Category Archives: Feels like home

Phone calls home

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I don’t think there is anything in this life I love more than talking to my son on the phone. (I realize that sounds cold, since it means I prefer distance to being in the room with those little eyes and lovely curls. But bear with me.)

His voice is positively adorable. I spend so much time with him that he feels quite old. But the phone does not lie—that voice belongs to a tiny person.

And I love his priorities. Ever single phone call begins this way before I even say hello.

P: I love you, Mommy!

Without fail he starts conversations with I Love You. There’s really no beating that. Plus, he always tells me two interesting things about his day and then says, “Bye Mommy, I love you. Good bye. Have fun. I love you. Good Bye.” And then he turns off the phone and moves on with his life.

*sigh*. I kind of didn’t want to come home.

It’s all about balance, I guess. Maybe.

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So first week of school for Peanut, predictably, meant first week of the worst freaking tantrums since the dawn of time. (Not seriously. He’s a low tantrum dude. But on *his* Richter scale, this weekend was off the f–ing charts.)

We had him screaming in the supermarket, knocking down boxes of Top Ramen. We had him running full tilt through the freezer aisle and opening every door, just before I caught him and flung him over my shoulder kicking and screaming to make a speedy exit. We had him whining and sobbing and yelling at us, really yelling, with every single Lego piece that did not obey the laws of physics and geometry on whatever planet this non-Euclidean, non-Newtonian kid lives on. We had a day, basically, of “I will help you when you can treat me respectfully, but I will not stay in the same room with that voice,” all day, both days. And we had him yelling at my sweet little 94-year-old grandmother, on my birthday, that she was not allowed to talk to me, only *he* can talk to me.

Clean up! Aisle Six! Some lady is sobbing about something or other, and her puddle of tears is activating the Top Ramen secret flavor packets.

I knew we’d pay dearly for the first week of preschool. I know it’s a lot of change and his world is upside down (shut up, Drs. Sears, he’s in a co-op where I’m there and everything is all child-directed, for a grand total of three hours a day thrice a week, so don’t tell me from upside down world until you’ve lived with a highly spirited intense opinionated way-too-smart kid for three and a half years, and then I’ll show you upside down world) so he needs an emotional outlet. But must *I* be the outlet? Holy Freaking Meltdown of the Social Order, Batman, we need a tranquilizer dart from Babies R Us.

Upside of the whole insane weekend of terror, though? My mom watched the new person formerly known as Peanut for an evening in which Spouse and I saw a real, actual film on a screen and had a real, actual meal at a quiet restaurant. As in feature film rated something I didn’t have to check because who cares? and menu without crayons.

More important, uproariously funny Clooney and MacGregor flick at which the rest of the audience politely tittered and I laughed so hard and so loudly that people glared at me. Dumbest movie I’ve seen in years and absolutely pants-wettingly funny. See it. The Men Who Stare at Goats. I think. I don’t care. The title’s not important. When you see it, email me about the “what are the quotes for?” line. And the sparkle eyes scene. It’ll make me wet more pants. And I only have, like, two pair that fit right now, so what a laundry honor that will be.

And even more important, we found a fabulous restaurant I’ve never tried, in whose menu I was very pleased, and with whose policy of offering wine by the bottle, glass, or 2 ounce taste I was thrilled. Because a “taste” of wine is totally under the radar of *every* hyper-vigilant American obstetrician I’ve ever met or read. No, not a sip, and not a glass. A technical, measured, duly noted on the receipt, “taste.” Spicy syrah. Lovely. From what I tasted.

Did I mention George Clooney and Ewan MacGregor? Nobody laughed but me. And you know how much i don’t care that other people on the planet are too dumb to get good jokes?

Today was not much easier with Peanut, but he slept a full nap and I had a huge pot of homemade chili at my elbow as I thought about and refused to the the 20 really pressing things on my to-do list. And instead started a new book that pleases me GREATLY.

And you know what? Volcanic bullshit from my kid on a day where I get a few hours with Spouse, and whiny exhausting understandable but unbearable nonsense from my kid on a day where I have freshly made chili and a new book is totally a good weekend. Because his bullshit is, as of today, no longer going to be my bullshit. It will be my atmosphere and my backdrop and my full time g.d. job, but I’m gonna do my best not to breathe it in and let it rattle me. Cuz, dammit, I have George Clooney and chili and twelve choices of bruschetta and Ewan MacGregor and a new book, y’all.

