the one

After twenty-six years of apartment living, and after four months of searching, after crying to Bryan's parents that at times I think we're drooling lunatics for even thinking of leaving Brooklyn, we found the ONE.

It came on the market Thursday, we raced down to see it Friday afternoon, well I was going to go solo Friday morning but after five hours' sleep and nerves jangling, for the first time ever went sun-blind moving the car at 8:30AM for street-sweeping and crashed into a double-parked car and even though the rheumy ancient fellow sitting in the undamaged car waved me away and said in broken English to forget about it I went hysterical and was too traumatized, dramatized, stressified to drive, so I had a nap and dragged Bryan out of work early, we drove down in the in-laws' Camry, me tucked safely in the passenger seat, walked in and immediately knew it was Our House and that anyone else who made an offer would essentially be stealing our home, we just had that Feeling, that one you hope for when home shopping, so we fell all over ourselves filling out paperwork, made a bid over asking price because we were finally serious, nearly had our heads explode waiting to hear, but then finally they accepted our offer after some late-night back and forth over certain things back in Brooklyn Friday night, and then Saturday morning the sellers signed the contract and, and so we are in contract.

Breathe.

It has a big (by our urban standards) yard, four bedrooms, two and a half bathrooms, a master suite including an office for my writing pleasures and a master bath with a Jacuzzi tub. It has a full basement with another little office area for Bryan’s musical frolickings, AND it’s in the school district I was yearning for, AND it was reasonably priced, within walking distance of one of my oldest and dearest friends, and just by blogging this, I am acidic with fear that somehow it will still slip through our fingers, even though it's already passed inspection and we are as in love with a pile of stone and plaster as anyone could be.

I would and possibly should be using a buttload of exclamation points but I can’t find them. They are lost or hiding among the thousands of boxes making mini skyscrapers all over this apartment, stacked in front of the windows, eclipsing the sunlight. Anyway, I want to denote my state of mind, which I will call “exhausted disbelief, mixed with hungry excitement and irritating irritation that we’re not living in the new house yet,” since our apartment is currently a frigging mess—those boxes, clothes not put away, dried kernels of rice scattered across the kitchen floor... It’s like, not our apartment anymore.

I’m itching to trick out the new place, already recklessly tearing pages from Domino Magazine… but don’t worry, Good Buyer! We will clean the place for you. I will even wipe down the fridge.

Oh…wait, I think…Holy Shit! WE BOUGHT A HOUSE!!! Okay, there are those exclamation points. I knew they were around here somewhere. They’d fallen between the piles of files and the box of dusty toiletries we haven’t touched since 2002 but still might need someday.

It’s a 1925 Sears & Roebuck Bungalow kit, which is cool, right? It's funky and quirky with that magical flair that speaks to us.

The master suite, which is not pictured, was added in 2002. The fireplace works. The kitchen’s not eat-in, but we love it to death still. It looks thoughtfully planned, not like it was slapped together by a cheap'n'greedy seller, you know, the ones that boast "granite countertops!" but look schlocky and cheesy but you hate to swap it out because it's brand spanking.

We’re planning to move in mid-March, after Hamish’s birthday, even though we close on our apartment in mid-February. We like the idea of living on the streets for a couple weeks. Oh well, actually, we'll be staying with the grandparents.

What else is there? Our beloved realtor (no that's not an oxymoron, we LOVE her) keeps warning us about buyer's remorse, but so far we are stupid with glee, and hopefully I'm not jinxing it by telling you this. As much as we've been stressing over outcomes and fearing that everything will fall apart if we blow on it, things have gone as smoothly as we could have hoped. Thanks are in order, to each other, our realtor, our buyer, our seller, the fates... THANKS BE. And there's a guest room for YOU.

pockets

It's official. Our buyer's buyer got approved for his mortgage, and last night I accompanied our buyer, the soon-to-be tenant of the apartment in which I sit typing (she even wants the desk!) to the bowels of the building to meet with the board and win their overwhelming approval. We hugged three times afterwards. I'm in a loving state of mind. What can I say, I guess beneath the almost crippling anxiety about leaving Brooklyn, I am excited to embark on this latest adventure. We close at the end of February. Hopefully we will find a house to buy by then, not that I mind rooming with the in-laws, but well, you know.

Amidst my fears that there will be no like-minded people where we're headed, but only Republican-reared sugar- and TV-addicted spoiled smartmouths, I had a revelation that wherever you go, if you look long enough, you will find pockets of people you identify with. This is the epiphany that will allow me to sleep at night. I am misty to leave my friends and family, and fear being isolated and alone. That's my biggie. Not worrying about whether Bryan will find a job or if the schools will satisfy. I worry about my social life. I gotta put my stress somewhere. Oh and I worry that somehow any coolness factoring into my identity is all tied up with being a New Yorker, granted a New Yorker who seldom ventures into Manhattan, but still. But I believe that truism that wherever you go, there you are, and so I know that I will take the cool with me. I will put it, and you, the thought of all you cool cats here who I adore, and stuff you into my Sevens, and take you with me. Stella will stuff you into a lucite box and stow it on her head, because she's her own kid, but I will do the pocket thing. And while you're in there I will begin to pack the cardboard boxes I started collecting this morning, which makes it all feel so finally, heart-thumpingly real.

jazz hands

I'm at Hamish's preschool this morning, hosting another tour, and we're observing school in action, which in this vignette includes the pig-tailed tattooed teacher sitting on a chair facing the kids, who are sitting in rows on the rug before her, like obedient little pupils, until they start shouting, "poopy diaper!" which oughta shrink the wait list.

