Cinco de Mayo Clinic.

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.

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

SGO

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

The worm has turned.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

Happy Halloween.

I know it’s not the time for it, but this is where I would like to be today. Europe’s largest urban mall opened today in London, and all my favorites and more are located together under one roof. I can’t imagine it will ever replace the pleasure of popping into the shops along the various high streets, but it looks pretty fabulous all the same. I fully plan to devote an afternoon to its exploration on my next visit in 2030 or whenever I next swing it.

I know I haven’t posted here for a few weeks, but hopefully you’ve been reading Rocky Mountain Liberal, my other blog. I’ve managed to be pretty prolific over there; what on earth will I do when the election is over? Hopefully I won’t be crying into my cups over being forced to live through another Republican administration, in which case I will still have plenty to write about but it will probably just sound whiny and defeated.

So it’s Halloween, in case you haven’t noticed. Eeyore is still small enough that we won’t be taking him trick or treating this year, but we will probably at least dress him up for answering the door for others. His “costume” isn’t much – my stepmother bought him some little mini-scrubs at the hospital where my dad had his recent heart surgery (he’s doing great) that say “Doctor in Training” on the back. He happens to own some of those revolting Crocs, which I did not buy him, and since hospital workers often wear them so they can just hose off the blood and guts, so shall he.

I’ll be sure to post a picture of him, as well as of the “Eternal Forest Tree Bark” I made for a Halloween party at work today. The recipe for this ghoulish delight came to me in a dream, but I can’t say the taste lives up to what I had imagined. It’s basically peppermint bark, but I used food color to tint the white chocolate orange, then instead of candy cane shards I used toffee bits. The whole thing is a little much, really, but the point was pretty much just to have something orange, and at that I succeeded. I’m sure it will all be eaten, since anything anyone ever makes and sets out on a table at work unfailingly is gobbled down. Even weird vegan shit.

Cooking for Two.

I had read that a way to keep spice in your marriage is to do things together that are outside your regular routine. So last night, R. and I went on a date to a cooking class. As we drove over, we both sighed that we wished we were just going out to dinner and then back to watch some TV – a sign that doing something different was definitely a good idea. As we parked, we could see that the brightly lit kitchen where we were heading was full of people milling about:

Kate: “Yuck.”

R.: “Look at all those people. Do we have to talk to them?”

Kate: “No way, man, we’re on a date; let’s just talk to each other.”

R.: “Why are we doing this?”

But we walked in, got our menus and sat down, and proceeded to have a most excellent time. Not only did we learn a new cooking method, a patented process called “Glorious One-Pot Meals,” but I discovered that what I had read about romance was true. R. looked, well, hot with his messy haircut, gray long john t-shirt, jeans and an apron. I liked watching him get into preparing our dish, chopping garlic and tomatoes and brushing olive oil on baguette slices for the crostini. I especially liked seeing him relaxed and distracted from the awful economic news of the last few weeks, which has consumed our household like a flesh-eating bacteria.

As the night went on, I found myself hanging all over him like a lovestruck teenager; grabbing his elbow or sticking my face in his for a quick peck. And hey, so what if as soon as we got home he fell asleep without so much as a kiss good night for me; the benefit of doing something different was clear.

Aside from the lovey-dovey aspect of the evening, the next best thing was the class itself. First, the instructor was awfully cute and engaging as she described this method of cooking she had come up with in response to the discovery at age 29 that she had multiple sclerosis. She decided that one of the best ways to combat it was to eat as healthily as possible, but with no nutrition background she had no idea how to do that. Nor did she have any time to make extensive meals. One night she decided to just throw a bunch of ingredients into a Dutch oven, stick it in the oven at 450°, and let it cook. 45 minutes later she took it out of the oven, and saw that everything was cooked perfectly. She experimented with this way of cooking for awhile, and basically learned that this was a whole new method of cooking– so she patented it.

