I don’t know what I’m more irritated about, the NY Post’s publication of what was at best a thinly veiled racist cartoon and at worst (and in my opinion) an overtly racist cartoon or their “apology” for said cartoon. In my book, an apology goes something like “I’m sorry. If I had to do it over again, I would do it differently. I never intended to offend you, but now I see that I did. Sometimes I’m ignorant and I am sincerely remorseful that my ignorance hurt your feelings. I now see the error of my ways and nothing like this will happen again. Please forgive me.” Something like that from the NY Post might have given me pause. Instead what I read is not an apology at all, but a defense of their decision to publish the cartoon in the first place. That does not qualify as an apology. What it does show is that they indeed do know, and did prior to publication know, that the cartoon is racist. Otherwise, no defense would be necessary.
For those of you who might have a hard time following my logic and who may feel compelled to educate me (via the comment section of this article) on political cartoons, let me proactively respond. Maybe you’re not from the South (maybe you are and you’re just in denial), but there is no way possible for someone from the South to view this cartoon and not see it as a racist comparison between a black President and a chimpanzee. It is a historically racist comparison that has been made over the history of this nation and it makes me sick. We can all pretend like those comparisons never happened, don’t continue to happen, or that we have moved past them. Wrong. It’s a lie. Racism is alive and thriving.
We’ve made great strides in this country regarding race. The historic election of President Obama has done much to move us forward. Unfortunately, there are those among us who are not intelligent enough to debate the legitimate differences concerning how our country should move forward during these difficult days. Unfortunately, those same people resort to behavior that is beneath us all. Yes, sometimes a cartoon is just a cartoon. However, in this case, sometimes a racist is just a racist.
Friday, 20 February 2009
Thursday, 12 February 2009
Mid-Life Crisis: Not So Much
I am not having a mid-life crisis. Really, I’m not. In spite of what I know has at least crossed the minds of those closest to me. It is not true.
I vividly remember the exact space and time coordinates I was occupying the very first time I heard someone refer to me as middle-aged. I was attending an early summer cocktail party in a friend’s backyard in Stepford. I was thirty-six years old, lightly tanned, and was wearing a denim sundress with white sandals. My hair, freshly colored, was twisted into a loose knot at the base of my neck, my bangs tucked neatly behind my left ear. After spending the afternoon in the pedicure chair, my toes were freshly painted metallic blue. My lips were sporting Philosophy’s latest flavor of lip gloss. I had been back at the gym for eight months, my younger child being two and a half, and was at a very good place regarding my body. I was about two-thirds into my second martini when the conversation turned to grey hair. And as tends to happen half way through martini number two, the filter between my brain and my tongue began to intermittently fail. I proceeded to make a comment that was overheard by a Stepford husband who was sitting about three feet away on the patio. (It’s possible I misjudged the volume of my voice. It happens.) My comment was something to the effect of, “I don’t really mind having to color my hair. But the grey pubic hair I discovered last week is over the top. Who knew that could happen?” And as will typically happen at Stepford cocktail parties, I received the appropriate outrage and sympathy to the plight of a greying pubic patch, but no admission from any of the other Stepford Wives that they had experienced such a ghastly event. (I suspected this had more to do with the prevalence of bikini waxes than me being the only person with the issue.)
After a couple of moments, I became aware that the husband sitting on the patio was not so subtly laughing to himself about our conversation. Not a very clever way, in my opinion, to join the conversation, but I had never in the past thought him clever so I was not surprised. I had always considered this particular husband a voyeur of sorts—you know the type—always lurking around the edges of a party for an opportunistic nugget of gossip, always turning up in the butler’s pantry at the same time as you saying something lame like, “Oh, excuse me ... tight fit in here.” Yeah, dude, something like that. So, I turn to him while finishing off the last third of my martini in one unladylike sip and say, “And what exactly is it that is so amusing to you over on the patio all by your lonesome?” My friends are silent, recognizing the cross hairs of my glare. Mr. Voyeur says, “Oh, I just love hearing middle-aged women talk when they are drinking.” Okay, the dude not only lacks cleverness but has apparently mistaken me for my mother. Not good. What followed was an informational session that I was not, nor would I be anytime soon, middle-aged.
At that, I flip-flopped my white sandals and sundress off across the lawn in search of martini number three. This was almost six years ago. Me? I’m still not middle-aged. Mr. Voyeur is now divorced (something about an Internet porn addiction that his wife found intolerable) and extremely active and repentant in his uber-conservative mega-church. I haven’t seen him at a cocktail party in quite sometime.
Which all brings me back to this ridiculous notion of middle age. What is that anyway? First of all, I plan to live until I’m one hundred and twenty, so if we’re being technical about it, I won’t be middle-aged until I’m sixty. An when I’m sixty what if I still feel, as I do now, as good as I did at twenty-five? And what if my mind, as it has so far, continues to become sharper with age? And why exactly does my newly uncovered voice have to be labeled as something as negative as a mid-life crisis? I’m not in crisis. I think the real mid-life crisis is when NOTHING different happens to you after acquiring all the knowledge that surely must be gleaned in every life by just the living of it. Would not it be a crisis to have lived, learned, and grieved over a period of forty plus years and have absolutely nothing to say about it? For sure, for me, it would be a tragedy.
So no, I’m not having a mid-life crisis. I don’t consider myself middle-aged. I refuse to label myself any longer. Yes, I am a wife, a mother, daughter, an employee, a friend, at times a bitch. But I am so much more and I can’t wait to tell you about it.
