Friend Omega took a cue from the Soccer Scheduling Spreadsheet and started his own. But for something even more not-typically-spreadhseet friendly: dating.
I think our generation might have serious issues, people. Serious and hardly surmountable.
*tm
One of the best things about *terrible mother is the readership. I've got loyal, smart readers here, and any blog which can sustain a lengthy debate regarding the sentimentality of the postmortem worship of Kurt Vonnegut has some kick-ass people commenting. So, as an ode to y'all, I'm posting my favorite reader comments of 2006.
First, the faux-frustrated at Terrible Mother posts:
you mistakenly called friend two by the name of friend one. multiple times. this is nearly unforgiveable. also, i don't have to buy you a drink at awp because i've already bought the hotel room. duh, you're beholden even if you don't sleep there. whore.
sorry, did i mention i was drunk?
-Friend One, to Miscellany, 11-2006
-----
Just a few notes:
1) When you asked me to deal with your wasp problem, you offered me a stick. I suggested the wasp-killer spray, and you apparently purchased it, but only after I'd already gone to deal with chickens. Granted, I'm man enough to take on a wasp nest armed with nothing but a stick, but I'm not stupid enough to do so.
2) If you give handjobs like you hold a pool cue, then I'm glad I'm gay. Not that you're offering or anything.
-Friend R to Miscellany, 8-2006
-----
Good god, woman. Stop braying about things you've brought upon yourself. Finish the test, ace it like you know you will, sleep for a day, and then fuck the life out of sweetboy.
I'm sorry to be the one to have to say it
-badfreak to It's Almost Over (and brought on by my complaining of the MFA Exam)
-----
What makes you think I don't already know about amputee sex?
Also, the fanbase thing? Seriously. Get over yourself.
-badfreak to What the Hell Is Love Anyway? (and brought on by my announcement of dating an amputee and declaring I had a fanbase. Let it be known that Freak took back the latter at a later date. Oh yeah, I think it was the post immediately following the one in which he told me to get over myself. Not that I'm keeping track).
*****
Second, the non-sequitur posts:
You say OCD with bathrooom stalls like it's bad thing.
-Kari to Miscellany, 8-2006
-----
handjobs difficult? maybe not. to do well? hmmm...
see, the thing with receiving a handjob from someone else is that it's moronic. when the recipient at one of these lame, sophomoric attempts at intimacy, i generally look down (literally and proverbially) with pity and sadness in my eyes.
sometimes, i remark that "baby, you're dealing with the master." trust me... i can do that quicker, better, and much more efficiently on my own. you're just embarrassing yourself. like emeril's mom insisting on making turkey at thanksgiving and it comes out all dry and gross and BAM! mom just let me BAM! make the BAM! turkey next BAM! next BAM! next year.
i think emeril has tourette's.
-Friend Omega to Miscellany, 8-2006.
-----
Terrible Mother's Favorite Haiku:
There's this guy I know.
He's a real fucking asshole.
Yes, that guy is you.
-Friend Omega, in Poem of the Week.
*****
Third, kid-related comments, which I big heart:
I love it when they dress like flatchested and relatively demure college freshmen. LOVE IT. Love the forays into accessorizing, glitter, hairties and wheeled sneakers. My own feral child asked me if she could use my deodorant the other day--she wanted very much to slide it onto her pristine underarm. I had to go into my room and laugh.
-Fatally Hip Single Mother to Miscellany, 9-2006.
-----
My kiddo is already worried about shaving, as in his balls. I kid you not!!! He has told me twice he does not want to grow hair on his balls, and I told him, "It's OK, honey. It won't happen for a while." (See I read him this book called "What's Happening to Me: A Guide To Puberty," which is a marvelous book, and we had fun reading it together, and it sparked a great discussion, and so I recommend it to other parents for sure) but ever since then my kiddo doesn't want to grow hair on his balls.
God, I know, it makes me laugh.
Anyway, so then he came up with the idea he'd shave his balls. Except ten minutes later he said, "But that might hurt."
So I told him, "Listen, honey, by the time you get hair on your balls you won't mind it. Trust me. You'll have other things on your mind by then."
-Alana, to Miscellany, 9-2006.
-----
I think that a book about a single mother taking a road trip with her three young children sounds like something I would never read, even should I live to be a hundred.
-Friend Omega, to Have Kids, Will Travel.
-----
This is the sort of thing they'll use against you when they're trying to justify sticking you in a home somewhere:
"Well, there was the story of my birth put out on the internet, so, yeah, let's go with the cheapest place we can find."
-badfreak to Happy Birthday Thing Two.
*****
Fourth, what I call Little Bumper Cars of Witty Repartee*:
I did NOT mean to suggest that you used your vagina to cook a turkey. I mean...it wouldn't really be warm enough to be safe from bacteria, would it? Not that you're full of bacteria or anything. Remember "The Accidental Tourist" 225 degree oven? I'm sayin. My body temp tends to run a little low. I could maybe pull off warm tapas olives and chickpeas.
And - a turkey's pretty big. Well, HUGE really, so there's that to consider. I'm not saying it couldn't be done. Someone's probably doing it right now. And maybe someday you'll figure out how to do it and show the rest of us.
Right?
-Pink-Haired Housewife, to ThanksEarly.
-----
I like Miracle Whip, the as-yet-unmentioned eye-patch sporting best friend who likes to put Miracle Whip on his fries.
-badfreak to Friend One Rules.
-----
"friends with money" is the second best film i've seen this year, after "thank you for smoking."
i didn't find it depressing. i found it very touching and beautiful. i like characters who are as empty inside as i am.
