Terrible Mother

Potential Disaster Management

A few months ago, I wrote about how I was planning on applying to Iowa's MFA in creative non-fiction.  I don't need another MFA, but what I could use is some writing time and, if I am able to land one of their better fellowships, then that would buy me a few more years writing.  Of course, I'd have to take courses again, and workshop, but, I reasoned, I'd have more time than I currently do with my part-time-in-name-only teaching job.

Part of the other reason I thought about doing this was because the inherent insecurity in being an adjunct.  I knew, for example, that the enrollment where I teach is falling as the economy gets better.  I haven't been there that long compared to many of my colleagues, and so I'd be the first let go.  I'm also low on the list for getting classes, so the end of each term is always filled with worry and anxiety, as I hope that I can land a second class (I need 2 classes to make it through financially, and most terms I need to maintain my health insurance). 

As a result of this insecurity, a good portion of my life is spent in what I've termed "Potential Disaster Management."  I calculate what we'd need to give up to make it on one class or what we'd need to do, God forbid, I got no classes.  I look for freelance writing gigs.  I consider setting up a tutoring service.  I network with acquaintances.  And in spring of this year, I applied for a second instructor position in another department at the college.  I was hired.  Buoyed by this, I thought that perhaps I'd be able to make it through every term, every year.  However, there are no classes for me in the second department next term.  I've managed to get two classes in my first department, so I'll be fine.  But it's hard to escape the feeling that I am just skirting disaster and that, given enough time, it will hit me.

That disaster may come via that falling enrollment:  I know that adjuncts have been, for the past few years, allowed to teach more classes than our contract allows because there had been such a surge in numbers when the economy collapsed.  Once the union and administration ends that, I'll be stuck at 5 classes a year (with one extra in the summer if I'm very lucky).  That's $20,000/year, maybe $24,000. 

That's why the idea of Iowa, or something else, somewhere else, seems more secure.  At least back under the auspices of a university, I will have some stability.  A fellowship is only, at the most, $17,500, but it comes close to the $20,000 mark.  And I'd qualify again for food stamps year round, other assistance.  I'm also applying for fellowships at a few other universities, though each of them is difficult to land--the equivalent of a writer's winning lottery ticket.

And then I think about our lives here, how settled we are.  We've been in this small city for the past 8 1/2 years.  I have a close circle of friends I love.  I'm comfortable here, established even.  That's the rub, really.  I've worked hard to scratch out a life here.  I'm about to get seniority at the community college which means that my job will be more protected, and I'll have a bit easier of a time getting classes.  It's not nearly as secure as tenure but, for an adjunct, it's pretty good.  Am I willing to turn my back on that to move to a tiny, frozen town in the Midwest?  Am I willing to uproot the kids, all of whom are excelling and happy, for something like "writing time" and a shot at "stability"? 

I wish the decisions came easier.  I know I can make lists of pros and cons, can calculate costs of living and moving, research schools.   I have already done some of these things.  Yet it all seems murkier, harder to decide.  Do I accept what I have here and consciously set out to believe that it's enough?  Is it enough?  Or do I strike out for the east, hoping that those few years will help me finish and revise my memoir and start a second book?  Will that, after all is said and done, be enough to make it somewhere else? 

I've already made up my mind to apply.  There's a deadline and I know I'll still feel the same pull in January or February.  Maybe, I think, it won't matter.  Maybe I won't get in or if I do, the fellowship or funding will be so small as to not matter.  I admit, part of me is relieved to consider that scenario.  Another Potential Disaster I'd manage to avoid. 

*tm

Neighborly Conduct

I think we can now say, with certainty, that I have the "Worst Neighbors Ever," even though previous reports of their misdeeds would not qualify them as "worst." The neighbors directly next to us are often loud, but that's nothing in the realm of Worst Neighbors Ever. Apartments 4 and 5 take extra parking spaces, and once the guy in 4 actually parked so that he took up three entire spaces.  That's an impressive level of Bad Neighbor-ness.  Apartments 1, 3, 4 and 5 routinely play beer pong and exchange homo-erotic exclamations and affirmations ("Dude, if I was gay, I'd totally date you...dude. No, seriously!"). And then there was the night the girl from Apartment 5 sat under my daughter's window and talked to her cat about oral sex* and her boyfriend.

