Welcome to the new Mean Mommy! When I was changing the kids ages in my profile (where the hell did FOUR years go?), I decided it was time for a makeover (and I need to keep myself honest and have my photo be no more than a year old otherwise I'd be using my wedding photos, like some of you cheaters on Facebook). While I would also like this makeover to include a new pair of shoes for me, this was far more practical.
Enjoy!
MM
(And, yes, for those of you on RSS, this post was originally titled "Look...see how pretty I am!", and then I realized I had also put a new photo of myself and...ew, tacky)
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Monday, September 12, 2011
The Blackberry Reflex
I was determined to start writing regularly this week, now that all three children are in school four mornings, so I raced off to the grocery store, zoomed home and only unpacked the frozen foods and immediately perishables so I could quickly squeeze it in before Little Man has to be picked up. I didn't even let the discovery of an empty cardboard Land O' Lakes carton, that once contained a pound of butter, that apparently, fell out of one of the bags on my last shopping trip, melted in the late summer heat, and seeped in to the floor mats in the trunk of the van, convince me I need to slow down when I am transporting large quantities of food. I'm hoping this changes the scent of the van from unidentifiable funk, to movie theater popcorn butter though.
In line today, waiting for the cashier to finish with the order ahead of me (annoyed that the slacker college guy was bagging to day, sure as he was to ignore my carefully laid out system of frozen foods, followed by dairy, then meats, dry goods and lastly produce, and throw random things in bags together, making my hasty half-unpacking more difficult, and ensuring there'd be some warm ground turkey left behind and found upon my return from pre-school pick up), I pulled out my phone to check my email and text messages. Isn't that what we all do? It occurred to me how technology has not only made us constantly, annoyingly reachable, but is also preventing any down time or basic social interaction.
Remember being out to dinner, circa 2000, and your dinner companion needed to use the restroom? What did you do? Maybe you surreptitiously snuck looks at the people around you. H and I play a game called, "What's Their Story?" where we try to figure out what's going on at the tables around us. For example, "They are obviously on a third date. Holding hands, but still look nervous." So when one of us took a leak, the other did some recon. Or maybe you sat there uncomfortably, counting the minutes until your mate returned so you didn't feel like a loser. Now? We all whip out of mobile devices. Why have a quiet moment, possibly not looking busy and important? Or figuring if the couple at the next table is getting divorced?
Commuting was formerly a mine field of awkward interactions with strangers back in the day. When I first began commuting into New York City in the mid-nineties (we used these magical coins called tokens), I developed the blank stare popular on trains and buses that allows one to look straight ahead at the person sitting across the aisle on the M6, but not really see them . It was kind of peaceful, zoning out that way. You could also sneak glances at all the werdos around you for entertainment, like women who put on a full face of makeup while commuting - this one woman I rode with every morning carried the entire contents of a MAC counter, I swear. Lined her lips and everything. The only escape from the freak show was reading material, and even that was no guarantee. There were always those annoying over-the-shoulder newspaper readers on the subway, so blatant about it, you wanted to ask for part of your subscription fee. But sometimes, reading was a way to have an interesting conversation with a stranger.
One time on the subway, I was reading Naomi Wolfe's The Beauty Myth (while sporting my Rachel shag and my black tights and Nine West pilgrim shoes), for which the subtitle is How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women , when this big, burly construction worker (not an assumption, he was carrying a genuine hard hat, or he was one of The Village People) asks me in his gravely Brooklyn accent, "Geez. That book any good?" Rather than blow him off, I explained the basics of the book and he and I had a pretty lively discussion about second wave feminism all the way to 78th Street. Would that have happened if I was taping away on some device? I think not. I think about all the chance encounters that are not happening because we are looking down instead of around us. How many people won't meet on a train or in line at the post office because they are checking Facebook? Maybe we need to be looking at actual faces more.
