Lather, Rinse, Repeat

Last night I sent my 7 year old son to take a shower.

Which he did.  For approximately a minute and a half. 

That would be roughly 24 minutes less than I spend in the shower.  I immediately stuck my head into the bathroom and asked him what was wrong.

He was already out of the shower and wrapped up in a towel, wet hair plastered to his head and dripping all over the bathroom floor.

"I'm done," he said.  Duh.

"Done?  Already?"

"Uh-huh."

"You washed your hair?"

"Uh-huh."

"And your body?"

"Uh-huh."

"Your whole body?"

"Uh-huh."

"With SOAP?"

This was apparently his breaking point because he yelled, "Yes!" in that tone that says, "Jesus Christ, woman, enough with the inquisition already!"  He may or may not have rolled his eyes, which normally would make me crazy but I was too tired to deal and wanted to hurry up to the part of bedtime that actually involves sleep, so we'll say that he did not roll his eyes.

(even though he totally did)

The idea that someone can adequately clean his entire body AND wash his hair in less time than it takes me to decide what I want on my pizza was baffling to me.  Until I compared our routines.

Here's how the 7 year old showers:

1)Wash hair with shampoo.  Rinse.
2)Wash body with soap.  Rinse.

Here's how MY shower goes:

1)Shampoo hair.  While shampoo does it's thing, shave one leg. 

2)Thoroughly rinse shampoo.  Thoroughly rinse leg.  Start singing.

3)Shampoo again (this would be the 'repeat' phase of the lather-rinse-repeat cycle).  Shave other leg.

4)Thoroughly rinse shampoo.  Thoroughly rinse leg.  Think about how awesome my voice sounds in my shower. 

5)Apply conditioner.***

***I feel it necessary to point out here that one is supposed to leave conditioner on for a bit so that it can properly condition.  This is the difference between easily being able to brush out my hair vs. spending twenty minutes trying to extricate said brush from aforementioned hair. 

In other words, this block of time is definitely not my fault.  IT SAYS SO ON THE BOTTLE.

6)While conditioner is conditioning, wash body with soap.  Shave some more (sorry, Paula Cole and Julia Roberts, I don't endorse your hairy-pit tendencies).

7)Rinse conditioner from hair.  (This takes a while.  You really don't want to do a half-ass job here, or else you're going to need to do this all again in about six hours because your hair will be greasy and gross.)  Forget what step I'm on, pick up shampoo, then realize my legs are both smooth, meaning I've already shaved them and therefore shampooed.  Congratulate myself on my awesome deductive reasoning skills and consider a career as a detective.

8)Wash body with yummy smelling body wash and poufy thingy.  Pretend not to hear sons yelling at each other on other side of bathroom door.

9)Wash face with facial scrub infused with small shards of glass (this is called exfoliation).

10)Rinse hair again to be really, REALLY sure all conditioner is out of hair.  Stand under hot water for two more minutes and analyze last night's dream.  Turn water off when son starts banging on door.  Grab towel quickly.

I should be glad that I have sons instead of daughters.  So long as he's clean, I can get behind this whole 2 minute shower business.

Because it leaves me with all the hot water.

Quicksand

When I was a little girl, I was terrified by the idea of quicksand (too many hours spent playing Pitfall, I suppose).  The very idea that one minute the ground would be solid beneath your feet and the next it could give way, crumbling beneath you, sucking you in, and then collapsing over your head, consuming you until the ground sealed back up and there was no evidence that you had ever been there at all...

Scared the shit out of me.

It would seem my fear was warranted.

Only now, as an adult, it's not just the notion of the ground giving way.  It's the very foundation of my life.

Marriage.  House.  Love.  Career. 

These things crumble beneath my feet with a speed so dizzying that I'm left breathless, jerked below the surface and crushed under the weight before there is even time to look for something to grab on to.  There is the whooshing sound of a vacuum I myself turned on, and the sudden disappearance of everything I once held certain.  It happens fast, this crumbling.

And I'm left in the dark, with the weight heavy on my chest, desperate for a breath of air, just a quick reprieve for a moment before trying to dig my way out. 

Perhaps I should take a moment and apologize to any reader who follows this blog for the funny posts.  I promise they will return at some point. 