But that, my friends, is bush league compared the recent misdeeds of Apartment 1. It all started about 6 weeks ago.  One afternoon, I took Effie out to pee on our "side yard." This side yard is where a seventh apartment would be if there were one (and I thank every possible deity that there isn't because then I'd have two shared walls and can you imagine the bitching I would undertake with that scenario?). But instead of a seventh apartment there is a little, bare ground yard that runs up to the house behind us. In March, the late snowstorm knocked several trees down, and those still haven't been cleaned up by the landlords**, so Effie and I had to navigate those as well.

Six weeks ago, she was sniffing around, when the hair on the back of her neck stood up. I looked for another animal, but then noticed what looked like fur on the ground. Clumps of fur. At first, I thought it was some dead animal, and so I pulled Effie back so she wouldn't do something typically Effie, like roll in dead animal carcass. I toed a clump of it carefully, thinking a dead mouse or rat or squirrel was surely close by. But the fur didn't look much like fur the more I moved it around with my shoe. It looked like hair.  

This is because it was hair. Human hair.  Four or five big clumps to be exact, spread around as if on purpose.  It had clearly been cut, because each clump was more of a lock of hair than anything else. I took Effie back inside, but I was just baffled. Why would there be human hair in our side yard? Under what circumstances would human hair be found in that side yard?  Was I an unwilling witness to witchcraft and/or a new episode of CSI?  

After a week, I forgot about it. The hair drifted off, or was carried away by animals, and I just thought it was a freak occurrence.

That is, until this past Sunday afternoon. I again was taking Effie out, but this time I took her to the front yard. I was standing near one of the parked cars when, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed leaves fluttering to the ground.  There was also a thin buzzing noise that I couldn't quite place. And then I realized something was wrong--the leaves were dark brown, and were not so much fluttering to the ground as they were falling in clumps. I looked again.  

Yep--human hair again.  This time it was coming over the fence of apartment 1.  Through the cracks in the fence, I could see one of the occupants of said apartment.  He was bent at the waist, head down, and he had a hair clipper in his hand.  He was shaving off whole sections of his overgrown, dark brown locks and throwing it over the fence.  

"What the fucking fuck!" I yelled. The kid jumped, and then I heard something drop.  I realized that he had dropped the hair clipper.  

Because I am an asshole, I repeated myself, only a bit calmer this time:  "I said, what the fucking fuck!" 

Through the fence cracks, the kid and I made eye contact and in that split second, he turned and ran into the apartment.  He slammed the door.  

"What kind of animal is so lazy they can't throw away their own HAIR?"  At this point, I was yelling at no one, since the kid had shut the sliding glass door.  This, sadly, did not stop me.  

"How can anyone be successful in life if they can't be bothered to THROW AWAY THEIR OWN HAIR?!?!"  I was sputtering with rage.  How dare these goddamned kids!  How dare they throw parties and take all the parking spaces and throw fucknig hair clippings into the yard!  

It was at that moment that I had a sudden realization.  In casting them as the entitled and lazy undergrads, I had placed myself in the only other available role:  the angry old person with the cane, yelling at the young 'uns to get off her lawn.  

I looked at Effie, and I looked at the hair.  The angry old person would have scooped it up, and plopped it on the front porch of the offenders, probably with a passive aggressive note.  The busy single mother would leave it alone, shrug her shoulders and sigh, and let it go.  

I decided that, at least for this week, I'm not resigning myself to old age quite yet.  I have things to do, you know.  Kids to raise.  Meals to cook.  Papers to grade.  

Even though I maybe sorta drafted that note in my head.

*tm

*Okay, only once. But I think it's possible it will reoccur. Still, that poor, poor cat

**Apparently, the landlords have told the regular yard maintenance gentleman that he is to take a "barrel or two" away every week. There are two big felled trees, and he's doing it a barrel at a time. This is the longest yard maintenance job ever.

