I thought it said "Annoying Know It Alls"

Today I've got a guest post on SMARTS Magazine, an online magazine for "Aspiring Know It Alls" who share  nuggets of wisdom about their particular arena of expertise, be it fashion and beauty or cooking or health matters. So what's my particular piece of the pie?

Failure. How proud my parents must be.

Specifically, it's about how being a failure at a big project was actually a good lesson for my kids, in disguise. I hope you'll click through to Failing By Example and leave a comment there if you liked it.

As for the Aspiring part of the tagline, you can just ask my siblings and husband...I achieved "Know It All" status YEARS ago.

Give Working Moms a Break

A few months ago I attended a conference for women in publishing and during one panel discussion, the audience - 90% female - sat rapt listening to Kara Swisher talk about how she gave birth while holding a BlackBerry in one hand. For those not  familiar with Kara, she used to write about the online technology business in the Wall Street Journal and now is a partner in AllThingsD.com, a go-to website for coverage and analysis of what's happening in the digital world. She is whip smart, funny, and no bullshit - if you've never seen her 2010 evisceration of interview with Mark Zuckerberg about Facebook's privacy issues, it's worth a look. 

So when Kara talked about how offended she was when, upon arriving back to the office after giving birth to her first child, her boss offered her extra time and flexibility to complete her assignments, I believed her. "What did I need extra time for?" she roared, clearly insulted at the insinuation that motherhood had changed her ability to do her job.

From across the conference room, a petite young woman stood up and made an observation, one that I would wager 75% of us in the room shared. "That's really great that you didn't need extra time. But me? I needed extra flexibility after I had my kids. And I think we need to talk more about the root cause of why there aren't more women in upper level management positions," the absence of public policy that would support the efforts of women to be good mothers and good workers at the same time.

The woman was Katrina Alcorn, who writes the terrific WorkingMomsBreak.com blog. It seeks to shine a light on all the ways that public policy is stacked against success for families with two working parents, and to open up conversations about how to improve the state of play. Having admired a woman who wasn't afraid to offer an opposing (and, given the room, somewhat un-PC)  counterpoint to Kara, I was thrilled when a mutual friend introduced us, and even more so when Katrina invited me to guest post on her blog.

Of course, I have unique qualifications: when it comes to being a working mother, I can say with confidence that I have tried every arrangement that exists. Full time, part time, work at home, work for myself, and of course, temporarily unemployed. That last state came thanks to what my old colleague Matt referred to as "The Ritualistic Shitcanning of 2000," when 300 of us were laid off by my Dot Bomb employer - though I was the only one who was nine months pregnant.

I hope you'll click through and check out my post on WorkingMomsBreak today, about how some days working "part time" just makes me feel like I'm doing two jobs badly. But hey, at least it's by choice.

I'm a bona fide Scary Mommy

One of my most vivid childhood memories was being awoken in the early hours one morning by my dad, who was rummaging around under my pillow for the tooth I'd placed there the night before and leaving two shiny quarters in its place. When I arrived at the breakfast table, indignant, I said, "DAD! I know you are the Tooth Fairy! You woke me up!"

To which he answered, "Me? I was just making change."

Lies, lies, lies, yeah - it's not just a song by the Thompson Twins but a bona fide parenting technique (used judiciously, of course) for keeping a kid happy. So imagine how thrilled I was when Jill at ScaryMommy.com - motto: "An honest take on motherhood" -  invited me to guest post on her site today, about the four lies I tell my kids to keep the peace. 

Just to give you some context: ScaryMommy.com is the site where I go when I want to dream big about being a blogger with a capital B. She has serious cred, in part because she's a great writer, in part because she bends over backwards to build community with her readers, and in part because she may have the best blog name out there. It's an honor and thrill to be part of the ScaryMommySociety today so I hope you'll click through here and take a look! (Except for you, my two darling daughters. If you figure out what the four lies are, I'm sunk.)  

The Price of Silence

My daughter and her friend from elementary school attend different middle schools, but they’ve sustained a close friendship in part, I think, due to our Monday homework club. Every Monday, Rachel rides the city bus to our house so that the two girls can spend 90 minutes complaining to each other about their school workload, wheedling me for sweets, and talking in voices low enough so I can’t hear even if I place a cup against the wall to listen, not that I would ever stoop to that. Loud giggling is their regular soundtrack.

And every Monday, without fail, I greet Rachel at the door with, “I am so sorry I look like this. I intended to shower today before you came, really I did.”

“Like this” means: black sweatpants spattered in mud, a shapeless grey sweatshirt with either Penn (my alma mater) or Wisconsin (husband’s) printed on the front, my hair puffy where it should be flat and flat where it should be puffy. The only trace of makeup on my face is some sparkly pink mango flavored lip gloss from a cupcake-shaped container that I excavated from the well of the car while waiting to pick the kids up from school.

Mondays are hard.

I’m not going to insult you by pretending that I bound out of bed Monday mornings and head to the shower to get ready for my day. I stay in bed until the last possible second that will still leave me time to read my beloved print newspaper from front to back before it’s time to wake up the kids. Besides, my husband actually leaves the house to go to work in an office, where other people are. He gets priority access to the bathroom.

So I pull on the black sweats and sweatshirt and make a mental note to walk the dog at 10, giving me plenty of time to shower before I have to pick the kids up at 3:00.

At 10, the dog is snoring contentedly so I figure I’ll just keep plowing away on my to-do list, answering emails, researching stories, calling sources. I can still fit in a shower if I leave by 11.

