Top Five Most Romantic Souvenirs Brought Back From a Business Trip (Not Herpes)

in the movie "high fidelity," one of robb and my desert-island all-time top 5 favorite films, the john cusack character says about relationships that connection is about WHAT you like, not what YOU'RE like. the interests you share matter. 

thirteen years into marriage, with two small kids, a mortgage, jobs, and recently a lot of time away from each other for job travel,  i would say that this truth is even more truthy. 

i mean, how rare is it to be able to have a good conversation on something you're really into? it shouldn't be, i know, but at this point in adult life, there's so much zombie-walking through the processes of the day that we don't often get (take?) the chance to talk passionately about things that spark our imagination and tease our brain. it's like good candy. conversation candy. 

robb was gone for a week with one business venture and when he came home, he had finished reading a book that i had just read ('franny and zoe' by j.d salinger). so we got to talk about it. and it was especially awesome because it's a thought-provoking book, but no one i knew had read it recently enough to be able to really discuss it in any depth, so i was stuck talking to wikipedia and book reviewers about it. and they don't care what i think at all. so that he could share that with me was this huge surprise gift. it felt like these really personal flowers, opened just to what was on my mind. 

and THEN after being home for about 24 hours, he left for a second week for his other job...and when he got back from that trip, he had finished reading 'the great gatsby by f. scott fitzgerald,' a book with which i have been in a relationship for many years. we recently watched the baz luhrmann version of the movie, which i also enjoy. he wanted to compare and contrast the representation of the characters and the plot in the movie and the book. i almost pooped myself with joy. 

this might sound simple, but it shouldn't. i cannot emphasize enough how romanced i felt by him getting interested in the things that i'm into and wanting to talk about things other than the minutiae of running our house and businesses and trying not to get run over by our kids. he didn't necessarily do it for me, but the fact that our pleasurable/intellectual pursuits are crossing and creating lively, fun conversation- it feels like old times. good times. it feels like romance. 

when you're partners in life, you have all sorts of things 'in common,' right? i mean you have exactly the same children and debt and neighbor issues and house messes in common. and you talk about those things, but it's the new discoveries, the creative braining that is often lost after dating has stopped. it's flattering and shocking to have him show genuine interest in my ideas.  

we're also watching classic movies together. and talking about them. jimmy stewart and grace kelly in 'rear window' is on tonight ("wives don't nag anymore. they 'discuss' ") 

gotta go. i'm on a date. with my husband. 

Happy International Women's Day! We Should Celebrate with a Piñata Filled with Tampons Because That Would Be Fun AND Useful. Felicidades.

it was international women's day this week. apparently it's a paid national holiday in a bunch of countries. 

hahahahahaha. 

sigh. 

i find it hard to feel optimistic about how women's rights are evolving or even indignant about the ways in which women still aren't treated fairly, equally, or humanly, in the world today. i tend to feel discouraged and sad instead. just sick, ashamed, maybe, and sad. it's especially easy to feel disheartened right now with the masochistic tidal wave rising in american politics. i hope there's a lot of strong people reaching out to keep us from being pulled under.  

i'm trying to.... ('sack up' is the coloquialismi i would normally use here, but as it's in reference to male genitalia, and i possess female genitalia, i'll try something different instead)....i'm trying to 'ovary stomp' here and instead of just folding to my broken heart over how things are, i am aiming to be one of the strong arms lifting people up out of the water. i feel like there must be ways i can improve how women are viewed/promoted/respected in my home, my work, my community, my state, my country...maybe even my world.  

i want to keep establishing and reminding that women have identities outside of the prettiness of our faces, the sexual appreciation of our bodies, the ripeness/emptyness of our wombs....and also outside of who needs us/loves us/uses us. we are more than our bodies and our utility to others. it might sound simple and stupid, but i think we're still stuck there at this time, in this world. 

i think it's helpful to keep talking about the normal realities of being a woman. there's so much to say, and i'll keep trying to word good about it. maybe if we can normalize and neutralize all the things that make us different than the men who traditionally make the rules and narrate the story, we'll gain some ground?   

