On brevity being the soul of wit, and all that rot.

Flying home from BlogHer13 in Chicago

If you know me, you know I tend to be "long form."

What I usually call a post, most sane bloggers without perfectionism / obsessiveness and time management issues would call three posts.

But it has also been true that the same forces that lead me to such excessive verbosity are, at the moment, shutting me down. I have barely posted in the last six months. And while I am not happy about that, I also know I don't have the wherewithal to devote the same energy to my blog at this moment as I have in the past.

And, truth be told, I'm still struggling with the emotional aftermath of my Mother's death. Ironic that this blog began as my father was dying, of my need to speak from all the jumbled pain therein. That opened the floodgates that fed my writing.

And now the fallout from my mother's death has dammed up my words again. But not completely. A trickle is still flowing through.

So I am considering this: trying to let myself write really short posts for this month.

At our LTYM BlogHer breakfast in Chicago last Sunday, I was sitting across from Lisa Rosenberg (of the blog Smacksy) and when it became clear that another woman at our table didn't know her work, Alexandra and I fell over ourselves gushing about how much we love Lisa's blog -- how adorable her son is, how lovely the writing. Alexandra mentioned how refreshing it was that the posts were so short, just a perfect little slice of life.

And it got the wheels turning... maybe I can do this... write short posts with just one thought, one story, while waiting for the longer ones to come.

I have so, so many bits of writing sitting in my "unpublished" queue that I have been thinking of as "half-written posts." What if I just call them posts (with a little polishing of course) - hit the "publish" button and move on?

Would the world stop spinning on its axis? Unlikely. (But don't blame me if it coincidentally does.)

There is so much that has gone on this spring and summer that I haven't talked about yet here... graduations... rites of passage... summer camp... visiting cousins... Bat Mitzvahs... new babies... Jake's evolving development... even a recipe I wanted to share.

Also there is one very important, very PARTICULAR half-finished post that I have pushed myself to complete, even if it is less complete than I think it should be.  I have actually put it up on my blog just before this post - backdated, of course, to July 29th, the only proper day for my boys 11th birthday post, since it was, of course, their 11th birthday.

So you can read that here: They go to 11!

See, you get two for the price of one today. (A bargain!)

And so now, of course, I have written an un-short post about how I am going to be writing short posts.

(But then again, isn't that so me?)

More to come soon, I (sort of) promise.

Surfacing

Uncle Walter stopped by to see Mom, too, today

I have been under the weather for so long I had almost forgotten how it feels to be functionally human. Today, finally, I caught a glimpse. Although I am now fully spent, having made up for lost time by filling my day to the gills:

Taking Ethan and the neighbor's kids to school (because their little sister puked just as they were getting ready to head out).

A quick coffee with school-mom-friends (need caffeine!)

Picking up the car from the repair shop (poor old thing).

Driving out to visit Mom, and all that that entailed (heart wrenched in a thousand different ways). Yet another conference with nurse manager on how to get and keep her on track, moving forward.

Driving back to pick Ethan up at school, and oh holy hell the check-engine light comes back on again (our car's resident poltergeist not fully exorcised), so back to the shop and then flagging down a cab to get to Ethan on time.

Dragging Ethan off to an appointment way East in midtown (1 bus, 1 subway, and a 4 block walk away). And if you know the U.N. is in session right now, you know this means closed streets and roadblocks and checkpoints and police everywhere.

Meanwhile, and threaded throughout: Emails and phone calls about Jacob's bussing situation. Which is bad. He's been getting to school AN HOUR late every day. Because the bus has twice as many kids on it as it should, with multiple schools to drop off at. Because the City of New York is trying to save money at the expense of Special Ed kids, the most disenfranchised citizens to start with. Don't. Get. Me. Started. (I will burn a hole in your computer screen with the white-hot lava of my wrath.)

Then back uptown and West to our 'hood for dinner at Shake Shack because it's near the...

Big meeting at Ethan's school about the middle school application process.

(If you don't live in New York City and send your kid to public school you have no idea of the hell that this means. Middle school is the bottleneck. There are many good elementary schools. There are a lot of good - and even great - high schools. There are very few decent middle schools, and NOT ENOUGH seats in them for all the kids who apply, thus making it a tough and very competitive process to get your kid into a one. Shoot. Me. Now.)

Finally HOME, a full twelve hours after having left.

(And then homework to go over with Ethan, but oh dear God he rushed through it, wanting to play his DS, so it all has to be redone, give me strength.)

Diving back under, not expecting much humanity tomorrow. I'll keep you posted.

Monday is... Monday

I like fluffy clouds

Do you ever hit that point in your burnt-out mental and physical exhaustion where your brain goes blank and you find yourself stopping in the middle of sentences and losing your point all the time and your mate and children stand there and finally ask to please please just buy a verb or noun so they can glean some inkling of the VERY important thing you were going to tell them, before you just

stopped

in the middle for no reason, your mind gone blank or distracted by something shiny?

(No, me neither, nope, never happens to me, nuh-uh.)

Do you ever find yourself answering the simple social question of "And how are you?" with: "Hanging on to sanity by a thread, but haven't let go yet" ?

Do you post Facebook updates that read: "Ok, resolving to be less negative and count my fucking blessings. That's 1 fucking blessing... 2 fucking blessings... 3 fucking blessings..." ?

Do you find yourself getting ridiculously pissed off that Words-with-Friends doesn't recognize "scumface" as a word, because it would have given you a triple double word PLUS the all-7 bonus for a gazillion points?

Yeah.

It's been like that lately. 

And I'm not going to go into the details here because if *I'm* tired of my whining, you all are surely quite done.

And unlike in the past, the pressures are not creating beautiful lyrical late-night writing, but rather rendering me useless in my insomniac stupor, cackling away at inane things on "Damn-You-Autocorrect" when I should be sleeping.

