure out a way to embrace my new existence with a little more backbone than I’ve exhibited thus far.

Mine.

2009-01-23T10:31:00.003-07:00

It won't be so bad to have another one of these.

The worm has turned.

2009-01-21T07:43:00.000-07:00

Here we are on a new day, with our new, inspiring president. The worm has turned; to me the country feels like a completely different place than it did even at 11:59 a.m. yesterday. It’s as if the pall we have been smothering beneath has been lifted, or like an invigorating, positive wind is blowing the stench of the decaying evil of the last administration out of our streets and homes. Goodbye, George Bush, you malevolent fool; enjoy clearing out the brush at your ranch while we clear out the destruction you and Dr. Evil have wreaked on this country (does anyone else think Cheney looks even scarier in his wheelchair?).

The Obamas started their day today with a prayer service at the National Cathedral, which is apparently what new presidents do on their first day in office. As Cindy noted in her most recent post, this follows an inauguration day saturated with prayer services and invocations and benedictions and all sorts of religious crap that seems so out of place in a country founded on the idea of separation of church and state. I personally find it offputting, but as long as nobody forces me to go to church or live my “life in Christ,” I will go with the flow. But… did you hear the pastor who gave the sermon this morning!!?? He had one of the creepiest voices I had ever heard, and if I had been Sasha or Malia, I would have been giggling uncontrollably in my pew.

Ah, Washington. I do think back on it so fondly, having lived there for a total of about 10 years. I lived and went to school near the National Cathedral for a few years in middle school and high school, and went back for law school and a few years of practice after that. My own memories of the cathedral are not quite as lofty as will be those of the politicians and their families who attend; rather, my friend M. and I used to meet there after dinner in the summer to smoke cigarettes and look out over the city from the cathedral gardens. Or, I would walk by it when I took the bus back up Wisconsin Avenue from Georgetown after an afternoon spent hanging around the clearly gay clerk at Commander Salamander (“I’m sure he’s just bi; I think he was flirting with me!”) and sitting in the window booth at Roy Rogers drinking a Coke and smoking yet more cigarettes. Yes, that was a LONG time ago.

I can’t believe it’s been 10 years since I moved away from D.C. to London; I know it has really changed since then. I’ve been back a few times to visit friends over the years, and each time I’ve been amazed by the number of new restaurants and new “up-and-coming” neighborhoods. Something tells me that my next trip back there, however, which will likely be to introduce two small boys to the wonder of the Air and Space Museum, won’t provide me with the opportunity to see the Washington I’d like to see – which, honestly, is one that represents the kind of engagement with a city that it’s hard to have anywhere with small children. I think – but then I’m not the most talented when it comes to integrating the concepts of children and continuing to experience an intellectually and culturally stimulating life. I need some lessons in that.

Chow chow chow!

2009-01-15T15:56:00.000-07:00

It’s a Purina Dog Chow kind of day in Denver. This is primarily because there is a Purina dog chow factory along the highway north of the city, so that when the wind blows the wrong way the distinctive smell of dog food (mmmm!) fills the air of the entire city. But it also seems like days when the smell is the worst are winter days where the skies are low and cloudy, and the city looks like a dirty, industrial wasteland no matter what part of town you’re in. Then it just seems fitting that there should be a gross smell that permeates everything. Yes, today’s that kind of day.

On a similar note, I am tired of wearing black all the time, but that’s all I have in my pregnancy wardrobe these days. I hope I can drop enough of this weight by summer to be able to wear some of my old clothes that were sewn by small children using colored fabric again. One problem I foresee: will I ever wear shorts again? This pregnancy has given me a terribly unsightly case of spider veins on my legs; the kind I used to see on women and think, “Oh…my…god. Could you not get that taken care of? They have procedures for that, you know.” And yes, in fact, they do, but the procedures are not cheap and you have to have to have several of them to really get rid of the purple nasties. That would be fine if that were the only procedure I needed as a result of carrying two Tasmanian Devils inside my body for 9 months each, but frankly, I need enough surgery to turn me into the Bionic Woman after all this. Ideally, I could use:

1. Spider vein zapping.
2. A boob job.
3. Liposuction
4. A tummy tuck.
5. A teensy-tiny face lift (Mama’s TIRED).

However, I don’t want more scars and I don’t want to have to re-up on the boob job every 10 years (or look like that woman who has face lifts to look like a man-cat), so I think I might be stuck with whatever I can get out of sporadic, half-hearted diet and exercise over the next 5 years. I hope I can evolve into one of those women who loves herself no matter how she is, reveling in her battle scars because she is a “Mother,” and not the petty, typical American woman I am who is completely obsessive about no longer having the 120-pound figure she had in college – which was 20 years ago and which she has never had since (except a couple of times when she was depressed and the year’s meals consisted of cigarettes and increasingly good bottles of chardonnay). Ah, body image – what a fucking waste of time.

