On New Year's Eve this past December the kids and I figured we'd see what this Doctor Who fella was all about. My son's friends in middle school had been discussing it and he felt out of the loop. We'd just subscribed to Amazon Prime and I had looked it up so....
Three o'clock in the morning and four episodes later we finally went to sleep. By the time the kids went back to school we'd watched the entire first year of the revised Doctor Who. Never having seen a Doctor Who before (although having been a drama geek in school I don't know how on earth I dodged that bullet) we had no idea about regeneration, or how sad we would be to see Christopher Eccelston go... we spent at least a week researching why he'd left the show after only one season in vain hopes that somehow he might be back. Both thrilled and dismayed we welcomed David Tennant into our household by the second week of January. Then by February we were saying goodbye to our (OK, my) favorite Doctor and welcoming Matt Smith.
Then we were done with him. Just like that. Thanks BBC for making short seasons. This is just one of those times I wish for the interminable American style 22 episode season! Luckily, my son kept making mention of "the snowman" until I said him "Who is this snowman you speak of, I don't remember it." What! We missed a Christmas special! We still have one to watch! I almost didn't want to watch it right away. Like saving the last candy till tomorrow because you have no idea when you'll next get another.
We have begun to dip back into the past into Classic Doctor Who - although not all episodes are available we are making do. Having a theatre and film background I try to explain to the kids about acting styles changing and production values improving since the series began, but we all do other things while we watch. I sometimes wish I'd started watching in high school so that I could better appreciate those earlier Doctors without the absence of greenscreen and CGI weighing down on my suspension of disbelief. But then, I think, I skipped the double edged sword of depression and thrill that would have been had when they stopped production in 1996 and then started up again in 2005. We are now half way through what is available. Don't get me wrong, we WILL watch every Doctor Who that becomes available to our little greedy minds. As drugs go contemplating time, humanity, history, science, space, and aliens is not so bad. So even if we get some bad shit from the first iteration of the Doctor, say, where you can practically see the string holding up the set and the spray painted bubble wrap costumes, we'll watch. Oh yeah, we'll watch. We want it just that bad.
Now we eagerly and
somewhat trepidatiously anticipate August when a new Doctor will step
out of the Tardis. My daughter said to me from the backseat on the way
to school one morning recently, "Mama, I feel empty inside." I'm
thinking, oh shit I forgot to feed her breakfast! "Why, sweet?" I say.
"Because there are no more Doctor Who episodes to watch." Leave it to
the nine year old to say what we had all been thinking. So do I, baby
gal, so do I.
Peter Capaldi, no pressure man, but this one is all on you.
Monday, March 17, 2014
Tuesday, October 08, 2013
Little Lady
I was watching the mothers walk their daughters into school this morning, noticing their similarities in style and demeanor. My daughter has long gotten over me walking her to the gate and onto campus. Drop off is fine, thank you.
It popped into my head that those little girls are just like their moms - pretty, confident moms = pretty, confident girls. But then why, I wondered, didn't that work for me? My mom was, and is, beautiful. Imagine, slim, blonde hair, blue eyes and a beautiful smile - none of which I inherited. Nor did my mother walk me into school and, in fact, she was a working mom, so my sister and I, we walked ourselves to school. Unthinkable now. But even then when there would be some family activity at the school where the parents came, you could always tell which were the moms of the pretty girls.
I just remember growing up that I was not pretty, or cute... I was the fat one. It started funny, of course, little jabs about my protruded belly (why that was considered funny I'm not sure, but then again consider sitcom humor), then it became 'fat tummy', then just 'fat', then chunky all around. So this is the identity I grew up with. I wasn't allowed to be like my mom, my mom was pretty and everyone knows that fat girls can't be pretty. I couldn't be smart because my sister was smart. And they always said 'smart one', not two. So I was... creative. That was acceptable. I landed on acting because that of all the other creative things I tried, acting I had the most aptitude for, and it made me happy. But then when you get to be a slightly older child you realize that fat, not pretty, not particularly smart girls can't be actresses. But then everyone tells you to follow your dream, all the while worrying that it'll never come to pass for your because you are afterall, fat.
These are the things that go through an adolescent mind, the things that went through MY adolescent mind. And it is no use protesting the verity of any of these particular assumptions. They were my assumptions, and perception equals your reality. And like the tiny rock thrown into the still water, the ripples of those beliefs still reverberate in my life, in my choices, in how I do and do not allow myself to be treated.
And it got me to wondering, what is going through my daughter's mind about herself? What perceptions is she picking up on that I am not aware of? That I am not aware I am contributing to and will someday limit her life?
If it is not impossible to undo the perceptions of our childhood it certainly is a colossal feat, a battle I have spent decades waging with... inches of success. Intellectually, I can look back on those beliefs and balk and call them ridiculous. But in some ways I still feel like that little fat girl with the impossible dream. What is my daughter up against that I can not see? How I wish I could peer into her mind and place in there the belief that while maybe not ALL things are possible (the little lies we tell our children!) but a lot is possible for her, certainly many, many things she wants in life.
But since we lead by example, I wish I could put aside the little fat girl inside of me when I am with my daughter. But she's always there - worried, knowing she isn't enough to be what she really wants to be - I want to shut her up, push her aside, deny her. But that won't work, then she's just the unspoken truth hovering that everyone refuses to see. I try to bolster my confidence and be assured with my daughter. But that is its own lie in a way. The truth is, I am not that little girl anymore, but she still needs to be seen, to be reassured. I am, in many ways, now a confident woman but sometimes even she needs to crawl under a rock and hide. And sometimes there is even a woman in between. The only solution I think is to coexist - and to approve wholeheartedly of them all, equally.
It popped into my head that those little girls are just like their moms - pretty, confident moms = pretty, confident girls. But then why, I wondered, didn't that work for me? My mom was, and is, beautiful. Imagine, slim, blonde hair, blue eyes and a beautiful smile - none of which I inherited. Nor did my mother walk me into school and, in fact, she was a working mom, so my sister and I, we walked ourselves to school. Unthinkable now. But even then when there would be some family activity at the school where the parents came, you could always tell which were the moms of the pretty girls.
I just remember growing up that I was not pretty, or cute... I was the fat one. It started funny, of course, little jabs about my protruded belly (why that was considered funny I'm not sure, but then again consider sitcom humor), then it became 'fat tummy', then just 'fat', then chunky all around. So this is the identity I grew up with. I wasn't allowed to be like my mom, my mom was pretty and everyone knows that fat girls can't be pretty. I couldn't be smart because my sister was smart. And they always said 'smart one', not two. So I was... creative. That was acceptable. I landed on acting because that of all the other creative things I tried, acting I had the most aptitude for, and it made me happy. But then when you get to be a slightly older child you realize that fat, not pretty, not particularly smart girls can't be actresses. But then everyone tells you to follow your dream, all the while worrying that it'll never come to pass for your because you are afterall, fat.
These are the things that go through an adolescent mind, the things that went through MY adolescent mind. And it is no use protesting the verity of any of these particular assumptions. They were my assumptions, and perception equals your reality. And like the tiny rock thrown into the still water, the ripples of those beliefs still reverberate in my life, in my choices, in how I do and do not allow myself to be treated.
And it got me to wondering, what is going through my daughter's mind about herself? What perceptions is she picking up on that I am not aware of? That I am not aware I am contributing to and will someday limit her life?
If it is not impossible to undo the perceptions of our childhood it certainly is a colossal feat, a battle I have spent decades waging with... inches of success. Intellectually, I can look back on those beliefs and balk and call them ridiculous. But in some ways I still feel like that little fat girl with the impossible dream. What is my daughter up against that I can not see? How I wish I could peer into her mind and place in there the belief that while maybe not ALL things are possible (the little lies we tell our children!) but a lot is possible for her, certainly many, many things she wants in life.
But since we lead by example, I wish I could put aside the little fat girl inside of me when I am with my daughter. But she's always there - worried, knowing she isn't enough to be what she really wants to be - I want to shut her up, push her aside, deny her. But that won't work, then she's just the unspoken truth hovering that everyone refuses to see. I try to bolster my confidence and be assured with my daughter. But that is its own lie in a way. The truth is, I am not that little girl anymore, but she still needs to be seen, to be reassured. I am, in many ways, now a confident woman but sometimes even she needs to crawl under a rock and hide. And sometimes there is even a woman in between. The only solution I think is to coexist - and to approve wholeheartedly of them all, equally.
Saturday, September 28, 2013
Slug(ish) Fest
I thought I would get involved with the PTO of my
son’s new middle school. I’m not a
particularly ‘gala’ gal and selling stuff I’ve never been good at. But organizing, sorting, writing, that kind
of stuff is right up my alley… so I agreed to be the “P” part Chair of the
school’s 5K. A decision whose
ramifications did not illuminate themselves immediately.
The first clue was when my daughter asked me if I
went to the gym anymore. “No, honey. Our
gym closed down.” Says she, “There’re
other gyms, mama.” Yikes! It was not the first time she had remarked on
my weight.
I chose the 5K for a number of reasons. First, I’ve done them… In a time BC (before
children) though, but nonetheless I am familiar with the whole deal. Second, it was the latest event in the school
year that didn’t have a chair yet. Lame,
yes, but I figured it’d give me time to get my sea-legs at the school.
Then my son mentioned my actual legs. I don’t recall what he said exactly or the
context but the gist was I needed to be able to actually run a 5K if I was going to organize one… Ummm….
He is right of course. And time
is not slowing down waiting for me to get motivated.
So I started with a cleanse. I tried to do 28 days, made it three
weeks. I wasn’t perfect but I was
already starting to feel lighter. The
problem of course is my (*gulp* 50lbs? overweight) body is out of shape and
sluggish. For a number of reasons. I broke my arm in January 2012, pretty badly,
and then rebroke it in May of that year.
Gravity was not my friend for many months but painkillers were (I don’t
mean it like that! Seriously…), and I ended up taking prescribed and then over
the counter ones for about 5 months, which it turns out, is a very long time
and a very lot of pain killers for a poor little body to process. Then physical therapy, focused on my arm and
so the legs were a little neglected…. Flash forward to 18+ months later and the
arm is fine, almost like it never happened apart from a barely noticeable bump,
and a little pain when it’s overworked.
But I can’t blame it entirely on the broken
arm. I’d been living in the lap of
relative sedentary living since I had children.
Ironically, when they were smaller and needed more care it was easier to
get to the gym more regularly. It’s nice
when the gym is entertaining for the kids to go to so you can avoid the fuss
and subsequent guilt. Then our gym
closed down, then we went to another and that
one closed down! But honestly, even with
a place to work out running hadn’t been on my menu for a while. I just have felt heavy and sluggish for years
(thus the cleanse) and running has never been easy for me or readily enjoyable
no matter what the long term benefits.
