kdiddy.org

The husband, kid, and I went down to DC two weekends ago for, literally, a day and a half to help the sister-in-law tie up some loose ends with her recent move. (We also had plenty of whirlwind fun things on the agenda to sorta celebrate our upcoming anniversary.) We needed to deposit her cats with her, take some stuff back to Pittsburgh with us, and grab a few things that required the use of a car. She needed a desk for her computer and had her eye on one at CB2. She explained that a tiny part of her reasoning of buying the desk from there is that she suspected that I had never been to a CB2. She was correct and I was curious to see the inside of one.

We made our way toward Georgetown, and I did a little bracing of my emotions, because any time I’ve been there I get kind of…insecure? anxious? about how many really wealthy people there are in one place. In Pittsburgh, we have concentrations of rich/wealthy people but I can tell that there is something more down-to-earth about them. Maybe it’s the addition of political power that drips from every tasteful storefront in Georgetown? I don’t know. All I know is that I feel tiny and poor when I’m there. But it’s cool, I’m not mad.

Anyway, now that I’ve laid bare my neuroses, I can get to my “point.”

While we were looking for a place to park near the waterfront, we drove past a few homeless people. This is also, sadly, nothing new to me. I see homeless people fairly often, and while it’s always thought-provoking (ie, how did I get here and he/she get there? there but for the grace of God, etc.), it’s not usually jarring. However, this time, something was a little, uh, unusual:

The days you inadvertently make eye contact with a dude while he’s taking a dump in the street always make for contemplative evenings. #fb

— kdiddy (@kdiddy) June 17, 2012

As my eyes moved across the landscape, I slowly began to put together what I was witnessing. A grown man, bent over, hands clasped, meaty bare thigh and buttock-side pressed against the brick wall.

This guy was taking a dump. And I was looking right at him.

He and I locked eyes for a moment and I was the first to look away, because I figured even if the guy was moving his bowels in the middle of a crowded urban area, he still deserved some privacy.

“That was awkward,” I said. “I made eye contact with that guy while he was pooping on the street.”

The husband said that I should have given him one of these:

After we parked, we made our way up to the center of Georgetown. We came upon a long, long line of people. But these weren’t the pooping guy’s contemporaries lining up for possibly the only meal they would get that day. No, these were people lining up to get cupcakes. Famous cupcakes. Cupcakes that are on TV. We continued on to our destination, settling the desk task and whatnot.

But the experience stuck with me. How often in life do you look someone in the eye while they’re pooping? The only other instance that I could think of would be when the baby was an actual baby. In my more sleep-deprived moments, I’m sure I thought, “You’re doing this to me on purpose. Stop pooping! No! No! Not all over the wall!” but of course I knew that that part of his mental and social development just hadn’t fully baked yet. This experience in Georgetown was a chance encounter between a somewhat privileged consumer and someone who, through various events and circumstances, had ended up literally taking a shit on the privileged.

I felt bad for the guy, of course, but also really admired the small statement that he was making. These are nice boot straps…for me to poop on.

As of yesterday, the husband and I have been married six years. Yesterday was also Father’s Day, and I thought about how lucky I was as a mother to already know going into our marriage what kind of a father he would be.

A few seconds after that picture was snapped, the baby grabbed my hand and kissed it and the hearts of everyone at or near our wedding exploded. The grounds keepers were a little annoyed. But it perfectly illustrated a point that I made during my vows (where “made” = “blubbered in a most undignified manner”): everything that is good in me and everything that is good in the husband is manifested in that perfect little boy. I didn’t think I could feel more loved at that moment, and then the baby, this weird little person that the husband and I created, took it over the top.

Of course, not one of the three of us is perfect. But I think we would all agree that there is some serious love that gets us through our less graceful moments.

