Although I have yet to commit to a relationship with you whereby I fork over the monthly big bucks, I appreciate that you care enough for my emotional well being to continuously, nay, unceasingly clog my in box with enticing morsels of manhood; a tapas of testosterone for free. I think it's sweet that you're working so tirelessly to "match" me with your phalanx of "friends"; this tsunami of suitors if you will. But if it's all the same to you, I could use a little space. You see, it's not them, it's me.
No. That's a lie. It's them. If you could just, well, change them ever so slightly for me, I could see things really working out between us. With a few minor adjustments I think we might have a chance-- me and every guy known to man. (Or within a fifty mile radius.) But first, huddle your fellas around 'cause I have a little feedback for them. I promise to be kind, but I think a little honesty is in order.
It's about their profiles. Let's start with the photos:
Put down the beer/wine glass/bottle and take off your hat/toupee/sunglasses. It's not that I don't partake of these things or even disapprove of their use; it's just that ladies are like cops, and in a profile photo-- not unlike on a drivers license-- we like to see you in your purest essence; the core you. You don't take a beer into the shower do you? Oh, you do? Well, you don't wear your sunglasses to bed-- oh, you do that, too? Hmm. Well, just for the purposes of this photo, why don't you leave them down by your side-- it's okay, they're right there, not going far-- and let's have a looksee in earnestness, unadorned. You'll have plenty of time to charm/offend/ignore/repel us later on in the relationship.
To "magnus", "alvin", "pavel" and "brad." Please, dears, put on a shirt. Anything you got, really. Pull something out of the hamper, even if it has a small stain. The for-cheapskates-only thumbnail photos are super tiny and I've yet to install the smell-o-rama app for my pc, so you're safe. And if every friggin' shirt you own is at the laundromat and you can't borrow one and you have to take your profile photo this instant on the outside patio up against a cinder block wall; grab a flag off a pole, a floor mat from your car, a dish towel, anything, really fellas. "No shirt, no shoes, no dice" applies to ladies, too. It's not that we aren't intrigued by your comely physique, we just want to be assured that you know how to separate the darks from the lights and fold within reason. At this point in my life, not having to do your laundry beats out a nice chest, hands down.
If you tell me you're funny and then spend a good six paragraphs not saying anything remotely funny; then you're not funny-- I hate to break it to ya. But you'll get over it. All that climbing and hiking you do; a dry sense of humor is sure to rub off on you eventually. Hikers are notoriously hilarious.
And if you are funny, but your user name is "drugmusic" there's a pretty good chance that a dame my age isn't going to take comfort in that. Twenty years ago, maybe-- but even then, probably not. Do you have any other hobbies?
To "sirhavealot" and "thatdamngood",
I like your user names, I do. They're confident, optimistic and your appreciation for life's bounty is infectious. I just wish your joi de vivre extended to grammar. And kerning! Always with the nospacesbetweenwords. Can you not see that? Can none of you see that? Do I alone have some super power that allows me to see-- ugh, forget it.
Now, mister "myonlyshot" is a different story. His grammar is good but he's such a sad clown. Life is long, pal, and we need to talk about your self confidence. This is not your only shot, not by far. Have you met sirhavealot? You're going to have to buck up, kid, seriously, I'm worried about you. But not so worried that I'll take you on. No way, nuh-uh. Sorry. But, good luck!
To "freakizza",
Would you be adding the suffix, -izza, to more than one word per sentence? And would that just pertain to our written correspondence or to our spoken banter as well. I'd just like to know what I'm in for ahead of time if that's possible.
To "salvatore" and "jerry",
Why the tiled room, boys? It smacks of "Silence of the Lambs." And why no smile? So young, so hard, so cold; like my coffee.
Now, "mr.greenlove",
Is your love sustainable or will I be reduced, reused, and recycled the first chance you get, know what I'm sayin'?
And to "firmfeel",
Really? At 8am? Do I have to be navigating the flotsam of sexual innuendo that floats into my head at that hour of the morning? Could you think of a user name a little more daytime friendly? (And to "activeniceguy", sadly, I have the opposite problem with you.)
Speaking of 8am:
If your user name is has any manner of the word "gentleman" in it, why oh why, are you asking me if I'm wearing panty hose or thigh highs at 7:58 in the morning? Honestly, shouldn't you be watching the toaster? Your toast is gonna burn. Focus on getting out the door for work and then you can worry about what I'm wearing. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Everyone knows that.
To "bigcheese" and "bigteddybear",
I love that you think so. I don't think I'm the bigone for you, but keep on keepin' on, fellas. I'm sure "bigsmile", "bighearted" and "bigboobs" are waiting for you right around the corner. I'm too much of a "bigspaz" to even be in the running.
To "NiceGentleman",
So many gentlemen and yet so few, but you intrigued me. Why is your profile photo a picture of you sitting in a hospital chair, holding an hours-old new born infant? Is it yours? Why does is say in your profile under "Wants kids?" Answer: "Not sure." A gentleman and an enigma? I should say.
Speaking of which...
To "zenarcade", "kineticdust", and "runs2standstill",
So slender, so cryptic. Is there more to life than yoga? You tell me. Or don't. Just allude to it. In hushed tones. On your mat. All sweaty like. It'll never work between us. I can't keep a straight face for that long. But journey on, wandering soul, journey on.
And finally, to "NJitalian", "jerzeyital", "italyboy", "Italianman", "ItalianFunnyGuy", "calabresePaisan", "tigertony", and "BigSal",
I was born in Rome, raised in New Jersey, and yet something tells me I'll never be Italian or Jerz enough for you. But I applaud your righteous pride. And I wish you well. All a yous.
And so thank you Match.com, for reminding me of the myriad of special guys out there who are aching to be a "good listener", willing to "go to restaurants and movies", and who "like to travel". They're just there, within reach, right inside my computer; humorless, unsmiling, and putting spaces after the word and before the comma , like this. And if it weren't for your emails, I might actually be lonely, but knowing what I do about who I could be spending my time with-- I'm deliriously happy. And relieved.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Kareoke Killjoy
-- "Authorities do not know exactly how many people have been killed warbling "My Way" in karaoke bars over the years in the Philippines, or how many fatal fights it has fueled. But the news media have recorded at least a half a dozen victims in the past decade and includes them in a sub category of crime dubbed the "My Way Killings."
--The New York Times (no joke)
Interior: Filthy, low-ceilinged dive bar, Anytown, USA.
Little, grubby square tables dot the room and the dry, grey rag used to wipe down the bar hasn't been rinsed out since 1972. A smattering of lowlifes drape themselves over wobbling chairs and each other and the path to the restroom and cigarette machine is sticky. A man named Rick is up at the mic. His fingernails are dirty and his T-shirt is worn thin. He sings an octave lower than the original release and has the throaty rumble of a man who has several Pall Malls for breakfast. But he is on key, committed, and to the casual listener seems to really own the song. Another man, Stu, sits in the crowd, seething. Only he understands Rick's deep, inner pathos and aching desire. He's antsy as he watches Rick grab the mic with two hands, bend at the knees and thrust his midsection towards the audience with every chorus.
Rick sings, "M-m-m-myyy Sharona! (ba-duh, nah, nah, nah, nuh) M-m-m-myyy Sharona!"
Stu can stand it no longer. He jumps to his feet as his chair slides away from him like an explosion. He thunders at Rick, chest heaving; eyes flashing, "Your Sharona? YOUR Sharona?! She was MY GODDAMN Sharona!!!"
And with that he whips out a glock and shoots Rick dead. The crowd shifts uneasily. Stu charges over to the mic, steps over Rick and finishes out the song with bravado; just in time for the last chorus; his gun clanking out time with the mic stand as the stage becomes sticky with blood. The room offers him a round of tentative applause.
Who's up?
In another part of town, at a slightly more respectable bar/cafe, Charles has finally gotten up the nads to request a song. He's spent years pouring over the bar's three ring binders and has finally settled on a song that speaks to him personally. Tonight-- he reasons with only himself-- is the night. He smooths the crease in his khaki's as he turns sideways, gingerly shuffling between patrons too lazy to scoot their chairs in for him as he makes his way to the mic. Once there, he takes his wire rimmed glasses off and tucks them into his brooks brothers shirt pocket then squints towards his audience. He feels resigned to this moment; even triumphant.
Charles sings, "Don't drink don't smoke, what do-ya-do? Ya don't drink don't smoke, what-do-ya-do?--"
Charles bops his head ever-so-slightly as he sings. He's here at last and it feels good. He feels home.
Sheila had been tailing Charles unbeknownst to him for years; ever since he snubbed her at their corporate trust-building retreat. In truth, he pined for her but thought she was a prude and would never go for his secret penchant for S&M using 17th century Japanese stealth weaponry. But what Charles didn't know about Sheila could fill volumes. And now he would never find out. Sheila stood slowly, taking a deep breath; the fulfillment of careful training and relaxation exercises was at hand and she knew she had only one shot.
Charles sang, "Little good, little good, little goody-two shoes--"
Sheila screamed as she took aim, "You'll never know, Charles, you'll NEVER KNOW!!!"
