Iggy and Patti and Me

I imagine every adopted person out there has, at one time or another, worked up a romantic fantasy about their origin. I've had a few - my strongest and most persistent theory is that I was fathered by Iggy Pop. Don't laugh. You don't know what you'd come up with if you had to invent a fantasy bio-dad. This one occurred to me because a few years ago - must've been his birthday or something - I heard his age and decided that that was just about the right age to have sired me. I liked the idea of some little groupie fan (pre-Stooges, but only by a little bit) turning up pregnant in the days before Roe v Wade and carrying to term her (unrequited) love child, giving it - me - up because she knew she could never raise me properly alone. Or maybe just because the Rolling Stones were getting together around that time and following them would be a lot easier unencumbered by a kid. Who knows? Anyway. All fantasy and conjecture, of course. Don't want Mr. Pop coming after me for slander. Ah, you see that? He even has Pop right in his name. You can SEE how a girl's thoughts might turn...

I am in the process of reading Patti Smith's autobiographical Just Kids. Ms. Smith, by the way, is such a beautiful writer that I think a new word needs to be invented for what the rest of us do, because it's just not fair to use the same word to describe this and that. Her writing exists on a completely separate plane. But I've digressed. In the opening chapters she talks about giving a baby up for adoption when she was nineteen. Do you know what a sentence like that DOES to a person who was adopted in the 60's? I love my Poppa Iggy, but Patti Smith? And with the added legitimacy of her actually having given up a child in the same era? I went positively weak in the knees. I didn't even need to work up a fantasy, she'd written it all out - and in words that read like art. I nearly wept. It was all too much.

I looked it up. Come on. You would've, too. Her child was a boy and he was born in 1965. I'm, um, a girl, and I was born in 1962. It was fun for a second or two, though.

Good news, Iggy. You're back in.

Thanks for Bringing That Up, Chuck

Apparently I have a burning desire to write about puke. When my kids do papers for school, they are always told to write a vomit copy, first - you know - just whatever garbage spews out - then edit later. I experienced the vomit copy on literal and figurative levels this week. Well, not LITERAL literal - more like literary literal.

A few days ago I had a few spare moments to kill, so I pulled out my notebook and pen. The sentence that came out quickly - and completely unbidden - was this:

She wondered, but only for a moment, if she was doing the right thing before she closed her eyes and forced her finger down her throat.

I sat back and read what I'd written, my eyes widening. Where the hell had THAT come from? Why was she DOING that? Was she a burgeoning bulimic preparing for her first purge? Had she swallowed something potentially fatal? Was it purposeful or accidental? Yuck! I didn't care - I knew I didn't want to write about her. Yet my pen continued:

The pills came up with the first reflexive gag. She counted them - it was easy to do, there hadn't been much else in her stomach. One more gag followed quickly - a dry heave this time. She rested her head on the toilet seat for a moment to make sure it had passed. She rinsed her mouth out with a handful of water from the sink and scrutinized her face in the mirror. She looked okay. Considering. She dabbed at the corners of her mouth with a hand towel, anyway. She shook her hair out and smiled broadly at the mirror. It didn't - she assured herself - look as hollow as it felt.

Well, hells bells. I do not like this story one bit. I do not want to be writing these things about this girl. I do not want to know what drove her to this or what followed. I actively hate this storyline. Get out of my head, silly girl. Get out before I give you a name and then feel obliged to deal with you and your farked up issues. (Characters are a bit like pets in that regard) I closed the notebook and occupied myself in other ways for the rest of the afternoon.

When I picked it up the next day, I swear to you my friends, this is what came out:

Her eyes widened and her hand instinctively went to her mouth as she raced for the restroom; barely making it there before she emptied the meager contents of her stomach into the toilet bowl. This had been the third time this morning. Perhaps it was time to pee on that stick.

More puking? For reals? And pee thrown in as a bonus. Lovely. Now I'm a little more comfortable writing about a pregnancy, but she's clearly been avoiding confirmation on this one. Is she young? Is she single? Has she had an affair? Why - aside from the fact that we meet her while she's actively ralphing - is she not excited? I don't want to know. And I DON'T want to write about barf.

