From Where I Sit

For I have sinned...

2012-02-11T10:24:00.002-05:00

That father and his video. You know the one. His kid writes nasty things about her parents on Facebook. Her dad gets his knickers in a twist and videos himself, with a cigarette in his hand and a chip on his shoulder, dressing down his immature, disrespectful teen-ager for all the world to see.

Then, to really show who’s in charge around here, he pumps eight or 10 bullets into her laptop, telling her she’ll have to buy her own laptop next time. Oh, and that she owes him $130 for some recent software updates.

Here are the takeaways:

1. When someone does something that makes you angry, reacting right away and in anger is best.

2. When someone hurts your feelings, do your best to hurt them more than they’ve hurt you.

3. Destroying property is entirely appropriate when someone does something mean to you.

4. If you really want to make your point, find the most embarrassing way possible.

5. Parents aren’t expected to be any more mature than their kids.

The biggest shock to me? This man’s behavior has some of the best parents I know pumping their fists and falling all over themselves to justify his behavior.

Sigh.

I was a bitch of a teen-age girl. My fights with my mother were legendary in my neighborhood, which is bisected by a system of canals, along which yelling and screaming travel exceedingly well. My family often jokes about the rows we had in those years. I rarely participate. I still feel like shit for the way I treated her.

She wasn’t perfect in the way she dealt with my obnoxious behavior. But she never forgot that she was the parent and, as a result, had a responsibility to keep the situation under control. When I raised my voice, she lowered hers. When I called her names, she flinched but didn’t lower herself to my level. When I hurt her — and I did, often and on purpose — she let me know it hurt and resisted the urge to hurt me back.

Then, she found ways to punish me that made the point. She parented. And I learned.

It’s freaking hard to parent a child well enough to release into the wild.
It’s relentless, unforgiving and thankless. And, when you decide to have children, it becomes your goddamn job.

Every single minute of every single day, you must control your anger, act like a grown-up, think about someone other than yourself, worry about everything and set a strong example, even when you don’t feel like it.

When you fail at these endeavors, you pick yourself up, remind yourself you’re human and resolve to do better next time.

You do not pat yourself on the back. And neither should we.

No defense

2011-11-09T14:49:00.000-05:00

"With the benefit of hindsight, I wish I'd done more."
— Joe Paterno, disgraced Penn State football coach

hind·sight
noun \ˈhīn(d)-ˌsīt\ : perception of the nature of an event after it has happened

--------------------------------------

I wonder, Mr. Paterno, what part of your perception of the nature of this particular event has changed?

Was it your perception of what it means when a grown man does terrible, illegal things to young boys for years on end?

Was it your perception of what it means to speak so softly about such terrible, illegal things as to be essentially inaudible?

Was it your perception of who’s responsible to stop such terrible, illegal things from happening as soon as they’re discovered?

I don’t get it, Joe. What could you have possibly perceived incorrectly about this situation when it first happened? Seems pretty clear to me: You learned from an eyewitness that your former assistant coach is a pedophile. You thought enough about it to report it up the food chain. And then you let it drop?

Seriously, Joe? You’re the king of State College; the thinking player’s coach; the one who preached “success with honor” for all those years. That’s all you got?

There’s no class of human lower than those who hurt children. And you, Joe, are enrolled. For nigh on a decade, you stood by while a friend and former colleague did terrible, illegal things to kids.

To kids, man. They’re kids.

You announced today that you’ll retire after this season. It’s not enough, Joe. You should fall on your sword today. Right now. It’s the honorable thing to do. Then you should spend the rest of your life leading the charge to right this wrong and others like it.

Instead, you’ll finish out the season and walk away when you’re good and damn ready.

On behalf of children everywhere, fuck you, Joe. Fuck you.

Random thoughts return

2011-11-08T14:30:00.004-05:00

Here’s what I wonder:

… Why aren’t the throngs of Americans who are terrified of fundamentalism in Arab and other Middle Eastern countries at all worried about the fundamentalism threatening to take over their own country?

… Wouldn’t it make more sense if the people who believe it’s a government’s role to protect “unborn children” also believed the government has a responsibility to protect already-born children?

… Where do the many people who are convinced that my friends Lucy, Michael, Mark and Doug would destroy the institution of marriage were they allowed to participate weigh in on Larry King (8 times), Newt Gingrich (3 times) and Kim Kardashian*?

… If humans are successful at pinning climate change on another villan, will that stop it from destroying our home?

… Shouldn’t the people who believe schoolchildren are mature enough to determine the veracity of the theory of evolution also trust them (and their mothers, frankly) to decide what they can do with their own bodies?

… Why is it so important that I repost your status updates and forward the emails you send to me? If you’ve done your part, isn’t that enough?

… What makes food stamps, jobs programs, mandated health care coverage and school-sponsored sex education socialism, and societal regulation of my uterus not socialism?

… Why does someone other than me get to decide how long I must suffer before I can die?

… How many of the people who believe life begins at conception would save a tray of 50 fertilized eggs before they‘d save a single 2-year-old standing nearby if the lab caught on fire?

… Why do I have all the answers when it comes to raising other people’s children, and none of the answers for raising my own?

*On Kim Kardashian:

Nobody’s less interested in Kim Kardashian than I am.

About six months ago, I spent 3 minutes or so trying to figure out what she’s famous for. I spent another 2 minutes wondering what she contributes to this world. When my head started hurting, I stopped thinking about her.

That’s the extent of my give-a-shit for Kim Kardashian.

I heard she got married over the summer. Now she’s filed for divorce just 72 days later. And boy are people are pissed off.

My first thought is this: If you’re pissed off that Kim Kardashian is getting divorced, it’s time you take up a hobby.

My second thought is more complicated. I was trapped in a marriage I knew was wrong from the start. From before the start, actually. As I walked down the aisle, I prayed for the courage to turn and run. I stumbled over my vows. I stuck out the wrong finger for “with this ring.” And I had to be told, more than once, that it was time to leave the reception.

It took me three years and a serendipitous move across the country to dump the bastard. So despite how I wonder about Kim Kardashian’s value to this world, it’s hard for me to criticize her for getting the fuck out.

Words to live by

2011-10-07T08:18:00.002-04:00

A Zen master and his student were walking by a river. A prostitute was there and needed to be carried over the river. The Zen master picked her up and carried her across the river and then put her down. Then the master and student kept walking. A few hours later the student was so agitated he finally had to ask, “Master, how could you touch and help that prostitute! That’s against what we believe in!” And the master said, “I left her by the river. Why are you still carrying her?”

On that day...

2011-09-11T18:51:00.002-04:00

… I was the third or fourth one to work that day, in Rosslyn, just across the Key Bridge from Georgetown and a couple of miles from the Pentagon. I logged into msnbc.com first thing, as I always did. I wouldn't know for another 10 minutes or so that this would be no ordinary day.

… I walked out of my office just as our broadcast reporter walked out of his to casually report that a small plane had hit the World Trade Center. He turned right, toward the break room and coffee machine. I turned left, toward E’s desk. She was on hold, looking bored. And then, she didn’t look bored at all. “A second plane just hit the other tower,” she said. That’s when the phone started ringing.

… I insisted my colleague S. end her goddamn meeting in the conference room and join the rest of us as we watched the world stop spinning on its axis. “This is important,” I said to her, as she rolled her eyes, which I probably would have done, too, knowing my penchant for hyperbole. “I don’t think you want to miss this.”

… I hastily called a newsroom meeting having no idea what to say. We needed a plan for coverage, sure. Our city was in a panic. But more than that, I needed to know how everyone was doing and what I could do to keep them together, focused and unafraid as we put that plan into action. Besides, I was worried about them. We were in harm’s way, and I hadn’t a clue how to protect them.

… I realized, mid-morning and in mid-sentence, that a dear friend worked at the top of one of those towers. I swear it was the will of God that kept me from dropping to my knees right then. I learned the next day that she perished. As did the baby in her womb.

… I led the expedition to the rooftop, to see if we could see the Pentagon burning. We could. And it felt like a punch in the gut. While we were up there, an explosion sent us scurrying down to safety. We learned later it wasn’t a bomb, but the sonic boom of a fighter jet. It wasn’t the sound of destruction, but of protection. That would have been nice to know.

… I had to have a talk with myself. “Get yourself together, kiddo. They need you. This is the moment you and they have trained for. Now go out there. And if you can’t show them what you’re made of, help them see what THEY are made of.” Man, it was hard. But I did it.

… I didn’t want to be in that newsroom. I wasn’t interested in being part of the day’s events. I didn’t want to cover it, edit it, write about it or sift through photo after horrible photo. I wanted to go home and be grief-stricken with the rest of the nation. I didn’t want to buck up. I wanted to tuck into my shell and cry.

That night, after we’d done all we could do for the day, I went home and did just that.

Peace and love to you and yours. Today and always.

bzh

… and again

2011-09-06T13:59:00.001-04:00

My thoughts exactly.

Falling

2011-09-06T11:58:00.001-04:00

This is the best piece of writing I’ve ever read.

It’s very long. And totally worth your time.

Peace to you.

The eye(lift) of the beholder

2011-08-25T12:46:00.005-04:00

Salma Hayak thinks plastic surgery is “not beautiful.”

Well la-di-freakin’-da.

How awesome it must be to be so flippin’ beautiful that you feel entitled to belittle those of us who might need a little help to feel beautiful. Because, see, some of us feel “not beautiful” every day, even without plastic surgery. And we wonder, often actually, whether we might feel a little less “not beautiful” if we had a nip here or a tuck there.

Not for you, Salma Hayak, or anyone. For us. For our own damn selves.

I mean, who doesn’t want to be her own version of beautiful? I do. I'll bet you do, too.

No, you say? Pants on fire.

And what's wrong with asking for a little help? Not a thing, I say. If you want to inject toxin into the muscles of your face, I will not judge. If poison is what gets you to feeling your best, right on, sister.

And if I want to have my facial skin stretched way up over the top of my head?
Go me. And fuck you, Salma Hayak.

Fortunately, what makes you feel beautiful is different from what makes me feel beautiful. That’s the beauty of all of this.

If you think beautiful is naked skin, hairy legs and greasy hair, go on with your bad self. You think it's loverly to be tattooed and pierced from top to bottom? Have at it.

Me? I’ll take tight abs, toned legs, thick, silky hair and ta-tas big and perky enough to stop traffic.

You say tomato. I say take a little off the top.

Shallow though it may be, physical beauty — as we each define it — is a gift we all want to open. It’s why we buy cute clothes, wear high heels, accessorize and have our hair and nails done. Some say we do it for men or women or whomever. I say we do it because it gives us power and might. And powerful, mighty women are a force to be reckoned with.

I hate, hate, hate when women make fun of what other women do to feel good about themselves. Especially women, like Salma Hayak, for whom the only thing “a little work” will ever mean is a bathroom redo.

Fact is, some of us drew the right cards. Some of us need the card of the right boob guy.

And if we’d all just be OK with that, it’d be a beautiful thing.

On theories and evolution

2011-08-23T15:58:00.008-04:00

A big-ass tech company with significant operations in my little burg has 350 jobs to fill.

Engineering jobs. Sales jobs. Other professional jobs. Great, high-paying jobs with awesome benefits that will pump millions of dollars into our local economy.

So, how is it, you ask, that in an economy with more than 10 percent unemployment, a big-ass company can’t fill 350 jobs?

How is it that in a region that has lost more than 10,000 professional jobs in the past two years, a big-ass company can’t find 350 professionals?

How is it that in a country desperate to put its people back to work, this big-ass company might have to move these jobs to another country?

Well, let’s review:

Right now, three of the four people most likely to make a serious run at unseating our current president in 2012 believe Darwin’s theory of evolution, proven thousands of times over by the most learned people in history, is bunk.

One of them supported his Board of Education’s move to add Creationism to the science curriculum of Texas schoolchildren, effectively adding it to the curricula of most of the nation, given that Texas is the country’s largest purchaser of textbooks and largely drives what’s in them.

Several high-profile members of Congress support unfunding the National Science Foundation, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the National Institutes of Health — three of the largest funders of science research in the world — because they don’t believe taxpayer dollars ought to fund research that doesn’t jibe with their religious beliefs.

Several other high-profile members of Congress make it a point VERY often to pull pieces of published scientific research out of context in an effort to make us believe that our tax dollars are being spent willy-nilly on junk science.

Allow me to digress for moment. For instance, these folks would have us believe that the rigorous grant systems of our most important science-funding organizations would give a researcher $500,000 to measure the size of men’s penises for the sake of, well, measuring their penises. What they neglect to mention is the part where he established a strong correlation between penis size and the likelihood of contracting a sexually transmitted disease.

They’d have us believe taxpayer dollars helped researchers have a ball teaching shrimp how to walk on a treadmill. What they forgot to say is that the study was designed to find out what stress to a shrimp’s physical environment and body (translate: ocean pollution) does to its ability to reproduce — and feed hungry people.

And these yahoos would have us believe that a study that measured the nicotine levels in toenail clippings mailed to researchers from around the country was about someone’s toenail fetish, and had nothing to do with establishing a way to predict the chances someone will develop lung cancer.

What’s more, clear-cut evidence of manmade climate change earns an eye roll from leaders who believe God just wants it a little warmer around here.

Programs to create alternative energies that will stop killing our home planet get branded liberal and are, therefore, demonized.

Our once-amazing space exploration program — the very program many researchers working today say ignited their passion for science — is on life support while lawmakers continue to debate who gets to choose whether I have a baby.

And any attempt to require more rigorous math and science study from American children, say, in the form of more homework or year-round schools, gets lost in the plaintive wails of parents who, for instance, don’t want to give up their annual summer pilgrimage to God’s beautiful seashore.

Seems pretty clear to me. The big-ass tech company in my burg can’t fill positions because we — the citizens of the United States of America — are living in the Middle Ages, where science and religion are blood enemies. A large group of Americans, led by some very powerful and visible people, have so demonized science that an entire generation of children — and their children and their children and so on — will not only eschew science, they’ll do their best to keep the rest of us from embracing it, as well.

Fortunately for mankind, there are many countries across the globe where religion coexists nicely with science. There’s no need in these places to believe in one or the other. (Hell, even Albert Einstein said: “Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.“)

As a result, these other countries are overtaking us, atom by atom.

So the next time someone complains to you about foreigners taking over American jobs, ask them what they know about Differential Equations.

The next time someone complains to you about American companies moving jobs to India, ask them how they did in Organic Chemistry.

The next time someone complains to you about the American education system being run by liberals and elites, ask them to teach you some Particle Physics.

It’s not rocket science, folks.

Well, maybe it is.

Tweet, tweet

2011-08-19T09:17:00.002-04:00

So, an early adopter I’m not. But I’ve finally embraced it.

You’ll find my 140-character wisdom at @bethsits

Come follow.

Oh, baby…

2011-08-12T10:38:00.002-04:00

It's hard to pick a favorite from this, but No. 7 comes close.

Happy Friday.

… perchance to dream

2011-08-11T13:07:00.007-04:00

We live in a world where African mothers must choose which of their children to save and which to let starve.

… where the working poor must choose between food and medicine.

… where families must choose to put a roof over their heads or pay for a doctor visit.

… where kindergarteners can’t focus because their tummies are empty.

… where protectors of the unborn don’t have much time or compassion for the already-born.

… where those who fight for our freedom are forced to fight for their lives when they come home from the battlefield.

… where no bona fide leader in her right mind would run for office.

… where hatred, to some, is a family value.

… where the billionaires on Wall Street sin with impunity while our elected officials work hard to protect us from “greedy” teachers and other public servants.

… where a crazed photo of a candidate for office causes more of an uproar than the crazy notions she espouses.

… where those who invest little to nothing in their own marriages are deeply invested in keeping same-sex couples from walking down the aisle.

… where hungry, powerless, hopeless people feel their only recourse is to riot in the streets.

… where our planet is raging against our ill-treatment of her.

… where a beautiful blond girl/boy/woman/man goes missing and the world stops everything to look for her but a beautiful girl/boy/woman/man of color goes missing and we barely stop to wonder where he or she ran off to.

… where the inane lives of Lindsay Lohan and Kim Kardashian make the evening news, but the massacre and starvation of hundreds of thousands makes us change the channel.

… where we can justify building bridges to nowhere but won’t acknowledge the wide and deep chasm between the haves and the have-nots.

… where we’d rather starve the poor than tax the rich.

… where rage over the cold-blooded murder of nearly 80 children and adults dissipated as soon as we learned the killer wasn’t a Muslim.

… where we’ll pay $4 for a cup of coffee but not another @#$&! dime to those lazy good-for-nothings who can’t find work.

In a world where all this is true, I suppose it’s no wonder I had trouble sleeping last night.

The final departure

2011-07-14T11:19:00.012-04:00

If you poke around here from time to time, you know there was a time in my life when I was alone and lonely, following the demise of my practice marriage and a fairly mind-bending mid-life crisis. The view from rock-bottom was ugly enough that I stopped the world and got off for a bit.

I took a new job, moved to a new city, found a one-person townhome and started seeing a terrific therapist. My plan was simple: No dates — not even a sideways glance — until being alone was preferable to being with someone who wasn’t good for me.

The first year was hell. Living with only my thoughts and demons was scary, indeed. To relieve the pressure, I needed a diversion. And while I wasn’t allowed to distract myself with real, live shiny objects, imaginary friends didn’t count.

I took full advantage of this loophole.

In addition to wandering back through puberty, where I developed school-girl crushes on several boy-band members and wanted to be friends with Britney Spears, I began what has become a 12-year love affair with The Boy Who Lived.

My friend M. introduced me to Harry Potter. He’d come for a visit and casually mentioned that Harry was all the rage. It would be another year before I bought the first book. A year after that before I started it. By then, two more had been published.

I was hooked before the end of the first chapter. J.K. Rowling’s vivid imagination and eye for detail make Harry’s story so compelling you can hardly resist. But Harry’s story is only part of it for me.

The bigger part is Harry, himself. For me, it was love at first sight.

The reasons are many and firmly rooted in psychobabble. If you want to wade through them, I’d be happy to send you links to earlier blog posts. The quick explanation is this: Harry doesn’t truly fit in almost anywhere he goes. As a kid, neither did I.

The Harry whom Rowling draws as the story plays out fits snugly into my own chamber of secrets. He’s unsure of his footing, uncomfortable drawing upon his powers, uncertain of his allies, unwilling to give up who he is, and surrounded by and wary of people who try to make him. The people who most believe in him aren’t the ones he’s forced to rely on, say, to get a permission slip signed or for a place to spend the summer.

Truth is, he’s most comfortable among friends and least comfortable among family.

When the part of Harry was finally cast in movie form, I fell in love all over again. The actor Daniel Radcliffe became Harry for me. His struggle to keep from being typecast has been mine, too. (Hell, when he did Equus on stage in the buff, I caught myself pretending that he’d just turned the invisibility cloak inside out.)

For more than a decade, whenever I needed a break from the scary voices in my head, I turned to Harry and his world. It quieted my demons to wander around Hogwarts, ducking owls, forgetting passwords, avoiding portkeys and solemnly swearing I was up to no good.

When I was strong enough again, I’d set the book down or turn off the DVD, and return to the hard work of putting my life back together. It worked like a charm.

Eventually, the voices inside my head went quiet. Fortunately, the love affair endures. Harry’s a part of my life. I can only hope Urchin joins us one day.

Tomorrow is a sad day for those of us who are wild about Harry. Though the books and movies will certainly live on, the cast members we’ve come to love will bid us farewell, the final battle done, and go on with their lives.

I spent last Saturday caught up in a movie marathon. From the first moment of Sorcerer’s Stone to the last moment of Order of the Phoenix, I sat glued to the story. Watching the first five films on the heels of one another really shows you how much the characters, the actors and the story grow with each title. They were so young, and the story so innocent, when it all began. As the story grew darker, they grew up.

And so did I.

Farewell, my friends. Thank you for the magic. I will miss you beyond measure.

Justice for all

2011-07-05T23:28:00.003-04:00

Nobody believes more than I do that Casey Anthony had something to do with her daughter’s death. And like everyone, I wanted justice for Caylee.

