MWLM Blog

Oy, Vey!

I was in a public restroom the other day, doing what one does in such places, when I realized that civilization – even the fairly savage form of civilization that has existed since Janet Jackson’s “wardrobe malfunction” at the Super Bowl – has officially ended. I didn’t even see it coming. But I heard it, in the form of a woman chatting on her cell phone in the toilet stall next to mine.

The words “chatting” and “toilet stall” should never even appear in the same sentence together, much less be joined in unholy alliance in real life. But that’s exactly what happened. And based on my extensive personal research, I’ve learned it is happening every day. That’s why I think the fat lady is probably warming up her vocals and getting ready to sing. If it ain’t over, it’s got to be pretty darn close.

But let me backpedal to a couple of weeks ago when I was in the waiting room of an orthodontist’s office. If you have a teenager who had the gall to be born with imperfect teeth, you know the waiting room of an orthodontist is like the anteroom of Solomon’s legendary temple. You are supposed to sit there and purify yourself of all negative emotions (such as the desire to hold on to your money) before entering the holy of holies (the billing department) to happily sacrifice to the person who will straighten your child’s teeth. This purification process requires silence. But silence is in short supply these days.

As I was bracing myself to receive the braces bill, my ears were assaulted by the cell phone conversation of the teenage girl across from me. She was sitting next to her evidently comatose mother and recounting to her listener in excruciating detail an earlier discussion with a soon-to-be ex-boyfriend. Every word of this fascinating exchange was loudly relayed to her friend and then analyzed in-depth, along with the apparent involvement with said boyfriend of another girl who was referred to only as what I will call the B word.

Unable to focus on the task at hand, I started glaring at the teenage talker with my most severe schoolmarm expression. This had absolutely no effect. Then I turned the look on the mother, thinking surely she’d tell her daughter to get off the phone. Nothing. The girl just kept talking, even dropping the “F bomb” with disturbing frequency. Finally, I spoke to the mother in that sugary-sweet tone civilized people use with strangers they’d actually like to strangle.

“Do you think you could ask your daughter to keep it down?” I inquired ever so nicely. The woman had the nerve to glare back at me.

“She’s just talking,” she replied in disgust. To borrow a favorite phrase of a friend of mine, oy vey!

Now fast forward to that bathroom stall. I was sitting there (no, don’t actually visualize it, that would be sick) and suddenly, I heard a woman’s voice very nearby say “Hi!”

Being a polite individual, I automatically responded, if a little hesitantly. “Hi.”

“What are you doing?”

This is when I became uncomfortable. But, still a polite individual, I began to answer. “Uh…I’m…”

“I’ve got to go,” she said more loudly to be heard over the sound of flushing. “Some idiot next to me thinks I’m talking to her.”

Naturally, I stayed in my stall until I was sure the woman was gone. Then I went home and initiated the extensive personal research I mentioned earlier. I called a couple of friends and my mother, and I found out something similar had happened to each of them. That’s when I realized that cell phones will probably be the end of civilization. We’ve certainly come a long way, baby. Oy vey!

© Jackie Papandrew, All Rights Reserved

www.jackiepapandrew.com

Pin Something On This Donkey

It’s a sad fact that no one has invented a decent party game since Pin The Tail On The Donkey. Now that was a great game, involving a sharpened object wielded in a precarious fashion by a blindfolded and highly excitable person.

Pin The Tail On The Donkey (or PTTOND, as it’s known in this text-message age) was my favorite party game for a long time. Then someone’s mom ruined it by switching from using thumb tacks to secure the tail – which held out the exciting possibility of drawing blood if you “accidentally” pinned another kid, preferably a kid you didn’t much like – to namby-pamby scotch tape that wouldn’t do more than yank out a couple of arm hairs. Things have pretty much gone downhill in the party-game arena ever since then.

At adult parties, games are used by the host to prevent guests from noticing that all of the food has already been eaten. A couple of weeks ago, my husband and I went to a Valentine’s Day party, and when the food ran out, we were cajoled into playing a fairly tame version of The Newlywed Game. Do you remember that old game show where couples who had recently walked down the aisle were separately asked a series of questions – many of which included the word whoopee -- to see how well they knew each other?

The honeymooners who gave matching answers to the most questions got to go home with something wonderful like a new Amana range or an apricot-colored lounge suite. But what made the show funny were the misfits, tho se arm-punching pairs who didn’t seem to know each other at all. They got sent home with only garden hoses and blenders, and the grooms likely found themselves spending a few nights on the couch.

In our game, my husband and I – despite 20 years of wedded bliss -- definitely fell into the misfit category. You’d have thought we were there on a first date. By the end of the evening, I was ready to pin something far more painful than a tail to the donkey’s posterior I married.

