Bitchfest

Photo by KevinT3141 via Creative Commons

I walked the tightrope for 24 hours, balanced between two undesirable outcomes: the sharp rocks of grief and despair on one side and a bubbling lava pit of anger and frustration on the other.

“We haven’t heard from (insert name of family member) in five days,” my mother said to me over the phone.

Family Member, or FM, left his home state on a Wednesday. His trip included a brief stopover in a state somewhere halfway between Point A and Point B. Between Wednesday and Monday, I called FM and left a voice mail message.

That I hadn’t heard from him didn’t give me pause. He can be like that. Plans are always lightly written in pencil.

But my mother thought something was wrong.

“It’s not like FM to be so silent on the road,” she said. “FM usually keeps in touch if there are delays.” I took her word for it. I heard the concern in the spaces between her words. I felt the tightness in her voice become a tightness in my throat.

I considered the situation: A person traveling alone across the country doesn’t show up on his arrival date. No one who has called FM has been able to reach him. Voice messages have not been returned.  I discussed these concerns with my husband and a close friend. What to do? We are not talking about a teenager or even a young adult. This is a middle-aged man who’s been trekking around the continent alone for decades. This is a person who has a history of disappearing and living off the grid on occasion.

I also considered two recent deaths of people we know who were about the same age. The most recent case involved a single man who lived alone. Through circumstances we may never know, he somehow became entangled in live electrical lines that had fallen in his back yard. The crazy part? He was an electrician. He would have known better than to pick up a live wire. Or, maybe because he was an expert he was overconfident. Either way, these tragedies played through my mind as I considered FM’s lifestyle.

Even veteran solo travelers and outdoorsmen and women run into serious trouble. To ignore our concerns meant precious time would be lost if something had happened.

Suddenly this thing took on a life of its own. Other family members and friends became involved. Two relatives made a drive to the family cottage to see if he was there. Calls were made to the state police and to his hometown police department. The more calls we made and received, the more this thing felt like a situation.

I walked the tightrope. Were we inviting trouble by flirting with its possibilities?

• He’s fine. This is typical behavior. My mother worries so much about FM. I needed to ease her fears. Taking action felt empowering.
• He’s an inconsiderate jerk, self-absorbed, probably met some hot young thing at a campground and has lost all sense of time and propriety.
• He’s dead in a ravine.
• He’s been robbed and beaten by roving criminals.
• He’s at home watching movies.

I started thinking about the last time we saw each other, our parting words, if we were kind to each other.

The next day, as I worked my way across the taut line, sending dark thoughts to the background and focusing on the day ahead,  my cell phone buzzed.

“He’s OK,” my mother announced.

The outcome? FM’s phone service was spotty to nonexistent during his travels. Oh, and he decided to stay a few extra days at his stopping point. By his calculations he is only one day late. He is upset and embarrassed that we called the police. He thinks we overreacted, created drama.

Maybe. We had the best of intentions.

As for us, the worry warts? We are on FM’s shit list right now.  Likewise, FM is on our list, too. We think what he did was totally insensitive. One phone call could have prevented all of this. I know it’s tough to find a phone if you don’t have a cell service. But, it can be done. You ask. You offer to pay for the call. You get a roll of quarters and pump them into a pay phone.

In 24 hours I cycled from the brink of grief to a frustration so profound I had to disconnect myself from the remainder of FM’s visit.

How in this life do we balance caring enough about others to make sure they’re OK with respecting personal space and independence?

It’s a thin line.

Voice mail. Text messaging. They are not new. Both are designed to speed up the process of communication. You can call your best friend Lucy in Tulsa. If she doesn’t answer, you can leave her a message after the beep.

“Lucy, girl, it’s MomZombie.  Please call me when you emerge from your comatose slumber. I have a great idea for this weekend.”

If you are super-efficient, you can also text good ol’ Lucy to further clarify why you are calling.

The ball is now in Lucy’s court. She knows I called and texted. She knows why.

This is not a message: ”Hi. It’s me. Call.”

So, I call you back. You don’t answer. You call back. I don’t answer.

Phone tag.

Won’t somebody just say what the hell is the point of this volley?

