OK, so maybe I was being a titch dramatic. It’s like riding a bike, hey! Shreddy and I had a gorgeous day. I have officially taken winter by it’s cold little balls. ROOOAAAR!. Now begins the time when I begin to shadily blow off all housely, wifely, motherly duties and blame it on snowboarding.
You guys. I am TOTALLY freaking out. Later this morning I’m meeting Shreddy Betty at Buck Hill and I am DYYYING right now. My hands are shaking, my knees are quaking, I am completely petrified, and yet I’m so excited, I can hardly stand it. Will I remember how to board or break my neck on my first run? Oh, Sweet Baby Jesus. I knew I’d be like this after a whole springsummerfall off. Hell, I’d even get squirrely after not boarding for a couple days. Shit shit shit. Wish me luck. Poor Shreddy. Little does she know the state of affairs heading her way this morning. SHIT.SHIT.SHIT. There is a lightly falling snow. That can only be a good omen. Right? RIGHT?????
Today was supposed to be my day of taking care of business – that is, all the business that needs taking care of before the brood is out of school for the next five days. But Devil Baby is sick, so I’m homebound. So much for shopping for Thanksgiving ingredients. So much for yoga. So much for popping into a store for something sparkly to wear to holiday parties. So much for picking up laundry detergent and toothpaste. Instead, I’m typing in bed next to a fitfully sleeping Devil Baby. She’s got flushed red baby cheeks, a messy pony tail and a lot to say. To call her a dramatic sick girl would be an understatement. Child is one verbose invalid. She’s like Howard Cosell, giving me the play-by-play of her ever deteriorating condition. Every twenty minutes or so she wakes up, feebly asks for a sip of Gatorade as if it’s some magical cure-all elixir, and shares with me the latest and greatest on her suffering, some of which would sound alarming if she weren’t simultaneously extending her pale little fingers in the direction of the plate of Nilla Wafers on the nightstand. So far this morning:
I’m so hot. I’m so thirsty. I can’t sleep. I feel like my eyes are made of glass. I feel like my heart moved into my brain. Something invisible grabbed me and moved me while I was sleeping. I’m going to ask for a bag of air for Christmas to help me breathe better. I’m really worried about myself. What if I don’t get better? Are you worried about me? I think I’m going to throw up. My head feels big. Something is wrong with my fingers. My brain won’t stop talking. I’m really really really worried about myself. My tongue is hot.
Oh, my sweet little drama queen. It is a privilege to hear you weave your tales of woe in that tremulous little voice that you use. Especially, since this will all be a faded memory for both of us by tomorrow.
Paul loved to sleep with his mother. Sleep is still most perfect,
in spite of hygienists, when it is shared with a beloved.
The warmth, the security and peace of soul, the utter comfort from
the touch of the other, knits the sleep, so that it takes the body
and soul completely in its healing. Paul lay against her and slept,
and got better; whilst she, always a bad sleeper, fell later on
into a profound sleep that seemed to give her faith. Ch. 4, Sons and Lovers, by D.H. Lawrence
I read Sons and Lovers years ago and have been carrying this quotation around ever since. I even figured out a way to shoe-horn it into a terrible short story once. I think the sentiment is lovely and so true. When my kids were babies, I was never too quick to shoo them to a crib. I always knew their time sleeping with us was finite, making it ever the more warm and delicious.
During the weeks that Doctor Dash works nights, the kids have started a sleeping-in-my-bed rotation. Aside from the squabbles about who gets to go first in a given week, I have to admit that I like it. They all sleep so differently, my children.
Saint James always reads later into the night than I do – sleep plays hard to get, but then keeps a gauzy hold on him late into the morning, leaving lingering yawns and puffy eyes. Supergirl is such an early bird, she falls asleep pretty much as soon as her head hits the pillow. It’s like a little switch gets flicked and she’s out. In the morning, the opposite is true and she’s bright eyed at the word go. In between, she’s as still as a stone. Devil Baby fights sleep, but once it claims her, she sleeps a long time. She seems to go on epic journeys in her sleep – her legs fluttering through water, climbing rocks, running on dirt roads. She’s the hardest one to sleep with, but the one I need to do it with the most. After a fraught day, with too much yelling and stubbornness on both of our parts, sleep washes it all away and we find our peace, deep in the night with her little legs strewn over mine.
