#flappingbrickwings

Hi friends! Holy shit, right? 

Based on the current state of my neck (i.e., seized up on one side like an engine without oil), I’m pretty sure my subconscious mind is spending all the time worrying about the both the short term (i.e., people we love might die) and long-term (i.e., every we know might be completely fucked) implications of this still-pretty-fucking-new new world order, and I imagine yours is too. But I’m finding great comfort in the stories from all over the world of people pulling together to help each other, as well as those of the “penguins touring the aquarium” variety. So rather than cracking another “I may never wear a bra again” joke or telling a “wow, turns out I’m really bad at second grade math” tale, here’s a completely unrelated story that involves me humiliating myself again (bonus points on this one for also traumatizing my closest friends) in the hopes that it might take your mind off things for a minute or two. Please enjoy.

Take yourself back to a simpler time: February 2020, when my primary concerns included how to get two kids to overlapping soccer games, whether to go to Din Tai Fung or Damon’s for dinner, and if I should invest in a new pair of checkered Vans or throw caution to the wind and buy the python print ones. My three best ladies and I had planned a much-needed spa day. Much-needed because, despite all our high hopes, 2020 had already not gotten off to a fantastic start (I know, I know), and because life is hard, and because we’re all busy (correction: we were all busy) and only get together sans hanger-oners (spouses, children, dogs) once or twice a year at most. So we blocked out a whole day, a Sunday to be precise, all to ourselves. 

For weeks, months possibly (maybe even years), our iMessage thread was peppered with excited variations of “Calgon, take me away!” followed by counting down the sleeps, until at last our day arrived.

We piled into my friend Allison’s car (actually her husband’s truck because her sister was in all seriousness almost fucking killed in a car accident two days before and her miraculous survival and minimal injury was attributed to her sturdy Toyota pickup – see previous comment re: 2020) at 9am, rolling in deep athleisurewear (Rebecca was particularly impressive in head to toe Adidas, prompting her 13 year-old son to ask her not to get out of the car when she dropped him off at baseball practice that morning - rude) and cackled our way out to the spa. Upon arrival we checked in and donned our squishy bathrobes. Robyn and I also downed a mimosa. We discussed, with some disdain, how we would definitely not be using the plastic phone case necklaces provided to all patrons, presumably to enable easy selfie-taking (i.e., free marketing for the spa). We would not, we assured each other, be taking any bathing suit selfies, thank you very much. Then we hit the pools, feverish with excitement at all the hours of unbridled relaxation that lay ahead of us. 

We squeezed into the mineral tubs first, where we rubbed elbows with fellow bathers for the prescribed 20 minutes. Then we walked casually (as casually as one can walk in one’s bathing suit) to the next pool, which was shaded and infused with epsom salts, apparently. It was also quite crowded. It was also, unbeknownst to me, the hottest pool on the grounds. We found a spot near the stairs and soaked in the heat and saline for a while, still babbling excitedly, planning our route for the day. Around the time we started discussing lunch (the text-thread plan that morning was to “fuck up some nachos” when we got there), I also started looking around for something cooler than shade, feeling like I was maybe getting a wee bit hot. We agreed to move on. 

As soon as I stood up and started heading for the stairs, I felt it. That cold tingling sensation in my spine followed by a blurring on the edges of my vision. I remember looking over at the lounge chairs where we’d left our stuff, which were probably about 15 feet away but felt to me at that moment a thousand miles out of my reach, and thinking to myself, “Just get to the chair and put your head between your legs.” My brain screamed, Be cool, bitch! I even managed to say to my friends, “I feel a little bit like I might pass out.” 

And then I passed the fuck out. On the concrete. In my bikini. In front of about 5,000 people.

The worst thing about fainting is that you wake up with no idea what’s going on, wondering how you managed to have an impromptu nap in whatever random location you happen to find yourself in. You may remember my tattoo shop incident a few years ago, which was equally humiliating. That time I woke up lying on a tattoo table vaguely confused about what was happening. 

This time, I woke up to complete pandemonium. 

