Anne's Blog

College, in Retrospect

2011-12-30T21:25:00.004-05:00

Here are a few things I wish I had known in college:

1. People who say they’ve always wanted to experiment with bisexuality are probably not going to be very good at it.

2. Nobody is actually watching to see how much you drink at the kegger.

3. If your roommate leaves you a very long note complaining about how you do the dishes or shop for groceries, etc., don’t write a note back. In fact, don’t even read the note. In fact, just move out on the 1st.

4. You don’t have to go on a date just to be polite.

5. Savour the all-day brunches. Even the standing-in-line part.

6. Feminism is the radical notion that women are people. College feminism is the radical notion that men are a sub-human species.

7. You and another person will do all the work on the group project, while several others do nothing and get the same credit. This is not a glaring inequity that needs to be righted. It is merely a snapshot of the rest of your life.

8. If you sleep with your Sociology TA, you get an A. If you sleep with your Poly Sci TA, you get a stack of really cool books. If you sleep with your Philosophy TA, you’re lucky if you get breakfast.

9. Do the year abroad and break up with your boyfriend before you go.

10. People who are working on their English PhD and drink scotch at lunchtime are neither interesting nor profound; they’re just drunks.

11. Don’t take German 101 at 7:45 in the morning. If you do take German 101 at 7:45 in the morning, try to actually make it to class. If you don’t make it to class, at least try to remember to drop the class. If you forget to drop the class, at least try to get it removed from your transcript. Or don’t. Whatever.

10-Word Parenting Manuals

2011-12-12T23:11:00.010-05:00

I don’t wear Lululemon and I don’t push a $2,000 stroller. I have not found my niche in the tony parade of newish moms that chat each other up in coffee shops, grocery aisles and at the swing sets.

Actually, I worry about these women because, well, they’re worried -- like, all the time. “My baby likes squash puree but not pumpkin puree. Will he adjust well in college?”

So lately, I find myself gravitating to moms-of-multiples, who seem able to sum up all the books and magazines and urls on parenting into a few short words of advice, usually ten or less. Here they are.

Losing Baby Weight
Women are often is in a rush to lose the baby weight. Personally, I was in no hurry because I used this as my guidebook:

Post-Partum Pilates? I Am Breastfeeding! Are You Fucking Insane?

Sleep Training
There are 3,678 books on Amazon this subject! Fascinatingly, many new parents believe that if they can get their baby to sleep in a crib for a long period of time, their toddler will, too [chortle]. In ten words:

Your Kids Are Gonna Keep You Up At Night: Deal.

“Infant-Led Weaning”
This is an honest-to-God “movement”, with special guides and cookbooks you could spend oodles of cash on. Or you could read my 10-word book that sums the entire thing up:

Feed Your Baby Soft-Cooked Vegetables: They Will Like That

Time Management
Time is the biggest conflict among couples with kids. Look at all the helpful books! There are a lot of creative ideas involving magnetic fridge calendars, colored stickers and iPod apps, but:

Why Not Just Wear Your Pajamas to the Grocery Store?

Potty Training
You have your choice of potty training books that explore "elimination awareness" from a cross-cultural perspective. But the most important advice has been left out of all of them: Roll up your carpets for 6 months. My own title:

Potty Training is Messy, Funny and Has No Deep Significance

Raising Girls
Bullying, self-confidence issues… there is a lot to deal with, raising a girl. I looked at a whole raft of books at Borders, and here’s the solution in 10 words:

Ask Your Daughter Open-Ended Questions and Give Her Karate Lessons

Raising Boys
Boys can become detached and not respect women because of what they see around them in our misogynist culture. I looked at a bunch of books by psychologists and sociologists and boiled it all down for you in 10 words:

Respect Your Wife … and Don’t Let the Kids Play XBox

Keeping Your Marriage Healthy After Children
Finally, the dyad that we as a culture pin all our hopes and dreams upon. The Man. The Woman. The “One”. The Relationship. In ten words?

Date Night Can Wait, But Happy Feet Two Closes Next Week

Defying Gravity (fiction)

2011-08-27T21:20:00.001-04:00

Up here, the world is a safe place. I’m hanging by my knees with the net below and ready to swing into Craig’s waiting arms. I pump my legs and fly to him; we swing into the balance. Here comes Melanie. I catch her and she slides down into place. The spin is beautiful from here: Mel's dark hair a swirling blur – defying gravity. It’s the first time we’ve got it all down with the music. Sweaty smiles.

It reminds me of last weekend, the party at the cottage. It's pretty amazing, having sex with 3 or 4 or 5 people. Who was that? whose hand is that? what is that? I'd prefer to have Melanie to myself, but you take what you can get, right? Craig – prick – gets to have her every night, but I’m not going to mess with his shit. I tell myself every time I’m going to go home on my own, yet somehow I always wake up in that back bedroom, all cozy, tangled, happy.

I’m sure my mom would be horrified to know about my weekends. Or maybe not. I sort of think all she wants is for me not to eat Thai food. I’ve got the peanut allergy and a bunch of others and a lot of fun got taken away from me over the years because of that. So she just let me have whatever else I could have. On weekends we’d go off with her boyfriends or ex-boyfriends in the truck, scrambling up mountains, quarry diving, racing, BMX... I broke my ankle, my collarbone, but so what? I lived.

Those guys were fun, mostly. But she's been alone now for the past few years. Is being a mom enough for her? Or her job with the City? It couldn't be. She wants some other love in her life. I don't know what ended it with all those guys she dated when I was a kid. Unless maybe it was me... a kid... that stopped everything. But she says that wasn't it.

Anyhow I used to have a dad, too. Until that day.

It was right after I turned ten. Dude comes over to take me out and we stop to see his friends at a bar. I remember being sooo hungry, but he doesn’t want me to order anything because we’re going to eat at his house. (Cheap bastard, right?) So I end up eating these pretzely-salty things from a bowl. Peanut. Suddenly I get that uh-oh, goodbye feeling. Went into shock and hit the floor under the barstool. My dad picks me up and drives me home to Mom and tells her I “fell asleep in the car”. She knew what was up. Me and Mom were two days in the hospital, but where was he? Down at the bar eating pretzels with his friends, I guess.

Do I miss my dad? Honestly, no. Over the years, he’s dissolved in my memory, like a sugar cube melting down to a single grain and then, nothing. It's not parental alienation or anything, like his lawyer was trying to say. But that is part of the thing with my dad, that he always accuses other people for shit he's done. Maybe he's not a bad guy, I don't know. But it doesn't even matter. I don't need him.

I fly for a living and have no fear. The air is a sure place, you just have to be present. Focused. When you get to the point where your body knows just what to do, then you can look around and really feel it all. It’s like a hyper-real state, to fly. The cool wind rushing, your arms spread like wings, tiny faces in a faraway crowd, the sureness of waiting hands. There are some days when I don’t want to come down.

But here we are. Melanie flips up into my arms, my hands around her waist. For one sweet second we're eye-to-eye, then she releases and drops to the net. “Whoo!” It’s my turn now. I pull up through Craig and swing into space, ready to drop. Then I let go.

Terrific Twos?

2011-04-24T22:47:00.001-04:00

We went to the Farm today for the first time since last summer. There are week-old baby lambs there and a red-haired pig that looks exactly like Donald Trump. And BB had a meltdown.

He’s a toddler now, and it's so different from our trips last year when he was just a babe. Back then I’d hold him up to see the donkeys and the chickens in their meadow and he’d squirm around to look at me some more. He didn’t notice the animals, really; all he really wanted to do was to be together, to lie in the grass outside the gate and maybe nurse. So my friend and I would sit there with our babies and do just that, with an occasional visit to the splash pool. And that was summer.

Now he’s 17 months old, getting into the transition when a kid is exploring independence but still needs mom/dad. When the tension of those two desires erupts, it’s a meltdown or a tantrum. Some people call it the terrible twos, but Dr. and Martha Sears (attachment parenting) call it “terrific twos”. “Take the tantrum as an opportunity to connect,” they write. How cool is that? I sit up late and re-read their books like some folks read the Bible. Their beatific optimism about everything toddler is enlightening -- and a balm to my ego.

Unlike the first year of BB’s life, I’m no longer just the hero with the breasts. I’m now the one who has to pull him from that rocky cliff ledge he wants to scale. The stopper of fun. He's too little to get the why of it, and sometimes I don't get what's happening with him either. Like today: BB's running around the farm and I pick him up to show him the lambs in their paddock, figuring he'd like to see them, right? But the minute I start to lift him, he scREAMS and kicks his little legs: “nah. Nah. NAHH!!” Where did that come from?

At first, I bounce him on my hip and tried to explain just how awesome the little lambs are. This REALLY doesn't work (I sometimes forget he still doesn’t really speak English??) So I carry the dervish down the path and outside the gate, over to last summer’s grass. After a few minutes together there, he blinks his teary eyes and looks around. Then (as always with tantrums), it's like nothing happened. La, la, la. Let’s go back in.

When we reach the sheep’s paddock again, I hesitate. Then I take a breath and hoist the kid up to take a look. He's mellow this time and I almost cry with relief, because I really want to get a look at those cute little lambs. Aww!... Only 8 days old and still tottering when they stand. Some sleeping in a little pulsing ball of wool, others wandering in circles after the mama sheep -- so young and needing nothing more than a breast to turn to and the closeness of mother.

Needle on the Record

2011-04-11T22:49:00.000-04:00

We co-sleep. Since BB was born 16 months ago, his crib has sat, unused, in a room across the hall. I’m not sure why we even bought a crib – surely we must have known that from the minute we met him we’d be keeping him close. As BB moves into toddlerhood, co-sleeping is still the most practical way for us to parent. When he’s a little older he’ll get his own room.

I’ve used the crib for other things, though. During those crazy early months, when there was barely time enough to take a shower, I’d toss the piled-up laundry into it. You could fit a lot of loads in there. Later, I hid the guitar behind those white slats, to keep BB’s busy hands away from it. It was one place that he would never look.

Sure, there are a lot of pediatric studies that show co-sleeping is good for kids. But if I really think about it, my reason for co-sleeping is more plain: I remember. Specifically, I remember being about 4 or so, lying in my bed in my room in the dark, and the needle on the little Fischer Price record player -- clicking, clicking, clicking. The story was over (Jonah and the Whale) and I hadn’t fallen asleep yet. And there was no one to stop the record but me. But I was afraid to get out of the bed and turn it off myself... because of the monsters, right? So I would lie there trying to sleep, and some nights I’d make myself cry because it always tired me out and because that crying was a familiar thing to do.

This isn’t a memory that bothered me, really, until I had a child. It was then that I said, you know what? Take the needle off the record. Turn the shit around and be a new kind of parent. It could have happened with something else; it happens in different ways to each of us. When you become a parent you’re called upon to bring more, and to be more of what you needed those many years ago. It’s one of the ways we evolve, but it’s also a way that you grow -- and in bringing love to your child, you bring around a new kind of love to yourself, too.

Paradise (fiction)

2011-03-27T23:50:00.000-04:00

When Helen died, I moved into the Buen Amigo hotel like I always thought I would. Everybody said “don’t sell the house right away,” so I let my son Ken and his wife move in there. (She’s a piece of work, that one, but that’s another story.)

Friends said I was crazy to move to a hotel, but I just couldn’t live in that house anymore. Helen’s ghost was in everything, and not all the memories were good ones.

Some nights I would wake up and feel her body lying next to me in the bed, like I could reach over and touch it. I was 100 percent wide awake; this I knew. But I could never reach over. I’d just lie there, waiting for morning and praying for sleep… Other times I would dream that we were driving over to see Ken – those were the good nights – or sometimes for no reason I would see her face before me and that frown that she wore when I had disappointed her in some way. And hard as I tried to look around at all the smiling photos, it was that frown that stayed with me.