Ewan MacGregor.

Gee, I wonder where to live

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Our dilemma:
Median Home Cost Seattle $422,190 Berkeley$660,500

Why?
Precipitation Days Seattle 155 Berkeley 64
Sunny Days Seattle 152 Berkeley 256
Graduate Degrees Seattle 17.19% Berkeley 34.02%

Oh.

Source: Sperling’s Best Places, which is good clean time wasting fun for the geographically ambivalent.

Ode to early 90s lit crit and football

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Cup of hot tea, four piles of journal articles fanned around me, pocket full of tape flags, and this on a foggy October’s Sunday morning:

“A grunting, crunching ballet of repressed homoeroticism, football, Ms. Steeply, on my view. The exaggerated breadth of the shoulders, the masked eradication of facial personality, the emphasis on contact-vs.-avoidance-of-contact. The gains in terms of penetration and resistance. The tight pants that accentuate the gluteals and hamstrings and what look for all the world like codpieces. The gradual slow shift of venue to ‘artificial surface,’ ‘artificial turf.’ Don’t the pants; fronts look fitted with codpieces? And have a look at these men whacking each other’s asses after a play. It is like Swinburne sat down on his soul’s darkest night and designed an organized sport. And pay no attention to Orin’s defense of football as a ritualized substitute for armed conflict. Armed conflict is plenty ritualized on its own, and since we have real armed conflict (take a spin through Boston’s Roxbury and Mattapan districts some evening) there is no need or purpose for a substitute. Football is pure homophobically repressed nancy-ism, and do not let O. tell you different.”
–Infinite Jest p.1047

It’s like straight out of a pop culture and critical theory class in 1992, except they tended to deconstruct wrestling more often. Good, good times.
Happy American homoeroticism day, football fans.

The art of Kim Cogan

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Went to the opening at the Hespe Gallery tonight.

Wanna see something cool? Here’s the man himself in action.

Having a three year old at a gallery was stressful. But he was pretty dang awesome. And his friend, also three, was there. And his new friend, one, was there, too. And a few other people brought their kids, about which the gallery owner was beyond fabulous and sweet. So the only one mocked—universally—was the lady with the freaking dog. At a gallery. Hanging out near the snacks table, where the dog ate all the stuff off the floor. Even my kid wasn’t that bad.

And I’ll tell you, the overwhelming lovin’ that people on BART showed my sweet and well behaved kid allowed me to step outside my constant frustration and battle with him to just appreciate him. thoughtful, silly, smart, and adorable. Freaking adorable.

Great night. Thanks, Kim.

My favorite, if forced to choose, btw…

Nooooooo! Not John Hughes!

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Oh, come on. Really? Sad for his family, of course. He was a human being first, and for his family I am deeply sorry.

But he was an icon for millions of kids who came of age in the 80s. Gys, no person made me feel like less of an outcast; no writer made me feel sure I would find a place in the world; no artist made me feel more at home.

Oh, Mr. Hughes, thank you for your movies. Pretty in Pink, Breakfast Club, Some Kind of Wonderful, and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off were what made high school tolerable. Were what made me feel better about my awkward, painful, social outcast years. Are still what I turn to when I need to feel at home.

Oh, Mr. Hughes. I still quote your films. Almost daily. I still live in the hope that you’ll write a film about a totally lost, out of her element, thirty-something mom.

And now you won’t.

Ladies Night Out

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Saturday started out slowly…went to the wrong birthday party and wound up missing a friend’s son’s big day. Rescheduled a date with a sweet boy who was terrorized by a grouchy Peanut on our last outing. Ate dinner way too late and faced a major meltdown.

Then went out for a night of adult conversation after bedtime with a couple of new friends, and it was glorious. A pan of still-warm brownies, a game of cut-throat cards, and just general talking about topics big and small.

Then I got home, really late on a cold night, to a couple of soft lights, my flannel jammies laid out on the bed, a glass of water at the bedside, and a pre-warmed side of the bed. (Spouse slept on my side until he heard me come home, then he rolled over and let me bake in his 3,000 degrees.)

Lovely night, and even better than I don’t have to choose between friends and Spouse. Three cheers for a great Saturday!

What the h-e-double-hockey-sticks?

