Each morning, I stuff his backpack, zip his coat, tuck $2.00 in his pocket for hot lunch, give him a kiss and nudge him towards the bus with a few reminders. Don’t pick your nose. Be kind to others. Raise your hand before talking, and don’t hold it too long.
Does he listen to the advice that I gave him for the first five years of his life?
I am not sure.
The phone rings.
“Hello.”
“Hi, this is your son’s teacher. Do you have a few minutes?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I just wanted to let you know that your son has won the Citizen of the Month Award because of his compassion and empathy for others. He is the only child in our class to pick a special needs student to be his partner, and today he sat with a sick girl on the playground during all of recess.”
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Attention Balloon Parents
Hey Heene Parents:
With so many options to damage your children, did you really need to pimp out your kids to reality T.V. and every news outlet that would listen?
A good ol’ dose of emotional abandonment with a little bit hyper-criticism and overly high expectations would have been enough to guarantee life-long therapy for the kids without a multimedia record documenting for perpetuity what a douchebag their father is.
In the future be like every other family in America and keep your dysfunction hidden.
Sincerely,
Garbageman's Daughter
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
A Memo to Mom-Writers
There are millions of aspiring mom-writers out there, many of whom believe that funny little stories about their children will get them the notoriety, bylines, and paychecks that they desire and deserve. They are wrong.
Writer-moms listen clearly; your stories (albeit cute) are only funny to you. All kids make messes, say embarrassing things, and have gross bodily functions. These stories are not particularly unique or universally appealing (especially to the non-breeders of the world). So who cares if your kid poops legos (the small ones will pass); calls your husband's boss while playing with daddy's cell phone at the exact time daddy says "work sucks;" or, eats a snack out of the dog bowl?
Let's face it no one will care because your target readers are mothers. And most mothers only care about their own kids. No matter how amazing your child's accomplishments are; their children could have accomplished twice as much in half the time while speaking Chinese and French. No matter how green your kids' poop is because of the food coloring agent Red 40, their kids' feces will either be greener or not green at all because they give their children only organic food products.
Your stories are better suited for Facebook, Twitter, your family blog, and that dreadful end of the year Family Letter that immediately gets tossed in recycling bins and has dozens of your distant relatives and friends calling you a delusional bitch behind your back. No one cares about your husband's promotion, how you ran a marathon three weeks giving after birth to your second child, and the six new teeth that your baby got.
These nice stories are family history, not national news or world-class essays. So, enjoy your stories and share them with people who pretend to care (but really turn off your Facebook feed). Keep and save your stories for generations to come, but please remember just because you find your family history interesting doesn't mean it needs to be donated to a library. Keep that crap on your hard-drive or in your attic!
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
The garbage disposal will eat my baby and other irrational fears of a new mother
What if I put my newborn in the sink to bathe him, the garbage disposal turns on, and devours his little feet? What if his swing seatbelt gets unhooked and he hits floor? What if my baby is in a rear-facing carseat and he starts to choke? What if he pushes his nose too close to me while he is nursing? On and on the list went inside my head for months and months.
When I wasn’t imagining horrific infantile accidents, I stared at my baby, wondering what I was supposed to do to with him. I nursed him, changed his diaper, dressed him in lots of nauseating powder blue outfits, and, occasionally, bathed him when I could get over my anxiety of him drowning in the tub or being eaten by the garbage disposal in the sink. (He developed cradle cap due to the lack of baths but no one ever asked me why I wasn’t bathing him.) As I went through the motions all alone, I didn’t really feel any more affection for him than I had for my Cabbage Patch dolls that I took care of as a child.
I experienced nothing like the bond that I witnessed between my husband and our baby. In the hospital, our baby was inconsolable. The loudest crying baby in the maternity ward, ensuring no woman or child was getting any sleep that weekend. After a nurse threatened to take our baby away to give him a bottle and make him stop crying, paternal instinct took over. My husband picked up our screaming baby, flipped him over and jostled him into the airplane hold, placing my baby’s abdomen on his forearm. He then two-stepped around the hospital room to only the beat of new fatherhood until our baby fell asleep in his arms.
There was no dancing for me or any other type of maternal ritual that would celebrate the love of my new child. Dread not joy greeted me each morning. This is not what I thought motherhood was supposed to be like. Wasn’t motherhood supposed to be like the Luvs diaper commercial? The one where a smiling cherubic baby, clad in only a diaper, rolls in the grass while his gleeful mom, who happened to successfully shed all the baby weight, tickles his belly while simultaneously hanging clothes on the line.
Not being joyful about new motherhood made question if every new mother felt like this and suppressed it or if I was completely insane.I was wrong on both accounts. I wasn’t experiencing normality or insanity. I had a clear case of postpartum depression that went unacknowledged, undiagnosed and untreated. Arrogance not ignorance prohibited me from seeking treatment. Sure, I knew what postpartum depression was. The hospital sent me home with stacks and stacks of paper defining it, explaining it, justifying and outlining treatment. I comprehended the content, but could not acknowledge my own case. I was educated and married. My baby was wanted, and I was a stay-at-home mom. I was too prepared, too smart, too loving, and too concerned to be an inflicted woman. No matter how all the literature attempts normalize postpartum depression and deemphasize the shame; the hyper-attention given it the syndrome by doctors, the media and court system sensationalizes postpartum depression into shameful and shame-inducing aberration.
Shame is cold and lonely. I had no one to turn –too scared to seek medical attention and too embarrassed to tell family members. I couldn’t tell my husband because I didn’t want to disappoint him or have him be afraid to leave me alone with our baby. I couldn’t go to either one of my son’s grandmothers. After more than 30 years of giving birth to her last child, my mother still exhibits all the symptoms of postpartum depression and has never made an emotional connection with her children. My husband’s mother is a baby whisperer. She never took formal training, but she just intuitively knows everything there is to know about childrearing and would feel perfectly justified in editing the books of Brazelton, Spock, and Sears. She would never be able to understand why a mother wouldn’t bond with her baby instantly.
So, I was on my own. I just waited it out and went through the motions for weeks. Eventually, things started to get better. A major breakthrough happened when my baby was about 5 weeks old, and he fell asleep on my chest. He stayed there for hours, and I just watched him breathe. Then, a few days later, I started reading to him. We read Dissemination by Jacques Derrida. We skipped Mother Goose and went straight to Deconstructionism. Didn’t matter what I was reading to him; he was hearing his mother’s voice.
Our progress continued. I worried less. He cried less. He started to smile. I started to smile. Eventually, I over came my fear of driving and a joined a local chapter of the International MOMS Club, an organization designed for moms to support each other through fun scheduled activities. (This is organization is not specifically for postpartum depression, but does provide great opportunities to meet other moms who have had similar experiences).
The postpartum depression faded. I survived, my child survived and having endured such challenge made my bond with my baby stronger. New motherhood should not be an emotionally lonely time for any woman.
Recent studies have shown that postpartum depression is not as difficult to diagnose as once believed. Using only three questions doctors can know detect postpartum depression and these questions don’t have the negative stigma of crying, sleeplessness, and thoughts of harming self or others. Excessive anxiety seems to be a strong indicator and these questions zero in on the primary symptom: This is what the test looks like:
1. I have blamed myself unnecessarily when things went wrong.
a. Yes, most of the time — 3
b. Yes, some of the time — 2
c. Not very often — 1
d. No, never — 0
2. I have been anxious or worried for no good reason.
a. Yes, very often — 3
b. Yes, sometimes — 2
c. Hardly ever — 1
d. No, not at all — 0
3. I have felt scared or panicky for no very good reason.
a. Yes, quite a lot — 3
b. Yes, sometimes — 2
c. No, not much — 1
d. No, not at all — 0
With postpartum depression being so easily recognizable now, doctors need to be more proactive in detecting the symptoms. Handing out a bunch of papers is not enough and waiting six weeks for the mother’s follow-up exam could be too late to ask these questions. A phone appointment or an in-person appointment should be arranged with the first one to three weeks to do a preliminary screening and then another screening could occur in six weeks.
With the current state of healthcare, doctors are not likely to show this level of concern on their own; therefore, legislation should be proposed that would require either the hospital or primary doctor to screen every new mother for postpartum depression. Spending a little time on legislation could potentially save lives and keep the postpartum depression defense out of the court system.
Until the medical community or the government becomes more involved, the responsibility falls on mothers to self-diagnose and seek treatment. The best option is acquire assistance from a medical care provider, but there are some online resources to help with diagnosis and support:
Postpartum Support International
http://postpartum.net/
Postpartum Support Online
http://www.ppdsupportpage.com/
Postpartum Awareness
http://www.ppdsupport.org/
When I wasn’t imagining horrific infantile accidents, I stared at my baby, wondering what I was supposed to do to with him. I nursed him, changed his diaper, dressed him in lots of nauseating powder blue outfits, and, occasionally, bathed him when I could get over my anxiety of him drowning in the tub or being eaten by the garbage disposal in the sink. (He developed cradle cap due to the lack of baths but no one ever asked me why I wasn’t bathing him.) As I went through the motions all alone, I didn’t really feel any more affection for him than I had for my Cabbage Patch dolls that I took care of as a child.
I experienced nothing like the bond that I witnessed between my husband and our baby. In the hospital, our baby was inconsolable. The loudest crying baby in the maternity ward, ensuring no woman or child was getting any sleep that weekend. After a nurse threatened to take our baby away to give him a bottle and make him stop crying, paternal instinct took over. My husband picked up our screaming baby, flipped him over and jostled him into the airplane hold, placing my baby’s abdomen on his forearm. He then two-stepped around the hospital room to only the beat of new fatherhood until our baby fell asleep in his arms.
There was no dancing for me or any other type of maternal ritual that would celebrate the love of my new child. Dread not joy greeted me each morning. This is not what I thought motherhood was supposed to be like. Wasn’t motherhood supposed to be like the Luvs diaper commercial? The one where a smiling cherubic baby, clad in only a diaper, rolls in the grass while his gleeful mom, who happened to successfully shed all the baby weight, tickles his belly while simultaneously hanging clothes on the line.
Not being joyful about new motherhood made question if every new mother felt like this and suppressed it or if I was completely insane.I was wrong on both accounts. I wasn’t experiencing normality or insanity. I had a clear case of postpartum depression that went unacknowledged, undiagnosed and untreated. Arrogance not ignorance prohibited me from seeking treatment. Sure, I knew what postpartum depression was. The hospital sent me home with stacks and stacks of paper defining it, explaining it, justifying and outlining treatment. I comprehended the content, but could not acknowledge my own case. I was educated and married. My baby was wanted, and I was a stay-at-home mom. I was too prepared, too smart, too loving, and too concerned to be an inflicted woman. No matter how all the literature attempts normalize postpartum depression and deemphasize the shame; the hyper-attention given it the syndrome by doctors, the media and court system sensationalizes postpartum depression into shameful and shame-inducing aberration.
Shame is cold and lonely. I had no one to turn –too scared to seek medical attention and too embarrassed to tell family members. I couldn’t tell my husband because I didn’t want to disappoint him or have him be afraid to leave me alone with our baby. I couldn’t go to either one of my son’s grandmothers. After more than 30 years of giving birth to her last child, my mother still exhibits all the symptoms of postpartum depression and has never made an emotional connection with her children. My husband’s mother is a baby whisperer. She never took formal training, but she just intuitively knows everything there is to know about childrearing and would feel perfectly justified in editing the books of Brazelton, Spock, and Sears. She would never be able to understand why a mother wouldn’t bond with her baby instantly.
So, I was on my own. I just waited it out and went through the motions for weeks. Eventually, things started to get better. A major breakthrough happened when my baby was about 5 weeks old, and he fell asleep on my chest. He stayed there for hours, and I just watched him breathe. Then, a few days later, I started reading to him. We read Dissemination by Jacques Derrida. We skipped Mother Goose and went straight to Deconstructionism. Didn’t matter what I was reading to him; he was hearing his mother’s voice.
Our progress continued. I worried less. He cried less. He started to smile. I started to smile. Eventually, I over came my fear of driving and a joined a local chapter of the International MOMS Club, an organization designed for moms to support each other through fun scheduled activities. (This is organization is not specifically for postpartum depression, but does provide great opportunities to meet other moms who have had similar experiences).
The postpartum depression faded. I survived, my child survived and having endured such challenge made my bond with my baby stronger. New motherhood should not be an emotionally lonely time for any woman.
Recent studies have shown that postpartum depression is not as difficult to diagnose as once believed. Using only three questions doctors can know detect postpartum depression and these questions don’t have the negative stigma of crying, sleeplessness, and thoughts of harming self or others. Excessive anxiety seems to be a strong indicator and these questions zero in on the primary symptom: This is what the test looks like:
1. I have blamed myself unnecessarily when things went wrong.
a. Yes, most of the time — 3
b. Yes, some of the time — 2
c. Not very often — 1
d. No, never — 0
2. I have been anxious or worried for no good reason.
a. Yes, very often — 3
b. Yes, sometimes — 2
c. Hardly ever — 1
d. No, not at all — 0
3. I have felt scared or panicky for no very good reason.
a. Yes, quite a lot — 3
b. Yes, sometimes — 2
c. No, not much — 1
d. No, not at all — 0
With postpartum depression being so easily recognizable now, doctors need to be more proactive in detecting the symptoms. Handing out a bunch of papers is not enough and waiting six weeks for the mother’s follow-up exam could be too late to ask these questions. A phone appointment or an in-person appointment should be arranged with the first one to three weeks to do a preliminary screening and then another screening could occur in six weeks.
With the current state of healthcare, doctors are not likely to show this level of concern on their own; therefore, legislation should be proposed that would require either the hospital or primary doctor to screen every new mother for postpartum depression. Spending a little time on legislation could potentially save lives and keep the postpartum depression defense out of the court system.
Until the medical community or the government becomes more involved, the responsibility falls on mothers to self-diagnose and seek treatment. The best option is acquire assistance from a medical care provider, but there are some online resources to help with diagnosis and support:
Postpartum Support International
http://postpartum.net/
Postpartum Support Online
http://www.ppdsupportpage.com/
Postpartum Awareness
http://www.ppdsupport.org/
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Author Struck
“Where is your section on World War II Airplanes? I have some more research to do for my latest book,” said an elderly man who approached the public library reference desk.
“Your latest book? How many books have you written?” I questioned.
“This is my eighth book,” he replied.
“Wow, who is your publisher?” I asked.
“I haven’t published any of them,” he said.
“Your latest book? How many books have you written?” I questioned.
“This is my eighth book,” he replied.
“Wow, who is your publisher?” I asked.
“I haven’t published any of them,” he said.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
An Open Letter to Prince: Advice You Must Take Before You Drop Dead
Michael Jackson is dead. Now about 750,000 fans who spent roughly 85 million dollars for tickets to his "This Is It Tour" have refunds in their hands, grief in their hearts and no freak to see.
Prince, you must take advantage of their grief. You can be the replacement freak for all those Wacko Jacko admirers, and all that money could be yours if you do the “See Me before I Drop Dead Tour.” (You could do this tour every year until you finally drop dead.)
