The Eye of the Beholder

Due to an unfortunate playpen accident when I was an infant, I have the ugliest baby toe in America.

No, I'm serious.

It's repulsive.

Really.

You do not want to see this.



Okay, if you just have to.





You were warned.

So today, I'm having a picnic with the four-year-olds I teach. In the chaos of the moment, I forgot about my hideous appendage and kicked off my shoes in the grass. And that's when something truly amazing happened.

I felt someone caressing The Toe.

I looked down and saw that the hand touching my repugnant growth was one that belonged to my little Hispanic student. We'll call her Maria. Although Maria started the year speaking exclusively Spanish, her English is now nearly perfect.

And it was in that perfect English that she said words I never dreamed I'd hear, "You toe ees so preetty."

She was stroking my freshly painted toenail, a shiny sliver of salmon glistening atop my meaty, red pork chop. But she didn't see what I see. All she saw was the shimmering preety pink.

Why can't we all be four?

About Face

I sat for a long time this morning, considering the face in the mirror, surveying the damage like a landlord deciding whether or not to return the security deposit. When did all these spots get here? Brown and red, small and not so small. And lines. Long ones between the brows from years of reading with expression, small ones framing the lips from hours of shushing noisy children. Above the face, errant grays, below it, gathering jowls. I see my mother. Oh Sweet Jesus, right there, on the left cheek, my Grandmother.

Happy birthday?

Some people are gracious about aging, mature, grown up. They see their wrinkles as the reward of years of laughter and love. Their spots and splotches are badges of honor from time well spent.

I'm not one of those people. I just see middle-age. And I liked youth better.

I am 46 today. I can almost feel myself cresting the peak, beginning the steady descent. Let's just hope Frank Sinatra was right—the best is yet to come.

As I scrutinize this tired face, my son's voice intrudes on my self-pity. He is laughing and chattering like only children do. Beyond him, the familiar sounds of my husband, fixing lunches and pouring egg nog into my coffee, just the way I like it.

I'd trade this old face for a young one in a second. But not if it meant returning to a life before them. I may even take a new wrinkle or two, if that's what it took to keep them.



Happy birthday indeed.

It's Not What You Say, It's How You Say It

Another year as summertime nanny to a couple of sweet little boys has come to a close. Because I'm not grown up enough to wait for praise and affirmation to come naturally, sometimes I might give a little gentle nudge, just to assure my fix. So I came right out and asked each of the boys if they'd miss me. (I know, pitiful. Shut up.)

The older boy said what I wanted to hear, but not exactly in the way I wanted to hear it. He said, "Yeah," but his tone was exactly what one might expect if I had asked him if he'd like to tag along on a trip to the fabric store.

The younger boy, though?

"I'm really gonna miss you," I prompted. "You think you might miss me, too?" His little forehead contorted slightly, his big brown eyes brimming with confusion.

"Well yeah," he said. But if you heard his tone, you might think I had just asked if he'd be disappointed if Santa skipped his house this year. While I usually cringe at the duh inflection, this time it was music.

I've always loved those boys equally. It's not right to have favorites. But if you asked me right now if one of them took up just a little more space in my heart, I'd probably answer, "Well yeah."


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Teach Your Children Well

Katie* is a perfectionist, which isn't usually much of a problem, because as luck would have it, Katie is practically perfect. She's the oldest child in my Pre-K classroom, easily ready to move on to Kindergarten where she will spend another in a certain endless progression of years at the top of her class. Her hair, yellow and sleek as corn silk, flows down her back. When she runs, I expect to see a camera crew in hot pursuit, capturing the lustrous beauty for a Baby Breck commercial. Her skin is peachy perfection and her eyes, blue as the sky. Another teacher at my school calls her Jennifer Aniston, but when I tried to find a childhood photo of Jennifer Aniston to give you an idea of Katie's beauty, turns out Jennifer Aniston was no Katie.

I like being employed, so I won't post her actual picture, but this may very well be her sister. The homely one.



Katie's special talent, as if she needs one on top of all her other natural gifts, is art. The spectrum of artistic abilities in my room ranges from mad spastic scribbling to, well, Katie. She has an unusual eye and the intense focus to stick with a project until she reaches the goal she's envisioned. Which brings us to the problem.

Katie is a perfectionist.

When Katie's hands won't produce a perfect replica of what her mind has created, she falls apart. I try to assure her that her work is wonderful and she should feel proud, but she's too busy flogging herself to hear.

This is a picture of her most recent hysteria-provoking failure.



Did I mention this is Pre-K? And this, in case you haven't seen Pre-K work lately, is AWESOME! The butterflies had just emerged in our Science Center, and I'm telling you, she nailed them. She even tried to spell it, in perfectly formed little letters. But when she was finished, she threw the paper on the floor and kicked it, crying hysterically. It wasn't good enough. She wasn't good enough.

I got my Googler warmed up and tried to see if I could find some answers to Katie's problem. Lurking in the text of the very first website, I discovered something I hadn't expected to find: myself. Each of the ten traits they listed had my name neatly typed all over them, from the tendency to be particularly self-critical to the low self-esteem to the oddly paradoxical penchant for procrastination.

