And now, a few words from my womb

This article caught my eye today. At the family reunion on Sunday, there was a lot of talk about balancing family and career. The parents in attendance had very strong opinions on the subject, and the non-parents tended to get judgmental, as if they knew better. Frankly, I think it’s a deeply personal choice, just like whether to have kids in the first place. It’s kind of amusing, however, to watch my mother’s generation freak out when women my age and younger announce that they don’t even want to try and balance the family/career thing:

“For many feminists, it may come as a shock to hear how unbothered many young women at the nation's top schools are by the strictures of traditional roles.”

As the daughter of a career woman who continued to work full time after having me and my brother, I can say that I’ll approach things differently if and when I have a family (yes, I’m 30 but my clock is not ringing off the hook).

“For most of the young women who responded to e-mail questions, a major factor shaping their attitudes seemed to be their experience with their own mothers, about three out of five of whom did not work at all, took several years off or worked only part time….Similarly, students who are committed to full-time careers, without breaks, also cited their mothers as influences.”

It's totally true. Kindercare, you forever scarred me and I will commit hari kari before carting my progeny off to your torture cave. I hated the fact that my mom was never there when I got home from school. She couldn’t chaperone field trips and she didn’t have the energy to help plan costumes, cupcakes, or big projects. Part of it was that we couldn’t afford for her not to work, but she also wanted to stick with her career. Once I was old enough, I appreciated her example, her dedication. I saw the value in her choice. But I’ll still do it differently. I’ve watched my friends slowly go insane staying home with their kids full time, and watched other friends resent their job because it kept them from being present for their child’s formative months. If at all financially possible, I plan on working part time when I’m a mother. I’ll never forget how uncomfortable my mom was on the one field trip she came on (she had to take a vacation day to do it), and what it was like to go home with my friends after school and have their moms there to open the door.

Captain excitement

My weekend:

--cooking a pot of Galician chickpea and sausage soup
--anxiety
--meeting cousins from Arizona who I didn't know existed until this weekend. I wish I'd known about them when I lived on the west coast
--suffering through three hours of bad football playing by the Patriots
--more anxiety
--eating crow
--20 strong sets of stairs
--Family Guy

And the topper: listening to a break on FNX saying, "We play new music so the other guy doesn't have to," and then hearing a Live song that's 7 years old.

Statements of truth

"Santa Monica is the chaturanga capital of the world."

Puella Anxia

There are times when I think that broken hearts are like the ghosts of Christmas past, but without the happy holiday connotations or piles of gifts. Broken hearts scare the shit out of you and teach you life lessons, but they haunt you without any hint of how long their odious presence will stick around. No one ever talks about the ghosts--they just ask if you're in therapy (hell yes). As always, the dirty work must be done alone, with no map of how to get out of the dungeon and back to the great outdoors.

I see myself get bogged down with the emotional detritus of last year and I hate it: the insecurity, the trust issues, the constant fear of being hurt and the anxiety that rears its head at the most inconvenient times.

I hate that when he says, "I need a night to myself," I hear "I'm sick of being with you." I hate that I tense up every time he gets a text message, or stays up IMing with a friend who happens to be female. It's an instinctual fear of being the last to know something that's blatantly obvious to everyone but me. I hate that I notice him noticing other women when we go out to dinner. I hate that it bothers me that he's still friends with most of his exes. I hate that I alternate between being empowered by and terrified of physical expressiveness.

It's oh so irrational and, often, hypocritical.

As always, there are no easy fixes. He can't do anything but be patient--I'm responsible for getting my shit together. Every day is another day in which I balance new happiness with countering the fear of getting hurt again. It's just that there are no guarantees, no absolutes. And just once, it would be nice to know that love is really a sure thing.

Better than Twister

I set a goal for myself of getting in three yoga practices this week and somehow I managed to pull it off. Today my shoulders are incredibly sore but it was so worth it. Last night I went to the primary series class at O2 for the second time. It’s refreshing to have some discipline to the poses, to pay attention to alignment and get some direction. Most of last night’s class was devoted to second series, which was a first for me. A lot of the poses were familiar but I’d never done them in sequence before and it about kicked my ass. In a moment that surprised both me and the instructor, I worked through pincha mayurasana into vrisikasana and then back out again without falling flat on my face or crashing into the wall (or herniating a disc). I’m excited about this class and hopefully I can get myself there once a week at minimum. After being burnt out on yoga for most of the summer, it feels really good to get back into the studio.

