The Party Store Won't Be Happy, But I Am

My son is a few short weeks away from turning ten. TEN! Double digits! Eight years away from college!

It makes my head spin.

The upside to having a kid turning ten is that the hoopla of a big birthday party seems less appealing - fourth grade boys are good like that. I no longer have to invite the whole class to a laser tag party or fill goodie bags with crappy dollar store junk. Hallefreakinglujah.

This year he was perfectly happy to keep it low key when I suggested that he invite a friend (or two) to do something special, an outing, if you will. This morning, over burnt cinnamon toast and juice, I threw out some ideas to him.

Dinner in Boston? Rollerblading? A movie? Snow tubing?

He shrugged, unimpressed with my brainstorms.

(Ten is also the age where I am less and less cool despite my awesome singing voice)

You know, mom, how about if I have a friend over and we stay home and watch a movie and eat hot dogs?

So far Ten is looking a whole lot easier than Nine.

On Turning Forty

It's been awhile since I have visited this space. I keep dipping my toe in the bloggy waters and then running in the other direction. The thing is, I don't have a lot to say. And when I blather on about the banal details of my life, it feels a little self-serving. A little trivial. Do you ever feel that way? Also, in case you haven't noticed, there is a lot of negativity out here in the virtual world of pretend. I'm already a glass half-empty kind of girl so, really, I have to limit the negative vibes in my life or else, well, I don't know what else but it would be bad, I would imagine.

So why I am here?

I have no good answer other than I'm a pretty good typist.

Did I tell you I turned 40 recently? I turned 40 recently. Actually, my husband and I both turned 40 within six weeks of each other. Since we are both youngest children and need external validation and copious amounts of attention, we threw ourselves a big party. It was just like our wedding reception, expect I didn't wear my mother's wedding dress or eat a $500 piece of cake. Otherwise, it was exactly the same. It was (truly!) the highlight of the summer, and the weekend with friends and family made us feel all happy fuzzy inside for days afterward.

Not long after the glow wore off, the reality of 40 set it. FORTY. See, everyone says that once you enter the fifth decade of life you have a renewed sense of self. You know who are are. You know your place in the world and you feel pretty effing confident about it. At least, that's what they say. 'They' being my mother. Who is 73.

Anyway.

I'm almost two months into my fifth decade and I'm still waiting for my new and improved sense of self to formally announce itself. So far, it's been a no show. Nada. Nothing.

I have learned a few things, though, which I will share.

1. I can't drink a bottle of wine and chase it with a chocolate martini anymore.

2. My right knee hurts when I descend a rock face (which is not often, but still worth mentioning).

3. Skinny jeans are not for me.

4. I am beginning to think I will never find a yoga teacher who uses a Bruce Springsteen play list. On the beach. In Costa Rica.

5. Expensive wrinkle cream is a hoax.

That's it, folks. Other than the wrinkle cream thing, no meaningful epiphanies have surfaced. No surges of confidence or wisdom have washed over me. I have not even glimpsed an image of the baby Jesus in my grilled cheese sandwich.

I guess these things take time. Afterall, I have a whole decade before me to complete my metamorphisis into the grownup world of middle age.



Anybody have any words of wisdom to pass along about their 40s? Good? Bad? Arthritic? It's the new 20, right?

Monetary Validation

Holly: "Do you think she's talented, deeply and importantly talented?"
Paul: "No. Amusingly and superficially talented, yes. But deeply and importantly, no."

Breakfast at Tiffany's

I got a check in the mail today. Not a big one, but it had my name on it and when I saw it among the stack of bills and various junk, I smiled.

Which got me thinking. (Because I can't ever just be happy. I need to analyze being happy.)

The check and the smile got me thinking because, you see, just yesterday I was feeling pretty hopeless and unworthy and blah. I had had a disappointing phone call earlier in the day, a roadblock in a Plan. This roadblock, like others, didn't lead to any alternate routes. It was a clear and obvious dead end. I've hit a few dead ends at crash speed recently so, needless to say, I was feeling pretty crappy about myself.

Then a check appeared in the mail, (which is weird in itself because yesterday as I cried myself a river I wished for something, anything, good to happen for god's sake. And then the check came. Is it a sign? Are you there God? It's me, Margarita drinker. Is this it? Is the dismally small check the good thing I wished for? Because, honestly, if it is, I was kind of hoping for something a little bigger and better. Hello? Is this thing ON?)...so, right, a check appeared in the mail and suddenly I had a bounce in my usual sluggish step. A check with a pretty dollar sign and an endorse here line basically signifies that someone out there thinks your work is worthy. So worthy that they are willing to pay you for it. It doesn't matter if you think you're work is garbage, someone else thinks otherwise.

Why does that make me so happy? Why do I need someone else - a stranger! a signature on a check! - to validate my self worth? Shouldn't I be okay with living my life and doing what makes me happy and to hell with what everyone else thinks? Art for arts sake, blah blah blah...

Nope. Not me. Turns out, I need cold hard cash to feel deeply and importantly talented - even if I can recite every line from Breakfast at Tiffany's. Now that's talent, baby.

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner

Winner of last week's book giveaway is... Green Girl in Wisconsin!

Send me your address, GG, and I'll get Girl in Translation in the snail mail to you.

Happy Summer Reading.

Book Giveaway

I haven't decided whether I'm coming or going on this little space. I think I'm mostly going, but while I decide, I have books to give away! Before I donate them to my local library, I thought I'd throw them out to my friendly Internets first.

First up is Jean Kwok's, Girl in Translation. You can read my review here. Go ahead and click over. You'll never guess who not only read my review, but commented on it!