-Friend Omega, to A Gin and Garden.
-----
And you must read the entire the entry (and comments, natch) entitled Austin and Everything After, part II, which was only interesting because of the barbs Friend Omega and badfreak slung around.
-----
and, finally, perhaps my favorite comment of 2006:
david bradley thinks that he is the r. lee ermey of creative writing.
–Friend Omega to Former Incarnations.
*tm
*yep Fort Awesome, I totally stole that from you.
Last week, after the conversation I had with John in which he chanted "Fair!" at regular intervals, I decided I'd have to confront him. This always scares me, has always scared me since we first started dating. There are two reasons for this: One, I dislike confrontation if it has to do with relationships, especially romantic relationships. I'm a whiz at debating topics and theories and ideas, and I can confront just about anyone on those terms. But anything approaching a confrontation with someone I am, or was, romantically involved with? It's tough. I do it, but I hate it.
Part of the reason I've always hated it with John is that he is capable of turning the argument around in two seconds by attacking something about me, using something about me that is unrelated to the issue at hand as a means of gaining ground. I never feel safe confronting him, and I still don't. What could he possibly say to me? Anything. Anything. He has before.
But I knew I was giving him a terrible amount of power over me, and I knew I couldn't keep it up. I had to do something. Fatally Hip Single Mother gave me excellent suggestions* about how to approach the conversation, and I used them. I didn't get angry at him. I calmly stated my position. I didn't attempt to correct his "erroneous" thinking (or what I see as his erroneous thinking). Instead, I reminded him of the parenting plan we created, his obligations under that plan, and the fact it was a legal and binding agreement. When he spouted off about "fair!" I listened, breathed in, and then said I understood how he felt. And then I said, "but these are the facts as I see them: I have the kids 12 days out of 14. Those two days are the only 48 hour window I have to rest and regroup. You are legally obligated to take them for those 48 hours." He hemmed and hawed. He protested and whined. He claimed that he couldn't get off work early. I held my ground. "If you can't get off work before a certain time, I understand, but then it's your responsibility to make suitable arrangements. You cannot pick them up late and then drop them off early."
John hemmed and hawed some more.
And then I said, "And the one time I tell you that you need to pick them up on time, you need to do that. You need to be responsible enough to figure that out. I have more than fulfilled my obligations here."
John said, "I don't know what I can do."
I realized he didn't. He is irresponsible in a very specific way and lacks the ability to problem solve in certain areas of his life.
"Alright," I said, "I'll arrange for a sitter to have them from 5:30 or so until you can pick them up that Friday. But you will need to pay her. That is your responsibility."
"I don't have any money."
"And neither do I. And when I allow you to be flexible for months and months and then ask you to pick them up on time, for once, it is your responsibility to make that happen. I'll arrange for the sitter. But you're paying for it. I am not paying for a sitter the one time I need you to actually follow the legal plan."
He finally agreed. We also found a compromise for the weekends, so that if he gets them later, he drops them off later, with the standard being that I have 48 hours child-free. He implied, repeatedly, that I was being petty. I didn't argue with him on that point, just calmly repeated "I have a freelance career I'm starting, a full household, many responsibilities, and I need that time."
And you know? I felt an odd sense of power, something I've hardly left a conversation with him feeling. I stuck up for myself. I stuck to the outline in my head, remembered that I only needed to accomplish a and b. So that when he kept turning the conversation to old arguments (he always says that I promised to move to Portland and I haven't) I didn't take the bait. As soon as I realized I didn't have to change his mind to get what I wanted, everything sort of fell in line.
I did it. I actually did it. I'm sort of surprised by myself. And happy, too.
*tm
*suggestions, not advice, FYI. Because advice would be wrong.
December 2005:
Jon took me out for a birthday dinner and Christmas celebration where we had planned on exchanging gifts. I had picked my favorite Thai food place—the one with the complicated cocktails called “Thai Me Up,” and “Phuket Passion”—and we were both dressed nicely, happy to see each other.
For some reason, though, we decided to exchange gifts in the car before going in. Maybe we knew something, sensed something, because this proved to be a good choice. Jon gave me my gift first. That is, to say, he reached behind the seat and pulled out a stuffed animal (unwrapped!) then handed it to me. “Happy Birthday.” Long pause. “And Merry Christmas!”
It was a stuffed cheetah. With a garish pink bow around its neck. I momentarily considered tying it around Jon’s.
But before you collectively string Jon up, you should know that I then handed him my gift. Perfectly wrapped with thick blue paper covered with embossed silver snowflakes and tied with glittery ribbon, it made a pretty picture.
Then he opened it. I had given him two books. Two literary books. “These were my favorite books this year,” I said proudly.
One of those books was on the Rwandan genocide. Because you know nothing says “I love you, Merry Christmas!” like a book on the Rwandan genocide. The Rwandan fucking genocide.
We both sat in the car for a full minute, staring at the peculiar gifts in our laps, wondering at them like an archeologist might wonder at some newly discovered specimen of invertebrate.
Yes, it might have been a sign. Probably several. One of which is definitely that no one should ever have to date me.
*****
Today, on a marquee of an adult video store called Imagine That!:
“Back Door Outlet Store”
I nearly drove my car into the median.
*****
My high school sweetheart, Olney, and I regularly broke up during the three years we dated. Often it would happen right before a formal dance. Which seems rather suspect, especially as I go through the dances I went to, the dresses I bought, and I realize we never attended one together. Highly suspect!