Stupidest. Thing. Ever

The perfect addition to your Hummer lifestyle.

A word from the peanut gallery

Scully says hello!

See the Citrus magic and candles on the table? That's my not-so-subtle arsenal.

Another one off the market

Heart in little pieces...

Play that funky music

Boston radio sucks. There’s no two ways around it. We’re a town ruled by Infinity Broadcasting and Clear Channel, and populated by loudmouthed DJs, a few of whom honestly try their best to mix things up a bit but are rarely allowed to get away with it.

After a summer spent channel surfing in the car, one thing has become painfully obvious. No matter what station I try—FNX, BCN, AAF, etc—there’s a pretty short list of artists that are being played and almost none of them are what I’d call cutting edge. It’s gotten to the point where Lunchboy and I have made a game of it. Whenever we turn on the radio or switch channels, we guess which of the following groups will have a song in rotation:

Pearl Jam
Beastie Boys
Stone Temple Pilots
U2
Live

Call the group before turning the dial and get a point every time you’re right. If it’s a song by Velvet Revolver or Temple of the Dog, you get half a point.

Just try it--the points add up fast.

Even good, classic music stops being good when it’s overplayed.

Double take

Headlines I thought we'd never see.

Good enough, smart enough and doggone it...

Are self-help books a crock or can they actually help people improve themselves? Either way, if you thought SciFi conventions were a little weird, it looks like self-help author's conferences are not quite the norm, either.

PF Chang's can bite me

On Friday night, a bunch of us went to see Lewis Black in a comedy show at the Majestic downtown. The show didn’t start until 8:30, so we hit the PF Chang’s in the Theater District for dinner. After a ridiculously long wait, we ordered drinks and a plate of shrimp wontons because I was so hungry that I was incapable of being social. Lunchboy and his friend S eyed me warily when the waitress brought the wontons, afraid that I’d snatch the plate away from her and eat the whole thing before the plate even hit the table.

Mmmm, tasty wontons.

As I bit into the second wonton, however, my teeth hit something that was definitely not wonton material. At first I thought I'd gotten a bit of shell in my mouth or something, because it is not the nature of wontons to contain things that are hard. But after sticking my fingers in my mouth and rooting around in an oh-so-ladylike way, out came a 1.5" piece of metal.

Now, everyone has occasionally gotten a hair in their food. I've seen bugs in food and I saw pictures of that fingertip someone "found" at Wendy's. But never metal.

We were all pretty shocked. I mean, food-related dinner dramatics weren't exactly on the menu. I sat there sort of stunned. Luckily, Lunchboy and his best friend were there and they managed to keep their brains in their heads long enough to point out that it was a good thing the piece of metal didn't puncture the top of my mouth. All I could think about was if I'd swallowed more of the metal and whether vomiting was considered an acceptable happy hour activity in the Theater District.

We called the manager over and he shared in our shock--it took about .5 seconds before his eyes started getting that panicked "Holy shit, we might get sued" look. He took the piece of metal (we were all too surprised to think of taking a camera phone picture of the thing before he whisked it away) and went to talk to the cook, assuring us as he went that he was "very sorry" and that he'd look at our check before we paid. He gave me his business card. No one, including the chef, could figure out what the piece of metal was.

So I was taken aback when our waitress appeared with the bill and announced, “The manager comped your drinks and the appetizer. Have a good night!” I honestly thought the restaurant would want to do the right thing. After I found the piece of metal I didn’t even want to eat dinner there anymore, but we’d already placed our orders and I’m not one of those people who tends toward restaurant histrionics. I certainly wasn’t expecting PF Chang’s to comp the entire meal, but covering my entrée would have been a classy gesture.

