Two of the oldest professions

I really like this picture of myself because I'm wearing my mom's first wedding dress which was a gorgeous black silk sari with silver embroidery. She gave it to me years ago. It has one huge rip in it, but I have worn it a few times, artfully, so my ass doesn't hang out. I also like this picture because it shows my hair down when it was long. It was irritating the bejeezus out of me at that time so I cut it all off shortly after this picture was taken. Max is four months old in this picture. This is when the super dark hair he was born with started falling out, being replaced with the pale blond that he's had ever since.

Is it my imagination, or is he flipping everyone off?

I would love it if, just once, a celebrity famous for her or his sex appeal would say something like "I'm just not a very sexual person." Because I find it really tiresome to hear people like Jessica Simpson say "I'm a really sexual person. And I'm comfortable with that." And Scarlett Johansen said the exact same thing. Would a publicist let any star admit to not being all that interested in sex? I just love it when stars go and bust our assumptions rather than pander to them.

The actor Jonathan Rhys Meyers says he could never go out with a housewife. He says he can only date women who have their own careers. While I think that's just fine, it does surprise me that he specifically won't date a housewife. Does he mean he won't date other men's housewives? Or does he mean he couldn't marry a woman who wanted to become one? Since when was being a housewife not a career? Not all housewives are created equal, but a good one does all the work of a professional chef, launderer, landscaper, house cleaner, baker, and interior decorator. The only difference is that she does it for people she loves and doesn't get a salary.

I want an answer to this question right now: between a professional chef and a housewife who cooks just as skillfully, who do you respect more? I want to know why too. When you meet a "professional" interior decorator and a housewife who takes great pride in decorating her home, who do you respect more? I'd be willing to bet that most people would respect the person who's getting paid in money. Do people think it's more impressive to do a thing when other people are willing to pay you for your services?

Interestingly, this doesn't apply to sex. Everyone is expected to give sex away for free no matter how good you are at it. When everything else a person can do skillfully is considered career potential, this is the one thing that must never ever be sold. I think it's a little bit twisted that modern society values people like Lindsy Lohan and Paris Hilton, who've between them screwed almost every man in Los Angeles and Greece, yet we look at prostitutes and disrespect them because they are getting paid for what Lindsy and Paris are giving away. If we think Lindsy is so hot, and so sexual a person and we're OK with the fact that she apparently has a new guy every other week, then we aren't actually bothered by people being promiscuous. As long as they don't get paid.

Money is much too tangled up in the estimation of human worth.

Prostitution is often called the oldest profession. I think housewifery is just as old. I've never thought about that before today.

I don't look at people and how much they earn as an indication of worth. Nor does money have much to do with my feelings about my own worth. I need to earn money now. Philip and I are working very hard to make a living. So it isn't that I don't care about money. I do. It's just that if I don't make any and have to do something else, it won't make me feel like less of a person than anyone else who has made more than me. I will feel good about myself for having been willing to take risks; to follow my dreams. I value hard work. I value skills. I value other people who work hard and have skills.

In a way I admire prostitutes. I mean, I don't really approve of prostitution, but not because I think it's dirty and immoral. If Lindsy can give lots of it away for free, I don't see why someone who doesn't have millions of dollars and needs to sell it for money shouldn't. They're both doing the same thing, it's just that one of them is making money doing it. In all other professions we would admire the person making the money. I think if it was made legal everywhere and the women selling sex had a lot of protection against the abuse they so often come in for, I say, why not? What I kind of admire is how hard they work. I couldn't do it. For a lot of reasons, the least of them being the question of morality. Athletes work hard with their bodies for our collective pleasure. We enjoy their feats of speed, strength, and/or agility. We admire how hard they work, the way I see it, prostitution must be very hard work.

I didn't mean to bring up prostitution. I'm just following my mind where it's going.

I am working up to something here: it's interesting to me that, in general, housewives are only marginally respected more than hookers. I know a lot of people who would say they respect housewives WAY more than prostitutes. But from personal experience, I haven't run into very many people who were at all interested in me when I was a housewife. As though what I was doing couldn't possibly be worth talking about. A lot of people view housewives as women who stay home watching television and leaching off of their husbands. This is, in my opinion, the dark side of the feminist coin. We got more rights, we all got to join the outside work force. Being a housewife went from being one of the most respectable and expected life choices for women to make to becoming the job that's too demeaning for any self respecting woman to choose.

Now that I'm a business owner I get a lot more respect from people, women especially, than I ever got staying home.

The biggest surprise to me, in my life as a housewife, was how deeply satisfying it is. I have never had a job before that gave me so much room for self discovery, growth, finding hidden talents, and that made my quality of life so immensely improved. I miss it. Whatever happens in our future, I will always love that time in my life most because it unveiled a lot of passions that were latent in me. It gave me spiritual peace. It gave me gardening, cooking, home baked bread, a routinely clean house (pre-kid), canning, and time to sew, build, and write.

I will end with this: the best food I have ever eaten was cooked by my friend Chelsea who, if she wanted to, could kick Ina Garten's ass in the kitchen. She cooks better than most professionals for her family and friends. For free. If you had a choice to go to a restaurant and pay someone to make your food, or go to Chelsea's house and be treated to her food for free, you will choose Chelsea's food. But not because it's free. You will choose it because it's better. How can anyone not admire that and envy her husband Jeff the world class cooking he gets every day?

I think Jonathan Rhys Meyers is an idiot.

I wonder if he's ever paid for sex?

The Hot Hot Future

Peppers from the summer harvest. The flash on my camera made them look like cheap garish vegetables, rather than the complex cayennes they really are.

Remember summer tomatoes? I'm still hoping for more snow here in McMinnville, so it's not as though I'm pining for the summer yet. As I recall it, it was pretty miserably hot here and I wore a lot of heat rashes in July. That's not a look that inspires admiration. Or comfort. Still, I've been thinking a lot about produce lately, how there isn't much to choose from around here, and in plotting to never buy any vegetables ever again I was trolling through pictures from the summer garden; getting hungry. I went to Roth's recently, the posh grocery store, just to have a break from the miserable health food store. Here's what I have to choose from:

Safeway: a place that is contributing mightily to the destruction of our local economy, global warming, chemical poisoning, and the spread of the corporate disease. We buy most of Max's food at Safeway because he was sent to us from the devil and will only eat Ritz Bitz and Goldfish.* I avoid buying produce there as much as possible, mostly on principle, but also because I bought broccoli there this past year that, when steamed, smelled really wrong. It had a strong foul chemical aroma.

Harvest Fresh: Their prices aren't all that bad. Not great, but I have made immense efforts to support them since they aren't corporate, they sell "good quality" products, and they support lots of local farmers. I want to give the owners a swift kick in the butt though for trying to sell produce way past it's prime, for not controlling the aggressive unappetising clouds of fruit flies always hovering over the produce, and for not staying on top of general expiration dates. Oh yes, and their mediocre food makes me upset too because there's no excuse for it.

