I’ve been listening to so much sad and melancholy music this year, but I think I’m pulling out of it. Not that I will ever stop, because I love the sad and melancholy beauties more than any of the others, but I hear variety is also supposed to be good.
A few things have been a catalyst for this . . .
I know I already posted the snake thing, but this requires it’s own discussion, because kids starting middle school is like some kind of hyperspace/warp speed shit. . . all of a sudden all this kind of serious stuff starts whipping by and it’s all a blur.
Dinner table subjects tonight included:
– How babies are made
– Sperm (with interpretive dance by Rollie)
– Todd: “Tiller, time for your shower.” Me: “Tiller, let me know if you ever have questions about what we all talk about.” Tiller: “I don’t even know what sperm means, but it sounds creepy.” [Exeunt Tiller]
– Drugs (weed, coke, meth, addiction, withdrawal, chewing tobacco, big league chew, oral cancer, and symptoms, medicinal weed, plant-based drugs vs. synthetic, “if you do meth, i will punch you in the face, it is really, really bad.”)
– STDs, communicable diseases, and “how” they are spread
– Rollie: “Tony said he’s in sex ed and some kids started thrusting and Ms. Furr said, ‘Stop gyrating like you are in a sex club.'” (Who the hell, is Ms. Furr?)
So, then we talked about whether or not he knows what she meant by sex club, and he said, “a club where you go to have sex?” and I said that I think that she meant “strip club” when she referred to it as a “sex club” and that you just go there to watch people take off their clothes while dancing to bad music, and they might ruffle your hair or something. (R: “They have poles, there?”)
And then Todd tried to break up our very serious sex club discussion by doing his own interpretive dance, taking off his flannel shirt and whipping it about his head. I’m pretty sure he was hearing Bob Seger’s “Night Moves” in his head.
Me: “And you never put your hand down on anything at a strip club and then lick your fingers.” [‘Yep,’ I thought. ‘I just said that out loud.’] He wanted to know why and I said, “well, they are kind of dirty.” And Rollie looked judgy/disgusted and I said, “Well, they are not bad. It doesn’t make you bad if you go there. Mama and daddy have been to them before. They’re just kind of dumb.” Pause. . . “Maybe don’t tell all your friends mama and daddy have been to strip clubs. [Oh god, plural. Why did I make it plural?] “But other people’s parents probably have too.” R: “I doubt that.” Me: “Well, maybe you’re right. Not all the parents have.”
And then I told him this is all very serious stuff, and that the important thing is to be safe, and respectful, and that he can always talk to us about anything, or ask us about things he has questions about.
This is about where Todd send him off to bed, which is for the best, because obviously I am fucking this whole parenting thing up to hell and back, because I have a hard time not being honest about stuff.
(I originally put this on Facebook, but wanted to document this one here, because one day the kids are going to think this is very, very funny, OR they will need it to hand to their therapist at that initial appointment.)
No matter how many times I look at this, it fails to become less funny.
And this is a little freaky. . .
Afraid this is just a taste of the awkward middle school years.
Uh, yeah. . . We’ll be doing a retake.
First of all, 15 hour days completely suck ass. Especially when you are completely worn out, fighting a cold that won’t die, and with the specter of strep throat haunting your future.
The last thing you want to do? Go to an elementary school talent show. You’d rather have that torture guy from Game of Thrones cut off a pinkie finger or two.
But to the talent show I went. Right after putting makeup on the girl, and slapping peanut butter on bread for the both kids, because you have nothing else to eat in the house because you had pantry moths and had to throw it all out.
We got to the talent show. I saved myself a second row seat, made sure the girl went potty before it started, and took the boy to the backstage area.
Went back and found my seat. Sat through the damn PTA meeting. And then it started.
Wow.
If you ever need to restore your faith in the youth of America, and in the parents that stand beside you in trying to improve things at your school, or even if you’re just having a crappy day and need a good laugh, OMG DO YOU NEED TO GO TO AN ELEMENTARY TALENT SHOW.
