A Calm, Safe Room

I've never been so nervous while sitting on such a comfortable couch.

The whole room is designed to make you comfortable. The soft, beige couch, the light nut brown of the coffee table with a box of kleenex on it, dim lamp lighting, and paintings of desert mountains and cranes dipping their beaks into the marsh. If you just focus on those things you can forget where you are. But when you see the framed degrees on the wall, you know you're not just visiting. Someone has gone to school for a long time to learn how to call you out on your shit. 

If I took those frames off the wall, I thought, and stacked them like plates, I'd have a monolith of the years of training that has brought the well-dressed woman sitting across from me into this room. And if I took the years of my life, the ones that have also brought me into this room, and stacked them next to all of that training, would they be the same height? Would they be two plateaus, like the ones in the desert painting, and if I ran across the surface of one could I easily jump to the other? Or would one tower over the other? 

I felt like I was sitting in the shadow of something while I was perched on the edge of the couch the other night. It's not that I've never been to a therapist before, but I've never been to one to talk about the old, buried stuff and how it's affecting my life now. I didn't want a woman therapist at first. I thought it might be too much, that all of those memories of women would rise up in me and I'd shut down. Or worse - snap and go crazy and never come back. But her voice was soft, and she assured me that her job was to make me feel safe, and she wouldn't push me to talk about anything that might break me.

"I can't have a breakdown," I said. "I can't afford to."

I explained about having to go to work every day and the kids, how they needed me not to breakdown, and I thought about how funny it was that I'd worded it the way I had. I couldn't "afford" to have a breakdown, like it's a ski trip. A vacation where someone else could take care of me while I spent the day dealing with memories and feelings. But I've known enough people who've had breakdowns and gone into mental institutions to know that it's not a vacation, and no one enjoys it. So I'm just going to have to remember and feel things while my life goes on.

Unless, of course, I'm already crazy.

"I don't think you're crazy," the counselor told me. It was the end of our first hour and I wondered if she was just trying to get me out the door. But she was being so nice about it.

"Do you think you'd be able to tell that in just one hour of talking to me?" I asked.

"Oh yeah," she said. "I know crazy when it's sitting across from me. I don't think you're crazy."

If I didn't look crazy, I'm not sure what crazy looked like to her. I kept looking around the room, not returning her gaze, scratching my arms because the soft light and the cleanliness of everything made me itchy. I'm too old, I thought, to feel like a dirty child, but that's how I felt in that room. A dirty child that will never be clean, never be ok.

"What if I'm never ok?" I asked her.

I don't remember her answer. I don't think I was looking for one. I think I needed to scratch and twitch and go a little crazy in a calm, safe room. 

How Chuck Palahniuk Made Me a Vegetarian

Someone passed out. Swear to God. Chuck Palahniuk was reading "Guts" onstage in his pajamas, and it was around the scene where the 13 year old realizes that the pool drain has sucked his intestines out of his anus that a chick in the balcony dropped like a rock. It could have been that Tipitina's was hot last night, summer not having left New Orleans yet, or maybe she was wearing overly warm pajamas, but Chuck told us that it happens sometimes when he reads that story.

Last night I went to a reading of his called "Adult Bedtime Stories" and the invitation had said to wear pajamas. Getting dressed for this thing was different from any other event I'd gone to. Because really, what did I want to show the world that I wore to bed? I've been falling asleep in shorts and a tank top. Not bad, but did I really want people to see that much of my legs? Nnnnnno. Not even writers that I was star-struck by. So I threw on some fuzzy pajama pants, slippers, and a black t-shirt.

For those of you who don't know, Tipitina's is music venue first and then a bar. The floor is standing room only, with a balcony on the second floor. The ticket got me a signed copy of Doom, his latest book, a white inflatable ball, and two glow sticks. There were instructions on the wall to write a number, an adjective, and a place, and a noun on the ball, and there was also a pocket inside to shove a glow stick into.

There's a certain mood that's created in a dark room full of grown ups who are all wearing pajamas and writing words on inflatable balls that are glowing like Chinese lanterns. It was quite different from the feeling I had at Claire Keegan's reading at Loyola last fall, where we all sat quietly in chairs as she read, though Chuck swore that Virgina Woolf had done readings just like this.

He sat on a stool at the podium and read "Guts." "Guts" is....it's um....I will never eat chunks of meat, carrots, peas, or orange vitamins again. It's just something that you're going to have to read, though you run the risk of cutting meat, carrots, peas, and orange vitamins from your diet, and also masturbation might become a thing of the past. Unless the thought of shoving candle wax up your urethra does something for you. Just know that after reading it, any idea that you have of feeling pleasure will most likely result in a prolapsed rectum.