Roth's: This is where you go when you have annoying stacks of greenbacks burning holes in your pockets. Or when you just get so tired of your other choices you break down and go there against your better judgement. I will ask you this: what grocery store doesn't carry swiss chard in the winter? Oh yes, and: who can afford to spend $2.99 per pound for "heirloom" oranges? I'm sure the Donald wouldn't blink twice at that price. But only because he has probably never gone to the grocery store in his entire life. (That alone deserves my scorn.)

There's the fourth, secret, choice: GROW ALL MY OWN FOOD.

Because all this spare time and acreage I've got is really bringing me down.**

Seriously, this has been on my mind a lot this past week. Partly that's because this is the time to plan the garden. But also because I feel like the only way any of us can eat produce that's healthy, tasty, and not prohibitively priced is to grow it ourselves. There's something wrong with farmers using chemicals they won't let their own family touch. That's right, there's at least one commercial farmer out there who isn't buying the whole "pesticides are harmless" crap the chemical companies are trying to shove down our throats, but who, none the less, is using them to grow commercial crops. There's one farmer out there who won't let his family eat the food he grows for the rest of us. He has an untreated patch of potatoes for his own family. There is something so morally wrong with him being willing to feed the rest of us this poison when he isn't willing to give it to himself, his wife, or his children.

I'm not actually trying to bust the farmer's balls. I mean, someone should, but right now I'm trying to focus on what I can do for myself. All good change starts not from pointing fingers at others but pointing them at ourselves and asking what the hell we can do about it. I have my own hens, so I have eggs whose origin and content I am in complete control of. I give my girls lots of good scraps and I keep them pretty clean, and they are pretty happy for a bunch of fluffy birds. Some people don't think this makes a difference. But it does. Oh yes, it does. It just isn't a difference that's going to make you richer.

I can grow some of my own produce too. Which I do, every single year. If I had the time I would grow a lot more. And once I'd used up my yard, I would, if I could afford it, either buy more land or rent more. There is no more powerful thing you can do for yourself than to grow some of your own food. Go ahead, doubt me. Remember the victory gardens everyone was growing during World War II? Millions of people were gardening because of food shortages. People were on rations. Do people think this couldn't happen again? What a bubble we live in.

All of these thoughts combined with all of the research I've been doing for the store have made some ideas sharpen. I've become focused on how to make Dustpan Alley not only become successful, different from our competition, but also a company that reflects what's truly important to me, to us, and if not to you, then what should be important to you. Sustainability, high quality lives, environmental awareness, and self sufficiency.

By self sufficiency, I don't mean that we all need to become creepy cult-like woods dwelling self righteous people who don't participate in culture, and make our own tools as well as grow our own wheat. I mean, more power to you if you embrace that level of self sufficiency. Just don't stock-pile weapons and ammunition please. By self sufficiency I mean we all need to have more independence. Most of us can't grow all of our own food. But as I've mentioned before, everyone can grow some fresh herbs. Almost everyone can grow a tomato plant or two, some lettuce. I mean that it's empowering to make things for ourselves.

Most people have to work a lot of hours away from home just to pay the bills. Even when you do this you can learn to cook healthy food for yourself, you can learn to use some tools to build small things for your home and garden. You can sew things. You can fit so much in life that's fun and gives you a little more personal power than you had before. How can anyone not want that?

I suppose I'm preaching to the choir here. I want my store to have ready made gifts in it, because I'd be stupid not to have plenty of cool things for people to buy that don't require any assembly. But what I want more of is kits. Kits that help people get started learning new things such as how to make small useful items like key chains. Kits to get people started making their own natural body care products. Kits for making soap. These aren't original thoughts or kits. That doesn't mean there shouldn't be more of that out there. Who doesn't love kits?!

OK, I know, plenty of people don't care about kits. But they will when they see mine.

You can't see it from your screen, but my mind is rearranging itself. My mind is taking what we've already done and is starting to hone in on what might really work, distinguish us, and offer something truly valuable. A lot of my inspiration comes from my creative friends who all around me are making fantastic things. Beautiful knits, magical toys, incredible food. Not just my friends right around me, and the ones I left behind in California. But you. You who might be reading this right now.

Right around the new year I was asking some pretty important questions about my business. Not comfortable questions, but important. I'm coming up with answers now. That doesn't mean I'm going to have it all figured out any time soon. But my mission, my vision has become much more obvious and my path more clear. Even if at the end of the year our brick and mortar isn't paying enough of the bills to keep us floating, it won't necessarily mean the end of Dustpan Alley. My original vision for my company, thought up several years ago when I became a housewife, has gotten a little obscured. Yet all I had to do was some serious brainstorming to find out that I'm still building what I wanted to build, it just got complicated by opening an actual store and having to fill it.

I feel like I'm making almost no sense because my head is buzzing. I'm not on drugs. I'm not drunk. It's buzzing with ideas. Like I hit the idea jackpot and I need three more bodies so I can develop all of them simultaneously. In fact, I have to get back to organizing the projects and do more research. I guess if I didn't make sense today, you'll just have to wait and see what develops here. I will get that camera battery replaced so you can see some of the projects as they are taking shape.

*Mild exaggeration. He wasn't really sent by the devil.
**Total lie. Unfortunately.

Progress in inches

(and the impression of sudden sorrow)

This has turned out to be quite a day. I finally got my inquiry letter sent out to my first choice contract sewing company. I sent out two packages today too that have been hanging in the air right above my head for weeks now. The first one is to Emma from My three loves with whom I am exchanging a quart of my home canned pears for a knitted scarf with bobbles. She's been waiting a LONG time for me to get my act together. (Thank you for your patience Emma!). The second package is for Frankie, the charming daughter of my blog friend Pam of Pam Kitty Morning. If you recall, I made her some black heart key chains.

The toaster caught on fire too. Our toaster was free fifteen years ago, it was old when we got it, and it's been on the fritz in the last couple of days. It's one of those handsome chrome ones with the cloth cord. Well, Philip wasn't used to the fact that it has gotten too tired to spit the bread out ever again. So he went off to do something and forgot all about it. Until he came back to a huge toxic cloud of hanging smoke and flames bursting out of the tired little appliance.

I also placed an order I've been wanting to place for the store.

I made a couple of phone calls I have put off making. I realize these things are very small. Like little tiny inches marked off a hundred yard run. Never the less, they make me feel good.

The county says Max's vaccinations aren't up to date and if we don't prove that they are or get him updated by the twenty first of this month he will be booted out of school. So I made phone calls for that too. Several.

Today it seemed like life kept kicking the ball into my court and I just kept kicking them back. That's just about as much sports talk you're ever going to get out of me.

I finally got on my Vespa to see if the battery has died since I haven't ridden it for three months due to the burnt out headlight and my inability to replace them. I know, it shouldn't be that hard. I've ordered them from two places who have both failed to get them in. I even took a trip to Portland to get one from their service shop; which just happened to be closed the day we came due to some one's ill timed wedding. Yep, the battery is dead.