There were two emcees, both female, and one was dressed like Austin Powers. She was so not into the whole outfit and she told me she was only wearing it because her mother paid her ten bucks plus ice cream. She did the worst Austin Powers accent you ever heard. It was awesome. There were two best friends – one sang a . . I don’t know who did the song. It doesn’t matter, because the awesome part was her best friend getting up there with her and hula hooping the whole time her friend sang. There was a kid who did a bad ass Smooth Criminal dance. There were two acts playing guitar and singing Beatles songs. Kids singing The Beatles? It slayed me. There was a kid who did a comedy skit that bordered on offensive to little people, and I’m pretty sure he’s like the next Richard fucking Pryor. Little girls in frilly dresses played minuets on the piano; a boy played the James Bond theme song. Dressed as James Bond. There was a kid who called himself “Rollin’ Nolan,” who dressed in a disco getup, and roller-bladed on stage to the Bee Gees. There was a little 3rd grader who sang a Taylor Swift song, and almost made me cry. There were dancers galore. There were comedy troupes. There was one duo that sang some song I’ve never heard before, that sounded like some kind of Boys II Men/Rap mashup. I think one of them dropped the F-bomb. They were pretty good.
There was this little girl, who I think secretly wanted to perform, but yet she just signed up to help behind the scenes. Turns out only three kids signed up to do that. And then the organizers realized they needed someone to introduce the acts. And so they asked two of the kids to emcee. The little girl was one of them.
And she was really excited. And she must have really practiced her lines, and standing on the little stool that made her tall enough to be seen over the podium, and adjusting the microphone to her height, and her speaking into the microphone at the perfect volume. She wore a sequined, psychaedelic 60’s dress and white Go-Go boots. She loved the boots the moment she tried them on. It might have been the boots that transformed a first grader into a young lady. A poised, talented, well-spoken young stage professional. She watched every performance in between her introductions, and clapped with the music, and mouthed the words to every acts songs. She was more in her element than I have ever seen her. Every time I looked at her, she looked so very happy, and it was like looking at someone grow up in the course of an hour. I was swollen with pride. I could not contain my smile or the tears that threatened to spill over onto my face every time I looked at her.
And then the boy came on. The boy cannot sing. I knew he could not sing when he tried out. I thought for sure they would cut him. I secretly hoped they would cut him, because I didn’t think i could bear to watch my child fail so terribly at something. They did not cut anyone. There were probably three or four they could have cut, but they didn’t. He came on stage wearing a Hawaiian shirt with the collar popped, swim trunks, and flip flops. His sunglasses on his head. At home, he said he was “dressing for the weather in Istanbul.”
He looked scared. I felt sick.
The music started. And he smiled, and he began to sing.
Istanbul was Constantinople
Now it’s Istanbul, not Constantinople
Been a long time gone, Constantinople
Now it’s Turkish delight on a moonlit night
It was shaky. It was terrible. And I was so very in awe of my smart, unsmiling, ornery, stubborn, easy-to-anger boy, who had the nerve to get up in front of a cafeteria full of his peers and their parents, and sing that song. And people clapped along with the song, as they did for all of the performers, and it didn’t really matter that he was not in tune, and he was off key, and a little out of time.
And I laughed. People know it’s your kid up there, and so naturally they also look at you, to see you watch your own kid perform. And that laugh of mine somehow turned into crying, because I was so relieved that he was okay up there, and at one point during the song, he very coolly pulled his shades down over his eyes, while nodding his head and not missing a word, and then i was laughing and crying, and the only other time I remember having that exact feeling was when I was standing at an arbor in Auburn, Alabama with my husband and I was saying my vows and i was crying and laughing all at the same time.
You know that scene at the end of the movie Parenthood? The one where Steve Martin is sitting next to Mary Steenburgen in the crowd at the school play, and she’s knocked up, and he’s lost his job, and the whole family is there and Steve Martin is watching his weird, emotional kid freak out and knock over the sets on stage, and things are in slow motion and you start to hear the sound of a wooden roller coaster in the background, and Steve Martin is laughing and crying and watching the play and riding the roller coaster all at the same time?
That was me. I was riding the roller coaster and i was proud and scared and crying and laughing all at the same time. And isn’t that what life is all about?
I was Steve Martin tonight.
Found: One Total Doom Carnival Official Worker Thrill Card.
We have no idea.
