The Mostest Unsexiest Week Everest

The storm of life recently descended upon us like locusts in a biblical reenactment on the History Channel. Everything we thought was hard suddenly became the easiest part of our everyday survival. In retrospect I may seem fatalistic but I am actually riddled with optimism and glee after surviving this past few weeks. Where do I begin?

First, I agreed to coach Pet Rock’s YMCA basketball team a few months ago. What I thought would be a pain in the ass quickly turned into a barely legal crack addiction. Sure, the practices seemed like a hassle and getting up at the crack of my Saturday ass was no fun at first. But then we won the first basketball game with Pet Rock scoring the only baskets and I almost birthed an NBA ball from joy.

Then a week later we won again and my eyes began to take on the look of a Laura Mars remake. My lovely husband saw the psycho in me and suggested I manage and assistant coach Pet Rock’s t-ball team with him as head coach. I wondered how I could juggle it and he told me that t-ball started after basketball ended. So, I said, “Perfect.”

This would allow me to continue my new illicit coaching habit through the spring without missing a beat. It would be like getting a new doctor to give you a new prescription for the same drug you are hooked on and going to a different pharmacy where no one would be the wiser while wearing dirty sunglasses and a stained, community college sweatshirt from Goodwill just to throw them off your tracks.

So, Gabe signs me up for t-ball, all the while, I am crazy basketball coach mom with practices and games and we keep winning and I scream every time we score and the opposing team parents glare at me like I am a sunbeam in their corneas and it smells like victory and dirty sneakers and I love it!

A week after the t-ball sign-up I am the only woman sitting in a stranger’s house surrounded by a lot of other strangers, in our new tiny town participating in a t-ball draft for five, six and seven year-old kids and reading through a stack of paperwork telling me that practices start the following Saturday, coaches have to ump all games after theirs and nothing is more important that t-ball, the pledge of allegiance and winning.

I panic over the time commitment and the lack of sister soldiers but quickly agree with the t-ball ethos as the practices pile up and I see one kid after the next turn a small corner and have a great play or a stellar moment. Both coaching duties continue as I race to a fro with Saturdays nothing more than a pile of crazy. There are games, umpping, eating cracker crumbs in the bottom of my duffle bag and finally collapsing face first onto the sofa.

All the while I schedule a surgery that I must get taken care of before the seasons get even busier. Why not drive two hours on practice day to have outpatient ass surgery while thinking of nothing but fielding drills, player positions, batting order and fast breaks. Great idea. Yes, it is as unsexy as it gets but last time I checked we all have an ass that we can call our own and mine needed some introspection and a stay-cation.

Now the surgery is scheduled, bases covered, no pun intended and all seems fine and crazy but doable until the call, the fateful, itchy call we received two weeks ago today. As I sit in a meeting with Gabe over his latest masterpiece that must be finished within a week, Pet Rock’s school calls to tell me that Pet Rock and a handful of other kids have lice and I must pick him up immediately.

There are so many reasons why he CANNOT have lice. Nope, this will not happen today or this week or this month. No. It cannot be possible and it will not fit into our already overstuffed calendar. What about my surgery and what about baseball, what about basketball? What about school and who the fuck is going to do all that laundry and change my sheets every day and boil my favorite James Pearse shirt in bleach and hand sanitizer? Doesn’t the universe know that lice and life do not mix?  What about the batting helmets and my vintage sofa and our new leather car interior and my Lululemon workout leggings? They will crumble in hot water but I wear them more than I wear a smile.

Fuck. Shit. Crap. Itch. Scratch.

Within an hour of pick-up we drive to a weird back-alley garage hair studio in Glendale and have an oddly chipper style-cripple comb bugs off all of us while my head throbs and I curse the day I ever met my hair. $250 later I feel more angry and exhausted knowing I am now facing a house filled with machine washables and tiny terrorists waiting to continue their Jihad onto my world of Ikea towels and cheap throw pillows.

