out of Kadesh

Well, I’ve kind of avoided this. This crazy thing happened to me last week and I kind of just want to put it behind me, which is why I hadn’t written it all down for you to gasp and ogle at, Reader. See, even though what I write is totally for y’all, it’s really for me. Some day when I’m old (and bored) I’ll look back over these blog posts, and there are only so many negative experiences I want to relive.

So I won’t tell you the whole story; I’ll sum up. Before I do, though, you need to know something. On the RAREST of occasions, I MAY have SLIGHTLY exaggerated a point or two on this blog, for the sake of humor. SO RARE, though. Really. Anyway, you should know that even I have a line. (You guys who have read about my sex life are going, “OMG, the rapture happened and I’m still here, I knew it.”) And that line would be crossed if what I am about to tell you wasn’t 100%, swear on my grandma’s grave, the God’s honest truth. Last week, my unbalanced neighbor came over and screamed at me OVER PARKING. He said a lot of things that start with the letter “f” and sound like FUCK YOU YOU DUMB FUCKING DEMOCRAT FUCKER I’LL FUCK UP YOUR CAR FUCK FUCK, and I was too shocked to say anything except “Calm down!” and “Shut up!” which in retrospect, I wish had been accompanied by a swift kick in the privates. It was crazy, and it made me angry, until he said, “I hope your son dies.”

[Built-in pause for gasping and ogling.]

You may wonder, as I did, how he knew about my political affiliation, and why he thought it was an insult to hurl across my yard like that, and you may further wonder who on God’s earth would say something so horribly demonic about a baby and what in hell point it served. My friends tell me it’s all because I drive a Prius. You may wonder, as I did, “Say whu-huh?” But there is no answer for you, Reader, nor for me. As my one friend put it, “This is how we know that meth is bad. It’s a good lesson for Noah.”

So I’m done telling you about that, except to say that my annoyance ended when he brought my baby into it. I considered it a threat, called the police, spoke to the guy’s landlady, and basically experienced a level of anger so intense I can only say it must be in the same realm as (or somehow the opposite of) euphoria. I’ve never been on the OTHER side of anger before, where I had no desire for instant retaliation. I wanted to sit on it, plotting my revenge so that it was evil and sweet.

I’ll let you know when I come up with something.

Just kidding.

No, I’m not.

Anyway, I was almost over it, y’all. I mean any time I think about it my eyes turn red and two horns sprout up out of the sides of my head, but mostly I was better and not fantasizing about running him over with my Democrat-Mobile, WITH WHICH HE WOULD NEVER HEAR ME COMING, but then today more Slime from beneath the Rock of Humanity slithered out and oozed all over us, and it just brought back all the negativity that The Incident gave me. We were just taking a walk through the PUBLIC GOLF COURSE that sits behind our house, enjoying the pleasant breeze and commenting on how many butterflies were fluttering around, and some guy took offense that he HAD to wait on us when he so desperately wanted to whack his ball RIGHT THEN. (PUN INTENDED, Y’ALL.) He went all crazy and started telling us we could walk around in another park, and he called Lance a jackass!

So now, on the second Asshole Day in a week, I’ve been doing some contemplating. Y’all know how I get. What is it in some people that receives a kind of self-affirmation by making other people feel bad? When that guy on the golf course yelled at us, I couldn’t help but wonder if he’s going through some kind of crisis in his own life right now. He was all alone; was he feeling lonely? Did his wife just leave him? Did he just lose his job? Or maybe it’s simpler than that; maybe someone cut him off in traffic, and it made him feel devalued. And because he was still dealing with that rejection, spreading his misery was the only way he thought he could get some oxygen. Same thing with my neighbor. What kind of stuff must he be dealing with that he found solace in wishing death upon an innocent baby boy?

When The Incident with the Neighbor happened, Lance mentioned that on top of everything else, it was inconvenient, and that is really true. We spent our entire day (and the rest of last week, really) dealing with him, and thinking about him and what he had said to us. It was demoralizing. And today, I realized the same thing was happening. As we walked away from the Angry Paunchy Putter, I realized even though my day up to that point had been perfectly lovely, he managed to put me in a foul mood. I felt defensive, angry, and hurt, and so did Lance.

