When your first child enters kindergarten, it's all about new adventures and wondrous excitement. Ok no, no it isn't. Not if you're freakishly overattached to your 5-year-old and the very thought of sending her to hang out with strangers for eight full hours a day for the first time since you became anyone's mother gives you hives the size of grapefruits and makes things like McDonald's commercials where parents get to eat french fries with their preschoolers perpetually and eternally send you in search of a Zoloft pill the size of a Volkswagon to gnaw on even though you've forever sworn off all drugs that can't be obtained via the Dunkin Donuts drive-thru or a box with a spigot in your refrigerator. In that case, it's all about angst and loss and regret and the cruelly incessant speed-of-light flight of years like sand through a leaden sieve, as in one minute you're chewing your labor coach's arm off just to distract yourself from the most ridiculous white-hot pain you wouldn't wish on anyone (except maybe your impregnator) and inventing curse words in languages you never knew you knew, but then you blink and, bango, public school is stealing her away from you forever. (If this is getting to you at all, do yourself a favor and never ever ever listen to the Abba song from Mamma Mia entitled "Slipping Through My Fingers" unless you happen to be the proud owner of a that Volkswagon-sized Zoloft I mentioned. Then there's "Ribbons Undone," by Tori Amos...I'm just warning you...)
Oh I'm mostly kidding (she's lying). It's been almost four weeks now, and I'm totally fine (she's overstating), I can't even remember the last time (yeah she can) when I sank to my knees in a lake of my own bitter tears as the bus pulled away and all the other parents slowly moved away and avoided all eye contact. It's been ages (days)!
Alright, so you get my point, I've found the whole kindergarten thing a bit challenging, but I was well under way with the agony months ago when she graduated from preschool, got the head start, and now I'm pretty good. And this is how I know.
Grace is home today with a bad cold and I'm...well, people, it's totally cramping my style! (Hands over mouth in shock.) This is the deal, she started honking and coughing and sputtering last week, running a low-grade temp, and I did all the right stuff, took her to the doctor, not once but twice over the course of a few days just to make sure I was being neurotic enough, and was assured, not once but twice, no strep, no pneumonia, no ear infection, no flu. (Is this sounding familiar? Then this isn't your first visit to my parlor, is it? I so love you guys...) So even though she was still coughy and sputtery yesterday, I sent her to school, doctor said ok to go.
And then what happens? Around noon I'm picking up my boy from preschool and my cell phone rings. "Hello Mrs. Stroh-Simon, this is the school nurse, I have Grace here...do you know she has a fever?"
Ok, so that sounds suspiciously like the question the officer asks when he pulls you over. "Do you know how fast you were going?" or worse "Do you know why I stopped you?" or much worse "Have you had anything to drink today?" Was there a right answer? Of course there was, and I gave it up right away,
"Oh dear me, NO!"
And it was the truth, I really had no frickin idea she had a fever, and here's why. Any of you own one of those ear thermometers? Excuse me, tympanic membrane thermometers? I have owned several of varying costs. Well here's the deal, apparently you have to buy one that's hospital-grade and costs about as much as your car to get an accurate reading. I stick the thing in the same ear over and over again, usually my own so as not to wear out its welcome in the children's ears, and it gives me a range anywhere from 89.8 to 101.9 and back again, never the same reading twice. So what am I supposed to do, take an average? What about an old fashioned oral thermometer, you ask? It does not fly, the only thing I can figure is that my daughter thinks it's a lethal weapon and that holding it under her tongue is going to trigger the secret spring-loaded hypodermic spikes to pop out of it. (What I love most about children is the trust...) And then there's that tried-and-true, ever accurate way...let's just say that my kids have an amazing spider sense, the minute I walk into the room hiding one of those trusty little devices they immediately affix themselves to the ceiling like that jumpy cartoon cat, you all know the one I mean, claws into the plaster, couldn't get them down with a crowbar, believe me...