Hours later with bunches of Hefty bags filled with our lives in color-coated cotton,

I am scrubbed clean, flakey-skinned and cradling an expired bottle of Xanax. When people say medication is bad they don’t realize that it can be the only thing that stands between you, your sanity and your marriage. Sure, it was so old it crumbles in my chapped paws but it saves my life. Sleep is my weapon and without it I will never make it through this storm of creepy, crawly bullets.

The little pills keep me going through the week ahead and guard my sleep from itching, scratching and weeping. I really seem to hold it together like three clasps on a double-D bra, despite the fact that I find MORE bugs on Pet Rock days later after spending a car payment on lice treatments. I sniffle and I cringe but the drugs and the t-ball keep me on track. We win our first game and then we win our second and the feeling on the field is that of the first beer on a Friday night. Nothing else matters until we pack up and head home. No matter how great our win is walking into a house that I know has been a large city to a family of ferocious parasites takes the wind out of this win.

So, I start the ritual all over gain, vacuuming everything, washing every piece of clothing, scrubbing every surface and frying everyone’s hair with medicated shampoos and hot hair drying. After the end of another day I truly feel that I have gotten through this debacle without a full-fledged breakdown and for that, I deserve a medal and a Maserati.

The next day, cleaning the house yet again, I realize that my brand new winter coat may have been exposed to our new roommates. I have only worn it once since this Greek tragedy began but with a fur hood and a lot of square footage of down comfort, I take no changes and throw my new friend into a hot dryer with a few other winter jackets.

One hour later, feeling on top of the crisis and ready to live again, I remove my new coat from the dryer and discover that my favorite wardrobe item, my new B.F.F. has been destroyed by a pile of bad decisions. With the heat of the dryer and the stupidity of a Xanax brain I chose to not follow the directions on the coat and have now burned all the beautiful fake fur off the hood, causing the trim to look like it has a severe case of mange.

I stare at it as if I am viewing a slow-moving car crash wrapped in a mink stole. I run my chaffed hands across the once soft fur and I crack like Humpy Dumpty during rough sex. I throw the coat down, walk to the bathroom, strip all my clothes off and get into the shower, hoping to wash away my entire existence. When my all-natural, Vanilla body wash doesn’t make me vanish into thin air I burst into howling cries, the kind that hyenas use to announce when they’ve stolen an Australian baby.

I continue to cry for close to two hours, reenacting the shower scene from “The Big Chill,” when Glenn Close finally weeps over Kevin Costner’s suicide.  That reference is as old and as lame as the way I felt in that moment just to hammer home the point. It is ugly and loud and immature and guttural like a toddler tantrum at Target. Every time I think I am finished with my fit the fucking coat pops back into my mind and the tears come harder and heavier.

Finally, after punching the shampoo a few more times and screaming at the ceiling I begin to calm down realizing that the only thing I could possibly get out of this is a migraine headache and vocal nodes. At best, I now sound look and sound like Harvey Fierstein with a hangover.

It is two weeks later and I have survived. We spent more than $600 and a forty-hour workweek cleaning and cursing. Pet Rock and Gabe both had a hipster barber shave their heads and now look like badass twins at a Portland artisanal mayonnaise co-op.  We won our third baseball game against a coach who is as sexist and unpleasant as King Henry VIII and are now tied for first place. My best friend from high school sent me a fancy box of chocolates to help me eat my problems away and shit, my issues are delicious!

My days are still spent being diligent about shampooing, laundry, and hair picking and yes, I have been wearing the same daily washed outfit for thirteen days straight. But it makes me feel less itchy and oddly in control. My ass has healed, I am no longer in need of momma’s little helpers and I am sleeping like a rock once again. My marriage somehow survived, my husband speaks to me and my writing is slowing and painfully crawling back into the middle of the road.