Our reflex to remove ourselves from our surroundings and hide behind our portable technology is robbing us of that daily interaction that keps us human, and the moments of doing nothing that keep us sane. I am threatening to knock down my own glass house here, since I send PTA emails and text about play dates when I'm in line longer than five seconds, but what am I missing out on? The playground can be kind of boring after the first twenty minutes, so the temptation to make a few calls or send a few funny texts can be great. A and I have been friends for seven years since we struck up a conversation at the playground. To be completely honest, he saved me when #1 was crying to go on the swings and I was nursing #2, so a phone call to anywhere but an asylum would have been out of the realm of possibility, but still. Another friend, also met by the jungle gym, referred me to the pre-school my kids have gone to for the past seven years and I became the board president of. What would have happened if I was on the phone instead?
I hope we are at the height of this technological obsession, maybe there will be a backlash, with people unplugging, but I doubt it. Don't even get me started with this younger generation who think it perfectly acceptable to whip out a phone during a lull in conversation or at the dinner table - and I'm talking about people in their twenties. Will the basics of human interaction be forever lost? I'm not sure what the answer is, but I have decided to put myself on a Blackberry detox plan. I have it on "phone calls only" during the day. I turn it off completely when in the house with the kids and turn it on again when H is supposed to send me his nightly ETA text (and then, his inevitable "I missed the train" text). And when I do answer him, if I am with the kids I say, "Excuse me, I have to answer Daddy." How will they learn to use technology responsibly if I am constantly dropping out of conversation with them to look at my phone? They deserve some respect as well.
I will try to fight the urge, when waiting at school pick-up or in line at CVS, to check my phone, instead of chatting with a fellow mom or smiling at the old guy in front of me who is sure to pay for his hemorrhoid cream with nickels. I don't think I'm going to meet the editor of my book in line for groceries, but do I really want to tempt fate?
In line today, waiting for the cashier to finish with the order ahead of me (annoyed that the slacker college guy was bagging to day, sure as he was to ignore my carefully laid out system of frozen foods, followed by dairy, then meats, dry goods and lastly produce, and throw random things in bags together, making my hasty half-unpacking more difficult, and ensuring there'd be some warm ground turkey left behind and found upon my return from pre-school pick up), I pulled out my phone to check my email and text messages. Isn't that what we all do? It occurred to me how technology has not only made us constantly, annoyingly reachable, but is also preventing any down time or basic social interaction.
Remember being out to dinner, circa 2000, and your dinner companion needed to use the restroom? What did you do? Maybe you surreptitiously snuck looks at the people around you. H and I play a game called, "What's Their Story?" where we try to figure out what's going on at the tables around us. For example, "They are obviously on a third date. Holding hands, but still look nervous." So when one of us took a leak, the other did some recon. Or maybe you sat there uncomfortably, counting the minutes until your mate returned so you didn't feel like a loser. Now? We all whip out of mobile devices. Why have a quiet moment, possibly not looking busy and important? Or figuring if the couple at the next table is getting divorced?
Commuting was formerly a mine field of awkward interactions with strangers back in the day. When I first began commuting into New York City in the mid-nineties (we used these magical coins called tokens), I developed the blank stare popular on trains and buses that allows one to look straight ahead at the person sitting across the aisle on the M6, but not really see them . It was kind of peaceful, zoning out that way. You could also sneak glances at all the werdos around you for entertainment, like women who put on a full face of makeup while commuting - this one woman I rode with every morning carried the entire contents of a MAC counter, I swear. Lined her lips and everything. The only escape from the freak show was reading material, and even that was no guarantee. There were always those annoying over-the-shoulder newspaper readers on the subway, so blatant about it, you wanted to ask for part of your subscription fee. But sometimes, reading was a way to have an interesting conversation with a stranger.
One time on the subway, I was reading Naomi Wolfe's The Beauty Myth (while sporting my Rachel shag and my black tights and Nine West pilgrim shoes), for which the subtitle is How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women , when this big, burly construction worker (not an assumption, he was carrying a genuine hard hat, or he was one of The Village People) asks me in his gravely Brooklyn accent, "Geez. That book any good?" Rather than blow him off, I explained the basics of the book and he and I had a pretty lively discussion about second wave feminism all the way to 78th Street. Would that have happened if I was taping away on some device? I think not. I think about all the chance encounters that are not happening because we are looking down instead of around us. How many people won't meet on a train or in line at the post office because they are checking Facebook? Maybe we need to be looking at actual faces more.
