Now Is the Hour Of His Discontent

Twice this week I have been fortunate enough to experience my toddler's classic soliloquy of discontent. No, he does not stand erect with his little hand on his littler hip, wearing tights and an oddly sexual codpiece while reciting Richard III. He breaks down into a confusing puddle of tears and snot whilst trying his best to explain his misery. It is usually caused by a train car out of place in his toy room or an uneven placement of a blanket on the side of the crib. Perhaps today, he was set off because he felt there were too many gourmet ingredients in his fresh, homemade breakfast frittata. No, it must have been the overwhelming emotional experience that occurred after mommy wiped his fanny clean and begged him to stop kicking her as she tried her best to reapply A+D ointment and a clean, over-priced diaper to his nether regions. These are the same regions of which he will soon come to care more about than any other region of the world. “Darfur? Where’s that? Not in my pants, bitches!”

What am I thinking? It must have been the unending exhaustion from all the paparazzi-like attention he garnered from his father the previous afternoon, a man who took enough photos of Prince Nucleus of The Neighborhood to start a children’s white trash, above- ground living catalogue. As every child in the neighborhood drifted over to play in Otto’s ten dollar pool, sit at Otto’s tiny, stained Ikea table made by angry, Swedish midgets and share kid friendly, organic food stuffs Otto’s mother made in a kitchen as hot as it is infinitesimal, the strain must have really tuckered him out. But being cunning and focused, with the memory of an aggressive elephant, he held onto the moody blues until this morning when it could do the most good. He ate breakfast; he played car crash and then decided that it was time to express himself, as only Madonna could in 1985.

His daddy took him upstairs and had a long, father-son, rational, calm, hug-riddled and reassuring chat. I have no doubt their tete a tete most likely involved basketball references, Bruce Springsteen lyrics and airplane tickles, a sure fire combo of calm when the winds kick up in our house. I finally walked in after the cries of unbridled hysteria had stopped, to find man and boy on a hand-me-down sofa The Salvation Army would shun, reading “Curious George Flies A Kite.” His puffy eyes and disheveled hair made him look like Nick Nolte after a particularly long AA meeting complete with food-stained shirt and dirty cheeks. My tiny, little recovering cry-a-holic looked up at me, patted the torn cushion to his left and asked me to join them. My heart broke a little, my belly ached a bit and I took my place in this trio of turbulence knowing that this was only Act I in a very long play, a play I will always love to read.

 

 

 

Once Bitten, Twice Shy

Yesterday, on one of the hottest days on record, I got in my car with Otto and we drove to Pasadena, a lovely tree-lined suburb of Los Angeles filled with repressed WASP mansions, a famous parade involving roses, teenage girls and inappropriate thoughts and a summer heat index worthy of convection oven left on after the turkey meatloaf is done. We had decided that going to a cool, children’s museum would be the perfect way to kill the morning and learn something wonderful about the world around us. I, of course, would have much preferred to go to Target and get shit done while standing in an air conditioned space that smells of disinfectant and Pizza Hut mini pizzas. But ever striving to be a “good mom”, who “cares” about my child’s “development”, I chose the Kids Space Museum as an educational alternative to my secret lover, the red bulls eye.

We parked in a parking lot that felt a few city blocks away in distance and effort, doing our best not to get heat stroke while en route to the front entrance. After following a few confused families that had no water, bad shoes and terrible fashion sense, we discovered the way inside, a tunnel covered in tile with circular holes built inside, a place where all the kids could put their snot-covered hands and share boogers to their heart’s content. Some of the indentations lit up, others were magnetic and a few were convex mirrors, insuring the children stayed grounded after looking at warped, disfigured reflections of themselves that made them seem like sideshow attractions not even a parent could love.

Once inside, we paid our twenty dollars and started on an adventure of big kids pushing little kids, sand boxes filled with rubber pellets that looked like gerbil feces and a very sweaty, tense camp counselor questioning his decision to turn down that assistance managerial position at Ross Dress for Less last May. Otto was a bit young for most of the attractions but he kept up with the older kids on a climbing rope structure, whose design had clearly been influenced by a Vietnamese prison-of-war camp sniper tower.