The icing on this dirty, little cupcake is that after following my neighbor’s advice, I returned the coat with the receipt, told the whole truth about our lice invasion and the store manager, having just gotten lice herself, ordered me a brand new, black, knee-length, down beauty with a furry face frame which should arrive any day now.

Sometimes it pays to cry out loud, speak some truth and play ball.

Watch me be cleanish dirty on TV next week

I'm on this here TV show.

My bag of balls is overflowing and life is a squirrel fight right now. Nuts upside down, rabid frolicking and bushy tails. But I am here to say that I am very excited about next week. A great show that I am lucky to be part of is premiering on Nick Jr.. So listen up and TiVO the shit out of this.

An awesome comic pal of mine from back in the 90’s, an era when we wore MAC Spice lip liner and wedge heels, has a new talk show on Nick Jr. and it rocks. Parental Discretion with Stefanie Wilder-Taylor is a show that actually invited me to me hang out and chat with other moms on a segment called “Circle Time.”

Three kids and she looks this good! Bitch.

AMENDING THE TIME!!!! The premiere will now air this coming up, Monday, October 1^st at 8 P.M. on Nick Jr., so watch, watch, watch! Stefanie is amazingly funny and smart and generous and just crazy enough to let me hang out on some of the upcoming episodes. I am thrilled, grateful and I get to say vagina on national television. And maybe, if I’m lucky, I'll sneak in a testicle or two.

Here’s the link. Come on over!

http://www.nickmom.com/tv/parental-discretion/

A Note From The Burbs

With our new suburban address and clean streets and quiet nights, getting into Hollywood is not what it used to be. We are a bit far away and need to wake up earlier and be more organized. I just said that out loud without spitting out droplets of sarcastic laughter and leftover breakfast burrito bits all over my Target tank top.

We have become the family that goes to bed early and rises earlier. We have become a well-oiled machine of maturity. We have, dare I say, grown up a smidge. We have a lawn and we water it ourselves.

Now, before you think I have changed into a Stepford Stewardess for Suburbia Air let me assure you that could not be further from the case. Yes, we packed up all our thrift store furniture and hand-me-down pillows and pre-pubesant rock posters and got out of Los Angeles proper. But we kept it all and proudly display it. My sofa and loveseat set cost $100 and was custom made in 1967. Half of our artwork may have been found in the trash and all of our rugs were mysteriously free. That is all I will say.

Yes, our new street is immaculate and the neighbors are hella lovely nice and there is no dog shit left on our lawn and everyone brings in their trash cans THE SAME DAY the garbage man comes in his oddly, clean truck to pick up our waste. So far there are no shady dudes jerking off in our local alley or she-males wearing tubetops as skirts and arguing with their shopping carts. No, none of the shenanigans that we lived on top of for twenty year goes on out here. And no one has a pantry full of nannies doing the grunt work. And that is as refreshing as a five dollar lemonade.

But every time I wear skinny jeans I feel whitehot eyes peering at me through Three-Day mini-blinds in Burnt Sienna somewhere on my block. The local Big Lots shoppers troll the aisles with no sense of irony OR disgust. Dockers, Nine West Handbags and the high-heeled, bedazzled flip-flop are considered fashion high-fives. The top sushi place serves the equivalent of a Big Mac handroll with two all-fish patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a seaweed rice bun. The local cool list includes suped -up Suburu Imprezas, shabby chic porch ornaments that say “Welcome Weary Traveler” and “Home Is Where The Hearth Is” and Arizona Iced Tea flows from the local fire hydrants.

All that said, I love it here for all those reasons and less. But I just had to get that off my chest and now feel that I can once again cram by big city titties into my bra and go on with my day. Remember, forgive, forget but never stop judging.  

Magnificence Magnified

My son is five and one quarter. If I round up or down he will smell it immediately and hunt me down after school and pepper me with corrections and a bowl full of scowls. He is five and one quarter and one of the most magnificent creatures I have ever met. My son is a whirling dervish of interesting moments and insane reflections. He sees things I cannot and says things I would not. His memory is that of a full-grown elephant and his happiness is a pure, white cloud of awesome.

