t-n-t

After surviving a two-hour trip to pick B. up from school in which I quite nearly murdered someone because of the way she was straddling the lanes on purpose while I was clearly in a hurry, I took B. trick-or-treating this evening. I gotta say it was weird.

We were about half a block down Leavitt when I realized I was the only mama out. I'm not kidding. There were kids swarming the neighborhood, but I didn't see one mother until we headed over to Wilson, and even then it was only one. [I can only presume that all of the mamas were handing out candy while the papas took the kiddos out.] Still, that wasn't the weird part. No, it was the fact that every single father I saw was openly drinking beer. And, judging how some of them reeked as they passed by, I don't think they were drinking in moderation.

Is this some Chicago thing I've never noticed since (a) last year was my first year trick-or-treating in the city proper and (b) I was still recovering from brain surgery then? And what's up with dads getting an easy go of it? If a bunch of mamas were out drinking while their kiddos traipsed from house to house, we'd be labeled as unfit parents. Are our standards for men so low that we look the other way while they are publicly intoxicated as long as they're "spending time" with their kids?

Ugh. No matter. B. got a huge haul this evening, especially since we only walked about three blocks total. Must be because he's cute. I'd give him candy. W. decided not to go out tonight, and instead went with A. to Target, where he was able to pick out a special Halloween toy instead of getting a shitload of candy he wouldn't be able to eat anyhow because the adults in his life would pilfer it all first. Besides, he didn't have a costume, and my idea of his dressing in all black while wearing an aqua pageboy wig didn't go over so well. I guess the nine-year-old boys aren't much into gender bending these days.

halloween resolutions

I'm sure this will inspire no small amount of outrage coupled with astonishment from most of my friends, but I don't like Halloween. Perhaps I was traumatized as a child when my mother forced my brother, sister, and me to wear matching homemade clown costumes until I was nine years old. [The year I turned ten, I was Madonna from Like a Virgin. How prescient.] Maybe I'm intimidated by costume stuff, since I've never been very good at that sort of thing, and I tend to get so drunk at parties the costume is irrelevant at best. [My last costume party, I was an 80s rock-n-roll chick, then proceeded to act like one, including drinking an entire bottle of premixed margaritas and took off my bra to use Halloween tape as makeshift pasties.] Or could it be that, since I've had children, the holiday means getting a backache traipsing around for hours and feeling morally suspect as a mother seeing how clean everyone else's homes are compared to my clutter-ridden fire hazard of a house?

It hasn't always been this way. In high school I was one of those drama kids... though, because I was also involved in tons of other things (e.g., Latin history club) I wasn't a completely stereotypical drama nerd; I mostly just dated them. I was one of the many creative forces behind our town's haunted house, which means I learned how to make fake blood and wear fangs without drooling all over my chin. Still, that was for a show, not because I wanted to don a costume and skip around the neighborhood acting silly.

And so here is the key point: I have a serious dearth of silliness. It's a well documented fact. I can be uninhibited (note the 80s rock chick gig), ecstatic, playful, funny, and even giddy. But silly? Nope.

My therapist would give some mumbo jumbo about how I've had a horribly downtrodden life and so silliness was always squelched... and she'd be right. But I have distinct memories of being unsilly (and teased for it) since I was a very small child. While the horrors at home started when I was rather young (I went to kindergarten with a black eye), it was a while before I realized I had to remain under my parents' radar (i.e., unsilly) to avoid being seriously injured. And before I woke up to that sad fact, I was still decidely sober. At age four, my idea of fun was playing school with neighborhood children who, not surprisingly, didn't take well to having a little kid assign them homework or take them to task for not knowing addition facts. And I've always been branded in my family as the "smart but not silly" one (though none of them are a barrel of laughs; must be some Catholic guilt thing).