I think about the husband a lot, sometimes when I’m pissed at him about something, or when some chore or task is weighing on my mind: “I need to remember to tell the husband to get x, y, and z and then we need to deal with [insert intimidating grown-up task here]…” But a lot of times I just kind of…daydream? About him and the baby and about how much I love them and how so thoroughly in love I am with my husband. And I feel really fortunate. Someone who was asking me about my wedding a few weeks ago positively marveled at the fact that we were still very much in love after six years. I was puzzled, since six years isn’t very long. But considering the various yucky turns our life together has taken, we could have very well taken it out on each other, instead of relying on each other for strength.

One of the scenes that I love most from any movie is the scene from Big Fish in which Ed sees Sandra for the first time and he describes how time stopped.

No relationship can really be boiled down to any cliche, but love at first sight is a cliche that I think deserves some unpacking. I don’t remember when I saw the husband for the first time ever, but there have definitely been moments since then where I saw him for the first time in a new way and fell in love with him again in such a way that required time to slow down for a second or two. “First sight” doesn’t have to be the first time you ever see someone and it doesn’t have to be just one occasion. For me, it means looking at him with eyes that I didn’t have yesterday and with a heart made stronger by certain experiences and wisdom that we wouldn’t have gained without each other.

As with most scenarios in life, I can compare this experience to an episode of Roseanne.

I don’t have what real estate listings refer to as a “chef’s kitchen.” It’s small and electrically challenged and downright ugly, but I’ve managed to outfit it as best I could. And I really grew as a cook and a baker in it, despite its severe limitations.

One of the “luxury” items that I have is a portable dishwasher that was handed down to us from the mother-in-law. It’s 20-some years old and not exactly attractive, but it did the job and saved me one bit of drudgery. And even though it tried to eat my toe, I loved the dishwasher for making it so that I had one less thing to do every day.

A few months ago, the dishwasher started leaking. We determined that while it was still washing dishes just fine, the door had started to disintegrate. I tried just stuffing towels underneath it, but the water was too much and would seep underneath our cheap plastic floor tiles, which started to disintegrate, too. I wanted to get another dishwasher, but new portable dishwashers are expensive and a few recent transaction failures on Craig’s List made me wary of going that route. So, I resigned myself to hand-washing the insane amount of dishes that three people accumulate every day.

It sucked, especially since I was the only one who actually did the dishes. (Yes, I know, I should be more forceful about making the husband and/or the baby help out and I am totally taken advantage of and a pushover and perpetuating bullshit gender roles of housework division. Thanks for lecturing patronizing reminding me.)

Finally, while having a particularly bad fit of, “This SUCKS! I’m not working all day AND cooking for everyone AND doing everyone’s dishes,” the other day, I gritted my teeth and got on Craig’s List again. And suddenly there it was: a practically new portable dishwasher for half the price of what they are in stores and being sold by a person right by our house. I sent an email to the seller to find out if it was still available, and when he responded that it was and did not ask to see my tits, like a previous Craig’s List user had, I thought that I just might have a good deal waiting for me.

Of course, there were ordeals to be had. Like trying to get money to pay for the thing. I went to my credit union yesterday to get money out of my savings, and then to the PNC on campus to deposit the check so that I could get cash out. This seemingly complicated process is why I have any savings whatsoever. It relies on my inherent laziness to keep my money in one place. Of course, the new-fangled ATMs wouldn’t accept the check and the old-fangled ATM on campus that still accepted deposits in envelopes just wasn’t turned on. I had to wait for the branch manager to return from lunch. When I told her my problem, she replied, “Oh, yeah, those credit union checks…the paper for those is too thin so the check feeder can’t read them.”

“Okay, so, can I give you this check and you can put my monies in my account?” I asked.

“No, you just have to wrinkle the check up first before putting it in the machine.”

“Well, obviously.” I replied.

I approached the ATM again and got to the prompt screen to insert the check. I looked at the bank lady and said, “Okay, so wrinkle it like this?” I asked, crumpling the check up in my fist, partially out of compliance, partially out of OMFG ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?!?

“Ohh, no, not that much,” she replied. “Now you’re gonna need to flatten it out a bit.”

