Swim

Today was day two of taking my son to swimming lessons where they give you organized parameters in which to slightly drown your kid. Awesome. After going the first day to the two- to four-year-old lessons and getting kicked out and rescheduled into the baby class, I see now why it is better to be the smarty pants in the younger class rather than the dolt with the sophisticates. With the wee ones, my son is the star... counting and swimming and blowing bubbles like a real champ. With the older, more experienced swimmers, he was nothing but a baby, whining for his mother like a little sissy girl. Lesson learned I suppose.

Actually, I have weightier things on my mind, but after the 12 hour day I've had, delving into them doesn't really seem like the right thing to do. I am sitting out in my office, getting soundtracked by the homey squeak of Gus Gus Deux's wheel as remixed by the baby monitor (How the hell does my son sleep with all that racket?) and my own life seems really alien and distant. I got made fun of twice today for using the terms fart and farfegnugen instead of the more appropriate fuck. I'm trying to ween myself from the potty talk because another public outburst of "fucking asshole" on my son's part is gonna drive his Dada to have my mouth sewn shut ala The Twilight Zone Movie.

So, the week in review... My best friend still has a complete dick for a soon-to-be exhusband. My mom is not speaking to me for reasons unknown but assumed. And my big sister is about to quit her job and quickly become homeless in Seattle. I've been busting my ass doing freelance and letting more important things fall by the wayside. So once again, all kinds of shit to worry about that doesn't really have anything to do with my life. Woe is farting me.

Hunt

Am working on a story about -- kind of -- fishing and it has forced me to reach back deep into my roots to appreciate. It's really a story on eating and cooking fish, but I thought it would be cool to actually take a couple of fishing trips present day to get to the source and see what it's all about. I am from a huge hunting and fishing family, and although I recall childhood memories of holding little bamboo fishing rods and setting worms on hooks, except for the random tub of crabs fished out of the creek with string and chicken necks, I don't ever remember actually catching anything. My grandfather was a life member of Ducks Unlimited... my great uncles had ranches set aside singularly for the purpose of killing things... the deer heads... the heirloom gun collection... I've got all that in the family. But as my mom is the animal nut and raised us to rehabilitate everything from a field mouse to a bald eagle, we missed out on the whole hunting/fishing/killing thing.

My husband's brother and friends are all bow hunters and dove shooters, and it's hard to miss the twinkle in their eyes every time they look at my son. Literally, I can see the date ticker on his uncle's forehead that reads "895 days, 37 minutes and 56 seconds until I put a gun in that boy's hand." There is a part of me that thinks this is kinda cool, picturing my son in a blind, bonding with his family... the air blowing out of his mouth white on a crisp fall morning. But the reality... My husband has a Winchester he bought right after we moved here that he has since used to shoot a domesticated pig and two mating rattlesnakes, but that's about it. He's as big of a softy about living creatures as I am, and as much as our son loves animals, the thought of his offing one makes me wanna hurl.

Now, when I was growing up, there was a caretaker at our house who was my father figure all through childhood. I remember we used to have to be careful when playing in the woods because he had all sorts of awful rusted traps set up to catch opossums and raccoons, but hey, he had a family to feed. I respected him greatly, and it was obvious his killing was to a very important end, not just bloodshed for the sport of it. Now don't get me wrong, hanging out on a boat/in the woods with your best friends drinking beer and getting all Iron John does hold some appeal, but none of these "gentlemen" hunters are killing out of necessity, just the joy of overpowering another living creature... think "Walk on two legs not on four"...The Island of Dr. Moreau... etc.

So today, when I found myself lacing a giant steel hook through the gills of a living, breathing bottom feeder while my son stood by gap mouthed, in awe, I was a little taken aback. Earlier in the week I had gone out on one of the town lakes with a guide, but I didn't actually have to touch anything. The guide did all the gory stuff and I just sat back and took pictures. So when I stood by today and watched a very charming young man skin and fillet the poor thing... its sides still heaving with life... my son chanting "That's a good fish" completely and totally aware of the edibleness of the lake to hook to cutting table transformation he was witnessing... I was feeling compromised.

