I less than three Aunt Becky

If you aren't reading Mommy Wants Vodka, well, I just don't know what to do with you. She's asking her readers to participate in an online interview and so I am, because it is late on a Friday and I've had wine and I'm warm from my bath, which all equal a sharing mood.



1) Do you like sprinkles on your ice cream?

Not especially. When you can have coffee ice cream with hot fudge sauce and peanut butter, why eat anything else? God himself would eat this if he couldn't get his hands on Americone Dream.

2) If you had to choose one word to banish from the English language, what would it be and why?

Ohhhh...one? Just one? Slurp. It has a ghastly onomatopoeia to it. See also: moist. Gag.

3) If you were a flavor, what would it be?

Pecan. Totally nutty, but mostly sweet.

4) What’s the most pointless annoying chore you can think of that you do on a daily/weekly basis?

Dusting. The landscaping ninjas come by once a week and Hawaii is capital D Dusty anyway, so my house is always coated in low-level grime. I dust every other day and I still can't get ahead of it, so the impetus to dust is not as high as the impetus to say "Screw it" and have a Sam Adams.

5) Of all the nicknames I’ve ever had in my life, Aunt Becky is the most widely known and probably my favorite. What’s your favorite nickname? (for yourself)

Albatross Woman, so granted by my friend Kelley (where Maggie's middle name comes from) because I was once the only person in the room who knew what Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner was. Also, I had superpowers, which in early 2004 was the ability to suck back Skyy like Gatorade on the weekends and still rock the Dean's List.

6) You’re stuck on a desert island with the collective works of 5 (and only five) musical artists for the rest of your life. Who are they?

Cat Power, Five Iron Frenzy, The Beatles, Alison Krauss, and Beyonce (I would absolutely put a ring on that.)

7) Everything is better with bacon. True or false?

I give you the Bacon Weave Turkey Breast of Awesome, Thanksgiving 2009.






Now how could you possibly answer "False"?

8 ) If I could go back in time and tell Young Aunt Becky one thing, it would be that out of chaos, order will emerge. Also: tutus go with everything. What would you tell young self?

I actually did read the best piece of advice before I graduated high school and set out into the world, and it was this line from Kurt Vonnegut's God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater:

"Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you've got about a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies—God damn it, you've got to be kind."

Post-college, I would expand that to say that if you're going to drink red Gatorade to stave off a hangover, make sure you don't have a presentation the next morning, Ms. Bozo Clownface.

Oh brother...

The other day I was checking out of the store (baby in carrier to witness my offensive language) when I told the clerk "Happy holidays!" I like to be cheerful this time of year, it makes me feel nice. Same reason I cash a few twenties into singles so I can hit every Salvation Army bucket I see ringing the bell outside of stores.

Imagine my surprise when the clerk replied "You mean, 'Merry Christmas.'"

I was totally astonished. (I can only assume this store (not naming names) has no official greeting policy.) "You've got to be kidding me. No, ma'am, I meant 'Happy holidays.'"

"You're removing the real reason for the season." I swear to you, she said this to me with a straight face. Not only is she obnoxious, but she's a cliche as well.

"I meant 'Happy Holidays' and you know what?" Now I was getting angry. "If you can't accept a well-intended message of goodwill in a gracious manner, whatever its form, you can kiss the fattest part of my holly jolly ass."

Stunned silence. The baby cooed. I left.

Can you believe it? What an irritating and obnoxious thing to do. When I say "Happy holidays!" I mean exactly that. I mean it as an actual wish that happiness be granted upon you and yours from Thanksgiving all the way through New Year's Day. That you enjoy the warmth of family, friends, office party eggnog, inappropriate mistletoe snogging, monkey bread (if you're my family), the soft flicker of candlelight on the walls, and the making of memories and traditions with your dearest. It has zero to do with whether or not you put up a Christmas tree, menorah, Festivus pole, or whatever.

