Terrible Mother

Miscellany

Thing One: Superman has powers, right?
Terrible Mother: Yes.
Thing One: Does Batman?
Terrible Mother: (thinking) No.
Thing One: Then why is he a superhero?
Terrible Mother: Because he chooses to be one.
Thing One: So. That doesn't make you super. He can't fly. He can't burn things with his eyes. He's not fast.
Terrible Mother: He has all this advanced technology.
Thing One: Oh.

30 minutes later...

Thing One: It's just money.
Terrible Mother: What?
Thing One: Batman's only a superhero because he has money.
Terrible Mother: But he has technology, Thing One.
Thing One: Who cares. He just bought everything!
Terrible Mother: What about Green Lantern?
Thing One: He just has a stupid ring!

********

I missed the Poem of the Week this week. WTF? How did I do that?

********

Financial woes abound, people. Abound. Another long-time, but recently partnered, single mom in my office described going to a financial planner early after her divorce. After a few hours, he threw his hands up in the air and said, "You're fucked." Yes. In the ass even.

********

Among the financial woes was last week's drama, which included the bank losing my deposit. Like a moron*, I deposited $500 cash into the ATM. When I went to check my balance online the next evening, it wasn't there. As in not even on the system. It was already late, so I couldn't call anyone.

But the stress, the stress of losing $500 was so great that I thew up several times in the middle of the night, cried, couldn't sleep.

The next day was my birthday.

The money was eventually found--the ATM hiccupped and somehow took my deposit and put it into another part of the ATM (who knew it was like a Terry Gilliam set in there?) but the damage was done and I was a train wreck for a little bit after. All that money, I thought.

I don't know how to not worry about money, and this feeling, it reminds me of being married. Always something wrong, something really wrong, that I can't fix.

********

Friend R: I need to ask you a favor...
Terrible Mother: oh God. Okay, go ahead.
Friend R: I'm a little worried at the moment. I can't access my computer in my apartment, and I'm afraid my apartment's been broken into.
Terrible Mother: So you're asking me to do a looksee?
Friend R: Yes. More than likely, there's just a problem with my DSL, but I'm paranoid, and I was wondering if you would drive by and make sure all the windows and doors are intact.
Terrible Mother: No problem.
Friend R: You rock.
Terrible Mother: Truth be told, I owe you. I'm emotionally needy and you lent me a laser level.
Friend R: Well, do you like lemon meringue pie?
Terrible Mother: Yeah, I love it. Why?
Friend R: Because I've learned how to make them from scratch. and my new mixer mixes the FUCK out of some meringue.
[long pause]
Terrible Mother: I will sooo be your bitch for some meringue.

********

Terrible Mother: I'm writing a blog entry and I need to ask you something
Fort Awesome: Okay.
Terrible Mother: Do you think the word "midget" is offensive?
Fort Awesome: I think they prefer "little person."
Terrible Mother: Right. I know that. But it's hard to tell the story without saying "midget."
Fort Awesome: Might you say " diminutively statured?
Terrible Mother: No. No that sounds awful. Look, I'll send you the section.

[long pause as Fort Awesome reads]

Fort Awesome: There's too much of the funny, not enough of the sad and poignant.
Terrible Mother: I asked about the word midget!
Fort Awesome: Are you sure he was a midget? There's a difference between a midget and a dwarf, you know.
Terrible Mother: Yeah, I know. He was a midget. But the point is, is it offensive?
Fort Awesome: Well, it's odd right now because, narratively, you noticing him comes too late. It's too delayed. The timing is off.
Terrible Mother: You're right. The timing is off.
Fort Awesome: And I think you could mitigate any offense by saying something about him as a human, some small connection.
Terrible Mother: Yes, yes. This is good. Explain.
Fort Awesome: Like you could look at him and see some common exhaustion, some world weariness. The both of you misplaced, sad, foolish.

[long pause]

Terrible Mother: This is a goddamned blog entry. IT'S NOT A SHORT STORY! IT DOESN'T HAVE TO BE ART!
Fort Awesome: Shit.
Terrible Mother: And I was with you for a moment. Fuck, I was totally nodding.
Fort Awesome: Sorry! I'm sorry!
Terrible Mother: You know what I think? I think we miss workshop and it's coming out all sideways on us. Making us wedge-up** fucking blog entries.
Fort Awesome: Where's the pain, TM? Where do you touch upon the deep, unfullfilled need of a midget in Albany?
Terrible Mother: Look what the MFA has done to us, FA. LOOK!
Fort Awesome: Alright, I'll give you that we're fucked up but, seriously, tm, this--midget in jester hat with a balloon while you're getting dumped--could have only happened to you.

