I’m toying with the idea that I am the only 40 year old who had men go out in the backyard and whip out guns and shoot beer cans for the heck of it during her birthday picnic, but I doubt it. In fact, they inspired the neighbor to take out her gun, and shoot something or another she’d set on a stump.

I love my family.

Forty is supposed to be an age where we look back at what’s been left undone, and panic. Marriage (check. Twice). Having a child (done). As the years go by, I feel like I have retained my youthful outlook, for the most part. However, I am not a very good grown up.

I guess that’s why on my birthday, I hit EPCOT. The free admission didn’t hurt, either. I had a great time. Wore my Disney “birthday” pin and had all the cast members say “Happy Birthday”. Got a pedicure, got my face painted. I tried to lure my son in on the face painting as well, but he assured me “next time, mom”. Being with my family and going to Disney was what I wanted; barring changes in the economy, space and time, I knew I couldn’t have everyone, but I liked what I got.

And the present thing. Mom had no idea what to get me (for her birthday, I gave her a hand painted, ceramic “WELCOME” plaque I made at a kiddie ceramic birthday party; how’s that for youthful?), so that’s still pending, though in my mind, unnecessary. From my aunt, I got my Vera Bradley bag (assumed it was coming; it was what she gave everyone else for their birthday that year). Cousins? A black t-shirt with a cat on it, made of gems. A friend of mine gave me a Christmas cactus (one of the plants I can ignore and it thrives) and chili flavored dark chocolate with grenadine and cherry inside. I hinted to my son I wanted a new ipod. In addition to that, I got a crossword puzzle dictionary, a recipe book for sandwiches, and a skirt whose big selling point was that Janice Dickinson’s sister had been in the store. Husband wouldn’t believe I liked it or that he’d bought the right size even though I assured him of both, then was incensed I wouldn’t wear it to Florida (velvet skirt. Heat wave in Florida). The fact he didn’t remember we drank the champagne should have been a hint. His not listening is nothing new. He wanted to have “our own birthday celebration”, yet was on and off about how income has been nonexistent, so the expense of said celebration varied in degrees according to our monetary position as it existed in his mind.

“Let’s go out to dinner, Wednesday, to celebrate your birthday, the 3 of us.” Him.

“Why not just have a pizza? We’ll be going out to eat every meal in Florida, and the pizza there sucks.” Me.

“I’ll get the pizza while you and Ed are at tae kwon do.” Him.

I came home to an ambush. How selfish and self indulgent I was to throw my own birthday celebration. He was less concerned about the fact he hadn’t initiated the proceedings than the idea that my family might think he was slacking by not having initiated them.

Now, those who know me know I have a strong personality. I found out about my high school graduation surprise party and strong armed my brother into rearranging the guest list. I wanted to throw my own party. No biggie.

He was mad I hadn’t thrown a party for his 40th or 50th. I had wanted to, but he said he didn’t want that. By the time his 50th rolled around, it would have been mostly my friends and family anyway. He’s not a keep-in-touch person.

I’d like to say we stayed up and fought until 11. But we didn’t fight. He held forth. I don’t yell. As usual, all the problems of the past brought up in an unending torrent, followed by his:

“You hate me.”

I don’t. I feel sorry for him, but I don’t hate him.

“You want me dead.”

I don’t want him dead. Him dead would bring a whole host of problems. I’d feel bad that things were unresolved. Kids would lose their dad. Etc.

Happy birthday, right? Not that I expected anything different. Every party needs a pooper. I wouldn’t have invited him except there wasn’t a classy way to exclude him. And the corker was that my would-be stepfather went into knee surgery the day we arrived and threw a monkey wrench in things because “there was an opening” in the surgeon’s schedule. Poor guy was so nervous about the whole thing it was better done sooner than later. But this left no one to entertain the husband while I was doing girl stuff. And I had no alternate plans for his entertainment.

So…we spent too much money. I wanted to stay at mom’s, he wanted to stay at Disney, we did both. Mom and my cousin came and stayed at Disney, in their own room. But he had to be the dog in the manger. Had to. My family were all like, “you’re done, right?” I believe he managed to insult pretty much all of them. There was an elephant in the room and it brought friends.

Petty things. He didn’t know that my “nieces” didn’t know him, so when he absent-mindedly touched one on the shoulder to move her out of the way, she freaked. Ed wanted to sit next to his youngest cousin. When he did, my husband loudly announced, “Mari, he’s not going to eat unless he sits next to one of us.” And commanded Ed to sit next to him. Yelled at me that no one, including me, was paying enough attention to him. This freaked out the other two nieces. He insulted my uncle and my male cousins by announcing he should have been involved in the installation of mom’s doors, that mechanics shouldn’t be doing the work of carpenters. Ed fell asleep, and he made a show of carrying Ed while I carried my gifts and the leftovers. When most of the family had gone, he handed me Ed on top of the bags I already had. I put Ed in the taxi (a van) along with gifts and did so in high heels. At the hotel, mom reached to help me with the bags and Ed’s uneaten meal dumped onto the parking lot.

