Dogeared

From Jill McCorkle's PS, in The Best American Short Stories 2011:

If I had your job [as a couples therapist] I might ask a person: If a nuclear disaster occurred, and you had to live out those final painful days just stretched out somewhere thinking about your life--This is who I am. This is what I love. This is what I believe--who would you want hearing your whispers?

From Kevin Moffett's Further Interpretations of Real Life Events, ibid.:

A story needs to sing like a wound.

From Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities: 

That honest tradesman's manner of receiving the look, did not inspire confidence; he changed the leg on which he rested, as often as if he had fifty of those limbs, and were trying them all; he examined his finger-nails with a very questionable closeness of attention; and whenever Mr. Lorry's eye caught his, he was taken with that peculiar kind of short cough requiring the hollow of a hand before it, which is seldom, if ever, known to be an infirmity attendant on perfect openness of character.

therefore hath the wind-swift Cupid wings

In the category of questions I never had to ask when I lived in Chicago: what does one do at a four-way intersection with no stop or yield signs when another car arrives at the intersection from another direction at the same time? Who has to stop? Obviously, my response will always be "not me"--I'm always up for a game of chicken. One of many reasons Trent drives whenever we are both in the car.

Speaking of which: "Importance of driving compatibility to a relationship" is on the list of post topics I've jotted down. Trent and I were driving somewhere a couple weeks ago--or rather he was driving, of course--and he was telling me about a recent short road trip he took with someone who drove very slowly and cautiously. "tThat would drive me insane," I said. Trent agreed that it had indeed been very annoying. I have met the wife of the driver in question, and I reflected for a moment on what it must be like to be her. "I don't think I could be married to you if you drove like that. I think that would have been a dealbreaker."

A couple in a long-term relationship typically spends a lot of time in the car together. At least in this country. With the possible exception of New Yorkers. It could have a significant effect on a relationship if the parties have different ideas about the appropriate way to drive. I have been in cars with couples who were bickering about driving, and it was quite unpleasant. So I think driving compatibility should be part of the conversation in premarital discussions and counseling.

Fortunately, Trent used to drag race when a heedless youth, and he still tends to drive fast and aggressively, although he probably has more concern for safety these days. He is a good driver, as well as a fast driver. Which does not necessarily stop me from suggesting--in that special tone of voice that I didn't know I had until I'd been married for a while--that he slow down at times. For the most part, though, he drives fast enough even for me. It may be an understatement--at least according to Trent--to say that I am not a very patient woman, generally speaking. He is not always as aggressive as I would like--he doesn't, for example, try to drive people off the road when they attempt to pass him, to my chagrin--but that's probably for the best.

Of course, there is another side of the coin here. Trent doesn't like my driving, it must be acknowledged. But (a) no one likes my driving, not even me; and (b) there is a very simple solution--I don't drive when Trent's in the car, which pleases me as much as him. In fact, we recently drove for four days from Chicago to Port Angeles and I didn't get behind the wheel once. Here again, fortunately, Trent is well-suited to be married to me: scoffs at the idea that driving all day for several days (in December) might be hard. We were made for each other.

Not mad, but mated

Trent and I just got back from a week in Hawaii and this is how good it was: I forgot my blackberry there. I think it was the best vacation I've ever had. I reconnected with old friends, made new friends (which almost never happens given the antisocial tendencies my husband and I share), spent invaluable time with my husband sans Nugget, drank in inexpressibly gorgeous nature at every turn--from rainbows to sea turtles to lava rock strewn beaches to canyons to waterfalls and on and on. And, most importantly, I did not do any work at all. None. Which may be a first for me since I started my current job: a real, uninterrupted vacation. I attribute it to the magic of Kauai. I want to go back, immediately. Nugget can come this time. But I think I'll leave the blackberry here, just in case.

I got a little tired of people asking me whether it was hard to be away from Nugget. Of course I missed him, but it really was not hard. What's hard is nurturing my relationship with my husband while raising a toddler and working insane hours. Taking a vacation together without him was as much for him as for us -- he needs his parents to be have a strong relationship so we can be a loving family for him. Not that I said any of that to anyone. Maybe I should have.

I got my baby fix there from a scrumptious pair of six-month-old twin boys that belonged to my friend's sister. They were the most consistently happy babies I have ever seen. They may have been drugged. Or on the payroll of the Society for the Advancement of Reproduction, dancing us all down the path to procreation with their siren song of sweetsmelling, chubby-thighed contentment and then WHAM here comes your own newborn with a nasty case of colic. Babies. They are tricky little devils. But I'm onto them.