If someone wants to wish me a Merry Christmas, I find that lovely. I accept your tiding, no matter how perfunctory, and return it to you. If someone wants to "correct" me if I DON'T wish them a Merry Christmas, I'm going to curse his or her manners front of the baby and it will be that person's fault that my baby heard the word "ass."

Alas, I see that there's a growing community of "correctors" afoot: http://standforchristmas.com/pages/home

No, really. REALLY. This is what we've come to: labeling stores "Christmas Friendly" or "Christmas Offensive" and "correcting" total strangers who are just trying to send a message of goodwill.

What an insane time in which we live.

ETA: I see that many of the comments indicate displeasure that the stores "only seem interested in making money and not the real spirit of Christmas." Oh for...look. Based on demographics of Focus on the Family's (site sponsor) key audience, we can assume several of these people are anti-Obama conservatives. You can believe Obama is a socialist and will ruin our economy or you can get upset over stores making money (AKA capitalism) but you cannot do both because I will call you mean, mean things, "idiot" chief among them.

Yawn.

I am tired.

I don't mean like I should go to bed early and I'll feel right tomorrow morning. Nor do I mean tired like I was "tired" freshman year of college when the stimuli was just! too! much! for me to sleep and so I didn't for about four months and then collapsed in a gibbering heap over Christmas break. If I could go back...well, I wouldn't change anything, but I might take that (much thinner and more coherent) version of myself by the (rather perky) shoulders and shake me until I went to bed.

I mean that I am exhausted in my bones, a tired that throbs down deep in my brain stem. And I feel like a wimp, since I know so many women go back to work--they have to. Not going back to work was not my first choice, but since the magazine folded like cheap origami in the recession's wake I'm at home. I cannot imagine how exhausted I would be if I also worked.

Because I am at home, I hold myself to a higher standard. Tom does his share, but motherhood has morphed me into a one-woman force of nature. Floor isn't clean? Why the fuck not, you're home all day. *scrubscrubscrub* Why buy baby food, you're home all day. *bake apples/process into sauce/freeze/repeat with varied fruits* Maggie's down for a nap? Get cracking on that 20-item to-do list. Nothing to clean? Then there's articles to write and professional opportunities to research while the baby catnaps. There are adult relationships to tend to via email and Facebook. GET BUSY, BITCH.

My home has never been cleaner, my Kitchenaid receiving the sort of attention I used to pay to TMZ and Perez Hilton. I stand triumphantly, finger on the trigger of my carefully researched eco-friendly home cleaning spray, poised for world takeover. I steal ten minutes here and there to update a blog and do a little writing for myself and I FEEL LIKE I'M BEING LAZY. I could be exercising, working off those pounds. From sunup to sundown my brain whirls like a tornado and I hit the bed after midnight like a brick dropped into a bowl of pudding, the last of the day's thoughts splattering to make room for tomorrow's to-do list.

Naps? Fuck that and fuck you, lazy stay at home mother. There's stuff to do. Fuck naps. Losers nap. Winners can do it all. And they look GREAT while they do it, so make sure you put on a decent outfit and shave your legs. Do your eyebrows, too, and get a pedicure. Winners don't have chipped polish.

Winners, incidentally, end up with the conversational skills of an aardvark and the intellectual curiosity of the tuna melt I ate for lunch. I am tired. TIRED. I forget things. Tom has to explain jokes to me, point out subtleties that I used to point out to him with relish. An episode of "30 Rock" pushes me to the absolute limits of my brain capacity. I haven't completed a sentence on the first try in months.

I developed sciatica in my second trimester and the only comfortable position I could find was on my back. You can't lie on your back when you're pregnant. And I'm a paranoid mother. My body wakes me up every so often at night--even if the baby is sound asleep--to check on her. Plus, she is still nursing at night.