That said, before my son was born I actually was just starting to get
into triathlon and thought I’d continue it on a few months after the kids were
born… well… Turns out what was on my menu was kid food. It is that anxiety that is born of a sense of
lack, that preternatural inability to waste food. So what hopped on to my menu were things kids
didn’t finish, the three goldfish left in the cup, the other 10 cookies the
kids and I baked and ate exactly one each and refused any more, the leftovers
everyone else in the household declined to eat, the grapes that were about
ready to become raisins that then went into my already full lunch. It was a problem, one I have been
addressing. But still, I feel sluggish.
And yet, here it is almost October. I know me and how long it took me to get
ready to run my first 5K and I am seriously pushing it. So, today, with afternoon temperatures
finally in the heavenly 90s (I know that sounds weird but I live in the
Coachella Valley where for almost 5 months it doesn’t dip into the 90s till
midnight) and a cool breeze, I thought I’d get me and the dog off our fat asses
and run around the soccer park. OK, yes,
I hear ya, that’s funny… hahaha, run!
OK, let’s call it a fast schooch – with pain. Buttercup did not understand why she didn’t
get her nice leisurely sniffy-fantastic tool around, and I most certainly
looked silly. But I got it done. The start.
Phew. Many more portions of miles
to go!
Thursday, September 19, 2013
Bl-itter-ing idiot
bl·itter
noun,
bl-itter-ing, bl-itter-verse,
1. Not quite as tedious as a whole blog
post, not quite as cryptic and requiring of a click here escapade as a tweet.
An employer of mine died recently. More than an employer, a friend. Well, like a wonderful aunt you get to visit
once a week and you really don’t mind. I
wasn’t related to her and I’d worked for her once a week, half a day, for six
years. We knew she was going to
die. But even when it is expected it is
unexpected.
She died over a week ago but today really sucked. When you aren’t related or terribly close
to, but just terribly fond of, someone you don’t get all the stages of grief. You
get just a couple. You have to pass over
anger because afterall what is it to you.
You can’t in all seriousness do denial because no one would believe
you. And bargaining is out because you
have no leverage with the universe. So
what you are left with is depression and acceptance…and who is really going to believe you are really depressed?
And yet there it is. It is depressing because it means the order of the universe has changed in a favor of which you are not quite sure of yet. You have to accept way before everyone else so you can steady on. And that is all OK, but it still sucks. Because you end up in a place that is not really fair to be in, you don’t get to ride on the boat with all the other passengers. You have to wade in depression till everyone else catches up and meets you at the docks of acceptance. And I think this is what happens when we learn of someone dying that we don’t know well, or hear of someone passing before their time, or when someone you know’s father dies, which also happened last week. You have to bypass stages 1 through 3 and hang in the edge of 4, in this mild to icky funk knowing the only thing to do shortly is to accept something you are really not happy about but there is no other choice.
But as I like to say, white wine fixes everything… or at
least is a moderately good way to pass the time till you get to stage 5.
Tuesday, January 15, 2013
Weather Telling Bunion
Anyone remember the cartoon Bullwinkle? Who was it that had a weather telling bunion?
Today is January 15th. Exactly one year since, in a freak kitchen accident, I broke my arm at the shoulder. I got several fractures, which gave the lie to my thinking I was indestructible - me big strong gal! I had a horizontal fracture just under the shoulder joint and several pieces of the greater tuberocity (that sounds so technical! - actually it is the ball of the joint) popped off with the tendons when my shoulder dislocated, and a crack in the greater tuberocity as well. One of my favorite moments of the experience is when I asked my orthopedist if I needed to have surgery. He responded by saying "No! Oh no. No. Nobody would want to get in there and muck around. That's a mess."
Confidence inspiring.
But turns out he did just the right thing, which was to just make me hold still for many months. Easier than I thought it would be. Apart from a few squirrely moments on a couple nights where I felt like a caged animal, like I was going to chew through my sling if I wasn't allowed to move my arm!, it was not so hard and not very painful. Pain killers work well if you have the right one for the job. I was lucky in that the ones that were too powerful for the pain I was experiencing, i.e. the addictive ones, made me feel kinda sick so I had no incentive to misuse them. And as soon as it was bearable I stopped taking them altogether.
And then physical therapy, and oopsy where I reinjured the arm, popped off one of those pieces again in a fall (I have never fallen so much as when I had a reason NOT to!), minor setback, a plateau where for many weeks I was worried I'd never be able to hook a bra by myself again. Then viola! I can do nearly anything I want again... except for a few yoga poses with hands praying behind back et al which will take maybe a longer while of working on.
So, there you have it. Injured and recovered, just like that! Except now I have that annoying weather telling pain in my shoulder. Just like Bullwinkle. I am told it will probably never go away... but then I was told I'd never be able to lift my children again or strap my bra so...
Today is January 15th. Exactly one year since, in a freak kitchen accident, I broke my arm at the shoulder. I got several fractures, which gave the lie to my thinking I was indestructible - me big strong gal! I had a horizontal fracture just under the shoulder joint and several pieces of the greater tuberocity (that sounds so technical! - actually it is the ball of the joint) popped off with the tendons when my shoulder dislocated, and a crack in the greater tuberocity as well. One of my favorite moments of the experience is when I asked my orthopedist if I needed to have surgery. He responded by saying "No! Oh no. No. Nobody would want to get in there and muck around. That's a mess."
Confidence inspiring.
But turns out he did just the right thing, which was to just make me hold still for many months. Easier than I thought it would be. Apart from a few squirrely moments on a couple nights where I felt like a caged animal, like I was going to chew through my sling if I wasn't allowed to move my arm!, it was not so hard and not very painful. Pain killers work well if you have the right one for the job. I was lucky in that the ones that were too powerful for the pain I was experiencing, i.e. the addictive ones, made me feel kinda sick so I had no incentive to misuse them. And as soon as it was bearable I stopped taking them altogether.
And then physical therapy, and oopsy where I reinjured the arm, popped off one of those pieces again in a fall (I have never fallen so much as when I had a reason NOT to!), minor setback, a plateau where for many weeks I was worried I'd never be able to hook a bra by myself again. Then viola! I can do nearly anything I want again... except for a few yoga poses with hands praying behind back et al which will take maybe a longer while of working on.
So, there you have it. Injured and recovered, just like that! Except now I have that annoying weather telling pain in my shoulder. Just like Bullwinkle. I am told it will probably never go away... but then I was told I'd never be able to lift my children again or strap my bra so...
Wednesday, November 21, 2012
Lessons of Little House
My husband won't like this certainly, but I just added the Season 3 disks of Little House on the Prairie to our Netflix cue.
Why, you may wonder, would I do such a thing. I know, I know. For those of you old enough to have watched some or all of the series you are wondering 1) why I would want to watch it again, and 2) why, as I am doing, would I inflict such a thing on my children.
Well, here is the deal. When the kids were much younger and the reading of books at bedtime was de rigour, I had a notion that I should be reading them story books, not just picture books. You know, in order to get them used to the eventual reading of chapter and long form books. Although I hadn't read the original Little House books by Laura Ingels Wilder myself as a child, I picked one up one day at the library and attempted to read it to them that night. It fell with a big thud.
Cut to several years later - this year some time after I broke my arm - it happened to be my turn to pick for Movie Night (our Friday night ritual) and we were at the library in the kids' video section. There it was, the pilot of Little House on the Prairie. Oh sure, there was much moaning, and declarations of intent to leave the room if it proved boring (by mostly my husband, but kids too). But low and behold, about 20 minutes in (I chain them to the sofa for at least 30 minutes when viewing anything new) they were hooked. When I told them it was a series and we could get it on Netflix there was much enthusiastic cheering of "get it, get it".
We just finished Season 2 and I was ready to slip the DVD into its red envelope and send it off when I said to the kids that we had to decide whether we wanted to commit to watching the next season of the show, because it was severely cramping Daddy's DVD watching style. Ang looks at me with this impertinent look and says, "What!". Oh my, I thought, here we go. Now I get to hear about how smarmy and stupid it is and of course we don't care about watching it anymore. But he surprised me with the follow up to his shocked outburst with, "Of course we're gonna watch it! If there's more, we're gonna watch it. Sheesh" Oh. Of course, how dumb of me, mama!
So, Lesson One. Sometimes it pays to ask, and sometimes it doesn't. Meaning, if I had been swayed by the shocked and despairing looks when I first picked up that pilot DVD, we never would have gotten this far. And if I hadn't asked whether we should continue, I might have assumed they had no interest and let it go.
Lesson Two. I have been vaguely assessing why the kids are so enthusiastic about watching the show. Now interest in watching an episode is indicated by the humming of the theme song, wherein everyone else comes running. I get asked, often on school nights, if there is time to watch an episode, but also, I rarely get put off when I suggest a viewing. I am probably the one who pays the least attention and not because I've seen most of the episodes before (we were viewers, but certainly not devout, and even if I'd seen it my memory is slim on the details). But having watched now two seasons, some 46 episodes plus the pilot, I have come to realize that it is probably the aspirational quality that we all respond to.
It is smarmy, and probably, even in 1974 terms, and idealistic vision of another time. But to be overly cynical and to say, oh everyone is so good and everything turns out so well, would be wholly unfair. I was somewhat surprised at some of the storylines which include such themes as the loss of faith, war, drug use, usury, theft, desperate poverty, loss of a child, desertion, financial devastation and natural and man-made disasters, among others. They didn't shy away from portraying ugliness, which is often one of those sarcastic assessments of the series - that everything is good and people were wonderful. One might make a case that the episodes which focus primarily on the girls - Laura and Mary - do tend on the all is well that ends well side. And punishments metted out to them in the series are, arguably by today's standards, mild. Can you imagine today's audiences allowing for a "good talking to and embarrassment of exposure" as adequate retribution for the crime of stealing church money?
Yes, what is portrayed in Little House on the Prairie is a kinder, gentler, simpler time. And maybe that is what we like. But also what I like is that while the series itself may be aspirational, the writers allowed for their characters to be entirely human, and thus fallible, and even surprising. It's nice to watch a show where the good people are good and the bad people are only human, and sometimes they are having an off day and do the opposite. Just like the rest of us.
Why, you may wonder, would I do such a thing. I know, I know. For those of you old enough to have watched some or all of the series you are wondering 1) why I would want to watch it again, and 2) why, as I am doing, would I inflict such a thing on my children.
Well, here is the deal. When the kids were much younger and the reading of books at bedtime was de rigour, I had a notion that I should be reading them story books, not just picture books. You know, in order to get them used to the eventual reading of chapter and long form books. Although I hadn't read the original Little House books by Laura Ingels Wilder myself as a child, I picked one up one day at the library and attempted to read it to them that night. It fell with a big thud.
