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Showing posts from 2016

The Last Word

2008, as far as years ago, was a pretty shitty one. I lost my mother rather swiftly and unsuspectingly and I was behind the wheel of our car with my husband and 10 month old son when we were in a near fatal crash on the highway. Everything felt catastrophic and awful. That New Year’s Eve, I huddled inside my home with my still new little family. We had a few candles lit, and just about two minutes before midnight I said something to the effect of, “Fuck this. I’m done with you 2008.” Because there was 90 seconds left in the year, it seemed we were past most of the garbage. At 11:59, I bent over to blow out the candles. And at 11:59 and 30 seconds, with about 30 seconds left of 2008, a strand of my hair slipped forward, fell into a candle, and caught on fire. And here is what I learned. 1.       Candles can be dangerous. Safety first. 2.       It ain’t over till it’s over. 3.       Bad stuff can happen at any time to anyone. It doesn’t come in threes and you d

Seasons

I’m sitting in the middle of the coffee shop, hyper aware of everything. Of the clicking of the laptop to my right, of the flipping of the newspaper of the old man to my left, the scooping of the ice and the chatter of some old friends in the corner. I feel the weight of my fit bit on my arm, the fluttering of one hair to the left of my cornea. Everything feels on, and crackling. Sometimes I feel that way. Sometimes life feels that way – like sensory overload. Very loud, or very soft but either way – very obvious. Just very. I’ve been feeling this very much with my kids – this crackling, the relative loud and softness of my love for them, the way it gets expressed, the way it feels. It is all sort of out body – I am living these moments with them, and observing them as well. The rapid speed at which they seem to be growing up and changing. The full body experience of my love adapting to their newer, bigger selves. This morning Ruby tells me that she can see the sun coming out.

Want to be a Digital Mentor For Your Kids? Step 1: Admit You Know Nothing

I’m scanning through my Facebook newsfeed during a 25 minute long episode of Dora in the City when the new AAP recommendations on screen time catch my eye. The guidelines include revised screen time recommendations for children ages 6 and up, from two hours a day to no official screen time limit. Rather, the panel recommends prioritizing homework, physical activity, extracurricular activities, family meal times, and after all that whatever is left can be dedicated to screen time. It makes an important distinction between media for educational use versus entertainment, and encourages families to seek and find their own balance with technology. Parents, it recommends, are to assume the role as “media mentor.” Toward this end, the panel made an additional recommendation specifically geared toward parents and their own technology use, reminding us to put down devices during meal time and parent child playtimes. The recommendations came out at the right time, as I had been turning ov

This Entire Election Is About Gender.

If we’re being honest with each other, I’m glad we’ve reached this point. At least we can talk about what this election is really about. This should not even be a contest. It shouldn’t. Nearly every editorial board in the country including ones that have endorsed Republican candidates for a century, have unequivocally endorsed her. Members of our national security, a former Republican president – pretty much anyone with any knowledge of what it takes to do this job is literally telling us that he is unqualified for the job. Still, he is ahead. He is leading in the polls. Why? Because he has a penis. I’m serious. It’s the only reason he is winning right now. If anyone tells you that they can’t vote for Hillary Clinton because of her email server you should immediately stab yourself in the face with a blunt object. Because that is what progress in America in 2016 looks and feels like. The very fact that this is a contest at all is the definition of a double standar

Buy the Electric Toothbrush and Other Lessons From Your 30s

I am standing in the nail salon staring blankly at the seemingly massive range of colors to choose from. There are dramatic reds and flirty purples and cute pinks and demure soft pinks and those super sparkly ones. There are the fluorescent ones that I imagine you choose if you want to pretend you are a tween or if you actually are a tween. There is the tasteful mauve-ish color my mother would’ve chosen. It is the kind of color that says, “I am a grown up. I know how to do this. You can tell by my toe nail polish color choice.” The only thing worse than choosing any of these colors is not knowing which one to choose. In a moment of fleeting panic I choose some sort of dark color. It’s not black. I don’t want to pretend I’m moody. It is sort of brownish/gray. I guess it is bray. Or grown. It is called “Over the Taupe” which is like the nail salon’s version of a lame dad joke but either way it’s kind of funny when you are four days shy of 39 so I chuckle to myself. The pedicurist lo