And you know what they say, don’t you? You know what assuming does? It makes an ass out of you and… oh wait, no not that one. Hurt people hurt people. When you’re ugly to someone, it can change their attitude for, at the very least, the rest of that day. They are more likely to snap at someone else because they’re carrying around YOUR crap inside their head. You don’t want to do that to someone, do you gentle Reader? I mean, is it really that difficult to just smile at someone and say, “Hey man, I hope you have a really great day.” Maybe you want to say, “HOW DARE YOU CALL MY HUSBAND A JACKASS IN FRONT OF OUR KID YOU SON OF A BITCH,” run over to his pudgy ass and beat him senseless with his own golf club, but you don’t. Because you know that if you’re kind to him, maybe he’ll be kind to someone else, and someone else will be kind, and that someone else will end up being someone you interact with at the coffee shop, and that someone else will be kind to you.

Can we all just do this, please? Reader, can you do this for me? So I can bring up my son in a calmer, more loving environment? I’ll bake you some cookies if you’ll just love your neighbor.

And you should know that I bake awesome cookies. I’m not exaggerating, promise.

Just some thoughts I’ve been having lately, y’all. Humor me. Or skip this blog post if you’re lame.

I’m beautiful. I just realized it recently, I think when I was pregnant maybe. Somehow the flaws that always seemed so glaringly obvious, the acne, the gigantic nose, that one crooked tooth, the part of my butt that hung out from my panties… I guess they became muted by the glowing ember inside my chest that meant I was going to have a baby. Pregnant people are gorgeous; it’s just one of those facts of life. And this is true even though my pregnancy swole my face up like I’d just won first prize in a national Chubby Bunny competition.

So, I’m beautiful. Despite the flaws that still exist, and some new ones post-pregnancy, that yes, make me roll my eyes when I pass my reflection, I can honestly say that overall I’m pleased with my appearance.

I think this is so significant to me now because for about 25 years, my self-image was so damaging. I’d cringe inside whenever I hugged a woman smaller than me (this includes most of the female population, and I’m pretty sure all of my personal girl friends) because I felt like such an Amazon. Like, ARRRG I AM HUGE; HUG ME AND POSSIBLY BE PULVERIZED BY MY GIRTH. More importantly than the way I felt around women was the way I felt around men. Not only did I not think any guy would want to date me, I didn’t even think good-looking guys would want to be friends with me. It’s warped, I know, but it’s how much my identity began and ended with how I thought others saw me.

I wish I could go back. I’d tell myself never to listen to any guy who made me feel ugly by telling me to “lose the glasses,” or that I could never be a supermodel. I’d stand straight instead of hunching over, because my height is wicked-awesome! I’d stop believing I’m this ugly duckling that might one day turn into a swan. I’m no ugly duckling, and I think I’m no swan either. There are about a million varieties of bird to choose from, and thank God everyone doesn’t fit securely in one of those two categories.

I wonder how differently my life might have been if I had known from the beginning that 5′10″ is not too tall, and 150 pounds is not fat. I think I would have lived a lot fuller, if that makes sense. The good news is I figured it out, and I’m only 27, which means I’ve got the rest of my life to live with the knowledge that I’m beautiful. I bet some women go through their whole life never knowing.

Fuck the Ugly Duckling! I propose that there is no such thing. I hope you can see your beauty, Reader, and radiate confidence today.

There are some really good reasons why I have, of late, abandoned you, Reader. The first is that I’ve been engrossed in this book, The Help. It’s a novel about the civil rights era in the south in the mid-1960s. I just finished it last night at 12:45am and you should know, I do not stay up that late. But that’s how good it was. I think the last time I stayed up past my bedtime to finish a book was when I read The Time Traveler’s Wife, and I was not breastfeeding five bagillion times a night. Anyway, The Help was so intense and moving that I dreamed about it all night and I don’t think I’m ready to talk about it without a handful of tissues, so I’ll move on to the second reason I opened the speeding van door and dropped my blog on the side of the road before zooming away. (Oh, hello, run-on sentence! I missed you.)