Put it this way--I have not completed a full sleep cycle in almost a year. You know that feeling you get when you eat too many Pringles and sugary snacks after chugging a coffee and you sit down to the computer lab with your best friend and you're all like "I'm going to write my paper in WINGDINGS" and she's all "DO IT" and you can feel Radio Tokyo vibrating in your toes? My brain is typing in Wingdings and transmitting Japanese pop and I am helpless to do anything but giggle. Not giggle like cute babies do. Giggle like Jack Nicholson on cocaine in the 70s giggle. It's creepy. I repeat myself like a parrot.

I am losing my mind. I am going slowly around-the-bend insane. I am going happily, content with life and thankful for my loving husband and delightful daughter, but I am going insane. I cannot find the off switch. You know what the craziest, most insane part of this is? I WANT ANOTHER BABY. Not immediately, but in two or three years. I am having so much goddamn fun that sunshine is shooting out of my ass and painting everything a rosy baby pink. Sometimes I tell Tom that I want four kids and his face contorts and he says "My GOD, WOMAN, your brain is taxed enough with one, if we had four you would completely lose the ability to read, write, speak, and put on flip flops."

Good point. I hadn't thought of that. Like I said, I'm tired.

Thankful

A handsome, hard-working husband whose sense of humor is only outpaced by his generous heart. A man who has given me unconditional love and support; who has quite literally given me the world on a platter, mine to explore.

A healthy, vibrant, thriving daughter with spun-gold hair; enormous, expressive eyes that change color every day; a daughter with limitless curiosity punctuated by an infectious and joyous laugh.

A life of security, with good health insurance and reliable income; a life of creativity in which I am free to express myself through word and craft. A life with so many family and friends who are healthy, happy, and who bring untold hilarity and humor into my life. How they make me smile.

The depths of my gratitude are limited by words. May we all be so blessed.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. Saturday is my birthday. I already have everything I could ever want. And for that, I am so thankful.

Reef Hawaiian Pro

A while back I won a gift certificate for a camera lens rental shop and I promised myself that I would rent a crazy telephoto and hit a surf competition. Problem is, surf competitions run the best few days out of a range, so it's hard to book a lens in advance because you can't be certain that the surf will cooperate. Last night I caught a lucky break: the Reef Hawaiian Pro portion of the Vans Triple Crown announced that the surfers would be competing today, which left enough time for me to reserve the lens online.

It was a crazy morning. Maggie and I left at 8, which is an hour before we're usually up (I know, but she goes to bed late so we sleep in) and booked it down to east Honolulu, got the lens, and then hauled back up to the North Shore. We got to Ali'i around 10:30 and parking wasn't the nightmare scenario I had expected, thank god, so we were settled on the sand around 11am.


Shooting with a Canon 100-400mm L-series lens is intense. It is seriously as long as my forearm and twice as thick. (Okay, maybe 1.5 times as thick. I'm kinda beefy.) Maggie busied herself with the lens cap and her favorite cooking utensils--she finds the slotted spoon fascinating--and I set about photographing.



Dudes. This was SO WORTH the trip to Honolulu, having to haul the stroller over sand by myself, and drinking the promotional RockStar energy drink because it was free. If anyone is curious, it tasted like Yellow #5, citrus, and despair. I was there for three hours but only photographed about half that time. The rest of it was spent feeding, bouncing, and playing with Maggie. She was as good as could be.


If you have a chance to see a pro surf competition, do it.

Actually, you should always do things you haven't done before, provided they'll make "Hey that was awesome!" stories and not "Hey we need to call the paramedics!" stories. Unless you can combine the two. Anyway.

These folks are serious athletes--they work with and against thousands of tons of water, cover huge distances and stay up under incredible wave pressure. It's one of the coolest and best things I've seen since I got here. The Banzai Pipeline is the really famous one, but given the parking situation and how much baby stuff and gear I had I'm glad I chose to shoot Reef. There were more parking spots, more grass on which to push the stroller and some shaded picnic tables for us to hang out during the hot mid-day, and some semblance of a safe sidewalk--hard to find up at Sunset. When Tom can come with me we'll do Banzai, but for just me and the baby Ali'i was a lot easier.



I mean really--that's just NEAT.