Then we played some games. We had to throw all of the balls into the center of the crowd. It was like watching balls tumble around in a bingo cage, only they glowed red, green, orange and yellow, and they had words like "uvula" on them. Then another writer, Monica Drake, took the podium and read a short story of hers.

They took turns like that - Monica, Chuck and another writer called Chelsea Cain - reading their work and throwing things into the crowd. They threw us sparkly retainers that lit up your upper jaw when you stuck them in your mouth, and toy spiders, and kittens. Not real kittens because Chuck said that the only kind of grotesque writing he can't take is senseless violence to animals.

He didn't mind senseless violence towards him and the others onstage when he told us to throw all of the balls at him.We pelted those guys, and they played Mad Libs with the words on the balls.

So really, it was like a big slumber party with games, drunk people, stuffed kittens, and pajamas. And also a complete loss of appetite after he read "Cannibal."

Cannibal. How do I describe it? I learned the terms "blue waffle" and "ham wallet" now I wish I could unlearn them. It was about a boy who unknowingly aborts girls' fetuses through oral sex. But it's worse than that. Not worse in a way that the writing's bad - the writing is good. But...still. Meat's off the menu for a while, as is physical contact with any other human beings.

But even with all of my new-found aversions, I had a great time. And! And! If I ever become famous and do a book tour it will only be in my pajamas, just like Chuck Palahniuk and Virginia Woolf.

Femme Failure

Last night I dreamt that someone asked me my opinion on how a pair of earrings went with her outfit and my reply was, "Do I look qualified to answer that question? I'm wearing a skirt made out of sweatpants."

I don't really own a skirt made out of sweatpants, but the essence of that scenario is true. I just wasn't born with the super power that most women seem to have where they can coordinate clothes to match each other and the tone of their skin, hair and eyes. This has always fascinated me about other women, and occasionally some men. They will spot someone wearing a green shirt and say, "That's a great color on you." Is it? How can they tell? Green's a great color in general, but how is it a great color on that person in particular? Is it because green is the color of frogs and this person resembles a frog? And both the complimentor and the person in the shirt think that frogs are awesome and that's why they're both so excited about it?

I don't know these things, so I dress myself in simple colors so that there's no confusion about whether or not they go together. Like black and black. Or blue and bluer. That's for work, that is. When I'm home, it's blue jeans and a T-shirt that I've owned for ten years.

And as I stand there in my ripped Warren Zevon T-shirt and listen to one woman say to another, "I love that top!" I look at the woman who's been flattered and I think, "Really? What makes it lovable? It doesn't even have a band on it, or say anything funny. It's gray and it's got some weird shiny things going on with it, but that just makes it look like one of those iridescent fish. And what makes it a 'top' instead of a 'shirt?'"

I don't ask these things out loud. I'm pretty sure that asking these questions will automatically disqualify me from being female, and though I don't dress the part, I like being a woman.

Those of you who've seen me are probably thinking, "But I've seen you dress up nice." Yeah. About that. Do you know how I determine if something looks nice? I determine how boring I think it is, and if an outfit really bores me I assume it looks good to everyone else. So when a woman asks me, "Does this look good?" my brain switches on a boring calculator and if what she's  wearing seems really dull I say, "Yeah, you look great."

Tonight I saw a woman wearing black jeans, bright blue and green jogging shoes, a pink fuzzy shirt and a brown Fedora. I found the combination so entertaining that I decided she must not match.

This problem stretches beyond clothes. A couple of months ago one of my guy friends called me up and asked me my opinion on couch pillow color coordination and I was absolutely no help. I tried to save him some time in the very beginning when he started the conversation by saying, "So I need your woman's opinion on something."

"Hmm," I said. "You're probably going to be disappointed."

"Do you remember the color of my couch? Do you think an orange pillow would go well with it?"

He reminded me of the red of his couch and then he described the orange of the pillows he was looking at. I thought about how  boring those two colors would look together.

"Um...sure," I said.

"You sound uncertain."

"Of course I'm uncertain. I told you I'm no good at this stuff. I don't know if orange and red go together, but when I picture it I guess it doesn't look horrible."

"Ok. Do you think I should get more than two? Like maybe a lot of pillows?"

"I don't know, man. Do you want to sit on this couch?"

"Well, yeah."

"How are you going to sit on the couch with all of those pillows on it? Pillows are for sleeping."

"They're also for decoration."

"Ok then yeah, get a shitload of pillows."