Last weekend we were in Savannah, Georgia. Georgia’s the one with that sweet Willie Nelson song about it being on his mind. I’m from Alabama, and we got a song by Lynard Skynard. Dudes wrote the redneckist song I’ve ever heard and it gets played at every ball game, every picnic, every gathering of any kind, to wild cheers and the sound of beer cans popping open. (Ok, I’ll be honest, I love the song too. I can’t help it. It’s in my blood.) Georgia, on the other hand, gets the pretty song because it’s the pretty state. Don’t you just think about southern belles and lilting accents and ripe peaches and long, hot summers with ladies sipping sweet tea on front porches?

Which reminds me. On the drive down there was a wreck that was making traffic stand completely still on I-75. I know it was a wreck because the Hubbs, faster than I could whine, “Awww now what the hell is all this about!” had whipped out his Droid and was looking at the google map of our location, complete with red stop lines and “Traffic Accident” headlines. “Take this next exit,” says my little human GPS, and so I do. And as we’re navigating the detour, we suddenly see a sign that says “Gone with the Wind and Tara Museum.” Who knew! Cool! Um, no we did not go, but wouldn’t that have been a way cooler end to this tangent than this sentence? I admit it, I wasn’t thinking about you, Reader, and what a great story it could have been. Sorry.

Georgia totally deserves its song, by the way. It’s gorgeous. After a grueling 12 hours between here and there (not all driving, but all the stops were Noah’s fault), we finally made it to Savannah. Some of my favorite things: the spanish moss, the old neighborhoods, the architecture, the sprawling downtown, the sandy beaches, the river walk… and the praline pecans.

And my old and dear friend Michael.

Noah had a blast in the ocean, and we bought him a little plastic bucket and shovel for playing in the sand. I developed heart palpitations trying to prevent him from scooping fistfuls of sand and inserting them directly into his open mouth. I also (mostly) resisted the urge to compulsively spread more sunscreen on his thighs every 10 minutes. Relaxing on the beach is not really possible when you’re obsessed with keeping your son’s sunhat securely in place even though the wind thinks it should be on the other side of the beach, I’ve found.

Motherhood.

Some day, my stomach will unclench. I just know it.

The third reason I’ve been away is that my brains are mush. I know, I know, you’ve heard it all before, and wah wah wah, right? So I won’t bore you by telling you the same sad story YET AGAIN.

Ok, I will. My son does not sleep. Nine months is apparently a “sleep regression” stage. Which is funny, because I would have said it wouldn’t matter for our family since he never sleeps anyway, but the bags under my eyes bear witness to my naivety. Last night he was awake every two hours. And that was pretty decent. The part that sucks is that two of those times, he stayed awake. He likes to push on my kidneys with his feet. He likes to practice saying “DADADADADA” as high pitched as he can go. One more notch and only dolphins will be able to hear him. Which will be a welcome relief, because I’m still cleaning dried blood out of my ears from where the eardrums ruptured last night. He likes to roll around and around and around, back to side to front to other side to back again… until Lance and I don’t have any covers on our bodies and Noah is in a blanket cocoon. He likes to pull my hair, but only the hair at the nape of my neck or above my ears, where it’s REALLY sensitive. He likes to grab handfuls of my skin as he tries to horizontally climb up my body. He likes to spit his passy across the room. He likes to perfect the style of his high-five on my back and Lance’s chest.

THAT’S IT KID, YOU’RE IN YOUR OWN CRIB, is what I think to myself, and then I try to put him in there and he starts wailing instantly. So I bring him back in our bed and he repeats that above paragraph. 3am, y’all. It’s witching hour at our house.

One more reason that my blog is on the back burner. Instead of writing yesterday, I built Noah this cardboard playhouse from his new GINORMOUS car seat box. I’m thinking of painting the outside and adding some curtains and a fireplace. I’m not sure who is enjoying it more, him or me…

Hey, everybody, it’s the first day of fall! Things are looking up. I’m off to sniff my pumpkin candle and find some inner peace or whatever.

