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?
walking the dog, taking my own picture. Hair by Peaches.
In therapy last week—oh by the way, I quit my new daddy-figure therapist and returned to my former gal, a lovely petite Italian Jewess who’s never heard of Damages but knows who Charlize Theron is. We talk about dreams and my favorite TV shows, see. And even though it’s rule #3,257 in the earth’s handbook of what not to do, I tell you anyway: I had this dream that Charlize and I were BFF, shopping at Lancome together. Well, she was shopping, and I was watching. She spent $3,990. Shocker, right? The kicker was that I wasn’t jealous of her. AT ALL. We’re talking me and jealousy, and Charlize Theron! What a good dream that was. I was so overcome with my confidence and maturity that I ached to blog about it. Too bad she didn’t want me to. But then I woke up! Sometimes this is a good thing.
I am delirious (not kidding) to announce that one of my dreams has come true—I have been interviewed! By one of my fave peeps on the Main Line—yoga teacher, prolific spiritual tweeter, Hindu mythology expert and podcaster extraordinaire, Sitaram Das who I know as Daniel Shankin. We discuss weighty matters like Paleo, the hero’s journey, the creative spirit and heroically dealing with eleven rejections on my current novel. Listen to it here.
I used to blog about Daniel back in the yoga day. I love what Daniel brings to the mat, namely sardonic wit, a self-deprecating sense of his own humanity and humor, and an encyclopedic knowledge of myth. He mentions these blog posts during the podcast so here they are. How convenient! I’m not going to say anymore. Okay just one more thing. Daniel has a pretty cat named Little Sweetie.
Happy listening!
It’s shameful how scarcely I blog these days. I want to do it more often, to stoke the anemic flame of my online existence, to practice my craft for a reader who is not Bryan, to cultivate a conversation with you.
The good news is that I’m spending my non-blogging time being a more or less decent housewife and mother. Or maybe that’s not even true. (*See previous post.) No, the weather is warm and I’ve been taking hour-long brisk walks, lip-syching with the cast of Glee. These walks help me keep in shape for my new fitness regime—my kettlebells class. I go once a week and it’s one hour of ass-kicking swinging fun. We do routines with names like Turkish Get-Up, and well, I can’t remember any others. If I were doing Crossfit, which I am not because I can’t afford it and it’s just far enough away from my house to be a pain in the ass, I might be doing routines with names like Nasty Girl. Doesn’t that sound like waist-whittling fun? I think it might kill me.
I thought I’d write while in a white foamy rage so you can see why I got so fucking rah-rah over the Primal diet. I still think it works, by the way. I have six months of good behavior and high self-esteem under my belt, and even though I was an arrogant prick to a handful of people regarding my newfound nutritional knowledge, it beat being an asshole to myself.
Chapter One,
In which I tell you that this is my official dietary update. Hallelujah and praise be. It’s been exactly five months, from July 1 to today, December 1 that I have been eating Primally.
I realized today that I can be quite an anti-social creature. Sometimes it takes me a few decades to figure stuff out. This anti-socialness is heightened by the fact that I no longer drink, party or eat baked goods. Or maybe it’s certain moments—those Friday dead battery days when I’ve exerted all I can during the week—cooking, schlepping and supervising, and the wind whips and the temperature drops and all I want to do is huddle in bed with my laptop glowing, entertaining me InstantPlay style, distracting me from the things that overwhelm—things like money, career, book deals, children, marriage and shelter dogs.
Peaches and Spike high on bread
We visited our old stomping ground this past weekend. Meaning Brooklyn. Swamp Chicken grew up in Brooklyn. His parents still live there. My father-in-law is a retired pastor and the church where he preached from 1969 to 1991 was celebrating its 85th birthday. Everyone met at an Italian restaurant in Coney Island to take part in the festivities—balloons, slideshow, DJ… It was just like a bar mitzvah! And I was the token anti-Christ. I mean atheist.
Wait a—did I say Italian restaurant??
It dawned on me this morning that in bashing romantic comedies during my previous post, I wasn’t specific enough. Because, like, I wrote a romantic comedy and I don’t want to denigrate my own work, even if I’m not exactly drawn to the genre so much these days.
Star Craving Mad was published way before I became the obsessed, admittedly rigid and oft humorless Primal mother you’ve come to know and maybe resent.
Happy Rosh Hashana. Shana Tova. Happy New Year.
My new year’s resolution—and I rarely make these, by the way. AND I’m a Hebrew school drop-out—is to be less of an asshole about my Primal views.
So far it’s not working. I still bristle when I see smart, lovable people suffering chronic issues while stuffing their faces with crap. And I butt in when I shouldn’t, thinking I know better. Out of love, right? It’s still annoying and undermining. I wish I would stop. So the resolution.