I was now just saying anything I could to get off of the subject of pillows. It was one thing to stretch my imagination about whether red went with orange but now we were talking about the subject of pillows as decoration and I thought I might die. Because I really don't care about decorative pillows. Pillows are supposed to be fluffy and inviting and they're supposed to support my head and neck while I sleep, they're not supposed to lie around like glossy whores trying to make a couch look good. And then you don't sit on the couch because you might mess it up. So then you've got a couch you can't sit on pillows you can't sleep on and you stand there in your mismatched clothes next to furniture that thinks it's better than you.

I don't understand spending money for decorative pillows anymore than I understand spending a lot of money on a purse....and this is really where I risk having my female membership revoked. But it's worth it, because really, honestly, spending anything more than $20 for a purse makes no sense to me. Because it's a fucking purse.

"But it's a name brand bag," you're thinking.

No. No, it's a fucking purse. Why would anyone spend hundreds of dollars on a purse no matter whose name's on it? Is YOUR name on it? No? Does it have wifi? Can you play games on it? Does it fix you breakfast? No? Really? It's just a fucking purse? Oh ok. You probably have pillows that I can't sit on.

I know I must sound bitter about this, and it's because I kind of am. Because other women seem to have this insight that I don't have about what beauty is and what material things are worth. I really wanted to be able to answer my friend's question about the pillows. I really wanted to care because it seemed important to him and because I felt that my femininity was challenged.

I'm not completely ungirly. I would have been totally stoked about the pillows if they had been in the shape of little penguins. THAT would have been adorable. Then my answer would have been, "You found tiny penguin pillows? Buy twenty! And when I get off of work I'll come over and dive into a mountain of penguin pillows! This is the best shopping trip ever! Stay right there, I'm coming to the store!"

Oh yeah. I should mention something else. I hate shopping. Hate. Despise. Loathe. I remember going to the department store with my mother and her sisters, and they would stop at a clothes rack and sift through tops or whatever the hell else was on sale, and I would stand there and moan.

"Mooooooooom....when are you going to be done?"

"When I'm done," she'd say, which is bullshit because all she did was answer my question with part of my question. "Why don't you look around and see if there's anything you like?"

I looked around and saw no books for sale or small animals. "There's nothing here I like! I'm going to DIE!"

Then one of my aunts would find something and ask the others if they thought it looked good and they'd all say things like, "That's such a good color on you!" or "You look so thin!" And I'd think, "I am dying and they're flipping out over a white shirt."

That was just last week.

Now I've done it. Shop-hating was the last straw and now the Femme Police are coming to revoke my female privileges. After I hand over my maternal instinct and my uterus I'll sit on my pillowless couch in my sweatpants skirt and burn a pile of purses.

Sigur Ros Live With Your Eyes Closed

Last night I heard a band that I didn't understand. This wasn't a disappointment because I'd been told going into it that I wouldn't know what they were saying until I brushed up on my Icelandic.

"Do you know Sigur Ros?" my friend Vicky had asked me last week, correcting herself a couple of times on the pronunciation. "They're from Iceland. They're a post-rock type band."

"Can you spell that?" I asked.

"S-i-g-u-r R-o-s."

"No, I mean 'post-rock.' What the hell is that?"

She explained what post-rock was, and then explained where Iceland was. And then I remembered Iceland as a place where they put the letter "j" in strange places, which is why I couldn't correctly pronounce "Bjork" until 1996.

"I got two tickets to their show. You wanna come with me?"

"Yes."

Vicky knew to ask me even though I didn't know the band because she knows that I like hearing new music and she knows that I need to get out of the house.

So I got out of the house and went with her to Champion Square, which is like a large courtyard with nowhere to sit. We stood outside with the sun going down, and patchy, fast-moving rain clouds above us that sprinkled from time to time but not enough to drive us away. The crowd varied in age, and I was guessing from their blanks stares, and also from the description I'd read of the band as "ethereal" and  "ambient" that no one was going to get rowdy and throw their underwear onstage, though some of them had probably forgotten to put their underwear on that day. I'm pretty sure I got a secondhand high from the guy standing next to me who was smoking a joint like a cigarette. I'd never seen someone smoke a joint by themselves before, only in groups where it's a social thing and everyone gets a hit. So though I don't smoke it anymore, I felt I had to get high on principle. Because he was being a greedy bastard.