My vision of Helen in Puerto Rico is different, though. I remember the first time we came here. It was a few years before I retired. She’s walking along in her blue beach dress and suddenly spins around on her toes: “It’s paradise!” I was a mentsch then, had done just the right thing for my wife. And it was like that when we were on vacation. There were no fights, there was lots of sex, there was plenty of time: for reading the paper, for sitting on the beach and talking about the kids, for writing postcards to every known relative… I didn’t worry about work. There were no BlackBerries then. These were our best memories after the kids left home. The Buen Amigo.

Time I have lots of, now. I wake up every morning and catch the free hotel breakfast before nine, then I go and walk the promenade and think about Helen. And I always buy a banana from the guy at The Panama Hat. But then what?

So I start going into the casino. Buen Amigo didn’t used to have a casino when Helen and I came down here. Now there's one in just about every hotel. This one's right off the lobby, a flashing, blasting cavern that’s packed 24 hours a day. A lot of young kids, but also a lot of seniors like me. Old couples together, even. So I go in one day. I use my credit card.

And it turns out to be a lot of fun for a guy like me. I do the slots, try out different machines. Most of them now just have a button so you don’t even have to pull a lever anymore. Punch, punch, punch. In ten seconds I’ve won 50 cents. These are penny slots, so I can play 50 for free. It takes minutes. I punch, punch. It’s dark, so the only way you know it’s time for lunch is you feel your stomach growling. I go next door for a burger and bring it back in. Sit at the slots eating my lunch. Punch, punch, punch, punch. I won again! This is going to be big.

I go back the next day. This time, I have my lunch and my dinner at the slots. I stumble up to my room and fall asleep to Jay Leno. Next morning, I try the slots out before my morning walk. I think I’m getting the knack of it. You just have to pick the right machines.

A week later, I’m falling asleep to Jay again when the phone rings. It’s my son calling from East Chester. “Dad.” They’d gotten a call from the credit card company. Bitch Wife picked it up. Saying there have been unusual purchases and large cash advances with my card. “We had to tell them we’d check with you.” It’s quiet then. He knows.

“Please come home, Dad.”

“But where will I live?” Still buying time.

“You’ll live here.”

“Your wife will kill you dead,” I say.

“It doesn’t matter. Come home.”

But I stayed another month. I won’t tell you what I lost.

My last day here I wake up and pull a few final slots. The cab's waiting and there's still a dollar on my machine. I leave it. Fuck it. Fuck them all. Don’t even cash out. Hop the cab and head for the airport to get on a plane home and the hell away from paradise. Back to my son, his crazy wife, the snows of East Chester, my old house and the ghosts of Helen.

(Fiction) I’ve worked 14 days straight since Michelle left

2011-02-28T10:31:00.000-05:00

They really need to hire a new server, hopefully two people. I like the money, but I’ve got a son who needs me too. Usually I work 7 to 4, which is perfect, but today I’m on the 4 to 11 so I had to run around finding someone to be home with Jonathan. I mean, he’s old enough to be home alone but I just don’t like that, you know? So my sister’s there – again. Honest to Christ, I’d find a new job but who even has the time to look for one?

We get these high school kids in here… I don’t think any of them’s got a job. They’ll sit in here every day for hours and hours with two orders of French fries between ten kids. At peak time, I just make ‘em sit at the counter. I need tipping customers at my tables, know what I’m saying?

There’s only two of them in here tonight. The girl’s an easy customer but the guy that’s with her, we’ve had to kick him out of here before. Some friends and him were starting a fire with matches in a sugar bowl, which… I don’t even get. Sam goes over to them and he’s It’s destruction of property. And he really collared them -- the man is pushing 60, so it was kind of funny to see that. Then I go and clean up the mess, right?

Did I think I’d still be at Manny’s when I turned 40? No. I wanted an office job, but the money’s better here, unless you get a Government job. And that’s all job freeze now. I should have gone for the civil service exam ten years ago, but I had little Jonathan on my own and I barely had time to take a breath between changing diapers and scrubbing out sippy cups and hugs and kisses then rushing off to work.

Jonathan’s 16 now. He works after school over at Schoep’s, which he started last summer, and he still has the dog-walking business that he started when he was 11. That kid has always loved making his own money. I used to see him at his little desk in the living room, stacking up his nickles, dimes and quarters, counting.

Now of course it’s all in the bank. Sometimes I go into online banking and just look at his balance: amazing. Why don’t you get your own car or something? I ask him. Mom. I can just ride my bike.

We’re closing up the back section now. I’m watching my tables and filling a bus tub while Julius mops. Up front, I see the guy get up and walk out, fast. I look around to make sure he didn’t take something. But it looks okay.

The girl is watching Julius’s mop as it squishes: back and forth, back and forth. She stares and stares, looking so sad. I try not to look at her, because any minute I can see those tears falling. I grab the bus bin and go back to the Hobart.

I remember what it was like back in high school… God, the guys could be just heartless pricks. You’d see someone crying like that every day in the girls’ room. Even if we tried to pretend it was casual, it never was. My future? Back then, my future was “have a boyfriend.” Well, I got one… for a little while. And then Jonathan and boom! Boyfriend-B-Gone. Probably good I didn’t have time for a broken heart.

When Jonathan was just born and so wrinkly and needy, it still felt like he was a part of my body. And I was waiting for that feeling to go away, you know? But it never does. Maybe it did for Jonathan, but I don’t even know about that. It’s complicated because we were on our own for so long that we have this sort of meld-y thing happening. For better or for worse.

I’m going on break in 5 minutes. Then one more hour and I count my till and am home to see my sis and hopefully Jon if he’s still up. Then I’m up at 6 am to work my regular shift. But I’m sure I’ll stay up late. I just need to see something besides this place before I’m back here again in the morning.

I get the feeling that the girl’s going to be here until we close up. She’s stopped crying and is texting on her cellie like crazy.

The guy? Definitely not coming back. I head over to the cash and void his Pepsi off the bill before I drop it on her table. Whenever you’re ready.

(Recipe) Sex in a Pan

2011-02-21T17:21:00.001-05:00

INGREDIENTS

1 cup flour
½ cup melted butter

1 ½ cup whipping cream
8 oz. of cream cheese
1 cup icing sugar

3 cups vanilla pudding, chilled

2 cups chocolate pudding, chilled

1 chunk of bittersweet chocolate, for chocolate curls

CRUST
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Stir together flour and butter, just enough till they come together and press the mixture into a 9 x 12 baking pan. Bake 12 minutes. Cool.

CREAM CHEESE FILLING
Whip the cream until peaks are formed. Set aside.

Beat together cream cheese and icing sugar until mixed. Then fold in one-half of the whipped cream.

PUDDING
Make chocolate and vanilla pudding using your favorite recipe. Or just buy some.

LAYER THE FILLINGS
Spread fillings over the cooled crust in this order:

cream cheese filling
chocolate pudding
vanilla pudding
the rest of the whipped cream
chocolate curls

Refrigerate for at least 2 hours before serving.

Special shout-out to food journalist Sharon Hunt for this amazing recipe!!

She Doesn’t Like Plant (Fiction)

2011-02-13T21:48:00.000-05:00

I’m gonna to have to end it with her. I mean, I’m not even sure what the deal is between us, but ever since I fucked her over at my house that day she’s all acting like we’re boyfriend/girlfriend or something.

Like this morning in art class we’re standing by the kiln and she’s all like “What are you doing after school today?” SHIT! I don’t know what I’m doing after school today. I don’t plan out every second of my life, maybe you do. It could be anything... I’ve got the band, I’ve got my screenplay, I’ve got my own shit going on. Some girl breathing down my back? I can’t deal with that kind of pressure in my life now.

Even if I was looking for a long term commitment, it wouldn’t be with her. First off, she’s obviously a total slut. But second, I mean okay…. we’re out driving in my car last week and we stop at the music store? I’m looking at guitars and she’s over by the drum sets playing with some little kid and all holding him and shit? They’re being super loud, banging away and everyone in the store is looking at them and I can barely hear Chas talking. Like, clue in: there’s other people around you.

Anyhow, he’s showing me this Fender Telecaster. A vintage white Alder body with maple neck with rolled fingerboard edges, 22 medium jumbo fret and the fretboard and neck are ONE solid piece of maple. High grade staggered Schaller tuners, steel individually adjustable bridge saddles, a slightly wider neck than older Fenders like mine…

“It’s fucking fantastic.” Chas says. And I play it, and it is.

So later we get in my car and Zeppelin’s on, right? And she goes – I’m not even kidding you right now – “who’s this?”

So I go, it’s Led Zeppelin and she goes “oh yeah, I’ve heard of him.” Yeah. Of HIM.

I go, they’re a band… and they’re fucking geniuses of rock and roll? John Bonham, Jimmy Page and Robert Plant? And she goes "huh." I keep waiting for her to say something but she’s just all quiet, like she doesn’t even get it.

Plant is a huge influence of mine musically. I mean, this guy has been born and reborn and reborn and reborn musically. Strange Sensation, Band of Joy? It’s just like Plant says, “If you're a singer, you can never say this is where the voyage ends.” And Page. PAGE. He’s a genius who could blow anybody out of the water now, just as easy as he did when he was with Zeppelin. Easy.

I really don't care which way the pressure lies.

I’ve got to do it soon and I’ve got to do it somewhere where she won’t cry and we won’t start making out because I could easily see either of those things happening. I’m thinking maybe do it over at Manny’s after school. Like maybe even after-after school… after everyone else has gone home. Or fuck it, right away after school… I can’t rearrange my whole life for her. I’ve got important shit to do. Fuck. But I’ve got to do it.

School. Really?!

2011-02-07T20:35:00.004-05:00

Back in elementary school, when classmates invited me to their birthday parties, I’d hide the invitations in my sock drawer so my mom wouldn’t make me go. It’s not that I was shy or socially phobic. I just wanted to spend my Saturdays with the real people in my life -- my family and the neighbour kids (who went to Catholic).

School? It was a place I went because I had to. A noisy, often-smelly, disjointed, bullying world of strangers. A doldrum of textbooks and filmstrips, punctuated by kickball games, spelling bees and thoroughly underwhelming winter carnivals. I couldn’t think of anything to say to anyone, and no one really noticed me. Some of the teachers were nice, but many were working through serious psychosocial issues. Yeah, school? It sucked.

I got off easy, I guess. I could’ve been diagnosed with some kind of acronym (NPTD syndrome*, perhaps?), but luckily I passed under the radar and lived in a sort of stasis: a quiet, kind-of-bored kid, just waiting to grow up.

My own child will be school age before I know it, so I’m thinking of what his options are. The thought of sending him to the type of public school kid-mill that I attended? OMFG. What a waste of 12 years of a person’s life. I just think, really? Every fucking day he’s gotta do that? Uh, no.

Sure, some would argue that a typical public school offers important opportunities to socialize. If by “opportunities to socialize” they mean “standing around on a flag football field in the sweltering sun waiting for some doofus to come up and kick him in the balls,” then yeah, he would be missing out on some super opportunities there.

I’ve also heard that regular school helps kids to get ready for the real world, and that the real world is a rough place, like school. What a steaming pile of shit THAT is. Testimony: the moment that I left school, I took steps to surround myself with the kind of people that I like – e.g., the artsy kids that got swirlies in the locker room – and I found our things aren’t really so rough if you plan things out to make a life that you like. So there you go.

I don’t know. Maybe I can find him a better kind of school. Something … non-“squelchy”. A positive place where kids look forward to being there. A place to learn while also experiencing a full life, not a life-on-hold-till -graduation. Some place without all the bullshit power-authority dynamics. Where respect is integral and mean-ness is an aberration. A school that’s outside of the norm. Because I guess I don’t want him to have a “normal” childhood. I want him to have a happy one.