Anyway, so no, I didn't entirely know she had a fever. But now I know I'm a bad mommy and I'm going to get a reputation as one of those mothers who does crazy shit like send their kids to school with whooptheria or Martian death flu or teradactyl pox or whatever else is waiting to snatch them up prior to the invention of the life-saving vaccine that will eradicate these evils and make the world safe for pharmaceutical millionaires everywhere, AND WE WILL ALL THANK GOD THAT WE CAN FINALLY SLEEP AGAIN...don't get me started...nevermind, I'm already started...but that's another day, another blog post...
My point (and, like Ellen DeGeneres, hero of comic relief heroes, I do have one) is that I have to keep Grace home today, and, like I indicated several digressions ago, I'm like...hmmmm, this is a little bit of a pain in the ass. Here I am with Calvin safely ensconced either at preschool or with his many home-based service providers (aka miracle workers) several hours a day receiving the kind of teaching and stimulation that I can only give so much of before I spontaneously combust...all those hours a week to try and make a living, continue my unceasing efforts to keep the home base from becoming a smoking crater, and then there's the time for uninterrupted blogging. I mean people, that's not hard to get used to. I know! After all that fussin and weepin and hollerin, the puddle at the bus stop, the whole thing. Oh how the worm begins to turn!
I consider this shift to be very good news, meaning that I am not as far gone as I once suspected. Relatively.
Ok, I know, I hear you, I am so gone...see that little streak out there in the distance? That's me. Gone.
But I will be back, everybody's got to go back to school some time, come hell or whooptheria.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Monday, September 28, 2009
The Taj Econolodge
Well, so much for my second post being "tomorrow," that would have been around 4 days ago. But as I sit here trying to compose my next offering, someone is yattering in my face a very long story about how Dora's going to save the Crystal Kingdom. At the same time she's telling me about Dora (because I sooooo want to know all about it, so so so badly), she's simultaneously erecting a makeshift ice-cream stand and needs me to make a purchase. She's a hard sell, that one.
And while all this is going on in Gracie's world, Calvin has somehow made his high chair walk a few feet away from the breakfast table over to me and my laptop and is yank yank yanking on my shirt sleeve, telling me, in very insistent tones, "I duck! Open!!!" (Good talking, Cal! Nice request!) Which means, of course, that he is in fact stuck (not a duck), and that I should please open the belt and release him from his incarceration even though he's eaten absolutely none of his breakfast. The child is living on diluted fruit juice, corn chips, and gluten-free pretzels, what am I going to do with him?!? (That's not a rhetorical question...anyone with children on the autism spectrum who are finding any success with their self-limiting eaters, feel free to PLEASE TELL ME WHAT TO DO!!!!!!!!!!!)
Ok, anyway, that's just by way of telling you why "tomorrow's" post never came, and that it had nothing whatsoever to do with any images you might have conjured in your macabre imaginations of me passed out on the kitchen floor with a smile on my face and a half-empty jug of Tylenol-with-codeine in my hand. Nothing of the sort. Besides, I checked, that stuff's expired, could be dangerous, not messing with it.
So on to today's topic. It was going to be all about my history as an eating disordered maniac...and don't panic, I've still got the draft. But that subject is being tabled for now, because I have to tell you about our little family minitrip this past weekend.
Firstly, we shouldn't be taking any trips anywhere, because any trip at all, even a cute little (mini, wee, teensy) 200-mile road trip like the one we just took requires a little bit of cash. And at the risk of taunting the law of attraction into bankrupting me forever (oooh, I'm so scared, like I haven't stared that demon in the face before...ok, so I am totally scared, the sarcasm was fake...I find I just can't lie to you...), I'll say it, we ain't got a little bit of cash right now to be throwing wildly around on luxuries like a 2-night stay at an Econolodge in Ithaca, New York. And don't think I can't see you shaking your heads at my exhibiting the kind of wasteful, irresponsible extravagance that has already brought our nation's economy to its knees. Guilty, guilty, guilty.