But I began this blog with an interest in putting something genuine out into the world, a real experience in a world where very little feels real, very little feels authentic or like a true connection despite the supposed increased connectivity among us. 

Sometimes those experiences are funny.

And sometimes, they have very sharp, pointy edges that you cannot hide from. 

So bear with me while I look around for something to dig with.  Right now, I've got nothing.  But I'm fumbling around the dark for a shovel or a spoon. 

And there are always my own bare hands.




(okay, I feel like there should be some sort of grand ending to this.  I've got nothing, so I'll steal someone else's grand ending...)

With liberty and justice for all.

or...

A merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

or...

Play ball!

Yeah, any one of those will do.

Reading of the Names

Names are important. 

We spend months choosing just the right ones for our children.  We long to hear our own names whispered from those who love us.  We look the ones we ourselves love in the eye and speak their names so that they may hear it.  These names feel so at home in our mouths, on our tongues, our lips.  This is more than saying, "I love you."  It is saying, I love YOU.  Specifically, you. 

Today, more than 3,000 names will be spoken. 

Each name will spill forth from a living soul, sent out into the world on a breath of life borrowed from another.

Each name, so much more than a name. 

Each name representing a man, a woman, a child, the loved ones left behind, the holes left in hearts and lives.

Each name representing a life. 

We say, "Never forget."  We say, "I remember where I was..."

Speak the names. 

Speak the names of those lost.  Speak the names of those you love. 

Yell them, spill them out with a laugh, whisper them, call them, cry them.

But don't stop saying their names.

Mowing The Lawn (And Other Formerly Penilarily Held Jobs)

Let me start by saying, in order to alleviate any false hopes/fears about the topic of this post, that the mowing of the lawn referenced in the title refers to ACTUAL lawn mowing. 

It's NOT a euphemism for anything else (although I'll probably tackle that topic in a future post titled something like, "Holy Fuck In A Truck, I'm Single Again"). 

(also, making up the word 'penilarily' was way more fun than it probably should be for someone over the age of 17)

But for now, I'm talking about the literal mowing of the lawn.  Which is something that, in my thirty-coughcough*ahem*cough years, I've never actually done before. 

I'm not sure how it is that I've never had to do this before.  Maybe it's because I lived at home (yay, stepdad!), then lived in apartments (yay, landlords!), and then my house (yay, husband!) so it was just always...done.

However, now that I'm separated, it would appear that this job now falls to me.

Because there's all this grass in my yard.  And, well...

It keeps growing.

I keep hoping it will stop, or that maybe one morning I'll wake up and it'll just be, I don't know, shorter or dead (seriously, it was like 900 degrees last week, how it's not burned to a Shredded-Wheat crisp is beyond me) or something like that where I won't have to actually DEAL with it. 

This is generally my go-to method for coping with such things.  I also use this for problems including (but not limited to):  That Weird Noise My Car Is Making, That Weird Smell In the Basement, and My Mom.

It pretty much works about as well in those situations as it does with the Grass Growing Dilemma.

Lawn mowing is not the only formerly penilarily held job that now rests in my hands. 

*beat*

FOR INSTANCE:  I'm now the primary bug killer in the house.  I'm okay with this when it comes to things like tiny little ants (I'm talking about a few here.  Like, less than 10.  Any number higher than that makes me think of scary movies my stepdad used to watch involving thousands and thousands and thousands of bugs or other creepy-crawly things swarming on people's faces in places like the shower.) 

Holy crap am I itchy now. 

Also, I'm down with spiders of the itsy-bitsy variety. 

But anything with a stinger, pincher, biter, more legs than I have dollars in my wallet right now (which would be about TEN, oh ye Muggers and Robbers of the world), or larger than a baby's fingernail, and we've got a problem. 

Also.

We get mice.

It's not that my house isn't clean.  It's simply that it's older and located outside, and so...

Mice Happen.

Perhaps, if I were a cat or an owl or a snake or anything else but a female human, I would enjoy this whole mouse-hunting business far more than I do.  But the whole reason I live in a house as opposed to, say, a wigwam or a Swiss-Family-Robinsonesque Tree House, is to put a little distance between myself and all Creatures That Roam The Earth. 

