Circus

I've moved up the ladder. Climbed, up, up, up. There's a new dynamic here. I wonder what's going on. I wonder, am I the only one who sees that some things here don't make sense? I have a coworker, who didn't get the job I got, who is a thorn in my side. Just one example of the lunacy: she has a Christmas bear that sings "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" when she squeezes its paw. I hear high-pitched Christmas music at odd times in the office coming from this bear. I fantasize about setting it on fire. Politics and interpersonal conflict rule business decisions here at the top. I'm not kidding.

The Old Man has strengths opposite from mine. He takes nothing personally, he assumes the best of everyone, and he doesn't obsess over crazy coworkers. He gave me a metaphor.

"Yes, you're in a circus. Don't be one of the clowns. Be something cool like a trapeze artist. Your boss is the ring master with the crazy hat. Christmas bear lady is a seal with a ball balanced on her nose. Be part of the circus - you have to. Just be something cool."

The circus metaphor is all I've got right now. My instinct is to forcefully and with great venom wall myself off from the craziness.

"Wish me luck having patience and being nice all day tomorrow," I told The Old Man.

"All day?" he said. "I don't think you can do it."

He knows me too well.

"Torn"

Torn is book about work and family. I'm not talking about the Torn I recently read in which a girl dies and comes back to life as a demon slayer with super-magical powers and the ability to inherit the essence of each demon she kills, thus leaving her torn between her demon and human natures.

Where was I? Yes, this Torn is coming out May 2011, and it contains an essay by yours truly called "When I Sneeze, I Pee a Little."

So, if you are a mom who wants to write, a career woman who wants to procreate, a man who is married to a career woman who wants to procreate and write, or a career woman who wants to stay at home with her kids, this book is for you. Pretty much the only people this book is not for are stodgy old men who dream about the good old days when women could do the birthin' and the cookin' and the shuttin' up.

Here is what the book is about, in case my demon-slaying references were confusing:


Trying to strike the right balance between career and motherhood is one of the most stressful, heart-wrenching issues facing women today. In Torn, 46 women examine the conflict between the need to nurture and the need to work, and reveal creative solutions for having the best of both worlds. Their stories offer hope and inspiration, but also reveal the messy realities of modern motherhood and life’s inevitable crises, both small and large: from breast pump mishaps to battles with cancer; diaper blowouts to debilitating depression; competitive cupcake baking to coming home from war. In the end, the reader can take comfort in the knowledge that there is no perfect mother; nor is there a perfect balance when it comes to kids and career. The real challenge facing women today is not juggling their many roles, but realigning their expectations of what is possible and accepting that success does not equal “doing it all.”

Sigh

I know I'm getting old when I add "Look up recipe for Three Bean Salad" to my mental To-Do list.

I Like Pie

Hi out there. I've got a new job that is kicking my butt, so I'm tired a lot and haven't had the small hot spark of writing inspiration lately. It'll come back, I'm sure. I can do forty-three things at once, but adding the forty-fourth makes it all fall apart.

I proposed buying pies at Village Inn for Thanksgiving. The Old Man turned on the puppy dog eyes and looked as hurt as if I had just announced I was having an affair. "The crust," he said. "The crust. And we must have whip cream. Let's not repeat the whip cream disaster of 2006."

OK, so I'm paraphrasing him a bit, although if you want to see The Old Man get overly dramatic, bring up sub-par food.

Would it be wrong to take the whole family to the fabulous Golden Corral buffet for turkey day? How long will The Old Man, cringing from a mortally wounded palate, take to recover?

Message from Amanda

I love you so much
I had to dial your number
and see you one last time
and make sure to break your heart
real good
so you feel what I felt
and now I'm over you
and I wish you a good life
and a good wife
and beautiful children
and all that crap.

Bluebeard

Breadwinner. New for her.
Her new office has a window, lots of light, just underneath the glass ceiling.
A big promotion, more money, more security for her family.
A wolvish grin, a laughing heartbeat.

Her new office has a window, lots of light, just underneath the glass ceiling.
Bluebeard creeps behind her chair; she feels the horsehair beard against her cheek.
A wolvish grin, a laughing hearbeat.
He grabs a fistful of her hair with one huge hand.

Bluebeard creeps behind her chair; she feels the horsehair beard against her cheek.
He smells of dying leaves.
He grabs a fistful of her hair with one huge hand.
In the other hand, a goblet of the most delicious liquid.

He smells of dying leaves.
Bad mother, he says. Bad woman.
In the other hand, a goblet of the most delicious liquid.
Leaving your children behind to work under the glass. False goddess.

Bad mother, he says. Bad woman.
You know too much, you do too much. Who are you to have all this?
Leaving your children behind to work under the glass. False goddess.
He caresses her cheek with his, she leans against him.

You know too much, you do too much. Who are you to have all this?
He brings the goblet to her lips; the juice mixes with her lipstick.
He caresses her cheek with his, she leans against him.
Your home will come to ruins.

He brings the goblet to her lips; the juice mixes with her lipstick.
Softly, she brings her hand to his beard.
Your home will come to ruins.
She pulls the hair from his chin and he cries in pain.

Softly, she brings her hand to his beard.
"Bluebeard," she says, "you have the wrong office."
She pulls the hair from his chin and he cries in pain.
Breadwinner. New for her.

Melodramatica

Two hours of firearms training gives me three bulged discs.

I can't run or lift weights.

I walk into rooms and don't remember how I came to be there or what for.

I say things like, "Those damn kids."

My boobs are two inches lower.

I wear flat-soled shoes.

My coworkers, boss, acupuncturist, family doctor, physical therapist - along with my mom - tell me to take it easy.

I have to do stupid things like bend at the knees to lift boxes.

I expect to see gray hairs in my gold locks any day now.

That girl on the dance floor with the honky tonk badonkadonk used to be me.

The Old Man might as well skip ahead to his midlife crisis and trade up for a newer model.

Thus begins the

slow
........downhill
.......................slide into

senescence.

Characters

Two characters in my head just interact with each other in the most banal way and refuse to allow any action or point or plot into their story. Sure, they're interesting and one smells like mold and the other has fake piercings, but that only gets you so far. Well, screw you two until you can grow up and help me find a middle and an end.

Fall

http://www.ahandfulofstones.com/

Look for my poem on a handful of stones blog, under Thursday, September 30th, 2010.

Colorado's seasons are like a woman who changes her mind, changes her clothes and her perfume. Fall in Colorado to me is dusty dirt roads lined five feet deep on either side with wild sunflowers. It's hot and the air is filled with insects. Noisy and quiet at the same time. The sunflowers take over the eastern plains and front range, just east of the mountains.

Fall in the mountains is different - crisper, clear, filled with bugling elk and city people driving slow on the winding roads, craning their necks to see turning leaves.

Working Parents

What image pops into your brain when you think "working mother?" Is it a bedraggled, tired woman focused on a laptop, ignoring her screaming baby on the floor? Is it a woman with a cell phone in one hand and a crying baby in the other?

The image is a blatant stereotype of yesteryear, the invention of Stone Age guilt-mongers.

Here's the reality today: working moms and dads ARE struggling to keep their heads above water. But as they are wading through, they are holding their children up, passing them back and forth, doing everything they can to make sure their kids are happy, warm, safe, dry, rocked, cuddled and played with. Working parents - often to the detriment of their own health and schedules - go far to make sure their children are content and cared for.

Here's a new image: a muscled woman bouncing her happy smiling baby in one arm and turning off her cell phone, because she leaves work at work, where it belongs.

Animal Cruelty

When it looks hopeless
'cause my back's in screaming pain
and I'm running on three hours of sleep
and The Baby's screaming
and The Kid's whining
and the neighborhood dogs bark

little shits,
all I can imagine is
beatiful
quiet
dead
dogs
strewn about the neighborhood

it takes the Trite Cake
when I say
that what fixes it all
is reading to The Kid
about how the little boy
shot the Nightmare In His Closet
and yelled at it to stop crying
and dragged it to bed with him
to shut it up.

And The Kid's tears clear up
and he smiles.

That's all it takes
to save the neighborhood dogs
from a silenced .22.

Meditation

Body: Hey Bod, how ya doing lately?

My head hurts. I have a concussion, you know. Why did you ride that ATV this weekend? Would you please give me some Tylenol? And I'm thirsty, damn it. And quit exercising, especially the up and down sit-ups. And stop stressing about your pansa. You'll have plenty of time later to get buff.

Brain: Hey Brain, what's up?

You never turn me off. I'm ON all the time. Thinking, worrying, plotting, musing, talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk. Enough already.

Spirit: Spirit, I know I haven't checked in with you, and since I've had no time alone I'm sure you are as shriveled as a popcorn kernel left in the sun and maybe you have some mold on you, and I'm sorry.

Actually, no. I am full. I am complete. I have my daughter. I have my son. I have my husband. I have utter confidence in myself. I'm good. Thanks for asking, though.

Folklore Friday

I called my grandmother today to tell her The Kid just learned how to ride the bike she bought for him.

She said she learned how to ride a bike in her hometown of Neon, Kentucky. It is an old coal mining town, in the Kentucky mountains, which are straight up and down mountains. There are a couple of streets in the narrow bottom of the valley, and houses, businesses and the graveyard march up the steep valley walls on either side.

There was one bike in town, which belonged to the local doctor's daughter. The little girl with the bike would let all the other Neon kids share. No helmets or shin guards or knee pads in the those days. Grandmother learned on a borrowed bike and her first ride was down a steep Kentucky dirt road.

Job for my Clone

http://jobview.usajobs.gov/GetJob.aspx?JobID=90412226&aid=79134553-31810&WT.mc_n=125

The Bureau of Land Management is hiring a Wild Horse and Burro Specialist in Washington, D.C. I actually lived among and researched wild horses in college, and I meet the minimum requirements for the job. How strange that I would qualify for this job, that I have great friends in Washington D.C. and I would enjoy living there. I can almost see a parallel life...

But I have a Norah Jones Rage Against the Machine kind of love, the kind of love where the Zac Brown Band makes me get all nostalgic when I remember yesterday at 5:00 in the evening when The Old Man grabbed my ass and did the dishes and made me remember romance is about day-to-day love.