But the thing is, it was a few months ago, when circumstances weren't looking so godawfully bleak and hopeless yet, that I'd been surfing the internet and found out that singer/songwriter Laurie Berkner would be performing at the State Theater in Ithaca, and that it would be a whopping 40 bucks to purchase tickets for Gracie and myself (15 for the kid, 25 for me). I should probably take a second to explain how Grace feels about Laurie Berkner...let's just say that I feel a certain way about an artist named Tori Amos, Goddess of my Life and Sister of my Heart, and that Grace seems to have a similar affinity for her Laurie as I do for my Tori. That said, I talked to the husband about it. Both he and I have an Ithaca history, Cornell for me, Ithaca College for him, and wouldn't it be nice to do a little weekend trip there, show the kids where we went to college, stay at a cheap motel, beautiful fall weekend, sure, why not, and a few clicks later I had two tickets in the orchestra section.
We settled on just Grace and I doing the concert because we're pretty sure that Calvin would have more fun hanging out with his dad and looking for a good old kegger in a good old college town. (KIDDING, I know he's only 3...although if his first complete sentence turns out to be "Daddy and I are looking for a kegger," I guess I only have myself to blame, what else is new.) Last time we tried to take Cal to a movie, the theater's sound system made him shake like jello on a trampoline and do everything in his power to claw his way over my body and out of the building. His first big show will come too, I'm thinking maybe Thomas or Diego, but for now it was girls to the concert, boys on their own. Plus, the theater is located on Ithaca Commons, which was also the site this past weekend for their awesome Apple Harvest Festival...not a bad weekend to bum around town.
[Just because I really feel like we're so close that I can't keep anything from you, I want to let you know that I just had to interrupt my posting to run across the room and save my son's life. Something in his mouth, no gum or chewing tobacco in the house that I'm aware of, God knows he won't eat anything this morning so I doubted it was food...turned out to be the rubber tire off a toy vehicle, just the right size to block a windpipe. As my pulse rate returns to normal and I type with one hand for the time it takes for feeling to return to the finger that I almost just lost to my 3-year-old's voracious maw, anyone out there with children on the autism spectrum who incessantly mouth everything they can get their hands on, LET ME KNOW HOW YOU'RE COPING WITH THIS!!!!!!!!]
Ok, so fast forward to the week before the trip. Money is scarce, and Grace has decided to come down with a whopper of a head cold, plenty of fever, a few trips to the doctor to assure me that she was strep-free, pneumonia-free, flu-free, just a mean old cold virus. I'd put off telling her about the Laurie Berkner concert until just about the day before take-off, but once she found out, every time I approached her with the thermometer to stick in her ear she'd look up at me in horror and cry out, pathetically, between coughs and honks and snot sputters, "Please let me go see Laurie Berkner even though I'm sick!" What's a mother to do? I repeat, no strep, no pneumonia, no flu...so of course, we loaded the car and off we went.
This was our first hotel experience with the kids. Well, as far as Grace was concerned, we weren't at no stinkin' Econolodge. It was the Waldorf.
"What's dat fing, Mommy?"
"That's an ice machine, honey, look, the ice comes out and you put it in a bucket to keep your soda cold."
"Wow!!!!!!!!"
Eyes wide with wonder and utter delight. And we went through the same ecstatic revelation for every little thing from the tiny soaps (they floated!) and shampoo bottles that we could even take home (GASP!), to the extra surprise pillow hiding in one of the dresser drawers, to the funky hair dryer with the magically retractable cord in the bathroom. I'll tell you, people, through my daughter's eyes, I've never stayed anywhere nicer. With Gracie by my side, the critics can write up however many stars they want, we know the real deal. And we hadn't even gotten to the concert yet.