He also excelled at the tricycle races and really crushed it on the yellow, metal stairs leading to a crawl space he was too young to attempt. I felt bad for keeping him out of the dark, scary hole until I heard the horrifying cries of a small girl who had gone into the hole and gotten stuck without a parent, a flashlight or the Jaws Of Life. Poor thing started out the morning as happy little Sadie from Santa Clarita, the sixth of seven children whose mother often confuses her for the neighbor’s stray cat and lets her run wild in a museum littered with trap doors and pedophiles. Now Sadie had found herself lying face down on industrial wall-to-wall carpeting, wedged between a fake rock and a retaining wall, a modern Baby Jessica without the media coverage or the positive outcome.

We quickly moved on without being helpful or concerned in the least and unfortunately, stumbled onto the nocturnal insect display, a pitch black room with a black light that housed an angry black widow, a sleepy tarantula, a hissing cockroach and a sad collection of beetles no one seemed interested in. Otto was in love and spent the majority of the time walking in circles in my worst nightmare, the two of us discussing why mommy doesn’t want to touch anything and why Otto cannot have his very own poisonous Araneae. The enthusiasm and energy he exhibited in this black hole made me think of his father, a man who is never afraid to catch a spider, swat a fly, trap a rodent and could eat a cockroach on Survivor without a cash prize incentive. The worm infested apples does not fall far…

After pulling him out of the house of horrors, Otto ate the lunch of a hairy, hungry lumberjack, complete with a rolled mystery meat product and an old piece of bread he found on the outdoor picnic table. Ready to nap, we finally left and drove home in a blissful, thoughtful silence. Otto, no doubt, was thinking of Charlotte’s Web, Spider Man’s light bulb moment and Kafka, while I began panicking over potential nighttime spider bites and future exterminator bills. I am clearly a Granny Smith to Otto’s Fuji.

 

 

 

 

From Turf To Surf

I just went from one tremendous vacation to another in a span of a week. I know I suck. Going from the mountains of Godlandia to the beaches of Santa Clausabara is unfair and annoying. It is not my fault that my friends A +B (that’s what we call them because that is just so cool, School of Rock shit and looks like a mathematical equation that I could actually solve) rented a casa on the beach in Santa Barbara and asked us two months ago to join them for a weekend in August. Yes, of course we said yes! Dave and I are not stupid, just really lucky. We love to say yes when pals offer us things that give us pleasure and involve relaxation, deep-fried food, outdoorsy activities, great company or all of the above.

“Hey Dotty, want a really nice bottle of wine and a box of chocolates filled with gold bullion?”

Or

“Dave, I have this frozen Niman Ranch steak pack in the freezer that could feed a small rogue, paramilitary unit. You can cook it up or kill someone with it. It’s yours for the taking.”

Or

“Hey guys, why don’t you run off to a movie and we’ll baby sit your muskrat free of charge while you inhale each other, buttery over-salted popcorn and air that smells of unfamiliar body odor and freedom.”

Or

“D and D, you want to spend a glorious weekend in an awesome house that sits directly on the beach in an amazing, secluded stretch of Southern California loveliness with four of your favorite, boozy pals, their new baby cheeky monkey, your sand-loving kid and your old, happy-to-shit-on-the-beach dog? A place where a Shabby Chic delivery truck collided with an enormous vat of marshmallow fluff and oozed white, puffy goodness all over the place? Where the pillows are like sleeping on cotton candy clouds, the sheets are of the highest thread count, the heavenly toilet paper tickles like a feather duster and the vast array of ceramic mermaids makes you wonder what you are doing wrong in life not to own a beach getaway decorated with Big Lots final sale items and a seashell collection that rivals the dumpster at a Cape Cod crab shack? A place where your kid will sleep like a mummy, the food will taste as if Dean and Deluca had a dirty threesome with Ina Garten’s rotund, left leg, the wine will overflow until your favorite white tank top looks like it belongs in a sealed evidence bag and your state of mind is all “pod of dolphins” instead of all “eager beaver gardeners blowing leaves into your windows with an electric hair dryer on their backs causing your ears to bleed and your heart to turn into charcoal?”