I thought one of us would catch hell, but until husband and I got up into the room, there was no exchange. And even then it was more of the same from him until he passed out.

It it amazing to me, sometimes, that you just wake up one day and realize that the fire that once was there is just…poof. Gone. Like a dream or a head cold. And you can’t imagine having felt the way you felt about that person, or why. It creeps up on you that alllll the little things…the way they eat, breathe, the fact that they can’t even exist in a room with you silently…it gets on your nerves. Suddenly the toothbrush spatter, so long unnoticed, really gets in under the fingernails of your mind.

Hell, the dog even growls at him when he approaches.

He wanted to get me “bling” for my birthday, but flipped out when I spent money on having a will drawn up.

It’s funny to realize that the same thing has occurred to both of us but that we are experiencing it in such different ways. Snarky remarks here and there. Hissing and spitting at the stupidest things. He leaps on every misunderstanding. I do a lot just so I don’t have to “hear it” but that’s been my bad habit for years. I leave the house a lot. I avoid being alone with him, but when we are alone, he doesn’t pick fights. He chooses to do so in front of Ed so I have to tether my responses, knowing he is all ears. I try and shush the husband but he refuses to listen. Curses. Talks about things that kids just shouldn’t be hearing. In his pain, he just doesn’t CARE about anything but his pain.

I still don’t hate him. I am just tired of hearing it. You’d think by 40 I’d have learned to be something besides my own worst enemy. I make concessions for peace or for…whatever in my mind and he does not recognize this.

Sigh.

It’s difficult to voice ones’ actual opinion on things when cornered.

My emotions are generally in one muddle or another, but I find it impossible to ascertain how I feel about anything when I am smack dab in the middle and not allowed to breathe, have space, be objective.

And trust me, someone screaming at you doesn’t help.

My mother’s joke (not about me, I assure you): “How can I miss you if you won’t go away?”

Back and forth, round and round. Years of the same issues, the same problems. Pain all around. Trying to fit two lives together is never easy. No matter who you are you are separate people, with paths however indistinct. The spoke need only wait to reach its destination. Fights for dominance, ups and downs. Some good, some bad. But our memories differ. Faults. Life changes. Resentments.

And in the morning, everything seems clear to me, straightforward. At night, when I’m tired? Fear. Panic. Anger. Anxiety. Beating myself up. I hear footsteps and my heart races. I never know exactly when the ambushes will come. Sometimes I know when a cycle is coming. Waiting for the other shoe to drop. I’m out a lot. I love company.

Sticking to my guns, however, is the worst part.

I used to acquiesce, to keep the peace. Kowtow. I could kick myself, remembering. I used to scream back, but it only made him scream louder. Throw things. Punch walls.

Now I stay calm. I understand the hurt, the pain, frustration. Because I have been there. And no matter what you say or do you cannot truly make someone comprehend what you need them to, no matter how baldly you put it, if they do not want to understand.

We remember different things. I get it. I get that it hurts. I’m hurting too. It’s like a cancer. I try and keep it from spreading the best that I can, but it doesn’t seem to be working. Like a patient, there are good days and bad. There are little islands of peace and I know enough after all these years to know when the storms are coming. 

I hate, hate, HATE causing the hurt. But pretending things are not how they are would be worse. It’s like leaving the arrow in so as not to cause pain pulling it out. I’ve let him think things are OK for far too long, so the pain of that is, indeed, all my fault.

I understand that when pain builds up, it has to come out but I do NOT like the fact that he brings things up around our son. Taboo subjects. Our sex life. Cursing. Lots of “do you love me?” The dog barks, gets protective of me, aggressive. Anger escalates. I try to appear calm, say little, do so quietly. Our son watches TV, pretending he doesn’t hear. I’d think it was manipulative but I choose to believe it just comes out when he can’t keep it in anymore.

It’s awful, I know. I just bear up better to the outside world. I guess.

I get mad at myself. I realize the hurt my feelings cause, which brings up pity. But pity is not enough and if anyone has pride, pity isn’t a good reason for much. It’s an awful reason. I just CARE.

But if he stomps off in anger, I lay awake, listening, my heart pounding at every noise, afraid of what will happen when he comes back. It’s no way to live. I do my best to get along, to make life good where I can. I have a strong support system. I am sorry he does not, but although I have tried to be supportive in the past, I am always accused of being unsupportive.

He always says he is sorry after his tirades but generally remembers so little of them it makes no difference. After said tirades he’s generally in a great mood, the next morning. I guess I’m supposed to be OK with that but I’m tired of pretending that my insides are not ripped apart. I’ve generally slept horribly and I can’t help hurting for him but it just makes me so, so angry. I am accused of untrue things. Crazy, impossible demonstrations of my allegiance are demanded.

When we try and discuss things calmly, once I bring up an unpleasant subject, or one he doesn’t agree with, he walks away, hand waving at me dismissively.

I get that he’s lonely. I get that business isn’t good and he’s getting older, more isolated, but I cannot “fix” any of this. 

He speaks of being “a team” over and over but somehow I can’t imagine ARod screaming at Derek Jeter as he follows him from room to room (after telling him to “get the f*ck out of my sight”) and then demands that a plate of food be put in front of him after said tirade.