Sure, Wacko Jacko fans are lunatics, but does it matter? It is not like you particularly care about your fanbase. I am sure at least a few of them have managed to breed and have dancing babies you can sue. Really instead of suing babies, you should be begging hospitals to give out your music instead of those tired old Mozart CDs. Probably about your only hope to get anyone under the age of 35 to listen to you again.
If the "Drop Dead Tour" and the hospital CD do not bring you the money and fame you still crave, you still can always get hip surgery and do the “Hump the Piano Tour” for all the fans who were in elementary school and too young to see you slithering your tight little ass across that piano and tantalizing us with “Do you want him? Or do you want me?” Hump that piano, baby!
Once you start humping that piano, why don’t you just break out all your filthy ditties and make it the “Dirty Forever Tour.” Bring all those freaky hits on the road Head, Jack U Off , and Let’s Pretend We’re Married. Of course, you must perform Erotic City, not the instrumental version that you have been teasing fans with for 10 years but the full vocal, “We can fuck until the dawn, making love 'til cherry's gone” rendition. On a similar note, stop changing “Sexuality” to “Spiritually.”
Congratulations on finding your religion and being a devoted Jehovah Witness. You are entitled to your religion and personal quest, but don't burden your fans with your crappy God is Great music. You owe it to your fans to give them the salaciousness that they desire. Actually, you owe it to the one fan who finally got out from under her parents' control, moved near a big city, and got enough money for a ticket, the year that you stopped saying “fuck.”
It's time to bring back the panty dropping songs, so you must make a deal with the JW church. You need to make a donation to the church that is so large that the Catholics will be jealous and the elders in the Watch Tower Society will be helping you sing Hide the Bone. You can have it all: your religion (keep private and out of your music), lots of money (isn't that want the whole Warner Bros. cheated and mistreated me pity party is really about?) and your artistic freedom. You can still write and sing your mature, politically aware songs like Colonized Mind, but please give us your Dirty Mind back before you drop dead.
Sincerely,
Garbageman's Daughter
Prince, you must take advantage of their grief. You can be the replacement freak for all those Wacko Jacko admirers, and all that money could be yours if you do the “See Me before I Drop Dead Tour.” (You could do this tour every year until you finally drop dead.)
Sure, Wacko Jacko fans are lunatics, but does it matter? It is not like you particularly care about your fanbase. I am sure at least a few of them have managed to breed and have dancing babies you can sue. Really instead of suing babies, you should be begging hospitals to give out your music instead of those tired old Mozart CDs. Probably about your only hope to get anyone under the age of 35 to listen to you again.
If the "Drop Dead Tour" and the hospital CD do not bring you the money and fame you still crave, you still can always get hip surgery and do the “Hump the Piano Tour” for all the fans who were in elementary school and too young to see you slithering your tight little ass across that piano and tantalizing us with “Do you want him? Or do you want me?” Hump that piano, baby!
Once you start humping that piano, why don’t you just break out all your filthy ditties and make it the “Dirty Forever Tour.” Bring all those freaky hits on the road Head, Jack U Off , and Let’s Pretend We’re Married. Of course, you must perform Erotic City, not the instrumental version that you have been teasing fans with for 10 years but the full vocal, “We can fuck until the dawn, making love 'til cherry's gone” rendition. On a similar note, stop changing “Sexuality” to “Spiritually.”
Congratulations on finding your religion and being a devoted Jehovah Witness. You are entitled to your religion and personal quest, but don't burden your fans with your crappy God is Great music. You owe it to your fans to give them the salaciousness that they desire. Actually, you owe it to the one fan who finally got out from under her parents' control, moved near a big city, and got enough money for a ticket, the year that you stopped saying “fuck.”
It's time to bring back the panty dropping songs, so you must make a deal with the JW church. You need to make a donation to the church that is so large that the Catholics will be jealous and the elders in the Watch Tower Society will be helping you sing Hide the Bone. You can have it all: your religion (keep private and out of your music), lots of money (isn't that want the whole Warner Bros. cheated and mistreated me pity party is really about?) and your artistic freedom. You can still write and sing your mature, politically aware songs like Colonized Mind, but please give us your Dirty Mind back before you drop dead.
Sincerely,
Garbageman's Daughter
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Revenge Is Not Best Served With a Hot Chick
How does a husband get back at his wife for making veiled references to their sex life on her blog?
By going to a strip club called “Young Hot Chicks with Tight Asses and Perky Breasts for Stinky Middle-Aged Desperate Men with Wandering Hairlines, Expanding Waistlines and Money to Blow for a Little Bit of Insincere Attention” and making a large cash withdrawal from his shared checking account.
He later draws attention to the withdrawal by calling his wife to say: “I am at a strip club, and I spent a lot of money.”
How does the wife retaliate?
http://garbagemansdaughter.blogspot.com/2009/08/revenge-is-not-best-served-with-hot.html
Ready for Round 2?
By going to a strip club called “Young Hot Chicks with Tight Asses and Perky Breasts for Stinky Middle-Aged Desperate Men with Wandering Hairlines, Expanding Waistlines and Money to Blow for a Little Bit of Insincere Attention” and making a large cash withdrawal from his shared checking account.
He later draws attention to the withdrawal by calling his wife to say: “I am at a strip club, and I spent a lot of money.”
How does the wife retaliate?
http://garbagemansdaughter.blogspot.com/2009/08/revenge-is-not-best-served-with-hot.html
Ready for Round 2?
Monday, August 17, 2009
On Blogging
My blog posts are like a series of one night stands. They feel good at the time, but make me vomit when I look at them a second time.
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Monkey See, Monkey Conceive
Zoos are not the preferred accommodations of most wild animals. With tight living quarters, restricted diets and their inability to hook up in kinky, bestial ways anytime and anywhere, they probably become pretty pissed off living in cages. You don’t need to have a Ph.D. in Zoology to know that when pissed off animals get loose, they are going to seek retribution and are not going to take the time to look for the teal and salmon colored name tag that reads “zookeeper.”
So, with the threat of death by mauling looming behind every Dippin’ Dots cart, zoos are not my kind of tourist trap. Give me a botanical garden or contemporary art museum any day. Sure, my husband claims that Museums of Modern Art are pretentious institutional frauds, but I say: “Take my money, my intellect and my dignity but leave me my entrails, please.”
Being as attached to my innards as I am, I avoid zoos, but on the rare occasion that I am required to visit, I would welcome a hit of MJ’s propofol. However, there is one time of year that I can visit a zoo without sedation: Springtime. Something about a zoo in April or May is less animalistic, more maternalistic. Babies, babies, and more babies. Baby elephants, baby hippos, baby tigers, baby giraffes, baby monkeys, and of course, all of the human babies in strollers.
My husband and I visited a big city zoo during one its baby booms a few years back. Watching the tenderness of a mama tiger nursing her babies momentarily made me forget that a sleep-deprived tigress with raging hormones and a touch of postpartum depression would gladly take off my arm for dinner and save my liver for a bedtime snack.
After surviving the tiger cages, we headed to monkey cages.
We stopped at the monkey cage to watch a mama monkey manage her brood of obstinate babies who were far more interested in playing on manmade monkey bars than going with their mom to the back of the cage for some lunch. One of the monkeys did a twirl or two around the rope as his mama chased him and prodded his monkey butt with her nose; the other baby monkeys took advantage of their mother’s distraction and mucked around a bit for the crowds that gathered to watch the animal kingdom version of Kate and her eight. (The dad monkey, nowhere in sight, was rumored to be in Hawaii with a younger, less domineering monkey.)
As we watched, my husband said: "Let’s have one.”
“A monkey?”, I responded incredulously.
“No, a baby,” he said as he took my hand and gently kissed it.
Being a sucker for a cute guy with a good line, we monkeyed around that night.
It took and that was the extent of our family planning.
But if parenting is so easy that monkeys can do it, why couldn't we?
So, with the threat of death by mauling looming behind every Dippin’ Dots cart, zoos are not my kind of tourist trap. Give me a botanical garden or contemporary art museum any day. Sure, my husband claims that Museums of Modern Art are pretentious institutional frauds, but I say: “Take my money, my intellect and my dignity but leave me my entrails, please.”
Being as attached to my innards as I am, I avoid zoos, but on the rare occasion that I am required to visit, I would welcome a hit of MJ’s propofol. However, there is one time of year that I can visit a zoo without sedation: Springtime. Something about a zoo in April or May is less animalistic, more maternalistic. Babies, babies, and more babies. Baby elephants, baby hippos, baby tigers, baby giraffes, baby monkeys, and of course, all of the human babies in strollers.
My husband and I visited a big city zoo during one its baby booms a few years back. Watching the tenderness of a mama tiger nursing her babies momentarily made me forget that a sleep-deprived tigress with raging hormones and a touch of postpartum depression would gladly take off my arm for dinner and save my liver for a bedtime snack.
After surviving the tiger cages, we headed to monkey cages.
We stopped at the monkey cage to watch a mama monkey manage her brood of obstinate babies who were far more interested in playing on manmade monkey bars than going with their mom to the back of the cage for some lunch. One of the monkeys did a twirl or two around the rope as his mama chased him and prodded his monkey butt with her nose; the other baby monkeys took advantage of their mother’s distraction and mucked around a bit for the crowds that gathered to watch the animal kingdom version of Kate and her eight. (The dad monkey, nowhere in sight, was rumored to be in Hawaii with a younger, less domineering monkey.)
As we watched, my husband said: "Let’s have one.”
“A monkey?”, I responded incredulously.
“No, a baby,” he said as he took my hand and gently kissed it.
Being a sucker for a cute guy with a good line, we monkeyed around that night.
It took and that was the extent of our family planning.
But if parenting is so easy that monkeys can do it, why couldn't we?
Saturday, July 18, 2009
A Love Note
He writes:
"Frosties from Wendy's. Just one of the thousands of reasons my life is better because of you."
She smiles.
Thursday, July 2, 2009
The Memoir Game
In one of my favorite David Sedaris essays, he imagines himself saying to his younger sister: “Your life, your privacy, your occasional sorrow -- it's not like you're going to do anything with it.”
In that moment, he recognizes a writer’s selfish compulsion to see every moment as opportunity to get a laugh; compose a clever line; or, record biting real-life dialogue. Fortunately for his fans, Sedaris easily shrugs off the guilt and plods along showing the underbelly of suburban life and the morose cobwebs of his self-obsessed psyche. In his brief acknowledgement that not everything can or should be used as writing fodder, the humorist summarizes the dilemma that every writer faces. How much truth is too truthful? When does the personal essay become too personal? Can essayists be too self-evolved?
“Only a person who is congenitally self-centered has the effrontery and the stamina to write essays,” says E.B. White, one of the most significant and influential essayists of the Twentieth Century. He also ruminates, in his Forward to the Essays of E.B. White, about the negative consequences associated with being a memoirist. “I have been aware that I am by nature self-absorbed and egoistical; to write of myself to the extent I have done indicates a too great attention to my own life, not enough to the lives of others.”
Memoirists tend to be stars of their own story. So, when loved ones see themselves relegated to supporting characters in the writer’s drama, they become like teenagers holding the latest issue of the high school annual, looking for what kind of hair day they were having and how clear their skin looked in particular photographs. Often, they don’t like the rendering. So, they make Photoshop requests. A little less color here and little more contrast there until all flaws have been removed, along with the truth.
If essayists have compassion, don’t already have wildly successful careers making fun of their parents and siblings, and don’t have multimillion dollar book deals with publishing houses that expect caustic humor and embarrassing revelations, they will edit their works to either reflect a more positive image of their complainant; pick a different butt of the joke; or, delete the story altogether.
Another option for essayists is to use disclaimers. So, I have come with a few: “To protect identities, real names and distinguishing characteristics have been changed, but really don’t sue me or kick my ass."
But I am also toying with “Remember back in the day when I lied all the time? Now I lie and call it art.” Or , “My story. My blog. Screw you.” Those might still need a little work. So as an alternative, I have been changing details about my life and the people in it.
My working class hometown in Central Pennsylvania is now an upper-middle class suburb in Massachusetts; my steadfast but occasionally cruel mother becomes a benevolent Mrs. Brady clone with rosy cheeks; and, my impulsive husband who lets the kids eat ice cream for dinner becomes a workaholic with obsessive compulsive hand-washing; my in-laws no longer are Texans with funny accents but are New Yorkers with funny accents.
I create charts, diagrams, and timelines to keep track of all the changes. But each change brings another question: Would a suburb in Massachusetts have a Brother’s Pizza and Sheetz? Is it likely that upper middle class kids in New England would have the first day of Buck season off of school; or that they would hang out at the local mini-mart on Main Street, go to splash hops in the summer, or skate on the iced-over tennis courts in the winter? Would New Yorkers say “fix-in to” and “sea-ment”? And, New Yorkers are certainly too smart to call every type of drink a Coke (even if it’s Pepsi, Sprite, Iced Tea, or bottled water). What a mess!
So after all the changes are made, I have an unauthentic, confusing piece of fiction that doesn’t resemble anything that I intended write in the first place. Screw that. I will use “your life, your privacy, your occasional sorrow….”
In that moment, he recognizes a writer’s selfish compulsion to see every moment as opportunity to get a laugh; compose a clever line; or, record biting real-life dialogue. Fortunately for his fans, Sedaris easily shrugs off the guilt and plods along showing the underbelly of suburban life and the morose cobwebs of his self-obsessed psyche. In his brief acknowledgement that not everything can or should be used as writing fodder, the humorist summarizes the dilemma that every writer faces. How much truth is too truthful? When does the personal essay become too personal? Can essayists be too self-evolved?
“Only a person who is congenitally self-centered has the effrontery and the stamina to write essays,” says E.B. White, one of the most significant and influential essayists of the Twentieth Century. He also ruminates, in his Forward to the Essays of E.B. White, about the negative consequences associated with being a memoirist. “I have been aware that I am by nature self-absorbed and egoistical; to write of myself to the extent I have done indicates a too great attention to my own life, not enough to the lives of others.”
Memoirists tend to be stars of their own story. So, when loved ones see themselves relegated to supporting characters in the writer’s drama, they become like teenagers holding the latest issue of the high school annual, looking for what kind of hair day they were having and how clear their skin looked in particular photographs. Often, they don’t like the rendering. So, they make Photoshop requests. A little less color here and little more contrast there until all flaws have been removed, along with the truth.
If essayists have compassion, don’t already have wildly successful careers making fun of their parents and siblings, and don’t have multimillion dollar book deals with publishing houses that expect caustic humor and embarrassing revelations, they will edit their works to either reflect a more positive image of their complainant; pick a different butt of the joke; or, delete the story altogether.
Another option for essayists is to use disclaimers. So, I have come with a few: “To protect identities, real names and distinguishing characteristics have been changed, but really don’t sue me or kick my ass."
But I am also toying with “Remember back in the day when I lied all the time? Now I lie and call it art.” Or , “My story. My blog. Screw you.” Those might still need a little work. So as an alternative, I have been changing details about my life and the people in it.
My working class hometown in Central Pennsylvania is now an upper-middle class suburb in Massachusetts; my steadfast but occasionally cruel mother becomes a benevolent Mrs. Brady clone with rosy cheeks; and, my impulsive husband who lets the kids eat ice cream for dinner becomes a workaholic with obsessive compulsive hand-washing; my in-laws no longer are Texans with funny accents but are New Yorkers with funny accents.