But I can’t get on the the “stupid jurors, broken system” bandwagon. As sad as I am for that little girl and as hard as it is to stomach the thought, I believe our system of justice did its No. 1 job honorably in The State of Florida vs. Casey Marie Anthony: It kept a woman from going to prison — and possibly to her death — for crimes she did not commit.

I’m not saying Casey Anthony didn’t commit any crimes. I’m certain she did. Heinous crimes, at that. She just didn’t commit the crimes prosecutors charged her with. In their zeal to see Casey Anthony fry, they forgot to study what they could prove beyond a reasonable doubt.

They shot for the moon and came up short.

It’s human nature to get angry and look to blame when something bad happens. I’m with you. But please, leave the judicial system out of this one. Focus your vitriol at those who, in their thirst for blood, misused the system in the name of justice for Caylee.

To wit…

Count 1 — Murder in the first degree

The state charged Casey Anthony with first degree murder, the definition of which includes “premeditated design to effect the death of the person killed.”

This is the mac-daddy of them all, especially in Florida, where they’ll kill you if they can convict you. To make murder-one stick in this case, though, the state had to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Casey Anthony killed her daughter, that she meant to kill her daughter and that she actively set out to kill her daughter.

It didn’t prove, really by any measure, that Casey Anthony did any of those things.

It proved that she didn’t report her daughter missing. It proved that something stunk up her car. It proved she lied to police officers about her work and her life. It proved that she partied when she should have been searching for Caylee. It proved she’s a sad, sick woman who never should have had a child to begin with.

But the state did not prove that Casey set out to — and then did — murder her child. It wasn’t even able to prove that Caylee’s death was caused by a criminal act. If you don’t know what caused the death, how can you know who caused it?

The jury had no choice but to vote “not guilty” on the count of first-degree murder.

P.S. The law provided for the jury to reduce Count 1 to second-degree murder, which is defined as “depraved mind murder, not premeditated.” Again, the state did not prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Casey Anthony murdered her daughter at all (or really even that Caylee was murdered), rendering this potential option moot.

Count 2 — Aggravated child abuse

In Florida, there are three defining characteristics of aggravated child abuse:

1. Committing an aggravated battery on a child;
2. Willfully torturing, maliciously punishing, or willfully and unlawfully caging a child; or
3. Knowingly or willfully abusing a child and in so doing causing great bodily harm, permanent disability, or permanent disfigurement to the child.

The state’s burden here was to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that any one of these things had happened. It didn’t. In fact, not a single witness described Casey Anthony as anything but a loving mother.

Now, I wouldn’t call a woman who parties after her child goes missing a loving mother. But partying isn’t mentioned in any of those three definitions. Our system of justice appropriately requires that the evidence back up the charge in order to get a conviction.

Count 3 — Aggravated manslaughter of a child

To hang this one on her, the state had to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Casey “did willfully or by culpable negligence …, while a caregiver to Caylee Marie Anthony … fail or omit to provide [Caley] with the care, supervision and services necessary to maintain [her] physical and mental health, or fail to make a reasonable effort to protect [her] from abuse, neglect or exploitation by another person, and in so doing caused [her] death.”

Again, the willful part is where things get hung up first. The state couldn’t prove that Casey was a bad mother, let alone prove that her mothering, or lack thereof, caused the death of her child.

And again, the jury had no choice.

There’s no doubt, reasonable or not, that Casey Anthony is a deplorable woman, a spoiled brat, a lost soul. There’s no doubt that she comes from dysfunction, lives in dysfunction and will likely wallow before us in her dysfunction as she hits the interview circuit and capitalizes on the death of her child.

Sickening as all of that is, it does not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that she murdered, abused or caused the death of her child. Call me a stickler, but that matters to me. I hope it matters to you, too.

A couple of ambitious prosecutors doomed this case by overreaching. Their irrational decision will be debated for decades by legal scholars far smarter than I, but here's my theory: They knew, like we all do, that Casey had something to do with her little girl's death. But rather than match the charges to the evidence, they let the entertainment value of the case — a totally unsympathetic defendant, an adorable kiddo, a weirdo family situation — put stars in their eyes. I mean, have you seen O.J. prosecutor Marcia Clark lately? She's filthy rich. New teeth. New hair. A mansion on a hill. It had to be tempting as hell.

Prosecutors counted on Casey, her lies, her bizarro behavior and her out-classed lawyer to keep the jury in the palm of their hands.

Fortunately for all of us, the jury refused to play along.

Where I’m from

2011-07-01T22:01:00.006-04:00

I am from Ford Pinto and grasshopper-green station wagon, from Ranch dressing and steak on the grill, from wax beans grown in the garden and footballs thrown in the front yard, from guacamole made on Saturday nights and potato soup simmered on Sunday afternoon. And I am from wiener schnitzel, pommes frites und salat, mit Riesling wein.

I am from everywhere and nowhere, stateside and overseas, birth and adoptive families, none of which gives me any sense of being. Today I’m from a good life, with a wonderful man and a darling child in a comfortable city — a combination which, for the first time in my life, feels like home.

I am from the water … the sea, the pool, the creek, the lake, the stream, the bayou, the puddle, the sprinkler, the rain, the clothing-optional beach. I’m from a gerbera daisy and a deep red tulip, a grocery store bouquet. I’m from the sweet smell of jasmine and the earthy smell of fresh-cut grass, the buttercup, the Texas bluebonnet, the Indian paintbrush, and the African violet. And I’m from tomatoes bought at a downtown market and eaten like apples at lunch.

I am from homemade gravy and fish on Friday and liver and onions far too often. I’m from matriarchs and martyrs and pilots and a few pariahs, from where Minnesota meets Wisconsin at the St. Croix River, where Mary might have been something if she’d only had a penis and Jon was the one who managed to get away. I’m from summer trips across country and Dairy Queen stops and KFC for dinner and Holiday Inn pools. I’m from dragged into every cathedral and museum in Western Europe and God, all I want is to go back to where my friends are.

I am from stiff upper lip and suck it up and chop it off. I’m from get over it, quit complaining, and don’t bug me just deal with it. I’m from I’m sure you did something to bring it on and it was probably your fault. I’m from there’s nothing to be afraid of, stop being so dramatic, it’s no big deal. And I’m from how come you never talk to us about stuff, we had no idea.

I’m from clean your plate but for God’s sake don't eat too much. I'm from fat girls just can’t be happy and uh, in this house we wear clothes when we go out and now that I think of it, you don't want seconds, put that back.

I’m from Mass on Sunday no matter how crappy you feel and youth group on Wednesday that refills your bucket. I’m from Stations of the Cross on Fridays during Lent and a baby-less Nativity scene until Christmas morning. I’m from dozens of aunts and uncles, scores of first cousins and a 96-year-old granddad who really lived to be 95.

I’m from “not available” on medical history forms. When strangers ask, I’m from Irish and German stock because it’s easier than getting into it. I’m from Winter Park, Florida, and hey-guess-what... we’re-moving-again. I’m from Sembach, Ramstein and Wiesbaden, Germany. Shalimar, Florida. Stuttgart, Germany. Tampa, Gainesville and Orlando, Florida. Austin, Texas. Arlington, Virginia. Rockville, Maryland. And Charlotte, North Carolina.

I’m from wishing I could send my new baby brother back to the Sears catalog. I’m from pining away as the dreamy Brad Robinson let Dara Prince ride his bike while I sat at the window upstairs with a face full of mumps. I’m from having my stomach pumped of Eau de Joi perfume just days after my parents’ anniversary. I’m from biting all the way through my tongue after a nasty fall from the slide, from finding a live coral snake in the pool filter, from skiing down the wrong side of the mountain, ending up in a different country without a passport. And I’m from watching my father distract the angry bull as we rushed to pack up our picnic and scramble back to the car.

I’m from not very many pictures of me as a child and fewer of me as an adolescent. I’m from loving to thumb through yearbooks and wondering what might have been if I’d only lived there a year longer. I’m from a first slow dance in the 8th grade and making out for hours in the maid’s room upstairs, from three junior high schools and three high schools but just one college, in four years flat. I’m from three cheerleading squads, two marching bands, one pitiful soccer team, a sad little high school newspaper, a kick-ass college newspaper. I’m from the same company for 21 years, from one practice marriage, one real one, a beautiful child and a longing for one more.

I’m from exactly where I am, right now.

This post is inspired by Whimsy who got the template here. If you’d like to write one of your own (and oh, how I hope you will, please link (or post) in the comments.

I heart you.

2011-05-31T16:46:00.002-04:00

I’ve started and stopped this post a dozen times.

Tap. Tap. Tap. Erase. Tap. Tap. Tap. Erase. Tap. Tap. Tap. Erase.

I feel like it should be pithy and important and magical, filled with lessons learned and stories of growth and, well, you get it.

Truth is, when you boil it down, I don’t feel particularly pithy. It is, however, important. And when you consider the enormity of our experience, this is, indeed, a magical time.

One year ago tomorrow morning, at 6 a.m., Urchin marched into Levine Children’s Hospital, wheeling her suitcase behind her, and announced to the woman at the security desk that she was “here to have my special heart fixed.”

One year ago tomorrow morning, at 6:15 a.m., she sat naked on a gurney (having refused to put on a gown) and colored in a picture of the Scooby-Doo cast.

One year ago tomorrow morning, at 6:29 a.m., they scooped her up and whisked her away from us before she — or we — had time to tell them we’d changed our minds.

Then, one year ago tomorrow morning, at 7:21 a.m., Urchin had open-heart surgery.

Today, 364 days later, she is a healthy, vibrant child with a joie de vivre that consistently amazes me. She picks up worms and relocates spiders (though the fire ants are less fortunate). She reads real books. She swims like a fish. Her favorite food is pizza. She loves jewelry and high heels. She practices her handwriting every day, can bowl a mean game on the Wii and grows her own green beans and lettuce, both of which she eats.

And the best news of all, from her cardiologist about a month ago: “If I weren’t a heart doctor, I’d say this is a normal heart.”

And so it goes.

Tomorrow, we will celebrate gently. Some heart-shaped candy with her schoolmates, a special dinner and many hugs at home. We’ll talk about our fears from that time and how we feel now. And then we’ll call it a day.

I’d be lying if I said I haven’t been a bit weepy today. I’m doing my best to keep it together because even tears of joy are tears at work.

So that’s why I haven’t called you today (yes, you…) to thank you for all of the support and love and wisdom you gave to me during those five weeks of terror. But I do thank you, so very much.

For the prayers. The good thoughts. The kind words. The research. The contacts. The shoulder to cry on. The bottle-and-a-half of wine. The strength. And the smiles.

Urchin needed me and her daddy to make it through. We, in turn, needed you. And you were there, every step of the way.

Thank you, dear friend, for taking our hands and walking with us through the fear. We will never forget it, as long as we live.

Happy Heart Day to all of you.

With our whole hearts,

Urchin, Husband and bzh

(If you don't know the rest of the story, go here, here, here, here, and here.)

Can. Not. Wait.

2011-05-29T19:23:00.002-04:00

An ode to what will never be

2011-05-17T14:50:00.006-04:00

I never figured on having children. Not with a man, anyway.

After a disastrous practice marriage, in which I was happy for 17 minutes and miserable for the remainder of three years, I made the kind of promises we all make when we’re finally free of the pain.

Rule #1: Never again will I wed.

Rule #2: If I forget Rule #1, I won’t have kids. Kids make it too hard to leave.

The universe has an awesome sense of humor.

Seven years later, I met the love of my life. Two years after that, we married. And no one was more surprised when, a few months later, I was knocked up.

I was, of course, thrilled. I had considered more than once in my early 30s having a kid with an anonymous Harvard scholar who, according to the label, had blond hair, buns of steel, and a talent for learning foreign languages and playing classical music. No doubt he and I and the turkey baster would have made beautiful offspring.

Instead, I found my own handsome guy, with a PhD in math, a sweet disposition and a willingness to put up with my crap. Now I’d have a baby-daddy I could refer to by name.

It almost wasn’t fair how quickly I got pregnant. I was old and had been, until a year earlier, fairly ambivalent about having kids.

Turns out that’s as good as being 15 and from an impoverished neighborhood.

So, I had a child. And I love this child in a way I wasn’t aware was even possible. I’m still not entirely sure what to do with her, but it seems we haven’t yet screwed her up, so we’ll keep on keeping on.

Along the way, though, something surprising happened. Two things, actually.

First, I discovered, after a series of weirdo and scary health issues probably related to the parasitic relationship of mother and child-in-utero, that getting pregnant again would be incredibly foolish.

Second, I realized I desperately want another child. Desperately, as in: Brings me to tears every time I let myself think about it.

Fortunately, I don’t think about it much. I’ve come to terms with it enough to realize nothing good can come of that. At this point, it comes in waves that are sometimes years apart.

In the past few days, though, it’s hit me right between the eyes. Twice. Two little ones in close proximity for an extended time.

It is agony, dear reader, to be so close and know exactly what I'm missing — the smells, the smiles, the deep and astounding love that literally wraps you in warmth.

This longing leaves a physical ache in my soul unlike any I’ve ever felt. Its depth is infinite — its breadth, boundless. It can pull a sound from me with no effort at all, even in places where the release of that sound is entirely inappropriate.

Of course, I’m not the only one of us who’s known this feeling. And I realize my pain is no worse than yours or anyone’s. That gives me no comfort. The fact that anyone must bear it makes it hurt all the more.

A dear, dear friend of mine, whose wait for a baby spanned many years, once said through her tears: “If God doesn't want me to have a baby, why doesn't he take away my desire for it?”

Though her words broke my heart, and I did what I could to comfort her, I did not know her pain.

I do now. And I wonder the very same thing.

The one where she starts with a curse word

2011-05-13T21:17:00.003-04:00

The motherfucker was drinking Coke and watching porn?

Jeezus, they’re all the same, aren’t they?

By day they preach piety and pass judgment on the rest of us. By night, they get off on the very hospitalities and vices they claim to abhor.

You can almost set your watch by it.

The more they disdain the pleasures of the flesh, the more likely they are to be shtupping their secretary in the inner sanctum.

The more disgusted they are by homosexuality, the more likely they are to be traveling with a companion procured on youngstud.com.

The more they rail against pedophiles and bestiality, the more likely they are to love kids and puppies.

Anyone who’s taken Psych 101 knows this: That which we hate in ourselves we seek to demonize in others.

Blah, blah, blah.

Evil as he was, I think I expected him to be different. Without realizing it, I had ascribed to him a certain honor, a moral code, a deep principle or two.

And I assumed that when we finally caught him, he’d be as large in death as he was in life.

Not so much.

Never mind that he hid behind his wife as the SEALs closed in. Or that he eschewed the simplicity and piety of a cave and moved into a McMansion. Or that the Western comforts and customs he said dishonored god were at his fingertips every day of his last six years on Earth.

His cause was no greater. His conviction no stronger. His sacrifice no more profound.

He was a loser. A pathetic, desperate, horny loser whose message got a little more traction than most.

His followers must be so pissed off. THEY are living in caves, fighting jihad in his name. THEY are toiling under the twisted rules he set out for them. THEY are running from Uncle Sam and hiding under rocks and blowing themselves up.

And HE was drinking Coke and watching porn?

Holy war, indeed.

Respite, in white

2011-04-29T17:21:00.008-04:00

For a few glorious hours today, I forgot about earthquakes and bombs and suicides and hatred and birth certificates and unemployment and union-busting and carnival barkers and tornadoes and wars and poverty, and I reveled in the celebration of two people very much in love.

I watched as a young man so burdened by obligations and expectations showed his mettle and gentility, on his very own terms.

As a young woman, so confident and full of grace, proved herself more worthy than the traditions that have judged her for nigh on a decade.

As a mother and father saw their daughter marry the man of her dreams (who very obviously dreamt of her, too.)

As the military might of a sovereign nation stopped for a moment to pay tribute to one of its own.

As hats (mostly) ruled the day.

As an 85-year-old woman positively rocked the color yellow.

As a gorgeous young man read in front of 2 billion people and didn't miss a single line.

As a sister made it clear she is no also-ran.

As a designer redeemed her tortured friend and mentor in front of the whole world.

As a darling little girl covered her ears because the planes were too damn loud.

For a few glorious hours, I was spellbound by the pomp and pageantry of a thousand-year-old tradition exquisitely molded and reshaped by a gorgeous young couple.

My stomach fluttered as he saw her for the first time and could barely harness his glee. "You're beautiful," he whispered to her. And she is.

I giggled as his younger brother struggled to maintain the decorum that has struggled to contain him throughout much of his life.

I marveled at the gentlemen Diana’s boys have become — how they seem to have retained the very best of her.

For a few glorious hours today, I joined the world, so torn apart in so many ways, as it cheered the love and dreams of one young couple in England.

And we remembered what it’s like to be filled with hope and joy.

A perfect 10

2011-04-20T15:56:00.006-04:00

This, dear reader, is Nadia Comanechi's GRANDdaughter.

Two thoughts about that:

1. Have you ever seen anything so captivating?

2. I am so freakin’ old.

Happy Wednesday, my friend.

A preview...

2011-04-16T17:01:00.002-04:00

Bibbity-bobbity-boo

2011-04-15T15:09:00.005-04:00

This will probably get me kicked out of the sisterhood, but I’m a sucker for a girl-gets-her-prince story.

I like it best, of course, when she’s happy, fulfilled, self-confident and well-adjusted BEFORE he sweeps her off her feet. When she chooses him as much as he chooses her. When she’d rather walk away than play the dutiful wife.

But a good girl-marries-boy-who-just-happens-to-be-a-prince story captures my imagination every time.

Perhaps you've heard there’s one of these stories brewing across the pond, where a beautiful, self-assured woman is about to marry a handsome prince, a man with whom she’s been in love for almost a decade. When she does, her life will change in an instant. She’ll become a real-live, honest-to-God, tiara-wearing, glass-slipper-shod princess. At that moment, she’ll send a dignified, unspoken “fuck you” to the kids who bullied her, the girls who shunned her, the media who taunted her.

I know there are some who believe this wedding to be a complete and utter waste of time and energy on this side of the Atlantic.

“Didn’t we fight a war so we wouldn’t have to pay attention to this sort of thing?” asks John Avlon of The Daily Beast.

And there are some who believe it perpetuates the Cinderella myth that if you’re beautiful and sweet enough, a wonderful man will sweep you off your feet, wipe away your troubles and make all of your dreams come true.

Rubbish, I say. Right before I say, “Lighten up, Frances.” It’s a wedding. Not a commentary on the plight of women. It’s a gorgeous, expensive spectacle paid for by people who can afford to fete their children in this way. It’s about a girl and a boy who started out friends, fell in love and weathered the storm before deciding to walk down the aisle.

If we must get philosophical, ponder this: William’s mother, Lady Diana, embodied the Cinderella myth. She was plucked from her titled family and smallish hometown, betrothed to a man she barely knew (who, by the way, was in love with someone else) and swept away by the royal machine that desperately wanted an heir.

She had no idea what she was getting into. We fell in love with her because she looked like she needed us to – a beautiful, doe-eyed girl caught in headlights.

That story ended badly, if you’ll recall. And William appears to have learned its lesson. Today, eight years after meeting his princess, he’s marrying a woman who has lived the “dream,” knows just what she’s up against, and loves him enough to do it anyway.

So, what message does it send to our daughters when we fawn all over this princess and her groom?

Love is grand, warts and all? Romance feels good and right? You don’t have to speak the last word to have the last word? It’s as easy to fall in love with a prince as it is to fall in love with a pauper? Wait eight years before you marry him?

All of them work. And none makes me feel like I’ve doomed my daughter to a life as second-fiddle.

They say 2 billion people around the world will watch Kate and William’s nuptials. I’ll be one of them, dear reader. Up at 3:30 a.m., tea and crumpets for breakfast, caught up in the charm and romance.

Feel free to sleep in. Or roll your eyes. You won’t hurt my feelings.

I’ll have my eyes on the bride.

One of the classics

2011-04-13T13:40:00.007-04:00

I always wanted to be famous. And now, I am.

Sure, famous may be a wee bit of a stretch, but I don’t know what you call someone whose moniker is contained in the title of a newly composed and recently premiered piece of classical music.