***Please combat the recidivsm of youth offenders in Illinois by voting at http://www.refresheverything.com/TabulaRasa for my nonprofit to win $250K from Pepsi to build a transitional living center for teens leaving jail!***

How far a modern quill doth come too short

Today we went to the Opera with a capital "O" with some tix my moms couldn't use, and I have a few suggestions for the Opera producers of the world:

1. Mic the singers. Make it freakin' LOUD. I know it's supposed to carry me away on an emotional swell, and it does when Andrea Bocelli is blasting out my husband's TEAC speakers, but at the Opera it's just so ... far away. I can't get carried away when it's not LOUD. Yes, you will lose some of your current patrons when you drop the devotion to as-it-was, but they will be dead soon anyway. Think of your future!

2. Loosen up with the translation. The Opera we saw tonight had modrnized sets with lots of neon, but the translation could have used some jive to make it feel more relevant. If you can modernize the sets, why not modernize the libretto? The music is the purist part, right? I just can't get down with Faust when he's talking about peasants and mountains.

After my husband and I ducked out at intermission, it occurred to me that it is not at all implausible that I might have married some tool who would insist on taking the Opera seriously and would not have left with me to go to Monk's Bar and eat peanuts (the shells of which we could have thrown on the floor, which is part of the charm of Monk's, and we were charmed but just couldn't do it because we are neat people, despite all appearances to the contrary, such as our tornado-strewn condo) and enjoy looking at the shelves of books (until we pulled some down and discovered that the shelves were too short and the books had been amputated -- AMPUTATED! like some sort of horror show, I mean really, the books were cut in half! -- but we were nonetheless able to read from the book of dirty limericks, which made things a little better) and drinking beer and commiserating about how we really should like Opera but we'd much rather drink beer and read dirty limericks ... and oh! What a travesty it would have been if I had married anyone but my husband!

to show virtue her own feature

(after watching the rest of the new Emma on PBS)

A: Do you like Emma?
T: The character?
A: Yes.
T: … she generally has a good heart but she’s completely blind to her own faults, and she’s a total snob.
A: When I reread Emma last week it struck me that the reason I’ve always disliked her so much is that she reminds me of me.
T: (laughs uproariously)
A: Do you think we’re alike?
T: Uh … (still laughing)
A: ?
T: I’m afraid to say …
A: ?
T: In some respects, yes.
A: Blindness to faults and snobbery?
T: More the former …
A: Yes … If I had any faults I would be blind to them.

even to the edge of doom

I have these little calluses on the tip of my left thumb and forefinger, and I have no idea why. I think I might have developed a habit of unconsciously biting them. The reason I deem this worth blogging about--not that it's a very high bar, as may be apparent--is that my husband has calluses like that on pretty much every fingertip, from biting them. I've always thought that was further evidence that he is crazy, and I don't mean crazy in love, although that is undoubtedly also true. I can't believe he's got me doing it. So maybe it is true that married people start to look and act like each other? That does not bode well for either of us. Compounding the crazy.
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I recently put a statcounter on this blog (and got rid of my google ads, which were only there because they gave me a hit count) that allows me to see how people got here. Apparently using Shakespeare quotes as titles for every blog post is a good way to increase hits, because I get a lot of people linking from google searches for the language I nick from old Bill. But none of those people ever stick around to read my other posts, which is clearly their loss. Off hunting after more Shakespeare, no doubt. Fools!
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We saw Noel Coward's Private Lives on Friday. Altough it was a very light comedy, there were a couple exchanges in it that touched on some very deep stuff, like the inherent loneliness of the human condition. I tried to find one of the lines for a dogeared but Google Books failed me. Damned intellectual property laws. Anyway it struck me as very interesting that there were those few little nuggets in a play that was mostly highly entertaining nonsense.
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I went to my first bar mitzvah on Saturday and was struck by how meaningful the ceremony was. It seemed much more meaningful than Catholic Confirmation, and I thought in large part because the focus was on just the one kid, rather than a whole class together. He had to lead the congregation -- he was given the responsibility of adulthood. That strikes me as much more effective than anything I went through for Confirmation. The flip side, of course, is that I'm pretty sure the party cost more than my wedding, all in honor of a 13-year-old. I think the message that sends might cancel out the ceremony.

the edge of doom

I've been meaning to post something about this: after something complimentary happened to me the other day, I realized that the only person [n.1] I could really tell about it is my husband. In other words: marriage means never having to apologize for bragging. [n.2]

n.1: Other than my parents, of course.
n. 2: Love Story reference. [n.3]
n.3: Footnotes are the enemy of subtlety. [n.4]
n.4: My husband has become a DFW [n.5] fan, and I'm concerned our marriage is in jeopardy.
n.5: Figure it out your damn self.