Nonetheless, I acknowledge the power of silliness and resolve to learn how to be silly, culminating in my wholehearted embrace of the Halloween 2007. Next year, I will enthusiastically participate. I will buy and wear a costume in a proud yet silly fashion. I will gladly take the boys wherever they wish to go. I will not startle at Fright Fest when characters jump at me. I will remain non-judgmental toward people who take the holiday much more seriously than I ever would. Perhaps I'll even be overcome by silliness.

breaking free

Over the past few weeks, I've been witness to several friends who have worked past their fears to try something different, whether it's leaving a bad relationship or working up the courage to confess their feelings to a crush. Listening to them wonder if it's been a positive experience to turn their fears around in a most Aristotelian manner reminds me of how much I've changed recently, and I think it's all because of South Carolina.

Before I went, it would have seemed completely out of character for me to travel hundreds of miles to a place I'd never visited (where I knew no one) to live for the summer without a car and in a city with no real public transportation. When I left, I wasn't at all the sort of person who would see a concert by myself, ride a bike all over a city, or introduce myself to random strangers. I panicked if I had to talk to someone on the phone, especially if I didn't know the person well and was the one who initiated the call. Imagine my surprise, then, to collect more than two dozen friends (and many more acquaintances) during my two-month stint in the Holy City. Even more surprising is how I then later navigated New York City alone (and had the courage to meet people, even there), drove cross-country alone, consistently went to concerts by myself, and didn't think anything of striking up conversations with random strangers at bars. Heck, I even befriended a Deadhead cab driver in Charleston (whom I think developed a small crush on me).

There's something that happened to me in South Carolina, and it wasn't the humidity (despite what they say, it wasn't a whole lot more humid than Chicago). It could have been any number of things - not being responsible for children, the lack of financial woes (my car accident settlement funded my summer), not having to do any real work, the ability to reinvent myself in a place where no one knew me - but, ultimately, I think it comes down to a realization that I didn't have to be the person I'd been for the past 30+ years of my life. Yes, I could be the academic spending the summer in a beautiful city to research the Gullah, but I could also be the writer working on her memoir, the woman who loved to dance and hula hoop, the music lover who couldn't pass up a show, the girl who could drink everyone under the table, a refugee, an expatriate, and a lost soul who couldn't help but be the craziest person on any given Saturday night.

I did a lot of stupid things in Charleston, including mixing too much drinking with not enough working. I never did research the Gullah culture (though I did pick up a few books on their animal tales), and my memoir remains largely (though not entirely) unwritten. I didn't take as many pictures as I wanted, and I didn't do anything even remotely touristy (unless getting a tour of the city from a local boy who majored in history counts). I burned some bridges by making foolish choices, but I also learned to live with what I previously viewed in guilt-ridden and shameful ways. Ultimately, I think, I crammed all of my adult years and frustrations into a summer in which I was able to work through the boundaries I'd constructed for myself, and I worked past the fears I'd carried around for so long.

So where does this leave me now? On the one hand, I'm much happier. On the other, I'm frustrated that I can't fully take the self-assuredness I had in Charleston and apply it to my daily life in Chicago. I don't have the exact problems I had before (e.g., I don't panic calling strangers on the phone, even if it's in a stressful situation), but I do have the same problems in a deeper way (e.g., being unable to speak up in a situation where a more self-assured person might). I'm still unsure about going out, say, to the movies with someone I don't know very well, and an open-ended invitation to call someone inspires a small amount of anxiety. Still, I'm in a place where I realize that the worst I can happen by pushing through the fear is making a fool out of myself..... and that isn't, by far, the worst that can happen.

thoughts/things that make me happy

My wonderful mama friends who made B's birthday party a pleasant experience. Which other adults in my life would don pirate hats and paint moustaches on their three-year-olds? I'll walk the plank for you any day!

All the people who helped me after my surgery... I've been working on my memoir of Tony the Tumor a bit lately, and it still floors me how you all came forward with your love and kindness.

Snuggling with B is so heavenly. I never want him to grow up. His cheeks are little pillows of heaven and I can't get enough of kissing or nuzzling my nose into them. And his nose kisses ain't bad, either.

