I Also Think Vladimir Putin is Kind of Cute

I have developed a crush on Thomas Jefferson.

It was bound to happen, what with all the time we've been spending together lately.

I tried to break it to my husband gently, by means of a funny anecdote over dinner.

"So," I said, idly twirling some pasta around my fork, "I'm finally starting to get into my book club book."

"Oh?" said the P-Dawg between bites of chicken.

"Yeah! It's like, all of a sudden, I'm very interested in Thomas Jefferson. As a person."

The P-Dawg put down his fork and gave me his full attention.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I can't stop thinking about him. He was a fascinating and surprisingly sensitive guy. In fact, I was so preoccupied daydreaming about plantation life this morning, that I completely missed our freeway exit while driving the kids to school!"

"You missed the freeway exit because you were thinking about Thomas Jefferson?"

"Yes, isn't that funny?"

"What were you thinking?"

"Just stuff. You don't have to make it sound dirty."

Of course it's not the first time I've become infatuated with a political figure. I have had a crush on every Democratic presidential candidate since Bill Clinton, and Josh Lyman will always have a special place in my heart.

It is, however, the first time I've ever fancied a man two hundred years dead.

Don't judge me. My friend V (also a book club member) thinks he's hawt, too. When I confided my feelings about T.J. to her this weekend, she admitted that she can't help but periodically flip over to the page with Jefferson's portrait on it as she's reading. "I only wish he wasn't a redhead" my friend V lamented.

Tell me, readers. Who is your political/historic crush?


Hunka Hunka Burnin' Love


Photo courtesy of Google Images.

No Cause for Alarm

My mother always qualifies bad news with a statement like, "Now, I want you to know that there is no cause for alarm, but . . . "

It is her heart's desire that, whenever possible, she not cause undue stress. Usually she'll go on to tell me that a family member is in the hospital, but regardless of whether they are awaiting an organ transplant or having their appendix removed, there is no cause for alarm. I'll bet even if she had firsthand knowledge of our imminent nuclear demise, my mom would say, "Rima, I don't want you to worry, but . . . you are going to die in fifteen seconds."

I got a call from my mom on Friday afternoon. There was no cause for alarm, but my dad was in the hospital. There was no cause for alarm, but he had gone to the doctor's after experiencing chest pain and the doctor had sent him straight to the cardio ICU. Also, he went by ambulance. They're about to do a heart catheterization - she'll call me back as soon as she knows something, there's no cause for alarm.

It turns out my dad had a heart attack, but he was very lucky - the blockage wasn't in any major arteries and he didn't need bypass surgery. In fact, my dad was insisting that he could have driven to the hospital himself. When I went to see him later that night, he was having dinner and looking very nearly like his usual spry self. By Sunday afternoon, he was pacing the halls with his IV pole in tow and wearing street clothes under his hospital gown to indicate discharge preparedness.

He's home now, feeling fine, and looking into heart healthy menu options he can live with. There was no cause for alarm. Except, of course, during those long hours on Friday afternoon when I started imagining a world without my father in it.

I Don't See Dead People, But I Wish I Would

I subscribe to a daily writing prompt, but I never do it. Putting that much thought into what I'm going to say, rather than just writing about my supermarket trials and tribulations, causes nervous beads of sweat pop out all over my brow. Today's prompt, however, was to write about what I'd like to dream tonight, and I didn't have to think much about this one at all - I want to dream my grandmother. But I don't just want to dream about her, I . . . want her to visit.

There have been many reminders of the transiency of souls lately, in real life and on the Internet. Consequently, as I always do at times like these, I've been ruminating about the sweet hereafter. I like to think that I don't need hard, empirical evidence of an afterlife, but I often find myself seeking out hints. I've been devouring books - about people who've had experiences that help them believe, and about NDEs (Near Death Experiences), during which individuals claim to have physically died and gone, if only for a moment, to another place which confirmed (for them) that there is something more.

I think it's fascinating. And while I'm inclined to believe that some of these experiences are drug induced or fabrications, I think that many are authentic. And I get a little jealous. Because I've been waiting for a dead person to visit me for years. (Just kidding! But not really.) When I've really looked, I have picked up on signs that help me believe. There are things that have happened surrounding the deaths of my grandparents and uncle which, if I detailed them here for you, would seem inconsequential, but have proven mystical for me. Alas, I can't say that I've ever glimpsed anything truly otherwordly, and I just want a little peek beyond the Veil.