I say this not in a bragging, annoying motherly way but in a purely frank, observational way. It’s not that I haven’t thought this before but now I can step back and take it all in. Now I sleep through the night. Now I can have conversations with him and find out what he needs, wants and desires. Now I get it.

Yesterday, we were driving back from a picture postcard weekend in Santa Barbara with friends who were generous enough to invite us to crash their two-week rental beach house of beauty. As we curled along the 101 freeway, gazing at a perfect Pacific Ocean, Otto noticed that half the moon was showing even though the sun was still shining.

“Why can we see the moon during the day?”

My brain was driving, my mouth was on hold and I passed the ball to my husband who pulled out his ladder-high I.Q. and covered the car with correct answers and interested factoids. It was a lot of orbiting and travelling and timing.

And me? I continued driving and flipping inane subjects and worries in my head like an Olympic gymnast in a sausage casing leotard. What should we have for dinner? Did I buy stuff for Otto’s snack bag tomorrow? Why did I eat half a bag of potato chips while wearing a bikini? When is my period due? Is sunscreen toxic? When is the best time to wax? And why can’t the 70’s bush be back in Vogue?

As my boys continued discussing space and taking a verbal trip to the moon Otto decided it was his turn to share his knowledge of planetary happenings.

“Hey guys, you know that we can only see half the moon right now because the other half is covered by space clouds.”

That’s when I woke up from my mental list making and tuned into my backseat NOVA episode. Space dust? Half-covered? I believed him. Why wouldn’t I? I flunked astronomy my freshman year of college because it was at 8 a.m. three days a week and the professor was as interesting as dryer lint. I will also add to that that I was the LEAST focused freshman at a PAC Ten school with my own apartment, crazy roommates and a tendency to trip over a new boy crush every twelve feet. I was young and stupid and uninterested in anything out of arms length of my orbit or my mini fridge, most certainly planets in other galaxies and the space dust that loved them.

I never really took the time to notice when the moon was half covered or fully clothed. Saturn had rings and Uranus was not just a planet, it was a punch line.

Why didn’t I get my shit together and stick it all in a shiny new Trapper Keeper? Why didn’t I care about the Milky Way or Quasars or comets and why didn’t I pay attention in class and take notes and take notice?

This may not sound like a MENSA moment to you but my child saw something so simple and wanted to learn about it and talk about it. It was the moon, real and raw and right in front of him. It was not Angry Birds or Spider Man, The Movie or viral cat videos that truly represent all that is wrong in a society ruled by Internet-generated creepy laugh riot moments and people with social circles in the shape of a hypotenuse.

I thought about space clouds all last night and first thing this morning and who I was then and who I am now. If only I had taken a little bit of time out of my busy schedule of happy hour-hopping and sleeping late and sun-tanning and lip glossing and bothered to listen to a lecture and look up in the sky than maybe, I could have been a better parent to my Curious George in my jungle. Maybe I could have been part of the discussion of space particles and lunar landings and maybe, I could have answered the simple question as to why we earthlings can see the moon on our way home from the sun.

Signs, Signs Everywhere Are Signs

Signs are all around us everyday, screaming in reflective paint and neon letters telling us to do shit we never want to do. STOP, YIELD, SLOW DOWN, DETOUR, CASH CHECKS, SELL YOUR GOLD, NO LIQUIDS BEYOND THIS POINT and KOTEX WITH WINGS. These commands that envelope us are orders we all listen to like good little children, lest total anarchy befalls this great nation of couch potato lemmings and half-hearted date rapists.

But what about the secret signs, the hidden notes that the universe stuffs in our ear holes when we are sleeping, eating or waxing off the pubes that society tells us are a colossal fail in every follicle? Without sounding like a cryptic spiritual leaflet found in a independent bookstore that smells like stale incense and summer feet I do believe in the signs that squeak and the mice that squeak them.