Our reflex to remove ourselves from our surroundings and hide behind our portable technology is robbing us of that daily interaction that keps us human, and the moments of doing nothing that keep us sane. I am threatening to knock down my own glass house here, since I send PTA emails and text about play dates when I'm in line longer than five seconds, but what am I missing out on? The playground can be kind of boring after the first twenty minutes, so the temptation to make a few calls or send a few funny texts can be great. A and I have been friends for seven years since we struck up a conversation at the playground. To be completely honest, he saved me when #1 was crying to go on the swings and I was nursing #2, so a phone call to anywhere but an asylum would have been out of the realm of possibility, but still. Another friend, also met by the jungle gym, referred me to the pre-school my kids have gone to for the past seven years and I became the board president of. What would have happened if I was on the phone instead?
I hope we are at the height of this technological obsession, maybe there will be a backlash, with people unplugging, but I doubt it. Don't even get me started with this younger generation who think it perfectly acceptable to whip out a phone during a lull in conversation or at the dinner table - and I'm talking about people in their twenties. Will the basics of human interaction be forever lost? I'm not sure what the answer is, but I have decided to put myself on a Blackberry detox plan. I have it on "phone calls only" during the day. I turn it off completely when in the house with the kids and turn it on again when H is supposed to send me his nightly ETA text (and then, his inevitable "I missed the train" text). And when I do answer him, if I am with the kids I say, "Excuse me, I have to answer Daddy." How will they learn to use technology responsibly if I am constantly dropping out of conversation with them to look at my phone? They deserve some respect as well.
I will try to fight the urge, when waiting at school pick-up or in line at CVS, to check my phone, instead of chatting with a fellow mom or smiling at the old guy in front of me who is sure to pay for his hemorrhoid cream with nickels. I don't think I'm going to meet the editor of my book in line for groceries, but do I really want to tempt fate?
Thursday, September 8, 2011
How did I get here?
I know you all expected a summer recap post, but that requires a lot more mental energy than I currently posses, so the Top 5 Best and Worst Moments of Summer 2011, as suggested by my friend J, will have to wait and I will start fleshing out ideas I squirreled away on my Blackberry all summer.
I can hardly believe this time last week I was reading and sunning myself on the beach (read: covered in 110 SPF, wearing my Yankee hat, chasing the shade around the umbrella), since I am already so immersed in Girl Scouts, PTA and all the other minutiae that runs my life. But, yes, not seven days ago, while counting the hours until classy-Solo-cup-cocktails-on-the-beach time I was reading a great book called What Alice Forgot.
The premise - a young woman wakes up on the floor of a spin class, to find she is a gym-obsessed, forty year-old mother of three, when her last memory is being a chocolate-loving, twenty-nine year-old, pregnant with her first child. The concept is really fascinating. She ten must go about living her new life with the perspective of her old (younger) one until her memory returns. During this time she sees her life, and the problems associated with it, with a whole new perspective. Think about yourself ten years ago. How different a person are you now? What has happened in those ten years, by your own doing or not, that has subtlety changed you on the deepest level? What would that younger you think of the older you you have become? And I don’t mean the choices you have made. I have gone on, ad nauseum, about how this was not the life I thought I would be leading many moons ago, but I mean the PERSON you have become living this life.
When I compare the “Marys” of 2001 and 2011, the contrast is sharp. Like the main character, Alice, I was also pregnant with my first child, and like Alice, was romantically dreaming about my baby, and eating everything I could get my hands on and not exercising in even the most rudimentary sense, to “protect” my unborn child. But even before I became pregnant, I could easily convince myself to skip the gym, or the laundry, or the grocery shopping to do something more important, like watch VH1’s I Love the 80’s. I was pretty easy on myself. Ten years later, it seems I have become my own taskmaster. Like Alice I am “tapping away on my mobile, jangling my car keys, ready to go, go go”. As Alice regains her memory, the voice of her older self starts to creep into her internal dialogue.