I vividly remember the exact space and time coordinates I was occupying the very first time I heard someone refer to me as middle-aged. I was attending an early summer cocktail party in a friend’s backyard in Stepford. I was thirty-six years old, lightly tanned, and was wearing a denim sundress with white sandals. My hair, freshly colored, was twisted into a loose knot at the base of my neck, my bangs tucked neatly behind my left ear. After spending the afternoon in the pedicure chair, my toes were freshly painted metallic blue. My lips were sporting Philosophy’s latest flavor of lip gloss. I had been back at the gym for eight months, my younger child being two and a half, and was at a very good place regarding my body. I was about two-thirds into my second martini when the conversation turned to grey hair. And as tends to happen half way through martini number two, the filter between my brain and my tongue began to intermittently fail. I proceeded to make a comment that was overheard by a Stepford husband who was sitting about three feet away on the patio. (It’s possible I misjudged the volume of my voice. It happens.) My comment was something to the effect of, “I don’t really mind having to color my hair. But the grey pubic hair I discovered last week is over the top. Who knew that could happen?” And as will typically happen at Stepford cocktail parties, I received the appropriate outrage and sympathy to the plight of a greying pubic patch, but no admission from any of the other Stepford Wives that they had experienced such a ghastly event. (I suspected this had more to do with the prevalence of bikini waxes than me being the only person with the issue.)
After a couple of moments, I became aware that the husband sitting on the patio was not so subtly laughing to himself about our conversation. Not a very clever way, in my opinion, to join the conversation, but I had never in the past thought him clever so I was not surprised. I had always considered this particular husband a voyeur of sorts—you know the type—always lurking around the edges of a party for an opportunistic nugget of gossip, always turning up in the butler’s pantry at the same time as you saying something lame like, “Oh, excuse me ... tight fit in here.” Yeah, dude, something like that. So, I turn to him while finishing off the last third of my martini in one unladylike sip and say, “And what exactly is it that is so amusing to you over on the patio all by your lonesome?” My friends are silent, recognizing the cross hairs of my glare. Mr. Voyeur says, “Oh, I just love hearing middle-aged women talk when they are drinking.” Okay, the dude not only lacks cleverness but has apparently mistaken me for my mother. Not good. What followed was an informational session that I was not, nor would I be anytime soon, middle-aged.
At that, I flip-flopped my white sandals and sundress off across the lawn in search of martini number three. This was almost six years ago. Me? I’m still not middle-aged. Mr. Voyeur is now divorced (something about an Internet porn addiction that his wife found intolerable) and extremely active and repentant in his uber-conservative mega-church. I haven’t seen him at a cocktail party in quite sometime.
Which all brings me back to this ridiculous notion of middle age. What is that anyway? First of all, I plan to live until I’m one hundred and twenty, so if we’re being technical about it, I won’t be middle-aged until I’m sixty. An when I’m sixty what if I still feel, as I do now, as good as I did at twenty-five? And what if my mind, as it has so far, continues to become sharper with age? And why exactly does my newly uncovered voice have to be labeled as something as negative as a mid-life crisis? I’m not in crisis. I think the real mid-life crisis is when NOTHING different happens to you after acquiring all the knowledge that surely must be gleaned in every life by just the living of it. Would not it be a crisis to have lived, learned, and grieved over a period of forty plus years and have absolutely nothing to say about it? For sure, for me, it would be a tragedy.
So no, I’m not having a mid-life crisis. I don’t consider myself middle-aged. I refuse to label myself any longer. Yes, I am a wife, a mother, daughter, an employee, a friend, at times a bitch. But I am so much more and I can’t wait to tell you about it.
Wednesday, 4 February 2009
Gun Control Stepford Style
Certain patterns are repeated over and over again in my life. Some of these patterns I create subconsciously and others, at least on the surface, appear to be random. One pattern is that similar things happen to me in threes. Most of the time, I don’t pick up on this until after event number three has occurred. However, this week I noticed immediately that two similar events had occurred in short order and I was bracing myself for the third. And it was a doozy.
In the months leading up to the election, the political climate in Stepford was, let’s just say, odd. There was an unusual blending of the Stepfordians and the Rednecks who live in the areas that surround the suburbs. There was a dawning disbelief, despite the Stepfordian and Redneck cult-like certainty that they were on the right side of history, that McCain may lose the election. The frenzy of anti-Obama emails, bumper stickers, and water-cooler talk was unlike anything I had ever witnessed. It was as if the Stepfordians and the Rednecks believed if they said Obama would lose enough times, they could make it come true. I kept imagining Dorothy repeating, “There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home.”
Imagine their disappointment on election night when their mantras and clicking of their symbolic ruby slippers did not produce the desired result. Many McCain/Palin signs remained in the front yards in Stepford well into December. It seems no one has gone to the trouble to remove their McCain/Palin bumper stickers. And the anti-Obama chatter? While most of it now goes on outside of my earshot, it is as vicious as ever.
It’s no secret I try my best to stay away from right-wing propaganda. No Fox News, no talk radio, and absolutely, positively, under no circumstance do I allow Ann Coulter or Rush Limbaugh into my head. However, I’m neither blind nor deaf, so I’m not completely successful at eliminating all sources of offensive material. Last Friday night on my commute back into Stepford was one of those times. Just as I was about to cross into the Stepford city limits, I pulled the Palinmobile to a stop at a red light behind a very nice and new Ford F-250. On the back glass of this truck was a bumper sticker that I had never seen before and I hope I never see again. My reaction was instantaneous irritation at the sticker and the driver. I understand completely—oh trust me, I really do understand—that in Texas I am surrounded on a daily basis by people who feel the way this driver does. However, the audacity and anger that would propel a person to put this sticker onto their truck for the entire world to see is beyond anything I can wrap my mind around.