I create charts, diagrams, and timelines to keep track of all the changes. But each change brings another question: Would a suburb in Massachusetts have a Brother’s Pizza and Sheetz? Is it likely that upper middle class kids in New England would have the first day of Buck season off of school; or that they would hang out at the local mini-mart on Main Street, go to splash hops in the summer, or skate on the iced-over tennis courts in the winter? Would New Yorkers say “fix-in to” and “sea-ment”? And, New Yorkers are certainly too smart to call every type of drink a Coke (even if it’s Pepsi, Sprite, Iced Tea, or bottled water). What a mess!
So after all the changes are made, I have an unauthentic, confusing piece of fiction that doesn’t resemble anything that I intended write in the first place. Screw that. I will use “your life, your privacy, your occasional sorrow….”
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Proper Etiquette for Implying the Illegitimacy of a Child
“He doesn’t look like your other kids,” said the dimwitted waitress who was looking at my four-year-old son as she put the glasses of iced tea on the table.
I’ll take care of this.
“That’s because he probably isn’t my husband's. Too much tequila and too much reggae music on a boring and lonely night. Husband out of town. Kids at their grandparents. A cute neighbor with a sexy Australian accent. What can I say? We haven’t had a DNA test, and we aren’t planning on it. Now please bring us two straws and an extra plate for the baby,” I say in a matter of fact tone and with tinge of annoyance all inside my head.
Too harsh. Instead I consider: “He doesn’t look my husband because he is my dead sister’s son. We are raising him as our own. He resembles me and his cousins.” Don’t say that either.
Adoption, kidnapping, artificial insemination, a child from a previous marriage or relationship, my love child, my husband’s love child, so many possible explanations for why our third child doesn’t look like us. In this situation, we don’t explain. We almost never do. Curiosity is good for the mind.
Instead my husband and I laughed. He says, “We get told that a lot” while he continues to cut spaghetti and hand out dinner rolls to the kids.This kind of uncomfortable moment happens quite frequently and takes different forms. Sometimes we are told he doesn’t look like his siblings. A nurse once told me that my son looks nothing like me and must bear a strong resemblance to his father. No, he looks nothing like his father. And, it is not just strangers who make this observation.
“Your son looks nothing like my son,” says my mother-in-law, laughing to foreshadow the upcoming punchline: “And, we know why that is?”
“Why is that? Are you calling me a slut?”, I think, but decide to smile instead. I am not sure if it's more insulting when she implies I'm a cheater or calls me a Yankee; they are probably synonyms in her mind.
Anyway, here’s the truth. There is a chance that he is not my husband's child. But then, he's not mine either. I am pretty sure that our third child is the baby who was beside our biological offspring in the hospital nursery—the baby boy with a hyphenated name who was born about seven minutes before my son. The hyphen in the baby’s name wasn’t the uptown, yuppie kind that says “I am an independent career woman with success equal to my husband's, so he will carry both of our surnames.” Instead, the appellation connecting punctuation conveys “I live in the inner city, on the dole, and am not married to the baby’s daddy."
Yes, we got the gorgeous welfare baby with dark curly hair, olive skin, sparkling white teeth, long black eyelashes and a single dimple on his right cheek. He always looks like he is ready for a Baby Gap photo shoot. Sometimes we just stare at him in amazement.
While we fawn over our child, somewhere out there, a confused single mom in the Dallas area tries to love a chubby preschooler with big ears, a speech impediment and curled toes. She hugs who she believes is her biological offspring every morning while thinking “damn, he is ugly and dumb.” At least when she is told that her child doesn’t look anything like her boyfriend who is helping to raise him, she can say with conviction: “I don’t know who his father is.”
I’ll take care of this.
“That’s because he probably isn’t my husband's. Too much tequila and too much reggae music on a boring and lonely night. Husband out of town. Kids at their grandparents. A cute neighbor with a sexy Australian accent. What can I say? We haven’t had a DNA test, and we aren’t planning on it. Now please bring us two straws and an extra plate for the baby,” I say in a matter of fact tone and with tinge of annoyance all inside my head.
Too harsh. Instead I consider: “He doesn’t look my husband because he is my dead sister’s son. We are raising him as our own. He resembles me and his cousins.” Don’t say that either.
Adoption, kidnapping, artificial insemination, a child from a previous marriage or relationship, my love child, my husband’s love child, so many possible explanations for why our third child doesn’t look like us. In this situation, we don’t explain. We almost never do. Curiosity is good for the mind.
Instead my husband and I laughed. He says, “We get told that a lot” while he continues to cut spaghetti and hand out dinner rolls to the kids.This kind of uncomfortable moment happens quite frequently and takes different forms. Sometimes we are told he doesn’t look like his siblings. A nurse once told me that my son looks nothing like me and must bear a strong resemblance to his father. No, he looks nothing like his father. And, it is not just strangers who make this observation.
“Your son looks nothing like my son,” says my mother-in-law, laughing to foreshadow the upcoming punchline: “And, we know why that is?”
“Why is that? Are you calling me a slut?”, I think, but decide to smile instead. I am not sure if it's more insulting when she implies I'm a cheater or calls me a Yankee; they are probably synonyms in her mind.
Anyway, here’s the truth. There is a chance that he is not my husband's child. But then, he's not mine either. I am pretty sure that our third child is the baby who was beside our biological offspring in the hospital nursery—the baby boy with a hyphenated name who was born about seven minutes before my son. The hyphen in the baby’s name wasn’t the uptown, yuppie kind that says “I am an independent career woman with success equal to my husband's, so he will carry both of our surnames.” Instead, the appellation connecting punctuation conveys “I live in the inner city, on the dole, and am not married to the baby’s daddy."
Yes, we got the gorgeous welfare baby with dark curly hair, olive skin, sparkling white teeth, long black eyelashes and a single dimple on his right cheek. He always looks like he is ready for a Baby Gap photo shoot. Sometimes we just stare at him in amazement.
While we fawn over our child, somewhere out there, a confused single mom in the Dallas area tries to love a chubby preschooler with big ears, a speech impediment and curled toes. She hugs who she believes is her biological offspring every morning while thinking “damn, he is ugly and dumb.” At least when she is told that her child doesn’t look anything like her boyfriend who is helping to raise him, she can say with conviction: “I don’t know who his father is.”
Monday, June 29, 2009
I am in Love with a Dead Woman
Our friendship will be based on our love for Oscar Wilde and contempt for the same people. I will introduce her to the books of Mitch Albom, the broadcasts of Katie Couric, the country-pop of Taylor Swift, the paintings of Thomas Kinkade and Dr. Laura’s radio program. She will hate them all as much she hated A.A. Milne in her lifetime. We will laugh. I will ask her if she knew that “Men seldom make passes/At girls who wear glasses.” would stick. She will say: “Hell yeah, doll.” We will be buy hats together (even if Walmart is the only option in the middle of the night for an insomniac and her ghost friend). I will tell her that I love A Telephone Call. I will probably develop a crush on her. She will pretend not to notice. I will take up drinking and probably become an alcoholic. I will ask her if Hemingway was good in bed. She will say something like, “All those guns and no bang.” I will laugh and ask: “Are you serious?” She will smile and never answer me. We will drink some more scotch. I will ask if she met Gertrude Stein when she visited Hemingway in Paris. She will say something offensive. I will be dejected. She will apologize. We will drink more scotch and try on hats until dawn.
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Bully Interrupted
Word got out quickly and the email was brief: "G.W. was killed in a motorcycle accident."
Reply: "I feel sorry for his mother's loss." Send.
That should have been the end of it. A polite condolence for the passing of my former classmate. We were not friends. I knew nothing about his family life. We did not talk about our hopes and fears. He never told me if he won or lost his wrestling matches. We never chatted about applying for college, going to prom, or if Julia Roberts made a convincing prostitute.
But the end has not come. Intermittent bouts of grief have continued for five years as I reflect upon a relationship far more complex than friendship and far more important than a romance. His words are still present with me: "You’re a virgin because no one wants to touch you. Not because you’re good," his goading continued, "I bet you have never been kissed." Staring at the fainted pencil doodles on the desk (mostly penned by me) and twisting my frizzy, Sun In and Aqua Net infused hair, I thought “fuck off,” but said nothing.
The intensity of my hair twisting increased with my level of embarrassment. I wrapped my hair six or seven times around my left index finger and jerked it repeatedly over my left eye. “You’re an ugly freak,” he said. “Maybe so, but I will get out of this shithole. You, however, will die here,” I never had the courage to say that to him. Instead, I stayed mute and escaped into my dreams of heading to New York to take over the astrology and supernatural beat at the Natural Inquirer after a four-year stint at a quaint private liberal arts college in central Pennsylvania.
G.W.’s taunts went on for years. Given the uninspired alphabetical seating chart used in homeroom, G.W. always sat in front of me. After the Pledge of Allegiance but typically before roll call, he would turn about 60 degrees left and glare at me with his hazel eyes protected by long, curly eyelashes—not suited for a bully. He slightly tilted his chin upward, showing his jawline that curved like the Appalachian Mountains, the landscape of our childhood. He then placed his right hand onto my left arm twisting my skin until his fingers were imprinted on me like a pink and white x-ray under tacky florescent lighting. This was just one of the ways that he let me know he was there, thinking about me. G.W. took pride in his role as a bully and picked on many kids – boy, girl, fat, skinny, tall, short, smart, dumb, shy, or obnoxious— but among all his targets, I was his favorite.
A large sinister laugh with a touch of naiveté always followed his taunting. Even at his most cruel, a playful innocence underpinned his voice letting me know that he picked on me because I could handle it, and I always suspected that he would never harass the truly weak or helpless. I liked having his sole attention when he was pinching my arm, bending my fingers, or calling me an “ugly bitch.” We needed each other. Picking on me made him look cool and funny. He was a boy who talked me. I think I even had a crush on him for a day or two, a few months before graduation, perhaps in April or May of 1991. I later concluded he was an asshole and moved on.
Certainly not an innovative bully, G.W. acted more menacing than violent. His attacks were no different than those implemented by any other bully in any other school. I never told; our teachers rarely noticed; and, classmates watched in amusement -- wishing they could be like him while giving thanks that were not me. This was long before the days of no tolerance policies and immediate expulsions for minor bullying infractions. Statistics show that targets of bullies often have low self-esteem and perform poorly in school; the teasing was just part of my high school experience and didn’t have much impact on my daily activities.
If you have ever listened to any John Cougar Mellencamp cassette twice, you know our story. We lived in a small town where everyone (with the exception of a few adopted kids) was white and everybody’s parents made about the same amount of money (with the exception of a few business owners). The only thing that separated G.W. and me were our class choices. I was college-bound, and he was not. So, we were from two different academic worlds, which meant after about 10 minutes of abuse in homeroom, we would separate and did not see each other again until the next morning.
Our limited contact makes our story pretty uneventful. There are no twists and turns. This is not a modern retelling of David and Goliath. This isn’t one of those sappy afterschool specials where the beaten-down but yet spunky and resourceful victim outwits the bully, showing him the error of his ways while simultaneously winning respect from classmates and the heart of the high school quarterback who always secretly loved her but wasn’t brave enough to battle peer pressure.
Nor is this a tale of high school revolution that results in equality for all geeks, weirdoes, and freaks, thus ending all tyranny for future generations of misfits. Yes, I wanted to be the Norma Rae or Ronald Reagan of the high school experience, but this was high school not a factory in the South or a Communist country. Sure, I wanted to be that individualist that stood on the tables and shouted, “Ugly people have feelings too. Ugly people have feelings too.” But the institutions of popularity and beauty can never be penetrated, and venerated bullies wield far more power than abusive factory bosses or Communist leaders. If you have survived the high school experience, you know (you just repressed it along with bad teenage sexual encounters and frightening bouts of underage alcohol poisoning).
Nor is our story a tale of unexpected romance. We never hooked up as teenagers, and didn’t get married as adults. We graduated and never again were in the same alphabetical line-up.
I only saw G.W. one time after graduation. I was working for a small local newspaper during my sophomore year of college. It wasn’t the supernatural beat for the National Inquirer, but on that day, I was covering something just as preposterous – high school football. I was in need of football player quotes, so I went to the place where any well-respected, small town reporter would go to chase a story – the local mini-mart on Main Street. The coach of our high school football team was going for his 100th win, and it would be coincidentally against the school’s biggest rival. The coach was far too modest to give me any real quotes worth printing. He said something about those records being silly and not keeping track of his wins (but oddly, he knew exactly why I was calling before the phrase “100th win” came out of my mouth).
While he hung out with a few high school kids right outside the storefront, G.W. spotted me in the parking lot and yelled: “Why are you dressed up? What are doing you?”
“Writing a story about Coach H.,” I said as I approached him.
“You a reporter,” he said.
“Yeah,” said I.
I then turned to a close friend’s little brother who was on the football team and asked for his thoughts on the coach’s upcoming milestone. Peter wouldn’t give me a quote. He said, Coach H. would make him run miles and sit him out if he talked to a reporter. That’s when G.W. showed that he still had school spirit at the age of 20, and as former football player, he gave me a few printable lines. Ignoring journalistic ethics, I changed his quotes slightly to make him appear articulate and knowledgeable about Blue Devil football. I think I used the phrase “striving for excellence” somewhere in the story.
Other than getting my quotes, I don’t remember much of our actual exchange. It was quite unremarkable. Most of my encounters with G.W. were unremarkable, so I hesitate to recall too many incidents because I don’t want to confuse his actions with those of other bullies that I encountered, stories I have read, or Molly Ringwald movies that I have seen.
Really the story is that the story ended too soon for G.W. – before he became a parent. Before he had to answer the question: “Dad, what were you like in school?” That is the moment when you have to face who you were, what you are now, and what you aspire your children to be. It’s in the next generation when bullying issues surface. Parents must bully proof their children, making sure they are not bullied and that they do not bully others. How you answer your child’s question means everything.
After my son, who was in second grade at the time, got grounded from his computer for intentionally ignoring a classmate at the school’s pancake breakfast. He said, “I don’t like that kid. Weren’t there kids in school that you didn’t like?”
I kneeled down to be eye-level to him and said, “Yes, there were many people I didn’t like. But, many people treated me like you just treated that little boy. They ignored me and pretended like I didn’t exist. And when they didn’t ignore me, they made fun of me, sometimes behind my back but mostly to my face while others watched and laughed. You will not do that. You will be nice to everyone. If you are not, there will be consequences.” That was my answer.
I don’t know how G.W. would have answered. Statistics show that most high school bullies go on to be adult bullies at work and at home. Many bullies abuse their spouses and children. Some end up in prison, and a good portion raise their kids to be bullies. I’ll never know what G.W.’s story could have been. If I wrote the ending, G.W. would have been loving father who raised his kids to be kind to others. And of course, my kid kicks his kid’s ass – in a game of chess.
Reply: "I feel sorry for his mother's loss." Send.
That should have been the end of it. A polite condolence for the passing of my former classmate. We were not friends. I knew nothing about his family life. We did not talk about our hopes and fears. He never told me if he won or lost his wrestling matches. We never chatted about applying for college, going to prom, or if Julia Roberts made a convincing prostitute.