Cut to several years later - this year some time after I broke my arm - it happened to be my turn to pick for Movie Night (our Friday night ritual) and we were at the library in the kids' video section. There it was, the pilot of Little House on the Prairie. Oh sure, there was much moaning, and declarations of intent to leave the room if it proved boring (by mostly my husband, but kids too). But low and behold, about 20 minutes in (I chain them to the sofa for at least 30 minutes when viewing anything new) they were hooked. When I told them it was a series and we could get it on Netflix there was much enthusiastic cheering of "get it, get it".
We just finished Season 2 and I was ready to slip the DVD into its red envelope and send it off when I said to the kids that we had to decide whether we wanted to commit to watching the next season of the show, because it was severely cramping Daddy's DVD watching style. Ang looks at me with this impertinent look and says, "What!". Oh my, I thought, here we go. Now I get to hear about how smarmy and stupid it is and of course we don't care about watching it anymore. But he surprised me with the follow up to his shocked outburst with, "Of course we're gonna watch it! If there's more, we're gonna watch it. Sheesh" Oh. Of course, how dumb of me, mama!
So, Lesson One. Sometimes it pays to ask, and sometimes it doesn't. Meaning, if I had been swayed by the shocked and despairing looks when I first picked up that pilot DVD, we never would have gotten this far. And if I hadn't asked whether we should continue, I might have assumed they had no interest and let it go.
Lesson Two. I have been vaguely assessing why the kids are so enthusiastic about watching the show. Now interest in watching an episode is indicated by the humming of the theme song, wherein everyone else comes running. I get asked, often on school nights, if there is time to watch an episode, but also, I rarely get put off when I suggest a viewing. I am probably the one who pays the least attention and not because I've seen most of the episodes before (we were viewers, but certainly not devout, and even if I'd seen it my memory is slim on the details). But having watched now two seasons, some 46 episodes plus the pilot, I have come to realize that it is probably the aspirational quality that we all respond to.
It is smarmy, and probably, even in 1974 terms, and idealistic vision of another time. But to be overly cynical and to say, oh everyone is so good and everything turns out so well, would be wholly unfair. I was somewhat surprised at some of the storylines which include such themes as the loss of faith, war, drug use, usury, theft, desperate poverty, loss of a child, desertion, financial devastation and natural and man-made disasters, among others. They didn't shy away from portraying ugliness, which is often one of those sarcastic assessments of the series - that everything is good and people were wonderful. One might make a case that the episodes which focus primarily on the girls - Laura and Mary - do tend on the all is well that ends well side. And punishments metted out to them in the series are, arguably by today's standards, mild. Can you imagine today's audiences allowing for a "good talking to and embarrassment of exposure" as adequate retribution for the crime of stealing church money?
Yes, what is portrayed in Little House on the Prairie is a kinder, gentler, simpler time. And maybe that is what we like. But also what I like is that while the series itself may be aspirational, the writers allowed for their characters to be entirely human, and thus fallible, and even surprising. It's nice to watch a show where the good people are good and the bad people are only human, and sometimes they are having an off day and do the opposite. Just like the rest of us.
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
And Then For Something That Really Sucked
I spent much of my 2011 blogging time (such as it was) trying to look on the bright side, for the most part, unsuccessfully. Oh, of course, I tried to fool myself into believing that I actually did feel better about lousy things... 2011 ended and I put learning to love things that suck to bed for good.
And then something that really sucked happened.
On January 15, I was in my kitchen, with my 7 year old daughter standing on my feet, wiggling to be fed, saying goodbye to my little sister on the phone. As I reached out my arm to put my phone down my daughter pulled me one way, I went the other. Our weight shifted such that we went down in a sudden and great smack against the counter, a la a roll of Pop 'n Fresh biscuits - with almost the same sound too, only louder. As we went down my brain made that motherly nano-second calculation -- daughter's head aiming straight toward hard corner of oven handle, own arm stretched out precariously, bad news, push daughter, lose all balance, underarm smack on counter top, arm flop unnaturally over back of head and dislocate. Daughter fine, ambulance coming for me.
Before the ER doctor came into the room - for literally 3 seconds - to report the results of the x-ray, I knew I would have to miss some work. At least that coming week. And with husband unemployed that was indeed bad news. Ugh. So when we got the results "It's broken. See an orthopedist on Monday", I was already anticipating the deep frugality impact. But what is funny is, I didn't panic. Not even on the inside. I managed to stay calm, and remain calm, throughout this whole ordeal with a kind of acceptance previously unbeknownst to myself. "Yep, this happened, movin' on", has been my de facto motto. Take care of arm and also whatever else I can take care of, what I can't can't be done now or has to be done by someone else.
Let me just make this clear, I did not stress. I'm not talking, I pretended not to stress but really on the inside I'm screaming. No, I just didn't sweat it. Uh... weird. But upon many months of reflection, I have to say, I think a year of trying to learn to love things that sucked might have had some impact, once I stopped trying.
And though it sounds odd to say, I have loved the experience of breaking my arm. I have learned a bunch of stuff about myself and my family, not all of it awesome, but what can ya do? I got a previously impossible and unprecedented amount of time to sit around the house and read - those six weeks of disability went by too fast though. I learned to write with my left hand (I broke my right arm and any movement was verboten). I got to meet and interact with a group of people I otherwise would probably would never have had a chance to meet, those lovely and amazing folk of the physical therapist ilk. And I was forced, during physical therapy, to spend an hour and a quarter, twice a week working on only myself. How often is a mom gonna do that!
So maybe the moral of the story is that within things that suck lie more things that suck, but also many things that undoubtedly do not suck.
On January 15, I was in my kitchen, with my 7 year old daughter standing on my feet, wiggling to be fed, saying goodbye to my little sister on the phone. As I reached out my arm to put my phone down my daughter pulled me one way, I went the other. Our weight shifted such that we went down in a sudden and great smack against the counter, a la a roll of Pop 'n Fresh biscuits - with almost the same sound too, only louder. As we went down my brain made that motherly nano-second calculation -- daughter's head aiming straight toward hard corner of oven handle, own arm stretched out precariously, bad news, push daughter, lose all balance, underarm smack on counter top, arm flop unnaturally over back of head and dislocate. Daughter fine, ambulance coming for me.
Before the ER doctor came into the room - for literally 3 seconds - to report the results of the x-ray, I knew I would have to miss some work. At least that coming week. And with husband unemployed that was indeed bad news. Ugh. So when we got the results "It's broken. See an orthopedist on Monday", I was already anticipating the deep frugality impact. But what is funny is, I didn't panic. Not even on the inside. I managed to stay calm, and remain calm, throughout this whole ordeal with a kind of acceptance previously unbeknownst to myself. "Yep, this happened, movin' on", has been my de facto motto. Take care of arm and also whatever else I can take care of, what I can't can't be done now or has to be done by someone else.
Let me just make this clear, I did not stress. I'm not talking, I pretended not to stress but really on the inside I'm screaming. No, I just didn't sweat it. Uh... weird. But upon many months of reflection, I have to say, I think a year of trying to learn to love things that sucked might have had some impact, once I stopped trying.
And though it sounds odd to say, I have loved the experience of breaking my arm. I have learned a bunch of stuff about myself and my family, not all of it awesome, but what can ya do? I got a previously impossible and unprecedented amount of time to sit around the house and read - those six weeks of disability went by too fast though. I learned to write with my left hand (I broke my right arm and any movement was verboten). I got to meet and interact with a group of people I otherwise would probably would never have had a chance to meet, those lovely and amazing folk of the physical therapist ilk. And I was forced, during physical therapy, to spend an hour and a quarter, twice a week working on only myself. How often is a mom gonna do that!
So maybe the moral of the story is that within things that suck lie more things that suck, but also many things that undoubtedly do not suck.
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
How We Learned to Love The Things That Suck: Aha Moments
You never know when an aha moment will arrive, or what will cause it to come about. Sandwiched in between two weekends of Dezart Performs' - the theatre company I co-founded in Palm Springs and continue to shepherd - biggest production to date, a powerful aha moment struck.
I have never thought of myself as much of a people pleaser. I don't have many of the typical symptoms - I don't care awfully much how I look, I have no problem saying no, I feel no guilt about sneaking away for an hour of me time, or feeding my children breakfast for dinner instead of taking the time to concoct something more nutritious.
But on Wednesday afternoon I experienced a hit by a truck realization of this complicated triangulation of my, not people pleasing exactly, but approval seeking behavior that has railroaded me to exactly right here.
It is easier to talk about these kinds of realizations when you can think, "If I had it to do all over again I would..." I have been stubbornly adhering to a no-regrets policy. The early iterations were "Everything happens for a reason" all the way to "It's in the universe's hands". But in recent years, and particularly this year I have been growing skeptical that the universe actually KNOWS what it is I want in the first place. I can actually finish the sentence now with no compunction or fear of hurting other peoples feelings. I really now know what I would do if I had to do it all over again.
Well, maybe the universe wasn't the only one who didn't know what I wanted. See, I grew up in a family of semi-stoics. They could laugh, but there weren't exactly heartfelt conversations around the dinner table discussing the college prospects of the children, or reminisces of the adults' past missteps. Everything I knew about what my family, (and I include my grandparents in that category, though we didn't spend regular time with them, only holiday time, their influence was prevalent) I had to ascertain from unspoken messages. No one ever said to me directly "You must go to college", although my mother did say when I graduated high school that I did have to either get a job or go to school full time (I did both). No one ever tried to dissuade me - and I am grateful for that - from pursuing acting as a career. But on the other hand, neither did they seek out ways to support me, or take it all that very seriously. I suspect the family-wide attitude about it was that I would grow out of it.
So throughout my adult life I have been running in parallel tracks. One down the road of the kind of life I have always wanted to have, a creative life. The other track I have been running on is more like a treadmill, trying to prove to my family and the world at large that I am smart, not ridiculous, and an all around hard worker, not the obviously lazy clod that someone who wants to be an 'actor' must be. Clearly, it is not the fault of my family that I chose these paths. It was my interpretation of the unspoken rules and mores of my family, which I often ran afoul of in childhood and certainly put way too much stock in as I got older. But I was just never a 'go it alone' kind of gal. I couldn't have pulled a Demi Moore and rejected my family of origin to pursue my dreams. I would have been a puddle of emotional baggage, some sort of addiction just waiting to happen. What I just could not fathom, and thought I could not possibly tolerate, was the rejection of my family.