The opening band threw me off. I don't know their name, but they were comprised of an angelic female singer and a guy on guitar who played lovely music that you would get a massage to while film footage of a floating dead bride played on the screen above them. I think it was supposed to get me to think about the beauty of death, or the death of a bride in marriage, or that wedding veils should not be used as a flotation device, or that drowning to massage music is the way to go, or something. But whatever the message was supposed to be, all it left me thinking after a while was, "I've been watching a dead body float for a half an hour and I want a therapist." Don't get me wrong, they were good, but now I'm afraid of water. And commitment.

After they finished there was a 45 minute break where more people came, and the lone smoker's friends showed up so he was forced to share his next joint, and I thought better of him. It worries me a little about myself that I was so bothered, not that the person next to me was doing something illegal, but that he wasn't sharing.

Then Sigur Ros came on. I'll try to tell you this band, but I'm not sure if I can describe the sound without you hearing it. You might already know them and don't need me to tell you about them. But if you don't, then I want to get this right because that's the point of this post - not to tell you about my night out, but to tell you about this music.

So I'll stop trying to write something that will make me sound like a reviewer and just tell you this: I liked them a lot. I liked them infinitely better than I liked watching a dead bride float in water. They play a lot of instruments and they play them well. There was a French horn up there, and a guitar that the lead singer played with a bow, and drums, and an accordion, and chimey things, and a trombone, and a bass, and tamboriney things, and many other instruments I'm sure that I just couldn't see in the dark and the smoke coming from the stage. And the music was indeed ambient and ethereal at times but it didn't stay that way. It drifted from dreamy and soft to a driving, groaning sound, and then back again like someone singing softly while they hold you tight and just when it starts to hurt they loosen their grip. The singer's voice wasn't male or female, it was high without being feminine or a child's, and it was gentle without being innocent. It had pain and hope in it. The contrast of that voice with the driving drums lifted me up by the gut.

Vicky tugged on my sleeve in the middle of a song that I can't name because I don't know what they were saying. It was so loud that I couldn't understand what she was saying either, so I bent down so that she could say into my ear, "You should close your eyes."

So I did. And maybe it was my second hand high, but blocking out the audience and the lights from the stage really did make me feel the music more powerfully.

I've been playing them today on Youtube, not knowing what songs to look up so I've just been clicking on all of them. I'm pretty sure it was "Hoppipolla" that was playing when Vicky told me to close my eyes. And though it's good, it's nothing like it was live where I could feel the music in my chest. So you should see them live if you can, and if you can't look up "Hoppipolla" and close your eyes.

And if you haven't heard a bow guitar, play "Brennisteinn." A bow guitar to me sounds like thunder gnashing its teeth. The video will trip you out and make you afraid of video tape and the color yellow.

The one link I'll share with you is "Glosoli" because I know they played this, and I don't think I opened my eyes at all during it. This is, again, a weird video but it's got a drummer boy and post-apocalyptic Icelandic children. At exactly 3 minutes and 50 seconds I can close my eyes and feel ache of that drum in my chest.

Bring on the Purple Car

I aged recently. I know that I'm doing that all the time, but the other day the universe bumped me up from 37 to 38 (I thought it would make it more glamorous if I phrased it like I was being moved up a class on a plane. It didn't work).

This is fine, I mean, I'm older, but my birthday is also the day that I get more attention on Facebook than ANY OTHER DAY OF THE YEAR. Seriously, people who I forgot I was friends with on Facebook tell me happy birthday, and I know it's silly, but it really does make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside and that's good for people my age. Like the benefits of giving a senior citizen a dog. Lots of Facebook attention lengthens a life span, I'm sure of it.

I don't feel old, but it occurred to me that I might not be young either given the tone of the birthday cards I've gotten over the last few years. Or really, since I turned 21. Birthday cards up until 21 all basically said "WOOHOO!! You're older!" in the same way that they would scream, "WOOHOO!!! Spring Break!" Cards since then have just pointed at me and laughed. They say, "Look at you! You are sooo old! And you're reading this card! Do you need glasses for this card, old person, because you are so old?" So I don't feel old, but the birthday cards have been telling me that I am since I was 22, which leads me to believe that all greeting cards are written by 21 year old men on Spring Break.

But what are your opinions on all of this? After all, you're aging too, even if it's not your birthday, you are aging RIGHT NOW! How do you feel about it and what do you want out of this next year of your life?

You can't answer me directly, so I decided to ask people on the street. And by "on the street" I mean, "people who were in my kitchen."

I asked Emma how she felt about being twelve. She was surprisingly unenthusiastic. She stuck her tongue out of the side of her mouth and said, "Ugh."

"Can you expand on that?" I asked.