But the end has not come. Intermittent bouts of grief have continued for five years as I reflect upon a relationship far more complex than friendship and far more important than a romance. His words are still present with me: "You’re a virgin because no one wants to touch you. Not because you’re good," his goading continued, "I bet you have never been kissed." Staring at the fainted pencil doodles on the desk (mostly penned by me) and twisting my frizzy, Sun In and Aqua Net infused hair, I thought “fuck off,” but said nothing.
The intensity of my hair twisting increased with my level of embarrassment. I wrapped my hair six or seven times around my left index finger and jerked it repeatedly over my left eye. “You’re an ugly freak,” he said. “Maybe so, but I will get out of this shithole. You, however, will die here,” I never had the courage to say that to him. Instead, I stayed mute and escaped into my dreams of heading to New York to take over the astrology and supernatural beat at the Natural Inquirer after a four-year stint at a quaint private liberal arts college in central Pennsylvania.
G.W.’s taunts went on for years. Given the uninspired alphabetical seating chart used in homeroom, G.W. always sat in front of me. After the Pledge of Allegiance but typically before roll call, he would turn about 60 degrees left and glare at me with his hazel eyes protected by long, curly eyelashes—not suited for a bully. He slightly tilted his chin upward, showing his jawline that curved like the Appalachian Mountains, the landscape of our childhood. He then placed his right hand onto my left arm twisting my skin until his fingers were imprinted on me like a pink and white x-ray under tacky florescent lighting. This was just one of the ways that he let me know he was there, thinking about me. G.W. took pride in his role as a bully and picked on many kids – boy, girl, fat, skinny, tall, short, smart, dumb, shy, or obnoxious— but among all his targets, I was his favorite.
A large sinister laugh with a touch of naiveté always followed his taunting. Even at his most cruel, a playful innocence underpinned his voice letting me know that he picked on me because I could handle it, and I always suspected that he would never harass the truly weak or helpless. I liked having his sole attention when he was pinching my arm, bending my fingers, or calling me an “ugly bitch.” We needed each other. Picking on me made him look cool and funny. He was a boy who talked me. I think I even had a crush on him for a day or two, a few months before graduation, perhaps in April or May of 1991. I later concluded he was an asshole and moved on.
Certainly not an innovative bully, G.W. acted more menacing than violent. His attacks were no different than those implemented by any other bully in any other school. I never told; our teachers rarely noticed; and, classmates watched in amusement -- wishing they could be like him while giving thanks that were not me. This was long before the days of no tolerance policies and immediate expulsions for minor bullying infractions. Statistics show that targets of bullies often have low self-esteem and perform poorly in school; the teasing was just part of my high school experience and didn’t have much impact on my daily activities.
If you have ever listened to any John Cougar Mellencamp cassette twice, you know our story. We lived in a small town where everyone (with the exception of a few adopted kids) was white and everybody’s parents made about the same amount of money (with the exception of a few business owners). The only thing that separated G.W. and me were our class choices. I was college-bound, and he was not. So, we were from two different academic worlds, which meant after about 10 minutes of abuse in homeroom, we would separate and did not see each other again until the next morning.
Our limited contact makes our story pretty uneventful. There are no twists and turns. This is not a modern retelling of David and Goliath. This isn’t one of those sappy afterschool specials where the beaten-down but yet spunky and resourceful victim outwits the bully, showing him the error of his ways while simultaneously winning respect from classmates and the heart of the high school quarterback who always secretly loved her but wasn’t brave enough to battle peer pressure.
Nor is this a tale of high school revolution that results in equality for all geeks, weirdoes, and freaks, thus ending all tyranny for future generations of misfits. Yes, I wanted to be the Norma Rae or Ronald Reagan of the high school experience, but this was high school not a factory in the South or a Communist country. Sure, I wanted to be that individualist that stood on the tables and shouted, “Ugly people have feelings too. Ugly people have feelings too.” But the institutions of popularity and beauty can never be penetrated, and venerated bullies wield far more power than abusive factory bosses or Communist leaders. If you have survived the high school experience, you know (you just repressed it along with bad teenage sexual encounters and frightening bouts of underage alcohol poisoning).
Nor is our story a tale of unexpected romance. We never hooked up as teenagers, and didn’t get married as adults. We graduated and never again were in the same alphabetical line-up.
I only saw G.W. one time after graduation. I was working for a small local newspaper during my sophomore year of college. It wasn’t the supernatural beat for the National Inquirer, but on that day, I was covering something just as preposterous – high school football. I was in need of football player quotes, so I went to the place where any well-respected, small town reporter would go to chase a story – the local mini-mart on Main Street. The coach of our high school football team was going for his 100th win, and it would be coincidentally against the school’s biggest rival. The coach was far too modest to give me any real quotes worth printing. He said something about those records being silly and not keeping track of his wins (but oddly, he knew exactly why I was calling before the phrase “100th win” came out of my mouth).
While he hung out with a few high school kids right outside the storefront, G.W. spotted me in the parking lot and yelled: “Why are you dressed up? What are doing you?”
“Writing a story about Coach H.,” I said as I approached him.
“You a reporter,” he said.
“Yeah,” said I.
I then turned to a close friend’s little brother who was on the football team and asked for his thoughts on the coach’s upcoming milestone. Peter wouldn’t give me a quote. He said, Coach H. would make him run miles and sit him out if he talked to a reporter. That’s when G.W. showed that he still had school spirit at the age of 20, and as former football player, he gave me a few printable lines. Ignoring journalistic ethics, I changed his quotes slightly to make him appear articulate and knowledgeable about Blue Devil football. I think I used the phrase “striving for excellence” somewhere in the story.
Other than getting my quotes, I don’t remember much of our actual exchange. It was quite unremarkable. Most of my encounters with G.W. were unremarkable, so I hesitate to recall too many incidents because I don’t want to confuse his actions with those of other bullies that I encountered, stories I have read, or Molly Ringwald movies that I have seen.
Really the story is that the story ended too soon for G.W. – before he became a parent. Before he had to answer the question: “Dad, what were you like in school?” That is the moment when you have to face who you were, what you are now, and what you aspire your children to be. It’s in the next generation when bullying issues surface. Parents must bully proof their children, making sure they are not bullied and that they do not bully others. How you answer your child’s question means everything.
After my son, who was in second grade at the time, got grounded from his computer for intentionally ignoring a classmate at the school’s pancake breakfast. He said, “I don’t like that kid. Weren’t there kids in school that you didn’t like?”
I kneeled down to be eye-level to him and said, “Yes, there were many people I didn’t like. But, many people treated me like you just treated that little boy. They ignored me and pretended like I didn’t exist. And when they didn’t ignore me, they made fun of me, sometimes behind my back but mostly to my face while others watched and laughed. You will not do that. You will be nice to everyone. If you are not, there will be consequences.” That was my answer.
I don’t know how G.W. would have answered. Statistics show that most high school bullies go on to be adult bullies at work and at home. Many bullies abuse their spouses and children. Some end up in prison, and a good portion raise their kids to be bullies. I’ll never know what G.W.’s story could have been. If I wrote the ending, G.W. would have been loving father who raised his kids to be kind to others. And of course, my kid kicks his kid’s ass – in a game of chess.
Friday, June 26, 2009
The Chart
Author’s Note: I will probably never write a teen novel, but I would love to see an updated version of this true and ridiculous scene from my pre-teen years in a young adult book. Also, all the names in this chart have been generated randomly from the phonebook and are not coded to reflect the names of real people in some furtive way. This is one of my favorite embarrassing stories from childhood to share. Since I can't remember enough to develop a complete essay, I offer a moment in time instead.
One such evening, my friend decided it would be fun to rate all the girls in our class, including ourselves. I was happy to oblige and had no problem giving them all number ratings on their looks, personality, fashion sense and intelligence. We giggled and giggled, later on talked about some boys, and then said good-night.
When I arrived at school the next morning, everyone was standing at a group of desks hovering around something, maybe a book, a map, or piece a paper. Yes, it was a piece of paper. Their voices were low, but I could make out a few words. “A four.” “A negative seventeen!” “What a loser.” “Yeah, what’d she give her herself.”
This situation was a test of my character.
I failed. I came down with a headache and went home early from school that day. For a few weeks, I just didn’t make eye contact. Most of the girls didn’t talk to me until the next school year.
Although it is unconventional for an essayist to address herself within in her work, this episode was so ridiculous and so preventable that I must scold my stupid pre-teen self.
You are a dumbass and a coward. You could have gone two different ways with this one.
Deny. Deny. Deny. It was her word against yours. Your handwriting was not anywhere on that piece of paper and the phone call was not recorded. (Thank God, you did not have a blog in those days).
The other option was: Own it, Own it, and Own it. You could have stood by your ratings and called out those girls. You could have been the Gossip Girl of your generation.
But that is okay. You were only 12. You went on to say and write much more imprudent things that you could later not deny, which I have documented in “Advice for the Young: Don’t Write Stupid Shit in Your High School Yearbook.”
Advice for the Young: Don’t Write Stupid Shit in Your High School Yearbook
Author’s Note: I have changed some of the names and the details that wrote in my yearbook because I don’t want rehash all the trouble I caused in 1991.
“Hey, what are tangible men?”, asked my husband as he came up the stairs.
“What kind of non sequitur crap is that? What the hell are you talking about?”
“You wrote that you like tangible men,” he said.
“Oh, dear God. They found my high school yearbook,” I said to myself.
I responded, “I have no idea what you are talking about.”
“Bring up her yearbook,” my husband yelled to my oldest son.
Oh the horror. The big hair. The dark make-up. Tons of jewelry. Silly candid photos of me twirling my baton. The picture that immortalizes me as the Most Gullible girl. A sappy dedication from my mother, and my dreadful entry in the section called Senior Directories: Information Concerning the 1991 graduates.
The concept behind the section is a good one: Give graduates a spot to provide contact information (no email in those days, just physical addresses); list school activities; and reflect on their likes and dislikes. If done correctly, this section could accurately reflect a moment in time. Show what was important to students and what trends were occurring? The well-written entries could reveal how you, your values, and what you value have changed or remained the same after graduation.
Or, you could do what I did and fill your space with a lot of inside jokes that were either so obscure no one knew what you were talking about at the time or so unimportant you can't remember the sentiment behind the words 18 years later.
Now that I got you curious. I'll take a huge leap of faith that embarrassment won’t kill me and share the entire cringe-worthy list with you:
Likes:
· family and friends (Wrote that because everyone else did.)
· “IN” (Not a preposition, but the boy that I had a crush on at the time.)
· 7-4-89 (The date of my first kiss with "IN." Sentimental Crap. Get a life!)
· Destiny in the rain (Also connected to the first kiss. So, pathetic.)
· Maryland construction workers (Guess it meant something to me at the time.)
· M.R.’s and lollipops (Exceptionally obscure inside joke that still makes me laugh.)
· Tangible men (Your guess is as good as mine.)
Dislikes:
· Jugglers (Huge mistake. IN’s girlfriend. This comment made all hell break loose.)
· Mashed potatoes (Truly astonishing that I did go on to earn a few degrees.)
· Highway breakdowns (Reasonable.)
· Intangible men (Other side of the indiscernible coin.)
· Calculus confusion (Captures the challenges of 12th grade math, not bad.)
The inclusion of my likes are not worthy of analysis but two of my omissions bother me: Prince and writing. If I would have included them, these would have reflected the things that I have held onto since my childhood. I can attribute the Prince omission to his release of Graffiti Bridge in 1991, which was the start of his commercial decline. So, my affection may have waned for a year and two. But, no excuse exists for not listing writing. Because I was trying to be so clever in the writing of my likes and dislikes, I simply forgot to mention it.
So after 18 years, my dislike for mashed potatoes and highway breakdowns still rings true.
Mashed potatoes. That is what I picked to emphasize. From what I remember and from what people tell me, I was a smart girl in my teens. I could have wrote that I disliked world hunger, war (Gulf War started in 1991), child abusers; skin-heads, censorship and people who don’t respect the First Amendment. Anything that would have indicated to my children almost twenty-years later that I had a brain then and I used it.
But between my clueless facial expressions and dumb comments, there is no evidence of the existence of my brain in high school. So when I look at the cover of the yearbook and it asks: Remember When?
I respond, “No, thank you. I rather not.”
“Hey, what are tangible men?”, asked my husband as he came up the stairs.
“What kind of non sequitur crap is that? What the hell are you talking about?”
“You wrote that you like tangible men,” he said.
“Oh, dear God. They found my high school yearbook,” I said to myself.
I responded, “I have no idea what you are talking about.”
“Bring up her yearbook,” my husband yelled to my oldest son.
Oh the horror. The big hair. The dark make-up. Tons of jewelry. Silly candid photos of me twirling my baton. The picture that immortalizes me as the Most Gullible girl. A sappy dedication from my mother, and my dreadful entry in the section called Senior Directories: Information Concerning the 1991 graduates.
The concept behind the section is a good one: Give graduates a spot to provide contact information (no email in those days, just physical addresses); list school activities; and reflect on their likes and dislikes. If done correctly, this section could accurately reflect a moment in time. Show what was important to students and what trends were occurring? The well-written entries could reveal how you, your values, and what you value have changed or remained the same after graduation.
Or, you could do what I did and fill your space with a lot of inside jokes that were either so obscure no one knew what you were talking about at the time or so unimportant you can't remember the sentiment behind the words 18 years later.
Now that I got you curious. I'll take a huge leap of faith that embarrassment won’t kill me and share the entire cringe-worthy list with you:
Likes:
· family and friends (Wrote that because everyone else did.)
· “IN” (Not a preposition, but the boy that I had a crush on at the time.)
· 7-4-89 (The date of my first kiss with "IN." Sentimental Crap. Get a life!)
· Destiny in the rain (Also connected to the first kiss. So, pathetic.)
· Maryland construction workers (Guess it meant something to me at the time.)
· M.R.’s and lollipops (Exceptionally obscure inside joke that still makes me laugh.)
· Tangible men (Your guess is as good as mine.)
Dislikes:
· Jugglers (Huge mistake. IN’s girlfriend. This comment made all hell break loose.)
· Mashed potatoes (Truly astonishing that I did go on to earn a few degrees.)
· Highway breakdowns (Reasonable.)
· Intangible men (Other side of the indiscernible coin.)
· Calculus confusion (Captures the challenges of 12th grade math, not bad.)
The inclusion of my likes are not worthy of analysis but two of my omissions bother me: Prince and writing. If I would have included them, these would have reflected the things that I have held onto since my childhood. I can attribute the Prince omission to his release of Graffiti Bridge in 1991, which was the start of his commercial decline. So, my affection may have waned for a year and two. But, no excuse exists for not listing writing. Because I was trying to be so clever in the writing of my likes and dislikes, I simply forgot to mention it.
So after 18 years, my dislike for mashed potatoes and highway breakdowns still rings true.
Mashed potatoes. That is what I picked to emphasize. From what I remember and from what people tell me, I was a smart girl in my teens. I could have wrote that I disliked world hunger, war (Gulf War started in 1991), child abusers; skin-heads, censorship and people who don’t respect the First Amendment. Anything that would have indicated to my children almost twenty-years later that I had a brain then and I used it.