At noon I realize the dog is holding his legs together and groaning, so we head off for the hills for a hike. It’s been raining non-stop all winter, and Achilles’ default gait is “hurtle.” So as soon as we step off the street and onto the trail head, he zigs this way and zags that way through muddy glop until I have spots of mud all over my legs, on my glasses, and sometimes my hair. Inevitably we meet a dog named Sierra or Bailey or Lucy whose owner says, “Sorry! My dog jumps!” just as the pooch leaps up and lays two muddy paws on my midsection, right under the “P” and the first “N” or the “W” and “S.”

Coming through the front door I think, ok, do NOT go check email before you get in the shower, you’re never going to have time to…oh hey! That guy I wanted to quote in the feature I’m writing finally got back to me, better respond right away. And I meant to send a query letter to another publication and they’re on the East Coast, so I should probably get that taken care of before they leave for the day. The phone rings, and it’s my friend who is adopting a baby. A metallic buzz from the laundry room startles me; I have to get the ballet clothes into the wash if they’re going to be clean for the kids’ rehearsal this week.

It’s 2:49 and I still have mudprints on my midsection. I jump into the car and race to pick up my youngest child, remembering that I need to drop off copies of the yearbook order form for the teachers to jam into backpacks. I will have to walk through school looking like Dawn of the Dead, but it’s not like they haven’t seen that in the halls of suburban education before. Once that’s done, I have only enough time to pick up the other child and race home to await Rachel’s arrival for homework club, and ponder why once again, Monday has gotten away from me.

I make my apologies to Rachel in the front hall as she unhoists her giant backpack. I make a silent pledge that I'll at least get a shower in before Andrew gets home from work, maybe just as soon as I finish up the 15 work emails that came in while I was out driving carpool.(After 19 years together, is it naive to hope that the sight of me wearing his mud-stained college sweatshirt and what looks like a fright wig is still a turn-on?)

“It’s ok, Nancy,” she says, a wry smile on her freckled face. "Can I have a Jolly Rancher?"

I think this is why Homework Club has always worked so well; for the price of a piece of hard candy, Rachel always keeps her opinion to herself.

Finding Fearlessness

Every winter I interview high school seniors who are applying for acceptance to the Freshman class at my East Coast alma mater. The kids I meet are mature, accomplished (I have to tell you, if you haven’t built an orphanage in South America, you could probably qualify as a minority student,) and whip-smart. I genuinely enjoy getting to know what motivates these young people, and then doing my best to boil those discussions into four persuasive paragraphs for the Admissions Office. I try to find something about the kid that is noteworthy, that will make them rise above the sea of 4.1 GPAs and school newspaper editors and student body presidents.

This year I met a young man who was, by his own description, swimming in a somewhat murkier end of the pool. Without giving specifics, he faced some learning disabilities that make it difficult to thrive in a traditional academic environment and his grades have suffered as a result. Frustrated at the labels being applied to their son in elementary school, his parents suggested that computers might help him cope. Of course he turned out to be a whack-a-dooey computer genius.

At 17, his high school principal has given him budgetary and management oversight for a major school computer initiative, and he is also busy at the helm a high-tech startup. He recently went with his two co-founders – if you add up all their ages, they don’t quite equal 60 – to meet with VCs and ended up gaining an entire advisory board of interested graybeards.

None of that was what impressed me – I’m jaded after all these college interviews with superstars. You wrote a bestselling novel? WhatEVER. Is it in French?

What made him stand out was his utter fearlessness. “I told my co-founders that there is simply no way we can fail,” he said. “Everything we’ve done – figured out what the product is, wrote the business plan, got the meetings with the VC – even if we don’t get one step farther, we’ve still succeeded. Because we’ve learned something each step of the way. I told them that they should be so proud of what we’ve done just to get this far.” Here's a kid who is not discouraged by the fact that his school grades and SAT scores don't properly reflect his promise. He understands that lessons learned in the process are as important as the outcome, and embraces every moment of it. 

I have been thinking about his fearlessness – and why my own is so hard to coax out of hibernation.

Of course, once you get older and have a family depending on you, the notion of trying something risky without a net loses a great degree of appeal. I’d go live in a cave and eat beans from a can if it meant better writing, but I’ll be damned if my husband and kids have to suffer.

But even when the stakes are lower, I take the sure shot too easily. Apply to speak at a conference when I haven’t done public speaking for a few years? Not unless I’m forced to. Submit an essay to a magazine that draws household-name authors to its pages? Sorry, I’m not in that league yet (and at this rate never will be.) Respond to the "Room of Your Own" challenge and offer to organize a panel for the upcoming BlogHer conference? Maybe I should spend my first-ever trip to the conference by just observing. 


I spent a college semester in Vienna. When I returned for my senior year and people asked what I would do after graduation, I told everyone with complete sincerity, “I’m getting a job in Germany.” I hadn’t applied for any, and as my classmates got snapped up by the Manny Hannys and the Solly Bros (it was the '80s, it was business school, and we were all on a nickname basis with the big banks,) I just bided my time and entertained not a single shred of self doubt.

A month before graduation, a tiny German company came to campus, and three weeks after wearing my mortarboard I headed off to Munich to spend two years as an IT consultant. It never occurred to me that I wouldn't move to Germany.

So how, when, and why did I relinquish that faith in myself? And what would you do today, if you weren't afraid to fail?

Haste Makes Redfaced

The English language is rife with aphorisms that warn against the dangers of rushing. Slow and steady wins the race, look before you leap, measure twice and cut once. Hurrying is how you neglect to see that red t-shirt sneak into the laundry with the load of whites, or get two thirds of the way through a recipe before realizing you are missing four key ingredients needed to finish it, or speed to the school pickup before remembering that your kid is going home with a friend that day. Unfortunately, "rushing" is also the default speed at which I seem to live my life.