Have you ever felt the presence of a loved one who has died in a dream? Have you had any experiences that have given you good goosebumps? I'd like to hear about them.

My Babylust is Fun Size

Do you know how cute a shoeless two-year old attempting a headstand looks?

Cute enough to cause a shriveled up 35 year-old mother of two who has sworn off having more children almost seriously reconsider her decision in a fit of babylust, that's what.

I've had minor ovarian twitches in the past, upon oogling other people's newborns and such, but never to the point where I was doing actual math in my head, like today during the little J-dog's Gymboree class. (July is a top-notch month, though, don't you think?)

Apparently, twenty adorable and exceptionally well-behaved two year olds toddling around barefoot and losing their shit for pure joy over a roomful of mechanically generated bubbles can totally do that to a person who may or may not be in the middle of her moon cycle, if you're picking up what I'm laying down.

But as strong as the urge was today, I know it is not a good idea for me to have more children. And I probably won't. Even though I'm pretty sure I could. I mean, I know how to do it, is what I'm saying.

I'm wondering, though: is there anyone out there reading who thought her family was complete and then decided to have a third child? Anyone, say, who had a VERY difficult time of it when her kids were babies and couldn't wait for the day when she finally had two hands free? And when that day was finally on the horizon, maybe found herself thinking that two hands aren't really all that and a bag of chips? Anyone out there who regrets a decision to have only two children? Found that the third time was the absolute charm? I await your wisdom.

Really, what I need is a mother of two teenagers, preferably one boy and one girl, to talk me off the ledge.

Rimarama, this is your Head Voice speaking. I can talk you off the ledge. How about: You're a b1tch on wheels when pregnant! And you're really not that good with teensie-weensie bobbly-headed wittle babies. You are prone to post-partum depression. And you have renegade boobies that routinely malfunction when called upon to act as vessels of infant nourishment. You should go back to work when the J-Dog starts school. Otherwise, I'm pretty sure you'll have a mid-life crisis and you totally suck at scrapbooking. Was there anything else?

Rimarama: Well, there is the almost ten pounds of baby weight I finally wrested off.

Head Voice: Word.

So then I came home with an enormous hankering for smoked oysters. Which I ate for lunch, atop two slices of gag-a-licious weight watchers bread (not recommended). Afterwards, I absolutely had to have a Fun Size Snicker's bar, but found that there was not much "fun" about it until I chased it up with three or four more, at which point it became a veritable Festival of Fun. For about ten seconds, and then it turned into a Guilt Garden.

But, it helped get my mind off babies.

This pikchur was taken when I was eight months along with the V-Meister:

"Are You Freakin' Kidding Me, Rimarama?"


P.S. Don't anybody go reading anything into this post. I am absolutely, unequivocally, hands-down, NOT pregnant.

You Can't Take It With You

Last night I was lying in bed, sucking on a melatonin tablet and waxing nostalgic about the hut.

I thought, "I will only stare at these cranberry red walls before falling asleep here fifty more times."

And I got a little panicky. Because I haven't started packing, or even contracted a mover.

And because I suspect that leaving here, we'll leave some intangible part of our fledgling family behind, never to be recreated in quite the same way again.

The hut is where we brought the newborn V-meister, ensconced in her plastic Graco cocoon, set her down in the middle of the living room rug, looked at each other and said, "Ooooooooookaaaay. Now what?" (Moments later, she started meowling, I tried unsuccessfully to nurse her, she projectile vomited, I cried on and off for a year, and our question was roundly answered.)

Two years later, I elected to do it all over again, except this time it wasn't so much a question of wondering what do to with the newborn stranger as trying to figure out a way to keep him fed, clothed, and happy with a two-year-old, potty training V-meister permanently attached to my lower extremities.

Good times!

Darkish times, too. Like in the evenings of nascent motherhood when, the sun having regretfully set, I'd find my pudgy, leaking, yoga pants clad self sitting on the stinky brown couch and trying to nurse yet again, wondering why on earth I thought I could raise a human being, convinced that I had, in fact, known happiness, but it was over now.

Still, we lived a whole chapter of our lives here that we'll never be able to revisit. And while there's no going back in time regardless of one's environs, leaving here is a molting of sorts, like losing forever a piece of what we were during that bittersweet glimmer.

Strange, when I think about how wretched I felt during the PPD days and swore then that the world was closing in on me, I also recall eating bowls of Ben and Jerry's with a baby tucked safely between the P-Dawg and me on our cheap brown Sofa Express couch, watching the Colbert Report, and laughing in spite of myself.

