I will admit that Knock-knock jokes are probably among the lowest of low-brow humor. But anytime you can incorporate a joke about an ancient Greek tragedian, it’s a win. Particularly when the tragedian is from the Salamis Islands. God I love salami.
All this to tell you that I have a new piece out, which is NOT called Knock-Knock, but IS in fact called “Rat-a-tat”. Euripides was a great lead-in to this newest release because much like his writing – this one is a bit darker than my usual fare. Euripides used his plays to explore the dark side of humanity, particularly suffering and revenge. Rat-a-tat does the same.
It occurs to me that of the three pieces of published short fiction I have now published – they are all a bit dark. “Wood Smoke and Frost” serves up long-simmering resentment and longing for the things we cannot have. “Against the Grain” delves into unimaginable grief and the anger that trails behind it. “Rat-a-tat” is a tension-filled piece that slowly ratchets up. It is a fictionalized car crash; you know you should look away, you want to look away, but when it comes right down to it, you cannot help but scan the inside of the car as you drive slowly by.
My tendency towards writing darker fiction is interesting because if you know me IRL–as we say on the internets–you’ll know that I’m actually pretty upbeat in person. This is the glorious bit about fiction: through fiction we can do and say the things that we would never dream of doing in real life. We can release the hounds of our darker side to explore the things that make us uncomfortable. Ugly personalities. Untenable situations. The grief and pain of others.
For those of you who still wonder why a nice girl like me is knocking on your door with dark stuff like this, I’ll leave you with Euripides: “Question everything. Learn something. Answer nothing.”
You can read “Rat-a-tat” by clicking HERE. Many thanks to The Whisky Blot for publishing this piece.
Which is why I waited over a month to announce that I published another piece. (You can read it here.)
December was a good month for me as an author. I hear that some months are like that, but you’ll have to believe me when I tell you that they aren’t typically like that for me. In fact, I was still riding the unexpected high of having my defecating dog poem published, when I received the email from 3rd Wednesday informing me that they had published my newest poem “When you turn into your mother”, a mere six days later.
Hello double whammy: First of all – their acceptance of this piece was an unprecedented eight days. Who accepts pieces that fast? Don’t these people have day jobs? Hobbies? Better poets to publish?* Secondly, the email from them wasn’t saying “we will be publishing your piece” – it was informing me that they already had. Madness ensues.
TLDR: I’ve published another poem and I didn’t post about it until now because I wanted to wait until I didn’t have anything else to post about. That’s me, saving up my wins for a rainy day. HELLO January.
If you haven’t already done so, go give “When you turn into your mother” a read. This piece developed slowly – starting in a more traditional stanza format, before finally ending up as a prose poem. I’ve been amazed at how it appeals to the reader; one colleague shared that she had just lost her mother, and really needed to hear these words. Another shared that she hated her mother and this piece triggered her, but in a good way…? A third – that he also hated grey hairs, which means that he likely didn’t actually read the piece (T’was chin hairs, my dude), but I’ll take all comers.
I just won’t praise them in a timely manner.
*This is a jest. Please don’t ban me forever, lovely editors of 3rd Wednesday.
Let me tell you about Writing Circle. Not much (First Rule of Writing Circle) – but just enough to convince you that, for fledgling writers – a Circle is just what you need. At our WC, we always accomplish something.
Often – what I accomplish is to acknowledge that I need to completely begin again. Those days feel like I’m renovating a house I’ve just built. I thought it looked nice. I thought it was nearly finished – the final pieces of trim being tapped lightly into place by small hammer. But once I’ve been to WC – I know better. Sure, the trim isn’t quite right. But more importantly, the floor is wonky. WHO BUILT THIS FLOOR?
If it were any other group of people – this might be daunting, but with my WC – I always walk away feeling energized. Encouraged to do better. That’s how I know they are keepers. Well that, and my ongoing successful publication rate. (Knocks wood.)
Last night I received word that one of my shorter poems, “Pareidolia” had been accepted for publication at a lovely online journal called Silver Apples Magazine, for their themed issue “Bad Decisions”. When the email pinged in my inbox, I was in the bathroom scrubbing teeth, so laughing out loud wasn’t an option, but incredulous snorting was. I wrote “Pareidolia” as a joke. A bet that nobody made against me, after a particularly rowdy WC night. For funsies. Subsequently, it was a poem that I never actually expected to publish. I sent it out to three or four different journals anyway, but it had thus far been largely ignored. Let’s presume that it took the advanced wit of the mostly Irish editors of Silver Apples to recognize its beauty. “Please,” I begged them, “let the bad decision not be writing this piece in the first place.”