We had a busy fall. The girls moved up a level and are taking ballet twice a week, and the older daughter embarked on a nine-month long confirmation program at church. The husband is working long hours, and I bit the bullet and took a 12 week writing class that involved a bunch of homework, on top of my regular work. For about three months there I was living my life in 15 minute increments, happy if we were all where we needed to be at the appointed time and fighting off a little bit of panic every day. Reasoned consideration was in short supply.

In December I was in London and saw a poster that resonated with me. It was produced by the British government during the Blitz and hung all over the city of London during the war, an admonition and comfort to the British people. On a bright pinky-red background topped with a crown, white block letters spell out “Keep Calm and Carry On.”  

That’s it, I thought. I need that poster across from my desk so I can remember to slow down, not give in to the false allure of doing things faster. More important to do things well than to do them quickly. When I got home, I ordered it from the Imperial War Museum web site, paying three times as much for shipping as I did for the actual poster and resigning myself to wait for the month it would take to arrive. It’s worth it to have something so unique, I thought.

My new philosophy in mind, I felt smug when I decided to take all the VHS cassettes that hold our family movies and drop them off to the photo store, to be converted to DvD. Our VHS player died years ago and now exists only to hold up a sheen of dust, and I’ve been meaning to get these converted forever. I was finally going to do it right and cross it off my list.

I scooped up the whole pile of tapes from the cabinet where we’d always kept the family movies, back in the Pleistocene Era when the VHS player worked. At $25 per tape it wasn’t going to be cheap, but how else would we ever watch them? After I dropped them off I even had enough time to get a cup of coffee and do some writing. Carrying on!

Fast forward to me picking up a big bag of tapes, each one fastened with a rubber band to its new DvD twin, and the labels from the VHS tapes carefully reproduced on the covers of the DvDs. The girls and I laid them out on the table: 1999/Camp Gorham; Christmas 2000, San Diego.

But what’s this? Cool Runnings? Isn’t that the Disney movie about the Jamaican bobsled team? Holy Mother Mary, did I record that on a VHS tape and leave it with the family movies, and then pay $25 to have my non-HD, hoopty version of the movie, complete with commercials, converted to DVD? In case you’re interested, yes I did. Also, you can buy a Cool Runnings DVD new from Amazon for $11.49.

There was one other video that was mysterious, labeled “Dr. Video.” Hmmm. Did I maybe take the camera with me to one of the girls’ checkups? Maybe it’s a sonogram? The VHS cassette was no help, completely barren of labels. After we got through watching an excruciatingly plotless movie which consisted entirely of scenes of our older daughter opening every gift she was given that year, we slipped Dr. Video in the DvD player.

A grey circle appears on screen. Looks a little like an artery. A man’s voice starts narrating. “Ok, we are standing at the front curb filming towards the house,“ he says. "The line proceeds in a northerly direction."

That circular grey shape is no artery. It’s the sewer line at our old house, the time we hired someone to do a fiber optic inspection to determine if it needed work. Yes. Because I didn't take the time to actually figure out what was on all the videos I was dropping off, I paid another $25 to convert an inspection of the poop pipe of a house in which we no longer live to DvD. Would you like to borrow it? I’m charging $1 per day, until I earn $25 back.

Right after sent in my order for my Keep Calm poster, we got a sales circular from Cost Plus. On the cover it featured the exact poster, mounted on canvas and framed, for about half of what I paid. A day later I saw it again, different store, different frame, same low price. A friend of mine said, “Yeah, you were so excited about your poster I didn’t have the heart to tell you that you can pretty much find them anywhere if you take the time to look.”

Keeping Calm. Carrying On.

The Other Woman Has Two Wheels

Because I'm very busy this week laying around on the couch while I try to keep cookie crumbs and wine stains out of the pages of the books I'm reading, I'm going to reprint an oldie but (hopefully) a goodie - one of the first essays I ever had published. This piece first appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle on Feb 25 2006 and is responsible for my delusion that I have something compelling to say in print. Wishing you all a relaxing week and, as they say in Germany, a good push into the New Year!

My husband has a French mistress, and she is a beauty to behold -- a Look 585 road bike. Silver and black and weighing only 16 pounds, she was built for speed in a way I never will be. 

Andrew's affection for her is evident whenever he recounts, misty-eyed, their adventures on his Saturday group ride, and he is forever shopping for little gifts -- new tires, a jersey for himself that complements her coloring -- to show her how much he cares. 

It wasn't always this way. When we met in graduate school in Arizona he was strictly a recreational cyclist and a noncommitted one at that -- when his mountain bike was stolen from his apartment balcony, he expressed remorse but quickly moved on. 

Once we were married he began the drift into road biking, and I was an unwitting accomplice. When he took me to see my first professional road race in Philadelphia, I was captivated by the spectacle of these graceful athletes and their gleaming cycles. Soon I, too, was reading pro cycling magazines and watching the Tour de France while Andrew explained tactics and strategies to me. But his relationship with biking was still strictly platonic back then. 

Eight years ago we moved to the Bay Area, and that's when things got serious. With temperate weather year-round and access to some of the country's best bike routes right out our front door, he was able to indulge in his passion with new fervor. He joined a group of like-minded cyclists who have formed a support system for their biking co- dependencies. They're a competitive bunch, jealously commenting on one another's bike components and merciless when it comes to flat tires, winter flab or poor road handling. This crew has been on high e-mail alert for the past month, plotting optimal viewing spots for the Amgen Tour of California, the 700-mile race that concludes Sunday and saw some of cycling's superstars ride the same roads that the group follows every week. 

Taking care of Andrew's bikes -- the Look and her predecessor, a Belgian Ridley relegated to "rain bike" status when she arrived -- requires a phalanx of specialists. My husband spends a lot of off-bike hours perusing catalogs and visiting bike shops, searching for just the right component, tire or winter bibs. Walking into a local bike shop with him is akin to walking into Cheers with Norm. "ANDREW!" comes the cry from the bike mechanics and other shoppers. 

