Dr. Strangemom (or, how I learned to stop worrying and love the blog)

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Thanks to my friend and Omamas blogger Amy Wang, I now know that today is National Punctuation Day. The harmonic convergence of this holiday with the recent observation of Yom Kippur is blowing my mind.

If you follow my blog, you may remember that a while back I cast aspersions on the exclamation mark, calling it the lip-glossed, stuffed bra, mint-popping pep squad leader of Punctuationstan and alluding to its, well let's just say, loose definition of chaste. I had no compunction about writing that piece, as I cannot imagine that Exclamation Mark would be the type to read my blog. She probably reads her i-village horoscope and then sets off to encourage people, spewing her enthusiasm and can-do attitude everywhere she goes. God, what a douche.

Oh wait, in light of Yom Kippur, I was going to atone for dissing her. Wait, I mean, I was going to atone! For dissing her!!

I suppose she has the right to exist. If National Punctuation Day has taught me anything, it's that there is a place for everyone. And that a person can justify taking the day off work to drink with pretty much any sorry ass excuse of a holiday. So, with two cups of coffee and just a wee bit of Peppermint Schnapps under my belt (Peppermint Schnapps being the official drink of National Punctuation Day), I have come to make peace with Exclamation Mark. Because without her, a fuck you note stuck to the last, and empty, container of sugar-free, fat free Dulce De Leche pudding would seem, I don't know, unresolved.

Although....come to think of it, fuck you in parenthesis would totally be a more powerful statement.

You know how I feel about Parenthesis. I fucking adore Parenthesis. Parenthesis is a gay man and I am a Parenthesis hag. To sit next to Parenthesis at a PTA meeting, could you imagine? I'd have to change my maxi pad twice because, as my friend Susie North says - when describing us menopausal women having a good laugh together - there won't be a dry seat in the house.

(I am almost sexually attracted to Parenthesis. That's how much fun I know I'd have with him.)

I'll tell you who'd I totally make out with, however: Ellipsis. If Ellipsis was in a band, he'd play electric  bass. He'd lure you in with his soft voice and then leave you wanting more. Ellipsis......he'd lurk around corners, always with his eyes trained on you alone.....making you feel like the most desirable woman in the room....teasing....

And there's Period. Sturdy. Dependable. The saddle shoe of Punctuationstan. I wouldn't have befriended her in high school but I'd like to think I'd look for her on Facebook 40 years later and throw her a bone. 'Cause that's how I roll.

Don't get me started on Question Mark. Personally, I am conspiracy theorist about QM: I think there are two of them, don't you? First QM is totally fucking obnoxious- the why? what? Hello? MOM? Anyone home? shoulder-tapping pest you can't shake at a BBQ. QM invented upspeak - doesn't that tell you everything??

But I believe there is a second Question Mark - QM2. The behind -the- scenes Question Mark. The Patty of Patty/Cathy Patty Duke Show. This QM is quietly curious, the one who slips out of the room to Google a fact before she states it publicly. She asks her questions with a British accent.This QM is the reason we still have the space program. And solar energy. Although she kinda fucked up with the whole Atkins diet, didn't she? She didn't really think through the ramifications of eating bacon and red meat every day. But hey, who among is flawless, right QM2?

I also really like the way, in Spanish, QM2 can be at the front of the sentence AND at the back, like when people managed to get in one of those panoramic photos on both sides by running ahead of the camera. Plus, she can fucking hang upside down at the end of the sentence. Gotta give her props for that. I get all woozy and shit when I bend down to shave my legs.

Hunh. All of a sudden, the spellcheck on this program isn't working. Good thing it's not National Spelling Day.

 

The Plot Thins

Evidently, Bear Grylls drinks his own urine, were you aware?

Now I happen to know for a fact (because Robin said so) that it isn't a stellar idea to actually drink urine, even if you are dehydrated and especially not just because you lost your car keys and you're out of Coke Zero. Robin says that what you are supposed to do, actually, is pour your urine over your skin to cool you off.

These are the kinds of conversations we have, Robin and I, that have kept us going strong for thirty years (this month).