I got lots of research done. The tedious kind that makes your eyes glaze over and kind of glue themselves permanently open. Sometimes I really enjoy this part of my work because I'm like a pit bull with information. I don't let go usually until I find answers or a dead end. Sometimes, though, I would rather be reading other people's blogs.

Lastly, I just sent off an inquiry to Mary Jane's Farm about submitting articles. Because I promised myself I would do it. So what if nothing comes of it? It's an amazing publication and completely up my alley. Only I'm pretty sure they don't publish any swear words. Or religious slurs. So I'll have to cut out all the "Oh Jesus" comments. They are like a farmy Martha, where everyone gets their hands dirty. Only more practical, more approachable, more real. None of this posh Hamptons crap. It's all about eating and growing organic, enjoying where we come from as well as where we're going. I'll confess that I'm always a smidgen uncomfortable with things that are too nice, too gentle, with no rough edges. But that isn't because I hate wholesomeness. No. It's because I'm always going to be a little rough. And not in a rugged handsome way either.

Life just keeps unfolding under my eyes. Like it does for everyone. Philip came home, while I was in the middle of writing this, crying in jagged sobs. I can count the times I've seen him cry on my fingers. He hit a cat with the car on his way back from the store. He was devastated that he probably killed some one's cat and wanted to stop but was too shaken up. Two women saw it happen and as he drove off appeared to be looking for it. I always like to look for strength in small comforts at moments like this.

There aren't a lot of comforts in this one. I knew he couldn't go back out there tonight. I knew one of us had to. So I took the mag-light and a towel in case I found the cat. The mag-light was also for possible tussles with crack fiends in the dark corners of the apartment buildings in front of which this sad thing happened. The same two women who had witnessed the accident were coming back from the "Plaid Pantry". They showed me where the cat was and said she barely made it to the curb before falling down dead. The small comfort in that is that she didn't suffer long.

I told you, I look for what I can. I wanted to cry when I saw her. She was black and sleek. I laid the towel over her and went to knock on doors. I didn't really want to, truth be told. The apartment buildings in question are the really depressing kind; big slate grey nineteen seventies boxes with small windows over which sheets are thrown to double as curtains. Maybe during the day I wouldn't be worried about who might answer their doors. I was worried tonight. I knocked on four doors. No one answered the first. The second door was answered (after a long pause) by a bloodshot eyed scruffy dad who reeked of stale cigarette smoke. I only know he's a dad because before he opened the door I heard his kid calling for him. He had no information.

I really wasn't surprised. He looked so checked out that he wouldn't have known the difference between his hand and mine. The next door I knocked on was never answered, though I heard a lot of noise behind the door. The last door I knocked on was opened by a man who was really friendly and had some information. He's pretty sure the black cat that Philip hit was the same one that had been abandoned recently by tenants who had moved out. This man said he took her kittens to the humane society. He also said how kind it was of us to try to find the owners of the cat.

I went back to the cat. I have to admit that I wasn't particularly keen to pick her up. For once in my life I'm not going to tell every detail. I wrapped her in the towel as gently as I could and carried her like a swaddled baby the three blocks home. I couldn't leave her there. Unclaimed.
Without being able to tell anyone how sorry we are that this happened; without being able to soothe the poor cat and make amends to her; we won't be able to move on from this unfortunate moment. It hangs in the air like a half finished song. I can't stop thinking about how Philip and this cat were kind of thrown together in a karmic tangle. As accidents go, no one is more to blame than the other. The cat ran out from underneath a car into the road where Philip, who wasn't speeding, tried to swerve out of her way. Now they're caught together here in this hour and it's important to find a way to move forward.

So I decided that she should be buried in our yard, in her towel shroud, and we will get the statue of the Virgin Mary, like I've always wanted, to mark her spot. I know it isn't much, but she'll rest somewhere kind, and she'll be remembered.

I did it before it was cool

Don't you just love it when people say that? I try not to say it. Even though I've done practically everything Madonna has done before she made it big. Except record platinum albums, marry Sean Penn, keep fit and trim, model for Versace, marry a "Sir", ride horses, or steal African babies. But I was wearing vintage long before that ho made it all the rage.

I've posted this picture before. I'm posting it again because it amuses me so much. I actually promised I wasn't going to post again today. I posted two posts yesterday with the idea that right about now I would be dressed and cleaning the house. But then I was doing my blog reading and drinking a fabulous latte that Philip made for me before he jetted off to the store... and I just couldn't help myself.

Anyway, this picture was taken when I was nineteen, on New Year's Eve. I am tossing my Philip Morris cigarettes into my Dad's trash compacter. I'm in my ultimate Swiss Miss outfit. Note: this was not worn as a "costume". See what I mean about having fun dressing up? Notice the apron wearing? See, I was doing it way back before there were apron exhibits in museums.

I would like to say that I have placed a couple of orders for the store that I had been putting off. I've been also thinking about classes to give in the store. I really love Lucille's idea of decorating Easter bonnets. I've also gotten some pointers on giving craft classes from Ulla, who does this all the time and posts about it on her blog. Sometimes seeing Lucille and Ulla's creativity and successful work makes me want to stab myself in the eye with one of the knitting needles I've got lying around collecting dust. That way I'd at least have a legitimate excuse for myself.

If you were thinking of telling me how immature I am...let me beat you to the punch. What a frickin baby I am. All I have to do is look at someone else's cool blog with amazing crafts and I get the urge to do a violence to myself and give up. Grow some balls for crying out loud! (Philip would really not appreciate this. We established many years ago that he is not going to suddenly discover he's gay and ditch me for a boyfriend and a life of cross dressing. Growing real balls would truly disturb him. But, I mean, is it even possible?)

I went to Posie Gets Cozy recently, even though I promised myself I wouldn't. So you all probably already got a copy of Romantic Homes, huh? I've been looking for one here in McMinnville and haven't found one. I can't help it. I want to read the article and see the photos. I can't tell if it's because I desperately need to torture myself with all the things I'm not doing, and how unpretty and uncool my house is, or if I will get a grip on myself and just be inspired. Which would be the mature thing, obviously.

Two out of my four Valentine aprons have sold now. I kind of didn't expect that. It makes me really happy though. It's still very slow in the store, but yesterday a woman bought a bunch of things like some oilcloth place mats and the Valentine apron. Sales like that make us feel so much better. In more store news, we're getting better signage up today. So that's one small thing to check off the GIANT list from last month. Inch by bloody inch we're getting there.

Oh, but a real disappointment was finding out that Boersma's (the downtown fabric and knit shop) is carrying the soak line of hand washing soap. They declined carrying it when the Soak rep showed it to them and so she sold it to us. Boersma's didn't bother checking out what we carry, or finding out if anyone else already has that line through her source. So while I am tip toeing around everyone on third street to keep them from stoning my store, not everyone is giving me the same courtesy. It made me incredibly angry. It also firmed up some resolve in me.