Just like when they were babies, I know this is temporary. At some point Dash will stop working nights or they’ll just get too old to want to come to my bed. But for now, I do so love waking to a skinny bum in the small of my back or a little hand clutching mine – and hearing the murmurs and sighs of their secret sleep lives.
On Sunday night we went to see the Minnesota Lynx play game one of the WNBA finals against the Atlanta Dream. They’re the best team going in Minnesota right now and it was such a blast. LOUD music, rowdy fans, plentya hootin and hollerin, and complete, unabashed GIRL POWER. Damn!
I can’t decide if it was better for my girls to see that or my boy to see that. GO LYNX!
p.s. secretly, I’d love to go back with a bunch of ladies, drink a ton of beers and then go dancing. Maybe the Lynx would like to come with us?
Sometimes, when one goes dancing with one’s betties, and the music is really good and the beers are 2 for 1, one loses one wits – a bit – and one leaves without closing out the tab. On Thursday morning I woke with a start. Damn. I was going to have to drive back down to Clubhouse Jager to get my credit card. Big Red, Lunch Lady Rocker Chick and I had gone to Transmission for LLRC’s birthday. I can’t give any details, but fun was had.
Wednesday nights at Jager are, hands down, the happiest place to be in all of the land with DJ Jake Rudh spinning 80’s New Wave and all sorts of lovely music-heads of all ages and stripes geeking out and dancing with wild abandon. Seriously. The moves I can bust out in this environment are high school bedroom mirror material. It is the most free, chill, friendly, goofy scene. My favorites from Wednesday night: a pretty pale girl with a pompadour and a white polka dot dress who did not stop dancing for even one second – formidable!, a tall skinny Tim Burtonesque dude with plaid pants and freaky awesome moves, another tall skinny dude sporting something between a mullet and a rat tail who was way smoother than he should have been, and a foursome of pudgy, gender ambiguous, bespectacled girl/boys.
We don’t, can’t, go to this dance party every week, but once a month is turning into a doable, even dare I say, salutary occurrence. Despite the many PBRs, I wake up with enviable vim and vigor after a night of this. Except that driving back downtown to the scene of my shenanigans with my two little girls in tow to pick up my forgotten credit card seemed like a whole new kind of walk of shame. Unfortunately they don’t open until 4, so I had no choice but to wait until school got out. Damn. I picked Devil Baby and Supergirl up with Foxy Brown in the car, passed back some snacks and vaguely mentioned we had to drive downtown.
Supergirl: Wait. Why do we have to go downtown again?
Me: Forgot my credit card.
Supergirl: Where did you forget it?
Me: That place where I went dancing last night.
Supergirl: Is it a bar?
Me: Yes.
Supergirl: Was there a band?
Me: Nope. Just this great DJ.
Supergirl: How late were you there?
Me: Midnight. [small lie]
Supergirl: Was it fun?
Me: SO fun.
Supergirl: Do you want us to wait in the car?
Me: That would probably be good.
. . . a few moments pass . . .
Supergirl: You know, I’ve always wanted to see the inside of a bar.
. . .
Ten minutes later we’re all inside and I’m paying the tab, having been assured by the lovely redheaded bartender that I was NOT the only one to have forgotten my card last night. Jager looks downright homey in the light of day, with slanting sunlight and the smell of comfort food wafting out of the kitchen. I’m half tempted to stay there for an early dinner with the girls. Supergirl spins on her barstool cooly assessing the hipsters partaking in happy hour and appetizers.
Supergirl: Mom?
Me: Ya?
Supergirl: I just thought of the BEST name for my soccer team!
Me: What?
Supergirl: THE BLOODY MARY’S!
Me: . . .
We were most definitely NOT staying for dinner.
In this article over at the Huffington Post, author Lisa Bloom points out that complimenting a little girl on her looks or dress or shoes or hair is “our culture’s standard talking-to-little-girls icebreaker.” Bloom argues that this teaches a girl that the first thing you notice is her appearance and therefor that her looks are the most important thing. We are supposed to try a new approach with the girls we meet: ask, what book are you reading? What sports do you play? What do you think about global warming?