A Sick Obsession

Have you ever felt like you were going to faint? Or throw up? Or maybe even have a seizure? Did you stop to think to yourself before you got sick, I’d like to do this in the most public way possible because I believe that being transparent here is the right thing. Or instead did you worry that others would judge you, or perhaps even fear you. So you hid and went somewhere private. It sucks to be sick. It sucks even more to be sick in public. What is it that makes us so scared of sickness in America? Everyone everywhere is whispering about Hillary Clinton’s health and there are hushed tones from people on the news and doctors and campaign surrogates and people in my Facebook feed and all of us are so worried and I literally don’t understand. Is it because we think sick people can’t lead? Is it because we think sick people aren’t strong? As I watch the news, I’m genuinely stunned by this obsession over Hillary Clinton’s health. I would expect her opponent and some well-seasone

Living History

Here. 9/11 happens to me right here. In this apartment in this room where I sat, half dressed for interviews I would never go to, in a city that I barely knew wondering to myself, is this how I die? Is this how the world ends? There is a vast difference between learning about history and living it. September 11 th taught me that. I read somewhere recently that for the first time incoming high school freshman will learn about this day having been born after it occurred. They will study it, they will learn through the lenses and gifts of time and perspective about what we did, what we should have done, how it looks from a distance. But for those of us who lived it no matter how much time passes it will never be historical. We will always be there in that moment. Even now, today, fifteen years later I am there and all I have are questions and no answers. And no one else has answers. Not even people on television and those people are always at least supposed to pretend like t

Parenting in the Nethers

As we stand in the middle of Barnes and Noble I’m torn. I told him that he could pick out a book and the one that he’s selected is about Minecraft. That, in and of itself doesn’t necessarily bother me. But this particular Minecraft guide is about combat. That is quite literally the title. Something about combat best practices. I recoil in horror and snap at him in a way that is an intensely disproportionate reaction to an eight year old just wanting to buy a book about a video game he likes. Inside, I begin to hold deeply irrational conversations with myself. Is this how it starts, I wonder? Is this where it began with Adam Lanza? I know there was more, trips to the shooting range and increased isolation. I know there was more to his story. But at one point, he was just her little boy, right? How did it all start? How does it ever? He’s arguing hard for the book now and I wonder if I should waver – it is just a book after all. But I hate it. I hate all of it. I hate the idea

The Definition of Motherhood

Every night before Dylan goes to sleep, I ask him if he has any worries to give me. It’s a silly gesture, but it makes both of us feel better for some reason. He hands me some imaginary load of 8 year old problems – things that I am happy are the full extent of his worries - like what kind of pea shooters to plant to battle the zombies, and how to outlast everyone in the Gaga pit at recess, and who or what makes those shadows under the dark corner of his desk at night. I always pretend to catch them, like an imaginary football. I tell him he doesn’t have to worry anymore, that he can rest easy, I’ll carry his load for him that night. I guess I’m just reminding him I’m his Mother. This is what we do, right? But we don’t just carry them. We are magicians of sorts. We use them, we spin them into questions and dreams, we use them and we build on them. We teach them how to look at them in the morning with fresh eyes: to see them as new fuel for love and strength, and from stuff to lea

Coming Into Focus

My father always told me that to take a really great picture, you’ve got to center it. You’ve got to have a focus. I think about this one and only lesson often. What’s the focus, the purpose of the photo, and are we always clear about what it is when we take it? Because the thing about getting older is that your focus shifts. The things you thought were the big rocks, the ones that really mattered the most, suddenly look like pebbles. It is impossible to prepare for how this center can and will shift with time, and age, and children, and adulting. That what seems like everything now has the potential to fade. Recently, about six years late to the party, I joined Instagram. In one of my first photos, I took a picture of my mostly drunk wine glass using the Gingham filter. As I posted it, I liked that the picture told the story of what might be happening in my life. Maybe I was out with my husband. Maybe it was Mom’s Night Out. The shadowy promise of the filters offered me the opport

4 Years Old

The other day marked four years since I’ve been blogging. Never really sure why it began, I’m struggling to tell you why I’m still here. Four years is an eternity. It is the difference between your early thirties and your late thirties. It is the difference between wondering what it would be like to have a third, and having a third – who is now two years old. It is the difference between wondering am I doing this right, and knowing with confidence that you are not, and that is okay too. In four years, I’ve written roughly 132 original posts and nearly 100,000 times someone visited a free site I made in my pajamas one morning when I was thinking about what I wanted to tell my wonderful friend who had just given birth to her sweet twin babies. Those babies just celebrated their 4 th birthday. And so I guess that means we're celebrating over here too. In four years and in no particular order, this is what I think I’ve learned: The Internet is a both terribly cruel and wo