And how I came to finally realize all this was in a few short hours when that aforementioned truck hit me. I've been helping out the PS High Theatre teacher, helping some students get ready for festival performances next year. On that particular day, a visiting lecturer from UCLA was in to speak with the kids and help them with their August Wilson monologues. She is roughly the same age as I, but way, way ahead of the acting curve, not just in career success but also knowledge as well, and as she spoke this dread crept over me, the dread of realizing how exactly it is you have come to waste large chunks of your life. I'd always thought that I was pursuing my dreams, but in fact I'd been on those two tracks and the one I'd most often jump to when the gap between them got too wide was the "impress the world" track, leaving the acting track to go around the mountain without me. Here and there I have been able to pick it back up but the need to convince my family that I was smart in a way that THEY would be impressed with always won.
Wow.
And now what?
This is a fairly good place to end the year though, and this series of blogs. I don't think I have learned how to LOVE the things that suck so much as to tolerate them without having a heart attack. And there have been some mightily sucky moments this year, which is why there are so few blogs from me in large chunks of the year. I have a high tolerance for pain, and not getting what I want. But as I get older I am less impressed with the ability to be patient and reasonable. The more so as those around me seem to feel free to be disagreeable while I am expected to be patient and reasonable. I just might try being selfish and unreasonable in 2012. Yeah, that would be good. Everyone is always making "good" resolutions for the new year. I might just make mine bad.
I have never thought of myself as much of a people pleaser. I don't have many of the typical symptoms - I don't care awfully much how I look, I have no problem saying no, I feel no guilt about sneaking away for an hour of me time, or feeding my children breakfast for dinner instead of taking the time to concoct something more nutritious.
But on Wednesday afternoon I experienced a hit by a truck realization of this complicated triangulation of my, not people pleasing exactly, but approval seeking behavior that has railroaded me to exactly right here.
It is easier to talk about these kinds of realizations when you can think, "If I had it to do all over again I would..." I have been stubbornly adhering to a no-regrets policy. The early iterations were "Everything happens for a reason" all the way to "It's in the universe's hands". But in recent years, and particularly this year I have been growing skeptical that the universe actually KNOWS what it is I want in the first place. I can actually finish the sentence now with no compunction or fear of hurting other peoples feelings. I really now know what I would do if I had to do it all over again.
Well, maybe the universe wasn't the only one who didn't know what I wanted. See, I grew up in a family of semi-stoics. They could laugh, but there weren't exactly heartfelt conversations around the dinner table discussing the college prospects of the children, or reminisces of the adults' past missteps. Everything I knew about what my family, (and I include my grandparents in that category, though we didn't spend regular time with them, only holiday time, their influence was prevalent) I had to ascertain from unspoken messages. No one ever said to me directly "You must go to college", although my mother did say when I graduated high school that I did have to either get a job or go to school full time (I did both). No one ever tried to dissuade me - and I am grateful for that - from pursuing acting as a career. But on the other hand, neither did they seek out ways to support me, or take it all that very seriously. I suspect the family-wide attitude about it was that I would grow out of it.
So throughout my adult life I have been running in parallel tracks. One down the road of the kind of life I have always wanted to have, a creative life. The other track I have been running on is more like a treadmill, trying to prove to my family and the world at large that I am smart, not ridiculous, and an all around hard worker, not the obviously lazy clod that someone who wants to be an 'actor' must be. Clearly, it is not the fault of my family that I chose these paths. It was my interpretation of the unspoken rules and mores of my family, which I often ran afoul of in childhood and certainly put way too much stock in as I got older. But I was just never a 'go it alone' kind of gal. I couldn't have pulled a Demi Moore and rejected my family of origin to pursue my dreams. I would have been a puddle of emotional baggage, some sort of addiction just waiting to happen. What I just could not fathom, and thought I could not possibly tolerate, was the rejection of my family.
And how I came to finally realize all this was in a few short hours when that aforementioned truck hit me. I've been helping out the PS High Theatre teacher, helping some students get ready for festival performances next year. On that particular day, a visiting lecturer from UCLA was in to speak with the kids and help them with their August Wilson monologues. She is roughly the same age as I, but way, way ahead of the acting curve, not just in career success but also knowledge as well, and as she spoke this dread crept over me, the dread of realizing how exactly it is you have come to waste large chunks of your life. I'd always thought that I was pursuing my dreams, but in fact I'd been on those two tracks and the one I'd most often jump to when the gap between them got too wide was the "impress the world" track, leaving the acting track to go around the mountain without me. Here and there I have been able to pick it back up but the need to convince my family that I was smart in a way that THEY would be impressed with always won.
Wow.
And now what?
This is a fairly good place to end the year though, and this series of blogs. I don't think I have learned how to LOVE the things that suck so much as to tolerate them without having a heart attack. And there have been some mightily sucky moments this year, which is why there are so few blogs from me in large chunks of the year. I have a high tolerance for pain, and not getting what I want. But as I get older I am less impressed with the ability to be patient and reasonable. The more so as those around me seem to feel free to be disagreeable while I am expected to be patient and reasonable. I just might try being selfish and unreasonable in 2012. Yeah, that would be good. Everyone is always making "good" resolutions for the new year. I might just make mine bad.
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
How We Learned to Love The Things That Suck: Age Over Beauty
When I was young I assumed I would enter into my middle age with resources - for creams, and powders, procedures, and whatnot. So I didn't sweat the load about aging per se - the whole sagging, puffing, plumping business, I mean. Well, none of those goods and services I'd banked on have come to pass. And yet, though I find myself looking hard upon the border between the beginning side and the other - peeking over top of the bell curve of life - I feel... better. I figure 90 for a conservative life span for this day and age, although I keep telling my kids I am going to live to 135 - just to annoy them.
I'm less insecure than I used to be for no apparent reason. I'm certainly not as thin as I used to be. In those days I didn't feel it though. I look at pictures of my younger, svelter self and think, "Stupid git! She didn't even notice!" I'm less fit than I was before I had children, less gainfully employed, less free. But also less anxiety-ridden. I've learned, counter-intuitively, that if I slow down I actually get more done. I've learned, rather imperfectly let me point out, to shut up and listen more. I rarely have too little to say and generally in the opening of one's mouth less really is more!
I'm less hard on myself and other people - and by that I don't mean to say I thought so much ill of others as I'd assumed they'd think ill of me, which is an accusation of bad-behavior if you think about it. I've learned that self-loathing and self-pity, while they may illicit sympathy for someone young and pretty, at middle age and above just make you look like an asshole. I'm certainly years past the powdery buff of beauty intrinsic to youth. But I've learned that outer beauty is for catching partners, inner beauty is for keeping them.
I don't claim to be wiser though I am older than I used to be - but aren't we all?! I didn't come by any of this through smarts, or searching, or spirituality. I think I just got bored. How long can one keep up the self-deprecating? And since my standup comedian career never materialized it wasn't really doing me any good anyway. So, at some point I just figured, eh, why bother. I'm fine. Or in the infinite wisdom of Popeye, "I y'am what I y'am".
If I had a porch and a rocking chair you'd probably find me in it, hand tucked in waist band, watching cars go by. Certainly much more fascinating than picking on myself.
I'm less insecure than I used to be for no apparent reason. I'm certainly not as thin as I used to be. In those days I didn't feel it though. I look at pictures of my younger, svelter self and think, "Stupid git! She didn't even notice!" I'm less fit than I was before I had children, less gainfully employed, less free. But also less anxiety-ridden. I've learned, counter-intuitively, that if I slow down I actually get more done. I've learned, rather imperfectly let me point out, to shut up and listen more. I rarely have too little to say and generally in the opening of one's mouth less really is more!
I'm less hard on myself and other people - and by that I don't mean to say I thought so much ill of others as I'd assumed they'd think ill of me, which is an accusation of bad-behavior if you think about it. I've learned that self-loathing and self-pity, while they may illicit sympathy for someone young and pretty, at middle age and above just make you look like an asshole. I'm certainly years past the powdery buff of beauty intrinsic to youth. But I've learned that outer beauty is for catching partners, inner beauty is for keeping them.
I don't claim to be wiser though I am older than I used to be - but aren't we all?! I didn't come by any of this through smarts, or searching, or spirituality. I think I just got bored. How long can one keep up the self-deprecating? And since my standup comedian career never materialized it wasn't really doing me any good anyway. So, at some point I just figured, eh, why bother. I'm fine. Or in the infinite wisdom of Popeye, "I y'am what I y'am".
If I had a porch and a rocking chair you'd probably find me in it, hand tucked in waist band, watching cars go by. Certainly much more fascinating than picking on myself.
Thursday, August 11, 2011
How We Learned to Love The Things That Suck: Mild Scrapes and Minor Humiliations
So Monday, I'm walking to the bus stop after work and just thinking to myself, "Gee, (I do say that to myself actually)I'm managing to maintain my dignity about having to ride the bus pretty well!" Despite the heat (over 100 degrees every day now) and the inevitable and unsightly sweating that goes along with, despite my odd foot virus that makes it difficult to walk comfortably, despite the waiting and what could be, wasted time. Earlier that day, the street on which I catch my first bus in the morning was under repaving. The flagman assured me that the bus would stop in the middle of the street for me, after all there was no sign from the bus system saying the bus stop was closed for the day. All stops within walking distance on that line were coned off, so the construction and bus system must have coordinated this... surely.
At 8:24 on the nose here comes the bus and there goes the bus. Not even a wave, or a point, from the driver! I had to call for a ride to the next stop. That afternoon when I was feeling proud of myself you see I had good reason. I hadn't been incensed or sorry for myself, I just handled it, found a solution, got on with the day.
As I turned the corner to the stop that Monday afternoon, I thought briefly, "What's up with my left ankle, hurts a little" then I noticed the early bus, I am never in time for, sitting there! I started walking faster, could I possibly catch it? I waved at the driver when I was within sight and shockingly he pulled away from the curb! I started running and waving at him thinking he must not have seen me, but I'm so close now I have to try. Then, just as he pulls back toward the curb - SPLAT! Down I go, flat on the ground, my right foot having hit the concrete edge between sidewalk and landscaping. I lay there briefly, swallowed in a puff of dust. I pick myself up, don't even bother to dust myself off, and get on the bus. I realize my right knee is bleeding through my pants, my left ankle twisted and throbbing - see, somehow it knew.
Then the driver says to me, irritated, "You didn't have to run, I was pulling back to the curb. You're alright I take it".
Yeah, sure, all except my dignity.
At 8:24 on the nose here comes the bus and there goes the bus. Not even a wave, or a point, from the driver! I had to call for a ride to the next stop. That afternoon when I was feeling proud of myself you see I had good reason. I hadn't been incensed or sorry for myself, I just handled it, found a solution, got on with the day.