I sit here every year, read a few news articles about folks who lost their lives, families whose loved ones never came home that day, and heroes who saved others, but lost their own lives. I never quite know what to say. It is a sadness that will never go away, and as someone I know said (and I apologize for not remembering who), the whole “never forget” thing is patently ridiculous. As if anyone could ever, in a million years, forget what that day was like. It was one of the most emotional days i have ever lived, full of anger, relief, disgust, horror, fear, disbelief, confusion, and a heartwrenchingly deep sadness. It is a waking nightmare that I take out like a worry stone once a year, just to remind myself that it was real, it really happened, and it happened to us all. A mass consciousness nightmare from which we will never quite awaken.
It also gives me one ray of hope . . . We have it so easy in our country, in so many ways, that we don’t know true day-to-day horror. I never want to experience something like 9/11 again, but I also never want to forget that given the right circumstances, our country might once again come together and stand undivided. It happened in those days after 9/11 and it might one day happen again.
Never forget. Here is what i wrote about my experience on 9/11 for the 911Digitalarchive, back in 2006. (OMG, i have been blogging for too long, i think!) I often revisit what 9/11 means to me and how my views about it have changed over the years, but i always come back to the story of what happened, of the event itself, and what it looked like from my little corner of the word. I always come back, like a stone that I worry in my palm and fingers, always studying it, but never quite figuring it out.
What is your 9/11 story?
At about 5:20, nine years ago today, this little guy came into my life. He totally picked it up like it was a snow globe, turned it around, shook it up. Really, i think the globe just busted wide open, and shattered into a million pieces, catching the summer afternoon light as they skittered across the floor.
He really did absolutely change everything: Who I thought I was, who I am now, who I wanted to be, how I saw everything. Absolutely, irrevocably altered forever. It was the most awesome (in the true sense of the word) thing that has happened to me before or since. That is not to minimize the impact my daughter has had on me, or to say that she is any less important to me. But when she came into my life, I was already far different than the person I had been three years before her birth.
Rollie has become such a boy. No longer a baby. He swims, and dives and spends the night out and runs and goes to the bathroom by himself and buys things at the cashier without me. He likes a girl. He won’t tell me who. He is sweet and sullen. He has stickers and a keep out sign on his bedroom door and he likes The Beatles and Beyblades. He is mean to his little sister in the most malicious and puckish ways – It makes my sister and i laugh to see him torture Tiller as I tortured Lisa. And yet, he will still burst into tears and fly off the handle like a toddler. He will still sometimes hold my hand, or ask to sleep with us, or climb up on the couch next to me and put his sweet head on my chest. I understand now why I will always be my Mama’s baby, why her Mama called her “Baby” until the day she died. My boy has shot up in size, and looking at the pictures of him, I just don’t understand how nine years went by so fast. NINE.
The rest? Unless you are a grandma or aunt, you probably won’t care. It will just be some kid, pretty decent-looking kid, but somebody else’s boy. To me? He is The Boy Who Smashed My Snow Globe.
This past Saturday was a year since I lost Quint. Luckily, I was at the beach, I shed a little tear and moved on. But i have been thinking a ton about him this week. I love Brody, but they are not the same dog. Quint was smart and funny, and the biggest waggie butt I ever saw. His whole body wagged when he saw me. I still miss him every single day.
I am still going through my old photos to pull some out and post them. It’s taken me this year just to be able to look at them. Also went through some old videos that had him in it. This is one I took of him with Todd and the kids, the first time the kids saw snow. We were still in EAV then. Quint was so spazzed out by the snow.
We had Q for 12 years. 8 of those years, i worked from home, and he was right at my side the whole time. It doesn’t feel like someone ripped a limb off anymore, but damn, i still miss my buddy every day.
This morning, I miraculously got the kids up and ready for school today with time to spare. I sat sipping my coffee on the couch until time to get the kids in the car, with Tiller, Rollie, and Brody (the dog) all sitting beside me. I checked my email while the kids read Rollie’s Encyclopedia of Immaturity, Vol. II. (Because Vol. I was not enough.)
I admit, I pretty much block everything out, especially before 8 a.m., but they were reading entries like, “How To Make a Fart Sound With Your Hands,” “How To Make a Fart Sound With Your Arm,” and “Frozen Underpants.”