I mean it.

I abandon the notebook for a little while longer, but it always calls me back. This time it called in a masculine voice. Good. At least he won't be pregnant. Time to break this cycle. Pen to paper and:

His rusty pickup careened wildly as he pulled it over, more or less, to the side of the road. He opened the driver's side door and hung his head out,his right hand grasping the steering wheel for support. He spewed so violently that it scattered the fine gravel and remnants splashed up onto his work boots.

Are you fucking kidding me??? More puke?

So seriously - you who are better versed in psychology and/or symbolism than I - what the HELL? I need to - if you'll pardon the pun - purge myself of whatever demon this is before I write again, or my next short story may read a lot like the pie eating contest in Stand By Me. And while I admire Mr. King greatly, that's really not the scene I'd most like to emulate.

Oh - and if you can't help me slay the barfmonster, then at least let me know if you'd like to hear more of any of these stories. I think they're in me. One way or another, I may have to let one or more of them out.

Workin' for a Livin'

I've been thinking about work lately. I am doing a job for which I am ridiculously overqualified. Lest that sound like bragging, let me tell you that the educational requirement for my job is a high school diploma and I am almost (but not quite) an ABD. I am not unhappy in this job - not in the least. As a matter of fact, so far I rather like it. But I wonder about all that money and time that was put into an education that I am not utilizing at all. What did it give me, besides an inflated ego/sense of self importance? When I was applying for work, of the fifty or so places I contacted, only three called me for an interview. Two of those I thought I was infinitely - perhaps even uniquely - qualified for. The third was this one. While both of the others showed a strong interest, they ultimately found someone else who they felt was better suited for the position. I'm not all I crack myself up to be. I need to find a way to be comfortable in this new role, and I'm sure I will. It's just - humbling.

This afternoon Tom and I watched World's Greatest Dad. I literally cringed in the opening scenes where they showed the stack of Robin Williams' character's rejected manuscripts while he fantasized about "earning shitloads of money" for writing a book that mattered - that changed people's lives. Literally cringed. Doesn't everyone want to write The Great American Novel? Isn't that the universal dream?

I suppose it's the dream for those of us who write, or read, or have a love affair of one sort or another going on with the written word. For others perhaps the dream is to be a rockstar or a professional/Olympic level athlete or an actor or... few of us fantasize about waiting tables or washing dishes or parking cars or wiping the noses of other people's kids. Some people have cleaning ladies and nannies and drivers; some people are cleaning ladies and nannies and drivers.

I was at the ballet Friday night (yes, even working class schlubs who live in shitty neighborhoods and don't make enough money to keep gas in the car can go to the ballet if they play their cards right) and I was astounded, as I always am, by the sheer strength and power the dancers possess. I imagine as infants our bodies might have resembled each others, but through years of training they have morphed theirs into something quite different and spectacular. These are folks who are - and have been from a very young age - completely dedicated to their art. I wondered - to devote yourself to something so completely surely you must love it very much. But would that same love exist without the promise of the standing ovation at the end of the show?

We are a family devoted to music. I recalled a day several years ago when one of Tom's co-workers gave him tickets to a major soccer game. We took the kids, wanting to expose them to athletic events as well as musical and artistic events. It was a hot day. It was the sort of hot where you really want a cold beer, but the 100 yard walk to the concession stand is just too oppressive a proposition. So of course, Olivia, who was quite young at the time, decided it would be a good day to be bored and tired and need to lay on my lap. I was miserable, but if her whining was to be believed, she was a lot more miserable. At halftime, a band played (Bowling for Soup, if you must know. And yes, I AM still preoccupied with 19-19-1985). Miss Olivia sat up, paid attention and clapped enthusiastically after each song. When asked why she was suddenly no longer DYING from the heat, she responded, "They're working very hard to entertain us. We need to pay attention." When I told her that the soccer players were also working very hard to entertain us, her whole demeanor changed. She sat up, watched the rest of the game, and clapped when everyone else did, even though she didn't understand a daggone thing. She understood entertainment.