And with that she let fly the shiny metal shuriken or "throwing star" she'd been carrying in her purse in a hard, plastic tampon case for some time now. It landed squarely in his chest, embedding itself into his heart; making a smooth, clean tear along the same parallel stripes in his best shirt. Charles slumped to the floor as Sheila grabbed her purse; the dulcet tones of Adam Ant's jaunty anthem danced over his bleeding body. Before reaching the threshold of the bar, Sheila turned to the patrons, squared her shoulders and proclaimed, "And I do smoke, on occasion, after a good meal," and walked out into the night with a spring in her step; her quest fulfilled.
Next?
Marty and Loraine had been married for 38 years. Back in the seventies, Lorraine had her hair cut in the current fashion and with the help of a daily curling iron ritual, bore an uncanny resemblance to Toni Tennille-- or so she thought. Marty-- not wanting to be upstaged by his outgoing, center-stage-hogging wife-- took to wearing a ship captain's hat; but the only one he could find was a real, starched military cap at a VFW rummage sale and so he looked oddly formal at weekend cocktail parties and bar-b-ques. (The neighbors wondered if he'd really been in the military and just didn't realize it wasn't wartime, and so, feeling sorry for him, never mentioned it.)
Scarcely a week went by before Loraine could be heard nagging her husband to escort her to TGIFs for karaoke night. There were times when he tried to send her down town on her own, tired as he was of their duets and the silence that followed, but she wouldn't hear of it.
"Go," Marty said from his brown naugahyde barcalounger, "do 'Let's Get Physical' or 'Morning train,' you know you like those songs and the crowd loves you. You don't need me there." But even though Loraine didn't need him there, and tended to ignore him once she walked through the door, she always insisted he come.
"Get dressed," she'd say, holding his stiff, white captains hat, "I've laid your Hawaiian shirt out on the bed."
Loraine beamed every time she overheard a patron whisper, "There goes Captain and Tennille," as she snaked through the dark wood varnished booths. What she didn't notice were the eye rolls and muffled laughter that followed. Marty, always in her wake, saw and heard what he couldn't bear to tell her, and his inner chivalrous husband kept his humiliation bottled up for years. But tonight seemed different somehow and as they stepped up onto the carpeted dais; he felt itchy, loose, and annoyed.
Marty sang to Loraine, "Muscrat Susie, Muscrat Sam," but she wouldn't look him in the eyes. "Do the jitterbug in Muscrat Land--" she sang out to the crowd which infuriated him. Why wouldn't she look at him? He was her captain and he'd been putting up with this crap for years. She should be looking at him lovingly the way Tennille did. He marveled at how she could enunciate every word beautifully while she was singing on stage but as soon as they stepped off the platform, she was a verbal train wreck. Her scotch and soda intake had tripled over the years and the bartender-- a tall, strapping bottle-blonde lesbian named Tiffany-- had started handing doubles to her in a tall glass with not much ice.
Loraine sang, "And they whirl and they twirl and they tango," which was Marty's cue to take her hand and spin her once into him then spin her back out. But she started turning the wrong way and the mic wire got tangled up around her. Snickers were heard from the audience. Loraine snarled at Marty, "You cn do inythin righth!" But she slurred it into his mic and her sentiment bounced off the crowded restaurant's back wall with cringe-worthy clarity. Tiffany could be heard laughing loudest above the others. Marty thought to say, I'm sorry, but then figured, what's the point. He untangled her from the mic wire just in time for their encore (sung whether or not it was requested because Tiffany acted as their plant for an extra tip from Loraine.) As if on cue, Tiffany shouted, "Encore!" and "Love Will Keep Us Together" began it's bouncy intro. Loraine looked out towards the bar and said, "You know it will, Babydoll," and that's when Marty knew.
Marty sang to Loraine, "Love, love will keep us together--"
Loraine sang to the crowd, "Think of me babe whenever,
Some sweet talkin' girl comes along, singin' your so-ong,
Don't mess around you've just got to be strong, just stop--"
Marty understood. (schweee)
Loraine sang in the vague direction of the bar, "'Cause I really love you, stop. (schweee)
I've been thinking of you..."
Marty's eyes caught Tiffany's. She was mouthing the words, "Look in your heart and let love, keep us to-geh-eh-the, whatever." As he looked back at Loraine, something snapped and the room-- packed with patrons and nachos-- receded into the ether. Marty slowly wound the mic chord around Loraine's body as he twirled her toward him. She sang, "Da-da-da- whatever--" giggling at his ad-libbed choreography. Then he wrapped the chord around her neck as he sang, "I will, I will, I will. I wi-iiiillllllll..." Lorraine stopped singing and for the first time in four-- or was it five years-- looked Marty in the eyes. He stopped singing, too; better to focus all his strength on tightening the chord without dropping his mic. Loraine understood now that he understood but she didn't care; she just kept looking at him-- inches away-- as she turned shades of pink, then magenta.
Tiffany was the first person to cry out but it was too late. With Loraine's last breath, she knocked Marty's microphone into the scotch and soda she was still grasping and instantly, currents of electricity-- only slightly stronger than the heart-pumping electricity that they felt for one another when they first met-- wound through their bodies and stopped their hearts flat in a final rousing crescendo of shaken tongues and singed flesh. They fell to the floor together like Romeo and Juliet, bound together forever now as one. Tiffany arrived at the tangled mass just in time to see Marty and Loraine's fingers and toes seemingly twitching in time to the song's catchy beat as it faded out. And they faded out along with it.
It was love, as it turned out, that kept them together after all.
--The New York Times (no joke)
Interior: Filthy, low-ceilinged dive bar, Anytown, USA.
Little, grubby square tables dot the room and the dry, grey rag used to wipe down the bar hasn't been rinsed out since 1972. A smattering of lowlifes drape themselves over wobbling chairs and each other and the path to the restroom and cigarette machine is sticky. A man named Rick is up at the mic. His fingernails are dirty and his T-shirt is worn thin. He sings an octave lower than the original release and has the throaty rumble of a man who has several Pall Malls for breakfast. But he is on key, committed, and to the casual listener seems to really own the song. Another man, Stu, sits in the crowd, seething. Only he understands Rick's deep, inner pathos and aching desire. He's antsy as he watches Rick grab the mic with two hands, bend at the knees and thrust his midsection towards the audience with every chorus.
Rick sings, "M-m-m-myyy Sharona! (ba-duh, nah, nah, nah, nuh) M-m-m-myyy Sharona!"
Stu can stand it no longer. He jumps to his feet as his chair slides away from him like an explosion. He thunders at Rick, chest heaving; eyes flashing, "Your Sharona? YOUR Sharona?! She was MY GODDAMN Sharona!!!"
And with that he whips out a glock and shoots Rick dead. The crowd shifts uneasily. Stu charges over to the mic, steps over Rick and finishes out the song with bravado; just in time for the last chorus; his gun clanking out time with the mic stand as the stage becomes sticky with blood. The room offers him a round of tentative applause.
Who's up?
In another part of town, at a slightly more respectable bar/cafe, Charles has finally gotten up the nads to request a song. He's spent years pouring over the bar's three ring binders and has finally settled on a song that speaks to him personally. Tonight-- he reasons with only himself-- is the night. He smooths the crease in his khaki's as he turns sideways, gingerly shuffling between patrons too lazy to scoot their chairs in for him as he makes his way to the mic. Once there, he takes his wire rimmed glasses off and tucks them into his brooks brothers shirt pocket then squints towards his audience. He feels resigned to this moment; even triumphant.
Charles sings, "Don't drink don't smoke, what do-ya-do? Ya don't drink don't smoke, what-do-ya-do?--"
Charles bops his head ever-so-slightly as he sings. He's here at last and it feels good. He feels home.
Sheila had been tailing Charles unbeknownst to him for years; ever since he snubbed her at their corporate trust-building retreat. In truth, he pined for her but thought she was a prude and would never go for his secret penchant for S&M using 17th century Japanese stealth weaponry. But what Charles didn't know about Sheila could fill volumes. And now he would never find out. Sheila stood slowly, taking a deep breath; the fulfillment of careful training and relaxation exercises was at hand and she knew she had only one shot.
Charles sang, "Little good, little good, little goody-two shoes--"
Sheila screamed as she took aim, "You'll never know, Charles, you'll NEVER KNOW!!!"
And with that she let fly the shiny metal shuriken or "throwing star" she'd been carrying in her purse in a hard, plastic tampon case for some time now. It landed squarely in his chest, embedding itself into his heart; making a smooth, clean tear along the same parallel stripes in his best shirt. Charles slumped to the floor as Sheila grabbed her purse; the dulcet tones of Adam Ant's jaunty anthem danced over his bleeding body. Before reaching the threshold of the bar, Sheila turned to the patrons, squared her shoulders and proclaimed, "And I do smoke, on occasion, after a good meal," and walked out into the night with a spring in her step; her quest fulfilled.
Next?
Marty and Loraine had been married for 38 years. Back in the seventies, Lorraine had her hair cut in the current fashion and with the help of a daily curling iron ritual, bore an uncanny resemblance to Toni Tennille-- or so she thought. Marty-- not wanting to be upstaged by his outgoing, center-stage-hogging wife-- took to wearing a ship captain's hat; but the only one he could find was a real, starched military cap at a VFW rummage sale and so he looked oddly formal at weekend cocktail parties and bar-b-ques. (The neighbors wondered if he'd really been in the military and just didn't realize it wasn't wartime, and so, feeling sorry for him, never mentioned it.)