Now before you decide that I’m a terrible wife, wrap your mind around this: my man couldn’t even remember the name of the church in which we got married. He forgot where we had our first kiss. In two decades of looking at my face, he had failed to notice that I wear pink – not red, never red – lipstick. He didn’t know my favorite song or my favorite movie. The man who has memorized the vital statistics of every football player living or dead and who can recite plot lines from umpteen episodes of Law and Order could not recall what I was wearing when he proposed. He was unable even to correctly guess my favorite comfort food – chocolate (duh!).

In fact, out of 20 not-so-newlywed questions, we managed to come up with the same answer exactly once. Amazingly, we both knew which part of my body he likes best (none of your business which one). And not surprisingly, we ended up with the lowest score of the game. We also did our share of arm-punching each other over wrong answers, and we provided a great deal of amusement to our friends. As we were leaving, one of them suggested that perhaps we should spend more time together.

Or maybe we should just avoid playing party games. Unless we’re blindfolded and trying to locate a donkey’s backside.

© Jackie Papandrew 2008

Be sure to visit my blog.

Hi, How Ya Doing?

First, I'd just like to say hello! and how excited I am to be a part of the MWLM team-on the blog and as Writer's Resource Editor.

Writing is my passion, it's what keeps me sane. That, and chocolate.

I'm looking out my window-the mountains are dotted with snow-quite pretty, the snow, I mean...from a distance. Shift to the front yard-there's about three feet of snow out there that, no matter how you look at it, has lost its charm, sparkle, with the realization that this three feet of snow could very well be here till the END OF APRIL.

I am so ready for spring....

Kris Underwood, Writer's Resource Editor

Also blogging at Writing In The Mountains and various other spots throughout the blogosphere.

IBS sucks!

IBS sucks!! I was diagnosed with IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome) in the fall of 2006, but realize now that I have basically suffered with it my whole life, to a lighter degree, and never knew it because my symptoms were much less noticeable.  I'm not sure what happened to make the symptoms flare in the summer of 2006 and lead me to get medical help, but the symptoms seem to have found a comfortable home in me and are refusing to leave for very long periodsof time.

For those of you who don't know what IBS is (which is probably most of you unless you have it yourself or know someone who does), I will give a very quick explanation.  It is a discorder of the gastro-intestinal tract.  The gut can be too slow (causing constipation), to fast (causing diarrhea) or a combination of the two (causing alternation between the two stool conditions). A person with IBS can also have lots of associated disorders like acid reflux, bloating, cramping, and nausea, to name a few. There is no cure or medical treatment for IBS, only diet, exercise and lifestyle changes can aleviate the problem.

I had been doing pretty well in the past few months.  I had been eating right and exercising.  I had been seeing a chiropractor for regular accu-point pressure treatments.  My symptoms were under control...until last Thursday.  Don't ask me what I did, or what I ate, or what triggered it, but I have been feeling sick ever since.  At least if I knew what had triggered this latest bout, I could fix it, but I have no idea.  So I've gone back to the basics.  I've cut out all the food that could trigger problems, I'm trying to get more rest (an easy thing to do while working 25 hours a day and taking care of the house, the kids, and the husband - though he will claim that he takes care of himself).  I'm trying to stay calm and relaxed (another easy task with two teenage girls and a boy who is teetering on the fence between child and teen).

All I can do is my best.  Sometimes I think that my IBS flares up to make sure that I don't burn myself out.  My body has found its way of saying, "Hey Girl, slow down, relax, think of YOU for a change!"  Hmmm... maybe IBS isn't such a bad thing after all.

Lucie Bouchard Antoniazzi, Regular Columnist, All in a Mom-day's Work, www.luciebouchardantoniazzi.com

Writing.

Anne Lamott really pisses me off. In fact, when I saw her Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son's First Year in the parenting section a couple years ago at the Harvard COOP, I actually gave the book the finger. Such was my resentment at some writer journaling in public about motherhood, like I could. Or, like I should.

It must be trite, it must be drivel, it must be painfully common. How presumptuous to think she had something unique and fascinating to say about parenting.

The fact that my resentment blossomed and exploded with physical force (the middle finger jammed up at the softcover book) didn't elude me. I recognize jealousy. I recognize fear: Afraid. Really, really afraid. Here was this dream and someone else was living it and how could I possibly ever do it if other people already are. I only want the path less traveled on; I won't be a sheep or a lemming.

So it required great bravery on my part last week to pick up the book, purchase it, and open the cover to read. I finished it in 36 hours which says a lot as a parent of a 4 year old.

That weekend as I read, I began feeling rumblings in my body. Discomfort. A loosening of my glue.

I turned to the wisest person I know. I turned to this four year old who has spent her life facing her fears and asked, "Sweetie? There's something I really, really want to do but I'm scared to do it. But I want to do it, but I'm scared. What should I do? How can I do this thing? How do you do it when you feel this way?"