I was in the vicinity of the lounge chair I’d been aiming for, but not on it. Rebecca and Robyn were propping me up by my neck and elbow (I think – there may have been a leg involved) while some guy named Brian, who I suspected was a cop but who turned out to be a particularly dedicated spa employee, threw cold water in my face. My friend Allison was running around in her bathrobe screaming, “A phone! A phone! I need a phone!” at anyone who would listen, while another spa employee with a radio kept saying, “Code zero!” and several unfamiliar women in bathing suits were shouting my name and some other things I couldn’t understand in my general direction. (These kindly bathers turned out to be nurses who had jumped out of the pool when I dropped, as my husband would say, like a bag of shit. Bless them.) 

My first thought was, “Wow, how did I fall asleep in all this excitement?” followed closely by, “Wow, what is all this excitement about?” And hot on the heels of that thought came the realization that - oh, hey, it’s me. Clearly, I hadn’t made it to the lounge chair in time. I almost fainted again when I heard someone nearby announce excitedly, “The paramedics are on their way!” Fortunately, Robyn’s alter ego, Reggie, took over at that point, holding her hands up and saying, in the manner of one totally in control of the situation and not, as she actually was, freaking the fuck out, “Hold on, hold on – she has a history of fainting. She does this. Let’s just give her a minute.” 

Moments later another spa employee rolled up with a wheelchair and I really thought I would die. As Brian, Rebecca, and Robyn, my “triangle of support,” discussed how to best transfer me to said wheelchair (sidenote: Rebecca later informed me that it turns out I weigh 250 lbs when unconscious), Robyn casually leaned down and said, in a voice so low not a soul but me could hear, “Wait, before you stand up – did you shit yourself?” 

Friends, friends. My wish for you is this: I hope you have someone (or three) in your life who, should you ever pass out in a crowded public place wearing only a bikini, will have the foresight to tell your to check yourself in case you wrecked yourself before you stand up in front of a gawking crowd. If you accomplish nothing else in life, let me tell you – this is something. 

I looked up at her, a little bewildered, and said, “I have no idea.” 

Spoiler alert: I didn’t shit myself. (Who says I have bad luck?) I was successfully transferred to the wheelchair. Someone (probably Brian) gave me two cups of cold water and told me to put my hands in them, which was surprisingly effective at waking me up. We were whisked off to the “medical room,” which turned out to be a closet housing an industrial ice machine, with an examination table and one folding chair. After reluctantly answering some questions (I was still convinced Brian was a cop – don’t ask me why, maybe lack of oxygen to the brain?), a giant plate of nachos appeared as if by magic and we were escorted via several wrong turns, which meant doubling back to pass curious spa-goers for the third or fourth time, to a small private dining area that was shady and quiet. Brian pushed the wheelchair, Robyn, Rebecca, and Allison followed, and the guy carrying the nachos brought up the rear.

Did I mention, this all took place within half on hour of our arrival? So yeah, kind of put a damper on the hours of unbridled relaxation. 2020 is really not fucking around. (Also, did I mention this is not the first time I fainted at a spa? Last time it was at Burke Williams in Hollywood and I was wearing a bathrobe with nothing underneath when I keeled over in the co-ed waiting room. No triangle of support.)

So, however worried you are about the current state of affairs, just remember – one day we’ll all be back out there in the world, standing within six feet other humans and being grateful we didn’t shit our pants in public. And if we’re lucky, being escorted by a plate of nachos.  

You’re welcome. 

As if today wasn’t bad enough, my seven-year-old just told me about the “lockdown” drill she had at after care today. Apparently the kids got graded on how well they did. (Although she could be confused about this. She is seven.) Here’s what happened.

After they finished snack time at the picnic tables in the shade, which usually involves juice and Goldfish or Cheezits, both in pouches (so fresh and healthy, thanks GUSD), they walked to the classroom together. 

(Side note: The after school program my girls are in is probably about 30 or 40 kids aged between first and sixth grade. They all share one classroom, which I think is awesome. They have snacks together. Do homework together. Play outside together. Make crafts together, like the orange-plaid-flannel-wrapped toilet paper rolls with a twig and felt leaves on top that sat on my toilet from Thanksgiving until like, last week, making the shitter super festive. They hang out for two to three hours, five days a week. My girls have both been in after care since kindergarten. They love it. They have a whole separate kid society with their after care crew, on top of their school society. And unless I’m the last parent there (which I often am), they usually don’t want to leave. So please, spare me your anti-after care lectures.) 