I’m not sure what to think. Putting aside the fact that the writer is slightly annoying in a self-congratulatory way (Look at how I crouched down and asked my friend’s daughter about books with a twinkle in my eye and taught her a valuable lesson about her self worth!), it is an interesting proposition. In theory, I agree that our culture puts way too much emphasis on beauty, youth, and general hotness. But for some reason I’m finding myself trying really hard to sidestep this. I want to argue with Lisa Bloom and I don’t know why.
For starters, it’s a physical fact that we do notice someone’s looks first. The first thing you see, is what you see. Right? Perhaps, with girls, we just feel more free to say what we think. Little girls are adorable or funky or gorgeously tomboyish and I think most of us just let it fly. Not so with the boys. I can’t tell you how many times I see one of Saint James’ friends looking especially cute, but I squash the urge to say anything because I don’t want the kid to melt in embarrassment. Hell, there’s one in my backyard right now. He looks like a dark version of Saint James - handsome as all get out – they would make an unbeatable duo out in the bars in a few years. But will I tell him this? No. All bets are off with the girls, though. Red cowboy boots, feathers in the hair, tutus and Chucks, jean skirts, knobby knees, curly blond chlorine hair – I mean there has to be a limit to the cuteness I’m expected to see and ignore!
Second of all, just because a physical or sartorial complement is the first thing you might say, it’s not the only thing you’ll say – it’s not the most important thing you’ll say. A greeting is a greeting – it’s an icebreaker, a bridge to more talking. Maybe I’m the superficial one, but I think we do this with grown women too. Giving or getting a complement is disarming and a way to get closer to someone. It’s not as craven as it sounds – it’s social short-hand, taking you quickly through safe terrain, until you can settle in for a deeper conversation. And it’s not always complements – if someone looks stressed or sad, well, you aren’t going to notice her cute boots, you’re going to ask how she’s doing. Aren’t we just passing on a bit of social currency to our girls, albeit inadvertently?
Lately I’ve talked to girls about fencing, Harry Potter, babysitting, and middle school. I’m sure we talked about clothes and hair too, but I can’t remember. Maybe I can be blasé about this because my oldest girl seems impervious to the trappings of conventionally girlie things. Oddly though, Supergirl has taken a recent liking to watching Toddlers and Tiaras. I’ve put the kibosh on it, not because I fear she’ll get sucked into the pageant culture, but because I think she’s too young to be feeling superior to and disgusted by fellow Americans on TV. And maybe I’m naive, but even if Devil Baby continues on her present trajectory of a dramatic girlie girl, I cannot imagine a situation where she’s going to end up wanting a boob job at age 20. Child may like sparkly things but child is fierce.
I’m not arguing that there isn’t an issue with girls’ self-esteem and a disproportionate value placed on the exterior package by our culture. I just think pinning even a little bit of the blame on the four or five words that come after hello is convenient, simplistic and misplaced. Bloom does admit that her idea won’t “change our multibillion dollar beauty industry, reality shows that demean women, our celebrity-manic culture.” Of course it won’t. At this point, I get the sinking feeling nothing will. So we need to focus on the girls and make sure their lives are filled with books, art, sports, current events, deep friendships, healthy food and cooking and yes, consistent conversations that are challenging, complex and colorful. Also, if they take you there, a reasonable dose of fashion and pop culture mixed with a little irony, caution, humor or whatever else we’re feeling about it, isn’t going to hurt. Call me vapid, but if I see my neighbor girl with her Tiger Beat magazine, I will sit shoulder to shoulder with her and flip through with gusto.
OMG! Did you hear Justin Bieber got pulled over in Miami because the cop thought he looked too young to be driving? LOL!
It’s supposed to be 100 degrees today, an absolute sauna. The only place in the Western hemisphere more humid than Minnesota yesterday was the Amazon jungle. I am not cut out for this. Not at all. Even when I resolve to give myself over completely to the heat and the sweat, I hate it. And now I’m about to drive out to the National Sports Center in Blaine for a soccer tournament. Saint James’ team is playing Rio Select, a team from Brazil. I’ve got a cooler full of ice and enough Bomb Pops to share with the other team. Saint James is so excited to play today, it’s hard not to get caught up in it. So lets do it. Let’s sweat!