Make no mistake, even though I am from an immediate family of half vegetarians, I am the first one to partake in a pork/steak/salmon. I know it is completely hypocritical to eat any of that stuff and not enjoy (or at least appreciate) the transition from pond to the plate. This is why I've been on the sidelines watching as my husband's brother and cronies skinned a deer and even helped to stuff the sausages. But there was something about the actual catching and killing that made me feel like more of an animal than I am willing to admit. While I watched that fish struggle to extract air from air, I felt (and ultimately was) completely and totally responsible for its death. The little pond where we were fishing that at first glance seemed cute and novel now seemed dirty and creepy. The children innocently fishing with their dads turned into little lion cubs fighting over the flank of a wildebeest. I felt one step away from dropping to all fours and devouring the damn thing raw and alive right then and there. That thin thin line that separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom... myself chanting in my mind "That's a good good oh so good fish."

Ultimately, yes, I think its important that if my son is going to eat meat he should be able to take responsibility and understand where it comes from. But, for my sake at least, I hope he stays in the garden of Eden a little while longer before taking a bite outta that big ole catfish.

Rodents

This has been the week.... Having learned (and smelled) what cheese bait is... Having spent far too much time working and not enough time hitting the pool... Having scared the crap out of my son taking him to the animatronic dinosaur exhibit at the local natural history museum... Having lost a little more of my old self and embraced a little more of the new. The highlight of the week still didn't involve water, T-Rexs, personal catharsis or cheese... it was in fact a pair of noisy little rodents aptly named Gus Gus Deux and Augie Junior.

So, the little gray mouse I bought my son several months back kicked it right before we left for New York. The kid didn't notice however because Gus Gus had always been a daytime snoozer and more recently had become very lethargic and was losing his hair. I thought perhaps it was some sort of mouse disease, but information has come to light that might prove it was murder by starvation on my part. I had been feeding it gerbil and hamster food thinking that was "good enough", but alas, I digress.

So, Gus Gus got unceremoniously buried in the back flower garden while my son wasn't looking.

Fast forward to this week.... Our first day back, I decided we'd better hit the pet store for a replacement before the little guy noticed his furry friend was gone. I had done some research and decided a gerbil might be a better choice anyway... gerbil... mouse.... he'd never know the difference. Well, once I got to the pet store and started asking questions from the very nice sales girl, it became obvious that gerbils have to live in pairs, so it was probably gonna be a hamster. She had these adorable little teddy bear hamsters that you could pick up and snuggle and were totally docile and cool. But of course, I became taken with a little gray and white demon who was running around obsessively -- doing back flips like a drunken sailor. I thought... well, my son's too little to hold it anyway, so maybe the little dwarf hamster with the attitude would be a better choice. The sales girl said the hamster was mean and tried several times to sway me, but I took it as some moral obligation to buy the shitty little biter for fear that no other would have a heart as big as mine and he would end up snake food.

Unfortunately, hamsters need more space than a mouse, so buying the thing meant plopping down cash for another, bigger cage. Which I did, and in the ultimate impulsive pet buy, I decided at the 11 hour that I couldn't just have the mouse cage empty, so thus, where Gus Gus Deux comes into the story. So now my mini Doolittle has not just one, but two noisy rodents to keep the entire house up at night. Augie Junior (a name selected by my son out of the hundreds of choices I gave him throughout the day - hey everybody likes to have something named after them) has a large plastic wheel that when it spins sounds like hail pelting a tin roof in your brain. The second night I took the wheel out only to read the next day that taking the wheel out for the hamster's prime exercise hours is cruel and inhumane.... so now, I am resigned to walking his cage into the living room every night -- where sadly it still sounds like some incessant form of Chinese water torture. All this and the little shit swats at my hand like a miniature alley cat when I try and refill his food tub. Plus, he's bitten me twice just for looking at him the wrong way.

GG2, however, is a delight. After applying a wee bit of WD40 to his wheel, he is quiet as a - ahem - mouse. Go figure.

Back

Slept in my own bed last night, and I have to say, it sure beats the hell out of a futon. The little man slept on the plane ride home giving me ample time to reflect on the last two weeks. (I was also working on two hours sleep from staying up til 5am after the wedding the night before so a few needed zs were added to the mix.)