*Not Pinning the Tail on the Donkey

Belief (fiction)

2011-01-24T22:18:00.001-05:00

[NOTE: Belief, Sweet Leaf and The Golden Leaf are the same story, written in 3 voices].

I’m measuring out two cups of flour, soda, salt, spices. Gingerbread to take to Kathy tomorrow. We’ll bring it with the lasagna, so she has lots of leftovers in the fridge after we leave. I already packed some new Tupperware so she can pack individual portions to take for lunch at the bookstore.

It’s so good to see her eat. I don’t think I’ll ever get over the joy of just watching her take a bite. When she was living here last year during her treatments, it was a real battle. I never let up; kept trying every food you could imagine. One night I made one of those cheap Michelina instant dinners; she gobbled it up. So I filled our freezer with them. During the chemo, she’d get so angry at me. I’d say “eat just a little. Something. We don’t want to end up at the ER with dehydration.” It just made her madder, but I couldn't stop myself.

Sift dry ingredients together. Set aside.

The first time she had cancer -- when she was just nine -- Joe and I were active in the parents’ support group. We’ve stayed friends with a few of those people: Ricky and Emily, Carmen and the other Joe, Rachel Sorenson…

Rachel’s son was 15 and they’d been battling cancer since he was twelve. She was always trying to get me to go to Prayer Circle with her. It got hard to be polite about it, actually. But still, she was my one real “cancer friend” who I could really let it out with. She understood what it meant to be a mother and feel your child’s body pulling you from within, their pain washing over you in those choking waves. When you’ve watched your child die in your nightmares, my God, you can't share that with anyone, especially not your own child. You know them so deeply, but they’ll never know that part of you. It’s a gift you give to your children, I guess, to never burden them with your fears. To allow them to see you as eternally strong and, well, eternal.

Pouring molasses now.

Kathy needs a little time now; she’s taking the semester off from school. We’re not happy about it, but what can we do? She’s 20 years old and living with her boyfriend, working as a clerk, living her life in the moment. She talks as though she has hope for the future. We always speak in the positive, too. Again, it's our job as parents. We take the leap and dream: of graduation, a wedding, a home, grandchildren. Some days it's harder to do than others. But your heart will break a thousand times if you don’t hold out for luck.

Add sifted dry ingredients, alternately with cream.

There’s something I never told Kathy. Rachel Sorenson’s son died in 2008. Metastasized. Three weeks. We didn’t see Rachel at the Cancer Walk that spring and I just knew. She was done walking for cancer, her husband told me. We walked with him a while. Every time that I thought of telling Kathy, the words stuck in my mouth and I swallowed them like a lump of tears. She doesn’t need to hear that. And I stopped.

Here in my kitchen, it’s tomorrow already: 4 a.m., in fact. When the timer goes off I’ll check the gingerbread with a toothpick, put it on the cooling rack and head to bed. I can't wait to get in that car and head to Ithaca. By 10 a.m. we'll be there! I’ll probably lie awake for the next two hours until the alarm calls out… NPR’s Morning Edition with Steve Inskeep. Joe will grumble because he’s tired. I’ll be tired too, but it doesn’t matter. When you’re a mother and you’re waiting, you don’t sleep.

Cabin Fever

2011-01-21T22:43:00.002-05:00

15 below zero? At home with a child under age two? Here are TEN ideas for those long winter days when it’s just too cold to go to the park.

1. Play “Peek-a-Boo”

2. Play “I’m gonna tickle you!”

3. Provincial Play Centres ("Drop In")
Play, learn and explore with your child while the other parents stand around in the kitchen drinking coffee and talking about Glee as their children shove, hit and steal each others’ toys with reckless abandon. Anyone can make use of this wonderful government resource!

When your child gets pushed into the sand table by a 3-year old, call out for the little urchin’s mother, only to learn that “she’s gone over to Starbucks”.

4. Get To Know Your Building
Push all the buttons in the elevator and stop on every floor. Go to the lobby and look at the Christmas tree. (TIP: Hide broken ornaments under the skirt of the tree.) Watch the Super change a lightbulb. Watch him roll out the new floor mats. Watch him shovel the snow through the window.

Make “colour commentary” to your child throughout. Example: “Do you see that? He’s shoveling the snow. That’s a shovel. In his hand. … Shoveling!”

5. Play “Peek-a-Boo”

6. Play “I’m gonna tickle you!”

7. Let’s Do Lunch
Take your child to your favorite semi-swanky restaurant… like, a place you used to go to back when you worked. Set up the highchair and order the most expensive item on the menu. Share it with your child. Be sure to also bring some of his own snacks.

If your child gets restless, give him a spoon to play with. When he bangs it against the table, say: “Wow, sweetie, that is a really loud noise!”

TIP: Avert your eyes as the sullen waitstaff dry-vac Cheerios and broccoli spears from the floor.

8. Take an “art class” that was advertised in the local Parents Weekly magazine and find out too late that it is in some woman’s basement that she calls a studio and it’s just a bunch of balloons and feathers and you are the only ones there and she pours you a cup of coffee and you can hear her kid crying upstairs and being shushed by the grandmother and you give your baby a balloon and hope that it doesn’t pop and feel secretly glad to be there because even though it's $35 down the crapper, the baby seems happy enough and at least it’s something different on a frigid Wednesday morning.

9. Play “Peek-a-Boo”

10. Play “I’m gonna tickle you!”

MEMO to Tdotters: Seriously? The best thing I’ve found is the Rainbow Songs music class. Check them out: http://www.rainbowsongs.com/

Sweet Leaf (fiction)

2011-01-13T22:05:00.001-05:00

When I was going for my first cancer treatments and we knew I’d lose my hair, Mom cut off my braids and gave me a pixie cut.

She still has those braids, wrapped in a Russell Stouver candy box at the top of the hall closet, a remnant from a childhood lost. That little girl before the cancer.

I was nine then. I’m 23 now and have another pixie – more of a punk-rock grow-out, though – from my second battle. But Mom didn’t cut my hair this time. I didn’t ask her and she didn’t offer.

This time, there were no fun haircuts: Mom, Dad and I were all more stoic, drifting in and out of our own worlds, each with a nose in our own book. We played fewer games, talked less, laughed less and cried fewer tears. I was with them for a year: the chemo and surgery and then rehab. The hardest time was the nights, when I was all alone and trying to run from the fear. I’d listen to my iPod, write poetry, look at old photo albums, walk through the house, poke around in cupboards…

That’s how I found those braids.

“Kathy, is everything all right?” Mom, calling out from the bedroom. Was she always listening?

I know why she saved them. The thing is, I get my Mom; that’s why it’s so hard to stay mad at her. Even when she was constantly bugging me to eat and getting super upset and overdramatic about it. Even though she lies to her friends that I’m back at Cornell when I just live here, you know. No plans to go back to school, Mom! But those things… that’s just the way she survives.

Dad’s a mystery. He keeps all his darkness inside. All smiles and hugs and bringing home pizza, but I’m sure there’s more to him than that. He came to see me Saturday -- smiles and hugs -- and he met Jake, kind of by accident. I would've asked Jake to trim his beard that day if I'd known, for sure.

Jake. Down at the end of my bed now, packing up a cut-crystal bong with some of “the finest”. I’m not a big smoker -- I mean, a cancer survivor? smoking? -- but I love it before bed. I take a hit; it flutters through my lungs and floats out against the twilight shining windows. Pass it to Jake. Soft bubbling and a deep exhale, more smoke against the glimmering pane. I take off my leg and place it under the bed.

Any second now he’ll turn to me and take me in his arms, my body buzzing, my head hot with the throb of life. I will watch the pattern on those patchouli sheets, a blue Indian horseman riding towards another Indian horseman, and another horseman and another. And then he comes, with a cry more boy than man, and I hear my own joy, in ceremony, alone within me. Then comes the night, the stars and blessed sleep.

The Golden Leaf (fiction)

2011-01-02T22:21:00.002-05:00

When we brought Kathy home from the hospital after she was born, that was the happiest day of our lives. When we brought her home from the hospital the second time – when she was nine, in remission from bone cancer – that was a different kind of happiness. A relief tinged with a sense that the wolf was always going to be at the door; that fear of the cancer coming back.

We were the lucky ones, we knew that after all we’d seen in the children’s wing. But it was hard to feel lucky when our child had become so fragile to us and the possibility of loss so palpable. Val and I would lie awake in bed together some nights -- not talking, but in our own 3 am worlds, our minds rushing with the idea that any day Kathy could wake up with the cancer all over again… a doctor’s appointment, then another, then another, then a diagnosis and back through those swinging children’s wing doors, trudging along the gratingly cheerful cartooned walls filled with the plaques that parents buy as a leaky-boat insurance policy against that very fear. That wolf at the door.

We tried not to speak of the fear. It could have come into our house and sucked the love right out of it (especially after Kathy went to college and it was just the two of us). But I knew Val was afraid, I felt it in her silence on those nights, or on the nights when she would turn and reach, imploring, for me; I knew what was really up. She wanted another child, a buffer against the possibility of that unbearable heartbreak… …but we both knew that there was no real buffer possible. And it was too late at that point to try for one anyways.

Kathy went off to university in Ithaca, a hundred miles away. Which we encouraged, because we wanted her to spread her wings. It was the right thing to do. We were excited to hear every story she had for us; about buying her books, about her crazy TAs, about all the kids she was meeting, plus boys’ names we would hear and file away, but not ask her directly: who is he? We were too savvy for that.

When the cancer came back, in her junior year, it was so hard on Kathy. And Val and I? We were older, like she was, and it was much tougher to pretend to be an optimistic team, all hearts and balloons and wall-plaques and rainbows.

It sucked. We all knew it.

“Don’t go,” she said that first night when we were in her room, in the noiseless, beigy, adult wing of the hospital. And so we didn’t.

But she did. After the treatments were done and another stroke of luck: remission. She went back to Ithaca. But not back to school this time.

She’s not looking ahead, I said to Val. Maybe she’s afraid to. I know I am. Intellectually, I can say yes, of course we are all terminal and one never knows when one’s time will come. But that last round has shaken this old man.

I drove down to visit Kathy on Saturday. I went and met her at work: an independent bookstore festooned with anti-war posters and announcements of this or that literary celebration. And what an invigorating space it really is, bustling with life and the passion of words. I can see why she works there.

A dude with a red beard and a Che T-shirt says he’ll go in back and get her -- I look around.

I had no idea it was Women Writer’s Month,I say to her when she comes out. How could you not tell me? Which I know will get a smile and a Dad! from my girl.

I take her out to lunch. And ask her, point blank, about red-beard. Who is he? Because I have a feeling. And sure enough. There’s an invitation now for us both to drive down and we will all go to Moosewood for a real dinner together. He looks like a nice guy, really. I am so excited to “scoop” Val on this that I can barely sit still!

How you feeling? I ask. Good.

We talk about her work, her friends, movies and Val. I mean to really ask her about Women Writer’s Month, but then I forget. Then there we are, hugging at the door of The Golden Leaf and I want to say to Kathy -- like I always want to -- Don’t go. But instead I give her ponytail a flip and say “See you.” And she smiles.

Real New Years Resolutions for Writers and Artists

2010-12-29T10:44:00.002-05:00

Most writers and artists I know start the year with a host of resolutions. We resolve to wake an hour earlier, or to devote Saturdays to writing/making art. We vow to spend less time online, start a workshop, spend more time in the studio, and clear our plate of the negative thinking that blocks us creatively.

Most of us fail -- and by June we are sitting around Squirly’s, mourning our lost greatness.

Let’s all do the opposite this year, and see what happens. Here are my new, counter-intuitive resolutions for 2011:

Last Year’s Resolution: To read more works by the great authors, to watch classic cinema and to become inspired.

This Year’s Resolution: To read some really, really shitty books and watch cheesy movies.