And while I'm fairly certain that I wouldn't want to relive that time in its entirety, neither do I want to leave it here for good.


The Newborn Meister and I


V-Meister and P-Dawg


V-Meister, Hitting the Sauce


Little J's Homecoming


J-Dog, Six Weeks

Baby Powder: Not Just for Bums

I was recently stone-cold busted by my hair stylist for washing my hair daily.

It hasn't been its usual shiny and lustrous self lately, but I chalked it up to motherhood, heat, humidity, and old age.

Still, I didn't think much of my enormous lampshade head until the other morning when the V-meister enthusiastically noted, "Mama! Your hair looks like a giant mushroom."

She meant it as a complement, I think, for who doesn't love a giant mushroom?

Still, I took it pretty hard.

Suzy Stylist confirmed that things were amiss when she took one look at my poofball coiffure and declared that I was tragically overwashing my hair and stripping (STRIPPING!) it of it's natural oils (Ew).

I do appreciate honesty in a hairdresser, but getting "the talk" is almost as bad as being reprimanded by the dental hygienist for not flossing.

Turns out that Suzy and her minions at the chi-chi salon where you have to wear all black just to step foot inside and lookout! if you happen to be wearing a banana clip (just sayin') only wash their hair every three days. AT MOST.

"For realz?" I asked, dumbfounded. "How do you avoid Squiggyhead and the second day kinks?"

That's when Suzy let me in on the second part of the dirty little stylist secret: baby powder.

You rub it through your hair at the roots on the days you don't wash it and voila! Instant Pantene commercial.

Also, since you are not spending the extra twenty minutes washing and blowing your hair out, why, you can use the bonus time to smooth out your unruly locks with your handy dandy ceramic flat iron, which you'd never have time to employ otherwise.

Who knew?

I suppose the French did.

(They wear the same outfit for four days in a row, you know. On day five, they wash their hair and change outfits. Honest to Pete. I was there and I saw.)

Anyway, even though I noticed she had a bit of a femme 'stache and you should always take whatever someone with a mustache says with a grain of salt, I took Suzy's advice to heart and went three days without washing my hair. (I did shower! GOSH! Get off my property!)

And you know what?

The world didn't end, my hair was all sleek-like, and it smelled like a baby's butt.

Rimarama recommends: dirty hair.

I'm curious, though. Am I the only person in the blogosphere who didn't know this bit of wisdom?

I mean, for serious. How often do you lather up, reader?

My Head Is Screwed On Backwards and My Heart Has Catholic Guilt

What's more embarrassing than having to call the cops from the parking lot of Trader Joe's to help retrieve the set of keys locked inside the Ramamobile?

Why, finding those self-same keys in your diaper bag at the very moment the car door is wrenched open, of course.

Gah.

Gah, gah, gah.

Also,

Things not to say to a cop:

(As he's prying your window open) "You know what? I'm like, almost 95% sure that my keys are not actually in there."

(Once the lost keys have been found in aforementioned diaper bag) "Can I buy you a donut?"

*************************************************************************************

Frazzled is the word today. Our buyers were scheduled to come over first thing this morning with a legion of home inspectors, so the P-Dawg and I were up late last night, duct taping the house together in preparation.

Although I hear that a good home inspector can totally see through stuff like that. (Saint Joseph, don't abandon me now.)

The poor little J-Dog has a cold and is ornery today. Both he and the V-Meister were up at various intervals last night, and I couldn't sleep much as it was because the P-Dawg and I decided that we are most likely going to put an offer in on a house we really like this evening.

As much as we relish the idea of sitting around in Hugh Hefner style monogrammed robes and drinking nightly hi-balls procured from a built-in wet bar, we ultimately decided that the shagadelic, yet strangely alluring home we flirted with last week is not the one for us. We now have our sights on something a bit more traditional, but I'm still nervous.

This new house we're interested has pretty much everything we're looking for, but for some reason I'm fixated on the railing around the second floor loft area.

Because both times we went to look at that house, the J-dog tried to squeeze his jumbo toddler noggin through the slats and I think there is a 50% chance that he would consider it priority number one to scale that railing the very minute we move in.

P-Dawg says this is not a good enough reason to forgo the house, stating that safety netting could be used in the short term until the J-Dog loses interest in this particular danger pit and/or grows up. And I do realize that many people peacefully coexist with toddlers and two story foyers every day, so this is more, I think, just my fretting focus of the day.

