visit me at my new digs!
Cafe Con Lupe is now found at La Bloga! visit me at www.labloga.blogspot.com where I post every other Sunday as their newest Bloguera!
January 19th, 2008
excitedNovember 3rd, 2007
SpongeBob Philosopher Pants
Indulge me, gentle readers. I would like to speak to you today of SpongeBob Squarepants. I know, I know, with his cube-shaped, gap-toothed smiling face appearing on every lunchbox, notebook and bedsheet set, you’ve had just about enough of him, but hear me out. I am here to confess that his is my favorite show on television: and I’m not alone. The average demographic age for SpongeBob viewers is a surprising 28. Okay, admittedly if you took out those under the influence of some variety of chemical that would probably dip to eight-year-olds, but I would argue that it is actually a pretty complex show.
It was my niece and nephew, Elena and Peter, who first told me about the show. We were parked out on the couch with my then infant son when the first strains of the bizarre piratesque theme song pulled my attention away from the catalog on my lap. “What’s this?” I asked.
They answered rather nonchalantly, “Oh, its SpongeBob Squarepants. It’s about a talking sponge who lives in a pineapple under the sea.”
Huh? Slack-jawed I watched the show and was instantly sucked into the bizarre world of Bikini Bottom. What were these writers on when they came up with this? I wondered, trying to imagine the pitch and what kind of producers would have recognized this as a good idea (not to mention the tremendous hit it would become). As my son grew, he became interested as well, and whenever I walked by the living room and saw that bright yellow face, heard the effervescently cheerful voice, and spied the gloriously tropical colored graphics I would stop whatever I was doing to watch. I wasn’t sure why, but I was soothed by the show.
Now, my mother used to say that Mickey Mouse was going to be the downfall of Western civilization. She claimed that he represented what Walt Disney considered to be the typical American: brainless, passive and aggravatingly cheerful. I often wonder: what would she have thought about SpongeBob? I mean, he is so enamored of his minimum wage, fast food job he is willing to pay to work, and he is constantly going along with any exploitative scheme that his cheapskate boss Mister Krabs dreams up. His only goal is to earn his driver’s license so he can buy a boatmobile, thereby contributing to society’s consumerist mentality, and his fleshy pink starfish buddy Patrick is obnoxiously brainless yet somehow arrogant. I mean, really, SpongeBob is the ultimate stooge of a capitalist system. But even knowing all this, he still comforts me. Sorry, Mom.
Because there is another side to our absorbent yellow friend, a Zen side, if you will. He is a type of idiot savant, whose relentlessly positive outlook always brings him further happiness and success. He is happy with the simplest of existences, skipping along through Jellyfish Fields, catching the mischievous blobs only to release them and start again. His patience with and resilience to the acerbic barbs from his cantankerous bachelor neighbor Squidward allows him to remain friends with him despite it all. He trusts everyone, loves his pet snail, and goes through life consistently happy and enthusiastic, all while never venturing into vapidity. The show is smart, funny and simplistically but elegantly rendered, and with its regular cast of allegorical characters, there is always someone you can relate to (I mean, who hasn’t come across a stuck-in-his-ways Squidward in their lives? Or who isn’t tickled by the tight-jawed, Kirk Douglas-voiced Plankton with his silent moviesque evil plans to steal the secret recipe for the Krabby Patty?)
So finally, in my defense, there is something about the show that hearkens to a simpler time, bundled in a modern yet intelligent package with an ultimate message of hope. Unlike the brainless repetitive violence of the vintage Road Runner or the modern scenery chewing voice overs, badly rendered graphics and consumerist teachings of Pokémon, SpongeBob Squarepants is a brightly-colored poster child for Buddhist tolerance and tranquility. I, for one, am striving to be more like him, to find joy in everyday things and not let other people’s negativity effect me, to love totally and unconditionally, and retain a childlike wonder. The only issue that remains is how a giant pineapple would hold up against a Vermont winter. I’ll have to look into that
October 12th, 2007
Fifteen Candles
For a moment, just a moment, we actually considered lying about it to a national reporter. But in the end we confessed that not one of us—the three authors of Sister Chicas, a coming-of-age novel that culminates in the celebration of one of the character’s quinceañera—had had our own Latin equivalent of a sweet fifteen party. For Jane and Lisa’s families money had been tight, and for me, well, my mother was not your typical Puerto Rican mother. She was a self-proclaimed socialist and openly disdained such events. But she had told me all about this ritual that seems to be coming back in style for Latinos in the U.S. with a vengeance. “But I never had one myself, you understand,” she would always say in caveat.
