Orange Blossoms

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Is it possible to hate someone who isn’t even a part of your life? 

Have you ever had something, seemingly insignificant, happen to you, only to discover years and years later - too many years- that it wasn’t insignificant at all? In fact, maybe it changed you in an irreparable way?

It feels like that.

I feel like that.

On bad days.


I want to wear a beautiful evening gown and stare out into the Pacific. 

I want to tell all the positive-”life is so good”-fair-weather friends to go fuck themselves.

I want more time. 

More time.


It’s rambling to so many, and perfect sense to little few.

I say I am taking it one nap at a time. So, false because it has nothing to do with the bad part of my life with them and everything to do with a map inside my head that leads across the earth and back again. Back again. Always leading straight back to them and a little yellow house.


They allow me to find joy in a time when everything else is a pillow over my screaming head.


I remember a time when Hamlet made perfect sense. Now, I can’t find the passage. I read over and over again. Nothing is there. No line belongs to me. 


I am public because I CAN. It’s the only thing that can’t be changed. I don’t expect many to understand. But if you do, Thank you.

Over the years, I've had many, many book ideas. Fun ones, like "Recipes I Stole From My Mother-In-Law" (She's an amazing chef!). Sad ones like "How To Be A Friend" (Doesn't anyone know anymore???) Useful books too such as "Marriage - You Don't Know Shit". And Lastly, the book I no doubt have to write will be titled something along the lines of "Don't Do This - Tips on Life from an Experienced Idiot"
It will be a very large book.

I saw this movie today. Well, the end of a movie, about an artist who had a "bitter rivalry" with Picaso. It was one of those movies that brings up a strange, but familiar sort of panic in me. I am not doing enough. I am unknown. What legacy am I leaving behind? You know how it is with me. I wanted to leave my mark. Used to be very important to me.


My husband complains that his creativity is stifled at his current job as an Art Director. I lay awake at night when I desperately need sleep, thinking of all the art installations I might do, the books I really should write, the films I need to make. And I have yet to finish a scrapbook of my daughter's 1st year of life.


I'm not resentful, so please don't start that "It'll pass" cheer. I am, however, feeling quite reflective. More aware of where I've been. Where I haven't been. 


Some people are full of questions. They don't have meaning. They, perhaps, don't believe in God, or know what they are good at doing or wonder where they should live. They don't understand themselves. But, and I say this with all due respect, I am not one of those people. I was. But now, well, a lot of time has passed. A lot of things have happened. I learned. And I have answers now that I did not have before.


For example, I know how I like my eggs. This may not seem important, but it is. I once wrote:


"I never even knew myself

How did I like my eggs

I just danced around in pretty dresses 

and let you fill my plate"


It was about my dating life, my married life at one point. I just sort of faded into these men I loved. Lost track of me. I no longer do that. I'm comfortable in my own skin even if I'm not often comfortable in other places.



Yes, I have answers. I know where I want to live, how I want to live and who I want in my life. I know when to say No. No to many Facebook Applications! No to council meetings! No to expensive restaurants! No to credit card offers and a third appointment on the weekend! No to difficult friends. No to the 4th drink.


I'm good at that.




What I lack is time. Which some might say goes back to knowing when to say No. Time. I am 37 years old and there s not enough time left. That is the one thing I know that I am not content knowing.




I have books to write, several countries to experience and more than a few scrapbooks to finish. I have every reason to panic.


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I had a baby. My 2nd baby, a boy. And then my life crapped out right along with his crazy diapers those first six weeks. My friend Stephanie told me before we got pregnant again, “You don’t want two kids. You think you do, but you don’t.” And now I know what she was trying to say. Oh, go ahead and call me a bad mommy. This will not phase me at all. 


What Steph meant, and there was no way to explain, was that being a good mom to one kid is very hard. Being a good mom to two kids is effing impossible. I have learned in these last 4 1/2 months that it’s not managing the logistics of potty training, snacks or changing diapers that causes grey hair. It’s not even the college fund or the sleepless nights. It’s the guilt. The enormous guilt that you can never give your children as much attention as you feel they deserve. 


You will never be funny enough, laugh enough, praise enough, teach enough, cook enough nutritious and simultaneously delicious meals. With one child, you kick yourself. With two children, you die a little every time you turn on Playhouse Disney or admit to yourself that you’d rather scrape your eyelids with a dull razor than play People House one more time. And when your friends and family remark how smart your kids are, you pray to God they are right and that their vocabulary does not escalate beyond your control. Because, if you are like me, your standards for yourself as a parent are even higher than they are your hopes for yourself as a human being. With one kid, you are set up for failure. With two kids - or God help you - more, you are set up to fail on the grandest scale imaginable.

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I am afraid to babble to my son too much. Afraid that he will think this is real communication. He’s 5 months old and I am using quite a bit of energy each day trying to sound as sane as possible while getting so little sleep. Can he get cancer from my inhaling my perfume? Is my daughter’s preference for frilly dresses a sign that I have told her she is beautiful too many times? Will she grow up shallow? Are those cookies organic? Does this hand gel contain parabens? Exactly what causes cancer, dammit!


In my previous life as a sultry, snotty single woman (as I like to think) my only fear was that I wouldn’t find someone that I would make me feel comfortable enough to fart in his presence. All the rest was just minor -bills, lack of health insurance, crappy food -whatever. Now, I have a list of fears that could wrap around China - all involving the protection of my precious offspring. If my mother worried half this much, I owe her one hell of an apology. How did that woman sleep nights knowing I had the kind of personality I did? It’s a wonder she ever let me leave the house.