Can’t get this out of my head.
For the record: Minneapolis United: 9 Rio Select: 4
Guten tag! If you’d like to read a post I wrote about German artist, Uli Westphal, get on over Simple Good and Tasty. He’s cool. I dig him. I dig his mutatoes. And it’ll give you a little something to chew on this farmers market season!
I just finished Tina Fey’s autobiography, Bossypants, and it did nothing to dissuade me from my prior opinion that she’s hilarious. And smart. And cool. And hilarious. It was a perfect quick summer read and follow-up to the phenomenal yet heartwrenching Beloved by Toni Morrison, which we’re reading in book club. (Damn, ladies. What in the HELL? Counting the days till Wednesday night!)
Back to Tina (yes, I feel we’re on a first name basis now). Tina made me laugh over and over, and while I can’t relate to her sexy comedy and television life, I can sure as hell relate to coming up as a “brunette” in the seventies and eighties. She writes: “Let me start off by saying that at the University of Virginia in 1990, I was Mexican. I looked Mexican, that is, next to my fifteen thousand blond and blue-eyed classmates, most of whom owned horses, or at least resembled them. I had grown up the “whitest” girl in a very Greek neighborhood, but in the eyes of my new classmates, I was Frida Kahlo in leggings.”
She proceeds to talk about how she was inevitably drawn to super “Caucasian” guys, as was I. Such is the curse of a dark girl. My first TV crushes were blond (Bo Duke, Ricky Shroder, and Alice’s son, Tommy) and my first two boyfriend were blond Johns. And oh, how I coveted Cindy’s golden ringlets and Farah’s fabulous feathered do. I tried to get my formidable head of hair cut into feathers and it was so thick and heavy (and untouched by a curling iron – who knew you had to style it?) that I looked like Dorothy Hamil’s younger, retarded cousin who had accidentally injested copious amounts of Miracle Grow in an unsupervised gardening episode. Seriously, it was a bowl cut on steroids, voluminous and shiny, like a majestic, fecund mushroom – only it shrouded most of my face, which, in retrospect, is probably for the best.
I too was the frequent victim of mistaken ethnic identity. My middle school bus driver assumed that since I had dark hair and was at the same bus stop as the three Cho brothers, I must be their sister. It’s no wonder, considering my bus driver was an overweight, middle aged, BLOND Michigander by the name of Tanya. Why would Tanya need to distinguish between an Argentine girl and three Chinese boys? Aren’t they all the same? Those . . . brunettes? Only I had no idea I had been lumped into their family until one day I was getting off the bus and she yelled after me in her Midwest corn chip accent: Be sure to tell yer mother about yer brother’s nose bleed now. I stopped and turned around. Her arm jiggled as she pulled the lever. The bus door closed with a hiss.
Not that it’s a big deal. It’s not. So people think I’m Chinese (those three Chinese brother can be very misleading). Or Greek (I was in Greece). Or Arab (I did live in suburban Detroit). Or Indian (I used to get very very tan in Florida). So what? But when you’re young and you just want to fit in, it is kind of a big deal. At least Tina’s name was Tina. Try Gabriela. In Michigan. In the seventies. Oh, how I longed to be named Kim. Or Nancy. Sigh. I LOVED the name Nancy. It sure was prettier than Garbage-ella. Kids can be cruel. Clever, admittedly, but cruel.
Being a brunette or ethnic or whatever you want to call it certainly doesn’t kill you. Or even maim you. I like to think that the sense of being different, of being apart gives you the requisite space you need to observe. You aren’t splashing around having chicken fights in the pond; you’re standing on the shore, watching. And you can actually see better standing on the shore. At least until you’re old enough to beat it on out of there and get your ass to an ocean.
