Your Name Here.

Jules writes her name with a big, solid period at the end. So sure of herself it seems. I've noticed other kids do this sometimes as they learn to write and learn punctuation. I like the idea of thinking of ourselves with a firm, confident period at the end of who we are.

Potty training a boy, at least my boy, makes me doubt putting a period at the end of my name.

Anyone else experience that rush of adrenaline, ripping your kid out of a swing or off the couch, or out of the bath, at the hint they're pooping while attempting to potty-train? Then trip getting to the portable potty you brought to the park? Then find you're too late and now that you've pulled their pants down, it's worse than you ever imagined?

You really learn what good friends are when your kid poops their pants at your friends' house and you came unprepared.

Cole taught us over the last year he cannot be trusted to stop having fun to hit the bathroom.

We taught Jules about crying wolf. Spoiler alert: A wolf will petrify any kid into avoiding that. We may have forgotten briefly it eats the sheep and had it eat the boy, our voices slowing down to a quiet trail as we realized what we were doing, her eyes wide in the dark before bedtime, us curled around her on top of the covers. Oops.

There are many immature ways I still feel young but I'm nonetheless getting older (and wiser at an eighth of the rate). Old move: I got a pap smear for my birthday last fall. Immature move: I think I might start doing that yearly because I got a few extra "happy birthday's," giving my birth date to check in and so on.

Let's see, I watched Enola and The Queen's Gambit and fell in love with women all over again.

Oh – I got a new, full-time job! It's been great. Rewarding. Uses my skillset. Makes me feel like a grown-up. It also takes about 30 minutes to explain so I'll spare you.

In other literal news, I got the cover of Crown City Magazine again. In honesty, the key is the photo someone more professional took. Also got a Coronavirus at Christmastime feature for the Coronado Times. You can read more about my island Times life here if you're really, really bored – so these are basically some of my favorite people ever and I wish we could have writer get-togethers which they did before COVID and I arrived.

The writing and income life is good for once. If only I could make time to finish that pesky 30-something coming-of-age novel instead of blogging therapeutically.

I still like how I saw this on Twitter and thought, yep.

Anyone else have an Apple Watch and not know what to do with it? If you have one and do know what to do with it, please tell me. I'm tempted to donate it to someone who needs it. I still love you for getting it for my birthday, Cary, don't get me wrong.

Yet it feels like the giant blue pleather planner I bought when I was 12 and pretty much just enjoyed rewriting my homework assignments in my best (still really bad) handwriting and seeing a five dollar bill in the clear plastic pouch inside.

I proceeded to leave it in every store – racing back in a panic – when I put it down to check out an item.

Cary was gone for some training for a couple weeks recently. The C.B. Strike series on HBO MAX and frozen burritos got me though. Also my amazing mom-in-law. Grandparents may not replace your spouse. They may spoil your kids or not know where everything goes, or not know how to communicate every drop-off, pick-up and chore or errand like your more intuitive spouse after nearly 15 years of marriage. But they sure damn do make it easier when you have to change one less diaper, discipline one less time, deal with one less load of dishes or laundry, make one less even simple meal; and they provide that much more love.

Plus I didn't have to clean the microwave that was laughing at and taunting me. I wanted to shed a tear.

Because when your kids are getting in their car seats, talking incessantly or fighting, and you close the car door on their high, penetrating voices. And you pause. Walk as slowly as possible around to your own car door. It's one break. Adding a grandparent is a whole other one.

Then we drive home, Jules asking me about our our poor dead dog, girls marrying girls, me dying, God, heaven, giving birth (seriously all one in day)... And I’m like, I want them to ask and learn and find their way but also I’m just so tired and can’t even explain these things when tip-top. I mess up these conversations so much. Like I don’t have the answers, kid. Just be a nice person. But like tough when you have to be. Ugghh, good luck.

For some wins – what I live for – we watched Earwig and the Witch (also on HBO), the whole weird thing in peace, both kids rapt, me with coffee I made it all the way through without heating up. And we watched Frozen 2 for the millionth time (still so good) one night while they licked clean bowls of popcorn, also peaceful and laughing together in the near darkness because Jules makes it that way for a "special night" and we were close to her birthday – and I realized how much Cole is absorbing these days, talking about the "ice boat" and the "dark sea." And it's all worth it all over again and again.

Us toward the beginning of the pandemic,
getting ice cream and eating it in the traffic median. 😳

These Days Have Teeth

Cole escaped the gate outside our front door. I forgot to latch it in some hubbub, swore he was in our fenced yard, could hear him babbling and banging around. Nope. He had gone 200 feet to the nearest street corner, obsessed with all things vehicular. Oh my good Lord. My heart took the elevator shaft down when I couldn't find him. Springing down the sidewalk, Jules at my heels.

Strangers saved us yet again – but me feeling their hearts and minds, through their eyes, chewing on my soul with sharp, judgmental canines. I thanked profusely, dodged quickly, tried to show I cared the most and shuffled the kids back to the house – embarrassed – wracking my head for the error. Jules? Nope. Me.

The police stopped by (how long had Cole been chilling with these passersby?!). The officers kindly tried to make me feel a little better.

Why did I avoid apologizing to anyone?, I wondered later. Because it's my kid and I'm a good mom? Because I was stretched thin for the longest I've ever been? Because I felt enraged for all the wrongly judged parents, especially moms (let's be honest), especially military spouses or the like, especially these days?

Child Protective Services showed up a few days later, announcing themselves in startling clarity right when I had almost recovered from the lost child incident. My spirit plummeted all over again. My confidence was sapped all over again, trying to find it was probably like getting juice from a prune.

Work hit a distracted standstill, my appetite filled with nerves. Time was lost and a bunch of ache gained. I felt alone alone and like a failure in the HGTV Disneyland that was supposed to be my new home, the village that would help me with my kids and life when Cary isn't able to because he's out helping or preparing to help others.