The Best Laid Plans

Last week, I said that something had to change. Specifically, I said, "I don’t want to do this anymore." I've said it before, but I meant it in the vague "someday-things-will-be-better" way. This time, I'm making actual plans to change things, and these plans vary greatly.

Plan I*: Find a job outside of academia as a writer. This would mean I'd likely work as a technical writer, or in marketing or communications.  To do this, though, I would have to leave Eugene. This area just doesn't have enough large corporations or companies that will hire a person to write. There are a few larger companies here, but they hire infrequently (and, truthfully, right now they hire not at all).

I want to stay in the Pacific Northwest if at all possible, particularly if I have to work a traditional job where I must arrive neatly dressed and ready to work at 8:00 am Monday through Friday. This means that Portland and Seattle are my best options for full time work, with Seattle being significantly better in prospects.

Plan II: Apply to the creative non-fiction MFA at the University of Iowa in Iowa City. Yes, that Iowa. It's most well-known for the Iowa Writers' Workshop, but even though the non-fiction program isn't directly affiliated with the IWW, it's the most prestigious non-fiction program in the country. If I can get in and get a decent fellowship, I could probably make this work.

Of course, this would involve leaving the Pacific Northwest for at least two, maybe three, years. It would also mean uprooting the kids from the Pacific Northwest and subjecting them to the Iowa winters. And by "subjecting them" I also mean "subjecting me."

Both plans have their pros and cons. Part of me just wants to turn away from academia altogether. I love being in the classroom, working with students, engaging them on topics I know they thought they'd hate. When I'm teaching, I feel whole in a way that happens only rarely otherwise, and only when I'm writing and, sometimes, when I'm with my kids. It's heartbreaking to think of giving that up. But the economic realities of my situation have done a lot to convince me that I need to seriously consider stepping away from academia for good. Corporate America could be my best escape.

But Iowa would give me a chance to read and study creative non-fiction in a way I haven’t been able to. I’d also be given a lot of time to write. I have a draft of my memoir, but it’s a long way from being done. Another MFA program would give me the space and time to finish it.

I ask myself, though, “Does anyone really do this? TWO MFAs?” It’s preposterous. And I’d really only want to do it if I didn’t have to add to my considerable debt. It’s already a risky prospect to get one MFA and fund it with student loans.

I’d be 42 by the time I finished another MFA program (maybe 41 if I hurried). I wonder about my financial security as I get older. I’ll have spent so many of my years raising kids and going to school—will I be able to work enough to build up savings? The answer is probably “no” regardless, but putting off entering the workforce and getting a good, full-time job would make it more so.

I know that, regardless of these points, I have to make some kind of plan. The enrollment at my college is slowly falling. Right now, the union has approved a short term “overload” plan that allows us to teach 7 classes in a 9-month academic year. We can always teach summer courses, too, if they are available. Seven classes is $28,000/year. But they will likely cut that back to the normal amount, which allows us to teach 5 courses in a year, or a 2-2-1 (to keep insurance for the entire year). That’s $20,000/year. Another college an hour away allows 5 classes a year, too, but I’d only make $12,500, and the gas and childcare would eat away at that meager salary.

These are the two options I’m considering now, as though I could easily weigh each on a set of scales to see which tipped more in our favor. It’s so hard for me to know. So, I make plans for both, and keep my fingers crossed, and hope at least one doesn’t go awry.

*tm

*I admit, using Roman numerals makes me feel like a grown up, and makes me feel like these plans could happen. Roman numerals are magic, yo.

The Language of Neighbors

I live in a tiny complex that is comprised of exactly one thin row of townhouses.  There are six townhouses, to be exact, and we are the last in the row.  Number 6.  This is good because it means we share only one wall with neighbors, while the other wall edges a quiet back yard and treed area. 

It's also good because almost all of our neighbors are of the undergraduate variety.  They can be loud and annoying, and certainly inconsiderate. 

This, then, is a brief collection of various phrases, acronyms, and sentences my kids have heard me utter as a result of living near these people. I tend to see these as falling into one of several categories.

