People laugh when i refer to my son as a Were-baby.
I laugh too.
It's a joke I made up because the day I went to the hospital to be induced was December 11th, and it was 60 degrees farenheit. I remember stepping out the back door with my hoodie and coat on and realizing I probably didn't need the latter. I was anxious, and I stood on the porch, while Beard finished packing up things and tending to the details, a talent with which he is exceptionally gifted.
I watched as a long, slow tendril of fog unfurled across our driveway and spread thickly over the backyard. The sky was a flannel kind of grey, and if I had been inside looking out I would have expected it to be a good twenty degrees chillier. In fact I had, hence the coat.
I placed a hand below my bulging abdomen, and felt the taut skin stretched to capacity over the overripe moon of my belly, and I remembered the phrase, "werewolf weather" a term we used anytime the fog was of this particular quality and the air felt somehow wrong.
I hoped it wasn't an indication that things were going to go poorly in the delivery room.
Then Beard came out, and we got in the car to drive toward the future.
When Bastian was born, it was between moons. It wasn't full, in fact, I think it had been full a week earlier, and I'd been disappointed that the celestial event hadn't tugged my stubborn uterus into action, but just the same, as I lay in a daze in the early hours of Saturday morning, with my newborn son clinging to my chest, I reached a hot, pink finger down to stroke the backs of his perfect, folded little ears, and noticed a fine layer of black hair coating them. There were similar stripes of this fur on the backs of his shoulders, where feathers might be if he had wings. Beard laughed at them, and I did too, but secretly, I repeated to myself, "werewolf weather".
Six months (and a little bit) later it is a full moon in Bastian's birth sign of Sagittarius. It is also the summer solstice. The shortest nights of the year are passing by as quickly as bright yellow sheets on a post it calendar that we tear off with sweaty abandon, crumple and toss, not caring in the heat if they make it to the trash basket. These days of summer are so forgettable in their miasma of pollen in its ochre death throes, the New England meteorological disposition making good on its humid reputation, and the nights are so fevered and the stars so bright, they make sleep a kind of brief attempt at respite from the burning blue flame of a midday sky. Night is a navy tongue that lashes briefly across the earth, searing with salt crystals, and then retracts so quickly, we small animals have no chance for the long consideration of the peppermint midnights of winter, or even the smoky, pensive twilights of fall.
Here, inside these days that are millennia long, and nights that are crackles and flashes of darkness, my baby boy is growing his first teeth.
Long gone is the black fur of his birth. The down rubbed off in his second bath, and I didn't even noticed its disappearance. Teeth are another story. Their entrance is fraught and preempted by months of struggle and discomfort. Indeed, we have yet to see a whitecap break the surface, but Bastian has been drooling and chewing for months now, growing slowly in fervor until we have reached this point in his transformation where there are only brief flashes of respite, when he eats or sleeps, brief and teasing as those swipes of night we get in this early season, and the rest of his waking hours are spent squirming and gnawing on anything he can get his hands on. His pudgy fists clenched like claws around any object he can lift, always straining, always pulling, always working toward bringing the thing to his mouth in the effort of seeking relief from the eruptions working their way to fruition inside his gums.
Alone in the wee hours of the brief night, when he stirs and quiets himself, and I, being the adult, cannot find sleep as readily available as exhaustion would have you believe, I search the internet for possible ways to soothe him, for symptoms I can compare to his, for reassurance that the bairn is experiencing a typical rite of passage.
Only page after page of testimonials, diatribes, and dialogues between mothers reveals over and over that the first teeth a baby breaks are always the two in the front, either bottom or top, making for that hilarious and precious kind of pudgy, hairless, gopher look that is so adorable in a largely pink, and harmless infant smile. And Bastian is not cutting his front teeth. Those, in fact, are noticeably not a source of discomfort in any way.
Instead, when I slide my hot pink finger into his jaws, I feel the gleaming point of an incisor working desperately to come through the top right gumline, and diagonally across from it, on the bottom left, its mate struggles to break the surface in a bulging lump of flesh with the telltale bud of sharp, new bone, a translucent white beneath.
I lie awake in the brief snatches of time when the moon is wide and watching through our window, and I let my werebaby child chew harmlessly on my hand in his sleep, wondering when the change will happen, when the elements will align, and that first shard of bone breaks out of its pink prison, and draws blood.
Monday, June 20, 2016
Thursday, June 9, 2016
The Mythical She
Who is this mythical She?
The one who the 80's held up on a platform, shoulder pads and crisp waterfall bangs, diane keaton in a box suit selling applesauce to spite James Spader, boom, this baby's got fangs...
Who is SHE?
The once overachieving college student with a 3.8 GPA and an eating disorder, and bruises on her back from where she doesn't know how to lie down anymore
without shivering.
Who IS she?
And What does she do now that the roles she fought so hard again are suddenly her definition
and she doesn't want that definition
like the cross fit yoga mom infantry
surging across the horizen with their SUV strollers all looking each other up and down to see
whose spandex is bunching here
and whose latte cost more
and whose eye bags are bigger
and whose baby has the colic worse
and which of them might have sneaked some gluten when the rest of the group wasn't looking?
Does she have an instagram account
she can be taken into account for?
Can I recognize the filter she used to make herself look less tired
and more productive
her house a little more expensive
her bowl of food a little more appetizing
her child a little more precious
her slip of the tongue
her forced ubiquitous sharing
her contrived colloquialisms
filling her and filing her into the boxes she once tore apart with the back of a hammer
in a room filled with sawdust and iron filings on mister america's promise of a dime coming back
as long as she pursued her dreams in an equitable manner.