As I turned the corner to the stop that Monday afternoon, I thought briefly, "What's up with my left ankle, hurts a little" then I noticed the early bus, I am never in time for, sitting there! I started walking faster, could I possibly catch it? I waved at the driver when I was within sight and shockingly he pulled away from the curb! I started running and waving at him thinking he must not have seen me, but I'm so close now I have to try. Then, just as he pulls back toward the curb - SPLAT! Down I go, flat on the ground, my right foot having hit the concrete edge between sidewalk and landscaping. I lay there briefly, swallowed in a puff of dust. I pick myself up, don't even bother to dust myself off, and get on the bus. I realize my right knee is bleeding through my pants, my left ankle twisted and throbbing - see, somehow it knew.
Then the driver says to me, irritated, "You didn't have to run, I was pulling back to the curb. You're alright I take it".
Yeah, sure, all except my dignity.
Monday, August 01, 2011
How We Learned to Love The Things That Suck: I Am One
Sometimes the only way to deal with things that suck is to be one with them.
Yeah, there are things that suck. Everyone has some (at least one) thing that sucks in their life. But sometimes the suckiest of the sucky thing is the way you look at it. So, if you can just relax your mind and let things that suck, suck, well then at the very least you can get perspective.
The difficulty is in not letting the "this is" attitude bleed into a "this is and that's not fair!" attitude. Not an easy task. I think if one could accomplish it for more than, say, a few minutes, that would be a colossal achievement.
I think of all this because I watched 60 Minutes last night wherein they replayed their interview with Mark Wahlberg. Now, that is a guy for whom things could have sucked for a lifetime. And though he may be more talented and/or determined than the average bear, he certainly is not more deserving. Herein lies the rub. Deserving. Oooooo. It is the elephant in society, at least since the 80s (good job by the way baby boomers on changing the tone of the nation - I'm assuming its all your fault - see, I'm laying blame, a sure sign I have not yet grappled with things that suck in my life, I'm trying...). This idea that if you are wealthy, have a good job, married a pretty person, have well behaved children, that somehow you have been divinely touched. Or maybe you went to the right college, made the right connections, have "talent". Maybe you said all the right affirmations or were able to unleash the awesome power of the law of attraction on your ass! That, if you have all these things, you somehow (in a way unknowable to us mortals and thus inarguable) DESERVE it. The implied and ancillary meaning, that if you don't have all those things (i.e. if your life sucks) that you do not, in fact, deserve it.
OK. There, I said it out loud. Almost as hard as saying pretty women have better lives... oops, didn't mean that to slip out. What I am trying to get at is that this idea of 'fairness' is entirely erroneous. In fact, any explanation you try to lob at any life situation comes up short, because there are ever exceptions to every rule and platitude you may step on.
So, here is what I think. My husband is unemployed. That sucks. I have a crappy, underpaid job to no where, my talents sorely underutilized and non-appreciated (see, not even 'under', that really sucks). That sucks. My daughter has ADD and struggles with school work and behavior. That sucks. Because my daughter gets so much attention due to her ADD my son feels neglected. That sucks.
Now, in the very next breath, you would expect me to start spouting all the unexpected but wonderful side effects of the above chock full 'o suck situation. But then we would be getting on the boat for a trip down denial. Trying to look at the bright side of a lousy situation is one normal human response, which could be characterized as either healthy optimism or delusional, depending on your particular perspective of the moment. Wanting to doooooo something to better a crappy situation, also normal and questionably good, again depending on your particular philosophy at the time. Ignoring said suck-o-rama, also normal, could be defined by the self-medicating and more lazy among us as healthy, or, easier. But none of these is what I am talking about. What I am talking about is that awful aphorism I have avoided till now, "It is what it is" (usually used by the lazy, I am aware of that).
One with the things that suck. Really, just allowing things to be the way they are without mentally changing or judging. Not so easy, but if you can achieve it, even for a moment, it can be relaxing and even, dare I say it, enlightening. Things that suck, still suck, of course. But without the judgement or need to do anything beyond observe, a little bit of stress and tension may fall away.
Now, of course, you can't do this forever. Only Eckhart Tolle can make a living just 'being'. But maybe, if at least for a few moments, we can look at the things that suck as 'what is' at the moment, we can really connect with life, our own life. Instead of always trying to get distance from it...
Yeah, there are things that suck. Everyone has some (at least one) thing that sucks in their life. But sometimes the suckiest of the sucky thing is the way you look at it. So, if you can just relax your mind and let things that suck, suck, well then at the very least you can get perspective.
The difficulty is in not letting the "this is" attitude bleed into a "this is and that's not fair!" attitude. Not an easy task. I think if one could accomplish it for more than, say, a few minutes, that would be a colossal achievement.
I think of all this because I watched 60 Minutes last night wherein they replayed their interview with Mark Wahlberg. Now, that is a guy for whom things could have sucked for a lifetime. And though he may be more talented and/or determined than the average bear, he certainly is not more deserving. Herein lies the rub. Deserving. Oooooo. It is the elephant in society, at least since the 80s (good job by the way baby boomers on changing the tone of the nation - I'm assuming its all your fault - see, I'm laying blame, a sure sign I have not yet grappled with things that suck in my life, I'm trying...). This idea that if you are wealthy, have a good job, married a pretty person, have well behaved children, that somehow you have been divinely touched. Or maybe you went to the right college, made the right connections, have "talent". Maybe you said all the right affirmations or were able to unleash the awesome power of the law of attraction on your ass! That, if you have all these things, you somehow (in a way unknowable to us mortals and thus inarguable) DESERVE it. The implied and ancillary meaning, that if you don't have all those things (i.e. if your life sucks) that you do not, in fact, deserve it.
OK. There, I said it out loud. Almost as hard as saying pretty women have better lives... oops, didn't mean that to slip out. What I am trying to get at is that this idea of 'fairness' is entirely erroneous. In fact, any explanation you try to lob at any life situation comes up short, because there are ever exceptions to every rule and platitude you may step on.
So, here is what I think. My husband is unemployed. That sucks. I have a crappy, underpaid job to no where, my talents sorely underutilized and non-appreciated (see, not even 'under', that really sucks). That sucks. My daughter has ADD and struggles with school work and behavior. That sucks. Because my daughter gets so much attention due to her ADD my son feels neglected. That sucks.
Now, in the very next breath, you would expect me to start spouting all the unexpected but wonderful side effects of the above chock full 'o suck situation. But then we would be getting on the boat for a trip down denial. Trying to look at the bright side of a lousy situation is one normal human response, which could be characterized as either healthy optimism or delusional, depending on your particular perspective of the moment. Wanting to doooooo something to better a crappy situation, also normal and questionably good, again depending on your particular philosophy at the time. Ignoring said suck-o-rama, also normal, could be defined by the self-medicating and more lazy among us as healthy, or, easier. But none of these is what I am talking about. What I am talking about is that awful aphorism I have avoided till now, "It is what it is" (usually used by the lazy, I am aware of that).
One with the things that suck. Really, just allowing things to be the way they are without mentally changing or judging. Not so easy, but if you can achieve it, even for a moment, it can be relaxing and even, dare I say it, enlightening. Things that suck, still suck, of course. But without the judgement or need to do anything beyond observe, a little bit of stress and tension may fall away.
Now, of course, you can't do this forever. Only Eckhart Tolle can make a living just 'being'. But maybe, if at least for a few moments, we can look at the things that suck as 'what is' at the moment, we can really connect with life, our own life. Instead of always trying to get distance from it...
Monday, June 27, 2011
How We Learned to Love The Things That Suck: Slow Ride
You know what I used to love, and what now sucks? Taking the bus. For a number of reasons and not just the obvious.
Where I grew up in the Bay Area if you were a kid you actually COULD take the bus to the movies or to the mall or an audition or rehearsal as I used to. I doubt if that would be possible now. I don't know that I would let my own kids ride the bus, even in the relative safety of my current community. But it was a different time (and there hadn't been a 24 hour news cycle to make it seem like hundreds of thousands of children were being kidnapped each year) and so we felt it to be a bit of freedom to hop on the bus and take the nearly one hour ride+walk to our town's nearest movie theater or wherever. Inevitably we'd see two or three, get out of the theater after dark and someone would have to call a mom to come pick us up. Mom's couldn't be bothered to drive their kids places, even on weekends, when I grew up, when they could just as easily shove a couple bucks in your hand and tell you to take the bus.
But even beyond freedom it was a great learning ground. Since the Bay Area is a large and diverse population one could always count on great people watching. My friends and I engaged in something you might call people speculating. Convinced we can know a lot about a person by the way they look, human beings have always made lots of decisions about the value and interest of a person on that basis. We just did it out loud (not loud enough so they could hear of course) to each other on the back of the bus. Not satisfied with the realistic for long, our speculations soon diverged into the wild and implausible. Consequently, my childhood bus rides were populated with Russian spies, embezzlers on the lamb, and any manner of wealthy and/or mentally impaired eccentrics.
In my later teen and college years I too often reverted to "someday I'll have a car" thoughts to have much fun on those rides. But I always observed people. Everyone does the visual sweep upon stepping on the platform - see who's on, who to avoid, who to sit next to. In the Bay Area, generally people were too occupied talking to companions, or tired from work, or sleeping, to notice or care who came on. I would make mental commentary on who looked weary, or sad, or happy and wonder intensely what had just happened in their life to make them so.
In those years, particularly in college, I would even venture to take the bus (and BART) home late at night. A whole 'nother drunk and/or high, on for the night homeless, just going to or coming from an underpaying hard scrabble late shift would be on board. Occasionally there was a scuffle, some "what you lookin' at" would erupt but I had the young-with-my-whole-life-ahead-of-me-and-nothing-could-go-wrong bravado propping me up. I felt like one of them in a way and yet not. Always conscientious of being a white girl in a minority world, I didn't swish or flaunt or try to appear too affluent or happy - sometimes I would adopt a sad countenance to ward off potential advances of any sort if the compartment had just that right mood where it felt slightly dangerous. I rode with the confidence and air of someone who was not so different from everyone else deep down inside but sure that I was destined for greatness, to succeed, to make things happen.
Flash forward some 20 years and taking the bus is a whole different experience. When my husband lost his job in February we also lost our second car - a company car. We'd been juggling kid drop offs to school with my work and errands pretty successfully until gas prices started rising. I realized that the 10 mile drop off and pick up to my work was costing us nearly $10 to accomplish. We were filling up the tank twice a week - unheard of previously - and with prices over $4 and one less job in our pockets, it was painful. So it is not like I made the decision unwillingly.
But it is a whole different time, and place. After all, the me-me-me 80s and earn-earn-earn 90s and spend-spend-spend aughts have passed us by, leaving in their wake a recession, but also a general attitude about ourselves as a society that now no longer squares. "We're number one" does not resonate exactly the same way with the unemployed or underemployed as it used to. Economic factors do have an influence on attitude and on how we perceive ourselves and others. And in Southern California as well, there is a force of opinion that blasts "You don't have a car!!!" when one steps on the bus.