But when we did, holy smokes. First of all, I somehow ended up with front-row-center seats. And that's just ridiculous. Sure I went online the second the pre-sale started, password in hand (rocketship!), but in my past experience that didn't necessarily mean you'd even get a seat, let alone end up in the front row. Remember when Tori Amos played the Hammerstein Ballroom? Yeah, well I do, pre-sale, schmee-sale, ended up going through a broker, landed in the back row, and I choose not to remember what I paid. Let's just say those tickets were not $40 for a pair. But I digress (who me?), sorry. Back to my story, I find our seats, shocked to be front-row-center, me with my cup of lobby coffee, Grace with her lobby juice box, the two of us sharing a chocolate-frosted donut...and all the time I'm thinking, great, this is where she thinks we'll always get to sit when we see a show.
So once we were sitting there a little while, my, how the excitement did build. I mean, come on, we were 2 feet from the stage! (And I must say I wasn't prepared for that area turning into a baby mosh pit, what the...) The set back-drop was a mural that incorporated images from lots of Laurie's songs (Look, that's the shady tree...there's the moon moon moon with the light switch....etc., etc....). And of course the instruments were right up there for all to see.
"Mommy," she whispered reverently, "Is that Laurie's...ti-gar?"
It was TOTALLY Laurie's ti-gar.
Wiggling back and forth in our seats, "I'm so excited, I'm so excited, she's gonna come out, she's gonna come out!"
And then she came out, and here's where without a visual, how can I tell you what it was like? Here goes. There was a light that came out of the face next to me, and if I could have found a way to somehow catch that in a bottle I'm sure it would easily power and warm all your homes all this winter. One of Laurie Berkner's songs goes,
I went out today and I saw the sun shine,
shining out its light,
yes I saw the sun shine,
I went out today and I saw the sun shine,
I'm just like the sun.
Holding hands with my girl while those opening strains rang out over us in the front row, Grace watching Laurie, me watching Grace, I felt just like the sun.
Worth every penny.
And while all this is going on in Gracie's world, Calvin has somehow made his high chair walk a few feet away from the breakfast table over to me and my laptop and is yank yank yanking on my shirt sleeve, telling me, in very insistent tones, "I duck! Open!!!" (Good talking, Cal! Nice request!) Which means, of course, that he is in fact stuck (not a duck), and that I should please open the belt and release him from his incarceration even though he's eaten absolutely none of his breakfast. The child is living on diluted fruit juice, corn chips, and gluten-free pretzels, what am I going to do with him?!? (That's not a rhetorical question...anyone with children on the autism spectrum who are finding any success with their self-limiting eaters, feel free to PLEASE TELL ME WHAT TO DO!!!!!!!!!!!)
Ok, anyway, that's just by way of telling you why "tomorrow's" post never came, and that it had nothing whatsoever to do with any images you might have conjured in your macabre imaginations of me passed out on the kitchen floor with a smile on my face and a half-empty jug of Tylenol-with-codeine in my hand. Nothing of the sort. Besides, I checked, that stuff's expired, could be dangerous, not messing with it.
So on to today's topic. It was going to be all about my history as an eating disordered maniac...and don't panic, I've still got the draft. But that subject is being tabled for now, because I have to tell you about our little family minitrip this past weekend.
Firstly, we shouldn't be taking any trips anywhere, because any trip at all, even a cute little (mini, wee, teensy) 200-mile road trip like the one we just took requires a little bit of cash. And at the risk of taunting the law of attraction into bankrupting me forever (oooh, I'm so scared, like I haven't stared that demon in the face before...ok, so I am totally scared, the sarcasm was fake...I find I just can't lie to you...), I'll say it, we ain't got a little bit of cash right now to be throwing wildly around on luxuries like a 2-night stay at an Econolodge in Ithaca, New York. And don't think I can't see you shaking your heads at my exhibiting the kind of wasteful, irresponsible extravagance that has already brought our nation's economy to its knees. Guilty, guilty, guilty.