I know people I know are reading this. I know some will want to call and kindly “help” but I beg you not to. This has to work itself out and I am trying to work it out in the most graceful way possible. Every thing in its own time. I just needed to write this and it was to get it out and not to bring shame on anyone.

Breathing deeply now. Not holding my breath. A definite improvement.

It’s finally spring! Flowers bursting into color, sun shining, a toad in my sprinkler system, and…because the trees are budding, I can’t breathe. I’ve actually had to resort to my hate-able rescue inhaler, copped my Singulair from the doctor, and…as usual…I have a gig. And I’m in a panic, hoping I will be able to get my loopy little self through it with my voice intact. Neurotic that I am, I took my Mucinex, have used the neti and will again before I go. I’m sucking down the tea, will take a Singulair pre-gig and probably hit the inhaler once more if I’m feeling panicked. Tra, la, la, I usually go through this twice a year, once in the spring and once in the summer, and it runs about two weeks.

I grew up in New England, and despite my frequent yearnings for the warmth of the southland, I do admit I love to watch spring push and shove its way in. The bird songs change, the damp chill of mud season, crocuses and snowdrops pushing their way up, the grass greening, then forsythia and ornamental cherry trees, and suddenly it’s all lilacs and new green leaves. Everything is bright and clear, no haze yet…the stickiness of summer brings that.

Thus, every year, I am in a quandary: I get hit by El Spring Cleaning bug. The urge to make everything bright and shiny and throw away clutter and reorganize closets and buy new STUFF. But not everyone wants their STUFF to go away. And, of course, I find that breathing is a priority, and I don’t seem able to keep my seasonal allergies alone at bay without adding animal dander and dust mites, even with a cleaning mask. 

My son burst into tears when I gently suggested that we go through his toys and books and decide which ones were too young for him and needed to be enjoyed by other children. Ever since he saw the movie “Toys” he thinks they have feelings. So I guess I’ll have to weed through them when I am at school and feign ignorance of the missing stuffs whereabouts. And the husband has several nests throughout the house…piled clothing in the bedroom, one whole end of the dining table with paper and work stuff, the entire garage, the entire basement, and two offices. Ironically, he complains he can’t find anything, but I digress.

I come OFF as untidy, but with allergies and gigs at war with my naturally tidy (though well buried) nature, what’s a gal to do, aside from hiring a cleaning person, who would probably be horrified and run screaming…? Besides, there is a certain joy one takes in cleaning ones own house. I am also of the opinion that it’s not really satisfying to clean a house until it gets past a certain point.

Then, I get neurotic. Make a mess and you shall die slowly and painfully. Leave a dish out? I’ll kill you. Rinse it and not wipe the water spots? I’ll kill you. Dump toys all over the floor after I’ve carefully put all the parts together and segregated them into boxes? I’ll kill you. Even the dog gets into the act. I clean up the yard and he is in a full on panic to get right out and start pooping. I can hear him whining and barking while I scoop, and the minute I let him out he goes at least twice. Granted, the dog could give a hoot if the place was a complete sty but the other offenders in the house should have more than a nodding acquaintance with the garbage. The husband, when he sees me cleaning, will on occasion, join in, but only on what I am cleaning at that exact moment instead of cleaning the thousand other things that need cleaning, like his aforementioned nests. I’d give him a list, but having done this, I call it the “honey don’t do” list because anything on the list might as well be a witnessed and notarized testament as to what will not get done, ever. I did, however, use the wives trick of getting him to start up the sprinklers. Otherwise known as doing everything and leaving the final step for him to mess with…

Sigh. I’d like to start now, but I think I have to go make myself more tea and prepare for tonight. Maybe I’ll make my own “honey do” list. For myself. And maybe organize a seminar on where the garbage can is and what goes in it…right now I am just enjoying not feeling like an elephant is on my chest.

I find it easier to take a vacation with my 5 year old son than with my husband.

There. I’ve said it.

Even with the three of us, he’s more trouble than triplets. Especially if there is plane travel involved. The packing. The dealing with the nonsense of not being able to carry on all the things you used to be able to carry on…razors, creams, lotions and potions. He complains about waiting, the people, the seating, the price of drinks, the price of the tickets. If our son is antsy (as 5 year olds tend to be) I get to hear about THAT, too. And I’m supposed to handle all of this in exactly the way and in the amount of time he feels I should handle it.

We’ve taken separate vacations. I’ve gone down to visit my relatives in Florida and it was easy-breezy. Inexpensive. I’d crash with Eddie at my cousins’ place and have them drive me to and from the airport. Husband insists on top dollar hotels and renting a car so he doesn’t have to deal with taxis or, if we’re at Disney, Disney transport. Last time I went down, we stayed at a middle class resort and took over two rooms. We barbecued at the hotel, ate breakfast at a buffet and the kids played Wii, we saw a rodeo. It was fun, just hanging out. Husband, of course, was a poopyhead about being dissuaded from going. It was 96 degrees, Florida in August. Think humidity and love bugs. My family doesn’t really drink so we didn’t see the inside of a bar once, and didn’t wind up even going in a pool due to thunder and lightning. We cooked breakfast in an efficiency at one point. He’d grumbled that he expected me to “party without him” but the only drinking I did was on the plane down…everyone else leaving Islip on Southwest was Disney bound and I was going to see family so the steward gave me a second that I didn’t even want. As far as going wild, the wildest I got was a tattoo that I’d wanted to get for years and he felt he should be able to tell me what to do with my body and took it as a blow I hadn’t told him. He had a tantrum. I glowered, and asked if I was grounded.