Regardless, on one such occasion, my friends and I were planning an elaborate dinner party for eight before the dance when Olney and I broke up two days before. “This is crap,” I said. “I’m going to find another date.” My friends were incredulous, but I did.
I took the butcher.
The night before the dance, my friend Nicole and I were buying some complicated red meat product, when the butcher (who was 22 and cute) asked what it was for. We explained, he flirted with me, I flirted back (as I am wont to do), and once I explained my predicament, he offered to escort me to said dance.
I distinctly remember doing some sort of jump-for-joy in the cereal aisle of Fry’s afterwards*.
The night of the dance, though, all of my friends had convinced me, during the hours of hair construction and makeup application and shoe discussion, that there was no way The Butcher would show. But show he did.
The other guys were in the front room of my house (my parents had taken my brothers out so that we’d have the space to ourselves) when The Butcher showed up. They all made small talk while I sent the other girls out to do a little recon. “Find out what he’s wearing,” I said. “And what kind of car he’s driving.”
Nicole and Tiffany conducted said recon, then came back with the goods: He had brought a dozen beautiful roses and was smartly dressed in a new shiny suit (this was 1990 people). But there was one detail that was too much. When Tiffany whispered, “Camaro” to me, I was overcome, and yelled out “CAMARO!” with the same joy the anunciador yells GOAL at a futbol match. Sadly, at that exact moment The Butcher was telling the other guys: “I hate it when girls just like me for my car.”
Then they all looked down the hallway where we girls were whooping like we’d hit the lottery.
*****
This is the place where the secret blog entry would go. If I had a secret blog. Which I don’t. So there.
*****
Me: I need help.
Friend R: Okay. With what?
Me: Don’t laugh.
Friend R: It’s that bad?
Me: I want help buying underwear.
Friend R: What?
Me: I want help buying underwear. Picking out cute underwear.
(long pause)
Me: What?
Friend R: I was just going to ask if you really needed a support system for buying
underwear. But then I realized you did.
Me: Happy now?
Friend R: Yes. Let’s go. And I’m making you go to the sword store!
*****
In the car, a few months ago, as we drove through Salem near where Jon lives:
Thing One: Why did you and Jon break-up?
Me: It’s complicated, Thing One.
Thing One: Why is it complicated? Didn’t you guys love each other?
Me: Yes, but sometimes things just don’t work out.
Thing One: Why?
Me: You’ll understand when you’re older.
Thing One (gently, and with great care): Do you understand?
*****
Months ago, on a marquee of yet another adult video store:
“Now we have gift cards! Buy some for Christmas!”
Because, certainly if a book on the Rwandan genocide says Merry Christmas, you can say it about 10 times better with a gift card from a porn shop: “Let’s celebrate Jesus’ birthday! Here’s a gift card so you can buy yourself some glitter lube!”
*****
An email from Kari:
Every girl worries about the first date and all that. It’s natural.
And if she doesn’t, then I hate her already.
---
And finally, an old IM I found between Friend Omega (who became convinced that what I needed was a good sex rebound post-separation instead of dating anyone aka Jon) and I, circa 2005 about love, marriage, sex and fucking:
Friend Omega: Damn it TM why didn't you wait until you'd gotten dick like I said?
Terrible Mother: From whom?
Friend Omega: Anyone!
Terrible Mother: Well, I have been flirting with this grad student in the English department.
Friend Omegas: NO GRADUATE STUDENTS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF OREGON, TM!
Terrible Mother: I thought it was just for sex!
Friend Omega: NO!
Terrible Mother: And really, if it's a grad student, it doesn't count as sex. I'm pretty sure about this.
Friend Omega: Maybe, maybe, a graduate pharmacology major.
Terrible Mother: A pharmacology major?
Friend Omega: But English, Creative Writing, these sorts of things? No.
Terrible Mother: I'm not talking about marriage! I'm talking about SEX!
Friend Omega: I know what you're talking about. If you were talking about marriage, that'd be okay.
Terrible Mother: What? Why?
Friend Omega: Because marriage doesn't involve awkward avoiding-eye-contact moments until YEARS after the fact. Sometimes months, but months we can work with. Hours are tricky.
Terrible Mother: but you typically HAVE SEX sometime in marriage.
Friend Omega: No you don't.
Terrible Mother: I know this. I once had sex in marriage. That was a long time ago, though. I think The Spice Girls were still together.
Friend Omega: You had “married-sex.” You made love.
Terrible Mother: Shut up, Omega.
Friend Omega: “What are you making for the bake sale, TM?"
"Love."
Terrible Mother: I don’t see your point, frankly.
Friend Omega: My point is that one night of naked debauchery makes for awkwardness the whole year round, not just at holidays like marriage does. Marriage is sustained debauchery.
Terrible Mother: is that what you're calling it now?
Friend Omega: Marriage is bauchery.
Terrible Mother: I knew you were typing that.
Friend Omega: You knew because I hit "Enter" and it showed you. That's no trick. You're no David Copperfield.
Terrible Mother: Well, you're no Siegfried and Roy!
(long pause)
Terrible Mother: Oh. Well…
*tm
*Before Fry’s became the individually-themed-mega-computer and home store, it was a grocery store. In Lodi and Stockton. No, I’m not kidding.
Listened to "Chan, Chan" from the Buena Vista Social Club soundtrack while writing this.
Most of my friends, at some point or another in the past year, have asked me to start a second blog. A secret blog. “So I can get all the inside dirt on the people you never write about.” If this sentence were to continue, the ending clause would read something like “except when you’re tipsy at McMenamin’s after a reading and we’ve gotten you to say what you really think*” And because it would save them time pestering me for long emails, which I’ve been neglecting the past few months.