Yes, yes, yes and thank you, thank you, thank you, Ash and Bobby for sharing what could have been a great romantic weekend for the two of you, a weekend where you could have run around naked and inebriated doing illegal things to each other on the granite counter tops. But instead, you foolishly and selflessly took in a group of shady, stray parents, turning it into a free-for-all of children, poopy diapers, wet towels, dogs, cooking, sand, eating, dancing, hangovers, Pop and Fresh muffins and peeping Toms. See you next August.

Rocky Mountain Higher

This last week has been the longest writing sojourn I have taken and I blame it solely on my recent vacation from life. My friend G just had to call me up and ask me if I wanted to tag along on a five day vacation with her in-laws and a view of the Colorado mountains only John Denver’s dog and a few rabid deer have ever seen. And I just had to say “Hell, yes!”

Otto and I packed up a few essentials and hopped on the flight to the pine scented paradise and got our rocky mountain high on. With a rushing river just yards from my terrace, air as clean as a brand new vacuum cleaner bag and clouds of the cumulous variety, the kind that make one crave cotton candy and Q-Tips simultaneously, I spent the first few days getting altitude headaches while a perpetual shit eating grin was plastered on my face. It was spectacular.

The one drawback about the trip would be my missing our sixteenth wedding anniversary. Dave had too much work to do and was ready to be alone as his gift to himself. No neckties or Thai massages for this gent. So, I jetted off and thought nothing more of it. But to my surprise, G’s other half B flew in with Dave that Friday and we got to spend our anniversary among the bountiful bear dung, amazing Aspen trees and star infested skies.

The house was a magnificent log “cabin” in a secluded valley over looking heaven with a view of Shangri-La. Every corner of this place was perfect in its comfort and calm design, making one want to write a novel in the south east nook, take a nap face down on one of the hand knotted area rugs or curl up with an unsolvable theorem near the croissant shaped fireplace, which also happened to be the size of a small aircraft carrier. If the layout were not enough, little magical elves would appear each morning with laundered under garments and freshly fluffed towels of a quality so high you need not touch it to your skin in order for the drying process to begin. It was how I had always pictured my life should be but I simply never had the wherewithal to buy a camera that nice.

We slept like teenage drinkers in a room that was lined with birch bark and pixie dust and had a view of a mountain range with the same intensity and composition of a day-glow velvet painting found at an airport Hyatt art show. Every book, lamp and stuffed moose was a piece exquisite art that mocked me endlessly and made me feel as if I had failed at everything post birth. How could I possibly return to the dented tuna can I lived in and accomplish anything ever again? I can’t even make my Ikea splattered bed in the morning, much less walk down the sagging stairs without forgetting my cell phone or child or find a decent place to write my adverb-filled drivel while drinking tap water loosely disguised as bottled, thanks to an old Brita filter and a cloudy pitcher.

The entire trip was tranquil at worst and we begrudgingly returned that Sunday on a private plane made of platinum coated parts and covered in gooey other half sauce. Dave and I felt so unnaturally rested and pampered that we almost drove our car that they had waiting for us on the tarmac (yeah, it’s like that) into a tree just so we could go back to someplace better than home. The moment we opened our front door the odor of old cat and dirty feet hit my mountain face like a steel-toed hiking boot and I knew we were back to the reality of doing our own laundry, washing mismatched dishes and standing in a shower just big enough for a malnourished Dachsund.

That evening as I sat on our Crate and Failure sofa, the only new piece of furniture we own, I saw all the freakish flaws in our cluttered, cracked apartment and knew I had to do something. I could try to run a well-intentioned Ponzi scheme or patent the elusive yet lucrative cure for cancer but these two things seemed to required traits that I was short on. I did not have a rigid work ethic and a resume littered with accomplishments and three letter degrees that sounded like cool rap groups or incurable venereal diseases. Also missing were the requisite skyscraper-high test scores, a Mother Teresa styled commitment to helping anyone other than myself while having an innate understanding of high thread count sheets and where to put a bed skirt.

No, instead of putting my nose to the grindstone and making something huge of myself in order to live the life I had quickly become accustomed to, I would simply rearrange my mishmash of Salvation Army, mid-century, crusty-but-wants- to-be-cool furniture collection, set up a home office complete with drawer organizers and a filing system that would eventually laugh at me for misusing it and make my apartment feel just like a mountain retreat where I could do anything I set my mind to while channeling Grizzly Adams and Martha Stewart's second assistant. I cleaned for two days, went back to Ikea to purchase colorful, cardboard file boxes and threw away anything and everything that was procured before Clinton decided fingering his intern with a Cohiba would be a smart political maneuver.