Once
she was locked in a space
padded with expectation
she convinced herself she was mad
and the doctor reassured
HER
that she could swallow
she could
swallow
she
could
swallow
down her insecurities
this pill
those fears
and anything else
he might offer her
in exchange for
a good
night's sleep.
who is THIS mythical she?
The gossiping mongrel
breathing wine vapor through lipstuck teeth
and veloured decolletage
thumbing her mental lexicon for the
hip
hipp
hippest
build my sisters up
and tear them down
as I pick myself apart
brick by brick
because nobody likes a BRaggart woman
nobody likes a
happy woman
nobody likes
a woman
to be loud unless she's laughing.
And even then...
there are people who frown
who shake their heads because
mirth is the new girth
and obscenity is the new obesity
and feminism is the new diabetes
with every talking head
floating on a screen
saying hot button
push button
this button
words
like
I'm with her
I'm withher
I'm wither
I'm withered
down
by your demands
to the point of desiccation
to the point of being a woman sucked dry
by all that I can be
SHE.
Who
is she?
A destination?
A final resuscitation?
A last
gasp
at what we all wished when we were little
and someone told us we mattered.
Do you remember the last time someone looked you in the eyes and said
You matter?
Do you remember the last time someone
looked you in the eyes?
Do you remember the last time
you were able to look in the mirror and say your own name?
She
is walking down an alley and she wears your name on the back of her wrist in dayglo ink stamped on by a sweaty security guard with too much hair gel and she sees a shadow that is bigger than it should be and she is suddenly so filled with terror she can barely breathe.
But her mind
an anaerobic reflection of the day
is chastising her
for wearing that skirt, and those shoes.
You know the kind
the kind
you can't
run in.
She
is quitting her job because she can't come back from maternity leave because her child is still sick at 12 weeks, and because she doesn't even know if she's a person yet because so recently she was split in two like an atom, and we for some reason expect her to be the same afterwards,
as though someone can set off a nuclear bomb and see the same country reflected in their rear view.
She
is taking the misogyny in stride so that she can move up a pay grade, so she can get the corner office, so she can become partner and then, she is promising herself, then she won't take their shit anymore.
She
has a prayer for every student
has a picture of their homelife
has a portrait and a card and a drawing that they did on her wall
and she also has a bulletproof vest in the cupboard with the markers
just in case.
She is everywhere
and she is
you
and she is
me
and she is
STILL GOING TO BE HERE EVEN AFTER EVERYTHING YOU'VE DONE TO HER
AFTER EVERYTHING SHE'S BEEN THROUGH
AFTER BLOOD
AFTER WAR
AFTER POVERTY
AFTER FLEEING
AFTER VIOLENCE
AFTER VIOLATION
SHE
STILL
IS.
And always will be.
She
the mythical
SHE.
The one who the 80's held up on a platform, shoulder pads and crisp waterfall bangs, diane keaton in a box suit selling applesauce to spite James Spader, boom, this baby's got fangs...
Who is SHE?
The once overachieving college student with a 3.8 GPA and an eating disorder, and bruises on her back from where she doesn't know how to lie down anymore
without shivering.
Who IS she?
And What does she do now that the roles she fought so hard again are suddenly her definition
and she doesn't want that definition
like the cross fit yoga mom infantry
surging across the horizen with their SUV strollers all looking each other up and down to see
whose spandex is bunching here
and whose latte cost more
and whose eye bags are bigger
and whose baby has the colic worse
and which of them might have sneaked some gluten when the rest of the group wasn't looking?
Does she have an instagram account
she can be taken into account for?
Can I recognize the filter she used to make herself look less tired
and more productive
her house a little more expensive
her bowl of food a little more appetizing
her child a little more precious
her slip of the tongue
her forced ubiquitous sharing
her contrived colloquialisms
filling her and filing her into the boxes she once tore apart with the back of a hammer
in a room filled with sawdust and iron filings on mister america's promise of a dime coming back
as long as she pursued her dreams in an equitable manner.
Once
she was locked in a space
padded with expectation
she convinced herself she was mad
and the doctor reassured
HER
that she could swallow
she could
swallow
she
could
swallow
down her insecurities
this pill
those fears
and anything else
he might offer her
in exchange for
a good
night's sleep.
who is THIS mythical she?
The gossiping mongrel
breathing wine vapor through lipstuck teeth
and veloured decolletage
thumbing her mental lexicon for the
hip
hipp
hippest
build my sisters up
and tear them down
as I pick myself apart
brick by brick
because nobody likes a BRaggart woman
nobody likes a
happy woman
nobody likes
a woman
to be loud unless she's laughing.
And even then...
there are people who frown
who shake their heads because
mirth is the new girth
and obscenity is the new obesity
and feminism is the new diabetes
with every talking head
floating on a screen
saying hot button
push button
this button
words
like
I'm with her
I'm withher
I'm wither
I'm withered
down
by your demands
to the point of desiccation
to the point of being a woman sucked dry
by all that I can be
SHE.
Who
is she?
A destination?
A final resuscitation?
A last
gasp
at what we all wished when we were little
and someone told us we mattered.
Do you remember the last time someone looked you in the eyes and said
You matter?
Do you remember the last time someone
looked you in the eyes?
Do you remember the last time
you were able to look in the mirror and say your own name?
She
is walking down an alley and she wears your name on the back of her wrist in dayglo ink stamped on by a sweaty security guard with too much hair gel and she sees a shadow that is bigger than it should be and she is suddenly so filled with terror she can barely breathe.
But her mind
an anaerobic reflection of the day
is chastising her
for wearing that skirt, and those shoes.
You know the kind
the kind
you can't
run in.