“It is the equivalent of a debutante ball, a coming-out party for girls from the ‘best’ families. It was more about the parents’ standing than the girl’s birthday,” she would tell me. According to her, formal events of this type were very popular when she was growing up in late 1930s and early 1940s Puerto Rico. There are scores of photos of her dressed in starched white lace at different ages, her hair in perfect ringlets, her hand clutched in her cousin Georgie’s, their young eyes weary but resigned to being paraded at carnival as Pierot and Pierrette. And though there is a series of photos of her at age fifteen, glamorous as any movie star of the period, she insisted she hadn’t had the event herself. She seemed proud of this fact. “It was designed to present a daughter of marriageable age to the community, to find her a husband. Bah! I refused to be paraded around like livestock in expensive white crinoline!” At the time I couldn’t understand her problem with it, I mean, isn’t it every girl’s dream to wear Barbie gowns and a tiara and have everyone’s attention on her?
When I turned fifteen, she sat me down and said, “sweetheart it is customary that I should throw you a quinceañera for this birthday, but I really don’t want to subject you to that and besides,” she continued as she surveyed my then thick black eyeliner, spiked ice blond hair and punk attire, “it really doesn’t seem like something you’d be into.” At that point in my life, I had to agree. But that day she gave me a diamond ring, her own engagement ring she had had reset into a simple gold setting. “I felt the need to mark this important birthday in some way,” she had said. I was grateful, but confused by her sentimentality given the disdain she had expressed for the traditions of that particular birthday. But whether or not I understood her reasons, I was always touched by her need to mark the occasion, if not with an all out ball (with the Ramones playing, of course), at least with a symbol that meant so much to her, and was a connection to my deceased father.
Years later I would recall my mother’s disdain for this event during the aforementioned interview with USA Today about the ritual of the quinceañera. “My mother didn’t even have one,” I told the reporter though it seemed odd to me as I knew my mother’s family was well-off and could have afforded one. I went on to explain that with the resurgence of interest in the event I had to admit I didn’t share her disdain. I mean, as long as it doesn’t put the family in the poorhouse to throw one for their princesa, then why the hell not? I myself love to dress up and the idea of sauntering about with your friends and family dressed in a full length gown with a tux-clad, handsome partner at your side sounds dreamy.
Three months later I was on a conference call with my co-authors, typing notes for a sequel to our novel on my computer, when an email came in from my sister Ellen.
“Look what I found in a box in the basement today,” the subject line said. I clicked on the attached scan while chatting on the phone and gasped as it opened up on the screen. It was a faded press clipping from 1939 that was captioned: “Una Alegre Fiestecita de Cumpleaños” or “A Happy Birthday Party.” And there was my mother, dressed in a full length white satin gown, a spray of white roses across her chest and a wide smile on her gorgeous, lipsticked mouth. I did the math in my head…she was born in 1924, so it was…her fifteenth birthday.
“Annie? You still there?” I heard my chicas asking on the other ends of the phone line in Chicago and New York and it snapped me out of my slack-jawed coma.
“Yes,” I squawked, shock still tightening in my throat. “It’s just…well, my sister sent me a clipping that apparently is about my mother’s quinceañera!”
“But I thought she hadn’t had one?” Lisa asked.
“Me too.” I said. I went on to read the article in Spanish and translated it with Jane’s help.
“Whoa, the governor’s children came. Annie, that was a really important party if they were there.” Jane had grown up on the island and understood the lifestyle better than I ever would. “Why do you think she lied about it?”
Truth be told, I hadn’t a clue. It was no surprise that yet another of my mother’s stories turned out to be untrue—I found out long after her death that it was from her I got my fiction skills—but why this? I mean, she wasn’t a socialist at fifteen; that came much later in her life. But as I stared at the pixilated image on my screen and a sea of teenage faces stared back at me, only one—her best friend Maria Mercedes—that I recognized, I realized that though the smile seemed honest, this glamorous event was certainly entirely of her mother’s doing. I knew that very few of those children were actually her friends and knowing her crazy and belligerent mother—God rest her troubled soul—none of the details had been under my mother’s control.
By the time I knew her, my mother had grown into a fiercely independent woman, who survived my father’s long illness and subsequent death and managed to raise her three children still remaining at home on a draftsperson’s salary. As I thought of her uniform of loosely flowing, Bohemian clothing and her radical ideologies I became certain that it was way more than not wanting a fancy party: just the idea of being pushed and pulled around in stiff formal finery by her overpowering madre had been her idea of hell.
