Swimming Against the Tide

Do a mitzvah. Adopt a barnacle.

Earlier this month, a barnacle covered fishing boat set adrift by the tsunami in Japan washed ashore in California. A little more than a week ago, a young man laden with a back pack full of yen coins in small denominations and a few pairs of socks and underwear washed ashore in Chicago. This morning, that same young man wings his way back to the shores of Japan, while the barnacle covered fishing boat remains on this side of the planet. No fair.

Like the boat, the young man left in his wake a bit of rubble. As I stood amid the tossed articles of clothing and the half empty (half full?) Starbucks cups and soda cans in his room this morning, looking at the sheets that seemed to have been lifted and tossed and twisted and dropped again by some mysterious storm that left the rest of the house relatively intact, I decided the clean up could wait. I am not ready to set the debris adrift, to restore the room to a tranquility that erases all evidence of my son's brief and messy visit.

A friend sent me a video the other day, a tongue in cheek promotional ad seeking young men willing to adopt a Jewish mother, to spend a day here and there with a woman who has devoted her life to micromanaging her own son only to see him drift away and neglect her. "Hmm, what are you implying?" I asked my friend. Could I possibly be the woman caricatured in the video, the controlling desperate housewife who demands that girlfriends take a back seat to her, whose favorite pastime is reading about colleges and determining which ones might be worthy of educating her number one son?
My friend denied intending any such implication, claiming he simply thought I would find the spoof amusing. Liar.

I have to admit it was amusing, and really, I am so not like that. Pretending girlfriends don't exist is certainly not the same thing as demanding they take a back seat. I never picked out colleges for him -- mostly because, at the time he was applying, I was just happy he had decided to go. And the Jewish mothers in the video would never tolerate the whole Japan thing, even despite the bragging rights. No amount of telling people how fabulously brilliant and unique your son is because he is teaching English in Japan can substitute for the satisfaction a true Jewish mother gets when her grown son shows up for dinner on a regular basis and allows her to shove matzoh balls down his throat while she offers up suggestions about what he should wear and where he should work and why he should have gone to medical school, no matter how much he hates science.

A true Jewish mother would cover herself in barnacles and somehow make herself buoyant and figure out a way to drift against the tide and end up on the shores of Japan and whisk her son home. I would never do such a thing. The thought has never even crossed my mind.

By the way, does anyone know where you can buy some barnacles?

A Beautiful Mess

You can't fool all the people all the time, but you don't have to be a rocket scientist to keep 'em guessing every once in a while.

I saw a teaser on line last night that got my attention, something about the surviving Boston Marathon bomber's EKG not registering so much as a minor blip when he was informed he might be subject to the death penalty. Naturally, I read the article, fascinated by the implication that this guy actually didn't have a heart, and was immediately crushed. The article pretty much told me how irrelevant an EKG would be in measuring an emotional reaction to such a statement, particularly when the guy is drugged up the wazoo. And particularly when the death penalty is thrown in at the end of the litany of possible penalties the way death is always tossed in as a possible side effect of even the most benign narcotic, right there after permanent maiming. Even the most emotional among us barely pay attention to that crap.

My EKG's, as far as I know, have always been quite normal, despite the fact that I tend to be a chronic worrier. I think I usually hide it pretty well, not just from the men in the white coats but from the mere mortals around me. It's important to keep that stuff under wraps; you don't want to make folks uncomfortable, particularly if they're your children. In fact, when they're your children, if you're a complete psycho the way I am, you are occasionally at risk of having an "episode" where you worry yourself into a complete frenzy about making sure everything is absolutely perfect for them and, at the same time, not letting them know you're on the verge of a complete mental break down. Note to self: don't try that again.

The key to not letting them see you sweat is to not try too hard. Worry all you want, but if you run yourself ragged thinking you have some control over how things turn out, you're headed for disaster. For example, your body can suddenly realize at an inopportune time -- say, when you're out to dinner with your three kids, a visiting French student, and your ex-husband, celebrating your daughter's birthday and your son's homecoming after a year -- that it's been running on pure adrenaline all day and needs to shut down and you end up spending the next half hour semi-conscious on the ladies room floor while your daughters take turns offering you water and blockading the door and your son and your ex and the French student sit at the table staring awkwardly at each other.