I am SO overwhelmed by the greatness of the great writers. Perhaps the best thing to do, instead, would be to look carefully at the loads of crap that gets published every year by mediocre or just plain terrible writers. These people are not cowed by the greatness of our canon. They barrel on through, flogging their wretched manuscripts, selling books and making money. So can I!

Filmmakers/screenwriters: This year, why not steer clear altogether of the Cinemateque Ontario (and their fascistic non-popcorn-eating policies), and head on over to the 99c Cinema to watch Will Ferrell and spill your Pepsi all over the fine Naugahyde upholstery? While tsking at the art direction and deconstructing the narrative, be sure to take notes on how you too can create a film that actually helps you pay your mortgage.

Last Year’s Resolution: To wake up one hour earlier to devote myself to the craft of writing. To show discipline as an artist.

This Year’s Resolution: To wake up one hour earlier and revel in my own sloth.

Notice how writing is missing from my new resolution. I’m no longer going to pretend that my novel is going to spring from a dark, frigid January morn. This kind of magical thinking just breeds disappointment ... and at 6am? I'm just not thinking Giller.

"Art takes discipline" everyone says. Does it really, though? We’re not building empires here, so perhaps hard work is overrated. Painters: do you think Jackson Pollock really spent that much time a-spattering his canvasses? Why not find inspiration in the shifting sunlight against your mini-blinds as the bright orange ball of noon approaches?

Last Year’s Resolution: To network with other writers and artists who will help me grow and build stronger professional relationships.

This Year's Resolution: To network with people who will do absolutely nothing to advance my interests or my enterprise.

Haven’t we all had enough of nibbling on castoff pate at book launches while listening to that one guy describe the plot of his unfinished novel, Ghosts? Or dragging oneself to an art opening that’s scheduled right in the middle of Dragon’s Den?

This year, I am going to clock more time volunteering. It feels good and it stimulates the mind in new ways. For that matter, so does spending time with friends and family, so why not bypass the frustration and just head straight to Squirly’s on Jan. 1?

So there it is: sleep in, read bad books and hang out with friends. I’m hedging my bets here, but if I just don’t happen to finish my novel in 2011, at least I can say I frittered away my time in good company. Happy New Year, all!

Santa Claus is a Dick

2010-12-20T22:04:00.005-05:00

So no, we’re not doing Santa at our house. When other parents ask about it, I usually just say “it’s not our tradition,” and leave it at that. But between you and me, I have always kind of felt like Santa Claus is a dick.

Think about the message: if a magical old white man decides you’ve been good (and you’re rich), you get an Xbox. If you’ve been good and you’re poor, you get a beat-up dvd of Snow Dogs. (and maybe some McDonald’s gift certificates, if you happen to have a family member who works at McDonald’s.) Oh yeah, and if you’re Muslim or Sikh or Hindi or Jewish, Santa just “passes over” your house altogether.

I can’t send that message to my kid; it’s just too weird!!

I’m using my graduate education here, but doesn’t Santa really signify the inherent flaws in laissez faire capitalism, the bluster behind the Horatio Alger/American Dream myth that lulls the middle and upper classes into a false sense of entitlement, but has no grounding in reality, most especially in the context of globalization? And doesn’t the Santa myth engender a false consciousness among the poor that only perpetuates the cycle of poverty? Ho-ho-ho-hegemony…

More simply put, doesn’t it make acceptable the idea that poor children getting less is part of the natural order of things?

Disclosure: It’s personal, too. The Santa thing has been bothering me since in Grade 3, when he got me snow boots but he got Jenny Cardinal a Barbie Townhouse.

How could I have ever believed in the goodness and charity of a man whose mission, it seemed, was to make my family’s poorness so suddenly palpable? I mean, in the summertime when we were riding our bikes to the beach, climbing trees, playing tag and statues in the barbecue-smoked dusk of a perfect July night -- well, we were just regular. But on the day after Christmas break, when everyone was asking “What did you get?”, we knew we were on Santa’s B-list.

“I got a Barbie Townhouse, too!” I gushed. Why not? That Jenny Cardinal was never coming over to my house anyways.

I was quite young when I came to the conclusion that Santa was my parents. And I bet that’s true of most poor kids. This knowledge (of no Santa) gave me a new respect for my parents, because I could see then how hard they worked to make our Christmases special. And maybe some would say that very gratitude is all part of the Christmas spirit, I don’t know. But I do know that after some time, the fake-o magical thinking bit got pretty tired for everyone involved.

So I’m going to skip the fake-o with my own child. One, because I sort of think that Santa is going to go the way of the Model-T and American exceptionalism anyhow. Two, because I think our son will be just fine with the truth. Not the class-warfare-rant herein, but rather the simpler truth that some people have the story of Santa Claus, that it’s important to them and we won’t spoil other people’s fun, but that the Santa thing is not our story -- because it’s just not our tradition.

10 Things I Never Said Before Becoming a Parent

2010-12-12T21:19:00.002-05:00

Croup-y

Pedi peds

Hindmilk

Bamboo swaddler

Sophie

Glitter glue

Pumpkin patch

Non-violent, handcrafted wooden toys

opals and banonos

“Don’t you want to stay and see the jugglers?”

MILFs, ILFs and Mommy Bootcamp

2010-11-28T18:46:00.001-05:00

MILF. This skeevy acronym entered my lexicon about a year ago, when another new mom told me about a “mommy bootcamp” that guaranteed a “MILF body” in just 4 weeks. Three things you should know:

1. MILF stands for “Mother I’d Like to Fuck”. Urgh.

2. I am already in Mommy bootcamp every day, so did not sign up for the fitness version.

3. For those who don’t know it, after you have a baby, your body looks like a deflated Micheline Man.

It really does. Like lots of moms, I vividly recall that moment a few days after getting home from the hospital when I had the chance to look at myself in a mirror and feel…. deflated. Like a sad soufflet that had held such promise when it was tucked into the oven before the big quake. Staring, then looking away, then staring, at this sort of vestigial sac that one could almost keep one’s infant tucked into like Little ‘Roo and impress one's AP friends. Kind of like an old lady at Walgreens buying Tucks. And kind of like a pregnant woman, even … but not in that glowing, goddessy sense I had gotten used to.

Oh, man.

I had company coming over, so I threw on my sweatpants and a big sweater. And this was my uniform for so many weeks. I was tired, I was breastfeeding, I was going casual, I was covering up something that was hard for me to deal with. That crash from glowing-pregnant-girl to tired-momma-with-tha-belly.

And while my new-mom acquaintance was bootcamping and doing high colonics to achieve her pre-baby body, I was just breastfeeding. First off, I thought -- for the longest time -- that breastfeeding would melt away the pounds (and to some extent it did). But secondly, I felt absolutely enraged that I was now expected to do crunches and lunges while my body was still healing and I was working 24-hour shifts as a new parent.

So I didn’t lunge and crunch; instead, I made lunch. In those first months, I frankly didn’t have room for pilates on my to-do list; it was about keeping us all going until the sleep came back.

I can see why some women never have the time or energy to worry about it; they simply embrace a new zaftig existence, dressing in colourful floor-length skirts and long cardigans from Ann Klein. I see these women at the playgroups and I think "TOtal MILF". Not the MILF of the mommy bootcamp, but a more Whole-Foodsy, bosomy, embraceable, cats-and-babies-round-her-feet kind of MILF.

But like all women, I accept the beauty of other women more readily than any beauty of my own. That’s how we’re raised.

So I went to see a naturopath. She told me to eat Quinoa and take Omega supplements. As is the way of the naturopath.

As time passed and the sleep got better, I could finally consider picking up running again. And (cause I'm lucky to like running) the baby weight came off. It took a long time, but I really don’t give a shit, nor should any new mom. The pressure to get super-fit instantly is totally insane, and the notion that only some mothers are fuckable is sexist crap. The term MILF itself suggests that becoming a mother somehow de-sexes a woman... why wouldn't we otherwise be just "ILFs"?

It’s the usual double-edged dealio. If you don't get your body "back", you’re supposed to feel bad and spend a lot of money on bootcamps. But if you lose weight and someone calls you a MILF, it’s just a compliment that insults someone else. And I’d say that makes the person who says it a bit of a ... motherfucker.

DIY Babyproofing, on the Cheap

2010-11-28T17:46:00.002-05:00

Dr. Sears writes that it’s best to create a “yes” environment through babyproofing, so that the kid isn’t constantly hearing “no, no no” from you all day long. We agree, which means that our house looks a lot like a yoga studio preparing for a high-water flood. But that’s all right. It’s more tidy, which is a nice side benefit.

Anyhow, if you want to babyproof without the craziness of all the products, here are some DIY tips:

Bookshelves: Attach a bookshelf to the wall with 2 metal “L” shaped joints (3in x 3in). Attach one side of each to the top of the shelf, one side to the wall.

Patio doors: We put a chain latch way up high on our patio door so that it opens enough to let in air but he can’t get out.

Sleep on a futon: As your baby becomes a toddler and wants to get in and out, you’ll avoid a lot of struggles. It’s just a few inches to the floor and easy to get in and out.

Outlets in toddler’s room: If they’re not in use, just remove the sockets and cover with a blank plate (no holes). Ask how at the hardware store.

Bathroom door locks: Take off the knobs and replace them with knobs that don’t lock, then sell the locking knobs on craigslist to make a profit!

Pack stuff away: Your vintage books, your vinyl collection, the collector figurines from Granny, whatever. Put it in a box far away.

Be a hippie: Throw away all toxic cleaners, nail polish and nail polish remover. They can’t get into it if it’s not there.

Be your own baby monitor: If you are watching the kid all the time, do you really need to invest in toilet locks and a wagonload of plastic implements?

This option is cheaper and better – though you have to deal with being in a state of bored vigilance some of the time. But let’s face it, it’s good training, …for the park, for parties, for the beach and pool, and for the endless made-up board games, fashion shows and sketch comedies that make up your future as a parent for the next 18 years!

Imaginary Playground Conversation #376

2010-11-03T10:39:00.001-04:00

Woman-of-leisure #1: This is my daughter... Brooklyn.

Woman-of-leisure #2: Omigod, that is sooo amazing!! My daughter's name is Harlem!

Me: That's so amazing!!! My son's name is South Bronx!

Ricotta Pound Cake

2010-10-23T10:54:00.002-04:00

Baxter is teething, so we've had some long nights recently. He's also "experimenting with his teeth," which includes trying to bite me. Little babies don't get "no," so it's a bit of a lost cause. Seriously, things like this make me long for the days when the two of us can sit together and have a reasoned conversation. Sigh!...

Time to make some pound cake.

1 1/2 c. cake flour

2 1/2 t. baking powder

1 t. kosher salt
Sift these together in a bowl, set aside

3/4 c. or 6oz unsalted butter, softened

1 1/2 c. fresh whole milk ricotta

1 1/2 c. of granulated sugar
Mix these in a separate bowl on medium, 1 1/2 min.

3 large eggs or 4 small ones

1/2 vanilla bean (optional)

1 t. of vanilla extract
Beat these into the ricotta mixture. Then add dry ingredients. Mix well.

9-inch loaf pan. 350 degrees for the first 15 min, then 325 for an additional 25-40 min.

Rotate pan twice.

When you get a clean fork and sides start to pull away, it's done.

