phatDonna

School ended for Bridget last Tuesday. She won’t begin going to her summer caregiver until next week. I’ve been trying my hardest to keep her occupied. We are technically still on Chicken Pox Watch, and I should be keeping her away from other kids because IF she gets it, she’ll be contagious about a day or so before the spots appear. I doubt she’ll get it, but if she does get it, I’ll feel terrible if I think about all the places I took her and all the people she could have possibly infected.

At the same time, I can’t quarantine her for three weeks just in case. That’s not fair to her, especially because I am fairly sure she’s not going to get it.

So I’ve been trying to keep her occupied. We got nails done, we went to the mall, we saw a movie. But by the time the movie got out at 1:30 on Saturday, I was out of ideas. So on the spur of the moment, we packed our bags and headed to Dallas. I knew my parents would entertain her and we’d both have someone else to talk to besides each other. I am not afraid to call in the Calvary.

I am a genius, I tell you.

Bridget cooked with Grandma, cleaned windows with Grandpa, and I got to take some naps AND go out Sunday night after Bridget was in bed. Bridget couldn’t be around other kids, but we found ways to entertain her and keep her busy and she was a happy kid. We went to the playground, we ran errands, we ate at In-N-Out Burger. And I had someone else to spell me and be responsible.

My brain needed that break.

I was just consolidating my upcoming trips into TripIt and it occurred to me that in the past year, I have been doing an inordinate amount of traveling. Since last summer I’ve been to New York twice, Venice, Croatia, Disney World, Cincinnati, New Orleans, and Chicago. That doesn’t include many trips back and forth to Dallas and a trip to Houston. Coming up this summer, I have a trip to Vegas, another one to Chicago, and one to San Diego.

My parents commented recently about how much traveling I’ve been doing and my immediate response without thinking was “What the hell else do I have to do?” As I’ve mentioned before, my life is split between two modes: MOMMY and DONNA. Those two modes do not mingle at all. So when I’m not MOMMY, I am alone and have to find ways to entertain myself. Why not travel then? I have a lot of friends in other cities and states, and if I want to see them and the airfare is cheap, I’ll hop on a plane. I’m also saying yes to a lot more experiences I might have said no to before.

But I really think it also has a lot to do with distraction. Between preparation, packing, traveling, unpacking and picking up kid and pets, a weekend away can actually take up a week of brain power. That’s a whole week where I don’t have to worry about finding things to fill my time when Bridget is with The EX, or when I have a spare second to let my mind wander and trying not to feel lonely.

So far, I’ve done a fantastic job of keeping myself busy with travel. However, this little habit of mine is pretty expensive and I really should curb it a bit and focus more on building a life here in Austin. I’ve been calling Austin home, but I’ve been finding every excuse in the book to escape it on the weekends. It doesn’t take an advanced degree to figure out why that is.

After this summer, I will focus more on making Austin my home and creating a life I actually fit into. Maybe one where MOMMY and DONNA can coexist.

Have you ever felt like you don’t fit in to your own life?

I mean, this is my life, I know it. But suddenly it doesn’t seem to fit me anymore. Two years ago, my life was comfortable. It fit. I was a wife and a mom and I did wife and mom things. I was a housewife. Now I’m a housewife who isn’t a wife. I’m a mom who doesn’t feel like the mom I used to be, or like any of the other moms around me. My career is in flux and I’m not sure what I’m going to be or do when I grow up.

I don’t feel like I fit in with my married friends as much anymore. They happily cast off the single life years ago, as I once did. And while they say that they live vicariously through me in my travel and things, I know they are happy to not be in my shoes. I only have a few single friends (none in town) and they don’t have kids so I don’t really fit in with them either. They haven’t yet had the experience of having a soul-sucking, life changing responsibility to a tiny human. They don’t understand that there are things that I simply cannot do as a mother because I have this other person that I owe everything to.