Yet I don't want to fade away silently into stressed-out oblivion.

So here I am for the moment.

(Picture waving to you. But HELL no, I'm not turning on the computer camera because then you would see the unholy mess behind me. Plus the stain from Jacob's 1/2 eaten but "all done" chocolate Rita's Ice that plopped onto my shirt in a backsplash when I threw it into the trash on the way home tonight.)

Repeat after me... "2 weeks until they're all back in school."

My mantra of the moment.

All the other things I also need to accomplish in these same two weeks, when all I want to do is enjoy this last scrap of vacation-time with my kids and catch up on some sleep? Not going there, but just imagine a 10-ton dump-truck unloading onto me and that about sums it up.

Catch you on the upside, folks.

And between now and then? Expect some more gallows humor, it's what keeps me hanging onto that last bloody thread.

Monday Listicles: 10 Things I Have Done to Make a Living

Well, it's Monday, so it must be time for Stasha’s Monday Listicles again. And today's topic came from... ME!

And, it seems, I'm being late to my own party. (And not for the first time, I must admit.) You would think with my having known the topic for, oh, two weeks, I would have had this post written long ago and ready to pop up at one minute past midnight, be at the top of the link-up over at Stasha's.

Well, think again.

It's been a rough beginning to the new year is all I can say. And my ADD is acting up something fierce. So anyway, it's still Monday here (barely) and will be for a few more hours in at least some parts of the world, so let's proceed shall we?

Today's topic (as chosen by moi) is:

Top Ten Strange (odd/unusual/funny/interesting) Jobs you have held in your life.

#1.  Well, to start with, when I was a baby my father was an advertising photographer and sometimes he needed a baby for a shoot or for his portfolio. So, for a very short time, I was a baby model. He also was a fine art/documentary "street photographer" (with work in Life magazine, etc.) and took loads of pictures of me for that, too.  Wanna see?

Jim Steinhardt: "Girl with Balloon (ME!) at Central Park Zoo" 1963

#2. Then my Dad realized he hated advertising and got out of that business, bought an art gallery and frame shop on Long Island and it grew into an international and American crafts gallery of some renown. And I grew up in the family business, spending Saturdays and many of my summer days at the gallery.

I couldn't even tell you exactly when playing there became working there, but I distinctly remember setting up and helping to serve drinks at show openings from about the age of six on. And I know that from the time I was twelve I was selling in the store and working as a buyers assistant, accompanying my parents to big national craft fairs like Rhinebeck and the wholesale showrooms in the city.

Holiday time was always busy, and as a teenager I worked full long days every Saturday in November and December, and then when the "blue laws" were repealed (yes, I'm old enough to have lived when NO businesses outside of restaurants were open on Sundays) Sundays in December, too.

When I was 15, I ran the gift wrap "department" (me & a friend of mine) on the weekends for the holiday season. To this day I can eyeball any unusually sized or shaped object, instantly figure out what size box it will or won't fit in, and wrap it neatly with nice ribbon bows to boot.

My most memorable sales interaction with a customer? It was the day before Christmas, when the desperate men who hadn't a clue would arrive, and you could sell them practically anything. He was buying jewelry. Three nice pieces. One for his wife, and one each for his two "girlfriends." He wanted to spend about the same for each. Wrote lovey notes on gift cards to be included inside the boxes. Had us put a little code on the bottom of the wrapped boxes so he could know which was which.

How much did we want to "accidentally" mess up the code for him? The whole staff was abuzz with wicked plans to do this while his gifts were being wrapped. In the end of course, we didn't. A customer is a customer, and he was a good spender. (Times 3!) But we talked about him for years to come.

#3. Away at college, through friends I fell into a summer job as a founding member of the Sunflour Bakery Collective in Bar Harbor, Maine. Of course, first I had to learn how to bake bread, which I did in a hurry that spring.

This was not a typical "job." We all lived together, communally on the uppermost floor of the building which was not in any way set up or zoned for habitation, while the landlord conveniently looked the other way. We each made little nests for ourselves using odd materials found on the second floor of the building, in what had been a woodworking shop at one point. My "chair" was an ornate antique toilet stuffed with my sleeping bag to make a cushion.

We often took in like-minded (i.e. hippie) folks who were passing through town and let then "camp out" on the second floor and share meals with us for a few hours of work in the bakery.  It was all very whole grain and natural (naturally), and actually quite delicious. I think I ate better that summer that at any time in my life before or since.

#4. The following year, I spent my summer in Cambridge / Boston with a combination of 2 jobs to keep me afloat: showing up at 5 AM on the weekends to be the breakfast chef at the very vegan Golden Temple Emporium Cafe (yes, run by people with big white turbans on their heads). Can you say "scrambled tofu" anyone?

That was combined with my weekday job of slinging the greasiest of burgers and fries (while wearing hot pants!) to a lunch crowd of finance guys at The Saint, which happened to also be the local lesbian bar at night, which I frequented... frequently. And the irony of all this was not lost on me, I laughed about it constantly.

#5. Then I landed in California for a few years. You may have heard me mention this one before, but yes, in 1981 I actually WAS a Bean Sprout farmer in the wilds of Mendocino county.

We were a womens collective on 160 acres on a ridge with a number of odd buildings on the flat land at the top, and among them 3 geodesic domes. One of these was given over to the business of hydroponically growing bean sprouts that were sold to restaurants and in health food stores in Northern California.

My tasks included washing the sprouts daily, cutting them when they were the right length, bagging them, and assembling the "mixed sprout" salads. Also driving up & down the coast for delivery. And yes, we had to remember to put shirts on when driving off the property.

Looking back, I don't think we had a license and can't ever remember a health inspection. But those were different, looser, freer times. And I don't THINK we ever gave anyone salmonella poisoning.