At one point I succumbed to the "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" mentality. It was mostly a punitive decision, made one sunny Saturday when Andrew pulled up a few minutes late from his five-hour ride. "I'm going to buy myself a bike, back in an hour," I screeched through clenched teeth as I gunned out of the driveway. It was the only way I could think of to make him understand my jealousy over the time and money he spent on Mlle. Look. 

I went to one of his favorite bike shops and uttered the words its owner longed to hear: "I want a bike, shoes, helmet and riding kit, and money is no object." They set me up with a beautiful rig and the latest-model helmet and riding shoes. My husband's jaw dropped when he saw my purchases. 

But then I had to ride the damned thing. The last time I'd sat on a bike was 15 years earlier when I lived in Germany, tooling around Munich's wide, flat bike paths on a rickety three-speed that I'd bought at a hardware store. My idea of a biking challenge back then was to ride all the way from one Biergarten to the next without sliding drunkenly off the seat. 

But where we live in the Oakland hills, a simple bike ride out the front door involves either a harrowing drop or a thigh- busting grind uphill. After a few months I'd progressed enough to take a one-hour ride and come back exhilarated -- but most of my elation came from surviving the hills and the traffic, not from having any fun the ride. When the winter rains came I put the bike away, and when spring returned, I kept finding reasons not to get on again. By July I was still giving the bike wide berth, and I had to face the facts; I just didn't love my bike, and it was time to end the relationship. 

So I put an ad on Craigslist and within a week was handing over the bike, helmet and all, to a buyer who lives out in the suburban flatlands east of Oakland. My flirtation with cycling was over. 

I do recognize all the good things that Mlle. Look brings to my relationship with my husband. He never goes out carousing at night for fear of showing weakness to his riding group. During the month of July I can count on him to be available to watch our kids anytime because he doesn't leave the house if Versus is showing anything related to Lance Armstrong. When he gets a good ride in, he shows his gratitude to me in a number of pleasing ways including, but not limited to, yard work. (Did I mention that his physique is as good as or better than when we met?) 

In the end, I found a way to make peace with Mlle. Look. Meet Mr. Toshiba. He's got a 17-inch screen, wireless access, excellent graphics and loves the caress of my typing fingers. With him I can pour out the stories that I've been meaning to write all these years, bringing me a level of satisfaction and accomplishment that is, I imagine, like completing a tough Saturday ride. 

He's the perfect companion for when Andrew's out with his French mistress, and has added the balance we need to keep our marriage rolling along.

Friday's Music Moment: In the Neighborhood by Tom Waits

Back in the early nineties my husband and I lived in Georgetown, in Washington, DC. We had a regular Saturday morning routine: walk through the geometrically spaced streets towards the Potomac River for a big breakfast bagel at Booeymongers, then a quick stop next door to Burton Opticians. 

Its shopkeeper and namesake, Virgina Burton, was a dark-haired Texan with the gift of perfect taste. She could look at a whole wall full of eyeglass frames and find the one pair that was made for your skin tone, your face shape, your eye color, and your astrological sign. Plus, she pronounced Turquoise "turkwaaahs" which I found endearing. Soon the husband and I each had a selection of frames to choose from when we got dressed every day (this was before parenthood bankrupted us.) For every five referrals we sent to Virginia - and people always noticed our frames because Virginia made sure they were perfect - she'd sell us frames for half price, so it soon became a self-sustaining practice. I think I still have some Burton Opticians cards in one of my purses, to hand out just in case.

Once my best friend came to visit for the weekend. She still tells the story of how we took her out for her breakfast bagel and then popped in to introduce her to Virginia. As soon as we opened the door of the shop, Virginia yelled, "Oh, the Khos! I'm so glad you're here. I just got some frames you are going to love - they are SO EXPENSIVE!" 

If it was strange to shop at the same eyeglass frame store every single week of the first term of the Clinton presidency, it never felt that way to us. Virginia was a friend who happened to own a funky, one-of-a-kind store in our neighborhood and who knew us well enough to make informed suggestions.

A couple of years ago I wrote an essay that appeared in the SFChron about the importance of shopping locally during the holidays, to help keep our neighborhood businesses afloat. When I wrote it the recession was in its infancy. I had no idea how hard it would get, assumed it would be a bump in the road, six months maybe of bad news before things turned around.

Two years on and small businesses are still struggling I read in the news that the recession is over, but I'm having a hard time matching that up to anecdotal evidence.

I wrote a few weeks ago about my shopping aversion - I should have been more specific about it being MALL shopping aversion. No longer in Georgetown, now I look forward to visiting the local shops (and their owners) that give character to my corner of the Bay Area: Chris at Eden Bicycles, Kathleen at Great Good Place for Books, Nathan at Nathan and Co., Jennifer at Someone's in the Kitchen. Maybe because it doesn't really feel like shopping, though in the course of the conversation they inevitably have a suggestion for something I'll love (or in Chris' case, that the husband will love.) I feel good about the money that changes hands, knowing that it helps my friends earn their living, and that more of the money will stay in my community - $68 of every $100 spent locally vs. $43 of every $100 spent in chain stores, according to one study.

I don't think anyone sings a more appealing dirge than Tom Waits, and this one's a beauty. Here the Gravel Voiced King shares a cautionary tale of an apocalyptic future, one about a neighborhood where "the kids can't get ice cream 'cause the market burned down and the newspaper sleeping bags blow down the lane." The video quality isn't great, and when I found a lovely high def version of Peter Gabriel covering the song I was tempted to use it. But when you want Tom Waits, there's really no substitution.