I'm ridiculously blessed that I have my man and my family. I'd never let wild horses drag me away.

Chick Lit

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129423107&sc=fb&cc=fp

My sister brought this interesting NPR post to my attention. There is no such thing as "chick lit." Writing about home and feelings and relationships is valid.

In other news, I'm so busy that today as I was driving the kids to daycare I had a brief moment of terror because I thought I had forgotten to put my shirt on. I looked down, and indeed, I was wearing a shirt. Score.

That Bastard

Work tried to follow me home so I stopped the car and yanked his manicured tweezed lotiony smooth cuff-linked self out of his car and beat the shit out of him and left him bleeding by the side of the road.

Noggin. Nodding. Punkin Head. Lash Whip.

At four o'clock in the morning on Tuesday, I fell asleep on the floor with my legs folded under me. The next thing I remember The Old Man is beside me telling me I had crashed to the floor and hit my head.

I was beside the Baby's crib, waiting for her to fall back asleep. I must have fallen asleep in a weird position, gotten up too fast to take a shower, and then passed out.

The nurse on the phone told me to go the emergency room because they didn't know why I fell. When I tried to tell her that I knew why I fell, she didn't listen.

So I didn't go.

But I went to the doctor yesterday. Headaches and dizziness and trouble concentrating.

He said I have concussion and whiplash. And to take Tylenol every 6 hours.

So there is no moral to this story. Other than don't kneel on the floor and then fall asleep and then sleepwalk to the shower.

Now I have my guilt trip for my daughter. I was only in labor with her 3 hours so I can't use that one.

"You made me so tired that one night I got concussion and whiplash." That'll be a good one in twenty years or so.

I'll have difficulty concentrating, headaches, dizziness and slower reflexes for a while. So mess me with don't.

Like Blood From a Stone

My mind is completely blank so I'm wringing out a post just to exercise my writing muscles.

If I had a million dollars

If I had a million dollars

If I had a million dollars, I'd buy me a house.

With a huge pantry

and the dryer and washing machine upstairs next to the five bedrooms

and a five car garage

and a playroom

and a convection oven

and a library with an over-stuffed chair and some sort of rare book in a glass case in the middle, like a signed original copy of Alice in Wonderland or The Hobbit

and a tower on the roof for star-gazing

and hardwood floors and carpet

and a wing for the dog with her own couch to sleep on

and a hot tub

and an archery range.

Ankle Biters

The horrid thing about giving birth was that the world expected her body to retreat into a certain round softness. Fran ripped the pins out of her hair and tossed the long strands aside, then hiked up her skirt and went down on all fours in the grass behind her garden shed. She did ten push ups, quick. Her first baby was only six months old but Fran wanted to shed her alien layered slabs of fat. She jumped up and studied herself in the shed's window. She saw no difference. All she had to show for her exercise were two bites on her ankles from the little black ants that managed to crawl unnoticed up her bare feet.

There's nothing sexier than a woman's ankles. And a red-checked skirt haphazard in folds, and dark brown hair flipped over one eye. Fran in the sunlight posing in front of the shed window - unaware that Oliver was inside the shed searching for his old favorite hammer to fix the creaky stair - was to Oliver tastier than moon pie and cold milk.

Later that evening they made baby number two.

Stress Relief

The downside
to modern social rules
to self-restraint
to an emphasis on tact
and understanding
and temper control

is

that I must beat
the shit out of
the poor men
who challenge me
in my dreams.

Ah, but it feels good.

Back Porch Sittin'

The Old Man and I sat on the back porch watching the sun set over the Rockies and drinking Miller High Life cans. His hand found mine - the touch of his skin always goes deep - and we talked about how this crazy family schedule wouldn't have to last forever. The sprinkler rhythm was low and sweet and it smelled like Russian Sage and fresh cut grass.

"I'm sorry I'm so fat and emotional," I said.

The Old Man smacked a mosquito on his neck. "You're not fat," he said.

Back to Work: 10 Tips for New Moms

You're a new mom, with a baby in daycare and a full-time job. Here are 10 tips for a smooth transition back to work:

1. Wherever you are, be there mentally. If you're at work, don't freak out if you haven't thought of your baby for 3 hours. If you're at home, don't dwell on work.
2. If you're still breastfeeding, take time to pump to keep up your milk supply. The law says you can. Don't let bosses or coworkers make you feel guilty for doing so. A hands-free pumping bra makes the time pass quickly.
3. There are no studies that show wheat beer increases milk supply. Oatmeal increases milk supply. But that's no reason you can't have a beer every once in a while to relax.
4. Take time to be with your baby when you get home. You need each other.
5. When your baby gets sick for the first time, your vacation and sick time will be depleted from maternity leave. Take a deep breath when your husband, rolling in accrued sick leave, doesn't understand that it is now his responsibility to take the baby to the doctor.
6. Don't be surprised if your boss or coworkers expect less of you now that you're a mom. Prove them wrong.
7. When your husband pouts and feels sorry for himself because he has to wake up at 5 A.M. to hold the baby while you get ready for work, try to suppress your urge to kick him in the shins. Don't worry, you probably won't be able to beat him up too bad because you're exhausted from the midnight and 3:30 AM marathon nighttime feedings.
8. Try to reach back into the recesses of your sleep-deprived brain and give your husband a break. This new baby stuff is a huge strain on relationships. He's a good guy and has a full-time job too. Wait until the baby is asleep and you are both calm to talk over any problems. Give each other the benefit of the doubt.
9. Take heart. This exhausted zombie kind of life doesn't last forever. Only for about a year. Until your next kid.
10. For Christ's sake, stop feeling guilty. If you must leave your baby in daycare, if you stop breastfeeding, if you can't make spectacular dinners anymore, if you're at your desk and all of a sudden your mind goes blank - feeling guilty about it doesn't do any good.

I think all moms are different, all families are different, all babies are different. If someone tells you there's a handbook, she's lying. I'd be interested to hear other tips from moms and dads...things that have worked for you.

Moments

There's a scary seldom-mentioned feeling in our family that my father will have another heart attack, one that he won't survive.

My father, dressed in his plaid button-down shirt on a Friday night, held my daughter. Past her bedtime, and past his. In the soft light of the living room lamp, they smiled at each other. The same calloused hands that held me as I grew up were wrapped around her cotton pink blanket. Her small body swam in the comfort of his arms.

"I've got to be around to see her grow up," he said.

My Poem on A Handful of Stones Blog

Check out "Janis Joplin Lulluaby" on A Handful of Stones blog. I wrote this about six weeks ago when Baby Girl was at her muy fussy stage and we'd spend an hour and a half trying to put her to bed. I'm not the singing type but I do know one song.

http://www.ahandfulofstones.com/2010/07/janis-joplin-lullaby.html

Melancholy, Where Are You?

I suspect that I am deliriously happy, which, as any writer knows, is a death sentence for creativity. I'm lucky I dreamed up a severed toe a while ago, but for now I'm just contented.

As any woman who has endured unspeakable pain giving birth to two children knows, it is excruciatingly difficult to be sympathetic to her husband who has just gotten a vasectomy. I am so contented that I did not remind The Old Man that if he thinks getting snipped is bad, he could never handle what I've been through.

I've managed to keep the kids happy and the house running smoothly while he's laid up watching Sports Center. Baby Girl is 10 weeks old and on a sleep schedule. Things are going so well that I can't even summon angst when she pukes on me.

So, I apologize for my lack of posts. Maybe I'll try something crazy and write about happy stuff.

The Toe

I found it in the desert, west of town. I saw Fran driving the old blue truck, loaded down with tree limbs and dead branches, and then I saw her climb out and pitch the stuff off the side of a shallow arroyo. It was seven in the morning, and I was walking before the heat had a chance to start baking the trail.

The toe was severed clean, like a surgeon had sliced it with a very sharp saw. It was the big toe, with a yellowed nail and a hairy toe knuckle. The bone was surrounded by meat that had dried some. It reminded me of a steak I’d forgotten about on the counter a couple of weeks ago; the desert air had sucked out the moisture and left dried, raw flesh, rough to the touch and darkened on the edges like jerky.

It rested on the sand, next to a tree limb with leaves already curling from the approaching heat.
I wondered if toeprints were like fingerprints, and if the victim could be identified from the whorls on the pad of the appendage. Did Fran know she had a toe in her truck?

I liked Fran. I did handyman work for her and her husband Oliver about once a week. Painting, mending fence, cleaning the gutters – whatever they needed. Fran always told me I was “a fine young man, but too skinny,” so she fed me dinner often: fried chicken, thick mustard potato salad, green butter beans and apple pie. I’d be shoveling in the garden and she’d take my dirty hand in her frail, spider-webbed one, and tell me to stop and eat. Sometimes she would forget my name was Chris and call me Allen or Bill, but I never corrected her. She was in her eighties, after all.

I shrugged off my backpack and got a sandwich bag full of grapes. I sat on the sand with my back to the sun so my face would be shaded. An ant found the toe, and began chewing on the fresh end near the nail. I finished the grapes and put the toe in the bag.

I kept the rest of the hike short and on the way back, I looked down where the toe had been resting. A column of ants were milling about, probably confused that the meal one of them had found was gone.

I took the toe to Tom. He was the local sheriff, the only law enforcement for fifty miles or so. I figured a severed toe was worth reporting, but I wasn’t sure what Tom could do with it.

Tom didn’t touch it at first, just sat with his arms crossed and looked at it through the plastic bag. “And where did you say you found this?”

“On my hike,” I said. “You know the trail that goes west past the arroyo?”

“Did you notice any footprints, or anything unusual about the area?” Tom asked. “There could be a whole body up there.”

“Just the toe, nothing else,” I said. “I don’t think there’s a body up there.”

“I’ll have to check it out,” Tom said. “Do you think you could take me to the spot?”

I don’t know why I lied to Tom. It just sort of happened. I took him well short of where Fran had dumped her tree branches. I made him believe I’d found the thing about three hundred yards up the trail off the paved road. Tom knelt down and looked at the footprints on the path, mushed up and vague in the sand, and took a sample of dirt in the place I’d told him I found it.