We made several recipes with her process, but the basic idea is that you take a protein, vegetables and a carb, and whatever herbs, spices, etc. that you want, layer them in a 2 quart, cast iron Dutch oven in their whole state (just cleaned, trimmed and scrubbed, or cut up if you want), then stick them in a fully pre-heated 450° oven. Exactly 45 minutes later, everything is cooked perfectly. Strangely, this is apparently even true if the meat or vegetables you are using are frozen.

I was definitely skeptical about the whole thing, but every single recipe we made was excellent. We made a ginger-citrus chicken dish, honey spiced pork, eggplant parmesan, a Portuguese shrimp dish with quinoa, edamame and tomatoes, a sausage and polenta dish – even a chocolate, coconut and hazelnut bread pudding. What was neat about all the dishes is that the ingredients didn’t seep into each other to make a big, messy stew, but instead stayed separate while still infusing everything with the flavors of all the ingredients. And SO easy: you just clean and assemble everything, toss it in the pot, and there you go. The only thing you really need to make sure of is that your oven is exactly 450°, which apparently is often an issue.

I immediately reserved her current cookbook from the library, and if the dishes continue to turn out well at home, then I’ll order her new cookbook when it comes out in January.

Idle Thoughts.

Most of you kids are probably too young to remember a time when Neil Diamond was played on the radio as more than an example of an oldie, but indeed there was such a time. Now, I’ve never been a particular fan of Neil Diamond, but when I was little my dad certainly was. Neil was always crooning from my father’s turntable, or from the 8-track in the car. I was reminded of Mr. Diamond today when someone sent me a note to say he is on a world tour and that surely I would be going. And… no, but it did remind me of a cheesy story. When I was 6 or 7 years old, for a talent show at school a friend and I did some sort of ridiculous tumbling routine to "Lonely Looking Sky" or whatever it’s called from Jonathan Livingston Seagull. We hadn't really planned it out that well so it was this sort of interminable few minutes of little girls doing somersaults to music on a stage in front of an awful lot of people. I cringe to think about it, but at the same time it sounds kind of sweet and innocent – more so than the idea of today’s little girls shaking their money-makers along with Miley Cyrus.

Speaking of work, as I was rather peripherally, it bugs the shit out of me when someone walks in to my office and walks over behind my desk. My office is set up so that I face the door, so it’s quite an invasion of space to join me behind my desk. There is one person at work who does it every time she comes in, and I’m getting so irritated by it I’m almost ready to say something to her. The only other person I can remember ever doing that to me was a young guy at one of my old law firms, who not only came around behind my desk, but tried to give me a shoulder rub. I told him to get his hands off me, and that was that. I wasn’t the only person he acted that way with, however, and not surprisingly he was canned. I’m not suggesting this woman needs to be canned, but she does need to stay away from my frigging desk.

Life Goes On.

A lot of small things have been going on in my small life:

1. I went to Florida for the weekend to visit my dad. He had open heart surgery about three weeks ago, and he is doing great. I don’t know what I was expecting when I walked in the door, but I was scared he wouldn’t look like himself. I was secretly expecting him to look older, thinner, frail; vulnerable. But I walked into the room, and he stood up from his chair, looking just like his same old self, and gave me a hug. Not a bear hug, mind you, as he is more than tentative about anyone getting near his scar, but enough of one that I felt overwhelming relief.

While in Florida, I was able to have lunch with our blogging friend, Broady. We had a very nice visit, and I even found time to have lunch on a balcony overlooking the water in St. Augustine. That’s the second time in 2 months we’ve been able to hang out, so not bad for living across the country from one another!

2. There have been layoffs at my job, and it has been unpleasant and upsetting. People I know pretty well were let go.

3. I got a new car. In the interest of downsizing, I traded in my 2006 Audi wagon for a 2008 Hyundai Santa Fe. I got it “used,” with a whopping 2100 miles on it. It even still smells new. Basically, the only difference between it and a new car is that someone else took the depreciation hit on it for me. I can’t believe it, but I actually like it better than my Audi, and my car payment is HALF of what it was for the Audi.
















