Archive for the 'Good Girlfriends Do…' Category
Like Butter
Today I leave on my first solo journey, longer than 48 hours, since having the twins 5 years ago. I’m going to Atlanta to visit the Gold Lame Goddess, and probably have drinks with She Who is Obsessed with Park Rangers and other fancy blogging babies. Sigh. Alone time with girlfriends, and dancing and fun and pedicures and manicures and other cures. Travelling to visit friends is the Calgon Take Me Away for my generation…
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In other news… check out Redneck Mommy’s hilarious post that I nominated for April’s ROFL. Seriously, this is one hella talented and funny woman (and SO pretty!!). And further enjoy your weekend by reading all the other funnies at Metro Mama and Mrs. Chicky.
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10:56 am |
Prom Night
Went out to dinner tonight looked around and saw the future!! Mine and theirs. The prom girls were walking around in just about nothing I tell you (and looking damn perky while they were at it). The 50 – somethings were all blessedly child-free and fabulous in their laughing martinis and tables full of stories. What a strange evening to see these two extremes and to wonder what it will be like to be in my 50s with beautiful daughters wandering around restaurants oblivious to the horny drooly stares of the men in the room?
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10:24 pm |
The Bitch is Back and She’s My Girl
The bitch. She’s my girl. My people.
Today I took J. to visit her future Kindergarten Class and while there I met a funny, saucy, cranky girl. I think I’m in love. It’s hard to make friends these days, what with the schedules, and the different values, and the opinions and the swearing. I still have my posse from college days and some fabulous internet friends, but there’s nothing like a real live girlfriend to bring me joy. So the parents were either hovering or letting their visiting pre-K kids make their way to this or that activity table. Maureen was standing back and letting her girl run free (a good sign). She offered friendly waves and encouragement but nothing too crazy-mommy-worldish. When she mentioned her big wig job as a regional manager of thus and so, and her pro-Barak Obama bumper sticker, I knew I had to get her number.
As we crouched on the floor and kvetched about Bellingham (ok, it was mainly me), she laughed and joked and swore. And when cheery annoying Kindergarten teacher asked us if we had any questions, we both just laughed and said “No!” and watched while she puzzled and slunked away.
So now… how to set up the first get together meet-up without seeming stalkerish. Should I wait 3 days? Or go ahead and send her an email today….
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1:38 pm |
Pretty Pretty Math
Pretty Shoes + Pretty Toes + South Beach Diet is Working = Happy Happy Mama
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11:33 am |
Play Dates I Will Accept.
For any of the nice ladies who occasionally send me emails asking if I want to set up a playdate or play group for our kids, I’ve created a nice handy list of the types of playdates that I revel in.
I will gladly attend a play group or play date in which any of the following topics are discussed in depth:
1. Lesbian tantra weekends – what you learned, how straight women and their husbands can benefit from your education.
2. Drink recipes – which drinks you find most effective for killing mommy blahs.
3. Shoes – why you love them, where you buy them, the width, depth, and breadth of your collection.
4. Sex life - your methods for having fabulous lovin every day in your boudoir temple of love.
5. Trips you are planning to take without kids – cruises, weekend trips down highway 101 for wine tasting, even an overnight at a hotel. I’m all ears.
6. Humorous birth stories – nothing gory here, ladies, just funny tales of epidurals and laughing nurses, something involving you having the last laugh.
7. Politics - I will debate and discuss politics of any flavor, kind, political persuasion. Just be smart and quick about it, and I’ll be all yours.
8. Books - I will discuss any and all books as long as they are not on Oprah’s book list and as long as they are not authored by anyone with the last name Grisham or Collins.
9. Passion – I will discuss any old thing you’re passionate about as long as you’re, well, passionate about it. Gesticulations and yelling welcome.
That pretty much sums it up. Oh, and if you are going to bring your kids along, would you please make sure they are not the topic of conversation and that they don’t interrupt our fascinating conversation every two seconds? Don’t have kids at all? So much the better!!
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8:53 am |
A Working Girl Can’t Win…
This is for all of us who are less than we dreamed we’d be, or more, depending on the day… we lose ourselves in the rush and the rain.. watching as the seductress makes way for the mommy and wife… and wait patiently for her return.
One of my favorite poets, Deborah Garrison, writes about being a woman, a wife, a working girl.
Worked Late on a Tuesday Night
Again.
Midtown is blasted out and silent,
drained of the crowd and its doggy day.
I trample the scraps of deli lunches
some ate outdoors as they stared dumbly
or hooted at us career girls-the haggard
beauties, the vivid can-dos, open raincoats aflap
in the March wind as we crossed to and fro
in front of the Public Library
Never thought you’d be one of them,
did you, little lady?
Little Miss Phi Beta Kappa,
with your closetful of pleated
skirts, twenty-nine till death do us
part! Don’t you see?
The good schoolgirl turns thirty,
forty, singing the song of time management
all day long, lugging the briefcase
home. So at 10:00 PM
you’re standing here
with your hand in the air,
cold but too stubborn to reach
into your pocket for a glove, cursing
the freezing rain as though it were
your difficulty. It’s pathetic,
and nobody’s fault but
your own. Now
the tears,
down into the collar.