So for the last two days I have been coming up with ideas for T-shirts for the store. I have handed several off to Philip to work on. I am also looking up herbal companies because I would like to have a whole DIY bath section where people can come and buy bath salts and essential oils and create their own bath salts and herbal soaks. I will have containers and scoops and some recipes too. No one has anything like that here in town. Next up is sending out my letter to the contract sewing company I keep talking about. I will do that today. Right after I finish this post.

(In case you're curious, there is bagpipe music filling the air and making me prime for war on everyone who hasn't taken notice of Dustpan Alley yet. That's right, this is my battle cry!)

(OK, I admit that I'm too lazy to go put on actual bagpipe music, so it's just in my head right now. But as soon as the advil kicks in and my hip stops throbbing, I'm getting up to put it on.)

How do you go to battle against invisibility? You get loyal customers. You offer things no one else has but that people want. But most of all, if you're the manufacturing type, you manufacture cool things that no other store in your town can buy. Maybe none of this will work. No one has bought my cool pet gift set, but that might be because we've only had about six people in the shop since I put them out. But I have got to rely on our strengths.

By the way, if any of you need any graphic design work, talk to Philip. He can design logos, business cards, and do layout work.

On the home front, I've been cooking a lot more often which has eliminated the need to eat food from downtown which mostly isn't very good. Or if it's good, it's good because it's full of cheese. Home cooked food is just so much better. So we're saving money there. It's a real relief. I have more control over what I eat if I make it myself. Staying home most mornings is working out wonderfully. Except that I often get sucked into the blog world. Or spend all my time writing. Which isn't bad exactly, but it isn't likely to pay the bills faster than my store will.

It isn't working for me to concentrate on doing just one thing from my list of ten healthy things to do for myself. I like being able to choose different things. Three days in a row I've checked seven things off of my list of ten. I like it. If I don't get to bed by ten, I can still not eat any deserts and not snack after seven pm and be doing something good for myself. Not that it matters, but I've lost a pound of flesh. Which means I am so far keeping to my goal of not gaining a single pound. I feel pretty happy about it today.

I'm going to go accomplish some things before I think of something depressing to say.

Notice the rampant use of links? I've got it memorized now. Thanks Future Girl and Philip!

The Unknowable Future

I'm fast forwarding a bit to a better time in my life. I was a wee twenty-two years old. (I promise I won't talk about fat or diets for a while. At this point every one must be just about as tired of my ass as I am.) I was living in Corte Madera with three room mates. I was costuming with my friend/room mate Autumn Adamme. We started a company together called Dark Garden. At least, at the time I considered us business partners. Time would reveal that I was basically Autumn's contract sewer/drafter. She's still in business for herself and doing really well, though her business has changed quite a lot since I was working with her.

As you can see for yourself, Autumn is still completely untouched by time, gravity, or immoderate food and drink consumption. She's going to be a hottie when we're both eighty years old and I'm spitting my dentures out every time I talk and have to continually shove my left eyeball back into its socket. I work really hard to not resent her for having so much self discipline.* Anyway, in the picture above I am pretty happy all in all. I loved the costuming, though I burnt out within a year of this photo. I'm headed for a professional as well as a personal epiphany. I'm about to discover that the entire world is out there for me to explore. I had previously only considered fashion, costuming, and writing as possible life paths.

I suddenly realized I could go be poor with Irish people in Ireland and write really bad poetry. I was already writing the really bad poetry and I was super poor, so why not go somewhere new to do it? Or I could become a cruise director. This was a really vibrant fantasy of mine that I would dream about while drinking wine in our covered porch. I love uniforms. I let myself dream up every crazy possibility and it freed something in me. It was the first time in my life that I realized I was at the helm of my own ship.

I was also coming to terms with the fact that I would forever be the friend of hotties like Autumn who have horrifyingly small feet and that all the men I would ever date would talk about her small feet to me as though they were precious pearls.** This sounds so sad. For a while I felt really sorry for myself. Just because I have giant normal sized feet doesn't make me less mysterious and sexy than other women. (It's actually the verbal vomit that dispels all mystery and makes my sex appeal magically vanish.) But I started to realize that I could live a really happy life without a partner. It took longer to make myself believe this than I expected. Yet I learned to relish my untangled personal life. I started planning my life with forty cats.


The person you see in the picture above would have been very surprised to find these things out about her future self and life:

• That she would not only not be single at forty (knock on wood), but that within a year of this photo being taken, she would be married.

• That her dignity could be so disposable.

• That she would get not "fat", but FAT.

• That she would give birth to the next great American dictator.

• That she would still not be a published author at the age of thirty-seven touring Paris coffee houses smoking filterless Drum cigarettes.

• That Beyonce, Mandy Moore, Jamie Pressly, Elle McPhereson, and Gwen Stephani would all become fashion designers before her.

• That she didn't die already. (Though, by this time my faith in my ability to live past thirty was considerably improved)

• That she would turn out not be an urban girl at all but a small town chick with a hankering for more dirt. Always dreaming of more dirt.

• That she will buy and sell several homes.

• That she will become a housewife instead of a femme fatale type man killer.

• That she will learn to enjoy math and discover its romantic side.

• That she will piss a lot of people off.

*I still consider her a good friend. I don't actually resent her at all.


**I knew Philip was the right man for me when he failed to be enchanted by Autumn's magic feet and thought they were not as charming as my large normal ones.

Where are they now?

This is one of my all time favorite photographs of me and my friend Carrie. We were on upper Haight Street, no doubt standing around smoking cigarettes and practicing our "don't give a shit" faces, when a man with an old Polaroid camera approached us and asked if he could snap a couple of pictures. Dude, whatever. We're too full of existential angst to stop you. But, um, could you give one to me?

My camera battery is dead so I can't take any more pictures with it until I get Philip to buy me a new one. I know I'm a liberated woman perfectly capable of buying my own camera batteries, thank you very much, but why should I if my husband can do it for me while I opine on my fainting couch? In the mean time I am scanning a lot of old photos of myself. I know it seems really vain of me. Especially since I'm not posting all the ones where I look haggard and bloated after giving birth to Max. Those tell a story too. (But not one you really want to hear.) So maybe I am a little vain. If you read the last post, you probably got that I don't miss my youth.

Watch out, we're headed for a real pep talk here folks...

I was a very serious person when I was sixteen, as I was in the picture above. I was so very very old inside. Sure, my back was in it's golden age of strength, my skin was dewy and pale like Angel's Trumpet flowers in moonlight shades, and my teeth were a lot whiter. But I was so tired of life already. I wrote furiously day and night trying to purge what I was grappling with in my heart and my head. I was in the middle of a nervous breakdown, a long protracted break down which lasted for half of my sixteenth year.

I'm about to insult well adjusted happy people:

I have heard some idiots people talk about their teens and early twenties like it was a time full of magic and fairy dust, fresh love and innocent discovery. I honestly never believe anyone who says they wish they could be sixteen again. Or twenty. What's so great about it? I secretly believe that anyone who truly wants to go back in time is deluding themselves into remembering their earlier life not as they lived it, but as they wish they'd lived it. Mostly I think people look back only because they're too afraid to look forward.