But the thing is, it was a few months ago, when circumstances weren't looking so godawfully bleak and hopeless yet, that I'd been surfing the internet and found out that singer/songwriter Laurie Berkner would be performing at the State Theater in Ithaca, and that it would be a whopping 40 bucks to purchase tickets for Gracie and myself (15 for the kid, 25 for me). I should probably take a second to explain how Grace feels about Laurie Berkner...let's just say that I feel a certain way about an artist named Tori Amos, Goddess of my Life and Sister of my Heart, and that Grace seems to have a similar affinity for her Laurie as I do for my Tori. That said, I talked to the husband about it. Both he and I have an Ithaca history, Cornell for me, Ithaca College for him, and wouldn't it be nice to do a little weekend trip there, show the kids where we went to college, stay at a cheap motel, beautiful fall weekend, sure, why not, and a few clicks later I had two tickets in the orchestra section.
We settled on just Grace and I doing the concert because we're pretty sure that Calvin would have more fun hanging out with his dad and looking for a good old kegger in a good old college town. (KIDDING, I know he's only 3...although if his first complete sentence turns out to be "Daddy and I are looking for a kegger," I guess I only have myself to blame, what else is new.) Last time we tried to take Cal to a movie, the theater's sound system made him shake like jello on a trampoline and do everything in his power to claw his way over my body and out of the building. His first big show will come too, I'm thinking maybe Thomas or Diego, but for now it was girls to the concert, boys on their own. Plus, the theater is located on Ithaca Commons, which was also the site this past weekend for their awesome Apple Harvest Festival...not a bad weekend to bum around town.
[Just because I really feel like we're so close that I can't keep anything from you, I want to let you know that I just had to interrupt my posting to run across the room and save my son's life. Something in his mouth, no gum or chewing tobacco in the house that I'm aware of, God knows he won't eat anything this morning so I doubted it was food...turned out to be the rubber tire off a toy vehicle, just the right size to block a windpipe. As my pulse rate returns to normal and I type with one hand for the time it takes for feeling to return to the finger that I almost just lost to my 3-year-old's voracious maw, anyone out there with children on the autism spectrum who incessantly mouth everything they can get their hands on, LET ME KNOW HOW YOU'RE COPING WITH THIS!!!!!!!!]
Ok, so fast forward to the week before the trip. Money is scarce, and Grace has decided to come down with a whopper of a head cold, plenty of fever, a few trips to the doctor to assure me that she was strep-free, pneumonia-free, flu-free, just a mean old cold virus. I'd put off telling her about the Laurie Berkner concert until just about the day before take-off, but once she found out, every time I approached her with the thermometer to stick in her ear she'd look up at me in horror and cry out, pathetically, between coughs and honks and snot sputters, "Please let me go see Laurie Berkner even though I'm sick!" What's a mother to do? I repeat, no strep, no pneumonia, no flu...so of course, we loaded the car and off we went.
This was our first hotel experience with the kids. Well, as far as Grace was concerned, we weren't at no stinkin' Econolodge. It was the Waldorf.
"What's dat fing, Mommy?"
"That's an ice machine, honey, look, the ice comes out and you put it in a bucket to keep your soda cold."
"Wow!!!!!!!!"
Eyes wide with wonder and utter delight. And we went through the same ecstatic revelation for every little thing from the tiny soaps (they floated!) and shampoo bottles that we could even take home (GASP!), to the extra surprise pillow hiding in one of the dresser drawers, to the funky hair dryer with the magically retractable cord in the bathroom. I'll tell you, people, through my daughter's eyes, I've never stayed anywhere nicer. With Gracie by my side, the critics can write up however many stars they want, we know the real deal. And we hadn't even gotten to the concert yet.