I glared at her and tried to come up with some burning remark about money changers and the Bible and damnation or something, before rubbing the check along the corner of the ATM. Finally, it accepted the check and I grabbed the wad of 20s in my sweaty fist.

The actual transaction went smoothly enough, with the only hiccups being getting the dishwasher down the seller’s immaculately landscaped front steps. Getting the old dishwasher out of our house was surprisingly emotional, especially since that thing tried to take off my other big toenail.

That night, there was one more obstacle: plugging the dishwasher in. The cord on the new machine was not long enough to reach behind the oven to the one outlet close enough to the sink. I began scrounging for an extension cord, only to discover that two of the three in our house are two-pronged. ARGH. I found another extension cord in some unused gardening equipment outside that was covered in mud. But finally finally got the damn thing up and running. After watching it closely, waiting for it to explode or eat my Fiestaware, I was elated to declare the dishwasher functional. Then I started dancing around my kitchen like in one of those 1950s appliance commercials.

With one batch of dishes successfully washed, I officially welcomed my new favorite family member:

(I officially have no shame with the IC Light Mango. I’ll just drink it and I don’t care how ridiculous it is.)

* * *The other big thing happening today is that it’s the baby’s last day of fourth grade.

While you’re processing that, and maybe you’ll have more success than I am, the new dishwasher and I are going to drink and cry together.

What is normally a joyous, raucous party anthem becomes a crippling tool of depression in the incorrect context.

It is not Friday night, there are no parties on any sides, reaching for a 40 would probably be inappropriate and/or grounds for dismissal.

I am not faded, so a trip to the shore is out. No honeys to be seen. I am not in my hood so I can’t speak to whether it feels good or not.

Kani thankfully went out style 20 years ago. Don’t know the status of the gang bangers and their intended drive-by, but hopefully today will end without a bomb threat. I do indeed need to get my groove on. Perhaps I can squeeze that in before payday on Friday.

I am not buzzed. (This is how we do it.) I have no knowledge of whether or not South Central still does it like nobody does. (This is how we do it.) I wouldn’t classify my neighbors as having much of any flavor. (This is how we do it.) Track, old school, something something. (This is how we do it.)

Waving my hands in the air from here to there might lead my co-workers to believe I am choking and in need of a Heimlich. I’m not sure if I fall into the category of O.G. Mack or wannabe player. I guess the hood’s been alright to me but now that I am an upper case G I had really hoped for more financial security.

Our perspectives are inherently different, as are our vehicles.

Tipping this coffee mug up, but keeping my hands by my side to prevent the aforementioned panic.

I am not buzzed. (This is how we do it.) I have no knowledge of whether or not South Central still does it like nobody does. (This is how we do it.) I wouldn’t classify my neighbors as having much of any flavor. (This is how we do it.) Track, old school, something something. (This is how we do it.)

As I mentioned in my last post, which was 3,000 weeks ago, we were in Detroit over Memorial Day weekend, as is our tradition. Again this year, we decided to forgo the actual music festival and just attend the related parties so that we would have more time, money, and energy to enjoy the city.

Aside from some initial uneasiness about having to stay at a new hotel and dealing with their particular quirks, we  had a lot of fun. We hit up some of our favorite eating spots, namely The Clique for breakfast every morning, Buddy’s for pizza, and Slows for barbecue. We also crossed two items off of our informal Detroit bucket list, which comprises a number of quintessential Detroit experiences that we had never managed to enjoy despite spending, cumulatively, over a month there over the years. For example, we had been there like 6 or 7 times before we managed to go to the Motown museum. One culinary experience that we kept failing at was trying out the city’s Coney Island dogs. This was pretty absurd since Coney dogs are de rigeur late-night food there and we’re always just getting our night started at 1 a.m. But the siren call of White Castle has always been too hard to ignore. But this year we finally made it to two of the 8 bazillion Coney restaurants in the metropolitan area and those happened to be the most famous/infamous establishments: American and Lafayette. We all agreed that we liked the dogs at American the best, but the the atmosphere and ambiance, if you will, at Lafayette was better.