Lately I’m getting barraged with phone calls and texts that only reveal to me you have a short fuse but do not tell me why you are trying to reach me.

WHERE R U?

PICK UP THE PHONE!!!!!

WHAT IS WRONG W/ YOU??????

Or,

“Hi, it’s me. Why won’t you answer your phone? What is wrong with you? This is getting really annoying that you do this.You need to answer your phone.”

Where is it written that just because I am “reachable” everywhere I must respond immediately? I think there is a reasonable window of opportunity for acknowledging and responding to phone and text messages. Not everyone agrees with me on this one.

I think I am entitled to let the call go to voice mail when:

I am in the shower.

When I am in the bathroom doing bathroomy things.

When I am sleeping or relaxing.

When I am engaged in some type of one-on-one activity with another person who would be greatly disturbed by the answering of a phone or the reply of a text.

Is this not the POINT of the aforementioned messaging systems?

Rather than send 200 texts and redial my number another 250 times yelling and ranting about how I’m not answering my phone why not tell me why you are calling and what you need.  How about:

“I’m done with my appointment. You can pick me up now.”

“There’s a big insect-y thing on my wall and I need you to come over and smash it for me.”

“Please bring home a loaf of wheat bread.”

Wasn’t that easy? One call, one text and the whole idea travels like magic dust from sender to receiver.

Now, if only I could figure out how to comment on Blogger blogs.

Photo by Dan Storey 15 via Creative Commons

I’ve been table hopping book clubs for a while now, seeking the right fit, a good mix, and  readers of a similar stripe.

I’ve joined short-lived book clubs and tried to get into book clubs that apparently cannot spare an extra chair. My last two club meetings were clear examples of a square peg not fitting into the round roles.

‘Are you in my mother’s garden club?’

Since last fall, the young librarians at our up-and-coming library  have been hosting book parties: book club meetings in a trendy local bar. The experimental gatherings were wildly popular, attracting a wide array of readers. I felt right at home going alone to the first few meetings. Not so much last time, when I found myself sitting in a busy bar at an empty table keeping watch over a flock of “reserved for book party” placards. This was after I went to every busy table asking, “Book club? Excuse me, is this the book club?” and getting shoulder shrugs and quizzical looks in reply.

Moments before I gave up the table, the placards and I were joined by a raucous group of fresh-faced and firm-butted 20-somethings. Easily I had 20 years on them. I told myself, “Oh, so what?” and ordered a giant glass of white wine.

While I won’t say the evening was a disaster — I actually had some nice conversations with them based on my asking a litany of questions about their lives — I found it excruciatingly difficult to discuss the featured book. It was written by a 20-something about 20-somethings.  On more than one occasion, they referred to the book’s narrator as a “liberal douche” and a “fatalist fuckwad.” I am not an educator. Maybe teachers would know how to handle this scenario a little better. I am also not a U.N. ambassador, so the diplomacy thing started to wear thin after the first 30 minutes. Finally, I resigned myself to being outnumbered.

While the group had me beat in the education credentials department, (All had or were finishing graduate  degrees, which they admitted were keeping them busy until they could find work in this downturned economy.) I had them beat with life miles logged. Not that I could get any of them to recognize or respect that. While I was willing to listen to their literary analyses of the book, their listing of  the author’s fatal flaws and amateur writing errors,  I felt like their mother when I attempted to break down some possible themes of the book based on life experience.  In other words: Someday when you are in your 40s, you will look back at all the self-involved shit of your 20s and see it through a different lens.

It was like I was sitting face-to-face with my own insufferable 25-year-old self: perpetual college student, angsty literary freak wrapped in layers of  irony and cynicism.

Eventually I realized they were just smashed.  I finished my wine and excused myself.

They may have been smirking at me just a little.

‘Did you go to school with my granddaughter?’

My community center book club experience wasn’t much better. In this case, I was easily 30 years younger than all the participants. While in the former case, all the attendees cradled iPhones and Blackberries in their palms to text each other from across the table,  the ones at this gathering were all about their manila folders of news clippings and mimeographs of book lists dating back to the Reagan administration. Conversation about the book of the month followed a very formal road until it ran out of gas. Then those in attendance slipped into what must be their usual banter: an update of ailments, hospital visit recaps, and their hatred and distrust of the Internet and computers.  While the hipsters barely waved bye to me when I left, I felt the tips of this group’s claws piercing my skin. They wanted phone numbers. They handed me several mimeographed sheets with margin notes written in pencil. They looked forward to me joining their ranks. They needed new blood, they said.