Meh. The day I run out of things to worry about, I'll probably be dead.

I know. I am lucky to have a house, a family, friends, my health. I know I have more than enough.

And I think that's why I'm freaking out a little bit. I didn't realize that I've been viewing our hut, the last vestige of "the lean years" - when I would take my calculator to the grocery store to keep the bill in check and shopped for the V-meister's clothing at secondhand stores - as my talisman against tragedy.

As long as we lived in the hut, we were safe because we weren't asking for more than we needed. And though far from extravagant, this new house is more than our family really needs.

This feeling is probably due in part to my Eastern European immigrant roots and Catholic guilt.

Also the fact that my mother has warned me against the perils of excess, and I'm essentially an emotionally stunted sapling still tangled in the branches of the mother tree. (Read: my mama's opinion can still get me to second guess every one of my informed adult decisions. I probably need therapy for this.)

I think I'm afraid that a two car attached garage, extra space, and a master suite will be the triggers that make my luck run out.

The Memes Stop Here

Have you noticed that this blog is where memes go to die?

It's nothing personal, of course - I'm always pleased to be tagged. But even when there is nothing blogworthy going on in my life, I can't seem to get around to completing what amounts to a cyber homework assignment.

I believe the term is, "lazy."

But the memes, they haunt and taunt me from the musty confines of my drafts folder. And so I am going to knock one out right here, right now - the "Six or Seven Random Facts About Me" meme, for which I was tagged by Melissa, Michele, and Candy sometime in the last century.

Three birds, one stone, people. Let's roll.

1. As a sixth grader, I won the "President's Physical Fitness Award" for, among other spectacular feats, hanging from the monkey bars in chin-up position for fifteen minutes. I still remember my entire class forming a half-circle around me and chanting, "Go Rima! Go Rima! Go Rima!"as I dangled nonchalantly above a pile of wood chips and mulch for what seemed like hours on end. It was a proud moment for Ronald Reagan and the United States of America.
   
   
2. I can pick out any basic melody on the piano without sheet music, and do so at every opportunity. As you might imagine, this makes me a most welcome Christmas party guest. While I'm up at the baby grand, picking out "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" with one hand, I will also be sure to plunk out "Chopsticks," the first few measures of "Fur Elise," one measure of "Sonata in C," as well as that spectacularly annoying ditty whereby one rolls one's fist loudly and repeatedly up and down on the black piano keys ad nauseum.
   
   
3. I cheated on my pregnancy glucose tolerance test by extending the time in which I imbibed the orange sugar beverage to seven minutes (instead of the recommended five), dumping exactly one ounce of unfinished liquid in my kitchen sink, then raising my heart rate by vacuuming the entire house in ten minutes flat before reporting to the clinic for my blood draw. I am the ultimate rebel and proof that the honor system does not work.
   
   
4. In retaliation for her staged hanging of my teddy bear, Puputis, from our dorm room's curtain rod (as well as other various offenses), I anonymously sent my freshman year college roommate/nemesis toenail clippings through campus mail, along with a menacing ransom style note.
   
   
5. I have never read anything by Jane Austen.
   
   
6. I competed in my state's spelling bee as an eight grader and lost on the word, "license." To this day, I cannot read or hear this word without mourning my missed opportunity to score a color TV and Encyclopedia Britannica set.
   
   
7. I am the number one Internet authoritay on "nostril skin tags." Go ahead and google it, my peeps.
   

I love reading random facts about my bloggy friends, so if you read this, consider yourself tagged.

About a Boy

When I became pregnant with you, I was darn near convinced I was carrying another girl.

I already had your sister, so it logically followed that my body was of the girl child producing variety.

The Chinese Gender Prediction Chart confirmed it.

The fact that I had scores of girls' names but none for boys swirling around in my hormone steeped brain was just another sign. (One day I hope you'll agree we picked a winner, though, and let it be said right here and now: Your father wanted to name you "Zenonas.")

But when your gender became apparent during my 18 month ultrasound appointment, Daddy and I were elated.

One of each! Healthy and perfect!

We would be a Hallmark family and there would be no need for a minivan.

But I must admit, little J, that I fretted. Not just about keeping you alive on the inside and then later, forever in the endless world, but about other stuff, too.

Would I be able to love this second boy child as much as my perfect baby girl?

Would you and the V-meister be friends?