4. I’ve been tending to this. As you can see, he is in something of a stage.

When Will I Learn?

Pregnant women are not supposed to make rash decisions, and I just did. In fact, I made the classic fat pregnant woman mistake: I just went in for a haircut at lunch, and instead of getting a nice little trim of my lovely long hair, I chopped it off. It’s a perfectly nice haircut, but all of a sudden I feel like my entire, pregnant self is exposed in a way it wasn’t with long hair. Maybe I was able to hide behind my curtain of long hair, but now everything seems on display. I HATE when I do shit like that.

Escape.

If I weren’t pregnant, I firmly believe I would be putting the full court press on my husband to pick up sticks and move elsewhere right now. For me, “elsewhere” always means London or Paris, and I think he’d be alright with that if it didn’t cost so stinking much money to live there. Of course, it costs a lot less to live there than it does to visit, and soon our currency might be worth so little that we would be doing better if we were paid in euros than we are now. But… it’s not an option.

I did suggest the other day, however, that “wouldn’t it be fun!?” if we rented a house in London for the last month of my maternity leave. It would be a nightmare getting an 18 month old and a 2-month old over there, but once we were there I think it would be great! I could serve up pre-fab dinners from Marks and Spencer every night, and push the kids all around town in their stroller as I “researched” my first novel. I have no idea what this first novel would be about, but it would be set in London and I’d need to know on what corner my protagonist’s favorite Prêt-à-Manger was located.

Of course, this fantasy overlooks some basic facts, such as:

1. It would cost $6 or $7000 to rent a decent, furnished house for a month.
2. Getting around London with a stroller would be horrible. I’d end up spending hundreds of dollars on taxis.
3. The first three months after pregnancy were a little bit of a nightmare for me. Not only did I remain a beached whale/sharpei for rather a long time, I was depressed, confused, and overall not very functional.

Add a toddler to that and I might be spending the last month of my leave in a psych ward. But it’s a wonderful fantasy, and I’ve been trotting it out in my head a lot lately; especially at this time of year where the leaves are starting to change and the evenings are crisp. I love London in the fall.

Maybe we will give it more serious consideration if McCain is elected. Then again, at that point maybe we will really need to start looking for jobs abroad. I know that’s the cry of the over-educated liberal, but fuck it. If it’s an option, why not? It’s not like I’ll be able to tolerate being around the Colorado “moral compass” for another second.

Which reminds me (and really, this is my final non-sequitur of the day): one thing that pisses me off most about the whole Republican vs. Democrat thing is the way that the Republican party paints Democrats as a seething mass of amorality, and themselves as these pillars of righteousness, guided at every turn by the strength of their “morality.” First of all, it’s absolutely absurd to argue that they are “moral” as a group and we are not. Second, just what does “morality” mean, anyway? To the Republicans, it seems to mean a rigid set of rules about what is “right” in a religious sense, and which should in all cases be imposed on everyone else. To me, it means knowing what is “right” in a more fundamental sense, and knowing that the pool of what is right is a lot more broad than what a certain church says. An example might be that the love of another person, given freely and with compassion and understanding, is “right,” regardless of the gender of the lover and the one who is loved.

Er, how did I get there? I guess that’s all I have on my mind these days.

The Days Ahead.

This morning I made the mistake at looking at pictures of myself during my last pregnancy. As I was getting ready for work, I thought that for 17 weeks pregnant I’m looking much better than I did last time. I figured I could give myself a nice boost by looking at my old pictures for confirmation, and so I did. And… it turns out that at 17 weeks I was looking reasonably intact last time, too. But by 24 weeks… not so much. Then, I looked like someone had blown up a body-shaped balloon under all of my skin, but solidly; I looked a bit whalish, if truth be told. So as I shove a chocolate-glazed doughnut into my maw, I realize what’s in store for me. Why does eating everything in sight have to be a part of my personal pregnancy process?