I now sit at a clutter free desk trying to get back into the swing of living in reality but fantasizing that Bigfoot in under my window with a bouquet of wild flowers clutched in his hand/paw. Closing my eyes I see nothing but open blue skies, pristine trees for miles and an unobstructed view of a mountain that looks like the freshly waxed pubic region of a Playboy model who loves sunsets and nice guys but really wants to direct. Yet, when my eyes eventually open after a long cry or a half nap, I see our good morning, everyday view of a gray, soulless apartment complex across the street whose architectural design choices scream “Women’s Correctional Facility – Do Not Pick Up Hitch Hikers.”

Thanks a lot, G and B, J and M for ruining me completely.

There's A Hole In my Bucket, Dear Liza, Dear Liza

On the first day of my freshman year of high school, in my second period social studies class, I was assigned a seat next to her. She had cool, short blond hair, plastic earrings that matched her bangles and an off the shoulder top that Jennifer Beals would have eaten with gravy and a side of creamed corn. We had known each other from middle school but were not friends at all. I had started my middle school career as a whisper thin burn out who favored unflattering, hooker jeans I could not fill out and men with yellow teeth and no future who constantly passed me over for back seat blow jobs from my older girlfriends. She, in contrast, partook in a serious relationship with The Preppy Handbook, wearing a plethora of pearls, headbands and wide wale corduroys held up by belts embroidered with frogs and whales while enjoying the company of boys named Blaire, Bradley and Buddy, all of whom had family trees that grew inward yet up.

After I shed my truck stop wardrobe and low expectations in eighth grade, we found ourselves with lockers just a few feet from one another. But again, we could not bring ourselves to become overtly friendly, even though we had somehow gravitated into the same outer clique. Middle school graduation came along, as did a summer filled with a Mormon boyfriend with a dry humping addiction and a family road trip that included my sister giving a hand job at a family friend’s wedding and needless to say, I started high school ready to be an only child and make new friends.

That first day I was surprised and nervous to be seated next to her but as soon as the syllabus was handed down the aisle, the two of us began what would be a twenty-three year relationship of fart jokes, sex talk and fashion lessons. Almost immediately upon entering the world of high school hierarchy, her preppy façade transformed into Paris chic meets Nagel sexy with a smattering of Madonna come hither in my hair. With a fifty dollar-a-month clothing allowance and a body that could stop the war in the Middle East with a simple tube top and leather mini, she became the reason to get dressed on those chilly fall mornings. She lent me cool clothes that hid my malnourished body, took me to Macy’s to buy my first set of fake pearls, casually carried the Louis Vuitton bowling bag over her left wrist making me green with envy and covered in awe. She taught me that layers were my friends and bell-bottoms were not, she bought ankle boots before anyone realized they could really accent a mini dress and hide a cankle. She wore red as a theme, not an accent, got her colors done only to discover she could pull off all four seasons like Coco Chanel’s quilted bag and she made accessorizing a form of art and foreplay, simultaneously.

She was beyond generous with her gifts, including a Seiko watch, a terrific Charles Jourdin make-up bag I used as a clutch, a Benetton scarf, a Esprit top with rainbow stripes, a leather bomber jacket that was the chocolate to my peanut butter in1987 but could now only be found on a tired pimp in a Thai whorehouse or under an old bed sheet in a Salvation Army drop box. She has purchased me numerous plane tickets including two to London so I could stand next at her at wedding in a church only a Catholic could love, while my agnostic Jewish husband shifted nervously in a pew. A few years ago when visiting her for a weekend, she went into her fabulously large walk-in closet and pulled out the old Louis bag I had coveted for so long and gave it to me on a long-term loan. I loved that brown vinyl muffin for more than two decades and I am not ashamed to say I use it as least twice a week with the enthusiasm and pluck of a teenage girl who’s going to the prom without panties on.

She has bought me lunches, dinners, pedicures, ice cream cones, sweet rolls, candy bars, Hot Tamales and flowers. She lent me money when I discovered that my credit score was 14 and I owed a year’s salary on a defunct credit card that was used to purchase groceries and motor oil instead of something exciting and cool like a home entertainment system or a mountain of cocaine. But of all the treats I have been lucky enough to receive from her, the one that really got me arrived this week after the following text from her.


