mind diet

This isn't my son's latest collection of crap but it is recent-ish. The current pile of boogers is drying out nicely atop his yellow bookshelves. Hopefully I will share its glory with you soon.

biting the hook

It turns out that screaming at children is bad for them, and for us, but a lot of us are doing it.

don't come in, mommy

Stella has a new habit. Is there any nutritional value in pencil erasers? Because there's nothing my daughter loves more than sneaking a couple pencils into her bedroom and chewing the tops off of them. "Don't come in Mommy," she says, which in our house can mean nothing but trouble.

shenpa

Whenever life is running smoothly and by smoothly I mean that I'm not throwing hissy hysterical tantrums when the kids don't follow my plans (obey my orders, however you want to put it), and life is still doing its crazy life dance but I'm centered and flowing and annoyingly upbeat, but then maybe because of or in spite of my pond-calmness, Hamish and Stella magically transform into doe-eyed vegetable eating cooperative huggy bears, which is good, obviously, but. Whenever I'm feeling confident, in control and thankful for all the abundance I am receiving a funny thing happens. I can't think of a thing to write about. Because, and I just realized this today, ding-ding! I've been working under the auspices that I have to bleed all over my keyboard in order to produce a piece of writing worth your time, which means mining my most odious characteristics and embarrassing foibles, since the human condition is a messy affair and I want to document it in all its gelatinous glory. To, you know, bring us closer together. But then I was all up in my own grill like, is that true? And I answered, no, Elise, it's ridiculous. And I was all, well no wonder I've been battling myself on the issue of writing, beating myself into, well, an emotional bloody pulp, wearing myself out over it.

real girl

In one of my former lifetimes waaaay before Bryan and Hamish and Stella I was a teen of the pointy-booted angsty variety, desperately worshipping almost every new wave band to come out of The U.K. Beneath my teased mess of dyed black hair whirred a brain hellbent on becoming the girlfriend of a pop-star. I strategized when I was supposed to be studying, fantasized when I might have been better off fulfilling my academic promise, and pined, yearned and lusted until the pain of my deprivation thickened into a mega-mix of sticky bong-fogged sob-fests. If anything could have made me feel worthy, the pop-star seal of approval was it. Or so I thought.

Last night I had the opportunity to see one of my favorite bands onstage again at The Trocadero here in Philadelphia. They rocked. And Richard Butler is just as dreamy today as he was twenty-five years ago the first time I saw The Psychedelic Furs when I was fifteen.

In honor of the girl I used to be and maybe to warn myself of what the kids' teenage years could possibly unleash, I give you an excerpt from one of my personal essays which the concert last night inspired me to revisit. I hope you enjoy.