I felt like the worst parent ever. When I know I'm not. It's a weird dichotomy. These days.

While I waited for a letter that would say the claim was unfounded, I went back near the corner to exchange numbers with a neighbor just in case it helped me feel better, the kids in tow. Jules was eating an apple she wanted to bring and Cole was wearing a fitting Mr. Mischief T-shirt. Make it better for yourself, I thought. And can and did. Notwithstanding a racing heart and worry about cowering to conflict.

In Fallon Jules didn't come inside right away when Cary got home from work one evening. People driving by called the police since apparently the light-glowing house with the front door half open wasn't a clue.

Wulp, I thought that Friday CPS announced themselves at our gate that boasted added security, we officially belong in a garbage can.

Hope no parents have an untidy house, drink alcohol, spank or have junk food around. Because you will feel less than enough even if none of that exists. And your kid will be woken from their nap. And your other kid will all of a sudden clam up. And you better pray it makes for a good wedding toast one day if your rascal survives that long.

I should've taken it more in stride. I should've shook it off sooner. 

Jules actually ran away from us in a Target once, thinking it would be a game while I had visions of someone snatching that tiny little person with the fuzzy hair and running out the front door.

Cole walked straight into the San Diego Bay the other day without his mini lifejacket on, thinking it would be a game too.

I treasure my kids. I'm also surviving them. That's OK.

Loved ones ease my mind. My friends accept me even when I text in weird teen shorthand. Like literally only five years ago my entire message trails were 14-year-old code since I apparently didn't have enough time to write out a complete word (shuttering I think, as a writer). So of course they understand a CPS visit.

One friend listened to me ball into the phone like we were kids again, as the straw had stacked up on top of me. Another said dads get a free pass on mistakes, moms get the authorities. One suggested this will totally be part of a speech at Carroll the Fifth's wedding. This childhood tribe is legit.

Though my buddies are all very different, they seem like they know exactly when to check in on me and how. My military squad can do that too, friends I'm lucky enough to live by again or new ones nearby who don't skip a beat. My heart rippled like a balloon starting to reinflate, slowly healing from all the teeth marks this year is leaving on my soul, many marks much shallower than other people's.

Sometimes I worry I'll have a heart attack or stroke while alone with the kids and they'll find me and panic and not know what to do. Or Cary will be gone and hopefully Jules will know what to do. A heart attack isn't out of realm as the last meal I ordered from Uber Eats left an oiled wood grease stain on a side table (and a chunk out of my wallet).

A bright spot in these months was a job offer. But I turned it down. In our situation, I don't think you could pay me enough these days to do technical writing with still little take-home after the needed nanny or tutor. The second income childcare wash is real precarious these days.

Another bright note: I ordered some scrunchies (so comfy) and a NYC T-shirt (gotta at least wear the dream) to save on shipping when I got sparklers for Jules – after I learned too late Cali doesn't sell fireworks. Thirty dollars later I had saved $10 in shipping. My mind is starting to go.

Cole also burnt his little hand on a sparkler even after a long lecture and with careful eyes. Not careful enough, the voices say. F^@$ off!

Digging through my drawers for other comfortable things to wear every day, I discovered I have several sets of basically yoga pants. Some with pockets! Cell phone-specific pockets! These pants have definitely proven themselves to me and I regret every bad thing I ever thought about them and hope they didn't hear.

I also started the curly girl method toward the beginning of the pandemic. Have you heard of this? Whenever I get low on something in the bathroom or closet, I resort to Instagram to see what items I've saved and might want to try – that aren't one million dollars. Through this I found there's a thing to treat your hair naturally and let its natural wave shine. It's nice but I'm never sure if I should leave the house looking like that.

Good thing because I was all ready to start remote kindergarten, mainly to write about it. Then some go-getter families I'll forever be in debt to started a pod and needed a fifth kid via Facebook. Yet prior to the pod life raft, Jules and I (and Cole) attended a school district parent night via Zoom.

Jules' little head popped over the kitchen bar with me, to meet the amazing teacher and other families whose thought bubbles I would've paid to see. It was so heartfelt but so hilarious. Jules waved, talked, realized no one was responding. She grabbed a toy to show, a banana to eat. Still got bored. Cole pulled me away. Jules and I came back to the screen. We discussed this crazy thing called a mouse.

Their computer experience is going to be so much different than mine was. As well as their nature one.

At the Point Loma Tide Pools Cole said, "Look, Mom!" He had stacked a rectangular rock on top of a larger rectangular rock. "Ah cool!" A few minutes later... "And who's your mother?" Oh crap. A nice older woman (alongside her older man counterpart), who are likely state park volunteers, said they can't have unnatural formations in the park.

"See those rock towers over there?" she said, pointing to the two carefully balanced, small towers of stones perched in holes of the beach cliff wall. "People build them out in nature but they're not natural." She then bent over with her walking stick sprawled to the side and used a hand to awkwardly knock over Cole's very flat tower.

My friend and I proceeded to weirdly tell our adventurous kiddos not to stack rocks.

You never forgive yourself for the real mistakes you make with your kids. But you can move on.

(Plus I love telling that rock story.)

Now I'm going to post this to social media and hopefully make someone else's teeth marks a little less deep.

Watching All The Way Down

Cary actually noticed its greatness first.

See it all from their perspective.
They were there every hilarious step of the way.

The Lion King 1 1/2 is actually really clever. Disney sequels aren't usually up to adult snuff. Jules and I (and Cole) watch endless movies and shows together (including all four of The Descendants*, which I can barely keep up with since I have to jump up constantly apparently for juice, milk, crackers, diaper changes, assistance fluffing pillows, you know).

And I keep observing of some productions: Wow, that was really creative. Now Jules has started saying that too.

"I just want to watch *insert something*. It's really creative. We can cuddle (liltingly)."

