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.