Good evening Fine Reader. I don’t know where to begin. It’s been seven days since my last confession. Today, this day of atonement. Means little more than a full day with the kids to an atheistic Hebrew school dropout like me. Rabble rouser. Inappropriate joker. TMI connoisseur.
Allow me to present exhibit one: sweet fig and goat cheese frozen custard with crinkle-cut French fries for dippin’. Courtesy of Shake Shack, my new favorite obsession, thanks to my dear friend Danielle.
I have joined a new cult. The cult of ballet. Not my ballet. Peaches’ ballet. It happened so fast and now I’m out $300 and I don’t care! Will I turn into THAT mom? Will a deep crease make its home between my eyebrows as I shuttle precious Peaches to class, insist she work harder, outshine all her six-year old competitors, keep her eye on the prize of being chosen for the elite company when she turns ten… Is that the road I’ve just stepped upon?
This morning I drew a picture of the twin towers and a sad face above the date on Spike’s lunch note. Is that bad parenting? Is there a book on what and how much to tell your children about the world? Maybe I will write one.
It’s my calling to keep it real for these kids. They already know about cosmetic surgery, pedophiles and factory farm chicken. Peaches has seen a deer eviscerated. Terrorism seems logical company. But maybe I am screwing them up. Maybe! Ha, what a laugh. A parent not screwing a kid up? Still, no nightmares that I’m aware of. No new drain, dark or insect phobias. Peaches and Spike are getting older, more accountable. More engaged in society. They have a right to know.
It’s happened. It’s finally happened! I’ve been dreaming about it for the past 8.5 years.
Ode to summer. A hazy humid dream. A pair of tan legs. Oh carefree days of yore.
I’m not going to lie to you. I am obsessed with these pouty chiseled people. How did this happen? Well my friend Danielle for one thing. Thanks D! For another, Swamp Chicken went camping in California for a week and the kids went to stay with their grandparents. While I had the house to myself I did not organize the basement. I did not de-clutter my closets or cull outgrown stained clothing. I didn’t step foot in Ikea. No instead I cultivated a claustrophobic, productive on many subtle levels and possibly pathetic relationship with Elena Gilbert and the Salvatore brothers. Who of course are teenaged vampires. We had a blast together. Then I found I had something else in common with my fourteen year old niece when she came to visit. We couldn’t decide if we were on team Stefan or team Damon—life-changing decisions—so we compromised, agreeing that it would be splendid to be an Elise or L___ sandwich with Damon and Stefan bread. The thrills! Continue reading
Dan the yoga man, who I’ve been friends with since Oh-Ate. He got mugged. In the night, in a hood that’s shady and Ivy League all at once. West Philly in other words. I went to visit him. He looked like this two weeks after the event:
I’m kind of falling in love with my son these days. It’s not just because he’s with his grandparents either—for the week, WOO!
Another game-changing book. It’s not the prose style that got me. It’s the story. Inhaled this decidedly unkosher sucker over the weekend, then lent it to my in-laws, deeply religious people—not proselytizing in the least thank bespoke God. Dickie and Ca’ are kind, good generous people—poo poo as my mother would say—curious people like me, who, especially having lived for years in Brooklyn, have to be utterly fascinated by the subculture of Hasidic Jewry. I mean, who ARE these people? And why do they wear such ridiculous hats? (Channeling Jerry Seinfeld.)
I’ve been getting my thriller on. When the Gone Girl hoopla reached me, I Googled it up right quick only to learn that I already owned Gillian Flynn’s first novel. It was sitting there on my shelf, a score from a local library book sale. I devoured it and felt it spark something in me, a path I have yet to travel as a writer. Murder. Mystery. Something I’m now intrigued by, especially in the dim lamplight of my fourteenth rejection. Mark your score cards.