She knows me too well now.

I've entered an alternate reality that's beyond binge-watching. We're binge-living.

I love belting out 'Into the Unknown' from Frozen 2. Both my kids hate it when I do it. Which makes me love it more. You know when Tom Hanks shouts "I have made fire!" in Castaway? Well that's how I feel. "I am a parent!"

These are my weeks, probably like other people's weeks:

This is hard.

This is easy.

This is hard.

This is easy.

A year ago I was weighing how we could afford a co-op** in Brooklyn if we went to NYC next – if I somehow got a job there and Cary started flying commercially. Last time I almost sunk into my idea of the East Coast publishing high life, 9/11 hit right after my summer in D.C. I never know whether to feel lucky I missed catastrophe or whether I missed out on some life-altering experience for the better.

One day New York City or Paris or Seattle will get me, starring in my own romcom minus the rom and plus some years to my appearance. For now I'm content (cough cough) and trying to be tough living the comedy of errors that is Jules and Cole.

Turtles All the Way Down art print by Dianne Gage

Jules has taken to snails. Hunting them down and holding them captive, er, taking them as pets. Cole found one that had escaped – much to Jules' glee – then 20 minutes later he accidentally stepped on it and cracked its shell – much to her despair. She found an empty snail shell in our yard (read: a long-dead snail's shell) and somehow got the new, yet traumatized, snail inside it. Needless to say it didn't make it.

Jules often says when she grows up she wants to live in Fallon, Banana (she means Nevada). It has proven more successful than Coronado to her. Touché. She doesn't fully understand yet the beaches and endless sidewalks, as well as only remembers the going-places, the reservoir and pre-school friends and teachers. We used to go to this great Reno zoo and this supposedly breathtaking San Diego zoo has proven a letdown. Jules' first world problems are real AF.

When I get tired of watching with them, I've taken to reading alongside them – immersive mysteries and YA novels and a negotiating book or any other books my dad sends me.

I take endless pictures of the kids when we're not endlessly watching, which makes me look like a better mom than I am.

I have more time to blog now.

Work hours are dwindling as I was between jobs yet again since I decided to take a news desk job on the brink of a pandemic. I also bought a home in 2006. I make such good choices sometimes.

But slowing down to almost a standstill – when not getting up and down off the friggin' couch or scrambling to write a press release during naptime or movietime – hasn't been all bad.

"At some point in life the world's beauty becomes enough. You don't need to photograph, paint or even remember it. It is enough. No record of it needs to be kept and you don't need someone to share it with or tell it to. When that happens – that letting go – you let go because you can."

—Toni Morrison, Tar Baby, 1981 (or since I'm bearing all, I really read this in John Green's Turtles All the Way Down – recommended)

*On Netflix and 'Under the Sea' is a Descendants short story. Woot woot.
**The HOA will getcha.

Why I chose Twitter et al over Facebook

Black Friday 2015 was one of the best days of my life. It involved daycare, a Japanese movie theater and deleting my Facebook app. Cary was gone but Jules was here, and I needed a break – even though she's perfect in every way.

via GIPHY

Our office on base was open, but I took the day off (thanks, co-worker) and still dropped Jules at daycare (hehe). Then I made a beeline to the rambling, terraced ViNAWALK. I had a plan thanks to the Toho Cinemas at this outdoor mall having a 10 a.m. showing of the latest James Bond, Spectre. I've been a fan since we bought my dad all the old VHS copies for Christmas one year and it turned out I loved the stuff; they're also a good entertainer for visiting uncles and cousins and bored guy friends.

Then bro Ty and I went to the first Daniel Craig installment Casino Royal and it changed our lives all over again, as well as made us want to visit Montenegro one day and drink Vespers. What I'm trying to say is, I was excited. Not to mention the anticipation of sitting in a large, dark, peaceful room interaction-free for a couple hours. Going to movies alone also means I don't have to constantly resist the urge to share what else I've seen the actors in.

Wikia

Not many people go to morning movies or on weekdays. And in Japan, when it wasn't a holiday, there wasn't anyone under five feet tall, maybe. The parking lot was quiet but for my mini-mini-van's wheels, the mall abandoned as I walked with my coat pulled tight. The warm lobby with its smells of popcorn and coffee welcomed me with open arms.

The ticket kiosk was a breeze. With my tray of perfectly popped and buttered corn and tiny, foamy latte – don't get me wrong; I seriously contemplated the gourmet hot dogs, pizza and beer – I passed the built-in, wannabe Sweet Factory (contemplated this too) and the nicest, most well-groomed ticket-taker ever, on to the most impeccable and colorful restroom ever. I swear to God it looked like the inside of a Toontown building. Every Japanese movie theater is like the few American theaters that are luxurious, clean and focused on service and taste. Yet in Japan, they just seem to take it a step further like with everything else, from Disney to konbinis.

The movie was great.

I watched the credits scroll prettily and enjoyed the aligned baby name ideas as usual, with their sometimes-interesting job descriptions. Then I left those characters behind, doubly sad as I remembered I was almost done with my Frasier Netflix marathon. How have I watched almost all of Frasier while Cary's been deployed? Actually, as Cary pointed out, how did I watch all 10 years of Friends episodes during the time it took to get the hang of breastfeeding in the middle of the night?

Each time I finish a show, it's like leaving family behind. (Samesies for books.) Every friendship no longer viewed leaves me missing them like my real friends. Every love story leaves me wanting more. Every homey house in Parenthood makes me miss living with them throughout the season, as if I'd sat on their plush couches with them and leaked tears too, rubbed their backs and whispered their nicknames. I get coffee with my Hallmark and Lifetime movie heroins. Caroline's desk was my desk. I wanted to work alongside Archer and staff at the good Isis.