In both book groups I felt a  generational disconnect and a distinct imbalance in the reader demographic. To the older folks I was this young whippersnapper who didn’t a Viceroy from a victory garden.  To the hipsters, I was their mom.

More often than not, I’ve found myself in the equivalent of sitting in the wrong lecture hall in college and too afraid to get up and walk out.

The older I get, the more I feel my brain is like an old sponge. It still has the power to absorb but some of the content is questionable.

This post, by the way, has been rotting in my drafts folder since May.  At one time it was a fresh writing prompt  offered by the lovely San Diego Momma.

Photo by Sakeeb via Creative Commons

It’s hot around here. Not only do we have the heat, but also we have the humidity. I hate humidity.

Oh, sure, the curly-haired people love the humidity. It makes their hair all fluffy and fabulous. The baldies bask in it. But me? Not so much. Humidity for me means limp, frizzy hair, excessive sweating, sticky floors, tacky-feeling furniture, damp bedding and moldy bathrooms.
Humidity makes me mean.
As a child I used to fantasize that I could peel off my skin and go dancing in my bones.
While all you winter haters bitch and moan when the arctic winds howl and the mercury dips low in the bulb, I’m dancing the happy dance. You can layer clothing in the cold, people. You can turn up the furnace, build a fire, sip tea or hot cocoa. When it gets this hot, there are only so many layers to peel. Iced drinks last maybe five minutes. Forget ice cream. It’s liquified before you can finish the first scoop.   Degree Clinical Protection Anti-Perspirant and hair clips are my best friends right now.

We do not have central air-conditioning. We have window units. They work really well if you grab them in a love embrace.

Heat and humidity make me lazy. I’ve spent the last week sitting on the couch making out with the air conditioner. When I get up, after the head-rush dissipates, I accomplish maybe 25 percent of any given task before retreating to the couch again to cool off. Don’t even ask about cooking in the kitchen.

My girls do not sleep well in this heat. Both of them awaken cranky and sweaty, complaining that the AC isn’t cold enough, that the ceiling fans are only blowing hot air around.
Today I jumped from the chilled shadows of the coffee shop to the cool canyons of the public library, avoiding my house until the sun began its slide toward the horizon. In between stops, I laid on the AC vents in my car and guzzled bottled water. I’m trying to avoid feeling guilty. So much awaits at home: mildewy laundry, a virtually empty refrigerator, a yard of mulch at the foot of our driveway, a weedy garden, and a pile of paperwork big enough to scare away a tax accountant. It will all have to wait for a cold front to pass through this area.

Meanwhile, I’m still trying to figure out how to bare my bones.

Warning: This post is not funny.

If you want funny, watch Bossy’s latest theatrical production.

This post borders on whiney. If you want something moving and sad and funny all at the same time, read this (maybe) swan song post by Bejewell.

If you must wallow in misery, well, come on in then.

—

So how was your Memorial Day weekend — the unofficial starting gun of summer?

While most people celebrated by hosting or attending barbecues, going to outdoor festivals or heading away to a lakefront cottage or a camping spot in the woods, we stayed home.

I could say it’s because we have so much yard work to do, it takes an entire holiday weekend and then some to get it going for the season. That would be true.  But it wouldn’t be the whole truth.

I could talk about how Girl from the East and I made a commitment  to march in our city’s Memorial Day parade, but that wouldn’t paint the whole picture, either.  I could go on about how Girl from the West spent the majority of the weekend sequestered in the basement office finishing her semester-long project, how this could not have been accomplished in a deep-woods cabin without electricity.

The missing pieces, the untold chapter in part is realizing it may be another season of restraint. See,  we are not out of the woods yet. We are not out of the hole, not by a long shot. School is over today for one child and soon will be for the other. Volunteer commitments are grinding to a slow churn for the season. Summer programs, sports and activities are not in the budget at all.