No Bad Decisions here.
Speaking of beauty, I think it’s important to note that “Pareidolia” is a poem about a dog shitting beside the road. Irish wit, amiright? I wrote it in response to my WC colleagues triumphant discovery that “pareidolia” was a word I had not yet heard (or subsequently used) in any of my pieces. In our group, I have the dubious reputation of often using words which require a dictionary. As the only fourth grader in the history of Hersey Elementary that could spell antidisestablishmentarianism, I’ve heard this before and many times since. Pareidolia, they explained, is the human ability to see shapes or patterns in something random. Like looking at a cloud and seeing a donkey on a pogo stick. Or finding a rock that looks like your Aunt Gert. “I’ll write a poem about that,” I told them. And so I did.
“Pareidolia” hasn’t been released yet – but I’m giddily excited by its acceptance. This snarky insignificant poem about a dog in the act of defecating marks my tenth official publication. That’s double digits, baby. And its acceptance by the wonderful team at Silver Apples just goes to prove that – if you can write it (reasonably well) – there is a home for it, somewhere.
Ironically, I never took “Pareidolia” to WC to be workshopped. Truthfully, there are only so many ways to rework and reword a thirteen line poem about a pooping dog. (Although there are a shocking number of synonyms for feces.) Publishing a poem about a pooping dog? Now THAT is an accomplishment.
For many years, I used this site as a receptacle for blog posts and other thoughts. As you can tell, I haven’t been doing that for many years – however, those of you who follow me know that I HAVE BEEN WRITING.
As I progress as a writer, it is important to move forward, but also not to forget where we came from. I won’t be deleting these old blog posts. At least not yet. They are certainly a point in my life that is worth remembering; particularly as we age and begin to forget the minutiae of experiences. So often we are in the moment and think that we could never possibly forget the things which have happened to us. We do. One of the deepest joys of writing is the ability to forever capture these moments.
In the meantime, I urge you to seek out some of my more recent official publications by clicking on the section of the site entitled “Published Works”. I do hope you enjoy this minor redesign of my non-official website. Someday I *may* be important enough to merit a fancy site. Or I may not. Either way – the words will live on.
Young Maggie with new construction and old dome in the background.
Do you ever get wrapped up in the idea that you’re simply not interesting enough? Perhaps it’s my generation but I often find myself torn between the idea that I should at least TRY to be slightly more out of the ordinary, and a general disdain for the opinions of others in face of my much more important real life obligations. A co-worker might regale me with stories of her horrendously busy weekend, and all I can say to her in response is: I don’t actually remember what we did.
This is truth: I can guarantee that our weekend included both laundry and Kraft Cheese and Macaroni.
Otherwise, I’ve got nothing. Typically, I’m good with that, but just occasionally I’ll start worrying about whether I have taken enough trips, had enough date nights, given our children enough experiences, or whether I remembered to share that photo of a princess water bottle tucked into husband’s camouflaged hunting backpack. Then I feel guilty because I shouldn’t care if other people find my life to be boring. I certainly don’t. Then again, I’m a DIY home-builder and we are a pretty cool crowd.
Social media is rife with people who are weekend DIY-er’s. In case you missed the above paragraph describing my fascinating weekends, I’m not one of those. No, I’m an honest to goodness legit home builder. Being a home-builder is a pretty heady thing. It absolutely shouldn’t be confused for someone who builds homes for a living. General contractors, carpenters, roofers and their ilk- they get paid for that insanity. Not only do they get paid – they KNOW things. Like how important a limitless supply of pencils is, and what to do when you accidentally wall off a live light bulb*. Nor should it be confused for someone who hires another person to build their home for them. They might be footing the bill – and deciding whether they should go with the Corian or the concrete, but they’re not physically building their home. They don’t even know where their pencils are. A DIY home-builder knows just enough to be dangerous; we have pencils, but we never have enough.
It wasn’t always this way. Newly married, my husband and I were renting one-half of a gritty duplex in a local town while I prayed to whatever entity might listen that I would be accepted into graduate school . Several months before our wedding, the property that was adjacent to my family’s homestead came up for sale, and my parents purchased it fearing that the property would otherwise likely only attract survivalists and gun nuts. This was not an unfounded concern; several outbuildings contained the literal fruits – and nuts – of my erstwhile neighbor’s fascination with doomsday prepping while the main residential building was a matched set of 1970’s geodesic domes covered in spray foam and painted white.