Valuable marriage advice: When the conversation topics begin to wane, simply ask your spouse, "so, drinking urine or bathing with it? Where do you stand?" and the years from The Seven Year Itch to Midlife Crisis will verily fly by. Add to that a few great pasta dishes, the ability to "listen" to your spouse while surreptitiously ordering clothes online from JJill, and the weekly blow-job, and before you can say, "what the fuck do you mean, weekly blow job?" you'll be celebrating thirty years together.

Now I can hear all of you muttering; I see you shaking your fists at me (well, the men are high-five-ing me), so let me clarify my position:

1. Don't give a blow job to a man who is an asshole to you or to the wait staff at restaurants. I just have a thing about that. How a person treats wait staff tells you everything. And don't forget that - like a food server and flight attendant - you have the right to shoot boogers into the soup of the person who is mistreating you. It might be in the Constitution. I'm pretty sure it's in the Old Testament. I am certain it's in the Food Handlers license test because I took the test and passed. (Yes, I have a Food Handler's license. I have it proudly displayed on my kitchen wall next to my college diploma.)

2. Don't give a blow job to a man that you dislike. Oh, I don't mean when you just benignly hate your husband because he insists on pooping in the upstairs bathroom ten minutes before your book club is going to arrive and, let's be honest, Glade just hasn't made the candle that can take on that kind of challenge; I mean, when you really hate him. Because his waist size is smaller than yours.

Other than that, I just think that life is easier when Robin is on his once-a-week regime. It's either that, or crushing the dog's tranquilizers into his brown rice at dinner. And trying to not get the tranquilizers mixed up with the dog's tic medicine. Again. Although, to be fair, Robin's undercoat is GORGEOUS and tic-free.

But my point is that I lost a Facebook fan this week.

I know, right?

My cousin Adam warned me not to obssess about this kind of shit when he helped me set up my blog. He told me that Google Analytics was going to be crack for me and soon I'd be spending all my time tracking fans and following numbers and before I knew it, I'd be offering lap dances to dirty cops if they'd join Facebook and become a dr. strangemom fan. I love how Adam gets me.

But I couldn't resist tracking, and now I can't unknow what I know. Someone bailed.

It's cold comfort that my friend Shira lost a FB fan this week, too. (Her fan  page is called "Tiny Talkers". I think it's about baby sign language. I hope it's about baby sign language. I mean, maybe it's some sort of female answer to Theater of the Penis or something.)

Claire had a Facebook fan bail, as well (from her FB page, "Claire LaZebnik Writes"), and she even does book giveaways. I could do book giveaways, too, except that I haven't written any books. Because, um, my manuscripts have all been rejected. And I can't get an agent.

America's Least Wanted. Poor, poor, pitiful me.

Oh, and get this:

The surprise twist ending to my last post about not being to find the nice man from Sag Harbor? Well, I found him! Claudia suggested I look for him on Facebook, which I did, and there he was! Unbefuckinglievable. I sent him a friend request and a message telling him that I have tried to send him a letter and I am so sorry he must have thought I was ignoring him and isn't this great, and I even sent him a link to the blog to prove that I have been thinking about him.

I got this response yesterday: You can use my P.O. Box for snail mail.

And he ignored my friend request.

So I re-sent it this morning. With just a wee bit of a threatening note.

Stay tuned.

 

 

 

 

 

 

On To Other Stuff

I am wrestling with a problem.

You know how I hate talking on the phone, right? Well, a few weeks ago I sent a letter to a very nice person I met in Sag Harbor after he called and left a message saying how much he enjoyed meeting Robin and me when we were there this summer.  The letter came back today, with a stamp saying that there is no mail receptacle at the address to which I sent the letter.

And now it has been sitting on my desk for over a week, causing me grief and moral disquilbrium, worrying that this guy thinks I'm dissing him. Well, okay, most of the week I didn't think about it due to, well, due to the fact that mostly I think about my hair, but every time I passed by my desk and saw the letter, it gave me a little stomach ache.

What am I supposed to do now?