She sneered. "Yaaay sometimes?" she said, meekly. "It's right before I become a teenager. That's an uck... Actually, no, that's a good thing, erase that."

Her moods on this issue are all over the place. Definitely twelve. I asked her what she wanted to do before she became a teenager. She had a list, which I will call "Emma's Super List of Self-Improvement." And it's this, "Eat less pizza."

"That's your list?" I said.

"Yeah. And keep the house clean, and shower every day, and eat pineapples, apples, and plums. And get over my fear of the dark, and my fear of cats in the dark, and my fear of dropping a cup on my toe."

See, you never really know about a person unless you ask them because I had no idea that my daughter suffered from the fear cats in the dark or of cups on the toe. And really, I'm not sure where to go with this information. It's not something with a clear solution like other childhood fears. Fear of the dark - get a nightlight. Fear of cats in the dark - get a cat with reflectors. Fear of cups falling on toes...drink with combat boots? I'll have to read a parenting blog.

Christopher was much easier, he feels "ok" about being 10 years old. Really, I thought he'd have more to say about this. Ten years old to a boy is running, climbing trees, peeing outdoors, playing with pocket knives, ignoring girls, and skateboard stunts, right? No. Apparently, it's just "ok." I don't know, I think I just have certain ideas about how he must feel based on my own experience of being ten when I lived to run, climb trees, and pee outside. But to each their own.

Claire's goal for 14 is to smooth out the wavy part of her hair and to survive 9th grade. This isn't a social-based fear, but grade-wise one which I think is funny because Claire makes better grades than most people I know. So I'm confident she'll be ok, and hopefully she'll feel the same way soon.

Though I don't remember worrying about my hair or my grades, I remember feeling a whole lot of anxiety.

"How's it feel to be 14?" my dad would ask the morning of my birthday.

"I hope I make it to 15," I'd say with a blank stare, thinking of the school day ahead and all of the people who weren't going to talk to me because I was too weird, and frankly, too tall to talk to.

Which is why I'm always mildly surprised when I age another year. "Hey," I think. "I lived through school," even though it's been twenty years since school ended and not only did my worst fears not come true (that I would drop dead from being disliked) NONE of the people who used to make fun of me have friended me on Facebook so I really can start pretending that they never existed in the first place. This is one of the gifts of age that they never tell you about.

I wondered what else I would learn with age. So I asked my friend Christy, who was not in my kitchen but has been 38 for a couple of months now, what it's like and what I can expect.

"People will treat you like you are wise and all-knowing but inside you are still a shaky 18 year-old. Also at 38 you will start to wonder if you can get away with putting the purple streaks in your hair that you were too 'mature' and 'serious' to do in college. Then you will think about the time and expense involved and wonder if it might be easier to buy a tiny purple sports car."

Noted, Christy - LET THE MID-LIFE CRISIS BEGIN! Dye my hair! Drive purple cars! Sex with everyone! Eat the high sodium bacon! Drop all of the cups on all of the toes!!!!

My goal for this year is to become a full-time writer. But you know, even if I'm not by this time next year, I'll be a whole hell of a lot closer. And even if I just spend another year being relieved that I'm not 14 anymore, it'll be time worth spent.

The Single Parent's Guide To Not Driving Off a Cliff

I think I'll start this post by defining my intended audience for "single parent" because I'm aware that there are several different kinds. I originally called this "Single Mom's Guide" but then I thought of all of the single fathers out there who might be in the same circumstances. I don't know any personally, but I've heard that they exist. I'm just going to write it like I'm talking to women, but, gentlemen, feel free to switch pronouns and names of genitalia around as they apply to you. Also you could be a gay, lesbian, bisexual,or transgender single parent. Just take all of the pronouns and names of genitalia and...sprinkle them everywhere and anywhere. All the same emotional stuff applies.

Rule One

Don't become a stripper. I know you've thought about it. The pay is awesome and the work hours fit in really well with your kids' schedules, but your bits will become diseased and fall off and though your kids would love for you to be more available, they want you to keep your vagina. Oh, they might not say it out loud but I bet if you asked them they would say so without hesitation. And the reason they won't hesitate to answer that question is because their mom has just said the word "vagina" in relation to herself and they want the conversation to end as quickly as possible.

The same advice goes for becoming a prostitute, shot girl, porn model, or a phone sex chick. I'm all about owning your sexuality but if someone is buying it from you then technically you don't own it. It is no longer yours, it's theirs, and that's why they're getting off on it. Oh I guess really you're renting it out, so you've got me on a technicality. But we're not going to get into an argument about this, young lady, because no matter how your frame it YOUR VAGINA WILL BECOME ILL AND FALL OFF.