Scarcely a week went by before Loraine could be heard nagging her husband to escort her to TGIFs for karaoke night. There were times when he tried to send her down town on her own, tired as he was of their duets and the silence that followed, but she wouldn't hear of it.
"Go," Marty said from his brown naugahyde barcalounger, "do 'Let's Get Physical' or 'Morning train,' you know you like those songs and the crowd loves you. You don't need me there." But even though Loraine didn't need him there, and tended to ignore him once she walked through the door, she always insisted he come.
"Get dressed," she'd say, holding his stiff, white captains hat, "I've laid your Hawaiian shirt out on the bed."
Loraine beamed every time she overheard a patron whisper, "There goes Captain and Tennille," as she snaked through the dark wood varnished booths. What she didn't notice were the eye rolls and muffled laughter that followed. Marty, always in her wake, saw and heard what he couldn't bear to tell her, and his inner chivalrous husband kept his humiliation bottled up for years. But tonight seemed different somehow and as they stepped up onto the carpeted dais; he felt itchy, loose, and annoyed.
Marty sang to Loraine, "Muscrat Susie, Muscrat Sam," but she wouldn't look him in the eyes. "Do the jitterbug in Muscrat Land--" she sang out to the crowd which infuriated him. Why wouldn't she look at him? He was her captain and he'd been putting up with this crap for years. She should be looking at him lovingly the way Tennille did. He marveled at how she could enunciate every word beautifully while she was singing on stage but as soon as they stepped off the platform, she was a verbal train wreck. Her scotch and soda intake had tripled over the years and the bartender-- a tall, strapping bottle-blonde lesbian named Tiffany-- had started handing doubles to her in a tall glass with not much ice.
Loraine sang, "And they whirl and they twirl and they tango," which was Marty's cue to take her hand and spin her once into him then spin her back out. But she started turning the wrong way and the mic wire got tangled up around her. Snickers were heard from the audience. Loraine snarled at Marty, "You cn do inythin righth!" But she slurred it into his mic and her sentiment bounced off the crowded restaurant's back wall with cringe-worthy clarity. Tiffany could be heard laughing loudest above the others. Marty thought to say, I'm sorry, but then figured, what's the point. He untangled her from the mic wire just in time for their encore (sung whether or not it was requested because Tiffany acted as their plant for an extra tip from Loraine.) As if on cue, Tiffany shouted, "Encore!" and "Love Will Keep Us Together" began it's bouncy intro. Loraine looked out towards the bar and said, "You know it will, Babydoll," and that's when Marty knew.
Marty sang to Loraine, "Love, love will keep us together--"
Loraine sang to the crowd, "Think of me babe whenever,
Some sweet talkin' girl comes along, singin' your so-ong,
Don't mess around you've just got to be strong, just stop--"
Marty understood. (schweee)
Loraine sang in the vague direction of the bar, "'Cause I really love you, stop. (schweee)
I've been thinking of you..."
Marty's eyes caught Tiffany's. She was mouthing the words, "Look in your heart and let love, keep us to-geh-eh-the, whatever." As he looked back at Loraine, something snapped and the room-- packed with patrons and nachos-- receded into the ether. Marty slowly wound the mic chord around Loraine's body as he twirled her toward him. She sang, "Da-da-da- whatever--" giggling at his ad-libbed choreography. Then he wrapped the chord around her neck as he sang, "I will, I will, I will. I wi-iiiillllllll..." Lorraine stopped singing and for the first time in four-- or was it five years-- looked Marty in the eyes. He stopped singing, too; better to focus all his strength on tightening the chord without dropping his mic. Loraine understood now that he understood but she didn't care; she just kept looking at him-- inches away-- as she turned shades of pink, then magenta.
Tiffany was the first person to cry out but it was too late. With Loraine's last breath, she knocked Marty's microphone into the scotch and soda she was still grasping and instantly, currents of electricity-- only slightly stronger than the heart-pumping electricity that they felt for one another when they first met-- wound through their bodies and stopped their hearts flat in a final rousing crescendo of shaken tongues and singed flesh. They fell to the floor together like Romeo and Juliet, bound together forever now as one. Tiffany arrived at the tangled mass just in time to see Marty and Loraine's fingers and toes seemingly twitching in time to the song's catchy beat as it faded out. And they faded out along with it.
It was love, as it turned out, that kept them together after all.
Monday, February 1, 2010
Bought the Farm
The good news about ant farms is that they haven't changed an iota since they were conceived and designed as a child's learning toy sometime around the Inquisition. There's still that John Steinbeck farmhouse in molded plastic, sitting high up on a fertile hill next to a proud silo. We know it's summer because the trees are full, giving the entire scene that smack of ideal bucolic optimism that will surely help me rationalize confining them to their enclosed, plastic fallout shelter for the rest of their leetle ant lives. Or until divine intervention intercedes and my ant farm gets knocked over by a raccoon, inciting a jailhouse patio break that would make Steve McQueen proud. But this is not that story.
The ants had to be ordered from the great ant warehouse that also supplies sea monkeys and live bait to all manner of iguana, lizard and snake. Once they arrived in a padded envelope, all twenty of them entangled in a single ant scrum, laying lifeless in a small cylindrical tube like failed astronauts on a doomed mission, I called the company.
"Don't worry," they said. "They'll wake up. They're just sleeping. Put them in the fridge and when you're ready to dispense them, pour them in to the ant farm and they'll wake up once they warm."
Like Ophelia. Or Walt Disney. Kind of a DIY home cryogenics lesson for kids. I get it, I thought, and dutifully put them in the fridge.
It was around this time that I got the bright idea of offering to bring in the ant farm to my son, Jimmy's, 4 year old pre-school class, to stay and live To donate forever. I thought I was pret-ty crafty, offering to donate our ant farm in the name of science and higher learning. My true m.o. was not wanting to have the ants anywhere on our property when the inevitable freedom break happened. Let the pre-school deal with an exterminator, was my line of thinking. I was surely on my way to hell in a hand-made, hand-painted, play-doh and popsicle stick fashioned hand-basket.
The big day arrived. I had read the instructions like I always do a new toy. I poured in the special life-time supply of magic sand and checked the plugs on the sides for damage control. I understood how often they should be fed, what optimum light they needed for superior existence, and went over my presentation to the students in my head. Finally, the moment was at hand. I was on.
"Does anyone know what this is, children?" I said smugly to the class as I pulled out the ant farm and rested it with a flourish on the low rhombus shaped table. Nine or so grubby little kids gathered around; my son among them. A few others were setting up shop or home or surgery elsewhere in the room, but I didn't take it personally.
"It's an ant farm," I answered myself in hyper-enthusiastic Chanel Thirteen-speak. Even Jimmy looked unimpressed. Thankfully, his teacher had left the room to handle some administrative business. Or have a smoke.
I continued, "You kids are going to get to see ants live and work and make a home for themselves over time. It's going to be really cool, you'll see."
They just looked at me with their big eyes and chubby wrists. Tough crowd.
"And these," I said, reaching into the bag and feeling around for the small, cylindrical vile, "are the ants." I pulled out the vile and held it up to the class.
Much to my delight, all twenty of them were writhing and crawling over each other like an over-caffeinated bacchanalian orgy. I slowly waved the vile over the crowd like a seasoned spokesperson on the Price is Right. I managed to garner a few ooohs and ahhs which boosted my ego and fueled my game. I looked at the vile then over at the leetle hole that I was supposed to shake the ants into once I removed the stopper. "Ready kids?" I said, and placed the vial right up against the ant farm's entrance, exhaled, and removed the stopper. Two, three, four, ants immediately crawled out of the vial's mouth and up along the vial and onto my hand and up my wrist before I could close the stopper again. I immediately, reflexively, swatted and flicked them off my wrist and and forearm with precision and force. I don't get it, I thought, not a single one of them went down into the hole were they were supposed to go. Didn't they know what utopia waited for them? Stupid ants.
"Why did you do that?" one of the kids asked.
I had to buy time. I needed to think.
"This is boring," another one said. Okay, okay, I thought, I had to think fast.
"Let's look at the directions kids. How many of your mommy's and daddy's read the directions when you get a new toy?" A few hands went up. "Good," I said, "well, they all should, and sometimes it's a good idea to read them again. So let's do that, shall we?" I quickly scanned the fold-out for guidance because I was losing my audience to the costume box.
"Here, kids. Right here is says, 'When you're ready to dispense the ants, cool them in the refrigerator for fifteen minutes then pour them in.'" Right! Their comas! I'd completely forgotten. Like sixteen little sleeping beauties in the back of a moving truck, I would just pour them in and they'd tumble down like good sports. They may wake up a bit dazed and bruised, but they'd shake it off and be jest fine.
But I didn't have fifteen minutes. Jimmy's teacher had popped in and tapped her watch. "I know," I reasoned out loud to the kids, "fifteen minutes in the refrigerator must work out to about two minutes in the freezer. It's called con-ver-sion. I'll be right back."
I slipped out of the room and over to the kitchen where the big fridge held a lifetime's supply of apple juice, popsicles and boo-boo ice. Into the frozen tundra I tossed the tiny vial and it landed without a sound on a hunk of frosted over ice cream drip. The minutes ticked by like hours as I counted to only ninety seconds before reaching in; god only knew knew how hard it would be to get my audience back.