*tm

*well, like a moron who needed to deposit cash and then high-tail it back to work on her lunch hour

**One of the ways we talked about fiction in Ehud's workshop utilized the concept of The Wedge, as he called it. It basically indicates that the plot moves along on a surface level, while the development of the protagonist must continually move to an ever-deepening level. AKA not for blog entries.

Rewrite: The Tooth Fairy

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.

Happy Christmas

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)

Childless, Part III

A few nights ago, Friend R and I were talking on the phone. "Christ," I said, "I accidentally bought screw driver bits instead of drill bits."

"That was stupid," he said. "But you know what? You can get in the car right now, drive to Home Depot*, and buy some."

Imagine me, in my kitchen, cell phone to ear, with a wide-eyed, awe struck look on my face.

If you want, insert appropriate montage music for my jaunt to Home Depot at 7pm on a weeknight. Use something triumphant. Like the theme from Chariots of Fire.

********

My house is...messy isn't the right word. It's completely unorganized. There are presents--wrapped and unwrapped--on the table, a mountain of laundry to fold, and I've spread all of my knitting materials out on the couch. Sans children, I sort of feel like I have ADD. All these things to get done and absolutely no structure.

********

Last night, I went grocery shopping for the holiday. The menu is as follows:

Christmas Eve

tangerine glazed ham
mashed potatoes and gravy
broccoli salad with a warm balsamic vinaigrette
mandarins with red onions and olive oil
homemade sourdough rolls (if the starter works)
chocolate cream pie

Christmas Morning

eggs with sausage and homemade salsa

Christmas Dinner

homemade pizza
baby field greens

There are several things that struck me about this menu, which I constructed as I was walking through the grocery store, seeing what was fresh and looked good. One, I'd never consider all these homemade items if I had had the kids this week. But as it stands, they are a: coming home Christmas Eve, and I will have a chance to cook and, b: they won't be here to say something like "mandarin oranges and red onions, what?"**

The second thing that struck me about this menu is that it's pork-heavy. I realized this as I was in the checkout line. I was at the requisite poor-side-o-town grocery store. You know the place: pallets of food and toilet paper and two-liters stacked into the rafters, cold concrete floor, everyone packing their own groceries. In Hippyland, such places still offer feta cheese and brie, whole coffee beans and a few organic veggies, but at reasonable, discount prices, so I shop there despite the lack of ambiance.

But as I was in the checkout line, the cashier looked at my items, then looked at me, then looked back at my items. I realized that, all stacked together neatly on the little conveyor belt, was a ham, pork sausage, and pepperoni. And next to that was a big package of organic tofu. The clerk looked confused.

What I thought of was my mother who, for years, insisted that we could not eat ham or any pork products on Christmas or Easter to "show solidarity with the Jews."

I was nine when I came out of my room, a few days before Christmas, and said, apropos of nothing, "Solidarity with the Jews? THEY DON'T CELEBRATE CHRISTMAS OR EASTER!" This did not end the pork-at-specific-Christian-holidays-moratorium, but it gave my brothers quite a bit of glee for the next several years.

I think all my pork purchasing is a subconscious way to get back at my mom. And the tofu, too, which she calls "weird hippy food" is just icing on the cake.

The big cake made in solidarity with the Jews, of course.

********

This morning, in bed, I thought of Thing Three, who always sleeps with me. And I missed her, her little feet curled against my back. She sucks her thumb at night, and I wished, for a second, that I could roll over and see her small, pixie face, eyes closed, thumb tucked away.

********

With three kids, it's easy to accidentally over or under buy for one. That may be why I miss Thing Three because last night, setting out the presents and getting them ready to wrap, I realized that she was getting the short end of the stick. So I'm going out today to get her one last thing--a Breyer horse.

*tm

*I love Home Depot, and I just realized it this past week, as I walked through the epic-sized place. I want to build things, I thought. Lots of things. Like a tree house.