It just seems like my life is bipolar. I am either with Bridget and am with her fully, focusing on taking care of her and engaging with her. There is no help, there is no one to take over the mundane things at the end of the day. It’s all me all the time. And I spend my time wishing I could do something that’s all about me. When I don’t have Bridget, I am all alone. I have no responsibilities. If I go out and have fun, I’m thinking about her and hoping she’s ok and not missing me, and feeling slightly guilty for not being with her at that moment.

I guess the trick will be finding a situation where the two halves of my life can come together. I want Bridget to understand that I am a person apart from being her mother because I don’t want to set an example that being a mother means you stop being yourself. But I feel like that’s a lesson for later in her life. For now, I think all I can do is straddle these two worlds of mine, hopping back and forth from one to the other and trying to keep them apart. One day maybe they’ll start to meld a little bit more.

In the meantime, I guess I am the mom who thinks Greek yogurt tastes worse than semen and I’m the single girl who always has Hello Kitty bandaids and neosporin in her purse in case anyone gets a boo-boo.

Greek yogurt, I really have tried. I have tried all brands, all flavors. I just can’t. You? Are horrible.

I’m not even really sure why I’m supposed to like you more than regular yogurt. Is it your higher protein content? Because I have to be honest here. There are many more enjoyable ways to get an extra bit of protein, if you get my drift. And quite frankly, you are less palatable than that.

(Oh no! She didn’t really say that, did she?)

(Sorry Mom and Dad. I’m ashamed.)

(Not really)

I had a fun opportunity arise last week. I got the chance to get a free 10 minute psychic reading from Hollywood Psychics.

I feel like I should back up and say that consulting a psychic is something I have toyed with for ages. I don’t necessarily believe that every person who puts themselves out for business as a psychic really is, but I do believe that there are people who have abilities in this realm.

The point of that aside is to explain that while I’m not a full-on believer, I’m not a total skeptic either, and I was excited to make the call.

Since I’ve never done this before it was hard to choose a psychic to talk to. I don’t know rune stones from tarot cards, clairvoyents from clairsentient. So I just picked the first one that was online that had a decent star rating.

My psychic’s name was Maya. And the first thing she told me was that I was going to meet the man of my dreams on a trip in August. Which is weird because she never asked if I was in a relationship already. And I AM taking a trip in August. She was very specific about this mystery man’s character, his appearance, even his family. Now, the skeptic in me was trying to find holes in all these things she was saying, but it seems to me that in order to have the best chance at success, she’d try to be as vague as possible in order to have a greater chance of being right. So we’ll see. I’m certainly not holding my breath, especially because I am not looking for the man of my dreams. But we’ll see.

She also went on to tell me that there is a career path that I’m interested in following, and that I will but not for a while, and that when I do one of my best friends will be instrumental in helping me do it, and that she is already a big source of support for me emotionally, then went on to describe this friend physically. At that point I kind of got chills because she was describing someone very close to me. It was eerie.

So all in all, it was fun, and it gave me a lot to think about. I’ll have to revisit this topic after my trip in August. I still hold a bit of skepticism about the whole thing but I do find it amazing the amount of things she knew without me telling her.

I’m so glad I did this! I’ve always wanted to try it and if I hadn’t been bound to just 10 minutes I probably would have spent my entire Friday night on the phone with my personal psychic learning what the spirit world thinks of my life choices. Maybe it’s best I was limited to 10 minutes…

{Note: my psychic reading was provided to me for free, but my thoughts and opinions on the reading are 100% my own.}

A male friend of mine just posted a link to this article, with the note that he was, shall we say, slightly perturbed by it.

If you don’t want to read the whole thing, the gist of it is summed up in the title: “Men, Please Do Not Publicly Smile at Me When I Look Like Crap”

I am also, shall we say, slightly perturbed by this.

Women bitch, moan and complain about the way men treat us – that men only view us as sex objects. And yet this author complains about getting smiled at? Is it any wonder men are confused about what the hell women want? We obviously don’t know either.