Fran had me whitewashing the fence and moving paving stones that afternoon. Oliver, in his eighties himself, waited until the shade had found the front steps before he ventured out. He was dressed as usual in a white button down shirt and high-waisted pants with suspenders. The cane was new, though.

“Oliver, did you hurt your leg?” I asked.

“Just an accident,” Oliver said. “Can’t stay young forever.”

I noticed he had one shoe on. A white sock covered the other foot, and I could see the bulky outline of a bandage underneath.

Fran poked her head out of the door, and I smelled pot roast. “Chris doesn’t want you to start in on your stories, dear. He’s hungry. Come and eat.”

The potatoes were buttery and the carrots tender, but all I could think about was the big toe.

We finished dinner and Oliver and I sat on the porch while Fran cleaned up the kitchen.

“How did you lose your big toe, Oliver?” I asked.

Oliver drew in his lips and gripped his cane before him with white knuckles. “Did Fran tell you? I didn’t think she’d remember.”

“I saw her dumping tree branches out of her truck, and I found the toe. I gave it to Tom.”

“Why would you do that? What in the hell will Tom do with a thing like that?” Oliver asked. His hands shook.

Something metal clattered to the floor in the kitchen, and Fran screamed. I rushed in and saw Fran holding her arm, blood everywhere, and her carving knife on the linoleum at her feet. Oliver limped to her and pressed a kitchen towel into her wound. She cried and fought against him, and then Oliver began to cry. It was the most bizarre scene I had ever witnessed: Fran seemed not to be in pain from her cut, but terrified of her husband of fifty years, straining against his arms so that the veins showed in her neck, as if she didn’t recognize him.

“Shhh, honey, quiet, it’s me,” Oliver was shouting over her screams, tears on his cheeks.

After about two minutes, but what seemed like an hour, Fran stopped moving and stared at Oliver as if he had just walked in for his dessert. Her expression was calm, almost happy. We bandaged her arm and took her to the bedroom, where Oliver stroked her hair until she fell asleep. He led me out to the front porch. “If you tell Tom, if you tell anyone she lopped off my toe with the electric pruning shears, I will cut something off you myself.”

“What is wrong with her?” I asked.

“I don’t know. Could be Alzheimer’s or some type of dementia. That’s what our doctor in Flagstaff said. We didn’t catch it until the advanced stages.” Oliver paused, and closed his eyes. “The doctor thinks she’ll pass soon.”

“Pass? As in die?” I asked. I couldn’t believe it. She was active. She had cooked our dinner that night, worked in the garden all day.

“Chris, there’s a lot you don’t see. She’s moved those paving stones three times now. She forgets. She gets mad at me, and comes at me.”

“How about help? A nursing home or something? All these accidents…”

“That wouldn’t work. Now drop it. And like I said, if you tell anyone, I’ll take the pruning shears to you myself.”

Then Oliver sighed, big. I should have written down the words he said: “Every moment with her is a gift. The times she’s smiling at me, the times she doesn’t know who I am and the times she wants to hurt me. Sometimes around dusk she starts crying and she can’t stop, and the nights when I can comfort her, when she knows me, I hold her until she falls asleep. The nights she doesn’t know me, well, I just sit outside the bedroom door until she cries herself to sleep. When she’s out for the night, I sit on this porch and drink beer and watch the moon and I feel as lonely as anybody has ever felt. When she passes away – and she will, soon – I’ll sit on this god damn porch and drink beer and watch the moon and feel lonelier.”


I picked a time of day I thought they would like, when the sun was setting in the west and almost down and the stars were just starting to come out. The sand crunched under my hiking boots and I could almost hear the spiders wake up to start their nighttime skitters. Broken, tinder-dry branches formed a pile up ahead, and I took the paper bag marked “Evidence” out of my backpack. Tom had looked at me funny when I asked for the toe, but he hadn’t done anything to investigate the case and wrote me off as just a weird kid wanting a souvenir. The toe was defrosted from its time in the chest freezer at the sheriff’s office and almost exactly as I had found it a year before. I placed it on the sand near the branches, and said a silent prayer for Oliver and Fran, dead within two weeks of each other, lying in graves in the Rio Luna cemetery.
I don’t know why, but it felt right to let the ants pick the bone clean, to carry Oliver’s toe piece by piece to their hill.

Thinking of You

I remember kindergarten and elementary school all the way through high school with you. I remember sleepovers and the scavenger hunt and trying to stay awake all night and not succeeding. I remember your bedroom done up 80s style and talking to you on the phone about boys and how your older brother never talked to us. I remember watching your mom cook in the kitchen and teaching you how to ride a horse. I remember church camp and your Mickey Mouse shirt. I remember you always happy but knowing there were other things going on inside that you never spoke to anyone about. I remember laughing with you in class and arguing about when to add the laundry detergent. I remember your first car and how you forgot the headlights and the Chinese firedrills and curfew. I remember agreeing with you when you told me your first boyfriend was playing mind games with you. I remember going to the same college and not speaking to each other for 6 years or longer - maybe we needed to figure out who we were without each other. I remember dreaming about you on a regular basis.

Dreams have a way of telling us who should be in our lives.

I remember your baby shower and your baby and your little boy and seeing our little boys play together.

If you didn't already know, I'm thinking of you.

How To Wrestle a Baby

I was told that with a baby and a toddler and a full-time job I would be in "survival-mode" for the first year, at least. I shouldn't expect to get much accomplished at work, or at home for that matter.

The Happiest Baby on the Block author Dr. Karp says that babies are increasingly fussy from age two weeks to six weeks, and then the crying spells go away by three months. Today is Baby Girl's 6 week birthday. Ever heard sharp nails on a chalkboard, a cat mating, an emergency alert system over the T.V? A wailing baby is like all those in one sound. It's like someone has a screwdriver and is tightening my nerves with each cry, tighter, tighter, until every muscle is clenched.

I'm generally a positive person. I must admit I want to slip into survival mode around 7:00 pm, when I'm trying to calm my three year old to get him to bed at the peak of the baby wailing hours.

The thing about survival mode is that it's all about defense, about cutting everything else out - all joy, laughter, hobbies, thoughts - and lowering my head and plowing through. It's about doing the bare minimum just to make it to the end. That's not my style. I'm an overachiever. Plus, I have The Old Man. It's two against two now, but we're bigger than they are. We go on the offense. For everything.

For a crying baby, we do the five "S's" from Dr. Karp: Swaddling, Shushing, Stomach, Sucking, Swinging. Roll that baby up tight, swing her up and down on her stomach, pop a pacifier in there. She's out like a light. Bring it.

Warfare with a three year old is trickier. He could be a great lawyer. He's great with the questions and stories, also known as procrastination, right around bedtime. Even more powerful now that The Old Man and I can't tag-team him. It's verbal sparring.

Brush your teeth. My favorite color is blue. Brush your teeth. Oh really, you saw a red-kneed tarantula at school yesterday? Fascinating. Brush your teeth. Thank you for saying my shirt is pretty. That's nice of you. Brush your teeth.

We haven't lost a battle yet, though right before bed it often feels hopeless. The Old Man and I even played poker and made out a little - with tongue - the other night. We managed to stay awake until eleven o'clock.

In the words of the Captain of the Axiom from Wall-E, "I don't want to survive. I want to live."

Cum On Feel The Noize

Girls rock your boys
We'll get wild, wild, wild...

Lord help me when I get to go out for the first time again. There's nothing worse than a mom with a night away from her kids...

Anyway, I've been a little M.I.A. lately because of Baby Girl. But it's a good kind of M.I.A., since I get to stare into baby eyes and stuff.

My Story on The Rose City Sisters Flash Fiction Blog

http://rosecitysisters.blogspot.com/2010/05/43-conclusion.html

Check out my short fiction piece on The Rose City Sisters Flash Fiction Blog.

This is a short piece from a much longer story that just won't get out of my head. It's been fifty pages, it's been five. I come back to it again and again (kind of like an old boyfriend). Submitting this 700+ word piece was my way of saying goodbye to it for a while.

I'm sure it'll be back though.

My Mama

She once worked as a gift-wrapper and included a note in one of the boxes: "Help me! I'm being held prisoner in a gift-wrapping factory!" Her boss was not happy.

She can make a face like a cat. And a lizard.

She does a wicked Cartman impression.

She writes poetry. About egg salad sandwiches.

She told me to relax and drink a beer when I was freaking out about my grades in college.

She can row a canoe and rig a fishing pole at the same time.

She takes seven minutes to tell a two minute story.

She's the Scrabble queen. A shit talker and a poor loser.

She feeds her grandKid ice cream and brownies at nine o'clock in the morning.

She is constant laughter and optimism. I don't call her enough, but when I do, she is genuine encouragement.

She is me in 30 years. I could do worse.

It's My Pleasure

Hey Neighbor Lady,

Thanks for taking your pint-sized pup for a walk. I walked behind you with my two-week old curled against my chest in a baby carrier and Paris the pit bull heeling on my left. Your perky tits and plump ass - your perfect posture - reminded me to pull my shoulders back and tuck in my patootskies. You walk like you're on a runway. Your ponytail snaps to the right every time your left foot hits the pavement. You are pure postpartum slimtastic exercise inspiration.

Folklore and Fish Tales Friday: New Mexico Cabin

My grandfather was a one-handed insurance salesman. He left his family in Texas one winter to buy a cabin in New Mexico, a vacation spot for his wife and children. When he was away he wrote letters to his family, telling them about the blizzards he drove through and his negotiations to purchase the land and the building. The letters are over fifty years old, as is the cabin. The letters end with "kisses and hugs to my girls." I know this because I've held the old letters and felt their paper, like cloth, while sitting at the cabin's small dinner table. My grandfather died when my mom was still young, and I never met him.