It was, to say the least, an inauspicious beginning to my week of having a rare house full of offspring, but I adjusted. It took a day or two, but I stopped panicking and started to relax a bit, enjoying the laptops and clothing and plates that seemed to be strewn everywhere, even relishing the constant sound and sensation of oreo crumbs crunching beneath my feet. There are piles of unfolded laundry everywhere, urgent requests for food and coffee and toilet paper throughout the day, an occasional suggestion that I drop whatever really important thing I happen to be doing so we can go somewhere together. A blind dog and one teenager can't even begin to match this kind of chaos. They both reacted as I did at first, with a bit of trepidation, maybe some confusion about how to behave. But, as the week draws to a close, tails are wagging and we're all smiling. It's been a beautiful mess.

I still slip into panic mode occasionally, striving for perfection when I know it will only lead to disaster. Which is why the home made Snickers brownies I had promised to bring to a mother daughter dinner last night where I really wanted to make a good impression ended up being made from a mix and not including any Snickers and being under baked and poorly cut and looking a bit like beef jerky. I assured them all I had other talents. They looked skeptical. At least I didn't pass out.

On my way to Starbucks this morning, I spotted the sneaky cop hiding in the school parking lot. My gas gauge is on "E," and I was afraid, for a moment, I'd see the heart sinking light show blinding me in my rear view mirror. But I remained calm, kept my hands at ten and two, and, as far as I can tell, the guy has no idea I was running on empty.

Going Cold Turkey

Over the counter or under the counter, I have discovered drugs are not the answer.

For over a year now, I've been taking these pills that are supposed to do what no other pill has done, i.e. make my anxiety go away. And, by the way, just in case I get depressed, they'll toss in a little bonus magic for that too. With a few short breaks when the anxiety of paying for them really got to me, I've stuck with them. I was brought up to believe you get what you pay for, so I've been figuring that even though I've noticed nothing other than a big dent in my wallet, the effect must be cumulative and very long term. Sometimes you just have to be patient.

Apparently I misunderstood the directions; I had the dosage and the delivery method all wrong. If I had wanted the pills to help rid me of anxiety I would have been better off taking all thirty of them at once, still hermetically sealed in the bottle, and throwing them directly at the source. Okay, it's a moving target, but at least I would have had a chance, and I might even have avoided a year of pesky side effects. The dizziness and increased appetite I could live with (I've always been a glutton and a bit off balance), but the fatigue was becoming a bit inconvenient. Falling asleep on my laptop in mid-sentence or even dozing in a movie were bad enough; constantly fighting the urge to suddenly slip into a coma while driving is another story. With the blessing of my doctor (affectionately known as Dr. Happy Pills), I am weaning myself off the little poison capsules. For a mere twelve dollars a minute (thankfully I'm only there for fifteen; we don't want my anxiety to become incapacitating), he flipped through the little manual and confirmed that the side effects I was experiencing are indeed at the top of the list. I think I could have told him that. Damn, I should have been a doctor.

The anxiety has already lifted as I fantasize about what I will do with the money I will save every month at the pharmacy drive thru, where, every month, the clerk appears to need some kind of electric shock therapy when he sees the price of my purchase. "It's cheaper than heroin," I once told him. He looked at me like I was nuts. I get that a lot.

Anyway, now that I'll have all this money left over, I'm thinking I want to go on vacation. But if I'm going to enjoy a vacation, I need to look good. You never know who you're going to meet. Which brings me to the problem of the purplish brown dark circles under my eyes, which have grown to look like bruises from a fist fight where one of us -- namely me -- had no fists.

No longer trusting narcotics of any kind sold in the drug store, I opted for a more holistic solution and ventured off to Whole Foods. After a few laps around the store, I managed to locate the "eye cream" aisle (the only section I'm familiar with is "prepared foods;" who knew they actually sold groceries?), and stood mesmerized by all the options before me. I read every label, assessing each "miracle" product by the extent to which the brand sounded appropriately clinical (pH should always appear somewhere in bold letters) and the extent to which the label design looked pharmaceutical as opposed to sartorial. Anything referred to as serum would be a front runner. Sale items were out; if folks aren't willing to spend their life savings on the stuff, it can't be good. No, I have not forgotten about the anxiety pills; I simply misused them. 

After careful study, I went with the stark looking tube of serum made from extract of green tea leaves and cucumbers and specifically billed as non-irritating. I was being particularly careful about reading labels given my year-long snafu with the prescription pills, and I didn't want to make any more mistakes. Non-irritating sounded good, but I suppose I still need a tutorial in label reading because, once again, I misunderstood. Apparently, what "non-irritating" really means is "this stuff isn't merely irritating; it is so caustic that it results in blazing redness on contact and causes a sting so painful you want to cut your head off." All this medical jargon is so confusing; maybe it's a good thing after all that I didn't become a doctor. I can be shitty at bedside, and I am definitely not smart enough to charge twelve dollars a minute. 