so, i'm thinking about menstruation this week. if you don't want to talk uterine blood, just flip back to whatever news or gossip you were reading before you started this post. but frankly, it was probably about megyn kelly or planned parenthood, since this is what's on the country's mind now, too.  so you may as well stay here, because you can't get away from it anyway.

i keep an 'informative' blog for my work in women's health where i actually provide authentic clinical data and (shudder) 'facts' about 'things.' (it's exhausting not just talking out of my ass like i do here). the topic i covered recently was "normal" menstruation- length of cycle, amount of bleeding, amount of pain, etc. know what's normal so you can know if yours is abnormal, right?

but it's one of those topics that is a little uncomfortable for people, so i tried to find some funny quotes or clips to include. i came up with about a million euphemisms (Your period. The Red Menace. The Crimson Tide. Shark Week. On Your Moon. Being On the Rag. The Red Dot Special. Your Course. Aunt Flo. The Curse. The Monthly Gift.  The Monthly Bill. Your Time of the Month. A Friend Coming to Visit, etc) but otherwise there wasn't much in the way of funny material on the subject. 

almost all the jokes and memes about periods are about how bitchy and terrible women get for a week a month and how they can't/won't have the intercourses during their "moon time."

and that lack of good jokes at the expense of menstruation pisses me off  because i think that the more we talk and joke about our own stuff, the more we own and accept it as part of life. so the fact that all the funny out there is kind of written from the perspective of how MEN have to suffer through women's menses is not so great.

there's still this generally accepted idea that menstruation is dirty, scary,  embarrassing,  shameful and uncontrollable. and that since it is something women experience (and not men) for a quarter of their months for half of their lives, somehow that makes women dirty, embarrassing, shameful and out of control.

i've written on this topic before. and there's actually a lot in the news right now about how tampons/pads should not be taxed and about how women in third world countries and other places with less privilege are greatly negatively impacted by the lack of resources to keep clean during menstruation. it's an example of how women are kept different and distanced by the normal functions of our bodies. it's not a thing we all deal with in society, it's a 'women's issue.' i call bullshit. 

gloria steinen wrote an essay in 1978 "if men could menstruate' which you can find here: http://www.mylittleredbook.net/imcm_orig.pdf. 

recently, the idea was taken a step further, and with funny videos, here: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/may/28/what-if-men-had-periods. 

(i still don't have a real computer and so am limping by using an app- sorry i'm not providing easy hyperlinks to these articles, please do copy/paste, i promise they're worth it)

it does make you think. what about menses is so awful? it's just part of biology for half the population. is our negative impression of it because of the half of the population that it impacts? hashtag lame and unacceptable. 

we have to check our premises. so much of what we understand about how things work is based on assumptions that may be biased-based constructs in the first place. 

hmmm. 

i'm going to start working on a series of knock knock jokes about feminine hygiene products. you're welcome, universe. (no, but srsly, if you have ideas, please help. it's harder than it seems)

happy international women's day. let's keep swimming. 

What I Like About Yoga, A Personal Essay; or, I Did Not Make That Smell, It Was That Guy in the Back There.

i do it with my eyes closed and the same things that feel the greatest also hurt the worst. but i'm sort of a sucker for working through pain. feels worthwhile. and i like that it's hard but that i'm in total control of how far i push it. and only accountable to me. 

i genuinely don't care how well the people around me are doing other than to cheat off them to figure out where the fuck my left arm is supposed to be in this pose. (there?? how is that possible? that is not possible. child's pose it is). my shoulders and jaw relaxes like they never otherwise do and my mind sort of wakes up but also quiets down- like  the normal buzzing garbage just sits down for once and the cool shadow creatures come out to show me what they've been up to. the new hat they bought. 

that's terribly poetic. or just terribly terrible, isn't it? <-- that self editing doesn't happen during yoga. during yoga i let my mind wander to all the extents of my ideas. i don't clamp down on imaginationing like i do in real life. everything seems brilliant and possible. i don't worry that all the thoughts have been thought and thought BETTER and thought first. i don't worry that i couldn't possibly be as clever or funny or unique or thoughtful or wise as....whomever. i'm just happy with the shadow people inside my head. 