Meanwhile, here is my exciting calendar of upcoming events:

1. February 23: Birth of second son

2. February 27 – May 10: post-partum depression/acclimation to larger family and re-acquaintance with soap opera families from hollowed-out spot on couch

3. March 4: 40th birthday of yours truly; holy SHIT. Previous plans for Maui trip scuppered for hopeful outing to Sushi Den for raw fish and a martini (if I can walk)

4. Eternity stretching before me

5. June 2010: Sister in law’s wedding on east coast, flight with 2 kids (example of change in type of trips; BEFORE = Paris, AFTER = Family, USA)

6. February 2012: Hopeful return to semblance of normalcy; celebratory trip with husband

A packed schedule!

Time to move to Vermont.

2009-01-09T11:13:00.006-07:00

Boy, am I glad I don’t live in the Middle East. That part of the world is fucked up, no two ways about it. If you’re just a regular person trying to live your life in peace, you can forget it. Angry people have the upper hand. There is always someone pissed off about his chunk of land, or about you having any rights outside of what his affiliation deems fit (you know, because they are a mouthpiece of God), and they like nothing more than to launch a few rockets or cut off your head to make a point.

Of course, not every country in the Middle East has the same M.O. when it comes to maintaining 15th century mores and/or ending other peoples’ lives, since some are more “civilized” than others. In Iraq, local angry people make DIY explosives to blow up cars, Americans, Iraqis from different sects, and unlucky marketgoers. Israel, as an example of a more modern nation, uses full-scale warfare to bomb the shit out of Gaza. It’s entitled to do that, you see, because Hamas had been fucking with it for a really long time. Also, it is really entitled to do that because of the Holocaust. Atrocities committed against the Jews are license for any kind of action in the protection of Israel’s borders.

Yes, I know it’s politically incorrect to be American and not be a hard-line supporter of Israel, but I’m not. Don’t get me wrong – I’m not pro-Palestine either, although I think both sides have some valid arguments, particularly after the way the Palestinian people have been treated throughout the history of the conflict, and I would never discount the horror and magnitude of the Holocaust. It is simply my opinion that two wrongs do not make a right, and in my view raining down bombs on innocent people who “happen to be in the way” is a wrong. When I read in the paper about relief workers who were not let into Gaza in a timely fashion, only to discover once allowed a house where several small children were standing, weak with hunger, around the corpses of their dead mothers – I know I am reading about something wrong.

I recognize the naiveté in wondering why we have to have violence in the world, but the rationale truly does elude me when I don’t feel the capacity for violence in myself. Nothing good comes from it, unless when employing it to defend against it, I suppose. But that begs the question of the need for the initial aggression. “Human nature” is a sad excuse for the atrocities men have committed against each other throughout history, particularly when societies have gone to great lengths to codify laws that deem such individual actions to be aberrational behavior. If rape and murder are crimes in everyday life; why are they suddenly an acceptable aspect of human nature in the context of geopolitical aggression?

Ah, power. Man’s greatest excuse for all.

I am your sponge.

2009-01-08T11:15:00.000-07:00

How does one learn not to let another person’s moods affect her? After all, they are the other person’s moods, so why should there be a correlation between another person’s shitty mood and a nosedive of my own? When someone I interact with a lot is in a foul mood and I am not, I can feel that person’s funk cozying up to the bottom of my own mood, hooking its clammy tentacles into any crevices it senses, and giving it a good, sustained tug. It’s almost a physical feeling in my head – like my good mood fills my skull but the erosion from the bottom pulls it down to somewhere around my eyes. I feel like I am trying to hoist my full body back above the top of it again to regain control, but the other person’s mood is stronger than my will to stay cheery and next thing you know I’m fucked. My mood is in the toilet.

How do you avoid that? Shouldn’t my mood be my mood, yours be yours, and so on? Is everyone like me, or can most people maintain their individuality a little better? Tips appreciated, just like at all the counters where employees were once expected to do their work for their wages instead of for the spare change customers are now guilted into adding to the already enormous tally (e.g., change from your overpriced latte).