You can imagine what it would have been like if I’d taken him…he would have been bored, sulked when we didn’t do what he wanted to do when he wanted to, and I would have had to pack for him. He would have criticized me relaxing and being myself when I was with my cousins, picked at my parenting and well…not had a good time and in doing so, ruined mine. I once got yelled at because he called me in Florida and I was giggling about something with my cousin, and he was…jealous? Oy. One trip down Ed had a cold and was fussy and I gave him those melt on your tongue strips of Triaminic to soothe him and he was fussy with that, too, until the meds kicked in and gave his poor sinuses a break. Jon would have been in an absolute panic. He is a vacation panic looking for a place to happen.

It’s not like I want to go down and cut loose and flirt and meet other men. I just don’t want to have this high maintenance person to entertain and succor when I am trying to relax. Ed goes with the flow. Jon does NOT. If I go to Disney, I want to hit all the rides, gear Ed up with juice and goodies and relax, blow off steam. Not hear about how hot it is, how tired Jon is, how he wants to go back to the hotel, etc. I don’t want to hear about how many things I have to pack in little baggies to get through security, or how it used to be different, or he doesn’t want to leave the hotel room. I want to hang, to cut loose, be on vacation.

Ironically, he always asks if I’m feeling relaxed. What could be LESS relaxing than constantly being asked that question?

I had to twist his arm to have him go on his own vacation…I did make his plane reservations, the friend he was to meet made all the plans down in the Keys. It was like twisting his arm but he was off on his own sojourn. Of course, he had to have a fit that I was having my nephew and ex sister in law over while he was away. Odd. I wouldn’t have minded if the situation were reversed. And he was going off, with the wifely blessing, to see one of his oldest and best friends. He should kiss the ground he has it so good. I used to be much more succoring…leaving him meals to heat up, etc. He had his assistant from work clean the house and do the laundry when I was away for almost a month for my cousin’s wedding, and gloated about how clean the house was when he was solo, nobody to mess it up. But I got over it. Anyone would be more than happy with just being allowed to go away solo sans  a hard time.

HOWEVER…

I wasn’t nannying him. And I guess this was the problem.

I’m yearning to go visit friends, introduce them to my son. But Solo. Vacationing as a family is just too much damned work.

I have never liked sex scenes in my fiction. I’ve always been a “the fire flickered and died” kind of gal. We ALL know what happens once the fire is flickering and dying (except for one of my voice teachers, to whom I had to explain that there was a reason Jove’s “thunder” was now lying useless). I loved films like “Lawrence of Arabia”, with no female characters. All plot, no throwing in “the woman” who would usually be one dimensional and just a plot device to show some other aspect of the male lead character.

I am, as a result, terrrrrrrible at WRITING sex scenes.

My most memorable scenes are probably still moldering in a box in the basement. I did write a very innocent little romance novelette when I was about 12…it would probably still sell, though even reading it would prove embarrassing (Kristen-remember Carrie Eveningstar??). Worse still was the one I attempted to write a year later…3 sisters with a horrible mother, one became a rock star (I believe her name was Ursula), another a film star, and another a model, but I never got past the rock star one. I remember showing the sex scenes to a friend when I was in college and we both HOWLED. My mom, though embarrassed, would have then had solid proof I had no clue what goes on in the bedroom at that age. Apparently the male lead with whom the female character was having her little tete a tetecame “again and again” and there was lots of teeth gnashing (I suspect I was in my Scruples stage).  It sounded more like he was having some sort of epileptic fit than sex. That’s probably still moldering in the box right along with Carrie Eveningstar. Someday my son will be going through my belongings and find it and wonder if his mother had hit the dementia stage long before owning a computer.

I stuck to non sex stuff after that. Writing 101. Stick to what you know.

However, when I got into a fiction writing class in college and actually finished a good sized novel, it seemed agreed by my teacher and allll my friends if this was going to sell, I had to throw in some sex.

So I did. It was weird, kinky, drug induced sex, but it sort of fit in. No love, It was almost like rape. My mother got a peek and was horrified, claiming I’d written porn. Ha. She should only know! And this from a woman whose home is crammed with dirty books about women having sex with demons, vampires, and dragons in human form. My family all love those dirty romance novels (except for Phyllis, in case she is reading this). I’ve just always been “eh” about that whole aspect of fiction. I remember reading or hearing about writing sex scenes and one woman said “too many breasts and thighs and it sounds like a meat market”. And how many expressive terms are there for genitalia before things just start moving into “tuna taco” territory? Yikes. I remember reading “The Lovely Bones” and it was great until…wait, how can you have a sex scene involving the main character…when she is DEAD IN THE BEGINNING OF THE BOOK??? I picture poor Alice Sebold with her editor or agent saying “Alice, it’s a great piece, but you’ve got to sex it up a bit. That whole child rape and earth thing is too much of a downer.” After a while it starts to sound like a list: Throbbing member? Check. Moans of desire? Check. Bodice ripped? Like something she’s never before experienced? Bodies fitting perfectly together? Yup I think that’s everything.