 

First, some phrases I've used to describe their lack of responsibility:

"Irresponsible twat"

"Human crap holders"

"Waste of electricity" [in reference to their music, specifically]

Second, acronyms I use as an attempt to avoid cursing while still getting the sweet relief a good curse phrase provides [note: this does not work well]:

"FFS"

"WTF" 

"WTFBBQLOL"

Third, phrases I use to describe the various male-male interactions I must bear witness to:

"Bro-mance"

"Bro-mageddon"

"Bro-bro"

"Phallic symbol"

"Homoerotic overtones"

Fourth, sentences that allow me to express my full emotions about our neighbors:

"Fucking Christ on a Popsicle stick!"

"Do you know what my favorite numbers are? 9-1-1."

"I swear to God they have more incense than anyone. It's Eugene. That's saying something."

"If this clock vibrates off my wall one more time..."

"I pay for a parking space! I don't pay to be pissed when there is no parking!"

Finally, these last are sentences I have found myself saying to the kids as means of explaining previous comments:

"Yes, Chloe--beer pong is for business majors and undergraduates. Sometimes both."

"No, Ivan. Homoerotic doesn't refer to pornography. Well, in general, anyway. Or, at least when I refer to it."

"I could throw dog crap on their cars. I'm not saying it's a good idea. I'm just saying...well, do you think they'd know it was me?"

"I know I'm the only parent who lives here. Well, as far as they know. All those bros could TOTALLY be parents!"

"It's like living in a third world country here! A fucking LOUD third world country!"

"If I wanted to hear loud, drunken sex I would start dating again!"

"No, I swear that isn't really how my dates go."

"Well, when you love someone it isn't gross...."

*tm

The Longest Month

It’s September and the air is filled with autumn: drying leaves, rain, and a hint of smoke. I love the weather changes, even though they are subtle here in Oregon. I love the return to school with all those pencils and notebooks stacked so neatly in the stores.

But September is also the last month I go without a paycheck. As an adjunct instructor at the local community college, I make enough to scrape by during the school year. Because I’m very careful, and because I get child support from the Things’ dad, it’s enough for a car payment and insurance, food and gas, rent, clothes, and even internet and chess lessons and theater classes. It’s enough for decent birthday presents and pet food and orthodontia payments. It’s enough for me to get a haircut and color twice a year.

In short: this is what I manage on a salary of about $26,000, with child support of about $13,000.

But it’s never enough to make it through the entire summer without a paycheck. I hold off paying certain bills, buy cheaper food, forego doctors’ visits or other expenses. I lie in bed, thinking about how I might make extra money: could I sell something? Every summer, I try to sell my plasma, and every year I am turned away for low iron.

This summer, I took on two significant freelance writing jobs. One paid very well, and the other paid decently, but was a project I was passionate about. I’ve completed the first job and I’m diligently working on finishing the second.

Still, we’re on food stamps for the next few months. The combination of no paycheck since the beginning of July, and none coming until the end of October, means that even that freelance work hasn’t been enough. The food stamps are welcome—they mean we will get by. They mean that I was able to buy Ivan two pairs of jeans which he desperately needed. They mean that Giselle gets a new coat, and they kids all got school supplies. But all of it, all the ways I scrape and pull together this life, is never enough. Will it ever be enough?

In December, I will turn 39. The Things Three will be 14, 13, and 11. I confess, I don’t want to do this anymore. I am tired of working so hard for so little. I’m tired of struggling. And I’m tired of September, the longest month, when the façade I’ve so carefully crafted thins, and I can see how close I am to disaster. *tm

Miscellany: The Righteous Indignation Edition

Before I launch into my typical miscellany-type post, where I bring together disparate scenes of my life, I would like to welcome you to the newly redesigned Terrible Mother.  And I need to give credit for the design to Sweet Blog, which did a bang-up job. 

Anyway—on to the miscellany.

A conversation with Friend R:

Me:  Do you have that recipe for no-knead bread handy?

Friend R:  Yeah, I can send it to you.

Me:  Does it work?

Friend R:  It must because all the hipsters have had the chance to go from "I love it because I'm the only one doing it" to "Everyone's doing it so it's not cool anymore” to "Damn, that's some good bread. But don't let my cool friends know I'm using it."

Me:  I didn’t know hipsters ate.  I thought they rode single gear bikes and bought uncomfortable furniture.