Lamenting about her lost memories the voice says:
‘Well, bad luck. Deal with it, honey. Have a shower. Time for coffee and an egg white omelette before the kids get up.’
The way this bossy, acerbic voice kept popping into her head was really freaking her out.
‘It’s hardly a matter of life and death, is it Alice?’
‘Oh, shut up’, she said back to her forty year-old self, ‘No offense, but you sound like a bit of a bitch, Alice.’
This is exactly the kind of internal dialogue my younger and older self have all the time, expect my older self always wins. Every morning twenty-seven year old Mary says, “Oh FUCK NO” , when the alarm goes off at five, and thirty-seven year old Mary barks, “Get up and get moving! Run, shower, pack those lunches you were too lazy to pack last night when you chose to watch The Bachlorette instead. Slacker.” When I have a cold and want to lie on the couch and watch bad, daytime television, Old Mary snarks, “Those dishes won’t wash themselves, dinner isn’t prepped yet, and what about those PTA emails you have to answer? No Say Yes to the Dress for you.” It’s like I’ve become that blonde asshole in Karate Kid, screaming at myself, “NO MERCY!!!!” with blonde bangs plastered against the vein popping out on my forehead.
In the book, the difference is so jarring between the two Alices, you hate forty-year old Alice and hope she never regains control. Her children like the mother who has forgotten about ballet and piano lessons and what constitutes a healthy meal. Her husband likes her more and they seem to have more fun. But at the same time, the laundry didn’t get done, and homework wasn’t turned in, and PTA projects Alice was running started to fall apart. Young Alice is fun, but can she keep a family running? The changes in Alice’s personality are almost a direct result of the life she is trying to create, and the question I ask is, is it entirely avoidable?
It was easy for me to be easier on myself when it was just myself I was affecting with my choices, like Cocoa Puffs for dinner. But now with three (sometimes four) people to look out for, I often feel I can’t let my guard down, or when I do, I spend so much time digging out of the hole I’ve created (like when you go to the beach for a week and refuse to answer any PTA or Girls Scout emails on your Blackberry), it hardly seems worth it (OK, the week at the beach was). I often think of a quote from The Story of Us, where the husband asks the wife where to goofball he married went. Her response? “Where is the girl in the pith helmet? You beat her out of me!”
I do not disown my own role in this situation, and think anyone but myself beat the girl in the pith helmet out of me, and this is why I was so moved by this book. Stepping back and seeing how my life and the way I run it has altered my thoughts and perception of myself was kind of shocking. It was a “how did I get here?” kind of moment. There are benefits to the way I am now, significantly less back fat*, and drawbacks, significantly less relaxation, and I need to find a balance between the two.
Maybe for you, your two selves are not that different, or maybe they differ in good ways, but I think no matter what, this is sort of an interesting exercise we should all partake in every ten years. We should all take some time to remember how the world didn’t end when you decided to slack off for the day, and maybe be inspired to eat cereal for dinner while watching Mo Rocca riff on Hypercolor tshirts.
*I had quite the roll of it after birthing #2. H tried to make me laugh by telling me I was not starring in the Ron Howard movie “Backfat”. But, seriously, I hand handles back there.
I can hardly believe this time last week I was reading and sunning myself on the beach (read: covered in 110 SPF, wearing my Yankee hat, chasing the shade around the umbrella), since I am already so immersed in Girl Scouts, PTA and all the other minutiae that runs my life. But, yes, not seven days ago, while counting the hours until classy-Solo-cup-cocktails-on-the-beach time I was reading a great book called What Alice Forgot.
The premise - a young woman wakes up on the floor of a spin class, to find she is a gym-obsessed, forty year-old mother of three, when her last memory is being a chocolate-loving, twenty-nine year-old, pregnant with her first child. The concept is really fascinating. She ten must go about living her new life with the perspective of her old (younger) one until her memory returns. During this time she sees her life, and the problems associated with it, with a whole new perspective. Think about yourself ten years ago. How different a person are you now? What has happened in those ten years, by your own doing or not, that has subtlety changed you on the deepest level? What would that younger you think of the older you you have become? And I don’t mean the choices you have made. I have gone on, ad nauseum, about how this was not the life I thought I would be leading many moons ago, but I mean the PERSON you have become living this life.