What was the protocol for diapering your boy bits?

Would you be relegated to a life of sports and truck themed clothing for the lack of hip baby boy duds available for purchase at the local malls?

And what were the odds of going two for two in the cuteness lottery?

I'm ashamed to admit these were the questions I grappled with as I lay awake nights, tossing and turning on the trusty old body pillow, my hands and fingers achy and numb despite the wrist braces I wore nightly to keep my carpal tunnel pain at bay.

And, busy with a two-year-old V-meister, I'm sorry to say, little J, that I didn't track your every gestational milestone in the infernal What To Expect literature.

Oh, you were constantly on my mind and you reminded me of your presence daily with impressive jab, left hook, and side kick combos aimed at various parts of my anatomy, movements whose frequency and regularity I dutifully tracked towards the end of my pregnancy, ever vigilant and aware of the tenuous nature of the precious little life I was sustaining.

But despite our cozy living arrangement, you were an enigma, a bit of a stranger to me. A little boy stranger who I was at times unsure I could properly love.

One evening, wide awake again, I was playing and replaying possible birth scenario footage in my mind's eye. I was about eight months along, and the primal fear associated with childbirth had begun to creep up from the depths of my very own piece of the collective maternal unconscious.

On this night, for reasons unknown, I imagined what your first cry would sound like when you finally emerged.

I just kind of heard it in my head.

This thought alone was enough to trigger tears of my own.

All at once it hit me: you would have a voice, you would be a person. And imagining your first angry salutation to the world, little J, transformed you in my mind from the baby in my belly to the little boy I would love.

I began waiting for my son.

And you haven't disappointed - you had me at your first indignant wail.

It's hard to fathom that once, as the mother of one, I could have ever doubted my heart's elasticity or the ease with which you could take up residence there.

You are a greater gift than I could have ever imagined. I didn't know my life had a big J-sized hole in it before I laid eyes on you.

So happy second birthday and ilgiausiu metu, J!

Thank you for choosing us, and for your perfectly guileless little boy love.



P.S. I get it now, about mother and sons. I'm sorry, little dude, but your future wife is going to hate me.

Young and Hip is Overrated

The P-Dawg and I went out on Saturday night, sans enfants.

Four sips into my adult beverage, I was twirling a lock of hair around my index finger, talk, talk, talkin' 'bout how much I luuurve me a Moe-Hee-Toe, and poking gentle fun of the baby boomeresque ladies dining one table over. (Something about "lightweights with chardonnay" if memory, which is fuzzy, serves correctly.)

After dinner, I browsed around at Anthropologie while the P-Dawg patiently read Bartleby's Quote Book on a purple velvet couch.

(Reading material is available at this store for the discerning shopper's reluctant male companion. Merely stepping foot inside the whimsical and over-priced estrogen alley that is Anthropologie gives P-Dawg the heebie-jeebies. He simply does not understand the allure. "Why does everything in here look old and beat up?")

We ate dessert at Cold Stone Creamery, lingered at Barnes and Noble, and pulled into our driveway at 9:59 PM.

As soon as the sitter fled, I changed into pajamas and curled up on the couch with a cup of tea and my new reading materials.

"P-Dawg, I thoroughly enjoyed our date tonight, but next time, let's go for the early bird special. We'll save a buck AND be home five minutes after the kids are asleep."

"Deal."

*************************************************************************************

I think I've waited my whole life to be here, squarely in my thirties.

Back in the day, while out clubbing with friends, I often secretly wished to be in my dorm room, smoking Camels and reading Raymond Carver instead. At the time, I didn't have the self-assurance to opt out of these evenings and I didn't want to risk missing out on seeing and being seen.

I think I've always preferred board games and conversation with a small group of close friends to partying the night away (although I've been known to do both.)

I don't miss the awkward early stages of romantic relationships, getting the requisite talk of likes and dislikes, childhoods, and future aspirations out of the way.

I still care about my appearance, but I'm no longer loathe to be seen without makeup. Ironic, since now I have "laugh lines."

There are no more smokey treats around here, but the P-Dawg and I do try to keep things interesting with an occasional club concert or late night of revelry.

But coming home early to a warmly lit house, children sleeping safely in their beds, a cup of tea, a book, a soul mate, and an elastic waistband is pure, guilt-free bliss.

I do believe I'll be keeping happy company with the chardonnay drinking biddies in a few years' time.