Friend R: Do you know what the newest trend in self-righteous hipper-than-thou cooking is?  Grinding your own wheat to make bread.

Me: What. The. Fuck.

Friend R:  The name dropping is insane. "My grinder's Danish because the Danes know some shit about grinding wheat." Right. They've been grinding wheat for centuries. When they weren't out raping, pillaging, and stealing other people's flour because grinding it yourself is a pain in the ass.

(pause)

Me:  The Danes stole flour?


***

I was invited to this potluck wherein parents from Thing Two and Three’s elementary school are together and discuss the merits of changing the cafeteria offerings to healthy (and likely organic food).  We’re each supposed to bring a dish that’s something we’d like our kids to eat at school.  I am totally behind this idea, but I keep thinking of making some anonymous-looking casserole and labeling it “Trans Fat Sprayed with High Fructose Corn Syrup!”

Am I a bad person?

***

A conversation with my mom, about her upcoming wedding:

Mom: So, my colors are off-white, champagne and…mermaid blue.
Me: “Mermaid blue”?  Is that a color?

Mom: Yes.  Sort of aquamarine.

Me:  I see.

Mom: So the girls I’m gonna get dresses for in the mermaid blue color.  But you can pick whatever color you want out of those three.

Me:  Okay.

(in the background, Thing One starts pantomiming choking herself).

Me: Thing One is really looking forward to that.

Mom:  Well, good!  And tell her we’re going to attach seashells to everyone’s dresses too!

***

Excellent Swimmer (a new character!) and I have three kids between us that go to the same elementary school.  It’s a new school, having been a combination of two other schools--Eastside and Potter--with two different demographics.  One day, we started talking about those demographic differences.

ES:  Yeah, I worry sometimes about the Eastside parents because they have more money, and you know how that goes.

Me:  Yeah, I know. 

ES:  Do you know anyone from Eastside?

Me:  Sort of.  There’s this one guy. 

ES:  How do you know him?  Work?

Me: Actually, we dated for awhile, I guess. 

ES:  You dated, you “guess”?

Me:  Well, he eventually came around to telling me he wanted me to be his “second wife” or something. Maybe second girlfriend?  I don’t know.  He’s married.

ES:  What?

Me: Yeah, I’m not kidding.  We went on three dates before I even knew he was married!

ES:  Oh my God!

Me:  Right?  So you’re worried all the Eastside parents are going to all be classist. But mostly I’m worried they’re gonna be polygamists.

(pause)

ES:  Which is worse?

Me:  Good freakin’ question. 

*tm

Marching Toward Insolvency

Last week, I opened a letter from the Oregon Department of Revenue. I had been looking forward to said letter because I knew it meant my state tax refund--which was to be $3845--was on its way to my bank account or my hot little hands. And who doesn't like tax refunds, I ask, especially when they come close to 4 grand?

The letter, however, let me know exactly where my money was going: directly into the rather deep pockets of the university where I finished grad school last year. I owe them money: two months' rent, three months afterschool care for Things One and Two, charges from the Health Center, and a short term loan added up to just over $5,000. I've been paying on it every month. Some months, that's $150, some months it's $10. It didn't occur to me that my refund would get applied to my account, and in some ways, it's entirely fair. I owe that money; those charges are legitimate. But I desperately needed that money and I'm not sure I can make it through the summer without it, and this is why: summer care for the Things Three runs just over $1500 a month.

For comparison's sake, my car cost $1200 and is still running strong (knock on the drywall that surrounds my desk).

$1500 sounds excessive, doesn't it?, until you do all the math: divide 1500 by three, then divide by the number of hours each child spends at the center, then calculate the pay for each teacher and assistant, the cost of the fieldtrips and snacks and meals, and suddenly it becomes all too clear why it costs so much. This is a fairly good price for high-quality childcare, and if the center hadn't decided to continue charging me the student rate, I'd be paying over $1800 for the same service.

But this is the truth: after rent, childcare, electricity and car insurance, I'll have $112.60 left over. That's including John's child support (which he has started paying on time this month), and including the SSI Thing Two collects because he is autistic. Though because I recently received a fifty-cent an hour raise, the latter may be cut.