In other news, I bought a ticket yesterday to visit my father, who had heart surgery last week. Apparently everything went very well, and it was surprising to hear him sounding just like himself the next day. I must have caught him at the end of a cycle of painkillers, however, because each time I’ve spoken with him since he sounds rather loopy. Still, it keeps him from feeling the pain of a 67-year old sternum that’s working to knit itself back together, so there you go.

My weekend in Florida will be the first time either R. or I have had an extended period alone with the baby. I know how tired I am at the end of a weekend day chasing him around, so I feel a little guilty saddling R. with 3 nights and 2 full days of it. Still, we’ve got to do it sometime, and I need to see my dad. Too bad the circumstances aren’t better, with me heading off for a weekend in London or Paris (I can’t believe there was a time in my life when that was not uncommon for me.) But despite how bad my last flying experience was, which left me very relieved I had no trips at all in my known future, I’m trying to look at the positive: several hours ALL ALONE, just me and my books and magazines. As long as I can read the words through my tears of panic, which I’m not allowed to smooth away with blessed vodka, it could be rather nice. It’s been an awfully long time since I’ve thought a flight might be nice.

Other Things on My Mind.

I’m having a hard time lately with the whole “working” thing. My brain is everywhere else, and yet it’s needed at my desk, where it’s paid to think about stuff. And by stuff, I don’t mean:

Presidential politics;
Dreaming of winning the lottery;
How my dad’s chest is now wired together;
Why my fingers still smell like garlic from cooking dinner last night;
Why my pregnant tummy just looks like a sloppy beer belly;
How I will starve myself to a size 4 after this baby is born, and
What to name the new kid.

Not one penny of my salary is allocated toward analyzing these things, not even the clearly important issue of the garlic smell. Which, I’ll have you know, comes from a rather nice dinner I prepared last night: chicken breasts with roasted figs, gorgonzola and prosciutto, as well as a lovely, basic risotto – all drizzled with a balsamic reduction. I didn’t take a picture, which is just as well, because it was basically all just kind of reddish, but it tasted great. Who knew a balsamic reduction was so easy to make?

On another topic, let’s talk about the whole Baby Number Two thing for a moment. As you may recall, before I found out that Eeyore was a boy, I had my heart set on having a little girl. A girl was just always what I had assumed I would have, probably because I had never known anything different. I’ve always had a close relationship with my mother, and I wanted the same thing with a daughter of my own. So when it became clear we were having a boy, I cried for a little bit, and then I got over it. Once I actually met Eeyore, I couldn’t imagine him being anyone different; he’s a perfect little person.
















When I got pregnant again, I proclaimed that I would be fine with another boy; in fact, I’d probably prefer it because now I know how wonderful it is. But for some reason, since the beginning I have just felt that this one is a girl. And last week, I found out just how excited I had actually been by that prospect. Unfortunately, I found that out when my doctor told me we are having another boy. “Oh, honey,” she said, “That’s a penis.” “Oh, okay,” I said, and then I burst into tears.

And I’ve had a hard time getting my mind around it ever since. I look at my beautiful son’s open, adorable face, and know that as soon as the new baby gets here everything will fall into place, but for now I’m still mourning the loss of a relationship I’ll never have; just a little bit.

Happy Anniversary to Me.

I realized this morning that it has been three years this month since I started this blog, or at least its predecessor. In honor of that, I thought I'd post one of my favorite old posts today, which is not likely to be one of yours. It's ridiculously juvenile, but I remember laughing when I wrote it and I could use a laugh today, so here you go:

I think it’s safe to say that a good time was had by all!

Huh. “Yankee Swap.” I had never been to one before. It was a very nice party, as parties go, and it was reasonably amusing to have the fake competition over the crappiest shit you have ever seen in one room. Except that there was one woman there who was subconsciously asking me to pull her hair out by the roots and make her eat it. She kept picking this revolting, plug in leprechaun that everyone kept pretending was a “gnome,” and when people would choose it on their round and come to take it away from her, 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.