Immediately prior to our Coney sampling was a trip on the People Mover which was pretty cool. We had never taken that anywhere because it’s sort of a dud of public transportation. But it offered very cool views of the city. Oh! It was also the setting for a wannabe-artsy self portrait:

Aside from eating, we went to parties each night, all of which were extremely fun and musically blissful. That weekend is where a lot of new music makes its debut of sorts, but DJs are DJs and so you’re bound to hear amazing classics from the 70s on up. Since Donna Summer had just passed, we heard “I Feel Love” at least 10 times, which I had no complaints about, particularly when someone played it at a lovely outdoor party. Someone on Friday night played, “I’m Gonna Get You.”

I had completely forgotten about that song. Suddenly hearing it plus drinking all of the gin and tonics made for quite the reaction from yours truly.

We also went to Soul Skate at Northland, which I was both excited and nervous about. I hadn’t been roller skating since before I hurt my neck and I was slightly terrified that I would either make a gigantic fool out of myself after being so out of practice or manage to hurt myself again. After all, Soul Skate is no joke:

I am pleased to report that I actually felt quite comfortable getting back in the rink and once I was confident enough in my footing I even danced a little! Nothing like what’s on the video, of course, but I was so happy that wasn’t totally starting over with skating.

The whole weekend was really fun, as always. The only low point was receiving a really awkward hug from a mute homeless man. Did not want.

Hmm. I started this post the other day and cannot remember what the “lifelong commitments” part was going to be about. So…I guess I’m out of whatever I had committed to? Right?

Also also wik: I wrote about E.T. on MamaPop the other day. Go read it, willya?

I wrote about gypsies the other day on yonder MamaPop.

I’m in Detroit.

Peace.

1) I was pretty anxious last week and while packing my lunch one morning, found myself taking that out on a hapless bag of romaine lettuce. I was deriving so much satisfaction out of angrily reaching into the bag and then angrily slamming it into a bowl and muttering things like, “You’re lucky you’re already chopped up because I feel like kicking someone’s ass,” that it took me an embarrassingly long time to realize that OH WOW I HAVE COMPLETELY LOST IT.

2) After the kid’s talent show on Friday evening, we all went over to my mom’s house for pizza. I burned the roof of mouth because I absolutely could not wait two minutes for the pizza to get to a reasonable temperature. The injury received new life last night when we went to Dormont Dogs and I was similarly impatient to get food into my facehole. I don’t know what this says about me.

3) The other night, the kid said, “I think I have a splinter.” He showed me his finger, which basically had a 2 x 4 embedded under his nail. “Ooh, yeah you do. Let’s get that out,” I said, trying to hide my sadistic glee because I LOVE extracting splinters. It’s up there with removing ingrown hairs and peeling sunburned skin. I started to work on the splinter with the tweezers and realized that we needed to clip his nail a bit first. Anything that requires two steps is elevated to “procedure” status and pretty much makes me a doctor. With the extra nail out of the way, I really got down to business, which meant that my kid starting shouting, “OWWWWWWW!” really loud. This upset our older cat, who came into the bathroom to yowl along because he gets upset any time anyone raises their voice. The kid and the cat then began the most obnoxious call and response ever, which was really messing with my concentration.

“OWWW!”

“MROWW!”

“Everybody be quiet.”

“OWWW!”

“MROWW!”

“Shh! Dammit, I can’t do this if you’re moving around and yelling.”

“OWWW!”

“MROWW!”

“Shut up, Greedo!”

“OWWW!”

“MROWW!”

“EVERYBODY SHUT UP!”

It’s important to note that the window was open, so we were broadcasting our demented choir to the whole neighborhood.