THANKS to Kathleen for the recipe :)

(Fiction) Mom was out of town and Dad was drinking

2010-10-17T20:21:00.001-04:00

so I went over to this boy’s house. Followed him home, really, on the city bus. We were at the record store, like every day after school. But on this day he stood over my shoulder as I flipped through the albums and flipped past them all, so I elbowed him in the gut and it went on like that, him grabbing me each time in a new way, every breach a laugh and thrill, bringing me closer to the snow-grimed steps of the westbound bus until there we were, sitting together

…

plunking along on the B bus past the university and a single smokestack against red clouds of winter twilight. He lets himself into the house and I follow

…

“My mom and dad aren’t home. Listen to this!” he picks up a guitar. His messy room so like mine, now dark, the red horizon outside just a cinder as I lay down flat against his bed. Waiting for him to put down the guitar and just kiss me, kiss me, kiss me

…

& any reputation I had (which most of us did, somehow) well, it was just a hoax because this was all new to me, the tough tug of skin leaving leopard spots across my neck and chest, my kerchiefy, not-a-real-woman bra flung into the air with the bravado of comrades, the crush of being held so close; protected, snug in winter dark. Bare feet against a cold wall and no more laughter -- just the sounds now. That toughness I mimicked and played cool, never letting on this is the first, for fear of jinxing it. Instead I held my breath (and he did too)… it hurt, it wasn’t real, all vivid like a dream

…

and then his parents get home. Downstairs, the dish clatter, a piano and an easy chair – there are handshakes involved. My legs trembling on the bus ride, returning past the black coal smokestack and florescent glow of university labs. Transfer buses on the square. Bitter wind at my back. Bumping along home

…

Home. Get the key from the hook in the garage, step inside. The dark blotch of an empty table, my cat’s white tail as she curls around and around me. In my room I peel off my black jacket, black sweater, black t-shirt and little-black-nothing-of-a-bra to gaze in the mirror at that brave girl with the leopard spots. To marvel at my new, animal body.

Baby Number 2?

2010-10-10T14:15:00.004-04:00

So my 10-month old and I are down at Cherry Beach and the old man who runs the chip cart says to me: “Beautiful boy. Beautiful, beautiful child.”

And I say: “Thanks.”

And the chip guy says: “Are you going to have another child? It’s a-no good to have just one. You need to have more children. It’s not good for the child.”

And I say to him: “Oh! Um. Huhhmm….mm-hmm…ye-ahh… ”

And he gives me free French fries and winks at me.

Ok? What I really wanted to say was: “I don’t give a Cah-RAP what you think is ‘good for my child’. And guess what: people come to this beach to play Frisbee and walk their dogs, not to determine their destiny. How about you give me five. minutes. to enjoy the one child I have before pressuring me to again reproduce? What is this, A Handmaid’s Tale?”

Chip man is not the first stranger to tell me I need to have another child. It’s the same type of people who tell you when you’re in your 20s that you better hurry up and get married, right? What’s most irritating is that it usually starts with a compliment, followed by something that’s at its core mean-spirited. There should be a word for it, like compli-insult or something.

Of course, this stuff is overwhelmingly targeted to women. There you are, plenty happy with what you have and who you are, and here comes someone telling you that you’re not pretty/thin/quiet/married/fertile/ prolific/docile/ladylike/good enough. We know what it is. Can smell it a mile away. And yet. For all the women’s studies courses I took and all the"uppity women" I’ve known and read, I’m standing at the chip cart, speechless.

Fuck it. Fuck the patriarchy. Just look at this day! We wander to the glistening surf. I lift my son high to the cloudless sky and we swing around. A blurry rainbow of kites, lake, sand, the Frisbee in the dog’s mouth. We throw our French fries to a flurry of gulls, and baby number one – or number only or whatever number he ends up being – laughs and laughs.

Summer Ends

2010-09-04T17:26:00.002-04:00

Last day for flip flops and boxers on the porch
gritty coffee with icecubes bobbing

for hydrant spray and shrieking kids
popsicle stains, day camp tees

Last day to pedal down College
warm breeze rippling sundress

to stumble and land on soft turf

Last day to watch sand swirl down the tub
for a cool pillowcase against red cheeks

for sweat beading down legs
under a pile of purrs

Last volleyball thwack, last oscillation,
last street festival through sunglass haze

last day to splash, to giggle in tall grasses.

Tonight, monarchs
a fluttering orange bouquet
passing through

and deep in the Valley
the lone wiry buzz
of the last cicada.

Carob Malt Balls

2010-08-19T15:13:00.004-04:00

If you grew up left-wing in the 1980s, chances are that you ate your share of carob malt balls. Our parents fed them to us as the gruel of the revolution, along with Wha-Guru Chews, Youth Mix and Guerilla Cookies (not so much a cookie as a slab of molasses frayed with coconut). In Madison, where I’m from, these treats were sold at the food co-op, a dimly lit, oat-dusted shack featuring today’s fresh kale soup and a poster of Lenin mounted behind the cash in an only-slightly ironic fashion.

The reason for choosing carob malt balls was to stop exploiting chocolate workers, but the unspoken point was that perhaps life should not taste too sweet when there is so much suffering in the world. To feel the coffee-ground blandness of a carob malt ball dissolving in one’s mouth was to understand, on some level, that suffering. To lose a baby tooth into a mass of tangy-bitter Guerilla Cookie was to experience the passage of one’s childhood in a world where not everyone is so lucky to have a childhood. And to lie in a canoe on a camping trip, ravenous because you steadfastly refused to ingest one more handful of Youth Mix, was to feel the pangs of the world crying out for justice.

A popular bumper sticker at that time that said “If you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention.” Of course in Reagan’s America, most people outside of our liberal enclave weren’t paying attention. As jobs were quietly being shipped overseas, environmental regulations stripped away and cold warriors robbing our national treasury, the illusion of prosperity continued to blossom on televisions across the nation. From their perspective, they probably couldn’t understand what we all were protesting and boycotting and agitating about. Where's the Beef? they might well have asked.

It's said that knowledge is power, but the more I learned about Mutually Assured Destruction or the pitfalls of supply-side economics the more helpless I felt. What recourse was there for disheartened kid, thousands of miles from the seat of power and trapped instead at a college-town May Day parade with 60 Quakers in Birkenstocks and rain ponchos?

It’s not like there was a real way to rebel against our parents’ lefty culture… I mean, once you know about what Burger King did to the rainforest, you really weren’t hungry for it anymore. Their hearts were in the right place for sure, but sometimes the unmitigated, guitar-strummin’ hope almost pained me. To take that leap and believe that America would change seemed like such a long shot, but then the other option (nihilism) was much, much worse.

I was 17 and lying deep in left field that afternoon; the last day of school before graduation. Aaron and Kim were there too; us all watching the clouds from beneath the tall, unruly grass. There was a baseball game to be played and this was gym class, but nobody seemed to notice us gone. I was thinking about where I might be in a year – sure, the nation would be most likely living under George H. W. Bush, but where would I be? The distant crack of a bat and a girl shrieking as she ran to the first base. Safe. Clouds, sky, grass.

Carob malt balls… lots of ‘em, in a giant plastic baggie at the bottom of my Army-surplus bag, all crushed down into a sort of mossy powder. I shook some out and popped it in my mouth. It tasted bittersweet, like the end of a long journey.

push prize

2010-07-28T21:44:00.002-04:00

“I gotta tennis bracelet, “says Janine, twisting her wrist like a baton twirler.

The girls at the New Moms' group are discussing their “push prizes”.

“I had twins, so my husband gave me earrings!” says Sarah, and everyone laughs. I try to appreciate the hilarity, but my “hahah!” comes out more like a tuberculin sputter. I want to fit in.

“I got a gold necklace in my son’s name,” says Joanne.

“Oh, ‘Benjamin’?”

“Well, we’re calling him Ben.”

It’s almost my turn, so I stand and pick up my son -- pretending he’s fussy -- and walk to the window. The truth is, Roger didn’t give me any push prize when I gave birth. We thought the baby was the prize, and this whole push prize dealio is freakin’ me out. When I think about the gifts my partner gave to me in those first few weeks I think of him waking at 3 a.m. to walk the floor; changing the first diaper of the day while I ate toast and watched the sunrise; the neck rubs; the back rubs; the crumbly feta from his take-out salad that he knows I love. But none of that translates here.

The new moms’ group is a rite of passage for Canadian moms. When the public nurse visits your house, she checks your baby's latch and sets you up with a local group of new moms ... and if there's nothing else, her job is done. She knows the mom's group will help you get out of the house with your baby and develop confidence, in a place where you can exchange feeding advice, interpret cries, and worry over green seedy diapers.

And in the beginning, it works. You feel like you suddenly need new friends in your demographic, “bio-buddies,” and like speed dating, you're trying new people on for a good fit. In the beginning, the babies connect everyone, and the differences among the women are just curiosities to be blandly observed. But then there comes a moment when those differences matter.

Perhaps it’s the woman who won’t vaccinate her child because “he might catch Asperger’s” -- and then the health care worker across the circle spits out her Sanka. Or the gal who advises: “If you want your baby to sleep, drink a glass of wine before you breastfeed,” -- and someone jokes “I prefer Valium” (and then neither of them come back to the group the following week). Meanwhile, you tell yourself the new mom’s group is not the place to judge other mothers… aloud anyhow. But the dialogue in your head is raging, and you begin to weary. There’s a gradual attrition (often starting with the moms you liked the best) until the group disappears as part of its natural life-cycle.

Today is my last new mom’s group. I'm not a new mom anymore -- just a mom, staring out the window, wishing I was at home singing to my baby or having coffee with a childless friend and talking about anything BUT green seedy diapers. I can feel my son's cornsilk towhead rubbing against my chest, insistent. So I wrap my little push prize in his blanket and head for home.

Re-thinking Ferber

2010-07-13T11:14:00.001-04:00

In Our Babies, Ourselves, anthropologist Meredith Small reviews child-rearing across cultures over the last 50 years. She finds that in many non-Western cultures, the parents strive to make the child an inter-dependent part of their world, whereas in Western culture a baby is often seen as needing to be taught independence almost from the moment he or she is born. As you can imagine, parenting – and babyhood – are dramatically different across cultures as a result of these variant beliefs.

Most interestingly, her study demonstrates that the modern ideal of a baby being able/needing to learn “independence” is flawed and ineffective. Babies, it turns out, are pre-modern. Some findings:

1. There is a direct correlation between the amount of time a baby is held each day and the amount of time the baby cries.

Ethnography: American and British babies cry around 60% more than Korean, San or Mayan babies, where parents hold the baby for a greater portion of the day.
Lab studies: More holding =less crying. The quicker that a parent responds to a baby’s cries, the less frequently the baby will become upset in general.
There are no positive research findings for the “cry it out” school of parenting.

2. Only American, Canadian and English parents use cribs and separate rooms for babies. In the rest of the world, babies sleep with their parents until at least 1 year of age.

“Co-sleeping” dramatically decreases the incidence of SIDS, because babies’ sleep cycles are regulated by the breathing, heartbeat and movement of the parents, as well as more frequent waking to feed because of proximity to the mother.
Babies that co-sleep don't experience the anxiety of waking up alone (which is big for a baby). They feel secure at night and thus sleep better. In fact, Ferberized babies cry more.

Reading this book when I was pregnant made us choose to reject some western ideas (such as cribs) and to embrace some non-western ones (such as baby-wearing). It's been working out great for all three of us. We ignore all the playground talk about "sleep-training" and "dependence" and instead just let him be a baby and yes, depend on us whenever he needs to -- without stressing about whether too many kisses now will somehow impact his college choices down the line.

Numerous well-intentioned people (especially of our mother’s generation) will say “let him fuss” or “you’ve got to get that baby out of your bed!”. But these comments reflect custom, not science. Try to explain rugged individualism to someone who is rooting in your bosom for sustenance –the concept is lost on babies. They’re not like us and never will be. That’s part of what makes them so beautiful.

Top 10 Dumb Things Said to New Parents -- and What to Say Back

2010-06-25T22:05:00.004-04:00

When you have a new baby, suddenly your life is under a microscope – and it’s very hard to know what to say when co-workers, neighbours and people in the grocery line say things that make you go: "Wha..?" Here are some tips ;)

They say (to Jewish parents): “Did you have a mohel do the circumcision?”