It's one of those places linked to its surroundings. It wouldn't be the cabin without the trees sloping down the hill, or the rocky earth, so many round rocks that beg for countless hands to line them along paths, to pick them up and place them again on trails after they've rolled down the hill. The dirt roads snaking to all the little vacation homes lead to green views and to the small town of Eagle Nest and further, to the lake and the river, where my mom learned to fish.

The card-playing is done with one eye on the cards and one out the window, waiting for the birds to find the gluttony of seed laid out for them. There's a fireplace, and a kitchen, and two bedrooms. The furniture is decades old, and the books are too. The food on the pantry shelves often expires before anyone can cook it - there are cans of beans from the 1980s and popcorn with a plastic smell. There's a three-ring binder filled with "Cabin Notes," in which each visitor attempts to recount their trip and ends up writing about the people they came with: "We went fishing at the lake today and Papa couldn't figure out how to steer the boat" and "It rained hard today and Gram beat everyone at hearts again; Mom made soup and we laughed and laughed" and "Our last day, but we don't want to leave - work awaits."

There's the cabin folklore:

Have I told you about the time the bear tried to take our fish on the river? Your Papa stood between the bear and the stringer.

Remember when we found the baby magpie and tried to save it? It's buried at the cabin on the path to the outhouse.

That's where the wasp nest was, the one we all stepped in. Good thing Uncle Prunie was there when I was stung right on my eyelid.

And older stories:

Daddy put us on the horses and I thought my mother was going to die - she was so afraid for us!

I couldn't see ten feet in front of me in the blizzard - it took us eight hours just to get to the cabin from the state line.

Fifty years ago, my mother and her family spent their cabin time fishing and riding horses and running through the tall thick pines. In my office, I have a black and white photograph of Mom when she was ten years old. She's got her nose up and is stretched out, pointing one toe and holding up a fishing pole with a four inch trout on its string. She's quite the angler, so much so that when I became a game warden I had to break it to her that she could no longer catch my dad's fish for him (that's called party fishing, ma, and it's illegal).

It's the cabin, this space my grandfather carved for his family so many years ago, that gave my mother her love of the outdoors. It's why she dreamed of living in the country, and why my sister and I grew up where we did, twenty miles from the nearest town, with horses and chickens and a cabin-like home of our own. It's my mother who gave me the idea that problems can be solved as long as you get a good night's sleep and have the time to take a walk in the woods.

Because of the cabin, I have a tangible connection to a man I've never met.

Time

When I wasn't on a horse, I spent my teenage years on my twin daybed, gazing through white lace curtains, clutching my flowered blanket and reading books. Time was a long painful thing; I craved events to punctuate the days.

I spend my days now ensuring that my children have uninterrupted time to play and dream and sleep. There are so many small events - so much to do - and I miss those stretches of time I had when I was young.

If only I had five hours. I could finish that short story. If only I had a day to myself. Creativity would pour in, and I'd have something real to write about. I'd tear myself away from HGTV episodes and get down to important work. Really I would.

And I think at 4:00 AM, if only Baby Girl would sleep, then I could sleep. I promise myself the next time she naps, I'll nap. But then The Kid wakes up, and I'd rather be with him than catch up on sleep. In the evening, when Baby Girl conks out at 6:00 PM, I'd rather tuck in The Kid, tell him the exact same three stories we both know by heart, than go to bed.

There's this strange sense of two different times. I look at my three year old, and time has gone by so quickly, and before I know it, he'll be fifteen and sleeping in until noon and would rather take a rusty fork to his eye than give his mom a hug. I look at my two week old, and time passes so slowly, feeding, burping, changing, walking, rocking her. Like her brother, she is happiest when she is being held, so we only put her down to sleep and shower.

And yeah, duh, we all know raising kids goes by in the blink of an eye, and it's the most important work we can do. But I also know that a mother's emotions during the raising of said kids aren't as simple. I know, I KNOW, that I better pay attention now, while they're young, because soon I will crave the affection I'm allowed to give them. At the same exact time, there is a part of me who is detached from motherhood, who wants to work and write and exist independently of the people who need me the most.

Baby Girl

Here's my birth story. Feel free to skip it if it's not your thing. But remember, you've all got moms who have one of these stories.

Will this baby ever come? That's what I was thinking, five days before my due date. I tried nipple stimulation like they say in the books, but The Old Man just looked at me funny when I rubbed his little nubs through his shirt.

Annie and B came over on the 17th, and we had some girl laughs and Annie rubbed my swollen feet. I'd like to think this feminine energy laid the groundwork for the next couple of days.

I woke up on the 19th and four hours later had a baby. My husband and I thought we would have more time. With The Kid, I was in painful labor for over 24 hours.

"I feel funny," I told The Old Man, while I was on hands and knees in the bathroom. "I don't think I'm going to work today."

He started timing contractions and then gave up, because they were too close together.

In between primal screams, The Kid was making me giggle. He was following me around with the camera, his favorite hobby. What we tell our children is always reflected back to us. "Does your tummy hurt, Mommy?" he asked. "Drink some water. Go poop, you'll feel better."

"I need a Tylenol," I told The Old Man, as I was mimicking the ooh, aah death scene of Paul Reubens as Amilyn, the evil guy sidekick, in the orginal 1992 Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie. "I think we need to call your parents, and we need to call R." The contractions were powerful, painful. R is my coworker, who had agreed to take care of The Kid while I was in the hospital and before The Old Man's parents could make the five hour drive to take care of him.

"Let's wait a little," said The Old Man.

Nope, no way, nuh uh. I called R, The Old Man called his parents.

The nurse on the phone said to go to the hospital right away, and if I felt like I needed to push, to stop and call an ambulance. The Old Man started packing at 8:00 am. Got The Kid ready to go. I took a shower, alternating on hands and knees and then back up when a contraction had passed. We got The Kid to the car, the hospital bag loaded. The Old Man couldn't find his keys and went back inside. I was on the sidewalk on hands and knees moaning, dreading sitting in the passenger's seat.

Finally, we were in the car.

"Let's go to a restaurant," The Kid said.

I screamed. I held The Old Man's hand. He was making eye contact with me and held my hand through the pain. He was crying a little, just like the last time when I was in labor with The Kid. Every time I looked in his eyes I grabbed a little strength.

R was already at the hospital. We all walked up to the third floor. No one offered me a wheelchair, which was good, because I would have refused. Some sort of pride thing, which seems fuzzy to me now.

I checked in, and The Old Man and I walked to the labor and delivery room which took a while because I had to grab the wall and moan every five steps. R and The Kid were in the waiting room.

It was 9:10 AM. The nurse checked and said I was 9 cm dilated. I told The Old Man to go get The Kid and R on their way, put the car seat in her car, etc. I thought we'd have time.

Not two minutes later the nurse told me it was time to push and asked if I wanted to wait for my husband.

Nope, no way, nuh uh.

A frickin' angel of a nurse held my hand and coached me. Twenty minutes passed. "Where is her husband?" I heard.

Turns out he got The Kid loaded in the car, and right afterwards The Kid needed to go potty, so they ran back in with him so he could go. The Old Man finally got back up to the third floor. "Hurry," the nurses said.

"Really?" he asked.

"Run!" they said.

The Old Man showed up out of breath. The nurses told me they could see the head and it would be only two minutes of pushing. Yeah, right, I thought. The Old Man told me that he could see the head too.

The pain can only be described as a ripping-open sensation that you cause yourself, to get your baby out. Angel Nurse pointed out I was the only one who could make this baby come, and pushing hard was the only way to do it. Good point.

"Do you want an epidural?" A nurse asked.

"Will it help?" I asked.

"No, you're probably too far along and it would slow things down."

"Then, um, no thanks," I said.

Eye roll.

Two minutes later, Baby Girl was born. And yep, the pain is gone instantly once the baby is in the world. No drugs, just two Motrin afterwards.

The Old Man and I felt like we had woken up, done some work, and then there we were with a family of four and a light lunch offering from the hospital staff. Turkey wrap, anyone?

The next 24 hours were full of nurses and breastfeeding and blood work and checking my vitals and the baby's vitals. What I remember the most is how happy The Old Man was. The guy doesn't grin very often. I think he was grinning in his sleep on the squeaky plastic chair during the night. Kissing him when he's smiling is one of the best feelings in my whole world.

When we were getting ready to leave the hospital, I had a moment alone with Baby Girl. She looks like The Old Man's side of the family. Black hair, not red, thank the good lord and all the Angel Nurses in the universe.

There she was, in my arms. Easy is relative, of course. Three hours of bone-splitting pain is nothing to sneeze at. Still, it felt easy. There she was, despite the fact that she was accidentally conceived, despite my depression throughout the pregnancy, despite us. Completely relaxed in my arms. A new soul on the planet, her first day. Sarcasm and self-pity and wit and humor and clever words had no place in that moment when she opened her eyes and looked at me. What we tell our kids is reflected back to us. It seemed like in that moment she was telling me that she forgave all my drama, and was simply saying hello.

A young nurse walked in, and saw me crying. "Are you all right?" she asked.

"These are good tears," I said. "Don't worry."

Had a Baby and Stuff

My daughter was born on Monday. I'm happy. I'll tell you all about it soon. We can't call her Coppertop Junior because she doesn't have red hair. It's black, like her dad's.

In the meantime, check out my winning contribution on The One-Minute Writer Blog:

http://oneminutewriter.blogspot.com/2010/04/i-choose-one-of-daily-winning-response.html

Folklore and Fish Tale Friday: Grandmother's Fist

Grandmother's Fist

We call my father's mother Grandmother, because Grammy or Grandma is too casual for her, too informal. Grandmother is five feet tall, 100 pounds, and she cusses every once in a while, just enough to make you cock your head at the words coming from her mouth. She is not a little old lady. I get a lot of my favorite traits from my Grandmother. My temper. My righteous indignation. My sarcasm. My ability to survive on my own. My pure disgust at the sentiment when people offer to help me. Here's the family story, which is different depending on who's telling it.

Papa, my father, and his brother were in the front yard, pulling weeds with their mother. It was a hot sticky day, oppressive heat you can only find in North Carolina where the ocean funk creeps west over the lowlands and hunkers down between the land and the sun, refusing to leave. Papa and his brother were fed up with the work.