She
is quitting her job because she can't come back from maternity leave because her child is still sick at 12 weeks, and because she doesn't even know if she's a person yet because so recently she was split in two like an atom, and we for some reason expect her to be the same afterwards,
as though someone can set off a nuclear bomb and see the same country reflected in their rear view.
She
is taking the misogyny in stride so that she can move up a pay grade, so she can get the corner office, so she can become partner and then, she is promising herself, then she won't take their shit anymore.
She
has a prayer for every student
has a picture of their homelife
has a portrait and a card and a drawing that they did on her wall
and she also has a bulletproof vest in the cupboard with the markers
just in case.
She is everywhere
and she is
you
and she is
me
and she is
STILL GOING TO BE HERE EVEN AFTER EVERYTHING YOU'VE DONE TO HER
AFTER EVERYTHING SHE'S BEEN THROUGH
AFTER BLOOD
AFTER WAR
AFTER POVERTY
AFTER FLEEING
AFTER VIOLENCE
AFTER VIOLATION
SHE
STILL
IS.
And always will be.
She
the mythical
SHE.
Monday, June 6, 2016
Ravenous Upon the Joy
So back when my little BooBoo had the colic real hard, my Dad and my Beard's Mother were leaning on me super heavily to give him rice cereal in his bottle. Or as my slightly still English Dad put it,
"Just a little pear puree, my darling. The young man is perfectly capable of handling it I'm sure."
This of course, during a time that the young man in question couldn't handle any presence of wheat in my breastmilk.
So here we are, three months later, colic firmly in the rear view mirror (THANK ALL THE DARK POWERS OF FISHER PRICE OR WHATEVER), and all the baby lit both electronic and printed states that BooBoo is ready for his maiden voyage on the good ship solid food as soon as he has reached the following milestones:
1. He is six months old or older
2. He is interested in food and actually grasps at what I am trying to eat
3. He can sit up unassisted
In a little less than a week, we will have unlocked level number one.
He's been trying to hijack my fork since about four months old, so we're good on number two.
But number three is still not quite nailed down.
We can sort of hold ourselves up if Mummy is there to provide back support, but the moment she takes her hand away, we list somewhat violently to port or starboard, and the ship does not sail on.
So let's talk about Mama then. Since we might not be starting the pear puree for another couple of weeks, Baby is still exclusively breastfed (or as the cool kids call it ebf), and this means my little wad of cookie dough, who is pushing twenty pounds is SUCKING THE LIFE RIGHT OUT OF ME.
Seriously though.
Before I got pregnant, I considered myself somewhat of an amateur distance runner.
I used to start with three and four mile runs in March and by mid to late summer I would run a half marathon, then scale back down as the bad weather encroached, and take Late December to March off because eff New England's treacherous sidewalks, and eff treadmills in gyms. Eff gyms in general. I've never been able to get down with the spectacle, theatre in the round, bread and circuses bullshit of working out in a cement box with other showy-offy humans. We're grunting, heaving, pushing ourselves to do things that we probably shouldn't, and there's a good chance at least one bodily fluid is going to come out of us during the experience. Why the hell would I want to do this around other people, let alone in the bizarre stadium set up of the modern gym?
Anyway...I digress.
So around August, when I was in peak running form, I would turn into a metabolic wonder.
As a sluggish teenager with severely sedentary reading and brooding habits, I never experienced the joys of a speedy metabolism. I never had that insatiable teenage appetite, or anything like it. My idea of a big meal was setting up a full tea service, bringing it to my bedroom, and working through it over the course of Sunday afternoon while I did my homework. Yeah...I had so many friends.
So the first summer I ever ran real distance, my need for food surprised me.
I HAD to eat.
I had to eat a lot.
And I had to eat the right stuff. Lots of white carbs for running fuel, plenty of protein for building my muscles, and heaps of bananas for potassium and recovery.
Yeah...so cake and peanut butter mostly.
Of course, when I got pregnant, I shelved the running shoes, and paid very close attention to my diet.
I wanted to build my baby out of the best nutrients I could.
Which brings us to here.
Now.
I am juicing my melons at least once every two hours into this kid, and he is gaining steadily.
I am also incapable of satiating my hunger.
Sure, make all the delicious virgin sacrifice jokes you want, and anytime you want to swing by my place with a spit-roasted sixteen year old with an apple in his/her (I'm not picky) mouth, you are welcome, but seriously, I am dying here.
We theoretically start solids in two-ish weeks, after the doctor appointment, the okay go ahead, the sitting up without lolling over like a drunken old man, etc.
But for the next two weeks, how the hell do i survive?
Turns out eating without wheat is hella difficult.
Like all I want is pizza.
Always.
Oh, and dear national donut day,
go fuck yourself,
love,
me.
Shit that I never even craved while pregnant is sounding better and better because just in case you were wondering, smoothies last for about an hour, trail mix, unless eaten by the pound, also lasts about an hour.
I can consume a salad the size of my child with cheese and chicken and avocado, and about two hours later, I am crawling out of bed and scavenging the fridge for leftovers, often times I settle for a container of greek yoghurt with a generous spoonful of peanut butter stirred in. It's cold, creamy, and shuts up the tummy demons for about three hours, and then...well...then I'm creeping again like some kind of terrifying scavenger bird with a baby hanging off one boob.
Anyway, this is more of a whinge than a blog, and I guess a cry for help?
If anybody has the terrible misfortune of being celiac or has to be wheat free for other reasons, and has some magnificent secret they feel like sharing, please please please share along.
Because I'm one brazil nut from turning into a squirrel.
"Just a little pear puree, my darling. The young man is perfectly capable of handling it I'm sure."