Talking with W. about grammar. There's something about a nine-year-old's perspective on the world that is fresh and invigorating. And when it's on something I care about (e.g., periphrastic modals) I'm glad to have such a sharp kid in the house.

Amy's tofu breakfast scrambles.

And pod coffee makers.

Plus soy creamer and - ooh! - soy whipped cream, which Whole Foods just started carrying.

Sleep deprivation. OK, so this may not belong on a list of things that make me happy, but I still do marvel at how, despite my age and energy level, I'm still able to crank out an all-nighter when it has to be done. Yay for me.

Animals. Particularly cats. I feel so happy when I see my little guys all curled up. And the range of cats I have! From the 27-pound football player to the 6-pound baby girl I rescued from dying in a gutter and the medium-sized not-unlucky black kitty, I love them all. [I will even take time to expound on how much I love A's beagle's ears and won't elaborate on all of the other things about this dog which I find supremely annoying.]

Black bean cakes with mango salsa and sauteed lemon-garlic spinach (to be found at Wishbone if anyone is up for it soon).

Despite the troubles and the problems, I am grateful for A and all that he has done and continues to do for me. My life would be very different if he'd never come into my universe, and I wouldn't be the person I am today. [I'd be a much bigger smart-ass and probably completely incapable of coming up with thoughts of things that make me immeasurably happy.]

birthday blues

While I acknowledge that, by becoming a parent, I took on certain responsibilities which (at best) would be ill-advised to abandon, one thing not mentioned in any of the parenting books how much of a pain in the ass children's birthday parties are. Today is B's party, one for which I have neither the time nor money but am nonetheless throwing since I remain wracked with guilt over last year's nonexistent festivities. [Despite being two weeks out of brain surgery, a good mother would have fought through the focal seizures, dizziness, and fatigue, right?]

In the future, I'm going to hire someone to do everything, so I can just show up and have fun like everyone else. And, while I'm on this hire-someone roll, I'm going to finally bite the bullet and get something in here to help me declutter my home (and clear out the basement). Which would mean I actually have the time to plan a birthday party....

a bunny story

A rabbit cuts off the shadowed concrete path I follow to the el, stops and stares, reminds me of you showing me a bunny - a bunny! - quivering in the bushes of your yard at twilight as the South Carolina springtime fought to wrest away winter’s hold. Dusky shadows of decades-old trees mingled with fertile green leaves, a pedigreed canopy protecting the cotton-tailed among us as we stood, hands entwined, connections humming through the atmosphere we dared not breathe for fear of disturbance. And it was there, among the plants and flowers whose names rolled off your tongue like a botanist drunk on pollen, where I knew you needed the cool embrace of safety wrapped around you, the blanket for which you’d spent years praying in loveless asylums, always a little boy bracing yourself in detached yet wondrous anticipation of the depth of the horrors to come.

Oh, how I wish it were different. I think it would be easier—my intimate knowledge of these difficulties, these injustices at once grave and minor perpetuated upon you—if I didn’t bear, myself, the scars both visible and imagined of a parallel life. What does one do—really, I ask!—when happening upon the same lies and secrets disguised as love and discipline? How does one balance the stories of beatings and blood-lettings, the abject terror of servitude—the hallmarks of abuse and privilege, the patriarch’s hands looming—with the two of us, mid-March, taking pleasure in a bunny who won’t live through fall? There cannot be a god who mingles profane and sacred and expects no questions; even if there were, even then, our pain makes me atheist by default.

I am angry for you in a way I cannot be for myself, the once-small girl with black eyes and broken bones and kinesthetic memories of belt buckles searing into flesh. Maybe I’ve repressed too much. Maybe therapy worked. Maybe I’m whole or perhaps Humpty Dumpty improbably fixed. Maybe I’ve fallen in love with you as a small boy. When my toddler suckles to sleep tonight, the images of your father beating you, age three, bragging about it later, will collect in my thoughts, and I will never want to let him go. My son, that is.