This morning I find myself feeling bittersweet/conflicted emotions. Sure, I miss New York. I miss my job. I miss my friends. I miss my apartment. I miss the food. I miss Murray's Bagels on 22nd Street. I miss being able to jump in a cab/subway instead of having to drive everywhere. I miss hanging out in bars, talking all night. I miss going to see live music. I miss my past. I miss walking around the village til 3am with only myself and a 45 of beer. I miss being 20-something. I miss book parties. I miss authors. I miss that ever-present feeling of wondering what will happen next. I miss walking. I miss Chelsea. I miss acting. I miss a lot of things.

I had worried so much about the wedding I attended.... about being left out by my NYC friends because I wasn't invited to be in the wedding party... but I went and we stayed out all night and I got to sit at the table with the best man and maid of honor and I danced and had a great time... but... it was plainly clear that I wasn't an everyday part of their lives anymore. But more importantly, they aren't a part of mine. I miss them, sure, but the truth is, that part of my life is over and they are now in the category of "old friends." And that's OK. I probably talked too much about my kid. I probably stayed up too late just so I wouldn't look like a lightweight. I probably smoked too much just to be able to hang with the gang. (Sadly, I probably would have had just as much to drink no matter where I was!)

I had this real feeling that being old was OK. The next day, my sister and I hit the 9th Avenue Food Festival in my former hood. Back in the day, this was the coolest street fair in the city, and we would spend all day with our friends walking up and down the avenue drinking and eating and having an awesome time. This time around, it was way way way too crowded, I was way way way too hung over to drink, and I kept seeing little flashes of small groups sitting together, drinking and having fun. The girls were way too young. All the smiles were full of that "I'm gonna take on this city" look. There was laughing and dreaming... and I saw myself again. And thankfully, I didn't really want to be there.

The truth is, I'll probably be battling demons my whole life about that place. I'll be forming the "what ifs" over and over and over and daydreaming about all the things I gave up when I left and blah blah blah. But, at the end of the day... when my son looks at me as he is settling down into his bed for the first time in weeks and says "we're home".... I seriously doubt that my life now could actually be categorized as a sacrifice.

Husband

Today I started to miss home bad. It has been five days since we dropped my husband off at the airport, and it feels like forever. We still have to get out to the Hamptons for the wedding and get back, so it's gonna be Monday afternoon before I set eyes on my front door.

I stopped by my former place of work this morning and that made me a wee bit sad. They just moved to a gorgeous new space on Varick Street, and it made me flush with envy that I wasn't still there. However, my old boss/editor, she looked as exhausted as ever, and I was reminded why I wanted to quit the rat race in the first place. Another woman I worked with, when I mentioned her daughter, just hung her head and said she and her life partner were getting a divorce... then she trailed off up the stairs in tears... The same drama. The woman who took over my job looked fabulous however, so who knows. I didn't stay long as it seemed everyone was rushing off to one meeting or another. My son and I strolled off into the sunset and kissed downtown NYC goodbye for now.

More than craving San Antonio, I guess it comes down to missing my husband. As much as I pine for NYC and my friends and my old life, my husband is my home. Without him... well... pretty much any place sucks.

Painting

It feels like we've been away from home forever, and I can't even begin to imagine how long it feels to my son. (Think back to time when you are little. How summer lasted a year and a week long vacation was an eternity.) Taking travel in stride, I think he's accepted my sister's apartment as his home for the time being, although he did tell her goodbye this morning and promptly began pulling on the front door saying "I wanna go home." The freaky part for me is that this ISN'T my home. This little apartment on 51st street was my home for almost a decade, so everything feels totally familiar. Even the bum who hangs out on the corner has been there 15 years plus. He seems to be missing an eye at this point and looks so old now. Makes me shutter to think what I must look like to him. I might not be old, but I am definitely older.

I recently tried to find this music video I was in when I was about 20. It was a for a song by the late Texas singer/songwriter Chris Whitley called (lamely) Oh God My Heart is Ready. We filmed it under the Brooklyn Bridge and basically it was a bunch of us kids just jumped around the band dancing. The only copy I could find on YouTube was really grainy and blurry. I thought I saw myself for a brief moment, but alas, the picture quality was way too crappy. It's weird having your moving image out there somewhere. A little backwards Dorian Gray cemented in time. There are a couple of those for me... some student films... an episode of The Cosby Mysteries... It's weird to think that those exist somewhere and that someday, in Christmas Carol fashion, I will be able to look back on yourself as a young girl and think... Oh.