But between my clueless facial expressions and dumb comments, there is no evidence of the existence of my brain in high school. So when I look at the cover of the yearbook and it asks: Remember When?
I respond, “No, thank you. I rather not.”
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Grieving on a Fallen Star, or Not
Michael Jackson died today.
I want to be sad, maybe even shed tear or two. To stimulate my grief, I listen to Thriller. Nothing. I stare at the original Thriller cover for awhile, which I had as a wall-size poster back in 1982 when I was nine. I look at it a long time. So that is what he looked like before all the surgeries and the loss of pigmentation, I guess I have forgotten. Still feeling nothing.
I remember staying up late to see the premier of Beat it on Friday Night Videos on NBC because I was only a part of the MTV generation in theory. I suddenly get the urge to email my friend Tracey who stayed over that night to watch it with me. But still nothing.
Although I should I have stopped, I guess I couldn’t get enough. So, I forced myself to try to remember if Thriller or 1999 was my first cassette. Prince’s breakthrough album came out only one month before Thriller. I can’t remember which I got first. Feeling the urge to turn off Thriller and switch to 1999. I still feel nothing for MJ.
I can’t make myself feel sad. Indifference keeps surfacing.
I mourned the loss of Jackson in 2005 when he faced accusations of child molestation for the second time. I stopped listening to him entirely. When his songs came on the radio, I turned the dial immediately, no matter how catchy the chorus or funky the beat.
He was acquitted of all charges against him, but that just means reasonable doubt existed. Innocent and not guilty are not the same. Michael Jackson had three things going for him during that trial: he had some of the best lawyers on the planet; his star power; and, the mother of the allegedly abused child was a money-seeking, star-obsessed, fame-hungry compulsive liar who was enough to cast an enormous shadow of reasonable doubt despite other witness testimony. So, Jackson walked out of the court room and withdrew from society.
Great performers don’t have to be flawless. But at the same time, having exceedingly amazing ability and talent doesn’t excuse inappropriate and harmful behavior. Jackson admitted to allowing young boys to sleep in his bed, and more than one child claimed to be abused.
Something was wrong at Neverland Ranch. Something was wrong within Michael Jackson. This is why I can’t grieve, perhaps.
I want to be sad, maybe even shed tear or two. To stimulate my grief, I listen to Thriller. Nothing. I stare at the original Thriller cover for awhile, which I had as a wall-size poster back in 1982 when I was nine. I look at it a long time. So that is what he looked like before all the surgeries and the loss of pigmentation, I guess I have forgotten. Still feeling nothing.
I remember staying up late to see the premier of Beat it on Friday Night Videos on NBC because I was only a part of the MTV generation in theory. I suddenly get the urge to email my friend Tracey who stayed over that night to watch it with me. But still nothing.
Although I should I have stopped, I guess I couldn’t get enough. So, I forced myself to try to remember if Thriller or 1999 was my first cassette. Prince’s breakthrough album came out only one month before Thriller. I can’t remember which I got first. Feeling the urge to turn off Thriller and switch to 1999. I still feel nothing for MJ.
I can’t make myself feel sad. Indifference keeps surfacing.
I mourned the loss of Jackson in 2005 when he faced accusations of child molestation for the second time. I stopped listening to him entirely. When his songs came on the radio, I turned the dial immediately, no matter how catchy the chorus or funky the beat.
He was acquitted of all charges against him, but that just means reasonable doubt existed. Innocent and not guilty are not the same. Michael Jackson had three things going for him during that trial: he had some of the best lawyers on the planet; his star power; and, the mother of the allegedly abused child was a money-seeking, star-obsessed, fame-hungry compulsive liar who was enough to cast an enormous shadow of reasonable doubt despite other witness testimony. So, Jackson walked out of the court room and withdrew from society.
Great performers don’t have to be flawless. But at the same time, having exceedingly amazing ability and talent doesn’t excuse inappropriate and harmful behavior. Jackson admitted to allowing young boys to sleep in his bed, and more than one child claimed to be abused.
Something was wrong at Neverland Ranch. Something was wrong within Michael Jackson. This is why I can’t grieve, perhaps.
A Message to Michael Jackson Fans from a Prince Fan
Dear Michael Jackson Fans:
Please accept my sincere condolences. I am sorry for your loss.
Truthfully, I am not feeling much grief for the King of Pop. It could be because he was an accused child molester. Or maybe I am just irritated that his two sons are both named Prince; he had the nerve to die on the 25th anniversary of Purple Rain; and, now all the Wacko Jacko crazies will flood the Prince boards.
Please don’t take this personally, but we don’t want you. We have enough of our own nutballs, so go check out the Madonna boards.
I bid you good luck in your search to find a new freak to idolize.
Sincerely,
A Prince Fan
Please accept my sincere condolences. I am sorry for your loss.
Truthfully, I am not feeling much grief for the King of Pop. It could be because he was an accused child molester. Or maybe I am just irritated that his two sons are both named Prince; he had the nerve to die on the 25th anniversary of Purple Rain; and, now all the Wacko Jacko crazies will flood the Prince boards.
Please don’t take this personally, but we don’t want you. We have enough of our own nutballs, so go check out the Madonna boards.
I bid you good luck in your search to find a new freak to idolize.
Sincerely,
A Prince Fan
Monday, June 22, 2009
The Food Chain Cafeteria Style
Anyone who says the United States of America does not have a caste system has never stepped foot in a high school cafeteria.
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Garbage Man’s Daughter V. Little League Baseball Commission
Author’s Note: This is essay is mostly true. Names have been changed to conceal identities of the baseball league and the psychopathic coach who is still teaching baseball to young people today.
Dear Madam:
You are being summoned to appear in front of Little League Baseball Commission on Monday, June 7 at 7:00 p.m. You will have the opportunity to address a formal written complaint that has been issued against you for the official removal of you and your daughter from the Little League.
Best Regards,
Little League Baseball Commissioner
What did I do that was so awful that my daughter and I will be banned from Little League? It’s not like I was hocking steroids to five-year-old prodigy baseball players; or, paying off seven-year-olds to throw a game or two. My crime came out of concern for my three-year-old daughter, who was playing on a t-ball team for the first time. I asked her coach to consider not giving a game ball trophy for the “best performing player” after the end of each game.
He didn’t take my request too well and filed a petition for formal sanctions against me.
Here is how it all started:
Email 1 (Coach to Entire Team)
The Blue Birds have a $10 team fee. This is used to purchase game ball trophies for the players. Players will receive a game ball trophy to hold the game after a game of exceptional play. EVERY PLAYER WILL RECEIVE ONE BEFORE THE SEASON IS OVER. (The coach’s capitalization).
At this age, there is a little whining and wanking [sic] at times when everybody doesn't get one after the game. This is normal and not a big deal. In order for the players to have a sense of pride and achievement, using the rewards system, they must be earned.
DO NOT TELL YOUR CHILD, OR ANNOUNCE IN FRONT OF THE TEAM, "EVERYONE WILL EVENTUALLY GET ONE." (The coach’s capitalization)
I promise your child will not be scarred for life. The little ones who get a little upset when they don't receive the award are the ones - speaking in terms of personal growth - that 'puff up' the most and carry the achievement and pride with them that will affect every other part of their existence.
All players will receive a participation trophy from the league at the end of the season.
Regards,
Coach
Email 2 (Me to the Coach)
Dear Coach:
I am not sure that I will be taking my daughter to practice tonight because I am completely opposed to the game ball trophy idea. I hope that you would reconsider your plan, or at very least, have parents vote on it.
The concept of rewarding individual three-year-old players for "exceptional play" goes against the philosophy and mission of the t-ball league. In our kids' division, the league does not keep score, record stats, or have play-offs. The concept is to remove the competitive elements of the game that can be distracting and perhaps discouraging to young players who are just learning the game. At this age, the emphasis should be learning the basics of the game, learning to how follow directions, and being a part of team. Recognizing the best player of the game introduces a concept that three-year-olds don't need to know right now. They will eventually learn those lessons about winning and losing and that not all players are equally gifted.
The larger concept of "pride and achievement" is something that can be accomplished simply by being part of a team. At this age, getting the kids to stay on the field, go roughly where they should be, and keeping their eye on the ball so they don't get hit in the face are enormous accomplishments. All attention should be placed on the team effort. Knowing how to be a team player is a skill that they will carry with them forever.
I considered posting this to the Yahoo group, but thought it would be best to let you know our feelings on this issue first. I am trying to get my daughter on another team, but most of them seem to be full. I would like for her to play this season. In all fairness, please have the parents vote. If the majority wants the game ball trophy, we will go along with it.
Sincerely,
GMD
Email 3 (Coach to Me)
GMD,
I've been over and over this email and I can't even get in the same ballpark with your views. Although you did go to great ends to include many 'red flag' words, you have truthfully still only prostituted sentence fragments and phrases from the league and even shoehorned in a quote or two from me, in an attempt to arrive closer to your own personal agenda. Your logic and conclusions are flawed by the very presentation of their design and, very early on, are complete departures from the concept of team.
What you have created is a crusade/cause. By definition, the purpose of which is to garner support for the few, in order to meet a special need. Do you have a special need? I feel confident that any coach in the jr. t-ball program would not hesitate to accommodate any child, should a specific need be addressed (in the context of the individual/child, specifically, rather than attacking a team and its coaches, having no real information on either.) Should you choose to continue to search for a team that will meet your needs of personal control and mediocrity, be prepared for a long journey, as they don't exist within our organization?
Your judgment of this team, my family, and subsequent threats to stir up the team if your needs are not met are unconscionable and not well-received. I've forwarded your original email, this response and some additional comments to the league for them to action.
Regards,
Coach
Email 4 (Coach to Little League Baseball League)
Attn: League Director:
I ask and require that GMD and her daughter are removed from my team. In consideration of other coaches and families in the league, it's my personal opinion that additional sanctions be applied, requiring them to wait a season or so to play ball.
The damn shame of it is: you guys will cover the league, I'll take care of my team, she'll do whatever she's doing and the only one suffering is her daughter.
After her questioning the coach's ethics and judgments while quoting the league’s mission statement with the threat/ultimatum of mutinying the team to get what she wanted....all this over a really nothing deal, she doesn't really know about.
Regards,
Coach
So that is how I landed in front of the Little League Baseball Commission. Just as I side note, I must confess this not the first time that the phrase “need for personal control” has been used when describing me. I have a hate email somewhere from a classmate in library school who wrote that exact comment in a peer review for a group project on the New York Public Library. In that case, the comment probably fit. The group got an A on the project, but I got a B for not working well with others. Regardless of past tendencies for control, I felt confident that I was seeking domination. My complaint came out of concern for all the children on the team, and more to the point, I was simply right. So, I prepared for the biggest fight the Little Baseball Commission has ever fought.
I was thorough in my preparations:
· I compiled all e-mails to and from the coach.
· I printed out and highlight key points of the league’s mission statement.
· I googled “game ball” and “parent complaints.” Either no one has had the courage to battle this issue publicly, or I simply don’t understand the etiquette of being a sports parent – don’t question the coach.
· I found the video of my daughter scoring seven goals in one soccer game to prove two things. First my child did not have a any special needs (which the coach implied, assuming the I was more concerned about child not earning the game ball trophy opposed to caring about emotional growth). Second, I wanted to show that my daughter was athletically gifted and would have probably been first or second player to get the game ball. But, I didn’t want to appear overbearing or crazy.
· Next I contacted Katie, Laura, and Amy (moms from son’s old baseball team) to see if they could provide character references for me to show that I have been model a sports parent on all of my son’s baseball teams.
· Next I wrote a few brief anecdotes about our past baseball experiences with our oldest child and to show that I wasn’t opposed to practice of giving game balls at the age of eight, he earned his game ball for being hit with a ball twice in one game – an awkward moment because the crowd wasn’t sure if they should clap for the child who was either too physically slow or too mentality dimwitted to move before he got hit.
· I found a few quotes about the benefits of participant trophies. Actually, there hundreds of articles about the opposition to participation trophies, which is a topic for another day. After watching my four-year-old walk around with his first soccer trophy with so sense of pride and accomplishment. I will never be part of the anti-trophy brigade that deprives preschoolers of their sparkling, space consuming, and dust attracting awards.
Finally, the day of my hearing I arrived. I had my documentation and a spiffy suit with a stylish matching pair of pumps picked out. Then, I got the call.
“We have moved your daughter to another team. You do not need to appear tonight,” said the secretary, in a tone of youthful disinterestedness.
“But m’am, I would like to come present about the ills of game ball trophies and the harmful effects on players under the age of six,” said I.
“No thank you. Your duaghter has been placed another team. The commission considers this matter closed,” she said and quickly hung up the phone before I could rebuttal.
So, I sent the commissioner an email that summarized my case against game ball trophies in roughly 2,300 words. Since emails get can be easily deleted. I also mailed a 20 page document called “Game Ball Trophies: Do They Send the Right Message to Our Children?”
I never got a response.
As it turns out about 4 weeks into the season, the coach of my daughter’s new team was removed for calling another parent a fat-ass. The target of her insult then became the coach for the remainder of the very long season.
So during my daughter’s first season of t-ball (which now at the age of seven, she doesn’t remember at all), she was nearly banned from team; had three different head coaches; ate many snacks after games; scored lots of runs; and, during one particular game left third base because she had to pee and couldn’t hold it until she got to home base. Winning isn’t everything when you are three. Sometimes peeing is more important than scoring.
Dear Madam:
You are being summoned to appear in front of Little League Baseball Commission on Monday, June 7 at 7:00 p.m. You will have the opportunity to address a formal written complaint that has been issued against you for the official removal of you and your daughter from the Little League.
Best Regards,
Little League Baseball Commissioner
What did I do that was so awful that my daughter and I will be banned from Little League? It’s not like I was hocking steroids to five-year-old prodigy baseball players; or, paying off seven-year-olds to throw a game or two. My crime came out of concern for my three-year-old daughter, who was playing on a t-ball team for the first time. I asked her coach to consider not giving a game ball trophy for the “best performing player” after the end of each game.
He didn’t take my request too well and filed a petition for formal sanctions against me.
Here is how it all started:
Email 1 (Coach to Entire Team)
The Blue Birds have a $10 team fee. This is used to purchase game ball trophies for the players. Players will receive a game ball trophy to hold the game after a game of exceptional play. EVERY PLAYER WILL RECEIVE ONE BEFORE THE SEASON IS OVER. (The coach’s capitalization).
At this age, there is a little whining and wanking [sic] at times when everybody doesn't get one after the game. This is normal and not a big deal. In order for the players to have a sense of pride and achievement, using the rewards system, they must be earned.
DO NOT TELL YOUR CHILD, OR ANNOUNCE IN FRONT OF THE TEAM, "EVERYONE WILL EVENTUALLY GET ONE." (The coach’s capitalization)
I promise your child will not be scarred for life. The little ones who get a little upset when they don't receive the award are the ones - speaking in terms of personal growth - that 'puff up' the most and carry the achievement and pride with them that will affect every other part of their existence.
All players will receive a participation trophy from the league at the end of the season.
Regards,
Coach
Email 2 (Me to the Coach)
Dear Coach:
I am not sure that I will be taking my daughter to practice tonight because I am completely opposed to the game ball trophy idea. I hope that you would reconsider your plan, or at very least, have parents vote on it.