This of course, during a time that the young man in question couldn't handle any presence of wheat in my breastmilk.
So here we are, three months later, colic firmly in the rear view mirror (THANK ALL THE DARK POWERS OF FISHER PRICE OR WHATEVER), and all the baby lit both electronic and printed states that BooBoo is ready for his maiden voyage on the good ship solid food as soon as he has reached the following milestones:
1. He is six months old or older
2. He is interested in food and actually grasps at what I am trying to eat
3. He can sit up unassisted
In a little less than a week, we will have unlocked level number one.
He's been trying to hijack my fork since about four months old, so we're good on number two.
But number three is still not quite nailed down.
We can sort of hold ourselves up if Mummy is there to provide back support, but the moment she takes her hand away, we list somewhat violently to port or starboard, and the ship does not sail on.
So let's talk about Mama then. Since we might not be starting the pear puree for another couple of weeks, Baby is still exclusively breastfed (or as the cool kids call it ebf), and this means my little wad of cookie dough, who is pushing twenty pounds is SUCKING THE LIFE RIGHT OUT OF ME.
Seriously though.
Before I got pregnant, I considered myself somewhat of an amateur distance runner.
I used to start with three and four mile runs in March and by mid to late summer I would run a half marathon, then scale back down as the bad weather encroached, and take Late December to March off because eff New England's treacherous sidewalks, and eff treadmills in gyms. Eff gyms in general. I've never been able to get down with the spectacle, theatre in the round, bread and circuses bullshit of working out in a cement box with other showy-offy humans. We're grunting, heaving, pushing ourselves to do things that we probably shouldn't, and there's a good chance at least one bodily fluid is going to come out of us during the experience. Why the hell would I want to do this around other people, let alone in the bizarre stadium set up of the modern gym?
Anyway...I digress.
So around August, when I was in peak running form, I would turn into a metabolic wonder.
As a sluggish teenager with severely sedentary reading and brooding habits, I never experienced the joys of a speedy metabolism. I never had that insatiable teenage appetite, or anything like it. My idea of a big meal was setting up a full tea service, bringing it to my bedroom, and working through it over the course of Sunday afternoon while I did my homework. Yeah...I had so many friends.
So the first summer I ever ran real distance, my need for food surprised me.
I HAD to eat.
I had to eat a lot.
And I had to eat the right stuff. Lots of white carbs for running fuel, plenty of protein for building my muscles, and heaps of bananas for potassium and recovery.
Yeah...so cake and peanut butter mostly.
Of course, when I got pregnant, I shelved the running shoes, and paid very close attention to my diet.
I wanted to build my baby out of the best nutrients I could.
Which brings us to here.
Now.
I am juicing my melons at least once every two hours into this kid, and he is gaining steadily.
I am also incapable of satiating my hunger.
Sure, make all the delicious virgin sacrifice jokes you want, and anytime you want to swing by my place with a spit-roasted sixteen year old with an apple in his/her (I'm not picky) mouth, you are welcome, but seriously, I am dying here.
We theoretically start solids in two-ish weeks, after the doctor appointment, the okay go ahead, the sitting up without lolling over like a drunken old man, etc.
But for the next two weeks, how the hell do i survive?
Turns out eating without wheat is hella difficult.
Like all I want is pizza.
Always.
Oh, and dear national donut day,
go fuck yourself,
love,
me.
Shit that I never even craved while pregnant is sounding better and better because just in case you were wondering, smoothies last for about an hour, trail mix, unless eaten by the pound, also lasts about an hour.
I can consume a salad the size of my child with cheese and chicken and avocado, and about two hours later, I am crawling out of bed and scavenging the fridge for leftovers, often times I settle for a container of greek yoghurt with a generous spoonful of peanut butter stirred in. It's cold, creamy, and shuts up the tummy demons for about three hours, and then...well...then I'm creeping again like some kind of terrifying scavenger bird with a baby hanging off one boob.
Anyway, this is more of a whinge than a blog, and I guess a cry for help?
If anybody has the terrible misfortune of being celiac or has to be wheat free for other reasons, and has some magnificent secret they feel like sharing, please please please share along.
Because I'm one brazil nut from turning into a squirrel.
Sunday, May 29, 2016
The New Journalism Fails at Life
I like to behave as though I am an expert on journalism because my father was a newspaper and magazine writer/editor for the better part of his life. During my senior year of High school, he started a rival town newspaper after being fired from the original rag for exposing an actual scandal in the Board of Town Selectmen where some of them were (GAsp) taking bribes.
Finally, my father had somewhere else to channel his atrophying editorial skills which for the ten years he took off from journalism to write books, he used to tear strips off of my confidence by reading my school papers over my shoulder while I tapped at the family computer--Ah the 90's, a time when you had to wait your turn on the family word processor rather than hole up in your bedroom and never emerge or speak to anyone and lick a screen to death with your eyeballs until falling unconscious with the instagram last witnessed burned into your retinas--
Where was I?
During my first summer back from college, I worked as the secretary for the paper a couple of days a week and Dad even let me write an article or two, which he editorially (not literally) ripped apart with his characteristic acerbic wit, and the next year I got a gig working at a bakery and said deuces to the family business.
With that being said, I am now a Writing Instructor at a pretty prestigious Boston institution. I have just earned my Master's in Creative Writing, and I am working on several projects for publication.
Now, that's a really verbose introduction, isn't it?
It's probably unnecessary, and my dad would definitely have cut it, but we live in a blogger society now and readers like a little personality with their opinion pieces.