The domes resembled a large pair of white breasts when seen from the sky and remained largely unoccupied during my youth. They nevertheless had played a strangely key role in my childhood fantasies of home ownership. When my parents subsequently suggested that we move into the dome and give our rent monies to them instead of to the landlord of the run-down duplex, we unhesitatingly said YES, living there a mere month before deciding to buy the dome for ourselves.
We were going to be cool cheese-making hippies, albeit with better jobs and a decided lack of goats. However, we had only lived in the dome for a little under a year when it became clear that the dome was in terrible shape. Some of the structural beams were rotting, and we were forever finding woodland creatures in our home that wanted to commune with us a little too often. There was the occasional bat. Snakes that thankfully never made a physical appearance, but would leave shed skins around the dome paneling like discarded socks. A single ground squirrel that snuck up on me while I was contemplating life in the water closet. And of course, a whole generational legacy of mice that were constantly present. I certainly never felt alone. Or unobserved.
Eventually we decided that the structural damage was too much and the woodland creatures too plentiful. We were faced with the choice to either move somewhere else or build on the property. We were young – and stupid, and in love with our little chunk of property almost as much as we were in love with each other, so we built.
Not having anticipated the expense of a new construction project, but assuming that doing the work ourselves was a bargain, we built entirely out of pocket, and subsequently, with agonizing slowness. Our first expense, the concrete for footings, was not enough to bankrupt us, but enough to preclude niceties like good beer and 2 ply paper towel. We grew adept at wielding hammers (for the record, my husband was already adept at these things) and the appropriate mixture of sand to concrete to water ratio for laying blocks. My husband bought me a special tape measure for idiots that had every 16th mark and possible fraction labeled. It wasn’t an insult – it was a genuinely necessary item for me and our marriage in general. I discovered that I’m a semi-decent outlet wirer, and that drywall is our personal version of marital Kryptonite. We coined the phrase, “measure twice, cut thrice”. We gifted ourselves new power tools for Christmas and birthdays. (We still do this. Old habits, much like power tools, tend to die hard and during inopportune moments.)
After a while, the shine had worn off the penny. We no longer had hands. We had feet-hands, with calluses large enough to give the legal clients in my day job pause when presented with a firm shake. We stopped giving tours to friends and family members unless they promised to refrain from asking when we intended to finish the house, a personal affront to every spare second of ours leading up to that moment.
It took us 5 years to build our home to the point where it was move-in-available. It was still a far-cry from move in-ready. Our kitchen consisted of a laundry sink, a $20 plastic shelf, a card table that served triple duty as kitchen counter top, dining table and dish drying rack, and a very out-of-place stainless steel fridge and stove. This. FOR THREE MONTHS. But I was pleasingly round with our first child – and we needed a place to live where I wasn’t in fear of our firstborn being abducted by a rogue band of squirrels living in the walls of the dome. We laid flooring when I was 7 months pregnant, which was such a miserable experience that I still tell it to every new visitor to our home as my way of reinforcing what a damn trooper I am. Eventually and bit by bit, our house became a home.
We have now been in our home for 12 years, and it’s still a work in progress. The basement is unfinished, but we are working on that – and there are pieces of trim occasionally left undone. Landscaping, as it scares the crap out of me, is still hanging out in the ether world of “we’ll tackle that some day”. But it is ours – literally built with our own hands, and it is paid for – something very few people our age can say.
I cannot imagine ever moving away from this home; my children will someday have to pry my claw-like hands from the front stoop in order to drive me to the nursing home, all while I am explaining to them how we once didn’t even have a front stoop, but rather a few concrete blocks haphazardly strewn about.
This story brings up a lot of feels for me. We were so young when we started this process, so stupidly young. As it turns out, that was a huge benefit to us. Optimism? Check. Energy? Check. Time? Check. Adding children into the mix makes house building virtually impossible. Several years ago we decided to tackle a paved path leading up to our front doorsteps and it took us three months. It was 21 feet long and eight feet wide, but it might as well have been three football fields laid end to end. Summer schedules being what they are, we were lucky if we could devote one Sunday every three weeks to the project– and then we had the inevitable child-related stoppages of lunch negotiations, snackus interruptus and general sandbox mediation.
When we were young and sans children, building our home was not only something we did – it was our life. We would work our full-time jobs, rush home, and work another 3-4 hours each night slaving over its construction. We didn’t have cable TV or the internet; social media was nowhere on our radar in 2004. We had no one to impress and a whole host of things that were more important to consider. Things like making sure we had support walls in all the right places, and enough electrical staples; the blue kind, not the yellow. We were building a home and that was everything.