But when we did, holy smokes. First of all, I somehow ended up with front-row-center seats. And that's just ridiculous. Sure I went online the second the pre-sale started, password in hand (rocketship!), but in my past experience that didn't necessarily mean you'd even get a seat, let alone end up in the front row. Remember when Tori Amos played the Hammerstein Ballroom? Yeah, well I do, pre-sale, schmee-sale, ended up going through a broker, landed in the back row, and I choose not to remember what I paid. Let's just say those tickets were not $40 for a pair. But I digress (who me?), sorry. Back to my story, I find our seats, shocked to be front-row-center, me with my cup of lobby coffee, Grace with her lobby juice box, the two of us sharing a chocolate-frosted donut...and all the time I'm thinking, great, this is where she thinks we'll always get to sit when we see a show.
So once we were sitting there a little while, my, how the excitement did build. I mean, come on, we were 2 feet from the stage! (And I must say I wasn't prepared for that area turning into a baby mosh pit, what the...) The set back-drop was a mural that incorporated images from lots of Laurie's songs (Look, that's the shady tree...there's the moon moon moon with the light switch....etc., etc....). And of course the instruments were right up there for all to see.
"Mommy," she whispered reverently, "Is that Laurie's...ti-gar?"
It was TOTALLY Laurie's ti-gar.
Wiggling back and forth in our seats, "I'm so excited, I'm so excited, she's gonna come out, she's gonna come out!"
And then she came out, and here's where without a visual, how can I tell you what it was like? Here goes. There was a light that came out of the face next to me, and if I could have found a way to somehow catch that in a bottle I'm sure it would easily power and warm all your homes all this winter. One of Laurie Berkner's songs goes,
I went out today and I saw the sun shine,
shining out its light,
yes I saw the sun shine,
I went out today and I saw the sun shine,
I'm just like the sun.
Holding hands with my girl while those opening strains rang out over us in the front row, Grace watching Laurie, me watching Grace, I felt just like the sun.
Worth every penny.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
It's Really All About the Comedy..Really...
Hey, it's my first blaaaggggghhhhh post! I chose today to finally start this because I've spent most of the morning having a spectacular nervous breakdown...not my nineteenth, I'd say more like nineteen thousandth. So nice to know that some things don't change, once an everloving mess, always an everloving mess. With that kind of a start to the day, the thing should pretty much write itself.
It's been a good one--the breakdown, I mean. And by "good" I mean that I was having fond thoughts toward the giant bottle of kids' Tylenol-with-codeine tucked up there in the cupboard. (Seriously, you should see the size of the bottle we got when our 2-year-old broke his arm, I think they misjudged his weight by a few hundred pounds or kilos, we used maybe a teaspoon out of this quart-size-looking thing the drugstore sent us home with...although now the patient is 3 years old, so it could be expired...see, it probably wouldn't have worked anyway, I think I heard somewhere that narcotics lose their potency when they get too old, which sounds like a metaphor I don't feel like developing, so I won't). But then, after the codeine thought I had a fleeting thought about how much I'm looking forward to Dancing with the Stars tonight, double elimination excitement, too much to live for on a Wednesday to think of quaffing a quart of codeine over a momentary meltdown.
So there I was, all over the floor, in the kitchen, sobbing and quaking, using loud verbiage (all of which probably made the neighbors think I was watching Sybil or The Exorcist, or maybe playing both simultaneously), shaking my fist at the heavens about what an over-the-hill, washed-up, used-up, waste-of-talent, hopeless piece of uselessness I've turned out to be. Really, it was great, you shoulda been here, skip the premiere of Grey's Anatomy and just hang out at my house.
My 3-year-old son, Calvin, caught the act live, but he has autism and tends not to notice when I'm out of sorts, not so you can tell anyway-- for example, today he just seemed to find the whole episode a delightful opportunity to get down on the floor with me and blissfully nuzzle his head into any part of my body he could expose skin on (per usual), cooing and giggling and chortling with glee, totally unfazed by conduct from his mother that would have been most appropriate for a mental patient on the ward that the medicine fairy forgot to visit. (Which one of us has the disability again?)
Anywho, why so glum, mum?