And that is $112.60 left over each month, not each week. I don't yet know how I'll cover gas and phone, or anything else we'll need like laundry soap and shampoo. I can't even begin to think how I'll pay for food. I've emailed the account manager at the childcare center (aka "Guido The Collector") and asked if an alternative arrangement can be made where I pay $1100 a month and roll over the rest until the fall so I can at least have money for food and gas.

That was yesterday. She hasn't responded yet, but I'm hoping for something because otherwise I don't know what I can do.

*****

Friday night, I drove the kids to Portland for their weekend with John. He has moved into Sara's house recently, and this was the first time I would see the place. It was lovely, a two-story row house with hardwood floors and plush carpet. In the kitchen there were granite counter tops and dark wood cabinets--something like cherry wood or mahogany--and it felt warm and inviting. The house only has two bedrooms, and the guest room is where the kids stay. When I took their things in, I noticed the furniture was the kind fashioned from pine logs and made to look homey. In the dresser, Sara had put the clothing she had bought the kids--four summer outfits and a swimsuit each. There was a credenza with new books on it, and there were flip flops and slippers. Opening into the bedroom was an immense bathroom with glassware decorating the counters and those little lights framing the mirror.

Sara's mom was visiting from Pennsylvania and though the two of them had already headed to the coast, she had bought new pajamas for the kids before they left. The kids were happy, ran around the new house excited and gleeful. John showed me around and was proud of the place, I could tell, and I worked at not begrudging him it. Outside, in my little car that cost less than one month of summer childcare, the gas tank measured just under half a tank. The drive was two hours back. I had $1.88 in the bank, no cash on me besides pennies, and I didn't know if I'd make it back. There was no way I would have told John this, walking through that house, him showing me the master bedroom covered in red and orange and black. He had just handed me the child support check, though I had asked for cash, because I knew depositing it in an out-of-town branch might result in a hold on the funds and I needed the money, I needed it Friday night and Saturday morning for gas and food.

There's something particularly unnerving about the minutiae you have to devote yourself to knowing, the institutional rules you learn, when you're poor. I hadn't known about my bank's specific rules regarding deposits until one weekend evening when I was in Portland, depositing a check, and needed that money. The protocols around these things are banal, and the banality can drive you, or the person you have to explain it to (aka, "the fanbase") insane. Is it very interesting? No. But this is where most of us who deal with some level of being poor* learn pretty quick: the only way of managing it is to learn the tedious ins and outs. It is sometimes the only leverage you have.

Thing One, the girl who is smart beyond her years, somehow knew about the gas, and I think guessed I wasn't going to say anything, and so she looked at John and said, "Mom doesn't have enough gas to get home." She said it flat, matter-of-factly, and I loved her and hated myself at the same time. If I had known she would have said anything, I would have swallowed my considerable pride and said something myself. Who the hell am I to put an 8-year old in that position?.

John, though, did what he needed to, drove to the bank and took out $20. "This is for my share of Thing One's medication this month," he said. He acted like it was an act of generosity. I did, too. Because I've learned a long time ago to be grateful even for what you should expect.

I cried on the way home (big surprise, I know, me, the girl that says Crying Is Okay). But it was hard to see John living so well, hard to know the kids had all those things I couldn't give them. Sara is great, and the fact she bought them clothes and books, found ways to make their living space there comforting and welcoming--that's not a small thing and I'm sure it wasn't easy, either. And Lord knows that John could have ended up picking a crackhead who didn't like children and chain-smoked and watched reruns of Bonanza (though, frankly, I am highly suspect of his Dating Prowess. How can anyone explain landing Sara AND me in the same lifetime, hmmm?**).

I used to believe that my intelligence, my ability to think and analyze, to teach, to write, to work hard, to raise bright children, my education, somehow these things at long last would earn me a living wage. But none of them do.

*tm

*It's hard to talk about poverty and being poor in part because the language itself is so absolute. I don't think I'm poor the way some people are. I don't, for example, qualify for welfare, and I live in a good neighborhood. I have a car. But worrying about food and electricity? That automatically gets you into the poor category, or at least the lower-middle class category. Period. End of argument.