I'm not going to write off Whole Foods the way I've written off the drug store. I'd starve without their prepared foods section. But I'm expanding my horizons there a bit, venturing into produce to stock up on cucumbers. Get your minds out of the gutter kids, I know what you're thinking. Sometimes a cucumber is just a cucumber -- something to be sliced into little soothing circles to place on your aching eyes. And I suppose I can toss the rest in a salad, once my drug induced appetite decreases and I can tolerate a little light eating. 

Clear eyed and svelte, I'm gonna look good on that vacation I'm planning. And there will be no sunblock from any drug stores, no decision on whether to PABA or not to PABA. I'll just wear a hat. 

Seeded Players

My kids have it all figured out. No surprise there.

While I've been wasting a good bit of energy worrying that all three of them prefer their father to me, they have long known that we are the ones who are guilty of having favorites. It's okay though, because, apparently, my number one is his number three and we each have the same number two so it all averages out and between the two of us, they each get the same amount of love. Or whatever it is we have to offer.

When my youngest, the child who is the perennial runner-up told me about the hierarchy of affection, I was startled and, naturally, went off on a rant of complete denial. "You just don't get it, do you?" I snapped. She seemed amused, and strangely content. Who cares if you're always the bridesmaid, never the bride. She'll take the glory of omniscience any day, the rush of scooping me on my own inner thoughts. "Frankly I can't stand any of you," I muttered. If she heard, she seemed unfazed.

Word has it that my eldest is my third seed. The one I favor least, even though she is the only one whose laundry I did in Dreft. The only one whose first words are locked in my memory, the only one whose baby calendar is completely filled in. She breathed, I wrote it down. She grinned, I took a picture. She spoke and I kept a transcript. I can't say it ever gets old, but the first person who actually grows inside your body and emerges to change you into a person who is capable of loving somebody else so much it hurts always occupies a special place in your soul. Maybe she thinks she's third because she simply had farther to fall. It's hard to keep up the whole Dreft thing. There are two other incomparable places in my soul, but the occupants wouldn't believe me if I told them about it, so why bother.

I suppose it's good news that they have the pecking order figured out. At least I can stop worrying about which one hates me most. Or what I could have done better, since, from what I can tell, the rankings have been in place for years and are pretty much immutable. Maybe I'll be really lucky and the kid with a solid (and apparently permanent) grasp on the number one spot can muster up enough affection for me to balance the other two out. I can move on to worrying about more important things, like how I'm going to adjust to living in Japan, where the one least likely to toss me to the wolves lives. I like rice and noodles, but I am not a big raw fish fan. And my big peasant Jewish feet are about three full sizes larger than any shoes they sell there. Will I be spending my golden years with cold feet?

It's been kind of nice having a visitor from France, somebody else's ungrateful and all knowing child. She's a teenager, but she keeps her nastiness in check when she's around me, doesn't even act ashamed when her friends come around. She says hello in the morning, thanks me for doing her laundry, and doesn't roll her eyes when we appear to have no croissants (or any bread products, for that matter) in the bread drawer. And when I was dozing in the car at midnight waiting for her school bus to arrive from a field trip to a baseball game in Milwaukee, she pretended not to notice. She was still on the bus when I opened my eyes and looked up to see if I could spot her through the dark windows. Almost immediately, she broke into a huge smile and gave me an enthusiastic wave. Wow, that's something I haven't experienced in a while.

We chatted in my broken French and her broken English the whole way home, and my annoyance at having to stay up so late to retrieve her melted away. The friendly greeting was heartwarming. We had no trouble finding things to chat about, and we discovered that "Bloomingdales" is "Bloomingdales" in any language. She said good night to me, even shouted bon soir to Manny, who was already farting and snoring peacefully on my bed.

She leaves in a week, and we will be back to observing the strange code of silent disdain that is normally the governing playbook for our household. She will never make it into the ranking system developed by my kids because she is the fruit of someone else's labor. She exists for some other oblivious mother to love unconditionally even though she herself might not see it that way. In the universal language spoken by offspring everywhere, I am sure she and her own brother have things figured out back in France, are somehow at peace with their parents' perceived preferences.

My daughter told me that when she visited France last summer, the mom not only did her laundry but ironed her underwear. And I am sure my daughter offered up a heartfelt merci beaucoup and did not slam a bedroom door for two weeks and never shot maman a single look of disdain. After all, I pretty much never iron anything, and I certainly never did her laundry in Dreft.

And expectations are just blissfully low when you're not a seeded player.

Spinning My Wheels

I was barely awake in the line at Starbucks this morning when I sensed that somebody was speaking to me. I had already noticed him and he was already on my shit list for ordering a drink that needed some preparation when there was only one person working. "Man up," I wanted to tell him. Nobody needs a white mocha before sunrise.