There’s a day care center on the campus where I work and the caregivers take the kids for a walk, weather permitting, every day. It’s a nice treat to be in the middle of the day and come upon a gaggle of toddlers squealing and enjoying the day. For them, everything is all, “YAY I WOKE UP AND HAD CEREAL AND I HAVE A DOG AND YOU HAVE EARS TOO AND LOOK AT EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL THE TIME HOLY SHIT!” And it reminds me, of course, of my kid, both the moments of wonder that he still has at his advanced age and the time when he was still tiny and adorable and didn’t do things like READ COMIC BOOKS WHEN HE SHOULD BE GETTING READY FOR SCHOOL OMFG.

Anyway, today while I was running some errands, I saw the kids from the day care center on a patch of grass playing with one of those multi-colored parachutes.

I really had to restrain myself from running over and joining them because a) I had stuff to do and b) I would probably get arrested. I remember being so thoroughly thrilled when it would be gym class during elementary school and the parachute would appear because that shit was the most fun ever. We had a couple of different routines that we would do with the parachute. Sometimes we would hold it up in the air and kids would take turns letting go and running across to tag the next person to let go. We would also let one person sit on the parachute in the middle of it while the rest of us wildly shook it up and down. I always liked this because the silky parachute would always brush against my face and it felt and looked so pretty. But the best would be when the teachers would lift the parachute high in the air, all the kids would run under, and then the teachers would hold the parachute on the ground so that we could be encapsulated in it for a few precious minutes. Once under, we would all shriek and run around, because we were inside something, which was always so thrilling for some reason. And for a few wonderful seconds the world was just big enough for us to run all over it and was as colorful as it was in our dreams.

I had my dermatologist appointment yesterday morning, which was good because it gave me a little extra time in the morning to get my act together, which I desperately needed. By Sunday afternoon, I had felt like everything was falling apart because the laundry wasn’t done, lunches weren’t packed, we had missed the announcement of little league pictures being taken that day, and my kid realized as we were walking out the door to go to my mom’s house that he still had homework to do. I don’t deal well with situations like that and began this really dramatic inner monologue about how thoroughly we did not have our shit handled as a family and how it felt like I don’t actually do any adult things with any degree of competence. Don’t I sound like fun?

But we had a nice Mother’s Day and Monday morning I was able to putz a little bit after getting the baby off to school. Packed my lunch, made smoothies, put a load of laundry in. It gave me a chance to at least do some stuff that made me feel like I was making up for falling apart parentally. Or something.

By the way, the dermatologist said that my clown lips were most likely dermatitis caused by a contact allergy. I couldn’t think of anything weird that I had eaten, but he mentioned toothpaste. The husband said that we had been using a different variety of the brand that we usually buy when that started. In my compulsive Googling, I found that many toothpastes contain sodium lauryl sulfate, which is a foaming agent that some people are sensitive to. Probably the variety of toothpaste we got was SUPER EXTRA WHITENING POWER! which probably meant that it just had extra SLS in it. He gave me some topical steroids (YAY MORE ‘ROIDS) so hopefully this long, annoying circus will soon be over.

My kid has a big week this week. Today he has his first track meet for the little track team that they’ve cobbled together at school. Later in the day he has his band concert in which he’ll be squeaking out some notes on the saxophone. On Thursday, he has a baseball game. And on Friday he has his after school program’s talent show, in which he’ll be playing some songs on the piano. I’m not going to today’s events because I have a big work event coming up, so I’m kind of in head-down-tunnel-vision mode until Saturday

When I was going down this list of events this morning, I joked, “I can’t wait for him to burn out when he’s like 12.” But in all honesty I inserted myself into some half-assed Time article about overscheduled children and lack of unstructured play and WaldorfAttachmentWhatToExpectWhenYou’reMomEnoughCryingItOutSuzukiMethodKumonHookedOnPhonics. I think, more than most people, I understand the importance of doing nothing from time to time. If I don’t get at least a few minutes of nothing a day I get all out of wack. But it started me down this indignant path of, “The old ways of doing things really weren’t always that great,” mutterings. Like when people complain about how they didn’t have any xPads or Nintendo phones, they just had dirt and sticks and their obviously superior imaginations. Yeah, right. Then they thought up games like King of the Mountain, which is some microcosmic version of capitalist assholery or Torture the Stray Cat or Throw Rocks at the Windows of the Abandoned House or Taunt the Neighborhood Crazy Guy.