More pictures.

2009-01-05T20:47:00.008-07:00

Here are a few more pictures from our trip:

The Randall Museum, a weird free children's museum in San Francisco. They had a little petting zoo area with two bunnies, a duck and a chicken.

R. and Eeyore outside the museum.

Eeyore and I outside the museum; foggy day = lovely hair. Who am I kidding? I never look good these days. How about that rat fur collar on my maternity coat?

Speaking of rat fur, here's my kid in a bin of stuffed rats at IKEA.

Hiatus over.

2009-01-05T15:26:00.011-07:00

After a couple of weeks with no time to post (or anything else), here I am again. The last two weeks have been a steady diet of chasing Eeyore around various living rooms as he explores the world around him and even finally learns to walk just in time to make him an even bigger terror and potential danger around the house. So far our baby proofing has been from the ground up, so now it appears we’re up to counter level. Soon we’re going to have to buckle down and find a safer place for the candy-colored anti-depressants and razor blades that we have so casually ignored to date.

Did you have a lovely Christmas or religious/cultural holiday of your choice? It was Santa’s Christmas for us, since as you know we have a little problem with ye olde organized religion in our house. There was no visit from the baby Jesus at our place. Or actually, at my mom’s, where the 4-foot tall plastic lighted Santa was God-like enough to scare the shit out of my kid.

The travel itself could have been a lot worse, like if we had flown to Houston instead of San Francisco. You may have seen that there was a sort of plane crash at the Denver airport; when we flew out the next day I craned my neck every which way to try to see the wreckage but could not. That’s probably for the best since I am already such a nervous flyer, but I couldn’t help but look. As seems to be his M.O., Eeyore was wide awake, squirmy and vocal for the entire two hour flight, just until they started the initial descent. Something in the change of the engines seems to be his cue to go to sleep, just as it was my cat’s cue when flying her out to live with my mom to take a large, stinking poop. I guess I’m glad we get 15 minutes of peace, but it sure would be nice to think that I might ever be able to read a magazine or a book on a plane again and not just spend the entire time freaking out about what I can entertain him with next so he doesn’t:

Yell joyfully
Kick the seat in front of him
Yell angrily
Throw his binkies
Cry
Poop

Someday, perhaps.

Meanwhile, here is a picture of Eeyore passing time in the back seat of the rental car.

And just for grins, this morning my mom sent me this picture of us with some random family members when I was about 16. My expression is vintage teenaged me – what an asshole!!!!

Get lost.

2008-12-12T10:41:00.003-07:00

You know, I think I would post more if I had a way to upload photos to my work computer. Of course, then I would probably get fired for misappropriating corporate assets or something, but with photos there is always something to base a post around. A piece with no pictures is, well, an article. And if I classify it as an article, well, then I start to imagine there’s a deadline, and rules about the quality of my writing, and all of a sudden I feel the pressure to be a New York Times-caliber blogger. If I could just slap up a picture of Eeyore looking cute, or of me eating my 346th bowl of ice cream of the year, or of the snow on the Rockies, the prose becomes not much more than supporting text and more accessible to my enormous readership.

You know, I think that someone outside my office is clipping her fucking fingernails right now. I hear that nasty, telltale little metallic “chht” that one should normally only hear as she clips her OWN nails in her OWN bathroom. You can add any sort of attention to one’s nails in public to the list of déclassé activities that I look upon with scorn, which such list is headed by the ever-popular CHEWING OF GUM. Chewing, popping, slurping, general making of spitty sounds – ohhhhh, God, it makes me ill just thinking about it. Yes, I have been reminded that with two kids I will be forced to grin and bear it through the consumption of veritable mountains of Hubba Bubba, but I will cross that bridge when I get to it. Plus, there’s a difference between a kid smacking his gum, as gross as it may be, and an adult who can’t be bothered to hold her slack jaw together enough to mute the wet, rubbery sounds within.

I’ll admit that I am hypersensitive to silly things like that right now. A couple of nights ago, I was in bed checking out LCD TV reviews on my computer, and R. was sitting next to me with his face next to my bent knee so he could see the screen. I could feel his breath all hot on my knee through my pajamas, in that steamy, damp way breath has when it comes through fabric, and I kept jerking away and making desiccated old schoolmarm faces. He quickly tired of my antics and left the room, but episodes like that are more and more common as I get to the irritable heffalump stage of my pregnancy.

