on mascara and garden flags

hello! how’s it going? sweet, sweet. we’re doing better, thanks. the bean seems to be digesting as normal, and dave & i are back on track. i forget that relationships require effort and routine maintenance, you know? you can’t have a proper marriage on auto-pilot. it’s those seemingly obvious truths that always trip me up.

holy jeebus, vh-1 has been airing a non-stop marathon of “america’s next top model” since, like, january 1. which, of course, i’ve gotten sucked into for several hours here & there. and can i tell you something? tyra banks is pretty hard to stomach. i think she just might be worse than dr. phil when it comes to reaching new levels of self-congratulation. gah. anyway. when you watch several hours of t.v. on one cable network, you tend to see the same handful of commercials over and over. and during this most recent glut of what’s passing for pop culture, i happened upon drew barrymore hawking cover girl lash blast mascara. unfortunately, i’m kind of a sucker, and am therefore probably exactly like all the 14-year-olds targeted by this ad when i say that my thoughts were something along the lines of, “oh, hey, it’s drew barrymore! she’s so cool. we’d totally be friends. hey, i wonder if that mascara is any good. i’ll bet it is, if that’s what drew wears. she’s so awesome. wow, she’s really come a long way since poison ivy. maybe i should get some of that mascara!” yeah, i know. this is what four hours of “antm” does to you, okay? i blame tyra banks. to my credit, i have not bought any lash blast mascara. yet.

few people know about my sad suburban obsession with decorative garden flags. i don’t know how it started, exactly; i just know that i have to have a flag for every season. i mean, i don’t have tons of them, or anything – like i said, one for every season. and a couple of holiday flags. it’s just that i’m pretty sure this is something that middle-aged and senior women are into. and believe me, i hear it from dave. to which i say: whatever; at least i don’t want velcro shoes. anyway, my current obsession is finding a valentine’s day flag. no one seems to sell them, though, and i’m not about to order one online. i mean, that’s just too much.

oh, god, i’ve just realized that i’ve written about my moms’ group, my kid’s digestive issues, and now garden flags. wow, scintillating stuff, i know. at least i don’t scrapbook. yet.

janu-wary

i’m glad the holidays are over, i have to say. not that they were bad or particularly stressful, but it seems that as i get older, i’m more excited about the promise and freshness of the new year than i am about what i’m getting for christmas. this year so far, though, has been total crap. it started with stomach viruses for me & the bean, and, while i was back to normal in a couple of days, the bean has been puking sporadically for over a week now. he’s totally fine otherwise – no fever, no lethargy, no dehydration, no loss of sleep – he just pukes every day or so. we went back to the doctor today, though, and it’s apparently due to lingering irritation in his stomach & intestinal tract. knowing what’s going on really helps me to deal better, which is perhaps an obvious statement. dave was starting to get paranoid that something was Seriously Wrong, and he doesn’t handle that kind of stress very well, and then i get all bitchy because he’s coping irritably, and before you know it, our relationship is out-of-whack. and though i can see this vicious cycle happening, i seem to be powerless to stop it. this is how things have been for a week and a half now, and i hope they’ll start on an upward trajectory soon.