If you are thinking, "what is the problem? Just call him, you big weenie", then you probably do not suffer from Hate To Talk On The Phone disorder, and you won't get this post at all. And I am sorry to say this and harsh your mellow, but you and I will never be friends unless you move next door to me or are willing to communicate with me  solely via the dr. strangemom Facebook fan page.

It's twisted, I know, but that's how I roll.

Yeah, sure, I could call him, but it will bring nothing but disappointment to both of us. Phone calls are just plain difficult. This guy might be happy to hear from me at first, perhaps, since he's probably been sitting around since he called over a month ago, feeling rejected, pissed off at himself that he ever made the effort to stay in touch, going over every bit of our time together - now, as evidence that I am a horrible person, and deeply unattractive, to boot. At least, that's how I'd feel if I called someone and they never called me back. Yeah, so he'd be happy I called him back, but after a few minutes of awkard phone conversation, he'd be rethinking the whole "let's stay in touch and be friends" thing we had going in August, wondering what it was about me that made him even want to be friends in the first place.

Oh, and I just want to mention this: I don't know if you've ever been to Sag Harbor, but it's one of those places that makes you feel ungainly, ill-dressed and alarmingly fat;  you leave your hotel feeling pretty bitchen but after a few minutes on the street you feel as if your clothes are on inside out and full of boogers.  Oh, it's not Sag Harbor's fault - I actually loved the place. It's the fault of the tanned, fit, perfectly casually dressed people there in August. They are all just the right, cute size for humans, made exactly according to the instruction manual. Which made me feel like fucking Gulliver - bloated Gulliver, after four beers and  some yeast bread -  as I lumbered down their narrow streets scaring little children and leaving shattered glass in my wake.

But about this guy....

I've made a few notes on index cards in case I call him; you know, interesting discussion topics, assorted bon mots, questions about his life, work, etc, but I just can't bring myself to call. I really, really, really hate talking on the phone. I want an outgoing message on my voice mail that says, "I'm home now, so please hang up and email me."

Ack. What a moral conundrum. And so soon after atoning. I was hoping to have a reprieve from this kind of shit for at least a few weeks following Yom Kippur. God, it is a burden to be popular and ethical. Why couldn't I have been born with the depth of ethical thought of, say, Kate Gosselin or Adolph Hitler? I bet they never lost sleep, worrying that they'd hurt someone's feelings, Hitler agonizing over just the right correspondences to send - Dear Poland, So sorry about about that Gleiwitz brouhaha. Looking forward to seeing you at the signing of the Molotov-Robbentrop Pact - if I can still fit into my pants after all those piroshkis I "liberated" from your bakeries, LOL.

I am staring at the envelope as I write this. Something doesn't make sense. Since when do people NOT have a mail receptacle? The guy has a jewelry store on Main Street, for God's sakes. Doesn't he need to get mail? How does he get his coupons for Sweet Tomatoes Buffet?

Oh, shit. I just thought of something - what if he sent the letter back to me so he didn't have to stay in touch? What if the stamp that says "no mail receptacle" is just a bogus one he had made for exactly these kinds of situations? What if HE is dissing ME?

I gotta mull this over.

If you need me, I'll be at the refrigerator.

Atonement Watch 5771

The countdown continues. I have only until Saturday evening to get all my shit settled with everyone I've fucked over this year. I would have gotten on it sooner but I had a lot of ironing to do. And then I wanted to watch Obama's speech on TV. And then I was hungry and needed to set out some snacks for myself, you know, as fortification for my impending atonement.

It wasn't easy to find just the right snack for the work ahead of me - Triscuits were suitably rough and hard to swallow but the name Triscuit seemed, I don't know, capricious when set before the task of making my peace with the universe and everyone in it. Ak Maks have a somber, ethnic, High Holydays sound; kinda like something the Hebrews would have said while choking down the dry matzo and reaching frantically for the water bottle in their fanny packs,  but the Ak Maks in my cupboard were funky and not worth the calories. And forget about Laughing Cow cheese. That name is just asking for trouble during a solemn undertaking.

Best to skip the food and go directly to Cranberry, tonic water, vodka and lemon. The quintessential atonement beverage. Tart, bracing and good for you. The cocktail of transgressors who care about their urinary tract health.