**I know, totally self-promotional and egotistical there. But if you had just admitted to the Internet that you were poor, I would let you slide. I'm just sayin'*.

*"I'm just sayin'" is, seriously, the best reason ever. You can use it all the time! It supports any argument! It's genius!

Hire a U-Haul, Boys!

Several months ago, four to be exact, I mentioned that some changes were going to happen with this blog. And then they never happened, which is what occurs in real life, especially when it involves writing.

But now the change is set to go down in the next few weeks, so I'd like to let everyone know the excellent news. I'll be blogging from Neal Pollack's new website Offsprung as one of the contributing writers. *TM is moving to that penthouse in the sky, people!

Or, at least, a sweet little bungalow in an even-tempered neighborhood.

More later on this big news, including a plethora of links (and probably a good deal of hand-wringing on my part), but I am, well and truly, headed for new and snazzier digs.

*tm

Soccer Mom Infusion

The past week has been rough for one reason and one reason only:

Soccer started.

To be fair, I should have known better than to sign up all three of the Things for soccer at once. But what was I supposed to tell them? That only one kid got to do soccer each season? That seems like the American Single Mother version of the "only one of you gets to eat today," and so, no, I couldn't do that. And it seemed to me at the time that I would be able to set up a carpool or find some other parent, some other mom, to pick up the various Things and take them to practice. We live in a particularly liberal city, in a particularly community-minded and oriented neighborhood, and we espouse things like helping others and whatnot.

So when only one mother, out of 20, responded to my fun and quirky and humorous email looking for someone to take Thing Three to soccer twice a week, I was a little crestfallen. But I thought everyone else was just busy, I mean, I'm busy for god's sakes, so I thought it would work itself out.

Friend Two ended up taking Thing Three to soccer that week, and when I went to pick the youngest thing up, I felt a little odd. Only two of the other mothers (out of 20! 20!) talked to me, and one of them was someone I used to work with. The second was the mother who had emailed me, and she seemed a little weird about it. She volunteered to pick up Thing Three for one practice a week, and I was grateful for that, and told her so, but then she kept repeating that she could only do it once a week, not twice. Which was fine, really, but I could not understand why she kept repeating it as though I was going to take advantage of her.

That was Wednesday.

Thursday included me becoming the Soccer Mom Vicarate as I fandangled my way out of work 90 minutes early, picked up Thing Two, drove to some impossibly remote wooded nature park, only to discover upon arrival that I could not locate the soccer field. Since Thing One's practice started shortly, and because I was the Vicarate of Soccer Motherhood in question, I had to drive back into town, pick up Thing One and four of her friends, load them into my little station wagon along with Thing Two (and breaking numerous moving vehicle codes*), and take them to soccer practice. After which, I ran home, changed into jeans and a t-shirt, gave Thing Two a snack, and then headed back to the soccer field.

You know something? I'm only part way through this entry and I'm damned tired of typing "soccer." I could type that stupid word in my sleep.

But nothing compared, not really, to Thing Two's soccer scrimmage on Friday. The coach's wife offered to pick up the boy from after school care, which was a relief to me. The scrimmage started at 5:00, and because I am a minion of The Government Employ, it can be near impossible to scoot out early**. So I showed up, Things One and Three in tow, around 5:20. And then the other moms did that thing, the worst form of punishment any one of us could inflict on another:

They ignored me.

And when I say ignored, it's not like I'm saying they were bad at small talk or something. I mean they didn't make eye contact. I mean they didn't look at me, didn't even acknowledge my presence. It was hot, so I had changed from my work clothes into crop jeans and a t-shirt and cute sandals. I didn't look like them, but it wasn't that I looked that dissimilar to them. And even still, it was though I didn't exist.

It hurt more than I care to admit. And as they were talking, I could hear myself constructing the story later for friends, how I'd make fun of them, their L.L. Bean tan shorts and crepuscular-colored polos and Teva sandals. And how I'd tell them about those mothers, and how, when they relayed to each other something about a lingerie party in someone's home, which seemed to scandalize them, they kept saying "panty party" and "naked lady party" in a stage whisper.