During the first half of the game she thought they were playing. During the second she understood that they were working.

Not an artistic person myself, I got to wondering - when exactly DOES it stop being play and start being work? Or is it always some combination of the two? If there were no money or fans, would they do it for love?

I don't know.

I write because I love to. I know, despite the ever so kind comments a few of you have made, that I am AT BEST quite mediocre. I know this. I understand this. I will never make a dime, much less a living doing this. Yet my body of work continues to grow. Or should I call it a body of play? Without recognition, is it even real?

I'm a glorified babysitter. I've waded out far too deep. Me and Edie Brickell. Time to head back to the shallow end - and we all know why it's warmer there.

Portable Magic

I haven't been posting as often over the last couple months, but it isn't because I haven't been writing - au contraire, I've been writing up a storm. About a month or so ago I started up a splinter blog because it wasn't the sort of writing that I generally do here on Mommakin. I'm using it as a forum for my creative impulses, such as they are.

I have it set up right now with a serialized memoir on Mondays, a serialization of a story I wrote over the summer for the girls on Wednesdays, and a series of stand alone fictional short stories on Fridays. Today there's a little something special posted, but I'll let you scoot over there to see what it is.

The name of the blog is Portable Magic, which is taken from a Steven King quote: Books are a uniquely portable magic.

I've been working on a few other endeavors as well, but I'll reveal them in their time. Till then - pay me a visit at Portable Magic and let me know what you think!

Sunrise, Sunset (or, When the Apple Outgrows the Tree)

I know I've done nothing but bitch about the cold weather and the snow and the winter and ohmygodblahblahblahblahblah - but I have to say there is one thing I will miss when it's gone for good: sunrises and sunsets behind the leafless trees. They really have been quite spectacular. I'll trade 'em for warmer weather in a heartbeat, though, don't get me wrong. Just sayin'.

This morning as I was taking Liv to school and we were watching a pretty fabulous sunrise, I mentioned something about how pretty the contrast of the stark leafless trees set off by the vibrant burning sun was. She said, "Oh! That reminds me!" and proceeded to tell me a story about school and Science class. The teacher was talking them through a compare and contrast between plant cells and animal cells. She wanted them to think like scientists. My Liv says to me, she says, "But I can't really think like a scientist. I think like a writer. My teacher thought I was taking notes - and I kind of was, because I was paying attention to what she was saying and stuff, but I wrote in my notebook: Book Idea."

She went on to share her idea with me, but I'm not going to share it with you because it was KILLER good and I hope she writes it up. I am seriously jealous of my twelve year old's book idea. There are probably a lot of things about that that are wrong.

A Thought Provoking Post of Staggering Insight

So I'm reading this book. And I'm not loving it. I'm almost done, but am still toying with the idea of abandonment. I started working out my 'Goodreads' review:

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius is neither. Perhaps it's my age, but I just don't find anything entertaining about listening to a twenty-something expound upon the virtues and vices of the lint in his own bellybutton ad infinitum. While I do understand that the title is meant to be tongue in cheek, the whole work felt - to me - completely self-indulgent and

And then I stopped. And I deleted my review. Because it occurred to me that that's exactly what I do on my blog. Holy shit, I'm doing it RIGHT NOW!!! How could I condemn him for doing EXACTLY what I do? As a matter of fact - if I had found this author on a blog rather than at Barnes & Noble, I would probably adore him. He's a good writer. I like his style. It's - it's very similar to MY style - what's not to like? (See? I can be tongue in cheek, too. It's not so hard.) He's self-deprecating and low-key funny and he sometimes takes a meta approach. I should be singing his praises instead of deriding him for his indulgences.

So why am I not?