In fact, the number of people publishing memoirs under the age of 30 is skyrocketing. Just go to amazon and search nonfiction and you'll be barraged with the life stories of 25 year old Beauty Gurus, Thirty Something Lifestyle bloggers, Self Proclaimed Foodies, Crafters, Entrepreneurs, Body Love Advocates, and Cat Enthusiasts.
If you have even a moderately successful Snapchat account apparently it's enough to warrant you a book deal these days. Which is great because I obviously need to know more about Grumpy Cat's Owner.
Look at Lena Dunham, one of the most unoriginal navel gazers of her generation. Girl is in her late twenties, and she's just released her SECOND MEMOIR. Albeit it's a collection of excerpts from her journal, and it's a limited release for a charity, BUT she wrote Not That Kind of Girl, her first Memoir at the age of 25.
Seriously?
What the hell could anyone of that age possibly have to reflect on? I'm sure there are many exceptions to the rule...
Malala Yousafzai for instance, but people who live through horror, war, and torture tend to grow up quick and have a good deal more hindsight to apply to the lessons they've learned, rather than your average, white, affluent, city/suburban kid who just thinks their coming of age stories are better than yours.
Was that harsh?
I'm just getting started.
Take for example the thing that started me writing about this to begin with.
This article on the site Ravishly.com
http://www.ravishly.com/people-we-love/lindy-west-her-new-book-shrill-and-hi-shes-amazing-writer
It was suggested to me by facebook because of my interest in Jes Baker, another late 20's blogger who just released a Memoir called Things No One Will Tell Fat Girls.
Guess what?
I totally want to read that book.
I want to read it because Jes used to work in Mental Health. She has a history of her own mental Health issues including self harm and depression.
I want to read it because I have struggled with those things, and even though I'm a good six or seven years older than Jes (we do share a rad name), unlike me, she has experience in the industry designed to "help" women conquer their demons, and she has spoken a great deal about how broken that industry is.
See?
Memoir about struggles as kid who hates self, never figures out why, doesn't do anything for anyone else struggling with same issues = not productive and self indulgent Read: for profit only.
Memoir about struggles as kid who hates self, endures bullying, abuse, or other trauma, but conquers all and seeks justice and works to prevent same happening to peers and less fortunate = Inspiring, justified, and hey, if the author makes a few shekels while she/he's at it, FAN_BLOODY_TASTIC.
Anyway,
So we live in a culture where the conversational tone trumps almost any other kind of narrative voice.
People like their journalism to be accessible, personable, and friendly. They want to feel as though they are sitting down with a good friend over a glass of wine or a cup of coffee and being gossiped with. Perhaps, especially if we are talking about the aforementioned wonderful Memoir, that glass of coffee gets cold or the wine bottle empties, and we linger with this friend getting deeper and deeper until finally, tearfully, we clasp hands and say,
"Never again! Never again!"
I am down.
Believe me.
As a feminist, writer, new mother, etc, I am so all for the new journalism, but I have a big problem with the article I read in Ravishly, and let me tell you why.
Not only did it contain a few glaring typos, but it was almost illiterate.
Perhaps that language is a bit strong.
What I mean to say is the writing was so forcibly colloquial and conversational, that it not only skipped certain grammatical and linguistic rules, but the very TITLE OF THE INTERVIEW IS SO CONFUSING I HAD TO READ IT THREE TIMES BEFORE I FIGURED OUT WHAT THE HELL THE AUTHOR WAS TALKING ABOUT!
At first, I thought, yes! There are a lot of feminists writing memoirs, and it is cool, though with my earlier caveats. It is changing the genre, which is a good and bad thing. Yes.
But when she goes on to say "They have always been there" she is going back on what she just said, and then she goes on to say "I was up to my neck in diapers or something" and I got so confused as to be angry. Do you mean you were wearing diapers up to your neck? Were you buried in diapers? How is your being a mother relevant in this sentence? From here the paragraph just disintegrates, the moment I gave up trying to like the article was when I read "We're talking about bodies and existing as a human being in a way we never have," and I thought,
Wait...that's not english.
It is a really sad thing for Lindy West's new book to be treated to such poorly manufactured praise.
I really want to be excited about the new direction of journalism, it could double as extremely therapeutic, or even work as the only way to get an increasingly narcissistic and self absorbed society to empathize with one another like humans again.
I do, however, think there are limits, and as writers, especially writers espousing the goods of other, intelligent, wonderful women and feminists (because the two aren't mutually exclusive), we owe it to our future selves, and future writers of these and other developing genres to at the very least, adhere to basic grammatical structure, so that our words, if not resonant, are at least clear.
Finally, my father had somewhere else to channel his atrophying editorial skills which for the ten years he took off from journalism to write books, he used to tear strips off of my confidence by reading my school papers over my shoulder while I tapped at the family computer--Ah the 90's, a time when you had to wait your turn on the family word processor rather than hole up in your bedroom and never emerge or speak to anyone and lick a screen to death with your eyeballs until falling unconscious with the instagram last witnessed burned into your retinas--
Where was I?
During my first summer back from college, I worked as the secretary for the paper a couple of days a week and Dad even let me write an article or two, which he editorially (not literally) ripped apart with his characteristic acerbic wit, and the next year I got a gig working at a bakery and said deuces to the family business.
With that being said, I am now a Writing Instructor at a pretty prestigious Boston institution. I have just earned my Master's in Creative Writing, and I am working on several projects for publication.
Now, that's a really verbose introduction, isn't it?
It's probably unnecessary, and my dad would definitely have cut it, but we live in a blogger society now and readers like a little personality with their opinion pieces.