"Are you good with computers?" he asked, apparently oblivious to the growling in my head. I glanced at the lap top I had placed down on the counter. (Why continue to hold it when you're in it for the long haul because some jerk had to order a bar drink?). Its exterior is speckled with dents from being dropped and a few diet coke stains from last week when I accidentally tossed it into the recycling bin during my overly zealous house cleaning frenzy. My laptop, like me, wears the telltale signs of stress on its outer sleeve, but it still functions. Most days.

"How good do you need?" I asked. The mocha drinker had a friendly face, so I decided to cut him some slack. It turned out he couldn't get his lap top to start up. I admitted that I wasn't very savvy, but he seemed certain I had to know more than he did. Funny, just because I was carrying one around. Maybe I'll start carrying around a big fat pay check so folks will automatically assume I'm worth something.

He seemed desperate, so I told him I'd be happy to push some buttons. It's how I deal with computers and remote controls and the random flashing lights on my dashboard. My car dashboard, the old fashioned kind. At work, I have my own special way of pushing a return through when the wheel of death on the screen starts spinning out of control and the customer looks as if she's going to throttle someone. An extra scan, a double click, one more scan and one more double click and I'm in. Nobody else is willing to try my carefully developed system, but I swear, it's foolproof. I am an accidental computer geek.

Anyway, I showed off a little bit and read the strange instructions on Mr. Mocha's computer screen as if I actually understood what the words meant, executed a few random pushes and clicks and, voila!, the screen changed and all of a sudden there were some different incomprehensible instructions up there. He thought making it to a new step indicated some progress. I puffed out my chest a little bit, happy that someone was recognizing my well hidden genius.

We stared together at the screen, which was assuring us in some convoluted terms that it was thinking deep thoughts. He looked amazed. I pretended to be engrossed in thoughts that were as deep as those of his lap top. We waited and stared. "Can you believe I used to be a successful salesman and now I'm driving a taxi?" I was taken aback, mostly because I cannot remember the last time I met a taxi driver who spoke English like a native. I thought about the three hours I had spent a day earlier navigating expressways and surface streets in a torrential downpour to get my daughter to school and friends to the airport and me to work at a location I had never been to before. Hmm, maybe I'm qualified to be a taxi driver. Why was he talking about it as if it were a bad thing?

Unfortunately, I didn't have my resume on me, that impressive piece of paper that starts out strong and fizzles out into a big sheet of white space. Maybe I could add something about my computer know-how, fill up some of the emptiness, and ask Mocha to pass it on to the people who hire taxi drivers. I glanced at his lap top screen. The wheel of death was still spinning, the promises of deep and highly evolved thought processes still blinked on and off. I wasn't feeling all that optimistic, but he still looked encouraged. At least something was happening. I know the feeling. Like yesterday when I got off the expressway just so I could experience the sensation of movement, even though it was in the wrong direction. Yes, I could definitely apply to be a taxi driver if my new career in computer repair fell through.

I encouraged Mocha Man to sit and relax, since "several minutes" in computer speak is a term of art that has nothing to do with time measurement as people of merely average intelligence would understand it. He trusted me; I had become his guru with my random pokes and prods. He sat and sipped. I scurried off to my couch.

"You did it!" he suddenly called out to me. He was beaming. His lap top was up and running, and he would be able to communicate with the taxi dispatcher and earn his keep for the day. As usual, I got paid nothing for my priceless service, but I am feeling confident and motivated as a result of my time spent making rain. Today I will work on my resume.

And though I don't know Mocha's name, I jotted down his cab number, just in case I need a reference.

Live Free or Die Laughing

Breaking news: earlier this week, a New Hampshire state representative used "vaginas" as a synonym for "women" in a mass email to fellow lawmakers. What a dick.

The email was sent in the context of a gun law debate, and I think the guy had good intentions, trying to protect and defend the weaker sex (kind of a "vaginas and children first" argument). Nevertheless, as is often the case, semantics get overblown and the guy, who no doubt believes "vagina" is a complimentary term, gets in trouble. If only he had chosen his words more carefully, perhaps gone with the more technical and Oprah-endorsed vajayjay, all those New Hampshire panties wouldn't be in a knot.

Dumb politicians notwithstanding, I am still proud to be an American. Frankly, I'll take news of moronic behavior by elected officials any day over reports of school house slaughters or marathon massacres or other real tragedies. Even though I certainly don't think of "vagina" as a complimentary term, I've been called far worse things. And thank goodness for stupid politicians; we all could use a good chuckle every now and then. I am perfectly content to let the best and the brightest remain behind the scenes, getting the important stuff done without boring the crap out of us.