Of course, none of these friends ever thinks about the possibility that he or she would be a subject in the secret blog at some point, which would force me to have a secret blog which no one could read (also known as, at least pre-2001, a “journal” or sometimes a “diary”), or I’d have to write numerous secret blogs where I’d keep track of who had access to which and when, and in the annals** of which I’d construct many a clever sobriquet, things that would not be easily googled or attributed.
I’m getting tired just thinking about it.
And there’s plenty of my life that doesn’t get mentioned here (and probably more than one person is squinting at the screen right now, hoping I don’t mention Friend X or Friend Q and what he or she did, and when). But the truth is that my secrets aren’t what you’d expect.
Last week, I listened to a voicemail from Thing One and Thing Two’s after-school care center. I knew the call would come eventually and was dreading it. I knew it because I’ve fallen so behind in paying the monthly tuition, thousands of dollars behind. Thing Three’s pre-school tuition is $144 a week, and that adds up quickly to a pretty good chunk of change, and I cover that every month, more or less, and then send a little towards the other care center***, which runs about $450 or so a month. Every month, the center sends me an email saying they’ve transferred the amount to my university account, and every month I delete that email as quickly as I can. I hate thinking about it.
But there was Christmas, Thing One’s expensive asthma medication, her glasses, groceries and gas and the electricity bill from the cold months, the days I missed work without pay (a snow day, a few sick kid days) so the tuition, it got away from me, despite my best efforts. John hasn’t shared the medical costs like he promised, nor come through on his smallish child support. So I’ve been stuck. I’ve muddled through the best I can, but that effort isn’t always enough anymore.
So when I listened to the center’s accounts manager, I knew what it was about before she finished, knew I’d reached the end of my bad-credit rope. At the same time, I knew my hefty tax return was on the way, money I was counting on to catch up, at last, to buy spring and summer clothes for the kids, a few niceties for myself, and to fund my short trip to AWP. All I needed was to make it to the tax return and I’d be home free. Or close enough to breathe a little, finally.
The accounts manager told me, on the voicemail, that if I didn’t come up with a significant payment, Things One and Two would be cut off from care starting the first of March. I begin dialing her number, slowly, though I dreaded it. Partly I dreaded it because to admit you’re broke hurts. We’re not supposed to talk about money, especially not in polite conversation. But it cut to something deeper than that. Admitting I couldn’t foot my own kids’ bill meant I might not be responsible. I might not be a decent provider. I might not be a good mother.
I stopped dialing. The thought of owning up to the debt, calling her and doing it, even though I could shortly pay her, made me feel ashamed. The same way I felt when two friends, in the past few months, lent me money, significant amounts. One friend sent me money by Western Union just hours after I admitted I had nothing in my checking account, 1/8 a tank of gas, no milk in the house, and a paycheck still a week away. My cheeks burned as the cashier counted out bills, laid the fifties and twenties in a neat little stack at my hands. But I bought cereal and grapes and milk, put gallons of gas into my car. And with my typical humor, I joked to my friend that I was sorry, but I’d gambled all his money on a pony named “Lil’ Britches.”
I tucked the phone away. I was on my lunch hour and had errands to run, but instead drove east, out of the city, into the mountains that edge Oregon’s Willamette Valley.
If I was going to fix this now, with the accounts manager, I’d not only have to call her, but I’d have to call the university’s accounts office too, and explain why I had fallen so behind. Does it matter that I knew I had a lock-tight excuse? Recent divorce, three kids, a new job, ex not paying child support? The only way I could have made it better is if I said one of the kids was a leper.
But I still thought I should be able to pull it off by myself, that it said something about me, about my character, if I couldn’t.
Last night, Thing One laid in my bed, coughing with the cold she’s caught, when she mentioned her classmates’ projects. I was proud of Thing One’s oral report—the kids were to think of a topic along the theme of “Land and Water”—and the work she put into it. The First Name School gives an inordinate amount of homework (Thing One routinely does 45 minutes to an hour a night), and this oral report was in addition to that. Between the kids’ homework, Thing Two’s speech therapy, making dinner, washing and folding laundry, baths and books, it was near impossible to get that stupid oral report done. I enlisted the help of Fort Awesome, who spent an afternoon at the library with Thing One, helping her research hurricanes, how they form, where they hit, the damage they do. And I was proud of this, that Fort Awesome was helping, but also proud of the fact I spent the entire time playing puppets with Things Two and Three without getting bored while Fort Awesome and Thing One worked. Proud that Thing One was smart but also inquisitive, that she thought of the topic herself, that she was using it as a means to bring up Hurricane Katrina (and mention her dislike for President Bush and his policies, heh).
Then last night, Thing One mentioned the four parents who, that day in class, told the teacher their kids would need a computer set up for their oral reports. Because they were giving PowerPoint presentations.
Third graders. One of whom is going to give her oral report (replete with PowerPoint slides, natch) on that very elementary topic continental drift.
I called Fatally Hip Mrs. Friend Two to rant about the First Name School, the Coterie of Married Mothers there, and my general malcontent.
She said, “I think learning PowerPoint is good for kids.”
What the fuck, I thought. Doesn’t she get it? She’s a single mother. Fuck me.
“Well I don’t,” I snapped.
“Why?”
“It isn’t fair! It isn’t fair that those parents did all that work for their kids!”