I know this deep love of entertainment can be ridiculous. I write it off as arty. Just like I pretend I watch the Oscars to see who'll win best original screenplay and best cinematography. Really, Hollywood, publishing and living as romantic a life as I can handle are all part of a quite superficial dream to feel comely, clever and free.

I sighed – the loudest noise anyone had made in two-and-a-half hours (god I love it, not to mention the zero kicking, random shooshing and potential fist fights) – and proceeded back to reality. But I had the rest of the day really. What was I going to do, I thought. I used the Thanksgiving Day on my own to clean our rock-star-hotel-room-destroyed house... Gosh, I was freezing. So I bought a new jacket. I spotted the decent burger place and hunkered down, warm and happy eating again, American to boot. I pulled out my phone. I swiped to Facebook. I paused before opening it. Here I was about to possibly ruin my good time with myself [wink].

Here's the thing about Facebook. It's pretty much constant comparison despite your level of confidence. Sure there's the excuse it's easier to stay in touch with friends, reconnect, keep our parents apprised of their grandchildren...That we need our account active for Messenger to work, or for work, or to know what's happening in the communities we're part of, or with the brands we love, or when our favorite blog has a new post. ;-) But are these false truths? I thought maybe the app was at the heart of the matter, the content another matter. I'll explain.

I deleted the app and enjoyed my second lunch with a feed of illustrated comedian comic tweets. (In the back of my mind, I fondly remembered my oracle of a friend who mentioned app deletion years ago.)

Facebook is like my new US Weekly, my new McDonald's. I love it, but I'm not really proud of it. Like when I pass up NatGeo for Entertainment Tonight on a gym cardio machine TV console, then wonder if my neighbor also thinks my incline level is pathetic. Apparently I want people to think I prefer the news, the latest local ski report and maybe even an ESPN app over good ol' FB. I definitely don't need it. Sparingly might be key. I'm really looking for viral videos and images that either make me 'lol' or want to write to the moon and back. Enter my YouTube and Tumblr apps, duh me. Insta and Pin are a bit too much of the same, but sometimes I take a pic of Jules I just have to filter the shit out of.

There's just a je ne sais quoi about Facebook. An ease. A one-stop shop. An entertaining, escapist, cathartic liking machine. You tap; you wait for the gray blocks to turn clear and vibrant; and then you get an immediate flood of social information. Which has everything to do with who you're not and what you're not doing, should be doing or wish you were doing. Thumbs down. Plus, many times there's a quirky pic or sarcastic comment, there's some dip who misinterprets it. I'm realizing privacy goes a long way toward my sanity. And I love not much more these days than sending Jules' Papa, Nana and Mimi her cutest pics via text, trolling Twitter anonymously and opening the Blogger app to edit my latest, probably dumbest opinion.

Sometimes it's OK to just enjoy the view over second lunch.

Simotron

****** SOME TIME LATER ******

Cary: Have you seen this hilarious dog video Brad shared?

[Aly shakes her head quizzically.]

Cary: Oh yeah, you don't have Facebook...

Aly:

The future is fe/male

Emma Watson and her HeForShe campaign
are raising feminism awareness.

The Different Blog

I'm slightly concerned the Super Bowl is going to fall on or near Jules' birthday every year. And it's followed by Valentine's Day. If the people in her life who like her think they can get away with Super Bowl parties and Valentine-themed birthday gifts, they better think again... But she'll likely become a better person than her mom and not only love football when the games aren't tight but easily forgo the birthday-relationship worship I apparently not-so-secretly relish. Maybe it'll make her tougher. Like the boy named Sue.

It's hard not to be extra gentle with a baby girl. Why? They all have the same makeup despite the normal variances. Long babies and babies with slightly smaller earlobes or something. They're squishy, don't have kneecaps, are guileless. I did double-takes at first but now I like how with dad home, he wipes her face free of food with more force; he isn't as ginger when putting on her shoes; he tosses her higher and makes her laugh for longer.

Last year I sat around a table of really educated women and found myself describing what a feminist is. I was being stupidly redundant for everyone probably. But it reminded me of when my brother and I were in high school and we were talking about guys and girls and dating ... and we sifted out how a feminist isn't an obnoxiously opinionated woman who doesn't care about men; a feminist is any person who believes in equal rights for all the little boys and girls. If that person also happens to be loud or shy or obnoxious or Emma Watson, it doesn't diminish or elevate the principle beyond what it just plainly is. It's not a personality trait but a belief.

And it has nothing to do with changing the rules so my T-Rex arms are in charge of restraining prisoners or missed career opportunities because I chose to have a kid.

Bro and I thought it interesting how it can be souring when women give their opinions, sometimes loudly, or are anything other than accommodating. Why can a clear voice make us inappropriate, or being submissive make us more attractive? Further, why does a man have to be extra tough or love sports? And why does the choice not to be the breadwinner tend to imply that person's mind, needs and wants are second-rate?

There's something to be said for simply growing up to be the best version of you, a sensitive leader or confident wallflower, maybe appreciating athletes instead of being one, unoffended by turns of phrase, being as little of a wuss as you can be, unabashedly wearing pink or a hoodie or clear high heels.

I was lucky to be with the women around that city patio table, women who've put their sometimes higher-earning jobs on hold indefinitely; women who're raising kids on their own; women who'd do anything for their husbands and vice versa. There are some who aren't fans of military spouses, tossing around the stereotype dependapotamus and taking all the fun out of it, because who doesn't enjoy a good Netflix marathon huh? But have they eaten the food they cook, attended the parties they plan, used the services they provide, enjoyed the free country they help protect on the homefront?

Got a lot of questions here. At least I think this much is true:

Skateboarder Chelsea Castro

Do I want to be the one to investigate things that go bump in the night? Not really. Do I want to be the one to coddle my baby child a little more? Sure! Do Cary and I both eep at cockroaches? Absolutely. Mainly, I want to live in a world, and raise my daughter in a world, where you can be exactly yourself, whoever that may be, and achieve whatever you work hard enough for, and be respected solely because you're a good person.