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It’s funny, you know. If you are a parent and you are reading this, you might think I am going to offer some solution or at least post a link to the Canadian pharmacy where you can buy Ritalin. Believe me, if I had that kind of info, I wouldn’t be writing this. I don’t have a solution for this angst. Worse, I hear it NEVER ends. Even when they are 30-something and have kids of their own. But I can tell you this: 

You are not alone. And if you ever need to stop by my house on the way to pick up your wee one from preschool or in between doctor visits, I’m here. I have a box of tissue and your choice of adult beverages. But just one, okay. Like I need my kids seeing drunk parents in my living room more than once a week! Probably give ‘em cancer.



Stay At Home Dad

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Why

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This is one of the main reasons I voted for Barack Obama. I am so happy that this couple will be representing me and my family in the the White House.
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5 More Friends

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mccain.jpegLast night I had a dream about John McCain. I don't usually dream about politicians, least of all, politicians that I don't particularly like. But after watching an interview with him on CNN and reading an unflattering interview in Time, I guess I set myself up for this.

Anyway, here's how it went.












I was a reporter for a small, insignificant newspaper. (No big surprise there) and I won an opportunity to sit in on a major interview with McCain. Afterwards, I would be allowed to ask a few questions myself. I arrived at McCain's house in the suburbs where every house was new and looked identical except for landscaping. I seriously doubt McCain has a house like this, but in my dream he and his wife had moved there to make themselves look more "normal" to the American voters. 

The man let me in himself and as we were walking to the dining room he stopped in the family room to show me a "couch" that he and his wife were planning to get rid of. His daughter, he said, had told him the couch had to go. It was made of very soft red leather and dark wood trim, queen anne style - Not my taste at all. In fact, as I looked at the couch I thought of drag queens and the movie Marie Antoinette. He asked if I liked it. "It's really interesting", I smiled, trying to be nice but honest. "Would you like it? I mean, if you want it, I could have it delivered to you." We had just met and he was offering me a gift, an expensive gift at that. I got the feeling this gift came with his hope that I would write about him in a flattering way, regardless of how the interview went. I didn't know what to say except, "Well, if it helps, I read your interview with Time last night and I feel some sympathy for you."  "It's a start", he says.

The next scene of my dream, McCain is finished with his interview with the big-time reporter and he turns to me and says, "You have 10 minutes." He doesn't look happy at all, so I quickly spout off "Why should I vote for you? Why do you want to be MY president?"  Suddenly his face turns really sad and he says, " I don't want to be President." Only he says this in such a way that it's as if I, of all people, should know this and he disappointed that I don't.



...for the anxiety of pregnant women. 

I'm not sure how I have managed to escape writing about this pregnancy on my blog. I'm trying not to feel guilty about already not giving the 2nd kid as much press as the 1st, but all that is about to change.

As easy as my pregnancy is compared to so many other women out there, I feel obliged to admit that I am not the baby making machine that I *might* appear to be. Being pregnant, overall, isn't bad, but it's not something that I wake up marveling about. Perhaps I should, come to think of it, but really, I just wake up thinking morbid thoughts like, "Are you still there, little guy?" and "Will my water break now?" Frankly, I've lived the last nine months in disbelief that this is working, that I am growing a healthy baby boy in there and that he will join our family without any trouble.  This is what happens to your mind when you have had a past miscarriage.

I'm writing about this because in the last two years I have run into countless, and I do mean "too many for me to count" women who have become pregnant, only to have the fetus / baby die before it's born. As a matter of fact, I hardly know any women my age who haven't experienced a miscarriage. It's been a shocking thing, to hear these stories and to understand that this happens more than I ever imagined. 

Couple that with the information, or lack of information on why this happens and it can leave a woman feeling very vulnerable and scared at a time when she should feel excited and happy. In layman's terms - It sucks. 

I've thought about this kind of tragedy a lot in the last two years. Why are some babies born and some aren't? Is it nature taking care of things or are we doing something that is causing more miscarriages than ever? Is there something we can do to stop it? How do we morn those babies that don't live? What do you say to someone when they have a miscarriage? 
Knowing that "it happens a lot" doesn't really make a difference when it happens to you. But when you do conceive and carry to term a healthy baby, it does drill one thing into your head: LUCK. This very unlucky woman feels lucky in the midst of her worry. Damn lucky.

So that's how this particular journey started out. Happy and terrified - that was us for the 1st 35 weeks. At that point, we kind of eased up a bit, knowing that we were past the most scary part. It was then that we began to get practical, wondering if the kid will have enough socks to wear and a place to sleep. Frankly, it makes the actual labor and birth look like an evening well spent. Cuts down considerably on the worry about the physical pain.

One week left until the official due date. We have a dresser full of clothes, diapering necessities and many, many pairs of socks. We even have a name picked out. Though, if you know me, you won't be expecting to hear that name until after the birth. That's the way we do it. We keep the crazy bits to ourselves until it's legal and no one can do anything about it. (Marriage, pregnancy, names - you know the drill) 

Meanwhile, we did take more photos. I'd love to share the perfectly posed images with you to print, but that's not how how photographer earns her money. This will have to do.

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