Cabs, cabs, but none for hire.
I haven’t had dinner; I’m not half
of what I meant to be.
Among other things, the mother
of three. Too tired, tonight,
to seduce the father.
(C) 1998 Deborah Garrison All rights reserved. ISBN: 0-679-45145-5
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4:57 pm |
Roller Derby Babes on Wheels….
I whooped and hollered when I read this piece in today’s Bellingham Herald and made a vow: I’m trying out for the Bellingham Roller Betties, our town’s all-girl roller derby team next Sunday at 7pm. Mark my words, friend.
I’m having a mid-life crisis anyway, and a violent, costume-rich sport is far healthier than a young Latin boyfriend and a corvette, don’t you think?
Move over Farrah, I’m getting some short shorts, fishnets, and puttin’ on the wheeeeeeels!!
**also wrote about this over at Babble****
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9:17 pm |
Spring!!
Either the drugs are finally kicking in, or my brain finally found that hidden stash of seratonin. This morning as I was dancing around the kitchen to Dar Williams I realized for a bizarre second, I was happy. Not “this is nice” happy, but “Life ROCKS!” happy. The dance around your kitchen, kiss your kids, and ignore the whining kind of thrilling wave, that is rare as a gay unicorn in mommyland (for me) sometimes.
It could be that mommy and daddy found some special time. It could be that sometimes seeing President Bush fixing a medal on someone with a screwed up mouth, makes me think “this is what the bastard looks like in the sack.” Or it could be that work is like a festival of goofiness as we make ready for our annual auction. I’m putting together our slideshow and enjoying putting in dirty jokes, just so I can see my boss blush.
It could also be because I think Paige is the cutest little swearing mommy I ever did have the pleasure to instant message with…. and meeting someone with a bad mouth, a big heart, and a good pen on her is happiness incarnate.
I know it’s not sophisticated, or lush, or literary, but it’s what I have.
And it’s good.
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11:28 am |
Pledge The Real Love
Like many assertive, outspoken types, I am often so busy acting tough, crying out against the injustices in the world, and yelling out encouragement to my peeps that I forget to take a breath and look around my own little inner life and notice the accumulated dust and gunk –the dust of exhaustion and stress and the gunk of guilt and self-loathing. Not the “Girl, you are so fat and ugly” self-loathing (SL), but the SL for the intellectual set (the rules, the pressure, the accomplishment, the “shoulds”), which is much sneakier and deadlier.
We often stand on high with our flags in the air and lipstick on, with a smile and a smart argument. Our people are loved and fed, our boss thinks we’re doing great, and our parents are proud. We have the things and the people and the success, but we’re tired tired tired. We worry and fret and find it hard to relax.
It is at just such moments that one’s babysitter usually quits and one is forced to realize (yet again) the thin wobbly line between strong and weak or dry-eyed and sobbing.
The losses of everyday life keep us humble, but they are also proof positive that one needs more than toughness, hard work, and snark to get by. If we lack real reserves and our strength is only skin deep, it’s all just macho posturing.
So I’m taking a little pledge — to care for myself with a little more gentleness.. to treat myself like one of my girlfriends who is having a hard day. Just a bath, just a walk, just a private moment.
Just a little more love and patience…. and a few more quiet minutes each day to gather the bustling thoughts into a more manageable jumble. It would be a great honor if you’d join me….
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4:51 pm |
I’m Just Sayin’
Have you ever noticed how much love flows through the blogosphere among the hardworking mamas out there? Why is it that sometimes we can be these FABULOUSLY supportive girlfriends to each other, but when it comes to ourselves we’re parsimonious and suspicious? Is it too difficult to deal out the powerful sweet mama love to the inside girl as well as the out? I think it is.
Truly.
What would happen if you applied all that sassy assertiveness ("you tell HIM that he should get his ASS out of bed and COOK, goddammit!!") to ourselves ("Honey, could you help out with breakfast tomorrow?")? What would happen if our compliments ("Sister, you are so gorgeous! Don’t you see what I see?") went inward as well as out ("Hey you, you’re definitely lookin’ like a hot mama!")?
Would we laugh? Roll our eyes and discount it as weird self-obsessive solipsism?
What does love mean when it happens inside the ribs of our souls as well as outside in the world of growing little people, relationships, and friendship?
What if we all vowed to be a better inward friends? If we vowed to stop the nagging, griping, jean squeezing, sideways frowny-faux-face-liftin’-mirror-glancing, and just LOOOOVVVVED ourselves?
What would happen if these Mom / Power Woman Engines were allowed to revv up to their full power and unleash into the world of politics, change, peace, and power? Would we finally realize the hopes of the suffragettes?
Would we be able to realize the goals of groups like MomsRising?
Or would we be lost in the wilderness of beauty and narcissism?
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In other news, William over at Gunfighter’s View kindly invited me to post over there today. He’s interested in starting a more informal blog exchange, so check him out.
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12:00 am |