#6. Also in California, now living more conventionally in Santa Cruz, I became the assistant manager of the Polar Bear ice cream shop in Capitola. And my right (scooping) arm became twice as strong as my left. I was living with a woman who had a 6 year old daughter who was THRILLED to be able to come in and order anything she wanted for free.

And no, I wasn't stealing. The owners wisely gave us a monthly allotment of free ice cream, which kept us all honest about what we ate or took home or gave away. And made us very popular with our friends.

#7. Back on the East coast and back in college, I found occasional work as an artists model. Yes, nude. And people this is HARD work. Holding a pose that seems just dandy at 2 minutes will feel like torture by minute 10 with your muscles screaming for release. And, totally exposed, if you twitch, they will see. And yell at you to keep steady.

#8. My main job while in college was at the local pottery gallery (using my family business talents at last) but on the summers, to not lose me during them, the gallery owners - who were 3 potters themselves - had me come out to their studio to do odd jobs for the seven potters who worked there and shared kilns.

I was not a potter, and it quickly became clear that my natural talents did not lie in this direction, but everyone found things for me to do to help out that did not require actual potting, including wedging clay (great anger release), packing orders for shipping (I still have nightmares about plastic peanuts), and, most terrifyingly, carrying precious fragile pieces to and from the gas kiln which was outdoors, out back, DOWN a little hill. No, I never dropped anything, but did have daily palpitations, thank you.

#9. 1988. Out of school and back in New York City, while working my way into jobs in the film and television industry and also directing and stage managing plays and performance art off-off Broadway, I landed a regular gig with the brand spanking new World Financial Center as an assistant stage manager for their arts and events program, including a month of opening galas.

As I was a bit more mature and put together than a lot of the kids they had working for them, I was usually assigned to babysit the talent, including escorting them to the "stage," which was always rigged in different places and often far, far from the holding areas.

This also meant that I would be seen in the "front of the house" and had to work evening events in formal wear and heels. On miles of marble floors. (Ouch!) Highlights included: a frantic search for one of the coconuts of Kid Creole & the Coconuts who had decided to go look for a friend in the audience, minutes before their call and watching Grace Jones go into makeup and be transformed into... Grace Jones.

Best of all was escorting Cab Calloway up onto the stage itself because he was rather elderly and unsteady on his feet and the steps didn't have a handrail.

This was also the first time I was given a newfangled "cell phone" thingy - about 8 pounds of equipment with a handset connected to a rectangular box that hung from a shoulder strap - this was 1988, people!

1988 Cell Phone. Really.

#10. Fast forward many, many years (see the calendar pages whirl by) and come to my current occupation: Autism Mom. I am an amateur neurobiologist, behaviorist, teacher, translator, pharmacologist, allergist, gluten & casein-free chef, and deep hug giver. In my 9th year of an ongoing experiment in radical sleep deprivation.

Definitely the strangest "job" I have ever had. But the most fulfilling. Worth every minute of it.

And, believe it or not, (believe!) I could go on and on. But I'll stop here at ten.

See y'all next week!


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Coming Soon: Posts from the Zombie Files

Tonight when I sat down, way late, to post - short people finally asleep, me awake, house as picked-up-after as it's probably ever going to be tonight (read: not very; but the small-toy-booby-traps have been stowed away, so you probably won't trip over stray crap and kill yourself, either) - I realized, once again... I got nothing.

It had been a busy day: rushing to Jake's school way downtown for our Parent/Teacher conference immediately after dropping Ethan off at his, a half-day for Jacob, Hebrew School after school for Ethan; the kind that leaves me hollowed out by the end.

So I figured it was time to do what I had previously said I would do when this situation arose this month (in which I am foolishly committed to posting every day whether inspiration has visited or not): mine my not-quite-dead draft post archives for gems.

So I opened up my Blog's command center and found this:

That's right, for approximately every three posts I've published there is one unpublished post: poor orphaned child, sitting unfinished, forlorn and abandoned in my queue.

Now some of these are mere wisps of things, half thoughts, hastily jotted down, ideas for posts that I planned to write at some nebulous time in my future. Others are half done things: neither beast nor fowl, full of egregious typos and devoid of form, starting to go somewhere and then stopping, all out of steam.

And then there are the jewels I'm looking for: nearly done posts, just in need of a little polish before they are ready to be sent out into the world. Well, maybe a bit of rewriting and a new ending, but still, close enough to done that its worth the effort to march them to completion.

So, from these 113 draft posts languishing in their not-quite-dead-not-quite-live state, I thought I was going to simply pluck one out to share today. I thought I would just click and find a perfect small near Insta-Post. Just add a little extra verbiage and it's ready to go! Voila!

But then I found that even the "nearly done?" Still take a ridiculous lot of work to bring into a place where I'm willing to let them out of their hidey hole. There's a reason I didn't get these particular bunch finished. They were not easy to wrestle into shape. Damn.

And the ones that were the closest to ready? Were the best of the bunch, those I want to spend the most careful time with, make sure I am bringing them to the height of their potential shiny brilliance (to drag the "polishing up gems" metaphor possibly beyond where it should reasonably go). ADD and perfectionism, it's a heady mix in my brain, I tell you.

So tonight folks, I leave you with this: a post telling you about more posts soon to come. So all those papers I wrote in college about deconstructionism and the such were not in vain, they were preparing me to talk about talking about talking about things. Which just goes to prove that I can prattle on about anything. Yay, me!

And tomorrow? REAL CONTENT, I promise.

(Hey, I'm getting really good at using a lot of words to circle round and round a topic but never really saying anything of consequence - maybe I should go into politics?)


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Top Ten Reasons Why I Don't Make Top Ten Lists

Well, it's now exactly halfway through November, NaBloPoMo month, and so far I am still blogging every day. (Yay, me!) Fellow blogging friends have reminded me that two of the "easy" ways to get a post written when I'm in a hurry and have to toss one out are photo posts (Check! I do those on Wednesdays) and list posts. Hmmmm.