Now, I’m not saying that everyone should run right out and build their own home. While I’d relish the opportunity to share tips on cutting plastic soffeting with the masses, realistically speaking, most of society would not have the patience to do what we did. What I AM saying is that you should find your own version of house building.
Most people don’t see me and think to themselves: Now there – THERE is a woman who has built her own house! Quite the opposite, in fact. It’s a unique and remarkable skill to have achieved and I thoroughly enjoy knocking the socks off of those who don’t know me better. So whenever I am feeling as though what I am or what I’m doing is not enough (and this happens to even the most overachieving of us) I remind myself of what I have done, what I’m capable of doing and I suddenly feel much, much better. Find your proverbial inner house-builder. Buy her a tape-measure for idiots, 5 boxes of carpenter’s pencils and set her free.
During a recent drive into town, my husband pointed out the hack job that our local road commission did on a tree which had the misfortunate to have grown perilously close to the road. “Look at that tree! Why would they do that? I know I’m just going to end up careening off the road at some point and getting decapitated. That would be just my luck.” My husband is much luckier that he likes to admit, but he has a point about the tree. It is very strangely cut, as the road commission left the tree otherwise intact but for a very large branch – perhaps 6 feet in length and about 8 inches wide – which now dangles into the shoulder of the road. The road commission lopped off the end of this branch, so that it no longer hangs into the road itself, but they have left the severed appendage hanging there, like a giant hand-less Ent.
I passed the same tree coming home from work last night with my young daughters in the back seat, and I immediately began with my internal Offspring Death Avoidance Imaginings (ODAI). If you were to slip inside my brain pan in this moment, it would sound like this:
Brain: “You know, if the road was slippery, and conditions were just right , you could slip off the road and into that branch. It would be on the passenger side though, so you would probably live, but your eldest child would not. Maybe you should teach the kids to DUCK on command, so that in case of such a scenario, you could tell them to DUCK, and they would thereby narrowly avoid a tree branch decapitation. The question is: How would you teach them to DUCK on command? It’s not like you’re a headmaster at a school for bad children where they have to learn to immediately obey or risk a flogging. You’re not a despot. You could make a game of it and throw soft tennis balls at their head as a funky parent/child trust exercise, but that might be construed as child abuse, so you’d probably better not. Then again, if we talked about it ahead of time and they had plenty of warning…”
I could continue. I DO continue. But for the sake of my reader, I won’t continue here. I have no excuses for the weird and often horrific places that my brain goes when I think about the things that COULD-POTENTIALLY-IF-EVERYTHING-WENT-COMPLETELY-WAYWARD happen to my offspring. Active imaginations are highly regarded when you are a child, useful as an adult, but as a parent, they become an unfortunate mixture of: “Boy it would be fun to do __________!” (and it generally is) and “Oh crap, my child is going to slip on a misplaced Barbie shoe, fall down the stairs and impale themselves on a bendy straw.” Parenthetically, this is undoubtedly why I’m a very upbeat and happy in person; I’m always thrilled with the fact that my children haven’t yet died of a freak garden hose accident.
On the other hand, working in a legal field, this propensity for the Chicken Little Life often comes in handy. You consider the worst, best and typical case scenarios, factor in how likely each of those scenarios are, and prepare accordingly. Typically these machinations don’t involve things like rogue tree branches impaling our clients, but you see where I’m going with this. Consistently preparing for the worst, while hoping for the best – ensures that we are equipped for any outcome. I imagine this is much the same for all fields – legal or otherwise. I also imagine that I am not alone in my eccentric offspring death avoidance imaginings. In conversations with friends, this does seem to be the norm. It’s encouraging to know that mass insanity is alive and well.
But even if it weren’t, I can take heart in the fact that at least one of my children escaped this genetic propensity. Here is an excerpt of a recent car ride to school, wherein we were discussing why it is so important for everyone to be buckled in and safe while the car is in motion:
Elder Child: (From the backseat) Mom, what if sissy’s door was like BARELY hanging on by a thread, and then it just fell off? And then – sissy didn’t know that, and she unbuckled her car seat and then the wind ripped her out of the car, and she got run over? That would be bad, right?
Younger Child (Also from the backseat) That makes my knee bleed.
Save your fancy words. No need for a five minute recap. Let’s just keep this real shall we? Certain death by accidental car evacuation makes my knee bleed. Every family needs at least one realist.