“Of course it isn’t fair,” she added. “I just don’t think it’s all about that.”
Then I started crying. “I hate this,” I said.
These are the moments where I see all the work I’ve done to hold this together, all the effort it takes, all the time and energy, and I feel despondent. The threadbare, stretched-thinnedness of everyday life is hard to look at, especially when it costs so much to maintain. And if I’m honest with myself, it wasn’t just that I hated the barely veiled competitive nature of the parents, and their lackluster ways of showing it (will anyone ever think of a way to be competitive that doesn’t involve doing some assignment for her kid?), it was also that I couldn’t compete on that level. It wasn’t fair they did the work, but the thing that hurt was that I didn’t have anywhere near the resources to do what they did. Who has three hours to sit and make a goddamned PowerPoint on continental drift for their 8-year old?
I hate admitting that, too. Hate it as much as admitting I’m broke.
A secret: I haven’t sent, even written, a letter to the First Name School about Thing Two’s bus incident. The day after it happened, the principal turned on his heels when he saw me, walked quickly away, then closeted himself in his office. His secretary took care of me. I felt dismissed, excused. It’s the way I’ve felt the last 18 months there.
In second grade, Thing One’s reading and math scores were abysmal. “Her father and I just separated,” I told her teacher. “I think that might have something to do with it.”
I can’t remember what her teacher said, but she used the same kindly dismissive tone month after month. Thing One was distracted, couldn’t concentrate, her scores fluctuated wildly. Second grade ended with her scores low, and Thing One being convinced she wasn’t that smart. Over the summer, the school sent a tutor to help her with her reading, and I looked into vision therapy for her, though I couldn’t afford it then.
This year, her teacher suggested Thing One should perhaps be tested for special ed services, jumped more firmly on the bandwagon when she learned her brother was autistic. “We just moved,” I said. “Her dad and I were just divorced. She’s had a rough couple of years.”
I’m not sure she even heard me.
Last night, Thing One’s report card came home. In every area, she met the expectations, except in a few of the reading areas. In those, she exceeded the expectations. A note was included, detailing her performance. It said Thing One was expected to surpass grade-level benchmarks in most of the areas by the end of the year. This past week, she picked up a 5th-grade level book and started reading it without a problem.
I kissed Thing One’s head, told her she had done well. I was happy, proud of her. No, that’s a lie. I was angry, too. I told Friend One later, on the phone, “I hate the way that school makes me feel, how they dismissed me. Two years. I kept saying the same thing. They have a full-time behavioral specialist. Why didn’t I tell them to send Thing One to his office? Why didn’t they think of it?”
Friend One asked me what it was I wanted.
“I don’t know,” I said.
Friend One was quiet, an unusual state for her. Usually when she's quiet she's either angry or asleep. Sometimes both.
“I mean, all that worry I had. They didn’t help me. It didn’t matter what I said. They didn’t help Thing One.”
“What is it you want?”
“I want a fucking apology.” I said.
This is true in one sense, and when I said it last night, it hurt. But it’s also true that I want an apology for being forced to face the fact I wanted a daughter who was as smart as I was when I was 7 or 8. That I only know one kind of smart, and I don’t know how to gauge or value the rest very well. Maybe I deserve to be dismissed, I had thought. I’m afraid if I write that letter, they’ll dismiss me again.
Out in the hillsides, that was what I feared when I thought of calling the accounts manager. I don’t want to be thought of as just another irresponsible parent. A single mother. A welfare queen****. I wanted to shake the accounts manager, say I’m trying so she’d know I meant it, so she’d understand how much work I was doing.
What to say? Another secret? I called her back, of course. At the end of the day, I’ll only abdicate responsibility for so long. I hated the way she started the conversation, the way, when I explained the situation (sans leper child), I could hear the pity in her voice. So I did something unusual for me. I stopped her and said as gently as I could, “I don’t need you to apologize. I just want you to help me find a workable solution.” The pity dried up. She was kind to me, helpful even. Not dismissive.
And, you know, I think I feel that strongly worded email coming on.*****
*tm
*As if that requires the consumption of alcohol on my part.
**No, it isn’t that word. Perverts.
***The Things Three attend two different care centers, something I hope to change this summer.
****The only kind of welfare I ever received was food stamps, and man do I miss those sometimes.
****Listened to The Postal Service’s version of “Against All Odds” while I wrote this, and God Damn, it rocks.
Tim-Tim and me after a Saturday night of cooking, child-wrangling and bribery (as it pertained to getting the Things to eat eggplant) together:
Me: That was a lot of work. Thanks for helping me with the dishes.
Tim-Tim: You're welcome. But yeah, the Things were a little wound up tonight.
Me: One thing's for sure. I'm never introducing them to any man I'm dating until I have a ring on my finger.
Tim-Tim: Well, you should probably super-glue it on first.
******
IM'ing with Fort Awesome:
Me: Way Too Bashful to be a Republican told me to tell you hi. He's a sweet guy.
Fort Awesome: Who voted for Bush twice.
Me: Nobody's perfect, Fort Awesome.
Fort Awesome: Right. Did you know Hitler was great with animals and small children?
Me: I hate when you say that. Anyway, I have poet gossip.
Fort Awesome: You do?
Me: Yeah. I heard that This Famous Poet likes to get it on in a specific bathroom in a specific fast food restaurant in a specific city. Isn't that gross?
Fort Awesome: Nobody's perfect, TM.
*****
Friend Omega: I have my first Obama campaign meeting tonight.
Me: Cool. I'd love to work with him.