In the aftermath of the explosions at the Boston Marathon, the news is saturated with stories of unsung heroism and extraordinary gratitude for random acts of kindness. Victims and good Samaritans alike serve as examples to us all, not because they are perfect human beings who have never called a woman a vagina but because, in the most dire of situations, so many of them did the right thing, even said the right things. Might one or more of them have had an occasional slip of the tongue (or keyboard)? Of course. But when it counted, there was an amazing show of generosity and compassion and unadulterated humanity, and I'd like to think that's how most of us would have behaved under the circumstances, no matter how many stupid things we do and say in an ordinary day. Patriot's Day 2013 was anything but ordinary, but it showed us, once again, that Anne Frank was right, that despite blatant and unspeakable evil, people are, for the most part, good.

New Hampshire's motto is as American as apple pie: live free or die. I cherish our way of life here, all of our freedoms, including the freedom to elect buffoons who provide us with constant and relatively harmless entertainment. To the dick in New Hampshire who gave us all a good laugh and to the brave folks in Boston (and everywhere else) who continue to show us what really matters, I say keep up the good work.

Run for Your Life!

I saw my brother had tried to reach me several times. That's never good news.

Several missed calls and a text. "Need to ask you about Boston." Boston? There's not much to tell. I went to law school there, back in the day. Learned to drive like a maniac. Fell in love. Became a runner. All old news. Why was he suddenly asking me about Boston? I responded with a text: "??????" He called. I always talk on the phone in the bathroom at home, but I try to avoid it at work. People might wonder why I am not peeing alone.

I answered with an annoyed whisper. My brother has had years of practice when it comes to ignoring my bitchiness. He wanted to know if our friends, the ones who welcome all of us into their family to celebrate holidays, were in Boston watching their son run the marathon. There had been several explosions. My mind raced. A Monday in April. Patriot's Day. A state holiday in Massachusetts. The day of the Boston Marathon. Of course our friends would be there. If there was a marathon, their son would be running, and they would be watching.

Frantically, I tried reaching them. I reached my daughter, who had already tried reaching their daughter.  While we were on the phone, she finally heard back. They were all okay. Thankfully, her brother is fast, had crossed the finish line more than an hour before the blasts. He and his parents were on their way back to his apartment, on the subway, when it all happened, blissfully ignorant of the chaos at street level. It reminded me of the day in September so many years ago, the beautiful sunny day that had turned to shit, when New York came under attack and we could not locate my mom. She had been on the subway, probably not far from the World Trade Center, but blissfully ignorant of the chaos above, until she emerged several miles away and saw the tip of Manhattan smoking.

Back in 1983, when I stood in the still weak but very welcome New England sun watching my first marathon, my life was about to change. Impressed by the sheer determination (not to mention the fat free physiques) of the runners passing by, I decided not only that I would become a runner, but that one day I would run a marathon. The Boston Marathon, preferably. And I did become a runner. For years, I ran almost every day, no matter what the weather, and it saved me. Saved me from complete uncertainty, from a nagging ennui, and from a years long struggle with eating disorders. Maybe running didn't save me, but it helped. A lot.

 For years, running was my life line. I wrote lectures for work in my head, I conquered bulimia (or maybe I substituted one purge for another, but still), I resolved pesky issues that seemed to defy resolution when I was standing still.I have stopped running these days. Aching middle aged joints have made it difficult. Not being able to walk for days after a relatively short run has made me seek out more gentle forms of exercise, and I will probably never run that marathon. I will have to pass that torch to my daughters, and, possibly this year, to my ex-husband (which, I admit, will really piss me off)!

My friends' son discovered running when he was in high school. Running has saved him, too, or at least helped a lot. Running, he became somebody. He had always been somebody, but not so much in his own mind. Running helped him figure out who he is and it has propelled him forward. He is happy and thriving, and still running. Even more than running changed my life, running changed my friends' son's life. I wonder whether this Boston Marathon will change his running. It probably will, at least in some way.

It will change him and it will change all of us, just as 9/11 did, and just as all events that turn a good thing into a bad thing tend to do. Without warning, our illusions are as shattered as the charred limbs that littered the streets of Back Bay, and we are all left, for a moment, not knowing how to move forward. The lucky ones will just learn, again, to put one foot in front of the other. For others, it will be a bit more difficult.

But by next year, when the weak but welcome New England sun shines down on Boston on Patriot's Day, the runners and the dreamers and the survivors will be ready to move forward, because that's what we do.