Let’s talk for a moment about life hacks. I’m sure by now everyone is so sick of reading this term that they are ready to use a potato scrubber on their eyeballs. I hear you, I read you and I’m with you. My eyeballs are also ready for a good scrubbing when it comes to overused terminology and phrases. In fact, if I have to hear the overused term “RIGHT?!” tacked onto an otherwise non-inquiring sentence ONE MORE TIME, I’m going to put that scrubber in my ear and spin. It obviously won’t do any good because the human ear canal is intensely complex, but it will at least make me feel better.
Unfortunately, I’m secretly drawn to life hacks. Every time I see a blog post or a news article that talks about the latest and greatest life hack, it’s as though my clicking finger is possessed. MUST.READ.LIFE.HACK. There’s just something about the idea that someone out there, some brilliant and innovative stranger, has come up with a potentially greater, better, or faster way to make it through the daily drudgery that appeals to me. The kicker is, as much as I read them, I rarely implement them. As it turns out, their way is rarely better, greater or faster – it’s just different, occasionally strange, and rarely particularly useful for my brand of crazy. No – I’m not going to store my refrigerated condiments upside down in an empty egg carton. My beloved condiments barely have room to breathe on their plastic shelf as it is, and it requires a degree in engineering to replace one once it has been removed. (My husband typically declines to participate in Fridge Shelf Jenga, and usually just places it somewhere WHERE IT DOESN’T BELONG.) Therefore, throwing an egg carton into the mix and requiring space- actual space – between plastic bottles, is right out.
Tell me that this is not THE stupidest thing you have ever seen. ALSO, how can you have so many mustards and so few pickles?! Travesty.
When they are not completely useless for my lifestyle (like the egg carton trick above), they are typically such a no-brainer that it’s a literal insult TO my brain to read them. “HACK YOUR LIFE – GET MORE SLEEP!” My brain rolls its cingulate cortex in annoyance, and I’m done.
Nevertheless, I continue reading these puppies whenever they cross my cell phone screen in the hopes that maybe someday, someone will come up with a life hack that actually works for me. Who knows, I might EVEN come up with a few of my own to share…(That’s right. This is happening.)To my working parents and momrades in arms, I present to you – –
Life Hacks for the Working Mom (and Dad – where applicable):
[But first a necessary legal disclaimer: My post contains general life hack information. The information is not advice and should not be treated as such. The information in my post is presented without any warranties, legal or implied. I do not verify that the information contained in my post is either true, accurate, complete, current or non-misleading. If you have specific questions about how the author’s life hack information may pertain to your life, I suggest you contact a life hack expert. The author is not a life hack expert. The author is a hack, but that is an entirely different thing. Please read this post in good health and fun. If you don’t agree with the information contained in the author’s post, you should a.) seek a second opinion from an actual life hack expert or b.) invest in a good potato scrubber.]
WORKING PARENT LIFE HACK #1: Appropriate morning time management can be boiled down to one tip: Makeup over Hair EVERY TIME.
First off, I swear that these will get better as we go on, so bear with me. I absolutely want to start small and work my way up. HOWEVER, I’m a born again make-up junkie – and as a result, my morning routine has gone from a very quick swipe of mascara, shimmery eyeshadow and blush to a daily makeup routine that could easily take 30 minutes if I’m feeling persnickety about liner placement. (And much, much longer if I’m allowed a babysitter and a night out.) I’m also a busy working mom that has to get not only herself ready in the mornings, but her two young spawn as well. So while I’d LIKE to take 30 minutes to do my makeup what typically happens is that I end up with around 8-15 minutes, depending upon how quickly (or if) I can convince the 3 year old to brush her teeth, and how many times I have to remind the 6 year old to PLEASE PUT ON HER SHOES. Moms have to make concessions, you know. So, my life hack to manage my burgeoning desire for cat eyes, on fleek (scrub scrub scrub) eyebrows and contoured cheekbones is that I simply ignore my hair entirely. The messy bun has become a very close and personal friend of mine. (Don’t let the profile picture fool you. THAT hair day was facilitated by my bang up stylist. 98% of the time, I’m rocking the mom bun.) What I’ve found personally is that people pay much more attention to the face than the hair – so it makes more sense to master a few quick and simple styles that you can whip out in 2-3 minutes and then spending the remaining 12 minutes of your time on making your eyes sparkle like magical sleep restored diamonds.
“A smile will get you pretty far. But a smile and a bun will get you farther.” – Ma Capone.
“But Maggie, what if I don’t use make-up?” Then this hack is probably not for you, my fresh faced friend. On the other hand, you could get down with your minimalistic bad self by using your mom-bun time to down an extra cuppa joe or three before waking up the ankle biters. Just a thought.
WORKING PARENT LIFE HACK #2: Actually getting more sleep at night is easy: Go Blind.