So, atonement.

Atonement.....atonement.....atonement atonement atonement....atonementatonementatonement...

I will begin with the transgression of my lying.

Okay, here goes:

If you have ever asked me to do anything, go anywhere, call you, recieve a call from you, meet you somewhere or be home at a certain time, and if I have answered that I'd love to but I will be working, then chances are good that I was lying to you. I have the great fortune of having a few careers that fly under the radar when it comes to clocking in, affording me a veil of vagueness when it comes to defending my whereabouts.  This is high grade crack to someone like me, whose idea of the perfect evening begins with whatever I was supposed to do, getting canceled.

But I better stop lying about it because one of these days I am going to get busted. I'm surprised Robin hasn't caught on yet; every time he calls just to chat or wants to go out or something, I tell him I have to work. By those calculations, I work about 93 hours a week and yet - I never make any money. So far I've been able to distract him from figuring it out by quickly flashing my cleavage at him when he asks about it but, let's be honest, that only still excites him because of macular degeneration. What he sees when I lift my blouse is mostly in his memory. In fact, once he was even looking totally the wrong way - at the stainless steel side-by side refrigerator -  but he stilled whistled.  Gotta love Robin.

So, for the sin of lying to get out of shit I get invited to do, I ask forgiveness from those I've been ducking by inventing clients, alluding to meetings, feigning menstrual cramps, hiding behind my couch, blaming the post office, running the thermometer under hot water so it looks like I have a high fever, faking an earthquake, setting fire to my living room drapes when I saw guests coming up the driveway, moving from California to Oregon, not responding to my name being repeatedly called in a crowd and - in one instance - leading a nice couple to believe that Robin had been passing a kidney stone for 6 weeks straight just so we wouldn't have to reciprocate a dinner invitation.

As I write this confession, I am looking out the window at darkening skies and impending rain. And noting that the picnic I am supposed to go to in about a half hour is most definitely going to be canceled.

Amen.

 

Young Kippers.

Uh oh. It's just around the corner.

If you're Jewish, you know what I am talking about.

The Big Day. The day of Atonement. Yom Kippur. Or, as we all used it call it when Jewish life was solely phonetic, Young Kipper. Which was very confusing to me as a kid because aren't kippers a kind of fish, like a herring or something? You know all that shit you hear as a child that just becomes part of what you know but you have no real understanding of it at all? Kinda like how I feel now about how electricity works. Or why toilets flush backwards in Australia. Or tantric sex. Or how people can think that Sarah Palin and Kate Gosselin talking about doing a television show together is not the ninth sign of the Apocalypse.

We have only until next Saturday, Jews, to make amends with everyone we fucked over before, as the liturgy says, the gates close on this year and all the shit we did remains on our permanent records. You gotta love a religion that gives you ten days each year to expunge your transgressions. In fact, the liturgy in the hours leading up to The Big Moment (which will be at, in case you have shit for which to atone, approximately 5:30 this coming Saturday evening) have lots of warnings that the gates are about to close.

Personally, I find all the warnings a bit desperate and not befitting a God who, supposedly, can smite us with one hand. It's like a big "I'm going to count to three....one...two..." from God.  Which, honestly, as ever parent knows, is just a pathetic ploy that ultimately proves we are too chickenshit to go right to the consequence. Or, that we really don't have a consequence in mind and we are stalling, hoping to not have to show our cards.

But, God has smiting as a consequence. S/He doesn't have to resort to, "...two...two and a half.....two and three quarters..."  I mean, fuuuuck, if we parents had smiting as an option, I bet we'd be way more judicious with our meaningless, token threats. You may not watch "The Backyardigans" for two whole days kinda pales with your name shall be nevermore for twelve generations and more.

Me, I've never responded well to threats. Partly because I walk around with an internal nanny cam, always living my life as though I am on one of those faux news "What Would YOU Do?" specials that put people in all sorts of tempting situations and film them as they lie, steal and dry hump the drunk girl before John Quinones busts in. So the threat thing doesn't come up a lot in my personal life.