*Note: What I'm really doing here is practicing an argument that I hope I never have to have with my daughters. I appreciate your participation in this endeavor.

Dealing with Feelings of Jealousy or Bitterness Over Others' Happiness

You're having lunch with a friend and she is glowing from a wonderful night with her husband. You are not at a restaurant. You have invited her to your house because you can't afford to go out to eat and it's a Saturday so you cleverly suggest that she bring her kids so that all of your kids can play together and you don't have to go anywhere or spend money. You were feeling pretty clever and good about yourself  until this moron who you love brings up her happy marriage. You are suddenly jealous, angry at her because you feel like she is purposely throwing it in your face, and feeling guilty because she's your friend and you really want her to be happy. Guilt, anger and jealousy well up in you and you feel like you might start screaming at her.

Don't do that. You need all the friends you can get. Do this instead:

1) Accept the truth of your feelings. Don't squish them down or feel ashamed of them.
2) Remember that you love your friend and you are glad for her and for her children's sake that she has such a wonderful marriage.
3) Remember that she is no more lovable than you are just because she's got someone.
4) Acknowledge that your breasts are bigger than hers. No really, you need something to balance you out. Everyone has their positive and negative qualities. You're already comparing yourself to her, so while you're listing the ways her life is better than yours you might as well appreciate the fact that you've got fabulous tits and she doesn't. You HAVE TO for the good of your friendship. She would want it this way.

Eating Tips

Some say that when you eat meat you're eating an animal's fear from the moment that they die. You already live in enough fear. So if you're a meat-eater be sure that you only eat animals who have died bravely in battle. Like lions or crawfish. Have you ever seen a live crawfish? Those things are tiny, but when confronted with a huge human that intends to boil them, they whip out those claws in a "You'll never take me alive! Have at you!" kind of way and they go out swinging.

And now I'm upset about animals who die and I'm considering being a vegetarian again. This section has been completely unhelpful. Go eat chocolate because that is what I am now doing, and if chocolate can dispel the fear brought on by Dementors in Harry Potter, then it can also cure the fear of dying alone.

Relationships

You should never follow my advice about relationships...except for the previous statement. Which I know might be psyching you out in a "the following statement is true: the previous statement is false" kind of way, but you're just going to have to trust me on this.

Crying

Regular crying is very important. Don't neglect your crying in the same way that you shouldn't neglect your teeth. You might have grown up being told that it's not ok to cry, or to suck it up if things get rough. Sister, you have to suck it up ALL THE TIME. You suck it up when you wake up in the morning to go to work, you suck it up when you have to call your ex about money, you suck it up when you're too tired to cook dinner, you suck it up when your kids are sick and you don't want to clean up vomit, and you suck it up when you don't feel like getting back in the car but you have to because you have to drive someone to ball practice. So dammit if you're overwhelmed go take a nice hot bath and cry. And make sure you kick and shake your fists.

Get to Know Other Single Parents

This can be a treasure trove of support. As long as you all have time to talk on the phone and get together, which none of you do. So skip all of your house cleaning and everyone's homework and just get together one night. Omitting essential chores is the only way it'll get done, and you'll all pay for it the next day but none of you will care because the alternative was another night of isolation which caused you to finally snap and wander the streets mumbling to yourself.

Ok, I'll Say This About Relationships

Do not date or remarry anyone who is less emotionally mature than and/or has more needs than your children. This will drive you crazy, like literally, you will drive over a cliff while you scream and punch the ceiling of your car. It's most likely the reason you got divorced in the first place and you did not change your whole life around just to get involved with someone who needs you to take care of them.

*Note: This is excludes everyone. Don't date, just hire someone to mow your lawn.

*2nd Note: I didn't mean for "mow your lawn" to be a euphemism but if you feel the need to hire someone to do that too, I'm not judging. I just said that YOU shouldn't become a prostitute, I didn't say you should never...you know what, I'm going to shut up.

*3rd Note: Darn it, none of this applies because I've already told you to never take my advice. So you've probably found a codependent relationship in the last five minutes. Dammit, I ruined society AGAIN.

Laughing

You're stressed and kind of bummed and you might not even feel like laughing. In fact, if someone tries to make you laugh you might get angry. I don't know why this is, but it happens. But laughing is just as important as crying in the delicate balancing act of your emotional life. Since you're in a dark place, you might have to start with dark humor that comes from someone you don't know and therefore can't kill, like the Internet. And dear God, whatever you do don't watch sitcoms where people are happy. Those are less common  now than they were when I was growing up in the 80's and 90's but I'm guessing since today's writers also grew up in the 80's and 90's and they came from broken families, they are more inclined to write about broken people, or sick things in general like "Family Guy."