The concept of rewarding individual three-year-old players for "exceptional play" goes against the philosophy and mission of the t-ball league. In our kids' division, the league does not keep score, record stats, or have play-offs. The concept is to remove the competitive elements of the game that can be distracting and perhaps discouraging to young players who are just learning the game. At this age, the emphasis should be learning the basics of the game, learning to how follow directions, and being a part of team. Recognizing the best player of the game introduces a concept that three-year-olds don't need to know right now. They will eventually learn those lessons about winning and losing and that not all players are equally gifted.
The larger concept of "pride and achievement" is something that can be accomplished simply by being part of a team. At this age, getting the kids to stay on the field, go roughly where they should be, and keeping their eye on the ball so they don't get hit in the face are enormous accomplishments. All attention should be placed on the team effort. Knowing how to be a team player is a skill that they will carry with them forever.
I considered posting this to the Yahoo group, but thought it would be best to let you know our feelings on this issue first. I am trying to get my daughter on another team, but most of them seem to be full. I would like for her to play this season. In all fairness, please have the parents vote. If the majority wants the game ball trophy, we will go along with it.
Sincerely,
GMD
Email 3 (Coach to Me)
GMD,
I've been over and over this email and I can't even get in the same ballpark with your views. Although you did go to great ends to include many 'red flag' words, you have truthfully still only prostituted sentence fragments and phrases from the league and even shoehorned in a quote or two from me, in an attempt to arrive closer to your own personal agenda. Your logic and conclusions are flawed by the very presentation of their design and, very early on, are complete departures from the concept of team.
What you have created is a crusade/cause. By definition, the purpose of which is to garner support for the few, in order to meet a special need. Do you have a special need? I feel confident that any coach in the jr. t-ball program would not hesitate to accommodate any child, should a specific need be addressed (in the context of the individual/child, specifically, rather than attacking a team and its coaches, having no real information on either.) Should you choose to continue to search for a team that will meet your needs of personal control and mediocrity, be prepared for a long journey, as they don't exist within our organization?
Your judgment of this team, my family, and subsequent threats to stir up the team if your needs are not met are unconscionable and not well-received. I've forwarded your original email, this response and some additional comments to the league for them to action.
Regards,
Coach
Email 4 (Coach to Little League Baseball League)
Attn: League Director:
I ask and require that GMD and her daughter are removed from my team. In consideration of other coaches and families in the league, it's my personal opinion that additional sanctions be applied, requiring them to wait a season or so to play ball.
The damn shame of it is: you guys will cover the league, I'll take care of my team, she'll do whatever she's doing and the only one suffering is her daughter.
After her questioning the coach's ethics and judgments while quoting the league’s mission statement with the threat/ultimatum of mutinying the team to get what she wanted....all this over a really nothing deal, she doesn't really know about.
Regards,
Coach
So that is how I landed in front of the Little League Baseball Commission. Just as I side note, I must confess this not the first time that the phrase “need for personal control” has been used when describing me. I have a hate email somewhere from a classmate in library school who wrote that exact comment in a peer review for a group project on the New York Public Library. In that case, the comment probably fit. The group got an A on the project, but I got a B for not working well with others. Regardless of past tendencies for control, I felt confident that I was seeking domination. My complaint came out of concern for all the children on the team, and more to the point, I was simply right. So, I prepared for the biggest fight the Little Baseball Commission has ever fought.
I was thorough in my preparations:
· I compiled all e-mails to and from the coach.
· I printed out and highlight key points of the league’s mission statement.
· I googled “game ball” and “parent complaints.” Either no one has had the courage to battle this issue publicly, or I simply don’t understand the etiquette of being a sports parent – don’t question the coach.
· I found the video of my daughter scoring seven goals in one soccer game to prove two things. First my child did not have a any special needs (which the coach implied, assuming the I was more concerned about child not earning the game ball trophy opposed to caring about emotional growth). Second, I wanted to show that my daughter was athletically gifted and would have probably been first or second player to get the game ball. But, I didn’t want to appear overbearing or crazy.
· Next I contacted Katie, Laura, and Amy (moms from son’s old baseball team) to see if they could provide character references for me to show that I have been model a sports parent on all of my son’s baseball teams.
· Next I wrote a few brief anecdotes about our past baseball experiences with our oldest child and to show that I wasn’t opposed to practice of giving game balls at the age of eight, he earned his game ball for being hit with a ball twice in one game – an awkward moment because the crowd wasn’t sure if they should clap for the child who was either too physically slow or too mentality dimwitted to move before he got hit.
· I found a few quotes about the benefits of participant trophies. Actually, there hundreds of articles about the opposition to participation trophies, which is a topic for another day. After watching my four-year-old walk around with his first soccer trophy with so sense of pride and accomplishment. I will never be part of the anti-trophy brigade that deprives preschoolers of their sparkling, space consuming, and dust attracting awards.
Finally, the day of my hearing I arrived. I had my documentation and a spiffy suit with a stylish matching pair of pumps picked out. Then, I got the call.
“We have moved your daughter to another team. You do not need to appear tonight,” said the secretary, in a tone of youthful disinterestedness.
“But m’am, I would like to come present about the ills of game ball trophies and the harmful effects on players under the age of six,” said I.
“No thank you. Your duaghter has been placed another team. The commission considers this matter closed,” she said and quickly hung up the phone before I could rebuttal.
So, I sent the commissioner an email that summarized my case against game ball trophies in roughly 2,300 words. Since emails get can be easily deleted. I also mailed a 20 page document called “Game Ball Trophies: Do They Send the Right Message to Our Children?”
I never got a response.
As it turns out about 4 weeks into the season, the coach of my daughter’s new team was removed for calling another parent a fat-ass. The target of her insult then became the coach for the remainder of the very long season.
So during my daughter’s first season of t-ball (which now at the age of seven, she doesn’t remember at all), she was nearly banned from team; had three different head coaches; ate many snacks after games; scored lots of runs; and, during one particular game left third base because she had to pee and couldn’t hold it until she got to home base. Winning isn’t everything when you are three. Sometimes peeing is more important than scoring.
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Words of Encouragement
“Why was I given this need to write if I wasn’t given the talent to do it?”, I asked my husband.
“You know when I was in college; I wanted to bang really hot chicks. And, I would ask myself ‘why wasn’t I given the looks or personality to get these hot chicks in bed?’ So, what did I do? I started banging mediocre looking, fat chicks and eventually married one.”
“Asshole,” I said. Rolled over and went to sleep. Next morning, I was back at the computer again.
“You know when I was in college; I wanted to bang really hot chicks. And, I would ask myself ‘why wasn’t I given the looks or personality to get these hot chicks in bed?’ So, what did I do? I started banging mediocre looking, fat chicks and eventually married one.”
“Asshole,” I said. Rolled over and went to sleep. Next morning, I was back at the computer again.
Monday, May 25, 2009
As If High School Wasn't Hard Enough the First Time: A Few More Thoughts on Facebook
A picture may say a thousand words, but I only need my Facebook profile picture to say five little words: “I did not get fat.” It also needs to infer another 5 or 6 sentiments such as: I’m blissfully happy with four beautiful and intelligent kids, a way cute husband, an awesome career, and I live in one of the best cities on Earth. Of course, I don’t want to brag.
Friday, April 3, 2009
I Weep for a Man that I Do Not Know
It’s the middle of the night, and I cannot sleep. I gave my baby a bottle and never made my way back to bed; I felt an urgency to edit, revise, and add a quote to the posting that I wrote about Sylvia Plath on February 11 (the anniversary of her suicide).
In searching for 2007 interview that Frieda Hughes gave Time magazine, I made an unexpected discovery. Frieda’s brother Nicholas Hughes, who is also the son of poets Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes committed suicide a few weeks ago.
So in the middle of the night, I weep for man who I do not know. A man who killed himself 46 years after his mother took her life when he just a one-year-old, sleeping in the room beside the kitchen where the poet ended her suffering; a man who grew up without a mother; a man who watched hundreds of scholars, critics, and biographers scavenge through his parents lives and poetry looking for anything that would sell; a man who like his mother battled depression; a man, who unlike his sister, didn’t write poetry and openly talk about his parents but instead dedicated his life to the study of ecology. A man who found poetry in nature; a man who could not overcome the legacy of suicide.
This is why I cry in the middle of the night.
If you need someone to talk to you, please call The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).
In searching for 2007 interview that Frieda Hughes gave Time magazine, I made an unexpected discovery. Frieda’s brother Nicholas Hughes, who is also the son of poets Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes committed suicide a few weeks ago.
So in the middle of the night, I weep for man who I do not know. A man who killed himself 46 years after his mother took her life when he just a one-year-old, sleeping in the room beside the kitchen where the poet ended her suffering; a man who grew up without a mother; a man who watched hundreds of scholars, critics, and biographers scavenge through his parents lives and poetry looking for anything that would sell; a man who like his mother battled depression; a man, who unlike his sister, didn’t write poetry and openly talk about his parents but instead dedicated his life to the study of ecology. A man who found poetry in nature; a man who could not overcome the legacy of suicide.
This is why I cry in the middle of the night.
If you need someone to talk to you, please call The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).
Monday, March 23, 2009
Friday, March 13, 2009
Coke or Coke?
One day while snooping through my son's email this is what I found:
"I shouldn't have sent you the message about your eyes. There was a lot of Coke at that party."
I read this probably 50 times before it occurred to me the 10-year-old sender was referring to the kind that you drink.
I then spent an hour searching for the message about his eyes. Never did find it.
"I shouldn't have sent you the message about your eyes. There was a lot of Coke at that party."
I read this probably 50 times before it occurred to me the 10-year-old sender was referring to the kind that you drink.
I then spent an hour searching for the message about his eyes. Never did find it.
Friday, March 6, 2009
30-Minute Meal Whore
While making my decision to buy Wal-Mart’s beef stock or to pay about seven cents more for Progresso’s version, I saw it -- Rachel Ray Stock-In-A-Box. This 12 oz. cardboard box confirms my theory that Rachel Ray has no soul nor any catch phrases, cooking techniques, ideas or thoughts that she has not peddled or pushed to make a quick million or two. (Is there really any difference between Rachel Ray and Eliot Spitzer's girl? Well, we know her first and last name; she keeps her clothes on in the kitchen; and, she is one of the biggest multimedia moguls in the world. Never mind.)
So, in addition to the cooking phenomenon's name and smiling picture on a box of broth, you can also buy Rachael Ray All-Italian EVOO (her acronym for Extra Virgin Olive Oil), Rachael Ray 8-Star Balsamic Vinegar of Modena. After you fill your pantry with Rachel Ray basics and a few tasty treats for your pets, you can buy the full line of cutlery, cookbooks, DVDs, cookware, chefs’ apparel, and, of course, the Rachel Ray garbage bowl. Yes, you read that correctly. If a bowl from your cabinet isn’t good enough to catch peelings and scraps, you can purchase a designer melamine bowl to hold your cooking rubbish for only $18.95 on her official website and at many other fine retailers near you.
Although the bowl concept has been universally trashed by bloggers, the bowls are flying off the shelves. So, who are the people buying these bowls and her other products? Me and people like me. I am the fish that chomped on the pretty fluorescent pink chick-pea. Now I can’t get the damn hook out of my throat.
When Rachel Ray came onto the scene about eight years ago, she was hocking the concept of quick , healthy, and inexpensive meals. The target audience was busy moms who disn’t have the time, inclination, or, in my case, the ability to cook the way their own mothers and grandmothers did. I bought it, and so did millions of others. Taking Ms. Ray’s advice, I mixed a can of green chilies with refried beans for a little added flavor – “delish.” My kids love the chicken nugget dip made up of ketchup, mustard, and ranch dressing – "yum-o!" You’ll frequently hear me say, “Baking is too exact...too fussy. Rachel Ray says so.” I’ll even throw out an occasional “eyeball it” or “two turns of a pan.” Although I wish it were not true, I have the Rachel Ray lexicon.
Her cooking concepts are practical and just plain good. So, where did it all go wrong? Her solid concepts beget great success which beget great backlash. However, Ms. Ray is not blameless in the backlash. Branching out into areas that have nothing to without cooking has led to her downfall.
While drying off with one of my 5 five Rachel Ray towels that I purchased from a liquidating Linens ‘n Things for $4.99 each, I wondered why a chef is designing towels? But do one really design a towel? Isn’t it just a rectangular piece of fabric? And what would possess her to think that she has the knowledge to create linens. Then it occurs that I am thinking about Rachel Ray while being naked. All my inner dialogue stops immediately -- nothing like a little humming while putting on hose.
Nonetheless, Rachel Ray’s rein of retail terror must be stopped; she is the Microsoft of the culinary world. No more RR broth, olive oil, dog treats, garbage bowls, or knives. Sure, keep her cookbooks and sneak a peek at her cooking show on the Food Network (the one where she actually makes a meal in 30 minutes from start to finish; not the one where she eats her way around the world; or, the one where she sees how much food she can get for $40 a day; or, the one where she dishes with celebs). Cooking is where she started and that is where she should be. Well actually, she started out in grocery store, but let’s leave her with some dignity and a nice little show on a cable network.
So, in addition to the cooking phenomenon's name and smiling picture on a box of broth, you can also buy Rachael Ray All-Italian EVOO (her acronym for Extra Virgin Olive Oil), Rachael Ray 8-Star Balsamic Vinegar of Modena. After you fill your pantry with Rachel Ray basics and a few tasty treats for your pets, you can buy the full line of cutlery, cookbooks, DVDs, cookware, chefs’ apparel, and, of course, the Rachel Ray garbage bowl. Yes, you read that correctly. If a bowl from your cabinet isn’t good enough to catch peelings and scraps, you can purchase a designer melamine bowl to hold your cooking rubbish for only $18.95 on her official website and at many other fine retailers near you.
Although the bowl concept has been universally trashed by bloggers, the bowls are flying off the shelves. So, who are the people buying these bowls and her other products? Me and people like me. I am the fish that chomped on the pretty fluorescent pink chick-pea. Now I can’t get the damn hook out of my throat.
When Rachel Ray came onto the scene about eight years ago, she was hocking the concept of quick , healthy, and inexpensive meals. The target audience was busy moms who disn’t have the time, inclination, or, in my case, the ability to cook the way their own mothers and grandmothers did. I bought it, and so did millions of others. Taking Ms. Ray’s advice, I mixed a can of green chilies with refried beans for a little added flavor – “delish.” My kids love the chicken nugget dip made up of ketchup, mustard, and ranch dressing – "yum-o!" You’ll frequently hear me say, “Baking is too exact...too fussy. Rachel Ray says so.” I’ll even throw out an occasional “eyeball it” or “two turns of a pan.” Although I wish it were not true, I have the Rachel Ray lexicon.
Her cooking concepts are practical and just plain good. So, where did it all go wrong? Her solid concepts beget great success which beget great backlash. However, Ms. Ray is not blameless in the backlash. Branching out into areas that have nothing to without cooking has led to her downfall.