I wonder if it's because I DID find his heartbreaking work at Barnes & Noble instead of online - complete with a badge proclaiming it to be a Pulitzer Prize Finalist and a #1 National Bestseller? Surely the good folks at Pulitzer know a little more about genius - staggering or otherwise - than I do. Someone read his writing and said, 'We'd like to publish this.' And then other someones read it and said, 'We'd like to honor this.' And then lots of someones bought it and - whether they liked it or not - they made it into a bestseller. How does this HAPPEN?!? Is it because he doesn't overcapitalize or triple punctuate?!? It IS, isn't it?!?

I had the same reaction at the end of Julie and Julia. Tom looked at me and said, "That was cute," and I just shook my head - how did that HAPPEN? How did her blog turn into a book deal? How did her blog even become so successful? She didn't spend hours every day promoting it or visiting other blogs begging for hits or joining blogging communities [or, I suppose, to be fair, if she DID we didn't SEE it... (Crap. An ellipsis and double parenthesis. No wonder I can't catch my break... Shit. Another ellipsis. Somebody stop me... I am dot dot dotting my way right out of being discovered...)]

Jealousy ain't pretty, is it?

I'm going to finish reading my book. I'll try looking at the rest of it without my Emerald City Glasses, even though it is the month for the wearin' o' the green. Wearin' green and being green are two very different things. And we all know which one isn't easy.

Same Time Next Year

When I was a freshman in college, I subscribed to Cosmopolitan. It made sense. I was, after all, a small town girl who had traveled almost forty-five minutes to attend a state university in a rural area. If that doesn't scream 'cosmopolitan' I guess I don't know what does. Yep, I was a Cosmo Girl, all right. And not just because I slept with a lot of foreign exchange students. That's not really true. I didn't sleep with a lot of foreign exchange students till my first year of grad school - a year my roommate and I fondly referred to as 'Around the World in Eighty Lays'. That might not really be true, either. But it might. I don't know. There was a lot of tequila involved in my first year of grad school. But I've digressed.

Cosmopolitan. Ahem.

So I enjoyed my subscription for a year - learning how to please a man and new sex positions and recipes for seduction and stuff - stuff that would come in handy when I went to grad school. When my subscription came to an end, I renewed it. I figured there was probably a lot more to learn. I figured wrong. I found that the second year was very much just a rehash of the first. Same resolutions, same Valentine's Day secrets, same getting into bikini shape for summer... same, same same.

Tom had a subscription to Men's Health when I met him. That's right. When I met him, he was well on his way to rock hard abs and was privy to many secret ways to please a woman in the bedroom. Men's Health. Plus he had that helpful monthly reminder to 'Eat This, Not That' .

As I grew up and my interests shifted, I subscribed to many more publications and experienced very much the same phenomenon. Fun for a year - good ideas for a year - slight variations on the same ideas for the next year. I will still subscribe to a magazine when one comes along that looks interesting for whatever stage of my life I happen to be in, but I rarely - no - never extend them longer than a year.

I chalked it up to lazy journalism.

Until I passed the year mark on serious blogging. I find myself not only returning to the same seasonal themes, but sometimes even coming up with the same phrases I used a year ago and feeling like they're original thoughts until I read through the archives. Archives sounds stupid and a little pretentious. Past issues?

It's hard to avoid. Hard like Taylor Lautner's abs. Not that I've looked.

I promise that I shall endeavor to come up with fresh thoughts and ideas. When that fails, I might introduce a new feature: 'Drink This, Not That' - a monthly feature on which spirits will get you where you want to go and how fast. Perhaps throw in an article on how drinking till you puke can contribute to rock hard abs. Helpful phrases for seducing exchange students. I don't know. Stuff like that.

Blogging About Blogging is Like Thinking About Thinking. But With An Audience.

My friend Melissa B. - better known as The Scholastic Scribe - contacted me yesterday to ask if I'd answer a few questions about blogging. I sure didn't feel like I had any advice to offer, but I participated anyway. Check it out, if you're not already visiting The Scribe, which you probably are - but if you're not, you should be!