The sticker was black with white lettering. It had two lines. The first line read “Obama, you want my gun?” At this point I’m thinking “Okay, seriously, you paranoid Redneck, I am very doubtful that the President of the United States cares what the hell you have tucked under your seat as long as you a) leave it there and b) have the proper permit.” The second line read “MAKE MY DAY.” WTF!? I’m thinking “OH, uh-uh ... Oh no you didn’t just make a not-so-veiled threat against the life of our new President.” I picked up my cell phone and shouted my outrage at my dad all the way home. Thank God for my father. He was appropriately outraged in return.
Saturday morning produced event number two. My family is currently ridding ourselves of our four ATVs and the ridiculously large trailer that is required if you want to ride said ATVs anywhere but our backyard. We have a small ATV that my eight-year-old daughter rides listed on Craigslist. Last Saturday morning my husband calls me into the office and says, “We have an offer on the small ATV.” I can tell by the way his goatee is slightly skewed that something is up. So I put my hands on my hips and say “What is it?” He says as monotone as he can muster, “They want to know if we would be willing to trade the small ATV for a 40 caliber handgun.” I stare. He waits. He knows this is not going to be good even though in a sadistic way, he will enjoy my reaction.
I take a deep breath and say “Let me see.” He rolled the chair back from the computer and there it was in black in white. “Would you being willing to make a trade for a very nice 40 caliber handgun?” I took a deep breath and said to my husband, “May I respond?” He quickly rolled the chair back to the computer and said, “I’ll tell him we want cash.” So I say, “No, you need to tell him yes. Tell him that your wife feels she has a moral obligation to remove his 40 caliber handgun from the double-wide where the child he wants our ATV for happens to lay his precious head at night.” He wouldn’t do it. It was probably a bad idea anyway. It’s been my experience that you shouldn’t really mess with Redneck handgun owners living in double-wides.
Which all brings us to event number three. Monday morning while driving to work, I’m talking to a friend who has approximately the same commute time as I do. It’s a ritual she and I share a few mornings a week. Our husbands are very close and get together with a few other Stepford husbands once a month for breakfast. The monthly breakfast happened to be two days prior to this conversation. The very same morning of the ATV/handgun email offer. Anyway, I’m relaying my story about the bumper sticker and ATV/handgun trade when she busts out with, “Well, what do you think about the boys getting their handgun permits?” I’m thinking “Boys? What boys? Even Texas wouldn’t let our eleven-year-old sons get handgun permits.” After a pause, I say “What?” She says, “The guys. They decided at breakfast Saturday morning that it would be fun to get their handgun permits.” I’m almost speechless. I manage another “What?” She says, “I guess he hasn’t mentioned that?” Ummmm. No. He hasn’t.
You know you’ve been living in Texas too long when … okay, okay, when any of the above happen to you.
In the months leading up to the election, the political climate in Stepford was, let’s just say, odd. There was an unusual blending of the Stepfordians and the Rednecks who live in the areas that surround the suburbs. There was a dawning disbelief, despite the Stepfordian and Redneck cult-like certainty that they were on the right side of history, that McCain may lose the election. The frenzy of anti-Obama emails, bumper stickers, and water-cooler talk was unlike anything I had ever witnessed. It was as if the Stepfordians and the Rednecks believed if they said Obama would lose enough times, they could make it come true. I kept imagining Dorothy repeating, “There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home.”
Imagine their disappointment on election night when their mantras and clicking of their symbolic ruby slippers did not produce the desired result. Many McCain/Palin signs remained in the front yards in Stepford well into December. It seems no one has gone to the trouble to remove their McCain/Palin bumper stickers. And the anti-Obama chatter? While most of it now goes on outside of my earshot, it is as vicious as ever.
It’s no secret I try my best to stay away from right-wing propaganda. No Fox News, no talk radio, and absolutely, positively, under no circumstance do I allow Ann Coulter or Rush Limbaugh into my head. However, I’m neither blind nor deaf, so I’m not completely successful at eliminating all sources of offensive material. Last Friday night on my commute back into Stepford was one of those times. Just as I was about to cross into the Stepford city limits, I pulled the Palinmobile to a stop at a red light behind a very nice and new Ford F-250. On the back glass of this truck was a bumper sticker that I had never seen before and I hope I never see again. My reaction was instantaneous irritation at the sticker and the driver. I understand completely—oh trust me, I really do understand—that in Texas I am surrounded on a daily basis by people who feel the way this driver does. However, the audacity and anger that would propel a person to put this sticker onto their truck for the entire world to see is beyond anything I can wrap my mind around.
The sticker was black with white lettering. It had two lines. The first line read “Obama, you want my gun?” At this point I’m thinking “Okay, seriously, you paranoid Redneck, I am very doubtful that the President of the United States cares what the hell you have tucked under your seat as long as you a) leave it there and b) have the proper permit.” The second line read “MAKE MY DAY.” WTF!? I’m thinking “OH, uh-uh ... Oh no you didn’t just make a not-so-veiled threat against the life of our new President.” I picked up my cell phone and shouted my outrage at my dad all the way home. Thank God for my father. He was appropriately outraged in return.