As returning home comes into view along with high desert life – dry heat, clear cool Lake Tahoe, Burning Man, Area 51, snow-covered sand, the real-life Simpsons house, the Vegas sign graveyard, this really cool thing – I wonder what new progress will flow after our post-holiday move back to 'Merica. Like with the first female Rangers, the new Star Wars star Rey, getting to know more female pilots I can admire as well as new friends and coworkers I can look up to and connect with as peers. The future should be limitless for us all.

"Girl or boy we fight our battles, but the gods let us choose our weapons." – Game of Thrones

Eff

"How ya doin'?"

Tonight Show Host Jimmy Fallon

"Ohh just treading water to keep from the sharks underneath," David says in his New Zealander's voice.

We laugh in the hallway at work because it's dramatic but kind of true. Even when our lives seem small in comparison to CFOs and soldiers, the sense that there are sharp teeth ready to snatch off your toes, or at least nibble at them uncomfortably, is still real.

When Cary's gone, this is just how I feel. But now that Jules and I are over our second illness that deserves a hurricane name ('cause again I'm hyperbolic like that), I think I can handle anything.

Cynically, I give this feeling five minutes.

Before he left, he got off the phone with the skipper, who had the news. "Whidbey?" I ask eagerly from the couch with Jules attached to me and my eyes no longer glued to Mr. Robot, knowing we've been lucky this far - not blessed, lucky - it must/could continue right? We're charmed and good deep down and work so hard...yes, I would like some stinky fatty cheese with my whine.

Tesla Motors (soon-to-be) gigafactory

"Fallon."

#$@&%*!
It's fine.
It's fine.
Teardrop.
What's wrong with you, woman, snap out of it!

Whidbey Island. Pax River. Fallon, Nevada... There was a string of decent options come February 2016. We were on the fence anyway about this one this time around, pop 8,600, shifting its Post-It note on the kitchen wall between top spots. The flying is supposed to be great, search and rescue (SAR), mountain experience, blah, blah, blah, WINK. I love small towns, went to school in one, enjoy driving through them to wherever we're skiing – looking through the diner windows and at the movie theater marquees, romanticizing tumbleweeds and solitary houses set back from the roads, yadda, yadda, yadda.

But I couldn't shake the notion I was moving backward in life, in work-career-job-whatever you wanna call it. Or is it really that our furniture resembles Lisbeth Salander's before she buys grown-up stuff with her hacker money? That seems dumb. Yet everyone else appears to be moving onward and upward with job security and a nearby Pieology and the fruit in the bowl in the fridge with the stuff.

But he did well. And I did too. And we're bright-siders anyway. And hey, don't you want to be us? Have my husband, my kid, my dog, my car, my house. Look we traveled to Seoul. Look we bought a leather couch. Post it, filter it, tweet. Blog about it. We done good, lookit! She sleeps through the night. Butters protects us against cockroaches. Bull. Shit. The truth is nothing is ever perfect and even outside Uncle Sam's Godlike plan and the gloss of social media, no one has control over much. It takes faith in yourself and selflessness, and the great white hope or Hogwarts or whatever you believe in.

And don't let anyone Stepford wife your ass, a friend said, hitting the nail on the head for how I was feeling; it's not only about them, including little people and pets. You'll be running on fumes before you know it because you're human not a robot. Take an interest in yourself and brush off the guilt every time you do what they do: talk about your work, eat til you're full, sleep in, let chores wait.

I will lose it between jobs. I will take a gig reading between bowlers or handing back movie ticket stubs. I will stalk the editor of the local paper until Tesla offers me something I can't refuse or Breaking Bad is filming a second spin-off and needs someone to hold microphones which may dip into the shots. "Jimmy Fallon," I'm coming for you. But in the interim, I'm gonna squeeze the shit out of Japan – from the friends to the trains to the trip that is baby modeling to the ski season to the shortest commute I'll ever have between work, daycare, coffee and store.

There it is, that high again, this time but again from a cathartic (tsk, tsk) blog post I can't resist putting on Facebook because I have nothing else witty to say on there let alone in the flesh in a timely manner. But now I have a bloody nose. Figures. It'd been five minutes. Is it dry in Fallon? Well at least I won't need a blow dryer.

Cary has passed me overseas screening paperwork for the second time in our lives. A friend told me about this; we're moving to a place so remote, it requires a health screening.

None of us can have it all, be the tallest or the bestest, in the ideal place or phase always. Have splendid timing. Still we can at least have our bananas in a hammock if we want, and trust for the best with the rest.

Girls Rule, Boys Drool and Babies Will Never Be Cool

I can't wait any longer. Mainly because I've got nothing else to write about. (More on that later.) Also note that much of what follows has zero salt if you believe deep down like me: to each his/her own. But that means I get mine too.

Twitch

So here goes. Below is a list of things I've compiled over the years that I think parents shouldn't do. Maybe you'll laugh a little and agree (the best responses), regret things (the worst) and/or thoughtfully change some of your ways (a response I could only dream about and don't really deserve as an obscure blogger and first-time pregnant chick.)

You never know how long people have been trying to have a kid, so if it took you a month, shut it.

Other medical things to keep to yourself unless asked specifically by a genuine, inquiring mind: whether you had an epidural, a C-section, breastfed or didn't, tore (you know what I mean) and just basically any kind of delivery (or pregnancy for that matter) horror. I got pregnant thinking everything bad told to me could very well happen to me. This is obviously not true. Only some of it will. And in varying degrees, from the chillax to the magical pregnancy unicorns to the drama queens.

You cannot plan everything. From your baby's conception to its gender to its birthday to its birth.

Old wives' tales are FAKE. You can't guess the gender people are having regardless of how they're carrying, what they're craving, what a ring on a string does or what direction the parakeets are facing.