At this point, one of the teachers informed them that they would be having a “lockdown” drill. When I asked Billie what that means, she explained that sometimes someone who doesn’t have a kid might try to “break through the fence” and come in to, “like, try and steal a kid or with a gun or something.” 

My heart went to my heels. 

At 4pm, as expected, the teacher--let’s call her Ms. P--blew her whistle to start the drill. The kids all scrambled to find hiding places, while the teachers ran to lock the door and the “office lady” pretended to be the bad guy, trying to get in from outside. You know, for the sake of reality. According to Billie (Mila wasn’t there today so I can’t verify this), the fifth and sixth graders all hid under the desks, leaving the younger kids with nowhere to go except under the whiteboard, which has no furniture in front of it and therefore makes them sitting ducks. I mean, you can’t blame the fifth and sixth graders. Their brains are more developed. And yet they are still children. What wins--survival, or empathy? (What should win? Jesus.) But still, what the fuck.

And again--Billie said they got graded on how well they hid. We don’t get after care report cards, so I’m not sure what she means by this. But she was adamant. When the drill was over, they unlocked the door, crawled out from under the desks/whiteboard, and went back to their Chromebooks. Or their crafts. Or their homework. All these children just carried on like everything was completely normal.

I cannot emphasize enough how utterly fucked up this is. My friends in other countries are horrified by the notion that our kids have to have these drills. Because IT IS SO FUCKED UP. On a day when things, on a global scale, are not going, historically speaking, very well, this was really a little more than my tired heart could take.

My friend/boss Janelle said to me on Monday, in the wake of the Sunday’s heartbreaking news, “Everything just feels so dark and fleeting right now.” And I have been running that through my mind all week. It’s like a sore tooth, I can’t leave it alone.  

Dark and fleeting.

Dark and fleeting.

Dark and fleeting. 

And yet, I have a fucking ten year old. And a fucking seven year old. And maybe I am just as naive as parents have been in every other awful period of history, but I just can’t believe that things won’t get better. Right? They have to. 

Don’t they?    

Sometimes kids are so deeply insightful it’s easy to believe in reincarnation. Like oh hello little time and space traveler, thank you for sharing this gem of wisdom you clutched in your wee hand as you journeyed through the vortex to remind me of what a miracle it is that we’re here, now, alive with wonder and pulsing with joy. 

Other times they’re unrepentant little assholes.

The other day Billie (who’s struggling with her own existential crisis) said to me out of nowhere, “I don’t want to grow up! I want to little so I can stay with you and daddy forever, for my whole life.” 

I picked her up and hugged her to my chest, savoring the warmth and weight of her little body and the softness of her cheek against my neck and said, “I know baby, sometimes it’s so hard isn’t it?” 

Then she pulled away from me and said, “Yeah, cos you guys are like almost dying already.”

Thanks for the reminder kid. With five months left in my thirties and a deep midlife crisis already grabbing me by the guts, that’s just what I needed to hear.

What a long short week. While trying to piece together a collection of broken, burnt-out thoughts on the difference between “freedom to” and “freedom from” (I’m listening to The Handmaid’s Tale before I watch the show - what can I say, I’m a nerd) I scrolled through the 30 unfinished drafts in my Tumblr account (hmmm, seems to be a pattern in my life...) and thought instead of wading into those murky political waters this week when we set off fireworks and do (or don’t) Jell-o shots in the name of “freedom,” it might be fun to throw some of the titles together to see what happens instead. Good, lazy fun. Here goes.

 Time Traveling

The slow painful death of Swimmy III

Year in review

Where do all the water bottles go?

State of mind 

The most wonderful 

Life, in fractions -

Ghosts in my veins, on the road

The Popovic curse.

Falling rain, a finished book, final days of the year

The close. Summer

a special place in your heart

Googley-eyed, it’s time to say good-bye

Billie is still a mystery

I am trying not to say no.

Once everything was real

One-liners, overheard

A moment of clarity:

When my husband goes away 

I am kind of a grumpy bitch...

What a racket.

Holy guacamole, this kid is five today. 