I am an unrepentant member of the Bad Decisions Book Club. (This really does exist. There’s even a t-shirt.) This means that while I’m typically one bad mother-shut-yo-mouth at time management, all my time management skills depart forthwith when I am faced with the 9 o’clock hour, my bedsheets and an unread book. I will spend HOURS reading at night, when in fact I should be sleeping. Nevertheless, I recognize that I need sleep more than I need to know what is going to happen to Madam Pennywhistle in Chapter 4, and the only cure I have found for my “just one more chapter” blues has been going blind.
Now before you grab your handy potato scrubber, I merely mean that you should take out your contacts (or remove your glasses) and head immediately into the bedroom. This hack is obviously operating under the presumption that you are (like me), as blind as a bat without optical assistance. CAN I read without optical assistance? Absolutely, but it’s a major pain in the tookus. Likewise, watching TV in bed loses all its appeal when I can only hear what is going on and not see. Eventually, I grow so tired of having to create the pictures in my own head (Geez imagination, just GO TO BED ALREADY) that I give up and sleep. This particular tip works like a charm for me every time. Well, every time I’m not lying awake in bed, blindly thinking about life hacks or posts about life hacks, that is.
“But Maggie, what if I’m NOT a member of the Bad Decisions Book Club and I already have great self control when it comes to sleep habits?” Then I’m afraid we can no longer be friends. Remove yourself from my sight immediately, please.
WORKING PARENT LIFE HACK #3: Quality Family Time is Disconnected Time.
This one is easy for me and horrifying to Millennials. I recently had to purchase a new phone (I abhor new technology and cling to my old things for as long as possible – which seems counterintuitive for someone posting an article online, but is true nonetheless) and had the pleasure of mystifying the young salesman who was trying to upsell me the latest and greatest gadgets under the sun.
Me: I just want something with REALLY good reception. I don’t care about features or camera shutter speed. I’m leaning towards a Droid because I’ve heard that they tend to have the best reception in spotty areas.
Him: Well, I could sell you a Droid, but I really think you’re going to like the features that this HTC will offer.
Me: Yeah, I had an HTC for a millisecond. I couldn’t get a bar. Not even standing on one leg in my kitchen while leaning out the window, which ALWAYS works.
Him: Well, I mean, you can get occasional 4G, right?
Me: SNORT
.
He was horrified. I mean, I think he may have physically moved away from us in repulsion before he proceeded to tell my husband how he actually gets twitchy (like honest to goodness anxiety) when he is disconnected from his phone.
This is more and more the way of things, but one of the beautiful things of living where I do is that I have absolutely no choice in the matter. We are so far out in BFE that we cannot even get internet. And let me tell you, it is lovely. My children will grow up with an understanding of how to navigate online waters (even kindergarteners have computer class these days), but not relying upon it 100% of the time. It allows my family time to unwind, unconnected from any distractions that aren’t family related and to really talk to one another.
Remember THIS gem? Yes, me neither. Is Dan Cortese still alive?
“But Maggie, are you trying to say that people who ARE connected are doing their family a disservice?” Absolutely not, you fool. Merely that *I* have no choice in the matter – and what a wonderful thing it is to not even have to worry about it. Are there days when I wished we had internet? Of course. More and more often, my children have homework that require some sort of online access. Tax season (we file online) is likewise a right pain in the butt. We also occasionally give the local providers the old college try by calling them up and asking them to come out to our property (yes, AGAIN please.) to see if maybe their towers can now reach us. (They can’t.) Each time, they leave our home dazed, disoriented and confused by our personal Bermuda Triangle of Connectivity. Abandon all signal, ye who enter here.
But to be honest, I’m always a little happy. For starters, I think that most people don’t believe me when I tell them that we’re internet free at home – so I’m always happy to add another believer to the list – but more importantly, because I love our little disconnected nest. There are woods to explore, fresh air to be breathed, children and spouses to reconnect with after a long day at work and a crap ton of potatoes to be scrubbed. Good thing I have just the right tool.
Do you remember when, as a child, you would see something in a magazine and think to yourself, “I WISH I had that!” For me, this was typically the latest Veronica Lodge outfit in my Archie comic book. Say what you will about Ronnie, but that girl had a killer wardrobe. The best part was that there was a small part of you that actually believed that if you merely wished hard enough – you *would* get that double breasted trench coat you were coveting so hard. (What can I say? Even six year old Maggie could get on board with fashionable work wear.) Well, as is the usual course of these things, young Maggie quickly discovered that things don’t typically work that way. In fact, it became obvious very early on that, while I have always lived a very lucky life in general, luck was never one of those things that I was actually lucky about. This is a nice albeit slightly convoluted way of saying: I never win anything.