This is where a photo of me would go if I could put one – smiling broadly so you could see both chins, wearing a short sleeved shirt as I held Eeyore so you could see the pale, flabby expanse of my upper arm flattened against my temporarily fabulous rack. I’ve actually got some pretty good arm muscles under all that flesh (flesh that reminds me an awful lot of the gelatinous interior of a fried turnip cake you’d get off the dim sum cart), but daily cookies and ice cream make it kind of a moot point.

The Big Bad Wolf.

2008-11-25T07:34:00.004-07:00

Who is scared by this whole “economic downturn” business? Yes, me, too. I don’t have any reason to think that I am going to be laid off in the immediate future, but I still think about the possibility all the time. In fact, money, food and shelter seem to be all I think about these days, and those thoughts have become all-consuming and occasionally depressing. After spending my days working and/or rushing around after my baby trying to make sure he doesn’t lose an eye, picking up the never-ending food and other detritus he incessantly flings around, and putting him to bed with a last pass around the house to clean his dishes and Windex his smeary prints off the coffee table, then I settle into the couch for an hour of self-defeating, tense-necked ruminations about money, and fear, and fear of no money. I can’t watch TV, or get involved in a book. I might scan a vapid magazine if I can manage it. I often fall asleep early, which could have something to do with the current pace of my life, but which I suspect is more likely a way to avoid these overwhelming thoughts. I feel paralyzed; we can’t make any plans. Forget about indulging in the idea of a vacation or even of a night away in the mountains; should we even waste money on a Christmas tree? The baby doesn’t know what Christmas is, and surely we will just spend all our time prying the ornaments out of his fist.

I know I can’t be the only one who feels this way. In fact, to read about it in the papers, millions of people feel the same way. Unfortunately, this mass trepidation is compounding our economic woes. We’re scared to spend the money we do have, which sets off a chain reaction. When I decide not to buy any new clothes or books at my favorite stores, or to eat at my favorite restaurants, the combination of my reticence with that of so many other consumers translates into lost jobs at those establishments. That in turn results in less people with money to stimulate the economy. The government keeps trying to shock the system with injections of fantastical sums of Monopoly money, but so far nothing seems able to stem the tide. Consumers are going to have to be willing to risk putting some of their money out into the marketplace to keep things from grinding to a complete halt.

The most immediate economic decision my husband and I are facing right now is that we want to remodel our house, but for every argument in favor of forging ahead there is a counterargument that says we should just let it ride for awhile: our family has already outgrown our tiny house, but didn’t American families manage to cram into small houses in the fifties? Maybe we are just being greedy Americans. We might be able to do the remodel for less right now while contractors and manufacturers are hurting for work, but does that really matter when I might lose my job or R. might not be able to get more architecture projects? The increased mortgage will have to be paid somehow. But the finished product would be good marketing for his firm… we go around and around on this until I end up back on the couch, staring into space with a clenched jaw.

Just so you get an idea what we’re talking about, here is a picture of what our house looks like today (well, really a few years ago, but it hasn’t changed).

You can see, perhaps, why we might want to make some changes.

Here are snapshots of the front and back of the new house from a 3-D mock up my husband knocked up based on his detailed architectural plans.

Now, maybe modern is your thing, maybe it isn’t, but it is ours! The dark gray portion will be concrete board panels arranged in some aesthetically pleasing design. The brick will be painted not sure what color yet – somewhere from a grayish off-white to a light taupe, depending on what looks best with the other materials we use. Then there’s wood siding, which we’ll probably do instead of the Finnish wood panels we would both prefer but which are prohibitively expensive. It all looks a bit stark here, but imagine it with plantings below the windows and other signs of life. See the little window that’s like a porthole? That is a floor-level window in the playroom designed for two little boys and a couple of cats to lie down and look out. I don't want the economy to huff and to puff and blow it all down.

What's in a Name?

2008-11-24T07:16:00.003-07:00

One of the most difficult decisions about having a baby is what to name it. Here I am, 27 weeks pregnant, and R. and I have only just decided on a name for the new kid. When we had our first child, we went around and around on what to name him, too, but as soon as one of mentioned Ian we were both sold. This time, it was even harder.

Kate: “Ian is a Scottish name. Should we choose another Scottish one? I think I might be an eighth Scottish.”

R.: “Sure. I really like Duncan.”