I happened to have chosen a high number, Number 28, and for those of you unfamiliar with the Yankee Swap, that means that my turn came late in the game such that I was permitted to choose from all gifts that had previously been opened. When Number 28 was called, I pretended to look around like I had all this wondrous bounty to choose from. Then I announced that I was going to choose my own gift under the tree, which had yet to be opened. The hostess said, “You are?” I said, “No,” and smiled at the bitch clinging to the fucking gnome; just enough so my incisors pointed out daintily over my bottom lip like the sweetest little fangs. She 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 really cute as she clung to the rotten fucking leprechaun. Everyone was watching us. I reached out and pried the hideous, plastic figure from her grasp. She still held a sweaty piece of paper in her hand. “It’s no good without the instructions,” she said. “Then give me the fucking instructions,” I replied. The party broke up soon after.

My Wheels are Grinding.

Apparently people aren’t so interested in my other blog. I have only the merest trickle of traffic there, which perhaps ought to tell me that not everyone is as up in arms over the state of the nation as I am. I think I’m so focused on politics right now because it gives me something to think and write about that is outside my everyday routine. Because let’s face it; my everyday routine is not only dull, but I’ve pretty much run it into the ground as a topic for discussion. What, am I going to tell you yet again about how I watched CNN from my couch last night? How we wanted to take Eeyore on a walk before dinner but got home too late? How R. and I have barreled into adulthood and sometimes want to cry from the perceived limitedness of it all?

Going to work and raising a child and worrying about one’s parents and finances and future are perfectly normal components of a life, but I’m having a hard time right now thinking of ways to spin them into daily reading material. I can tell you once that my child’s laugh has some strange connection straight to an actual, physical place in my heart I had no idea existed, or that after I give him his bottle before bed he likes to turn over on my chest, hug me and lie there until he falls asleep, so that I never, ever want to get up, but then I’ve told you those things and they don’t really need to be repeated.

All this is why writing about politics is working for me right now, even if it does lead to a very Washingtonian, unhealthy obsession with politics, the media, the whole kit and caboodle. I’ve needed something to write about to try to pull myself out of the torpor I’ve let myself sink into – a catalyst to feeling more involved with the rest of the world outside the protective four walls of our little family home.

A Weekend in Hell.

Have you ever had a weekend where you could have just died and that really would have been OK? This was one of those weekends. I woke up Saturday morning to find Eeyore had had an awful blowout; the kind where you pretty much have to scrub everything within the vicinity of the crib. Thankfully, he seemed none the worse for wear, but I, on the other hand, had some sort of flu. I laid in bed all day long, unable to really move, while R. took care of Eeyore. I couldn’t even watch TV, which is when you know things are really bad. Then, during the night, R. came down with whatever I had, times 2. He spent today in bed while I took care of the baby in a decidedly half-assed manner. When I had a second to think, all I could think about was how I’m behind at work and how I really need to hunker down this week and just work and not piss around thinking about politics or anything else.

But hey – on the upside, my mom is having surgery on her shoulder next week and my father is having open heart surgery – should be a banner week for all. I haven’t been focusing on my dad’s surgery the way I should; I think I am in some sort of denial. It’s a valve replacement and single bypass, which are very common and have a great recovery rate. Still, that’s all well and good when it’s somebody else’s dad. I’m in a very large vortex of Catholic guilt around both of these operations. I know I should be there for both of them, lending moral support – especially for my dad’s. And I’m not, and my guilt tells me my excuses are feeble. I don’t have any more vacation days, we are careening towards the end of our savings, how can I be both places at once so why not neither. I’m just sort of paralyzed – I don’t even check fares because I know they’re high and I think if I don’t look the whole issue will disappear.

I know; it’s screwed up. Believe me. Even if you’ve turned your back on Catholicism, there’s no turning your back on the accompanying guilt.

I feel like I am in the most bizarre state of limbo I cold ever have imagined, and it just keeps going on, and on, and on. It takes me forever to take any action, and I keep waiting for the day when I wake up and know how to behave like a functioning member of adult society again. One who writes thank you notes, returns phone calls, buys plane tickets and deals with family responsibilities outside these four walls. Instead, I have turned completely inward, unable to take care of the simplest things. How is going to get better with another tiny baby on the way?