While drying off with one of my 5 five Rachel Ray towels that I purchased from a liquidating Linens ‘n Things for $4.99 each, I wondered why a chef is designing towels? But do one really design a towel? Isn’t it just a rectangular piece of fabric? And what would possess her to think that she has the knowledge to create linens. Then it occurs that I am thinking about Rachel Ray while being naked. All my inner dialogue stops immediately -- nothing like a little humming while putting on hose.
Nonetheless, Rachel Ray’s rein of retail terror must be stopped; she is the Microsoft of the culinary world. No more RR broth, olive oil, dog treats, garbage bowls, or knives. Sure, keep her cookbooks and sneak a peek at her cooking show on the Food Network (the one where she actually makes a meal in 30 minutes from start to finish; not the one where she eats her way around the world; or, the one where she sees how much food she can get for $40 a day; or, the one where she dishes with celebs). Cooking is where she started and that is where she should be. Well actually, she started out in grocery store, but let’s leave her with some dignity and a nice little show on a cable network.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Librarian Goes Ghetto
Librarians tend to like old stuff. Old librarians tend to like really old stuff. So, the local archive was the perfect training destination for a group of 8 bunhead librarians (a.k.a. old) and me, a NextGen librarian (a.k.a. young).
With books from floor to ceiling and filing cabinets from corner to corner, we barely noticed the diaries, weddings photos, property deeds, old grocery store receipts, maps, and sketches strewn across the hundred-year-old wooden work table like a buffet for history junkies, genealogy nut-balls, and decrepit librarians.
Piece by piece the archivist explained how history can come alive in the archive. The same old self-importance spiel that archivists, historians, and librarians utter to justify their grossly disproportionate education to income ratio. Pretty standard stuff until the archivist got to a three ring binder labeled Maria LaFleur, our town’s first and most infamous Madam.
“Maria LaFleur was both a madam and an active member of the community who even donated books to the library. People were always trying to run her out of town, but she was steadfast in her commitment to providing the community with a much needed service. She called her brothel, the Candy Shop,” explained the archivist with a little chuckle. There was a faint collective snicker from the”we are serious librarians; therefore, we do not smile” crowd.
Unable to resist the urge to appear both erudite yet culturally hip, I postulated with my best I am smart, damn it voice: “Interesting that candy shop was a euphemism for prostitution in the late 1800s. It is still used in the same way today as clearly demonstrated with the hit Candy Shop by rapper 50 Cent.”
Silence.
The archive was as quiet as a library back in the day when librarians shushed people, and you couldn’t talk on your cell while drinking your latte and checking out the last 2 seasons of House and the latest erotic masterpiece by Zane.
Maybe they just need a little more detail to get it.
In my best white girl from central Pennsylvania, keepin’-it-real, hip-hop voice, I rapped:
I'll take you to the candy shop
Boy one taste of what I got
I'll have you spending all you got
Keep going 'til you hit the spot
As eyes awkwardly looked at the ceiling and floors, it occurred to me that I learned absolutely nothing from the tap dancing while pregnant incident at my last library job.
“Okay…. Here you will see a map of sugar beet dumps in our town. You may recognize many of these street names. We believe this map is from the early 1900s,” said the smiling, unruffled archivist who still had to show us saddles, yearbooks, umbrellas and an old Lions’ Club file of rejected and expelled members.
It’s hard out here for a NextGen librarian.
With books from floor to ceiling and filing cabinets from corner to corner, we barely noticed the diaries, weddings photos, property deeds, old grocery store receipts, maps, and sketches strewn across the hundred-year-old wooden work table like a buffet for history junkies, genealogy nut-balls, and decrepit librarians.
Piece by piece the archivist explained how history can come alive in the archive. The same old self-importance spiel that archivists, historians, and librarians utter to justify their grossly disproportionate education to income ratio. Pretty standard stuff until the archivist got to a three ring binder labeled Maria LaFleur, our town’s first and most infamous Madam.
“Maria LaFleur was both a madam and an active member of the community who even donated books to the library. People were always trying to run her out of town, but she was steadfast in her commitment to providing the community with a much needed service. She called her brothel, the Candy Shop,” explained the archivist with a little chuckle. There was a faint collective snicker from the”we are serious librarians; therefore, we do not smile” crowd.
Unable to resist the urge to appear both erudite yet culturally hip, I postulated with my best I am smart, damn it voice: “Interesting that candy shop was a euphemism for prostitution in the late 1800s. It is still used in the same way today as clearly demonstrated with the hit Candy Shop by rapper 50 Cent.”
Silence.
The archive was as quiet as a library back in the day when librarians shushed people, and you couldn’t talk on your cell while drinking your latte and checking out the last 2 seasons of House and the latest erotic masterpiece by Zane.
Maybe they just need a little more detail to get it.
In my best white girl from central Pennsylvania, keepin’-it-real, hip-hop voice, I rapped:
I'll take you to the candy shop
Boy one taste of what I got
I'll have you spending all you got
Keep going 'til you hit the spot
As eyes awkwardly looked at the ceiling and floors, it occurred to me that I learned absolutely nothing from the tap dancing while pregnant incident at my last library job.
“Okay…. Here you will see a map of sugar beet dumps in our town. You may recognize many of these street names. We believe this map is from the early 1900s,” said the smiling, unruffled archivist who still had to show us saddles, yearbooks, umbrellas and an old Lions’ Club file of rejected and expelled members.
It’s hard out here for a NextGen librarian.
Monday, March 2, 2009
My Virtual Friends: A Few Thoughts on Facebook
I have three groups of friends on Facebook. Although high school, college, and adult life would be the logical classifications, my actual friend groupings are:
- You don’t give damn about me but you want a higher friend count.
- You don’t give damn about me but you are sure happy to gossip about me.
- You have put up with my crap for years and for some stupid reason you are my friend in real life too.
The first group of friends will never take the time to actually look at my profile, and they will never click on my blog link from Facebook. I could call them by name and write things like: “She sure got fat since exiting the crack-cocaine scene of the ‘80s”, or “He is a gas attendant; too bad all that Future Farmers of America training didn’t work out for him", or “Those are some weird looking children but with her elongated forehead and his buckteeth, there just wasn’t much hope.” They would never know because they are too busy searching for another 157 long lost friends.
I am really trying to not be this type of disinterested friend. But sometimes when I see the name of someone that I had conversation with 20 years ago, I can’t control the Friend trigger-finger. In theory, I should only send friend requests to people who I would actually want to talk to in real life. Yeah, that probably won’t happen. I am a Facebook hussy who friends everyone. I will continue to electronically befriend acquaintances from the past who will eventually become part of my second group of friends: You don’t give damn about me but you are sure happy to gossip about me.
These members are the cyber-gossips who scour every profile looking for crow’s feet, gray hair, a weight gain of anywhere between 15 and 35 pounds, divorced status, unemployment, and education details with no graduation date. This group will absolutely link to and read my blog for 4 reasons:
1. They will want to see if my writing sucks.
2. They will want to see if my life sucks.
3. They will want to see if I have an ugly husband and alien-looking children.
4. They want to gossip about me and other people. These virtual pseudo friends will happily tell the ex-cocaine addict, the wannabe farmer turned gas attendant and the breeders of ugliness what I wrote along with a message that reads: “Melissa is the same two-faced loser that she was back in the day. Like any magazine would ever run her stuff.” This will only be sent after the cyber-gossip completely agrees with what I wrote and quotes it to 71 close friends.
I struggle not to be a Facebook gossip, but I am losing the struggle. I confess that I once sent a friend request to a girl from high school because in her small thumbnail profile looked picture perfect. So, I had to have access to the larger pictures to look for weight gain, age spots, wrinkles, yellow teeth, or mild hair loss. Nope. Nothing. Completely flawless as always. I was elated for her. Really I was. No, really I was. I have evolved.
Of course, the third group (my real life friends) knows that I just completely lied. This group sadly makes up the smallest amount of my Facebook friends and is really the most irrelevant. Not irrelevant because they don’t matter way, but irrelevant because we email, talk on the phone, and hang out in real life. So why do we have to flaunt our real friendship to our virtual pals? However, when perceived real life friends don’t respond to private messages sent to their inbox, it makes me wonder if those friends belong in group one or group two. (Mr. Senior Year Prom Date, I am talking to you. Hope to see that response in my FB inbox soon).
Actually, I guess there is a fourth group too: You just met me; should you be afraid? This group consists of my new acquaintances such as Moms Club members, my kids’ babysitter, my realtor, and my hair stylist, who will probably check out my blog to be polite and to learn a little more about me and family.
After reading my blog, chances they will be afraid, and I will have a lot of my free time on my hands when playdates are cancelled.
Guess that just gives me more time for cyber-stalking.
Saturday, February 21, 2009
A Discerning Listener
"I don't want to listen to freakin' Prince anymore."
--the four-year-old grandson of a garbage man
--the four-year-old grandson of a garbage man
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
The Poetry of Life and Death on February 11
In her iconic poem Lady Lazarus, Sylvia Plath writes:
Dying
Is an art, like everything else,
I do it exceptionally well.
I do it so it feels like hell.
I do it so it feels real.
I guess you could say I've a call.
She succeeded in her calling on February 11, 1963 – her second suicide attempt. She was 30.
My first child was born February 11, 1999. I was 25.
Now every February 11 as I celebrate the anniversary of my son’s birth; I take moment to think about Plath, an amazingly talented but deeply-troubled writer, probably known more for her tumultuous personal life and mental health struggles than her poetry, written in the confessional style. This just means she wrote diary entries in stanzas with rhyme, meter and a Smith College educated vocabulary.
On the anniversary of her death, I also wonder about the children who she left behind. The children who miraculously did not die on the day their mother ended her life. Plath carefully sealed the rooms between herself and her sleeping children before she took her life by turning on her gas oven. Frieda was 2 and Nicholas was 1.
Many interesting facts exist about Plath and appear repeatedly in publications: Married to English poet Ted Hughes; posthumously awarded a Pulitzer for her Collected Poems; completed a guest editorship at Mademoiselle; first tried to commit suicide at the age of 20; father died when she was 8; and, she experienced a difficult relationship with her mother. Typically, the children are nothing more than a footnote for the hundreds of publishers, scholars, and biographers who have profited and made careers by capitalizing on Plath’s struggle with mental illness, her disastrous marriage to Hughes, and her tragic death,
With so much drama, the innocent are easily forgotten. I was guilty of the oversight too. During my 20s, when I didn’t make much distinction between leaving behind 2 children and leaving behind 2 books of unpublished poetry, I would have believed that not being around to receive a Pulitzer was a far greater tragedy than not seeing some kids reach adulthood. In those days, I consumed Plath’s poetry, the way Lady Lazarus consumed men, like air. I was a self-indulgent college student who hated my mother for no good reason; wrote horribly bad self-absorbed poetry; and, amused myself by scaring friends and family with vague insinuations about suicide. Whining, not dying, was my art.
Being a good Catholic girl, I feared a vengeful and wrathful God who takes self-murder pretty seriously. And even more terrifying than the threat of an eternity in hell was the possibility of not succeeding and dealing with my vengeful and wrathful mother. My mother was much like Aurelia Plath but meaner. I imagined that she would hand me knife and say: “Do it until you do it right.” Or, she would lock my crazy ass up indefinitely and tell people that her loving, selfless daughter became a missionary in Afghanistan—never to be heard from again. With those thoughts to guide me, I stayed far away far from sleeping pills and gas ovens. I made it into adulthood safely and eventually became both less whiny and a mother of four children.
Now when I read Ariel, I am still amazed by the urgency, the beauty of language and unrelenting tragic desperation in each verse, but that is where my celebration of her poetry now ends. Ariel immortalizes for Frieda and Nicholas their mother’s history of depression, anger, hopelessness, tragedy, and suicidal obsessions.
In her forward of Ariel Restored, Frieda Hughes writes about her mother: "She used every emotional experience as if it were a scrap of material that could be pieced together to make a wonderful dress." For her children, Plath’s wonderful dress is more like corset that is fascinating and strangely beautiful on the exterior but brings excruciating pain to the core.
In a 2007 interview with Time, Andrea Sachs asks: If all of this had happened to your mom now, what people know now, do you think it would have resulted in her death? With modern pharmacology, could somebody have helped her?
Frieda replied: “I think there's no doubt about that. The advancements in the past 30- or 40-odd years are huge. I don't believe there's any way that that situation would have arisen now. She'd still be here.”
If Plath would have gotten the medical attention that she needed, chances are the literary world would have been denied one the best poetry collections of the Twentieth Century. And without her illness, there probably wouldn’t been much art from Plath and most likely no great art. Sylvia Plath would have been another 1960s mother on mood-altering drugs. Frieda and Nicholas Hughes would have just been kids with a mom, who was living with a little help from antidepressants.
Dying
Is an art, like everything else,
I do it exceptionally well.
I do it so it feels like hell.
I do it so it feels real.
I guess you could say I've a call.
She succeeded in her calling on February 11, 1963 – her second suicide attempt. She was 30.
My first child was born February 11, 1999. I was 25.
Now every February 11 as I celebrate the anniversary of my son’s birth; I take moment to think about Plath, an amazingly talented but deeply-troubled writer, probably known more for her tumultuous personal life and mental health struggles than her poetry, written in the confessional style. This just means she wrote diary entries in stanzas with rhyme, meter and a Smith College educated vocabulary.
On the anniversary of her death, I also wonder about the children who she left behind. The children who miraculously did not die on the day their mother ended her life. Plath carefully sealed the rooms between herself and her sleeping children before she took her life by turning on her gas oven. Frieda was 2 and Nicholas was 1.
Many interesting facts exist about Plath and appear repeatedly in publications: Married to English poet Ted Hughes; posthumously awarded a Pulitzer for her Collected Poems; completed a guest editorship at Mademoiselle; first tried to commit suicide at the age of 20; father died when she was 8; and, she experienced a difficult relationship with her mother. Typically, the children are nothing more than a footnote for the hundreds of publishers, scholars, and biographers who have profited and made careers by capitalizing on Plath’s struggle with mental illness, her disastrous marriage to Hughes, and her tragic death,
With so much drama, the innocent are easily forgotten. I was guilty of the oversight too. During my 20s, when I didn’t make much distinction between leaving behind 2 children and leaving behind 2 books of unpublished poetry, I would have believed that not being around to receive a Pulitzer was a far greater tragedy than not seeing some kids reach adulthood. In those days, I consumed Plath’s poetry, the way Lady Lazarus consumed men, like air. I was a self-indulgent college student who hated my mother for no good reason; wrote horribly bad self-absorbed poetry; and, amused myself by scaring friends and family with vague insinuations about suicide. Whining, not dying, was my art.
Being a good Catholic girl, I feared a vengeful and wrathful God who takes self-murder pretty seriously. And even more terrifying than the threat of an eternity in hell was the possibility of not succeeding and dealing with my vengeful and wrathful mother. My mother was much like Aurelia Plath but meaner. I imagined that she would hand me knife and say: “Do it until you do it right.” Or, she would lock my crazy ass up indefinitely and tell people that her loving, selfless daughter became a missionary in Afghanistan—never to be heard from again. With those thoughts to guide me, I stayed far away far from sleeping pills and gas ovens. I made it into adulthood safely and eventually became both less whiny and a mother of four children.