The "List Post" is supposed to be a handy tool in the Bloggers arsenal. (I know I've mixed my metaphors there - so what? It's *my* blog, I can do what I want.)

But you know what? I don't like them, hardly ever do them.

In general, they don't work for me.

Why? (you may ask)

Well, why don't I just make a list for you of my reasons? (Grammar police? Back off - I constructed the sentence that way for a reason. The reason? it pleases me.)

There are a myriad. That's a big number. But we don't have all day, so maybe I'll cut it down to size. Bite size, perhaps - how about 10, a nice even number (and the basis of our numeric system, to boot).

1. Have I mentioned I have ADD? We don't do lists. They're just so... orderly. And my brain is anything but. I'm allergic to lists. How do I get everything done in my life without them, you ask? Good question! (Hint: I don't.)

2. There is a very specific form and structure to "Top 10" list posts and for some reason (*cough* immaturity *cough*) highly structured brings up an oppositional, "you can't tell me what to do" voice in my head and I go into resistance mode. (Hey, I didn't promise these were 10 rational reasons now, did I?)

3.  There is no number three. Move on. (Told you these make me oppositional.)

4. I am not a short-form, bullet points kind of gal. I write long, am long-form, not direct and to the point (although the wonderful Elissa did once call me "pithy" and I so teased her about that), I am Queen of the Run-on-Sentence (with parenthetical clauses) after all. And those? Don't make for nice short punchy "top ten" items, you know what I mean?

5. OverdoneOverdoneOverdone. And can I add: overdone? I don't do overdone.

6. That the list post is supposed to be an "easy out"? Feels like cheating, like a short cut. And, unfortunately, I don't do those. I try, but they end up being long-way-rounds, not short cuts, every freaking time.  Take guest posts. These are supposed to be easy - hey, someone else is writing them!  But then I write these long essay-like intros and linky wraps that involve research and take hours. Also? I promise these are not the first 10 things that popped into my head as I sat down to write this here list. I went back and looked them all over thought "Are they good enough?" And changed them made them better. Because I just can't take the easy way out without somehow making it the hard way. (Fun being me - no?)

7. Tangents. I'm all about the tangents, and lists don't make space for them, you need to proceed right to the next item. Stay on topic. No time for delicious tangents, like the time I...

8. By this point? It feels like homework. I hate homework. I am already doing 4th grade homework every night with Ethan and the same damn 1st grade homework for the third year running with Jacob. Did I mention I hate homework?

9. I never put things in the right order, always think of the really important one after I'm all done.

10. I know I had more reasons. I just can't think of them right now. But I have to come up with one more, make it to 10 item for this damn "Top 10" list because only having 9 is just awkward and feels incomplete. So I'm just going to have to pull something out of my ass, to make up some stupid thing to add in to fill this space up and make it come out to ten. Oh, yeah, that's another reason - I hate "space filler" items. Passionately.

@@@@@@@

TEN! Yeah, I did it! OK, maybe this wasn't so bad after all. Maybe it's kind of fun. Maybe I should start doing Stasha's Monday Listicles linky. Maybe I should start doing ALL of the other list sort of memes on the interwebs.

Maybe that's ALL I'm going to do from now on! No need to try to create that magic "flow" or worry about that other writerly stuff, I'll now just list things in the random order they pop out of my brain in, and move on... Whoo hoo! I've been liberated from this "crafting" thing! I'm free! I'm free! I've been set free!

(The authorities have now been called to peel Varda off the ceiling. Don't worry, they will slap her around until she calms down, and her blog and writing will return to it's normal state by tomorrow.)

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Mo or No Mo?

So, as those of you in the bloggosphere probably know (and with advance apologies to my civilian readers here) November is a special month for bloggers and internet-savvy writers and writers who blog (if there is such a distinction to be made) - it is National Novel Writing Month (or NaNoWriMo) AND - in response - National Blog Posting Month (or NaBloPoMo); a month where many are committing to writing copious amounts of words EVERY day.*

NaBloPoMo started as a November thing like NaNoWriMo, then the daily blogging part caught on so well that it became a regular monthly thing, and I participated this past July - and yes, wrote a post EVERY day. (See the little "31" next to July 2011 in my archive on the left?)

I enjoyed it, and it was good for my writing; a daily flexing of the muscle and guess what? It gets stronger (duh).

But... but.. it took time. Time that would have / could have been family time. Time that would have / could have been clean up the house time, deal with the mountain of paperwork time. You know the drill.

It was a relief when August came around. But also a bit of a let-down from the writer's high of daily posting. So I thought - November. The BIG month, the uber-NaBloPoMo... I'll do it again then, and planned on it, planted the seed in my brain.

But then October kicked my ass. With my elderly mother's hospitalization and subsequent recovery sucking all the time out of my life, I felt me family needed me. I needed me.

So I decided: I can't do this. As much as I can use my crazy life as excuse to not write, I can also use writing as excuse to neglect parts of my life. Especially the the unpleasant ones: housework, paperwork, etc.

I would be a liar to not admit the chaos factor in our home has increased tenfold since I really became committed to the writing life. Dealing with dust bunnies or crafting a memoir piece... there is NO doubt where my priorities lie. But when the dust bunnies get as large as the sofa? It's a problem.

So I decided to bow out, even prepared a preliminary post called "No Mo" to explain why. It's not that I wasn't going to write, but I was just not going to put the pressure on, make it so I HAD to every day.

But then... but then... so many of my friends were doing one (or BOTH!) of the writing challenges and were talking about it excitedly on their blogs. The Twitter chatter began. And NaBloPoMo's home based moved to BlogHer, MY home base, in so many ways, too.

In short: I started feeling left out. Started feeling resentful of "having" to give up something I had so been looking forward to.