So I’m going with famous.

You might remember that in mid-January last year, I got an email from a Canadian composer named Stacey Brown. Her request was for permission to use a post I'd written in April 2008 as the basis for a new composition.

At that point, she hadn’t yet decided whether to use my words. A Google search had brought her to them. It was a vastly different result than she expected and one she needed to process. She wanted to know whether I‘d grant permission before, as she put it, “I fall in love with them.”

Of course I told her yes. I mean, who wouldn’t want a bunch of well-heeled Canadian classical music fans to know she’s a depressive sort who sometimes goes off her meds for no good reason?

Seriously.

Anyway, the other day I heard from Stacey:

Hi there,

It’s the composer from Montreal who was inspired by your April 10, 2008, blog post.

The piece I wrote ended up being titled “Five Stages of Insanity According to bzh April 10, 2008” and as planned, the five short variations that make up the piece were subtitled with the list from your post.

Here is the English translation of the note that appeared in the programme of the premiere, which was on March 8, 2011:

“Five Stages Of Insanity According to bzh April 10, 2008” -- for flute, viola da gamba and harpsichord
Within a suite of five variations, each miniature evokes a different stage of insanity as humorously described by American blogger bzh. As such, the title is a reference to the blog post from which the variations’ subtitles are taken, with a nod to the author and to the date of the post in question. From wordplay-inspired techniques for viola da gamba, to a suspended atmosphere juxtaposed with tantrum-like moments, to sighs and lamentations becoming increasingly melodramatic, to the frenzy of the final variation, the variations are inspired by the image-rich subtitles and are elaborated with the “folia” theme at the heart of each.

So, I just wanted to thank you so much for letting me use your words after my first random message on your blog. The piece was a hit and I got an opportunity before the concert to be interviewed in front of the audience, so I was able to talk about finding my inspiration. A recording should be forthcoming, as soon as the ensemble gets it to me.

All the best,
sb

The concert was on Tuesday March 8, 2011 — International Women’s Day — and titled Les Folles Alliées – Variations on La Folia.

The piece was performed by Duo Fiolûtröniq — Cléo Palacio-Quintin on flute and Elin Söderström on viola da gamba. They were joined for this concert by Katelyn Clark on the harpsichord in the Chapelle historique du Bon-Pasteur in Montreal.

Here’s the poster, which I will endeavor to get and frame:

I was beyond flattered when Stacey asked permission to use my words. That she did, and included my moniker in the name of the piece honors me in a way I never imagined. I’ll let you know when the recording is available on her website.

In the meantime, I’ve begun to look into a trip to Montreal, though I wonder whether it’s safe for me to visit, you know, with my name out there and all. The paparazzi are probably swarming.

Even so, I’ve come to think of Montreal as sort of a second home. And I think my fans deserve to see my face from time to time. Don’t you?

Well... don’t you?

:-)

Your famous friend,

bzh

Reverse psychology

2011-04-06T19:44:00.001-04:00

“In my next life I want to live my life backwards. You start out dead and get that out of the way. Then you wake up in an old people’s home feeling better every day. You get kicked out for being too healthy, go collect your pension, and then, when you start work, you get a gold watch and a party on your first day. You work for 40 years until you’re young enough to enjoy your retirement. You party, drink alcohol, and are generally promiscuous, then you are ready for high school. You then go to primary school, you become a kid, you play. You have no responsibilities, you become a baby until you are born. And then you spend your last 9 months floating in luxurious spa-like conditions with central heating and room service on tap, larger quarters every day and then voila! You finish off as an orgasm!”

— Woody Allen

Deliver us from evil

2011-04-04T20:06:00.001-04:00

Dear. God. In. Heaven.

And again...

2011-04-04T17:03:00.000-04:00

Double sigh.

A rough spell

2011-03-26T12:13:00.002-04:00

I won a third-grade spelling bee on the word “pneumonia.”

It was a fluke. Well, not a fluke, exactly. It’s just that if life were fair, Susan Montgomery would have won. She studied for that bee like she was working on getting into Harvard (which I suspect she eventually did). Flash cards, pop quizzes, hours and hours of of memorization, only to lose to the girl whose only preparation was to live with parents who randomly threw out words for her to spell from age 4 on.

Connecticut. Accommodate. Cemetery. Diarrhea. Prejudice. Receive. I learned them all in random fashion, while I was drying the dishes, walking the dog, helping fold the sheets, eating lunch, whatever.

I knew how to spell “infectious mononucleosis” when I was 7. I learned it when my kid brother came down with it at age 3, and he's four years younger than I.

I used to love long car rides (long, as in Florida-to-Minnesota long) because we'd damn near cover half the dictionary. The game would go on for two or three hours at a time before my dad, the driver and word thrower, needed a break. (Or we spotted a Dairy Queen, which effectively stopped time on my family's car trips.)

For me, spelling was indigenous. A part of my fiber. A piece of my soul.

So when Mrs. Leach, my third grade teacher, announced a county wide spelling bee, I figured I'd give it a shot. I mean, why not enter a spelling bee? Spelling was practically a sport in my house.

Who knew what a renegade I was, entering without having the faintest idea how to behave once I did?

I didn't study the word list every night because I didn't know there was a word list. I didn't make flash cards because, well, I was in third grade. I didn't break out in hives the day of the bee. In fact, if I broke a sweat it was left over from diving practice that Saturday morning.

I was loose as a goose. Cool as a cucumber. Definitely not tied up in knots like Susan Montgomery.

When they called my name, I stood up, walked to the podium, spelled the word they gave me, and sat back down.

"Debtor" was first, I remember that.

The ones in the middle were a mish-mash.

Finally, Susan flubbed “pneumonia.” I won by spelling it correctly.

It’s the last spelling bee I ever entered. My tastes turned to more athletic pursuits in the rest of elementary school; to cheerleading and boys in middle school; and generally bad behavior after that.

I hadn't thought about that spelling bee in years before this week. This week, it was top of mind. In the spelling bee, I got the best of pneumonia. This week, pneumonia got the best of me.

I hope you're well, dear reader. And no worries about me. I'm on the mend. Slowly, but surely, on the mend.

Peace to you.

On tiptoe

2011-03-22T09:28:00.004-04:00

Most of the tulips in this world are grown in the Netherlands — a rainbow of more than 3 billion of them each year.

We have about 75 of them in our yard, and they’re beginning to bloom. Urchin discovered the first one yesterday — a purple near the front door. You’d have thought she found gold.

Tulips are among my favorite flowers, mostly because they start blooming before spring has really taken hold... a promise of things to come.

Happy Tuesday, dear reader.

Words from the good doctor

2011-03-21T21:43:00.003-04:00

“Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.”
— Dr. Seuss

And, again

2011-03-11T11:30:00.000-05:00

Sigh.

The end is nigh…

2011-03-09T14:03:00.005-05:00

As if there weren’t enough to worry about.

Turmoil and bloodshed in the Middle East. Workers vs. their government in Wisconsin. Renewed attacks on equal rights for women and gays. Charlie Sheen’s status as an Adonis DNA-having, tiger-blood-drinking, totally sober warlock.

Now we have to worry about another potential import from the Amazon rain forest — the cordyceps fungi. And this one, dear reader, is a doozy.

Here’s how it works:

Pretend you’re an ant, going about your day, gathering food, talking with friends, tidying the nest and such, when you start to feel a little funny.

Before you know it, you're actin’ a-fool, weaving about strangely, communicating in jibberish, contorting your body in weird and uncomfortable ways. This, of course, eventually catches the attention of your family, friends and coworkers, who become alarmed.

It isn’t long before they realize there’s no hope. It’s got you. And if they’re not careful, it’ll get them, too. They gather in a mound and draw straws to see who will drive you from the nest.

After you’re carried away by old friends to a place far from anything you know, your brain, without consulting your mind, forces your body, over which you have no control, to climb a tree — up, up, up, until you reach a branch or stem sufficiently high to wreak havoc during phase II of this strange and terrifying possession.

Despite your attempts to regain control over your movement, you’re forced to wobble your way to the perfect spot. When you find it, your jaw clamps onto a leaf, stem or branch, and you stop moving. You spend the last few moments of your life wondering what the fuck is going on. Finally, mercifully, you die, frozen in time.

Not long afterward, the cordyceps fungi makes itself known by bursting from your head and growing freakishly big and horrifying. After a few days, your frozen carcass looks like something from an alien world, as the fungus prepares to fling its spores into the wind, hoping to land on another unsuspecting creature who will be similarly driven mad before he dies and the cycle repeats itself.

Oh sure, this may be a story about ants in the Amazon rain forest. But don’t be fooled, dear reader.

First they come for the ants.

Happy Wednesday, my friends.

Watch this, if you dare.

Freaking awesome

2011-03-06T20:03:00.004-05:00

Urchin is her mother’s daughter. Not only does she look and act like me much of the time, she bears many of my crosses, as well.

For instance, she has keratosis pilaris — the medical name for tiny bumps on the skin of her arms and legs. They don’t hurt, they don’t itch, they just are, for about 50 percent of the population. She will hate them when she’s a teen-ager who wants to wear sleeveless shirts, and we will help her to minimize them. Until then, she says, “It's just how I am.”

She also has a touch of amblyopia — a lazy eye. She has a good ophthalmologist who can barely detect it, so it's nothing to worry about. But you can see it when she’s tired.

And the big Mommy-cross she will bear is her weight. She was born petite and stayed petite for several years. In the past two, though, she’s grown into a strong, healthy, regular-size child who’s a fair bit heavier than the charts say she should be.

She’s not fat, this kid. She’s solid. Athletic. Active. And almost clinically obese.

No worries, dear reader. No one’s freaking out about Urchin’s weight. We try to eat healthfully and to encourage healthy eating. We ask her often to listen to her tummy. We pack her lunch with good stuff. We eat a lot of beans and fruit and veggies in our house, disguised though they sometimes may be.

But no one’s freaking out about Urchin’s weight. Quite the contrary, in fact. I am so hell-bent on NOT freaking out about Urchin’s weight, that you could say I’m freaking out about not freaking out about Urchin’s weight.

Sigh.

My mother, whom I love very much, spent so much of my childhood freaking out about my weight that it took 7 years of therapy to unravel it. I was active, athletic, had lots of friends and boyfriends. In the fact, the only person who ever seemed the least bit concerned about my weight was my mom. Well, and me.

You know, it’s ~~infuriating~~ funny. When I look at pictures of me from my childhood — every stage of my childhood — I can find no reason to worry about my weight. Even if I could, I can assure you that any damage the extra weight might have done would have paled in comparison to what freaking out about it did. In fact, I am living proof, right now, that freaking about a little girl’s weight does nothing but make her obese in adulthood. Period. Paragraph.

So my active, athletic, adorable Urchin will eat what she needs to fuel her body without having to worry about her Mommy commenting on it. She will run and jump and tumble and bike and scoot. She will grow up believing, as we do, that her body is strong and beautiful, regardless of its shape.

And anyone who freaks out about it will have to deal with me.

More randomosity

2011-03-05T16:00:00.009-05:00

I did it again, dear reader. I let too much time go by and now I have so much to say that I can’t figure out how to say it. Or which of it? How much of it? Any of it? All of it?

It’s in heaps and piles in my mind, rustling around, tucking into each crevice, driving me batshit.

So here we go again, in no particular order…

… There are a few things about adulthood that bum me out. The biggest is that so many of us seem to believe, and consequently behave as if, our dreams don’t much matter anymore.

Whether they’re audacious dreams — to run for office, travel the world, play in a rock roll band — or less daunting dreams — to learn to belly dance, or play the piano, or paint — we so often tell ourselves the time has passed for such folly. Who has time? Besides, belly dancing? In this body? Please.

Enter MandyJune, a dear friend who struggled mightily after the death of her best friend, finally allowing her searing pain to push her to follow her dream. A few days ago, after a year of schooling and a really hard test, her license arrived in the mail.

She’s a massage therapist. She's also a writer, editor and dog walker, for now. But those things just allow her to be what she really is and always has been.

A massage therapist. A licensed, employed massage therapist. And a damn-Sam good one.

I am exceedingly proud of her. She jumped and the net appeared.

I, on the other hand, am still standing at the precipice, where I’ve been for years now.

How about you, dear reader? Where do you stand?

… A few months back, I spent a delightful evening and sleepover with J., a best friend from college. We hadn’t seen or heard from each other in years, and without missing a beat, we picked up right where we left off. In fact, around about 3 a.m., we finally had to make a pact to STOP TALKING and go to sleep. Even then, the last time I looked at the clock, it was 4:14 a.m.

There are many reasons why I love J.

She validated for me, in my first two days of college, that it’s OK to stand up for what you believe in, even if it rocks the boat.

She showed me you can be straightforward and honest without being mean and destructive.

She introduced me to the Beatles and backgammon.

She challenged the beliefs that grew out of my military upbringing without making me feel like an idiot.

She showed me how to challenge and modify them myself.

And most of all, she taught me to think, really think, about what I believe.

So J. cusses in front of her gorgeous, pre-teen, straight-A, cheerleader daughters. Uses the a-word, the s-word, the f-word. Not all the time, of course. But when she’s moved to.

Here’s her reasoning: Using those words in everyday life strips them of their power. Exposing her girls to such language douses it with water and turns it limp.

Secondarily, it also allows J. to be who she is: A woman who cusses sometimes.

Before you fire off comments about what a horrible mother you think my friend J. is, consider this. Her girls don’t cuss. They’re respectful, sweet girls who don’t cuss for the same reason they don’t drink wine or stay up all night.

They’re too young.

I make no judgment about J.’s decision to cuss in front of her girls. Instead, I try to follow her process for making such decisions. Conventional wisdom is one data point. But it shouldn’t take the place of your own thoughts.

… I’m reading a fascinating, terrifying book called “Nurture Shock: New Thinking About Children.”

Call it “Freakonomics” for parents.

It basically turns everything I thought I knew about rearing a child on its ear, by demonstrating, with solid, juried research and statistics, that conventional wisdom doesn’t know its ass from its elbow when it comes to raising kids. And while I’m not usually one to read this shit — let alone buy into it — the findings are so solid and alarming that I just can’t blow them off.

Do you spend a lot of time telling your child how smart she is, and how awesome it is that she’s so smart, in an effort to build her self-esteem? If so, be prepared for her to grow up afraid to try new things for fear that she, the super smart one, might fail.

Are you thrilled that your kindergartener or first-grader has tested into gifted classes? If so, no worries if she‘s not in the 27 percent who’ll still meet the criteria for “gifted” by the third grade. She’ll get to keep the label until she graduates from high school, even if it doesn’t fit. Oh, and if your kid missed the boat back in kindergarten or first grade, don’t count on her being tested again, even though she may be part of the 73 percent of kids whose real IQ doesn’t show up until third grade. Late-bloomer? Tough shit.

Do you work hard not to note racial differences and inequities among people, focusing instead on how we’re all the same and it’s what’s inside that counts. Do you ask your child to pipe down when he takes note of someone’s skin color or ethnic heritage? Or shush him when he points out that Sam is black and his hair feels funny? If so, prepare to raise a child who believes race is such a taboo topic that we should never speak of it. And a child who knows better than to go outside his own kind.

I’m only half done with this book, and I’ve had to talk myself off the ledge a couple of times. I’m fascinated, though, by the sheer amount of research being done on child-rearing. And how many of the findings a) run counter to everything I know; and b) make perfect, freakin’ sense.

… I like to cook. I cook often. People tell me I cook well.

I don’t consider myself a chef. I reserve that title for people whose cooking amazes me with its creativity and audacity.

Where my greatest feat of culinary courage was serving a chili I’d never made before at this year’s Super Bowl party, my new chef-crush regularly serves meat impaled on a flaming oak branch still adorned with its leaves, a delicacy designed to evoke the sight and smell of an old-fashioned autumn leaf-burning.

His Wikipedia entry calls Grant Achatz one of the leaders in “molecular gastronomy” — the fancy name for progressive cuisine. He studied at the Culinary Institute of America and worked at two of the world’s top restaurants — The French Laundry and Trio — before opening his own in Chicago in 2005. Just two years after opening, Alinea became one of 16 five-star restaurants in the world.

One menu. Twenty-three courses. $195 per person, not including drinks. Plan on three hours, unless you want to linger.

Achatz’s next venture — Next — will be even more dramatic. It will feature a single, multicourse menu from a specific place and time in world history. So not just French cuisine or early French cuisine but the French countryside cuisine of spring 1939.

This is all the more amazing when you consider the great irony of Achatz’s life. In the summer of 2007, he was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer of the mouth.

Of the mouth, dear reader.

Standard treatment: Cut out the tongue and replace it with a flap of muscle from the arm or leg, which will neither move nor taste.

Death would have come easier to Achatz. So he sought and found a different answer. And after months of grueling chemo and radiation (which burned his tongue and esophagus so badly that they peeled in sheets), the cancer was gone.

Along with his sense of taste.

And while he went to work every day of treatment, it would be a year before he could taste his creations again. Through it all, his work never lost its magic.

I stand in awe of Grant Achatz and his work, and I want to experience it firsthand.

Now, I’m married to a wonderful man. But this isn’t his thing. At. All.

So here’s a question: Do any of you know anyone, anyone at all, who’d be interested in meeting me in Chicago for the meal of a lifetime?

Just say the word and I’ll make reservations.

That’s it for now, dear reader. There’s more rattling around in my noggin’, but it’ll have to wait for another burst of energy.

Peace to you.

C is for complain

2011-02-22T03:09:00.002-05:00

And Jessica does it again...

Sweet, comic Valentine

2011-02-14T15:39:00.004-05:00

Oh, how this melts my heart.

Happy Valentine's Day, dear reader.

With oodles of love,

bzh

Is that what you call it?

2011-02-10T10:14:00.004-05:00

Early in my teens, I had a dear friend we’ll call Jim. Our families lived on the same military base in Germany, and while we both dated and went with lots of other people, Jim and I had a friendship that endured them all. It was a remarkably mature relationship for the 8th grade. It lasted until I was a sophomore in college.

Jim’s parents were über-religious and were terribly strict to Jim’s sister Kim, who was one of those girls my mother called “fast.” And fast, she was. She hung with bad boys, older boys, and always seemed to be in some kind of trouble. The more trouble she got into, the tighter they held the reins, until finally you couldn’t tell which was the cause and which was the effect.

(It’s funny, they were oppressive with Kim, but not with Jim, who at 14 roamed our base in the wee — and I mean WEE — hours of the morning delivering the newspaper. It was part of what made him so cool to hang with — he always had money and he had access to all sorts of cool places, including the Officer’s Club bar, when no on else was around. But I digress.)

Of course, while they detested and prayed about their daughter’s bad behavior, that seemed to be their sole plan for dealing with it. I wonder if it ever crossed their minds to teach her what she needed to know to keep the consequences to a minimum. You know what happened next, of course. She got knocked up before she finished high school, something none of the daughters of less-pious families I knew ever did.

Kim never did straighten out, best I can tell. Her little girl was adopted by her grandparents and raised as their child. And though my memory’s s little fuzzy, I seem to remember that the cycle of teen pregnancy continued in her high school years.

Jim, on the other hand, finished high school a top student and went to the same university I did. We spent a good amount of time together, making sure to stay in touch and get together regularly. Until, he met the woman of his dreams in our sophomore year.

From that point forward, J. was not allowed to be alone with me, even if we were in public. So insecure was his fiancée that she wouldn’t allow two old friends a farewell meal the day he left school to go home and marry her. I went to the wedding and tried to be happy, but couldn't help but wonder what it all would mean for my friend.

Years went by and Jim and his bride had four children. They were in the military and then not, finally settling in their hometown in the part of Florida where very large churches abound. He reached out to me on several occasions. Once, I returned his call and got his bride on the phone. She was stunned at my call. I learned why the next day.

“Hey, don’t call me at home, OK?” Jim said when we finally touched base the next day. “It makes Jane mad.”

“But YOU called me,” I said.

“I know, but she didn’t know we’re in touch.”

“So, you’re lying to her?”

“If that’s what you want to call it.”

That’s when it struck me.