Saturday morning produced event number two. My family is currently ridding ourselves of our four ATVs and the ridiculously large trailer that is required if you want to ride said ATVs anywhere but our backyard. We have a small ATV that my eight-year-old daughter rides listed on Craigslist. Last Saturday morning my husband calls me into the office and says, “We have an offer on the small ATV.” I can tell by the way his goatee is slightly skewed that something is up. So I put my hands on my hips and say “What is it?” He says as monotone as he can muster, “They want to know if we would be willing to trade the small ATV for a 40 caliber handgun.” I stare. He waits. He knows this is not going to be good even though in a sadistic way, he will enjoy my reaction.
I take a deep breath and say “Let me see.” He rolled the chair back from the computer and there it was in black in white. “Would you being willing to make a trade for a very nice 40 caliber handgun?” I took a deep breath and said to my husband, “May I respond?” He quickly rolled the chair back to the computer and said, “I’ll tell him we want cash.” So I say, “No, you need to tell him yes. Tell him that your wife feels she has a moral obligation to remove his 40 caliber handgun from the double-wide where the child he wants our ATV for happens to lay his precious head at night.” He wouldn’t do it. It was probably a bad idea anyway. It’s been my experience that you shouldn’t really mess with Redneck handgun owners living in double-wides.
Which all brings us to event number three. Monday morning while driving to work, I’m talking to a friend who has approximately the same commute time as I do. It’s a ritual she and I share a few mornings a week. Our husbands are very close and get together with a few other Stepford husbands once a month for breakfast. The monthly breakfast happened to be two days prior to this conversation. The very same morning of the ATV/handgun email offer. Anyway, I’m relaying my story about the bumper sticker and ATV/handgun trade when she busts out with, “Well, what do you think about the boys getting their handgun permits?” I’m thinking “Boys? What boys? Even Texas wouldn’t let our eleven-year-old sons get handgun permits.” After a pause, I say “What?” She says, “The guys. They decided at breakfast Saturday morning that it would be fun to get their handgun permits.” I’m almost speechless. I manage another “What?” She says, “I guess he hasn’t mentioned that?” Ummmm. No. He hasn’t.
You know you’ve been living in Texas too long when … okay, okay, when any of the above happen to you.
Monday, 12 January 2009
What Tina Fey Can Teach Sarah Palin
I have found that one of the benefits of being over forty is that I do indeed know a few things. For instance, since turning forty almost two years ago I have finally figured out that if I am having a bad day, or two or three strung together, I just need to wait it out and chances are, I’ll feel better tomorrow or the next day.
Now, I realize this sounds obvious. I’m not talking about understanding this concept in general terms. I’m talking about understanding it in the middle of a really bad day. You know those days when both children exit the SUV with a pissed-off door slam? Those days you’re late for work and are so frazzled you accidentally shred an important document that you don’t possess in electronic form? Those days you think your work load is your biggest problem only to then receive a phone call from the school nurse that not one, but two, of your children are in her clinic puking? I’m talking about understanding and accepting this concept in the smack-dab middle of those kind of days. I’m not perfect with this yet, but I’m getting a whole lot better.
Which brings me to last week. Last week sucked. I really don’t know how to put any other label on it. It sucked. It sucked hard and it sucked long. After being off from school and work for almost two weeks, the kids and I had a really hard time getting back in our groove. Add to this my mother expressing her irritation over a ridiculously insignificant peanut butter sandwich and I was not at a good place. And then who, for the love of all things sacred, is back on my television? Yep. Sarah Palin.
Palin has recently given an interview to John Zeigler for his upcoming documentary entitled How Obama Got Elected. Apparently, Zeigler needs an entire documentary to understand how a widely appealing, gifted leader who ran an almost flawless campaign got elected President. I can see how this could be confusing to the Right Wing of the Republican Party after they got Bush elected twice, but seriously, with the state that the world is in right now, you need a documentary to understand the concept that we’ve realized we made a mistake with Bush?
Anyway, I digress. In the excerpts that I saw of the Zeigler interview, Palin quips that perhaps Katie Couric is not the center of the universe. Where I come from, we call that the pot calling the kettle black. Palin also takes credit for giving Tina Fey job security. What? Did I miss something? Was Fey unemployed prior to Palin’s arrival on the planet? No, I’m pretty sure Fey had already left SNL for 30 Rock before anyone in the lower forty-eight ever heard of Sarah Palin. Palin then proceeds to slam “anonymous internet bloggers” for all they have written about her. Now, I take personal offense at this. I am neither anonymous nor a blogger. I am a writer and I do so under my real name. Yes, I use the internet. I’m not sure why this is an issue for Palin. If I wrote for a newspaper or a magazine, she apparently would have zero chance of ever reading it. Oh yeah, right. She was just being “flippant” when she didn’t (couldn’t) answer the trick question about what newspapers or magazines she read to keep herself informed.
By Friday, I knew enough time had passed that surely things were about to look up. And then last night, right on schedule, bingo ... Tina Fey. Jaw dropped, I stood in the middle of my living room floor marveling at the brilliance of Fey’s acceptance speech at the Golden Globes. Fey called Palin out and dressed her down without ever using her name. And therein lies the lesson for Palin. You don’t have to be happy if your critics are loud and unyielding, but if you don’t want to be perceived as bitter, you have to learn to embrace it, laugh about it, and use it. Fey understand this and we’ll be hearing from her for a long time. Palin doesn’t and she’s looking like less and less of a player in 2012 every time she opens her mouth.