You don't own baby names.

If you don't like people touching your belly, don't have the miracle of a tiny human life inside you.

Girls are just as good as boys. Guys, if you think you have some sort of legacy to pass down, think again. And the carrying on the name thing? Ever think a family all has one name for the sake of simplicity? So relax and get over yourself. Your kid and any grandkids are your blood (and sometimes not if you're one of those angels who adopt) and will carry on exactly how much you loved them.

*quick interruption*

Boys don't drool any more than girls do but this does make them look, well, you decide.



Okay, back to it.

Why do we memorize all the numbers of our delivery day for regurgitation at people who don't really care... At 6:42 a.m. I started feeling this thing I thought was pee, got in the car at 7:14, arrived at the hospital a half hour later, walked around for this many minutes ... And this all resulted in a X-pound X-ounce, X-inches long baby. Nobody cares except your mother.

Pregnant women aren't always having a craving; we just finally feel it's okay to say we're hungry and want a burger and doughnut.

Things to consider when considering maternity photos: What are you going to do with them? Facebook doesn't really need any more along with foot announcements, months old T-shirts and gender cake Instagrams. How much will it cost? Have you started that education fund yet? Will your husband look awkward? The answer is most likely yes.

If you can avoid having a baby shower, you'll be guaranteed guilt-free 'no' RSVPs to everyone else's for the rest of your life.

Nurseries are rarely used for nursing so ixnay the nursery label for femme-cave and equip it with whatever you want like Netflix and your sewing machine or a comfy reading chair by the window and room for your yoga mat. Rock a wine rack. The kiddo's book and movie shelf can easily be yours too.

Don't act like the first birthday, first Christmas, first Easter, first trip to Disney is for them. It's for you. Be honest about it. It's okay.

Keep something, anything, for yourself.


I knew it would be hard to write about something other than parenthood for a while... It's like writing poetry about coming of age when you're 13 and a short love story when you meet the one. Or tragedy when it strikes. My head is a jumble of how I'll ever be sane again. How I read The Fault in Our Stars and cried more for the mom than the girl. I feel like when I'm alone, I'm spending quality time with my belly. I think of all the cool things I'm going to say to her (at which she won't be that impressed I know). How I secretly hope she's born a little Raven from X-Men (pictured above).

I'm officially crossing over to the light side (albeit somewhat in the shade). So if you feel you're any different than you thought you'd be at parenting or life, know you're not alone.

In conclusion, babies will never be cool but they sure do make life interesting.

Annie's Girl

The very best articles I ever read are always sent from my dad.

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The Project of Literature: Susan Sontag on Writing, Routines, Education, and Elitism in a 1992 Recording from the 92Y Archives

by Maria Popova

“To make your life being a writer, it’s an auto-slavery … you are both the slave and the task-master.”

Susan Sontag remains one of the most interesting minds in modern history, with provocative and prescient beliefs and opinions on everything from visual culture to love and sex to stereotypes and polarities to why lists appeal to us. But arguably her most timeless insights touch on the heart of her own creative material — literature.

In the spring of 1992, exactly ten years after her magnificent meditation on books in Letter to Borges, Sontag visited the 92nd Street Y in New York to deliver a lecture on the project and purpose of literature. Now, thanks to a new partnership with the Unterberg Poetry Center at the 92Y, who recorded the live event, I am proud and heartened to offer Sontag’s talk for our shared enrichment. Transcribed highlights below — please enjoy.

On becoming a writer, writing itself (a subject Sontag pondered frequently in her diaries), and its osmotic relationship with reading — a fine addition to the collected wisdom of great writers:

What made me be a writer was that I was a passionate reader. I began reading at a very, very early age, and I’ve been a reading junkie ever since — I read all the time. I probably spend more time reading than any other thing I’ve done in my life, including sleeping. I’ve spent many, many days of my life reading eight and ten hours a day, and there’s no day that I don’t read for hours, and don’t ask me how I can do all the other things — I don’t know. The day has pockets — you can always find time to read.

Reading set standards. Reading opened up to me all these norms, or — to put it in a more naive and probably truthful way — ideals. So that to be part of literature, to be even the humblest, lowest member of the great multitude of people who actually dare to put words on paper and publish them, seemed to me the most glorious thing one could do.

Now, in this sort of book-drunken life … in this relation to reading, which is where the writing comes — I didn’t discover I had a talent; I discovered I wanted … to emulate, to honor, by trying to do it myself, as well as continuing to read it and love it and be inspired by it.

And I mean this most passionately. That’s where the standards came from, that’s where the ideas came from of what was good, what was right, what was better, that there was always something better and whatever you could do was by definition not good enough. The only thing that was good was what was hard to do, what you had to work very hard to do, or what was better than anything you could do.

Sontag goes on to explore the still-debated issue of gender in literature and the notion of how stereotypes imprison us:

That all came from books, and it came from the usual books that are now called “the cannon” — used to be called “classics,” which is not a bad term either — and most of those writers are men. It’s not my choice that they be men, but as far as we know, Homer and Shakespeare and Dante and Rabelais and so on, those writers, they’re mostly men. Of course… George Eliot and Virginia Woolf and Emily Dickinson and so on [are] absolutely first-class writers, but most great writers have been men — this is not to justify it, this is not to be happy about it, it’s just the way it is. For all the obvious reasons, we know why the majority of distinguished practitioners of most arts have been, up to this time, men — there’s nothing about the future, nothing about what ought to be, just what is.

Therefore, it was so natural to me to take the attitude that these were writers — in other words, Emily Dickinson isn’t a “woman poet” any more than Walt Whitman is a “male poet” — they’re just both poets. George Eliot isn’t a “woman writer,” whereas, let’s say, Dickens is just a “writer” — they were just writers. . . .