The Dental Hygienist Makes a Liar Out of Me

The Scene: Afternoon, the dentist's office. Having called in sick for her last two appointments, Rimarama has dragged herself in for her twice yearly cleaning.

Hygienist: "Wow, it's been awhile since we've seen you, Rima!"

Rimarama: "I know! I was sick!" (not really)

Hygienist, stabbing at patient's gums with pick axe: "Oh, I'm sorry! A little tender, there, huh?"

Rimarama: "No problem!" (UR killing me, betch)

Hygienist: "Bit of inflammation around the gums here."

Rimarama: "That's weird! I've been flossing religiously!" (Iz "never" a religionz?)

Hygienist: "Have you been using your electric toothbrush?"

Rimarama: "Yeah! It's great!" (as a toilet scrubber)

Hygienist: "Just make sure you brush for the full two minutes and really get in behind those molars, OK?"

Rimarama: "Absolutely!" (not)

Hygienist: "Well, that about wraps it up for today! Will you be needing a new brush and some floss?"

Rimarama: "Yes!" (no)

Hygienist: "See you in six months!"

Rimarama: "Okey-dokey!" (hell to the no)

Mrs. Dalloway Redux

Standing in line at the local tea shop (where the signage boasts "Tea is Now Fashionable"), I recognized behind me the voice of Dr. C., a former college professor of mine.

When I was a cloud hopping undergraduate English major, she was my number one teacher crush. I couldn't even utter a word aloud in her classroom without first rehearsing my thoughts in their earnest and hopeful entirety countless times inside my head. Any complements received for my occasional and tentative opinions would leave me blushing scarlet, and her comments in the margins of my essays were obsessed over with the same fervor I might have dedicated to a love note.

My roommates and I (black turtleneck wearing English majors all) had looked to her as a shining example of a woman who had it all, striking what seemed to us the perfect balance between sparkling academic career and enviable family life.

At the time we were her students, her children were about the same age as mine are now. She lived in a red brick house on a tree-lined street in a neighborhood that managed to be both bohemian and bourgeois. We imagined Dr. C and her handsome attorney husband drinking whiskey-laced tea and reciting T.S. Eliot to each other nightly before collapsing into passionate, intellectual embraces.

Oh, to be as smart, as witty, as lucky as Dr. C.

She was now casually conversing with a companion and completely unaware of the smitten former student standing a few inches away, prickles of nervous perspiration stinging my armpits.

I ached to turn around, to re-introduce myself, to show her, despite myself, pictures of my kids. I was curious to know if she still remembered me or my friends thirteen years and hundreds of students later.

But I paid for my overpriced tea and walked out.

I guess I'm not all cartwheels and karate chops when faced with the embodiment of my former hopes and dreams.

Striking up conversation would have begged the inevitable question, "What are you up to now?", and I knew I couldn't craft a reply that wouldn't belie a certain measure of shame at having opted out of academia and the creative life.

A certain measure of shame, let's face it, that I'm not gainfully employed in any way at all.

I would have doubtless stammered out my usual line about having done the corporate grind before quitting to raise a family, making sure to mention the part-time freelance work I haven't taken on in months, lest she make the mistaken assumption that I am only raising kids.

God help me, I might have even mentioned my blog.

And that, I think, is what's nagging me now. Knowing in my heart of hearts that mother work is worthy, I wish I didn't feel the need to be apologetic still.

My haste to explain to anyone who'll listen that this current life station is but temporary is a case in point. I'm torn between proudly owning this identity, even if it turns out to be the apex and culmination of my life's work, and dismissing it as a mere interval en route to other dreams.

Part of me believes, though many have fallen away, that some former aspirations are still within my reach. Another part feels, in the quiet moments of transcendent domesticity Dr. C. once alluded to during a discussion of Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway, that here and now I am my Self.

But I would never tell you that if we were talking face to face.

And it occurs to me now that, of all people, Dr. C. might be the last to expect a fumbled apology for the current tangent of my life, and not just because she had a lot less vested in me as her student than I did in her as my mentor.

I have vague memories of her rushing in late to our classroom, with just seconds to spare before the unspoken "fifteen minutes and we're out" rule was to take effect. Had she been held up by a sick child, an unscheduled daycare pick-up, the need to take a moment to cry behind closed office doors? Who knows what she went through for the sake of presenting that exalted image my friends and I greedily swallowed whole.