Leave me a comment here to be entered to win the book (it's a great summer read!). I'll do a random drawing next Monday and announce the winner then.

I hope the sun in shining and the flowers are blooming in your neck of the woods...

Vacation All I Ever Wanted

Here's the thing about going on vacation - you don't know how much you needed it, craved it, until you're there. Until your feet sink into the hot sand and your skin soaks up the rays of Vitamin D and your children's squeals of beachy happiness fill your head. You don't realize just how far down you've been until you feel the wind whipping through your hair as you four wheel down a beach in a muddy jeep you wish to hell was yours to keep. You can't see your tracks, where you've been, until you shift into the next gear and find something new.  

Here's another thing about going on vacation - you have time to think. Time to sort things out. Time to consider closing down your little space on the Internet because it's not really moving you forward in any meaningful way. In fact, you realize it's a pretty self-serving way to spend time. You don't have anything mind shattering to say to the world. But maybe, if you start listening more, the world has some mind shattering messages of its own. You want to start listening more.

Here's the last thing about going on vacation - you eventually have to come home. But you come home with your mind and spirit in a new place. And you know what you need to do to keep them there.

Happy spring, peeps.

Four Wheelin'

There is a signature in my high school yearbook, written by a friend I grew up with, that has stuck with me over the years. Two decades since graduation and I still remember the words he wrote next to my senior picture.

It began as the usual 'great knowing you, you're a great friend, good luck next year' blather, but then morphed into this: "...I believe that one day you'll meet that great guy with all the brains and money and you'll be driving a station wagon full of kids with a smile on your face".

Really?

What 17 year old writes that in another 17 year old's yearbook?

A Station wagon? Full of kids? With a smile on my face?

He didn't know me At. All.

I had plans back then. Big Plans. Big Plans that did not include a family vehicle of any kind.

My BFF and I had crafted our future plans together during a field trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art when we were 14. We were going to live in a loft in SoHo. We'd throw fancy Great-Gatsby parties with real cocktails in real glasses. She was going to be a fashion designer or actress, whichever was more lucrative. My career plans were up in the air, but I was definitely down with city loft living thing.

I'd do the chic city-girl gig during the week, but on the weekends I would free my car from the high priced parking garage (easily affordable with my six figure career) and cruise down the turnpike to the Jersey Shore in this:



My Dream Car.

The I-Don't-Have-Any-Responsibilities JEEP. Shiny black. Soft top. Adventure ready.

The kind with a removable top and doors. The kind that is required to be driven with flip flops. The kind that can take you to the beach or four wheeling through mud. The kind that reminds you that you are young and fun and not closing in on 40.

I was insulted by my friend's prediction back then. Who did he think I was?

Clearly, I was much more THIS


Than (God help me) THIS


I went off to college in upstate New York that fall, broke, clueless and car-less.

During summer breaks at home I drove my sister's used Dodge Omni* or, when my mother was feeling generous, her Acura to my summer job at Contempo Casuals in a quintessential New Jersey mall (and crossing off 'retail' from possible career choices).

By my Junior year I convinced my parents that I needed a car so I could live off campus closer to the bars drive myself the 3.5 hours to school, saving them a few trips a year.

They helped me buy one of these:



A boring practical 1987 Honda Civic** sedan. Not my Jeep, but it had 4 wheels and got me safely from the Hudson River to the finger lakes. It leaked oil every 100 miles, but the tape deck didn't tangle up my Born To Run cassette so it was all good.

After college I moved to Washington, DC, found myself gainfully employed, and out of touch with my Soho-Loft-friend. My '87 civic was starting to show signs of being not so reliable anymore so I spent my entry-level job paychecks on my first New Car.

mine didn't come with a palm tree. Or an ocean view.


Another practical Civic***. [Sigh] Black this time, but it was no free wheeling Jeep. City driving, as it turned out, was not 4x4 vehicle friendly.

The years went by, cars came and went. My Black Jeep was always in the back of my mind, but there never seemed to be a right time to add its whimsical wheels to my life.

The Husband and I got married, moved a few more times and started a family. The cars were always sensible, fuel efficient and reliable. A Honda. A VW. A Toyota.

Not too long ago, we planted ourselves in New England suburbia with two kids to feed, a lawn to mow and a mortgage to pay.

And where I can currently be found driving around town in this



A Passat Wagon****. Full of kids. With a smile on my face most of the time.

How did he KNOW? Twenty years ago, how did he KNOW?

Did my 17 year old persona scream 'FUTURE STATION WAGON DRIVER'?

Was I that transparent?

I didn't think so.

But then people tend to see us differently than we see ourselves.

Maybe it was my spot on the tennis team that gave me away. Or my sensible chin-length bob. Or even the canvas LL Bean book bag I carried to school every day.

Whatever it was, it was the image I had chosen to show the world.

I guess I may have done a pretty good job of playing the Future-Domestic-Girl role on the outside, but on the inside I was, and still am, the ever hopeful Barefoot-Jeep-Driving Girl.

A girl can dream, can't she?


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Someday I will get my Jeep*****. I may be the only flip flop wearing 85 year old at Sunset Farms Retirement Village driving one, and I may not be able to see where I'm going, but there I'll be, in the driver's seat, heading to the beach.



*caught on fire as I was driving to the mall
**traded in for mere pennies at the sleazy car dealership
*** totaled a week after it was sold by the teenager who bought it.
****no longer being held together with a binder clip and pony tail holder
*****waiting patiently for me


This was originally posted in '09. But I'm thinking of my jeep a lot lately, for many reasons. And with any luck I will cross off 'go 4-wheeling on a beach in a jeep' from my bucket list in the next few weeks.


What's on your bucket list?