Ever notice once the main female character gets some she suddenly becomes weaker and less interesting? I have. Even in “Wicked” the book draaaaaaags once Elphaba finally has sex with her doomed lover. In soaps the couple finally has sex and gets together to live happily ever after and the plotline becomes dead. I know there is a place for sex in fiction, especially if it is one of those novels that carries on for generations…obviously no sex, no generations, unless it’s Shaker novel and even then SOMEBODY has to be getting some, somewhere.

Sigh. Back to the novel. I’ll probably finish and put the sex in later. Which, I guess…is sexual. In it’s way. And by that I mean insertion is involved, whether it fills a hole or not…

I have now officially become an old guinea woman.

I wake up in the morning and kid myself that the sensation I feel is hunger, and that coffee will pacify it. One cup of coffee. Two Tums. I used to have several cups of coffee, but now…it hurts. I can feel it in the back of my throat. I try to eat the way I used to and now…I can’t. Urgh.

New list of nonos: Tomatoes. Coffee. Carbonated beverages. Onions. Citrus. Chocolate. Frank’s Red Hot. Bacon and other preserved meats. Booze.

I LIVE for Frank’s. Probably the biggest part of my problem. Bland is unthinkable!!! I tried to throw in tea with ginger and it still bothered me. So far, so good with the generic acid reducer but I’m wary. I might be headed to purple pill territory but I am NOT going without a fight! Pizza tonight but if I may have any it might not be such a good thing for my sleep. Granted, there is a small part of me that says “I might actually lose weight!” but how is Frank’s even high cal? What will I be stuck with…oatmeal, rice, toast with nothing. Can’t eat too much dairy or high fat stuff because it will also kick my stomach acid into high gear.

Visions of Cadbury mini eggs, gone forever. And it’s Easter. I know, I know, moderate, but so far, denial is not working and I will have to go cold turkey. If not to preserve my stomach, my one and only precious voice. Already I have hit the seasonal nose spray, neti pot and Mucinex. One more acid pill and I will rattle. My horse vitamin is enough to have me feel it in the pit of my stomach as it sloooooowly digests. I’ve felt like I am not digesting, but would you think all this extra acid would help instead of hinder??? VERY frustrating. And yet I haven’t felt this icky since I was pregnant. I have postnasal drip, too, which makes for a very pretty picture.

Easter should be fun. Water please, with a side of pablum.

I am really good at self distraction.

I generally  have some basics I have to get done to move the day forward…dishes rinsed and in the dishwasher, clean ones out. Beds made, general tidy, Ed fed and dressed, at school with lunch if required. Vocal warmups (every day), work out if I can. Larder refilled. Dinner made. These are the bare bones of my life. If I can throw in a shower at a point post workout, I do.

Then comes the other list, if I can get to it. Things needing cleaning and organized, holiday lists., etc. My bigger list? I try and write every day and I am trying to teach myself piano. But it’s just so hard to find the TIME.

For instance, I’ve been diddling with a fiction piece. I wanted to write some every day but has it happened? NO. Why? Because in spite of the  fact that in theory I have LOTS of time I have no time. Janet Evanovich suggests write early before everyone is up. Well, if I get up, then everyone gets up and my attention is demanded. Up late? Then I get complaints that I’m keeping everyone up. I could sit and type away connected to nothing (we are not yet wireless) and still the other in my home would accuse me of internet dating. Or the snarky little “well, I certainly hope that makes a million dollars and if you were as dedicated to making money in my business as you were to your own personal cr*p…” etc.

I could blame the lack of support, or time, but generally, a lot of it is my own fault.

I  get rare time alone, and usually…I diddle. I could clean, I could organize things. God knows my band notebook needs to be replaced and all my work put in little vinyl sheets. I’m not even talking about cleaning out the fridge (which I try to keep that way in spite of the fact that everyone thinks that shoving things around in the fridge instead of taking them out and putting them back in their proper place is just hunky dory) or repotting the plants (which I will do soon, I promise!). I’m talking about I deprive myself of doing the creative, me stuff.  I watch TV. I call people. I google myself. All this time could be better used. I have yet to finish all but one of my fiction forays. Instead I take stupid Facebook  tests telling me what I was in a past life (Marilyn Monroe) and what my kid will grow up to be (a disgruntled computer programmer). I make myself things to eat (it’s amazing how quick and easy it is to eat terribly and how time consuming it is to even PREPARE to eat healthy things). I got to Target and Michaels to buy things like underwear and picture frames. It’s like I’m self-distracting from self distracting.

What is WRONG with me??