We had a big road trip planned but that is now on hold.

Things were supposed to be better this year. In small ways, they are. In bigger ways that involve dreams and fantasies and wish lists, it’s very much like last year.  We’ve had a good run of it these last few months, almost enough to pretend like everything is OK. But underneath the denial is the truth: Eighteen months ago the bottom dropped out and we free fell to the basement. We survived the fall with deep cuts. We’ve gotten this far because we say to ourselves: This is temporary; this is not our lives.

I watched the “Hoarders” marathon on A&E yesterday afternoon because a band of storms blew through the area and ended my weekend of yard work. The takeaway: after while these people get so used to their reality  they no longer realize it’s offensive to outsiders. Their extreme dysfunction becomes normal.

Now I’m not saying my life is any of those things, but it made me think: You get used to something and  before you know it IT IS YOUR LIFE. You realize you are responsible for some of the mess you are in. Maybe you are responsible for the whole damned mess. Maybe you didn’t manage your money wisely. Maybe you took some miscalculated risks with your career. And then you say: Is this the life I want? If not, can I make it OK for me? Are there aspects to this that I can view in a positive way?

I realize everyone has something big that knocks them down and from this they must learn to stand again. For some it’s the dissolution of a marriage, a devastating illness, or an early unexpected death of a loved one. For others, like us, it’s job loss and a long road to financial recovery.

I’m trying to remain positive that Girl from the West will find a part-time job to pay for some of the things she wants and to save for a car. I’m trying to remain strong that I can get through another year before Girl from the East is in school full-time and I can seek something realistic in the employment front that doesn’t require 40 hours of daycare. I’m holding out hope that the economy  will lighten up here so we both can be fully employed and rise up a few more rungs toward the light.

—

Sorry, were you expecting something about a cookout?

Photo by Fran Ulloa via Creative Commons

After her dramatic entry into this world, I held my firstborn in my arms and felt her weight free of my body for the first time. This separation was the first step in a long walk toward total independence. As I inhaled her scent, ran my fingers across her velvet skin, and gazed at her scrunched-up little face, I asked: Who are you?  Who will you be some day? I sensed her individuality emerging even in those tender moments. She was her own person. Who she’d be someday was already determined by genetics. I was only there to provide food, clothing and shelter and to discourage her from choosing serial killer as a career.

While it took a number of years for her self to be fully realized, back then it was a far-off concept. Back then, she was pink and chubby. She cooed and gurgled and curled into me when I held her. Back then I thought we had an unbreakable bond. As I reveled in the reflexive squeeze of her tiny fist around my finger, I fantasized about a future with us lunching together, dancing barefoot in the rain and sharing secrets.

Never in those baby-powder scented days could I have imagined a person who’d recoil from my touch, who’d stuff ear buds in her ears to drown out my conversational chatter, who’d slam a door in my face before I could finish a sentence or who’d pull the plug so swiftly and surely on all lines of communication to render me unworthy.

I thought it would be different between us. I was going to be a different mother. She was going to be a different daughter.

I thought if I did exactly the opposite of what my mother did, those things that ripped a hole in our compatibility, that the opposite would result.

I thought wrong.

Maybe there is nothing anyone can do to prevent this inevitable phase. I have no idea how to parent my teenaged daughter. No clue. It’s gotten to the point where I dread the days she is at my house. Not because I don’t love her. I do with a fierce passion. I dread those days because they result in a tsunami of emotions that overwhelm the entire household. No matter how Zen I try to be with her, to just experience the frustration and ride with it, to avoid throwing fuel on the fire, to be the adult, the bigger person, it always ends up the same: one or both of us shouting or in tears. It always ends with me venting to my husband or one of my friends or the Internet.

Further complicating matters, she lives with me four days out of the week. So, the remaining days, she’s getting an entirely different message, living within an entirely different dynamic. It’s like a looping weather pattern, as our family travels in and out of the eye of the hurricane. Calm for a few days, and then an emotional onslaught so debilitating at times I question my strength to get through the day. And she’s a good kid, really. She’s not into drugs or drinking. She’s a solid student. I cannot fathom what I’d do if I had a juvenile delinquent on my hands.