Now, I realize this sounds obvious. I’m not talking about understanding this concept in general terms. I’m talking about understanding it in the middle of a really bad day. You know those days when both children exit the SUV with a pissed-off door slam? Those days you’re late for work and are so frazzled you accidentally shred an important document that you don’t possess in electronic form? Those days you think your work load is your biggest problem only to then receive a phone call from the school nurse that not one, but two, of your children are in her clinic puking? I’m talking about understanding and accepting this concept in the smack-dab middle of those kind of days. I’m not perfect with this yet, but I’m getting a whole lot better.
Which brings me to last week. Last week sucked. I really don’t know how to put any other label on it. It sucked. It sucked hard and it sucked long. After being off from school and work for almost two weeks, the kids and I had a really hard time getting back in our groove. Add to this my mother expressing her irritation over a ridiculously insignificant peanut butter sandwich and I was not at a good place. And then who, for the love of all things sacred, is back on my television? Yep. Sarah Palin.
Palin has recently given an interview to John Zeigler for his upcoming documentary entitled How Obama Got Elected. Apparently, Zeigler needs an entire documentary to understand how a widely appealing, gifted leader who ran an almost flawless campaign got elected President. I can see how this could be confusing to the Right Wing of the Republican Party after they got Bush elected twice, but seriously, with the state that the world is in right now, you need a documentary to understand the concept that we’ve realized we made a mistake with Bush?
Anyway, I digress. In the excerpts that I saw of the Zeigler interview, Palin quips that perhaps Katie Couric is not the center of the universe. Where I come from, we call that the pot calling the kettle black. Palin also takes credit for giving Tina Fey job security. What? Did I miss something? Was Fey unemployed prior to Palin’s arrival on the planet? No, I’m pretty sure Fey had already left SNL for 30 Rock before anyone in the lower forty-eight ever heard of Sarah Palin. Palin then proceeds to slam “anonymous internet bloggers” for all they have written about her. Now, I take personal offense at this. I am neither anonymous nor a blogger. I am a writer and I do so under my real name. Yes, I use the internet. I’m not sure why this is an issue for Palin. If I wrote for a newspaper or a magazine, she apparently would have zero chance of ever reading it. Oh yeah, right. She was just being “flippant” when she didn’t (couldn’t) answer the trick question about what newspapers or magazines she read to keep herself informed.
By Friday, I knew enough time had passed that surely things were about to look up. And then last night, right on schedule, bingo ... Tina Fey. Jaw dropped, I stood in the middle of my living room floor marveling at the brilliance of Fey’s acceptance speech at the Golden Globes. Fey called Palin out and dressed her down without ever using her name. And therein lies the lesson for Palin. You don’t have to be happy if your critics are loud and unyielding, but if you don’t want to be perceived as bitter, you have to learn to embrace it, laugh about it, and use it. Fey understand this and we’ll be hearing from her for a long time. Palin doesn’t and she’s looking like less and less of a player in 2012 every time she opens her mouth.
Wednesday, 31 December 2008
The Write Question
What would you do if you knew you could not fail? I’ve heard this question before—at church, in an occasional motivational business seminar, on my Gmail quote of the day. I’ve never had an answer. I’ve never really understood the question.
I mean, I’m doing it ... my life, I mean. I’m doing my life. I’m doing what I’m supposed to do. I’m making the most of my business degree; I’m getting out of bed everyday and making sure my children are clothed, fed, and are dropped off and picked up on time. I’m checking their homework and making their lunches. I’m grocery shopping, taking care of the dry cleaning, balancing the checkbook, tithing, doing the laundry, shaving my legs, brushing my teeth, and coloring my hair. And then I do it the next day and the next day and the next. And most days I do more than not fail at these things. Most days, I do these things so well I don’t even have to think much about them. So it seems perfectly clear that I’m doing my life and I’m not failing at it.
But the question still nags. Why? Why does this question plague me so? I think because, for me, the question really should be what would I do if I knew I could succeed? Ahh, now we’re getting somewhere. The question is still not exactly right. Let’s tweak it a bit more. How about what would I do, that I’m not already doing, if I knew I could succeed? Okay, the question almost makes sense to me now. Let’s fine-tune it a tad bit more and see what happens. Let’s go with what would I love to do, that I’m not already doing, if I knew I could succeed? The answer: write.
I’ve almost always known the correct answers to the questions that my life has presented me. There has been one notable and very painful exception and it changed me forever. The circumstances surrounding the loss of my first son and the choices I made for him taught me more than I believe it to be possible to document in one lifetime. However, one of the most important lessons his loss taught me was about questions. I learned very delicately that if I am having difficulty answering a question, I am probably trying to answer the wrong question. And so it is with this question.
I have never been able to answer what I would do if I knew I could not fail, because I was doing exactly that at which I would not fail. I know this is a bit of mental u-turn, but stay with me. The distinction I’m trying to draw here is a critical one. The question my life is currently asking of me is what would I passionately, lovingly, surrender my life to if I would succeed beyond my wildest dreams. That question, I can answer, not because I have the right answer, but because it is the right question. The short answer is to write. The long answer with all the messy details of getting from point a to point b, I’ll figure out as I go. Sometimes the short answer is all you need in order to choose your path ... getting on the right path to begin with is the hard part.
Last week, the music blogger of the Dallas Observer made note of an article I wrote about my sister who plays flute in the rock band, The Polyphonic Spree. The blogger knows a lot about my sister, but had never known I existed until he read my article. In his blog from December 22, he described me by saying that I was a writer. A professional writer wrote in his widely read publication that I was a writer. And since that day more than a week ago, I’ve been trying to get the question right. Pete Freedman of the Dallas Observer had provided me with the answer. I just had to figure out what question went with the answer.