the roof of this court is too high to be yours

The few readers I had probably abandoned me after more than a month without a post, but I decided to keep plugging away at this anyway. It's an easy way to have a space for reflection in my life, and to create a record of my thoughts that I can look back at later. And if a blogwriter I liked posted this seldom, I guess I'd still prefer to read them every five weeks than not at all. I feel a particular responsibility because we have this non-traditional lifestyle right now--breadwinner mom and stay-at-home dad. I want to share my thoughts about it for any others in our position looking for information from their perspective, or for anyone with an interest in this as a sort of social experiment. That seems kind of ridiculous, that even now in 21st century America this could be viewed as unusual, but my experience it's still worthy of comment. When people ask me what my husband does, I feel the need to explain that the kind of work that he does is not really available in Chicago, but that he does still do some work for people in Seattle, and he was recently nominated to a prestigious part-time position, etc. I suppose it could just be me, but I suspect that impulse I have, to be defensive about my husband's choice to stay home, is not completely unwarranted. And frankly, I think I would be defensive if I were the one staying home as well. I'm not even sure it's unjustified. I know being a stay-at-home parent is not a walk in the park, but it does shelter you from the stresses of the working world. That's part of the attraction of it to me. But it's also what makes me glad I'm not doing it. When the scope of your responsibility is limited to your home, it's got to be easier. But it seems to me that you'd be almost childlike--you worry about keeping order in your little patch, and let your spouse worry about ensuring the very existence of that patch. That would be nice. But I rebel against the idea of being a child in my spouse's keeping. If I had readers, I'd ask stay-at-home parents to weigh in on this. I suspect they wouldn't agree with that characterization. But that's how I feel right now--like I'm the roof of our house, buffeted by the outside forces. And my husband is the foundation--vitally important and working hard to hold everything together, but still sheltered from the outside world.

Dressing for Someone Else's Life

I want to live inside the Athleta catalog: yoga on the beach at sunrise, then off to the farmer's market to pick up some fresh organic greens for my dinner. Never mind that I went to the farmer's market maybe twice when I had one literally at my doorstep, or that my idea of picking up some greens for dinner is going to Costco for a bag of broccoli florets to put in my mac and cheese. And the only yoga I've done in recent years was prenatal yoga, which hardly counts. When you're abdomen is roughly the size of a baby walrus, getting from a standing position to the floor passes for yoga. I'll just say this: what other kind of yoga involves a folding chair? It's not exactly ashtanga, if you know what I mean. (OK, I don't know what that means either.) Anyway, my point is this: whoever puts that catalog together knows what they're doing. If it weren't for the dire looks my husband gives me when he sees me with a catalog (I may be the family breadwinner but I still rely on my husband to keep my spending in check ... so much for 21st-century gender roles), I'd have a closet full of Athleta gear. Yoga pants are great for lounging on the couch.

Heigh Ho!

Today was my first day back at work, which is supposed to be very emotional and difficult. So am I a bad mom if I really enjoyed it? It felt like I was getting back a part of myself that had been lost. All day people asked me how I was doing, and I felt like I had to fudge the answer: "well, I'm sure it will get more difficult as the day goes on, but ..." and "of course I miss him, but ...." Which was further complicated by my feeling that I needed to reassure people that I like my work, and I'm not going to quit to stay home with the baby--or worse, become a dead-weight associate marking time with minimal effort.

I probably shouldn't underestimate the difference it makes to know that Nugget is at home with my husband and my dog, just like every other day of his life except that mommy's missing. If he were experiencing his first day of daycare, in a strange place with strange people, it would have been a lot harder for both of us.

Funny thing about that: the guilt and worry that many working mothers feel was a little different for me today. It was my husband I felt guilty and worried about, not my son. Trent spent eleven straight hours alone with the baby, and I have just enough experience with that to know it can drive you insane no matter how much you love your kid. I even dreaded coming home a little bit, afraid I'd find my husband boiling with resentment as I tried not to gush about my wonderful day. He wasn't, because he is a treasure of a man, and I am very fortunate, but I am going to try to remember this so when he does get grouchy I can see it in perspective.

Free at Last

This quote by Barack from a 1996 interview with the Obamas is such an insightful statement about marriage I wanted to share it:

And then what sustains our relationship is I’m extremely happy with her, and part of it has to do with the fact that she is at once completely familiar to me, so that I can be myself and she knows me very well and I trust her completely, but at the same time she is also a complete mystery to me in some ways. And there are times when we are lying in bed and I look over and sort of have a start. Because I realize here is this other person who is separate and different and has different memories and backgrounds and thoughts and feelings. It’s that tension between familiarity and mystery that makes for something strong, because, even as you build a life of trust and comfort and mutual support, you retain some sense of surprise or wonder about the other person.