Well, enough pissing and moaning for one evening. I did start another blog, although I haven’t added anything new to it yet – it’s in my links list.

We All Need a Break Sometimes.

I’ll just tell you: I didn’t even watch McCain speak last night. For once, R. and I were actually in the land of the living, and had people over for dinner. Plus, what did I need to watch it for? I knew how it would go. There would be some smirking, some shoulder shrugs reminiscent of George W., and then some statements about bipartisanship that would stand in glaring contrast to the slash-and-burn, liberals-are-lazy-and-hate-America tone delivered by his “pit bull in lipstick” the night before. And who cares what he has to say? That nightmare with a beehive and tacky glasses will be president within two years, and she already rendered him completely obsolete with her “New Star of the GOP” speech the night before that the pundits are slavering over, so why not just spare myself the boredom?

Not that I’m over it. Au contraire – instead, I’ve decided that I need another blog; one devoted to politics (or what politicians wear, of course). I doubt everyone who comes to this blog wants to read about my liberal-leaning musings, and I’d like a place where I can write solely about politics and another where I can keep writing about anything else I feel like. That still might include describing my desire to beat Sarah Palin around the head with her own peep-toe pump, or it might involve a pie that I bake, but I don’t want to be limited on either front.

So now I just have to find a good name for this other blog, which is never really a fun task. Maybe I’ll call it “Maureen Dowd” just to see if I can bring traffic my way.

Sarah Palin Cows the Media, but Not Me.

I don’t even know where to begin. Sarah Palin’s speech was divisive, belligerent, smug, and at the same time totally lightweight. So why is the goddamned media fawning all over it like it was the best thing since sliced bread? I can see how it was effective for all the people who are already inclined to vote Republican, but I found her completely repellent. After everything I had read about how engaging she is, how personable, how charming, I was expecting to be greeted by someone that I might have a tough time resisting on a personal level, disagreeable though I might find her views. Instead, she seemed dead set on whipping up a nasty partisan frenzy; punctuated repeatedly by her pursed schoolmarm smirk. By the end of her tirade, I loathed her and her “I represent the little people” B.S. with every last boiling blood cell in my veins.

Let’s review:

1. She came out and spent a good 10 minutes introducing her hillbilly family, as if we haven’t read enough about their sluttish and/or unethical escapades (oh, sorry, that’s the escapades of “real families, just like yours”) in the news the last few days. I thought it was particularly charming that the pregnant teenaged daughter’s boyfriend was trotted out on the stage in his Sunday best after the speech, chewing gum like the child that he is. What a nice touch to validate the pre-marital sex that she deplores in order to show what a loving mother she is.

2. Her first “political” statement was to tell America she would be there as a voice for special needs parents in government. While that is certainly a laudable sentiment, positioning it at the top of her speech seemed designed to show what an understanding, sensitive mother she is. Again – fabulous – but perhaps not the most important issue on the country’s agenda this year. And arguably not on hers, either, as the entire Republican Party seemed to take a pass at babysitting poor little Trig during her speech. He was trotted out on the stage at the end, too – couldn’t one of her precious family members have stayed in the hotel room and made sure he was safely tucked into bed, where he should have been at that hour, instead of surrounded by the bright lights and screaming crowd in the arena?

3. Finally, Sarah started the mud-slinging. She compared her own experience to Obama’s, belittling his work as a community organizer and championing her own extensive qualifications as the mayor of a small town as the sine qua non of executive experience. She followed that up with a contemptuous dose of “I don’t trust the liberal elite,” and there you have the substance of her speech.

4. Oh, wait, she did talk a lot about drilling in Alaska as her way to address our energy crisis, so that was pretty useful.

5. Oh, yeah, and then told some lies: namely, that she didn’t support taking federal money to build the “Bridge to Nowhere,” and that Barack Obama never authored a law in Congress.