So I signed up. I can still bail at any time during the month if the center just can't hold, if I find Ethan pouting in the evenings, complaining I "love the computer more than you love us!" again.

But the writer in me feels the need to give it the old college try. And I have some tricks up my sleeve.

You may see some very short posts here this month, mere wisps of thought that I would normally save up until I had three or four on a theme to weave into a "good sized and proper" post. But hell, I've noticed many daily posters often go short, so why not me, too.

Also, reading back through my post queue, I have found some very interesting drafts, things half, even three quarters written that I really would love to complete and send out into the world.  Some of them I abandoned, even though I really liked them, because I thought they'd lost their "timeliness."

So I'm thinking this is the perfect excuse to resurrect them, make them resurfaced time capsule type things (including one I can call "Lost Tales of BlogHer11"... yeah THAT post that I never finished).

And now I will end this (completely internal-thought-process, welcome-to-my-brain) post with a question...

Should I be doing NaBloPoMo this month and posting daily, or am I nuts to add that pressure to my life right now?  I have no clear perspective, I'm opening the floor to opinions. Thanks!


*I think I have just topped myself, with the longest opening sentence in a post of mine EVER - reaffirming my title as Queen of the Run-On-Sentence (with parenthetical clauses).


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...and that's why I'm a Twit

(as in some fool who likes to tweet on Twitter, not an upper-crust British nitwit a la Monty Python.)

Hello, my name is Varda and I am a Twitter addict.

OK, I've been cutting down some lately, as I have recognized that it can get in the way of, well, that (highly over-rated) "real life" stuff. When your son complains that you "Love your computer more than you love us!" you know it's time to scale back a wee bit.

A year and a half ago I didn't know even know what Twitter was. Well, I mean I'd heard of it, but hadn't given it much thought other than as that "wacky thing" some folks do.

Now I can't imagine how I wasted my time before Twitter. It's so efficient, so effective at sucking all the "spare time" out of my day.

But also, truth to tell, useful.

Sometimes I just want to shout into the cave and hear a voice back that is other than my own, echoing. Sometimes I have important things to say to the universe (well, to the approximately 1800 souls in it who follow me, that is), while other times I just want to share my momentary thoughts with at least the illusion that someone is listening.

Like today.

I was sitting in the car waiting for the clock to strike 11 so I could leave (following the arcane rules of the NYC Alternate Side Shuffle... if you live here -- and especially if you own and street-park a car - you understand; and if you don't, be glad you don't have to) my brain just bouncing around in the void.

So I sent out this tweet:

And got this back:

And that's it. Just what I needed. To know I'm not alone.

And then when I got home (car legal, good 'til Monday at 9:30), just checking in, I read this:

and decided to click on over to read her post. It was about aggravation vs. thankfulness and contained this poster:

A timely reminder if ever there was one, as I have been uber-cranky lately. Forgetting to feel grateful. Forgetting all that I am always hammering home to Ethan the complainer, reminding him how lucky he is.

I can hear my own voice yakking away at him, telling him: "The key to happiness is not how MUCH you have but how GRATEFUL you are for whatever you do have" in response to his whining for this or that toy he has seen advertised on TV and MUST HAVE or he will be miserable forever.

I remember when he was little, maybe four, and was being all fussy about his clothes, wanting to wear a very specific something that was dirty in the hamper, declaring every other possible item terrible, I just lost it with him. I was yelling about how spoiled he is, about how in so much of the world kids have only one or two sets of clothing that they own and THAT IS IT. And if they want them clean they have to wash them by hand, every day, maybe even in a river miles from home.

And he got a quivering lip and I thought "OK, maybe I'm laying it on a little thick" but he then said to me with so much compassion: "Oh, Mommy, that is just SO sad. Can I send them some of my clothes?"

And we hugged for a bit, and talked about what we could do to help those less fortunate than ourselves.

And that sweet memory of my son, and remembering to be grateful for all that I have in my life? Thanks to Twitter and the random moment I popped on to read.

That's one of the things I love about it, how it increases the serendipity quotient in my life.

Other things I love: That it is teaching me brevity, how to be more concise, I, who am so in love with words, who easily earns my reputation as "Queen of the run on sentence (with parenthetic clauses)". But Twitter? 140 characters, baby, or you're toast.

Also, I am by nature an eavesdropper, and Twitter was MADE for that, I can listen in on other people's conversations all day to my heart's content, no one the wiser.

I would like to call myself the Queen of Twitter, but really I'm not. I go through phases, I'm in and out. Sometimes I just read and lurk a lot. Mostly that's fun (see above paragraph) but other days I'm feeling down, vulnerable. And then I feel all left out, wonder why no one is @ing me. (Duh, dorkus, you have to jump into the conversation and @ others to be included, REMEMBER?)

The real Queen of Twitter right now (in my humble opinion) is, quite fittingly, my friend Alexandra aka The Empress who tweets as @GDRPempress and writes the blog Good Day, Regular People. She was on of my two wonderful BlogHer11 roommates, and it would be hard to find a lovelier, more gracious woman on all the planet, let alone the interwebs.

Any delightful or vital conversation going on - there she is! She re-tweets like crazy, offers tweets of support and encouragement constantly. Her stream looks like this, all day long: 

Also Alexandra is first on the spot with important messages and alerts. (And yes, it was she who clued me in to Anna See's tragic loss of her son last week.)

So if you're looking to pick up ONE new follow on Twitter - make it Alexandra. (After ME, of course. Do follow me, please! @Squashedmom, of course.)

So yes, when it's not leading me to fritter away my time, I can truly say that Twitter has embiggened my life (is TOO a word, coined on the Simpsons).

So that, ladies and gentlemen, is why I'm (proud to be) a Twit.

(And you can Tweet me, and we can talk all about it, or anything else you want to, in 140 character bursts.)