Oh yeah, here it comes...more talk about clothes...

The only thing I miss about being younger is being physically stronger and better looking. But aging doesn't actually worry me. It only worries me that I'll miss my chance to age gracefully by spending the rest of my life helping myself get weaker and fatter in clothes from J.C. Penny's. I should be dressing up for my late thirties. I should be wearing red lipstick, pencil skirts, and crisp white shirts with men's ties every day like a modern day Slim from "To Have And Have Not". Or at least whenever I feel like it. I should be projecting the hopefulness I feel for my future; for what lies ahead. I should be putting my best face into the future, not craning it back into the past wishing for what never was.

I'm going to go on and on about clothes again, geeze, get a life in fashion and shut up already!

These old pictures are inspiring me a little. I miss dressing up. I miss having fun getting dressed. Seeing life as a big string of opportunities to dress for the part. Just about the only fun I had as a teen was the incredible freedom I felt to wear whatever I wanted to, whatever reflected how I felt. My world may have been crumbling around me but I still had control over my clothes.

The older I've gotten the better my life has become. It's really strange to me to that when I looked my best and felt the best about my physical self I was at an all time low mentally and emotionally. Now I am more mentally and emotionally healthy than I've ever been in my life, and I have never felt more broken and ugly physically. Irony is constantly kicking my butt.

You hear that? The sound of Rocky getting in shape? Yeah baby, that's me in the ring now.

But here's the deal: I believe that if we're unhappy about something it's our personal responsibility to make changes. No one else can do it for us. No one else is responsible for making our life good or bad. For making us hide or shine. So I have to ask myself what the hell I'm going to do about changing how I feel?

No change really happens overnight. Not if it's going to be meaningful. But change must happen. I am not going to spend the rest of my life wasting time feeling like crap physically. What a ridiculous waste of energy when I have never been more ready to do cool things and meet interesting people. (This is a pep talk in case you didn't already realize that.) (I give them to myself frequently.)

Here's where I promise to make the world a better place. This is the part where I put my hand on my chest and in the background we hear either Pomp and Circumstance or the National Anthem playing quietly and proudly. (I'm not sure which.)

So I've promised myself that I'm going to do my level best to spend the next three years strengthening my back, slimming my body, eating a little less cheese, drinking a little less beer so that I can step into my forties the way I wanted to spend my thirties; strong and confident. I've already got my mental and emotional health routine working as well as it can. Now it's time to get the rest of my act together so that I can see what it feels like to have the whole damn package.

And for an anti-climactic ending...

Incidentally, I managed to cross seven things off of my "get healthy" check-list again yesterday. Though I didn't get to bed by ten and I did drink a lot of beer. I also slept much more soundly. Oh well, today is a new day.

(I really think I might have a career as a motivational speaker. Except for the fact that public speaking makes me pass out and drool uncontrollably.)

There's so much more to say. So many more pictures to share. But I don't get to spend all day writing. More's the pity. (For me, not for you.)

Thirty-seven is the new seventeen

Angelina and Carrie going somewhere fancy. I think we later got harassed by one of the scariest people I've ever met; a peer named Porche. A lot of people are not aware that I used to frequently dress in men's clothes. (Just when you were beginning to think I was as wholesome as a Happy Meal.) Though it looks like a lesbian prom picture, we were only best friends. I'm seriously wondering where my snazzy hat got off to though, I wonder if I could pull off wearing it now?

I have to confess that I'm a little tired of popular culture constantly trying to find ways to make us all feel better about the fact that we are all getting older every day, (because if we're not getting older, we're getting dead). I always see the media declaring "Forty is the new thirty!" or "Fifty is the new twenty" and it's only a matter of time before I see one like this "One hundred is the new thirty!" Nothing stops the clock from ticking but death. And that only stops your clock, not anyone else's. I get, I get it...it's to help us feel cheerful that with new technology we can feel like we're twenty years old when we are really turning fifty.

I could use some of that today I suppose. My hip hurts from getting exercise yesterday. Which makes me feel like thirty seven is the new fifty. This is beginning to happen every time I get some moderate exercise, so if I can't do any cardio, how will I ever shed the pounds? Get me out of this god damned box of torture!

Since yesterday's post, I've been thinking about how different my life turned out than I thought it would. How much happier I am than I ever believed a person like me could become. In fact, I was thinking about how I'm actually alive at thirty seven, which probably doesn't surprise anyone but myself. When I was seventeen (as pictured in the above photo) I honestly thought I'd be dead before I turned thirty. So turning thirty was a little bit of a surprise, but not freaked because I couldn't spend any time worrying about wrinkles when I was just so damn pleased to not be dead.

What I was worrying about at the time the above picture was taken:

• How I hadn't gotten more than two hours of sleep a night for three weeks. This was not a drug induced insomnia. It was a constant menace.
  

• How my mom was moving away and I had to choose to stay in trade school and make it on my own, or move to the armpit of California with her. (I'm talking about Stockton)

• How I was still a virgin and getting really tired of being teased just because there wasn't a decent guy around that I hadn't already scared half to death with my uber-coolness. Just kidding. What really scared them was probably that fact that I was so obviously flippin crazy. And so obviously a prude unlikely to put out.

• Worried that people other than my best friends would discover the bloody self inflicted cross-hatching on my arms.

• worried that I was going to flunk out of pattern drafting class. Which turned out to be a valid concern as I went on to get a D and had to take it over again. I'm happy to report that after that I got A's in pattern drafting and have excellent drafting skills.

• Worried that there wouldn't be food in the fridge.

• Worried about my brother.

• Worried that my hips and thighs were bigger than everyone else's. As a point of interest, this isn't something that obsessed me. It never occurred to me to diet back then. I knew I wasn't fat. I knew that I was going to have proportionately bigger hips and thighs even if I was skinnier than anyone I knew, because that is how my body is made. I complained about my pear shape to friends sometimes when we sat around scrutinizing ourselves in the normal way teens do. But I rarely gave it any real energy. Unlike now when my size is taking up way too much of my brain space. I never ever worried that I would get actually fat.

• Worried that my other best friend, James, would die of an overdose of something. (No need to be specific, if he had access, he would do a lot of it.)

• Worried about the self loathing that would constantly blindside me like a spiritual rapist in a dark alley of my brain. I would be feeling fine one moment and the next I would feel the black loathing crawl through my veins til it reached every blood cell in my body. I worried that I desperately needed help but had no health care and my parents were so checked out on their own trips at the time that they had no idea.

But hey, isn't being seventeen a blast?!

I don't have fewer worries today, but they sure are different.

A new one just occurred to me: what if the new people we had over for dinner on Sunday who we really like read this and avoid all contact with us in the future? I mean, I already told them I was crazy. I always like to get that out of the way immediately. But I'm pretty sure that my openness about it leads people to either think I'm kidding, or that it's a euphemism for being a fun-loving-wacky-ex-Californian. Everyone knows how "crazy" Californians are.