A few months ago my husband and I were discussing just those signs as our world was beginning to make a sharp left turn without our hands on the steering wheel. As private school kindergarten applications were due and the never-ending turmoil of living in an apartment held together by paint chips, termite droppings and street noise breathed down our sweaty, angry necks the volume on our invisible radio began to increase.

Something told us to look outside our dusty box and see another side of Los Angeles. We got a feeling, much like crabs without the itching and took a drive. Then we took a wrong turn and then we found a new house, a new school and a new kind of quiet, the kind without midnight tranny wrestling matches and DEF-CON 5 police car chases brightly passing our front door.

Don’t get me wrong. We lived in a great neighborhood, one of the better ones in Los Angeles. But the sudden influx of white Mercedes sedans and screaming drunk-girl DJ’s and over-tanned young actor/models and blocks of newly built, McApartment buildings made the whole place look like the Emerald City with a Kardashian paint job.

So when I woke up one night in a puddle of my own sweat begging the higher powers of putrid to get me out of that apartment and into a place with a backyard and wooden floors that could actually hold the weight of a small sack of flour, my weirdo world heard me, took my hand and led me down a path I never saw coming.

My point is this. Listen. Listen to that gut feeling or that bell ringing or that ping pinging. When something or someone pops onto your grid there is a reason. If your grid is fuzzy but your ears can hear the shouting, listen. If you blow something off too often there is a reason for you NOT to do it. Or, you have to do it and do it now. If you fall short or trip backward then look closely at the spot you fell on and maybe, just maybe, there will be an answer to a question you asked or maybe a hint of what road to drive on next.

Right now I now I have fallen and I can’t get up. I am a Life Alert button away from being that gray haired lady who needs a team of creepy dudes to come and pick her up and put her back in her Barcalounger. I have spent the last four months being consumed by everything else but my art. The move, the unpacking, the commute, the end of school, the trip back east, the family drama, mothering, motherhood, motherfuckers, the lack of time, the noises in my head, the ghosts of tethered friendships, the joy of new friendships, the confirmation and exaltation of old friendships and anger, festering, fetid anger that boils up and pummels me in a soft paste.

This blog has all but disappeared, my videos dried up like a menopausal matriarch and my other creative goals are collectively giving me the finger with chipped nail polish and cigarette-stained knuckles. Facebook is not creative, it is emotive and Twitter is not publishing, it is pontificating. I love them both but that alone does not a writer make. I want a job but I am petrified to work. I am a full-time mom with a part-time life. I can’t work, can I? No, I can work but what about my kid’s schedule? What about the errands? What about the laundry? What about the lists? I need to get everything, do everything and say everything on all my lists. That’s what I do. I make lists. I write lists. I write.

But what about my art? Is that on the list? And if so, how far down and did I spell it correctly or is it even legible? If I put it on the list in red ink will someone say yes? If a sentence falls in the forest can anybody read it? Will anybody read it? Will anybody care?

No one is singing me the answer. The mailbox is empty and my phone is lying next to me like a limp, failed lover. I do not see an old timey, skywriting plane with cloud letters spelling out directions to my next step.  But I did just hear a thump behind me and I plan on turning around and seeing what it is.

Pass It Here!

It is truly amazing what the mind will do when you are trying to be productive and pensive and full of promise. It’s the heat. I slept too little. My left lip hurts. Should I wax today or focus on the more important stuff like laundering the crusty under garments of my family or cleaning out my child’s drawers of outgrown clothing and bad, hand-me-down wide-leg jeans?

I’ve got it. I will watch random YouTube videos to get “inspired” and “focused” and not hate myself afterward. No, I will turn on NBC cable coverage of the women’s Olympic field hockey semi-finals and pretend to be standing on the side of a beautiful green, Connecticut boarding school grass field as Bunny and Libby shoot balls into nets while wearing super short skirts and pristine futures. Wait. I miss Lochte and his brand of duh, duh, dumb. I need naked men.