also, even though my yoga studio is full of THE WORST WHITE PEOPLE (ie: my tribe) talking about their disgust at water bottles and this amahzing new vegan energy bar they just tried (no, i mean, seriously. these are EXACTLY my people. and if i get there more than 2 minutes before class starts, i wait in my car so i don't have to hear them talk in the lobby. because they are just terrible. side note to my aside- i was listening to a podcast that i love (Another Round-http://www.buzzfeed.com/anotherround), hosted by two hilarious and genius women of color, and they were talking about how annoying it is to hear white people make fun of white people stuff because really there's no teeth to it and it all rolls back into a self-satisfied pseudo compliment on how cozy and preferred we are....and i get that. but for real, these yoga douchebags are just terrible). where was i? yes. i really love this place. 

it's on the main street of my town and it's above a coney island restaurant. you have to climb up the metal fire escape stairs to get there, which makes me feel so urban and cool. like i live on Avenue Q or something. and you must know what a coney island is...it's hot dogs covered in lumpless chili and french fries BUT ALSO pancakes and delicious terrible hot chocolate and pie and greek salad. 

so there's this big neon CONEY ISLAND sign immediately outside the windows of the yoga studio. it blinks in a rhythm that i think is just slightly out of step, in a specific arrythmia. so inside the studio, the fake candles are burning and the music is Enya-ing in this sacred womb of a room and outside, a blinking reminder of french fries. it works for me. it keeps things more earthy or something. plus i like the teachers and the variety and blahblahblah. 

yoga is one of my ways of finding some happy alone time with no one needing me. doing something healthy and stimulating and relaxing. i have this dream of a costa rican yoga retreat some day where the surf sounds are real and not on a white noise CD. but i want a few years of practice. and also before i go i'm gonna need some tribal tattoos and a few more friends named Taylor. 

Turns Out Kindergarten Roundup Involves No Lassos, Horses, or Even Cookies #Lame

henry and all the other half pints got rounded up for kindergarten last night. we saw the school, met the teachers and principle, and learned all about their learning models and such. the kindergarten teachers seem to be young and kindly and enthusiastic and, i suspect, sort of insane. you'd have to be to make that work.  

rookie mistake, we took henry with us. fortunately, the meeting was held in the library, so he could mostly entertain himself. every once in a while, he'd come up from a book and whisper loudly, YOU GUYS, I'M BORED. CAN WE LEAVE YET? 

lesson: don't take the kids. they don't care about how hardcore your common core is. 

so, anyway. we prepare for kindergarten. big transition, etc, etc. i'm not crying. i mean, saying "i'm not crying" sort of makes it sound like i'm DEFINITELY crying, but i'm actually not. 

i'm feeling less grief over how his blossoming independence impacts me and more excitement for him. he's got that big brain under the floppy hair and i want to see it grow. for him to be able to read on his own and gain bigger control of his emotions as we (mostly) do with practice and time. to make more friends, so have goals and projects and plans. he's just henry'd so well so far, i can't wait to see what comes next. 

there's, of course, more opportunities for hurt and there are always things to fear as his world gets bigger...but we'll try to be brave together and go slowly. 

the other day, he asked me why i turned one way instead of another while i was driving. i started talking about how driving is a constant stream of decisions you have to make: how fast you'll go, what direction you'll take, whether you'll stop for the yellow light, (whether you'll emote with your hands or say words your kids oughtn't hear if someone cuts you off. sumbitch in the Prius, you know who you are). and to be able to make that many decisions, you have to have the skill to assess situations and make good choices w/ the information you have. and that takes practice. 

of course, driving is just an example. every interraction in every relationship is a series of choices. every day, work demands you make a series of choices. every trip to the grocery stores is a (very difficult) series of choices. 

he's getting there. one day at a time. i think kindergarten is an opportunity for lots of practice at making good choices. 

after i totally blabbered for about 5 minutes on all this growth and change and such, he was like, I JUST WANTED TO KNOW WHY YOU WENT THE WRONG WAY TO KARATE CLASS?? 