I also live in a time in which it’s very important to me — and natural to me — to support and want to align myself with most aspects of the feminist agenda. I’ve always been a feminist — it’s not something I became. At a certain time, I had the honor of being called by Elizabeth Hardwick “somebody who is born a feminist.”

[But] there can be a contradiction, if you will. It is important to women coming to consciousness of the cultural disabilities under which women labor, in which their consciousness is formed, to make those distinctions — the distinctions that I want to, as a writer, not think about. They can be very important for women in general to think about. So there’s the contradiction — let’s say I do one thing as a citizen, as a civic person, and I do something else as a writer.

[…]

But… if I truly considered people and their lives over a long span of time — people with marriages and love affairs and careers, living in a conventional society — it could not be the case … that I would not be struck by the ways in which women think of themselves in subservient roles and in which they become dependent, or even crippled, by gender stereotypes. … Everybody knows it. What we say is what we have permission to say — we always know much more than we say, and we see much more than we acknowledge that we see, but at any given time there are conventions about what we say we can say and what we think we can think. And one of the interesting things about being a writer is to try to open that out a little bit.

Adding to Italo Calvino’s timeless definitions of what makes a classic, Sontag considers what a writer is and what literature means:

A writer is someone who pays attention to the world — a writer is a professional observer. 

To be a writer, also — and this is the contradiction — demands a going inward and reclusiveness, just plain reclusiveness — not going out — staying home all the time — not going out with everybody else going to play. . . . 

In all of this, I am assuming a certain idea of literature, of a very exalted kind. I’m using the word “writer” to mean someone who creates, or tries to create, literature. And by “literature” I mean — again, very crude definition — books that will really last, books that will be read a hundred years from now.

Now, most people are not “writers” in that sense… 40,000 books a year are published in this country, and many of them are useful and are entertaining to some people. They have some constituency — they’re not part of literature. Literature is actually just this little tiny percentage of what is produced in book form. But, of course, that’s what I’m talking about — I would go as far as to say that no book is worth reading if it isn’t worth reading five times, or more. . . . That’s what I mean by “literature” — a book that you would want, repeatedly, to read, to be inside you, to be part of your bloodstream.

In answering an audience question, Sontag adds her contribution to famous writers’ daily routines, fusing with characteristic elegance the practical and the philosophical:
Writers’ lives are really very boring. I get up in the morning, I make coffee, and I go to work. And I work until I drop. . . . A day in the life of a writer — this writer — is getting up and doing it all day long, and all evening long, and sometimes till 3 or 4 in the morning.

On the psychological value of writing by hand amidst a digital culture, a point that has amplified resonance two decades later:

I write by hand and then I type it. But I have to write the first draft by hand. Now, don’t tell me about the computer — I know the computer is wonderful. I remember one writer friend of mine … said, “I don’t want to use a computer because it’s too entertaining.” It’s not writers’ masochism that makes some few of us continue to hold out against this — it’s that it is better if it goes slower, at least I think so. It’s good to feel it in your hand and it’s good to be able to just think. . . . .

Maybe a writer who grows up with computers would not feel this way, but then, I think, the writing will be different. Let’s put it this way: Writing, like painting, is artisanal. It’s one of the few artistic activities which does require solitude. Most other art activities do involve people and are collaborative. . . . To be an artist or a writer is to be this weird thing — a hand worker in an era of mass production.

In answering another audience question, Sontag considers what it takes to be — rather than become — a writer:

You have to be obsessed. . . . [Being a writer] is not like something you want to be — it’s rather something you couldn’t help but be. But you have to be obsessed. 

Otherwise, of course, it’s perfectly okay to write, in the way that it’s perfectly okay to paint or play a musical instrument — and why shouldn’t people do that? I deplore the fact that only writers can write, as it were? Why can’t people have that as an art activity? … But to actually want to make your life being a writer, it’s an auto-slavery … you are both the slave and the task-master. It’s a very driven thing.

Sontag, who considers herself unproductive despite her books by that point and her ample diaries, returns to the question of daily routines and writerly rituals:

The most productive writers I know have been the most rigidly scheduled, and I’m incapable of having a schedule. . . . Alberto Moravia, the Italian writer who was enormously productive … told me that he started work every morning at a quarter to 8 and he quit at a quarter to 1, and that was it — that’s when he had lunch. . . . And I said, “Well, what happens if you’re called to lunch at a quarter to 1 and you’re in the middle of a sentence?” And he said, “Well, I just stop. I just go and have lunch and go back the next day.” And I thought, I couldn’t do that to save my life. I have a feeling … it’s started! How could? … I can’t leave it! It’s not even that I can’t leave it because I’m afraid that it would go away… I simply can’t.

It’s as hard as stopping peeing in the middle of peeing — excuse the simple-minded example, but just in the same way that it’s very hard to stop peeing once you’ve started, it seems to me, once you’ve started writing, that day, if there’s anything there, how could you stop?

(There’s a reason, indeed, why the creative process at its most immersive is called “flow,” and it’s perhaps this that Henry Miller touched into in his meditation on the joy of urination.)

On the absurdity of using “elitism” as a divisive and derogatory term, something that we still grapple with today:

I think most of what is called “elitist” is a mask for anti-intellectualism — I mean, there is such a thing as excellence.

Sontag ends on a remarkably prescient note about education, the broken system for which she had proposed a revolutionary intervention some two decades prior, and a system that remains just as broken two decades later:

The worst thing about [the system we live in], I suppose, is our educational system. And that is, perhaps, also the most hopeless thing in the system — it’s the most important thing that we should be changing, and it’s the thing we’re least likely to change. And if we don’t change that, basically we won’t change anything else.

Stay tuned for more excellent recordings from the 92Y archives, and explore more of Sontag enduring genius here.