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(Thinking 'bout) BlogHer11: What a Difference a Year Makes

As I rush around in a whirlwind prepping for BlogHer11, I am feeling very aware of how different this all feels from last year. This is my second BlogHer conference. A milestone in a way.

Last year I really lucked out. BlogHer10 came to my hometown, New York City. If it hadn't come to me, I wouldn't have gone, I was still just at the fringes of this world. (Though for all the life of me I felt much deeper in.)

This year I am well aware of how new I still am at this, how I am still just feeling my way. I am in awe of some of the "old timers," deeply impressed their fortitude, the honing of their craft over many years. And at the same time I am feeling deeply connected, have a long list of virtual friends I am dying to see, committed to meet.

I am also deeply, spine tinglingly honored by having been chosen as a BlogHer Voice of the Year this year. (Honoree, not speaker. That exaltation belongs to my roommate, the marvelous Alexandra, the Empress of Good Day, Regular People)

(If you are new to The Squashed Bologna and want to know a little bit more about who I was last year at this time, you can peek in here at my pre-BlogHer10 post full of funny stories about my past conference life: Look, Ma, I'm going to BlogHer... with tales of Sundance, SXSW, and Toronto Film fests, including the story of how pregnant me nearly threw up on James Caan.

And also my very personal BlogHer10 debriefing post, here: The BlogHer10 reflections of a very. slow. newbie. blogger.)

In my book, milestones need marking, reflection. I marvel at the changes that have come about via my blog; the growth, transformation, both personal and "professional" in my life in this past year. And my blog has really evolved in this short spate.

Other things, of course, remain the same. Jake still autistic; I still have ADD; my home is still an unholy mess, one step away from being featured on Hoarders: the Apartment Stories. 

But? I can feel myself really becoming a writer. Stretching my wings. Oh, they're still wet and shiny new, somewhat untested. But wings, people. It feels kinda awesome.

This year I have found my tribes.

One is the tribe of writers at the wonderfully supportive virtual writers community that is The Red Dress Club. It took me a long time of reading and ruminating before I began to write to the prompts. There was resistance (I don't like "being told what to do"), but then?

I took risks, tried new things (fiction!) and in the end wrote some of my absolutely favorite posts to those prompts. (Want to read some of those? Try these: The Last Room, In my Grandmother's House, Cheryl, Sweat Memories or Breakers)

But the main thing there? The other writers and readers. It is a true community, one that I am proud to be a part of.

And the other tribe? The special needs parent bloggers, including the amazing Autism Moms and Dads. They are the core of why I need to go to this conference, the connection most vital. While I have always sought out other parents in a similar boat, having started the Special Needs Sibling Saturdays guest post series on my blog this past spring has extended my reach and knowledge of this amazing community.

I am thrilled and honored to host the incredible stories of their families that other bloggers are sharing there. And to get to meet so many of my guests at once this upcoming weekend? Beyond priceless.

The difference a year makes...

Last year I came home every night to my family (though they may have been sleeping when I arrived), woke up and breakfasted with them every morning. This year I am traveling across the country, for the first time since I was pregnant with the twins; traveling alone for five days, for the first time since I gave birth.

All this for me, who is always last on my priority list. But also for my family.

Because I am going to meet and exchange information with other special needs parents, to brainstorm up a better world for our families.

Because I am going to try to learn how to turn my writing into something I can make money at. Because I need to begin to return to the world of work soon, and if I can find a way to earn a living doing what I love and do best? My world will swing into a better balance, and my whole family will be the better for it.

And even though I will surely be up all night tonight -- packing, planning, writing out lists of what my children need to be doing each day; the wheres and whens, the thousand things I take care of unconsciously, routinely that need to be spelled out for others (because while Ethan can - and WILL - tell people what they are doing right and wrong for him, Jake as yet cannot, and so it is up to me to make sure his world continues on as he needs it to, while I am gone) -- I know I will arrive in San Diego grinning from ear to ear.

Ready to learn.

Ready to connect.

Ready to meet my tribes.

Writers, over-sharers, special needs parents.

Bloggers all. My people. Yes.


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Sweat Memories

Spring has now surrendered herself to summer’s sultry heat. As I stretch my loosening limbs and feel the sweat trickle, tickley, down my slick armpits, I get thrown, always, back through time's twisty tunnels: summers past rushing by, swirling their memories around me, tantalizing snippets.

Sense memories all, sticky, sweaty summers full of swelter and promise. One stands out, recently plucked from the memory box…

Summer of ’77. High school graduation; beginnings and endings, all rolled up into one.

Or maybe more like this: a constant tumbling head over heels of endings and beginnings, chasing each others tails, a blur of old and new and old and new; the wheel, spun again and again, the endless yin and yang of it, as I tried to make a 16 year-old's sense out of my life.

My parents loved me dearly, cherished me fiercely, but were often clueless. They didn't attend my high school graduation ceremony. I had been ambivalent about attending it myself, and by the time I decided to show up after all, they had made other plans; important plans.

Not nearly as callous as that seems, I'm sure they had asked me at least three times if I’d minded that they weren’t there.  And I'm sure I'd reassured them that it meant very little to me and I was OK. But I also know at some deeper level I was disappointed, feelings were hurt, a disconnect widened.

As a mother, I have learned to listen beneath, to the waves below the words; to discount, at times, the surface, the brave “I’m OK”s from little boys who aren’t. My mother never did, needing reassurance more than truth. Pity.

At sixteen, I was so very young and clueless, though I'd thought myself sophisticated, a worldly woman. I was sorting through so many things in my mind, and developing just about zero practical skills for negotiating an adult life in the actual world.

Navels were for gazing, and I did, how I did.

New York City (suburbs). 1977.

It was the summer of Sam; and Star Wars.