"Here we go, kids, gather around, gather around," I sang brightly as I cursorily inspected the ants. Yup, they were asleep alright. Balled up into tiny knots, they didn't even flinch. I passed the vial once again in front of the five or six die hards who's golden attention spans had brought them back for the grand finale.
"They look dead," my son's best friend, Marvin, said.
"Oh, no," I trilled like Glinda the Good Witch, "the ants are sleeping very soundly." And as I unstopped the vial and tipped it toward the hole, they tumbled and rolled dutifully into their sandy shangri-la. For a full half a minute, we all watched in stony silence. The anticipation was so thick you could cut it with a dull, plastic, Fisher Price knife.
"When are they gonna wake up?" one girl asked through a fireman's mask.
"Oh, soon, very soon," I said. But I was starting to wonder.
"Did you kill them?" a round-faced boy asked.
I stammered, "Well, I wouldn't say that I killed them, per se..."
"What's per se?" my son asked.
"I'll explain later," I said; my lilting voice was deflating fast but I held on.
"Why don't we do this, kids," I said, "Let's put the ant farm on top of the piano in the sun, and give them a good, long chance to wake up in their own time."
"But what if they don't wake up?" the round-faced boy asked. His Kean-painting eyes seemed to grow bigger and rounder with each word he spoke.
"What if they don't wake up? Well, then, we'll know that they're in a happy place; in their very own ant heaven."
"Did you kill them on purpose?" my son asked.
"No Sweetie, no," I said and I reached across the table and cupped his chin in my sweaty hand. Could it be that he knew me this well, already? It's not liked we kept them on the patio and I came in one morning and made up the raccoon story. I could have just as easily done that, but no! We donated the ant farm to the school! Here I was, trying to parlay this into teaching moment to prove that I'm precisely not the mom he thinks I'm capable of being. But, it was too late. He knew me already.
"Oh, kids," I said with calm resignation, in my own voice; deciding to drop the lilt and the dulcet tones. My voice now carried the weight and timbre of the cold, hard truth. "If the ants did die, and they're not waking up, then it means that they died by accident. And I'm truly sorry. I read the directions, but I may have made a mistake. And people make mistakes all the time. Even grown-ups. Do you forgive me?"
There was a pause while I perused the stricken crowd.
"Yes," I heard a muffled voice say from behind the fireman's mask.
I didn't cry. I could have. But I didn't.
"Thank you. Now let's give these little guys a chance to wake up."
After explaining to my son's teacher that I'd killed off all the ants in front of the class, she decided that it would be best if I brought the ant farm home. I did, and set it on the patio table, in the sun, for a week. I wanted to give those ants every chance that the kids had given me. And that I hoped my son would give me in the future. Because a week in ant years is like a lifetime for us. And you don't have to read the directions to know that.
The ants had to be ordered from the great ant warehouse that also supplies sea monkeys and live bait to all manner of iguana, lizard and snake. Once they arrived in a padded envelope, all twenty of them entangled in a single ant scrum, laying lifeless in a small cylindrical tube like failed astronauts on a doomed mission, I called the company.
"Don't worry," they said. "They'll wake up. They're just sleeping. Put them in the fridge and when you're ready to dispense them, pour them in to the ant farm and they'll wake up once they warm."
Like Ophelia. Or Walt Disney. Kind of a DIY home cryogenics lesson for kids. I get it, I thought, and dutifully put them in the fridge.
It was around this time that I got the bright idea of offering to bring in the ant farm to my son, Jimmy's, 4 year old pre-school class, to stay and live To donate forever. I thought I was pret-ty crafty, offering to donate our ant farm in the name of science and higher learning. My true m.o. was not wanting to have the ants anywhere on our property when the inevitable freedom break happened. Let the pre-school deal with an exterminator, was my line of thinking. I was surely on my way to hell in a hand-made, hand-painted, play-doh and popsicle stick fashioned hand-basket.
The big day arrived. I had read the instructions like I always do a new toy. I poured in the special life-time supply of magic sand and checked the plugs on the sides for damage control. I understood how often they should be fed, what optimum light they needed for superior existence, and went over my presentation to the students in my head. Finally, the moment was at hand. I was on.
"Does anyone know what this is, children?" I said smugly to the class as I pulled out the ant farm and rested it with a flourish on the low rhombus shaped table. Nine or so grubby little kids gathered around; my son among them. A few others were setting up shop or home or surgery elsewhere in the room, but I didn't take it personally.
"It's an ant farm," I answered myself in hyper-enthusiastic Chanel Thirteen-speak. Even Jimmy looked unimpressed. Thankfully, his teacher had left the room to handle some administrative business. Or have a smoke.
I continued, "You kids are going to get to see ants live and work and make a home for themselves over time. It's going to be really cool, you'll see."
They just looked at me with their big eyes and chubby wrists. Tough crowd.
"And these," I said, reaching into the bag and feeling around for the small, cylindrical vile, "are the ants." I pulled out the vile and held it up to the class.
Much to my delight, all twenty of them were writhing and crawling over each other like an over-caffeinated bacchanalian orgy. I slowly waved the vile over the crowd like a seasoned spokesperson on the Price is Right. I managed to garner a few ooohs and ahhs which boosted my ego and fueled my game. I looked at the vile then over at the leetle hole that I was supposed to shake the ants into once I removed the stopper. "Ready kids?" I said, and placed the vial right up against the ant farm's entrance, exhaled, and removed the stopper. Two, three, four, ants immediately crawled out of the vial's mouth and up along the vial and onto my hand and up my wrist before I could close the stopper again. I immediately, reflexively, swatted and flicked them off my wrist and and forearm with precision and force. I don't get it, I thought, not a single one of them went down into the hole were they were supposed to go. Didn't they know what utopia waited for them? Stupid ants.
"Why did you do that?" one of the kids asked.
I had to buy time. I needed to think.
"This is boring," another one said. Okay, okay, I thought, I had to think fast.
"Let's look at the directions kids. How many of your mommy's and daddy's read the directions when you get a new toy?" A few hands went up. "Good," I said, "well, they all should, and sometimes it's a good idea to read them again. So let's do that, shall we?" I quickly scanned the fold-out for guidance because I was losing my audience to the costume box.
"Here, kids. Right here is says, 'When you're ready to dispense the ants, cool them in the refrigerator for fifteen minutes then pour them in.'" Right! Their comas! I'd completely forgotten. Like sixteen little sleeping beauties in the back of a moving truck, I would just pour them in and they'd tumble down like good sports. They may wake up a bit dazed and bruised, but they'd shake it off and be jest fine.
But I didn't have fifteen minutes. Jimmy's teacher had popped in and tapped her watch. "I know," I reasoned out loud to the kids, "fifteen minutes in the refrigerator must work out to about two minutes in the freezer. It's called con-ver-sion. I'll be right back."
I slipped out of the room and over to the kitchen where the big fridge held a lifetime's supply of apple juice, popsicles and boo-boo ice. Into the frozen tundra I tossed the tiny vial and it landed without a sound on a hunk of frosted over ice cream drip. The minutes ticked by like hours as I counted to only ninety seconds before reaching in; god only knew knew how hard it would be to get my audience back.
"Here we go, kids, gather around, gather around," I sang brightly as I cursorily inspected the ants. Yup, they were asleep alright. Balled up into tiny knots, they didn't even flinch. I passed the vial once again in front of the five or six die hards who's golden attention spans had brought them back for the grand finale.
"They look dead," my son's best friend, Marvin, said.
"Oh, no," I trilled like Glinda the Good Witch, "the ants are sleeping very soundly." And as I unstopped the vial and tipped it toward the hole, they tumbled and rolled dutifully into their sandy shangri-la. For a full half a minute, we all watched in stony silence. The anticipation was so thick you could cut it with a dull, plastic, Fisher Price knife.
"When are they gonna wake up?" one girl asked through a fireman's mask.
"Oh, soon, very soon," I said. But I was starting to wonder.
"Did you kill them?" a round-faced boy asked.
I stammered, "Well, I wouldn't say that I killed them, per se..."
"What's per se?" my son asked.
"I'll explain later," I said; my lilting voice was deflating fast but I held on.
"Why don't we do this, kids," I said, "Let's put the ant farm on top of the piano in the sun, and give them a good, long chance to wake up in their own time."
"But what if they don't wake up?" the round-faced boy asked. His Kean-painting eyes seemed to grow bigger and rounder with each word he spoke.
"What if they don't wake up? Well, then, we'll know that they're in a happy place; in their very own ant heaven."
"Did you kill them on purpose?" my son asked.
"No Sweetie, no," I said and I reached across the table and cupped his chin in my sweaty hand. Could it be that he knew me this well, already? It's not liked we kept them on the patio and I came in one morning and made up the raccoon story. I could have just as easily done that, but no! We donated the ant farm to the school! Here I was, trying to parlay this into teaching moment to prove that I'm precisely not the mom he thinks I'm capable of being. But, it was too late. He knew me already.
"Oh, kids," I said with calm resignation, in my own voice; deciding to drop the lilt and the dulcet tones. My voice now carried the weight and timbre of the cold, hard truth. "If the ants did die, and they're not waking up, then it means that they died by accident. And I'm truly sorry. I read the directions, but I may have made a mistake. And people make mistakes all the time. Even grown-ups. Do you forgive me?"