What is similar is that I am, generally, though the numbers are smaller, still one of the only white faces on the bus. What is new are cellphones and mobile devices, and the solitariness that comes with them. If no one looks up to see who is coming on the bus it is probably because of the despair of the long slog (our valley is geographically huge with few and far between bus routes which means lots of transfers, waiting, and walking in high heat and wind) but just as likely that they have their face stuck in their cellphone or are talking (way too loudly) on it. One tries not to seep to that place but I often find myself, face stuck in Kindle, just as bad. No more the long sweep to see who's conversation I might overhear - there are rarely people traveling together and when they are they are usually silent - nor do I search for a place in the back so I can watch people unperceived as I used to. Now I just quickly find the nearest place in the front, put my head down, enjoy the airconditioning because it will be soon time to get out and walk the 1/4 mile to work in the heat. There were always the people who couldn't afford a car, or the car in the shop people, on the bus in the Bay Area. But there were also the "I'm doing this for the environment" people too. But So Cal does not so readily cotton to idealism.
I am just like everyone else too, still. I am underemployed, struggling to get by, deeply debt leveraged (though mine is student loan debt primarily) with little chance of ever getting out. My prospects of better employment seem just as dire as my companions on public transportation even though I am highly educated. The difference 20 years has afforded me is experience. My experience of the feeling "this year things will happen for me" in my 20s not really being true then, or my 30s, and now half way through my 40s. Though I still remain hopeful, and believe in possibilities, and my own abilities, I am no longer under the misapprehension that that is enough for "things to happen". I now know that sometimes life, the world, the universe, for a reason you may never know, just doesn't notice you or your talents or potential or rewards you for it. That even when you know for sure and follow your passion, you still can be just another rider on the bus.
Where I grew up in the Bay Area if you were a kid you actually COULD take the bus to the movies or to the mall or an audition or rehearsal as I used to. I doubt if that would be possible now. I don't know that I would let my own kids ride the bus, even in the relative safety of my current community. But it was a different time (and there hadn't been a 24 hour news cycle to make it seem like hundreds of thousands of children were being kidnapped each year) and so we felt it to be a bit of freedom to hop on the bus and take the nearly one hour ride+walk to our town's nearest movie theater or wherever. Inevitably we'd see two or three, get out of the theater after dark and someone would have to call a mom to come pick us up. Mom's couldn't be bothered to drive their kids places, even on weekends, when I grew up, when they could just as easily shove a couple bucks in your hand and tell you to take the bus.
But even beyond freedom it was a great learning ground. Since the Bay Area is a large and diverse population one could always count on great people watching. My friends and I engaged in something you might call people speculating. Convinced we can know a lot about a person by the way they look, human beings have always made lots of decisions about the value and interest of a person on that basis. We just did it out loud (not loud enough so they could hear of course) to each other on the back of the bus. Not satisfied with the realistic for long, our speculations soon diverged into the wild and implausible. Consequently, my childhood bus rides were populated with Russian spies, embezzlers on the lamb, and any manner of wealthy and/or mentally impaired eccentrics.
In my later teen and college years I too often reverted to "someday I'll have a car" thoughts to have much fun on those rides. But I always observed people. Everyone does the visual sweep upon stepping on the platform - see who's on, who to avoid, who to sit next to. In the Bay Area, generally people were too occupied talking to companions, or tired from work, or sleeping, to notice or care who came on. I would make mental commentary on who looked weary, or sad, or happy and wonder intensely what had just happened in their life to make them so.
In those years, particularly in college, I would even venture to take the bus (and BART) home late at night. A whole 'nother drunk and/or high, on for the night homeless, just going to or coming from an underpaying hard scrabble late shift would be on board. Occasionally there was a scuffle, some "what you lookin' at" would erupt but I had the young-with-my-whole-life-ahead-of-me-and-nothing-could-go-wrong bravado propping me up. I felt like one of them in a way and yet not. Always conscientious of being a white girl in a minority world, I didn't swish or flaunt or try to appear too affluent or happy - sometimes I would adopt a sad countenance to ward off potential advances of any sort if the compartment had just that right mood where it felt slightly dangerous. I rode with the confidence and air of someone who was not so different from everyone else deep down inside but sure that I was destined for greatness, to succeed, to make things happen.
Flash forward some 20 years and taking the bus is a whole different experience. When my husband lost his job in February we also lost our second car - a company car. We'd been juggling kid drop offs to school with my work and errands pretty successfully until gas prices started rising. I realized that the 10 mile drop off and pick up to my work was costing us nearly $10 to accomplish. We were filling up the tank twice a week - unheard of previously - and with prices over $4 and one less job in our pockets, it was painful. So it is not like I made the decision unwillingly.
But it is a whole different time, and place. After all, the me-me-me 80s and earn-earn-earn 90s and spend-spend-spend aughts have passed us by, leaving in their wake a recession, but also a general attitude about ourselves as a society that now no longer squares. "We're number one" does not resonate exactly the same way with the unemployed or underemployed as it used to. Economic factors do have an influence on attitude and on how we perceive ourselves and others. And in Southern California as well, there is a force of opinion that blasts "You don't have a car!!!" when one steps on the bus.
What is similar is that I am, generally, though the numbers are smaller, still one of the only white faces on the bus. What is new are cellphones and mobile devices, and the solitariness that comes with them. If no one looks up to see who is coming on the bus it is probably because of the despair of the long slog (our valley is geographically huge with few and far between bus routes which means lots of transfers, waiting, and walking in high heat and wind) but just as likely that they have their face stuck in their cellphone or are talking (way too loudly) on it. One tries not to seep to that place but I often find myself, face stuck in Kindle, just as bad. No more the long sweep to see who's conversation I might overhear - there are rarely people traveling together and when they are they are usually silent - nor do I search for a place in the back so I can watch people unperceived as I used to. Now I just quickly find the nearest place in the front, put my head down, enjoy the airconditioning because it will be soon time to get out and walk the 1/4 mile to work in the heat. There were always the people who couldn't afford a car, or the car in the shop people, on the bus in the Bay Area. But there were also the "I'm doing this for the environment" people too. But So Cal does not so readily cotton to idealism.
I am just like everyone else too, still. I am underemployed, struggling to get by, deeply debt leveraged (though mine is student loan debt primarily) with little chance of ever getting out. My prospects of better employment seem just as dire as my companions on public transportation even though I am highly educated. The difference 20 years has afforded me is experience. My experience of the feeling "this year things will happen for me" in my 20s not really being true then, or my 30s, and now half way through my 40s. Though I still remain hopeful, and believe in possibilities, and my own abilities, I am no longer under the misapprehension that that is enough for "things to happen". I now know that sometimes life, the world, the universe, for a reason you may never know, just doesn't notice you or your talents or potential or rewards you for it. That even when you know for sure and follow your passion, you still can be just another rider on the bus.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
How We Learned To Love The Things That Suck: The Age of Reason
We all know the age of reason hits a child at around their 7th birthday. That moment in time where they really begin to understand that they are an individual apart from their parents and family, and moreover that others are individuals too. It is a beautiful thing seeing your child develop their very own sense of compassion. Less so, and a little bit painful, to see them gleefully make conscious separations from you! But as the child passes into this phase there is a corresponding enlightenment that happens for the parent as well.
If we are really paying attention, it is at around this age when we begin to relax a little bit about what our kid is up to. As they begin to make the separation between themselves and their parents so too do you, as parent, begin to get more comfortable with the idea that your children are not necessarily little extensions of yourself. And if this doesn't happen naturally there just might be something to knock it into you.
My daughter has just recently turned 7, and been diagnosed with ADD, and been recommended by the school to repeat first grade. That's a kick in the head for ya! Any one of these things alone might be enough to send a momma into a "my baby!" spiral. But three! Come on! Of course, the difficulty in school follows hard on the heels of, and logically, the ADD diagnosis.
We noticed that she was struggling with behavior and attention, aka following directions, even in preschool. Not a squeaky wheel nor a severe ADD case, educators and doctors gave us the "oh, she's fine, probably developmental, let's see how she does next year" through preschool, then kindergarten, then most of first grade. A(quiet) squeaky wheel was turning inside my head however. How I wish that in this post I could wax triumphant about a mother's knowledge of her child over the reluctant authorities. But alas, I cannot. "OK", I said, accepting their assessments instead of insist that there was something abnormal.
See, now there is the icky bit, "abnormal". Frankly, it took my husband, who himself has ADD, much less time to come to terms with the obvious (to us) fact that she had ADD. Because, of course, he could relate. But also because she looked a lot more like an extension of him than me in that regard. He didn't have my problem - the "I don't recognize that in myself" problem - the problem that is essentially an ego problem. That's right, I said it. I essentially did not have my child diagnosed sooner because of my ego. My husband didn't push the issue either, but then he probably forgot (That's an ADD joke. For the uninitiated and uncomfortable, it's OK to snicker).
And it is so easy - before the age of reason hits - to buy into the 'developmental' and 'she'll probably grow out of it' and 'all kids are distracted at this age' deflections. Because, well, you sincerely hope that your child will not be *gulp* abnormal. Who wants to jump the gun and slap a label, a potentially debilitating one, on your own child? Who wants to force the issue or speed to call your child 'different'? It's not of any obvious benefit, barring Munchhausen by Proxy syndrome of course, if there is no ensuing treatment.
Do I sound like I'm justifying here? You may be right. And it could be a little bit of both. Nothing like "repeat first grade" though to make you self reflective of your motives. We pushed her as we could without causing conflict (because children with ADD are experts at causing it) and sometimes caused it anyway, on a number of things ripe for it - homework, extra reading, keeping up with the class. I admit to feeling panicked when it was clear that she was far behind her cohorts in reading and recognition of high frequency words. But my panic and guilt at not finding a way to push her harder only added to her already just below the surface stress. At one point, early in the school year, I even attempted to bribe her with a Nintendo DSi. But, as we now know for sure, long term rewards do not work for people who can't really remember what day it is.
And, being an attention hound already, I didn't want to inadvertently (or vertantly, arh arh) create in her a taste for or create a lifelong pattern of garnering attention for bad behavior/illness/incompetence... Even now, having a brain doctor of her own (Daddy already has one so the concept not unfamiliar) is enough to make her feel special in a way that makes me cringe. Too much of that pull self up by boot straps, keep nose out of air upbringing I'm afraid seeping through. But stiff upper lip away her very real challenges I cannot. And so I head full on into the age of reason, right along side her. She is not me, and I not her. You know, on an intellectual level, that your children will not be exactly like yourself. But on some deep instinctual plane you just cannot help harboring hope that they will be. Reason says, do what you can to make it easier for her, make sure she's not falling behind, or not being noticed, or being misinterpreted. Reason does not say bury head in sand, ignore what might work, just because ego says so. Her life and little self doesn't get to be the way I imagined it just because that's the way my ego pitched it in my head. Shut up ego, deal.