I remember waiting hours for tickets on opening week, the first time I had ever done that, with my last high school boyfriend, Ben. Sitting on the roof of his Black 1963 American Rambler in the parking lot of the Huntington Mall cinema, we were trying to catch a slim breeze as we waited for day to wheel into night and the movie's magic lantern to begin.

I have since seen that film dozens of times, but will always remember my first, seen with a last. Beginnings and endings tumbled together, wearing each other smooth like the rocks in the rushing river we camped beside, on the sweet and wondrous weekend road trip we took together that summer.

That summer of last high school boyfriend, while I was also quietly falling in love, unrequited, with girls right and left; my head and my heart in a tug of war (along with some select other parts).

I did not even have my plans solidified for the fall, having missed the drop-dead dates for completing college applications, my parents once again useless here, being "no pressure" individualist hippie types, never realizing that a sixteen year-old girl might need a little guidance, a little pressure to make things happen, barely knowing her own mind, leaf-tumbling through life, lucky beyond all knowing that life never tossed evil into her hapless path.

And the soundtrack to all this mayhem? Somewhere between Patti Smith’s Horses album on my stereo, Springsteen’s Born to Run blasting out of a jukebox, John Prine being strummed on my boyfriend's guitar and Abba’s Dancing Queen wafting in from a somewhere distant radio.

If the smell of being thirteen was Coppertone? The smell of sixteen turning seventeen for me was sweat; the intoxicating scent of fresh sweat, honestly earned.

And the salt taste of it, the startlingly metallic and musky tang of it, on my hungry, awakening, clueless tongue.


P.S. If you want to see me on the day of my High School Graduation? Go here: I Was a Senior Feminist-Hippie-Hottie  

This post was inspired by a prompt at The Red Dress Club. This week's RemembeRED assignment was to write a post about Graduation. 

Please click on the button above, go to the link-up and read the other wonderful posts you'll find there.
 


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Half-Birthday

Today is my boys' half-birthday. Remember celebrating half-birthdays?  It seems to work only when you're still in the single digits, like my guys.

Eight and a half, today.  How did that happen?  One more birthday on this side of the fence, and then after that they're into the double digits.  Big boys.  Blink, blink. 

They were summer babies, and to think of their birthday is to think of late July's deep heat.

Jacob & Ethan, 1 day old

Not a bad thought today, as the mercury hovers just around the freezing point and we may be expecting a bit more snow later this afternoon.

Our car, street parked in New York City?  Is not currently a vehicle, but rather a vaguely car-shaped snowbank.  Plow-piled snow encases our car up to the windows plus the 19 fresh inches sit atop the roof like so much white fluffy frosting.

Frosting... that gets me to thinking... of cakes in general, and then birthday cakes in particular.  Which draws us right back round again to the matter at hand: boys and half-birthdays, half-birthdays and boys.

So maybe I should take my cue from the above, combat a case of the mid-winter blues, cheer myself up, inspired by all this birthday and cake talk, and herewith take you on a photographic tour down birthday memory lane via my ONE claim to domestic awesomeness: my amazing mommy-made birthday cakes:

In the beginning were cupcakes for birthdays one and two. Easy to make, no big knives need be left laying around curious toddlers with swift, fat, grabby fingers.  And?  They didn't know any better, what was important was the eating of them.

But then they turned three, and had seen birthday cakes in books and on TV.   Beautiful, decorated cakes.  And Ethan pounced, begged, made specific demands requests.

So it all began in 2005, when the boys were Thomas the Tank Engine obsessed 3 year-olds.  Ethan had asked for a James cake, as his then love of the color red extended to all things, including trains.  And I knew that for Jacob, who still yet did not always make his desires known, Thomas, the main character was the right choice.

Since I was making two cakes, and not everyone loves chocolate (although that makes no sense to Ethan who believes non-chocolate deserts have no reason to live), I made one cake, Ethan's, chocolate and the other, Jacob's, vanilla.

I pulled out the boys Thomas placements, and painstakingly copied the illustrations onto the cakes:

2005: My FIRST cake - Thomas for Jacob

As Ethan's chocolate frosting was so dark, problem solving how to write a legible "Happy Birthday" in the requested blue gel inspired the bug puffy steam cloud coming out of the smokestack, possibly my favorite part.

2005: James the red engine for Ethan

I wasn't sure I could pull it off, had never attempted anything quite like this before.  I dove in, in pure experimental mode, and... I succeeded, damn it!  The problem here being: once you do this well, once?  It becomes expected every year.  And I'm supposed to improve, too, to top myself, as it were.

OK, 2006: Once again, one chocolate, one not.  Lemon-vanilla, this time.  Also?  This was the first year Jacob was on his special Gluten Free/Casein Free diet.  So I had to find a really good vanilla GF/CF cake mix and make a practice cake before I inflicted it upon the masses.

I was, once again, taking design requests.  And this year I figured out that printing out simple line-drawing coloring pages found online was the best way to create a "pattern" for my decorating. 

So, four year-old Jacob was in love with Pingu the penguin:

2006: Pingu for Jake

While Ethan at four showed considerable loyalty to his father as his nascent superhero obsession erupted.  He chose Spider-man:

2006: Spidey for Ethan

Spider-main turned out a little lumpier than he was supposed to be, but within tolerable limits, I think.

And in 2007?  Cars, baby!  Jake was in love, I mean IN LOVE with Mac, the big Mac truck who is Lightning's best friend:

2007: Mac for Jake

Ethan wanted 5 cars  on his, which I nixed, but did acquiesce (after much begging) to a 2 car road scene tableau, from above, with a Route 66 logo.  I'm a sucker, what can I say:

2007 for Ethan: Route 66

I can admit, this was not my best effort.  It was late, I was getting tired.  In an ideal world, I would have filled in more green at the side of the road instead of just that lame lone squiggle.  Oh, well, it was devoured and enjoyed, just the same.