Rachel* introduces a new sign language word today, it's the sign for "wonderful," which consists of waving your open hands on either side of your head, kind of like how I might gesture if Nate Berkus rang my doorbell.

Hamish interjects. He says, "Hey! Rachel! RACHEL!" He's so good at remembering to raise his hand when he has something to say. He copies the sign, and says very informatively, "That's the sign for jazz hands." I share a knowing smile with Rachel, okay, actually I'm beaming, proud of what exactly I'm not sure, just the humor of the comment, and the prospective parents flanking me on either side giggle because they know how precious this moment is, and I decide right there, they're all in!

Rachel looks at me and says, "Maybe it's jazz hands in your family," and smiles because she doesn't miss a beat, jazzy or otherwise. And even though Hamish doesn't know why it's funny, does not understand the campy irony of jazz hands, it's one of those moments I pocket for the future, and practically speaking, now I know for sure that the impromptu dance numbers we do in the living room are not going unnoticed or being forgotten. 

either way i'm okay

This morning I hosted my first preschool tour for prospective parents (it was lovely and informative) and chatted afterwards with one of the current parents, a cool-cat musician. We asked after each other’s families (he just had a baby, mazel tov), and he asked about Hamish, who has finally climbed out of his clamshell to the point that he didn't even kiss me goodbye this morning, but ran straight outside to play ball with the older kids (I kvell!).

He asked about the status of our move, and how my husband Bryan (also a musician) is doing, and as I began to answer, the tears came pouring out. That cathartic cry I’d been hoping for in my dark lonely moments at home arrived instead in the sunlit cubby area of my son’s preschool. What are you gonna do?

I told my friend that Bryan is sleep-deprived, done with Brooklyn, burnt out from his 9-5, and ready to embark on a new adventure. And me, apparently I’m Waterworks Miller at the mere thought of pulling Hamish out of preschool to move two hours south. Suddenly hostile car service drivers seem charming. Dog shit dotted sidewalks bring out the hopscotching nature enthusiast in me. “Ooh look! That one’s marbled! Orange and green!”

This conflict of interest creates a gap between my husband and me. This is the first time I’ve really articulated my feelings, and we’ve been snapping at each other lately. Of course it doesn’t help that Stella’s been waking at five A.M. most mornings to nurse.

An Atlanta-bred dad I met in the playground the other day, a network analyst, put it plainly that he can’t wait to leave this overcrowded, dirty urban patchwork for greener, cleaner climes, But even his sane anti-Brooklyn argument didn’t register in my brain as I wept to my new friend this morning. Because Hamish’s preschool is spoiling the shit out of me. Everywhere I turn, there’s another artsy, scrappy, down-to-earth, easygoing parent, and I have convinced myself that such people, in such dense numbers, simply don’t exist anywhere but Brooklyn.

But I still want to leave my immediate hood, and I still can’t afford the ones I want, and a check-in with myself upon returning home revealed that I am possibly making a mountain of misery here out of the simple belief that I will feel like a lonely misfit anywhere else. And in a way, I’m okay about it, because I know it’s not supposed to be easy, and it’s a good thing in a weird way that I’m sad to leave, it reassures me that I’m not running away, but running toward, and even if I don’t know the answer now, it’s out there, waiting patiently. The decision will get made with or without my interference, the outcome has already revealed itself in an alternate universe and either way, I’m okay.

Bickering aside, Bryan and I are united as a unit can be, and we won’t make a decision that doesn’t satisfy both of us. We’ve been together what, almost eighteen years. We must be doing something right.

i will miss you, crazy neighbors

The doorbell just rang. It was our neighbor, Brunhilde* dropping off gifts for the kids! She handed me these giant babies, wrapped ever so thoughtfully in a wrinkled plastic grocery bag, shouting over the pre-recorded laughter of one of the dolls, that "the girl won't stop laughing!" How sweet! I can't wait to run into the kids' room in the middle of the night because the dolls are giving them nightmares. "The boy is for your son!" She shouted, as I barred her possible entry with my body.

In the park the other day when we happened upon each other, Brunhilde declared that Stella, "the way she smiles! Will be famous one day! And that one," she said, pointing a dusty crooked finger at my son, "That one is skeptical! He will be a doctor!" I think Brunhilde was confusing skepticism with the dirty look Hamish was shooting her for trying to get him to shake her hand.

After this proclamation my son knotted his thick pointy brows and kicked the dirt, growling. When I knelt down and asked what was wrong he told me, "I don't want to be a doctor!" and, broken up over the idea that Hamish took our elderly, hygiene-challenged neighbor's prediction seriously, I reassured him that he could be anything he wanted no matter what anyone says, like a spaceman rock and roll superstar, which I believe is his current career choice. I also gently explained that some doctors play rock and roll and save kittens. I don't want to completely shut out the possibility.