How's about this weekend consider doing your holiday shopping locally and keeping those newspaper sleeping bags at bay for another day?

Resiliency in Wonderland

Whenever I go back to visit my parents in the upstate New York city where I spent the first eighteen years of my life, I spend some time driving myself around to the landmarks that orient me: my Aunt Noonie’s house, Bagel Land, and Wegman's grocery store. It’s there where I invariably run into old friends from high school, now inexplicably middle-aged and in the company of spouses and kids.

One day I came home and said to my mom, “Hey, I saw Andrea Jordan at the Weggies on East Avenue.”

To which my mother, one of the sweetest and loving women on the planet, said, “Andrea Jordan. That little bizm.”

To hear my mother utter an old school Yorkshire profanity learned at her mother's knee – well, suffice it to say I’ve changed my classmate's real name to protect her innocence.

“What’s wrong with Andrea Jordan?” I asked, curious to see if my 75 year old mother and 43 year old classmate had somehow been mixing it up on the mean streets of suburbia.

Now it was my mother’s turn to be incredulous. “You don’t remember? How in 4th grade she made a big deal about getting all the girls to weigh themselves and it was a trick so she could find out how much you weighed and then tease you about it? Oh, I could have knocked her block off.”

Again, shock. I was a fat kid?

“I have virtually no recollection of that incident, Mom,” I said slowly, racking my memory. “When I think of Andrea, all I can remember is that she once let me ride her bike, and that was the first time I ever rode without training wheels.”

“Well," said my mom, still smarting over the dirt done her daughter 35 years earlier."I give her a wide berth.”

At the time I thought it was cute, a show of loyalty, a little crazy. But recently there was an incident that let me feel my mother’s pain.

My two daughters and I had traveled to the East Coast for a short visit with my parents. We were scheduled to fly home on a Sunday morning. That was important, because Monday after school my youngest daughter’s school drama program was holding auditions for a production of “Alice in Wonderland.”

This nine year old girl loves every tiny aspect of performing, so much so that when she’s not rehearsing a play she’s writing them and casting her sister, dog, parents, and friends. During our visit she gave her grandma a private acting class called "How to Pretend to Eat Fake Fruit." Performing is her joy, and that’s why I tear up when I see her onstage – not necessarily because she’s a gifted actress, but because it illuminates her from inside.

Accordingly, she had been preparing for the Alice audition for weeks, memorizing songs and lines, reading the Lewis Carroll books, and choreographing steps to an original dance (which, à la Palin, she planned to record on the palm of her hand in case she ran into any trouble.) She was going for the main prize – the big A.

Only she didn’t get to audition. Our flights were cancelled by bad weather in Chicago, two days straight. We emailed the theater’s director, a young man who responded kindly and said “Shouldn’t be a problem in this advanced technological age. Just videotape her audition and upload it to YouTube. Or you could Skype it.”

When my dad wants to pick up email, he unplugs the wall phone. Then he walks the cord over to his laptop, and the only computer in North America still reliant on dial-up groans to life. Ninety minutes later, Dad’s seven emails are finally in his inbox.

So no, we couldn’t employ any technological trickery and when we finally got home, the die was cast and the cast list was posted. Our girl got the part of “Lily,” who has three lines, one of which is “I know, right?” My daughter whispered to me, bewildered, “That’s the part they give kids who are too afraid to audition!”

Her shattered face, her sob of “I just wanted a fair shot!” the balled-up Alice in Wonderland costume she’d carefully laid out on the floor before the trip and her sniffled request: “Mommy, can you please take this away?" Each was a dagger wound to my heart.

The rational parent in me talked about rising above life’s unfairness, making lemons from lemonade, no small parts, only small actors. I gave thanks for a husband who actually meant those things when he said them to her, and the compassionate friend who showed up that evening with a bouquet of lilies.

The feral lioness in me wanted to reach out and smite United Airlines, the tiny regional airport with only three flights a day, AOL, and for good measure, absurdist children’s novelists of the late 19th century. When I went to bed that night, a burning ember of anguish pressed down on my chest so hard, I couldn’t even cry. I just lay there, catatonic, and wondering how to help my child get past the same pain.

The next day one of my daughter’s friends was scheduled to come over after school – the little girl who had been cast as Alice. I pulled up in the traffic circle at the end of the school day and there stood the girls, looking like giant accessorized rainbow turtles with their stuffed backpacks studded with dangly keychains. They tumbled into the car mid-discussion.

“He's going to be so funny as the Caterpillar.”

“Let’s practice Zip A Dee Doo Dah first.”

“What color should Mari’s costume be?”

Minutes later they were sitting at the kitchen table, heads pressed together over a single script, performing their own version of a table read. The other little girl sighed and said, “Lily is such a cool part. You’re lucky.” To which my daughter responded, “Don't worry. You’re going to be an awesome Alice.”

My kid quickly put it behind her and moved on. As for me, I will be able to recall the flight number that was supposed to take us home in time for the audition, even when I'm my mother's age.

But not out of regret or bitterness. I’ll remember the audition debacle of 2010 for the same reason my mom remembers Andrea Jordan and her underhanded tricks – out of a sense of wonder and gratitude that the children we bore were strong enough to overcome them, even if we weren’t.

Normal? Malarkey.

Welcome to the new and improved blog. But first, I have a confession to make: I have no schtick.

I grew up in a middle class family in Upstate New York with parents who are still married and two siblings, and we all still talk to each other. I've been happily married to the same guy since '92, and our two daughters fill us with soul-restoring grace when they are not causing us to pull out our hair. My dog is too spunky by about 50%, I worry about the bills, I look forward to cocktail hour, I could stand to lose five pounds. I believe we're put on earth to help take care of each other and it, but if you've got a good piece of chisme for me, I'm all ears.