But I have used threats in my parenting life. Never successfully, of course, but that never stopped me.

I was going to tell you a story about when Robin failed miserably at using threats with the kids, but I think I am going to hold off on that one. Robin is still smarting from the last thing I posted about when he pledged his allegiance to the half-wit nurse midwife instead of to me during labor with our second kid, and he really wants me to let everyone know that HE was the one who discovered that she had wrongly connected the contraction belt with the baby heartbeat belt.

Okay. Yes, he was the one who discovered it. He was also the one who, after discovering it, still continued to believe that I was making up the shit about the baby coming NOW, and it wasn't until I took the nurse/midwife's neck skin (she was young and fit and there wasn't a lot of give in her neck but I managed to get enough) in my pinched fingers, shoved her head almost halfway into my crotch and hissed, "read my lips - this baby is coming out NOW" that Robin switched teams and went full-tilt cheerleader for Team "The Woman Who Is Actually Birthing The Baby And Who Probably Knows Better When Her Innards Have Opened Up To The Size Of A Prius Than The Two Other People In The Room Who Do Not Have Babies Coming Out Of Them".

But I digress.

No, wait, I don't.

This is about atonement, and I suppose the season calls to me to let go of that particular transgression on Robin's part. Maybe this is about me, my unwillingness to let go of old shit (I mean, the baby is going to be 24 years old next month) and accept that the most of the rest of the 30 years Robin and I have been married have been pretty good.

Yup. I am going to atone for holding on to that story that puts Robin in an unfavorable light. I think I am finally ready to let go it.

Now that it's in writing. On the blog. Forever in cyberspace. Nevermore to be forgotten. For twelve generations and more.

Amen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Labor This

Labor Day, 2010. Are you as excited as I am?

I love Labor Day. A whole day devoted to people who work - I mean, real work, not actors or perfume testers or shit - is exactly the kind of holiday on which we are gonna get down and party on the commune. There is going to be a lot of hard work when we all move into our yurts; I hope you aren't thinking it's gonna be all smoking weed and baking brownies and casual sex Fridays. Nope, we are going to have to harvest the weed and separate out the seeds, as well. We are not animals.

My favorite Labor Day was 1986. Specifically, October 1986, which - if you are paying attention at all instead of concentrating on that chin hair you suddenly found while washing your face this morning (and how do those lady whiskers get so fucking long? I mean, did I not notice it when it was two inches? Nothing, and then all of a sudden, menopause, and I have a foot long sword sprouting from my chin. I could cut my bagel with it just by nodding no) - you will realize is not the official Labor Day, which always falls on, well, Labor Day weekend. No, I am referring to MY personal labor day.

In 1986 was in labor with my second kid, which means that Robin was an expert at the whole thing.

You see where this story is going, right?

So we get to the hospital when my contractions are, like, no seconds apart because when I had called Robin at work to say my water broke and he should come home immediately, he went ahead and finished the part of the job he was working on (I know this because he was working at my friends Neil and Norma's house and Norma told me about that. Oh, and then he sat around and schmoozed with Neil for a while because, you know, it was my second kid and Robin was an expert which meant that he knew without a doubt that even though my water had broken I probably had, oh, a good twenty hours before I needed to get to the hospital. Oh, and I always suspected that he and Neil smoked a few while schmoozing so his sense of time and, say, actual REAL time didn't exactly see eye to eye).

The nurse/midwife meets us at the hospital entrance with a giggle and says, "this is my very first day in  L & D. I am so nervous!" She then proceeds to hook me up with the fetal monitor attached to the screen that showed my contractions, and the contraction monitor to the screen that showed the baby's heartbeat. Robin nodded his expert agreement with her fucked up set-up and they were off and running to get this baby delivered.

For the next few hours I labored alone, which is to say that I ignored every thing the two of them (now, clearly, a couple) told me. Their eyes glued to the monitor, they wrongly interpreted every contraction I had as the baby's heartbeat in distress, and every normal heartbeat as evidence of my lack of contractions. Dr. Robin and Dr. FirstDayOnTheJob clucked and hmm'ed and frowned at my unwillingness to labor according to the monitor and whispered conspiratorially about, I don't know, my bad attitude and how short hair didn't really suit my round face. I bet he even told her that I am often not interested in his work stories.