There was a pause while I perused the stricken crowd.
"Yes," I heard a muffled voice say from behind the fireman's mask.
I didn't cry. I could have. But I didn't.
"Thank you. Now let's give these little guys a chance to wake up."
After explaining to my son's teacher that I'd killed off all the ants in front of the class, she decided that it would be best if I brought the ant farm home. I did, and set it on the patio table, in the sun, for a week. I wanted to give those ants every chance that the kids had given me. And that I hoped my son would give me in the future. Because a week in ant years is like a lifetime for us. And you don't have to read the directions to know that.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Brave Heart
It was the morning of my four-way with our attorneys, which, if you haven't already guessed, is the very definition of the opposite of sexy. I was a nervous wreck getting dressed, and although I hadn't had any trouble deciding what to wear, I felt naked. So I thought I'd bring a talisman or two to give me strength. It’s not that I didn’t think I could get through this day alone, I knew I couldn’t get through this day alone.
I grabbed the little Lego Princess Leia my son had given me off my dresser and found a necklace given to me by a childhood girlfriend. While rooting around in my jewelry box I found the phalanx of saints pendants I'd been given by my Catholic contingency while trying to get pregnant and strung them all on a chord and fastened it around my neck. That reminded me of the little flowered blanket that a random nun in Florida had sewn for me—also in the name of fertility-- and so I shoved that into my attaché. Then I went back to my jewelry box and grabbed every necklace, bracelet or brooch any girlfriend had ever given to me and threw them into a zip-loc bag. I put on a ring from my sister and a bracelet from my parents then remembered the children's book of zen parables that I thought would be a good reminder. Grabbing that, too, I flew downstairs; my bag now comically bulging.
In the kitchen I picked up a fortune cookie fortune that said my luck would change today—no kidding-- and ripped out the back page of prayers from an old church bulletin I found. On the way to get my coat I noticed a small, plastic Cat Woman sitting atop my son's warrior tin of action figures. I grabbed her plus a teeny plastic light saber even though I knew they flew in the face of zen teachings but had no time to debate the merits of letting go versus gearing up for battle. I figured I had a right, on this day, to both.
The bag was ridiculously heavy and to the average joe-on-the-street looked weighted with serious documents. I wondered how many leather briefcases I'd seen going into important meetings were secretly crammed with old Mad Magazines, baseball cards, golf scores and super balls then decided probably not that many. Just before and occasionally throughout our four-way I peeked into my bag and felt relaxed in the company of my support group and the love of my peeps. I listened and took notes. I let my attorney do the talking. I was calm. I felt strong. It was definitely worth the weight.
The second most terrifying day of my divorce was our first meeting with the judge. On my way to Newark I realized I'd left the zip-lock bag of strength and charms at home. Panicking, I looked around for something in the car-- anything to get me thought this day. I saw my son's turquoise terrycloth Pokemon wrist sweatband and put it on, tucking it up under the cuff of my blouse. I was glad that I'd happened to wear long sleeves that day, but would have worn the wristband regardless. Some things are more important that fashion, I thought, as I met the man who would eventually divorce me.
Judge Sarbito was a calm, reasoned man with an excellent command of the room and a well-honed, dry sense of humor. I was glad he was assigned to our case and felt taken care of in a weird way. He'd been a matrimonial judge for 21 years and had presided over 40,000 divorces. To say he'd seen it all was a vast understatement and I wished I could be seated next to him at a dinner party. I was certain that he would have appreciated my turquoise Pokemon wrist sweat band, but resisted the urge to roll up my sleeves and show it to him. We were here to get the ball rolling. We were here to do this thang. We’d all rolled up our sleeves enough.
I grabbed the little Lego Princess Leia my son had given me off my dresser and found a necklace given to me by a childhood girlfriend. While rooting around in my jewelry box I found the phalanx of saints pendants I'd been given by my Catholic contingency while trying to get pregnant and strung them all on a chord and fastened it around my neck. That reminded me of the little flowered blanket that a random nun in Florida had sewn for me—also in the name of fertility-- and so I shoved that into my attaché. Then I went back to my jewelry box and grabbed every necklace, bracelet or brooch any girlfriend had ever given to me and threw them into a zip-loc bag. I put on a ring from my sister and a bracelet from my parents then remembered the children's book of zen parables that I thought would be a good reminder. Grabbing that, too, I flew downstairs; my bag now comically bulging.
In the kitchen I picked up a fortune cookie fortune that said my luck would change today—no kidding-- and ripped out the back page of prayers from an old church bulletin I found. On the way to get my coat I noticed a small, plastic Cat Woman sitting atop my son's warrior tin of action figures. I grabbed her plus a teeny plastic light saber even though I knew they flew in the face of zen teachings but had no time to debate the merits of letting go versus gearing up for battle. I figured I had a right, on this day, to both.
The bag was ridiculously heavy and to the average joe-on-the-street looked weighted with serious documents. I wondered how many leather briefcases I'd seen going into important meetings were secretly crammed with old Mad Magazines, baseball cards, golf scores and super balls then decided probably not that many. Just before and occasionally throughout our four-way I peeked into my bag and felt relaxed in the company of my support group and the love of my peeps. I listened and took notes. I let my attorney do the talking. I was calm. I felt strong. It was definitely worth the weight.
The second most terrifying day of my divorce was our first meeting with the judge. On my way to Newark I realized I'd left the zip-lock bag of strength and charms at home. Panicking, I looked around for something in the car-- anything to get me thought this day. I saw my son's turquoise terrycloth Pokemon wrist sweatband and put it on, tucking it up under the cuff of my blouse. I was glad that I'd happened to wear long sleeves that day, but would have worn the wristband regardless. Some things are more important that fashion, I thought, as I met the man who would eventually divorce me.
Judge Sarbito was a calm, reasoned man with an excellent command of the room and a well-honed, dry sense of humor. I was glad he was assigned to our case and felt taken care of in a weird way. He'd been a matrimonial judge for 21 years and had presided over 40,000 divorces. To say he'd seen it all was a vast understatement and I wished I could be seated next to him at a dinner party. I was certain that he would have appreciated my turquoise Pokemon wrist sweat band, but resisted the urge to roll up my sleeves and show it to him. We were here to get the ball rolling. We were here to do this thang. We’d all rolled up our sleeves enough.
Friday, January 22, 2010
Loud
Turned off the ignition
and slumped down a little
My driveway was dark and
the song wasn't finished
I dared myself further
to turn it up louder
The rear view was bouncing
the speakers now buzzed.
Holed up in the warmth, I
chose to stave off it all
closed my eyes turning
it higher and waited
for something inside me
to say cut it out, it's
improper to ache while
a guest in the studio.
The voice wasn't my own
and shhh he was counting,
tapping his foot
for the band to begin again
Grabbing the mic
he sang into my mouth
just as strings looked away and I
leaned towards him singing
He wasn't inside me,
my ears were still in the car
loose in the air
that was louder and listening
Breathing, he inhaled
and I felt his whiskers
then willed him to wear
what I wanted and he did.
High school and college kids
think they're the only ones
little do they know that
we know that place
that space in the car
where you listen so loud
that the singer is aching for me
not the other way
around.
and slumped down a little
My driveway was dark and
the song wasn't finished
I dared myself further
to turn it up louder
The rear view was bouncing
the speakers now buzzed.
Holed up in the warmth, I
chose to stave off it all
closed my eyes turning
it higher and waited
for something inside me
to say cut it out, it's
improper to ache while
a guest in the studio.
The voice wasn't my own
and shhh he was counting,
tapping his foot
for the band to begin again
Grabbing the mic
he sang into my mouth
just as strings looked away and I
leaned towards him singing
He wasn't inside me,
my ears were still in the car
loose in the air
that was louder and listening
Breathing, he inhaled
and I felt his whiskers
then willed him to wear
what I wanted and he did.
High school and college kids
think they're the only ones
little do they know that
we know that place
that space in the car
where you listen so loud
that the singer is aching for me
not the other way
around.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Epiphany
The sanctuary was quiet and nearly empty between services. "Thank you!" Reverend Sandye said to me as I walked past her lugging two giant boxes of diapers-- one under each arm-- and placed them on the enormous, fifteen foot wide, ever-expanding pile of diapers on the floor in front of the crèche's manger. "You're welcome," I said, "there's more in the car," and headed back outside for another armload.
"Well, we're very grateful," she said.
You don't know the half of it, I thought.
Years ago-- six and a half to be exact-- just after my son was born, I joined a mother's group. About twenty of us met every Tuesday at a little cafe downtown which looked like a refugee camp for the two hours each week that we took over. I was one of the few women who let her precious child crawl on the shoe-walkin'-food-droppin' floor-- thus inviting her son to square off with certain death. This was one sure fire way to separate the Tightly Wounds with the Loosie-Goosies-- and I eventually fell into an easy rapport with some of the other women who didn't inch their chairs away from me.