Kate: “Oh, uh, OK, ‘Duncan.’ Maybe we should call him that for a week and see if it starts to sound like something I would like.”

A week later:

Kate: “What about James? We could call him Jamie.”

R.: “Uh, OK. I don’t really like that, but I guess it’s OK.”

Nosy Friend: “I never knew a Jamie that didn’t get his ass kicked.”

Another week and several perusals of the baby name book later:

Kate: “I wish our cat weren’t already named Alix. I quite like Alexander.”

R.: “Who gives a crap what that cat’s name is? She’s useless.”

Kate: “You’re just mad because she won’t come near you.”

R: “She won’t come near anyone! I guess Katrina must have traumatized her, but Jesus. Just because she had to eat people until she was rescued doesn’t mean I shouldn’t be able to pet her. You’d think it would be the opposite. I should be fighting her off to keep her from clawing my eyes out in the night.”

Kate: “Would it be weird to have a cat named Alix and a son named Alex? It’s the only name that sounds right to me, and it sounds good with Ian.”

R.: “We could re-name Alix. It’s not like she answers to her name, anyway.”

Kate’s Mom: “Oh, Kate, you HAVE to rename the cat. You’ll give Alex a complex if you don’t. He needs to have his own name.”

So now we have a son named Alex and a cat named Alice. She hates us all so much these days, anyway, I wouldn’t be surprised if she just moves into the basement permanently when we bring the new baby home. It’s a shame, because she’s awfully cute.

Living the Dream.

2008-11-13T10:57:00.000-07:00

My life seems like such a set of women’s magazine clichés these days:

“Mommy, Do you Have to Work?”
“Nanny-Cams – Invasion of Privacy?”
“Why is My One-Year Old Already Having Tantrums!?”
“Hot Wire Your Sex Life!”
“Double Coupons on Wednesdays”
“Costco or Sam’s Club?”
“No Time to Look Like a Goddamned Human Being”

It’s surreal. For so many years I skipped over those types of articles in magazines, and steered clear of impromptu meetings at my law firm on “balancing work and kids.” It wasn’t pertinent to my life at the time, but regardless - who the hell needed advice on making time for a 30-minute bath, needed suggestions on how to “set the mood for love” or had to use coupons? Not me, that was for sure. But what the fuck did I know? Nothing, that’s what. Which doesn’t make life any easier now that I find myself in the thick of it.

My mom reminds me that when I was small, life wasn’t about going to Paris, or out to the newest restaurants. She put that stuff on hold for years while instead there were beach trips and shared Stouffer’s frozen dinners and an ongoing roster of child care workers, each with her own set of quirky problems to deal with. It’s both a blessing and a curse that I had so much time as an unmarried woman with a reasonably lucrative career: now that I’m in the vortex I know what I’m missing since I had it for so long, but I also know that it will all be there when these crazy, early years of my children’s lives are over.

Because even though so much of daily existence right now is just squeaking by, frequently punctuated by fakey crying and a constant demand to be picked up by a 3-foot tall tyrant, if I choose to look at it from the other direction it can sometimes even seem idyllic. My house, which at one point not so long ago seemed so cold and empty I had to feng shui the whole place (shortly thereafter resulting, I like to believe, in a husband and a promotion at work), is now a cozy, lived-in nest that protects me and my family from the cold, cruel world. My husband, though busy doing more than his fair share to keep the whole machine running smoothly, appears to still love and want to be with me in the midst of all our chaos. And then there is our baby, who is simultaneously a pill and the smartest, most adorable little boy I have ever seen in my whole life.

Now if I only had time to even read those magazines for some pointers…

Now Here We Are.

2008-11-05T09:21:00.000-07:00

I can still hardly believe it’s true. And sure, I know I’m pregnant and hormonal and all that, but I just can’t seem to stop tearing up every few minutes when it crosses my mind again. We have a black president! We have a president who actually thinks before he speaks, can string a compelling sentence together, doesn’t have a VP who plans to destroy the world from behind the puppet theater’s curtain, has a beautiful family that includes a strong, smart wife, who believes in working hard and pitching in and making the world a more peaceful place…. it’s just such a victory in so many ways.

Even though it’s hard to imagine this administration truly solving all the terrible things going on in the world right now, at least I know that one thing is going to stand very, very strong: civil rights. Among all the problems we have to solve, setting America back on the path to protection of our freedoms is paramount. We have a president who knows that.

Maybe one day soon this feeling of cautious optimism will feel natural again.