Hamish is quickly learning the aggravating lesson that some people virtually overflow with infinite misinformed notions of how others should live their lives and sometimes they happen to say these things out loud. Maybe they're like farts, these smelly, gassy nuggets of unsolicited opinions, because Brunhilde, at least, talks out of her ass, bless her creaky, crazy, well-meaning heart.

So thanks for the scary laughing baby dolls, friendly neighbor.

white knucking

We accepted an offer on our apartment last Saturday. Then, giddy with hope, we drove southward and looked at seven houses, three of which were fifty-thousand dollars over our price limit, but of course we can offer anything we want, and even though there are no current job openings at Bryan’s firm, we gave tentative notice at Hamish’s preschool that we’d be pulling him out in mid-February, only to learn within minutes that our buyer’s buyer is still waiting to be approved for a mortgage.

We frantically IMed each other, seriously considering walking away from our buyer, or any buyer, until April, so that Hamish could finish the school year and give me that childcare break, because once we start paying a mortgage, childcare goes down the tubes. Am I insane to choose a driveway, parking lots, trees and a back yard over first-rate childcare? Part of me thinks I am insane for giving it up, mid-year no less, and my Jewish guilt knows no bounds regarding the good people we’ll be leaving at the preschool, but part of me thinks I’m insane to walk away from a decent offer (the buyer’s buyer will most likely be approved), and have to re-clean, re-list, and re-chew my cuticles hoping we’ll cultivate some new interest in our place.

This triangle of things we must accomplish—sell, job, buy—has eddied into a tornado. But we got on this stormy ride, and at least in this moment, we’ve decided to see it through. When we played Hamish that R.E.M. song the other morning, "Everybody Hurts," I wept over Hamish's half made sandwich and Bryan admitted later that he shed a tear too. My knuckles are white from all this holding on for dear life.

superkids

Happy November everybody! There's no sense in picking just one photo for this post so here's a billion. Click on any pic to enlarge, Mom and Dad!

In the park by the river we met an English Bulldog with the same name as Stella, who was mighty photogenic, and a gentle soul. Even the usually hesitant Hamish petted the dog.

Hamish started out wanting to be a motorcycle for Halloween. Then he wanted to be a "fire engine truck." He'd also recently been dazzled and inspired by an older friend's magic show so I'd been trying to persuade him to be a magician and Stella would be a bunny. Oh the visions of sweety-cuteness dancing in my brain. I almost had him, but the lure of his peers was too much, and in the end he changed his mind again, and stayed committed to his choice: Superman. I let him choose Stella's costume and he said, "Her will be my Superman princess helper." So there you have it. Stella wasn't too keen on the tutu aspect of her get-up however. It hindered her flying abilities and steel bending capabilities. Plus, you couldn't see the high-tops underneath all that tulle.

Hamish went trick-or-treating for the first time and I don't think I've ever seen him quite so excited. The various moon-walks, moon-mazes and moon-slides Hamish sampled in Owl's Head Park in Bay Ridge beforehand could not hold a candle to begging complete strangers for kiddiecrack at their various doorways. I think he gets it now, the whole Halloween thing. And as much as I and possibly Bryan panic at the thought of our kids consuming buttloads of sugar and then mutinying, never to return to their somewhat aggreeable selves, there was no way we couldn't treat ourselves to his exuberance. Plus Hamish got to practice saying thank you. And though he asked us to escort him to each and every door, we held back with the stroller and with Stella, who from the first tried to gain entry into each house, and so off he went, courageously offering his well-used zip-lock baggie. He's growing up, our caped crack-fiend-I mean crusader. Sniff.

Hope everyone had a ghoulishly good H'ween. We're still letting it sink in that it may very well be our last one in Brooklyn. Thanks for the candy, and the memories.

inherited strange

I read this freakishly engaging book, Identical Strangers, by Elyse Schein and Paula Bernstein, these identical twins who were separated soon after their birth and raised in separate adoptive families, and none of them, parents or children, knew they were twins until one of them went searching for her/their birth mother when she was thirty-five. Imagine getting that call. “Hello? You don’t know me, but I’m your identical twin.” How does one deal?

One of my closests and dearests lent me the book. This friend is like my personal library of delectable soul-searching, spirituality-seeking memoirs, including but not limited to eat pray love, A Million Little Pieces and My Friend Leonard. I finished Identical Strangers in two days, it was so good, like crack totally must be. It was riveting like a good British mystery is reported to be. I don’t read mysteries myself, but I’ve always wanted to.

What struck me and yet depressed me about the book, initially anyway, is that it seems to prove that our personalities, for the most part, are inherited. The fact that I get stuck and insecure so easily, my indoorsy hermititude, my tendency to fall down the rabbit-hole of ‘compare-and-despair,’ are all genetic traits I possess like my promient wrist-bones, shiny brown hair and detached earlobes. But that also means that the seeker I am, who is sometimes the finder, well, that’s also inherited. I believe this. Today I believe this anyway, because I think my tendency to utterly lose myself in a good book is also genetic. I also and possibly contrarily believe that it’s possible to “re-wire” the brain and create new lifestyle habits, but it takes dedication. And the good news is that I got dedication, baby. In spades. Because I deal in the Truth. It’s what I am after, ultimately. Oh yeah. At least that’s what I tell myself and my therapist.

don't sell, michelle!