Maybe, if I fold two piles of laundry, write two more thank you notes in cheap ball point ink, avoid eating any chocolate-inspired food stuffs and click on the new Judd Apatow trailer while splurging on an hour of central air conditioning my creative lemon juices will run down my leg and turn into my very own “Lemon Song” moment. How did I do?

The cool air is helping. Fuck chocolate. Good work on the laundry. A for effort on the stationary scribbling but I must call foul on the Apatow trailer. Did I really think that walking into a two-minute teaser of a Brentwood-styled, big ass, back yard, wet dream would actually urge me on in my creative pursuits? Why does Paul Rudd have to represent the ideal American husband who loves watching iPad porn while pooping and who always wears slacks and hair gel? 

Why do all modern movie homes look like Pottery Barn dry humped Crate and Barrel’s back door while giving West Elm a reach around Dirty Sanchez? Why does everything I see, hear and smell make me feel like I am slogging through a river of untreated sewage wearing nothing more than a wife beater and a furrowed brow?

How do I write down the words “PAGE 1” and really mean it?

Houseguest 2

When you go away on a very long trip you have a few options as to how best to look after your home and the paraphernalia that comes with having a real street address, grown-up responsibilities and a place the government can send your jury duty threats and unpaid parking tickets covered in stupid.

1) You can have a neighbor simply take in your mail and keep an eye on your front door, making sure no intruders decide to break in and have a circle jerk on your vintage sofa that many a dead grandma would love and cover with plastic if they were still alive and half-breathing.

2) You can commit to number one (see above) but will have to return to a house that smells like old shoes, moldy white bread and said vintage sofa dead grandma covets from the grave.

NOTE: If there are animals in your life that you left behind add cat box stank and butt breath to the list of smells, then multiply that by your first two hours home cleaning up vomit and errant feces that were aggressive reminders of why you left in the first place.

Logarithm as follows:

C x π  ÷  V+poop = ∞

3) You choose a houseguest or guests who are solid in loyalty but questionable in responsibility, honesty and decision-making. Take for instance the great mistake of ’97 when I asked Chrissy and Mike (you both know who you are) to stay in our apartment to look after the cats and enjoy our booze. After two weeks away Dave and I came home to a kitchen cupboard filled with wet AND greasy dishes, (who puts away dirty, wet plates???) a cat box filled with turds of neglect, a shower stall as clean as Kristen Stewarts backseat arm rest and a new Sony Trinitron television that went neon green when we turned it on, taking up to eight minutes to show a picture and then losing sound half way through Melrose Place. 

NOTE: It took twelve years and a few drunk reunions to finally find out that the TV fell screen first off a four-foot shelf because of a game of Spin The Bottle of Bourbon/ Tether Ball Bags in our living room and no one mentioned the mishap upon our return. Nope, they just put the TV back on the shelf, washed all our dished in bacon grease and tepid toilet water, fed the cats leftover Taco Bell hoping they would shit outside like most Gordita eaters and shut the kitchen door.

4) You grow a few inches in DUH and a handful of years in OH and get very lucky when a trusted, old friend decides to fly in from Florida to live in your new, shiny, clean house for the month while working on his novel and interviewing for university positions. With this sage and solid choice you return to your home and notice that it is spotless with love, smells like lemon verbena and smart life choices, your sheets scream “CLEAN!” and the car you adore, which is the ONLY new car you have ever owned, is washed and gassed up with a thank you note AND a gift card to a great local restaurant from the houseguest that rules the world sitting on the dashboard. Seriously.

5) You take the $2000 dollars you just spent on airfare and food and Ativan and gin and fist-clenching mini-meltdowns and go straight to Tulum, Mexico, never to return and never to worry how rank and vile your abandoned residence really smells or who is now pooping in your pantry and partying on your counter tops with dirty feet and no pedicure.