New York is like that for me. Just a giant spider web of memories and moments that make me all at once feel excited and old and sad and thankful... like browsing through a living picture album.

My son and I went to MOMA, his first art museum experience. He was a real champ and only screamed out loud once in the Mondrian room "LOOK AT ALL THE PRETTY COLORS!" He sat quietly in the stroller and asked questions and looked. (In front of Jackson Pollack's One: Number 31, 1950... he looked at me quizzically and pointed and asked "What is it?"... to which I answered, "Precisely.")

Perhaps it was just wishful thinking, but he seemed particularly taken in by Christina's World by Andrew Wyeth... one of my favorites. I remember seeing that painting for the first time when I had just moved to New York and feeling as if perhaps she was me... Years later when I read about it and discovered the woman in the painting was not a young girl but an old woman, the revelation seemed fitting.

It brought me back to the trip I took to London when I was in my early 20s. To when I saw Ophelia by John Everett Millais at the Tate Gallery and in that youthful, girlish way imagined I was her with all her drama and beauty and melancholy woe. And how when I saw Madame X by John Singer Sargent at the Whitney Museum when I was in the 9th grade, I felt so afraid and vulnerable and small. Remembering all this, I wondered what sort of memories my son is building. What he was really thinking amidst those hanging bits of color? Will he remember in full, or will it all just be pieces of memories that collectively make him who he is?

Seems kind of sad really. That all of us as onlookers share so many like experiences. Thinking of all the people who saw those pictures and were affected and yet how we are all still going through life so alone.

Revisiting your past amidst your future can really be a mind blow. Silly really.

Dolittle

Just got back to NYC from a three day trip to see my son's G Mee Mee in Virginia.

(Funny how my Mom's "grandmother" name came about... She wanted my son to call her Mee Mee, but I groused that Mee Mee is what we, her daughters, call her.... so laughingly I said "What do you want him to call you, La Grande Mee Mee?"... and the name stuck. G Mee Mee it is.)

So yea, back from good 'ole Saluda. It seems all the problems I have with my Mom tend to fade away when I see her with my son. He adores her... With her acres and acres of overgrown paradise, her crumbling plantation house and every imaginable animal under the sun in her care, she is his dream date. How many two-year-olds get to watch their grandmother bottle feed a six-week-old river otter, feed two white mice to a barn owlet and feed meal worms to three baby sparrows and two baby mockingbirds? She is the modern day Doctor Dolittle, and he is in love with her.

Her house in so insane and magical and lovely, it makes me really feel ordinary in my small suburban bungalow. And with the animal rehabilitation she does, there are just creatures everywhere. Fish... 12 goslings... nine ducklings... one goat... five peacocks... a wee cockatiel that whistles the theme song from Andy Griffith... two doves...the list goes on and on.

Never having seen a baby river otter before, I wanted to steal him away for myself in my luggage. Cute doesn't even begin to describe. You aren't really supposed to talk around them so they don't get used to human voices, so my mom uses a whistle to communicate back to its various squeaks and grunts. My son got the biggest kick out of this and co-opted the little whistle for himself, strutting up and down the hall peeping to whoever would listen.

We walked in the wheat fields. We set baby rabbits free. We sat on the porch and watched the wind race through the treetops. It was heaven, despite the fact that my Mom's house is crawling with field mice that my son had fun watching scramble under the bed at night. Strange thing is, she won't kill them. She catches them with have-a-heart traps and sets them free down the road. Yet, she feeds the owlet frozen white mice she buys at the pet store. You would think the circle of life would make it OK to feed the owl some fresh meat. Go figure.

Every night as the sun set, we would watch the peacocks fly up into the trees, and my son would go wild with delight. Yet, he would become absolutely petrified when he would hear them squawk to each other in their piercing "I sound like a woman being murdered" squawks at two a.m. I suppose as psyched as he was to see that owlet chomp those mice, watching a tiny creature swallow another creature whole is a lot to process for a wee little mind. All weekend he talked non-stop just trying to vocalize and get it all straight in his head. My mom's place can be overwhelming to us adults with its eccentric clutter of art and books and more art and fabric and more books and fields and flowers and colors and animals. I'm just so so happy that he has his own Narnia to visit every now and again.