We finally got it together with a couple and their kids for brunch yesterday. Now that we’re steeped to our nostrils in all things kid-o-phile, our social lives have become a swampy series of reschedulings and postponements for dinners, brunches, lunches and playdates. So we felt really accomplished to sit together in our friends’ apartment catching up on our real estate conversation and munching toasted bagels with cream cheese and juicy tomatoes from their local farmers’ market while the kids practiced sharing toys.

Afterwards we went to the playground in our friends’ desirable nabe and as I boosted Hamish onto the spider-shaped jungle gym I realized with lightning speed that I was standing across the paint-chipped bug’s abdomen from a movie star. Yes, yours truly, the writer of Star Craving Mad, had the sacred privelege of sharing playground time with a very pregnant L____, who it turns out, has just bought in the neighborhood, which is most auspicious since Heath Ledger has flown the Brooklyn coop for concreter pastures (and supermodels!) in Manhattan. I heard there was a hilarious Times article about everyone and their brother pretending not to give a damn that Heath and Michelle had moved in, and now we’re all going crazy pretending not to give a damn that he’s moved out. I know I was not so secretly devastated to learn of their divorce. Poor Matilda. Poor shmashilda. Poor us, not being privy to star sightings anymore. Please don’t sell, Michelle! Ooh that sounds like a bumper sticker…I did catch them once on the street last year before Michelle gave birth. With skin lumenescent and dewy just like we demand of our stars, Michelle rocked a navy top! And Heath’s womanly wide hips still managed to be studly and carressable in baggy-butted Levis.

So (ahem) now in the playground to my delight was L____, pregnant out to here, all in stretchy black, with her hair piled into a rubberband. Very modest. Very downplayed. Was that for our benefit? So we wouldn't feel so bad around her sparkly famousness? Like an urban soldier, I went to work ignoring her and staring at her simultaneously and the pure distilled conflict of it all had my back in spasms. Did she notice my kids? My outfit? What a cool mom I am? Did she notice my nonchalance at her existence in my universe? That subtle studied wrist-flicking hip swivel that says, “I don’t give a shit what you think, I’m not sure I even recognize you?” Or could she see how dork-frothed with star-struckness I was? Did she cringe in self-protection against the possibility that I might sidle up to her and pat her belly, ask her what gender her fetus is and does she have any names picked out, I won’t tell anyone? Did I gesture too dramatically when I conversed with Bryan? Did I talk too loudly when cajoling Hamish to be brave on the curly slide? Did I brush the sand off Stella’s jeans with too much bravado? Could she tell I was performing for her? Did she give me a standing ovation? No, she didn’t.

Instead, she talked with her friends and shoved her hand down her greasy-haired boyfriend’s four-hundred dollar jeans’ back pocket and squeezed his ass. And her artfully dishevelled beau, who I have to tell you, didn’t strike me as keeper material, I really don’t think my mom would get a good vibe from this guy, grabbed a handful of L___’s armpit, which I thought was so perverted in my newfound curmudgeonly mom-itude. And when their hands commenced exploring each others’ sides and backsides like horrible teenagers, when the boyfriend ran his meaty hands over and over her belly like a genie might fly out of her mouth and grant him three wishes, I concentrated on keeping my jaw shut and continued to stare-but-not-stare, reassuring myself that, oh yeah, this is a recipe for disaster. These two are all over each other which means they’ve obviously known each other for two months tops. It’s all over before the kid turns one. These poor little famous kids. They don’t stand a chance. I’m so lucky I’m not them.

Which got me thinking, part of my fear about leaving Brooklyn is wrapped up in the very real possibility that I will no longer have celebrity sightings. Which is a pathetic reason to stay in Brooklyn, I know, not that we are, but the thought did cross my mind—do I actually believe that I am more validated as a human citizen if I live in close proximity to celebrities? And how sad does that make me? Especially knowing that they live in the most desirable, beautiful neighborhoods in huge lofts and townhouses while I languish in the working class ugly outskirts stressing out about square footage every time I schlep home a twelve-pack of budget brand paper towels. I do believe this on some level, and it’s shamefully comforting that others do too. Maybe by moving I’ll show myself that I don’t care as much as I think I do. Or maybe I’ll just have to start watching TMZ.

right path

Not attaining enlightenment after deciding to, oh, about three pages into Eat Pray Love, for instance, had me a little down on myself. I meditated a total of thirty-seven minutes in two separate sessions about two weeks apart and found myself wondering, where is my blue light? Which I know is, well I don’t want to say ridiculous, because I know in my budding wisdom that beating myself up is not the Right Path, as the Buddhists would say, but I could maybe give myself a little more time to achieve the heightened states of consciousness that Elizabeth Gilbert makes sound so enticing, that took her at least five months and however many pages to reach in her life. And if I can’t get to Italy or India, at least I can go to a good Italian restaurant, and sit in my living room listening to my mind. So far I’ve been to a good French restaurant (rack of lamb and potatoes au gratin anyone?) and have sat myself down, and even though it doesn’t last long, it does feel like a vacation from my usual life of eternally explaining to my three year-old son why we don't dance with a glass of milk on the sofa. For instance. So I'm hopeful. I also seem to recollect that it’s best not to talk about your meditation practice, or your yoga practice, New Years’ resolutions, etc. But talk I do, because that’s what I do. I love to share.