Selfish is what I must be, hundreds of miles away, thinking I know what you need. You’re a grown man; you’ve spent forty years without my conjuring up imagined desires for cool embraces or blankets or even the vengeance of hope; this is too much mental energy for one person—for me—to expend rationally, but the need burrows so deep I wonder whether it is your soul or mine for which I offer salvation.

The bunny—the bunny!—turns, city lights reflected in her eyes. Is she a mother, a daughter, an apparition? No matter. She is here, an unlikely creature flourishing among concrete and high-rises, a cold world that cannot afford to place interest in her survival. Are we the same? I think not, my dear. Selfish or not, I cannot help but care where you go from here.

friday night with kim

Arrived at Los Lobos show. Completely bored by the audience of 50something people unable to dance with 90 percent of the women wearing mom jeans that would drive Stacy London crazy. Highlight: two Dead covers at the end.

Went to the Holiday Club to see my friend Maria. Nothing happening, other than me finding out Maria is pregnant and due in March.

Spent time at the Belmont "L" stop, where we noted that the kids are looking really young these days. Text-ed John and Kevin to come out with us; both reminded me they were in their mid-40s and (presumably) unable to start having fun at 11:30pm.

Went back to Lincoln Square, hung out at The Grafton. Stared stupidly for a guy for ten minutes before realizing I recognized him from The Grind. Drank a couple Stellas and realized we were tired.

And so this is the only story told so far in which Kim and I go out together and are home, in bed, and not completely wasted by 1am.

maybe friday i can get tickets for the dance...

...and I can take you.

Or not.

Looks like my funds have dried up enough that Wilco presale tickets are a slim hope. Though perhaps I shall buy only one and go by myself...

Last night I accidentally punched a table (hard) while reaching down to get laundry off the floor (so I wasn't paying attention; shoot me) and I'm now in some pain... hoping it's not seriously damaged, though perhaps it would be a reason to get more Vicodin with which I can tempt my potential addiction...

Hugs and kisses to everyone and happy Friday (what a dumb phrase). Go out and find love in the small spaces this weekend. I, on the other hand, will be grappling with periphrastic modals, contraction ellipses, and phonemic transcription, and there ain't no love there.

on any given thursday....

...I am exhausted from the previous four days. Next week, I vow, will be different, because:

Even though Kim and I are going out Friday, we both have plans for Saturday, which means there will be no drunken foolishness 'till 4am like last week.... though maybe we can push it until 1am or 2am if anyone knows of anything happening on the north side after 10pm (when our show is supposed to be over)....

In other happy news, in the morning I'm having breakfast with J (whom I haven't seen since before I went to South Carolina) tomorrow at the Heartland Cafe.

PS - Is it totally wrong that I just ate an entire bag of sea salt pita chips along with a half-container of Cedar's artichoke spinach hummus? In my defense: on T/Th I don't get to eat at all until 4pm....

nothing here to fear, i'm just sitting around being foolish...

...when there is work to be done.

Yes, kids, it's time for the Wednesday installment of my blogs-that-reference-songs-and-lyrics. I'll give a blow pop to whoever gets today's reference, though it's a easy one. I think. If you are female and were alive and listening to music in 2002. So maybe that narrows the possibility that someone will know. I don't care. I've got a blow pop in wait.

That being said.... it's my Wednesday morning lull! I've got an appointment for a facial at 11am (it's Spa Week in Chicago!) and, for once, all my lesson plans are done and I'm caught up on grading papers. Class doesn't start until 2pm, I actually got a full night of sleep last night, and I made my way through all of the back episodes of Law and Order: Criminal Intent (have I mentioned my slight crush on Vincent D'Onofrio?) on DVR.

[Nevermind that I have a grammar midterm due Monday and am still in search of a native Italian speaker for my phonology project (at this point, I'd pay a finders' fee!)... those are mere distractions from my morning of hedonistic sloth.]