Back in elementary school, I was great at leaving things for the last minute, working late and producing prizewinning posters and projects. Being an events person for the Moms Club, I have set up entire months in a DAY (granted, this was when my grandmother died and I was on heavy meds for my illness of the week). I guess sometimes I need a deadline. Weight loss as well. I need to lose x pounds by…say, Thanksgiving. I guess as far as my creative goals go, a little deadline would be in order…?

Maybe I’ll think about it after I make myself a little more coffee….

I would say I am not addictive by nature. I would also say that motherhood has completely shredded my attention span to the point where I can’t sit still during an entire program. I watch Dancing With the Stars on my DVR when I can, and then I can get up and dance with my son during the competitions and pause and fast forward and all those things that both give me stuff to do during the program AND justify the $9.95 monthly fee for the record feature.

So over Christmas week, Eddie was playing with his new Santa toys, Jon was off doing something and I, exhausted, actually got a shot at the TV window. OOO. I’d hung out by the instafire and watched the Real Housewives of Orange County with Anny, at a point, and been appalled. Reality TV seemed trashy, an excuse for us to watch train wrecks and for shows not to hire writers. As it happened, a Keeping Up With the Kardashians marathon was on.

Now, I am hooked.

I’m not even sure why I’m hooked. Kris looks great after 6 kids and a lot of surgery, Bruce looks like a befuddled grandpa, and they all wander around looking coiffed and made up and emotional. They text. They give each other dirty looks. One goes to jail for ditching cocktail college. At this point I’ve seen four of them modeling with fans and windblown hair, three of them au naturel. Ryan Seacrest must have seen something there, but other than rich people wandering around being rich with rich peoples lives, I don’t know what inspired him. Other reality shows haven’t held my interest. As a singer, Idol makes me shudder. I tried watching Rock of Love Bus, but I don’t know what turned my stomach more…the trashy groupie types or flaccid faced Brett Michaels in his perpetual do-rag. My stepdaughter Amanda told me they offered her a shot at being one of said groupies and she was repulsed, and I didn’t blame her. I watched the show once…to punish myself, I  guess. And the Real Housewives of Orange County just made me sad. These women were losing touch with their kids and their (second or third) husbands and most seemed to fear the loss of youth and dread settling into age because they clearly did not love themselves, in spite of money and surgery and seemingly tenuous friendships and affiliations with charitable organizations.

I looked up Kris’ ethnicity online, as obviously her ex, Robert, was Armenian. She was something like German Irish, and as I was a newcomer to the show (it debuted 10/14/07), I discovered that she and Nicole Brown had been best friends at the time she was killed, and that Robert had been on OJ’s team. As we had no cable during the whole OJ thing, I was mercifully spared most of the trial, but I got the jist. And yes, I would have been…infuriated? Hurt? Maddened? by my husbands involvement therein. You’d think-as pictures existed of the Kardashians and the Simpsons together-there would be a conflict of interest thing, having him involved in the case of either side. But apparently not. I know, it’s money. He probably wanted to believe OJ didn’t do it and that there really was another killer out there to find. But even with any other problems that may have existed between Kris and Robert, it was apparently a strain their marriage couldn’t take. And then he was diagnosed with cancer and died in 2003, the same year that my dad died. On one of the episodes…the Khloe goes to jail for 30 seconds due to overcrowding one, I think…Kris sobs her way back and forth between Khloe’s predicament and the fact that she still loved Robert and maybe their divorce was a mistake. She visits his grave, leaves flowers.

I’d be willing to think that if he was still alive, the divorce would not have been in question at all. But I digress.

The daughters are an interesting mix. Khloe is 5′9″ and an Amazon, clearly taking after the German Irish gene pool, and in spite of her little DWI oops probably the smartest. Kim and Kourt are teeny, voluptuous and very Armenian looking, Kourt being a feminized version of Robert (in appearance only). They have a son who was moving in with a Cheetah girl and has some sort of neatness obsession, and Kris two with Bruce, who I’ve seen off and on but the latest stories have been about the older girls. One of the younger (Jenner) girls (I wonder how Bruce feels about himself and two of his kids being lumped in as Kardashians? He always struck me as a bit of a pussy anyway) wanted to earn money for something or another, but enlisted the neighbor’s gardener / handyman to do things for her as a portion of her pay, which frankly I thought of as a little spoiled, but very smart.

Not really terribly interesting, I guess. At least not as I read it over. Two clothing stores are owned, Kris manages Kim and now Kourtney. Khloe peeled for PETA in spite of misgivings and obnoxious hate mail on the site that she is big and fat (which she clearly is NOT). Of course, even Kim has been criticized for her cellulite. Oh NO. Cellulite. How DARE she. How dumb IS that??? I want to see the bodies of her critics. I know, people in the media should all be beautiful, right? That’s the kind of mentality that well, pushes us over the fat edge int he FIRST place. Kim stood up for herself, and I support that. I was going to end by saying maybe my fascinations stems from the fact that the Kardashians are SO different from me, from my life. But dude, you want cellulite? Take a gander at MY thighs. And pasty white cellulite never looks as good as tanned cellulite.