That’s not what I want to call it. It's what it is. And that’s what the whole hate church, holier-than-thou charade is based upon, isn’t it? As long as you pretend it’s not happening or you lie about doing it, God’ll never know. Right?

Works like a charm, until it doesn’t.

I am in roundabout touch with Jim these days. I just learned that his pious life has produced another child out of wedlock. His daughter, a beautiful, smart, teen-age girl with her whole life ahead of her, apparently didn’t get the memo to save herself for marriage.

Jim is acting the proud grandpappy to another miracle from God. I’m sure he never expected to find himself in this position, his good, God-fearing daughter sullied so. But he sure isn’t going to say that too loud.

Instead, he’ll rationalize it as God’s will and work on passing down his plan for talking the talk and then ducking out the back door.

If that’s what you want to call it.

QOTD

2011-02-09T09:45:00.003-05:00

“Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so, too.”

— Voltaire

What, me worry?

2011-02-07T20:24:00.005-05:00

The other day, I read a beautiful post on a blog I love about something that eats at my soul.

Worry.

I’ll get to why in a minute. First, meet my friend Puck, a woman who looks at things so differently from me that I often wonder whether we’re standing at the same window.

The best thing about Puck, whom I met a lifetime ago and about whom there are many great things, is that she teaches me things about myself that both infuriate and fascinate me. A year or so ago, she did it again. And it changed the way I look at myself.

After a particularly emotional blog post, she wondered whether it’s hard to live in my skin because I am so deeply affected by random things that happen in this world. (My words. Hers were far more eloquent.)

She reminded me that I cried after Columbine. That I felt sucker-punched when Princess Diana died. That other people’s suffering, no matter how remote, makes me physically ache.

It’s true. I’m not always able to divorce myself from things that happen to strangers far away. It’s not that I’m afraid or hoping they’ll happen to me. I’m genuinely saddened or happy that they happened to anyone.

Sadly, one of the downsides of living in my skin is that I don’t get to pick and choose which emotions or experiences rub me raw. It just happens, and I find myself overwhelmed with feelings I can’t explain about things I can’t change.

Try as I might to invoke the Serenity Prayer, the fucker fails me when I need it most. Then worry sets in. And before I know it, O Fortuna! starts playing in the background.

Often, my worry is real and tangible.

I worry whether my little girl is getting enough exercise.

I worry whether her heart is really all better.

I worry that she doesn’t eat vegetables or seafood.

I worry that the fuse of the mother/daughter teen years cluster bomb has already been lit.

This kind of worry niggles at my mind. But it doesn’t consume my brain. That happens with the kind of worry that has real bogeymen and no answers.

I worry my daughter will inherit a world with no polar or panda bears in it.

I worry that the oil will run out before we have a suitable alternative.

I worry we won’t believe we need a suitable alternative until the oil runs out.

I worry that evil will triumph over good because, as my friend Jay says, good is stupid.

I worry that one man, one vote will destroy my country because haters and stupid people vote in ridiculous numbers while the rest of us stay home and do laundry.

I worry that my daughter will never walk down Broadway because the aforementioned stupid people (and their lawmakers) will wait to acknowledge climate change until Manhattan is actually under water.

I worry that our societal attempts to raise the lowest to mediocre will have the exactly inverse affect on the highest.

I worry that kids will grow up believing that “Speak truth to power” means talk back to your elders.

I worry that we’re so focused on the head scarf that we forget to look for the brain.

I worry that war will become our answer for every tough question.

I worry there will be no reliable replacement for Stephen Hawking after he dies.

I worry someone in my family will be killed by a stray bullet in a public place.

Go ahead, chuckle. Hell, laugh out loud. Fire off your silent mind waves begging me to get serious. Then go back and read that list. Does anything on it seem all that far-fetched?

My thoughts, exactly.

The one where she just starts typing...

2011-02-02T12:09:00.004-05:00

God. I don't even know where to begin.

It’s been a month and a half since I last wrote. A month and a half of many goings-on that I couldn’t squeeze into a dozen posts, much less the one that gets the spigot flowing again.

It hasn’t been a particularly good month and a half on this end. And yet, I can’t really point to why that’s so. General malaise. That’s what I blame. Well, that and snow and Sarah Palin. And not necessarily in that order.

Anyway... I’m back. Not roaring back. More of a whimper. But back nonetheless. And we must catch up, in no particular order.

… Before June 1, I’d never known a child who had major surgery. Today, I know three: My own, whose open-heart surgery was eight months ago; the other two of them had surgery on the same day in January. One, in Boston, on her heart. One, in New York, on her brain. Both of them brave and angel-kissed. Both now cleared to get on with life. Amen, and so it goes...

… I watched the president’s State of the Union speech with my parents. In the same room as my ultra-conservative, tea-drinking parents. And nary a cross word was exchanged. Dare I say we actually agreed on a few things? You know, there’s been a lot of cold weather in the U.S. over the past few weeks. Might it be the prelude to hell freezing over?

… The big news is that I quit school. Before I even started. The reasons are myriad. The biggest is this: It was too ambitious, dear reader. Too ambitious to think that I could, at this point in my life, do it. I am beyond sad. Heartbroken, actually. And completely at peace with my decision.

… My daughter reached many milestones whilst we were apart. She’s just about reading. She’s graduated to the big-girl gymnastics class. She can bat better than most boys and throw better than I can. The most memorable of her milestones, though, prompted me to call my own mother and apologize. For I now know how it feels when the child they pulled from your loins and placed in your arms, who’s taught you the deepest possible meaning for love, who takes your breath away even when you’re so angry you could sell her to the circus, tells you she hates you.

… For the flyers among you, know this: I’ve become that person. In fact, I’m pissed off at you, right now, for not turning off and stowing your cell phone when the flight attendant tells you to. The first time the flight attendant tells you to. For God’s sake. Not only am I afraid that we might crash because of your need to know whassup with your friend Beavis. I want to know why the rules don’t apply to you, punk. What makes YOU so special, huh?

… By the way, I’m also the one shooting daggers into the back of your head as you shove your smaller carry-on into the overhead compartment while the rest of us use the space under the seat in front of us. I’m banking on the premise that karma will lose your luggage on the way to heaven. Or that other place.

… Oh, I’ve also become the one who knows exactly how to raise your child. And you’re doing it ALL wrong.

… As many of you know, I had a practice marriage. Not very much good came out of it, save for an excellent recipe for egg salad and the teachings of Uncle Marc. One of Marc’s rules: “Every so often, clean out your closet.” It’s a rule to be followed both literally and figuratively. Both are immensely cleansing.

It’s time once again, dear reader, for me to clean out my closet — to take a deep look at the relationships in my life and prune those that don’t add anything to my soul. No worries, though. You’re not on the list. Pinkie swear.

… Long before I was a Gleek, American Idol was my sole guilty pleasure. From Season 1 and Kelly Clarkson through Season, um, 11? And that guy from, uh, Milwaukee, was it? Anyway... I’m a fan. Even when I don’t have time to be.

So, Idol’s back. And it took about 5 minutes to prove that reports of its demise were WAY premature. Randy’s captured some of Simon's swagger, the part that isn’t mean-spirited.

Jennifer Lopez, who typically gets on my nerves, is gorgeous and spot-on. She’s hilarious and really, really smart. Who knew?

And Steven Tyler. Oh how he melts my butter. Not only do I want to run my fingers through his very clean, very thick, very yummy hair. I want to sit and, well, never mind.

Save it, haters. You don't need to like him — or Idol — to be my friend. In fact, better that you don’t. That way I don’t feel compelled to share.

Anyway, that’s what I got for now. It’s not much, but it should be enough to reopen the door and get the juices flowing.

Stay tuned for more regularly scheduled programming.

Peace.

Coming soon…

2011-01-25T10:43:00.001-05:00

I promise.

Pinkie swear.

Double pinkie swear.

With sugar on top.

Stand by.

Put one foot in front of the other…

2011-01-01T20:03:00.003-05:00

“Do the difficult things while they are easy and do the great things while they are small. A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.”
— Lao Tzu, Chinese philosopher

“What saves a man is to take a step. Then another step.”
— C.S. Lewis, author

“A little simplification would be the first step toward rational living, I think.”
— Eleanor Roosevelt, First Lady

“To destroy is always the first step in any creation.”
— e.e. cummings, poet

“The indispensable first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: decide what you want.”
— Ben Stein, comedian

“Don’t be afraid to take a big step if one is indicated. You can’t cross a chasm in two small jumps.”
— David Lloyd George, British politician

“The difference between a hero and a coward is one step sideways.”
— Gene Hackman, actor

“The world will step aside for nearly anyone who has the courage of his of her opinions.”
— George Weinberg, psychologist

“I don’t look to jump over 7-foot bars; I look around for 1-foot bars that I can step over.”
— Warren Buffett

So wise, all of them.

Welcome to 2011, dear reader. May your year and mine be filled with steps forward.

Thought for the day

2010-12-31T08:36:00.003-05:00

“We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.”
— Plato

Farewell, Elizabeth

2010-12-07T20:08:00.004-05:00

I find it fascinating that so many of us feel it necessary to bash John Edwards at the passing of Elizabeth, his estranged wife.

She would have hated it, methinks.

She wasn’t that woman, the one we feel so sorry for. She wasn’t interested in that role. It didn’t fit her. At all.

Elizabeth Edwards was a strong, feisty woman who, despite the crap sandwich life served to her, came out smelling like a rose. She took a whole bunch of heat — from him, from us, from just about everywhere — and she never let us see her sweat.

She was a lawyer, an activist, a mother, an author, a dreamer, a fighter and a living, breathing role model. She shepherded her family through the unfathomable pain of losing a child. She loved her husband when he was nothing, and helped him become far more than he was capable of being on his own. She faced death with dignity and grace, and never once accepted the pity we tried to heap upon her.

She was amazing in her own right — eventually outliving her husband on the national stage she helped to set for him. And yet, what we cling to is the salacious story of a woman scorned, left home to nurse her wounds and illness while her husband stepped out.

News of her death hit me like a sucker punch. I wasn’t prepared to lose her. I can only imagine how her children must feel. She was too young, too smart, too important to women like me to die so young.

As the days progress, I will struggle to shake off the stories of infidelity, and stay focused on the Elizabeth Edwards I came to respect immensely: The woman who so loved her husband that she truly believed. The woman whose journey through the loss of a child left an indelible mark of pain behind her startling blue eyes. The woman who gave a voice to those whose isn’t audible enough to make a difference.

And a woman who, in the face of public betrayal and humiliation, never lost her sense of purpose or place.

She is the Elizabeth Edwards I will endeavor to remember as the coverage of her life and death turns into a feeding frenzy. I hope you’ll join me.

In or out?

2010-11-22T11:55:00.000-05:00

Jessica does it again.

Wild about Harry…

2010-11-15T14:58:00.004-05:00

The dream dies

2010-11-05T13:28:00.006-04:00

It’s taken me almost a week to admit it, but a little piece of me died last Saturday night.

Several years ago, as my friends will attest, I took a second swing through puberty. In addition to some fairly boy-crazy actions that I won’t go into, my musical tastes turned to boy bands and pop tarts. The journey reignited a lifelong desire for long blond hair, a flat tummy and some taut and perky ta-tas. For a girl who did some of her growing up in Florida, and more of her growing up in Texas, there's something tantalizing about a gorgeous, leggy blonde. And I’ve always wanted to be one.

Bad.

Once I even acknowledged — to my coworkers, no less — that I’d have traded my last year on Earth to the devil if he’d grant me one year (in the early ’00s) to live as Britney Spears.

(Take your time. I’ll wait while that sinks in.)

OK, so I am blond. I have legs, a tummy and ta-tas. Sadly, none of them have ever fit the dream. A few years back I promised myself I’d buy some of each if I didn’t eventually grow (or shrink) them organically. I’ve even priced the package and come to terms with the risks.

I’m in, man. In like Flynn. Well, I was, until last Saturday night.

There I sat at the Carrie Underwood concert, my arm intertwined with Husband’s and my heart full of love. Throughout the evening (a dynamite show, by the way), the cameraman kept focusing his lens on gorgeous, leggy blondes with great cleavage. And believe you me, there are plenty of them at a Carrie Underwood concert. Finding one to flash up on screen is like shooting fish in a barrel. A teensy-weensy barrel.

Anyway... every time a beautiful blonde showed on the JumboTron, I smiled at her reaction. Eventually, Husband noticed, too, and we shared a joke about the horndog in charge of shooting the show. I spent nearly as much time watching for the blondes I aspire to be as I did watching Billy Currington, the hunka-hunka who opened for Carrie.

About two minutes after hunka left the stage, the cameraman found yet another gorgeous blonde in the crowd. As she flashed her pearly whites on the jumbo screen, I looked down at my dark jeans, Dansko clogs and teal shirt, and reality bit.

I am never gonna be her.

I could lose 50 pounds, buy 12 inches of hair, have lipo for hours and pay for DDs, and I'm still gonna be a middle-aged mom with a flat ass, wide calves and crows feet. I’ll still be stiff when I get up off the floor. I’ll still be bitchy when I haven’t had enough sleep. I’ll still fall asleep after two glasses of wine. And I’ll still be in bed at 10 p.m. on a rockin’ Friday night.

I won’t lie: The realization hurt. I’ve wanted to be a gorgeous blonde since 4th grade, when Robin Davis moved into my neighborhood. She was my archetype and I’ve yearned to be her ever since. Sometimes so much it was painful. Sad, isn’t it?

In the past decade, I’ve worked very hard to be able to say, without lying, that am happy with who I am these days. I love myself, I love my family, my life is beautiful. And while it’s not easy to give up on a dream, it is time.

The Blond Bombshell has sailed, my friends. And I’m still standing on the docks.

Go here, read this

2010-11-05T12:01:00.003-04:00

If you don’t have “Indexed” bookmarked, you should. Like with this, she makes me think every day.

On Juan

2010-10-26T21:45:00.002-04:00

A regular reader asks:

“How come you haven’t given us your opinion of the Juan Williams situation? You’ve never been afraid to wade into messes like this before. What gives?”

Truth is, I haven’t because I haven’t had the energy. I’ve been busy caring for myself, reconnecting with old friends and trying not to get too irritated with the world in general.

But given that this is the third time someone has asked me for my opinion on the matter, I’ll give it.

I believe the First Amendment guarantees Juan Williams the right to speak freely. It does not, however, guarantee him a job at NPR.

Juan Williams was identified as an NPR employee whenever he commented on Fox News. My employer makes me sign a yearly policy that says I am entitled to my own opinions and blah, blah, blah, but the minute I identify myself as an employee of my company or appear to be commenting on behalf of my company, they have a vested interested in how I behave and what I say. And they can tell me to stop saying it if they don’t like it.

I agree with that policy and I abide by it. I believe NPR has the same right to direct its employees when they appear under the banner of NPR in another venue.

As for what I think about what Juan Williams said: If you substituted the word “black man” for Muslim and “street” or “elevator” for airplane, even Juan Williams (hell, especially Juan Williams) would tell you that the statement was racist. He’d tell you that you can’t paint every black man with a violence brush because some black men are violent. I’d say the same applies to Muslims.

And finally, to the folks who say that Juan Williams simply said aloud what most Americans think, I say this: The majority of Americans may think I’m fat, or ugly, or stupid. That doesn’t make it OK for them to say it out loud, especially on national television.

In a civilized society, we don’t say everything we think. Hopefully, we keep hateful thoughts to ourselves because we‘re ashamed of them. But even if we’re not, our mamas and teachers and ministers taught us better than to say whatever hateful thing is rattling around in our brains. Didn’t they? If not, they should have.

In case you need a refresher, take it from my 5-year-old: Saying mean things is not OK. If you can’t say something nice, best not to say anything at all.

What do YOU think, dear reader?

Mine eyes have seen the glory

2010-10-14T13:09:00.002-04:00

They’re free. Every last one of them. As the world celebrates with Chile, the 33 miners who emerged this week after nearly 70 days underground will fully realize their place in history. They’ll go back to their families, but not to the lives they left behind the day the mine collapsed.

Instead, they’ll find a world that wants to make them what they never asked to be: Role models.

I hope they resist. I hope they retain their humanity as we elevate them to heroes. I hope they continue to be men — regular, hard-working men who made a bad situation better by working hard, staying together and keeping the faith.

For 17 days, no one knew whether they were dead or alive, and they didn’t know whether anyone was even looking for them. No food. Little water. Not much to hope for.

During this most desperate of times, a leader emerged. Luis Urzua, their shift commander, pulled that group of 33 into one organism singularly focused on staying alive. When the glorious noise of banging pipes finally reached them, they were calm, steady and ready to help solve the problem of getting them out.

For the next 52 days, they were forced to bide their time and trust, in 90-degree heat, with 90 percent humidity, in cramped quarters with 32 other men. The place must have stunk to high heaven. Light was scarce. Boredom was rampant. Tensions must have run high.

Even so, the team appears to have stayed focused on itself and its goal.

Under Urzua’s leadership, they organized their living space into a home. They made collective decisions and kept themselves occupied with exercise, prayer, lively discussion and games of chance. Team members propped each other up, made plans for the future, vowed to remain one when the pressures of fame threaten to pull them apart.

A couple of times they even announced their displeasure with “top-side” (translate: rescuers above ground) by sending back baskets of food they deemed to be inferior.

“That’s when I knew these guys were gonna be OK,” said one NASA psychologist who worked with the Chilean government. “They never lost their power in the relationship with top-side. They were strong and weren’t afraid to show it.”

When the men emerged, one by one and in good spirits, many were in better shape than when they went to work that day in August.

By all accounts, that team is a team because Urzua is a leader in the truest sense of the word.

He kept them calm and focused in the face of unimaginable fear. He kept them active and engaged in the face of incredible boredom. He showed them the way and walked with them as they traveled it. He kept them collegial and respectful in the face of 33 men times 70 days of body odor. (That, alone, is cause to place him among the greatest leaders whoever lived.)

We don’t yet know the extent of his leadership underground. That will emerge along with the rest of the details in the weeks and months to come. Looking at the spectacular outcome of his project, though, seems to make it one for the textbooks.

We know that he stepped up, took charge and led them to safety. Along the way, I’ll bet he asked for help, engaged his rivals, empowered his people, made tough calls, found answers to problems, worked hard himself, asked for forgiveness, prayed for wisdom and smiled a lot.

In a time when true blue leadership doesn’t seem to have many fans, Luis Urzua seemed to get the most important leadership tenet of all: If you’re leading and no one’s following, you’re just out for a walk.

Something in the way she smiles

2010-10-12T22:18:00.005-04:00

This little girl, a 10-year-old named Zahra, belongs in my family. Something in her eyes reaches into my heart. Her smile touches my soul. I can feel her spirit in my bones. Every picture I see reaffirms my belief, which is founded in exactly nothing, that we’d have been perfect together.

Instead, she’s lying dead somewhere, probably for weeks now, at the hand of one or both of her “parents.”

There’s no body. The Amber Alert is still active. But investigators have reclassified their missing persons case a homicide. Their dogs can smell human remains in both family cars. They’re already tearing up when they talk to reporters. They know the score.

Zahra’s step-mother has admitted writing a “ransom note.” Her father thinks her step-mother probably did it. Neither seems to be the sharpest tack in the box, which certainly isn’t a motive for murder but might explain why they can’t keep their stories straight.

Extended family members say they’re not surprised. Zahra’s life, they say, was horrible. Hellish and sad. It was only a matter of time.

Neighbors agree. I’ll bet schoolteachers and parents aren’t far behind.

Everyone, it seems, knew. No one spoke up. Now, she’s gone.

Zahra, like all children, was special. Not only did she have an impish grin and a twinkle in her eyes, her ears didn’t work and a bone in her leg was eaten away by cancer. She was probably some trouble to rear — expensive and a little needy. She wasn’t perfect, and for some people, imperfect just gets on your very last nerve.

To hear family members talk, Zahra was often beaten and shamed, made to stay in her room for days on end over the tiniest misdeeds. Weekends sometimes offered respite, as she visited extended family members’ homes. But Sunday evening always came. And back to hell she went.