After about seven months of getting to know this revolving group of new mothers-- who came together for no other reason than we 'd all given birth within about four months of each other-- our little breakaway faction broke off. Six of us started to meet independently over wine, take-out, and no kids once a week; eventually sloughing the rest. We saw each other constantly, filling that great expanse of time that new mothers tend to meet with horror and disbelief. We set up play dates and babysitting swaps; met at libraries, IKEA and malls. We covered every possible playground and logged so many hours in each others' homes that after a while no one had to ask where the potholders were kept. And after about 18 months, when it was time for baby round two, I sounded the clarion call. At each of our weekly dinners for a while it seemed that someone announced that they were pregnant again, including me. Although I would soon miscarry, I quickly rebounded with the nonchalance of someone who had been pregnant before and would certainly be pregnant again.
We decided that in lieu of new clothes and plastic crap it turned out we didn't need, we would each give each other a giant $37.50 box of new diapers as a shower gift. My son had grown so fast that I had a third of a ping-pong table's worth of storage space crammed with the left over diapers from each baby phase. "Newborn," "Toddler," "Pull-Ups," and "Swimmies," they read and I kept them all under the ping-pong table because I knew that eventually my husband and I would have a second child, and being ever-mindful of waste-- as well as a granddaughter of the depression-- I hung on to them.
Months passed and as each bulbous belly popped out another bundle of joy, the rest of us loaded another box of diapers into the back of our cars. Four times I made the trip to Target for diapers, each time wondering when it would be my turn to open my trunk for the loading up and reap the benefits of good friends doing good deeds. I looked forward to the time when I would get to sit and nurse my second child while someone else led the older siblings in a round of Ring Around the Rosie, or separated the ones trying to wallop each other. I didn't mind setting out the bowls of mac 'n cheese or cleaning up the toys, really, because I knew that soon enough the tables would turn. "Oh, you'll do it for me," I used to say every time one of my girlfriends thanked me for running over to her diaper bag to grab another wipe, or for zipping back inside to refill the lemonade pitcher. "You stay there," I would say, "I'm happy to do it." And I was. I was beginning to get annoyed at myself, my physiology, my husband and my doctors for not getting pregnant, but I was happy to help my friends. It's what friends do.
One of the six of us asked that we not get her a big box of diapers. She reasoned that she didn't want to have to buy us all a box and so we shouldn't get her one. This proved to be prescient as she was the first to leave our little group in a torrent of drama and tears. Two would go back to work-- play dates replaced by full time daycare-- and another would drift away. Then, eventually, I would remove myself from the last with a final devastation the color and shape of a sudden, tragic death. The mother's group years, however invaluable for me and my son's first four were over. No one would be dropping off a boxes of diapers for me in the future, I reasoned, but that was okay, because I still had so many in the basement, waiting patiently under the ping-pong table.
During one of our usual arguments-- #612-- my husband implored me to get rid of the diapers. We had just closed out our third year of infertility treatments and I knew that even if nothing worked, we could still adopt, and so reasoned, would still need the diapers. I had pleaded with him to keep them as a harbinger of fertility triumph, optimistic in the same way one keeps a fallout shelter well stocked for nuclear survival. But we had bigger problems than nuclear fallout.
My husband eventually moved out and divorce loomed. Menacing clouds gathered but there was a clear bright side: now I could keep whatever I damn well wanted under the ping-pong table. I could store millions of styrofoam peanuts, hundreds of cans of cling peaches or a rubber band ball the size of a 4-H fair turnip there if I wanted to. I was the decider now. Hell, I could sleep on that soft bed of diapers, there under the ping-pong table in my very own basement lair if I so chose and I pictured myself in quiet repose, as if in a darkened, private couchette, the gentle rumble and roll of the train lulling me to sleep.
But I didn't do that. I kept my son's old fisherprice Howard Johnson's under there. I stored his bouncy chair, his doorway swing and his wooden play-sushi set there. And I kept the diapers. Because now that I was a single mom, no one was going to stop me from adopting, not even my future-former husband who threw a final match into the marriage when he told me he didn't want to adopt. It wasn't the whole ball game (trust me), but it was enough to signal the beginning of the end and so my dream of a second child, so recently squashed, was ignited anew.
Now I could fulfill my destiny. "Imagine," I told people who questioned my desire, "that you opened a restaurant and found that you loved it. The business thrived, everyone was happy, and you were ready to open a second location but were foiled at every turn; the cosmos literally fell in line to stop you from reaching your goal. Imagine you were an advertising agency allowed only one client, a doctor forbidden to see more than one patient, or a teacher with a single student. You were ready for more, had room for more, even ached for more, but fate said no more."
I put in a breathy, excited call to my domestic adoption attorney and she assured me that there are mothers who would give up their baby to a single, divorced, unemployed mother-of-one. Sure, my world was crumbling and my support system had flown the coop, but I was euphoric with the exhilarated optimism of a bi-polar simpleton. Woo-hoo, I thought, I'm gonna do this thing! And then I would ask my son if he still had enough love in his heart for a sibling. "Yes, Mommy," he would say, "when is he coming?" "In a while, I hope," I would answer and then I would look into the mirror as I wrapped my arms around my son, imagining the space that one more would occupy in our new family photos.
But I was crying a lot and losing weight and doing all the cliché things that women do to and with themselves when they have to totally re-invent their selves, lives and futures while under emotional duress. I would think to myself on a more rational day, I need to get my bearings. I need to hammer out the custody arrangements, find health insurance and take over the house finances first. I need to be a little less weepy and a lot more assured and then I'll adopt. But already, I could feel the other one slipping away.
Then the economy fell out of a tree and I had to put off adopting indefinitely. Who would hire me? Could I stay in my house? Then my dad died suddenly and I had to find a job, fill out divorce paperwork, keep and eye on Mom and my finances, sell a car and mourn my dad. Sadly, in more-or-less that order. And each day my phantom second child got further and further away from me like a camera trick in a ghost movie. I groped toward him with a little less intensity and daydreamed about us with a little less clarity. I doubted my ability to do it alone. I questioned my capacity to love. My son, now 5 1/2, finally stopped asking me, "When we were going to adopt my brother?" and "Are you sure you can't get pregnant again?" and why. Still, I continued to wash and fold the clothes he out grew and nestle them into labeled bins in the attic for his brother. And I couldn't shake the diapers under the pin-pong table.
I cried in therapy whenever I mentioned them, which wasn't often, but they were the 600 lb. gorilla in my mind that my mother had long since grown impatient hearing about and that I was too embarrassed to trouble anyone else with. "Get over it," the world seemed to say even though my therapist gave me permission to keep the diapers there for as long as I damn well pleased. The twisting knives and sharp pokes of complaining mothers-- too insensitive to realize that telling me how "lucky" I am that I "only have one", when they're "sooooo exhausted" from the demands of more-- also began to dull and fade.
I even found myself feeling more at ease taking up the sunny four-top booth with my son at the diner, (as long as there wasn't a waiting line). We were a bona fide family now and I finally felt worthy after a good year and a half of shrinking and saying, "only two" or "just two" when asked by the hostess, "how many?" Now I could say "two" on it's own and went from having to convince myself of it whenever I said it out loud-- awkwardly, like some homework assignment from a self-actualization retreat-- to saying it with a sub-surface elation because it had come out sounding natural and unapologetic. ("Do you have more children?" is still one of my most feared and loathed questions, but I can answer and move on now in seconds flat-- thanks to the modern miracle of telling myself to get over it.)
Which brings me to this morning. Epiphany Sunday is the day that church folk celebrate the actual day that the wise men arrived at the manger with their blessings and generous-- however impracticable-- treats of gold, frankincense and myrrh (a word I love to spell almost as much as I love to say). My reverend, nothing if not practical, asked that her congregants bring diapers to set at the foot of the crèche, explaining that Mary, all of twelve, probably could have really used some at the time, what with having to tend to her newborn in a friggin' barn. (Those are my words, not hers.) I became territorial and defensive about my diapers, predictably, but without the accompanying anxiety that I had last year. I hypothesized that if I gave them up they would end up at a charitable home for mothers who would actually use them on their actual babies, probably within the week. I knew this last year, too, but this year something shifted which led to a crack in the fortress under my ping-pong table and so I considered the inevitable (formerly unimaginable) as I drove home after the 8am service alone-- Jimmy was at his father's for the weekend.
Driving the short distance home, I let out a particular sort of gender-neutral, Cro-Magnon moan slash sob. Because I've done so much crying in the last two years, I found myself classifying these cries as an Eskimo classifies snow, even as the sounds were escaping. It was an old, familiar cry, like the kind I cried when I realized I had to end my marriage, had lost my best friend, and once I understood my dad was dying in two days. The pitches flew high and loose, pushing sounds out of me like a punk rocker taking a crack at a mournful Tibetan ballad (aren't they all?) And I didn't reach out or call anyone because I've recently learned it's best to ford these moments alone. I knew that this force of energy had to leave me in whatever way it needed to in the same way I understand that storms have to whip and whirl until they eventually subside. And so, I waited it out.
Within minutes of arriving home my crying downgraded into a more easy-going rhythmic sob, so I got to work. I cried as I knelt next to the ping-pong table, combing though the detritus like an obstinate squirrel, and carried the boxes up from the basement. I cried as I loaded them into the car. The act of lifting the trunk's hatch and putting those big boxes into the car reminded me of our mother's group pact years ago and of the diapers that would never get loaded into anyone's trunk on my behalf, but it was just a thought and then it was gone along with all the others. If I could have said, "That's life, pal," and slapped myself on the back I would have.