My favorite go-to comedy of choice is Eddie Izzard stand up. That man could make me laugh if I was fired from my job and murdered in the same day. He's ridiculous and irreverent with a heart, and I highly recommend him.


Remove All Unsightly Facial Hair Regularly

Hmm. This rule might only apply to me.


Try Not to Hurt People When They Tell You to Remember Your Children

"You could go back to school and finish your degree, but I don't think it's a good idea. You have to remember that your kids need you," a family member tells you when you mention the possibility of going back to school.

You look at her dumb-founded. Remember the kids? It wasn't your intention to forget the kids. It is impossible, in fact, to forget the kids. You are probably cleaning up urine from one of the kids while your relative is giving you this stupid advice.You are with your kids more than you are with anyone, except maybe your coworkers, and certainly much more than this relative who you don't see often because she doesn't help you.

First - don't kick her in the stomach no matter how much you want to right in that moment. She's older than you and won't recover as fast and...what?...NO THAT DOES NOT SWEETEN THE DEAL! I didn't tell you that she's weaker than you so that you have MORE incentive to hurt her, jeez! What I'm saying is that you can't hurt her physically because we don't hurt people with our hands. We hurt their feelings with our words.

"You smell like old mayonnaise."

Ok, perhaps not. Try sarcastic.

"I can see how bettering myself would make me less of a parent. Can you hand me another paper towel? What remained of my hopes and dreams just fell into this puddle of urine."

Let's go with that one.

Consider a Deity

This works for a lot of people. I believe it's good to have a strong belief in yourself. You have to know that you are a strong, beautiful, and capable person to make it through life regardless of your situation. But maybe you're not there yet with yourself, or maybe you're just having a really, REALLY bad day and you need strength outside of yourself and no one is answering their phones. You are by yourself and you are losing your mind. You feel hopeless, abandoned and alone. In these moments you can pray to something. Anything. Jesus, a saint, Ganesha, Zeus, Poseidon, Princess Diana, Hello Kitty. In fact, pile 'em on. Get a team going for you. You need every single ounce of strength, dignity and serenity that the universe can muster.

If you don't believe in spiritual stuff that's fine - make something up. People do it all the time. Suddenly you can have unwavering faith in the good of mankind, and draw from that. This takes overlooking as many inconsistencies as there are in organized religion but people do it and they make it through those hopeless moments.

Hopeless Moments

Remember that you're not alone, even though no one is helping you in this moment. Remember that you are strong even though you don't feel it right now. Remember to breathe and cry when you can. Remember to watch something funny as soon as you can do it without strangling someone, because the worst thing you can do is take things too seriously. Remember that Hello Kitty loves you and that you're going to be ok.

I Get You, Don Music

Sometimes I feel like this guy:



Does anybody remember him from Sesame Street? If not, you can find him at a site called (prepare yourself to be so excited you might need to bite down hard on something - I suggest a Twinkie) Muppet Wiki! It's a complete encyclopedia about Muppets! I just googled, "What's the name of the piano player on Sesame Street," and the site revealed itself! Oh and that guy's name is Don Music, which I never would have guessed, so this site is like gold to me, like more important than www.npr.org or my bank's website.

What does this have to do with how I feel? Am I saying that I feel like an orange guy with a tie and disheveled hair? Or that I feel like an unseen person might be controlling my every movement and supplying me with things to say? No, but I suffer from not knowing what to say so often that I wouldn't be opposed to the idea. Or the bit about a tie and disheveled hair, I think that might make a good look for me. This is mostly because my sense of humor was born from watching hours of The Muppets and Bugs Bunny so I developed an appreciation for ridiculousness and cross-dressing.

Major Momentary Change of Subject!!!!!

I just looked at npr's website and found the following headline, ""Hawaii: 'Let Nature Take Its Course' on Molasses Spill." Mo...lasses? Spill? There's a pipeline of molasses? I don't mean to make light of this because, according to the article, it's killed major amounts of marine life, but...really? There's a molasses PIPELINE? To me, it's a little like finding out that there's a pipeline of maple syrup that leads to a mountain of pancakes. Or like...I don't know. A leaking tanker full of jelly beans. It's interesting to me that there's been a major spill of something that's not oil. Hawaii really does have the most fascinating predicaments. And the best slack guitar musicians. If there was a pipeline full of those guys, I would be all about a major spill.