Like so many of the children who meet a similar fate, Zahra was adorable. Bright eyes, a beautiful smile, freckles across the bridge of her nose. Anyone who’s ever raised a child knows that cute is what God does to make you love them in spite of what they’ve just done. Sadly, when people like me wonder how something like this could have happened to a kid like that, cute is one of the reasons we give ourselves for the shame of it all.

Once again, in the greatest country on Earth, all of our smarts and wealth couldn’t keep a child from dying at the hands of the parents who a) didn’t want her; b) didn’t know what to do with her; or c) couldn’t stand her.

Her life is over. Many lives are ruined. And we wring our hands and wonder why.

I’ll tell you why: In a country where you must have a license to catch a fish, anyone can mistreat a child in the name of parenting. Because we “value” the “sanctity of the family,” it’s not a crime to hold your tongue in the name of privacy. We don’t prosecute those who knew and didn’t speak up.

Already members of Zahra’s family are making the rounds on national media, soaking up their 15 minutes. Interviewers toss them softballs and treat them with kids gloves, when really someone should call 911 and get the cops over to arrest these bozos. Zahra is dead because they didn’t speak up. Now they’re on national television. And we’re OK with that.

What the hell is wrong with us?

Something’s afoot

2010-10-12T20:35:00.006-04:00

Though I’d like you to believe otherwise, the truth is I’m pretty lame when it comes to my shoes. Oh, my closet is filled with stilettos and such (many of them on permanent loan to my almost-5-year-old, who clomps around the house in them as she role-plays waitress, doctor or mommy-on-the-way-to-work-but-first-I-have-to-drop-off-baby-at-daycare), but when it comes right down to it, I'm a clogged/square-toed/wide-heeled-wearin' friend of Dansko.

Funny, then, that these would catch my eye.

These, too.

This guy takes foot fetishism to a whole new level, one far beyond where I can imagine going. What about you, dear reader? Assuming money (and taste) were no object, would you have the cojones to wear his creations?

Bad zoning...

2010-10-12T12:19:00.005-04:00

I’m posting this here so I’ll know right where it is when the time comes.

Thank you, Julia, for the talking points, the advice and for making it OK to tell a little white lie.
**special thanks to bzzzzgrrrl, who always has my back

Are not...

2010-10-05T15:30:00.008-04:00

No, Ms. O’Donnell, you’re not me.

I pay what I owe. Every penny of it. In good economic times and bad. Whether I can afford it or not. If I owe it to someone, I pay it. Period. Paragraph.

I believe that to whom much is given much is expected. None of us, regardless of how we’ve scratched and clawed, came by our station in life all on our own. We all had help in one way or another. Birth right. Loving parents. The welfare system. Whatever. I believe that regardless of where we are or how we got there, we owe it to those who aren’t there yet to help them. You call that socialism. I call it humanity.

I don’t think Barack Obama and “his cronies” are the problem. I think you are the problem — you and the rest of the yahoos who think that anger, prejudice and a lack of intelligence is just what this country needs right now.

I believe that intellectual curiosity and spiritual faith can co-exist. I don’t need to turn over my capacity for original thought or stop asking questions in order to be saved. In fact, they are my salvation.

I believe in a higher power that requires me to seek the truth wherever it may be, whether it’s in a pulpit or a petri dish.

I paid enough attention in biology class to know that a) evolutionary steps take millions of years and b) humans shared a common ancestor with apes — both of which answer your question of “why aren’t monkeys still turning into people?”

I believe that self-pleasuring is not only handy but a top-five reason why more people don't just up and kill that guy who’s SERIOUSLY on their last nerve.

Oh, and I AM a witch. Sometimes a good witch. Sometimes a bad witch. But I am, without question, a witch.

There is wrong in the land

2010-10-03T21:17:00.007-04:00

For the third time in 10 days I’ve run across what might be the saddest commentary ever on the state of American discourse:

“If I agreed with you, we’d both be wrong.”

In that one statement is so much of what is wrong in our world: superiority and closed-mindedness; an unwillingness to even consider that what I believe might have some value in your own thought process; a lack of belief in compromise; and a black-and-white view of right and wrong.

Maybe you see it differently, but that statement says to me, “My way or the highway.” For those who think it’s an appropriate response in these times, I’d challenge you to wonder, just for a moment, if you really have all the answers.

This is my blog and is, therefore, loaded with my opinion. I have no expectations that you will agree with me. Nor, really, is that the point. My goal with each post is to engage my brain and yours to think about important things in new, interesting, perhaps disturbing ways.

In return, I hope you’ll bring an open mind and a willingness to engage with thoughts and words that might be uncomfortable to you. I hope you’ll think as much about what I’ve said as I have. And I encourage you to respond in a civil and thoughtful manner, in the comments, by email, on your own blog, even if it’s just in your own head.

Civil discourse is the only thing that will lead us — both of us and all of us — to the right answer. Even if we disagree, we have to be willing to listen to and consider each other’s point of view as we whittle and polish our own. It’s critical to the success of our society and the world that we leave our children.

Shutting me down and closing me off won’t make me go away. It will only deprive you of one more point of view.

If your beliefs can’t bear the weight of one more point of view, how strong can they be?

Jolly holiday

2010-09-27T11:44:00.004-04:00

For those of you who haven't seen “Mary Poppins” on stage, two pieces of advice:

1. Go see it. Take your child(ren).

2. Be prepared for the dancing statues. Especially if you take your child(ren).

I’m sure you’ve seen some version of them: Greco-Roman statues that “come alive” before your eyes. My first experience with them was in the Italian piazzo at EPCOT Center in World Disney World. There, a “statue” stands perfectly still until someone sidles up to have her photo shot with it. Next thing you know, the statue has moved into a position that essentially traps the poor tourist in a bear hug or something similar until the statue decides to move again.

It’s uproariously funny to everyone except the trapped tourist.

In the Mary Poppins version, the “statues” were all beautifully built male dancers, with abs and buns of steel, covered in silver body paint. There didn’t seem to be, ahem, anything standing between us and them except that paint and a few well-placed fig leaves.

I had trouble averting my eyes.

Flash forward to the drive home after the show.

Mommy: What was your favorite part of Mary Poppins?

Urchin: The dancing statues.

(Uh-oh.)

Mommy: They were pretty cool, weren't they?

Urchin: They were. And Mommy, did you notice that one of them had curls on his bottom? And little balls that came out of the curls?

(UH-OH.)

Mommy: Curls on his bottom? What do you mean?

(Pause for Urchin giggles.)

Urchin: The front of his bottom had little curly things on it. And little balls. It was weird.

Mommy: I’ll bet.

Later that evening, as she put on her pajamas:

Urchin: Mommy, why did that statue have curls and balls on its bottom?

Mommy: I didn't see what you saw, sweet pea. The statues ones I saw had leaves right here (pointing to her, uh, bottom).

Urchin: Oh, maybe that’s what I saw. Leaves.

(Pause.)

Urchin: But what were the balls for?

(Dear. God. Please. Let. Me. Out.)

Mommy: I’m not sure, sweet pea. I didn’t see them.

Urchin: It was funny. And kinda weird, too.

(Pause, as Mommy struggles with what to say next.)

Urchin: Mommy, I think I know why there were leaves here.

Mommy: Why, sweet pea?

Urchin: To cover their penis.

(Urchin giggles. Mommy struggles not to.)

Urchin: But it didn’t cover their bums! (she says, turning her hip and smacking her bottom for effect).

Giggles continue. Fade to black.

Rise up, sistah

2010-09-21T21:24:00.007-04:00

When did crazy take over the sisterhood?

Everywhere you turn, it seems, there’s a crazy woman who purports to speak for me. Yet, everything that comes out of her mouth is crazy talk.

In Alaska, or, well, wherever she’s from these days, there’s one who wants to get back to following the Constitution, which would be great if there were any indication that she's ever read the Constitution. She calls women of similar mind “Mama Grizzlies” and the rest of us “a cackle of rads.” Besides, she can see Russia from her house. Which will come in handy, if we ever need someone to watch the desolate, uninhabited part of Russia.

In Nevada, there’s one who wants to make lemonade out of lemons by forcing women who are pregnant by rape to carry those children to term. She believes voters in her state only deserve answers to the questions she wants to answer, she’s threatened to sue her opponent for posting her own political positions online and she calls the $20 billion pittance BP has set aside to pay us back for killing the Gulf of Mexico a “slush fund.”

In Arizona, there’s one who believes “we have did what was right for Arizona” by passing SB 1070, which allows her goons to stop and search whomever they choose in pursuit of those who might be in this country illegally. Make no mistake, folks. She wants to get back to the principles of the Constitution, but really only for those of us who look like we belong here.

And in Delaware, there’s one who's so fiscally responsible that rather than waste her own money on things like rent and food, she used campaign contributions. Call it recycling. She’s supporting seniors by paying her mother $3,500 for consulting work. She’s brought back talk of strong morals and safe sex by reminding us all how dangerous it is to touch ourselves. And she’s pissed off every witch in America by saying she had a picnic on a Wiccan alter.

The worst part of it: A whole bunch of women in this country take these women seriously. And they do it because Sarah tells them to.

It doesn’t seem to matter to them that Sarah Palin wouldn’t know an Ethiopian from an Eritrean from a European. Or that she thinks we should require every immigrant to speak English once they move to the U.S., despite the fact that she, a lifelong American, barely has a grasp of the language herself. Or that in a room with Vladimir Putin or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, it wouldn’t be enough for her to bat her eyelashes or smile pretty. She’d actually have to KNOW something, or something.

None of this seems to matter to the women who believe in Sarah, and by extension, her pretties. In fact, it is her lack of qualification and experience that makes them trust her. She’s become their political sensei because they think she’s one of them. Of course, she has millions of dollars, can’t seem to follow through on her commitments and is elitist enough to have a contract rider longer than Bon Jovi’s. But who’s counting?

These women, they’d follow Sarah to the end of the Earth, which is where we may end up if she and the people she’s working so hard to install become our leaders.

These women are not qualified to lead any part of our country. Hell, they’re barely qualified to lead an expedition to the ladies room. Despite how much they seem to know about what the rest of us should believe, how we should behave and with whom we should fall in love, they know next to nothing about the principles of democracy, leadership, foreign policy, military engagement, American law, American history, world affairs or civil rights.

We cannot let them win.

To do something now, go here... or here... or here.

Things I wish I'd written, part 3

2010-09-01T16:18:00.001-04:00

This is what I mean to say.

Which came first...?

2010-08-20T21:08:00.003-04:00

In the car on the way back from a visit to the school where she starts kindergarten next Wednesday...

Urchin: Mommy?

Me: Yes, sweetheart?

Urchin: How did the first baby get here?

(Pause. She can’t really be asking THAT, can she, at two months shy of 5 ...)

Me: What do you mean?

Urchin: (completely exasperated with her dumb-ass mother) You know, the first baby. How’d it get here if there weren’t any grown-ups yet to make it?

(Seriously?)

Me: You know, that’s a really good question. In fact, it’s such a good question that no one really knows the answer to it.

Urchin: No one? Not even the dinosaurs?

Me: Even the smartest people on the planet don't know for sure.

Urchin: Even you and daddy?

Me: Even daddy and me.

True dat.

2010-08-13T14:34:00.000-04:00

Lovin' this.

Happy weekend.

Quitters sometimes win

2010-08-11T11:35:00.005-04:00

I may be late to the party... but this still rocks.

Happy Wednesday.

UPDATE: Rats. It’s fake. Still rocks, though.

The epilogue

2010-08-10T19:57:00.003-04:00

Dear Reader,

I was surprised by three things as I wrote this series:

1. That so many of you are reading.

2. That so few of you have been moved to respond.

3. That I care so much about both.

As you can imagine, it was difficult for me to write at all as we went through May and June. There were so many other things to think about and do. When it finally came time to let out my breath, I discovered it was easier said than done. It took weeks of ruminating, of being unable to keep my thoughts straight, of wandering and wishing for a peace that should have come, and didn't.

It took my acknowledging a need for some self-care, and booking a flight to paradise before I was able to begin unpacking the ordeal in a way that allowed me to write about it, and then move it from crisis to experience.

Thank you, dear reader, for listening to my story. It was a nightmare that blew in with the wind... and ended much quicker than we dared imagine it would. Along the way, I renewed my faith in humanity... discovered that I’ve finally found my home... met some of the most amazing people... remembered the value of really good friends... was reminded again not to sweat the small stuff... learned to accept help... gave myself a zillion breaks... and fell in love with my family all over again.

Thank you (yes, you) for your strength and prayers and love and shoulders. I needed them all and they were there, every moment of every day.

I will not pray to repay the favor. Instead, I thank you for your love and assure you that I return it in spades.

xoxo,

bzh

Phase V: The happy ending

2010-08-06T12:06:00.004-04:00

When it comes: After a long and scary month

What it looks like: Paradise

How long it lasts: Still waiting

How it unfolds:

1. Sit in a chair, next to your child’s bed, for the next several hours, watching her sleep, stir, wake, smile and sleep again. Soothe her with songs, talk softly as she drifts in and out, shut the hell up when she reaches up, puts her hand over your mouth and whispers, “Stop talking, Mommy.”

2. Smile to yourself when she has her first post-op tantrum. “I’m thirsty,” she says. “You can have some ice chips,” says Nurse April. “I don’t want ice chips,” she snaps in her hoarse, post-extubation voice. “That’s all you can have right now,” says April. ”Then I won’t have anything at all.”

3. Be so very glad when she can finally sip some water. Watch her eyes follow the styrofoam cup as it approaches her face. Recognize the silent and desperate plea from when she was just days old and couldn't properly latch to breast feed. Pray you never have to see it again.

4. Slowly start to unwind as the anesthesia leaves her body, allowing her to sleep more peacefully and interact without vengeance. Feel her pain as she struggles with the chest tube that drains post-operative liquid from around her heart. Learn from the nurse that it causes her pain because it touches her heart when she moves. Silently ask the angels to help her stay still. Be thankful when they sing her to sleep once again.

5. Look up around 6 p.m. to see Surgeon B standing in the doorway, in a stark white lab coat, with a tie around his neck. How is it he always looks so handsome and clean when he cuts open chests for a living? Smile when he asks how you’re doing. Smile bigger when he tells you how SHE’S doing. Listen as he talks with the nurse. Understand nothing they say except “she's not alerting at all.” Translate: the loud beeps from the heart machine have stopped. Her heart is beating normally all of the time.

6. Startle at the stern look he gives you as he turns to leave. “I don’t want to hear that you sat here watching her sleep all night,” he says. “The best thing you can do for her is go to your room and get some sleep yourselves. Doctor’s orders.” Decide right then to listen to him. He’s been spot-on so far. No reason to start doubting him now.

7. Sit quietly through nurse changeover, sad to see Nurse April go. Be thankful when she tells you you’re in good hands. Ask how she knows. Smile when she tells you she’s made sure of it.

8. Immediately feel drawn to Nurse Lourdes. Watch intently as she takes over the room, gently touching and cooing as she gets to know your child. Answer honestly when she asks how you’re doing. Take in her warmth as you tearfully tell her it’s been a long month. Listen as she explains her philosophy of care: Stay ahead of the pain and your child will sleep. Sleep brings less pain and faster recovery. Amen.

9. Have dinner with your husband. Don’t say much. Be OK with that.

10. Return to her room to say goodnight. Find her in the middle of some nursing activity that feels a little scary. Watch for a bit before you ask what’s going on. Learn that nothing’s going on except, well, nursing. Kiss your child on the forehead, return her puny smile and wander off to bed.

11. Retire to your room, a simple, dark, hotel-room like space with a bed and a bathroom just 50 yards away on the same hospital floor. Brush your teeth, remove your contacts and fall into bed next to the man you love. Remember nothing else until your alarm goes off at 1 a.m. (You didn’t think we’d go all night without checking, did you?)

12. Pull on some clothes and head out the door. Turn left instead of right and immediately set off an emergency alarm. Laugh out loud. Realize your laugh is an unfamiliar sound. Be glad it’s back.

13. Walk into her room to find her awake, talking princesses with Nurse Lourdes. See that her smile, for the first time since yesterday morning, goes all the way up to her eyes. Will yourself not to cry when she calls you over to show you her boo-boo. Tell her it’s beautiful as she drifts off to sleep once again. Hug Lourdes when she tells you your child is an angel. Tell her it takes one to know one.

14. Wake up rested at 6 a.m., in time for Surgeon B’s rounds (does the man ever sleep?) Arrive in her room just as Lourdes tells him the night was uneventful. Accept his praise when he learns you followed his orders and slept through the night. Notice that your child’s hair, which yesterday was caked with blood and tangled in knots, has been washed and braided in pigtails. “We curly-headed girls have to stick together,” Lourdes says as she prepares to leave for the day. Thank and hug her, certain you’ve encountered another angel.

15. Spend the morning preparing to leave the ICU and go to a regular pediatric cardiac floor. Watch as your child’s spirit and spunk return bit by bit. Be amazed as she helps to pull out the tubes that remain in her chest and arms. Answer her questions as honestly as you are able. Notice she’s fascinated with what is going on around her. Dare to hope that will translate into a college scholarship. Realize that means you’re daring to believe she will, indeed, go to college.

16. Follow her to a new floor, where the care is less intense and you finally have some peace. Be thankful for the friends who drop by to remind you of the world outside. Be shocked when Surgeon B shows up around 3 p.m. to drop a bomb.

17. “She’s doing so well that I’m thinking we’ll let you go home tomorrow. How’s that sound?” HOW’S THAT SOUND??? Hmmmm, let me see. It sounds like chocolate covered in caramel wrapped in nuts and coconut and drizzled over ice cream. It sounds like a day at the beach watching dolphins frolic and drinking bloody Marys and staring at Brad Pitt play Frisbee with Stephen Colbert. It sounds like listening to your child laugh and tell you she loves you. That’s how it sounds.

18. Absorb, then share, the news with everyone who will listen.

19. As the day winds down, watch in awe as your child, who had open-heart surgery about 5 minutes ago, hops out of bed and wanders the halls, looking for the playroom. Smile and listen to her giggle and be bossy. Walk with her as she circles the floor three times before she’s ready to climb back in bed. Climb in bed yourself, stunned and thankful for the day.

20. Wake up at the crack-o’-dark:30 to see Surgeon B standing over your child. (Nope, never sleeps.) Smile as he gives the discharge orders and recaps the rules for going home. Wait for an eternity as the paperwork monster chews away the time. Then pack her up, pile into the car, and drive away, pausing only to kiss your husband and whisper “We did it.”

Phase IV: That-which-has-no-name

2010-08-04T20:07:00.003-04:00

When it starts: When they take your child down one hall, and send you down another

General feeling: Terror wrapped in panic swaddled in helplessness

How long it lasts: Until you can hold her in your arms again

How it unfolds:

1. Watch your child disappear through a door in the arms of a stranger. Resist the urge to run after them and grab her away; or scream: “Stop! I've changed my mind”; or crumple into a pile on the floor. Will yourself to be strong. Wonder, for the eleventy-seventh time, what that means, exactly.

2. Wander into the waiting room. Introduce yourself to the attendant who will keep you updated as the surgery progresses. See the attendant’s mouth moving. Hear nothing she says.

3. Sit down with your parents and husband. Open your mouth to talk. Have no idea what to say. Search your mind for the right words to commemorate the few minutes after they take your child away to an operating room where they will stop her heart on purpose and she will die for awhile. Thank God when your mother takes up the mantle.

4. Fidget.

5. Stand up. Walk around. Sit down. Fidget. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

6. Decide you absolutely must talk, or your head will explode. Run through the options of what you might talk about: a) What it feels like when they take your child away for open-heart surgery; b) What’s probably happening to her little tiny body right now; or c) All of the things that could go wrong today. Change your mind about talking. Resume fidgeting.

7. Try not to panic as the attendant whose name you can’t remember approaches. “They did the first incision at 7:41 a.m.,” she says, “and everything’s going well.” Try not to cry as she walks back to her desk.

8. Call everyone you promised to call. Tell them what you know. Do your best to keep a stiff upper lip. Feel it quiver every time you start to talk.

9. Leave the room to get a Diet Coke. Pull mightily against the force that tells you not to leave, that something important might happen while you’re gone. Remind the force that something important will happen, IS happening, and it matters not where you are. Win the battle and be proud.