There are a hundred different reasons why a person would smile at another person, and only one of them is the hope of sex in the near future. Maybe you remind him of his mother. Maybe you look like you’re having a bad day and could use a smile. Maybe he was smiling at the person behind you. But let’s say that he was hoping to get in your pants. Wouldn’t you prefer meeting someone who started your encounter with a kind smile than a cheesy pick up line?

Now, let’s tackle the issue of you deciding when someone else is allowed to find you attractive. The absolute ego of such a statement is just galling. Who are we to tell someone what they should find attractive? Don’t women cry out in righteous indignation when we claim that fashion magazines are trying to force us into believing that only one body type or hair style is attractive? This is just plain hypocrisy.

I could really go on and on about why this woman’s point of view is annoying. But I’ll just sum up by saying this – give men a break. It’s hard to be a woman, granted, but we wouldn’t do very well in a world where we were expected to be the initiators of romantic encounters. It takes nerve, creativity, mojo and just the right level of intoxication that we women don’t possess. I’m not saying that you should be grateful every time some douche at a bar stares at your boobs. There is a world of difference between a smile in a coffee shop, and “Nice shoes. Wanna fuck?”

Just take the compliment and smile back.

Saturday night, driving back to my parents’ house from the family Mothers Day celebration, Bridget told me in a matter of fact way, “Me and my cousins are going to die one day.”

I can’t say that I was shocked by this statement. Lately she’s been expressing some curiosity about death, but so far hasn’t really asked about what it means or what happens after death. I have been letting her curiosity be the guide for what I say. I didn’t want to tell her too much before she was ready to hear it, so I waited.

To her statement, which was really a question, I just said, “Yes, that’s true, but not for a very long time.” She didn’t have any response to that, so I let it go. But when we got home and were getting her ready for bed, she asked me if I was going to die and if people are dead forever.

I vividly remember having this discussion with my parents when I was exactly her age. They handled it perfectly fine, the only way you really can handle it. They answered my questions, gave me the facts and tried not to scare me. We were mostly Catholic at the time, so I guess they probably threw in some stuff about heaven. I don’t remember that part but that may because my adult brain doesn’t believe that part.

But every kid is different and I was trying to think on my feet about what best to say to Bridget that wasn’t a lie or assurances of things that I don’t believe, but that wouldn’t scare the hell out of her.

I told her that yes, I would die one day just like everyone else but hopefully not for a very long time. And yes, when someone is dead, they are dead forever. I think that what she was getting at was about afterlife or heaven, but I didn’t want to raise that question with her if that wasn’t what she was thinking. Quite honestly, that’s the part of the discussion that scares me the most. I know the idea of heaven is very comforting for many people, but I don’t believe in it. I’m certainly not going to tell Bridget that something will happen if I don’t believe it to be true. Thankfully that didn’t seem to be on her mind.

She cried when I told her that both her daddy and I would die one day, but I was able to comfort her and get her into bed. When she was getting nestled in, I asked her if she had any other questions she wanted to ask me, but she didn’t. I told her she could always ask me any questions she has, no matter what. I kissed her and tip-toed out of the room.

And then I fell over. I have been dreading this talk and hoping I didn’t fuck it up. I guess we’ll know in about twenty years how I did.

The EX has been pressuring me to investigate a local private school for Bridget. I have been digging my heels in about this because my liberal heart does not believe in private school. I feel that if everyone who can afford to check out of public school does, then public school has no chance of survival.

However. (You knew there was a however coming, didn’t you?)

I am so displeased with the state of public education here in Texas especially, but I think it’s very similar throughout the country. This is hard for me to say because I have so many friends who are teachers. The problems I’m talking about have nothing to do with teachers. It’s the entire idea behind public school. Kids aren’t encouraged to think and learn, they are encouraged to memorize facts and spit them back out on a standardized test. I used to think that I got a good education from public school, and maybe it was better than some public schools in the country. I was deemed “smart” or “gifted” early on. But here’s the thing. I’m not really. I have a good memory and am fantastic at spitting facts back out on tests. When I got to college, I realized very quickly that I had no idea how to study or make the leap from knowing a fact to putting that fact to practical use.