Thanks to the New Yorker (click to see the great accompanying photo of the Obamas at home in Hyde Park in 96) for publishing it and Broadsheet for leading me to it.

I can't even begin to express how excited I am today that this man is our president, for so many, many reasons. I will admit to a twinge of regret when Hillary arrive at the ceremony, thinking about how it would feel to finally be witnessing a woman become president, but that day will come too. I'm thrilled today for black Americans, and for all of us as we take this step toward healing the still-gaping wound that is race relations in America. I'm ecstatic and relieved and yet still a bit angry to finally be rid of the worst president in American history, whose destructive legacy we are only just beginning to understand. I'm proud and gratified and yet even now still surprised to welcome a politician who I can actually admire and who inspires me. He has a hard road ahead of him, and I can't wait to see him lead us down it.

Love Letter

3 Reasons I love my husband:

1. When I showed him, just for kicks, a poem that I published in my high school's literary magazine, he spent about twenty minutes trying to understand it.

2. He watched the Golden Globes with me and laughed when I read aloud from the Fug Girls' live blog of the red carpet.

3. He has a subscription to Wholpin and put it on after the Golden Globes so I could feel all high brow again.

Keeper of the Poop

This Wall Street Journal article describes a dilemma that has been on my mind a lot lately. I want my husband to be an equal partner in raising our child and running our household, but I have a hard time letting go. As the countdown to the end of my maternity leave dwindles, my worry grows. It seems increasingly likely that my husband will take on the "stay-at-home-dad" role when I go back to work. I will have to work full-time; I have no choice if we want to maintain our current lifestyle. And full-time in the litigation department at a large law firm is not 9 to 5. Or even 8 to 6. So I'm very worried that I'm going to be calling home to check on whether Nugget pooped yet that day, and asking Trent fifty passive-aggressive questions about what he and the baby are doing, not to mention coming home at 10 pm to start cleaning the house and doing the laundry because my standards for a clean house are higher than Trent's.

It's hard not to think about this in terms of Trent being a good stay-at-home-dad, when I should be focusing on whether I can be a good working mom and learning to relinquish control. If I don't get that straightened out, it's not just my stress level that will suffer--it's my relationship with my husband. I already find myself stifling--or sometimes failing to stifle--the urge to criticize him for not holding the baby enough, not playing with him enough, not putting his shirt on the right way, etc. Even when I succeed in keeping my mouth shut, I often just take the baby and do myself whatever it is I think he's doing "wrong." Then I get resentful because I'm doing the lion's share of the childcare.

It's funny, I have this desire to end posts like this with some sort of conclusion so as not to be too abrupt, but I'm usually writing about something because I don't have any answers. I don't know how to end my posts. I could end them with a question, "What worked for you, internet?" like many bloggers, except that would feel pretty silly with a readership of about six people, one of whom is my husband (Hi Trent! Didn't know I was such a simmering pile of resentment lately, did you? Actually, and sadly, you probably did ...).

The end. More later.

On blogging

My husband made the mistake yesterday of mentioning that a girl he used to date had a blog that detailed all of her past relationships, including one with him. Of course his mother and I had to read it, and the silly man helped us find it. It was strange reading another woman's account of how my husband wooed her; on the one hand I was touched by the sweet things he did (such as offering her a pinecone in lieu of flowers because it would last longer), but on the other hand, of course, he wasn't being sweet to me. I'm not a jealous person generally, but it is still difficult to see in such detail the evidence that I'm not the only person for whom my husband ever had feelings--the only person to whom he ever was romantic. I guess it makes me--us--feel less special. But on the other hand, he married me. I win! 

That's not why I bring it up. The three of us cackled over it so much that I found myself worrying about this whole blogging thing. It's so easy to sit in the privacy of your home and write about your private life and then hit "publish" without really thinking it through. I did read through all my posts a few times before linking to this blog on my facebook account, trying to decide whether I felt comfortable letting people who knew me read it. And I actually waited a day to publish this post, and discussed it with my husband first. Even if I'm comfortable baring myself to the world--and I'm not always sure I am--I'm not likely to write only about myself. This girl didn't use my husband's name, but he is certainly recognizable from the details, and ultimately he came out rather badly depicted. Moreover, my husband and his mother questioned the accuracy of several things this girl wrote about Trent and his family. But memory is  a funny thing. In her mind, it probably did happen that way. 

I've always thought I would eventually publish a novel that would draw upon my life and therefore raise some of these issues, but this feels different for several reasons. It's not disguising itself as fiction, and it's published in close to real time. But most significantly, to me, it's not clear that this is worth it.