"She's Brave, Man." Anna Turns Two.

anna bananapants turned 2 years old this week. 

 

we had the best birthday week. we had a Little Mermaid themed party for her at her grandparents' house when we could get all the families together (she was happy, but a little put-out that the decorations featured stupid Ariel and not Ursula, her favorite character). 

then for her actual birthday day, we took her to an indoor adventure center thing and then later that night out again with some good friends to a hip restaurant (bar. it was a bar. just own it) where she got to again hang with her favorite people and eat both french fries AND pizza. 

what is this amazing goofball like at age 2? well...

this weekend in swim class her swimming instructor kept shaking his head while she repeatedly turned herself around and let her body float out into the abyss of the pool and away from the safety of the steps where here little friends were. even after several synus-filling plunges. 'she's brave, man,' he said. she could give two hoots about what is safe or easy or what everybody else is doing. 

as young as she is, i've heard A LOT that she will one day be some sort of executive (and then they usually whisper in an aside, or in jail for racketeering). she knows what she wants and is fearless in its pursuit. and she really, REALLY likes villains. we continue to make jokes about building her an evil lair in the basement. with beanbag chairs, of course. 

facetiming her grandparents. 

at age two, she has quick smiles and a defiant chin, a stocky little body and cheeks that are like a ripe nectarine filled with the best kind of jello, she's a trip. when i think about her, i find myself also grinning and shaking my head.

i've been saying since she was tiny that, with her, i'm just sort of along for the ride. i say that with more excitement and respect and less panic than i did earlier in her life. she's sharp and driven and i also suspect might brain her way into some pretty cool stuff.  i'm pretty happy to be on that ride. i also kind of want to be her when i grow up. i pray she stays this sure-footed. 

driving grandma in a jeep at an adventure center. 

she has a lot of words and uses them all the time. she shocks us with her full sentences and her deliberate practice of those words she's not quite getting right. you can tell it bugs her and she's trying to fix it. it's kind of amazing. she won't be dismissed. 

she does everything with passion and authority. she has one of the greatest laughs in the history of laughs. she is clever and mischevious. it's a daily thing to hear her maniacally laughing and racing across the house away from our commands....usually pantsless. 

she's very loving. especially toward henry. she tells us 'i love you, daddy. i love you, mommy. i love you, henry.' while she says most things loudly (SO LOUDLY), those words of affection she drops quietly on us, almost shyly. maybe she's afraid anyone will hear and think she's soft. 

everyone keeps going, "ugh, 2 year-olds. emiright??" but in her case, actually, i'm excited for this next phase. she's been sort of 2-ing for a while with the feisty sassy stuff and things are getting a little easier now that she has words that we can mostly understand. i'm sure she has a whole other level of beast mode to reveal to us as she angles for more and more independence, but she's already getting less violent and more reasonable than she was 6 months ago. i write this and consider whether i should addend it to include how she drew blood from robb's finger just last week. no, i still think, overall, there is less screaming and less blood and more reasonable conversations and fun and peace than there has been. i'm anxious to see how 2 looks on her. so far so good. 

I Want Her to Be Resting Peacefully, But I Also Kind of Want Her to Haunt Them

they're smashing down all the tiny houses around my house and building these giant monstrosities. that's not a nice word, probably, some call them 'bigfoots' for the big footprints they have, on those same tiny lots. it has the effect of the fat-guy-in-a-little-suit, with the front porch spilling over the sidewalk and the backyard....not being. when they start these projects, the first thing they do is come in and tear down all the trees in the yard which gets me all Lorax-y. welcome to the neighborhood, asshats. 

we're the new-old 'it' town and people with dollar-dollar-bills-y'all are moving in. it's cool because it raises the value of our wee house, but it's terribly not cool because it's loud and there are all these dudes prowling around my backyard-adjacent and pounding loudly outside the bedrooms of the children who do not want to nap. and also, in about 6 months, we're going to be that house from the movie 'Up,' small and sandwiched between skyscrapers. and i am FOR SURE going to be the crabby old man refusing to change and suspicious of any person on his porch. herumph. 