It made me wonder: Am I teaching my kids more than I intend? If so, I'm sorry Katie.


*Katie is not her real name. Her real name is much more beautiful and perfectly suited to her.
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A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genes

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Every Wednesday night, I have the privilege of sharing food and wine and conversation and laughter with some of the finest women you could hope to meet. They are smart, funny and beautiful in every way invented. They are doctors, lawyers, stock traders, writers, teachers, mothers. Why they choose to slum with the likes of me I'll never know. But they do, and I spend every Wednesday night counting my lucky stars for them.


Last night, for a change of pace, we decided to branch out and let a boy infiltrate our little Girls' Club. But not just any boy. Dave Eggers.
Dave. Freggin. Eggers.



In case you don't know him, Dave Eggers is a brilliant writer, educator and philanthropist. His first book, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, got him a stone's throw from the Pulitzer. He is the founder of McSweeney's, a quarterly magazine ("which comes out two or three times a year") and independent publishing house in San Francisco. He's also the heart, brain and soul behind 826 Valencia, an amazing free tutoring outreach program for youth in San Francisco's Mission District, which is now spreading across the country. His commitment to education doesn't stop at kids; he is also a valiant knight in shining armor for teachers. He has personally instituted a monthly grant for exceptional teachers in his area and co-wrote Teachers Have It Easy: The Big Sacrifices and Small Salaries of America's Teachers. Also a champion of human rights, Eggers co-founded Voice of Witness, a non-profit series of books that empower victims of contemporary social injustice. He recently co-wrote the film adaptation of Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are and co-wrote (with his wife) the screenplay for the upcoming movie Away We Go, starring John Krasinski. His latest book, What Is the What is the novelized autobiography of one of the Lost Boys of Sudan, Valentino Achak Deng. Not only is Eggers donating all proceeds from this book to aiding the Sudanese in America and Sudan, he has co-founded the Valentino Achak Deng Foundation, which is improving educational opportunities for Sudanese children.


I'm sure Dave would have gladly accepted an invitation to dine with a bunch of fabulous babes like us, but as you can see, he's a very busy (and married) sort of guy. So we took the party to him, and his lecture/book signing at The Clinton School of Public Service. As you can imagine, his presentation was nothing short of riveting. Entertaining. Enlightening. Inspiring. It was the kind of intellectual, soul stirring experience that incites the deepest of thoughts and most cerebral of conversations. Conversations exactly like this:


"Omigod! Did you see how cute he is!?"

"Totally! He is totally hot!"

"Ohh, and those blue eyes! Did you see those blue eyes?"

"Did you know his hair was so curly? I had no idea his hair was so curly!"



swoon . . . .




PS, When you have twenty minutes, watch this. It's the condensed version of what we savored last night . . . minus the baby blues.


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Suck It, Dooce

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Okay, I just peed a little. Don’t tell anybody. But when I checked my blog, as I do obsessively every five minutes occasionally, I noticed that I have SEVEN FOLLOWERS. And I'm pretty sure I only have one mother and one husband, so . . . hot damn. Yes, I realize Dooce has like 17 bazillion followers (and better hair, that bitch), but for me, seven is huge. Like, break-out-the-emergency-hooch-before-lunch huge. I mean, I’ve been slogging away at this thing for a month now and have a grand total of three comments to show for it, two of which I wrote myself under assumed names. Now, I think I might actually hear breathing out there.


You know what this means though, don’t you? Unlike at my house and in my classroom, I’m not just talking to myself anymore. I’m not sure how to feel about this. It’s such a unique sensation for me, my voice making sounds and all. Maybe three parts flattered and seven parts holy fuck. It was sort of comforting in a way to just go about my new little hobby unnoticed. When I said something stupid, there were no witnesses. It was just a little harmless mental masturbation. Now, I suddenly have performance anxiety. What if I can’t get it up? Oh, wait, I’m a girl. Bad analogy.


I just don’t think I like this one little bit. I don’t know who the hell you freaks are, but I think all y’all need a hobby. Or cable.


Go on now. Shoo . . . .

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Posh Spice

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I could be wrong, but sometimes I wonder if sharing a bed with my five-year-old might not be the very best thing for my sex life. Sure, I can make a solid argument for the naughtiness factor of sneaking around to other rooms of the house for the Sexy Time rendezvous. I’m also a big fan of the down-and-dirty, peel-off-your-clothes, sprint-to-the-finish-line while the little guy is playing (audibly) in the neighbors’ yard.* But let’s face it, there are times when I do want to tell him to get a room.

Instead, we did. For one night only, we got a hotel room and hung the No Stinky Five-Year-Olds Allowed sign. And this was not just any room mind you. Non, non mon frère. This time, girlfriend did it up right. This room was at The Capital Hotel, thank you very much. (Pause to allow those of you who have ever met me to return your jaw to its upright and locked position.) Even if you haven’t met me, and therefore don’t know that paying full price for, say, a new pair of socks causes my right eye to twitch uncontrollably, you have to give props to a night at The Capital Hotel. It’s an event. It’s the Kentucky Derby of married sex. Except with more pressure to perform.