It was time to come in, and they ran in the front door and locked their mother out. There they were in the living room, not really giggling, because I can't imagine my father has ever giggled, but surely immensely pleased with their joke.

Grandmother didn't say a word. She punched through the window on the door and glass shattered into the house. Then her hand, like a disembodied appendage out of some horror film, found the doorknob on the inside and unlocked it.

Papa said he had never been more scared in his whole life. Grandmother said her sons never tried another trick on her again.

Folklore and Fish Tale Fridays are all about the way I remember family stories. My father is a true storyteller, so much so that the actual truth of his tales are highly suspect but their spirit and wisdom never come into question. This is my attempt to capture the wisdom unique to my family.

Folklore and Fish Tales

It occurred to me last night, as I was telling one of my father's favorite stories to The Old Man, that my dad's stories have less than a 50/50 shot of being entirely true. In fact, when I have heard the same stories from his brother, the essential elements are there, but key and sometimes major details have changed. There's wisdom in these stories though, an effort to preserve what was and amuse and teach the next generation. I highly admire the ability to expand and exaggerate on known quantities, to spin a good story. My father (Papa) is a genius at this. So as I remember them, I'm going to write down some of his stories, the way I remember them told. Realize that now the stories have been through at least two filters, and any resemblance to the truth is irrelevant.

Robert's Pop
Robert (Papa's cousin) was left-handed in school in a time when being left-handed made people suspect you were the devil's minion. This was North Carolina, the south, where superstition was the Bible God's-honest truth. The accents can only be described as slow o's and tongues lazily skipping syllables and hot hound dogs on the front porch softly bellerin' for their supper.

For the most part Robert was a good boy, but every once in a while he acted out in class. One day Robert was sent to the principal's office for punishment and received a leather strap across his backside. He came home bruised and welted.

The next day Robert's Pop visited the principal. He walked into the wood-paneled office, sweltering already in the morning sun slanting in from the tall windows. The principal sat at his desk, and Robert's Pop closed the door behind him. He pulled out his shotgun. "If you ever touch my boy again," he said, while aiming the loaded gun straight at the principal's head, "I will kill you."

No one ever laid a finger on Robert again.

Heather

After college I volunteered for Big Brothers, Big Sisters in New Jersey. My Little Sister was Heather, 10 years old, and I was chosen to be her Big Sister because I was in shape and could run pretty fast. The case worker said Heather was very active, and had a tendency to run away.

I was living with Mr. Full-of-Himself, aka College Boyfriend (one of these days I'm going to have to make up some good fake names for all my exes). Heather and I played at the park, hung out at the apartment, went to horse shows in the area. Shortly after, College Boyfriend broke up with me, and I moved an hour east. I drove further every weekend to pick Heather up and be with her. I wasn't about to cut off my relationship with her just because my life was in upheaval.

Heather was tiny, very skinny, with light brown hair. I made her ride in the backseat of my car because I was afraid the front seat airbags would hurt her if I ever got into an accident. She would make me tune to the hip hop stations and we'd sing along to Ride Wit' Me by Nelly, hands pumping up in the air: "Hey, must be da money!". Then she'd ask questions:

"Is there a heaven? Is there a hell? What do people have to do to get into heaven?" Heather asked. "What happens when somebody dies? What happens to their bodies?"

Heather's mother had passed away when she was six. Her father told her that her mother was sick in the hospital and was not coming home. "My mom is sick. We can't see her," Heather would say. She did not attend her mother's funeral. I suppose her father thought he was protecting her and her little brother by spinning this story: that her mother was still alive, but unable to see them. I wanted to tell her the truth, that her mother was dead, and that the best thing Heather could do was to discover the kind of woman her mother was when she was alive. But it wasn't my place to tell her. It was her father's.

I would bring Heather to her house after a Saturday of running in the park or drawing with markers or cooking or watching Spongebob Squarepants. Her father would immediately talk to her in a loud, harsh voice: "Heather, did you get into the iodine and make a mess? What are thinking when you do those stupid things? Have you done your homework yet or am I going to have to take away your movies?"

I wanted to back that fucker in a corner, punch him in the face, and when his butt hit the floor, explain to him that when he talks to his daughter like that she feels like she's been punched in the face. But I didn't.

The whole year I spent with Heather, I never once heard her father give her a positive or encouraging word.

Heather's bedroom was small, the walls painted bubble gum pink and her bedspread a lighter princess pink. She had a pink television in her room where she watched videos. Her little brother, about six years old, also had his own television. I got a glimpse of the family evenings one day when I hung out with Heather in her room. She watched her videos alone, her brother watched his alone, and their father sat in the living room, watching T.V.

Heather's father worked on Saturdays, and so I picked her up from her babysitter's house often. There were six children there in a Jersey tract house. It always smelled of cooking, but not of delicious things like weekend French toast or fresh bread, but of onions and cloying boiled meat.

Heather had a wicked sense of humor, and yes, she did run away. But I was fast enough to catch her and creative enough to plan activities so that eventually she stopped trying to run away. I taught her about bugs and how they are not all icky, but actually pretty cool. She soaked up positive encouragement.

I wasn't a perfect Big Sister. I lost my temper with Heather several times, when she would run from me at the park, or when she would refuse to talk to me because she thought I was making up an unfair rule.

After a year I decided to move to California, to be with my new Post-Doc Boyfriend (which didn't work out either). I felt guilty for abandoning Heather. She was used to it though, and treated my departure in a much more casual manner than I could muster. Before I left, she and I created a poster: WHAT I LOVE ABOUT HEATHER. We listed ten wonderful things about her, like how smart she was, how great her sense of humor was and how creative she was.

I hope she found another Big Sister who hung around longer, who recognized that Heather needed praise and love. I hope she still has the poster. She would be 19 years old now. I hope she holds the men in her life to a higher standard, and doesn't find someone who treated her like her father treats her. I hope she believes in herself, and maybe she's in college studying something that really interests her.

I compare my time with her to raising The Kid now. I see how The Kid flourishes under praise, and how discipline is so much easier when you tell a kid what to do, rather than what not to do. I wish all parents would recognize this, especially Heather's father. Last night while I rested my exploding elephant pregnant feet, my husband played with The Kid outside in the sunshine, making up one of his games where a Viking protected the cheese from fire-breathing dragons. The Kid is confident, loved.

Heather, I hope you have found confidence and love, wherever you are.

Insomnia

His hand is tangled in my hair
his thumb strokes my forehead
I am afraid to move
if I move we'll lose the connection

Kids and Chickens

She must have felt completely satisfied to be growing so many things at once: babies, swiss chard, rhubarb, corn, peas, carrots and beans. Her dream was to live in the country and raise kids and chickens. I grew up knowing that when my mother was pregnant, she chopped wood and hauled water. My parents' house at the time had no running water, no solar power - just a pump about 100 yards from the house and gas lamps. My ma banked the fires and used them to heat the water for baths and to cook every meal. And to hear her talk about it, she was radiant the whole time.

When my hips and back ache at work, when I feel too tired to keep my eyes open at my desk, I think about my mother and how much she did while she gestated. And I'm ashamed to be so focused on the discomfort. I come from wood-chopping, woods-hiking, bad-ass, child-bearing women; what's a little desk job?

And after all, I have so much more to do than she ever had, right? I scratch my head when I think of my mom and the fact that she never wanted to have a career. She was a working mom for most of my childhood, but out of necessity and not by choice. I proudly (arrogantly) hold my career up as a badge of honor. I'm a working mom, I have EVERYTHING on my plate. And I'm doing it while I'm pregnant. How could my mother know what I'm going through? How could she ever understand?

I tell myself these stories, and then the stories justify ignoring her wisdom.

But my little wood-chopping ma had to move in with in-laws when I was itty-bitty, had to go back to work immediately to help pay the bills, had to put up with her aunt-in-law and outlandish advice like "put some clothes on that child and teach her some shame." Only after my parents righted their financial situation to the point where they could move back to their home did my ma take some time off to have my sister, all the while holding up the family emotionally and making sure the daily bread was on the table.

And then back to work she went, again, her heart wanting home the whole time.

I enjoy my job. I enjoy having a space where I don't have to answer to The Kid or The Old Man, where I do work that interests me, where I can navigate the policies and personalities for promotions. Sometimes - briefly - I can see why mom would have wanted to stay home to raise her children. I feel the ache in the morning when I creep out the door and The Kid is still sleeping; I feel the anticipation on the drive home when I know I'll get to see him. But for my mother to feel that ache every day, to wish herself in her garden showing her kids the bugs, to want to be in her kitchen, all six hands wrapped in afternoon cookie dough - for her to feel that ache every single day and still go to work - what would that be like?

It's a reminder that there are all kinds of strong.

My favorite quote ever. So far this week.

Here are two quotes about writing. I believe the first one - believed it from age 10 when I wrote my first word in my first journal. I've never been afraid of death because I feel like whoever discovers my journals and words will know something about me. I won't have faded away.

"Because when we're all dust and teeth and kicked-up bits of skin - when we're dancing with our own skeletons - our words might be all that's left of us."

From Scribbling the Cat by Alexandra Fuller

"Julian once told me that a story is a letter the author writes to himself, to tell himself things that he would be unable to discover otherwise."

From The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Then and Now

I was from
every day outside
sleeping in caves
saw the stars
heard the coyotes
in my bedroom
fierce determination
to do it all
when I grew up.

Now I am from
short-clipped fingernails
never know when I'll have to fight
determined to do it all
but it's not that easy
negotiating my place at work
leaving work behind at home
working on a story
for eight months
waiting for the time
and the inspiration
the story deserves
writing to shout who I am
because doing it all
obscures introspection.

I am from
bewildering confidence
that I will never cede
what I need.

Short Story - The Chevy and The Smart Car

http://crazycoppertop.blogspot.com/2010/03/chevy-and-smart-car.html

I finally did write that short story - here it is.

My favorite quote ever. So far this week.

"During that time of life that is supposed to be a reproductive daze, with the woman's mind all swamped with maternal juices, we were still compelled to discuss Simone de Beauvoir and Arthur Koestler and The Cocktail Party."