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I don’t understand it. I’ve been missing dozens of things lately, and I got them ALL today.

My dream day involves sleeping late, reading a book, practicing yoga, having a fabulous home cooked breakfast, going for a walk on a glorious day in the greater S.F. Bay Area, talking with friendly humans (young and old), eating a fabulous home cooked lunch, more reading, napping, more reading, another venture out of doors, a delightful dinner prepared by someone else, and a chance to put my feet up and write.

I got every single one of those things. No sitter, no bribes, no compromising major philosophies, no yelling, no wanting to knock myself into a coma just to get a break.

Plus, I got the part I never, never fantasized about but will now, every time: awaking from a nap with a small, perfect creature next to me, who then, upon waking and seeing me reading, thinks books are a good idea and (get this) reads to himself while I finish a chapter in my own enjoyable book.

Are you serious? Infinite summer, indeed.

*Oh, yeah, it was hotter than crap today and I felt sick most of the day and I feel badly that I didn’t clean or make the world a better place, but you wouldn’t know it from my already rosy memory of the day.

Seriously

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I’m not kidding. This is what I want to do.

Not the journalism part. The goatherding and cheesemaking part.

Seriously, seriously, seriously.

Maybe not Vermont. It’s cold there. Pretty. Cold. So’s New Hampster. But again, pretty. Collegiate. Cosmopolitan in fits and starts. Hmmmmmm.

As I posted last month, Peanut has already put in a request to be a cheesemaker. Our tour at the Pt. Reyes creamery is set for later this month.  After devouring their website and a wheel of Cowgirl Creamery’s  Mt. Tam brie, he is concerned that his brown shoes won’t fit when he’s big, and since he’s already picked them as his cheesemaking shoes, he’s in a quandry. Or was, for, like five minutes. Then he decided that if I would buy him red boots and a pink scooter when he’s big, that all his problems are solved.

Sure. And 75 acres of forested farmland, buddy.

Carved in Stone

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Saw the opening night performance of Carved in Stone in Hollywood last night and was amazed. I have a crush on every one of the five lead performers. Acting choices were strong, avoiding the obvious risk for overacting that arises when such characters get a new chance onstage. Staging was fine. Script by Jeffrey Hartgraves is great, and although I’d trim a line or two here and there, there are more that I want to write out and paste to my refrigerator. What a monumental effort by everyone, from producers to stage management.

It was beyond fabulous to see old friends. I can’t believe how long it has been, how sweet they are, and how rueful I feel that it took so long to see them. I love those guys.

And I am so amazed that all  three of them are following their dreams and working hard to make their art a reality. Two are just beyond impressive. One, of course, is pretending to be a rockstar dickhead, so I won’t feed his ego by saying anything except that it is quite an accomplishment to get all the cheese stains out of his clothes. That seems like a major achievement.

And only one thing would have made the night even better. As lovely as it was to catch up on old times with my date, and it was, it would have been unsurpassedly cool to be there with Spouse. Yet even without him, as Uncle Charlie says, I wanna do it  again. It was a great night out, raw food vegan cheesecake and all.

Hopes and dreams and cheese

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Peanut’s list, at three years and two months, of things he would like to be when he’s big, has not changed a whit since three years and one month. So I think this is really it. I’m looking into colleges. And since he wanted some that need college and some that don’t, and he unwittingly stumbled upon the perfectly balanced list (in his order, verbatim, except for the lack of k/g and r sounds):

Fire fighter
Nurse
Worker Who Drives Big Trucks
Astronaut
Farmer
Police Officer
Tea Maker (“at one hotel because people don’t have their teapots with them at hotel”)
Cheese Maker

I told him I would totally come visit every day at work if he were a cheese maker. And I would.  I also think that’s the best freaking job I’ve ever heard, and one of only six I haven’t tried.

Yet. ‘Cuz he needs to apprentice in the family cheesemaking business before going to some Continental cheese college on scholarship, right? Right. Gotta go get a sheep, goat, and cow. And we have to move to Pt. Reyes to learn from the Cowgirl Creamery folks.

Does Cowgirl Creamery offer an internship  for three year olds? Is there a cheesemaking  magnet school nearby? Formaggio Kitchen scholarship? CheeseBoard preschool?