Spent

So, I've finally gotten over my New york annoyance and, for the first time ever, can actually imagine raising a kid here. Having so much downtime when my sister and friends are at work, the wee one and I have had to integrate ourselves into the non-working mommy and nanny set, and the transition has been rather appealing. Just on 10th avenue and 47th street -- around the corner from my sis' apartment -- is a newish playground sized just right for the toddler set. We've hung out there a couple of times, and my son seems right at home making friends with the city-folk. All the kids share toys... Uber-mommies blow bubbles into hordes of under-threes... Sidewalk chalk is passed around as quarrels break out over who gets to play with the plastic golf clubs first.

In a strange way, the "day-time kids in the park" scene is much friendlier than back in Texas. I'm sure Manhattan has any number of impenetrable mommy cliches, but this particular park seems welcoming and open with all the moms and dads happy to see a new kid arrive on the scene. I'm finding it much easier to small talk and ingratiate myself. Perhaps it was inevitable that I would end up having more in common with these mommies than with those back home, so it has been sort of sad in a way. Going to the zoo and all the museums and the cute little shops and the park... all of it with so much to offer my son. Even just sitting in the stroller, riding along, taking it all in... he is mesmerized.

I keep reminding myself of the trade-off as we pass by insane people brushing invisible dogs only to squeeze into my sister's minuscule $1,200 a month apartment each night. All that craziness reminds me that Texas is not such a bad place to call home. You take the good... you take the bad in New York. But it would burn a little less if the good wasn't so great.

Places

This picture was taken in one of my favorite spots in the city and -- sadly -- just minutes before my second NYC meltdown in two days. I'm not sure what it is about this city. Perhaps it is seeing my family...the stress of the streets...the bittersweet nostalgia...PMS...but after a few sunsets I always tend to have a major/minor freak out and begin counting the minutes until I leave. Isn't that awful? Meanwhile, junior here gets to go to the city/zoo/museum/park and experience it with the wonder of "the first time". Soooo lucky!

Dime

Arrived in NYC a few days ago. This was our first plane trip where we had to actually purchase a ticket for my son, and I have to say, the boy sitting in the car seat as opposed to in our laps thing was a god send. The little guy was a perfect gem the entire flight except (ironically) for when he went poo poo just as we were taking off and again just as we were getting ready to land. The later culminating in a massive "accident" that meant the poor guy had to say hello to all the nice folks at Newark Airport decked out in nothing but his diaper. Sweet.

This is his third trip to the Big Apple (one was while still in belly), and he seems pretty old hat at the bright lights/taxi cab/people running culture. For some insane reason, we decided to NOT take a $50 taxi in from the airport, so we spent a luscious two hours and $49 hauling our 80 bags and nearly 30-pound two-year-old up and down the stairs, in and out of elevators/trains/cars, etc. My sis lives in midtown, so the end of this hellacious ride culminated in us passing Port Authority with my son screaming "Look at the dog chasing the dime." It took us a minute or two to realize he was referencing the Greyhound logo with its silver circle R trademark.

"That's right boy," said my husband. "In this town, every body's chasing the dime."

More later...

Innocent

In the middle of making myself crazy last night juggling freelance work, a dinner party for my son's birthday and our impending trip to New York, I got a message from my best friend since first grade. Eight states and a lifetime away, her voice sounded clear... "Call me. I have some exciting news for you..." My thoughts jumped to a marriage proposal, the lottery and weight loss, but they were all quickly lost amid pizza ordering and packing.

So when the phone rang this morning and I saw her name flash on my cell phone, I felt like the crappy best friend who doesn't call back when you have important news. I answered.

"Guess what?," she says. "I told my family."

She didn't need to say anything else. Between the ages of six and 12, my friend was sexually molested by her uncle. Even though we were best friends and lived through that time period together, she never even told me until we were in our 20s and had long moved away from each other. Over the years, I urged her to tell her parents, but she always held back, not wanting to hurt them or drag her folks into her pain.

So, as we spoke this morning, I cried. I cried lot. And all I could say was ... "They love you so much." We didn't talk much. She just gave the basic breakdown of how it came about that she told them and how they reacted. I've often held secret fantasies of her dad kicking the pervert's ass, and while she spoke, those visions became even more vivid with flashes of throat choking and arms breaking and bleeding nose and cracked ribs.