God, I hated them. I hate them now, just writing about it 23 years later.

Hunh. I totally did not intend to get all whipped up over this. Not today. Not on the day we celebrate the worker. Not on the holiest day of the year.

My friend David Besbris is going to march in a parade with all the macho unions today. I am so jealous. The last time I marched in anything was at the San Francisco End The War In Vietnam protest in 1967 but it seems like yesterday because STEPHEN STILLS marched next to me and that kind of a thing stays with you a long time. I bet David isn't gonna rub shoulders with anyone from CSN and Y, but still, he'll be side by side with Longshoremen and Seafarers and shit. And who knows, maybe a music legend will show up.

David's luck, it will be, like, that weener Josh Groban or Celine Dion and they will have to march to "My Heart Will Go On" which really is more suited to battment tendu and which would not showcase the utter macho-ness of the crowd. Especially David, who despite his musical tastes running more to the likes of Sam and Dave, cannot resist an opportunity to dance. Frankly, he doesn't need that kind of exposure.

Yes, best I remain here to celebrate the day. Alone. Guess I'll march around my stupid block with my stupid "UNION - SI!" tee shirt and my stupid guitar. All by my stupid self.

And think about that asshole midwife nurse.

Let the festivities begin.

 

 

 

Minding My P's

I am NEVER going to buy Vesicare. I don't care if my overactive bladder (which I don't have. Yet) explodes and kills me. Have you seen their commercial? That family who is suffering because Mom has a urinary condition that has the kids all bent out of shape? The condition she has because she gave birth to the kids through her body, after the baby played bumper cars with her poor bladder for nine months.

What a bunch of assholes, that family. Check them out, looking all tragic and shit and giving Mom the stink eye when she has to excuse herself to find a bathroom. And the boy, the kid moving into the dorm, he's all freaked because Mom is gone for a few minutes.

Where's Mom? Help! Mom? Are you in the bathroom? MOM?" 

Yeah, that kid is going to adjust easily to college life. He'll be back home by Thanksgiving. Still a virgin.

And poor, incontinent Mom is on the toilet, rushing through her pee, not even able to enjoy it because she had been away from the family for, what, seven minutes and she knows there is gonna be hell to pay because of it. When she returned to the dorm room, they probably froze her out, refused to talk to her, wouldn't accept the Rice Krispie treats she had made for them.

I'll tell you this much: when my kids moved into their college dorm rooms, I bet their favorite part of the weekend is when I left the room. Second only to the part when I left the college. And left the state. I mean, my kids love me and shit but they are not creepy about it.

Anyway, when my kids were young, they just followed me right into the bathroom. I hated that; not because it was a problem to pee in front of them - I can pee in front of anyone - but because the bathroom was the only place I could hide from them. Oh, don't give me that look. Like you never want to hide from your family.

It's so fucking hard to hide from your kids. And I don't mean, hard as in "I love them so much I could never even imagine hiding from them." I mean, it's hard. Modern houses all have those open floor plans. And I can't fit under the bed or behind the dishwasher. Once, when the kids were little, I tried to hide in the linen closet when I was stealing their Halloween candy but they found me.  And even though stuffing contraband Almond Joy fun size bars into your mouth in a stuffy linen closet isn't as satisfying as you might think it would be, it beats the hell out of locking yourself in the bathroom to sneak them, having to make pretend pooping sounds while you do it to keep the kids out. 

Although, truth be told, hiding from them is still way better than being captive to them all fucking day, arguing (and losing) when they insist that your favorite fruit is banana, not mango, and acting out dramatic scenes from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoons until you purposely eat half a jar of home canned tomatoes with bulging lids just so you can be hospitalized and get the hell away from them for a couple of days.

I just don't get why a mom would NOT want an excuse to lock herself in the bathroom a hundred times a day. Teach your kids the term "female urinary incontinence" when they are babies and you have just bought yourself a world of privacy.

Now, please excuse me for a moment.