Ugh, that’s enough. She was nasty, and her speech (along with everything else I’ve heard coming out of the Republican Convention) sought to perpetuate the partisan divide in this country. Contrast that with Obama’s convention speech, in which he enumerated several issues on which the parties traditionally disagree, but on which he believes we can surely find common ground. He spoke about rebuilding a nation that is sorely divided; Sarah Palin sought to drive that stake even further into the ground. The Republican Party seeks to wrap that up even tighter in a soft blanket of sexism – simultaneously sporting their buttons that say “Hottest VP from the Coolest State” while accusing the Demorcats of sexism at every turn for daring to challenge Palin’s qualifications.

And speaking once again of qualifications, if I ever thought there wasn’t a danger she would actually find herself in the highest office in the land, seeing the tiny, waxen figure of John McCain come shuffling out at the end of the speech disabused me of that notion. I think he might already be dead. So watch out, lucky world.

Fun 'n Games in Minneapolis.

For the most part I can leave the charming Sarah Palin alone for the day, since there will surely be plenty to say tomorrow after she makes what amounts to her debut to the American public tonight. It’s only a debut because even though her candidacy was announced several days ago, the McCain campaign thinks it is appropriate to keep her from having to actually sit for an interview where she would have to answer a few questions about herself. Why? Because the “hostile media” clearly has it in for her, so they will bring her out “when the time is right.” I’m sorry, WTF? John McCain thinks this woman is capable of running our country, yet she can’t handle a few pointed questions from journalists? Of all the paternalistic crap I can imagine from the Barefoot-and-Pregnant Party, this takes the cake. Not to mention, for all the disagreements I have with Sarah Palin on the issues, she strikes me as a woman who could more than handle herself in an interview. So cut the nonsense and require her to give one. Jesus.

While I’m throwing a bone to the ladies here, rather than at their heads, I’ll toss another one to Cindy McCain. I feel kind of bad for her. She is clearly a perfectly lovely woman, as long as I don’t get into any kind of political discussion with her, and she never looks like she wants to be anywhere near this mess of national politics. She hangs in the background, looking reasonably chic in her throwback sort of way, and smiles when she needs to. I don’t know if it’s shyness or sadness, though, but there is something about her that seems pretty self-protective and closed in on herself. So, I might say some not-so-nice things here that I extrapolate from her Republicanism, but the truth is I don’t have much of a bone to pick with her other than I don’t want her anywhere near the White House.

Speaking of which, guess who will never be anywhere near the White House, or even Capitol Hill ever again, unless McCain picks him for a Cabinet post? That’s right; Joe “Stick a Fork in Me” Lieberman. Wow – that man is going to be the biggest pariah in town when he gets back to D.C. I can’t believe he had the nerve to stand up there and exhort Democrats to “think” about the choice they have to make here. Sorry, buddy, some of us have already thought about this in pretty great depth, and we decided that this wasn’t much of a decision at all. We aspire for a little bit more than the world your candidate promises to leave us with. And Lieberman’s poor wife, Hadassah, sitting out there in the audience next to Cindy McCain: you can’t tell me she wasn’t sitting there wondering what planet she was on. Did she really sign up for this, too? Maybe she could have taken a page from the Todd Palin book of political spouse behavior and kept her membership in her previous party. Of course, in his case that would be the Alaskan Independence Party, of which he was apparently a member until 2002.

This should be quite an administration.

Sarah Palin: Not the Pick of a Maverick.

I read over and over that John McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin as his running mate highlights once again his “maverick” status, but I can’t see how that is so. How is it “maverick” to choose a running mate straight out of the conservative base of his party? How is it “maverick” to choose a woman as your running mate then sit back and watch as the world is distracted by the soap-opera of her family drama and the continuously evolving list of her potential drawbacks?