Private schools can present their own problems. I imagined a school with blazers with crests and plaid skirts, and rich kids with attitudes and rich parents with even worse attitudes. I didn’t want Bridget’s peer group to be a bunch of entitled little snots. I didn’t want her to feel like the poor kid amongst all that wealth. And would the quality of the education really be that much better?

The EX had attended an information session at a local private school a few weeks ago and was wowed and really wanted me to go too. In the spirit of cooperation, I went, reluctantly.

And boy howdy, did I learn a lesson on being prejudiced. This school was amazing. First of all, they don’t call themselves a private school, they consider themselves independent of the state school system. Second, the other parents there were in no way the stuck up douches I fully intended to meet there. The founder of the school and the head of the school talked about the mission and the curriculum and I was bowled over. The kids will come out of this school bi-literate (not bi-lingual. Bi-literate. Meaning she could read, write and speak in both) in English and Spanish, and proficient in Mandarin. The mission of the school is to produce people who are “global citizens of the 21st century.” That really impresses me. I want Bridget to be curious about the rest of the world and understand that everyone in the world is connected to each other.

I could give you more details about the whole thing but that would be very boring to you, I’m sure. Suffice it to say, that I want her to go here.

The question of money is not insignificant. I’ve told The EX that I can be of little to no financial help but he seems to think he can afford it. There is also financial aid available so that’s an option too. The other little bonus to this school is that since I wouldn’t have to worry about school districts, it opens up parts of the city to me that I figured I could never consider living in.

So I’m struggling to reconcile this wonderful opportunity for Bridget with my own liberal agenda. I guess I need to set that aside and realize that if Bridget has the chance at a world class education, I should not try to hold her back because of my politics.

The longer I live, the more I have to remember to never say never.

Sorry, that’s a lame title. But I just thought of Chicago and then one of my favorite songs from the musical Chicago… and there you have it. My brain is not exactly firing on all cylinders today.

My weekend away was not quite what I hoped it would be. All my plans fell through and I didn’t get to meet up with pseudostoops and smell baby Poppy’s head. Other plans that I had hoped for also didn’t pan out. I suppose that this is what happens when you make a quick decision on a trip based on cheap airfare at the last minute. Still, I got to go shopping at H&M and spend a day at the Art Institute. It wasn’t a total loss.

But last night’s big news event about the death of Osama bin Laden brought about a reaction in me that I didn’t expect. I was crying and shaking – reliving the memories I have of September 11, 2001. I have far less reason to be traumatized than so many others – I didn’t lose anyone. However, it was the only time in my life when I actually thought I might be about to die. And I spent two days smelling the cloud of smoke and dust as it drifted over my neighborhood, knowing part of what I was smelling and seeing was the burnt bodies of the people trapped in the World Trade Center. It was horrific, even from my safety in Brooklyn. I still can’t watch footage from that day. I didn’t expect last night’s news to shake me to the core like it did. But there I was, alone in a hotel room in a strange city, and that really sucked. I kept wondering if The Ex was watching the news and how he was feeling about it all, but I knew that I couldn’t reach out to him. That part of us is over. Needless to say, it was a sleepless night.

I’m home now. I still don’t have air conditioning, but for now that’s ok because it’s 50 degrees outside – oh Texas weather, you make me laugh. I thought I broke my finger this morning when I was loading my suitcase in the car at the airport, but after a few hours I realize it’s not broken, just very bruised and swollen. I popped an anti-anxiety pill and was able to calm down. Bridget is here with me, which makes the house seem normal again. We’ll be going to get Robbie this evening and all will be right with the world again. Hopefully.

I’m glad that my ass will be planted here in Austin for a good long while before my  next trip. Vegas is a month away, and by the time it rolls around, I’ll be ready to travel again. For now, I just want my bed.