So I was checking out Jay Z’s blog (I know, ridic that Jay Z even has a blog) and I stumbled upon this cool video of these three girls who longboard in NYC. They have formed a little pack and they are pretty bad ass, yet still total girls. I’m not saying I’d particularly want to see my daughters weaving around NYC traffic on skateboards with no helmets, but I do appreciate their moxie. They aren’t being groupies, they aren’t being posers, they are just being themselves – and in this day and age, that’s a lot.
Once upon a time there lived a girl who had never been to Vegas. She considered herself lucky at life, but unlucky at games of chance and was therefor uninterested in what Vegas had to offer.
And then one day she went.
She knew that going anywhere (even Siberia or Peoria) with her posse of 8 maidens would be a good time, yet she was still surprised. And. Yet. Still.
She danced so much and laughed so hard that now she wants to move to Vegas, except for the fact that she’d be dead of exhaustion within the week.
Everywhere she went, day or night, she was wrapped up in the booming soundtrack of her favorite dance tunes, except for that one lounge by that one door where the Sinatra impersonator wooed them in with “My Way” and sent them off with “Free Bird”. Sinatra and Skynyrd? Is that even possible? Is that even legal?
Part Oz, part Disney World, part heaven, part Hades, the town pulsed like some kind of organism. From time to time, it revealed bits of darkness and melancholy that made the girl turn and pause for but a moment, and then run to catch up with her friends. She marveled that a place could be so tacky and yet so gorgeous. One second she was oggling the sad sacks at the slot machines with fluoresent drinks growing warm in oversized beakers, or the showgirls making eyes at the wolves, wondering where their mothers were and the next her hands were itching to touch the art, plunge into the fountains, caress the Jurassic palm fronds – to see if they were real.
Was any of it real? She was intrigued by the poetic madness, the collective understanding, the endless, feckless revelry. What a slice of life, she kept muttering, not sure anymore if she was even saying it out loud.
But mostly, and most wonderfully, the girl felt that she and her maidens had finally met their match. As long, hard, loud, and wild as they wanted to rollick – as much as they wanted to dance and drink and laugh and carouse, Vegas rose up like a chivalrous and indulgent knight (or cowboy) to make it happen. In this oasis of over-the-top, nothing they could do was over-the-top. There was no question of turning in early. There were dragons to be slayed. And slayed they were.
Or at least she thinks so.
Did any of that happen? Does Vegas even exist?
Only one way to find out.
So I realize that as of late you’ve been getting mere crumbs here at Peevish. I’ve been holding out on you, keeping a bit of a secret this winter. You might know about it if you read the beef jerky recipe, but I realize that dehydrated meat is kind of a niche interest and I won’t take it personally if you didn’t. You see, along with my other New Year’s resolutions , I also promised myself I would learn how to snowboard this winter. Except, unlike those other resolutions, this was a promise I made to myself with quaking knees and more than a little trepidation. Frankly, I hadn’t learned a new trick in a really long time and I was scared. I was scared I would get hurt, scared I would fail, scared I’d be driving myself home from my first lesson with snow down my pants and my tail between my legs. That’s why I didn’t want to write about it. I didn’t want to jinx it. I didn’t want to widen the audience that would be privvy to my totally sucking.
But I did it. I learned. Every time I go out, I get better. I can honestly say it was one of the most challenging things I have ever done. I am really proud of myself – like puff out my chest and strut my tail feathers proud – make the sign of the horns and yell AWWWWWHAAA proud. Law school, babies, knee surgery, you name it – I am most proud of myself for learning how to snowboard. It was as much a mental game as a physical one for me, especially at first. Every time I drove to the hill, my heart pounded in my chest and a repeating loop of Wile E. Coyote-esque crashes and wipe-outs played out in my head. Every time I slid off the chairlift for my first run of the day, I was convinced the snow was slipperier than the last time, that the trees were jumping around, trying, just trying to take me out. And don’t even get me started on the freaking children – whole hoards of school kids littering the hill, getting in my way and generally causing me to eeek and panic at every turn.
But here’s what I learned: I learned that if you tell your crazy brain to fuck off and just keep going, your body miraculously starts to do the right thing. By some magic stored deep in our muscles and nerves, it starts to stick, it starts to work. Now I go around the kids if I have to. I dig the slippery snow. I have a renewed faith in my physical self. In the past, I’ve written about going from feeling invincible as a girl to utterly betrayed when I blew out my knee at 17. I don’t think I ever really recovered from that. I have been walking through this world carefully, defensively – but no more. Snowboarding is empowering and exciting and it’s all mine. I did it. I did it! Me!