-Alice Munro, Nettles, from her short story collection Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage.

Better Than Sex

I'm a fan of drama, of finding the next high, of filling the empty void with excitement. Slow, steady contentment makes me cranky. I've been known to pick a fight just to feel the adrenaline. Since I'm content with my life, a state that holds no tension or drama, I will often use sex to fill the void. The problem is I'm not getting any lately, and I really have no grounds to pick a fight, and no fights mean no make-up sex. But I am grateful for some lovely squishy things that tide me over. Four things that are BETTER THAN SEX:

1. Philly Cheesesteaks from Off Broadway Cafe. Warm, melted cheese, sauteed peppers and juicy steak enveloped by wheat bread to add nutritional content. Orgasmic.

2. Driving to work at 6:00 AM in my Japanese car listening to Sugarland and Bon Jovi.

3. Writing. Disappearing into my head to the exclusion of all other thoughts.

4. Reading Alice Munro's short story Nettles and circling sentences I love and being humbled by one of the truly great writers of our time.

Of course, when I get some action again for the first time in months I'll wonder why I thought these other things even came close.

Level Playing Field: A Pantoum

every day always I am too little
except when Dad makes snowballs
wet snow and wood chips - our battleground -
under the slides and swingsets

except when Dad makes snowballs
the smalls do what the bigs say
under the slides and swingsets
in snowball fights I get to kill Dad dead

the smalls do what the bigs say
we have to follow the rules
in snowball fights I get to kill Dad dead
and he rolls and falls and screams and I pounce

we have to follow the rules
no rules in war
and he rolls and falls and screams and I pounce
he's the small and I'm the big

no rules in war
wet snow and wood chips - our battleground -
he's the small and i'm the big
every day always I am too little

Small Talk

Dear Wonderful Coworkers,

I love working with you. You believe in what you do, you support your friends at work. You have the best intentions. So when you see a pregnant lady, you ask her how she is doing. How she is feeling. When she is due.

I answer these questions about fourteen times a day.

So, I am going to get a T-shirt printed, to answer these questions. The words will be printed on the back of the T-shirt, because the front is rather bulbous at the moment and will make reading difficult. I've considered bold font, highlighting, playing with the colors, but after consideration, a consistent font and black text will suffice, especially since you will have to read it as I am walking away.

How am I feeling?

Well, since you asked, do you know what a pelvic floor is? Mine hurts.

I have to pee every half hour, which means I have to run into people in the halls, which means I have to answer questions.

I'm hungry all the time. In fact, if you are reading this, it is likely I just ate an entire package of chocolate covered donuts from the vending machine.

My current theme song is "She Bop" by Cyndi Lauper since my husband won't have sex with me.

A little irritated when someone says "You're so big, it looks like you could give birth any day now!"

Yes, I have four and a half weeks left. No, I'm not ready for it to happen right now. This little girl will come when she's good and ready. No, I'm not worried about the pain. Are you?

I'm feeling

wired

uninspired

tired.

Thanks for asking. Love, Me.

Stay Tuned

I just want to say that I have a wonderful short story lurking in my noggin but had to write an article for work, which was a total boring bummer compared to this crazy story in my brain.

My wonderful sis-in-law is taking me for a massage and mani and pedi tomorrow, and I hope to squeeze in some writing before then. Tomorrow could be the best day EVER.

p.s. WHY I WRITE: Annie mentioned the other day that relationships have a way of making us lose our identity. As a woman who directs her energy mostly towards her kid (soon to be kids), husband and job - who in fact, is being alternately smacked and hand-fed cookie crumbs by her 3 year old even as she types - I understand that identity is a slippery thing. Writing is my way of thinking. It's how I figure out the world. It's where I do things I've always wanted to do. It's where I hope one day to be all edgy and push acceptable social norms and be seen as a totally unique brave soul. No pressure or anything.

The Chevy and the Smart Car

Zed sold his truck. The 1984 Chevy Silverado with the smooth brown and red leather bench seat and stick shift. Girls would scooch left to press their thighs against him while they bumped down dirt roads. The truck smelled of fall hunting trips: thick pregnant pine needles, red clay and sagebrush stuck in the undercarriage. All the work he'd done. A homemade scissor lift for the front end, crossover steering, a built 350 with 700 trans and 205 transfer case. Gone. For her.

Her lips, her jelly bean-colored high heels. Her power. The sex. Jesus.

Janelle had a good job, an education. She was a lawyer for the local city attorney's office. They met at a bar one night. She was smart, funny and held his hand the right way. At first she called him country boy, admired his farmer's tan, called the elk and deer in his freezer the "lean, organic alternative to beef."

And unlike any other woman he'd been with, she was passionate about her causes. She had her own life and it fascinated him to be blasted by a real opinion backed up by genuine thoughts. She took up the cause of breast cancer research. He missed a couple hunting trips to do some 5k walks where he wore pink over his camo pants. She marched with him, lacquered nails gently steering his elbow, walking next to the right people, the ones with political connections. She hadn't had cancer, nor had anyone in her family. The mayor had just gone through chemo for it though, and it was a way in for Janelle - a conversation starter.


She asked him to move in while they were waiting for their food at a taco stand: "This weekend my schedule's clear - bring some boxes over and I'll clear out some space in the medicine cabinet."

She lived on the hill overlooking downtown, in a three story modern jangle of metal and wood. He sold his house. She demanded that his guns and hunting gear go into storage, because "the camo doesn't fit the modern decor in this house." He drove his Chevy an extra twenty miles to the job site every day where he worked on the pipelines running natural gas from farm fields south to the big city.

Zed was watching Wheel of Fortune one night in her (their) cavernous media room. "Darling, look at this adorable Hummer!" Janelle waved the Hummer dealer's catalogue in front of his face.

He cringed. It was pink. A pink Hummer H2 with 22 inch double duece chrome rims. The phrase "sport utility truck," made him throw up in his mouth a little bit every time he heard it. "Beautiful," he said. "How much does something like that cost?"

"It's a statement, silly. It's not about the cost. I'm the chairwoman of the Tri-Town Breast Cancer Awareness Group. When they see me in this, people will know I care." Janelle wrapped her perfumed arms around him and whispered, "The salesman is adding a strut front grill. And they are making sure the bed is fully rhino-lined for your deer hunting trips."

Zed said, "Well, that's great. But I'll just take my old Chevy for the trips. We don't need to mess up your new Hummer."

Janelle slid her hand up his thigh. "Well, I was thinking...." She licked his ear. "We don't need two trucks. And yours is so old and nasty. I hear the brakes creaking when you come home from work."

"That truck is my baby, baby girl." Zed parted her lips with his tongue and put his hands under her shirt. "Let's talk about this later."

Hunting seasons came and went, and Zed didn't get to go. Too many political functions where he was hanging on Janelle's arm. November elections put a new mayor in office. One who wanted to implement a city-wide energy savings environmental plan. Janelle bought a Smart Car. The model was called "ForTwo" because, literally, only two people could fit inside. And they couldn't be tall people. The car was silver, shiny, tiny. She pinned a napkin-sized American flag to the antenna.

The night she came home with it, she didn't tell him until after they'd spent some sweaty time on the kitchen floor. Zed held her and stared up at the ceiling while she ticked off its features.

"I've had GPS navigation and Onstar installed in case some jerk in a gas-guzzling SUV hits me and causes serious injury," Janelle said. "And honey, can you whip up a survival kit that will fit in the trunk? I need something to hold me over until the ambulance comes - I just know that I'll get in some horrible accident."

"Sure, I'll get you an Action Packer and some gauze, sweet thing," Zed said.

"What are we going to do with those horrible big trucks?"

Zed didn't say anything.

"I mean, it doesn't look good for the next City Attorney to be driving around in a monster."

"You can park Pinkie in the garage," Zed said.

"I'm going to sell that horrible thing," Janelle said. "I don't know what I was thinking. But I want to get a good price. In the meantime..." and she dug her fingernails into his abdomen, "we need to downsize." Then she climbed on top of him and bit his chest and he forgot to answer.

Janelle did some research, and discovered that a 1984 Chevy Silverado in excellent condition was considered a classic by some, and she arranged for Zed to meet a buyer the next week. The buyer smacked him on the back and the tears Zed had been holding back shot out of his eyes.

That's how he ended up sneaking out at four in the morning with a pink Hummer H2 to pump gas so none of his buddies would see him. The gas station attendant gave him funny looks, so Zed kept his head down under his camo ballcap and his eyes fixed to the ground. He'd get to work about 4:30 and park a quarter of a mile away behind an old gravel pit, and walk in with his lunch.

After work one day he took the thing up to the forest service roads and got into some muddy two-tracks. Brown globs covered the pink mostly, even on the roof. Zed saw a cliff in the distance, drove off-road straight for it, gunned the engine, and fantasized about jumping out at the last second while the vehicle flew through the air over the edge. He put on the brakes in the slush and the mud at the last second, and stared out at the sunset. What about next year's hunting trips? What would his buddies think when he threw a deer in the back of this pink beast? What the hell was he doing, sneaking in to work? Filling up a gas tank once a day at four in the morning?

So the next day he called the buyer. Told him he'd do a straight up swap - Zed's $50,000 Hummer for the $9,000 1984 Chevy. Maybe it was the money, maybe it was the choke in Zed's voice that convinced the guy, but it worked.

Then he bought a ring. A simple gold band. It bounced in its box on the red and brown leather seat.

They pulled in the driveway at the same time: the Smart Car and the Chevy. He got out of the truck, gathered her up in his arms and threw her over his shoulder, ignoring her stream of words:

"What is that truck doing here? Where's the Hummer? What are you doing? This is a five hundred dollar suit!"

Zed tossed her on the bench seat, peeled out of the driveway and headed for the mountains. "Come here, darlin'," he said. He pulled her over the stick shift so that she was almost in his lap. "Shut up until we get where we're going."

It was his favorite hunting spot. A road that ended in sagebrush with a view of the red rocks below. He snaked his hand under her - she jumped - and he brought out the box. He killed the engine and showed her the ring. "Will you?"