Translation: Usually it’s a well-meaning multiculturalist who delivers this zinger. They are really saying “I understand Jewish culture, because I have an Orthodox neighbour or I saw that one episode of Seinfeld where he gets his finger circumcised by a mohel.”

You say: “No, we performed our barbaric ritual in the doctor’s office just like you.”

They say (pointing at 2-month old infant): “Is he crawling yet?”

Translation: The person is really saying “I have been on this earth for 40 years and I have paid no attention whatsoever to the life cycle of children.” As most of us know, babies don’t crawl until like, 9 months. And they are essentially lawn gnomes for the first 6 months. But instead of just saying “no, not yet,” and feeling like a doofus, try the responses below.

You say: “Yes, he crawled over to my parents’ house last night and phoned us up. Boy, were we surprised!” Or “No, he spends most of his time banging on the baby grand.”

They say: “Have you lost your baby weight yet?”

Translation: “Are you always this fat?”

You say: “No, right now I am pretty focused on sustaining another living being with my body. I’m sure I’ll have more time for pilates next year.”

They say: “Your baby needs a hat.”

Translation: As soon as your child exits the womb, old women will pop out of the woodwork to deliver this admonishment. The woman is typically old enough to no longer have small children, but not quite old enough to be a grandma. She is really saying “I am a busybody with nobody to busy my body over.”

You say: "Well, he hasn’t self-combusted yet, so I think he’s fine, ma’am.”

They say: “Is he sleeping through the night yet?”

Translation: “I always hear people asking this, so I will ask it too.” If you say no, they will frown as though it is some shocking tragedy that you may be inconvenienced for a few months of your life. Whereas, it is no super big deal to you. What to say?

You say: “No. He’s a sentient creature both day and night. And we're cool with that.”

They say (Commonwealth countries only): “Have you started him on Pablum?”

Translation: “I am of another generation and I am speaking a dead language.”

You say: “What in fuck-all is Pablum??”

They say (to a woman): “When are you going back to work?”

Translation: From someone you know well, it’s a reasonable question. From a stranger, it may mean: “I want to know what you are doing because then I can compare it to the other women I know and perhaps make an ill-informed judgment about your character.”

You say: “Soon as this little guy is old enough to become a chimney sweep.”

They say: “Have you had a chance to have a ‘date night’ yet?”

Translation: Suddenly mere acquaintances are concerned with your romantic relationship. The assumption is that if you have a healthy relationship, you will dump your kid off at Grandma’s before the cord is cut so that you can go back to the old days of spoonin' at the drive-in. They are saying “Don’t forget to be a person and not just a parent!” which is absurd, because when you have a newborn, you are not a person! You are an automaton.

You say: “No, when we want to screw we just sneak off to the guest room.”

They say: “Enjoy him now while he’s still sweet. Someday he’ll be a teenager.”

Translation: This comes from parents of teens and usually someone you don’t know too well (because you wouldn’t want to). They are saying: “My teenager is into his own stuff now. It was so much easier to feel good about myself when I was like a God to him.”

You say: “My kid will always be sweet enough, because I will never become bitter.”

10.

OK, this last one is NOT annoying at all. It is the favourite, best thing to say to a brand new parent & I get to hear it all the time, more than the other stuff.

They say: "He’s beautiful. Isn’t life amazing?"

and you say: "It really is."

Blood Sisters

2010-03-07T19:15:00.002-05:00

Our little town had a smell: kind of like sulpher, sand and pine sap, all dusted over with a too-sweet powder puff. It was our home, and you can't really smell something that's always there. But I remember riding back into town from vacation one August and crossing over the bridge at Nekoosa. And there it was: the smell we always knew.

"There's the craft mill..." my mom announced, with that cheery nonchalance of a seasoned elementary teacher. We were home. Summer was almost over.

That night, our neighbors (the Wrights) had a barbeque to celebrate my best friend Donna's first communion. We were sitting in their bathroom, Donna in her communion dress and me in my brother's old cutoffs and t-shirt, when she said it.

"We should become blood sisters." She plucked a diaper pin from the medicine cabinet and pricked the tip of her finger; a dot of red appeared. "Now you."

"You do it for me!" I shut my eyes. She laughed because I was always chicken. Grabbed my hand. I felt the prickle and ooze. Pressed blood tip to blood tip finger. We were sisters now.

Like a lot of sisters, we barely spoke at school. We'd stand together goofing at the bus stop, but when we got on the bus, Donna Wright would head to the back, me closer to the front. At recess she hung out at the fence with the big kids; I stayed in the library. Then at the end of the day we rode the bus home, separate -- and I came over to her house, or she came over to my house, and either she ate over or I ate over. We played motocross with our brothers or dolls with each other, and then on the weekends she slept over to my house, or I slept over to her house. It was the way it was. Like a lot of sisters, we took it all for granted.

Our families were poor, but so were a lot of people in our town. And there were kids that were even poorer than us, with holes in their clothes and matted-down hair... most so quiet that you barely knew they were there, sitting right next to you in Math. And then there was a tiny elite, the rich kids whose dads had the good jobs at the mill, who lived in tidy ranch houses over by the airport. The girls had real Barbies (we had the cheaper "Christies" and "Bettys") and dressed in princess costumes for Halloween (we were inevitably gypsies or hobos).

These girls were called the preps. We were called the dirts. And the really poor kids were called... well, nothing.

In the summer, we had a club, just me and Donna. It started with playing Christies and Bettys and over the years evolved into just smoking cigarettes in the pine trees over by the roadsalt garages. One day in the summer after grade 8 as we lay blowing smoke rings, I gave Donna my big news.

"My mom got a job working for the state. We're moving." I tried to sound grim, like I was sad to be leaving. But I was really excited. A bigger town, a better job for my mom, a new start for all of us.

"I have news, too." Donna said. As she spoke, I could feel the words falling out of the sky before she said them, like the orange summer needles blowing down from the towering pines.

"I'm pregnant. I'm keeping the baby. ... I thought about having an abortion, but... I could never do that."

"I know." I said. I thought about the guys she'd been with. Jason from summer day camp at the park, the guy with the motorcycle from Skateland, Mike Bellingham, who we'd known since Kindergarten. I wondered. But she didn't say.

Donna had a strange look on her face -- and I realized that, like me, she was smothering her joy at her news. She'd be having a baby in her freshman year of high school; that's supposed to be bad news. But I could tell she was happy. Soon we were hugging, crying and making plans for how we would live our new lives. As the sun set behind the trees we crumpled our cigarette packs and threw them in the hole. Headed home.

And then just a few weeks later, there we were, hugging and crying again as my brothers and I piled into the crammed station wagon. I watched Donna wave goodbye as we drove down our street. Heading over the bridge at Nekoosa, my brothers and I were silent in the back seat. My mom, all red from the August heat, was silent too. We drifted past the logs and coal piles over at the craft mill. You can't really smell something dissapear. But you know when it's gone.

Sweet Ride

2009-11-24T11:49:00.001-05:00

"Am I on crack … or did my car get stolen?" Steve said slowly, staring out the window. I blew on my coffee and looked down at the street below. There in the snow from the night before was a clearly empty parking space – the place we'd left his Buick the night before.

"Didn't we put on the Club last night?" I asked.

"It was too cold. It wouldn't lock. Shit!" he screamed.

We grabbed the city bus that morning, down and across Main Street to the precinct. Traveling from Buffalo's west side to the east side, there's a dramatic moment where you hit this bump, immediately upon crossing Main Street. People call Main Street the Color Line, and it is palpable. Because only on the west side, where white people live, does the City fix the roads. Across Main Street, it's pothole-city.

We were met by a beefy Irish clerk, who tried not to laugh when we asked what our chances were of getting the car back. "This city loses a thousand cars a week, yo. We'll call you," he said. We wandered off to the snowy bus shelter. To wait.

Buffalo is truly a microcosm of what car culture has done to America. It's all about wheels there: if you have 4 of them, you can get around. If you don't, you're just another loser bouncing around on a perpetually-late, decrepit city bus. Back in the 50s and 60s, when GM and Ford plants were the lifeblood of the city, millions were poured into a series of soaring 8-lane highways throughout the city. But a mass transit infrastructure? Forget about it.

One of the largest highways cut right through a historic Frederick Law Olmstead park (and I suspect, right through Olmstead's heart as well). The verdant park, a vibrant public space, had extended from west of Main Street to east of Main Street – and it was the east side of Main that bore the brunt of the destruction.

If the City were an organism, that highway would be the artery that signified its sickness. It was political graft that slashed the park – corrupt relationships between developers, builders and city government, to be precise, combined with aggressive lobbying against mass-transit by Big Daddies Ford and GM. The art-deco era homes east of the park quickly decayed and slumlords took over. Drug gangs moved in. The East Side became a ghetto.

When the GM and Ford layoffs took hold in the 1980s, mass migration reduced the population by more than 50% in a 15 year period, from 1 million less than half a million. The city, with its now-empty 8-lane highways, became a ghost town. Jobs? With an education, you could be a personal-injury lawyer, a social worker or an Electronics teacher at a community college. Uneducated? Run a pizzeria, "do you want fries with that?" or become a part of the underground economy.

There are a million hustles in Buffalo's underground economy. Drugs, of course, but also (with a direct line downstate to New York), a lot of other things to sell. One of the common hustles is to break into one of the thousands of abandoned building and steal copper piping or nickel and other precious metals, crystal doorknobs, mahogany. Muggings, which now seem almost retro in many cities, are still common there. And then there's the car hustle.

After we lost the Buick, there were 2 blizzards in 2 weeks. After work I'd trudge through the unplowed slow to wait an hour for a commuter bus, carrying takeout Calzones and a movie rental. I'd usually find him at his computer, staring at his unfinished dissertation. We tried to spice things up, sure, but those were some bleak nights. Gone were the days when we would skate the Buick across the desolate black roads to Niagara Falls – Steve's arms around my waist as we marveled at emerald waters, a frozen, icy monument. Or drive out to the 99c theater and pull doughnuts in the abandoned parking lot. I missed those crazy nights.

Then one day as I was slushing through the spring thaw with an armload of panzerottis, Steve came bounding out of the house with incredible news. The police had arrested two East-side 14-year olds for petty drug possession, and discovered that they were also in possession of Steve's Buick. Unlike most other cars, which get sold downstate, this had been a functional steal; the kids had been using it for grocery runs -- and, in all likelihood, trips to the 99c cinema. I felt bad for them, on many profound levels. And I also knew they were going to miss that car.

Two hours later, we were down at the lot inspecting Steve's ride. The kids had done some good work on it – in fact it was in better shape than we'd left it, with a new steering wheel, a lower chassis and a kick-ass set of speakers. We hopped in and flipped the station over to 93.7 WBLK: The People's Station. Cranked it. Steve put his arm around me and I quickly snuggled over to the driver's side. The Buick buzzed, thumped and grooved over the potholes like so many other lowriders on Main Street, as we made our way home through the inky night.

It was a sweet ride.

Orecchiette with rose sauce & salmon (or tempeh)

2009-11-14T13:13:00.000-05:00

Serves 2.

1. Boil Orechhiette pasta, half a box, and drain. Set aside.

2. Fry a 6 x 3 piece of salmon (or a package of plain tempeh). Chop into bite-side pieces. Set aside.

3. Make the rose sauce. In a medium pot, combine:

6 smallish hothouse tomatoes (very ripe)
1 T olive oil
1 chopped clove of garlic
1 bay leaf
1 T fresh rosemary
½ T fresh thyme
Dash of oregano
Dash of black pepper

Simmer for 20 minutes.
Remove bay leaf.
Cool.
Blend in small food processor for a smooth sauce
Add 1/3 cup cream (or half & half)

4. Combine pasta, salmon and rose sauce in a lightly oiled saucepan. Mix together and warm on low heat.

5. Serve with broccoli rabe or chard.

The Communist

2009-11-06T19:00:00.002-05:00

There's a Communist who lives in my building, Jack. He's 89, native New Yorker; a retired Math professor in a dapper if worn plaid suit jacket. I met him last summer in the lobby, waiting for car service. He and his daughter were on their way to see a re-staging of the classic Socialist musical, Awake and Sing.