Now when I read Ariel, I am still amazed by the urgency, the beauty of language and unrelenting tragic desperation in each verse, but that is where my celebration of her poetry now ends. Ariel immortalizes for Frieda and Nicholas their mother’s history of depression, anger, hopelessness, tragedy, and suicidal obsessions.
In her forward of Ariel Restored, Frieda Hughes writes about her mother: "She used every emotional experience as if it were a scrap of material that could be pieced together to make a wonderful dress." For her children, Plath’s wonderful dress is more like corset that is fascinating and strangely beautiful on the exterior but brings excruciating pain to the core.
In a 2007 interview with Time, Andrea Sachs asks: If all of this had happened to your mom now, what people know now, do you think it would have resulted in her death? With modern pharmacology, could somebody have helped her?
Frieda replied: “I think there's no doubt about that. The advancements in the past 30- or 40-odd years are huge. I don't believe there's any way that that situation would have arisen now. She'd still be here.”
If Plath would have gotten the medical attention that she needed, chances are the literary world would have been denied one the best poetry collections of the Twentieth Century. And without her illness, there probably wouldn’t been much art from Plath and most likely no great art. Sylvia Plath would have been another 1960s mother on mood-altering drugs. Frieda and Nicholas Hughes would have just been kids with a mom, who was living with a little help from antidepressants.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Review: Sloane Crosley's I Was Told There'd Be Cake
Simply put, I was too chicken to move to New York and pursue a career in writing. So when I heard about Sloane Crosley’s debut essay collection I was Told There'd Be Cake, I was eager to get a glimpse of the life that I skipped.
Read it cover to cover, and I am still not sure what I missed by heading to Texas instead of New York. The picture given in these essays are so close-up, so personal, and so self-focused that Crosley misses the opportunity to show the New York writing scene in a new light. And instead she chronicles the all too familiar tale of a twenty-something New Yorker who grew up in the suburbs and moved to the city to work in publishing. Like every other young, attractive, intelligent, single professional alone in New York, she experiences mean bosses, bad neighbors, and an unpleasant moving experience – breaking no new ground in terms of theme or content. But Crosley does offer some moments that that are witty and wry such as “…bringing him back to my bed made me feel like a prostitute whereas going to his place made me feel like a call girl.” She constructs strong sentences with vivid language and clever similes “Do unto others…was a concept that had slid off me like water off an oil-slicked baby seal’s back.”
Eloquent language and interesting syntax, however, cannot save this collection from shallowness and singularity; her lack of universally relatable stories turns her collection of essays into a compilation of a well-crafted diary entries. She fills the book with pop-culture references that are lost anyone even slightly over the age of 35 and that certainly will not stand the test of time. When she is not referencing 1990s computer games and movies, Crosley embraces self-absorption and self-indulgence. She reflects and contemplates too much, and it is not the type of reflection that is for the greater good of humanity, although she would like to think so. She writes: “…I can say with a solid degree of authority that I am a selfish person. I spontaneously forget the names of more people than not, unless I want to make out with them. I will take the last square of toilet paper off the roll without thinking twice. I tip taxi drivers so poorly I'm amazed none of them have run over my foot while speeding off. Once I became so annoyed at a boyfriend's excessive use of my overpriced shea butter-based shampoo that I went out and bought him some Prell.”
She repeatedly babbles about mall life (“...mall as ecosphere” and “…our bubble-like mall existence would have to come to end…”), in hopes that she offers some higher metaphorical meanings. She doesn’t. Her essays reek of a sheltered young adulthood without enough distance from it to glean any meaningful message from her privileged suburban sanctuary although she tries repeatedly to understand, justify and exploit her white-picket-fence upbringing, particularly in “Bastard out of Westchester.”
Crosley reveals a blurred focal point in "Bastard out of Westchester." It is not the intentional post-modern kind but instead the “I don’t have a thesis statement” kind. The essay begins with the strange pronouncement that she wants to have a child born in Oostende or Antwerp. She explains: “This is where I want to raise my children—until the age, of say, ten, when I’ll cruelly rip them out of the stream where they’re fly-fishing with their other lederhosened friends and move to them to place like Lansdale, Pennsylvania.” She splits this topic into a tangent about her one year of childhood in Australia followed by a somewhat complimentary digression about life in the suburbs. Her reflective paragraphs on the suburbs are the most poignant in the essay and are some of the best in the entire collection. She writes: “Suburbia is too close to the country to have anything real to do and too close to the city to admit you have nothing real to do. Its purpose is to make it so you can identify with everything. We obviously grew up indentifying with nothing,” and concludes “…I came to understand that being born and raised in suburbia makes it difficult to lay claim to a specific type of childhood.” But unwillingly to let the essay end with that mature, honest, and introspective note that minimizes the incoherent logic at the beginning of the essay, she starts rambling about her name. This portion of the essay could have been written as a separate essay, put on her blog, or emailed to a friend. (Perhaps reflection on one’s name is just a natural act for twenty-somethings. When I was 21, I wrote an essay titled, “Call me Cornucopia,” which focused on my painfully common first and last names, how I was named after a soap character in the 70s, and how frustrating it was to attend college with someone who had the same name. I wanted a unique name like Cornucopia, but Sloane probably would have worked well too. Why is she complaining?) The disconnected subject matter that begins and ends the essay gives the entire piece a disjointed and forced perspective.
Perhaps "Bastard out of Westchester" suffers from Crosley’s use of compression. In her author’s note, she cops to using compression to bring pieces of stories together in a contained manner. Traditionally, compression may mean collapsing a week’s worth of events into a day or writing about three supporting characters instead of the seven who were there. Crosley, however, uses the type of compression performed by desperate college students who want to use the same paper for 2 classes. Like the kid who combines his history and political science papers into one mammoth catchall to satisfy two professors (or in my case, contrives a horrible comparison between As You like It and Crime and Punishment because I was taking Shakespeare and Russian literature in the same semester), Crosley throws together a bunch incomplete pieces to create a larger incomplete piece.
Like her essay about the suburbs, foreign-born children, and her unique name, "Ursula’s Cookie" also suffers from compression and feels like four separate essays. The first part reads like a Devil Wears Prada rip-off that focuses on her first grown-up job working assistant for a mean publisher boss. The second part, which reads like a scene out of absurdist theatre, shows her creating a cookie in the shape of her boss’s head; the third part focuses on a ridiculous lie about a family member’s death that leads to her eventual resignation; and, the fourth part shows her awkward resignation on September 11, 2001. The entire essay could have been framed about the insignificance of her unpleasant boss and trivial job in relation to the collapse of her surroundings, but instead her banal resignation on a tragically historic day makes for a quick and dreadfully quirky ending to an interminable piece about a drug dealing boyfriend, misshaped cookies, a dead aunt, and a living father. Perhaps the understatement is intentional, but most likely; the ending is swift because somber isn’t as cool as pithy and acerbic.
Crosely can be funny, caustic, and definitely self-deprecating. She makes herself the star of her show, but creates herself more as an uneven caricature than a well-rounded character. She portrays herself as a mean girl but tempers it with contrived, unbelievable benevolence (more to appeal to readers than to accurately reflect her true self). She makes herself the butt of her jokes, which ignites laughter but not empathy. Slapstick moments, gross-out jokes, and scathing comedic wisecracks summon snickers and sometimes genuine belly laughs, but rarely produce reader compassion. Likewise, she doesn’t give us any interesting supporting characters just a few funny quotes from her mother and sketchy portrayals of loser boyfriends and exasperating high school friends. She never moves the lens enough far away from herself to develop New York as a character or even as scenery. But at the same time, the lens is so close that it obscures her image. Readers of her 15 essays don’t really learn much about Sloane Crosley. In this collection, she is never a reliable, steadfast narrator but instead appears as the slightly drunk cute girl at a cocktail party who tells funny, embarrassing stories to pick up guys.
Sadly, Crosley achieves with her collection of essays the noncommittal, fly-by-night relationship that she desperately seeks in her essay, "One Night Bounce." In this essay, she expresses an obsession with one-night stands. Although, according to her comical account, she never succeeds in real life, she accomplishes this feat with her readers. She gives us a quick jolly with her funny quips about weddings in “You on a Stick”; violates us a little with “Smell This,” a somewhat gross tale about a mysterious piece excrement on her bathroom floor; and, makes us feel a bit of uncomfortable with revelations about her plastic toy collection in “The Pony Problem.” It was fun while it lasted but it doesn’t make us want to see her again unless maybe we’re bored and have nothing do the next time she puts out...a collection of essays.
Read it cover to cover, and I am still not sure what I missed by heading to Texas instead of New York. The picture given in these essays are so close-up, so personal, and so self-focused that Crosley misses the opportunity to show the New York writing scene in a new light. And instead she chronicles the all too familiar tale of a twenty-something New Yorker who grew up in the suburbs and moved to the city to work in publishing. Like every other young, attractive, intelligent, single professional alone in New York, she experiences mean bosses, bad neighbors, and an unpleasant moving experience – breaking no new ground in terms of theme or content. But Crosley does offer some moments that that are witty and wry such as “…bringing him back to my bed made me feel like a prostitute whereas going to his place made me feel like a call girl.” She constructs strong sentences with vivid language and clever similes “Do unto others…was a concept that had slid off me like water off an oil-slicked baby seal’s back.”
Eloquent language and interesting syntax, however, cannot save this collection from shallowness and singularity; her lack of universally relatable stories turns her collection of essays into a compilation of a well-crafted diary entries. She fills the book with pop-culture references that are lost anyone even slightly over the age of 35 and that certainly will not stand the test of time. When she is not referencing 1990s computer games and movies, Crosley embraces self-absorption and self-indulgence. She reflects and contemplates too much, and it is not the type of reflection that is for the greater good of humanity, although she would like to think so. She writes: “…I can say with a solid degree of authority that I am a selfish person. I spontaneously forget the names of more people than not, unless I want to make out with them. I will take the last square of toilet paper off the roll without thinking twice. I tip taxi drivers so poorly I'm amazed none of them have run over my foot while speeding off. Once I became so annoyed at a boyfriend's excessive use of my overpriced shea butter-based shampoo that I went out and bought him some Prell.”
She repeatedly babbles about mall life (“...mall as ecosphere” and “…our bubble-like mall existence would have to come to end…”), in hopes that she offers some higher metaphorical meanings. She doesn’t. Her essays reek of a sheltered young adulthood without enough distance from it to glean any meaningful message from her privileged suburban sanctuary although she tries repeatedly to understand, justify and exploit her white-picket-fence upbringing, particularly in “Bastard out of Westchester.”
Crosley reveals a blurred focal point in "Bastard out of Westchester." It is not the intentional post-modern kind but instead the “I don’t have a thesis statement” kind. The essay begins with the strange pronouncement that she wants to have a child born in Oostende or Antwerp. She explains: “This is where I want to raise my children—until the age, of say, ten, when I’ll cruelly rip them out of the stream where they’re fly-fishing with their other lederhosened friends and move to them to place like Lansdale, Pennsylvania.” She splits this topic into a tangent about her one year of childhood in Australia followed by a somewhat complimentary digression about life in the suburbs. Her reflective paragraphs on the suburbs are the most poignant in the essay and are some of the best in the entire collection. She writes: “Suburbia is too close to the country to have anything real to do and too close to the city to admit you have nothing real to do. Its purpose is to make it so you can identify with everything. We obviously grew up indentifying with nothing,” and concludes “…I came to understand that being born and raised in suburbia makes it difficult to lay claim to a specific type of childhood.” But unwillingly to let the essay end with that mature, honest, and introspective note that minimizes the incoherent logic at the beginning of the essay, she starts rambling about her name. This portion of the essay could have been written as a separate essay, put on her blog, or emailed to a friend. (Perhaps reflection on one’s name is just a natural act for twenty-somethings. When I was 21, I wrote an essay titled, “Call me Cornucopia,” which focused on my painfully common first and last names, how I was named after a soap character in the 70s, and how frustrating it was to attend college with someone who had the same name. I wanted a unique name like Cornucopia, but Sloane probably would have worked well too. Why is she complaining?) The disconnected subject matter that begins and ends the essay gives the entire piece a disjointed and forced perspective.
Perhaps "Bastard out of Westchester" suffers from Crosley’s use of compression. In her author’s note, she cops to using compression to bring pieces of stories together in a contained manner. Traditionally, compression may mean collapsing a week’s worth of events into a day or writing about three supporting characters instead of the seven who were there. Crosley, however, uses the type of compression performed by desperate college students who want to use the same paper for 2 classes. Like the kid who combines his history and political science papers into one mammoth catchall to satisfy two professors (or in my case, contrives a horrible comparison between As You like It and Crime and Punishment because I was taking Shakespeare and Russian literature in the same semester), Crosley throws together a bunch incomplete pieces to create a larger incomplete piece.
Like her essay about the suburbs, foreign-born children, and her unique name, "Ursula’s Cookie" also suffers from compression and feels like four separate essays. The first part reads like a Devil Wears Prada rip-off that focuses on her first grown-up job working assistant for a mean publisher boss. The second part, which reads like a scene out of absurdist theatre, shows her creating a cookie in the shape of her boss’s head; the third part focuses on a ridiculous lie about a family member’s death that leads to her eventual resignation; and, the fourth part shows her awkward resignation on September 11, 2001. The entire essay could have been framed about the insignificance of her unpleasant boss and trivial job in relation to the collapse of her surroundings, but instead her banal resignation on a tragically historic day makes for a quick and dreadfully quirky ending to an interminable piece about a drug dealing boyfriend, misshaped cookies, a dead aunt, and a living father. Perhaps the understatement is intentional, but most likely; the ending is swift because somber isn’t as cool as pithy and acerbic.
Crosely can be funny, caustic, and definitely self-deprecating. She makes herself the star of her show, but creates herself more as an uneven caricature than a well-rounded character. She portrays herself as a mean girl but tempers it with contrived, unbelievable benevolence (more to appeal to readers than to accurately reflect her true self). She makes herself the butt of her jokes, which ignites laughter but not empathy. Slapstick moments, gross-out jokes, and scathing comedic wisecracks summon snickers and sometimes genuine belly laughs, but rarely produce reader compassion. Likewise, she doesn’t give us any interesting supporting characters just a few funny quotes from her mother and sketchy portrayals of loser boyfriends and exasperating high school friends. She never moves the lens enough far away from herself to develop New York as a character or even as scenery. But at the same time, the lens is so close that it obscures her image. Readers of her 15 essays don’t really learn much about Sloane Crosley. In this collection, she is never a reliable, steadfast narrator but instead appears as the slightly drunk cute girl at a cocktail party who tells funny, embarrassing stories to pick up guys.
Sadly, Crosley achieves with her collection of essays the noncommittal, fly-by-night relationship that she desperately seeks in her essay, "One Night Bounce." In this essay, she expresses an obsession with one-night stands. Although, according to her comical account, she never succeeds in real life, she accomplishes this feat with her readers. She gives us a quick jolly with her funny quips about weddings in “You on a Stick”; violates us a little with “Smell This,” a somewhat gross tale about a mysterious piece excrement on her bathroom floor; and, makes us feel a bit of uncomfortable with revelations about her plastic toy collection in “The Pony Problem.” It was fun while it lasted but it doesn’t make us want to see her again unless maybe we’re bored and have nothing do the next time she puts out...a collection of essays.
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