In fact, the number of people publishing memoirs under the age of 30 is skyrocketing. Just go to amazon and search nonfiction and you'll be barraged with the life stories of 25 year old Beauty Gurus, Thirty Something Lifestyle bloggers, Self Proclaimed Foodies, Crafters, Entrepreneurs, Body Love Advocates, and Cat Enthusiasts.
If you have even a moderately successful Snapchat account apparently it's enough to warrant you a book deal these days. Which is great because I obviously need to know more about Grumpy Cat's Owner.
Look at Lena Dunham, one of the most unoriginal navel gazers of her generation. Girl is in her late twenties, and she's just released her SECOND MEMOIR. Albeit it's a collection of excerpts from her journal, and it's a limited release for a charity, BUT she wrote Not That Kind of Girl, her first Memoir at the age of 25.
Seriously?
What the hell could anyone of that age possibly have to reflect on? I'm sure there are many exceptions to the rule...
Malala Yousafzai for instance, but people who live through horror, war, and torture tend to grow up quick and have a good deal more hindsight to apply to the lessons they've learned, rather than your average, white, affluent, city/suburban kid who just thinks their coming of age stories are better than yours.
Was that harsh?
I'm just getting started.
Take for example the thing that started me writing about this to begin with.
This article on the site Ravishly.com
http://www.ravishly.com/people-we-love/lindy-west-her-new-book-shrill-and-hi-shes-amazing-writer
It was suggested to me by facebook because of my interest in Jes Baker, another late 20's blogger who just released a Memoir called Things No One Will Tell Fat Girls.
Guess what?
I totally want to read that book.
I want to read it because Jes used to work in Mental Health. She has a history of her own mental Health issues including self harm and depression.
I want to read it because I have struggled with those things, and even though I'm a good six or seven years older than Jes (we do share a rad name), unlike me, she has experience in the industry designed to "help" women conquer their demons, and she has spoken a great deal about how broken that industry is.
See?
Memoir about struggles as kid who hates self, never figures out why, doesn't do anything for anyone else struggling with same issues = not productive and self indulgent Read: for profit only.
Memoir about struggles as kid who hates self, endures bullying, abuse, or other trauma, but conquers all and seeks justice and works to prevent same happening to peers and less fortunate = Inspiring, justified, and hey, if the author makes a few shekels while she/he's at it, FAN_BLOODY_TASTIC.
Anyway,
So we live in a culture where the conversational tone trumps almost any other kind of narrative voice.
People like their journalism to be accessible, personable, and friendly. They want to feel as though they are sitting down with a good friend over a glass of wine or a cup of coffee and being gossiped with. Perhaps, especially if we are talking about the aforementioned wonderful Memoir, that glass of coffee gets cold or the wine bottle empties, and we linger with this friend getting deeper and deeper until finally, tearfully, we clasp hands and say,
"Never again! Never again!"
I am down.
Believe me.
As a feminist, writer, new mother, etc, I am so all for the new journalism, but I have a big problem with the article I read in Ravishly, and let me tell you why.
Not only did it contain a few glaring typos, but it was almost illiterate.
Perhaps that language is a bit strong.
What I mean to say is the writing was so forcibly colloquial and conversational, that it not only skipped certain grammatical and linguistic rules, but the very TITLE OF THE INTERVIEW IS SO CONFUSING I HAD TO READ IT THREE TIMES BEFORE I FIGURED OUT WHAT THE HELL THE AUTHOR WAS TALKING ABOUT!
Lindy West: Her New Book Shrill — And Hi, She's An Amazing Writer.
I mean, what are you saying?
How are you using that dash? Not correctly that's for sure.
How are you using that dash? Not correctly that's for sure.
And what the flying fuck is "HI, she's an amazing writer"? That's not a phrase.
Lindy West sounds like a cool chick. Her responses to the interviewer are well thought out and poised, but the writer of the article sounds like a thirteen year old trying her first shot at writing for the school paper.
This paragraph for instance:
"There are so many amazing feminist writers writing amazing memoirs, I feel like it's changing the landscape of the bookstore (or Amazon, as it were). I realize they have always been there, and I was just up to my neck in diapers or something, but this is an exciting time. We're talking about bodies and existing as a human being in a way we never have, in a way that will change conversations forever. And Lindy is on the front line."
At first, I thought, yes! There are a lot of feminists writing memoirs, and it is cool, though with my earlier caveats. It is changing the genre, which is a good and bad thing. Yes.
But when she goes on to say "They have always been there" she is going back on what she just said, and then she goes on to say "I was up to my neck in diapers or something" and I got so confused as to be angry. Do you mean you were wearing diapers up to your neck? Were you buried in diapers? How is your being a mother relevant in this sentence? From here the paragraph just disintegrates, the moment I gave up trying to like the article was when I read "We're talking about bodies and existing as a human being in a way we never have," and I thought,
Wait...that's not english.
It is a really sad thing for Lindy West's new book to be treated to such poorly manufactured praise.
I really want to be excited about the new direction of journalism, it could double as extremely therapeutic, or even work as the only way to get an increasingly narcissistic and self absorbed society to empathize with one another like humans again.
I do, however, think there are limits, and as writers, especially writers espousing the goods of other, intelligent, wonderful women and feminists (because the two aren't mutually exclusive), we owe it to our future selves, and future writers of these and other developing genres to at the very least, adhere to basic grammatical structure, so that our words, if not resonant, are at least clear.
Saturday, May 28, 2016
What's with Today today?
A year ago I was 14 weeks pregnant.
I was walking from Salem to Beverly, a two and a half mile walk I did, and do, several times a week.