"Are you familiar with the Socialist movement?" he asked me.

"I am," I said.

He gave me a big smile. His daughter gazed out the window. A bit of a perma-frown, she was.

The car honked outside the door. "Say, have you ever heard of the Canadian-Cuban Friendship Association?" Jack asked suddenly.

"No."

"Well! I'll leave you the newsletter under your door. It's only $15 to join -- and I'll keep bugging you until you do."

I shook his hand, all silky wrinkles, and silently hoped he would forget about the newsletter.

I never know what to say to a neighbor when they start talking about something I don't believe in. You want to be respectful but honest. It's happened to me before with Christians trying to get me to go to church, which is easy because I can just say "No thanks, I'm Jewish." Or with Jews trying to get me to go to synagogue, which is easy because I can just say "No thanks, I'm Jewish".

But how do you turn someone down who has spent his life fighting the good fight? I can't just say "No thanks, I'm a capitalist," because that's not strictly true. Is it?

…

I saw Jack again a few weeks later in line at the gourmet grocery store behind our building. I had picked up some Asian noodles. He had a box of Shredded Wheat.

"How are you keeping?" I asked.

"Very well," he said.

"Good."

"Have you joined the Friendship Association yet?" he asked. "They're having their summer picnic on the island in a couple of weeks."

"Haven't joined… yet." This was getting awkward.

Jack had left me the newsletter and I'd looked it over, with its cheesy Message from Fidel and fawning fan mail to the Bearded One. It left me flummoxed, really. Hard to grasp that there are people out there who still channel their opposition to US policies into the hero-worship of a dictator. It all seems so … twentieth century.

I looked up Fidel's Facebook page, by the way; 4,000 fans. Fergie has 312,000.

"So, did you see that the neurosurgeon is selling his place?" I asked. Everyone knows the neurosurgeon from #717 and his adorable dachshunds, Sally and Jake.

"Yes, I did. Such a nice man."

We talk about neighborhood housing prices, then, all the way back to our building and right up through the elevator ride.

…

It's been a few months since I've seen Jack. Tonight, I see him with his daughter coming out of Starbucks. She's walking and talking and frowning into her latte. I say hi and we chat about the new tenant in #717; a Women's Studies professor. Jack tells me that the neurosurgeon has moved to Brampton.

"A yard for the dogs," he says.

"Oh, yes," I agree.

I feel guilty about the Canadian Cuban Friendship Association. But this time, Jack doesn't ask me if I've joined. Instead, we all wander back to the building through the crunching fall leaves, watching the first few flakes of winter swirl down from the dark night sky.

Politically Correct Atonement

2009-10-15T10:21:00.002-04:00

Every year around the High Holidays, thousands of Jews take part in a ritual of atonement to apologize to God for the sins of the past year. It's known as taschleich and involves throwing crumbs of bread onto a moving body of water; one crumb for every sin. Around this time of year, you can see hundreds of Orthodox tossing crumbs into the Hudson; a literal "casting one's sins on the waters."

I'm doing it again this year, over the bridge on Cherry Street, atoning for a legion of sins that I'm sure the more politically-correct among us can identify:

Sin #1: Tahini Jar
In February, I threw away an empty jar of tahini into the regular garbage. I just didn't feel like washing out all the sticky gunk at the edges so it could be recycled. At the time, I justified it by thinking "if I recycle it all messy, some unlucky immigrant will just have to clean it out at the sorting center, clean up my mess, and that isn't right." On the other hand, it gives a newcomer a City job. And we're talking about Mother Earth. So, sorry about that one, God.

#2: Coveting
I coveted Senator Russ Feingold. He was speaking before the House about health care reform. And if he was 10 years younger, I would have coveted Bernie Sanders too.

#3: Stuff Made in China
Ever since I saw Edward Burtinsky's documentary Manufactured Landscapes, I have been trying not buy stuff made in China. But almost any household object, unless it is hand-molded in oak by an Amish artisan, seems to be made in China. Edward and God: I failed miserably. Crumb toss.

#4: The Hunger Site.com
I have set my browser homepage to a website where every time you click, it gives a cup of food to the hungry. Then the page clicks over to an online fair-trade store, which is how it makes money for the food. I click on the site every morning, but I have never actually bought anything from their store. I just don’t need pine cone earrings or a Keeper. I wish I did, because it would make #3 easier.

#5: Ignoring Thy Neighbor
There was this elderly woman heading to the elevator and I was late for work and… well, you were there, God. You know what happened. Double crumbs.

#6: Big Mac Attack

#7: Volunteer Sins, part 2
In July, I dropped off fliers door-to-door for a neighborhood group, but I didn't get around to distributing all the fliers. I was embarrassed that I didn't finish, so instead of returning the fliers to the group, I secretly recycled them. I did make sure to take off all the little rubber bands so that the immigrants wouldn't have to. But still.

#8: The Word "Retarded"
This is a very wrong word to use, ever. Yet, I still find myself wanting to use it, which is just …really immature of me.

#9: Being Uncharitable
I dug in my pockets to give a homeless guy some money and gave him a Toonie. He was really thankful and I was all like "Of course…you have a great day, too." But actually, when I'd pulled it out, I thought it was a quarter. And a small part of me wished that I could ask for some change back.

#10: Throwing Away Bread
Last week, we were out to dinner and had a basket of bread we didn't finish. I did not ask to have the bread wrapped and taken home, even though I knew that the kitchen staff would just throw it away, wasting food. I reminded myself at the time that I often bring the bread home only to let it go stale on the counter and have to throw it away anyhow, which is hypocritical.

On the other hand, I could have saved it and be using it for this taschleich, instead of the fresh German rye that I am wantonly tossing over this bridge. But isn’t this whole bread-wasting exercise Your idea in the first place? Or is it just bubbe-mayses? Regardless, sorry for wasting food.

#11: Oh, no. I'm looking down at the waters, and here come the ducks! ... and they're eating the breadcrumbs (which have no fiber and are terrible for their digestive systems)…!
No, duckies, no! Help! Sorry! Atonement!!

Reading on the Subway

2009-09-24T17:23:00.001-04:00

When I see people reading on the subway, I can't help but shoulder-surf. Sometimes the titles are familiar (The DaVinci Code, White Tiger, the Bible), but more often that not, they are as mysterious as the readers themselves: Sword of the Dragon, The Heart's Lesson, The Cat Who Ate the Canary…

I decided to piece together a short narrative of what's being read on the train. For a few weeks now, I've been glimpsing over people's shoulders and jotting down snippets of text (& luckily, I haven't gotten my ass kicked.)

Can you recognize any of the books? Comment with your picks!

The Rocket

Chapter 1
Dinner was at Montrachet, not for the food, but for the wine list, which was thicker than any other in New York.

To my surprise, the Major was very polite when I introduced myself.

"It's all that ought to count," he said.

He sighed – a typical Michael Feller sigh – and poked at his dish of melted ice cream.

An Indian cried out and fell.

Chapter 2
Outside, the white day had given in to a white night.

Mme Mapoi had poured the tea now and was cradling the cup in her hands.

"You're the composer?" Vera asked.

"The operative word is close," he said.

Next, they were given sandwiches.

She would dance for the sultan again this evening.

Chapter 3
Mentoring is particularly helpful in maintaining the top performance of your superstars.

The mind vibrates like the strings of a harp in accord with what it perceives.

The end-of-the-year meeting isn't the only time to address these issues.

You should sleep now, the cat commanded.

One other point, don't make promises to employees if you don't intend to keep them.

Chapter 4
Anna Petrovna woke up.

"How could any woman forget him?"

He moved a strand of hair away from her face and she opened her eyes.

"And I love you."

It seemed a plausible hope at the time.

"Well, it didn't disappear into thin air," Judge Amagosian said.

She nodded and followed Glen out of the carnival grounds.

Chapter 5
I once lived in a hilltop house above a cemetery dating back to the 1800s.

"Congratulations!"

The dragon's head had already appeared over the edge of the forested pit.

"I will quote your Pistach friend from Earthian T.V."

I never take cases because of the fee and half of my cases are pro bono.

And when he came back to, he was flat on his back on the beach in the freezing sand, and it was raining out of a low sky, and the tide was way out.

Epilogue
Question: Why am I Receiving This Statement of Account?

Because Mirabelle knows she is revealing her most secret and singular asset.

It's been a long time since that summer in Brooklyn when they closed off the street.

"It takes a heap of living," I said, "to make a house a home."

"True that."

5770 Honey Cake

2009-09-19T18:38:00.002-04:00

!שנה טובה

To make this Lekach, start by preheating your oven to 350.

Then whisk together:
1 3/4 cup flour
1 t cinnamon
3/4 t. baking soda
1/2 t. baking powder
1/2 t salt
1/2 t. ground ginger

In another bowl, mix at high speed 3 minutes:
2 large eggs (or 3 small ones)
1/4 c. brown sugar

Then add:
1 c. honey (Buckwheat has a nice bite; clover is more goyishe naches)
2/3 c. vegetable oil
1/2 c. fresh brewed coffee, cooled
2 T. whiskey or bourbon

Then fold in the flour mixture until just combined.

Batter will be thin. That's fine. Pour into a greased 9-inch pan.

Bake 30 minutes, then cover with foil and cook 25 minutes more.

Cool for 1 hour ... and celebrate a sweet new year.

NOW Magazine // News // My city unplugged

2009-09-06T08:28:00.001-04:00

NOW Magazine // News // My city unplugged

Shared via AddThis

The Peeler

2009-08-27T20:48:00.001-04:00

The IT business is male-dominated; never was this clearer to me than last night when one of my clients (a small online game creator) invited me out for drinks after work. It was just the creative department, some programmers, the CEO and me – and after a few rounds of drinks, we ended up at For Your Eyes Only, a strip joint.

I've never been in one of these places. To go to one seems redundant because, like most women, I can look at boobs anytime I want, right? But I was curious enough to accept the invitation from Brandon, the CEO. Maybe it'll be just normal, I thought. These guys seem like normal guys. Maybe it's just pretty women dancing, maybe even a little erotic. Sort of like a modern form of goddess-worship, I thought.

It wasn't.

Um, strip joints, at least in this city, are creepy and depressing. They're dark and loud and sticky, full young women with plastic boobs defying gravity as they swing from steel rods and prance around in front of rich men who are all saying nothing. Yeah. That's what happened when we sat down. Everybody shut right up. Started staring. Not even so much as an "oh, she's pretty". Just a bunch of semi-erect guys staring at women. And you're all having erections to-geth-er. What's up with that? I felt like asking them.

But didn't.

"So…, when do you launch Yankee Justice?" I asked the Creative Director, who was looking pretty distracted.

He turned and muttered "December. Listen, I'm getting out of here…the last time I went out with these guys I wound up upstairs and lost $1,200."

"What's upstairs?" I asked.

"They have rooms up there," he said, as if speaking to a child. "Just tell Brandon I had to go home and walk my dog."

Brandon was still back at the coat-check, chatting up some girls. He soon came around and said to me, "I want to introduce you to one of my friends who works here. This is Erika".

Erika had the biggest smile and the roundest, widest eyes of anyone I've ever met. "You've never been to a [strip] club?" she asked me, incredulous. We got to talking while the boys from programming bought her drink after drink. She told me she emigrated from Ukraine five years ago. She doesn't want to be an actress or a dancer; she's like to be a financial planner. But it's hard to find work here when you're not Canadian-born.

"When you dance for guys," I asked, "do they say anything to you?"