I get similarly cranky when people complain about iPhones ruining the fine art of conversation. I don’t know about you, but prior to having the ability to stick my nose in my phone to look at absolutely anything, I wasn’t sitting on the bus, for example, thinking, “This conversation about illegal immigrants that I’m having with this entitled a-hole is so great. I’m so glad I have no way of obviously signaling that I’m not listening or interested in engaging with him whatsoever.” Also, it’s not like reading and more or less ignoring the people around you was invented with the iPhone. What did people say when printed materials and literacy became common? “‘Tis a shame that the unwashed masses can now read the newspaper on their way to their 18-hour shift in unsafe conditions at the meat plant, which they might not survive. I remember the good old days when they would say to each other, ‘Hey. Do you have any idea what’s going on at all?’ and, ‘No. But I will see you at the virgin sacrifice later and hopefully the angry god living in the mountain yonder won’t eat us.'”

About a month and a half ago, I suddenly noticed that the skin around my lips was very dry, flaky, and red. I attributed it to seasonal weather changes and sensitive skin, generously applied various moisturizing agents, and tried to be patient until it cleared up. Except it never did. I finally admitted that it wasn’t going away on its own and made a dermatologist appointment.

I have a typically long wait for an appointment (May 14th) and am bracing myself for the hours of my life that I will waste in the waiting room. In the meantime, I did some Googling and figured that the condition was due to either rosacea (which I have), a fungal infection (Christ, I hope not), or a food allergy (dear God, no). So I refilled a prescription for a roasacea medication that I let lapse a few months ago in the hopes that that would help. The flakiness has subsided, and the area feels better, but the redness is still there and it’s really embarrassing. I feel like I look like a clown, which sucks because a) I’m not a clown and b) I really, really hate clowns.

Anyway, yesterday was kind of brutal. I greeted the day on basically no sleep because of an hours-long thunderstorm that kept me up all night. Normally, I sleep through those but for whatever reason this storm demanded a bleary-eyed audience.

As I stumbled into work, my phone rang. It was the principal of my son’s school. I realized that if my son was sick, she wouldn’t be calling me, so that meant that someone was in trouble.

He had gotten into an argument on the school bus with his friend and had decided to kick his friend in the shins. Only he missed somehow and managed to kick his friend in the neck. I’m still not clear on the physics of this situation, but whatever.

My face turned as red as my clown lips as I realized, “My kid is a terrible bully and I am the worst mother ever.” The principal, however, didn’t seem too annoyed since the baby had already apologized to everyone ever and started crying because he felt so bad. And his friend, thankfully, was not hurt and had accepted the baby’s apologies. I silently thanked myself for never having enough time to sign him up for karate lessons. I was able to talk to him on the phone for a second. He sobbed as I reminded him that it’s not okay to get physical, especially not with your friend, and told him we would discuss it later.

Now, I understand that this was just a disagreement between friends that went to an immature and irrational place, and I don’t actually think that my kid is a bully. It’s just weird for me because when I was a kid, I was always the one to shrink away from conflict and, as a result, was often the target of teasing.* So I don’t really understand his perspective. On the one hand, I’m glad (?) that he seems ready to stick up for himself, which I never did, but on the other hand, I really don’t want him picking on anyone.

Later, when we finally got a chance to talk about it, I asked him if his friend was okay and if he was upset with him. “Yeah, I told him I was sorry,” he said. “We’re still broskis.” So, that was comforting. I would hate to see two broskis torn apart by a lapse in judgment.

* I’m happy to report, however, that I’m not bitter about all that stuff and finally stopped dwelling over it years ago since I know the people who teased me probably don’t remember it at all.