eat pray seethe

I never got be Madonna. Or Gwyneth Paltrow, or Amy Stein from camp, or Susan Amoroso from sixth grade. I have a history of wishing to be other people. And today it pains me that I am not Liz Gilbert. I am not an intrepid world traveler, I am not becoming fluent in Italian, or on the bestseller list, all before my thirty-eighth year. I am not tall and blond…Okay I like my dark hair, especially as I have usurped my Angelina Jolie girl-crush with Penelope Cruz after watching Volver on Netflix…

gila silib

I just got a few of these cuties in the mail, the third translation of my novel. Indonesian. Smells like peanut sauce. Not really. Smells plasticky, like cellophane.

wiggly

Well you know, it's happened. That thing I dreaded ever since Bryan and decided to have children. Hamish and I were in the bathroom this morning. I'd just done my bizness, and was pulling up my pants when my three and a half year-old son touched my butt, said, "Pink and shiny!" and then, out it came, out from between his pink petal lips: "It's wiggly." My shoulders sank under the weight of it all, and even though I knew what he was talking about, I said, to clarify, you know, just in case, "What's wiggly?" And he said, "Your pink and shiny." I said, "Yeah...Well that's...Yeah." Which cleared up things.

Hamish, with his taut and tiny, went on his way, gathering an unseasonal outfit for the day while I thought about liposuction and spirituality, the kind that revels in cellulite and lack of muscle tone, that transcends it. And after dropping the kids off at school, I went out and bought not one, but two pairs of tight skinny jeans. Discounted of course. But skinny. Tight. One pair is even high-waisted. And faded. Am I a glutton for punishment or a naive non-waif who still believes in fairy tales? And what exactly does that last part mean? I just feel...wiggly. Yet closer to you, and closer to that post-partum resolution to start jogging again. Give me an S. Give me an I. Give me a G. Give me an H...What's that spell? I don't know anymore.

handicapped spot

There was this woman at the grocery store this morning. It was my second trip to the grocery store this week. Apparently, spending two-hundred and forty dollars at Fairway does not cover a week’s worth of meals and does not include staples like toilet paper, seltzer and whipped cream. (A special shout out to Hamish for sitting on the Kozy Shack and the grated cheese! Go honey! Easily replaced. I mean, where else do you put a three and a half year-old when there’s a one year-old in the passenger seat?)

throttle-him-threes

I showed the apartment fifteen minutes ago to a muscle-bound, hazel-eyed fireman and his girlfriend, impromptu. They were looking at a co-op down the street and happened into our courtyard, which Delores* thought was quite charming. It is. They saw our sign posted in the vestibule and called Bryan’s cell, who in turn called me at home. So I let Derek* and Delores in. They’d already gotten the scoop from our neighbor Lydia*, resident toothless-flip-flops-in-winter-wearing-motor-mouth, about our place and learned right away that we’re all insane. (If you’re thinking about buying our apartment, that last bit is a joke! We’re really quite sane! HAHAHA!)

it's official

Our apartment is officially for sale. Craziness. And wouldn't you know it? It has its own blog: http://coop4sale.blogspot.com/

rough and tumble

I feel buoyed by your comments. Six! Okay, well one of them is mine.

I can never catch Stella fast enough to keep her from peeing on the rug. I want to let her pitter-pat around the premises in all her nakey glory because one, little heinies need to air out for chrissakes, and two, because then I get to gaze upon her pink and shiny splendor. You would think that moms get to smush tushes all day long but it's not true. You'd also think, especially given the news that rough and tumble play is the latest way to get your kid into Harvard, that I'd be wrestling the time away with my two precious ones. I don't. And when I do, it's because I'm reminding myself to actually play with them. Usually I'm so busy making eggs and toast, cleaning spills, pouring milk, separating laundry, checking to see if anyone commented on my blog, that I forget to actually play with my children. So thank god for studies on the benefits of play.

fixer upper

I don't know if it's the fact that Hamish is starting preschool in two weeks or the fact that we're still seriously considering leaving Brooklyn for Philadelphia, or the fact that it's getting so cold so soon, or the fact that it's getting to be time to night-wean Stella and transition her into her crib, but I feel like I am freaking out mentally every other minute. I'm cursing under my breath and rushing around even if there's no hurry, dropping my keys and bumping into doorways.

barf bay

Our weekend camping at Crap Creek was, oh, I shudder just recalling it. How did the Miller Family Philosphy fail so pathetically? By not factoring in the possibility of vomit. Hamish threw up four times. All over Bryan mostly, thank God, but the last time was in a tin bucket while my mother-in-law)\ rocked him and stroked his hair in a picture of intimacy so complete that the addition of cartoon bluebirds would only cheapen it. I get weird about this. Weirder about it still by being hot, tired, bug-bitten, away from home and in perpetual discomfort. And what mom is ever chipper when her kid’s sick? Still, I confess this to you because I cling to the belief that I’m not alone in my filthy tornado of conflict. Feel free to let me know. For as much as I depend on Ry’s grandparents to watch him I get insanely jealous when he’s sick and is comforted by his grandmother instead of by me, when I’m right there. This happened once before, when I took him to the pediatrician when he was feverish, and his grandmom came along. Hamish insisted that she hold him instead of me, and I just stood there in the examining room, swallowing my tears of furious impotence while the two of them clutched each other.