Getting in touch with my inner Eva

Magpie, queen of all quizzes, sent me the Desperate Housewives personality quiz. I don't even watch the show but I couldn't resist. And apparently I'm a Gabrielle:

"You could say that life's just about pretty dresses and expensive gifts for you, but you're looking for something more. You'll find it someday, as long as you can stay away from hot young gardeners."

No, really--this has to be the last of it

Yesterday, after a crappy day at work, I came home and almost tripped over a fat package sitting in the entryway of my building. It’s always fun to check and see if a brown box has my name on it, though that’s pretty rare. The first thing that jumped out at me, though, was the name on the return address label. The box was from Glenn’s parents. In my post-work burnt-out haze, I stood there wondering why they would send a package to someone in my building. Then, of course, I looked to see who it was addressed to—duh.

The box was big and heavy, and I knew immediately what it contained. Before Glenn and I moved to LA, we stored our winter jackets and other stuff like scarves, gloves and long underwear at his parent’s vacation house in Vermont. At the time, the decision seemed logical because we figured that his parents could bring it down with them when we came out for holiday visits. Cut to last fall, when I sent a few polite emails to Glenn’s mother, asking her if she could ship me my winter things so that I wouldn’t freeze my ass off when the seriously cold weather arrived. She hemmed and hawed in what I now recognize as the classic XXXXXX way—Glenn was a champion procrastinator, too—and then she stopped responding to my emails. Until the box arrived yesterday, I hadn’t heard from them in almost a year.

I lugged the thing up to my apartment, dumped it on my kitchen table and then sat down on the couch, unsure of what to do next. Should I open it? I didn’t even really want to touch it. But that was silly. It was just a box, even though it felt more like a big, brown emotional bomb. I busted out a kitchen knife and opened the thing up. Out fell a small, white envelope. Mary Jane had sent a note.

I called my mother.

“She sent my winter things, but there’s a note and I don’t want to open it.”

“So don’t open it. Stick it in a corner and ignore it until you feel ready to open it.”

“Am I 12? Why does this bother me so much?”

“Because she was terrible to you, and you had no closure on your relationship with her.”

I could hear my mother seething quietly on the other end of the phone. Her protective mother bear instincts were coming to the fore. She hated that Mary Jane could still make me feel badly.

In the end, I sacked up and opened the note. How one little white envelope can feel more dangerous than a loaded trap is beyond me, but that’s how it felt. On a simple Cape Cod notecard embossed with a blue scallop shell, she wrote:

Dear Moxie,

I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to send you your winter things. As always, I find that my job interferes with every aspect of my personal life. I hope this finds you well. Glenn tells us that you might move to San Francisco. It’s a wonderful city and if you get out there, I wish you all the best. We see a lot of baby granddaughter B and I think of you every time we see her because she will only sleep with the quilt you made for her.

Warm, best regard to you and your family.

Mary Jane


I cried then, curled up on the couch with the note in my hands. For some reason the image of baby B sleeping with the quilt that I stitched by hand just killed me. Apparently B was the only member of the XXXXXX family that still held on to anything connected to my presence in their lives.

As I tried to explain to Lunchboy over IM last night, the sadness had almost nothing to do with Glenn. I think I let go of him a while ago, but losing my relationship with his mother was a cut that hadn’t healed yet, and getting the package and her note caught me off guard. I’d thought that the soft place inside of me that used to be raw was impervious to further interaction with that family, but I suppose it’s good that I’m not made of stone.

Flat-out acceptance

When you're used to being in crisis, or even in constant transition, stability is sort of jarring. Suddenly, the horizon is clear of major goings-on: No moves, no job changes, no complete re-evaluations of life in general. And for some weird, screwed up reason, it can feel kind of boring. Then again, it's autumn and, like everyone else, I have that ingrained "it's time to go to school" instinct that falls flat when there's no more school to attend. Autumn always feels like a time of change and I keep having to remind myself that no change is a positive thing right now.

Last night I had coffee with an old college friend who I bumped into on Mass Ave randomly a few weeks ago. He was my cotillion date back in the day, someone I smooched briefly while on a "break" from my college boyfriend. Nice guy. We sat at one of Au Bon Pain's sidewalk tables and dished about everything that'd happened since we graduated and hit 30.