She’s big enough to get daddy’s jokes and small enough to still slip her hand into mine when we walk down the street. Tall enough to reach the chocolate hidden on top of the refrigerator (if she climbs on a chair) and small enough to fit perfectly into the crook of my arm at bedtime. Bold enough to play with the big kids and sweet enough to take care of the little ones. 

She’s a comedienne, an athlete known at the park as “cross-fit Billie” for her astonishing feats of strength on bars of any kind (monkey or other), and a born entertainer with music in her blood. She is endlessly enthusiastic and can find the good in any situation. She starts most sentences with, “good that” - as in, “Mama, good that you don’t have to go to work today because it’s raining.” Her other favorite thing to say is, “if imagine” - as in, “If imagine this book was made out of donuts,” or, “If imagine we could fly to the moon.” 

She shines bright every day and reminds me that life is really fucking good. If imagine we could all see the world through the eyes of our five year olds. Happy birthday, baby girl. 

Oh hi, are you still here? Me too. Remember when I made that big declaration about fighting back with #100daysofhope? Yeah. About that. I don’t know about you but I’m finding it increasingly hard to walk the line between staying informed/active/hopeful and feeling like the end is nigh. Like, real fuckin nigh. Nigh as a kite. So instead of doing what I said I was going to do, I did what any sensible grown-ass woman with a full plate of responsibilities (children, bills, epic Instagram feed, etc.) would do. I buried my head in the world of Harry Potter. Because really who wouldn’t rather listen to Jim Dale read JK Rowling than listen to anyone currently in the White House try to read anything? I mean (unintelligible)... 

(Warning: Going deep geek here. Feel free to exit the train now. If you know which train I’m referring to, please stay aboard.)

As a long time hard core HP nerd (yep, Ravenclaw) every time I venture back to Hogwarts I’m amazed all over again at what an incredible long-game Ms. Rowling had when writing these books. The characters, details, and threads that appear innocently in the early books only to become hugely significant much later on when shit gets dark - how do she do it? Not to mention the slow, steady build of progressive complications. I mean who thought when Harry first walked into Ollivanders that one day all of our hopes and dreams would hinge on the magical laws of wand ownership in that final epic battle?

So here’s what I’m thinking. Clearly, he-who-must-not-be-named is he-who-must-not-be-named, right? I think we can all agree on this. (Last year when HWMNBN first mentioned the Muslim registry, which is obvs exactly the same as the muggle-born registry, I evangelized about this at a birthday party with other school parents but I’m not sure how well my point was taken. No one else at the table seemed quite as frantic about it as me. In fact, I’m not sure anyone had the slightest idea what I was talking about.) 

And now I’m realizing that as we approach the first 100 days of this “administration,” we are only in book one. 

W.T.F. 

Metaphorically speaking, he doesn’t even have a body yet. In the story arc of our own very real, incredibly unnatural disaster, what’s going to happen to us by the time we reach book seven? Nuclear war? End days? Winter is here? We put on the ring? 

And who is our Harry Potter - who the fuck’s going to save us? Bernie Sanders? Elizabeth Warren? Or is there some young democrat working out of a cupboard under the stairs that we just haven’t met yet?

Merlin’s beard. We are so screwed.

These winter mornings are rough. It’s hard enough for me to get out of bed when it’s cold and dark out, let alone my little ladies who are snuggled up together under their super warm comforters with a heater on, their heads full of sugar plums/YouTube hack videos, and very little to motivate them. Also, daddy’s out of town, which just makes everything less fun. I’ve been trying to wake them up earlier to give them more time to stay in bed but that doesn’t seem to help. Getting into bed earlier is not an option, we can barely manage homework and one shower a week as it is. I’ve tried sending our new dog Cleo’s 72 lbs of year-and-a-half-old-puppy-fun into the room to wipe her ginormous tongue across their sleeping faces, but then I end up spending all my time wrestling various objects, from individuals Legos, to dirty socks, to pieces of the house and entire rolls of toilet paper, out of her mouth, which just slows me down even more. 