Dear Noah,

Congratulations! You’ve officially been out as long as you were in, and that’s hard for Mommy to believe. It’s a nice anniversary actually, because when I was 9 months pregnant with you, I got a nasty sinus infection that I accidentally gave to you when you were born. And last week, you picked up some kind of sinusy funk that you wanted to share with Mommy. And Daddy, too! The whole family is oozing, basically. I would have written this letter sooner, like on your actual 9-month birthday, but I’ve been too busy trying to suction your nose, which you loathe. I guess I can’t blame you for that. I’d be pissed if someone stuck something up my nose, too.

The truth is, your Daddy and I are terribly whiny compared to you. You have hardly complained at all that you can’t breathe or that your throat is on fire. It’s just one of many ways you are so much more pleasant to be around than I am. You always have a smile for everyone, and you never have a bias against anyone. Last week this old man at Chick-Fil-A was bugging the hell out of me, all “Can I get you another sweet tea,” and “My pleasure”-ing us, but every time he came around you grinned at him and made him feel like a million bucks. And I thought to myself, “My son is already a better person than me.” I’m so proud of you, Bubba.

This month you’ve learned to crawl for real. No more snake-like slithering, no sir. You are full-on crawling, and it is so mega-cute I can hardly stand it, with your diapered little butt sticking out. So far you actually only like to crawl to get somewhere, though, and our house is pretty small so you’re never scooting around very long before you find, GASP! The table! Oh joy! And you pull yourself right up.

Your favorite thing is when you pull yourself up on the coffee table, where I have the computer open. You look at me with mischief in your eye, stick your tongue out in the corner of your mouth, and start beating the keyboard. It’s amazing really, what you have pulled up on the screen. I have no idea what some of these window boxes and characters mean. Half the time I’m typing in Greek or something, and I have to get your Daddy to come fix whatever you did. I think you’re a little genius, taking after your Daddy already with your love for computers. And cords. And basically anything that has an input on one end and an output on the other. Those are TASTY.

You picked up so many fun things this month and I have no idea where they came from. The funniest thing you started doing is trying to get away when someone says, “I’ma getcha!” You first started doing it around your Grammy and Pappy. Pappy was holding you and Grammy was coming at you to tickle you, and you started squealing and trying to climb up on top of Pappy’s head. Today I actually started chasing you, and you squealed and crawled away as fast as you could. I died right then, and your Daddy had to come rescue me, but then I showed him and he died too.

Other things you picked up are waving, saying “hi!” (which sounds more like “hah!”, which is appropriate since you’re a Southern boy), giving high 5’s, and pointing. OMG the pointing. You point at everything, and sometimes you point at nothing. Or maybe you are giving yourself the Number 1. Because you totally are Number 1, baby! This month you sat perfectly still all through the first act of Love’s Labour’s Lost (before our friend came and scared the mess out of you and you wouldn’t stop crying so we had to leave), sang a hymn at church (and kept singing really loudly long after the song was finished so I had to take you out of the sanctuary so other people could hear what the priest was saying), and helped Aunt Ellen move into her apartment at college (even though we were both really sad to see her go), and had an A-MA-HAZING time splashing in the real tub like a big boy (although the next night we put you back in your whale tub because you kept trying to swim in all that awesome water).

There are some bad things you picked up too, like your freaking ‘tude. Boy, you can be rotten when you want to, like when I take your fingers out of electrical sockets or try and prevent you from pulling the bookcase down on your head. But it’s not really bad, because I know you’re just learning how to be independent. (Your mini-tantrums secretly make Mommy kind of proud. Don’t tell anyone, though. I’d be judged.) You also stopped sleeping. I mean, you never have been a good sleeper, but now you don’t sleep at ALL, unless you are in bed between your Daddy and me. Last night you cried for ONE WHOLE HOUR, with your Daddy and me going back and forth to hold you, bounce you, sing to you, give you sips of water, let you nom on a teether, suction your nose, change your diaper… you didn’t even want to nurse. You just wanted to cry. Finally, FINALLY, I got you to sleep and laid you down in your crib, and snuck away, and closed the door, and tiptoed into the living room, and sat down on the sofa, and sighed… and you woke up and started crying again. So we brought you into our bed earlier than normal, and as soon as I laid you down you smiled and wiggled into the covers like, “It’s about time you let me get some sleep, lady.”