Well, firstly, there are a few days of every month that are turning out to be very dangerous for me, hormonally speaking. And if you're someone who thinks that's just a cop out and/or excuse that women use to explain away bad moods and behavior, you're entitled to your opinion, but you should honestly fold said opinion up until it's all sharp corners and go fuck yourself with it. (See what happened there? With the language and the overreacting? I think I make my point.)
But beyond the biochemistry, there's also the little matter of personal finance. Oh glorious failure, welcome back! I don't know what it is with me, honestly. I mean, if you ran into me at the Stop Rite, it's not like you'd be thinking to yourself "this woman couldn't make enough money to help adequately support herself and her family if she were Paris Hilton's dumpy older sister." I look ok, especially all cleaned up for grocery shopping. And if you ask anyone who's known me over the four decades I've been on this ride, many would tell you how "promising" I've always been.
Promising--that's how one of my grad school mentors, my favorite and my best, once introduced me to a bunch of her colleagues. "Please meet Tracy Stroh, one of our most promising candidates." I've never forgotten her words, not to mention others so much like them, from pre-K through the Ivy league, all those folks I've totally bamboozled with my promises of promisingness.
Maybe I should have asked them all what it was that I was actually promising, because I don't think I've ever gotten that part down. There's that devil in the details again. Which is what always seems to land me face down on the kitchen floor, over and over. It makes me think of a short story by Lorrie Moore, a story called "Willing," and the lines that go,
"She hadn't been given the proper tools to make a real life with, she decided, that was it. She'd been given a can of gravy and a hairbrush and told, 'There you go.' She'd stood there for years, blinking and befuddled, brushing the can with the brush."
Now THERE'S an everloving mess after my own heart. Can you be separated at birth from a twin if she's in a piece of short fiction? Guess not. You get my meaning, though.
And so, here you have it, my first post. Not terrible for someone who started the day like I did. Because, in the spirit of "this too shall pass," and as someone said in Monty Python movie, with an British accent which makes it funnier, "I got better." I'm sitting here, healthy as a horse, typing away rapid fire, kids peacefully watching the Noggin channel where they appear to be learning Chinese phrases, all's right with the world--and I'm so sure that, sooner or later, something too funny not to make me a millionaire will spill out here. There, I said it. I am so sure!
How long is a blaaaaaaaghhhhhh post supposed to run? Do I keep on blaaaaaghing, or do I save some of these gems for tomorrow? Well, Gracie is now saying, "I really gotta tell you somefin," and Calvin is yanking me with all his 40 pounds of weight toward the source of his white-grape juice supply, which means my time at the keyboard is over for a while, I guess that decides it. (OK, let's be honest, that kind of thing has been going on the whole time I've been writing this, so excuse the inexcusable errors and/or awkwardnesses, it comes down to I either blog with the little darlings chastising me the whole way through or I don't blog at all.)
So tomorrow it is. And tomorrow will come, no codeine for me...although it would take a quart to make a dent in my caffeine exposure for the day, but we'll save that, my favorite, most beloved addiction, for another post.
It's been a good one--the breakdown, I mean. And by "good" I mean that I was having fond thoughts toward the giant bottle of kids' Tylenol-with-codeine tucked up there in the cupboard. (Seriously, you should see the size of the bottle we got when our 2-year-old broke his arm, I think they misjudged his weight by a few hundred pounds or kilos, we used maybe a teaspoon out of this quart-size-looking thing the drugstore sent us home with...although now the patient is 3 years old, so it could be expired...see, it probably wouldn't have worked anyway, I think I heard somewhere that narcotics lose their potency when they get too old, which sounds like a metaphor I don't feel like developing, so I won't). But then, after the codeine thought I had a fleeting thought about how much I'm looking forward to Dancing with the Stars tonight, double elimination excitement, too much to live for on a Wednesday to think of quaffing a quart of codeine over a momentary meltdown.