So, for once, I can leave the house without wishing it were possible to mainline B vitamins and caffeine simultaneously.

barely out of tuesday

[Name that completely blah song reference!]

Somehow my iGo car reservation to pick up B. was maddeningly and mysteriously canceled (and not by me) and I just got a call saying W.'s school bus was in a car accident, leaving me waiting for him to get home (I am told by the school secretary that "everyone's ok" but, being a car accident veteran, I'm skeptical...) and scrambling to get in touch with A. so he can pick up the little kiddo. Grrr.

Meanwhile, in other news:

my affinity for MySpace is quickly being eclipsed by my fascination with MOG, which you all totally need to check out;

the research subject for my phonology project has dropped off the face of the planet (anyone know a native Italian speaker?);

suffering from sleep deprivation and it's only Tuesday;

won tickets to see Los Lobos at the Cubby Bear Friday night;

blessed to be graced with a new text-message buddy, and no one (not even Kim!) will guess who s/he is; and (drum roll please...)

finally watched David Mamet's Edmond, which has to be the most fucked-up movie he's ever done. [A. claims the movie proves Mamet hates women, but only because I maintain Aaron Sorkin is a sexist asshole (despite his ability to craft a witty sentence) and so now we're in a battle over whose writer is a bigger misogynist... which I still say is Sorkin because of Malice...]

Stay tuned for details on upcoming jaunts to Vegas, New York, one or both of the Carolinas, Los Angeles, San Diego, Albuquerque, and Santa Fe....

i don't like mondays

In case you're confused, no, I'm not a big Boomtown Rats fan... not that they're horrible, just that they remind me of my ex-husband (who, being much older than I, was going through his partying 20s when they were in their heydey, if they can be said to have had a heydey). While I'm sure I could write a book about how many bands I'm turned off by because of my ex-lovers, that's a different blog....

I am officially sleep deprived after yet another hazy weekend. I suppose I could solve this problem by not going out until 4am on Fridays and spending Saturdays hung over while trying to entertain a small child whose repertoire includes things like jumping on my stomach from the top of the couch and yelling "MOMMY! I WANT TO PLAY A GAME!" at the top of his lungs at 9am. [Kids should get lessons in how to deal with mamas with hangovers, no? Or the hip mamas should get a Hangover Network going on, where we bring each other Jamba Juices and play games with each other's kiddos. Then again, if we're all getting drunk together, who will be the responsible one?]

And so now my head continues to swim with phonemic transcriptions of Italian words from the Swadesh list (for my phonology term project) and mountains of papers to grade (you'd think I was an English teacher or something), plus both a grammar midterm and a textbook review due a week from today.

I am waiting patiently for next semester, where instead of teaching four classes, taking three classes, and working my editing job, I am able to teach just one class, take two, and edit to my heart's content. Maybe I'll even finish my oh-so-heralded by my agent (despite only being 1/10 done) memoir of my brain tumor & surgery experience (cleverly and tentatively titled Possible Complications Include...) or, gasp!, have enough time in my schedule to lose a day or two each week to live music and the resulting hangover.... (really, I'll probably spend two days a week next semester sitting in the Landmark Century Theatre, since none of my classes start until 2pm).

For now, grading papers awaits.

underachievement

So the big conflict in the household right now is that W., who is in one of the best (if not the best) public elementary schools in the city, isn't getting his work done. He's intelligent and knows how to do his homework and doesn't struggle at all with the materials when he remembers to bring them home, but the remembering part is the big deal.

Because I'm at my wit's end, I've been reading Michael Whitley's Bright Minds, Poor Grades: Understanding and Motivating your Underachieving Child, which has turned out to be not only helpful in dealing with W's underachievement but also remarkably beneficial for my own life. Not that I've made any significant changes yet, but I'm starting to really understand my problems with procrastination and lack of motivation. Having been labeled profoundly gifted when I was only three years old and could read the Chicago Tribune, my parents -- the epitome of blue-collar working-class anti-intellectual folk -- just kind of left me on my own, bought me books when I asked for them, and didn't complain much as long as I made all As.