And then I hear:
R: “How to make a fucksock.”
I choked on my coffee.
Me: “WHAT DID YOU SAY?!”
R: “How to make a fucksock.”
T: “What’s a fucksock?”
Me: “Give me that book.”
Rollie hands me the book. I look down at the page. The heading reads, “How to Make a Fauxhawk.”
Kids are awesome.
I was laid out on the couch today, with strep throat. Todd took the kids to R’s baseball game, and I was flipping through Netflix, trying to find something interesting. The good thing about being sick is that I can watch tv that I wouldn’t normally watch. Guilt free. Because i’m sick. I can watch four episodes of British teen dramas. (Skins. I can’t quit you.) Then, I can totally decide to switch over and watch music documentaries, which I used to watch all the time, but never seem to find time for these days. Because of the aforementioned guilt.
And yeah, the music is early 90s. Got all nostalgic after seeing facebook photos posted by college pal Jasonaut. Black and white photos, fresh faces, wrinkled, lived-in clothes that didn’t really fit, Athens porches. Beautiful photos that make me think of the past with wistfulness, even as I realize that photos don’t capture heartbreak, heat, humidity, night breezes, the smell of smoke, or the feel of old couches, or what it feels like to have so. much. time. to. think. About everything. To death.
So, there i was, laid out on the couch, watching a documentary about Nevermind, and the kids walk in from post-game pizza at Felini’s and Tiller is looking all cute, with a pony tail on her head, wearing mary janes, polka-dot leggings, a madras plaid patchwork skirt, and a shirt that can only be described as “riotous” (it had a zebra print, at least five colors, including hot pink, and sequins) – she is Belinda Carlisle on acid. And she walks in, puts her hand on hip, and says definitively, “This is my favorite song.”
It’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” And i though to myself, “novice.”
And then I said, “Really? I didn’t know you liked this song.”
And she said, “Yes,” her hands out to me, palms up, making a point, and cocked her head to the right, nodding. “We listened to the Nirvana in the car with Daddy.” Weird. Synchronicity. Also, this is good, because it means he might have been actually listening to me when I was saying that it was sad the kids don’t hear full albums more often.
“Oh. Okay, well, would you like to watch a documentary about the album?” And I totally thought they would say no, while giving me that “fuck no, i want to play. Why would I want to watch this boring shit?” look, but instead, they both said, “Sure!” in unison, and curled up on the chairs, and there wasn’t even a fight about who would sit where.
And then they started asking questions:
Tiller: “Who’s that? Is he the dead one?”
Me: “Uh, did daddy tell you he died?
Tiller: “Yeah. How did he die?”
Rollie: “He got old, Tiller.”
Me: “Well, actually, no, it’s sad. He killed himself. Have you heard of that?”
In unison: “No.”
Oh. shit.
Me: “Well, he did. It was v. sad. Always remember that no matter how bad it might get, Mama and daddy are here, and you can always talk to us, and it’s never bad enough to kill yourself. It is a selfish, terrible, heartbreaking, sad thing.”
Rollie: “How did he do it?”
Me: “Uh, i don’t remember.” Total lie.
Tiller: “Why?” Uh, shit. Too early to discuss drugs and depression.
Me: “Sometimes people are in pain, physically, or they are so sad that it hurts, and they don’t know what else to do.” SHIT.
Rollie: “Was it a gun?” Shit.
Me: “I don’t know baby. Let’s watch. maybe they will tell us what happened.”
And then, my stomach kind of clenched, because they had Butch Vig talking about recording the song “Something in the Way,” which is just depressing-as-hell, a haunting song, and i was thinking, why am i letting them watch this? Crap!
Rollie: “This one is not so loud.” He says this, not with distaste, but with thoughtfulness.
Butch Vig talks about how he recorded it with Kurt Cobain laying on a couch in the room with the soundboard, and he was just lying on the couch, playing the guitar, and singing, and it was so quiet, and so moving. I was waiting for the kids to get bored and start fidgeting, but they are both staring at Butch Vig, talking about doubling up vocal tracks, like Lennon did, and i see R. jerk his head towards me, like, “Lennon! I know him!” but he turns back to the tv. And they just . . . listen.
Rollie whispers, eyes not leaving the screen: “I like that song.”