Sigh. Next episode airs at 10PM Sunday, too late for weary old me. Excuse me as I go set my DVR…

Not a term you hear too much anymore. I don’t know whether it’s fallen out of fashion or it’s become so de rigeur that people don’t even use it anymore.

Saw it on AOL: Danny Bonaduce, 50, proposes to 26 year old girlfriend.

I wanted to get her home phone number, so we could have a heart to heart.

Does she READ???? I mean, he’s not only arrested, with the whole skull and crossbones engagement ring thing, but he has BEEN arrested. I mean, I’m all for giving people another chance, but hello? Maybe she wasn’t yet born the last time he was in jail…?

OK, that sounds snarky.

I met my husband when I was 22 and he was 37. There was not only a chasm,chronologically speaking, but he’d already been through two wives and had three kids, one of whom was almost my age. What did we talk about? Well, I always liked older guys, it’s true. And he took me out to the Hamptons, expensive dinners, bought me baubles, stuff you’d expect from an older guy. Talk? We liked a lot of the same music. He’d seen the Who live, and my first album purchase was “Tommy”. Granted, I was 7 at the time, but I had advanced tastes. We talked books, I introduced him to Updike and Bushmills. He and I came from very different backgrounds…I’d been educated through college and past, and he’d had to make a way for himself pretty much from 17 on.

Flash forward: We’re standing in line getting tickets for a production of “Beauty and the Beast” with our son. The woman looks at us and asks,”one adult, one student and one senior?”

Ouch. OK, snarky again.

Child fiancee says, in the snippet of article, she wants to have 12 close friends and family at the yet-undated wedding. Is it that she has few friends, little contact with family? Is he isolating her from them for fear of their disapproval? DO they disapprove? I look at their photo on the US magazine page and wonder…does she have a job? Does she have a life of her own or does she just try and do things for him, be with his friends, eat the food he likes, go where he wants to go. Has he smacked her? Pushed her? Groused when she wants to talk to or go out with her friends solo? Made negative commentary on her 26 year old dreams and wishes? If she were after his dinero she sure as hell should have picked out that rock instead of the foolish skull ring.

Looking at his rap sheet. Assault. Battery. Drinking. Drug use. Attempted suicide. How about knocking that guy’s teeth out at some Fox awards show? In an article about him divorcing his last wife, add infidelity, rage, jealousy. Breaking Bonaduce was on TV, if she wasn’t much of a reader. But although these words may not have completely formed in her head, there’s definitely some “it will be different with me. He’s changed.”

BS.

Add to that, he has kids. He might not want more. Maybe you agree with that now, missy but let me tell you…at 22 I wanted no marriage, no kids (I’d just ended my first marriage) and there is a saying that when a man and a woman marry, she hopes he’ll change and he hopes she never will and the reverse always happens, or something. How the heck do you know what you will want for the rest of your life in your twenties? And Danny…what are you thinking? I sort of know. She can represent another shot at youth but in truth she’ll make you feel old and you’ll always fear her leaving you behind. Unfaithful? You have apparent jealousy issues to begin with and you have been unfaithful yourself. Will you trust her? Maybe you’ll get it into your head to cheat on her because you’ll have some cockamamie reason she’s cheating on YOU. Perhaps you and Sir Paul should chitchat.

I know we should be perfectly content to watch train wrecks in the media, but frankly, do we need this? We already have Chris Brown and Rihanna.

I know. there is a chance things should be different. You might say I’m not much of a romantic. But I am. It’s one of my great faults. In the off chance that this works, it will be a rarity.

I must have watched the movie “Stand By Me” at least 20 times as a teenager. Coming of age movie, Stephen King, River Phoenix, Corey Feldman, Jerry O’ Connell as the “fat kid” (now grown up and married to a Victoria’s Secret model). It came on TV the other day…the leech part. I watched, and wondered…

Jerry O’Connell was the fat kid?

A little chubby, big boned, perhaps, the kind of baby fat kids that age tend toward before they shoot up. Sensitive. Eager to please. Hungry all the time to fill some indefinable hole. And the main character? As if to focus on the fact that Stephen himself was probably a portly youth, that short story where the fat kid has the last laugh at the pie eating competition by making the whole town throw up.

I get that. I remember my mother being disgusted with my brother and I that none of our clothes fit. Said “My kids are Porky and Petunia Pig!” I remember us bursting into laughter at the absurdity of what she was saying but it scarred him. Of course, everything scarred him.

My family was all about food. My mom has been thin most of her life, my dad grew up a poor orphan. Mom manipulated us with food, basically. I remember being out in the street (in clogs and a wrap skirt) beating the tar out of poor abused Robert Amaio who was twice my size and my mother dragging me inside and trying to bribe me with a milkshake.