Very seriously and with several long long seconds of contemplation, she looked at me with those ocean-deep eyes and gave me the answer. "Mommy, I listen to what my body is telling me. I might need to give myself more time with my Mommy first, but when my body tells me I'm ready, I just do it."

Later that day, lying on my back finishing up the Lamott book I spilled empathetic laughter every few minutes. With my four year old audience demanding it, I read the funniest portions out loud (meatball-like poops rolling away, slapping an infant for fear it wasn't just sleep overcoming him but rather a seizure). Most items made Maya giggle, too.

Years ago (1996 to be exact), I began writing a weekly column and posting it online. This was before I knew the term "blogging," and certainly the activity of blogging hadn't reached the masses. My self-imposed deadlines kicked my ass, really. I took them so seriously. I remember many a Wednesday evening sweating and twisted at the computer screen researching "What in the hell is going on with the Hutu and the Tutsis?" Or simply commenting on my latest self-revelation that I somehow imagined might interest someone.

For the past year, I've known an intense magnetic pull bringing me back to writing personal essays. I left them when I became suddenly embarrassed at how self-obsessed I knew I seemed to some.

I've found the courage to begin reading these kinds of things again, Anna Quindlen, Barbara Kingsolver, (and of course that beastly and fabulous Anne Lamott), most recently. In their words I've found not only camaraderie but also inspiration. Much of why I drink their words with such abandon are the feelings I get of a Shared Experience. As I approach my own writing, I feel a permission to address the day-to-day.

Each essayist has a unique voice and experience, no matter how common the theme. Knowing I can say "what's already been said" and have it still be new and unique simply because it comes from me frees me from the sheep and lemmings fear. Any path I choose will be less traveled because the path belongs to me.

I'm falling apart from the inside out. I'm unhinged, unglued, and frighteningly free floating. My writing days return like a herd of buffalo. Knowing I seem just fine, perhaps a little tired, but as if I'm a functioning member of our simple world, well, that's just craziness at it's strangest. How these feelings can be mauling my insides while I stroll through the pumpkin field with my darling daughter and my dreamy husband? I know it's all because the writing is coming.

I know it because my body says I'm ready.


Heather Denkmire is a freelance writer and small business owner living near Portland, Maine with her daughter (Maya) and partner (Josh). She invites you to visit and read her regular "personal essay column."

The Decline of Nap Time

She's two-years-old. Two. But she knows how to mess with my head.

Forty-five minutes into her nap, the phone rings. Please, please, please don't wake up (me to the two-year-old).  I just got into a groove. Don't let the bedroom door open, don't let me feel the devastating disappointment of creative juices reverse flowing. I need these two hours of her naptime to myself - there are only about 50,000 other writers out there whose children are content to sleep, whose children are better behaved than mine, and who will get MY shot if I can't finish the what it was I was having so much fun doing. Except writing isn't so much fun when I think about it like that. It seems a little bit like the floor of the NYSE when I think about it like that. Or perhaps like sub-tropical waters with bull sharks and barracuda...not at all like the Zen Garden of Imagination and Endless Possibilities that is, after all, a frame of mind.

Damn. I did it again. I let the fear of nothingness lead me into a bad place that is so not conducive to creativity. But here I am writing about it, creating something out of the chaos, and if this is all I get, this is all I get. I'm writing my way out of despair and into a sympathetic connection with others that may benefit me one day, but that isn't why I do it. 

I'm writing because the strangest thing happened to me in the last few years - my spontaneous, random self developed a daily ritual of committing myself to words. Even if I don't write 5 pages a day, even if I don't read a novel each week, I make an attempt and do something to reach my literary goal everyday. That is the constance born from the chaos of being a Writer Mom/Mom Writer. We've claimed something for ourselves and hopefully we will not be denied (very often). It may take some time, but detours like the decline of naptime are inevitable distractions that strengthen resolve or give dreams excuses to fizzle.

No fizzling here.  I will not allow it. Not because of sophomoric, teeth-gritting competitiveness. Huh-uh. Because I believe, and I know, writing is what I am supposed to be doing. Every time I find a way to do it within the state of Mommy flux and around everyone's everything, I'm developing me - the Writer, me - the Mom, me - the Writer Mom.

Please, please, please, don't give up (me to myself). You just got started.  Don't let the revolving door of "it" and "next" force you into frenzy-induced submissions of mediocrity. You're better than that. 

The Zen Garden sure sounds like a nice place to be, but I've got to get there using my voice. I have found that my voice echoes back to me beautifully in a place called the forest, but I miss it, all those damn trees. All those damn detours.

If a Mom Writer screams in that forest and no one is around, is she still screaming? If it helps her find (as many times as is necessary) her voice - does it matter?

Time to go get the kids from school...today, I'll be taking the long road (through my imaginary forest).

~Samantha Gianulis