Friend Omega: Hey, if I get hired to Obama's White House, will you be the Donna to my Josh?
Me: I would be the Donna to your Josh.
Friend Omega: But not annoying like Donna.
Me: What? But I want to be annoying like Donna. Will you do that thing that Josh does, where he pretends to get flustered?
Friend Omega: I don't pretend. I actually get flustered.
Me: Can you make it cute?
Friend Omega: No. And anyway, my boss won't make the stupid bank deposit. Call him and say something, would you?
Me: Would Donna?
Friend Omega: No. She'd have some very annoying parallel to draw about it. Like "I didn't give you the change for your sandwich because you'd spend it wrong, like you say people would do with their taxes." Stupid girl.
Me: But then why would you want me to be her? This is a very confusing scenario.
Friend Omega: I want you to fulfill her role, not to actually take on her characteristics.
Me: I see. So we would just banter for years and carry on a mostly sexless relationship for others to appreciate?
(pause)
Friend Omega: Maybe this would work better if you were the Sam to my Toby.
*tm
Friend Two and Singing Love stopped by my house last week, fruit basket (replete with grapes, citrus and biscotti) and bottle of wine (Zinfandel) in hand. I had just put the Things Three down, so was more than happy to let them in. “We’re here to celebrate New Year’s with you,” said Singing Love. “We know you didn’t get to go out or really celebrate.”
This is true, of course. Part of being a single parent to three children is that a: the opportunities for fun activities like drinking, pool and sexual congress are limited; and b: almost all opportunities require the hiring of a sitter; and c: even the hiring of a sitter will only get you drinking and pool. Sexual congress is almost always out of the question unless the cherubs are with their other parent, or at a friend’s house, or you sexual congress away in the back of a Subaru, which is sophomoric and lame. And I know. Because I’ve done it.
Point being that Singing Love was right. My New Year’s Eve consisted of homemade pizza, Cranium Cadoo, and repeated viewings of The Justice League and A Series of Unfortunate Events, followed by much gnashing of teeth as each of the Things approached exhaustion. Libations with names like “Mango-Licious-Panty-Dropper,” or drunken female dancing to “I Will Survive,” were nowhere to be found. So, a few days later, I was more than happy to let Friend Two and Singing Love in, sit them in my kitchen, and pull down the dusty wine glasses.
We sat around one end of my table, sampling grapes from the fruit basket, and drinking the wine. We talked. And talked. Thirty minutes in, we had finished the first bottle of wine, so I pulled out a second, a Shiraz* I was keeping around. We drank that while Singing Love and I discussed politics and then sex. Friend Two became very interested, suddenly, in the fruit basket, finding the price tag and tearing it off before settling on picking lint out of the cotton lining.
We were flush with the wine and conversation, so when Singing Love asked us to come outside while she had a cigarette, we agreed. Yes it was freezing. Yes it was black and dark and, yes, I have no real porch, only a carport in front of my cute 50’s ranch house. But we bundled up anyway and headed outside.
I let Friend Two and Singing Love out first, then stepped out onto the front steps, shut the door behind me. And then it clicked. Locked out.
“Guys,” I said. “We’re locked out.”
Singing Love started laughing. And then I did. I thought of calling my landlord at 11:45 on a weeknight to ask for a key. Irish Landlord is cute and an older hipster, with two teenage daughters, and I am halfway smitten with him. But I have it on authority that such cries for help to the cute older landlord can lead either to the altar or an eviction notice. Since I want neither at the moment, I decided that was a no-go.
Friend Two was nonplussed at our laughter. “Just get the extra key,” he said.
I shook my head. No extra key.
“Alright, which window should I get into?” .
“They’re locked.”
“What? They’re all locked?”
“I’m a single mother with three kids! Of course they’re all locked!”
Friend Two sighed, audibly. This was akin to his version in Hell: 20 minutes of your best friend and girlfriend engaging in tipsy sex banter, followed by getting locked out of a house in the freezing cold with no open windows, followed by said best friend and girlfriend laughing uncontrollably, probably at your expense, and being not at all helpful.
It was then that the genius idea hit me. “I can bang on a window and wake up one of the kids.”
Friend Two and Singing Love considered this for a moment, and then Friend Two walked to a window, tried to pry it open. This is because he loves the Things, and he didn’t want to take part in a mission that might frighten any one of them.
Singing Love looked at him, then turned to me. “Let’s do it,” she said. Not because she doesn’t love my kids, I’m sure, but because she wanted back in.
It should be noted here that I knew it would scar whichever kid I woke up. But I also knew that there was no other reasonable way to get into the house. My windows are new and I make sure they’re always locked. Irish Landlord, while sweet and kind, would not appreciate being roused from his bed late on a weeknight, and I didn’t even have his number on me since my cell phone was, of course, locked in the house.
This is the essence of parenting. Sure, sure, our generation has a plethora of parenting magazines to choose from. We can read, in minute detail, how to pick toys to encourage the development of language, music or mathematical skills in our Max. We can read about the newest teaching philosophies, decide if our Emma would do better in Montessori or Waldorf. We can even read about birth options, debate on epidurals and waterbirths, to our little pregnant heart’s content. But I’ve yet to read an article that has been able to delineate wisdom on how to solve the small crises parents face on a regular basis. Crises that involve the everyday minutiae that is parenting: the half-life of dirty laundry, the mind numbing repetition of diaper-feeding-diaper-sleep; the months where even sex seems impossible under the weight of all that tedium. Crises that involve a constant battle of choices, the weighing of options and costs against your kid’s well-being, against yours. Crises, in other words, that involve two bottles of wine and a set of keys on the wrong side of a locked door.