So there I was, all over the floor, in the kitchen, sobbing and quaking, using loud verbiage (all of which probably made the neighbors think I was watching Sybil or The Exorcist, or maybe playing both simultaneously), shaking my fist at the heavens about what an over-the-hill, washed-up, used-up, waste-of-talent, hopeless piece of uselessness I've turned out to be. Really, it was great, you shoulda been here, skip the premiere of Grey's Anatomy and just hang out at my house.
My 3-year-old son, Calvin, caught the act live, but he has autism and tends not to notice when I'm out of sorts, not so you can tell anyway-- for example, today he just seemed to find the whole episode a delightful opportunity to get down on the floor with me and blissfully nuzzle his head into any part of my body he could expose skin on (per usual), cooing and giggling and chortling with glee, totally unfazed by conduct from his mother that would have been most appropriate for a mental patient on the ward that the medicine fairy forgot to visit. (Which one of us has the disability again?)
Anywho, why so glum, mum?
Well, firstly, there are a few days of every month that are turning out to be very dangerous for me, hormonally speaking. And if you're someone who thinks that's just a cop out and/or excuse that women use to explain away bad moods and behavior, you're entitled to your opinion, but you should honestly fold said opinion up until it's all sharp corners and go fuck yourself with it. (See what happened there? With the language and the overreacting? I think I make my point.)
But beyond the biochemistry, there's also the little matter of personal finance. Oh glorious failure, welcome back! I don't know what it is with me, honestly. I mean, if you ran into me at the Stop Rite, it's not like you'd be thinking to yourself "this woman couldn't make enough money to help adequately support herself and her family if she were Paris Hilton's dumpy older sister." I look ok, especially all cleaned up for grocery shopping. And if you ask anyone who's known me over the four decades I've been on this ride, many would tell you how "promising" I've always been.
Promising--that's how one of my grad school mentors, my favorite and my best, once introduced me to a bunch of her colleagues. "Please meet Tracy Stroh, one of our most promising candidates." I've never forgotten her words, not to mention others so much like them, from pre-K through the Ivy league, all those folks I've totally bamboozled with my promises of promisingness.
Maybe I should have asked them all what it was that I was actually promising, because I don't think I've ever gotten that part down. There's that devil in the details again. Which is what always seems to land me face down on the kitchen floor, over and over. It makes me think of a short story by Lorrie Moore, a story called "Willing," and the lines that go,
"She hadn't been given the proper tools to make a real life with, she decided, that was it. She'd been given a can of gravy and a hairbrush and told, 'There you go.' She'd stood there for years, blinking and befuddled, brushing the can with the brush."
Now THERE'S an everloving mess after my own heart. Can you be separated at birth from a twin if she's in a piece of short fiction? Guess not. You get my meaning, though.
And so, here you have it, my first post. Not terrible for someone who started the day like I did. Because, in the spirit of "this too shall pass," and as someone said in Monty Python movie, with an British accent which makes it funnier, "I got better." I'm sitting here, healthy as a horse, typing away rapid fire, kids peacefully watching the Noggin channel where they appear to be learning Chinese phrases, all's right with the world--and I'm so sure that, sooner or later, something too funny not to make me a millionaire will spill out here. There, I said it. I am so sure!
How long is a blaaaaaaaghhhhhh post supposed to run? Do I keep on blaaaaaghing, or do I save some of these gems for tomorrow? Well, Gracie is now saying, "I really gotta tell you somefin," and Calvin is yanking me with all his 40 pounds of weight toward the source of his white-grape juice supply, which means my time at the keyboard is over for a while, I guess that decides it. (OK, let's be honest, that kind of thing has been going on the whole time I've been writing this, so excuse the inexcusable errors and/or awkwardnesses, it comes down to I either blog with the little darlings chastising me the whole way through or I don't blog at all.)
So tomorrow it is. And tomorrow will come, no codeine for me...although it would take a quart to make a dent in my caffeine exposure for the day, but we'll save that, my favorite, most beloved addiction, for another post.
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