In spite of deciding I didn't need to do anything more than get myself to bed by ten, I managed to accomplish seven things on my list. Including getting into bed by ten pm. Then I had a night of fitful sleep with frequent awareness of not being entirely asleep. And bad dreams. You may believe me or not, but having less beer and an earlier bed time often remind me that I can easily fall back into a paralyzing insomnia. Mostly I sleep really soundly these days because if you drink enough beer you will sleep heavy. And if you go to bed only when you're so exhausted you can barely hoist yourself out of the living room chair to drag your sorry-ass to bed, you won't have a chance to know what it feels like to not be restful. You will simply crash into oblivion.

Even though I didn't sleep well, I will once again make myself get into bed by ten pm. And if I get other things checked off that list as well? Good for me.

Aint no one here but us chickens. (And fat-asses.)

A typical Monday morning involves me lolly gagging around on the computer, looking at posts on other people's blogs, writing new posts for my own, and avoiding whatever it is I'm really supposed to be doing. Which is a lot if anyone recalls the big list of last month. Not too much has been marked off of that list. But unsurprisingly, I have made many new lists since.

I interrupt this broadcast to announce that someone is laying an egg right now, at this second. Someone else is making a lot of noise about it. For just a brief half second I wondered if any neighbors are sitting in their living rooms fantasizing about killing off my hens. Mostly I don't care because they don't make too much noise most of the time and they are completely LEGAL. Plus they will be our only source of protein once we have no money left to buy food*.

Which we'd have a better chance at buying down the road if we weren't so busy spending it all on beer right now.

My friend Lisa Dundee(not her real last name) told me about a great blog called "Crazy Aunt Purl". I've really been enjoying it, especially the whole bit about her making healthier choices for herself here and there, making small changes in the food she eats and the exercise she gets. Her plan is to never diet again. Which is brilliant. Her plan means she may never be really thin again but at least she'll be making healthier choices for herself than before. Which is what's more important anyway, right? I have felt really inspired by her.

Until five pm every single evening, which is Max's witching hour. The hours between five and eight (Max's bed time) are prime drinking hours because he's really cranky most of that time. Beer finesses the great battle that is otherwise known as BEDTIME. All day I tell myself I will go home and make a nice hot cup of relaxing tea and ride the waves of six year old angst out. Then I will wisely prepare to go to bed early myself, because everyone knows that sleep is the axis upon which all good health rests.

I get home and the pressure is too great. Tea seems like a pretty weak defense against the negative tirade that awaits me. You'd think that at least I could follow through on the early bed time thing. But I can't. It always sounds so good at ten in the morning. More sleep sounds so good at four pm. But at eight thirty pm, when the kid is finally in bed, (even if he is calling to us mercilessly for various things such as ice water, some obscure stuffed animal I didn't know existed, or the cat), I just can't get in bed. I must stay up like a proper adult. And unwind. With beer. Which also means I'll have to eat something I don't really need to eat. Truth be told, I probably don't "need" to eat again for about a month.

So I wake up every morning wondering how it is that my good resolve vanished and left me at the mercy of habit, once again. All the while I am beginning to panic inside every time I have to get dressed or undressed. Lots of people seek God for help in these things. I have certainly appealed to my own version of God to help me find that stubborn will of iron that plagued my parents for seventeen years, but if the Universe heard, it must have figured it was an appeal not worth responding to. I may have better luck appealing to Max's idea of God, which is a very very fat man wearing a brown suit. But if God really is "very very fat" then he doesn't have any more self control than I do, so how will he be able to help?

Not being religious, I keep appealing to myself instead. To my vanity (which is supposed to be such a great motivator). To my desire to be healthier and to not be so literally weighed down. Nothing has been able to shake my desire to remain in my comfortable routine. This allows me to be happy from five pm until I go to bed, but forces me into a blue study from the time I wake up until five pm.

Some thing's got to give. I've been edging towards change cautiously. If I promise anything I will only disappoint myself and others. But if I don't keep trying, I will eventually wake up and be six hundred pounds and unable to ever get up again. I am an eternal optimistic pessimist. I never give up hope, but I always keep expectations grounded. Sometimes six feet under. I know it seems impossible...but lots of things, like the fact that President Bush still hasn't been impeached, seem impossible, and yet they are true.

So, being inspired by Crazy Aunt Purl's no diet plan, (which is essentially what my mother has been doing too and has already lost thirty pounds!) in which she slowly and quietly begins to make some better choices for herself, which if they don't actually result in a lot of weight loss, will at least help her to feel better about herself, I have devised a new idiotic plan.

I've come up with ten things I should be doing every single day to be healthy. I do almost none of them on any given day. I figure that if I can at least check seven things off of that list a day I will not be able to help but get healthier, even if I don't get thinner. I could live with that. I certainly wouldn't get FATTER. People are always talking about giving one's self lots of incentive to reach goals. I have never been good at this because I always just go ahead and buy the shoes I want because the whole reason I have trouble with my weight is that I HAVE VERY LITTLE SELF CONTROL. But what the heck. I figure that any day on which I check off at least seven things on my list, I can earn $10.00. Think about what that could mean if I even managed to pay myself $10.00 every other day for a year: $1825.00

The funny thing is that if I really fell for this whole incentive thing, I can't actually afford to pay myself this amazing incentive money. I figure it doesn't matter though because the chances of that happening are the same as the chance of me seeing the Virgin Mary's face on the shell of one of my hen's eggs. Whatever. I amuse myself at any rate.

What I always want to know is where other people find their own strengths. And please don't tell me: in the pages of the bible. Or: by looking up to "HIM". C'mon, beyond that, how do you tap into the well of personal strength and determination that it takes to change really old unhealthy habits? I don't actually think it's possible for anyone to answer this question for anyone else. I already know the answer. I just feel locked out of my own stores of discipline. It was heartening that my mom gave me a reading from her cards (similar to tarot) that said I have the strength to do what I need to do.

People are always saying things like "when you want it bad enough you'll change" or "when you hate your body enough you'll motivate yourself" and most helpfully of all "when you get off your fat ass and exercise and stop stuffing twinkies, you'll lose weight!"

For the record: I do not eat twinkies. Ever.

Today I weigh 211 pounds. I told you I was a porker! (I could have been really coy and kept that to myself, but what's the point?) My goal is to not gain another pound in my entire life.

So here goes...

Daily checklist: (checking off 7= $10.00)

• Cardio, 20 min. or more

• Drink six or more glasses water

• Use only 31 WW points in a day

• Do 32 lunges or do weights

• Stretch

• 3 or less alcoholic beverages

• Take vitamins

• Don’t eat after 7pm

• Get to bed by ten pm

• Eat no deserts or pastries

My black little heart

First off: all women named Frankie are cool. Secondly, a couple of minor miracles have occurred today. I finished these key chains which I designed for Pam Kitty Morning's daughter Frankie. They will get sent out this week just as soon as I find the address. In so many ways I think these black heart designs are so much better than the red ones. I think I'll make some more and if they ever end up on the style sheet I'll call them "The Frankies". Because not everyone thinks Valentine's Day is a luscious lust fest. Some of us have black hearts inside the left chest cavity.