So in 2009, I will write. I will write on days I’m happy, days I’m not, and days I’m just generally irritated. I’ll write on days I can’t stop and on days it takes forever to get started. But now that I am a writer and have started down the writer’s path, the rest should be easy.
I mean, I’m doing it ... my life, I mean. I’m doing my life. I’m doing what I’m supposed to do. I’m making the most of my business degree; I’m getting out of bed everyday and making sure my children are clothed, fed, and are dropped off and picked up on time. I’m checking their homework and making their lunches. I’m grocery shopping, taking care of the dry cleaning, balancing the checkbook, tithing, doing the laundry, shaving my legs, brushing my teeth, and coloring my hair. And then I do it the next day and the next day and the next. And most days I do more than not fail at these things. Most days, I do these things so well I don’t even have to think much about them. So it seems perfectly clear that I’m doing my life and I’m not failing at it.
But the question still nags. Why? Why does this question plague me so? I think because, for me, the question really should be what would I do if I knew I could succeed? Ahh, now we’re getting somewhere. The question is still not exactly right. Let’s tweak it a bit more. How about what would I do, that I’m not already doing, if I knew I could succeed? Okay, the question almost makes sense to me now. Let’s fine-tune it a tad bit more and see what happens. Let’s go with what would I love to do, that I’m not already doing, if I knew I could succeed? The answer: write.
I’ve almost always known the correct answers to the questions that my life has presented me. There has been one notable and very painful exception and it changed me forever. The circumstances surrounding the loss of my first son and the choices I made for him taught me more than I believe it to be possible to document in one lifetime. However, one of the most important lessons his loss taught me was about questions. I learned very delicately that if I am having difficulty answering a question, I am probably trying to answer the wrong question. And so it is with this question.
I have never been able to answer what I would do if I knew I could not fail, because I was doing exactly that at which I would not fail. I know this is a bit of mental u-turn, but stay with me. The distinction I’m trying to draw here is a critical one. The question my life is currently asking of me is what would I passionately, lovingly, surrender my life to if I would succeed beyond my wildest dreams. That question, I can answer, not because I have the right answer, but because it is the right question. The short answer is to write. The long answer with all the messy details of getting from point a to point b, I’ll figure out as I go. Sometimes the short answer is all you need in order to choose your path ... getting on the right path to begin with is the hard part.
Last week, the music blogger of the Dallas Observer made note of an article I wrote about my sister who plays flute in the rock band, The Polyphonic Spree. The blogger knows a lot about my sister, but had never known I existed until he read my article. In his blog from December 22, he described me by saying that I was a writer. A professional writer wrote in his widely read publication that I was a writer. And since that day more than a week ago, I’ve been trying to get the question right. Pete Freedman of the Dallas Observer had provided me with the answer. I just had to figure out what question went with the answer.
So in 2009, I will write. I will write on days I’m happy, days I’m not, and days I’m just generally irritated. I’ll write on days I can’t stop and on days it takes forever to get started. But now that I am a writer and have started down the writer’s path, the rest should be easy.
Monday, 22 December 2008
TarGucci
Stepford has a new Target that is one half-mile and five minutes from my driveway. And it’s not a regular Target either, it’s a TarGucci. This is very, very bad for me because, well … my name is Kristi and I’m a Target addict. Say it with me now, “Hello, Kristi.”
I seriously believe I could survive shopping no where else but TarGucci. Starbucks, check. Sushi, check. Shoes and clothing, check. Lip gloss, hair color, dental floss, tampons, check, check, check, and check. I’m trying hard here to figure out what I could possibly need that is not contained within the walls of my drug of choice. Nope, nothing is coming to me.
So yesterday, my eight-year-old daughter (the Christmas Elf) and I went to TarGucci under the disguise of grocery shopping for Christmas dinner. What we were really there for was to buy me some cute t-shirts and sweat pants to wear during the holidays. It was freezing in Stepford yesterday. No, really it was way past freezing. It was 27 degrees when the Christmas Elf and I hit the store, neither of us wearing a proper coat. It’s very hard in Texas to get in the habit of dressing appropriately for cold weather because it comes and goes so quickly. Twenty-four hours earlier, it had been seventy-two degrees.
Teeth chattering, the Christmas Elf and I hit Starbucks first. Hot chocolate for her, grande hazelnut latte with two equals for me. I never said Stepford was all bad. Then off to find the hip Ts I had seen a fellow Stepford Wife sporting the day before. I was quickly able to locate what I needed and was only slowed down by the Christmas Elf’s unfortunate mishap with her hot chocolate. I didn’t see exactly what happened, but my impression was that she squeezed a bit too tightly on the cup, ejecting the lid, which startled her into dropping the entire cup on the floor. The hot chocolate exploded. It’s crazy how a small cup of liquid looks like gallons when its spread across TarGucci’s floor. We quickly moved to the Christmas Elf’s section to buy new tights.
And there in the girl’s section we hit a snag. On an end cap there was a display of little girl t-shirts. They were knock offs of the classic I Heart NY Ts. Except these didn’t say “I Love NY.” One said, “I Love Fashion.” Another, “I Love Candy.” However, the one the Christmas Elf set her little beating heart on said “I Love New Stuff.” She whipped a sized-medium off the rack and held it close to her body as if it were life itself.
I said, flatly, “Uh, no.”
I was thinking, “Hell no, over my dead body no, no f’ing way no.”
She said, “Why?”
I said, “Because, I don’t think it’s appropriate for you to walk around in a T-shirt that says you love new stuff.”