I wish I could say that I will begin answering the million dollar question without the slightest tinge of guilt. There may come a time when I don't need to - whether because I'm gainfully employed, or because I will have reached a point in life and personal evolution that it will no longer matter.

But even as I entertain thoughts of all that my future may still hold, I am slipping towards acceptance of the notion that my masterpieces need not be words on paper, but rather flesh and blood, and that my great opus won't be bound and published, but lived out day-to-day.

Let it Out

When I first started blogging earlier this year, I wrote a very raw post about mothering after a particularly bad day with the kids. The process of putting it on paper was therapeutic in and of itself, but I debated whether or not to publish it. In the end I did because, when all was said and done, I needed some reassurance that I was not the only one who ever "lost it."

Despite the fact that several readers commented on it, I didn't think my honesty was particularly odd. After all, isn't a personal blog meant to air out just this kind of dirty laundry? A way to commiserate with others in similar situations?

Now that I've been blogging for the better half of a year, I've come to realize that posts in which parents "spill the beans," so to speak, about the frustration, loneliness and sometimes naked rage that is parenting, are few and far between. We often hint at misery and weakness, use humor (ahem) to take the edge off the ugly, but we don't often journey into the dark that, I suspect, many of us experience from time to time.

It's understandable. No one wants to be a whiner or to be harshly judged. What if I'm really the only one who's ever done this, ever felt this way? Who wants to read another post about depression? If it's so hard, go get a job - you made the choice to "stay at home."

Finslippy recently posted about a bad episode with her son and asked readers to share their own stories of "parental ineptitude."

If you've ever felt alone as you stumble along this dimly lit corridor of motherhood, go read the one hundred plus comments that readers have left on her post.

They will make you shudder, cry, sigh, laugh out loud, and, finally, (hopefully), deeply exhale.

Honesty.

It does a mother good.

Making a Post Out of Nothing at All

Works for Mom tagged me for this meme in which I am commanded to disclose seven things about myself. I'm not sure how I feel about memes, in general, but I surely cannot resist replacing my usual Rima-centric blather with blogger sanctioned Rima-centric blather:

1. I speak fluent Lithuanian. (Vee are smoll Eastern European country, size of the Virginia. Vee have the Baltic amber. Very pretty, you like? Take! Take!) Never ask a Lithuanian if the language is anything like Russian. She will kick you in the shins and run away faster than you can say "Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact."
   
   
2. On my twenty-third birthday, which fell on the twenty-third of the month, a seagull crapped on my head. I decided to take it as a good omen.
   
   
3. The only movie I openly cried at in the theater was E.T. I loved that little guy.
   
   
4. If you want to embarrass me, ask me to count back change. Can. Not. Do it.
   
   
5. I cannot fall asleep without my white noise machine. It must be set to "spring rain", never mind the torrential downpour outside.
   
   
6. I played with Barbies until I was about fourteen. I remember listening to U2's Joshua Tree album while decorating my special Barbie cakes (made out of wadded up pieces of wet toilet paper I would allow to dry in a plastic mold before coloring them with marker) one day and thinking, "Perhaps the time had come to retire the dolls?"
   
   
7. All through my alternakid days, I loved Air Supply and would secretly blast "Making Love Out of Nothing At All" on the stereo while burning incense and smoking Camel Lights whenever my roommate was out.

And now, in an act that goes against every fiber of my rule-following being , I am not going to tag anyone specifically for this meme, but rather leave it open for the taking. (If you do the meme and want to follow the rules, you must tag seven bloggers and leave a comment on their site letting them know they've been tagged.)

Me and My Skin Tag

If you've ever been pregnant, you know weird stuff happens to your body.

Some people get 'roids and stretch marks. Others grow butt shelves. Still other tormented souls suffer from debilitating morning sickness (and really, there is nothing funny about that.)

With my first pregnancy, I got two out of three, plus a free bonus item:

A skin tag.

"What's the big dillio?" you ask. Lots of people get those! 'Tis a common blight o' pregnancy!

(No, I don't want a gold star, but I will take that last cupcake.)

The thing about my skin tag: It was on the cutting edge of my left nostril.

My NOSTRIL, people!

So, on top of all the other crappity-crap-crap I had to put up with as a short gestating woman, I was also forced to conduct most of my face-to-face interactions by either looking at the ground or strategically positioning myself in such a way as to obscure the travesty that was the left side of my nose.

Because, let's face it, there was no way you could have seen that thing and not taken it for, well, gold.

Strangely, in all the months that I lived with this pestilence, not one person went so far as to point it out to me.