In short, there's no crazy dysfunction that would make you want to stop and look at my train wreck, just the normal mix of motivations and opinions that define a standard-issue human.

On the other hand, I'm well aware that my normal may well equal your strange. You say you don't still vacation at the summer camp where you attended as a child and actually look forward to square dances and bug juice? You haven't baked cookies for a musician you love, figuring it was more dignified that throwing panties at the stage? You don't sometimes drop '80s hip-hop lyrics into casual conversation, just to see if the other person is listening?

Oh. Really? None of you? Awkward for me, then.

Guess it just proves my point, that the idea of a single definition of "normal" is just malarkey. Cell phone use in a symphony hall, pitching coaches for 8 year olds, someone getting laid off with no severance after 17 years with his employer…the new normal is the old nutty, to me. Thank goodness for friends who react by saying, "Are you and I the only ones who aren't crazy?"

With this blog I'm hoping to make that circle of friends a bit bigger and, let's face it, test my theory that there are still people out there with both common sense AND a sense of the absurd. I'll write about what makes me cringe, what makes me laugh, and what makes me cry (a lot, thanks to motherhood, the Olympics, and Band of Brothers - full of Malarkey.)

I figure if half of you are laughing WITH me and the other half AT me, we're all still laughing. I look forward to finding out which side you're on.

How I Spent My Summer Vacation

It's the first week of September, and I'm spending it the same way I do every year: airing out sleeping bags, wondering how many trips through the washer will be required to turn my socks from grey to white, smacking my boots together over the back fence to shake off the horse crap, and wishing the ibuprofen would kick in for my aching arms and back. It occurs to me that we spend an awful lot of money, time, and effort to travel on an Adirondack vacation each August in order to come home feeling like we've just survived minor combat.

I should perhaps preface this with a disclaimer. I've been advised that the sequel to the 1980's bestselling book, "The Preppy Handbook" recently came out and it names the Adirondack Mountains as one of the preppiest places in which to own a second home. And we do see the trust fund set while we're up there, thanks to an annual dinner invitation from an old family friend who is a member of the Adirondack League Club. 

The Club is a collection of Adirondack camp owners with names like Harrison and Blythe who like to get together for a weekly summer cookout, sitting at rough-hewn tables where they are served barbecued ribs and stiff drinks. They're a friendly folk, asking questions like "Where are your people from?" and "How can you stand living in Oakland?" and "I have friends who belong to the Bohemian Grove, do you know it?"

To be clear from the get-go, my family's Adirondacks is not that Adirondacks. We don't even own the cabin, though we consider it ours.

Laurel Cabin sits on the edge of Darts Lake, both of which are on the grounds of a summer camp run by the Rochester YMCA. During the summer months, the camp hosts children ages 7-16, teaching them throwback skills like archery, fort building, and horse riding. In winter the camp is used by snowshoers and cross country skiers, who revel in the muffling snow that covers the corral, the lake dock, and the tennis courts.

But the last week of the summer, the families arrive. For seven days the camp becomes our playground, with meals served at the Mess Hall, staffers overseeing our kids as they scale the rock climbing wall or dip lumpy wax candles or cannonball off the water trampoline. The adults tend to regress a bit too, slipping on the water skis or striding confidently towards the High Ropes course, brushing off last year's memories of strained muscles and torn tendons. Hence my sore arms and back: either they lengthened the lake, or two loops on water-skis feels a lot different to a forty-four year old than it does to an eleven year old.

Even in the years that we have a "good" chef, the food tends to resemble the opening credits of the film Napoleon Dynamite; no one is going there for the high cuisine. Fashion is confined to fleece, sweats, tshirts, flip flops, and rain slickers. I showed up at dinner one night wearing a belt over my sweater and was stopped six times by people asking why I was so dressed up. 

At Family Camp, evening activities run the nostalgic gamut from square dancing to bingo to talent night, with pit stops for Scavenger Hunts and bocce tournaments. I've had people say that my stories about camp remind them of the movie Dirty Dancing to which I must quickly say, "Keep the era and the booze, but hold the Swayze, Grey, big band, sex, glamour, and table cloths." My brother likes to say that camp is a place where you can let your freak flag fly; I'd just add that it'll probably be lost in the sea of other freak flags.

My parents first took their three kids to Family Camp in 1968; forty-two years later, there are twenty-two of us who show up for at least part of the week, putting a strain on the cabin's septic system that has earned us our own shrine in the camp maintenance barn. Ranging in age from nine to seventy-something, Laurel's residents include not just the immediate family but second cousins from Canada, sister-in-law's sisters, college roommates, and that bravest of souls: the new boy/girlfriend.

Despite or perhaps enhanced by the Calcutta-like crowding, Family Camp remains the touchstone of our lives, the shared vocabulary that colors our family conversations and influences our choices. Out of perhaps thirty-five families who attend, at least half have been coming since the sixties and seventies, making Family Camp the community with which I have some of my longest and strongest bonds. 

I'm not entirely sure when Family Camp went from being a vacation from our everyday lives to being the anchor for it. I was a kid who took permanency for granted; I never moved in the years between kindergarten and college, and my parents are closing in on their 52nd anniversary. My aunts and uncles and grandparents all lived within a few minutes' drive. I never even cut my hair. Of course we went to camp every August; what else was there?

It was only after I decided, perhaps inevitably, to seek adventure overseas that I began to value the predictability of our summer escape. During the early years of my career I might be in Germany, Hong Kong, or Japan for work, but I was always in Big Moose, New York at the end of August, and so were all the people I loved and needed to feel connected to. They reeled me back in and reassured me I'd always have a place, just like the loons on the lake or the bats diving at twilight. That let me set out again, ready for the next adventure of my life. 