Singing Love and I went to the back gate and Friend Two soon joined us. We pried it open (it helped when Friend Two suggested, quite lucidly, “Maybe we should open it with the hinges, instead of against.” Ho, ho. He’s a funny one.). We decided that I’d go do the dirty deed (since I’m the one the one the Things Three know the best), while Singing Love and Friend Two would stay by the front door.
My bedroom enjoys a cornered window that looks out into the verdant backyard. Thing Two and Thing Three were both asleep in my room. Thing Three, being five, still sleeps with me, as she’s done since her dad and I split. And every once in awhile, Thing Two pulls up camp and heads into the Terrible Mother den. This was one of those nights where they were both in my room, and as I watched them through the window, I thought it was good they were both there. Less chance of long-lasting fear.
Let me say this. If my house were ever on fire, I think the Things Three would sleep right through the alarm. Because I banged on that damn window for 3 or 4 minutes, yelling even, “WAKE UP!” to no response. None. Unless you count Thing Three snoring, which I don’t.
“Wake up!” I yelled, and this time, I flattened my palm and hit the glass, hard. Thing Two sat up.
“It’s Mom!” I said. “Thing Two, it’s Mom! Let me in.”
Thing Two looked at me for a moment. He considered me the way one might consider an exotic animal you happen upon at the zoo. There was a moment of recognition. Then he rolled over and went back to sleep.
“Thing Two!” I yelled.
He covered his head with his pillow.
This was not going as expected. I had been prepared to cash in scarring of children in exchange for a ticket into the warm house. But I hadn’t been prepared for the wanton disregard of my well being by Thing Two. I put my forehead against the glass.
I tried once more, this time with my effort aimed at the youngest. “Thing Three,” I yelled, “wake up!” I banged on the window and this time, Thing Three opened her eyes. She looked at me. Then she started crying.
“It’s Mom!” I said for the umpteenth time. “Open the front door.”
Thing Three, to her credit, chose a different route than her sibling. She pulled the covers over her head and hid.
So, to recap: one child annoyed and asleep, one child crying and traumatize, three adults locked outside. Thing One was the only kid I hadn’t tried to rouse yet, and I wasn’t about to take that tack. Who knows what response that kid, the kid who loves politics and sushi and knitting like any 8-year old going on 28 does, would’ve come up with.
“Thing Three. Go to the front door.”
Wailing.
“Please! Let me in.”
Keening, followed by the thrashing of bed linens.
At that moment, Friend Two and Singing Love must have realized what was happening, because they started knocking on the front door. Thing Three sat up. She screamed at me, then she ran into the front room, and let Friend Two and Singing Love in.
And what were her first words to her saviors? “There’s a scary woman outside.”
*tm
*How do you know this is written by a thirty-something, Oregon hipster? I don’t say “white” or “blush” or “red.” I say “Shiraz” and “Zinfandel.” And it was only through heroic restraint that I kept from including the winery and year.
Friend One has recorded poems for Fishouse, and they are up now. As always, they are fabulous. Check them out.
*tm
Last night, Friend Omega and I had a conversation about the Tooth Fairy. You can read his version here. And then read mine:
Terrible Mother: Thing Three lost a tooth today.
Omega: Yeah?
Terrible Mother: Yeah. So she was all excited about the Tooth Fairy.
Omega: Oh God. Tell me you don't do the Tooth Fairy thing.
Terrible Mother: Of course I do. Why?
Omega: You tell her that some mutant fairy breaks into her room and steals her body parts? It's awful.
Terrible Mother: Body parts? It's just a tooth!
Omega: What, does she hang out at the leper colony after hours?
Terrible Mother: Do they even still have leper colonies? Who has leper colonies any more?
Omega: It's disgusting, TM. I mean, where did this story even come from?
Terrible Mother: When Thing One was little, she asked me what the Tooth Fairy did with the teeth. And I was a little caught off guard, so I made something up.
Omega: What did you say?
Terrible Mother: I said she built her house with them.
Omega: THAT'S HORRIBLE!
Terrible Mother: What was I supposed to say? I made up more about it. How she used the canines for fence posts.
Omega: This is awful. Some fairy thing is going to break into my house* and steal my body parts. And how do you even assign monetary value to the tooth? Do you set a market price with other parents? Do you have to check with Billy's dad to see if he gets a dollar a molar?
Terrible Mother: My kids all get a dollar a tooth.
Omega: A dollar a tooth! That's insane!
Terrible Mother: Inflation, Omega. Inflation.
Omega: If my parents had given me a dollar a tooth, I'd have knocked out all my teeth!
Terrible Mother: That's because you have to over do everything.
Omega: A dollar a tooth! I might just do it right now to see what happens.
*tm
*Omega was really upset by the breaking and entering part of the equation, for some reason.
In recent weeks, three friends have asked for a copy of this old piece of mine, something that was published at the now defunct Journal of Modern Post. I thought I'd post it here. This was written pre-grad school, but I still kind of like it.
Happy Christmas, friends. Happy Christmas.