10. Panic every time the attendant approaches, until finally she says, in a warm, wonderful voice: “No worries. They never send me in with bad news.” Realize she’s another angel.

11. Listen to the updates about your little-bitty girl: 1) She’s on the heart-lung bypass machine and doing beautifully. 2) She’s still on the heart-lung bypass machine and it’s going really well. 3) She’s off the heart-lung bypass machine and they’re finishing up. 4) They’re done and the doctor is on his way up. Feel the panic begin to rise once again in your throat and have no idea why.

12. Walk to a private room to wait for Surgeon B. Try to make small talk as you wait. Fail. Try to breathe normally. Fail. Do your best not to fall apart. Mostly succeed.

12. Wait through the longest 30 minutes of your life.

13. Startle when Surgeon B finally knocks at the door. Search his eyes as he walks in and closes it behind him. Stand much too close as he begins to talk. “It went extremely well, exactly as we expected.” Listen for another few minutes but hear little else. Take a long deep breath and wait for the tears, which surprise you when they don’t come.

14. Change hospital floors and waiting rooms. Pace as you wait to see your child again. Prepare yourself for what she’ll look like, as you’ve been warned to do. Imagine awful, terrible things as you steel yourself for the worst.

15. Struggle with whether to panic or rejoice when they come to bring you back to her. Turn the corner to see your sweet, darling child lying prone on a stark white bed, ringlets surrounding her angel’s face, tubes in her neck, chest, arms and bottom, and down her throat. Notice the angry red incision down the middle of her chest and smile. She did it, dammit. She did it.

16. Allow yourself to relax a bit as you sit and watch her sleep. Say your thanks to God and the angels for guiding her through the worst. Ask that they stay vigilant until the threat of infection has passed. Figure that with them on your side, it’s all downhill from here.

17. Not.

18. Die a little inside when your child wakes up before they’re ready for it and panics because she can’t talk and everything hurts. Watch as she struggles against the tubes and IVs, her eyes begging you to help her. Do your best to calm her down as the nurses move to increase her meds. Mostly fail. Start singing the song you’ve sung to her every day since she was a baby and feel her relax beneath your hands. Notice they haven’t yet begun to push the drugs into her body. Smile to yourself as you realize, once again, what really matters in this world.

19. Repeat step 18 several times, until your heart is broken into pieces. Ask if you can climb into bed with her so you’re right there when she wakes up the next time. Rejoice when they say yes. Squeeze in beside her, nestling her into the crook of your arm, and ache because it feels so goddamn good. Stay there for an hour and a half, until your arm is numb and your heart is full. Leave only because it’s time to remove the tube from her lungs.

20. Wonder, as you leave the room so you won’t have to watch them extubate your child, what kind of mother leaves her kid to face that alone? Remember the words of the nurse who suggested you excuse yourself: “She won’t remember it. You’ll never forget it.” Leave, and wonder still.

Stage III: Staying ahead of what-if

2010-08-01T21:19:00.003-04:00

When it comes: 10 seconds after you schedule surgery

General behavior: Strong, stable, positive -- all of it a big, fat lie

Lasts until: 10 seconds before they take your child away for surgery

How it unfolds:

1. Force yourself to smile as you talk with your child about her special heart and what it needs. Marvel at her interest in the mechanics of the surgery. Be true to your promise to answer all of her questions truthfully. Panic at this one: “What will they use to cut open my heart?” Thank God for her daddy, who immediately answers: “A special tool.”

2. Wonder how much you should share and with whom. Realize that talking about it with some people fills your bucket, and talking about it with others sucks the air right out of you. Discover there is no way to tell which will happen until you’re well into the conversation.

3. Share with everyone anyway and hope for the best. Be grateful to learn that your world includes far more bucket-fillers than air-suckers.

4. Shake your head at the irony of counting down the days — and begging God to make them go faster — until a man with a special tool can slice open your child’s chest, saw her sternum in half, pull out her heart, cut it open, patch a hole, refashion a valve and sew it all shut again. Laugh out loud at the thought that next, perhaps, you should pray for someone to pull out each of your fingernails with a pliers. Or cut off your toes off with a jigsaw. Or rip out your intestines, BECAUSE THAT’S WHAT IT FEELS LIKE TO WAIT FOR A MAN WITH A SPECIAL TOOL TO CUT OPEN YOUR CHILD’S CHEST.

5. Thank God for your job, which requires you to think about something other than this for eight hours a day. Give or take. Seven.

6. Work every moment of every day to keep your emotions under control. Mostly suck at it. Do your best not to cry in front of your child. Fail sometimes. Allow her to comfort you and wonder how much it will cost in therapy.

7. Struggle not to be sarcastic when someone asks: “How are you doing otherwise?” Wonder WHO THE HELL could have an otherwise?

8. Don’t read about heart defects. DO NOT read about heart defects. DO. NOT. DO. NOT. DO. NOT.

9. Refuse to think, even for a moment, about what may have caused the hole in your child's heart. Fail miserably. Try desperately not to blame yourself, even though it was your body that did this to her. Mostly succeed, but never really quiet the voices.

10. Continue to marvel at the courage and resilience of children. Watch as your child processes this, asking questions like: How will they keep my heart beating when they fix it? How many doctors will it take to fix my heart? Mommy, will you PLEASE find out what they're going to use to cut open my heart? Answer her truthfully and wonder when the gravity of this will hit her. Realize that it won’t hit her until you let it hit her. Resolve not to let it hit her.

11. Walk into the hospital for your pre-op visit. Meet with nurses and doctors who will not be there the day of surgery. Wonder why. Hold tight to your child’s hand as the parade of strangers continues by. Bribe her with Oreos and Sprite. Wonder what kind of mother you are. Remember you’re the mother of a child who's having open-heart surgery. Have some Oreos yourself.

12. Meet an angel named Kristy, a child-life specialist who spends her days helping kids like yours get used to the fact that they’re having surgery. Watch in awe as she bonds immediately with your child, who typically won’t so much as acknowledge a stranger. Allow Kristy to take over, to teach and share and calm fears. Your child’s. And yours.

13. Tour the pediatric cardiac ICU. Do your best to breathe as you wander the halls, seeing other people’s children as you will see your own in a few days.

14. Meet the second angel of the day, a pediatric cardiac intensivist — a doctor whose job is to care for your child after the surgery is done. Don’t even realize he’s an angel until he recounts the story of when he showed up for knee surgery and his doctor (and friend) asked how he was feeling. “I’m nervous,” he told the doc. “That’s OK,” the doc responded. “I’m not.” Immediately feel like you’re in good hands.

15. Stumble upon a reserve of strength just as you reach the point in the pre-op visit where things get hairy: the phlebotomist, another angel named Christy. Watch in astonishment as she prepares to draw blood from your child — then does — without missing a beat. Pray that all of the “ouchies” to come go so smoothly.

16. Leave the pre-op visit and be thankful your last hurdle is behind you.

17. Not.

18. Wake up Saturday morning to the sound of your child coughing. Flash back to Surgeon B telling you, in no uncertain terms, “We won’t go ahead with surgery if she has so much as a sniffle. No reason to take that risk." Wonder why the gods must fuck with you so. Be thankful you took time out to find and visit a new pediatrician in all of this mess. Get an appointment to see her on Sunday. Let out your breath when she tells you to show up for surgery in two days.

19. Marvel as your child, your sweet, darling, resilient child, marches right into the hospital Tuesday at 6 a.m., dragging her suitcase behind her, and announces that she’s here for open-heart surgery. Giggle as she refuses to put on a hospital gown, preferring to sit naked and color a Scooby-Doo picture as they take her vital signs. Watch the clock as 6:30 a.m. approaches. Alternately wish you could turn the hands back to a time before all of this started and ahead to the time when it will all be over. Curse under your breath as neither happens.

20. Feel the room start to spin as the anesthesiologist introduces himself, tells you he’ll take good care of your child and whisks her away before either of you has a chance to get a good cry going. Take comfort in the knowledge that anesthesia will assure that she remembers none of this. Wonder why they don’t have something that will do the same for you.

Stage II: Ferocity

2010-07-30T20:33:00.005-04:00

When it comes: A day or so after diagnosis; runs concurrent with Phases I, III and IV

General behavior: Focused, single-minded, highly protective (all tinged with prevailing feeling of terror)

Duration: Five weeks

How it unfolds:

1. Devour everything you can find about children’s hospitals. Discover there is an entire children’s health care system in this country, and it’s filled with doctors and nurses who are called to wake up every day and take care of children like yours, even though their pay is less than half what it would be if they were treating grown-ups and their cases are routinely heart-breaking and often unwinnable.

2. Scour the Internet in search of something, anything, that will help you make the right decisions for your child: hospital rankings, surgeon rankings, success rates, infection rates. Discover none of it does anything but muddy the waters. Well, except the stuff that steers you absolutely the wrong way. Do your best not to panic.

3. Vow, once again, to stay off the Internet.

4. Beg doctors, hospital administrators, ER nurses, children’s health care advocates to give you some answers. Discover they don’t have the answers. And THEY don’t know where to find them, either. Wonder whether there are answers.

5. Spend every waking moment weighing the pros and cons of traveling for surgery, staying home for surgery, picking a surgeon with tons of experience, picking a surgeon with less experience but more state-of-the-art training. Discover that there are universally as many cons as there are pros. And vice versa.

6. Stop everything to find a new pediatrician. Discover you’re in luck. The practice you’ve chosen includes the wife of your child’s cardiologist. Consider it a beautiful piece of serendipity and go with it.

7. Resume your frantic search for answers. Call your cousin, the cardiologist for grown-ups. Surely he knows where they are. Except not.

8. Talk with one cardiac kid’s parent, who swears by Surgeon A. Talk with another cardiac kid’s parent, who calls Surgeon B “the closest I’ll ever get to God.” Ask your child’s doctor whom he’d choose. Try not to cry when he says either would be fine.

9. Lose yourself in your research. Go down rabbit holes. Find only rabbits. Turn left. Wish you’d turned right. Turn right. Wish you’d gone straight. Go straight. Forget where you were headed in the first place. Fall into bed each night and beg for sleep. Mercifully, it comes.

10. Wonder how people with fewer resources, less support and no health insurance manage to wander through this maze without throwing themselves under a bus. Look at your beautiful child. Realize they figure it out. And so will you.

11. Wake up one morning to find your wits strewn about the floor next to the bed. Rejoice. Gather them up and be on your way.

12. Decide to stop amassing information and begin to process what you have. Discover you have everything there is and nothing you need. Do not weep. Be glad for that.

13. Have a talk with yourself. Inventory your instincts. Take notice of your gut. Listen to your inner voice. Realize it feels astoundingly good.

14. Run into your child’s cardiologist at the childrens’ museum. Talk with him, parent to parent, admiring his sweet child whose heart is probably normal. Startle at the physical pull his presence exerts over you. Silently beg that he stay right there, next to you, until this whole nightmare is over. Or until your children are done at the water table. Whichever.

15. Finally sit with your spouse to make some sense of it all. Discover that the two of you, who have trouble deciding where to have dinner, are in lock-step. Consider it a sign from the universe and be done with it.

16. Wake up tomorrow. Call everyone who needs to be called with every piece of information they need. Feel like you’ve done the right thing for the first time since this whole thing started.

17. Meet Surgeon B. Immediately trust Surgeon B. Never question your choice of Surgeon B.

18. Visit the hospital. Immediately feel at home in the hospital. Never question your decision to stay home for surgery.

19. Schedule the surgery for two weeks from today. Set every wheel in motion. Start preparing your child. Never question your decision to get it over with as soon as possible.

20. Breathe. And pray.

How to make it through open-heart surgery*

2010-07-29T20:06:00.005-04:00

* a journey in 5 parts

Stage I: Panic

When it arrives: Diagnosis

General behavior: Erratic, confused, typically on the verge of weepy

Duration: One week

How it unfolds:

1. Sit in a dark room, with your child lying on a table in front of you as they do a sonogram of her heart.

2. Notice that there’s a big black hole. Right there. In the middle of the screen. Notice, too, that her blood seems to be flowing every which way right around where that spot is.

3. Feel your own blood run cold.

4. Do your best not to scream or cry or run from the room because, well, your child, whose heart clearly isn’t normal, is lying on a table in front of you having a sonogram of her clearly-not-normal heart.

5. Hold it together as long as you can, finally losing it when a nurse steps behind you and sets her hand on your shoulder. Excuse yourself and duck into a bathroom, where you fall apart, call your husband, listen as he falls apart, pull yourself together, fall apart again, then finally get a grip.

6. Return to your child, who’s happily playing with two nurses and the EKG machine, having no idea that the world as we know it has just been thrown from its axis.

7. Do your best to listen as her doc explains the particulars.

8. Hear nothing he says except “YOUR CHILD HAS A HOLE IN HER HEART AND NEEDS OPEN-HEART SURGERY.”

9. Vow to ~~kill~~ fire your child’s worthless pediatrician. Resist the urge to hug her cardiologist when he offers to do it for you.

10. Do your best to keep from crying as Husband arrives and your eyes meet.

11. Nod when the doctor makes you promise to come back in a month to make a plan. Wonder WHO THE HELL could wait a whole month to come back and make a plan??

12. Let Husband take your child back to preschool. Drive to bagel shop to wait for Husband so the two of you can ~~freak out~~ talk. Call mom on the way. Cry into phone for 90 seconds before you’re able to tell her what's wrong. Be thankful she’s a patient woman.

13. Watch Husband drive into bagel shop parking lot. Fall apart.

14. Sit at an outside table sipping ice coffee and Diet Coke, not knowing what to say to one another. Be thankful you’re in this together. Pray for guidance on how to proceed.

15. Call friends and family and anyone else you think can help you figure out what to do. Be thankful that everyone seems to drop everything and come running.

16. Do your best to focus on the task at hand. Banish from your mind the what-ifs. Succeed sometimes. Mostly fail.

17. Stay off the Internet. Be proud of yourself for doing at least that.

18. Decide, with Husband, that the surgery must be done and done now.

19. Gather a bunch of information, some of it worthwhile, some of it not. Make a bunch of rash decisions in the heat of the moment or at someone else’s suggestion. Rethink that strategy. Work to undo the rash decisions you’ve made. Talk yourself off the ledge yet again.

20. Return to the cardiologist, thank him for finding the problem and fire him so you can move to another, “better” pediatric cardiology practice. Realize, as he sits with you for 20 minutes after he’s been fired, answering your questions and acknowledging your fears, that you really, really like him. More importantly, you trust him. Unfire him two hours later and ask him to help you prepare for the fight of your life.

Next up, Stage II: Ferocity

A slice of Cherry Pye

2010-07-28T13:49:00.009-04:00

Some time ago, I did one of those Facebook things. This one, titled “15 books,” asked me to list 15 books that have affected me or my life in some way and then ask my friends to do the same thing.

It was an easy list for me to make. Reading has always been my greatest joy. Military kids often live a life of turmoil and chaos and I was no exception. In fact, I attended three different high schools, and might have attended a fourth, had my father not decided to retire rather than seek another promotion.

Moving to another town, another state, another country, can leave a kid all alone in this world, at least until she gets back into school, makes new friends and re-establishes her place in the pecking order. During that time, book friends help to fill the void.

Since I can remember, I’ve been reading a book. And the book I happen to be reading is typically among the best friends I have at any given moment. That may be why I can’t read more than one book at a time. It feels like cheating, somehow.

It isn’t just books I fall in love with. Authors, too, especially those whose books I can’t get enough of. At one time in my life, Danielle Steele was among them. (Oh, shut up.) J.K. Rowling, Anne Lamott and Stieg Larsson are there now. Dr. Seuss, a.a. milne and Judy Blume are honorary members.

But Larsson and Seuss et al notwithstanding, the mac-Daddy of authors for me is Carl Hiaasen. Without question, He. Is. The. Man.

It's been a few years since he wrote a real, for-grown-ups Carl Hiaasen book. Finally, it’s here. And it contains a character nearly identical to my guiltiest pleasure: Britney Spears.

Hiaasen calls her Cherry Pye, and tells interviewers she’s a composite, but I know better. Cherry Pie is a singer with no voice; a dancer with a ferocious body; and a broken-hearted girl whose isolated from the world by her fame. She has blonde hair and a vapid, vacant look in her eyes. Oh, and the people pulling the strings include her pushy, overwrought, young stage mother.

Who else could it be? I am giddy with anticipation.

I mean, could there be anything better for a girl who has a massive crush on a guy who turned a fantastic newspaper columnist gig into an even more fantastic novel-writing gig than to have him do his thing in a story involving the pop tart she was once desperate to trade lives with?

I can scarcely contain myself.

The old bzh would run right out and buy the book. The new bzh — whose Husband once took her on a field trip to the public library, to detail the environmental and financial wonders of borrowing books for free — has put her name on the request list.

We’re at 134 and counting. Patience, dear reader, is a virtue.

Peace to you.

It is pointless to resist

2010-07-21T14:20:00.002-04:00

Resistance was my defense for much of my life. Get too close and I’d deflect you like a pinball, send you ricocheting off into the distance.

The voice inside my head played a continuous loop: I can do it. Without you. Go away, dammit, and leave me be. Quit knocking. Stop poking. No more prodding. Hey look! A shiny object! Why don’t you follow it for a while? By the way, no need to keep looking for soft spots. There aren’t any. Besides, you wouldn’t like what happens when you stumble upon one.

Oh, and for the love of everything holy, stop worrying. I’m fine. Always just fine.

The walls worked for me for a good long time. They helped protect me from bad relationships and life’s disappointments. Kept me from getting hurt. Ate me up inside.

Years of therapy unwound it, mostly. I learned to give in, reach out, listen in the quiet moments and hear the soft voices who deserve to be let in.

Along the way, I met a wonderful man. Had he come along any earlier, I’d never have heard his soft knock, his message so quiet and sincere, nothing like the squawking and posturing I spent years defending myself against. Just a sweet smile, a playful wink, his hand on the small of my back as he walked me to the dance floor.

More than eight years have gone by since we met, and he’s still there, talking in the same quiet, insistent way, putting up with my crap, thanking me for my love, wrapping me in his arms when all I want to do is push everyone, him especially, away.

I’ve tried pretty hard over the past eight years to reconstruct the walls I’d torn down before I met him. They were, of course, designed to protect me from him, someone whose pain hurts more than my own, whose sorrow crushes my soul, whose happiness is my life's work. Every time I put a brick in the wall, he quietly walks over and removes it. It’s a losing battle and yet, I keep up the fight.

He’s still not immune to my need to inflict pain when he stumbles upon a soft spot — and there are many. I lash out and he feels it, right in the gut. It used to stun him for days. Now, he gets back up pretty quickly, though you’d never know it from the way I goad him for getting his feelings hurt.

In the end, they are his arms into which I fall when I just can’t stand on my own anymore. They stand me up, walk me home, tuck me in and hold me safe.

I am a lucky girl.

The reason for fireworks

2010-07-02T08:58:00.004-04:00

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

And again I’m forced to wonder, what part of that statement is unclear?

Happy Independence Day, to you and yours.

Multiple choice

2010-07-01T09:31:00.004-04:00

I need some help. Which of these signs — both found here — do you think is more effective? I just can’t decide...

A.

B.

I never…

2010-06-30T20:47:00.003-04:00

Another blogger asked, “If you have them, what are the three nevers in your life?” I’m sure she was looking for answers like “I’d never own a handgun” or “I’d never have sex in a public place.”

When it comes to statements like that, I’ll never say never. When it comes to words to live by, though, it seems I can’t shut up:

1. Never underestimate your opponent, regardless of how insignificant he or she or it may seem.

There is a woman in my world, a woman fairly far down the ladder compared with me, who has sowed so much pain and angst in my heart I will never forgive her.

She once was a friend. I’m not exactly sure what turned her heart, though I think it might have been this blog. I broke my own rule in sharing the address with her and, coincidental though it may seem, I’ve suffered her disdain ever since.