I wasn't showing yet. We'd only just had our first ultrasound, and I was so happy.
a little over a year earlier I had miscarried at 8 weeks, and I was very afraid, so making it to the second trimester was a big deal to me. I was in the process of switching my brain from CONSTANTLY PANICKING to relaxed. Even the worst of the Morning Sickness had passed by then, and i was enjoying the concept of actually eating food and not feeling like I had a case of the spins for hours every afternoon.
I was actually waiting for the stoplight to change and thinking about what I might make for lunch when I got home.
The light turned green, and I stepped into the crosswalk, but not before glancing at the car in the lefthand turning lane, which happened to be a police cruiser. I looked at the police officer's face, a man in his late fifties I surmised with a mustache and bags beneath his eyes. I thought, we'd made eye contact, and so I began to cross the street.
We hadn't.
The car lurched into the turning lane, and he accelerated so quickly, I had a split second to kind of hop forward out of the way of the incoming vehicle.
I wasn't quite fast enough though, because the police car struck my hip and spun me so that the front left tire dug into the skin of my left knee and shin.
I remember spinning in the street repeating in my head,
"don't fall don't fall don't fall it's all over if you fall."
I didn't fall.
I watched the police officer pull over. He jogged over to me,
"I didn't see you," he said.
I was gasping for breath. I felt pretty rattled, and those damned tears started coursing down my cheeks. I limped over to the curb, out of traffic, which began to move as though nothing had happened.
I said, "But I was in a crosswalk."
"I didn't see you," the cop replied.
I said, "But i looked at you. I thought you saw me."
"I didn't see you," he repeated.
"I'm fourteen weeks pregnant," I said, and he sighed and looked away from me.
"I'll radio it in. calm down," he said.
And then he went back to his car.
He did not come back and check on me.
I leaned against a house in the shade while the sirens got closer.
my leg was okay. There was a huge burn in the flesh where the tire had spun on it, and it was black with rubber and bleeding and swollen, but I couldn't care less.
I knew I hadn't been struck anywhere that might affect it, but I was terrified for the baby. I wanted another ultrasound, right then and there. I wanted to go to my doctor and have her look me in the eyes and say, "It's okay."
The police came and asked me questions.
The emts came and washed my leg.
The firetruck came for about five minutes and then drove away. If you know me, you know i was going to ask for a ride home on that thing.
The cop who hit me came and took pictures of my leg.
He never said he was sorry.
He never asked me if I was okay.
The emt's wanted to know if I wanted to go to salem hospital, but i wanted to see my doctor in beverly, so i refused. The police got a female cop to drive me home because I think they thought she'd be able to calm me down, keep me from suing them or whatever.
When I got home I sat on the porch as she drove away.
I stared at my phone.
I knew I was supposed to call people.
I knew I had to get to the doctor's to have her verify that the baby was all right.
instead I took a deep breath and looked out at the sunshine and the pollen soaked air.
It was thick and golden, and the light looked so yellow I thought of honey and bees and then I just said thank you.
Just thank you.
to whomever, or whatever, or wherever.
Thank you.
because i might never have sat on that porch again if I had been just one step slower.
The end of the story is that I went to the midwives, and they examined me and let me listen to Bastian's heartbeat for as long as I liked. Bob had left work and driven a million miles an hour to essex county obgyn, and I had called Liz because she's an emt and my best friend and I thought she would know things.
The midwives told me to go to the emergency room to have my leg looked at so there would be a record of it, and I did.
They put topical ointment on the burn and bound it up with gauze, and gave me a tetanus shot.
When we finally got home in the early evening, we got pizza and ice cream, and I took a walk on the beach and I kept touching my stomach and telling the baby he was already a death defying superhero.
which he is.
A year later, the police officer who hit me has never inquired as to whether I was all right.
I finally got the paperwork in the mail last week for the city of salem to cover the cost of my medical bills.
a lot of people ask me when I tell the story if I'm going to sue.
i'm not.
because I'm lucky.
It could have been so much worse.
A year later, I have Bastian, who is perfect, and I have a scar on my leg that looks like a shadow, and I have a reminder to look out from my porch every day, and say thank you.
To whomever, whatever, wherever.
Thank you, because we still have today.
I was walking from Salem to Beverly, a two and a half mile walk I did, and do, several times a week.
I wasn't showing yet. We'd only just had our first ultrasound, and I was so happy.
a little over a year earlier I had miscarried at 8 weeks, and I was very afraid, so making it to the second trimester was a big deal to me. I was in the process of switching my brain from CONSTANTLY PANICKING to relaxed. Even the worst of the Morning Sickness had passed by then, and i was enjoying the concept of actually eating food and not feeling like I had a case of the spins for hours every afternoon.
I was actually waiting for the stoplight to change and thinking about what I might make for lunch when I got home.
The light turned green, and I stepped into the crosswalk, but not before glancing at the car in the lefthand turning lane, which happened to be a police cruiser. I looked at the police officer's face, a man in his late fifties I surmised with a mustache and bags beneath his eyes. I thought, we'd made eye contact, and so I began to cross the street.
We hadn't.
The car lurched into the turning lane, and he accelerated so quickly, I had a split second to kind of hop forward out of the way of the incoming vehicle.
I wasn't quite fast enough though, because the police car struck my hip and spun me so that the front left tire dug into the skin of my left knee and shin.
I remember spinning in the street repeating in my head,
"don't fall don't fall don't fall it's all over if you fall."
I didn't fall.
I watched the police officer pull over. He jogged over to me,
"I didn't see you," he said.
I was gasping for breath. I felt pretty rattled, and those damned tears started coursing down my cheeks. I limped over to the curb, out of traffic, which began to move as though nothing had happened.
I said, "But I was in a crosswalk."
"I didn't see you," the cop replied.
I said, "But i looked at you. I thought you saw me."