Driving back down to the church, I allowed myself one last hurrah like a sleepy toddler wailing against the inevitability of nap time; one last ditch attempt at changing the course of my destiny with the sheer force of my shrieks before packing it in and getting on with the business of the day. All that crying had not gotten me pregnant nor had it landed a baby at my front door, so there was nothing more for me to do. I saw my crying now for what it was; a healthy release, an exorcism, a private moment, a tussle.
My eyes were bleary and stung like hell. It took me four trips to unload the car when you count the giant bag of plastic bottles and when I was done I crossed back through the sanctuary to the pew where my reverend was just now standing to finish up a chat. The one hundred and fifty year old church would not be empty for a while. There was an early-bird family claiming their seats for the next service and a puttering alter-guy re-setting things like a well-rehearsed background extra. I knew this was my only chance and so jumped.
I walked right up tot he good reverend.
"Those were the diapers I was saving for my second child," I said.
"I know," she said slowly, boring her eyes into my wretched, weary soul.
I looked back at her then past her to the font, not sure how to word what I wanted to say.
"Do you think I could get a little, um, would you mind if. Could you-- I just--"
She reached up with her hand and squeezed me on the shoulder right at the neck. This was no namby-pampy pat but a real grasp, like the kind a coach gives a key player before the big game. I closed my eyes and listened as she summoned the strength of the ages on my behalf. Not one to mince words, she was so strong and spoke with such authority that there was a part of me that wondered if she was about to part the Red Sea, right there under the marble floor, from the very spot where we stood, in New Jersey. I nodded as she told me to let this dream go in order to make room for other dreams to be fulfilled. In fact, she pretty much ordered me to let this dream go and not to look back. This was not a helpful suggestion or a piece of advice for me to consider; I was to follow her directive so I nodded. She told me that it was very, very brave of me to do what I had done today and that I should use that strength and resolve to serve myself in the future. Then, she said that she was proud of me-- something my dad used to say; a phrase I now had to tell myself. But again, she said, let it go. "Only by letting go will you allow the space to be filled by some other dream." Yeah, I know, I thought. I knew she was right. I thanked her and hugged her quickly before scampering out the back door before anyone could see me well up. Again.
Back at home, I splashed my face then opened my computer to write this story. My son was safe and happy with his father and I had no other plans for the long stretch of the day. I turned on the radio-- Eileen Farrell was singing, "I Gotta Right to Sing the Blues" -- ha!--, burrowed into my favorite couch and warmed my whole self in the sun. It was a purely joyful moment. Not my ultimate My Moment in the Sun, I hope, but pretty damn nice as far as simple moments go. The diapers were gone. The ping-pong table was bare. And the clothes in the attic never crossed my mind.
"Well, we're very grateful," she said.
You don't know the half of it, I thought.
Years ago-- six and a half to be exact-- just after my son was born, I joined a mother's group. About twenty of us met every Tuesday at a little cafe downtown which looked like a refugee camp for the two hours each week that we took over. I was one of the few women who let her precious child crawl on the shoe-walkin'-food-droppin' floor-- thus inviting her son to square off with certain death. This was one sure fire way to separate the Tightly Wounds with the Loosie-Goosies-- and I eventually fell into an easy rapport with some of the other women who didn't inch their chairs away from me.
After about seven months of getting to know this revolving group of new mothers-- who came together for no other reason than we 'd all given birth within about four months of each other-- our little breakaway faction broke off. Six of us started to meet independently over wine, take-out, and no kids once a week; eventually sloughing the rest. We saw each other constantly, filling that great expanse of time that new mothers tend to meet with horror and disbelief. We set up play dates and babysitting swaps; met at libraries, IKEA and malls. We covered every possible playground and logged so many hours in each others' homes that after a while no one had to ask where the potholders were kept. And after about 18 months, when it was time for baby round two, I sounded the clarion call. At each of our weekly dinners for a while it seemed that someone announced that they were pregnant again, including me. Although I would soon miscarry, I quickly rebounded with the nonchalance of someone who had been pregnant before and would certainly be pregnant again.
We decided that in lieu of new clothes and plastic crap it turned out we didn't need, we would each give each other a giant $37.50 box of new diapers as a shower gift. My son had grown so fast that I had a third of a ping-pong table's worth of storage space crammed with the left over diapers from each baby phase. "Newborn," "Toddler," "Pull-Ups," and "Swimmies," they read and I kept them all under the ping-pong table because I knew that eventually my husband and I would have a second child, and being ever-mindful of waste-- as well as a granddaughter of the depression-- I hung on to them.
Months passed and as each bulbous belly popped out another bundle of joy, the rest of us loaded another box of diapers into the back of our cars. Four times I made the trip to Target for diapers, each time wondering when it would be my turn to open my trunk for the loading up and reap the benefits of good friends doing good deeds. I looked forward to the time when I would get to sit and nurse my second child while someone else led the older siblings in a round of Ring Around the Rosie, or separated the ones trying to wallop each other. I didn't mind setting out the bowls of mac 'n cheese or cleaning up the toys, really, because I knew that soon enough the tables would turn. "Oh, you'll do it for me," I used to say every time one of my girlfriends thanked me for running over to her diaper bag to grab another wipe, or for zipping back inside to refill the lemonade pitcher. "You stay there," I would say, "I'm happy to do it." And I was. I was beginning to get annoyed at myself, my physiology, my husband and my doctors for not getting pregnant, but I was happy to help my friends. It's what friends do.
One of the six of us asked that we not get her a big box of diapers. She reasoned that she didn't want to have to buy us all a box and so we shouldn't get her one. This proved to be prescient as she was the first to leave our little group in a torrent of drama and tears. Two would go back to work-- play dates replaced by full time daycare-- and another would drift away. Then, eventually, I would remove myself from the last with a final devastation the color and shape of a sudden, tragic death. The mother's group years, however invaluable for me and my son's first four were over. No one would be dropping off a boxes of diapers for me in the future, I reasoned, but that was okay, because I still had so many in the basement, waiting patiently under the ping-pong table.
During one of our usual arguments-- #612-- my husband implored me to get rid of the diapers. We had just closed out our third year of infertility treatments and I knew that even if nothing worked, we could still adopt, and so reasoned, would still need the diapers. I had pleaded with him to keep them as a harbinger of fertility triumph, optimistic in the same way one keeps a fallout shelter well stocked for nuclear survival. But we had bigger problems than nuclear fallout.
My husband eventually moved out and divorce loomed. Menacing clouds gathered but there was a clear bright side: now I could keep whatever I damn well wanted under the ping-pong table. I could store millions of styrofoam peanuts, hundreds of cans of cling peaches or a rubber band ball the size of a 4-H fair turnip there if I wanted to. I was the decider now. Hell, I could sleep on that soft bed of diapers, there under the ping-pong table in my very own basement lair if I so chose and I pictured myself in quiet repose, as if in a darkened, private couchette, the gentle rumble and roll of the train lulling me to sleep.
But I didn't do that. I kept my son's old fisherprice Howard Johnson's under there. I stored his bouncy chair, his doorway swing and his wooden play-sushi set there. And I kept the diapers. Because now that I was a single mom, no one was going to stop me from adopting, not even my future-former husband who threw a final match into the marriage when he told me he didn't want to adopt. It wasn't the whole ball game (trust me), but it was enough to signal the beginning of the end and so my dream of a second child, so recently squashed, was ignited anew.
Now I could fulfill my destiny. "Imagine," I told people who questioned my desire, "that you opened a restaurant and found that you loved it. The business thrived, everyone was happy, and you were ready to open a second location but were foiled at every turn; the cosmos literally fell in line to stop you from reaching your goal. Imagine you were an advertising agency allowed only one client, a doctor forbidden to see more than one patient, or a teacher with a single student. You were ready for more, had room for more, even ached for more, but fate said no more."
I put in a breathy, excited call to my domestic adoption attorney and she assured me that there are mothers who would give up their baby to a single, divorced, unemployed mother-of-one. Sure, my world was crumbling and my support system had flown the coop, but I was euphoric with the exhilarated optimism of a bi-polar simpleton. Woo-hoo, I thought, I'm gonna do this thing! And then I would ask my son if he still had enough love in his heart for a sibling. "Yes, Mommy," he would say, "when is he coming?" "In a while, I hope," I would answer and then I would look into the mirror as I wrapped my arms around my son, imagining the space that one more would occupy in our new family photos.
But I was crying a lot and losing weight and doing all the cliché things that women do to and with themselves when they have to totally re-invent their selves, lives and futures while under emotional duress. I would think to myself on a more rational day, I need to get my bearings. I need to hammer out the custody arrangements, find health insurance and take over the house finances first. I need to be a little less weepy and a lot more assured and then I'll adopt. But already, I could feel the other one slipping away.
Then the economy fell out of a tree and I had to put off adopting indefinitely. Who would hire me? Could I stay in my house? Then my dad died suddenly and I had to find a job, fill out divorce paperwork, keep and eye on Mom and my finances, sell a car and mourn my dad. Sadly, in more-or-less that order. And each day my phantom second child got further and further away from me like a camera trick in a ghost movie. I groped toward him with a little less intensity and daydreamed about us with a little less clarity. I doubted my ability to do it alone. I questioned my capacity to love. My son, now 5 1/2, finally stopped asking me, "When we were going to adopt my brother?" and "Are you sure you can't get pregnant again?" and why. Still, I continued to wash and fold the clothes he out grew and nestle them into labeled bins in the attic for his brother. And I couldn't shake the diapers under the pin-pong table.