I’ve been at the gym a lot lately. Sweating away my frustrations on the cardio equipment and weight machines. I’ve been meditating like a maniac, hoping the calm achieved might give me some added mileage.

I’ve been searching online for tickets to South America.

No. Not really.

Some of it is normal teen angst, I’m sure.

Some of it is the particular suckiness that is parenting through joint custody.

Some of it is a middle-aged mother who realizes her oldest child is a mental gymnast. She is very much her father’s daughter: He is the master of debate, the fan of forensics, worshipper at the altar of logic. I hate conflict and endless debate. They live and breathe it. This personality clash led to the dissolution of my first marriage. What, then, do I do about a mother-daughter relationship built on the same shaky foundation?

I’m waving the white flag of resignation: I don’t know how to do this.

I don’t have answers. I welcome heartfelt suggestions.

I leave you with this link to a smart piece I heard on PRI’s “This American Life.” Listen to Act III: family dysfunction has a long and colorful history.

Photo by MZ

Isn’t this a pretty picture?

I took it last week at Cranbrook, a little slice of heaven tucked away in a suburb of Detroit. You know Detroit, subject of network TV documentaries about things like industrial wastelands and economic war zones and cities of heartbreak and hope? The Cranbrook campus, which features a prestigious private school, science and art museums, and 40 acres of woods, fields and garden paths along a small lake and several streams, isn’t part of Detroit city proper. But Detroit is more than what is contained within its city limits. It is a sprawling region made up of a decaying center city as well as its myriad suburbs spread out along the Detroit River, adjacent Lake St. Clair ,and stretching north and west toward countless inland lakes, rivers and streams.

There are trees and parks and boulevards and other interesting things within Detroit city limits. But you won’t see them on a network TV show. What you get is what’s now being billed as “ruin porn.” You get images of despair and decay because that’s what people in California and New York and Florida and Texas think is Detroit. Why clear anything up for anyone outside of the “flyover zone?”

Photo by MZ

Look at this picture.

This is how Dateline NBC depicted Detroit in its Sunday feature. It’s not as warm and fuzzy as the first. The bare branches suggest death, decay and abandonment. I took this picture minutes before the image of the flowering tree at  Cranbrook gardens. This gnarled old-timer crouches over a lake within 1,000 feet of the happy pink lady.  Same place. Two different views.

See how easy it is in any given situation to play up the good or focus entirely on the bad? What’s apparently too difficult to do is to craft a report that shows the many layers of a complicated situation. It’s easier to show the same tired images of our abandoned train station, the bums in the gutter, the wayward youth, the noble poor woman feeding, clothing and housing  three babies on $200 a week, and, of course,  the crazy guy shooting and barbecuing raccoons in his yard.

I was disappointed that Dateline didn’t showcase a wider view of our region and include some images of Detroit’s many preserved neighborhoods and cultural treasures, of the many movers and shakers who work tirelessly to establish smart and innovative programs to reinvent this “city of heartbreak and hope.”

I’m not going to sugar coat things here. The reports themselves are not wrong. We have crime. We have corruption. We have massive urban decay. We have poverty and illiteracy and many other woes. We are the epicenter of the economic collapse. But, the Detroit area is so much more than the gnarled, half-dead tree and the crazy coon man.  There are still a few pink ladies twirling out in the open yet they remain invisible to the national media.

Here are a few responses to that show if you’d like to hear the rest of the story:

The mayor of Detroit responds.

Reaction by a former journalist who was interviewed for the story.

A Web site with some beautiful images of Detroit that you’ll never see on a network show about Detroit.

This is what happens when you decide to save money on a decorator and do it yourself.

First, you try to update your existing blog template and end up taking out a load-bearing wall. Oops.

Next, you decide to pack up and move to an apartment while the repairs are under way.

At the walk-through, you fall in love with scenic view, the simplicity of the layout,  and the freedom and flexibility to upgrade and redecorate. So, in a moment of passion, you sign the lease.

On the big day, you slide the key into the lock, turn the knob and step into your new home and — it’s all wrong.