It’s made for a lonely existence in an important part of my life. My days are largely spent in silence. In a place where we take up a collection, or send flowers or dinner for the tiniest little thing, I worried alone in the run-up to Urchin’s surgery. And in the four weeks since, I’ve heard from no one. No checkin’ in. No thoughtful card. Nothing.

Given that this woman is in charge of such things, I suspect I never will. No matter. Turns out my Village doesn’t need help from this part of my life.

2. Never underestimate the value of being nice to everyone you meet in a day.

A friend of mine was down on her luck in our 20s. She’d been fired from a good job and was working retail to pay the bills until she could find another.

Things were slow one Sunday, when a woman wandered into her department. Another associate sized up the woman, who was dressed in ill-fitting clothes, and decided she wasn’t worth her time. She passed her on to my friend, who approached with a smile.

More than $15,000 later, my friend received a job offer to become a merchandise rep for a clothing designer — the clothing designer whom she'd been helping all afternoon. The clothing designer whose baggage had been lost by the airline, who was wearing her husband's clothes and who had been so charmed by my friend's courtesy and professionalism that she spent $15,000 for clothes and accessories she didn’t really need.

Smile and the world smiles with you. Be kind and the world is kind to you. Lend a hand and you’ll get one yourself when you need it.

3. Never back the talkers over the doers.

Talk is cheap. Tell me until you’re blue in the face that you’re a friend, a supporter, a Christian, a Villager, a helper, whatever. I don’t believe a word until you act.

You want to help? Help. Don’t talk about what you want to do. Just do it.

You want change? Be the change you want to see. Until you've done your part, don’t look at me or anyone else.

You want civility? Stop flipping off other drivers and yelling at your children. Civility, like charity, begins at home.

You’re a Christian? Show me. Stop prattling on about your Bible and your God and show me what it means to live the life Christ commanded you to live.

It’s so much easier to comment from the couch than it is than to step into the fray. Get off your ass and do it. Or STFU.

A couple of other things I think about:

Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal.

Never forget that a round peg will never comfortably fit in a square hole.

Never forget that evil will win because good plays fair.

What about you, dear reader? What are your nevers?

With a capital F

2010-06-28T08:58:00.002-04:00

There are friends and there are Friends.

You know the most recent thing that confirmed Lex is my Friend?

Corn cob holders.

I bought a set about a decade ago at Central Market in Austin, Texas. It was the first set I’d ever seen that weren’t yellow and shaped like corn cobs. And yeah, that matters to me.

Bought them. Love them. Went years without ever seeing another set.

Two years ago or so, I went back to Austin, and found myself wandering through Central Market with Lex. We happened upon the kitchen supplies aisle, where I casually mentioned to her that I’d bought my favorite cob holders there and would love to have another non-yellow, non-cob-looking set, if I could ever find one.

Months went by, until one day a FedEx package arrived. It was a set of not-corn-cob corn cob holders. From my Friend Lex.

Here’s the thing about Lex: She’s the most beautiful woman I know. And that’s before you even look at her gorgeous face and ooh-la-la physique. She walks into a room and the whole place lights up. She’s strong and sweet and the epitome of glass-half-full. If you can be in a bad mood around her, there may be no hope left for you.

Lex is the Friend you want in your corner. Loyal and true, with a heart of gold and a backbone of steel. She’ll come to your side or watch carefully from the sidelines, whichever you ask for. She tells no tales, passes no judgments and will open her heart to you.

Best of all, Lex will take your hand and walk you home when everyone else has left for the day.

Not long ago, a foolish woman who was lucky enough to be in Lex’s orbit, slung her quiver of arrows into my Friend’s heart. And if that weren’t enough, she played really, really dirty. It was terribly hurtful to my friend. And what hurts her hurts me.

Lex, as she does, has picked herself up, dusted herself off and begun to walk forward with one less friend in her Village. She's wounded, but she's carrying on.

I watch from afar, amazed at her ability to be true to herself without sinking to the level of her opponent. She’s taken — and stayed on — the high road. Her unwillingness to get ugly is a lesson for us all.

As for her opponent, I wonder what it must be like to have so many Friends that you can afford to throw away one of the best.

Happy Monday, dear reader.

Worth my salt?

2010-06-25T10:53:00.003-04:00

“Where would we be without salt?”
— American chef and food writer James Beard

I’m addicted to salt.

There. I said it. Lock me up and throw away the key.

I put it on everything. I seek it out. I even like it in my sweets. (Salted peanuts and vanilla ice cream covered in chocolate syrup? The bomb.)

A potential paramour once asked, during a candlelit dinner, whether I also salt my men. Had he said it with anything other than sarcasm, he might have made it to the table to find out. As it happened, the date was over before check arrived.

My salt problem has become more apparent with the summer arrival of ripe tomatoes to the farmer’s market. There are few things in the world I like to eat more than a ripe tomato, especially on toasted sourdough, slathered with mayonnaise and topped with thin slivers of sweet onion.

And salt. Pepper’s good, too, but entirely optional.

I know that salt is the demon spice. Everywhere I turn someone tells me so. The government. The media. The food police. To listen to them you'd think I have one foot in the grave. Thing is, I don’t. I have a lot of crosses to bear, but the cross that comes from too much salt isn’t one of them.

Besides, what good is getting to the end of your life without having any fun along the way? Do I really want to live an extra six months so badly that I’d miss out on the wonderful things life has to offer? The beach? A good bottle of wine? A pat of butter? Or salt on a ripe tomato?

Someone once said, “Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well-preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming ‘Woo-hoo! What a ride!‘”

My own end-of-life quote is a bit simpler: Something’s gonna kill me, I might as well be tan.

Happy day, dear reader.

Here comes the judge

2010-06-24T21:22:00.002-04:00

You hear often in journalism school that reporters never get seated on juries.

It’s a big fat lie.

The only time I’ve ever been called for jury duty, I was called into the first voir dire session and was eventually seated as Juror No. 1.

I was irritated at first. Who has time for jury duty? When the trial started, however, everything changed. For two solid days I was mesmerized by our judicial system.

The case involved a young black man accused of battery on a police officer and resisting arrest without violence. His arrest happened as police were attempting to arrest his brother in the same house.

The evidence wasn’t particularly riveting. Four cops testified for the prosecution. Their stories were exactly the same, to the word, like they had, uh, rehearsed or something. At one point during this part of the trial, the judge replaced Juror No. 5 with an alternate because 5 was sleeping in the jury box.

The defense called a couple of witnesses, none of whom helped the young man’s case.

In the end it didn’t matter. We acquitted him. We decided he might be guilty of something, but not what he was charged with. We just couldn’t believe that a slightly built 18-year-old would try to beat up two cops in the presence of nine other officers and two K-9units. (For those of you not doing the math, that’s 11 cops and two German shepherds trained to catch bad guys.)

Jury service itself — and the deep and thoughtful discussion we had during deliberations — strengthened my belief in our system of justice and the checks and balances it relies upon. None of us had time for jury duty. A couple of us had real biases that were easily identifiable. And yet, when it came to talking about the guilt or innocence of this one man, we weighed the evidence, applied our judgment and came out with what I feel certain was the right decision.

The experience — for right or wrong — instilled in me a faith in the system that hadn’t been there before. And a belief that every one of us has a responsibility to serve.

A friend, and dear reader, is contemplating blowing it off, again, like several times before. She doesn’t have time. Too many other things to do. Besides, it’s boring.

Perhaps. But think of it this way: If YOU ever found yourself accused of a crime, would YOU want a jury composed of people who HAVE TIME for jury duty?

I rest my case.

I heart you…

2010-06-15T20:39:00.003-04:00

It can’t be legal for me to repost this photo, and yet, I can’t help myself.

Happy day, dear reader.

Word play

2010-06-13T22:42:00.002-04:00

As I look forward to starting school, I’ve imagined some things I might write that someone might publish, and how they might go. It’s not so easy, this imagining. I mean, if just anyone could think up something to write that someone would publish, then everyone would. Amirite?

Anyway. So I’ve been imagining what I might write. And it’s hard. But I’m doing it because it’s one of two things I can do now to get ready to kick ass in school (the other is read good writing, which is another blog post entirely). Along the way, I’ve been compiling several lists:

1. Subjects on which I have enough to say to last a chapter. (This list is a respectable length.)

2. Subjects on which I have enough to say to last for several chapters. (This list is much shorter.)

3. Subjects on which I have enough to say to last for a book. (This is the null set.)

Another list has cropped up as I work on the others: Words I want to use in whatever I end up writing. This list is fun to fill, so it gets far more attention than it should. It includes real words, Urchin words that I believe should be real words and other utterances that may or may not be words but, I think, deserve to be.

Here they are, in no particular order. See if you can figure out which is which.

besotted (Can’t you just see the two of them, lying on rumpled sheets covered with rose petals?)

asshat (Yup, just that.)

yesternight (Comes at the end of yesterday.)

scamper (Doesn’t it make you want to run in a field?)

dunderhead (Who could ever mistake this for a compliment?)

tryst (Ooh-la-la.)

tawdry (Ditto.)

maladroit (I always want to fit this one with a French accent, which would totally ruin its affect.)

erudite (This one just makes me feel smart.)

phantasmagoria (I can think of no legitimate way to fit this into any of the subjects on which I have any knowledge at all, and yet, I will try.)

lithe (Makes me think of a dancer’s body. Is that so wrong?)

bashful (I can scarcely say it without tilting my head down batting my eyelashes.)

terse (Sounds like what it means. Same family: curt)

waaahmbulance (As in: “Aw, did you get your feelings hurt? Let me call you a waaahmbulance.”)

sinister (Conjures up Maleficent, Voldemort and that creepy guy from “Taxi Driver.”)

festooned (It’s one thing to decorate something. It's another thing entirely to festoon it.)

big-year-old (Antonym of “kid”; synonym of “grown-up.”)

gobsmacked (They use it a lot across the pond. If someone used it here, tomorrow, I think I’d probably burst out laughing. Probably, too, if someone said “across the pond.”)

libidinous (It even sounds like dirty talk.)

craptastic (I know I’m late to this party. So sue me.)

penultimate (So much fancier than “next-to-last.”)

saucy (I can’t say this one without putting on airs.)

winsome (I’ll have to resist the urge to make a bad pun with this one.)

doppleganger (I know people who’ve used this one correctly and legitimately. I envy them.)

What about you, dear reader? What word(s) would you like me to imagine writing into my award-winning debut?

The funniest thing I’ve seen in weeks

2010-06-10T22:37:00.003-04:00

I stole this from a Facebook friend, and I don’t feel at all bad about it, mostly because he stole it from his sister...

“And if you rearrange the letters in ‘so-called Tea Party Republicans,’ and add just a few more letters, it spells:

“Shut up you free-loading, progress-blocking, benefit-grabbing, resource-sucking, violent, hypocritical assholes, and face the fact that you nearly wrecked the country under George W. Bush.”

What I’ve learned, Vol. 3

2010-06-08T22:10:00.006-04:00

Such a weird six weeks it has been. Most of you took the journey with us and know where we are today so I won’t rehash the details. Instead, I offer to you some of what I encountered along the way:

… The second-hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life was hand Urchin over to the people who would save her life. The first-hardest was watch her come out of anesthesia. If you want the true and pure definition of terror, see a
4 1/2-year-old wake up in an ICU room full of strangers, unable to talk because there’s a tube down her throat. If you want the true and pure definition of helpless, be her mom.

… Waiting through Urchin’s open-heart surgery was not hard for me. It was surreal, full of relief even. I didn’t realize until I took my place in the waiting room that I wasn’t afraid of the surgery itself. It was welcome when it finally arrived. The other stuff that went with it — the anesthesia, the potential for infection, her fears (see above) — is what scared me.

… Our Village is wider and far deeper than I could ever have imagined. There are people who care about me and my family in parts of this world I haven’t thought about in decades. It is tremendously comforting to know that when we really need positive energy, there’s a big group of you willing to share.

… Turns out, there are varying degrees of “Please let me know if there’s anything I can do.”

Sometimes it means, “I’m going to do X and Y for you so that you can focus on something else. When I’m finished with those, I’ll do W and Z. What else do you need?”

Sometimes it means “Please give me a task, any task, and I'll do it for you.”

Sometimes it means “I’ll do anything I can to help as long as it fits OK with my schedule and my comfort zone.”

And sometimes it means “God, I’m so sorry that you’re going through this terrible thing and I really don’t know what to say so I’ll offer to help in whatever way you need me to and pray to God you don’t get around to asking.”

No matter. What every version really boils down to is, “Man, I'm so sorry you have to go through this. Please know that you're in my thoughts.” And that, dear reader, is plenty enough.

… “How are you doing otherwise?” is a question in the same family as “Other than that, how’d you enjoy the play, Mrs. Lincoln?“ Granted, Mary Todd’s sitch was significantly more grave, but your child’s open-heart surgery definitely pushes out any possibility of “otherwise” until it's over.

… When you don’t know what to say, please just say “I’m sorry you have to go through this. I’m sure it must be terribly scary/sad/uncomfortable/insert negative feeling here.”

Please don’t bring up your uncle’s heart surgery as a way to show you understand. Your uncle probably ate too many french fries, and now has to pay the piper. Urchin did nothing to earn the right to have her chest slit open.

Please don’t try to minimize the significance of whatever is happening simply because you can’t bear to think about how effing big it is. “Oh, they do this procedure so often these days it’s almost like pulling a tooth” is NOT AT ALL helpful.

And for the love of everything holy, please don’t try to talk a mother out of her fear. She’s my Urchin. They’re going to cut her open and stop her heart. I am afraid. Give me that and hold my hand.

… Now that the surgery is over, I’ll confess to looking forward to the next month at home with my daughter. There are a thousand things I want to learn about her. Now will be my time.

… And finally, hard as it is to believe, dear reader, it really will be just fine.

Thank you so much for your love and support. It would have been terribly lonely without you.

bzh

Promises, promises

2010-06-08T10:14:00.002-04:00

An update, before the day is through.

Pinkie swear.

To my sweet Urchin, on her Heart Day

2010-06-01T03:38:00.003-04:00

3:44 a.m., June 1, 2010

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
my heart) i am never without it (anywhere
i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)
i fear
no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) i want
no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

— e.e. cummings
(with special thanks to jilly bean, for reminding me of these words)

When you know the notes to sing...

2010-05-28T19:37:00.004-04:00

If this does not make you smile, laugh even, there may be no hope for you.

Please, dear reader, tell me there’s hope.

(with thanks to kristy, for making my day...)

Heart felt

2010-05-14T21:59:00.003-04:00

This evening, we had ice cream for dinner. God, is there anything better?

I had cookie dough. Husband had some kind of triple chocolate extravaganza. Grandpa is a butter pecan fan. And Grandma had Oreo ice cream with crushed Oreos in it.

Urchin, of course, had a scoop of vanilla topped with gummi bears. Hard as I tried to steer her toward a topping that wouldn’t harden and break her teeth, she insisted. And these days, what Urchin wants, even that which is bad for her teeth, Urchin gets.

After dinner, we stopped at the fountains to listen to some live music. The place was filled with kids about Urchin’s age and their younger-than-we-are parents. The band played Lynyrd Skynyrd, the Cars and “Low Rider.” It was a weird disconnect that worked, somehow.

After a while, Urchin ran in the fountains, under the watchful eyes of her grandparents, while Husband and I snuck away to walk hand-in-hand and do a little shopping.

We happened upon a store that I've been meaning to visit for years. As we wandered through, I was drawn to every item that carried a heart motif. Art. Jewelry. Knick knacks. If it bore a heart, I picked it up. Two of the three things I bought have hearts on them. I’m wearing one of them right now.

This affinity is new, of course. I suspect it will be with me forever.

Peace to you.

P.S. On June 1, our Urchin will have the hole in her heart patched. We expect she will be in the hospital for four or five days, then home for six weeks. I will do my best to keep you posted here as things progress. In the meantime, we welcome your prayers and good thoughts.

Half-baked

2010-05-12T10:58:00.002-04:00

I can find my way around a kitchen pretty well. There's not much I won’t tackle when it comes to food. Simple, complex, makes no difference. And more often than not, things turn out better than I expect.

I’ll never forget the first time I bought a $200 piece of meat. At first, my heart fluttered with anxiety. The next flutter, however, was anticipation.

“D-d-did you see the price on that?” says my then-fiancé.

“I did,” says I.

“Does it make you nervous?” says he.

“Nope,” says I.

I could hardly contain myself as we walked out of the grocery store. I knew just what I'd do with that beautiful hunk of yum. In the end, my expectations fell well short of what made it to the table. As my friend saucymomma would say, it was divine.

Cocky as I am in the kitchen, I’m basically a fraud. While I can tap dance my way around the meat and potatoes without a care, there’s a whole other part of a chef’s dominion that totally has my number.

Baking.

Oh, I can throw together some Toll House cookies. And I’m good for the occasional birthday cake. But ask me to make a pie crust and I go looking for the Pillsbury Dough Boy. Croissants, foccacia, hell, even dinner rolls? Forget about it.

You can’t imagine how it pisses me off that I am intimidated by a flipping pie crust.

A week and a half ago, I took the first steps toward taming this beast. For a delicious 10 hours spread over two days, I tucked the concerns of the day in the back of my mind and toiled in Viennoisserie, a pastry-making class taught by a German master-baker with a killer sense of humor at our local culinary university.

I learned the science of yeast, the importance of cold and the beauty of laminating dough. I learned the difference between flours and why bleach and bromide can be bad, except for when they’re not. I learned why every baker must keep a ruler in her kitchen and that the best pastry cream uses the guts of two vanilla beans. I learned there’s a Zen quality to rolling dough, and that the most important ingredient in any baker’s kitchen is patience.

By the end of the second day, I had some new and comforting perspective on life’s challenges, two boxes of croissants and danish to show for my sore shoulder muscles and a belief that the next time Husband asks for raspberry pie, the Dough Boy will have to step aside.

Happy Wednesday to you.

To you, and you, and you

2010-05-10T21:53:00.001-04:00

“To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.”
— e.e. cummings

Live, from Mother’s Day

2010-05-09T19:58:00.001-04:00

When last we spoke, I was panic-stricken. Ten days later, I am well-educated, appropriately nervous about what is to come and feeling terrifically supported by my village.

As we say in the south, here’s where we at:

We have found excellent doctors, including a pediatric cardiac surgeon, right here at home.

We have an excellent children’s hospital right here at home.

We are dealing with a defect that is not terribly complicated to fix. That said, we are still facing open heart surgery on a four-and-a-half-year-old, which is terrifying. Fortunately, we have every reason to believe that, after the surgery, Urchin’s heart will be perfectly normal for the rest of her life.

We meet with the surgeon on Thursday. We’ll walk out with a game plan. And so it goes.

Thank you so much for all of your good thoughts and prayers. We can feel them. And we are beyond grateful.

Peace to you.

How do you mend a broken heart?

2010-04-29T07:19:00.004-04:00

I knew walking in that I should have been more afraid. That’s how things go in my life. The more afraid I am, the less afraid I need to be.

And vice versa.

Barely 10 minutes into it, I could see there was an enemy in the room. It was right there, on the screen. I couldn’t have told you what it was, exactly, that made my blood run cold, other than a black spot where it seemed there should be something not black. And the red stuff mixing with the blue stuff, I wondered, should that stuff be mixing like that?

No, it turns out, it shouldn’t. Not in a normal heart. A healthy, whole heart.

The red stuff should go one way. The blue stuff another.

In Urchin’s, it mixes. Like it shouldn’t.

And so begins our new normal.

Our daughter — our beautiful, amazing, healthy Urchin — has a broken heart. There’s a hole about 2 centimeters long right in the center that allows the blood that’s supposed to flow one way and then the other to mix it up in the lower left chamber.

It has a name, this enemy, which doesn’t roll off my tongue just yet. It’s a long and complicated name and, frankly, I'm still too angry to learn or use it. Right now, enemy, lowercase “e,” will do.

It’s congenital, been there since birth. We’ve had glimpses of it — a murmur heard here, a murmur heard there. But nothing made anyone stop and say: “We need to get to the bottom of this.” Until I demanded it on Monday, of her regular (and former) pediatrician — the only pediatrician she’s ever seen who never heard the murmur.

