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Showing posts from 2017

#2018

This has been the year of Hamilton for my family. Phil and I went to see it in the Fall and came home playing the music from the show. Our kids have been downright obsessed ever since. They always go in phases with this stuff but the Hamilton phase has stuck around for longer than I might have expected for a couple of little kids who haven't seen the show. Every meal, every trip to every store, every moment of everywhere somehow involves them singing and rapping. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised really. The show is positively extraordinary and both Phil and I agreed that it had been years since we had been so humbled by anything. I read a blog post the other day by Mike Schur who was going on, as most of us Hamilton obsessed fans do, about the genius of the whole thing. In the post, Mike talks about how there are these different moments in the show that just sneak up on you. Where the sheer genius of the whole thing and how you've probably never experienced anything

Neverthless, I Resist.

On the day I went to vote in the 2016 election, I had Rachel Platten’s Fight Song on repeat. I played it so many times just before breakfast that Ruby nearly begged me in tears to at least mute it while she ate her cereal. But I couldn’t help it. I was amped. I was energetic. I was emotional. I had adrenaline pulsing through me. This time, after all of the lies and the insults and the petty shots that women had to take again and again, the physical intimidation – just all of it. This time, this time we were going to go to the polls. And we were going to fight. Of course, it didn’t happen like that. Who knows why really. Jill Stein, Russian bots, Wisconsin, Bill Clinton. Who knows why it wasn’t our time. It just wasn’t. I lay awake that whole night wracked with sickness. I could handle the results of the election I suppose. But what I just didn’t know was how to explain what the moral of all of this was to my kids. As parents, I think we do that a lot. We go through good times a

Becoming 40

On my last day of my thirties I did not wax overly sentimental. We were ready to part ways. It was time for new, and next. My thirties were a beautiful, hard gift. I got some version of everything I always thought I wanted. Sometimes it was more than I could have ever hoped for. Sometimes I felt lost. And I felt lost that it or I might not be enough. If you got everything you thought you wanted and still wanted more, then the problem, of course, must lie with you. I wonder, do other women walk around with this hole inside them or just me? This hole inside them where there is a deep unending well of love for their family, and this cavernous space where they used to nurture their own desires. That small but incredibly important space where you allowed yourself to dream, and where life seemed open to possibility. Strangely, to say goodbye to my thirties, I went to New York City with my husband which will forever be a nostalgic hat tip to my twenties. The very best part about New

Summer Vacation

As it always seems, winter drags its feet and leaves kicking and screaming while summer seems to just fly by. Literally, I can’t seem to catch it. It’s a firefly I’m trying to catch in a jar, a sunset I’m trying to snap before it disappears. It’s a wave, a breeze. Before I’m ready to really settle into summer, it seems like it’s already beginning to bid us farewell. Our summer swan song is always the same, a trip out to the west coast to visit my sister. I’m sure each of you have a place like California, one that you return to each year. We wait for California, we count down the days. It is our favorite thing. And it also means summer is almost over. California is as much a state of mind as physical destination. To be in California means you let go of the daily logistics and schedules that consume most of our daily existence. There is still laundry and dishes. But there are long, late mornings spent on deep couches with the people we love most in the world. There is lots of ic

Duty to Country

There is an old quote by Abraham Lincoln that goes something like this: “Knavery and flattery are blood relations.”  Indeed history has borne him out. Praise and mischief often go hand in hand. I’ve been turning this line over in my head as I read over the statement from the Boy Scouts of America after President Trump’s highly partisan speech the other night at their annual Jamboree. In it, the scouting organization reiterates its wholly non-partisan stance, and explains that the invitation to President Trump was extended, as it is to all Presidents, as part of the Boy Scout’s commitment to “duty to country” and “respect for the office of the President.” The scouting oath on “duty to country” hinges explicitly on two fundamental ideals: that scouts must obey the laws, and be good citizens. The speech was, in its most charitable description, strange, disjointed, highly political, and often personal and with very few nuggets of scouting wisdom. He was there because of the Boy Scout’

Psalm for the Mundane

The very first thing I do when I open my eyes is squint to see the clock. It is 6:38AM. I have enough time to shower and still get everyone out the door by 8AM which sounds pathetically indulgent. I take care to do an above average washing job – probably a B+, but don’t have enough pride, energy, or desire to even consider shaving my legs. When I am finished and standing in front of the mirror, I decide my left armpit still smells. I can’t decide if this is because the new natural deodorant doesn’t work or if there is something sinister happening on the left side of my body. I decide to rewash and google “smelly left armpit” for later. At breakfast we are low on food which is an important item that is necessary for this time of day to actually count as breakfast. I find enough expired egg whites, 3 slices of cheese and last week’s bread and cobble together some egg white omelets and toast for the kids. The coffee maker is hissing at me in a way that seems urgent and sinister but I

Someday I May Miss the Adventure of Going Out To Eat With Little Kids, But Today Is Not That Day

Sometimes my husband will ask me if I want to eat out or if we should just order in. In my head, I picture our adorable family carefully passing the basket of bread. It is an alternate reality where everyone shares and no one spills and not even once am I or them under the table for any number of reasons and no one cries and we order dessert and it’s no big deal and we casually share it. And then the version of what will actually happen pops into my head – that of children crawling and crying and spilling. And it is in that moment that I look at my adorable little rugrats and say something to the effect of, “No fucking way. Not this time.” We’re up on Scary Mommy tonight, sharing some thoughts on what we’ll miss about going to restaurants with little ones J