Tiller: “Me too.”
And then they start talking about Smells Like Teen Spirit and how they made the video, which, well, you know. You’ve seen it. And Tiller says, in a Barbara Walters-gonna-get-you-to-fess-up-voice: “Mom, were you there?” And I laugh and say no.
And then the documentary starts talking about Nirvana playing live. They show all sorts of footage that makes me smile: Cobain wearing a white coat, beating his head into his amp, and Novoselic throwing his bass in the air, and Cobain leaping into the drum set. I am smiling and I look over at my kids, and they are looking at me, like, “Why are you smiling? Aren’t they gonna get in trouble? Isn’t that bad?”
Tiller: “Why are they making that mess?
Me, smiling a HUGE, guilty grin: “For fun. For entertainment.”
R: “Are those people on stage dancing in the band?
I laugh. “No,” more laughter, “they are people in the crowd stage diving.”
R: “What’s that?”
Me, with a lot more laughter. “It’s stupid. People got so excited and they would jump on stage and dance with bands, and then they would jump into the crowd, and the crowd would catch them, usually, and then they might carry them around. And that’s “crowd surfing.”
Complete silence in the room, as they both sit watching this footage of . . . what i remember going to see bands like that was like. And i realized that they are watching people at a Nirvana show, and it must seem like a fairy tale to them, like my dad telling me he met the Rolling Stones, or if my mom up and told me she was at Woodstock.
Tiller: “Were you there, mom?”
Me, more laughter. Laugh out loud laughter. A happy laughter. “Not there, baby. But i saw them twice. One time in a really big place, like the Georgia Dome, but it was called the Omni. But the first time I saw them, i was in Athens and I saw them in a little small place, smaller than the place where we took you to see They Might Be Giants.” The crowd on TV is pushing and shoving.
Tiller: “Was Daddy there?
Me: “No, baby, i didn’t know Daddy yet. I was there with my roommate and another friend.”
Rollie: “Did you get pushed down?”
Me: “No!”
Rollie: “Did you get pushed?”
Me: “yes.”
Tiller: “Were you scared?”
Me: “No. It was fun.”
Rollie: “Did you get up on stage and jump off?”
Me: “Oh, no, baby. Not my style. Remember I don’t like heights or being the center of attention.”
Rollie: “Did anyone jump off?”
Me: “Yes, Curt Cobain did! But not with his guitar like that.” On the TV, Curt is jumping off a huge stage, with his guitar, at some festival into a sea of people. “And there were not that many people there.”
Tiller: “did you catch him?”
Me: “Yes, everyone caught him. He jumped off, and people caught him, and he grabbed a hold of this movie screen, you know the kind they set up for movies at school? That pull out of the ceiling? And he grabbed hold of it, and he pulled it down, while the crowd was holding him, and it came right out of the ceiling and he wrapped himself up in the screen while the people held him up.”
Tiller, eyes as big as saucers: “Did you touch him?”
Me: “Uh, yeah, i guess so.”
And they both just stared at me.
And I gotta admit . . . I felt like a complete and total bad ass. I really did have a life. Back in the day. And what’s more? I’m pretty sure they thought i was a badass. That will probably never happen again. At least until they have children of their own. And then they will know that keeping a kid alive for 8 years is pretty badass in and of itself.
p.s. Mom? Dad? Y’all aren’t perfect, but I do think you’re pretty badass.
post-post script: Interestingly, i found this site, because I was curious if anyone else had written about the show online. I would have keeled over in happiness to find a photo of that night. Not even a complete setlist.
10/05/91 – 40 Watt Club, Athens, GA
Set (incomplete)
Smells Like Teen Spirit • Breed • Endless, Nameless
Notes
The band was drunk and out of tune, but the show was apparently incredible, according to attendees.
During “Endless, Nameless,” Kurt vaulted up to the movie projection screen and ripped it out of the ceiling, inciting the crowd to get onstage with the band and trash everything. Meanwhile, Dave kicked his drums over, then piled them up in no particular order and played them with microphones. After the noise and destruction, the band piled their instruments onto the drums, wished the crowd a good night, and left the stage, according to an attendee.
Other Performers
Das Damen
So, yeah. . . i guess i didn’t totally dream it.