Really, the only mice I want to interact with are the ones who run around making pretty dresses at night singing "Cinderelly". 

However, I've yet to wake in the morning to a new dress. 

Mouse poop?  Yes. 

Fitted A-line ball gown?  Not so much.

And then, finally there is the tra-

OH SHIT.

I FORGOT TO PUT OUT THE TRASH. 




(Author's Note:  Twenty bucks says that someone will land on this post because they Googled the words 'mice' and 'fuck'.  People are MESSED. UP. YO.)

These Little Earthquakes

It’s funny, the things you hold on to; the things you save because they remind you of a particular time, a particular place, a particular person.

Or, maybe, a particular version of yourself.

Trinkets. Tickets. Trifles. Things that would be meaningless to anyone else, but that hold so much weight in your own hand, you can barely stand to touch them.

I once had a plain wooden box, chosen specifically to belie the importance of its contents. I filled it with a thousand different words, as much of my soul as I could spill on to paper.

I filled it with things.

Into this box went a dried flower, a tiny key on a blue string, a thin silver key ring, the pink empty shell of what was once a balloon, a seashell, a napkin with quick, hasty words scribbled across it. Things that would look like trash to anyone else.

But to me, they were things to hold on to, to touch, to open up and remove and say, “Remember when?”

Now I am grown.

Now I sit, alone, on the edge of my bed.

In my hand lies a tiny pink heart-shaped box, made for me by my 7 year old for Mother’s Day, with the word MOM written in blue marker.

I run my fingers across the top, skipping along the tiny beads so meticulously glued on.

There is no box large enough to hold what I’m trying to put away this time.  There is only the physical evidence we have left behind: this house, these children, this life.

These rings.

I'm surprised by the sound they make, the reality of their weight, as I plunk first one (my hand is stretched out against the steering wheel, the sun bouncing off of this new diamond ring, throwing light in a thousand different directions, a thousand different possibilities for this life we're about to start), and then the other (take this ring as a sign of my love and fidelity) into the tiny box. I put the top on quickly, afraid they might jump back out at me, grow teeth, and sink themselves deep into my flesh, cutting so deep as to never stop bleeding, never scar over, never heal.

And then I push the box into the back of my drawer, buried under bathing suits and sports bras.

As if they can be hidden.

As if I will forget that they are there. As if, every time I open that drawer, I won’t feel my heart race just knowing they exist, knowing that I could reach my hand in and pull the box out and open the lid and face the sadness that threatens to swallow me whole, face it straight on.

Look it in the eyes. Stare it down. Break under it. Conquer it.

But I will do none of these things.

Instead, I will leave the box buried beneath the bathing suits and sports bras.

I will walk out of my empty bedroom.


And then, quietly, I will close the door behind me.

Kidsports (omg,shootmenow)

There are a lot of things my kids say that make me cringe. Things like, "What are those bumps on your chest called again?" or, "I think I'm going to throw up" (which does not, by the way, mean 'perhaps you should direct me to the nearest, most convenient spot to do so'.  Rather, it means 'throw up is currently coming out of my mouth and onto the floor, my clothes, my shoes, your shoes, and somehow, thanks to physics, your hair')

Another would be: "Can we go to Kidsports?"

Kidsports is an indoor playground where you can bring your kids on a rainy/cold/snowy day so they can run around and let out some energy.  Get some exercise.  Blow off some steam.  To those without children, it probably seems like a brilliant idea. 

And, as you prepare for your first visit one rainy Saturday in late November, you think so, too.

Of course, so does every other parent of every other child between the ages of 3 and 12 within a 30 mile radius.

The problem with sticking 439 children into a playspace meant to contain 70 children, is that kids in this setting tend to get JUST A LITTLE FUCKING INSANE.  Maybe, perhaps, just a little bit louder/crazier/lethal than they might otherwise. 

And that loud/crazy/lethal shit multiplies faster than Gremlins in a hot tub.

Now, because you are a good American, you will have hit the local Dunkin' Donuts on your way and purchased yourself the largest coffee they are legally allowed to sell you, only to open the door to Kidsports and be accosted not only with the overpowering smell of feet, but a front desk attendant who tells you, "Ummm, sorry?  No outside food or drink allowed?  Ummmm?  We sell coffee at the snack bar?" 