I get the irony here … I know, really I do, I know I was in TarGucci getting my fix of new stuff because I’m addicted to new stuff, because, well, I LOVE new stuff.
She said, “But Mom, it’s the truth. I really do love new stuff.”
Good Lord, not only am I two bricks short of being a fully-loaded Stepford Wife, but I’m looking down at one in training.
I said, taking a deep breath, “I know you do. I do too. But it’s kind of boastful and braggy to wear it written on a t-shirt.”
She said, “Because if someone couldn’t ever afford new stuff, my t-shirt might hurt their feelings?”
I said, “Yes, honey, something like that.”
So we left TarGucci with the “I Love Candy” t-shirt. Last night as I was tucking her into bed she said, “Mom, do you know what my favorite thing is about Christmas?” I said, “What?” And, once again, without knowing it, this beautiful child validated me as a mom by saying, “It’s not the presents. It’s my family. I love my family.”
And her family loves her, too.
I seriously believe I could survive shopping no where else but TarGucci. Starbucks, check. Sushi, check. Shoes and clothing, check. Lip gloss, hair color, dental floss, tampons, check, check, check, and check. I’m trying hard here to figure out what I could possibly need that is not contained within the walls of my drug of choice. Nope, nothing is coming to me.
So yesterday, my eight-year-old daughter (the Christmas Elf) and I went to TarGucci under the disguise of grocery shopping for Christmas dinner. What we were really there for was to buy me some cute t-shirts and sweat pants to wear during the holidays. It was freezing in Stepford yesterday. No, really it was way past freezing. It was 27 degrees when the Christmas Elf and I hit the store, neither of us wearing a proper coat. It’s very hard in Texas to get in the habit of dressing appropriately for cold weather because it comes and goes so quickly. Twenty-four hours earlier, it had been seventy-two degrees.
Teeth chattering, the Christmas Elf and I hit Starbucks first. Hot chocolate for her, grande hazelnut latte with two equals for me. I never said Stepford was all bad. Then off to find the hip Ts I had seen a fellow Stepford Wife sporting the day before. I was quickly able to locate what I needed and was only slowed down by the Christmas Elf’s unfortunate mishap with her hot chocolate. I didn’t see exactly what happened, but my impression was that she squeezed a bit too tightly on the cup, ejecting the lid, which startled her into dropping the entire cup on the floor. The hot chocolate exploded. It’s crazy how a small cup of liquid looks like gallons when its spread across TarGucci’s floor. We quickly moved to the Christmas Elf’s section to buy new tights.
And there in the girl’s section we hit a snag. On an end cap there was a display of little girl t-shirts. They were knock offs of the classic I Heart NY Ts. Except these didn’t say “I Love NY.” One said, “I Love Fashion.” Another, “I Love Candy.” However, the one the Christmas Elf set her little beating heart on said “I Love New Stuff.” She whipped a sized-medium off the rack and held it close to her body as if it were life itself.
I said, flatly, “Uh, no.”
I was thinking, “Hell no, over my dead body no, no f’ing way no.”
She said, “Why?”
I said, “Because, I don’t think it’s appropriate for you to walk around in a T-shirt that says you love new stuff.”
I get the irony here … I know, really I do, I know I was in TarGucci getting my fix of new stuff because I’m addicted to new stuff, because, well, I LOVE new stuff.
She said, “But Mom, it’s the truth. I really do love new stuff.”
Good Lord, not only am I two bricks short of being a fully-loaded Stepford Wife, but I’m looking down at one in training.
I said, taking a deep breath, “I know you do. I do too. But it’s kind of boastful and braggy to wear it written on a t-shirt.”
She said, “Because if someone couldn’t ever afford new stuff, my t-shirt might hurt their feelings?”
I said, “Yes, honey, something like that.”
So we left TarGucci with the “I Love Candy” t-shirt. Last night as I was tucking her into bed she said, “Mom, do you know what my favorite thing is about Christmas?” I said, “What?” And, once again, without knowing it, this beautiful child validated me as a mom by saying, “It’s not the presents. It’s my family. I love my family.”
And her family loves her, too.
Sunday, 14 December 2008
My Sister Rocks
My sister rocks. No, really she does. My sister plays flute in the rock band The Polyphonic Spree. People infinitely more qualified than me have tried, and in my infinitely unqualified opinion, have failed to describe The Polyphonic Spree with words. People who write words for money in publications that are widely read, like Rolling Stone for instance, have failed to capture the essence of this band. While music is my sister’s genre, words are mine. And words are inadequate to define or even adequately describe The Polyphonic Spree. Seeing this band live is an experience like none other that exists in my Stepford life. Last night I took my eight-year-old daughter to see The Polyphonic Spree’s annual Holiday Extravaganza. Last night was exactly what my soul has been craving.
I’m five and half years older than my sister and that’s older enough to remember her clearly as a toddler. From the moment my own daughter was a toddler, I began seeing my sister. There is a picture of my sister as a small child on The Polyphonic Spree’s Web site and the first time I clicked on it my breath was taken away. I have photos of my own daughter that would be hard to distinguish from the one on the Web site. My daughter’s personality is also much like I remember that of my sister’s personality as a child. Perfectionist, independent, passionate, and gifted. My sister’s gift is music. My daughter’s gift is soccer. The gifts are different. The commitment to them is the same.