nerves

I need to finish packing for our weekend excursion to a place called "Crap Creek." It's a campsite on a canal. A canal where gargantuan barges barge through with their toxic wares from China, the heavy cargo destined only to be recalled, or in my case, stuffed into my underwear drawer (James the Tank Engine and his tender) because I can't be bothered with a trip to the post office. I am wary of this weekend, with its inevitable filth and tented sleeping arrangements. I have been there once before and I did have a great time, there's clay in the creek and I sculpted a devil head (self portrait?). But this time I have children and this time I am older and require a certain level of comfort and air conditioning for my very sanity. I fear being beroygus the whole time. That's Yiddish for being a moody asshole. Bryan keeps telling me that it'll be fun, whee! Because our children will be entertained and tended to by people other than ourselves. This'll give us time to perfect our trailer trash poses down by the water's edge in our dirty bathing suits. I guess it could be worse. It could be a week. At the very least, I'm putting the Miller Family Philosophy into action: "Expect the worst and always be pleasantly surprised."

my transformation is now complete

So about a week or so ago I received an email from a lovely reporter gal who writes for Time Out New York and knows a writer I know, Rachel Bussel. She's looking for a New York City equivalent of Marge Simpson and Rachel suggested she contact me. Rachel is a young, vibrant, childless friend, and maybe it's not so much of a stretch for her to think of me when somebody mentions Marge Simpson. I'm a stay-at-home-mom with two kids, and I live in New York City. If she were a mother herself, chances are she would know how very un-Marge-like I am. But me being the whore for media attention that I am, I lovingly and good-naturedly answered the journalist's query with a bevy of similarities which you may read about when you purchase your copy of Time Out today. I think I've already blogged good and hard enough about how I'm no Marge Simpson, so that needs no further addressing. Just hear this, good readers of Springfield, er, I mean, of the Blogisphere, I am just tickled to finally, finally! be in a damn magazine. I swear that half my adult life thus far, plus about eighty per cent of my adolescent inner universe was consumed with achieving some sort of external, in-print (or on-screen) validation, and now, oh the irony, just as I stop struggling to be an actress or a writer or career gal of any shape whatsoever and just be a mom, my dream comes true. Whoa.

shopping used to be fun

We have a wedding this weekend and I’m still wearing the same tired, uninspiring ensembles from 1998. Maybe they’re not that old. Or maybe they’re even older. So this morning I dragged the kids to go dress and shoe shopping. Isn’t that a fantastic idea? I like to live the adventure of waiting until the very last minute to shop for things I must try on, that I must buy, because without these sparkling purchases, I’d be the one wallowing the wedding away in clothes even pre-possessed, oops I mean pre-styled Katie Holmes wouldn’t wear.

things that make the heart beat faster

While I was stuffing sandy sheets into the Maytag this morning, my elderly upstairs neighbor admitted to me that the reason she stays in the laundry room while her clothing spins is because she has a bad heart. She thought I must be asking myself this question, that I was judging her. It's heartbreaking. I do this myself. I could list you thousands of examples, but don't want to travel down that road at the moment.

tomo aragato mr. ups man

I just received an auspicious package...the Japanese version of my novel, Star Craving Mad. Wild. I hope they like it. I had the feeling it would be neat-o looking. I like this cover very much and look, there are my words translated into a language I can't even begin to comprehend. It's so small and cute, like my children. I hope Harajuku girls like it and tell Gwen Stefani all about it. Maybe she can get her assistant to track down an American copy and read it on her tour bus, laugh out loud and clutch it to her toned taut chest, moaning softly about how it's the most B-A-N-A-N-A-S book she's ever read. Maybe I will write another novel someday. I got so giddy upon receiving this package that I feel inspired. Hamish suggested I write a book about two little girls named Dolly and May. Maybe I will, Hame, maybe I will. I look forward to the adventure of it all.

roar of the milf

The clock is ticking! I failed typing in high school or never took it I can't remember! I don't use my pinkies! I could really use them right now to blog faster, but OH WELL. Were you at Target this morning? Did I see you there? Yes that was me, I was the one in the baby wipes aisle who ate the crackers someone left open unwrapped on the shelf. I was hungry.

string

Hi there. It's me. Didn't think I'd get here today but here I am and it be good. The weather is crispy shiny goodness and my kids are with their grandparents, who can't get enough of them, and wouldn't you know it, my back is out again. I think the four hour drive to and from Boston this past weekend for our friend's wedding is to blame. It's certainly not my fault. Sitting here blogging doesn't help, but I promise I'm going to do my Rodney Yee core workout when I'm done blabbing my head off, I swear! Look at that. Another spider. Second one this morning. Hamish and I mercifully dumped the first one gently out the window.

stuff of dreams

I know two people who’ve had their second baby and didn’t let me know for months. Not that they were obligated to me. More like, you know with their first kid, they were shouting from the rooftops, on heavy, expensive paper stock.