this fall we lost the beautiful maroon-haired Ms. Betty, our next door neighbor of 10+ years. she had lived in that tiny one-floored house for 60+ years. she took really good care of it, and pretty darn good care of herself. she lived alone for the past decade. except for her cats, whom she was always sarcastically trying to give away. there's a little rickety garage behind her house, which is also currently being torn down. she kept her boat car in it, driving it only to the beauty shop and the doctor(s). many doctors near the end. 

in the last years of her life, she lost her best friend and brother, who played cards with her every day and sometimes took her eat at this local diner with a questionable wagon theme and meals for $3.99, and also her granddaughter and was losing her son when she died. she didn't like that she was breeching the natural order of things. she didn't like it at all. 

anyway. she's gone and every time i see them tearing off a piece of siding, i wince for her. the house was small and well-built and suited her family's needs. and now it's going to be replaced by something huge and likely cheaply built and wasteful. 

i'm also a little jealous. we kiboshed the renovation on our own little bungalow a few years ago and are just embracing our little house pretty much as-is for now. the projected plans weren't going to be huge, but it was going to be a pretty good upgrade in size and shiny-ness. i dream of doing snow angels on the floor of my kitchen without smacking the walls (#itissmall) and there were some pretty sophisticated designs happening elsewehre, too. BUT we want to make sure we're being mindful in what we need/want/can afford/should afford. 

grownupping is for the birds.  

but also, since i'm standing on principle on my house i can reign down righteous indignation on the West Eggers moving in around me. 

herumph again for good measure. 

A Little Disheveled, but Clean/New Years Resolutions Are for Suckers, So I Made 3 (Three)

i'm sitting here alone in my house, which is a miracle on two points. 1- someone in my family is always talking towards me and this night, two of them are asleep and one of them is visiting friends and talking at that house, i assume, towards someone else. and 2- i like it. i like the quiet. 

i've spent a lot of years now avoiding quiet. buzzing gadgets and noisy people and the constant fear of missing out on some action has meant i shy away from alone time. and more broadly, in my life, i'm always throwing more plates in the air to make my spinning trick more impressive. i complain about, but am secretly fiercely proud of, the frantic pace at which i live and the millions of hats i wear. i 'DO' so much, everything is measured in what is 'DONE' or not 'DONE' and not by how i'm do-ing. does that make sense? not saying 'no' to anything has become a code of honor. and really, it's about never being still long enough to let my dusty thoughts settle. 

(btw- if ever asked how i'm doing, i say 'fine.' that's weak sauce, man. no substance and probably not true. don't fall for it.)

this jacked-up pace has caught up to me, of course. i have ALL THE THINGS in my life that i've painstakingly worked for- the job, the marriage, the kids, the house, even the hobbies. but i'm scared all the time. i'm a raw nerve and i'm not especially happy. it's stupid, stupid, because i'm quite literally tripping over the glorious blessings in my life, but there you go. i'm anxious all the time, fearful, lost, panicked. have very recently threatened to leave my marriage. have felt remarkably unsettled and overwhelmed by my kids. have lost my sense of who i am and just become what i do. 

it wasn't always like this. there was a time i did stuff for me, for pleasure and growth, and wasn't just a doer in the service of others. i explored philosophy and meditation and prayer and worked to enhance an understanding of myself and my relationship with God and others. i had long talks with robb and my other best friends through the middle of the night about who we were and where we fit in the world and what our plans were. and always included in the plans were expectations that personal change would continue and these relationships would deepen and some higher purpose was the aim- justice or art or something equally pure and poetic and necessary for the soul to reach toward. 

but it's easy to fill adulthood with the chaotic minutia and lose the connection with your own spirit. and there, in that place, i have had no bank of peace left in me that i could turn to when i felt overwhelmed, i had used up all the last batch of confidence i'd gained from surviving my last major fall and was running on fumes of doubt and self-loathing. you can go farther than you'd think on that. you can smile and impress the people and function adequately when driven by fear. but it's not indefinite. there will be a stall. or a crash. and it hurts because it's not for you. none of it is for you. you're a puppet, wearing your clothes. 