"I didn't see you," he repeated.
"I'm fourteen weeks pregnant," I said, and he sighed and looked away from me.
"I'll radio it in. calm down," he said.
And then he went back to his car.
He did not come back and check on me.
I leaned against a house in the shade while the sirens got closer.
my leg was okay. There was a huge burn in the flesh where the tire had spun on it, and it was black with rubber and bleeding and swollen, but I couldn't care less.
I knew I hadn't been struck anywhere that might affect it, but I was terrified for the baby. I wanted another ultrasound, right then and there. I wanted to go to my doctor and have her look me in the eyes and say, "It's okay."
The police came and asked me questions.
The emts came and washed my leg.
The firetruck came for about five minutes and then drove away. If you know me, you know i was going to ask for a ride home on that thing.
The cop who hit me came and took pictures of my leg.
He never said he was sorry.
He never asked me if I was okay.
The emt's wanted to know if I wanted to go to salem hospital, but i wanted to see my doctor in beverly, so i refused. The police got a female cop to drive me home because I think they thought she'd be able to calm me down, keep me from suing them or whatever.
When I got home I sat on the porch as she drove away.
I stared at my phone.
I knew I was supposed to call people.
I knew I had to get to the doctor's to have her verify that the baby was all right.
instead I took a deep breath and looked out at the sunshine and the pollen soaked air.
It was thick and golden, and the light looked so yellow I thought of honey and bees and then I just said thank you.
Just thank you.
to whomever, or whatever, or wherever.
Thank you.
because i might never have sat on that porch again if I had been just one step slower.
The end of the story is that I went to the midwives, and they examined me and let me listen to Bastian's heartbeat for as long as I liked. Bob had left work and driven a million miles an hour to essex county obgyn, and I had called Liz because she's an emt and my best friend and I thought she would know things.
The midwives told me to go to the emergency room to have my leg looked at so there would be a record of it, and I did.
They put topical ointment on the burn and bound it up with gauze, and gave me a tetanus shot.
When we finally got home in the early evening, we got pizza and ice cream, and I took a walk on the beach and I kept touching my stomach and telling the baby he was already a death defying superhero.
which he is.
A year later, the police officer who hit me has never inquired as to whether I was all right.
I finally got the paperwork in the mail last week for the city of salem to cover the cost of my medical bills.
a lot of people ask me when I tell the story if I'm going to sue.
i'm not.
because I'm lucky.
It could have been so much worse.
A year later, I have Bastian, who is perfect, and I have a scar on my leg that looks like a shadow, and I have a reminder to look out from my porch every day, and say thank you.
To whomever, whatever, wherever.
Thank you, because we still have today.
Friday, May 27, 2016
Carpe Omnia
On my way into the kitchen this morning to refill my coffee mug, I took the last sweet slug of the dark stuff and paused.
apparently I like to roll liquids around in my mouth like a wine taster sometimes. I did not know this about myself. Like when I was eight years old and I realized I could make a chocolate chip cookie last a half hour if I sucked each bite until it turned to mush and crumbled in my mouth, i like to savor things...prolong the magic as it were.
of course having a five and a half month old baby makes this credo even more important because everything is different every day, and the baby you went to sleep with last night is not often the same baby you wake up to in the morning. that's how fast it is.
anyway...so this morning, after a series of dreams in which I successfully used a semi colon to the applause of my graduating masters class (I can't make this shit up, but apparently my subconscious can), the babe woke me at the gorgeous bird chirpy, sunshine glimmering hour of five thirty.
I fought the inevitable, and then I made coffee, like we do.
and three hours later, after many nukes, and many setting downs, and many chasings, feedings, etc, I went into the kitchen for my oh so necessary refill.
With that split second roll of luscious, sweet coffee from one cheek to another over the landscape of my tongue, the baby flailed (his favorite motion du jour) and punched me right in the coffee pocket (face), forcing me to forcibly eject the contents of said cheek through my pursed lips and across the kitchen.
yes ladies and gentlemen, I experienced my first fully involuntary spit take.
I had to take a moment and admire it really.
the radius of coffee sprayed from the front of my shirt and across the linoleum petering out after speckling the confused dog with a small decorative mask of fine brown beads.
This people.
This is why i wear black.
so welcome.
This is my new blog.
it's going to be where I put down my thoughts about being a new mother, a writer, a human, and a person who like to taste things. perhaps a little too much.
a brief detour:
one of the reasons i have never held with taking medication for my depression, or anxiety, or any other damn thing, is because i believe the highs and lows of life are what make it worth living. i believe the illustrious jason lee has a soliloquy regarding this topic in the classic tom cruise oeuvre "vanilla sky".
can't have sweet without bitter or something.
so i take it all.
the crying jags in the bathroom in the middle of the afternoon because the baby just tore out another handful of neck hair, the hysterical laughing over a third outfit change from a magnificent arc of piss that somehow circumnavigates the diaper to impressively soak any nearby surface, and the involuntary spit takes in the morning.
I take those alongside the single dimple that only comes out when the babesauce is feeling impish, the incredible comfort of my husband (hereafter referred to as either herrband or beard) putting his arms around me after a hard day and saying, "You're doing great. you really are.", the friends, the family, the baby, the ocean, the lilacs near the open window, and yes, the really big bites of cookie that I take with pleasure.
Mangez-tout means eat it all.
in culinary circles it refers to snap peas, the treaty little veggie whose pod you eat and the little sweet peas within.
I decided to name this blog Mann-gez tout because that's me. eating it all, rolling every mouthful across my tongue, tasting the bitter and the sweet, and relishing it because that's life.
okay enough of that.
i need another cup of coffee.
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