Major Moment of Self-Doubt!!!!!

Did I really just say I would support a major spill? Of any kind? I was just trying to make a clever transition back to the main subject.

Main Subject!

In episodes featuring Don Music, he was always trying to write a song, like "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" and would become very frustrated with himself and bang his head on the piano keys. As a kid, the banging his head on the piano was the funniest part. Muppets were brilliant at slapstick because to make a puppet fall down the Muppeteer would just drop him. So when I was five, I found it hilarious when he would suddenly smack his head, causing his arms to flail wildly. So much drama and limp wayward limbs made for a hilarious contrast. As an adult what I find funny is that he apologizes to his bust of Beethoven that's facing him on the piano top. "I'm sorry Ludwig!" he cries, as his head hits the keys.

At work I have a picture postcard of Carson McCullers pinned to my cubicle wall, and sometimes, I'll say "I'm sorry Carson! Look at me! In a data entry job! HOOOOW did it all come to this!" I don't bang my head on my keyboard, but I'm tempted to. Instead, Carson and I just look at each other. My look says, "I want to go home and write," and her look says, "I know, you poor bastard."

The saving grace lately is that I do go home and write at the end of the day. Most of the time. Sometimes I fall asleep before this can happen, depending on the day, but on average I'm getting in 12 hours a week of writing on the side. 

So my challenge right now is to accept where I am. Even though I've had this emergence of writing power, like I want to write constantly, even if it's bad, and even if I send it nowhere and just stare at it like Emily Dickinson in her attic, I can't give up my responsibilities and go do that. For Emily Dickinson, sitting in her attic and reading her poetry about not wanting to be famous WAS her responsibility. Thus she is one of the most famous poets ever. 

This opposes everything I'm reading lately about marketing myself and brings it back to "we are not in control of the universe, some people market themselves and get nowhere, and some people hide in attics with no intention of becoming famous and become famous." I wonder how many attic writers there have been who we don't know about? We'll never know. Apparently, they didn't shut themselves in and not want to become famous enough. 

Regardless of this, I wonder if Emily Dickinson would have experienced my level of frustration if she had been a single mom with nine pets and school loans to pay. How much more angst and hamsters would have appeared in her poetry? Probably a lot. But it was the mid-1850's and, let's face it, she would have probably died in childbirth. That's just what ladies did back in the day. I thought about this EACH AND EVERY TIME I FOUND OUT I WAS PREGNANT. I experienced three things at once - exhilaration about having a baby/immediate love of my unborn child, anxiety about being able to support another baby, and the thought of "I could die in childbirth." I never did, but I'm also not sitting in an attic getting famous writing poetry either, so fuck you, universe. 

No, that's just not the way my story's going to go. I love my house, my children, my furry children, my scaly children, and my writing all at the same time. I just absolutely hate my day job. The problem is, whenever I think about getting another job and start looking for one, I always come back to "The only job I want is to write." It ultimately doesn't really matter whatever job I have, I'll still be sneaking off to write something on scraps of paper. I've always done this, no matter what job I've ever had. So all I can do right now, is do what I love on the side and figure out the day job thing. Because though no job has ever held a candle to writing, I have had others that don't make me want to pull my eyeballs out of my face. I need to go find another one of those. And I have an idea, but it's in the idea phase, where charts and graphs and envelopes labeled "Confidential" are involved.

Oh! Oh! But I just had this other idea! I want to have the job where I have to go find poets in attics in publish their stuff. Yes! That's it! Attic poet detector. I can dust them off, maybe spray them with air freshener and convince them that they're geniuses who should have blogs.

And this is why my change-of-day-job-profession idea is top secret. Because I impulsively keep coming up with other ideas. I'll be a school lunch lady! Something tells me you won't make enough money. I'll be a school teacher! You'll probably make even less money. I'll be a banker! You looked at your son's fourth grade math problem the other night and said, "What the hell is this?" I'll mow lawns, I love the outdoors! Genevieve, you have a bachelor's degree. You're beginning to make a profession out of aiming low.

So I'm still thinking. While I'm thinking, enjoy, if you will, this clip of Don Music composing "Mary Had a Little Lamb." And I promise that after this I'll stop writing about writing, and I'll start blogging about ludicrous news headlines again. Like this one, "Roman Catholic priest injured in Zanzibar acid accident," which I SWEAR I did not make up. This is a real headline on yahoo.com. I think the word "Zanzibar" would make any sentence instantly attractive but "priest" and "acid" seal the deal. The quality of my blogging can only go uphill with that kind of material.