Here’s what else I learned: It’s frigging fun to go fast on your own juice. To skiers and snowboarders, wake boarders, kite boarders, surfers and all those other ers out there, this is a ridiculously obvious statement. But when is the last time I went fast? On my bike? It’s fun, but not like this. People, there is NOTHING like carving down a hill. NOTHING like it. Goddamn! It makes me want to yell profanities and pump my fist in the air. It turns out that buried in the body of this 40 year old woman lives a randy 15 year old boy. Hossing down chicken fingers covered in ketchup and Cholula hot sauce in the car after snowboarding = TOTAL BLISS. For real.
And here’s yet another thing I learned: You never know when you’re going to make a friend. When I took my lessons at the beginning of January, I never considered that I might meet someone. But I did. Her name is Shreddy Betty. She’s a mom of two boys, one tough cookie, a bit of a danger grrrl and as crazy about our new little hobby as I am. We make plans by text and meet up after the kids have gone to school to play on the slopes. We call each other dude and pump fists after a good run and laugh and laugh. We laugh a lot. Because what’s not funny about snowboarding mommies? We both bought boards a few weeks ago and are figuring out how to tame these spirited fillies, so much faster and more sensitive than the rental beasts we were riding before. It’s always a blast and we’ve been out in some crazy-ass weather: 10 degrees below with the windchill, but as sunny as a lemon ice pop one day; 35 sweltering degrees that turned the snow into quick sand and a pile of laughs the next.
So there you have it, the reason for the crumbs. Even on the days when I woke up frothy to write, I’d come back from snowboarding feeling completely sated and quiet. And I just couldn’t find the words to write about my biggest news. I was too freaked, too blown away, too smitten.
Still am.
It’s fun, man. So much fun.
This is the text I received from Supergirl (using Doctor Dash’s phone, of course) yesterday on her way back from soccer:
“Hey mom! What we having for dinner?????????????? ?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? I’m starving how about meat oh I love meat juicy meat on the grill YUM!!!! I love meat GIVE ME MEAT MEAT sweet meat. Love ya smooch bye P.S. I LOVE MEAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Give me meat :-p”
I’d say that girl had the hungah! She’s a protein girl through and through. Just like her mama. And guess what we had for dinner?
Doctor Dash says I’m a smiler. I don’t do it intentionally and it’s not necessarily because I have anything approaching a sunny disposition. I think it’s kind of a default setting for my face. And I can’t help but look askance at this particular default setting because, at 40, I’ve started to think about smile lines and such. I’ve got ‘em. Oh baby, I’ve got ‘em. Sometimes I actually force my face out of a smile when I’m driving because why on earth do I need to be smiling when I’m by myself in the car? Just because I like the music? Ridiculous. And think of the wear and tear on my face! Actually, I don’t mind crows feet on people – I think they are kind of sexy, a sign of good livin’, big laughs and high times. Those marionette lines around the mouth, though – oof, not such a fan and unfortunately smiles bring those babies on too. But this wasn’t meant to be a post about wrinkles and Botox.
No, the other thing I’ve noticed about smiling is that I respond really strongly to smiles. On two occasions over the past few years, women whom I had presumed to be unfriendly turned out to be fabulous, wonderful, sweet-as-pie mamas once I got to know them. They just aren’t smilers. Hell, my very own husband isn’t a huge smiler. In fact, that’s why the Babe-o’s and I referred to him as The Asshole until we got to know and love him. Never in a million years would I have thought myself primitive enough to require the baring of chimp teeth in order to recognize someone as friend, not foe. But there you go. I guess I need those chimp teeth. I am nothing but a primitive smiling chimp. Not that chimps are primitive. They are AWESOME.
This article in the NY Times about the states of mind that produce smiles and what allows people to parse the meaning behind smiles is fascinating. To me, anyway. And if you see me grinning to myself in the car, do me a favor and just give me a honk to remind me to cut that shit out.