Janelle looked at him for a minute. She smiled, a real, genuine smile. Then her lower lip puffed out and her mouth took over: "I like the platinum with the princess cut diamonds, five of them, set in a curve..."

"Take it or leave it," Zed said.

Janelle slid out of her heels and rested one bare foot on the dash. The truck engine ticked. She looked at him, at his truck, at the ring. "I suppose you want me to bear your children, too?"

"Just a passel of 'em or so, sweetheart."

"Dreaming of the Ex" Poem

Check out my poem on the blog Seven Days Seven Answers: http://7days7answers.blogspot.com/2010/02/dreaming-of-ex.html .

Synesthesia means a sensation produced in one modality when a stimulus is applied to another modality, as when the hearing of a certain sound induces the visualization of a certain color.

Dreams can be hard to describe. You are immersed in a very real world behind your lids and then BAM!, out you roll into life. I have always struggled with describing the colors and sounds and most importantly, feelings of my dreams. Synesthia - taking one sense like smell, sight, touch, sound, and replacing it with another - is an interesting writing exercise.

On a side note, last night I had my recurring girl power, kick ass dream, wherein I beat someone up. This time it was an evil old lady who was trying to boil me and my friends alive in a prison hot tub. I organized everyone and we swarmed her control tower. She did not survive. I surmise this dream came about because my body tends to overheat while sleeping these days.

Game Warden Mama

I am a commissioned wildlife officer. This means that even though I am in human resources in a wildlife agency, a job that is 95% desk-jockeydom, 5% of the time I get to borrow a truck, drive around the sticks, and be a game warden. I have busted some bad-ass poachers in my time, mostly because I'm smarter than them, and more stubborn.

The required annual training to keep my law enforcement commission consists of time on the firearms range with shotgun, rifle and handgun, re-certification of my defensive tactics and tactical baton skills, and two days of rather boring classroom presentations. I'm a tactical baton instructor.

I also have a rather full life as a working mom. So I have begun to question all the time I spend training to keep my badge and my gun. It's optional, my choice.

And it's not just about analyzing the best use of my time. It is about belonging to this culture, this all-important group of people who, because of their badges, have credibility within the agency. Promotions and friendships seem easier, and assumptions about my abilities more forgiving, because of my badge. There are about 30 of us anomalies - women - in the ranks, and while we cannot grow handlebar moustaches, we try to blend in as best we can. And I am an anomalous anomaly: mother of one, soon to be two. And, lemme tell ya, blending in is hard to do with monstrous boobs and a belly so big I can't see my feet anymore.

Last week I was at the annual training, where we sit in class and then do some defensive tactics and baton recertification. Maybe it's my super newly developed human resources ears, or my redheaded temper, or my preggers hormones, but several phrases and statements stuck with me during the classroom training:

• "Brotherhood" was used more than once to describe the group of people assembled there, even though there were women in the group.
• A presentation about search and seizure laws included a cartoon of detectives entering a room where a woman in lingerie was tied to a chair. A large female police officer was ready to search her while the two detectives watched. "Are you ready for your full body cavity search?" the detectives asked. "That's never a good idea," smirked the prosecutor giving the presentation, and snickers came from the audience.
• In the same search and seizure presentation, the presenter showed a video clip from My Cousin Vinny, where Joe Pesci and Marisa Tomei were arguing about him going hunting. Tomei is dressed in a white lacy nightgown that barely covers her. The presenter says, "The guys in the room aren't paying attention to the dialogue here." More laughs from his audience.

Frickin' backcountry redneck sons a bitches. Anyway.

I worried about instructing my portion of the tactical baton class. There were six instructors, and we each had to teach about 10 minutes. I was assigned to teach strikes. Essentially, I had to hit the bag four times, and yell at the class for 10 minutes. The lead instructor had said, "Let's see how you feel, you may not feel up to instructing." I told him yelling and hitting are two things that pregnant women can do just fine, thank you very much. I also reminded him it wasn't his decision whether or not I would instruct.

I wasn't worried about the logistics. I have spent so much time trying to prove myself and blend in as a game warden, that I was worried that my shape - my pregnant body - would elicit smirks and snickers from the guys in sweatpants and camo hats. No matter that many have pot-bellies. Their bellies are earned from years of beer and junk food and driving around in their trucks. Here I was, bringing in a reminder of the feminine to a male culture. Of course I was worried. I didn't have my normal 5k, weight-lifting bod to disguise my curves.

As much as I would like for it to be, this post isn't about the subtle misogynism of the agency I work for, because there are many male game wardens - mostly younger Gen X and Y'ers - who don't perpetrate the ridiculous macho culture. This post is about how I take my worries about fitting in, and do the work anyway.

And I stood up in front of 50 game wardens, I puffed my chest out (not hard to do), stuck out my belly, waddled up to the punching bag, and with a strong snapping motion opened my baton. I gave my normal full-throated command - I do have a black belt in karate, after all - and smacked the hell out of the punching bag. Then I gave commands to the group, one, two, three..., to do their best with the strikes.

One of the other instructors interrupted me to tell the group to use their trunk muscles to really make the strikes powerful. It annoyed the hell out of me, because no other instructor was interrupted during their time.

I said, "Thank you John, for pointing that out." I pointed to my belly and said, "Some of us have bigger trunk muscles than others, so don't be intimidated." John's lucky I didn't point at his beer gut.

Frickin' backcountry redneck son of a bitch. Anyway.

My 10 minutes was over, and I survived. It would have been easy to skip this round, claim I couldn't do it, and make it up later. I'm glad I didn't. I projected confidence, even though I didn't feel it.

Besides, later on this year, I won't be pregnant, but I'll be breastfeeding. Waddling around with a big pansa is easier than leaking milk. If I am going to keep my badge, I will need to complete many hours of rifle, shotgun, handgun, and defensive tactics training. I'll be making time during the training to breast-pump; I'll be managing leaky nipples. Three years ago I chose not to pump while I was at the gun range for six hours (the only private place was a Port-A-Potty) and payed for it with double mastitis and a milk cyst.

Normally I compartmentalize my life: I am a mother at home, a worker at work. During this time, when the physical realities of motherhood need to be integrated into the law enforcement "brotherhood," all I can do is pretend confidence, and get the work done. Is it worth it, to keep this optional badge? I'm not sure. I'll make the decision when my head is clear (sometime in 2011 or so).

My Senryu on "Handful of Stones" blog

http://www.ahandfulofstones.com/2010/02/senryu-times-two-no-beer-for-you.html

It's 3 AM and I'm eating - because there's a baby in my belly and apparently little missy can't wait for 5:30 AM to roll around - and also writing about this senryu I wrote a couple of months ago. A senryu is a haiku about human foibles. As much as I love haikus, which traditionally are nature-themed, I wanted to take this form and apply it to my tendencies to make outrageous threats like, "I'm gonna leave you and go to Mexico."

Enjoy. My tummy is full and I'm going back to bed.

Why my "Navel-gazing drivel" matters

So I write about The Old Man, aka The Husband, and The Kid, because it's how I make sense of the world. It's how I make sense of the fact that as a woman I am expected to bring home the bacon, cook it, and look good doing it. I was raised to think I could do it all - and finding out that my whole identity changed when The Kid came was a big shock. And I think that there are a lot of other women out there who feel the same.

And The Husband doesn't fit neatly into any beer-gut, noncaring stereotypes. He's a father unlike our fathers from thirty years ago. Do I have a right to blog about all the challenges even when hunkalicious is right there beside me? Of course I do. Life isn't a fairytale but it's fun.

I could use my ridiculous Ivy League degree to blog about politics or social activism or cooking, but the deeply personal has always interested me more.

Annie Danielson said, "Home is where you story begins." She's right. http://thestudio.danielsondesigns.com/DDShortStory.aspx

Thanks to Don Mills Diva http://donmillsdiva.blogspot.com/2009/01/write-on-respect-blog.html for inspiring this post.

My story on Rose City Sisters Flash Fiction Anthology

http://rosecitysisters.blogspot.com/2010/02/38-bertinas-playlist.html

Hey ya'll,

Check out my story on Rose City Sisters Flash Fiction Anthology. :)

Balance

So, I'm a working mom.

I have found that balance for me means compartmentalizing my obligations. When I am at work, I focus on work to be the most productive. When I am at home, I focus on being a wife and mother and maintaining all the domestic chores. I forget work. When I have my rare personal time, I focus on myself.

Lately, this balance also means cutting out some obligations at work. Saying no. Which is hard, because I should be able to do everything, because I'm sorta perfect that way.

I wake up though in the middle of the night, freaked out that I am missing something at home. Something important. That my mind is not focused enough on The Kid, or the New One coming. I've had moments of panic in the middle of the night where I wonder if I'll die and somehow miss all the important things in life.

So to simplify right now: I am saying no to some work obligations. When I feel rushed on the commute, or overwhelmed by my to-do lists or my mind begins to dwell on job duties, I lean towards that warm sunny place which is home, that Kid who puts a smile on my face even when he's knitting his eyebrows, that Husband who holds my hand while we're watching TV.

I'm also trying to relax about housework. Let the floor get a little crunchy under bare feet for a while. Even though I vacuumed last night, I'm trying.

In middle-of-the-night clarity, playing with and hugging my child is the only thing that matters. It's the only thing that will matter fifty years from now.

Love Letter to The Old Man

Dear The Old Man,

I've been thinking lots about how to write a love letter to you. It is especially challenging because:

A: You aren't impressed with mushy sentiments, and
B: You don't read my blog.

First, let's just get this out of the way: you are my eye candy. I can't help it. I think you are secretly getting hotter every year. Much of the allure comes from the fact that you've never owned a pair of cuff links, you've never had a manicure - except for that one time in high school when you were trying to impress a girl - and you don't moisturize. Yesterday when you were digging in the backyard, covered in dirt, measuring tape slung low across your hips... well, I just want to jump your bones.