I got off the phone and cried some more and remembered us as little girls, sticking together when our private hells were coming to life around us. And I remembered what she said the night of her confession to me ... years later on a beach at midnight.

"No matter how awful I felt about myself, I always thought I must be worth something because you love me."

All I ever wanted to do was save her.

At last...

Safe

Since the vast majority of my son's library is purchased off of Ebay or from used book stores, I decided long ago that every year for his birthday I would blow the big bucks and buy him one brand spanking new book from a real bookstore. So, while in New Orleans, we visited the Maple Street Bookshops and I purchased him a crisp copy of The Story of Babar. At this point, he doesn't own any Babar books (only because I have never found them used anywhere) but he knows and loves the characters from his many library check-outs. Strangely, our library has never had the original story in stock, so when I saw it sitting on the book shelf, I thought it was the perfect classic to get for my kid's number two year.

Now, fast forward to tonight. After multiple watches of the Serengeti video his uncle gave him, the kid is now obsessed with going to Africa. We've promised him over and over that when he turns 11, we will take him to see a wildebeest get chomped by a crocodile. So, with that in mind, I open the book to write some loving inscription about our promise to take him there to see the elephants in the wild, and since it has been literally decades since I read the book, I started skimming through the first few pages only to realize in horror and through tears that the thing opens with wee little Babar's momma getting a hole blown in her side the size of a watermelon by a some skanky rifleman... Oh yea, that's why Babar runs to the city... now I remember. Duh... So here it is, the eve of my son's birthday and there is no way in hell I am giving him that book. I mean what is up with the dead parent thing anyway? It seems like every director of a certain generation can site watching the beginning of Bambi as the moment in their lives when childhood was lost. In fact, tons o' famous animated feature movies start with one or both parents getting killed in some violent and horrible way from Cinderella to Tarzan to Finding Nemo.

My little guy is already traumatized by books where one character goes away in the end. His favorite Cinder-Eyed Cats... at the close when the boy sails away, he starts to bawl and scream "He wanna stay with the kitties!" And always I have to chime in with a line from the Music Together song "Whoever takes care of you comes back because they do love you." It is the only thing that keeps him from circling the drain and getting flushed down forever. He has been crying when things in books die or leave since he was 16 months old, and I can't imagine how or why I would want to explain dead mommy to him on his birthday.

Flashback to Sunday... from my days at the bookstore, The Drama of the Gifted Child has always been in the back of my mind, and probably like everyone else in the world who has heard of the book but never read it, I had absolutely no idea what it was about (and like everyone else, assumed the obvious) until some friends told me about it this week. Kind of like me several years ago when I exclaimed to my husband... "Why the hell do they always put dinosaurs on gas station logos? What's up with that?" Super duh. How I got through life without realizing that oil is made up of old organic matter (mainly dinosaurs) is beyond me. That's the South Carolina school system for you, though I suspect I'm not the only one so innocent and niave in the world. I'm rambling, but anyway...

You know when someone explains something to you that you thought you understood but really didn't and then suddenly a veil gets lifted and someone is describing something that makes so much sense and seems so right up your alley that you can't believe no one has ever mentioned it before? Or maybe you were never ready to hear before. I love the part in that movie Safe by director Todd Haynes where Julianne Moore's character sees that sign pinned up on the bulletin board about people smelling things and it is as if the flier was put there just for her. Am I making any sense?

Well, now that I know what Drama of the Gifted Child is really about, I am almost afraid to read it. The short description my friends gave, then the subsequent ones I have found online lead me to believe that I probably have a lot to learn from that book... but do I need to open up that can of worms right now? Again, when I worked at the bookstore for five years in my 20s, it always seemed like the right books found me at the right times. Isn't that always the way it is with books? I haven't even read the book yet, but I already feel like I am preparing for a blind date, and I know we have alot in common from reading the book jacket but won't really be sure until I've spent a little time with it.

Still, am I making sense at all? The point is... I do not want Babar to be the book that changes my son forever. Babar will more than likely get lost on the shelf and will find it's way in to my boy's hands when the time is right. But between presents from the in-laws and my husband's homebaked carrot cake, Babar will not be... and Drama of the Gifted Child... we'll just have to wait until that one finds me too, unless of course it is MY birthday and I score one full price.

Whew.