Except for chemistry (which I swear is the scientific community's masochistic hold on high-schoolers everywhere), I never had to really try to do well at much of anything. I've always been the kind of student who blows off class for weeks on end, only shows up for the tests, and aces everything anyhow. I kept waiting for things to get hard, and they never did. By the time grad school rolled around, it was a little harder, but I still didn't have to struggle in the least. I was always left with the feeling that -- despite all the As -- I was fooling everyone because surely I couldn't deserve what was so easy to come by.

Now, therapists have told me I need to accept that things come easily to me, and I suppose for someone who's never struggled with these issues, that may be a solution. And lots of people roll their eyes, as though complaining that things aren't challenging is a moral affront (like the beauty queen who moans about how horrible it is to be beautiful). But, really, it is a problem... mostly because I can't get motivated to do much of anything in the allotted time frame, instead knowing that even if I put it off until the last minute I'll still do as well as if I'd done the job when I first learned of it.

Now, the book I'm reading for W. says that procrastinators eventually get what's coming to them and start failing and going downhill. When I first read the book, I thought, "what happens if the failures never come and so there's no down side?" But as time goes on, and I think about the psychological aspects of procrastination as outlined in the book, I can see how my entire life I've been approaching things from the wrong perspective... how different would it be if I did things not when I felt like it (which is always at the last minute, when I know I can't put them off any longer) but instead structured my life in such a way that I'd do things simply because they needed to be done, regardless of whether I felt like doing them at that particular moment?

A. laughs at me when I talk about all this, claiming I still have the mentality of a teen-ager ruled by whims and emotions and completely unable to see things on a long-term basis. And I agree, there is a part of me that's like that -- I still struggle with my identity as a mother, as an adult, as a person capable of entering into and sustaining relationships of all kinds -- but that's also an integral aspect of my personality I don't relish relinquishing: I want to remain carefree and spontaneous and maintain my capacity to ignore the dishes piling up in the sink because I want to watch The Amazing Race or see a movie. I think the difficult part, though, is realizing that it's not all about what I feel like doing all the time and that I need to make better choices. Maybe I'll finally get the house cleaned and decluttered and get rid of all my shit, not because I feel like it at that moment, but because it's what needs to be done.

And so where does this leave me with school? Well, I'm trying not to put things off and also working to force myself to grade papers, work on phonology, whatever, even when it's not what I want to do. That's proving harder than I thought, but in addition to developing my long-term planning skills, I also need to provide a good role model for W., who may very well have picked up this attitude from me (though I swear I wasn't as big of a smart-ass as he is, at least not at age nine). We'll see how it all works out. :)

scamming

Had a great time out cavorting with the mamas on Friday -- started out with food, then off to Rossi's on State Street. A guy at the other end of the bar was smiling/ogling at me-n-M.B. so when we ordered drinks she told the bartender he was buying -- and he did. Of course, being the ethical one in the bunch, I said we were morally obligated to chat with him -- and he ended up being a totally cool guy.... he just got back from working on some AIDS project in Africa and is readjusting to living in the U.S. Not the kind of guy I'd date (he was blonde and, besides, I'm not particularly in need/want of a guy - other than for dancing), but M.B. seemed interested.

After the Ani show, went to see U-Melt with V., K., and M.B.... I met the band in South Carolina and have kept in touch with them, so we went uptown to catch their show at The Kinetic Playground. At some (extremely drunken) point in the evening, I bet K. I could get a guy to buy her a drink:

ME: I just bet my friend that you would buy her a drink.
HIM: That's the worst pick-up line ever.
ME: Oh, I'm not trying to pick you up. I just want to win the bet.
HIM: Here's $10. I gotta go.

I was pretty shocked... is it this easy to get guys to fork over money for no apparent return on their investment? Whatever the answer, I had a good time, uh, chatting with G. last night and have plans to have lunch when I'm back in NYC (assuming they're not still on tour at that point).