swoon

You know how when you're infatuated with someone you have this fantasy of spending an entire day in bed with them? Maybe you fantasize about this person spying on you in the night, even though your rational self knows that's stalky and creepy and they should totally get a life.

When I was thirteen, living in Chicago with my mom and her boyfriend, I used to picture Nick Rhodes from Duran Duran perched on my fire escape like a cat, taking time out of his hectic world tour to stare into my window and watch the rise and fall of my torso, gazing in wonderment with his green British eyes at the sheer miracle of my existence. I walked the halls of Sacred Heart High School, my kilt swinging slowly around my kneecaps, picturing him always there, always fascinated, pining for me the same way I pined for him. (Did you know I went to Catholic school?)

Fear and Self-Loathing in Lower Merion

So that's the title of my memoir, above. I haven't started it yet. That's the fear part. Perhaps telling you about it before it's been begun is the self-loathing part. Whatever the case it will be self-reflexive. An investigated life, as told by an unreliable narrator. Bingo.

The title for my future novel? "Love in the Time of Suburbia." I've already bought the domain. This is the thing, to not compare this writing experience to the Star Craving experience, which was mapped out, outlined and workshopped on a regular basis. I gotta work with what I got. I ain't getting any younger and my bio is collecting dust. Anyway it would be like comparing childbirth experiences. Hamish was a battle to the bloody death. I wanted to die. Stella? A dream. I ate an entire chopped liver sandwich while eight centimeters dilated. Does it get better than that? It does! My midwife was sure I'd throw it up, and Reader I tell you, I kept it down.

the judge

My friend Danielle came to visit us this weekend. Danielle is a creative type much like myself who I met in a writing workshop a decade ago. We discovered over the weekend that we fuck ourselves over in life by wanting to impress an entity we christened “The Cocktail Party Judge,” or CPJ. Do you know her? You might not ever drink cocktails or go to cocktail parties, but you don't need to. She lives in your head and she thinks very little of that blog of yours. She wonders why you're not writing something real, something marketable, something that would impress her. She wonders what's taking you so long, and by the way she thinks your yoga is silly and your spiritual quest a waste of time because you’re just using it as a cover for not being more successful at pursuits that would impress her, like being a bestselling novelist. You want to show her that you're worth something even without her seal of approval but really you want to show her how little she means to you in order to impress her since her validation means you get to keep on existing. Whether you meet her at the front door or in the backyard, she’s going to make sure you feel like shit.

swirl

We were so excited to start dance class. Okay. I was so excited for Stella to start dance class. Stella's just excited to dance around the living room, usually to the tinny tunes that bleat from one of our many battery-operated plastic keyboards. It's enough for her.

desperado

Just spent a masturbatory hour reading my first blog posts from four years ago. And I've discovered a third reason why I blog, along with (1) exercising my writing muscle, and (2) working to bridge the gap between us by honestly depicting the human condition. Number three would be to survey the distance I've traveled on this path, a path that at the beginning was so fraught with sleeplessness, diapers and self-loathing I doubted I would emerge from it alive.

Hamish is starting first grade tomorrow. Since he and Stella were born I have said, when they're in school full-time, my life can begin again. Well guess what? It's been going on without me all this time. All the Pema Chodron podcasts in the world cannot jar me from living in the past or the future. Eckhart Tolle, come bitch-slap me, please.