That pressure began for us when it dawned on me that my husband hadn’t read my mental agenda. He therefore didn’t understand that since Check In Time was 3:00, Naked In Bed Time was 3:05. Maybe sooner if we scored a room on the ground floor. The word opportunist is so unflattering, so let’s just say I am skilled in the art of maximizing opportunities to their fullest potential. Kay? While it seemed clear beyond requiring verbalization that we would be standing on the curb poised to bolt into the lobby at 2:55, my husband was clueless. Clueless in this case defined as: PREPARING TO BAKE TWO LOAVES OF HOMEMADE BREAD AT 2:30! To quote Dave Barry, I am not making this up. In his tiny little manmind, a nice dinner and then adjourning to the room for a quickie and a movie was peachy. Why push it? (Oh, I don’t know. Why do that whole week in Europe that you paid for when you can just skip Paris and head straight to Rome in a couple days? What the fuck, you seen one old church you seen ‘em all, right?)

Like the big grown-ups we are, we had a mature conversation about expectations and respect and compromise and how much he likes seeing me naked, and we were at the hotel by 3:20. I don’t know if you’re much for omens, but I am. And the first person we met upon arrival was this guy.

Come on, people. Two words and one of them has cock in it? Game on.

There is only one word to describe the room: Classy. But don’t worry, we took care of that in a hurry.

I like to think that no matter what I do, no matter how embarrassing or gauche, somebody somewhere has done it, too. But it’s entirely possible that we were the only guests at The Capital Hotel that night eating Kroger brand sharp cheese and Triscuits, and drinking wine out of cardboard. As my friend Karen always says, I put the ass in class.

Since my mom and pleasegodnot my dad will be reading this, we won’t delve too deeply into the events that occurred next. Suffice it to say Hanky AND Panky showed up for the party, and they brought party favors.

Next stop, dinner at The Capital Bar & Grill. And let me tell you, that vigorous 3 minutes hours of good lovin’ really worked up our appetites. Almost as if he knew I’d make a Kentucky Derby analogy, my husband stepped way outside of his box and ordered a Blackberry Mint Julip. I, predictable as gravity, drew my finger down the price column and ordered whatever aligned with the lowest number. It’s fortunate The Capital doesn’t carry Boone’s Farm. Since the concierge visibly drooled when he recommended the Rib Eye, we both eagerly took his advice there, but not until after we shared a couple of yummy appetizers.

Everything, ambiance and conversation included, was perfect.

But just as the sun set, our perfect romantic evening turned strangely, mysteriously . . . uncomfortable. A little jazz trio started to jam, and that was nice. I ordered dessert, chocolate with a little extra chocolate on top, and that, of course, was nice, too. I even treated myself to a couple cups of coffee, a downright reckless act of abandon past nine at night. But nice as it all should have been, it wasn’t. It was such a precious rare event for us to be out on a date, especially with a live jazz cherry on top. My husband has made us drive across state lines to pay good money for jazz, and here it was delivered free to our doorstep. I so wanted to be happy there. I tried to be, really I did. But it just wasn’t going to happen. And I couldn’t quite put my finger on why.

The crowd continued to stream in. Loud. Happy. Drunk. Rich. I was Lily Tomlin in The Incredible Shrinking Woman, and the chemical combination making me shrink was wealth mixed with alcohol splashed liberally all over my low self-esteem. I would talk more about my perverse aversion to rich people, but you might be one of them, and I want you to like me.

I kept observing the crowd, and myself as a part of it. How was it that we were all sharing the same environment, but such drastically different experiences? It worried me that here we were in a perfectly romantic venue, where every swinging dick in the place was manic with joy, and I was bored. I was anxious. I was itching to get the fuck out of Dodge. Like, poison ivy itching. Could I not enjoy one night out on the town with my own husband? That’s a scary thought.

So we left. And by the time the elevator doors slid open on our floor, my itch was cured. The fear that my marriage was doomed because I couldn’t enjoy one solid night alone in my husband’s company high-tailed it out the emergency exit and down the fire escape. Instantly, I realized it was never his company I was uncomfortable in, it was theirs. Who invited them, anyway?

We spent the rest of the weekend alone in our room, curled up in each others' arms in our five-year-old-free bed. In the morning, I steeped for a good long time in a luxurious bubble bath. The tub was deep and decadent, marble and porcelain, surely made with rich people in mind. It did feel great, for an hour or so. But truth be told, it was a little too big for me. A little more than I need.

I hadn’t missed my five-year-old once the entire time we were at The Capital. Maybe being somewhere so foreign helped me not crave the part of my life that is most familiar. It took getting into my car to make me suddenly hungry to have him back. I can’t tell you how good it felt to get to him, and to get home. I admit I did worry for about a minute that our bed at The Capital would be an impossible act to follow, what with our mismatched pillowcases and thread count about as high as my IQ. But all the goose down and Egyptian cotton in the world’s got nothing on this.

*Thanks, Catherine.
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