After all, they don't call it the age of unreasonable - I guess that would be the teen years.
If we are really paying attention, it is at around this age when we begin to relax a little bit about what our kid is up to. As they begin to make the separation between themselves and their parents so too do you, as parent, begin to get more comfortable with the idea that your children are not necessarily little extensions of yourself. And if this doesn't happen naturally there just might be something to knock it into you.
My daughter has just recently turned 7, and been diagnosed with ADD, and been recommended by the school to repeat first grade. That's a kick in the head for ya! Any one of these things alone might be enough to send a momma into a "my baby!" spiral. But three! Come on! Of course, the difficulty in school follows hard on the heels of, and logically, the ADD diagnosis.
We noticed that she was struggling with behavior and attention, aka following directions, even in preschool. Not a squeaky wheel nor a severe ADD case, educators and doctors gave us the "oh, she's fine, probably developmental, let's see how she does next year" through preschool, then kindergarten, then most of first grade. A(quiet) squeaky wheel was turning inside my head however. How I wish that in this post I could wax triumphant about a mother's knowledge of her child over the reluctant authorities. But alas, I cannot. "OK", I said, accepting their assessments instead of insist that there was something abnormal.
See, now there is the icky bit, "abnormal". Frankly, it took my husband, who himself has ADD, much less time to come to terms with the obvious (to us) fact that she had ADD. Because, of course, he could relate. But also because she looked a lot more like an extension of him than me in that regard. He didn't have my problem - the "I don't recognize that in myself" problem - the problem that is essentially an ego problem. That's right, I said it. I essentially did not have my child diagnosed sooner because of my ego. My husband didn't push the issue either, but then he probably forgot (That's an ADD joke. For the uninitiated and uncomfortable, it's OK to snicker).
And it is so easy - before the age of reason hits - to buy into the 'developmental' and 'she'll probably grow out of it' and 'all kids are distracted at this age' deflections. Because, well, you sincerely hope that your child will not be *gulp* abnormal. Who wants to jump the gun and slap a label, a potentially debilitating one, on your own child? Who wants to force the issue or speed to call your child 'different'? It's not of any obvious benefit, barring Munchhausen by Proxy syndrome of course, if there is no ensuing treatment.
Do I sound like I'm justifying here? You may be right. And it could be a little bit of both. Nothing like "repeat first grade" though to make you self reflective of your motives. We pushed her as we could without causing conflict (because children with ADD are experts at causing it) and sometimes caused it anyway, on a number of things ripe for it - homework, extra reading, keeping up with the class. I admit to feeling panicked when it was clear that she was far behind her cohorts in reading and recognition of high frequency words. But my panic and guilt at not finding a way to push her harder only added to her already just below the surface stress. At one point, early in the school year, I even attempted to bribe her with a Nintendo DSi. But, as we now know for sure, long term rewards do not work for people who can't really remember what day it is.
And, being an attention hound already, I didn't want to inadvertently (or vertantly, arh arh) create in her a taste for or create a lifelong pattern of garnering attention for bad behavior/illness/incompetence... Even now, having a brain doctor of her own (Daddy already has one so the concept not unfamiliar) is enough to make her feel special in a way that makes me cringe. Too much of that pull self up by boot straps, keep nose out of air upbringing I'm afraid seeping through. But stiff upper lip away her very real challenges I cannot. And so I head full on into the age of reason, right along side her. She is not me, and I not her. You know, on an intellectual level, that your children will not be exactly like yourself. But on some deep instinctual plane you just cannot help harboring hope that they will be. Reason says, do what you can to make it easier for her, make sure she's not falling behind, or not being noticed, or being misinterpreted. Reason does not say bury head in sand, ignore what might work, just because ego says so. Her life and little self doesn't get to be the way I imagined it just because that's the way my ego pitched it in my head. Shut up ego, deal.
After all, they don't call it the age of unreasonable - I guess that would be the teen years.
Friday, May 13, 2011
How We Learned to Love The Things That Suck: Time and Gravity
I was never one of those obnoxious twenty-somethings that was loud and pretty and attracted a lot of attention with my antics (sober anyway). So by the time I started graduate school at 27, even I was irritated with the perky little things that lackadaisically swarmed the campus of SDSU. "Time and gravity, girls. Time and gravity, happens to us all" I used to think as I did my Bay Area-I-have-somewhere-to-go-walk across campus and the be-booted shorty shorts clad late teen/twenty chicks ambled around as if they had all the time in the world. I understood even then, being myself only slightly less pert and perky than my school peers, that we would all grow old and fighting it was a fool's mission.
Fast forward some mfehmmummblemum... years later (see, vanity) and I get it. I eat my own words. I really get it. On the inside. I mean that quite literally too. I now understand that one cannot eat 5 pieces of birthday cake in a week's time and skate into the end of the week un-internally-scathed.
When one is no longer twenty-something, (thirty-something might be pushing it) some foods are just no longer an option. Never one to have much in the way of digestive issues, it has always been a big red flag for me to not eat any more of that (that which just went in the gullet) when the tum goes rumble, I have benefited, clearly, from the instant effect of being in touch with one's body. The cumulative effect however I am just now noticing.
Woke up feeling quite hungover and blech. But I had drunk only one glass of wine - how is that possible? Frosting. Lovely, fluffy marshmallow frosting from my daughter's birthday cake of last Saturday. That, plus one on Tuesday evening (Tuesdays and Thursdays are dessert night, they are designated, that's right. I have children, if you don't designate these things they get quickly out of control), one at her actual party, one chocolate one at a friend's birthday that same day, and one later that evening. It was one of those "darn it, it won't all fit in the container" pieces. You have no choice really, you have to eat it. The Chinese children of my youth would cry if they knew I had let food go to waste.
Funnily enough, for us mfehmmummblemum-somethings (vanity, again) sugar is just like booze. Easy going down, queazy in the processing. Who knew...
Fast forward some mfehmmummblemum... years later (see, vanity) and I get it. I eat my own words. I really get it. On the inside. I mean that quite literally too. I now understand that one cannot eat 5 pieces of birthday cake in a week's time and skate into the end of the week un-internally-scathed.
When one is no longer twenty-something, (thirty-something might be pushing it) some foods are just no longer an option. Never one to have much in the way of digestive issues, it has always been a big red flag for me to not eat any more of that (that which just went in the gullet) when the tum goes rumble, I have benefited, clearly, from the instant effect of being in touch with one's body. The cumulative effect however I am just now noticing.
Woke up feeling quite hungover and blech. But I had drunk only one glass of wine - how is that possible? Frosting. Lovely, fluffy marshmallow frosting from my daughter's birthday cake of last Saturday. That, plus one on Tuesday evening (Tuesdays and Thursdays are dessert night, they are designated, that's right. I have children, if you don't designate these things they get quickly out of control), one at her actual party, one chocolate one at a friend's birthday that same day, and one later that evening. It was one of those "darn it, it won't all fit in the container" pieces. You have no choice really, you have to eat it. The Chinese children of my youth would cry if they knew I had let food go to waste.
Funnily enough, for us mfehmmummblemum-somethings (vanity, again) sugar is just like booze. Easy going down, queazy in the processing. Who knew...
Wednesday, May 04, 2011
How We Learned to Love The Things That Suck: Or Rather, Things That Ache
Ah Spring! You may all say. But I say, "No not yet!" I know it is here because my head starts to ache. Something about the heat changing the pressure or the sun or the brightness of the... who knows. It's ouchy. I'm grouchy.
See, Spring here in the land of 363 days of sunny-sun-sunshiny days (pinch me!), is what the rest of you, across the country, call Summer. And it never seems to fail: Family will be descending, or rather ascending up to us from that Mediterranean climate/heaven that is San Diego, this weekend because of a little girlie's birthday party. And in typical fashion last weekend was lovely, moderate, cool breeze... this weekend will be 90s, no cool breeze in sight. From Spring to Summer in one short two hour drive.
Spring to me, marks the time of year when I must steel myself against Summer. Summer here is like everyone else's Winter. Except you can only take off so many clothes, before you get arrested. And even still, hot sun on bare skin is ouchy, make me grouchy. Maybe this year I will purchase a pair of sunglasses though. Seriously, I don't own any. It's sooooo sunny here all the time - relentlessly so (have I mentioned that before?). I just figure, what's the point? You'd have to wear them every single freaking sunny-sun sunshiny day. And frankly, I've never been that cool.
In other news: check out my new blogger digs. Eh? Eh? Nice, eh?
The reason for the change (my old template was so aughts) is that I am prepping for (read: trying to learn how the hell to do it!) self-publishing my novel, Pernicious Pill. I will be offering some short stories I've written on this site. So follow me here, or at Twitter, or Facebook, and I will let you know when I post a story and when the novel will become available.
Your comments here are welcome. I would love to know who my readers are and what you're reading these days.
See, Spring here in the land of 363 days of sunny-sun-sunshiny days (pinch me!), is what the rest of you, across the country, call Summer. And it never seems to fail: Family will be descending, or rather ascending up to us from that Mediterranean climate/heaven that is San Diego, this weekend because of a little girlie's birthday party. And in typical fashion last weekend was lovely, moderate, cool breeze... this weekend will be 90s, no cool breeze in sight. From Spring to Summer in one short two hour drive.
Spring to me, marks the time of year when I must steel myself against Summer. Summer here is like everyone else's Winter. Except you can only take off so many clothes, before you get arrested. And even still, hot sun on bare skin is ouchy, make me grouchy. Maybe this year I will purchase a pair of sunglasses though. Seriously, I don't own any. It's sooooo sunny here all the time - relentlessly so (have I mentioned that before?). I just figure, what's the point? You'd have to wear them every single freaking sunny-sun sunshiny day. And frankly, I've never been that cool.
In other news: check out my new blogger digs. Eh? Eh? Nice, eh?
The reason for the change (my old template was so aughts) is that I am prepping for (read: trying to learn how the hell to do it!) self-publishing my novel, Pernicious Pill. I will be offering some short stories I've written on this site. So follow me here, or at Twitter, or Facebook, and I will let you know when I post a story and when the novel will become available.
Your comments here are welcome. I would love to know who my readers are and what you're reading these days.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
How We Learned to Love The Things That Suck: Mama's Trying Week or The Can, The Bug, and The Egg
I think I am done now with Life in Exile blogging, as it were. Ready to put that beat bit of prose to bed. I cynically/optimistically now begin a new series perhaps called, "How We Learned to Love the Things That Suck". Past tense, because, of course, we haven't actually learned yet how... If I was learning as I went along it might be called "...Am Learning To..." But I like the irony so... here we go...