Another small miracle is that I have finally finished labelling the pet gift sets. They are on the floor now. I'm really happy with the results. I realize the pictures are crappy. I usually try harder, but my camera battery is basically busy doing the death scene from Romeo and Juliette and I couldn't trust it was going to sit through an artisanal photo session. I may never get to take pictures with my camera again. Philip assures me that we can buy a replacement battery. OK. See, I know a secret, all technology is actually poised in a permanent strike against me for having been a technophobe for about thirty two seconds in my life.

Isn't that handwritten element just totally couture? I wonder if anyone gets this as a gift and they see the handwriting if they will wonder about the person who wrote it. (Me.) You know the inspection tags that sometimes spill out of factory made garments? I have always wondered about the person who was "inspector #97". I have wondered if while I'm wondering about them they can feel a little frisson in the air, a kind of psychic connection? Do they feel me out here too?

On our second trip to Abberfoyle Scotland I bought a hand knit sweater with the name of the knitter in it. I kept the tag for a long time. And then somewhere along the way I lost it. The knitter's name was something obvious like "Mrs. MacEntyre". I enjoyed picturing her knitting my rough wool cable knit deep into the night. Unfortunately this kind of thought made me uncomfortable because if it was, in fact, knitted by a "Mrs. MacEntyre" then she probably didn't make squat on my luxuriously itchy (yet warm) piece of Scotland.

Getting beautiful gifts in the mail is not something that happens to me often. This week I received a package from my friend Lucille of Forest Whimsy. I am constantly amazed by and envious of her ability to know exactly what to get any given person as a gift, and her ability to make it seem like magic. These little plastic mushrooms are just so, I don't know, scrumptious and poisonous at the same time. Like a toddler I want to pop them into my mouth because they look so bright and alluring. I avoid behaviors like this because while my husband knows how crazy I am, he doesn't know how crazy I could be. I'd like to keep him in the dark so he doesn't drop me for some lithe nymphomaniac who happens to enjoy balanced brain function.

I have a passion for fake fruit and food. Always have had. It all started with the marble grapes, fig, and pear that my mom got from her mom which always graced the middle of our dining table. There were also, if I'm not imagining this, some large glass grapes with a real stem. I loved the feel of them, the imitation to living fruit seemed so charming. The fact that it was artful and couldn't rot was wonderful. I especially loved the heft and the coolness of the marble to the touch. You could kill a person with the pear.

I had the most fantastic collection before they all melted in our attic fire a few years ago. There were only three things that got destroyed in the attic that I actually felt a kind of painful pull in the heart for having lost: my great grandmother's china set which was one of my most prized possessions, the trunk of costumes I had made over the years which I was saving to share with all the cool girls my friends might give birth to, and my collection of fake fruit.

Lucille knows my childish passion for artificial food and sent me this charming basket complete with an avocado, strawberries (very life-like!), tomatoes, and best of all? The BREAD! I had a fake baguette from my newer collection that Chick tore apart...so it was really exciting to have these new pieces. I don't know why it makes me so happy. I suppose it doesn't really matter.

Which makes me think of the value of THINGS in our lives. It is very popular not be "materialistic" in the conscientious crowd. It's entirely understandable how so many of us have come to view THINGS as having a kind of intrinsic evil. Wanting to have lots of THINGS is part and parcel of this American dream of ours in which we want everything that is big, bigger, and also MORE. This American dream which has gone sour and caused so much greed. THINGS can begin to control us, our morals, and color our judgement. Sometimes faster and more viciously than alcohol.

What is the allure of THINGS in the first place? What is it's power over us reasonable people? The power is the ability to grow sunshine in the shade. The power is highly individual too. The power is that for someone of a sentimental bent who loves all things sweet and nostalgic there are "Precious Moments' figurines which can remind a person of how their lives might have been if they had been a porcelain alien-eyed figurine instead of a human being, and it reaches out with compassion and solace that this could not be so. It offers balm to wounded spirits.

Though "Precious Moments" figurines and ornaments have a violent affect on me, making me want to commit heinous crimes if only so I can go to jail for the rest of my life-probably the only place I would never have to fear running into one of those creepy-ass products, there are other THINGS that have a more soporific effect on me. Other objects which inspire in me that joy that only useless objects can.

FAKE FRUIT. What I love about fake fruit is that it's so damn silly. It can never compare to the real thing. I relate to it as an underdog of objects. It tries to make us salivate, it reminds us of the most pleasant taste sensations, sensual flavors rolling across our tongues with tropical warm abandon, yet fake fruit can never truly lure us in. Because it can never look as good as the real thing. Plus it can never deliver the goods. No one is fooled by the plastic pineapple. But I'm charmed by it. A Carmen Miranda cornucopia of fruity goodness. An irreverent romp through South America. The one without all the U.S. political sabotaging. It's bright and sassy. Other fake food is the same, just a little tease. It tries so hard to fool.

Fake food is like the "Mystery Men" of the super hero world. The underdogs that deliver. They just don't deliver what they think they're delivering.

Now I have a fake avocado, my favorite fruit in the entire world. Now every time I look at it I will think of my Andrews Sisters 78 with the song "Avocado" on it. A rarely heard song that I like to sing really loud in between fits of laughter.

Thank you Lucille for being so amazingly thoughtful!

The practical guide to parental martyrdom

mar-tyr n. 1. a person who willingly suffers death rather than renounce his or her religion. 2. a person who is put to death or endures great suffering on behalf of any belief, principle, or cause: a martyr to the cause of social justice. 3. a person who undergoes severe or constant suffering: a martyr to severe headaches. 4. a person who seeks sympathy or attention by feigning or exaggerating pain, deprivation, etc. 4.5 a parent who believes that personal suffering and deprivation grows better children.*


Becoming a parental martyr to anything is a very serious step to take in life and may result in great suffering or even death. So I think it's important to learn to recognize if you are on the path to becoming one. If you are, you should be aware of the risks and assess for yourself whether or not you really wish to continue down this very thorny dangerous path.

Test number one- here are some indications that you may be suffering from a parental martyr complex:

• Frequent use of any of these words in conversations: suffer, sacrifice, deprived, selfless.

• You are currently nailed to a cross.

• You don't do anything in your life that isn't specifically for your children, but sigh a lot when you think about some of the things you miss doing.

• You have sworn to give up all personal growth until your children have left the nest.

• Whenever your children are hurt or imagine they're hurt you see yourself as a modern Florence Nightingale and rush to their sides in a huge cloud of noble purpose and sit by the side of the crib in crisp white togs day and night to watch over the scratch they got from the bush in the garden. (If this is you, you may have missed your true calling as a nurse.)

• Gnash your teeth in outrage when you see any other parent commit an act of parental sin by relaxing for even a moment while on parental duty, which as all parents know is EVERY SECOND OF EVERY DAY.