Now that I have children of my own I think this sense of belonging, presented in a setting of natural beauty and physical challenges, is one of the greatest gifts I've given them. Their father is slightly less enamored of the whole "stay with your in-laws in a rustic cabin with bad food" vibe than the girls are, but even he sees the value of a place where our city kids roam with unaccustomed freedom, reporting back in at mealtimes on the horseback rides or hikes that they've taken without us. 

In fact if I reflect on what I want my kids to know, I'd say that I learned 90% of it at camp. Have a sense of humor, be good to the earth, don't be afraid to try something new, appreciate your family, prioritize, and never, ever eat the chicken patties.

Back to school: not just for the kids this fall

Yeah, new blog, new direction, blah blah blah. I was all promises last spring, but haven't quite delivered...which is not to say I haven't been thinking about it. In fact I signed up for a class with Adair Lara for the fall. Adair is one of the doyennes of San Francisco's writing scene and has taught just about everyone I've ever taken a class with, not to mention coached some of my favorite Bay Area authors. So I've been looking forward to the 10-week class all summer, hoping that her expertise in memoir and personal essay will help shed some light on where my writing should be going.

Apropos of that, Adair is making the twelve people in the class WORK - as in five assignments per week turned over to a writing partner, plus 5 weeks in which we have to turn in an extra piece for her to critique. For me, that's a dream - feedback on my writing from someone who isn't me? AWESOME.

It occurred to me that my homework might actually make some good blog fodder. So when it's a fit, I'm going to post it here. Please keep in mind this is pretty unpolished, hot off the presses stuff - but it's better than no stuff at all.

To get things started: we were told to take an everyday event and write instructions for it. This one came to me at (you guessed it) 5:07 this morning. Herewith:

How to Wake Up Early
(revised 9/10/10)

Splurge on a new gas grill. You'll need it, to replace the one that the dog ran into, headfirst, overcome with the joy of spring and the smell of squirrels and the ecstasy of being a dog. It cracked - the grill, not the dog - and has never really worked right since.

Post the old grill for free on Craigslist, and after five people say they'll come and then don't, find a guy who seems like he actually might show up. It's Labor Day and he has meat marinating.

Have a husband who decides to clean the old grill up, even if it is being given away free. He should get a long scraper and work all the nasty, blackened, charcoal -like bits of meat fat off the bottom of the grill into a bent aluminum pan. Have the husband take the pan and overturn the big pile of cancer chips over the back fence. Not the chain link fence that marks the property line, mind you, but the decorative picket fence that separates the flat yard where the kids play from the ivy-choked no man's land that is the dog's territory.

Let the dog out to pee. See him sniff the air, all aquiver, and then race like a bullet shot from a gun to the pile of blackened meat fat. Scream. Wave your arms. Threaten. Promise dog treats. Get no reaction until the dog looks up, half drunk on meat residue, a shard of it hanging from his nose. Drag him into the house.

Repeat two or three times, forgetting about the grill leftovers each time and panicking anew as the dog runs to his now-favorite spot in the yard.

At 5:07 the next morning, you will be woken up by the dulcet tones of the dog licking his lips frantically from his spot on his bed in the corner of your room, followed by a diabolical gurgling and gagging. The noise will bring you to your feet and have you fully conscious, grabbing the dog by his hind quarters and propelling him before you out of the bedroom, down the hallway and through the front door in no time at all. Standing in the front yard shivering in your pajamas, your glasses dangling from your ear, as the dog expels his previous day's treats on the lawn, it hits you:

You're awake!

If you think politics are disdainful now...

A couple of months ago my friend Maria of Sweet Thursday fame brought me a book she’d found at the Lafayette Library’s used bookstore. Other Powers: The Age of Suffrage, Spiritualism, and the Scandalous Victoria Woodhull, by Barbara Goldsmith was published in 1998. “I thought this looked like something that might come in handy for Helen Pitts,” she said.

I knew a bit about the stunning Victoria Woodhull, of course – it was she, not Hillary, who was the first female presidential candidate, back in 1872. Without asking him first, and with virtually no hope of garnering a single vote, she named Frederick Douglass as her vice president even though the two had never met.

Helen’s travel diary of their trip to Europe in 1886 mentions Douglass' one and only meeting with Mrs. Woodhull, who was by then living in London as a proper English matron, Mrs. John Biddulph Martin. She came to their London hotel and, not recognizing the name, Helen and Frederick came down to meet her. Helen says only that when they realized who she was, they made polite but quick excuses to get back up to their room, where they probably laughed and did the Victorian equivalent of "OMG! OMG! That was so awkward!"

The 500 page paperback has sat on my nightstand for weeks, one of those “I should probably read it, and therefore I don’t want to” situations. But I threw it in for my North Carolina trip and as everyone in the world knows by now, THAT got extended. So I was able to read the whole thing and I'm telling you: read it.

First of all it's beautifully written and exhaustively researched, and even with a cast of about 800 movers and shakers in the era, from Henry Ward Beecher to Anthony Comstock to Susan B. Anthony to President Grant to my personal favorite, good ol' mom/pimp Roxy Claflin, you never lose track of who's who.

But even more compelling is the picture Goldsmith paints of the scandal and politics that were swirling in an era that modern history as virtuous, can-do, and genuine.

I mean, there were some crazy shenanigans, nay monkeyshines going on. Spirits speaking to Commodore Vanderbilt, swinging ministers, secret triumvirate agreements… and the details Goldsmith weaves about day to day life for women are truly tragic. Didn't matter your class: once you got married, you were kept pregnant and silent and the law protected everyone BUT the mothers and wives. Yet the early women's rights movement just couldn't seem to get out of its own way, and kept eating its own.