In 2008 I discovered the existence of Wilton shaped cake pans.  Who knew?  Learning about these was a revelation.  There was still a fuck-ton of work involved, but at least I didn't have to research the design.  Just E-bay the pans.  (You didn't think my kids wanted any of the current, easy to obtain designs, did you?  My kids?)

Once again the current superhero obsessions ruled: Batman for Jake and Power Ranger for Ethan. Jake's Batman cake was orange vanilla flavored and really delicious, no one would ever guess it was GF/CF unless they knew:

2008: Jake loved Batman

2008: Ethan was all about the Power Rangers

Ethan had directed me in the color choice for the Power Ranger's costume.  I bit my lip and restrained myself from sharing with him that making the Ranger sleeve's trim into a pink and green argyle made me refer to this one as "Buffy the Connecticut Wasp Power Ranger" in my mind. 

In 2009, I had some serious fun.  Ethan had switched allegiances from the Bakugan to the Pokemon Japanimation tribe just before his birthday, and decided to "make it easy for you, Mom" by requesting a simple Pokeball design, as opposed to an elaborate character re-creation.

May I present the Pokeball cake: simple, elegant, nearly modernistic:

2009: Ethan gets a Pokeball

Jake, on the other hand, got his most elaborate cake to date in 2009.   

That summer he was a bit obsessed with the very hungry caterpillar character from the self named Eric Carle storybook.  His class had performed a stirring reading of this story at their graduation & moving up ceremony in June.

One day in June I had ducked into a Williams Sonoma store when a torrential rain suddenly came down upon me while waiting for the crosstown bus.  What was in the sale bin, but a shaped caterpillar cakelet pan, and the inspiration struck:

2009: A Very Hungry Caterpillar for Jacob

2009: Close up of the head cakelet

I had so much fun making this.  My little addition: I doubled the body pieces to make him really long.  Also?  I am very fond of my embellishments: the green colored sugar crusted over green frosting to make the eyes sparkle and then the grape twizzler antennae. (The mold was for a generic caterpillar with a different face. I turned him into Eric Carle's specific caterpillar.)

Which brings us up to the present. This past year, 2010, was the boys' year of Pokemon. A shaped cake pan Pikachu (thank you Wilton) for Jacob, whose favorite color progressed to yellow this summer:

2010: Pikachu for Jake

And for Ethan?  I think I outdid myself this past year.  He initially wanted some particularly complex and difficult to draw Pokemon, but we finally settled on this guy, Lapras, who seemed actually do-able.  I think I did a pretty damn good job re-creating him, using, once again, a computer coloring page pattern:

2010: Lapras for Ethan

OK, here's the Lapras, image I used, you be the judge:

Whew!

And now, in hindsight (because when have I ever NOT over-thought things), I realize that while I had thought I was doing this particular post to bring a little summer cheer into the winter gray, I also see, as this rolls along, that I had ulterior motives (when do I ever not, isn't there always a secondary agenda floating along under the overt... or is that just me?)*

I think I needed to remind myself, to prove to you all, that there's some things in life at which I do not, actually, completely suck.  Because lately?  I've been feeling pretty sucktastic, especially when it comes to the state of my messy home and all things domestic.  Sigh.

And maybe it's just the inevitable post-operative depression talking (I had been warned it might set in at about 3 weeks when the physical was mostly healed but I was not yet back to 100%).   But anyway, here it is: my house may be an absolute disaster, but there is something domestic at which I am fairly glorious.  So take that!

Also, before you go suggesting I do something like this for a living?  No, no and no.  These take me FOREVER.  I love doing this for my kids, they are a labor of love, and shall remain that way.  Once a year.  My kids only.  Probably my grand-kids (way) down the road.

And now I'm off to make a special half-birthday lunch for my dear boys.  Tomorrow they will be closer to nine, one day closer to being claimed fully by the world.  Today they are still eight and a half, still mine.

*another example of how I have legitimately earned my crown as "Queen of the Run-on Sentence  (with parenthetical clauses).


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The Unbearable Sucktacity of Being

If you called or e-mailed or rang my doorbell today and I did not answer you, did not return your connecting gesture?

Forgive me.

I have been miserable all day, riding that line between extreme discomfort and pain, riding it hard.

Today, all day: I felt like crap, shit, shite, merde, poop, crud, dreck, guano and cowplop. 

Think this post is gonna carry the label "whiny rants"?   You betcha.

But it's going to be brief.

Because for this stuff?  The line between entertaining and oh-god-when-is-she-going-to-shut-up?  Comes up mighty fast, I know.

Like I said: brief.

I know you think I don't have it in me.  Me, being "Queen of the run-on-sentence (with parenthetical clauses)" and all.

Just watch, I can be brief... ish.

Just the facts, ma'am:

I now have a date with a surgeon: January 5th.  (Sad to say, he does NOT look like weird Al Yankovic.)

That's the soonest date after the big school break is over that we can get the "gall bladder removal show" up and running.

In between now and then?

I will likely be a little bit miserable, all the time.

Afterward?  For about 2 weeks, a LOT miserable.

And then?  And then?

If I'm lucky, a whole lot better.

Friends have sent messages of support and tales of how much better they felt once the deed was done.

I can't say I'm not anxious, but as these days of feeling crappy roll on and on I am getting quite ready to be done with all this.  I hate being cranky with the kids.  Hate having no energy, and really hate low grade nausea as a constant companion.

It was my least favorite aspect of being pregnant and I came out of that with two babies to show for it.

Nothing of the sort this time (although I have been told gallstone jewelry was the fashion in ancient China, I think I'll skip that).

Keeping a sense of equanimity, keeping my humor intact  and getting some patience with the kids back are my big challenges for the next two weeks.

Also?  Coming up with posts that are NOT all whiny rants.

Wish me luck.

(I would say "send chocolate" but I can't eat any for the next month or so... waaaaaaah!)


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