My daughter loves music, I’m not sure she has a gift for it yet, but she certainly has an appreciation. So, yesterday she and I climbed into the Palinmobile, cruised out of Stepford and headed into the city. The concert was at Dallas’ renowned and beloved Granada Theater on lower Greenville Avenue. The minute we hit Greenville Avenue from the highway, I felt out of place. My SUV is entirely too large for this part of town. The narrow lanes carved into the skinny streets were not created with my vehicle in mind. The tight turns required to get into the parking lot behind the Granada necessitated me to take a few curbs along the way. Actually parking the behemoth that I drive inside a parking space in this lot was not physically possible. The gigantic truck tires protruded over the yellow lines on each side. Thankfully, a VW Beetle and a Honda Fit slid in neatly on each side.
Inside the theater, I fit in no better. I immediately wished I could trade my leather blazer for a crocheted sweater, my Talbot’s khaki’s for ripped jeans, and my Italian leather boots for vintage sneakers. The problem is I don’t actually own any of those things. At least I had only pulled my hair back into a messy ponytail rather than blowing it out and straightening it with the flat iron. I searched the crowd and was struck by what I did not see—I searched every shoulder for a Louis Vitton only to come up empty and I saw no evidence of silicone or botox. I saw no one who I perceived to be worried about his or her 401(k) or the looming financial crisis. I saw no Stepford Wives. I saw no one who looked as if they were trapped inside a gilded cage. I saw no mirrors.
The Polyphonic Spree began to play and I was swept up in the moment. My sister’s flute, playing delicately and at times roughly, the harp, the cello, the choir, the pied piper himself, Tim DeLaughter and my daughter on stage with the rest of the children singing Happy Christmas (War is Over) I was suddenly slipped back into my groove that I so often cannot find in Stepford. I felt as if I was in a room with the only happy people left in the world. I knew at this moment that I was not alone on a desert island that is the left wing of the Democratic party, but for a few hours was surrounded by those who would consider me a moderate. I was surrounded by those who get what I get and still believe in those crazy little concepts like hope, love, and peace. I was in a room with people who know they can make a difference—who are empowered not by money or the bars they have constructed into the cage that holds their lives, but are empowered by their beliefs and take their power from their truth. I don’t know a lot about music. I do know this … there is something very special about a band that can, through their music, welcome a Stepford Wife home in a room full of strangers.
My sister and I began our lives at much the same place. We took two separate roads. She followed her passion. I followed my head. She lives in the world of The Polyphonic Spree. I live in Stepford. My prayer this Christmas is that my children will follow my sister’s example and live their passions while carving a groove so deep for themselves they never lose it.
I’m five and half years older than my sister and that’s older enough to remember her clearly as a toddler. From the moment my own daughter was a toddler, I began seeing my sister. There is a picture of my sister as a small child on The Polyphonic Spree’s Web site and the first time I clicked on it my breath was taken away. I have photos of my own daughter that would be hard to distinguish from the one on the Web site. My daughter’s personality is also much like I remember that of my sister’s personality as a child. Perfectionist, independent, passionate, and gifted. My sister’s gift is music. My daughter’s gift is soccer. The gifts are different. The commitment to them is the same.
My daughter loves music, I’m not sure she has a gift for it yet, but she certainly has an appreciation. So, yesterday she and I climbed into the Palinmobile, cruised out of Stepford and headed into the city. The concert was at Dallas’ renowned and beloved Granada Theater on lower Greenville Avenue. The minute we hit Greenville Avenue from the highway, I felt out of place. My SUV is entirely too large for this part of town. The narrow lanes carved into the skinny streets were not created with my vehicle in mind. The tight turns required to get into the parking lot behind the Granada necessitated me to take a few curbs along the way. Actually parking the behemoth that I drive inside a parking space in this lot was not physically possible. The gigantic truck tires protruded over the yellow lines on each side. Thankfully, a VW Beetle and a Honda Fit slid in neatly on each side.
Inside the theater, I fit in no better. I immediately wished I could trade my leather blazer for a crocheted sweater, my Talbot’s khaki’s for ripped jeans, and my Italian leather boots for vintage sneakers. The problem is I don’t actually own any of those things. At least I had only pulled my hair back into a messy ponytail rather than blowing it out and straightening it with the flat iron. I searched the crowd and was struck by what I did not see—I searched every shoulder for a Louis Vitton only to come up empty and I saw no evidence of silicone or botox. I saw no one who I perceived to be worried about his or her 401(k) or the looming financial crisis. I saw no Stepford Wives. I saw no one who looked as if they were trapped inside a gilded cage. I saw no mirrors.
The Polyphonic Spree began to play and I was swept up in the moment. My sister’s flute, playing delicately and at times roughly, the harp, the cello, the choir, the pied piper himself, Tim DeLaughter and my daughter on stage with the rest of the children singing Happy Christmas (War is Over) I was suddenly slipped back into my groove that I so often cannot find in Stepford. I felt as if I was in a room with the only happy people left in the world. I knew at this moment that I was not alone on a desert island that is the left wing of the Democratic party, but for a few hours was surrounded by those who would consider me a moderate. I was surrounded by those who get what I get and still believe in those crazy little concepts like hope, love, and peace. I was in a room with people who know they can make a difference—who are empowered not by money or the bars they have constructed into the cage that holds their lives, but are empowered by their beliefs and take their power from their truth. I don’t know a lot about music. I do know this … there is something very special about a band that can, through their music, welcome a Stepford Wife home in a room full of strangers.
My sister and I began our lives at much the same place. We took two separate roads. She followed her passion. I followed my head. She lives in the world of The Polyphonic Spree. I live in Stepford. My prayer this Christmas is that my children will follow my sister’s example and live their passions while carving a groove so deep for themselves they never lose it.
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