And I hated how much I wanted certain things they have. One talked about a house that was on sale in her neighborhood. "Not bad for the size," she said of the price. "I think it's 650." As in $650,000. I don't even know how to relate to that. Not even a little. I'm scraping for gas money every week, managing my incredible cost-to-income ratio with credit when I have to, with charity when I can't even manage that.

Finally, maybe 25 minutes in, I cooed at a baby, said how cute he was. And things eased up a bit. Another mother, the one who picked up Thing Two, came over then, talked to me. We had decent small talk. And I noticed how all of these mothers, how they regard me, how they appraise me, because that's the precise word for it. Fatally Hip Single Mother says she thinks they're threatened by us: the single moms with advanced degrees, an endless array of funky shoes and glasses, and the way we collect hip turns of phrase like a macrophage collecting dead skin cells***.

Sometimes, when we're a little drunk, and she's so inclined, Fatally Hip Single Mother will add, "And they're just jealous because they know we're getting NEW SEX! As in sex without a stupid husband you've been married to longer than you've owned your Volvo!" And when we're drunk enough, "Volvo" sounds vaguely erotic. But that's another story. For a different blog. One ending in "xxx," methinks.

I don't want to hate these women, I don't. It feels like giving in to some stupid cultural body politic, some idea that we women should spend a good deal of our lives being snarky to one another. But I also don't have any idea how to reasonably bridge the gap. None. I'm just this young girl to them--I'm 33, but let us labor under the pretense that I look younger--shut it, Friend R--and I've got three kids and I'm single and I go around doing lame things like wearing my Teaching Fellow t-shirt, which I realized later I put on because I wanted them to know I was at least the educated version of a single mother, not the dumb-knocked-up-at-17-smokes-and-drinks-Diet-Dr.-Pepper-while-pregnant version. And so how can I even bridge the gap, relate to their lives, which I think of as small and petty partly because I can't fit in there?

*tm

*I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I'm super neurotic about things relating to moving vehicles ever since I worked in auto claims. The girls soccer practice is literally 1 1/2 miles from their after school program through sleepy little streets lined with trees and tulips. And all the other parents pile the kids in, put various children on the laps of other children, make them buckle the whole pile in. It nearly gives me hives thinking about it--really, you work one fatal car accident and suddenly you start thinking about how each object in each car could become one of those severe angels you see sometimes in ancient boiseries--but the Other Parents kept doing it without batting an eye. So, much to the chagrin of Nancy Reagan, I gave into the peer pressure, and loaded the kids up. Lord help us all.

**Government Employ is difficult to describe fully. I get great benefits and a fantastic retirement program, am a union member and get about 92 paid holidays a year. But getting off work 30 minutes early to catch the kid's soccer scrimmage? Not so easy.

***I hate you, Fort Awesome. Hate.

Remainder

Last night I helped Thing One finish her math homework. She's learning division, but they're still at the stage of using remainders. I had forgotten about remainders until I saw her mark one with a capital R. I miss them. They make more sense now. When did we start to think we could figure everything out, carry something down to the last digit, the 1000th place or the 1000000th place?

It never works. There are always remainders.

"What's zero, really?" she asked, halfway through.

"It's not really a number," I said. "It's an idea."

"What does that mean?"

"It shows absence. It symbolizes what isn't there."

Thing One thought about this for a minute. "Yeah," she said. "Like it's a circle around nothing. Like, 'look, here's nothing!'" She laughed.

I nodded. I thought about the Chudnovsky brothers who built their own computer to calculate pi. When I last read about them, they had calculated out 2 billion places, with still no pattern found, no final number. There has always been something strangely comforting to me about that, about them. The faith it takes to keep going. The fact no end is in sight.

"I like the remainders," I said.

But Thing One had already gone on to the next idea. "Zero is like tomorrow. Like the word tomorrow."

"What?" I said.

"Tomorrow is an idea, too," she said. "So it's like zero. There isn't a real tomorrow. You never get there."

Remember how I was all "Thing One isn't as smart as I was, wah-wah-wah"?

Now? Now I have to DESTROY her!

*tm