I never consider myself that type-A until someone points it out to me. In fact, I sort of cringe at the idea of being type-A. It sounds so stodgy, so repressed, so...so...list-making and button-fastening and dress-sock wearing. But yeah, it's probably sort of type-A to go into a Home Depot and think "I'd like to build something really big and complicated" when you have to borrow a laser level to hang pictures in your house.

**Yeah, mandarin oranges and red onions. It's an amazing salad. Simple, hearty, lovely on the table. You can use regular oranges, too. Peel and cut the oranges, arrange them in a fan shape, and top with very thinly sliced red onions. Right before serving, drizzle a very good olive oil on top. Perfect with sourdough.

Poem of the Week

Tarantulas on the Lifebuoy

For some semi-tropical reason
when the rain falls
relentlessly they fall

into swimming pools, these otherwise
bright and scary
arachnids. They can swim
a little, but not for long

and they can’t climb the ladder out.
They usually drown-- but
if you want their favor,
if you believe there is a justice,
rewards for not loving

the death of ugly
and even dangerous (the eel, hogsnake,
rats) creatures, if

you believe these things then
you would leave a lifebuoy
or two in your swimming pool at night.

And in the morning
you would haul ashore
the huddled, hairy survivors

and escort them
back to the bush, and know,
be assured, that at least these saved,
as individuals, would not turn up

again someday
in your hat, drawer,
or the tangled underworld

of your socks, and that even--
when your belief in justice
merges with your belief in dreams--
they may tell the others

in a sign language
four times as subtle
and complicated as man’s

that you are good,
that you love them,
that you would save them again.

-Thomas Lux

Thirty-Three

A photo collage (courtesy, in part, of my Frigidaire) of a Terrible Mother, thirty-three years, today, in the making:

*tm

Childless, Part II

Things I have realized in the past 48 hours of childlessness:

-I have never had, until this entry, a blog category devoted entirely to me. Everything relates to my friends, my love life (or lack thereof), or the kids. Or poetry.

-I really am addicted to coffee and I cannot blame it on the kids.

-eating artichoke ravioli without hearing any complaints is really frickin' good.

-I am always running late to work, regardless of the kids.

-the reason I don't like to get up in the morning is not because it's hard to get the kids ready.

-I am a bad ass knitter when I'm not distracted.

-I actually really do miss the kids when they are not around.

*tm

Childless

I dropped the kids off with John yesterday, where they will stay for the next 8 days*. Then I drove home, had dinner with Fatally Hip Mrs. Friend Two and her friend, then went home and slept for 12 hours. 12!

I'm a free agent this week, people. Watch out.

*tm

*Thing One being Thing One said yesterday, in front of John's house, "You're dropping us off for Hanukkah, basically." And then proceeded to tell John that "you get Hanukkah, Mom get's Christmas!" with way too much glee. First Name School, I curse thee.

Poem of the Week

White Slip on the Paris Metro

From the fouled nests of Villejuif
to the street below,
then the walk, the steps down
to the catacomb metro—
I have waited with Moroccans squatting like tajines
and Senegalese women asleep against their bundles,
waited in this crowd like a soul for a ferry
and how many skies exiled?

How many skies.
To ride this silent film
under cobbled Paris, her exposed-bone sycamores,
to pitch and tilt and judder,
in scumbled light,
there among the speeding cataleptic,
rocking like the drowned,
being how many kinds of foreign
and living like Saint Jerome.

And I speak stone but no one speaks.
I have slept against my reflection.
I have pretended a bored sleep.

But once I raised my head
and saw, I swear, a woman wearing falling snow.

She glowed supernova in a slip.
Not a knot or a kiln or a boat ramp,
but a dress from the silver water of the moon
and a liquid shape, each way free.

Not wine-lips red or black,
but blue-shadowed pearl white silk,
a dress of movie light,
a dress that's all of May,
the force of curve, all liquid words,
a whirly night sea's murmur—

Then at once the doors leapt open,
and in that hiss like a wave pulling back on the sand
she was gone.
Yet in a city of crows, my ribs marimba'd,
at that temple door, I was accordion lunged.
I saw a candlelit woman in the fluorescent metro,
a woman like a sudden pillar of doves.

-Eliot Khalil Wilson

Happy Birthday Thing Three

At approximately 4:32 this morning, Thing Three turned 5.

Happy birthday, my very smallest child. Happy birthday.

*tm