That's right, you must buy their sucky coffee.  Coffee that tastes like it was brewed, burnt, and reheated sometime during the Clinton Administration and that could, quite possibly, even contain ground-up bits of an old Clinton cigar.

It's really bad coffee.

Not to be outdone by the coffee, there is also the prerequisite shitty pizza.  I'm pretty sure this is part of the business model:  you must have x-number of bathrooms and sprinklers, require a minimum of 8,200 tickets for a 'prize' that was dipped in lead paint while being made in an asbestos factory by 10 year olds in a country 92% of high school seniors can't find on a map, and, oh yeah, you MUST follow our recipe for Shitty Pizza That Kids Will Eat Because They'll Eat Anything That You Call Pizza.

That's the legit name of the recipe.

So why in God's name would a grown, sane, stable woman ever chose to go to such a place?

Because my kids love that shitty pizza.  And they come flying down the giant slide laughing so hard they can't catch their breath.  And they jump in the bouncy house until they're ready to puke.  They leave sweaty and happy.

And tired.

Translation?  Easy bedtime.

Which makes it almost worth the really bad coffee.

Almost.

In loving memory of my Grandmother

When I was a little girl, I remember sleeping over at my grandparent's house.  There would be fluffernutter sandwiches, chocolate milk, my grandfather's big bowl of Corn Flakes with a banana in the morning. 

One night I slept in the big bed with my grandmother.  I was tired; I wanted to snuggle up to her and go to sleep.  I asked her to turn out the light. 

But she was praying the rosary and she said I needed to be patient.  Because this was important.  She showed me the beads, she recited the prayers for me, she slipped an arm around me and kept praying as I drifted off to sleep.

I felt as though I belonged in her life.  And she belonged in mine.

When I was around 12 or 13, I was in her kitchen for Thanksgiving.  This year was different from others; I wasn't running around, bouncing on the beds, playing with my cousins or trying to steal a piece of fudge from the dining room without being caught.  This year, I was with the women in the kitchen.  My grandmother opened the drawer where she kept her aprons (to the left of the sink), pulled one out, and gave it to me to wear.  I slipped it on.

I felt as though I belonged in her life.  And she belonged in mine.

When I was 21, nearing the end of college, I lived with one of my aunts while I finished school.  My grandparents lived nearby.  They suddenly had a much closer view of the person I was becoming within my family.

They did not like what they saw.

And my grandmother told me so.  She took pen to paper and wrote me a letter.  I wanted to pretend that that letter never existed, that it's words were untrue, that the person my grandmother was disappointed in was someone else.  But I knew she was right.  I knew there was more to me than what she saw, but that I could not deny the things she said.

I found myself, again, at my grandmother's kitchen table.  I was terrified to sit there, before my grandparents, but I was ready to apologize and to hear the things they had to say.  I was ashamed and afraid as my grandmother poured me a cup of tea.

The first thing she said to me was that she was proud of me for coming to the table to have this conversation.

And, immediately, I felt as though I belonged in her life.  And she belonged in mine.

When my first son was born, my relationship with my grandmother changed.  Suddenly, we had a new connection, as mothers.  She talked about potty training, she talked about being a stay at home mother, she talked about the resilience of little ones as I worried about everything little thing under the sun (prompting her to finally say, having grown impatient with my never ending list of Things I Felt I Was Doing Wrong, 'You know, you really have to go out of your way to break him'.) 

My second son was born.  My boys grew.

And then my father, her firstborn, got sick.

He was 3,000 miles away.  Neither of us could easily get to him to see him, to know he was alright, to take him in with our own eyes, to hug him the way we wanted to.  When he was finally well enough to visit, just 3 short weeks ago, my grandmother and I talked about how relieved we were to see him for ourselves. 

"But the goodbye," she said, with tears in her eyes.  "It's going to be a very hard goodbye." 

"Yes," I agreed.  "It is." 

I felt as though I belonged in her life.  And she belonged in mine.

And my Grandma, who slipped from this world this past Thursday, was so very right.

It's a very hard goodbye.