The timing was good, as I've been rethinking my whole approach lately. I started blogging in March of 2008. For the first full year, my readers consisted of my husband and a small handful of close friends. Many of my posts had 0 comments. The most comments I received was 4 or 5 - and usually 2 of those were me, answering back. I wrote when I had something to say. There was no schedule, no rhyme or reason, just 'lil ole me, blogging it out.

Then two things happened in quick succession. I joined SITS and I imported my blog to Facebook. Suddenly there were people reading what I had to say. Reading and RESPONDING to it! Soon I developed some bloggy friendships. My writing style changed a little, I think, once I knew there was an audience. It became more conversational. I liked it. My little blog was now no longer just a slightly more public journal, it was a social system. It didn't take long for it to become a lifeline.

At this point I became inundated with 'awards', memes, tags, prompts - you name it. I wanted to play by the rules and the rules seemed to include these things. I'd be a lying liar pants who lies if I didn't say it was fun at first. I joined in all the reindeer games. But it wasn't me. I didn't know how to get out of it once I was in it. I toyed with the notion of bagging the whole thing and starting a new blog, where I could just write.

But I wasn't sure I could live without the followers and the comments once I'd had a taste. Could I really go back to writing just for me?

Then the giveaway folks started contacting me. Holy man! Free stuff just for giving it a mention on my 'lil ole blog? Count me in! And I did it. And it was fun. But it wasn't me.

Then some stuff started happening in my life that I wasn't comfortable blogging about. Yes, even I, the naked blogger, have some limits. I checked out for a while. No dramatic good bye post - just stopped writing and stopped visiting. It was only a week or two. Followers dropped off immediately. And I realized I could live with that... Then I wrote a post (or two, or three - who's counting?) because - just like in the beginning - I had something to say. But I was still dealing with life-issues and I was still hiding under the dark heavy blanket of SAD. So I wrote, but I didn't visit. More followers dropped off. And I realized I could live with that.

I don't make New Year's resolutions, but I did use the new page on the new calendar as an excuse to do some thinking about the 'lil ole blog. I'm going to write when I feel like writing. I'm going to visit when I feel like visiting. I'm going to comment when I feel like commenting. Whatever I feel like I wanna do, gosh!



So that's where I am. I hope I don't lose more followers, but if I do, I've learned, I can live with it. My 'lil ole blog never set out to set the world on fire. I don't have any aspirations to rule the blogosphere. I am what I am; it is what it is.

Thanks for sticking with me.

Mad Pimpin'

Today I have a couple things I want to pimp. I know you'll indulge me, too, because I do it so rarely rarely rarely. And because you know I'd never steer you wrong.

First: A week or so ago The Badass Geek asked if I would be willing to contribute to a new project he's got going on. I checked it out and decided that I did indeed want in. In addition to his wildly entertaining main blog (which, if you're not reading, you certainly should be!), he has started another project called Fiction 500. Fiction 500 is a place for anyone to post a short fictional piece. But there's a catch. Short means 500 words or less. In his own words:

Telling a story in just 500 words forces the writer to get to the point and decide what the most important things to say are, and what parts of the story can be left up to the reader to come up with on their own.

I think this project is so exciting and have contributed a few stories already. (I've got a couple more that I'm working on...) Staying within the 500 word parameter has been challenging, sometimes frustrating, and always fun. I strongly encourage you to give it a shot. What have you got to lose? You don't even need to post under your real name!

So do me a personal favor and check it out. Commenting on my stories wouldn't break my heart, either. And if you are currently writing fiction or have ever toyed with the idea of writing fiction, this is a great place to test the waters.

Second thing I want to pimp is the giveaway Mama-face has going on over at Blog Ignoramus. (Another blog which, if you're not already reading, you really really should be! Mama-face is as real as it gets and I am a huge fan of the real...) She is giving away a set of handmade greeting cards that are simply gaw-geous! (And you know I love you, because passing this information along to you decreases my odds of winning just a little bit...)

What's that you say? Oh, you're most welcome, I'm sure.