When I compare the “Marys” of 2001 and 2011, the contrast is sharp. Like the main character, Alice, I was also pregnant with my first child, and like Alice, was romantically dreaming about my baby, and eating everything I could get my hands on and not exercising in even the most rudimentary sense, to “protect” my unborn child. But even before I became pregnant, I could easily convince myself to skip the gym, or the laundry, or the grocery shopping to do something more important, like watch VH1’s I Love the 80’s. I was pretty easy on myself. Ten years later, it seems I have become my own taskmaster. Like Alice I am “tapping away on my mobile, jangling my car keys, ready to go, go go”. As Alice regains her memory, the voice of her older self starts to creep into her internal dialogue.
Lamenting about her lost memories the voice says:
‘Well, bad luck. Deal with it, honey. Have a shower. Time for coffee and an egg white omelette before the kids get up.’
The way this bossy, acerbic voice kept popping into her head was really freaking her out.
‘It’s hardly a matter of life and death, is it Alice?’
‘Oh, shut up’, she said back to her forty year-old self, ‘No offense, but you sound like a bit of a bitch, Alice.’
This is exactly the kind of internal dialogue my younger and older self have all the time, expect my older self always wins. Every morning twenty-seven year old Mary says, “Oh FUCK NO” , when the alarm goes off at five, and thirty-seven year old Mary barks, “Get up and get moving! Run, shower, pack those lunches you were too lazy to pack last night when you chose to watch The Bachlorette instead. Slacker.” When I have a cold and want to lie on the couch and watch bad, daytime television, Old Mary snarks, “Those dishes won’t wash themselves, dinner isn’t prepped yet, and what about those PTA emails you have to answer? No Say Yes to the Dress for you.” It’s like I’ve become that blonde asshole in Karate Kid, screaming at myself, “NO MERCY!!!!” with blonde bangs plastered against the vein popping out on my forehead.
In the book, the difference is so jarring between the two Alices, you hate forty-year old Alice and hope she never regains control. Her children like the mother who has forgotten about ballet and piano lessons and what constitutes a healthy meal. Her husband likes her more and they seem to have more fun. But at the same time, the laundry didn’t get done, and homework wasn’t turned in, and PTA projects Alice was running started to fall apart. Young Alice is fun, but can she keep a family running? The changes in Alice’s personality are almost a direct result of the life she is trying to create, and the question I ask is, is it entirely avoidable?
It was easy for me to be easier on myself when it was just myself I was affecting with my choices, like Cocoa Puffs for dinner. But now with three (sometimes four) people to look out for, I often feel I can’t let my guard down, or when I do, I spend so much time digging out of the hole I’ve created (like when you go to the beach for a week and refuse to answer any PTA or Girls Scout emails on your Blackberry), it hardly seems worth it (OK, the week at the beach was). I often think of a quote from The Story of Us, where the husband asks the wife where to goofball he married went. Her response? “Where is the girl in the pith helmet? You beat her out of me!”
I do not disown my own role in this situation, and think anyone but myself beat the girl in the pith helmet out of me, and this is why I was so moved by this book. Stepping back and seeing how my life and the way I run it has altered my thoughts and perception of myself was kind of shocking. It was a “how did I get here?” kind of moment. There are benefits to the way I am now, significantly less back fat*, and drawbacks, significantly less relaxation, and I need to find a balance between the two.
Maybe for you, your two selves are not that different, or maybe they differ in good ways, but I think no matter what, this is sort of an interesting exercise we should all partake in every ten years. We should all take some time to remember how the world didn’t end when you decided to slack off for the day, and maybe be inspired to eat cereal for dinner while watching Mo Rocca riff on Hypercolor tshirts.
*I had quite the roll of it after birthing #2. H tried to make me laugh by telling me I was not starring in the Ron Howard movie “Backfat”. But, seriously, I hand handles back there.
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