Getting to the Bottom of It All

I've been a little reluctant to go clothes shopping since my recent weight loss. (Well, not so recent; it's been over a year.) But I broke down a couple of weeks ago and hit the local Old Navy in search of a pair of jeans that actually fit. This is sort of a novelty for me, because I'm only about 5 feet tall, and pants hardly ever fit me.

Once in the dressing room, I found that the loss of 18 pounds has put me into a size 4 of something called the "short, low rise, curvy, boot cut" jean. Of course, I could give a rat's butt what they're called. They said "4," and so I bought them.

Then I stuck them in the closet. Until last Friday night, when Mike and I headed out for a party at the home of one of his work colleagues.

And as I stood on the front porch, a tray of homemade chocolate-covered strawberries in my hands, my husband grabbed my newly-teeny tushie and said: "Your ass looks great in those jeans."

It wasn't exactly a Hallmark moment, but that Canadian son of a bitch so got laid that night.

Shattered

Today I got to do one of those "fun" Classmother things: a field trip. We went to some smelly, muddy pumpkin and livestock farm, and I was having a wonderful time with my daughter and her first-grade class.

And then we got to the goat pen. "Miss Debbie," our intrepid tour guide, began to explain that - despite the fact that these were female goats, many of them were sporting what looked like little goat whiskers on their chins. The word she used was "beards."

A second later, my daughter's teacher pointed to the goat and chimed in helpfully: "Oh, she's Italian."

And, as God is my witness, every last illusion I had about the sanctity of the teaching profession was shattered in that instant. I was stunned, but I felt the need to respond, and to at least let her know that I'd heard her, and that I didn't agree. So I said: "Well, I'm Italian ... but I have no beard."

Once again, I'm amazed at how comfortable people are in expressing their bigotry in polite company. Never you mind that, here on Long Island, you can't swing a dead cat without hitting an Italian-American. And forget for a second that if I don't look Italian, with my short stature, dark curly hair and dark eyes, then nobody does.

I don't know what to do. I don't know if I can ever look that Pennsylvania farm girl in the face again. If she was dumb enough and insensitive enough to make a crack like that in my presence, what the hell is going on in that classroom when I'm not around?

I Needed ...

... to cry my eyes out today. I'm not sure there was any one reason for it. It was just the crushing weight of work, motherhood, marriage, friendship, citizenship and modern life. I needed a physical release, and crying is both cheap and socially acceptable.

I checked the four-hour 1993 video version of "Gettysburg" out of the local library, because there's nothing like the senseless death of more than 53,000 men over three short days to get the waterworks going.

And of course, for me personally, there's the final, devastatingly brilliant performance of Richard Jordan as Brig. Gen. Lewis Armistead. He gives a couple of very emotional speeches, and then gets mortally wounded just as he crosses the Union army lines. The real Gen. Armistead died of the wounds he received at Gettysburg two days after the battle ended. Richard Jordan died from an inoperable brain tumor within a year of completing the film. He was fifty-five years old.

Anyway, I'm too exhausted to go into the details of why this performance and this film were just what I needed to achieve catharsis and (I hope) wake ready to face life again tomorrow. You'll just have to trust me.

Goodnight, Richard.

Who Wants to Live Forever?

A friend of mine is a Breast Cancer Survivor. Actually, she's just about to have her reconstructive surgery, so it's a fairly recent thing. And I'm not sure she puts herself in the "survivor" category yet.

Recently, she's been talking a lot about her fears of reoccurrence (as so many in her position do), and I've found myself with a lot to say -- but without the will to say it. Maybe it's because I live with The Thing in My Head. You know, the thing that could explode some day and rob me of my speech forever. (It could also kill me, which would be a total bummer.) Or maybe it's because my kid sister has a bum heart, and has been told her whole life that she shouldn't plan too far into the future.

Who knows? But I just think that you can decide either to let the fear dominate your thoughts, or you can decide to just find a place in your mind to store that information and go forward. Personally, I've chosen to live in a blissful state of denial. Because what the fuck can you do about it, anyhow? You can either live scared, or you can choose to go on. And if the worst happens, I guess I'll deal with that later.

Maybe it's just a little too soon for my friend. And, yeah, I've been brainwashed enough by pop-psychology to know that you can't tell people how to feel. But there's a little tiny part of me that wants to hug her and say: "Eat anti-oxidants, exercise and control those things in your life that you are able to control. Beyond that, you need to put the fear someplace far away and just live, okay?"

That's insensitive, I know. I just hate to see her stuck and upset and worried all the time.

Dog Gone

We had the pleasure of "Pennie Lane's" company for 10 days, during which the little bitch (literally, a female of the species) shat her way through every room in the place. Twice a day. This, despite the fact that we continually walked her.

So there'll be no dog in our home come the Spring. Because, after six straight years of cleaning up baby poop, I just ain't ready for dog shit. Not yet, anyway.

Men Suck

Sorry. It's just that I was halfway out the door to the Bridal Shower from hell (three hours away and in another state), when I noticed something in the back of our SUV, peeking out from behind the suitcases and the eighty-eight hand-made shower favors I'd spent days putting together.

Golf clubs.

I closed my eyes and rapidly shook my head, the way you might if you were convinced you'd seen a ghost. But when I re-opened my eyes, they were still there.

And that, dear ladies, is how my husband advised me that he'd elected to completely abdicate his paternal responsibilities, and not watch our son while I helped host a shower for the biggest, most pregnant bitch in Connecticut.