Dear Wasp That Stung Me,
I thought I’d take this opportunity to write you a personal letter, a little correspondence from me to you, to let you know how displeased I was at the unfolding of today’s events. Let’s recap. There I was, minding my business, buying take-n-bake pizzas and salad, when you landed on one of the pies in question. I realize you probably didn’t have a good view of me at that point, since you were under one of the pizzas, but I knew you were there. And I, like all gentle, kind and earth-loving humans, did not want to harm one tiny wing on your yellow-and-black body. Also, I am allergic to you and all your brethren, WTSM. So, I calmly set the pizzas down on the bumper and looked for you. I looked under and around the pizzas. I gently, carefully, lifted up the salad. I did not see you. So, WTSM, please pardon my mistake at placing all food items, items which you were obviously interested in, in the trunk of the car. I certainly did not mean to place you in the boiling hot trunk, and would never have left you in there while I drove five minutes to the grocery store, as that would be extremely rude to do to any guest.
Perhaps you noticed my look of surprise—would it be too heavy-handed to call it horror?—when I opened the trunk to retrieve my purse, and noticed you, WTSM, there, looking rather verklempt. Nothing in the world could have stopped me from immediately offering up my most sincere apologies, except for one thing: your large, brightly colored, phallic-shaped nether-region heading straight for my arm.
I hopped. I jumped. I screamed, daintily I hoped, but still you alighted on my arm and began plunging your quiver into my flesh. Now I know, WTSM, this is an instinctual trait, and an important one at that. You and your kind would have not survived for thousands of years had you been less aggressive, less territorial, less, shall we use the colloquialism “pissy”? But, as Miss Manners always says, “It is far more impressive when others discover your good qualities without your help,” and isn’t that something we should all try to remember? Let’s be fair, though. I might have deserved the first sting. Perhaps I deserved the second as well. But the third was rather extravagant, and the fourth, well, that was just positively gauche. So, while I can offer up my most heartfelt sympathies for the rather painful blow you received from my wallet, the blow that squashed you into a smallish mess, I must remind you that sometimes we need to keep our excessive little stingers to ourselves.
Because you cannot know what transpired after you expired, I will now take pains to make sure you realize just how put out I was because of your excessive point-and-poke party, WTSM. After your hasty exit from the scene, I wobbled into the grocery store. I was sickly, at best, and thought for a moment “perhaps I should have packed my Baedeker!” But I trudged onward, and headed to the deli and foreign cheeses section, though I do not know why. I must have looked terrible because, at the precise moment when I was approaching the smoked Gouda, someone tapped me on the shoulder. I turned, and saw that it was a grocery clerk. Not just any clerk, WTSM, but my favorite one, the cute boy who can’t be older than 19, with the smattering of freckles across his nose, and the warm, brown eyes.
I’m not sure if they have something similar in the wasp world, WTSM, but here, in the human world, some of us women are driven crazy by something called The Slightly Geeky Boy. And this clerk is the pinnacle of Slightly Geeky, with the freckles, the serious-but-still-bemused expression, the lightly ruffled hair. If there were a Mr. Slightly Geeky Boy of the Universe, this clerk would win, black-framed glasses down. So when he tapped my shoulder and I turned, I should have felt happiness, relief that my hero was there. But no, I knew the grumblings of my stomach and the miscreant saliva rivulets of my mouth all too well. And if I had had but one more moment, I might have been able to stop myself, but as it was, I had been stung four times—FOUR!—by you, WTSM, and so instead of turning away towards the comforting cheeses and silent slaws, I vomited on Mr. Slightly Geeky’s shoes.
This, WTSM, is not an appropriate mating ritual, in case you were wondering.
You also cannot know how horrified I was, WTSM. My apex of horror did not go unchallenged long, though, as I vomited twice more, before slipping in my own puddle, and falling on the floor. Now I know you are likely not familiar with the effects of your own vicious venom, but as one who is allergic to your potent poison, I know all too well how fast I need to tell someone of my situation. At the same time, I am a person who does not necessarily do well in stressful, emergency-type situations.
For example once, when I was in high school, I caught the restaurant I worked at on fire. It was early morning and, in my panicked state, I said the sentence, “Fire! Wood! Wall!” as I ran around looking for a fire extinguisher. This was simply my panic-induced speech, as linguistic expertise under duress is not my forte, WTSM. Now on this day, in our friendly store, poor, bedrenched lad standing near me, I was thinking about how I had just eaten Mexican food for lunch. Then I recalled a television show I had seen on bee and wasp allergies some years back where a woman, who was highly allergic to wasps, was stung by several as she walked up the aisle to her wedding. She ended up not having an allergic reaction because, as doctors later decided, her natural adrenaline from the stress of being married saved her life (more likely it was the stress of wondering if she had ordered enough chicken plates). Of course, these were coherent thoughts I was pondering, but what came out was slightly different. What I said to my Geeky Clerk was “Mexican Wedding.”
“Mexican Wedding,” WTSM, is not something most people utter, and certainly not people who have just vacated the contents of their stomach in front of the fromage display. And because of my situation, I was unable to come up with anything else to tell the beautiful clerk boy. I suspect he sat there, after yelling for someone to call an ambulance and strategically placing himself next to me as to avoid my own foul stomachy-ness on the floor, and tried to imagine under what circumstances anyone’s possible dying words would be “Mexican Wedding.”
And though I could utter nary a word, my Geeky Clerk held my hand, and was quite willing to tell the EMTs who arrived, moments later, that I had just come from a Mexican Wedding. The paramedics, gratefully, noticed the four giant welts on my arm, and I was finally able, on the way to the hospital, to choke out the word wasp! Thankfully, they did not think I was speaking of my social status, as we all know how uncivilized that would be.
So, for my part, I am sorry about your most untimely demise, but I want you to know that my wallet still carries your mark, and I shall, of course, carry it there for the rest of my days.
All my best,
Terrible Mother
(8-2004)