"Oh no!" she laughed. "They don't say nothing. When I first started dancing, I wanted to know if I'm doing a good job. … But there's always one way you can tell; it's bing!" She gestured with her hand. "Then, you know. Bing!" She laughed. I laughed. Then more laughing. My face hurt. The room was hot, the music throbbing.

"Would you like a dance?" she asked, rubbing her bare leg against mine. Her leg felt … waxy. I wanted to ask another question just then: Do you use a special cream on your skin, or like a coating, to make it feel like that? Do you get better tips when your legs feel like a Barbie?

But didn't.

"Yeah, Anne. Get a dance!" Brandon said. And that is where I decided that the night had really gone South. I slapped down a twenty for my orange juice and fled, in the tracks of the Creative Director, past the girls trapped at the coat-check, to my coat, to the taxi stand for a Diamond Cab.

I slid into the backseat. Sighed.

"Are you okay?" the old man asked. He sounded Ukrainian.

"Oh, I'm fine. Just a weird night."

"Do you want me to take Adelaide Street or the Gardiner?"

Hurling down the expressway in that cab, I pondered a cosmic connection. What if somehow my taxi driver was actually Erika's father, newly-sponsored to Canada with money she'd saved from peeling, now working split shifts as a taxi driver to help pay for her education? She would assist him with his finances, and soon they would build up an enviable portfolio of stocks: Alberta oil, Ukrainian ore. She'd land a great job at TD Bank, and her legs would grow soft and downy to the touch…

Yankee Justice, meanwhile, would flop, and soon nobody at the game company would be able to afford lap dances, upstairs rooms, or even the modest coat-check fee. And then the whole gang of them would just all have to learn to do it like everyone else does – staring ahead, saying nothing, with no moneyed illusions of intimacy – wholly, truly alone.

Homework Help 4 Teens

2009-06-07T18:46:00.001-04:00

During the school year, I volunteer at the public library tutoring at-risk teens. It's a typical inner-city branch library -- with dog-eared books, fantastically earnest reference librarians, freezing temperatures all winter long and 2 unisex washrooms that double as a bathing station for the local homeless.

We sit in a side-room dedicated to tutoring and/or library storage. My usual spot is next to the Math Guy and beside a decrepit puppet-theater, where a cast of lonely hand-puppets droop in reverie for the days of Public Funding.

I tutor a lot of low-income ESL kids who want to get into college but whose schools don't offer them support. Kids whose dads drive taxi or work construction for 18 hours a day and whose mothers (many of whom did not get to go to school) shepherd them here on the city bus. They come from overcrowded classrooms with antiquated curricula that have often just been amended with token multiculturalism. Good job, TDSB, you celebrated Chinese New Year in the school gym. Now, how about teaching these kids to read?

The Math Guy spends most of his night working with a group of giggling girls in hijabs and Nike sweatshirts who, through some unthinkable red-tape oversight got slotted at a crappy technical high school and now have to work twice as hard to meet university admission standards. Tonight it's all about pi.

I have 2 regulars tonight, too. My first is Mei Lin. Since her school doesn't offer an English conversation group, she's taken to wandering the city at night attending MeetUp conversation groups with travel guides and year-abroad university students. She's desperate to improve her English skills and they do need work.

This week, her English assignment is to interpret Huck Finn. You know, the 19th Century vernacular novel on post-bellum US race relations? You know, that novel that American university students can barely fucking understand? Anyhow, we have 45 minutes and she's got to pass that class. Usually I look for the teachable moment, but this is clearly an academic triage situation and I suspend my usual methods. I simply give her the answers to write down and then explain them to her.

Next is Faisal, grade 9, who has come for help with his English homework, an endless series of barely-readable photocopies on the parts of speech. (I've yet to see a student bring in an actual English-class textbook. Do they even have textbooks in the Toronto schools?) I work hard to teach here, to tease the answers out of him. Meanwhile, his mother sits across the table, flipping through Metro and keeping a watchful eye.

Faisal never takes shortcuts: his answers are laborious and often require turning over the sheet of paper to write even more. "There's only two lines there," I say to him, gently. "I think you can just give a short answer." "Nope," he says, "My teacher wants a lot. I have to write a lot more." And so he writes. Sharpens his pencil. Writes more.

"Is he done?" Faisal's mom asks.

"Yeah, we're done." I say.

"Is he really? Let me see!" She flips through the pages, like always, to make sure he's not tricking me.

"He has to pass this class. He's getting a D and his teacher says he's going to fail if he doesn't bring up his scores…"

I'm shocked to learn that Faisal is getting a D in English. He's really smart, he's fluent, and he loves school. What is happening between 9am and 3pm that I don't see?

She reaches for my hand and her eyes well with tears. "I don't know, I don't know…" she says.

Neither do I.

____
It's late and I'm hungry, so I stop at this little cafeteria filled with African taxi drivers and young Russians in workboots, all tired but talkative, eating plateloads of rice and beans topped with toasted bread and fried fish. I order that same pyramid.

I take a bit of the fish and it carries me back to my childhood in Wisconsin, waking up on summer mornings to the screen-door slam of my brothers just returned from fishing. Frying up little river panfish in an iron skillet, fish after fish after fish…

I can see now why the place is packed. I wonder what kind of fish the men beside me are remembering. The young waitress comes to take their plates.

"I want to know," a taxi driver says to the waitress, "who stole your heart?" The table erupts in laughter.

"Nobody, nothing…" she's laughing, too.

"I heard you're leaving," he says.

"I'm going back to Brazil. I think about it all the time. My sister's there. Everybody's there." She shrugs.

"What about school?" the taxi driver asks.

She shrugs again.

"Well when you come back here," he says (to more laughter from the table) "you'll be surprised. Because nobody's going to go anywhere..."

"It doesn't matter when you come back. It can be ten years, twenty years… You pass by around, we're all going to be here." And everybody laughs again.

Coffee and Almond Coffee Cake

2009-05-25T12:33:00.000-04:00

A hint of expresso, a light almond crunch. Delicious!

1. Cake
3/4 c. unsalted butter
3/4 c. sugar (granulated or caster)
3 large eggs
1/2 cup finely ground almonds
4 Tbsp. cooled expresso or strong coffee
3/4 c. flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder

__
Cream the butter and sugar with handmixer
Beat in eggs slowly
Fold in the almonds and half the coffee/expresso
Sift in flour and baking powder and fold it in
Fold in the rest of the coffee/expresso

Pour into a greased 8 or 9 inch cake pan.

2. Topping
1/2 c. flour
1/4 c. light brown sugar
1/4 c. unsalted butter, softened but not melted

__
Mix topping ingredients in a bowl until it resembles coarse bread crumbs. Sprinkle on top of cake mixture in cake pan.

3. Bake
Bake at 300 for 50-60 minutes until golden brown and fork comes clean.

Dust with powdered (icing) sugar.

Counter-Intuitive New Year's Resolutions

2009-04-01T20:49:00.001-04:00

UPDATE: Read the 2011 version! Click the link here: http://wwwannesblog.blogspot.com/2010/12/real-new-years-resolutions-for-writers.html

Many creative people with unrealized potential start the year with a host of resolutions. We resolve to wake an hour earlier, or to devote Saturday afternoons to writing. We resolve to watch less TV, start a workshop, or even (crazily) to shift our focus away from writing for pay. We vow to achieve concrete goals and clear our plate of the negative thinking that blocks us creatively.

Most of us fail and spend altogether too much time mourning our lost greatness.

Anyways, this year I decided to take a counter-intuitive approach to "creativity-related" resolutions. It's kind of a homeopathic remedy, and like most people who turn to homeopathy, I am desperate and not sure it will work. But so far, it's been going pretty well. Here they are:

Previous Resolution: To wake up one hour earlier to devote myself to my craft.

New Resolution: To wake up one hour earlier and revel in my own sloth.

Notice how "writing" is missing from this resolution. That's because it now reflects what I actually like to do when I wake up early.

"Writing takes discipline" everyone says. Does it really, though? Look at Franz Kafka. By all accounts, he spent most of his time diddling around the office and hammered out his novels on the fly. Or Langston Hughes: Harlem's Bard was a one-draft poet, for God's sake! Moving on…

Previous Resolution: To read more works by the great authors and become inspired.

New Resolution: To read some really, really shitty books.

I really like this resolution because I feel that one of my blocks in writing is being so overwhelmed by the greatness of the great writers. Know what I mean? Like, how can one even put pen to paper when the bookshelf is filled with Mark Twain, Toni Morrison, etc., etc. etc?

Enough with the great writers! As a writer-of-low-self-confidence, maybe the best thing to do is to look carefully at the loads of crap that gets published every year by mediocre or just plain terrible writers.

These people are not cowed by the greatness of our canon! They just barrel on through, flogging their wretched manuscripts, selling books and making money. It's possible to publish, even if you're a shitty writer! Yes, we can! Yes, we can!

Previous Resolution: To network with other writers who will help me grow and build stronger professional relationships.

This Year's Resolution: To network with people who will do absolutely nothing to advance my interests or my enterprise.

Here's why this one works. Selfish opportunism is boring and people who engage in it are boring. Life is about experiences, about giving, caring and taking chances. And so is good writing. And anyways, the best relationships in life are usually with people who offer nothing on a professional level, right?

Like, on Mondays I volunteer with at-risk teens. Sure I could spend a Monday attending a professional seminar, "picking someone's brain" or workshopping with other aspiring writers. But if I'm honest with myself, I'd rather spend it with the kids at the library. It's fun to watch them learn, and they are also pretty hilarious.

In 2009, fun counts. Know what I'm sayin?

1-2-3 Recipe: Halibut, breaded with pistachio

2009-04-01T14:52:00.000-04:00

I adapted this recipe from a recipe on Take Back the Kitchen, an awesome blog for busy cooks. http://takebackthekitchen.blogspot.com/

Halibut, breaded with pistachio

6 Halibut fillets
1/2 half cup bread crumbs
1 /3 cup pistachios
1 clove garlic
1 egg
2 T olive oil

1. Combine bread crumbs, pistachios and garlic using a small food processor. Place mixture in a pie-plate or shallow bowl.

2. Dip each fillet in egg and then cover in the breadcrumb mixture.

3. Fry the fillets in a skillet (medium) for about 3-4 minutes on each side. Add salt and pepper.

Excellent with Middle Eastern salads as a side.

Old in the City

2009-03-26T18:17:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I was coming out of the doctor's office and this old Jamaican woman with a cane sitting in the doorway called to me.

At first I didn't hear what she was asking, but it was "Can you get me a cup of coffee?"

I started reaching in my purse for a Toonie because I thought she wanted money. But she was reaching in her purse, too, and she waved my hand away.

"Take dis." She pressed two quarters and a dime and some pennies into my hand. "I have t'stay here because I'm waitin' for d'Wheel-Trans."

"Do you want something to eat, too?"

"Sure. Sure, honey, just a lik'l… but nothin' too sweet. Diabetes."

Around the corner getting her stuff, I was thinking about how old people in the city, especially if they are immigrants, will just ask you to help them out. They'll squeeze your hand and trust you with their 60 cents. Old people from an old world can make you feel like part of a community, like the city is a community. Like it might be tough here sometimes, but ultimately we've got each other's back.

As I was racing back to the medical building, I saw the Wheel-Trans van parked outside -- a young Ethiopian guy.

"She was waiting for you!" He smiled. "She asked me to wait because you were coming back with her coffee."

We walked the old woman slowly out to the van. He helped her in. No hurries and no rush.

Of all the places to be old, our city is a good one. Not only does it have the infrastructure, but the cultures of our city just don't have the Western generation-gap mentality about old people. We're all busy, but who doesn't have 10 minutes to wait for a little old lady? You've simply got to. Old people yeah, they slow us down. But it feels good to slow down.

About this blog

2009-03-13T16:38:00.002-04:00

Whatever I've got to say? It goes here.