Your scrumptiliciousness coupled with the fact that you don't talk much - well, that's every girl's dream. I remember the first gift you gave me. We were sitting in the pickup truck working on a mule deer study, watching the deer gather under the capture net. Too many bucks - we wanted does and fawns to collar. I found a quartz rock in the passenger seat. I held it up to you and you said, "Oh, yeah. I picked that up for you because I thought you'd like it." Then you went back to your sleepy arms-folded quiet pose. I still have that rock - it comes with the memory of the first full sentence you ever uttered to me.

I remember our honeymoon in San Francisco. You were raised on an alfalfa farm in Western Colorado and grew up hunting, fishing and smashing mailboxes for fun on the backroads because there wasn't anything else to do. It was only your third time on an airplane. I took you to the Castro to visit my gay friend at two AM in a bar that played Boy George. You had a great time. Your only comment the whole night: "So this is where all the gyms are."

And when I went back to work after The Kid was born, you were the one who taught him how to use a bottle. You were the one who said no to work obligations to take him to the doctor's office for fevers and colds and skin rashes and eye infections.

And every night, no matter how tired you are, you play with The Kid before he goes to bed. You invent whole worlds and games - the latest, origami mouths who eat origami frogs - to keep The Kid's imagination going.

The dog likes you better.

Feelings aren't your forte, but from day one you have listened to mine. I've never felt, like I have with past ex's, that my words weren't important.

Here we enter the realm of the intangible, and why love is so hard to describe. My guts, the viscera, my nerves and my brain all relax when you're near. I don't freak out. Someone once described me as "strung tighter than a piano wire." When I'm around you I'm unstrung.

I have loved deeply in the past. I don't believe that there is one person for whom all eternity is reserved. I know much of why we're together is based on practicality: we have the same interests, we were at the same point in our lives where we both wanted a family when we met. I've had more spiritual romances, relationships with more sexual sparks, jealous loves, more exciting romances. I would describe our love as steady, dependable. Our love is not a roller coaster of giddy highs and tearful lows. Maybe it's because we have both matured to the point where we look at our lives as a whole, rather than two points of view struggling against each other for dominance.

(At this point you're saying, "Our love is not a roller coaster? What??!!" Well, let me tell you honey, seriously, that compared to how it's been in the past, I am truly less crazy with you. For you, I think before I speak.)

I don't have the rock n' roll ride with you. Instead, I have a feeling of coming home, both body and soul, of looking forward to seeing you after work. Of comfort, of being able to act like me in my own skin.

I think you're a real man.

Real men get their hands dirty.
Real men give rocks.
Real men go to gay bars.
Real men take their kids to the doctor.
Real men do origami.

I love you.

Skinny Comedian

For Valentine's Day I am going to post a "Love Letter to The Old Man." So that is percolating in the back of my brain. Having a strong, steady - hottie Babraham Lincoln - husband is one of the biggest blessings in my life.

I was thinking of a comedy club to help celebrate our love for VDay. Everyone needs a good laugh on Valentine's Day, or as Buffy the Vampire Slayer calls it, Stab In The Heart Day. I saw that Pat Dixon was going to be at Comedy Works on Saturday night. I checked him out on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1vxlB_PJzk.

Normally I could handle the misogynism, the skinny misanthrope on stage exposing his own self-esteem issues through his jokes on how he likes women to struggle a little when he's having sex with them.

But really. I'm in no mood for jackasses like this. I'm almost eight months pregnant. I've gained thirty pounds. I could see myself storming the stage and sitting on Pat, watching him struggle just a little bit for air while my elbow hits his soft tender adam's apple. Stuffing the dozen roses that come with the "Sweet On You" ticket package down his flat-fronted chinos.

So for his safety, I think I'll pass on tickets to the comedy show.

Doesn't take much to get me riled up these days.

Now, back to thinking about love and mushy stuff.

Solitude

Thought for today:

It is normal, even healthy, to limit interaction with other adults sometimes.

Words like:

Hermit
Lazy
Antisocial

are not meaningful characterizations of solitude.

Instead:

Reflective
Restful
Self-acceptance

more accurately describe why solitude is healthy and why one should not ignore the urge to be alone.

Scrapbooking is good???

This may be the only time I ever say anything nice about scrapbooking.

We are cleaning and reorganizing to fit the next little monkey in the house, and I had the idea that maybe I could rip some pictures out of photo albums, put them in envelopes, and save some space.

But I found the scrapbook - a very amateur attempt unlike those scrapbooker gurus I know - I made of The Kid's first six months. I'm preggers so I'm predisposed to tears anyway, but by the end of the album I was crying.

The page that sent me over the edge:

Four photos. The Old Man holds The Baby Kid in each. The Old Man looks tired, depressed. I had written "Daddy Loves You!!" in the middle. With two exclamation points. As if by pasting evidence that The Old Man held The Kid during this time, and by writing that line, I could make it true.

Of course The Old Man loves The Kid. But for the first year, The Old Man was grumpy, withdrawn. Not happy. I'm desperate that this pattern isn't repeated with the new one. I don't have the emotional armory to prop The Old Man up, plus The Kid, plus the New One. I want The Old Man to be happy with me, to show his excitement. I don't want to wait a year for The Old Man to be happy again.

Being the take-charge kind of gal I am, I've already talked a lot to The Old Man about this. He is aware of what might happen, and is right there along with me, going to try everything to make sure it doesn't happen again.

Needless to say, I couldn't rip a single picture out of anywhere. Maybe I'll make space by giving my old ballet slippers and karate uniforms to charity...

Belinda's playlist

Belinda was a large German woman who sat hunched in her office most days. I dreaded asking her for a deadline extension on the paperwork. She always looked either insulted or angry when I asked for anything outside of normal routine.

Her office was in the basement, sandwiched between the custodian's closet and the men's restroom. She wasn't behind her desk, so I decided to wait. I sat in a rickety plastic chair shoved into the corner. It was the first real chance I'd had to study her work space. Usually our conversations were short verbal missives fired at each other while I was half-turned to go and her eyes were glued on her computer.

Haphazard cords fell from the back of her computer, which faced the doorway. There were no plants - no way they would survive in the windowless basement. One glaring ceiling light buzzed above; a dust-covered bookcase housed cracked plastic binders. Belinda had one picture on the wall: a yellow cat with distended claws stuck in window curtains, and a caption that read "Hang in there!"

I shifted - the plastic chair scraped the linoleum floor - and glanced back towards the doorway, wondering if I should come back another time. That's when I saw the diploma hanging above the door. A Ph.D. in Social Sciences with a concentration in economics from CalTech, 1995. Belinda was slightly above a secretary and far below a mid-level manager. She had worked at our company for fifteen years. It struck me that she was probably smarter than her boss and his boss put together.

I heard squeaking shoes and Belinda walked in - I stood up - she saw me and moved sideways. "What do you want?" she asked.

"I just wanted to keep you in the loop. I'll be turning in the StaffCo contract paperwork about a week late," I said. "We have some more negotiations to do."

Belinda was in a blue and green flower-print dress, long-sleeved. There was a ring of dust around the bottom of her dress where the fabric had slid through the muck of the linoleum. Greasy hair framed her red-splotched face. This giant German thought to dress herself in flowers from the early nineties. I choked down a panicked laugh.

"Any changes mean more work for me," Belinda said, and sat down behind her desk. She looked at her computer screen. "I'm sure you can appreciate that I don't have time to waive deadlines for every contract. The answer is no." And she put her hand up and motioned me out of her office.

Ugly, big, mean white lady. No imagination. No flexibility. Out of her office and up the stairs to my corner office with bright windows and plush carpet. Belinda had no decision-making authority. We both knew I would take as long as I needed to with the negotiations, and she would "forget" to process my paperwork until I had to come to her squat dirty office again to check its status. A game, an office power play. I was tired of it.

So I made her a mixed tape. Jon Bon Jovi, Bee Gees, Madonna, P!nk. Joan Jett. A little Slip-Slidin' Away by Paul Simon. A little Michael Jackson. Some Elvis Presley. I kept it light, dance-ready, upbeat. Some Queen seasoned with a little Hall & Oates. I grew up in the eighties, so I still call them mixed tapes. What I really did was go on itunes and create a playlist called "For Belinda;" then I burned it onto a CD. Since she had no way to play CDs in her office, I bought the cheapest CD player I could find: a Hello Kitty pink boombox for $9.99.

I figured at some point in the past fifteen years, she had been confident, maybe even well-regarded. The big bosses must have asked for her ideas. Little by little, she had been ignored. Her promise as a highly educated member of the workforce was forgotten; she was given menial tasks that required no brain power. She could either fight back, challenge her bosses to give her more meaningful work, or become bitter and protect the small responsibilities dumped on her in the basement. I figured she had chosen the latter.

I waited one night until she went home, and then placed her gifts on her desk. No "To...From..." note, just the CD and the pink boombox.

I waited a week, then two; continued my negotiations with StaffCo. I forgot about Belinda. StaffCo and I finally came to an agreement, so I made the long walk down the basement stairs to face her. I found her office - empty. Dust patterns showed where the computer had been, the phone...the diploma above the door. The only things left were the scuffed plastic chair and the cat poster.

I walked back upstairs and went to my boss. "Did you finally fire Belinda?" I asked.

"No," he said. "We promoted her. You need her for the StaffCo paperwork?"

"Yeah...," I said.

"Give it to Sandy until we can find a replacement for Belinda's old position."

I started to walk out of his office, and then turned and asked, "What's Belinda's new job title?"

"Senior VP of Marketing," he said. "She's a couple rungs up the chain from you now."

Senior VPs had offices on the sixth floor. I got on the elevator and rode up. I had to get past the receptionist to find Belinda - I made up an excuse about being summoned there for a meeting.

Belinda was pin-striped and well-groomed, not a hair out of place. Her skin was clear and smooth. She regarded me with a steady gaze, and smiled.

"Congratulations on your promotion." I hovered in the doorway and looked past her to the view of the city. Green plants in a tasteful arrangement on the windowsill framed the skyline.

"I'm just livin' on a prayer," she said.

I caught a flash of pink: the Hello Kitty CD player was nestled under her diploma on a gleaming mahogany side table. "You're halfway there," I said, and smiled back.