A milkshake??? I was WINNING. I don’t even remember why we fought. It was just sort of my thing, beat up Robert Amaio. I geared up all darned DAY for that battle and she thinks a MILKSHAKE is going to replace the taste of victory? I wasn’t fat, then. A little heavy, but we’d been to Bermuda that summer and apparently all my parents wanted to do was EAT. And if you don’t clean your plate…no dessert! And generally dessert is everything to a kid. Mom laughs telling people I didn’t WANT to order off the childrens menu; I wanted the rack of lamb! And we went to restaurants, not high end ones, but no health food there. I consistently ordered the prime rib at the one place and it was always cold and I’d always send it back, and mom would snap “if you have to send it back every time, you should either eat it or stop ordering it.” But I wanted the prime rib. I know, picture this little fatty sitting there, demanding, but I still think, having been a waitress, better to send it back than just say nothing and never return. I even asked to see the manager at HoJos because such and such wasn’t on the menu though advertised. I was 10. It was what my mom had wanted to order, not me. She seemed humiliated but after the fact she laughs every time the story is told. The story she doesn’t like was meeting up with dad and Mike there after my dance class (Mike had been at hockey practice) and dad and I racing them home, leaving mom to deal with Mike, who had chugged 3 huge lemonades down and unbeknownst to us was puking his guts out all over the parking lot. Poor Mike, Poor mom. But I digress.

Where I may have been chubby (mom would buy me these knit outfits and tell me that I looked like a stuffed sausage when I wore them…apparently she’d bought them in a state of denial, right along with many pairs of plaid pants), my brother actually got FAT. It happens. Dad (with affection) referred to him as “the Little Butterball”. I never got to hear about any harassment he received at school, but it must have been there. Kids can be very mean. But again, mom would bribe him with goodies and he’d just do whatever she’d say. Sodas. Trips to 7-11 for candy. We used to have Pequot sodas delivered to our door, all flavors, nothing diet. It wasn’t like we weren’t active…hockey, baseball, dance, horseback riding (which he did for a while though terrified of horses), karate. We had a swimming pool that we were in from the moment we woke up til we went to bed at night, reeking of chlorine. We just ATE. Heck, if you didn’t like what was for dinner, fill up on bread. Oh, and we ate our feelings, too. Complain? Boo hoo? You’re a wimp, my problems are worse. Eat a Twinkie. Oh, and don’t waste food. Dad had been poor, and would come from the supermarket with everything under the sun because it was on sale (often neglecting to bring home the article he’d meant to buy in the first place) and cram it in the pantry. I still have nightmares about that pantry. Cereal full of ants, pasta full of those little mealy bugs or God forbid moths. Mom would hide food under her bed as a kid and not know why, chalked it up to famine in a past incarnation.

But I’d go for the Twinkie box (in the equally icky and overstuffed bread drawer). There’d be none. Mike would have eaten the last and left the box, not wanting to call attention to himself.

I’d diet, being female. But mom would try to get Mike to eat healthy and feed him oh, MY LUNCH, leaving me nothing. Once it was a fruit salad of blueberries and strawberries. He ate the whole thing. And went ot the emergency room because he was allergic to strawberries.

We were both convinced that the “husky” tag on the backs of our beige pants referred to the color…

Nowadays, we’d be some of the slimmer end of the group. I went onto the city with friends to see a rock concert and was absolutely amazed that the kids were so BIG. I mean, as if they’d been big since birth and their whole structure had adapted to the extra weight. Huge skulls, huge bones. HUGE. Like they were a different race. They made Samoans look run of the mill. Poor Jerry O’Connell would have been put on malteds if he had to keep up. If you’re a chubby chaser these days, watch out or you will get crushed. Oddly enough, now that we’re more aware of the weight thing, people are bigger. It’s an old joke that people were thinner when we drank real soda and ate cheeseburgers. I myself got thin eating nothing but Cool Ranch Doritos. Now you have obese 3 year olds and five year olds wanting to slim down to look good in their Miley getups. And yet…video games, DVD players, no kids on the block to run and play with for fear of predators, no playground equipment because of insurance, busy parents leaving the kid in front of TV to amuse him or herself instead of out in the back playing ball…TV commericals, fast food because you’re in a hurry, starchy food because healthy food is expensive…I always say thank God I have a daughter, not a son, because of all the pressure on them nowadays but I still remember my brother puking every morning trying to make weight for wrestling…

Deep breath. Trying to think where I’m going with this…

These poor kids. I don’t know whether to feel sorrier for the fat kids whose parents are just as heavy as they are and continue to gorge themselves or the ones whose parents are on them to lose weight. I’ve seen and been both. Mom was so big at my second wedding she looked like Grimace in her purple velvet muumuu. Then when my dad died, everything hung off her from her clothes to her skin. My aunt has been big and not, big and not her whole life, wardrobes from thin to huge. When I’m upset, I alternately eat and starve myself. God knows what my brother looks like. Walking in the mall with my then thin male cousin, he remarked, “the skinny ones DRINK.” Heh. Stopped drinking after that. In our family it seems to come down to anorexic or obese. I’m wavering between both. “What’s an anorexic doing trapped in this body?” Kristen and I used to joke in high school. I got what my friends and family thought was much too thin after I had Eddie, but I still think I looked too heavy. Nutty, right? I look at TV actresses now and from say, Dallas, and think most of them would never be able to get work nowadays.

Fat kid. Damn. Out of Samoas. Those crazy girl scouts…