Valliantly finding happiness

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Fascinating look in the Atlantic Monthly at George Valliant and The Grant Study, a 70+-year look at the lives of promising young men and what they’ve become. The data is being analysed, as seems fitting, as stories about these men and their lives. The results are remarkable.

One of my favorite quotes from Valliant in the podcast accompanying this article is about “the miserable process of getting from 25 and 35 when you’ve got all this health and all this your and you’re scared stiff that when it’s all said and done you’re not going to amount to a hill of beans…”  I’ve said before that 25 is hands down the worst year ever, in terms of existential angst, and I’m finding that mid-thirties ain’t much better. Now that he mentions it, the whole period had some bursts of “okay, I think I’m going to make it,” but it is a morass of angst and torment and existential malaise.

I hope to heaven the hill of beans can begin now…

highlights of my year

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You know why I love KBG? Because she is the best mom I know and makes it look absolutely effortless to find a loving balance. Not sure how she does it but I want to watch a lot.

You know why I love MPG? Because he’s so earnest and thoughtful and intense and silly all at the same time.

You know why I love KFRD? Because she’s always, always, always there, for the little stuff and the important stuff. Just shadow-like.

You know why I love HRH? Because when he’s good he’s very, very good, and when he’s bad he’s horrid.

You know why I love JDG? Because she’s way cooler than me but makes me feel that creativity, joy, and pie are all within my reach.

You know why I love KGT? Because some people just feel like home when you talk to them, and if they deign to talk back, it’s like sunshine. Talent and love and smart all poured into one phone call or email that feels like a gift but not the obligatory kind or the please reciprocate kind.

You know why I love CKi? Because aside from right place right time, she gave me more than I could ever ask of a friend: intelligent clarity built on a foundation of respect and trust. On our first date.

You know why I love CKb? Because she’s wild and funny and so intensely soulful she knocks me off my chair.

You know why I love LF? Straight up talent, y’all, with the real world proof that creatives can be good at business, and business can have a heart.

You know why I love SL? Because she is changin the world, minute by minute, hour by hour.

You know why I love BK? Because you don’t need to be that good and decent when it might cost you personally, but fear does not puck that man up. He just keeps smiling.

You know why I love CB? Because she has every reason to be in a bad mood but instead she creates her own happiness and trusts her friends; she gives to them unconditionally and they repay in kind. She’s just a good model for humanhood.

You know why I love NFK? Cuz I do. She’s all that and a bag of rich chocolately goodness.

You know why I love PJH? Because every time I pick up the phone I’m agitated and nervous, but if it’s his voice I instantly relax and smile.

And it’s only March.

Things I learned this week…

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Single pane windows suck. Mucho.

Starbucks is making a mint off single serving Horizon milk. Every kid who walks in that joint gets one.

Berkeley real estate is not climbing as fast as realtors say—they just list the price 30k below what it’s worth, and watch it sell for 50k over. May they all rot in a cell with Madoff and Abramoff. Anyone else now leery of all people suffixed -off?

The weeks where your little are brilliantly in sync with you, where life really is sunshine and blueberries through the rain and cold, are brilliant gifts.

There are far, far too many opportunities to be nasty and jaded during the holidays, when a gross number of people are blinded by selfishness and bitterness. Please go volunteer, and take a child to see the lights around town. You’ll be less likely to wrap yourself in your own world.

The USPS has a total racket going around the holidays, and three different post offices were useless to me in my quest to get seven large envelopes of Peanut artwork into the mail this weekend. Even their job-killing robot postal employees were out of patience and out of postage by Saturday morning. wtf?

Missing friends is hard. I don’t know how we did it before the Internet. (I do, really, because we wrote letters. And that was glorious. Must go do that.)

Even when CheeseBoard features mushrooms on their pizza, there’s none better.

One day off a week, where I go far away from PeanutWorld and into my own world is enormously restorative. Should’ve been doing this for the past 2 years.

It’s really, really, really nice to be home.

Happy Hannukah.

Blammos on DFW

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San Francisco band Blammos, during their 30 days of song and video this November, posted a lovely hommage to David Foster Wallace, the thrust of which reminds that, though our hearts are broken, the root cause of that is that DFW’s writing made us fall in love.

And ’tis a good thing to love, even if we must lose.

Blammos

or on youtube

or in quicktime

Thanks, ladies and gents, for the song and the silver lining perspective.