As for that vicious Beecher clan, don't get me started.

Anyway - if you're looking for a good meaty and entertaining read that will have you donating to Emily's List by the end, check out Victoria Woodhull and her syphilitic, alcoholic clan.

A Writer's Prayer for Everyone

A friend sent this to me this week and told me it's a writer's prayer, but we agreed that it's actually just a really good recipe for a decent and intentional life:

The thought manifests as the word:
The word manifests as the deed;
The deed develops into habit; and habit hardens into character.
So watch the thought and its ways with care and let it spring from love born out of concern for all beings.
Amen

Mothers of Reinvention

When I turned forty my older sister signed me up for a three year subscription to a magazine aimed at women in the second half of their lives. "Thanks for nothing," I growled when I called her to acknowledge the card telling me of my questionable good fortune."I'm not dead yet!" I added, trying to be heard over the sound of her cackling.

But within two issues I was hooked. I liked that the magazine features fashion that doesn't require thighs of steel or boobs that have never been the midnight subject of an infant’s laser focus. Topics like heart health and wrinkle camouflage are treated like crisis-level phenomenon, and there is little if any page space wasted on quizzes to determine what kind of hottie your dream crush is.

But what I really liked about this magazine was its stories of reinvention - as many in a single issue as you might find on orgasms in Cosmopolitan. In mid-life, reinvention seems to be the ultimate pleasure. There are vignettes of corporate marketing professionals turned B&B owners, doctors leaving hectic hospital schedules behind to open free clinics in the African bush, and empty-nest moms starting successful clothing lines aimed at female golfers.

I found these dramatic stories particularly inspirational when, six months after my fortieth birthday, I stepped off the corporate treadmill I'd been on for fifteen years and hung out my shingle as a freelance writer, planning to write a novel alongside my paid assignments. I knew it would be risky, financially, professionally, personally. But these women faced the same risks and went for it. They talked of fear and temporary poverty, but each story ended with a triumph: waiting lists at the B&B, an expansion of the African clinics thanks to successful fundraising, a deal with the LPGA to feature the golf-girl clothes.

The other day, a new issue of the magazine arrived, and the reinvention du jour hit a little too close to home. It concerned a corporate marketer turned writer who wrote a bestseller on her first try. "I decided if 'The Devil Wears Prada' could be bestseller, then I should be able to write one too,'" says this author, who is featured in a photo laughing jubilantly while, strangely, a small dog pees behind her.

I sighed and threw the magazine aside. I envied her with all my ungracious heart, except for the peeing dog part.

My reinvention hasn't had quite the triumphant ending I was led to anticipate as a disciple of the magazine. I've been lucky to have plenty of work from a handful of great clients, but cost-cutting and layoffs in the media industry make freelance writing less lucrative than it was (and it was never lucrative, compared to my old corporate salary.) I finished my novel, and the eleven publishers who rejected it were in agreement on one thing. “Good story, great research,” they said. “Keep working on it.” My husband's long and rock-solid career as a banker became suddenly fragile in 2008 as the credit markets dried up, making it imperative that my career get on stable ground, and fast.

So I’m on the cusp of another reinvention, a reentry into the corporate world. And just like when you learn a new word and suddenly hear it everywhere, I realize I'm surrounded by people who have taken a two steps forward, one step back path in life, the finish line for their goals a fluid destination. But those small, unheralded adaptations add up to big changes over time.

There’s a college friend who worked in publishing, then channeled her passion for literature as the ubervolunteer for a local library when her children were small, sure it would culminate in a paying job eventually. When it didn’t, she found a job at a local university, and any regrets she may feel about not working in the literary world have faded in the face of her increased financial stability and related reduction in marital stress. Another friend has spent untold hours building up her graphic design business to great critical acclaim, but financial reward has been out of reach in a competitive market. She’s blowing the dust off her old business resume to see where it will take her with a pragmatism deriving from her entrepreneurial stint. A third friend is completely repositioning her retail business for a third time to make sure she can keep afloat when her customers are cutting back on spending.

Indeed, most of the people I know who are leaning headfirst into the buffeting winds of life are women, and a great many of those women are moms. My theory is that mothers are natural reinventors, because we know the sheer courage required to pull the rug out from under your own feet. Courage is the only trait that matters on the day that a nurse hands over your newborn baby, a sample pack of Huggies and a Mylar balloon, as if you actually know what you were doing. Moving across country for a new job, or applying for a management job after working retail for years? Sure! It’s bound to be easier than figuring out how to use a nasal aspirator.

Or maybe it’s because mothers grow accustomed to the inscrutable rhythms of their children's changing passions. This week Tommy is obsessed with firemen and nearly passes out with excitement when a ladder truck passes? It’s a given that next week he’ll have moved on to Star Wars, especially if you’ve just splashed out on a really expensive fire helmet for him on eBay. Nothing to do but put the fire helmet in the gift closet and figure out who this Darth Maul character is.

Between motherhood and midlife, I've found serenity in the knowledge that nothing's permanent. The clingy child gives way to the solitude-craving teenager who becomes the personable young woman, and moms learn to grit their teeth and pray for the passage of time. Or as my illustrator friend puts it, "In college I thought I would be an artist, then I became a businesswoman. When I quit to do illustrations, I thought I'd come full circle...but now as I'm going back into business I realize there are a few more spokes on the wheel." My own wheel may include a published novel yet.

If, in the current economic meltdown, you find yourself contemplating reinvention out of necessity or out of passion, rest assured you are in the best of company. And lest you worry that your current situation is the one in which you are forever trapped, remember Mom's famous words: "It's just a phase."