I cried in therapy whenever I mentioned them, which wasn't often, but they were the 600 lb. gorilla in my mind that my mother had long since grown impatient hearing about and that I was too embarrassed to trouble anyone else with. "Get over it," the world seemed to say even though my therapist gave me permission to keep the diapers there for as long as I damn well pleased. The twisting knives and sharp pokes of complaining mothers-- too insensitive to realize that telling me how "lucky" I am that I "only have one", when they're "sooooo exhausted" from the demands of more-- also began to dull and fade.
I even found myself feeling more at ease taking up the sunny four-top booth with my son at the diner, (as long as there wasn't a waiting line). We were a bona fide family now and I finally felt worthy after a good year and a half of shrinking and saying, "only two" or "just two" when asked by the hostess, "how many?" Now I could say "two" on it's own and went from having to convince myself of it whenever I said it out loud-- awkwardly, like some homework assignment from a self-actualization retreat-- to saying it with a sub-surface elation because it had come out sounding natural and unapologetic. ("Do you have more children?" is still one of my most feared and loathed questions, but I can answer and move on now in seconds flat-- thanks to the modern miracle of telling myself to get over it.)
Which brings me to this morning. Epiphany Sunday is the day that church folk celebrate the actual day that the wise men arrived at the manger with their blessings and generous-- however impracticable-- treats of gold, frankincense and myrrh (a word I love to spell almost as much as I love to say). My reverend, nothing if not practical, asked that her congregants bring diapers to set at the foot of the crèche, explaining that Mary, all of twelve, probably could have really used some at the time, what with having to tend to her newborn in a friggin' barn. (Those are my words, not hers.) I became territorial and defensive about my diapers, predictably, but without the accompanying anxiety that I had last year. I hypothesized that if I gave them up they would end up at a charitable home for mothers who would actually use them on their actual babies, probably within the week. I knew this last year, too, but this year something shifted which led to a crack in the fortress under my ping-pong table and so I considered the inevitable (formerly unimaginable) as I drove home after the 8am service alone-- Jimmy was at his father's for the weekend.
Driving the short distance home, I let out a particular sort of gender-neutral, Cro-Magnon moan slash sob. Because I've done so much crying in the last two years, I found myself classifying these cries as an Eskimo classifies snow, even as the sounds were escaping. It was an old, familiar cry, like the kind I cried when I realized I had to end my marriage, had lost my best friend, and once I understood my dad was dying in two days. The pitches flew high and loose, pushing sounds out of me like a punk rocker taking a crack at a mournful Tibetan ballad (aren't they all?) And I didn't reach out or call anyone because I've recently learned it's best to ford these moments alone. I knew that this force of energy had to leave me in whatever way it needed to in the same way I understand that storms have to whip and whirl until they eventually subside. And so, I waited it out.
Within minutes of arriving home my crying downgraded into a more easy-going rhythmic sob, so I got to work. I cried as I knelt next to the ping-pong table, combing though the detritus like an obstinate squirrel, and carried the boxes up from the basement. I cried as I loaded them into the car. The act of lifting the trunk's hatch and putting those big boxes into the car reminded me of our mother's group pact years ago and of the diapers that would never get loaded into anyone's trunk on my behalf, but it was just a thought and then it was gone along with all the others. If I could have said, "That's life, pal," and slapped myself on the back I would have.
Driving back down to the church, I allowed myself one last hurrah like a sleepy toddler wailing against the inevitability of nap time; one last ditch attempt at changing the course of my destiny with the sheer force of my shrieks before packing it in and getting on with the business of the day. All that crying had not gotten me pregnant nor had it landed a baby at my front door, so there was nothing more for me to do. I saw my crying now for what it was; a healthy release, an exorcism, a private moment, a tussle.
My eyes were bleary and stung like hell. It took me four trips to unload the car when you count the giant bag of plastic bottles and when I was done I crossed back through the sanctuary to the pew where my reverend was just now standing to finish up a chat. The one hundred and fifty year old church would not be empty for a while. There was an early-bird family claiming their seats for the next service and a puttering alter-guy re-setting things like a well-rehearsed background extra. I knew this was my only chance and so jumped.
I walked right up tot he good reverend.
"Those were the diapers I was saving for my second child," I said.
"I know," she said slowly, boring her eyes into my wretched, weary soul.
I looked back at her then past her to the font, not sure how to word what I wanted to say.
"Do you think I could get a little, um, would you mind if. Could you-- I just--"
She reached up with her hand and squeezed me on the shoulder right at the neck. This was no namby-pampy pat but a real grasp, like the kind a coach gives a key player before the big game. I closed my eyes and listened as she summoned the strength of the ages on my behalf. Not one to mince words, she was so strong and spoke with such authority that there was a part of me that wondered if she was about to part the Red Sea, right there under the marble floor, from the very spot where we stood, in New Jersey. I nodded as she told me to let this dream go in order to make room for other dreams to be fulfilled. In fact, she pretty much ordered me to let this dream go and not to look back. This was not a helpful suggestion or a piece of advice for me to consider; I was to follow her directive so I nodded. She told me that it was very, very brave of me to do what I had done today and that I should use that strength and resolve to serve myself in the future. Then, she said that she was proud of me-- something my dad used to say; a phrase I now had to tell myself. But again, she said, let it go. "Only by letting go will you allow the space to be filled by some other dream." Yeah, I know, I thought. I knew she was right. I thanked her and hugged her quickly before scampering out the back door before anyone could see me well up. Again.
Back at home, I splashed my face then opened my computer to write this story. My son was safe and happy with his father and I had no other plans for the long stretch of the day. I turned on the radio-- Eileen Farrell was singing, "I Gotta Right to Sing the Blues" -- ha!--, burrowed into my favorite couch and warmed my whole self in the sun. It was a purely joyful moment. Not my ultimate My Moment in the Sun, I hope, but pretty damn nice as far as simple moments go. The diapers were gone. The ping-pong table was bare. And the clothes in the attic never crossed my mind.
Saturday, January 2, 2010
New Year's / Old Fly
I threw some plates up
onto sticks,
and spun them half-heartedly
Like and absent-minded hula-hooper
busy on the phone
And didn't care if they stayed up
or fell and broke and where.
It was for me an old fly
Big and fat and fun to watch
Not a nuisance, but with fascination
as it flew around the room
careening into windows.
Thwap-- it hit the one labeled, "Big Party
with Sparkly Dress, Loud Music
and Heels,"
But to no avail.
I smiled and shook my head,
silly fly.
I watched it hover
at the next entitled, "Doing Nothing-
'We're Just Going to Stay in,
My Boyfriend/Husband and I,
We'll Probably Cook Dinner, Watch
A Movie Then
Go to Bed By Eleven.'"
I wondered if the fly knew how not nothing,
how something that sounded to me.
Plip-- it bounced back, landing on the couch
stunned for a moment.
I watched to see if it would recover.
It did with blithe resilience.
It made one more last ditch attempt
at window number three,
like a game show contestant, running out
of time and options,
"Low Key, Hanging Out With Friends."
But that window was also made of glass,
slippery and translucent-- plap.
The fly gave up and left the room.
This night was like any other.
Its efforts made no difference
and I, like the fly, didn't give a hoot
for the first time
since I was fifteen.
I turned out the lights and drove
to my mom's.
The fly was on its own now
to bang its head against the wall
as many times as it wanted to.
As many times as it needed.
Me?
I was on my way to Mom's
singing in the car,
happy, New Year's Eve.
onto sticks,
and spun them half-heartedly
Like and absent-minded hula-hooper
busy on the phone
And didn't care if they stayed up
or fell and broke and where.
It was for me an old fly
Big and fat and fun to watch
Not a nuisance, but with fascination
as it flew around the room
careening into windows.
Thwap-- it hit the one labeled, "Big Party
with Sparkly Dress, Loud Music
and Heels,"
But to no avail.
I smiled and shook my head,
silly fly.
I watched it hover
at the next entitled, "Doing Nothing-
'We're Just Going to Stay in,
My Boyfriend/Husband and I,
We'll Probably Cook Dinner, Watch
A Movie Then
Go to Bed By Eleven.'"
I wondered if the fly knew how not nothing,
how something that sounded to me.
Plip-- it bounced back, landing on the couch
stunned for a moment.
I watched to see if it would recover.
It did with blithe resilience.
It made one more last ditch attempt
at window number three,
like a game show contestant, running out
of time and options,
"Low Key, Hanging Out With Friends."
But that window was also made of glass,
slippery and translucent-- plap.
The fly gave up and left the room.
This night was like any other.
Its efforts made no difference
and I, like the fly, didn't give a hoot
for the first time
since I was fifteen.
I turned out the lights and drove
to my mom's.
The fly was on its own now
to bang its head against the wall
as many times as it wanted to.
As many times as it needed.
Me?
I was on my way to Mom's
singing in the car,
happy, New Year's Eve.
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