Then you laid awake talking to yourself and kicking and rolling around and around for another hour. And since I know you can’t do math yet, I’ll help you: THAT’S TWO HOURS OF BEING AWAKE WHEN YOU SHOULD HAVE BEEN ASLEEP. TWO!

Which brings me to my newest parenting discoveries: there are so many times I simultaneously want to squeeze you and cover you with kisses, and put you outside in the back yard to be adopted and raised by wolves. And the other one is this: I always thought a child would want to be like his parent, but in my case I hope I can be more like you, sweet Bubbs. (Well, except for the sleeping thing. Because I love sleep, and I don’t know what the heck your problem is.)

Love,
Mama (oh yeah, that’s another thing you can do – say “mama” now! I bet next month you’ll even know that “mama” refers to me!)

1. wind chimes
2. rustling leaves
3. an orchestra warming up
4. ocean waves
5. rain
6. the sizzle of a good saute
7. snow falling on snow
8. the sssspop! of a coke opening
9. applause

But all of these things combined don’t even come close to equalling the magical, joyous, heart-stopping sound of my son laughing.

Once upon a time, on the East side of the river in a town called Nashville, a pub opened up. This pub was known as the Village Pub, and all the locals looked forward to nights of merriment at the new establishment.

One such couple, excited about the possibility of discovering a regular warm spot to unwind after a trying day, loaded up their infant babe and plenty of cash one afternoon. Off they took in their shiny car, the babe babbling contentedly in his seat.

By the time the happy couple reached the pub, the babbling babe was fast asleep in his seat. Having successfully unsnapped the babe’s seat from the base (as new-fangled car seats are wont to do), the couple entered the pub with car seat and sleeping babe in tow.

A sign on the door read “Must be 21,” and the couple exchanged a wary glance. “What is this, a truck-stop?” laughed the young man. Nevertheless, the door tinkled merrily as it opened. A yellow-haired woman with menus under her arm welcomed the threesome and invited them to sit anywhere. “Anywhere” was an accurate description of the choices of seating, as no one else had yet arrived at the Village Pub.

After all, the hour was 4:00.

Choosing a seat out on the vast porch, the couple drank in the glorious late-afternoon weather and poured over the menus. The babe made mouth movements in his sleep. The yellow-haired woman brought glasses of ice water and placed them in front of the young couple. Before so much as ordering an adult beverage or a large pretzel, the couple was asked rather abruptly and rudely, “Are you 21?” When the couple responded in the affirmative, they were asked to show identification. “Odd,” the young woman mused. “What if we were just going to get food and no alcohol?”

“It doesn’t matter,” cut in the yellow-haired woman. “You must be 21 to be here.”

“Our baby, too?” laughed the young woman, gesturing to the sleeping babe.

The yellow-haired woman glanced down at the babe, then back at the young woman.

“Yes. We can’t allow babies in here.”

Shocked, the couple gathered their things and their sleeping babe in his detachable car seat. The yellow-haired woman offered an insincere “Sorry” before sweeping their menus into her arm and striding past them through the door. As the young couple left the empty pub, the young woman realized that for the first time since their babe had made his precious appearance into the world, they had been given the boot because he was with them.

The young couple reattached the babe’s seat to its base, closed the doors to their shiny car, and drove away, never to return to that hateful establishment. But from that day onward, any time they passed the (unsurprisingly always empty) Village Pub, they remembered with bitterness the way they had been treated there, and they smiled back at their babbling babe in his seat, glad for his presence in their lives.

I hate it when you say “I love you” when you get off the phone with me, because I know in my heart it isn’t true.

I like that new Rihanna and Eminem song.