Somehow the great view was a trick. The mountain vista is really a pile of trash covered in moss.  None of the outlets or appliances work. The doors stick. The landlord won’t return your calls.

You’ve invested money in custom paint, rugs and window treatments.

So, you have a dilemma: Don’t unpack, cut your losses and keep looking for a new home, or make the best of it, hire a professional to fix the problems.

I’ll be deciding in the next week whether to stay or go. Bear with me here.

On a related note, there is also some trouble with the phone lines in Blogville.

I’m unable to comment on some of my favorite blogs because the comment system locks me out.

In one case,  I don’t know what the frick is wrong. I’ve upgraded my site, made adjustments, and so have they. Yet, my words are trapped in some comment limbo.

Some of it is my doing. I have three Google e-mails. So, if I comment using the Google/Blogger ID system, I’ll be identified either as MOM without the accompanying URL link to explain it is MomZombie and not the woman who gave birth to you, or MY REAL NAME (not an option and you still wouldn’t know it’s me), or a string of numbers that will make no sense to anyone outside my family.

For whatever reason, I cannot comment using the Open ID system or by selecting WordPress. There aren’t enough hours in the day to resolve these issues.

The best way for me to comment on a Blogger blog is to select the NAME/URL option, which many of you provide as an option. Thank you. Whether or not you want to adjust this for little ol’ me is up to you. But consider this: There may be others out there who love your blog, too, but cannot comment due to these restrictions. And you may not know it unless they take the time to send you an e-mail or a message through Twitter.

So, there it is. There are bugs in the walls. There are leaks in the pipes. Yet, in spite of all these inconveniences I keep blogging.

I must be crazy.

Since I wrote my post about my expanding waistline, NPR featured a story that explained the relationship between aging and weight gain. Here it is: You get older, you eat like always, you get fat.  Put down the bagel and pick up a bar bell. Fat is bad.

A day after that, I heard this oddball story on the radio, which made me reconsider the bar bell theory, pull into a bagel joint and order a dozen plain with extra schmear. Fat is good.

The good news is my Lycra spandex blend pants fit. Another nice thing about Lyrcra spandex pants? Those schmear smears wipe right off. Life is good.

Two weeks ago I tweeted:

That morning, when selecting what to wear, I considered the following:

• I’ll be in a dark theater.
• I’ll be with a bunch of kids.
• I haven’t worn this shirt in two years. (I know there is a reason, but I cannot remember what it is.)

During the performance, the reason came back to me in a whisper of cold air up my spine. I do not wear this shirt because it does not fit properly.

It’s one of those crossover V-neck shirts that looks really cute when you first put it on and even retains some level of cuteness for the first hour of wear. It’s also striped in shades of red that flatter my hair color and skin tone. After a few hours of wear, however, it stretches and sags in the front, forcing constant adjustment to prevent, er, wardrobe malfunctions, particularly in the neckline area.  Also, I’d forgotten to wear a tank top or camisole under the shirt. By the end of the performance, I’d tugged and twisted the shirt so many times it had stretched to almost twice its size.

Like this, only with more sag. Via Treehugger.com

Shortly after the show ended, I thought I’d just slip into my jacket and slink on out of the theater. But this wasn’t just any show. It was the first U.S. tour for this traveling troupe of musicians and dancers from a university in Hubei Province, China. We heard the call for students in the audience to head onstage if they were interested in a meet and greet with the troupe.

Being the mother of a four-year-old Girl from China who loves, loves, loves all things Chinese, it didn’t take long for me to find myself being pulled by one hand toward the stage by my eager daughter while the other tugged at my malfunctioning top.

Once the college students made eye contact with my girl it was all over. I don’t now who gushed and giggled more: my girl or the pretty young women. My girl was passed around from student to student for photo opportunities and even rode on the shoulders of one of the male musicians. No amount of backing into the shadows stopped the inevitable, “Mom, how about you get into a few of these pictures?”

On the way home it occurred to me that I shouldn’t ever dress myself with a dark theater, it’s just kids, who cares attitude. You never know who you’ll bump into, and when you do, you’ll be judged by what you are wearing, like it or not.

When I got home I did two things: I tweeted my revelation and then I tossed that saggy shirt into the trash.

Lesson learned.