These second kids. Oh man.

go local

My friends are so cool. This means, hello! I am cool too. You know, by association. Thank goodness. Now I can stop worrying that my coolness points are vaporizing with each passionate poop-filled diatribe. These dear friends, we've known each other for -gulp- twenty years, have opened a coffee shop in Soho with the best iced cappucinos and fig-ham sandwiches, oh and fresh grilled blueberry muffins that you'll ever sink your fortunate chops into. Children are allowed. And the bathroom is the color of creamed raspberries. An inspired oasis. And the coffee is fair trade shade grown organic. I can picture those lucky little beans lounging on a leaf, wearing teeny tiny little sunglasses and sipping pina coladas. Does it get any better? I'll see you there!

a million little pin pricks (part two)

Tuesday I spend comtemplating not going back to the acupuncturist’s office. My back isn’t that much better. Maybe it’s all a crock. But 2,500 years can't be wrong. On Wednesday I wake up with a spasm a lesion something painful and lumpy nestled beside my right shoulder blade. By the afternoon I find myself bundling up and walking the Avenue again, towards the woman with the short dark hair and cardigan sweater.

Today the cardigan is red wool. Red is what’s that word what is it it’s killing me…auspicious.

a million little pin pricks (part one)

I’m walking down the avenue.
I’m in Pain.
My back.
My mind.
I try to accept the moment. Try to surrender to the pain. The only thing I have is the certainty of change, the certainty that my back will stop hurting one day. My mind will stop hurting one day. Life changes and that's for certain.
I’ve read the Books. I’ve done the time in Therapy. I know the answers intellectually. Why can’t I integrate what I’ve learned with how I want to be? Why can’t I be better? Why can’t I be Wise?
I’m scared.

I’m desperate.

I see a sign.

The sign says Acupuncture.

enjoy this time

A grey-haired man sitting to my right at Two Boots the other night said as he chinned his face at his adult son and his grandson, "Enjoy this time." I smiled too much and told him I'm trying. I mean, we four did manage to have dinner out together so if that's not a sign of my strength and optimism, I don't know what is. But when I stuck Stella to my breast, the man stopped talking to me. What went wrong?

Bryan said just now, "You need, like, an astronaut's helmet so that when you go into the blogosphere, we all know." Ten minutes before that he said, "Parenting is one part wishing they would grow up, one part wishing they would stay little forever and six parts crazy." After the one about the astronaut he said, "Parenting is like blogging at the commercials." Because The Office is on. It's a repeat but makes me laugh still and laughter is so important in these trying times that I stop blogging to watch, even though I know what is coming next. This way I can concentrate on the nuances. Oh Dwight, you've done it again!

open 24 hours

Bryan said to me this morning, very quietly and nonconfrontationally, “Are you okay? You’re so angry so often,” and I said, “It’s hard,” and we started having a lovely conversation about it. I thought maybe he’d decided that I need some tender listening care. You know, to preserve the marriage. We were interrupted, naturally.
But last night during a collaged dinner of leftover pizza and frozen Indian kofta curry (Hamish had eggs earlier) I told him that more and more, I feel like a waitress on the Friday night graveyard shift at a diner next door to a bar, only I don’t get to take my apron off and go home to a quiet and tidy place to sleep for eight uninterrupted hours. My shift never ends. My life as Groundhog Day. Groundhog Nightmare would be more accurate. In the diner of my life, it’s always right after the bars have shut their doors and the drunks have spilled in. They’re messy and belligerent and they want their food yesterday, but they drop it on the floor as soon as I set it down. And they piss in their pants.

Bryan understands.

vroom vroom

Hamish will turn three next week. I was in this chi-chi kids' store in Park Slope looking at these miniature Dickies brand backpacks, musing on getting one for him ($20), but then thought I'd pace my spending self and get it for a preschooly gift at the end of the summer. I mused this all out loud, like I tend to do, naively convinced that people care about the minutiae of my life (oh and I blog about it too...) And the sales clerk was lovely, following along with each snore-inducing detail, and asked if he was entering a threes or fours program, because once they reach the fours, the kids should really have a full-sized backpack since they'll be bringing home folders and will have homework. Homework. Before they're out of diapers. Possibly. When I taught at S___, the only homework first-graders were assigned was to learn how to tie their shoes by themselves. And S___ is a school that almost guarantees acceptance to an ivy league university upon entering kindergarten. I gripped the countertop and told the nice clerk I could feel the earth spinning. Spinning out of control. Time is like a Kenyan marathon runner, with blurry stick legs making me feel nauseated that I cannot ever keep up.

perchance to dream...