"I'm constantly daydreaming about places I want to go, or cities I'd like to live in," he said. "But then I realize that it's kind of nice to have money in the bank."

"Yeah," I replied. "I love the thrill of moving but the truth is that I don't have it in me anymore, or at least right now. The idea of having to make a new life AGAIN, or search for ANOTHER job--it just exhausts me."

"We're getting old."

"Maybe, but is it a bad thing? Aren't we supposed to nest now and then have another go at the wanderlust thing after retirement?"

"I think I'll feel better about that prospect after I have the whole 20s gotta-try-it all thing out of my blood," he told me. "I guess it's a stage of life."

He's right--it is. There are days when I fight it and days when I remind myself to relax and accept it, everything we learn in yoga. Maybe that's the change. And there's more of the same down the road.

A big IF

If you can foster an animal that was orphaned or abandoned during Katrina, here’s how. These furry friends need help, too!

My uncle and aunt, who live near Slidell, LA, managed to get back to their house, though it took them 3 hours to cut their way onto the property because their farm is surrounded by downed trees. Their house and barn sustained minimal damage, though. They're lucky.

Donating money is great but quiet stories like this make me all warm and fuzzy.

Without words

I just don't even know how to address Katrina and her aftermath. Adjectives seem pointless, and many, many other writers have described the situation better than I ever could. Giving money and donating supplies is good but they feel ineffectual in relation to the desperate need for help that exists in New Orleans right now. Blah blah blah. I don't want to be writing about this--I want to be down there helping out.

My uncle and aunt live on the other side of Lake Pontchartrain and they fled to Memphis before the storm, so I know they're okay. But who knows whether they'll have anything to go back to?

Sherlock I'm not

After a short, relatively peaceful interlude, the roommate saga continues. She went away for a week (woooo!) but left a sinkful of dirty dishes behind (booo). She's been back now for 3 days and the dirty dishes are *still there*. In case anyone wonders why I don't do much cooking at my house anymore, they need only look as far as the sink. Or the counters, which she didn't clean after our landlords did a mandatory building-wide round of rodent prevention, a process that involved them putting something toxic in the vicinity of our cooking surfaces. Will I clean it? Yes, only because I don't fancy the idea of dying an early death due to intractable stubborness.

Tonight I came home after having dinner with my best friend and found a path of kitty paw prints leading from my room into my roommate's room. Sure enough, stinky bully Clyde had been in Scully's box once again. Never the cleanest of cats, Clyde didn't manage to keep his rear feet out of the way when he took a whiz, resulting in a trail of nasty litter and incriminating paw prints all over my room and the hallway. I love the felines in general but this cat is just foul.

I cleaned up the kitty mess but I didn't touch the paw prints in my roommate's room. Maybe if she cleaned out his box once in a while, her room wouldn't reek and her fat, slovenly cat wouldn't have an excuse to avail himself of Scully's facilities.

Grrrrrrrr.

It's a walk-off

Watching Zoolander is an extremely dangerous activity, not just because of all the poor brain cells that commit suicide after being exposed to the depths of Derek Zoolander’s mental ineptitude, but because the movie coaxes forth certain aspects of my personality that I prefer to keep hidden. I’ve confronted my inner child but not my inner Wham! fan. There's no point to fighting the inner Wham! fan. Turn on “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go” and suddenly I'm dancing on the couch and calling up the lyrics from whatever deep, dark part of my brain they were hiding in (along with everything I learned in high school algebra).

Blue steel, George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley. Add some jelly beans or vanilla ice cream with caramel and you’d have the deadliest combination known to man.

In case you always wanted John Irving to be your tight end

007's take on Fantasy Publishing versus Fantasy Football:

"Pick your list of books for the upcoming season and score points based on how many weeks they spend on various regional and national bestseller lists.

I can hear you now…

But everyone would pick Bill Maher’s NEW RULES and John Irving’s UNTIL I FIND YOU. Where’s the challenge?

Ah, but anyone who had ever been on the New York Times List—the actual list, not the extended—would be ineligible. And there would be extra points for first-time authors."