Illustrated portrait of Sontag by Wendy MacNaughton for a previous collaboration

The Awkward Savior

I'm married to the Kindle now but it wasn't love at first sight. I thought ereaders were the end of the smell of a good book, used bookstores and libraries. Maybe even publishers and journalists.

But a rolling stone...

My first was a 2nd generation given to me jointly by Cary and my parents. A little while ago, I turned it on to find the paperwhite screen resembling a broken Etch-a-Sketch. My heart sank. Panic set in.

What would I do while waiting for Cary in the car outside his work?

How would I enjoy meals out and alone when I didn't feel like cooking? (Read: heating up soup and toasting toast.)

What would I do right now?

I raced to chat online with the-most-amazing-customer-service-company-since-Nordstrom-would-take-back-tires (Amazon). And soon realized in almost no time at all, I would have a better, smaller, cooler, more efficient replacement for a steal. I promptly ordered a new case too, one that would make the electronic device I used to nervously despise look like a real book.

I made special trips to the post office to check if the new Kindle had arrived, while my old one was tucked away for safekeeping next to Cary's first iPod. When it arrived, it was Christmas morning. Really. Not like when someone uses that analogy for  'fresh powder' or a Lululemon jacket and I agree heartily but also somewhat half-so. It was my Christmas Day. One that's all about what I enjoy regardless of anyone else.

One day I'll find a bookcase I actually like that I'll fill with all my favorite reads. But until then, as we pack and haul and move and unpack and organize and clean and organize again, I'll whip out my 170 grams of reading power that connects me to any book in the world wherever I am in the world and feel content. No matter how long I have to sit in a car or how many awkward meals I do by myself or nights in a bed with only one human in it (and one canine), I don't notice as much that I'm alone.

When I carefully but in a slight rush opened the new Kindle box, I pulled out the more petite, darker electronic, that's gratifyingly not quite a Mac, and moved my hand over its surface. When I turned it on, I squealed at the perfect shine of the latest paperwhite booklight. I tested it out at the base McDonald's, waiting for Cary to get off work and save me a trip. Side note: It's strange but nifty how our NAF Atsugi McDonald's plays classical music, like, most of the time. Anyway, the hour flew by...

When I get a text from Cary that he's ready, I pocket my inanimate best friend, enjoying how this one isn't scratched and dinged yet. Over dinner, I slide the power button on again because Cary is so stressed we can't think of anything to say. The screen illuminates magically to an ideal brightness and I 'one-click purchase' another Jonathan Tropper novel, sucked into a more eloquent and interesting world.

As my friend once said at the end of the movie Gravity: The future is now.

Allyson Wonderland

J.D. Salinger's infamous story of Holden Caulfield, among others, went through rejection...so...
(Analog Yalanlar; also deviantart)

My parents visited this wonderland recently. The cherry blossoms finally popped, and the 'hurry up and happen' everyone feels turned into 'wait! don't go!!' I imagine it's something like fame or having a kid.

A third of our way through this tour, there are times I want to fast forward. Get back to English bookstores and the people who knew me when I was little. But there are times I want the days to stretch...and having family visit does that.

It's like taking your toddler to Disney for the first time. The Japanese vending machines are like the snack carts; it's as if heavenly light shines down on them, illuminating their shiny facades while sparkly music urges you to go ahead, enjoy some sugar, caffeine or vitamin C. The bullet train is like Space Mountain, thrilling yet soothing. The sakura (cherry blossom) trees are the stuff of storybook pictures.

River in Kyoto
via Goodfon.su

Further, on ambiance: their hair was blown back by how spotless every car was - even the garbage trucks - every sidewalk, every train, as well as how wonderful the people are and the cheerful music that permeates both indoor establishments and neighborhoods.

We frolicked around Kyoto's blue-green Kamo river, and Iwakuni's Kintai Bridge at night - the trees were still in bloom and highlighted by paper lanterns, and the giant cobblestones leading into the dark water begged Cary and I to run across them. We strolled beneath bamboo forests and explored the world of Hakone, where we snacked on magical black eggs and rode a gondola across a fantastically windy, gaping canyon, then a pirate ship across a Loch Ness Monster-esque mountain lake.

Kintai Bridge
via krstarica FORUM

It really is as if Underland, Star Wars planets and Instagram were all whipped into one when God created Japan. (No joke. Dead serious. Come visit, statesiders.)

We made our way to Hiroshima. I can't put my finger on why I like this city more than Kyoto. It rained while we were there, turning the river that dissects downtown an appealing, mottled gray. It's not about Scarlet Johansson wandering lost across koi ponds; it's about this suddenly somber appreciation and a respect for the rebuilding that took place on both grand and small scales.

On the lighter said, it's home to my new favorite Japanese food: okonomiyaki. And it's the birthplace of Koyudo makeup brushes, which look like hearts and daisies more than a utensil to paint the barn.

Okonomiyaki is a real tasty mashup.
(Kaelazors's blog)

*    *    *    *

After they left, I returned to a mound of work. I should've been thrilled to have the pile-up, because freelancing usually means having too much time to eat Fritos at 10 a.m. and watch miniseries. Yet after this recent marathon of trying to harness my best column journalism, I got rejection, and then rejection. Nothing truly final, I told myself, just revisions and new leads. But I wasn't getting the scored-goal gratification of publishing that I've been needing over here. Copyediting just doesn't cut it. A byline buried in the credits and in eight point font only goes so far... Just like a personal blog's a dime a dozen if that.

I call myself a writer because that's what I do all day. But journalistically, I haven't gotten past local newspapers, travel guides and magazines the physical equivalent of TV Guide. Each time we move, I stand at the doors to the publications I admire like a Mervyn's customer. Open, open, open. Publish, publish, publish. While I wait, indefinitely, in whatever land the Navy transports us to, I guess I'll have to rely on proofreading tweets and entering speed typing contests.

Add this to your queue.
(via the review by Christopher Fowler)