Maybe it’s maverick to choose someone who would be singularly unprepared to take the reins when you die in office, but other than that this is all just classic, old-school Republican tactics to me. John McCain didn’t have the strength of his own convictions to pick one of the two pro-choice people he supposedly wanted most as his running mate until it became glaringly clear that the fire-and-brimstone crowd would hang him out to dry if he did so. Instead, without properly vetting his last-minute decision, he offered the iron-fisted evangelicals Sarah Palin on a silver platter, hoping he’d be killing two birds with one stone by choosing a woman for whom lots of independent-minded women surely would leap on board the Straight to Oblivion Express.

Nothing about all this is maverick other than to show just how badly a hastily made decision, one that shows a distinct lack of good judgment, can turn out. Shouldn’t we already know that from 8 years of watching George Bush shoot from the hip, using his own “maverick” style to take us into a needless conflict in Iraq? Don’t we need someone to make decisions for our country that result from genuine, thoughtful reflection, maybe a little consultation with someone other than the Dark Lord of Observatory Circle, rather than someone who keeps us on our inexorable march down this dangerous path?

Oh, the Delicious and Fortifying Juice!

I am deeply offended by the McCain campaign’s assertion that “liberal” blogs were mud-slinging by perpetuating the rumor that Sarah Palin is actually her son Trig’s grandmother and that her daughter, Bristol, is actually his mother. You will note I refrained from mentioning it here, even though you know I was salivating over it here in my living room. I could hardly wait for the national media to get on board. But of course, it was too delightfully salacious and they weren’t going to go there. Apparently fearing, however, that their baser instincts would get to them, much like Bristol’s got to her, the Palins announced today that there’s NO WAY Bristol could be Trig’s mother, because she is 5 months on her way to becoming the mom of some other lucky little devil! See? There’s no way she could have given birth to Trig because he’s only 4 months old, and Bristol’s been knocked up longer, get it? So we’ll take that story for now, but I can’t say that I am fully convinced there isn’t something even fishier going on here.

Either way, it’s hilarious, even if it is “private pain” and all that for the family. A McCain aide says McCain knew about this before he chose Palin as his running mate, and didn’t think it had any bearing on whether she was right for the job. While I agree that the fact that her daughter is a randy idiot teenager has little to do with her qualifications to step into the job of the most powerful person in the world if called upon to do so, which, of course, are nil, I’m still going to go out on a limb and say that there’s no way McCain knew about this in advance. There is no way in your God’s sweet heaven that had McCain known about this total embarrassment that he would have shoved this whole mess into the limelight. The Republicans can sling all the bullshit they want about how wonderful it is that Bristol “chose” to have the baby, and she’s so lucky to have a supportive family, but the bottom line is that this is nothing but an embarrassment and having to pretend it’s lemonade doesn’t change the reality.

As for Bristol’s “choice,” who knows if she actually had one? With Mommy being a pro-life zealot and in the public eye, I can’t imagine she did actually have a choice. Let’s hope she’s happy with having the child and marrying its father, because she’s going to have to live with it for at least 2 years until she can get divorced and take her baby with her to college in New York City, where she can become a liberal feminist author or something to seriously embarrass her parents. Ah, I jest: you can kind of tell from her vacant teenaged expression that she drinks the evangelical kool-aid. You know, except for not having sex before marriage. But at least she made sure that if she was going to do it, she wouldn’t do it without that forbidden contraception!!

One last comment: am I wrong, or does the Republican Convention so far seem like a complete and total mess? It’s like the waiting room of a funeral parlor. At least they got Laura Bush and Cindy McCain out for their joint speech on charity hurricane relief: awful. Sure, it’s a good message and all, but with the shy Cindy belted tightly into her welcome-home-honey frock coat and the frighteningly Joker-like Laura up there delivering the type of speech acceptable for a good 1960’s political wife, all I could see was “this is how the Republican Party truly likes its women.” Of course, the maverick McCain wants to prove us wrong by showing us strong women can run the White House with a rifle in one hand and an unborn child or two in the other, but … I’m not buying it. Maybe he wants her to totally screw up so she will have to pull out, he can take credit for having chosen a woman an an evangelical, then move forward with some other, more mainstream pick?