I miss u so
Much and need a fix. Since we are leaving for Lebanon in the am. I can't
Get it
Now
I love ur blog and I feel so connected to you and yours.
I just sent u a package that I got the ideas from your blog. I hope u like and think it has a little humor.

Having a friend be so supportive of my writing and so thoughtful as to send me things that pertain to certain pieces I have written blew my mind and made me feel so lucky that our seats had been side by side all those years ago. I also felt lucky that she is still dressing me up by sending me a box containing high-end workout gear so I would no longer look like a homeless beekeeper when hiking next to starving starlets in the Hollywood canyons. And, lucky that the box also contained a free copy of the Curious George movie so Otto would no longer be stuck watching the same awful episodes of George on TiVo I pilfered from PBS last year. And, just lucky.

I love you Liza.

Bedroom As Canvas

I have not had a cool bedroom since I graduated from high school. Back then, I had all the time in the world to make sure my duvet cover matched my sheets and pillows, my bedside lamp was color coordinated and working, my desk was clean and clutter free, owing to a severe allergy I had to homework, and that my clothes were all meticulously put away in rainbow-colored stacking shelves that I enthusiastically purchased at the Crate and Barrel outlet. I spent hours in my little hideaway, napping and scheming up ways to become famous and not have to take the SAT’s. I spent idle days cutting out pictures to hang on my wall of coked-up Guess models, hungry syphilis-encrusted rock stars and movie actresses I wanted to skin alive and wear as a flesh pea coat or as pegged skin pants.

Isabella Rossellini, Madonna and Talisa Soto decorated my chipped, sagging walls with their beauty and perfection but no one moved me to bright green, molten lava jealously like Molly Ringwald. She epitomized what the teenage girl should be with her sassy red bob and her fantastic outfits, whether she was playing the rich bitch or the other-side-of-the-tracks funky chick with an alcoholic dad who looked like a dirty sponge mop used to clean up an oil spill. I wanted to own everything she had from the dark brown riding boots with matching leather skirt to the floral print wrap dress cum bed sheet she donned when confronted by the nefarious Steff, so perfectly played by a thin, not yet ghoulish James Spader. Her innate ability to always get the guy without compromising herself or laughing at the guy and taking the high road always gave me hope that the cheerleader types with their convertible BMW’s, overflowing walk-in closets filled with leather pants, angora sweaters and high top Reebok aerobic sneakers and their addictions to coke and the parked car hand job were not always going to win the battle of the teenage sex wars. There was hope for the quirky.

After seeing Sixteen Candles I had the sudden confidence to try and pull off the short, funky hairdo of the day. But stupidly, without consulting any friends of family, I chopped off my long locks, shaving one side almost bald and perming the other. The result was a Flock of Seagulls meets sea anemone after electroshock therapy. One side of my confused cranium frizzed out like a Frieda Kahlo’s pubic patch and the other side seemed to be the re-growth aftermath of brain surgery gone awry. It was a fashion disaster that affected my ability to barely survive in a co-ed setting for the entire school year. Every time I looked in the mirror and didn’t see Molly Ringwald, I cried a few ugly tears and then quietly rearranged my sock drawer.

For all these years I gave Molly all the credit for the colossal hair fuck up I made but also, for the fabulousness that shaped my teenage years of angst, insecurities and longing for a bigger clothing allowance and a sports car with personalized plates. But the mistake I made was giving all the credit to her and none to the man who created these indelible characters that were seminal to me in those awkward, wonderful years of puberty. This man shaped the 1980’s like a sculptor with day glow clay.

John Hughes died today at the very young and unfair age of 59. I am so sad for his family. I am sad for him. But mostly, I am sad for a generation that will grow up without his voice booming in their ears from a Sony Walkman with an orange foam headset, as I did. Maybe he had a few brilliant films left in him that could have spoken to the uber- texting, reality television-loving, over-sexualized, Paris Hilton craving, meth-munching modern teenager. Maybe he could talk to them with his witty dialogue and off beat sensibility and give them what he gave us, a canvas of cool in a sea of insecurities.

R.I.P. John Hughes. You will be very missed.