I sincerely mean that. Scratch off tickets? Nope. I could scratch that sucker with a 2,000 year old Roman minted coin and I still wouldn’t win a brass farthing. Call-in radio shows? My phone invariably chooses that moment to remind me that it hasn’t been turned off in 73 days and needs a good reboot RIGHT.THIS.SECOND or it may just explode.
Just like this.
I hardly ever step foot into a casino; mostly because I’m convinced the sounds and smells are specifically created with insanity in mind*, but also because I know there’s no point. I won’t win. Basically, if it requires luck, you are better off staying far, far away from me.
Until today. Today I was notified that I had actually (drumroll please) won something. Fans of the cult classic The Jerk will understand when I say that I feel like Navin upon discovering his name in the phone book.
Navin R. Johnson: The new phone book’s here! The new phone book’s here!
Harry Hartounian: Boy, I wish I could get that excited about nothing.
Navin R. Johnson: Nothing? Are you kidding? Page 73 – Johnson, Navin R.! I’m somebody now! Millions of people look at this book everyday! This is the kind of spontaneous publicity – your name in print – that makes people. I’m in print! Things are going to start happening to me now.
He hates these cans!
Of course, Jerk fans (if you haven’t seen this movie yet, get thee to Netflix/Amazon immediately) know that the next part of this interaction is a sniper going through that very same phone book and choosing Navin Johnson’s name at random for sniping. And therein lies the rub. Let me extrapolate this for you: I have won something – but there is a catch.
In this case, the catch is what we won: A family four pack of tickets to the Octonauts Live. The Octonauts, for those not of the parental persuasion (and if this applies to you, please bear with me here. Obnoxiously unnecessary description of a children’s tv show to follow:), follows an underwater exploring crew made up of stylized anthropomorphic animals who go on undersea adventures. The show does focus on the exploration/discover of real life marine creatures, but I have difficulty taking this seriously when it’s coming from the mouth of a talking penguin/medic who is making nice with his captain – an anthropomorphized polar bear. (For the record, Captain Barnacles would eat the crap out of Peso the penguin. If they didn’t reside on OPPOSITE SIDES OF THE PLANET, YO. Boom. Science.) Compounding matters is the fact that the brave Octonauts crew employs a team of half vegetable/half fish servants called the Vegimals broadly and with names like Hallibeet (half halibut/half beet) and Yamchovy (half yam/half anchovy) individually. Also there is 90 minutes of this. Live.
“Tominnow is tickled by the grabber.” WHAT THE FLAMING HELL IS GOING ON HERE?
The upshot is that the kind purveyor of this prize also included a $50 gift certificate to a local restaurant that happens to serve the best damn bloody marys this side of Wisconsin**.
Suffice it to say that I intend to drown my sorrows ahead of time thoroughly. And if things turn out the way I hope, I subsequently won’t have to restrain myself from charging the stage and attempting to eat Tominnow, delicious Tominnow. These are the things parents do for their kids.
**Apparently, Wisconsin wins as the state where the most bloody marys are consumed. Or, perhaps more aptly (since this is based on Yelp data) the state where the largest concentration of whiny bloody mary drinkers are located.
My child is bad at reading directions. Or just strange.
Either way, while chicken IS in fact delicious, I don’t recommend this particular cooking method. Seems a bit cruel.
This past weekend was gorgeous in Northern Michigan, and finding myself woefully unprepared – without any sort of mulch or plant life on hand, I did what any self-respecting landowner would do: I spent three hours cutting down brambles in an attempt to make the yard look more presentable with what I DID have on hand. Loppers.
This guy doesn’t even need loppers. He’s clearly the Chairman of the Board somewhere.
To make it more fun – I told myself it was like a game of pick up sticks. You know, where the sticks are barbed and instead of saying “Oh MAN!” when you accidentally move the wrong stick, you yell “YOU SON OF A @#$*!” when the wrong stick swings back and stabs you in your unsuspecting eye socket. A demented game of pick up sticks, to be sure, but my hand to eye coordination is feeling very top notch now and my skin has the type of rosy glow envied by Edward Scissorhands aficionados worldwide.
Don’t try this at home. Oh wait…DO try this at home. For fun.