and i've discovered, through much consideration, that my version of this puppet is the sad clown. i get louder and funnier and make the people feel good and jolly, but it's all makeup. i'm hurting and not telling anyone. 

this blog has been a great outlet. i do share some big truths on here that i struggle to reveal in person to people i care about. maybe because it's so one-sided, i don't have to do my usual accomodation dance to the other party and can just open up and spill it out. 

i started seeing a therapist, too. it's so great. everyone should (be able to afford to) have a therapist. it's a little weird at first, and i have to override the impulse to guess what she's thinking about me ("subject is a little disheveled, but clean. she seems to have brushed her hair today, but those are definitley cookie crumbs on her shirt. and she swears a LOT. note- ask her later if comes from a family of pirates."). 

i asked her to help me find that peace. and she helped me discover how much i'm performing and not really talking. she's given me some really helpful tools. 

so i'm working on it. 

i'm trying to re-find myself and get a foothold in my relationships. i need to be BRAVE and give more of myself, even when it's scary because i'm not sure i matter or that what i have to say is valuable. at 35 i'm still dealing with that. 

is everyone? 

last night i wrote this long post revealing much of this. it got deleted by my own error (and that cursed, horrid app that i'm not talking to anymore) and i felt like i'd been punched because working through this stuff has been pretty raw for me. it was a real humdinger. me telling you that i'm committing to writing more because i feel like i have to to be the best me. and that i'm committing to being brave and to share all the parts of myself i've been hoarding out of fear. talking about how i'm now seeing a therapist for anxiety and depression. boy, it was good. it would have made you laugh and cry. there were references to both miralax and asshole bleaching. and there was also stuff that possibly would have made you say ME, TOO. SHE'S BROKEN AND SCARED AND FUCKED UP LIKE THAT, TOO??  

but part of the brave thing is healing when something doesn't go my way and trying it again. and so you get this wobbly post, a pale comparison to the surely genius one that that was destroyed by that cold-hearted app (obviously this reminds me of that Tenacious D song: http://youtu.be/_lK4cX5xGiQ). 

so, in an effort to be more authentically me and less of the 'sad clown' (does that sound stupid to anyone else? now that i re-read it, it sounds stupid. lemme know), i'm going to reach out for what i need and to give more pieces of myself. just sharing some of these revelations and insecurities leaves me with that face-draining feeling and weak hands-thing you get you're doing a scary thing and your adrenalne mobilizes the blood to the big muscle groups to help you run the fuck out of that place and find somewhere safer. 

but i don't want safe. i want true. 

at 35 years old, i am quite busy with job and family. but i need to be my best me for all that. i can't wait to start being brave, because it's going to take practice. and eventually i want to be wise. like mark twain and yoda wise. with willy wonka's top hat. i still have much to do, but i need to be at vivid peace within me before i can do it. there will come a time when i'll be doing scarier things and my peace bank and confidence well and spirit needs to be prepared. 

in the immediate, i'm smiling bigger. for me. i don't want to politely sad smile anymore (a brilliant pastor i once knew called it 'big smile, sad eyes.' look around. SO many people do it). i want it to take out my whole face and actually lift my mood because the grin goes all the way up on the sides and signals the synapses and works the serotonin into a froth or whatever i forgot happens in the brainy stuff. 

i plan to work on my writing, because maybe that's part of how i can help? or at least maybe it will help me. i *vow* (strong words for such a hot mess, lady) to blog twice weekly and keep chipping away at my funny novel. do not be alarmed. the blogging won't all be my babbling about inner peace and know thine self yackety schmackety, it'll mostly go back to talking about my kids and how much they fart. (a lot. they fart a lot.)

but i suspect that the great thinkers and big doers who i respect in the world now/across history regularly stepped out of their comfort and did scary things that made their palms sweat. right??

so, here goes. provided i can still cling to a joe-joe in my sweaty palm, i'm cool. 

oh, and also i'm going to lose 10 lbs.