The good news is it’s fixable. The bad news is that fixing it requires open-heart surgery on a four-and-a-half-year-old. Think about that long enough and YOUR heart will start to hurt.

We will, of course, make it through this. Urchin is strong and resilient, we are fierce in the face of adversity and our life is filled with a strong network of friends and family who will carry us when the load gets too heavy.

Right now, we are reeling. But we’ve already begun to emerge and we’re preparing for the fight of our lives.

Your support and your prayers are most welcome. We’d also appreciate it if you’d bank some of your strength. We may need to borrow it in the coming months.

With love,

bzh

Take me to your leader

2010-04-26T21:29:00.003-04:00

I knew it.

Somewhere out there in the vast universe is an alien life form — maybe more than one — that is ready to eat our lunch. Er, ready to eat our planet for lunch.

So says Stephen Hawking, a British theoretical physicist, author of “A Brief History of Time” and basically the smartest guy in the world. His genius mind, it turns out, cannot conceive of our being the only intelligent life in the universe. In fact, he’s apparently imagined so much about alien beings — what they might act like, how they might treat us — that he’s issued a warning to Planet Earth.

Stop looking for aliens. Right. Now.

“We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn’t want to meet,” Hawking said. “I imagine they might exist in massive ships ... having used up all the resources from their home planet. Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonize whatever planets they can reach.”

And he doesn’t like our odds.

“If aliens visit us,” he said, “the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn’t turn out well for the native Americans.”

So listen up, space nerds. No more beaming radio wave signals to be answered. No more deep space probes. No more searching the skies for them.

Instead, Hawking says, we need to figure out how to protect ourselves when they come searching for us — a sort of invisibility cloak so these aliens fly right by on their hunt for an Earth-like planet to rape and plunder. He also thinks colonizing other parts of our galaxy would be wise, just in case. If we don’t need our Earth to live on, it won’t matter so much when they finally happen along to destroy it.

I don’t think it’s bragging to note that I’ve wondered whether it’s smart to go looking for trouble in space since Jodi Foster did it in “Contact.” I remember thinking it entirely possible that blasting AC/DC into the universe might not be so well received on the other end. And that mathematical mumbo-jumbo we're shooting off willy-nilly? What if it translates into a bunch of curse words for ET and his buddies?

Hawking’s most indelible point especially terrifies me. He wonders whether intelligence itself might doom life to fail, noting that humans have created all we need to destroy ourselves and our world in an instant.

“If the same holds for intelligent aliens, then they might not last long,” he said. “Perhaps they all blow themselves up soon after they discover that E=mc2. If civilizations take billions of years to evolve, only to vanish virtually overnight, then sadly we’ve next to no chance of hearing from them.“

Or, if we continue on the path we’re on, they from us.

Things I wish I’d written, Vol. 2

2010-04-26T18:29:00.002-04:00

Oh, how I wish I’d have come up with this...

On a Saturday morn

2010-04-24T08:39:00.003-04:00

Urchin: Mommy, did you know you can marry a girl?

Mommy: Oh, sweetheart, that’s not true in most places. I might fall in love with a girl, but I couldn’t get married to her in almost all of our country.

Urchin: How come?

Mommy: Because it’s not OK with some people who I think are mean.

Urchin: But what if you falled in love with a girl? (Mother’s dilemma: correct the grammar or continue the conversation uninterrupted...)

Mommy: Then I could love her but I wouldn’t be able to marry her unless I lived in a different state. (Please don’t let her ask which different state because I don’t remember the few of them there are and besides, that’s the not the point...)

Urchin: That makes me sad. I would be sad if I couldn’t get married.

Mommy: Me too, sweet pea. Because you can’t change who you fall in love with, can you?

Urchin: Nope. You can’t change who you fall in love with.

Pause.

Urchin: Why won’t some people let you get married?

Mommy: Because they’re mean and afraid.

Urchin: Are they afraid of dinosaurs?

Mommy: I don’t know what they're afraid of, sweetheart.

Urchin: Well, they shouldn’t be afraid of getting married. It’s not scary.

Mommy: To some people, it would be scary if I married a girl.

Urchin: Why?

Mommy: Because they think they should be able to tell me what to do.

Urchin: Well, that’s not very nice.

Mommy: No, sweet pea, it sure isn’t.

Urchin: Nope, it sure isn’t.

TGIF

2010-04-23T16:00:00.024-04:00

Some light-hearted conversation for a Friday afternoon…

• Urchin turns to me yesterday, without the slightest bit of provocation, and says: “Mommy, I just don’t know what I’m going to do with you.” So now it’s unanimous.

• There’s something about cupcakes. You can’t not smile while you eat one.

• Ditto popsicles.

• I unfriended a whole bunch of people the other day. Just cleaned out my closet, as it were. No worries. You weren’t one of them.

• My friend bzzzgrrrrl has gone into the business of representing a jewelry company. A few weeks ago, I bought a pendant and a matching bracelet/earrings set from her. Every time I put them on, I feel pretty. Who knew such a teensy little thing could put such a wiggle in your walk?

• I am, right now, immersed in the reading list for my first MFA residency. Up first: Dave Eggers’ “A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius.” About 150 pages into it, I’ve found the heartbreak. Still looking for the genius. All I can see is 20-year-old angst, mixed with some ”raising-my-kid-brother” martyrdom. It won the Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction, though. So I’m sure I’ll stumble upon some genius any minute now.

• I learned this week that Husband’s kindred spirit is married to mine. Pretty convenient, until you consider that we live 750 miles apart. For now.

• One of my favorite quotes comes from Husband’s kindred spirit: “And now you know why evil will always triumph over good. Because good is dumb.”

• Finally, I’ve almost completed my updated list. I say “almost,” because I can only come up with 19 members. Would you mind reading it and suggesting a 20th?

Many thanks. And peace to you.

**********************

My List (which, after the first name, is in no particular order):

Stephen Colbert

Brad Pitt

David Cook

Paul Rudd

Jon Stewart

Ewan MacGregor

John Corbett

Hugh Jackman

Matthew Morrison

Justin Timberlake

Eli Manning

Brian Roberts

Jake Gyllenhaall

David Krumholz

Edward Norton

Rob Thomas

Tim McGraw

Robert Downey Jr.

Johnny Depp

* I would have put Barack Obama on this list, but it seems like a sacrilege, so let's just call him an honorable mention.

RIP, Phoebe

2010-04-08T13:53:00.005-04:00

My fight or flight response is activated every time I hear a story about a kid being bullied. It’s natural, I suppose, for someone who spent a bunch of her life reeling from mistreatment by mean girls.

It’s funny. They always let me into their orbit, usually to play the part of the less-attractive, funny friend who could be counted on in a jam. I was a cheerleader, so I had reason to run with the big dogs. But I never developed the killer instinct or the thick skin a mean girl needs to survive. Instead, I fell victim to them time after time. I trusted the “friendships,” without weighing the consequences of opening myself up. I never realized, until it was far too late, that the jaws of the monster were about to snap shut. It always took me by surprise, and the fatal offense was usually ripped straight from my own words or deeds.

See, that’s how it works. Mean girls pounce on the vulnerable, no matter where they stand on the social ladder. In fact, they get more satisfaction from bullying those in their own stratosphere. Where’s the sport in hurting a “loser” who’s already terrified of the lunchroom? But to hurt someone who has unwittingly exposed her soft underbelly is an ingenious way to consolidate and hold onto power. Fucking over your “friends” keeps everyone unstable, on edge and looking for ways to keep you happy.

If you’ve never been bullied, you probably can’t conjure up the feeling you had in your gut when the school bell rang and you knew you had to pass So-and-So in the hall on the way to Algebra II. Or the metallic taste that developed in your mouth when Whozy-Whatsit showed up at a party drunk and looking to harass you and the new friends you’d made. Or the helplessness you felt upon learning that your “best friend” told everyone in school you did such-and-such with That Guy, when you didn’t and would NEVER have. But whatever.

For me, the pattern is Promethean. Just about the time I’ve healed from one ill-advised exposure of my soul, another mean girl comes along to dupe me and rip me to shreds. They’re getting more spread out, these episodes. Hell, I’m in my 40s, so it’s about time. But they still happen, because mean girls don’t change and vulnerable people don’t either.

All of this is top-of-mind for me because of Phoebe Prince, an Irish lass in Massachusetts who was bullied until she took her own life for having the audacity to date — and sleep with — the most desirable boys in her high school.

The mean girls who typically surround the most desirable boys in school reacted like piranha. They called her names, pushed her around, generally made her life intolerable for three months. She told her parents, who told school administrators and her teachers. In the end, though, she still had to walk the same halls and sit in the same classrooms, on edge and on guard.

She probably couldn’t sleep. Or eat. I’ll bet she tried to make new friends, but who wants to be friends with someone who’s drawn the wrath of the most popular kids in school? Even losers know better than that.

There are some differences between my experiences and Phoebe’s. I never told my parents. I didn’t sleep with anyone. I was able to make new friends and I didn’t kill myself. But bullies are bullies are bullies. They seek out the soft spots in others and exploit them in public to draw attention away from their own faults and weaknesses.

Phoebe’s story brings back that taste in my mouth something fierce.

I pray she’s finally found some peace.

Now you're mad?*

2010-04-04T17:47:00.008-04:00

Hey, you. Yeah, you. Over there, with the protest sign. (By the way, Obama only has one "b," and wealth needs an "l," you moron...)

You didn’t get mad when the Supreme Court stopped a legal recount and appointed a President.

You didn’t get mad when our vice president allowed energy company officials to dictate energy policy — and wouldn’t let the rest of us into the room to weigh in on the deals they were cooking up.

You didn’t get mad when a covert CIA operative was outed, putting her life and that of her family in danger.

You didn’t get mad when the U.S.A. Patriot Act passed, giving your government the authority to peek into whatever part of your life it wants to.

You didn’t get mad when we illegally invaded a country that posed no threat to us.

You didn’t get mad when you discovered that our President and his counselors lied to us about why we were invading a country that posed no threat to us.

You didn’t get mad when we spent more than $600 billion (and counting) on that illegal war.

You didn’t get mad when more than $10 billion in U.S. aid just disappeared in Iraq. Poof. Into thin air.

You didn’t get mad when you found out the U.S. — the greatest, most moral and just country on the planet — was torturing people.

You didn’t get mad when you discovered that your government was illegally wiretapping your fellow citizens.

You didn’t get mad when the U.S., the mightiest, most technologically advanced military force on Earth, couldn’t (and still can’t) catch Osama bin Laden.

You didn’t get mad when the horrible conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center were exposed by the, ahem, liberal media.

You didn’t get mad when we let a major U.S. city drown.

You didn’t get mad when we gave $900 billion in tax breaks to the rich.

You didn’t get mad when the deficit hit the trillion-dollar mark.

You finally got mad when our government decided that people in the United States of America deserve the right to see a doctor when they are sick; that no one should go broke treating a sick child; and that insurance companies shouldn’t be allowed to make money off of the healthy while denying care to the sick.

Jesus. What kind of people are you?

* idea lovingly lifted from one of those emails, then written in my own words...

Rhymes with Easter

2010-04-03T13:23:00.002-04:00

Happy day to you and yours...

Urchin tales

2010-03-30T21:11:00.002-04:00

Daddy picked Urchin up from school the other day. They listened to the radio on the way home.

As I finished dinner, she set the table and sang to herself, “Hit yer baby one more time...”

**********

Reading from a Cinderella counting book (one glass slipper, two mice, three brooms, etc.), Urchin reaches nine cabbages.

“Are there cabbages in Cinderella?” her daddy asks.

“Daddy!” she says with some attitude. “Cinderella goes to the ball in a cabbage.”

**********

Cuddling in bed, first thing in the morning, as Daddy feeds the cat.

”Mommy, how did you and daddy make me?“

Gulp. She’s four and a half. I AM NOT READY FOR THIS.

I told her the truth: “We made you with a lot of love.”

She sat still for a bit, as terror built in my throat. Then she moved on to more tales of playing restaurant in the playroom.

Whew. For now.

*********

We ate on the deck tonight — the first time this spring. We talked about our days and swapped stories over chicken picatta and pasta.

As Daddy started to tell a story involving the two of them she put up her teeny-tiny hand and said tersely, “Daddy, I wanted to talk about that one. Let ME talk about that one.”

Oh, how we tried not to laugh.

*********

In the car with Daddy a few days ago, she noted several freckles and scratches and bruises on her legs.

"These freckles make me very special," she said. "They make me a very special woman."

*********

And finally, we have two good friends who are due to give birth in June. Urchin is fascinated with babies, says she can't wait to have one of her own.

The other day, after my comment that both mommies-to-be will be at our house for the annual Easter Egg hunt, Urchin raised an eyebrow.

“Mommy, how do we know there are babies in there?” she asked. “We can't see them.”

”No, we can't see them,“ I said. “But that’s what makes their bellies so big. There are babies in there.”

She thought for a minute, then said: “Are you sure they're not just fat?”

Out of the mouths, indeed.

Happy day, dear reader.

Chuckle of the day

2010-03-29T21:34:00.002-04:00

Happy Monday.

Admit one

2010-03-26T13:05:00.004-04:00

“These columns are smart, funny, engaging, and touching. We hope this writer will want to deepen the kinds of explorations that these columns address, in literary work that prizes nuance, experiment, and original language. This work has narrative intimacy and a wide range of interests, as well as a polished style. A definite admit.”
— Admissions committee, Master of Fine Arts program, Queens University

As we know, I’m a writer. An insecure, unpolished, prolific writer.

My parents realized it in the second grade, when I wrote an essay on what it felt like to be an ice cream cone that they now tell people “made both of us shiver.”

I’ve kept a journal since fifth grade. I wrote for and edited my high school newspaper, my college newspaper and my college magazine.

My first job was as a magazine writer. My second was as a newspaper reporter.

My dream job came along after a whole bunch of steps in between, when they finally promoted me to Editor, capital E, no modifiers. That’s when I got to add “column writing” to my job description.

Here’s the thing about column writing: In the newspaper business, no one teaches you how to do it. You just start and pray you don’t suck.

My first columns were bad. Seriously, awfully bad. Fortunately, my readers were both starved for commentary and terribly kind. As they responded to my work, my confidence grew and I got better. Over the years, I wrote column after column. Each of them filled space in my newspaper and fed my soul.

Along the way, I won tons of awards — Best in Show once, for an editorial about bogeymen after Sept. 11. These days blogging is both a creative outlet and catharsis.

Even so, I’ve never had a minute of training on how to write what I write. I know my readers like it, but I have no idea whether it’s any good.

For years, I’ve toyed with going to graduate school. I even started a master’s in forensic psychology once. I’ve always wanted to study writing, but have never been able to make it work.

Besides, asking someone to help polish your writing style is tantamount to stripping in front of them and asking them to survey your body, inch by inch, and tell you how it looks — the fat, the scars, the blotches, the wrinkles. All of it laid bare for someone to rip to shreds in the name of making you better.

Who wouldn’t sign up for that?

Anyway, these thoughts have been loud in the past several months. Finally, to quiet them, I “looked into” going back to school — mostly to show myself that it couldn't be done.

Silly me.

Two weeks ago, after a whole bunch of research and study, I applied to a low-residency master of fine arts program in creative non-fiction writing. I studied all of the low-res programs in the country (low res = one week per semester on campus in workshops and other classes, the rest of the work done through a distance learning program online). Turns out that the program that fits me best is close to home.

How’s that for a sign from the universe?

Two nights ago, at 11 p.m., I got the call. I’m in, dear reader. I. Am. In. And that quote above? That’s what the admissions committee thought of my writing, before I’ve removed a single stitch of clothing.

I wish I could describe how it feels, once and for all, to know that I am good at my life’s passion. Perhaps two years from now, after I’m done with the program, the words will no longer fail me.

On knees, grandmothers and where she’s been

2010-03-25T13:44:00.002-04:00

I haven’t been here — I mean, really been here — since Jan. 14. Where the hell have I been? So many places, both literal and figurative. And here’s what I learned.

1. Your knees are important. Damn near the most important parts of your body if you want to walk, run, and generally keep up with your Urchin. Snow tubing, it turns out, can be bad for your knees, especially if you ram one of your legs into the icy snow on the first run down and sprain your MCL bad enough that you have to wear a brace for two months. I'm just sayin’.

2. The urgent care facility nearest Stone Mountain, Georgia, is a great place to score painkillers if you’re an addict. No questions. No patient history. Just pills. It is not, however, a good place to have an X-ray done. After the second try, just forbid them to try again.

3. Beware sweet-talking, joke-making, Bible-thumping grandmothers. I have run afoul of one and my life has been hell ever since. I do find it interesting that her God, whom she believes to be the only God, requires a lot of things of her. No alcohol. Submit to your husband. Tell everyone else they’re going to hell. Hate the queers. Yada. Yada. He doesn’t, however, require that she “do unto others” or “turn the other cheek.” He also doesn’t require that she seek the best in others or treat everyone with respect. He’s pretty selective, this God of hers. I feel fortunate he’s not the God I know.

4. Taking on a project far bigger than you can handle is terrifying, invigorating and a whole bunch of fun (as soon as you stop complaining about it). It’s also a huge shot to your ego. I just finished mine. It damn near kicked my ass. Now that it’s over, I look like a hero to a whole bunch of people whose opinions matter to me.

5. Persevering through something that kicks your ass feels really damn good in the end.

6. Nobody knows as much or cares as much as you do. You should still ask for help. There is something to be said for struggling through something and figuring it out on your own. But reinventing the wheel when someone you know already has the blueprints is just stupid.

7. When it’s all said and done, your family and friends are what matter in this world. Trite, perhaps. But true blue.

8. Sometimes your children are born right where you are. Sometimes they’re born half-way around the world. Somehow, you seem to find each other. My friend epz is now the mother of two — G and E, two of the most beautiful apples ever to fall from a tree. While both of them fell a long way from home geographically, neither fell very far psychically. Congratulations, p-z family. And welcome home, E.

9. I have not doubted for one moment that I voted for the right man for president in 2008. Now I’m doubly sure I did the right thing. For many people, health care reform is an intangible, policy-wonky thing to be for or against in the abstract. Truth is, for many of us, it won’t amount to a hill of beans, practically speaking. It’s about providing health care coverage for “them” — those people who can’t take care of themselves because they’re not smart enough, rich enough, educated enough, whatever-enough and a) aren’t they lucky we’re fighting for them? or b) why the hell are we fighting for them?

For me, health care reform means I’ll get to be friends with my BFF Glo for a good long time. It used to be that she couldn’t even GET coverage, let alone afford it. Now she’ll be able to get it AND afford it, which means she’ll be able to resume taking her life-saving meds. Thank you, Barack Obama, for having the cojones to stand up for my friend, Glo.

10. I typically roll my eyes at people who tell me they’re “afraid for our country.” In my experience, that has meant, “I wish the people in power believed as I do but can't figure out a mature, reasonable way to affect change. So in place of meaningful discourse, I'll run around screaming 'the sky is falling' and hope someone pays attention."

But people, I’m afraid for our country. There’s an awfully big group of, ahem, less-evolved folks we should be terribly afraid of, methinks. They’re being whipped into a frenzy by folks who go home every night and count the money they make off these low-lifes. They’re arming themselves to the gills (ignorance + fire power = bad news). They’re name-calling, herd-following, tea-partying friends of Rush who think it’s OK to spit in the face (!) of someone they don’t agree with.

And now, they’re issuing death threats that no doubt someone will take too far.

Remind me, when George W. Bush was in office and so many of us were angry at our government and calling for change, did members of Congress ever have to request additional security?

It’s good to be back, dear reader. Peace to you.

Things I wish I'd written...

2010-02-13T12:59:00.004-05:00

I know I haven't been around much. There are many reasons, none of which am I interested in discussing because, well, they’re just excuses. And everyone knows that real writers write, no matter the excuse.

I’ll be back soon. In the meantime, enjoy this from one of my new favorite bloggers.

She's in the new list over there ------->.

Happy weekend.

And again...

2010-01-27T17:55:00.001-05:00

“I’m selfish, impatient, and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control, and at times hard to handle, but if you can’t handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don’t deserve me at my best.”
— Marilyn Monroe