Until I was in the operating room for my totally not in the birth plan emergency C-section.

(Why do you hospital people mock us poor, hopeful, pregnant women with the birth plan? Do you not know that the pregnant woman will spend preshus hours lovingly drawing up this document to the point where her husband will lie prostrate on the ground and beg, for the love of all that is holy, to please not make him help you decide between the Buddha statue or the stuffed rabbit as your focus item? Hours she could have used to debate the merits of the Diaper Champ versus its older cousin, Diaper Genie, while waddling down the aisles of Babies-R-Us, scanning equally useless newborn bathrobes into her registry?)

In the operating room, I met Mr. Anesthesiology Resident Dude.

He was a friendly, fun-loving guy trying his darndest to reassure a very neurotic pregnant women about to undergo major surgery that, no, she will not feel a thing, and yes, people make it out alive all the time.

Just before surgery commenced, but after my arms had been strapped to the gosh-diggy-darned operating table (The injustice!), Anesthesiology Resident Dude noticed The Tag of Doom.

Oh, you have a small something in your nose, let me just . . . (approaches with Kleenex).

All hell broke loose as my super-human pregnant lady strength took over and I broke free from the straps, rolling off the operating table into an immobile little heap o' hormones on the floor because duh! Epidural! Totally paralyzed from the waist down, people!

OK!

I didn't jump off the table.

But there was a blood-curdling scream and much gnashing of teeth, as well as name calling, before an oxygen mask was administered.

The V-meister was born without further incident, but the skin tag remained in all its fleshy glory.

Months later, I was still waiting for it to just go away.

It never did.

So one day, the P-dog removed it for me on our living room couch under some local anesthetic he had deftly administered after watching a couple episodes of Dr. 90210 and using a scalpel he brought home from work.

(The P-dog is not a surgeon, but he is second-to-none when it comes to back alley post-partum skin tag removal).

See Me Later

My big ‘ole secret?

I tried to leave my body for a little stroll around the cosmos once.

Just temporarily, of course.

The hippy dippies call it an OBE (out-of-body-experience), but I call it a virtual smoke break for the stay-at-home-mommy set.

A book about this intriguing phenomenon caught my eye at Half Price Books, where I was browsing the New Age section for info on mental telepathy after becoming convinced I had psychic powers (I don’t).

Astral Projection and Psychic Empowerment outlined a simple 24-step process by which one could exit one’s shell, so to speak, and wander about on the astral plane.

Holy sweet bejesus! Sign me up!

What could be better? I would simply pop in a Wiggles DVD, hand each child a cookie, lie down on the couch, and disappear.

And as long as my essence hung around the house, I could keep a cosmic eye on the kids while floating around the atmosphere in a state of peaceful bliss.

Kids were napping, phone was off the hook, and Yanni was playing quietly in the background.

I was ready to depart.

I began the deep breathing exercises and started relaxing my muscle groups, one-by-one.

After three or four interruptions which required that I run upstairs screaming What in God’s name are you DOING? If I have to come up here again, you can forget about Clifford the Big Red Dog this afternoon and that’s a promise! I was able to get down to bidness.

The next step was visualization. I chose the elevator metaphor. It goes like this: as you ascend the Elevator of the Mind, you gradually release yourself from the albatross that is your body so that, by the time you get up to the top floor, you are ready to perform the remaining twenty-two steps that will buy you a ticket to the astral plane.

The mind is a powerful muscle, but still.

I kept having to reference the post-it where I had scribbled the formula. Try as I might, unfettered astral roaming and psychic empowerment was just out of my grasp. I was concentrating so hard that I was getting cross-eyed, but still the blasted elevator always stopped short of the top floor.

I kept at it, though, until I was struck dumb by the following thought:

What if it’s a one-way ticket?

Sneaking a peek at the post-it, there was nary a word about how to get back in.

Well, shit.

Would I be destined to hover three feet above floor level forever, occasionally running the dishwasher just to let my loved ones know I’m there? Flicking the TV on and off to signal dinnertime? Or, God forbid, hurling small objects around the room at whim? (Because I'm proficient at that already.)

I was back in the here and now faster than you can say “doppelganger.”

Astral projection is not for me, but if any of you has done it, by all means let me know! I’m dying to find out what it’s like out there.



(This post was a response to Miss’s writing challenge on the Secret Awesome Group of Awesome Blogging Power.)

You can go there right now, body and soul!