genesis

…so-called because this is, obviously, the beginning of the blog. and it sounds better than “origins,” and i’m too lazy to go thesaurus-ing other synonyms. but i can’t hear “genesis” without also thinking not of the phil collins outfit, but of that cast member from “the real world: boston.” remember her? the lipstick lesbian? that season sucked, if memory serves. wow, remember when they actually used to cast regular people on that show, and not just frat boys & girls gone wild? better still, remember when mtv’s primary programming was still music videos? anyway… i made a pop culture television reference in conversation with a friend last night and he didn’t get it. usually when this sort of thing happens, it’s because i’m talking to one of the other women in my moms’ group, but this was one of my friends. like, from way back. who gets monty python references, and is familiar with the smiths and the pixies and radiohead. whose vocabulary still includes the f-word. i mean, i wouldn’t expect the m-ville moms to be familiar with reality programming on mtv (my analogy had to do with lauren, heidi, & spencer), but i also don’t expect to discuss music, literature (unless it’s the book by supernanny), or politics with them. so two things come to light from this experience: 1) i have two distinct groups of friends, and i don’t know how i feel about that. there are the moms, who get all the kid & family stuff, and whose company i find to be so comfortable and completely essential. i feel renewed every time we hang. there are a couple of women i’m starting to get close to outside of the group, too, and that’s really cool. it’s taken me a long time to find other mothers to spend time with, and i’m so thankful that i finally found my tribe. the thing about the moms’ group is that these women are, for the most part, christians. i found the group on meetup-dot-com, and there’s no religious affiliation listed, but the group’s organizer is a member of a local church, and that church is where we happen to have some of our regular get-togethers. if you look at the church’s website, the mom’s group is listed there as another one of their “life groups,” which i think is just a contemporary version of a prayer group, or a fellowship something-or-other. there’s no prayer at playgroup, or anything, but they definitely assume everyone is of the same religious persuasion. religion is something i’ve struggled with over the past several years, and, while i’m not sure what path i’m on (i fall somewhere between buddhist and unitarian universalist), i do know that, for me, christianity raises far more questions than it answers; it’s impractical; it’s uncomfortable. we are not a good fit, christianity and i. living where i live, i see a lot of hypocrisy, ego, and general negativity coming from the regional christian community. this doesn’t help matters any. obviously, i realize all christians aren’t hell-bent on forcing thier beliefs down the rest of our heathen throats, and these moms’ group ladies seem to be pretty live-and-let-live. the problem is that i feel like a fraud. there’s an episode of “sex & the city,” where charlotte starts hanging out with these “power lesbians” all the time. she loves spending time with them; she feels safe, empowered, and liberated in their company. when charlotte tells carrie, miranda, and samantha about the lesbians, though, the three insist that charlotte has to come clean and tell the lesbians that she’s not one of them. charlotte wonders why striaght women and gay women can’t be friends, and samantha tells her, “you can’t move to wonder woman island and not expect to go native.” in fact, when charlotte is eventually confronted by the head of the lesbian clique, she tries to explain that, though she’s straight, she really really really loves hanging out with all these wonderful, smart women. and, with a smile, the head lesbian says, “sweetheart, that’s all very nice, but if you’re not going to eat pussy, you’re not a dyke.” so this is my moms’ group dilemma: are they my power lesbians? then there are my other friends: the friends i had before i became a mom. these are the friends i talk about everything (except the bulk of the mom stuff) with, the ones i get a drink with, the ones i go out for sushi with. these are the friends who read non-fiction and listen to music outside of christain radio and america’s top 40. the friends who are familiar with “the onion” and npr. the friends i hang out with after dark. the thing is, no matter what you think or feel before you have kids, things change with you and your childless friends once your offspring arrives. you don’t want things to change; in fact, you may tell yourself that this won’t happen to you. i mean, you’re the same person! you’re having a baby, not a lobotomy! listen: it’s just not so. my childless friends are childless by choice. while they may tolerate my son because he’s cute, reasonably well-behaved, and, above all, my son, i still know on some teeny subconscious level that there is tolerance involved. and that’s really where the difference lies. people with kids get it – the interrupted conversations, the abrupt departures, the dried animal cracker gunk on my jeans – they’ve been there, too. what i’m struggling with is feeling like i live in two worlds. is it okay that i have these different groups of people for different aspects of my personality? or is that somehow immature? why am i struggling in the first place? i think it’s because what i really want is a moms’ group made up of women like my childless friends. who knows, though – maybe this, like everything else about parenting so far, will get easier with time. i hope so. 2) clearly, i need less television in my life. there is no good reason for anyone outside of high school to watch “the hills,” much less to spend time googling those fool cast members. i know this, and yet… i would love to cancel our cable, or at least downgrade to basic cable. we’d save, like, $70 a month, and we wouldn’t have the never-ending distraction that comes from having a wonder box with hundreds of viweing possibilities (and that’s where they swindle you – the possibilities) at your fingertips. dave won’t go for it, though. despite the fact that he constantly complains about the dearth of interesting programming, and about never having time to sit down and read. i don’t get it. my husband once subscribed to adbusters; you’d think he’d see the benefits inherent in less tv. must continue to charm my way to victory. in the meantime, i guess i could, uh, just not watch it. smell ya later.