• Secretly enjoy the fact that parenthood is really hard and makes you want to drink battery acid occasionally, because if you're suffering then you feel sure you're doing a righteous job.

• Have given up personal hygiene because your babies cry when you leave them for five minutes and you would never do anything that makes your children suffer, because that would take the spotlight off of your own very important suffering.

If you are still unsure if you are a parental martyr, here are a couple of situations you have likely already found yourself in. There are two responses given to the situation; the first is how a parental martyr would react, and the second is how a balanced parent would approach the same situation:

You are standing around with a friend in their front yard having a great conversation while your children are duelling each other with sharp bare branches, suddenly your kid comes up and interrupts your conversation with this imperial demand: "Mommy, we need to go NOW. I hate Emma. She's a stupid head."

The parental martyr: Abruptly ends the pleasant adult conversation saying to her/his child "OK Kaylie, we'll leave right now." Looks at friend with big sigh and pained expression saying "Well, we better go now. Sorry to dash off, but you know how kids are..."

The normal parent: Turns to child with annoyance and says "First of all, you are interrupting a conversation, which is rude, Kaylie. Second of all, that's a mean thing to say about your friend and we aren't going to leave until you tell your friend you're sorry. Now I'm going to finish talking with my friend and we'll leave in a few minutes when I'm ready and you've apologized. Or in five hours if I feel like it."

See the difference there? The parental martyr believes that the child's demands, no matter how unreasonable, come first because parenting is a sacred duty and it would be wrong to continue an enjoyable conversation with a friend while your child is unhappy, even if they're unhappy spoiled little despots who are mean to other kids because those kids don't worship them as much as mom and dad do. Now, if being a martyr is what you want then you are going to really enjoy how this will snowball on you. Every time you give your child power over your own needs, they will take more, and more, and in the end you will have plenty of suffering to complain about.

You are standing in a neighbor's front yard with several other neighbors and all of your children are romping safely and happily around together shrieking and making glorious mayhem. The neighbor opens up a couple of bottles of wine to share with all the grown ups who are standing around together ignoring the kids and enjoying each other's company and everyone takes a glass.

Except you, if you are a parental martyr. Instead, you shake your head disapprovingly and say "Some one's got to be responsible" Not only that, (because that isn't enough sacrifice for a martyr), you hover around the children the whole two hours everyone hangs out. You never let them out of your sight because something vague and horrible could happen at any moment. Plus you vowed as a responsible parent not to let your child out of your sight for a single second until they turn eighteen and you are pried from their sides as they rip your heart out to leave for college. And freedom.

If you are a pretty normal parent who likes wine (or beer) you will accept a glass and join in with the adults and assume that if you are needed by your child you will know by the blood curdling screams coming from the uppermost branch of the giant oak tree. You will trust that one glass of wine will neither impair your ability to respond to bloody emergencies nor impair your ability to call an ambulance if you don't feel you are in a condition to drive. Which if you only had one drink is not an issue.

See the difference? Now, not everyone likes alcohol. Does it make you a martyr to remain sober because you never drink anyway? Don't be ridiculous. Of course not. So go grab yourself a festive nonalcoholic beverage from your own house and don't make any comments about "responsibility" to the other parents. They won't admire your unswerving dedication to parenthood, they'll resent you for reminding them that they haven't had a proper break in fourteen hours and your implication that they are falling down on the job may make them want to throttle you.

Everyone knows that when you have children your life changes. In the natural healthy order of things you will put your children first when it comes to safety, food, shelter, and health. Unless you're a sociopath. You will also probably find yourself doing things (happily) that you wouldn't have been caught dead doing before you had kids, like making inanimate objects talk in weird voices in public for the amusement of your child. No one, I think, will deny that part of the wonderfulness of family life is spending lots of time around your children.

However, at some point in your family adventure you will have to decide who is boss in your house besides your cat. If you let your kids make all your decisions for you, such as how often you get to have grown-up type fun, then you are probably raising the next Napoleon, and believe me, no one's going to thank you for that besides the next Josephine.

Here are a few basic tips on how to avoid parental martyrdom if you prefer not to endure perpetual severe suffering:

1. Once you've met all of your child's basic needs, it is important to get on with life. Run the errands you need to run whether or not your children will enjoy it. Your children aren't your only responsibilities as an adult and you need to show them that going to the grocery store and shopping for a new lawn mower are all a part of life and they will have to come with you whether or not they think it's fun. Your children need to be put second often enough to know that when they leave your nest no one, absolutely no one will ever put them first again. They should know how to deal with that.

2. As so many people like to point out, parents are role models for their children. So when you have had a cranky child on your hip all morning and avoided getting in the shower in spite of the fact that you now have a slight odor because you know your child will cry if you leave him/her for five or ten minutes (which would make you a bad mother), ask yourself this: do you think it's important for your child to bathe? Will you be a proud mother if your son grows up believing that personal care is optional and never finds friends or partners willing to endure his crusty smile and general odor of stale bachelor? If the idea of this makes you cringe, then set a good example and take a damn shower. Your kid will survive a ten minute temper tantrum.

3. If you want an enduring loving relationship with your child then you need them to respect you. Which means you need to respect yourself and your own needs which occasionally must come before your child's. If you have met your child's basic needs, it is not a crime to do something just for yourself, even if you are on duty. Because as a parent, you will ALWAYS be on duty. If you are feeling tired and need a few minutes to remember that you have a happy place, you are entitled (as the boss of the house) to a little time for reading a chapter in a book, or enjoying a quiet cup of tea. Your child may not like it, but your child will not be scarred by it. In fact, you will be doing them a great favor. Sometimes your kid(s) should spend time amusing themselves. Enjoying activities that aren't kid related or shared with your kids does not make you a bad parent. It makes you a balanced parent.

4. Most normal parents love their children so much there is no way to express it in words. It's deep and it's primal. You would die for them if you had to. But the truth is that most normal kids will test you pretty much non-stop from the time they are cognizant until they leave your home for the wider world. Some more than others. It's important for their development that they test social boundaries and it is important for parents to provide limitations and boundaries. This can get ugly and you will probably, at some point, feel a rage rise up in your throat and your child will see your dark anger.

In some cases you will feel the urge to hit them, which you wouldn't actually do, but you linger on the thought and relish it for a second. Don't feel guilty. This doesn't mean you sold your soul to the devil while you were sleeping and ceased to love your children. Learning to deal with angry people is a life skill your kids will need. If they never see you angry, nor ever feel the slightest twinge of fear for the consequences of pushing boundaries too far, they will encounter it when they leave the safety of your home and could get themselves seriously hurt as a consequence. Give yourself a break.


Parenting will land you in a quagmire of difficult situations and scenarios. I hope this guide has been useful to you in avoiding needless suffering, or if you enjoy suffering I hope this guide has shown you new ways to nobly deprive yourself of joy. Either way, happy parenting to you all!



*4.5 is not included in the dictionary yet. Check back in a few years.