All attempts at making lemonade out of my prickly lemons aside- you do a lot of thinking when you are absorbed in yard work like this. This weekend I found myself pondering whether anyone else was “lucky” enough to be out enjoying the weather in this way – and more importantly, whether they COULD enjoy it in this way. I am specifically thinking back to an article that I read on LinkedIn a few weeks ago, which referenced how there is a new breed of woman taking the corporate world by storm thanks in part to a combination of daily blow outs*, designer shoe shopping and 4 a.m. gym routines. To be fair, I think this was a vastly unfair article. The idea that any of those quoted women worked their way into those high powered boardrooms based on the recommendations of a good pair of stilettos and the doctor performing their monthly botox injection is laughable. Those things take hard work, dedication and you know…COLLEGE. Preferably a really good college.It’s also completely offensive to suggest that a woman has to be one or the other- that beauty queens can’t also be brilliant as hell. Nevertheless, the sheer quantity of time spent dedicated to the pursuit of looking mahvelous made me wonder whether Fernando Lamas and the corporate world in general were missing something. Sure, they can navigate the waters of commerce, but can they navigate a difficult bramble to the brush pile? Would they even want to? (For that matter, do *I* want to? Not really. But I will. ‘Cuz character.) When everyone moves to the city and the joys of property ownership are usurped by the joys of maintaining your gym membership, how do our ties to the natural Earth fare? Is it easier to discount the importance of the blue collar jobs in the world when we don’t actively get our OWN hands dirty? I take pride in being able to both wield a rake**– and a mascara brush with some degree of skill. There is a lot of joy that comes out of those quiet moments*** when it’s just you and the 32” loppers – and even more once you see the job that has been done.
Behold the art of eyelash raking. You don’t get to jump in a pile of discarded eyelashes when you’re done, but otherwise, exactly the same as raking leaves.
Of course, this is all well and good for me to write; As my six year old reminded me last week, “You don’t know my LIFE, mom. There are things I don’t TELL you.” Although our conversation was about brussel sprouts (and specifically whether she did or did not enjoy eating them) – this is easily transferable to the conversation at hand. I don’t actually know any of the women in that article – nor is it my intent to judge them harshly. Goodness knows I too can navigate my way around the Macy’s makeup counter with ease and even a fair amount of joy. It’s entirely possible that they too enjoy getting back to their roots (and I’m not referring to the Clairol Nice N’Easy Kind) – but between the thrice weekly hair salon trips, daily morning workouts, and post work hour networking – where do they find the time?! And that’s all fine and well; to each their own downtime. Those women ARE out there, however. A friend of mine is the Chief of Staff in a fairly well known financial service company. On the weekends, she builds outdoor playground equipment for her daughter, and refinishes pieces of furniture that she finds by the side of the road. My sister is the executive director of a non-profit organization, and she finds time to plant, tend and harvest a garden when she’s not flying around the country on business or making music in her band. I tend to think that those two examples are more indicative of the actual norm – then exceptions to the rule. They are crushing it in the corporate world, but don’t you dare call them one trick ponies. They can be ALL of those things: Business leaders, Wives, Scientists, Mothers, Carpenters, Beauty Queens and Rake Wielders.****
It’s enough to give me the warm fuzzies. (Or at least, I think it’s the warm fuzzies, it could actually be an antihistamine reaction to the multitude of scratches down my arms.) For those of you actively maintaining this work and home life balance, I salute you. Let’s get together and rake awhile…in solidarity. Yeah, solidarity. Can I get a rake high five?
*I should clarify that by “blow out”, I mean the process by which hair is washed and professionally blown dry/coiffed by a certified hair stylist – and not “blow out”, the process by which your small child/infant ruins their entire outfit. These are the clarifications required for professional moms taking the corporate world by storm.
**To be honest, I loathe raking. It’s hands down my least favorite yard chore bar none. Give me brambles, tree pruning or dog poop duty any day. Just please…not the raking.
***Quiet is an arguable term. By my calculations, Rumble in the Brambles 2016 was interrupted 4x for potty breaks, 3x for snackus interruptus, and 15x for sandbox conflict resolution.
**** It’s entirely possible that this is the culmination of our generation having watched The Breakfast Club WAY, WAY too many times.
The best part was that there was a small part of you that actually believed that if you merely wished hard enough – you *would* get that double breasted trench coat you were coveting so hard. (What can I say? Even six year old Maggie could get on board with fashionable work wear.) Well, as is the usual course of these things, young Maggie quickly discovered that things don’t typically work that way. In fact, it became obvious very early on that, while I have always lived a very lucky life in general, luck was never one of those things that I was actually lucky about. This is a nice albeit slightly convoluted way of saying: I never win anything.
Maggie Walcott Writes 