So Friday, the 18th my lovey and I are sitting at lunch, just about finished, and somewhat relaxed, considering. Just a couple of weeks earlier he had been let go from his job. It was a stressful, difficult to learn job and he'd been feeling the pressure. Reassured one week that he had time to learn (he'd been doing investigations on his own for only 7 months) and would not be allowed to fail, (in fact, they had just implemented the ironically named "No Investigator Left Behind" program) only to be let go another. In the letting go process the company had made a number of, one could argue, cruel mistakes. Being reassured that you won't lose your job and then being let go shortly thereafter is bad enough. But they had let AMX know he was being un-employed long before they let him know. So the letter canceling his company card arrived before the canning did. They also called on a Monday to schedule a "we've got to talk to you" meeting on a Friday. ??? "Honey, I'll be home from Paris in a month. Can we have a sit down and talk about the continuation of our relationship then? No, we'll talk about it then... buh bye" - like that, only more vague and evasive when asked a direct question.
So during the "we've got to talk to you meeting" they make some noises about stats and not being up to par and "should be farther along"s and whatnot - and hem and haw when shown the reassuring "don't worry we won't let you fail" letter. So they make it look like a firing for cause, but really it is more like a layoff. A number of weeks earlier supervisors had requested a volunteer to go "independent contractor" status, and no takers. Weeks after being let go, his job is still not posted on their website - they never had any intention of replacing him, only getting rid of low hanging fruit. So much for No Investigator Left Behind - probably modeled on Bush's No Child Left Behind, which should probably be renamed, Failing, Well Screw You! (Either or, take your pick)
The company also did the not so nice, and a violation of state labor statutes, thing called delay in getting final pay stub to former employee. When you let someone go, 24 hours baby. That's all you get... a week or so later, lovey's finally arrives so NOW he can file for unemployment... and with a high unemployment rate in our county, that nerve wracking phone call is delayed by a further week.
So by the time we find ourselves at lunch on a sunny Friday afternoon, after a morning of us both volunteering at our kids' school, we are finally feeling some sort of equilibrium come back into our limbs when... the phone rings and it's the school - come pick up your kids, they have head lice.
Ugh.
This is not a phone call one welcomes. But spring into action we did. So 12 hours later - after treatments and nit picking hair and spraying and washing and changing of sheets and towels, etc. - the last load of laundry goes into a hot hot hot load to wash out any potential critters at 1am. Oh no, but that is not the end, my friend. If you, or some small one you love, has ever had this affliction you know, our party was not over. It seemed like (though this is not literally true) I spent my entire weekend with my face in children's hair, combing out lice eggs (nits) and squashing live ones between my fingernails. I now have a new appreciation for and deeper understanding of some parts of the English language, such as "nit picking" and "louse" and "bug eyed".
Come Monday morning our daughter was still not ready to go back to school. No live ones allowed in school! But thank goodness for the leniency of NOT having a No Nit Policy. That would just be maddening, and detrimental to a little girl who is already behind in her studies. Finally, she gets the go ahead on Thursday. I relax, just a little too soon because...
When the kids and lovey came to pick me up from work that afternoon I noticed a red spot on her forehead. She had bumped her head on a metal pole at school and a giant egg had grown there. I asked her a few questions and she seemed to be fine. But as we made our way home and I began to make dinner (breaking a glass sending me into a stress-tizzy for a moment), Natasha Richardson kept creeping into my head. I was worried. But I couldn't exactly point to anything to be worried about. After dinner (Thursday is dessert night, don't you know), having no treats, we headed to Dairy Queen. When girlie started complaining her egg hurt we were close enough to the Urgent Care to swing by, so we did. As the physician asked the girlie questions her face changed. Seems she lost consciousness for a couple of seconds - and any loss counts. Off to the ER we go.
You learn things, being in the ER, for 6 hours on a Thursday night.
Number one) If you land yourself in the ER everyone will show up. If they are within driving distance they will arrive, if only to wait and worry-ish in the lobby (there will be a good amount of giggling, though I don't think at the inflicted's expense). So be heartened if no one shows up in your actual room they are probably all in the lobby. Making noise.
Number two) It's scary when the ER goes on lock-down because 'something' is happening or criminals or suspected criminals or some unknown something is happening 'back there'. As subtle as the staff try to make it, being a mom alone with a 6 year old daughter in the middle of the night in the ER, when it goes on lock-down, is not the most comforting place to be. Trust me, I experienced it, three times.
Number three) If you must go to the ER on a Thursday night and you are in Palm Springs, make the hike to Indio to JFK. Thursday night Street Fair apparently attracts trouble and the ER ends up busy. Who knew?
Number four) After midnight hysterical single women will visit the ER. That's not entirely fair, I don't know, they might have been married. But three of them, really. I think they just wanted to talk. I know how that is, I've woken up in the middle of the night too all stressed and worried that my life isn't going the way its supposed to. I suppose that is the prophylactic effect of children - they (mostly) keep you from going off half-cocked in the middle of the night. (Bet you never thought you'd read that sentence in your whole entire life.)
So, there you have it. It is now Tuesday and I am still tired. I feel something like someone has taken a cheese grater to my psyche. And yes, still nit picking, thanks for asking! Every night. Twenty one days. Go on, I know you're jealous you don't get to make your children hold still for you for twenty one days.
Note to self: some day this will all be funny, some day this will all be funny, some day this will all be funny...
So Friday, the 18th my lovey and I are sitting at lunch, just about finished, and somewhat relaxed, considering. Just a couple of weeks earlier he had been let go from his job. It was a stressful, difficult to learn job and he'd been feeling the pressure. Reassured one week that he had time to learn (he'd been doing investigations on his own for only 7 months) and would not be allowed to fail, (in fact, they had just implemented the ironically named "No Investigator Left Behind" program) only to be let go another. In the letting go process the company had made a number of, one could argue, cruel mistakes. Being reassured that you won't lose your job and then being let go shortly thereafter is bad enough. But they had let AMX know he was being un-employed long before they let him know. So the letter canceling his company card arrived before the canning did. They also called on a Monday to schedule a "we've got to talk to you" meeting on a Friday. ??? "Honey, I'll be home from Paris in a month. Can we have a sit down and talk about the continuation of our relationship then? No, we'll talk about it then... buh bye" - like that, only more vague and evasive when asked a direct question.
So during the "we've got to talk to you meeting" they make some noises about stats and not being up to par and "should be farther along"s and whatnot - and hem and haw when shown the reassuring "don't worry we won't let you fail" letter. So they make it look like a firing for cause, but really it is more like a layoff. A number of weeks earlier supervisors had requested a volunteer to go "independent contractor" status, and no takers. Weeks after being let go, his job is still not posted on their website - they never had any intention of replacing him, only getting rid of low hanging fruit. So much for No Investigator Left Behind - probably modeled on Bush's No Child Left Behind, which should probably be renamed, Failing, Well Screw You! (Either or, take your pick)
The company also did the not so nice, and a violation of state labor statutes, thing called delay in getting final pay stub to former employee. When you let someone go, 24 hours baby. That's all you get... a week or so later, lovey's finally arrives so NOW he can file for unemployment... and with a high unemployment rate in our county, that nerve wracking phone call is delayed by a further week.
So by the time we find ourselves at lunch on a sunny Friday afternoon, after a morning of us both volunteering at our kids' school, we are finally feeling some sort of equilibrium come back into our limbs when... the phone rings and it's the school - come pick up your kids, they have head lice.
Ugh.
This is not a phone call one welcomes. But spring into action we did. So 12 hours later - after treatments and nit picking hair and spraying and washing and changing of sheets and towels, etc. - the last load of laundry goes into a hot hot hot load to wash out any potential critters at 1am. Oh no, but that is not the end, my friend. If you, or some small one you love, has ever had this affliction you know, our party was not over. It seemed like (though this is not literally true) I spent my entire weekend with my face in children's hair, combing out lice eggs (nits) and squashing live ones between my fingernails. I now have a new appreciation for and deeper understanding of some parts of the English language, such as "nit picking" and "louse" and "bug eyed".
Come Monday morning our daughter was still not ready to go back to school. No live ones allowed in school! But thank goodness for the leniency of NOT having a No Nit Policy. That would just be maddening, and detrimental to a little girl who is already behind in her studies. Finally, she gets the go ahead on Thursday. I relax, just a little too soon because...
When the kids and lovey came to pick me up from work that afternoon I noticed a red spot on her forehead. She had bumped her head on a metal pole at school and a giant egg had grown there. I asked her a few questions and she seemed to be fine. But as we made our way home and I began to make dinner (breaking a glass sending me into a stress-tizzy for a moment), Natasha Richardson kept creeping into my head. I was worried. But I couldn't exactly point to anything to be worried about. After dinner (Thursday is dessert night, don't you know), having no treats, we headed to Dairy Queen. When girlie started complaining her egg hurt we were close enough to the Urgent Care to swing by, so we did. As the physician asked the girlie questions her face changed. Seems she lost consciousness for a couple of seconds - and any loss counts. Off to the ER we go.
You learn things, being in the ER, for 6 hours on a Thursday night.
Number one) If you land yourself in the ER everyone will show up. If they are within driving distance they will arrive, if only to wait and worry-ish in the lobby (there will be a good amount of giggling, though I don't think at the inflicted's expense). So be heartened if no one shows up in your actual room they are probably all in the lobby. Making noise.
Number two) It's scary when the ER goes on lock-down because 'something' is happening or criminals or suspected criminals or some unknown something is happening 'back there'. As subtle as the staff try to make it, being a mom alone with a 6 year old daughter in the middle of the night in the ER, when it goes on lock-down, is not the most comforting place to be. Trust me, I experienced it, three times.
Number three) If you must go to the ER on a Thursday night and you are in Palm Springs, make the hike to Indio to JFK. Thursday night Street Fair apparently attracts trouble and the ER ends up busy. Who knew?
Number four) After midnight hysterical single women will visit the ER. That's not entirely fair, I don't know, they might have been married. But three of them, really. I think they just wanted to talk. I know how that is, I've woken up in the middle of the night too all stressed and worried that my life isn't going the way its supposed to. I suppose that is the prophylactic effect of children - they (mostly) keep you from going off half-cocked in the middle of the night. (Bet you never thought you'd read that sentence in your whole entire life.)
So, there you have it. It is now Tuesday and I am still tired. I feel something like someone has taken a cheese grater to my psyche. And yes, still nit picking, thanks for asking! Every night. Twenty one days. Go on, I know you're jealous you don't get to make your children hold still for you for twenty one days.
Note to self: some day this will all be funny, some day this will all be funny, some day this will all be funny...
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