When I took a filmmaking class at NYU one summer about five lifetimes ago, a classmate opined that the most boring conversation topics included dreams and crushes. She was angry most of the time, and scared me with her unwavering brow-studded scowl so I listened when she spoke, and her words stayed with me. So I'm not going to bore you with my deranged and possibly obscene crush on Peter from The Family Guy, but I do apologize in advance for maybe boring you with this dream, because it alarms me and I don't want to forget it:

I am lying on a bed with Bryan, maybe in L.A. There is a new breed of shark that anyone can own and bring to life like a sea monkey. I hold the moon-colored baby shark and watch its pink tail retreat and emerge from its body after I have unwittingly brought it to life. I think, "Please don't bite me." Bryan and I have to go. We'll run late if we have to bring the shark, if we have to look after it like a baby. So I suffocate it in the pillow. I kill the shark, and though I reel from guilt, I tell myself that I'll be grateful later, when it doesn't grow up to be larger than me and tear me apart with its teeth. Then I wake up.

So, uh, yeah.

thorny

I had a glass of wine with dinner last night, passed out, and then after Stella's ritual four A.M. coughing fit I couldn’t fall back asleep. So I thought about happy things like what a horrible mother I am, because yesterday when I picked Hamish up one of his daycare teachers had this to say, in an impromptu doorway conference:


“Does Hamish, like, play with toys at home?”
“Huh?” I thought, is this a trick question? “How do you mean?”

no strollers allowed

I FINALLY got Stella napping, hoorah! Jeez. She wouldn't eat. She wouldn't nurse. She wouldn't let me put her down to play with toys, which she usually does because she's a modern independent woman. She's gotten to this age where if I try to sit her on the floor she'll protest by stiffening her torso so we just stand there, me hunched in pain and her giggling like she's mistress of the universe. Of course she's mistress of my universe. And her hair is getting long enough over her eyes that I might just have to buy baby barrettes. Whoa.

big B, Little b, what begins with b? bryan and botkier bag blues. B, B, B.

My husband. I love him. He is just...ahh. I don't know. Such a mensch. Last night we're on the sofa, giddy with excitement because we're finally watching the season premiere of House. God, that detective is so mean. And House is our hero. His cynicism throws us into fist-pumping spasms of victory, like, "Yeah! Take that you turd muffins!" And these days I truly understand his pain. Let the man have his Vicodin! He's so complicated! He hates us yet he saves our lives! Someone tell Ayn Rand—Altruism lives! House is a messiah!

urban spa day

A glass of red wine. An hour-long massage at the hands of a six-foot three Ukrainian guy from Brighton Beach. Driving home singing to "How Soon is Now" so loudly I sound deranged, with no one in the back kicking my seat and begging for "the ants song." An afternoon without kids. This is no Mastercard advert. This is real. Out on the town I realize in a panic, I've never felt older. Everyone working in the 'hood is suddenly at least three years younger than me. And I've never felt more invisible without a stroller attached to me like a giant prosthesis. My outdated look draws no stares from the studiedly jaded college students in their teal leather boots and jaunty herringbone caps. But you know what, youngsters? Not that you care, because a mom like me or anyone else except your own isn't even on your radar and why should we be? But you know, I've never felt more blessed for being able to live the strollerless life, if only for a couple hours. How fast I can go! How dizzyingly spontaneous I can be! I can stop in somewhere for a pressed sandwich and not have to mull over every possible disastrous outcome! I can fling my dorky woolen hat like Mary Tyler Moore! I can sing! I am a singular, tipsy, kneaded woman. Hallelujah.

scary blooms

Ahhhhh....The muscle spasm has relaxed, leaving me with garden variety stiffness, and I can smile despite the pain. Could life be better? Well...the Rockefeller Center area and Jersey City across the river smell like, as Bryan put it this morning after experiencing it firsthand, "like someone left the stove on." And yesterday we went to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden (The Ron Mueck and Annie Leibovitz exhibits at the Brooklyn Museum next door had lines snaking for miles so forget that) only to be spooked by the forsythia and cherry blossoms. Tourists and locals alike surrounded the flowering trees with cameras like the blooms were the tiny, glassed-in Mona Lisa at the Louvre. It was important to get the forsythia in the foreground with the leafless trees beyond to really drive the point home that the world feels like it's ending. If it is, I am not dressed for the occasion. If only I had that Botkier Trigger bag...I will take Hamish to the museum later this week if we're all still here. Stella too, I suppose. I wonder what Hamish'll think of the giant newborn. Hopefully it won't traumatize him too much. Maybe it'll be one of his first memories years from now. So...yeah. I should have taken a picture of the forsythia myself, to illustrate this post with, but I didn't, so here's our friend Gary, impersonating a flower blooming in the winter. Scary, right?

so easy with one

Stella naps. One of my guardian angels came this morning to take Hamish to daycare, so I wouldn't have to schlep the kids in the car with my back ailment. My other guardian angel will pick him up and take him for the afternoon. So that leaves me with Stella.

seven month itch

My back hurts. Like excruciating. Like, yearning for Vicodin, but popping ibuprofin instead because I don't want to pump and dump, or worse, fall asleep on the job if you know what I mean. Has anyone had acupuncture for this? Does every mother suffer from this? This is lower back pain, concentrated on my right side, from hoisting my weighty babe, let alone the car seat, oy vey! I got troubles. I'm thirty-seven going on ninety-eight. The morning of January first, 2007, I looked in the mirror and was greeted by a gray hair. My second. I know, you've got hundreds. But still. What timing! What is with this life of mine? I even called the doctor for my back.