I aim to leave the house at 7:25, and every day the time it takes to get from 6:30 to 7:25 seems to speed up. This morning I started asking them to get dressed at approximately 6:53. Buttery waffles were still being eaten, random pieces of paper that needed to be safely tucked into backpacks were strewn about the house, nary a hair nor a tooth had been brushed. As time ticked on my nudges became more urgent, bordering on frantic. When, at 7:18, I emerged from the bathroom ready to literally sprint the dog to the corner and back while the girls brushed their teeth, I found Billie, still in her pajamas, sitting at the coffee table holding a whiteboard marker and carefully tracing out her letters on the wipe-clean practice boards she just unearthed from somewhere deep in the closet. (Sidenote: Sure, she can dive into that closet and find those, but send her in for two matching socks in the morning and she will never ever return. Also, she’s in second grade. She knows how the fuck to write.) Here’s a sampling of the words that fell out of my mouth completely of their own accord while I jumped up and down and tore my hair out in chunks.

Seriously?

Are you kidding me right now?

This - this is the moment you choose to work on your handwriting? Right now?

I’ve been asking you to get dressed for half an hour. 

Are you dressed? You don’t look dressed to me! 

Have you brushed your hair? Your teeth? No, so what the hell are you doing practicing your m’s? 

We have to leave in seven minutes. SEVEN MINUTES.

You’re killing me, smalls. Seriously. You are causing me physical pain right now. 

It’s the same bloody thing every morning - why do I have to ask you fifty times to do the same things you have to do every day? I’m honestly asking for an answer. I really don’t understand. SOMEONE PLEASE EXPLAIN. 

Do you think I’m talking to someone else?

Do you think I mean in an hour? 

Do you understand what day it is?

Do you understand English?

DO YOU JUST NOT UNDERSTAND THE CONCEPT OF TIME?

At which point, we all started giggling. (Okay they were probably gigging at me, not with me.) Because let’s be honest. She’s seven. Of course she doesn’t understand the fucking concept of time. She can’t even tell time. When she turned seven, she thought she’d been six for a year and a half. 

Come to think of it, I’m not even sure I understand the concept of time. If I did, maybe I wouldn’t have the same fucking problem every damn day. 

Six more days of school. Six more days of school. Six more days of school.

Last night Billie and I were dancing to Cardi B while she brushed her teeth. Getting into it (as you do), I leaned over her and started doing some “yah down with opp”-type arm motions that I quickly realized (we were in front of the mirror) were utterly ridiculous on me. I made a sort of “eeeerrr-blegh” sound and stopped, giving myself a “calm it down” look and stepping back to let her take the stage. 

She stopped dancing, looked me in the eye in the mirror, and said in her sweet little seven-year-old voice, “I will never be embarrassed by you, mama.” 

(Sidenote: Ohmygod, is my kid like, totally psychic? How did she know that’s exactly what I was thinking? Who were those kids in the seventies with the paranormal abilities, the ones Eleven is based on? The children of the corn? She’s totally one of them. I should get her tested.)

At the same time, from different rooms, Mila and I both said, “You say that now...” 

(Second sidenote: Billie thinks when an ellipsis appears on the page, you read it as a dramatic and ominous pause in an episode of Scooby-Doo, like: “Dah-dah-DAAAAH!” Apparently that’s what her first grade teacher taught her. I have no idea if her teacher actually said that, which is a whole nother can o’ worms, but it’s kind of hard to shake once it gets in your brain. Please enjoy...) 

I called out to Mila, “Do I embarrass you, Mikki?”

And she called back, “Not yet.”

Is this what it means to be a tween? To not actually be embarrassed by your parents yet, but to understand on some level, to know in some secret (possibly throbbing) vein, that soon you will be mortified by them? (Us. Sniff.) 

I wish I had an exceptional memory so I could step back into exactly what it’s like to be their ages. (Or a time-turner. That would be more fun.) You tell yourself you’ll never do these things when you’re a parent, and then you forget, and you do all of them. And then some. It doesn’t help that every time you start to figure things out, your kid completely changes and you have to start all over again. Feel like a complete failure, all over again. You know how they say your body regenerates itself every seven years? With kids, it’s more like every seven months. Keeping up is like trying to put the slime back in that tiny stupid container it came in. (Most likely at the birthday party you really didn’t want to go to in the first place.) The cards are totally stacked against us. Or is it the clock? Both, maybe. All of it. Everything. 

I guess what I’m trying to say is, I can’t wait to embarrass the hell out of this kid. 

(Also, we are so screwed.)