After I hung up the phone I continued to stare at the clipping for some time. It was then I decided to cut the woman a break. If she wanted to forget the event ever happened, then good for her. I would forgive her for trading that one small white lie for a white satin formal, with a big fat heaping of rebellion on the side. I had to get it from somewhere, after all.
September 14th, 2007
Body-Building Hobos…with Guns!
My son Carlos and I were driving down Elmore Street one day last week, when we saw a long-haired dachshund running up the middle of the road. Its gait of total glee, immaculately groomed coat, and jingly tags told us it was not a stray. The dog was weaving back and forth across the road, cars screeching to avoid it.
“Mom! We have to do something!” My son cried.
Now I wouldn’t have left the creature to get squished under the wheels of a car, but with a houseful of asthmatics the prospect of bringing it home was not appealing, not to mention that we were heading to my office and sneaking an energetic dog in would prove a challenge. I pulled the car over and leapt out, waving my arms in warning at the oncoming traffic. Just as I bent over to call to the dog—who, by the way, was smiling, I swear he looked like a drunken frat boy on spring break—I heard a car careening behind me and whipped around to stop them. I watched a nice-looking man jump from the driver seat and call “Sam!” as the pooch ran to his waiting arms like a kid back from summer camp.
“Are you his owner?”
“Yes, we’ve been driving all over looking for him, the little bugger!” he said, affectionately mussing Sam’s fur.
“Thank God! I wasn’t sure WHAT we would have done with him, but we couldn’t have left him to run wildly through the streets!”
The man thanked us and drove off, Sam’s shiny nose peeking through the cracked window from the safety of the sedan’s back seat.
After we’d resumed our course, Carlos turned to me and asked what we would have done with the dog if his owner hadn’t arrived.
“We would have taken him home and posted some ‘lost dog’ signs around town, why?”
“Well, then anyone could come to the door. I mean, like…a hobo.”
“Carlos, I don’t think you need to worry about hobos.” I chuckled, tickled by his use of such a nostalgic and vintage term.
“But what if they were body-building hobos….with guns?!”
Now, I moved to Vermont so I could raise a child in a safe environment. As I’ve mentioned in previous columns, having grown up in New York City’s upper, upper west side, I was mugged three times before I was eight years old. I figured my child could grow up in the safety of a rural Vermont town, hanging from trees and walking home from school in safety, the only threat being a skinned knee. But as I drove, I glanced over at my son and realized it had still happened. Though his threats were more fanciful—I pictured hoards of body-building hobos jumping from 1920s era trains rattling through our small town—he still had fears about his safety.
I couldn’t help but think: Is it television? Is it in the genes? Is he hard-wired to be nervous? And the burning question underneath it all, the true ‘parent trap’: is it my fault?
My mind harkened back to my own tenth year after we had moved to suburban New Jersey, my mother having the same impulse to raise the children in a safer environment. I remembered the piles of horror comics I devoured each day, my butt parked in its usual spot in front of our Sony Trinitron to watch the weekly Creature Feature movie, armies of monsters, aliens and zombies parading across the small screen. And every night after my mother tucked me in—reminded by my begging whine to leave the nightlight on—I pulled the blanket tightly around my neck to protect against vampire attacks while I slept. I thought of the hundreds of children lining up for the spook house at the local amusement park, rocking back and forth on their Keds, nervously chattering in anticipation like monkeys. The boys lined up on the sidewalk in front of the old, abandoned Jenkins’ house, daring each other to go closer, to step on the porch, to look into the broken window panes.
We liked to be scared.
As I thought about this from the vantage point of middle age, I realized that this must be a childhood way to prepare ourselves, the fantasy horrors making life’s true challenges pale by comparison. Because after all, fear is not the antithesis of courage, courage is being able to act despite our fears. I could see my son waiting for my response out of the corner of my eye. I smiled at him.
“Well honey, in a fight between a body-building hobo and your dad, I’d put big money on Dad.”
He took a deep breath, and I could tell this wasn’t entirely a joke to him. He really had been looking for reassurance. “Yep, he’s not afraid of anything,” he said, no small amount of pride in his voice.
“You got that right,” I replied. As we drove through the Vermont summer morning I was secure in the knowledge that between the three of us we could handle any horrors life could hand out, true or imagined.
Body-building hobos? Bring ‘em on.
August 6th, 2007
Superstitious Minds
If you accidentally spill some salt, do you discreetly throw a pinch over your shoulder? Or perhaps you forward those ubiquitous good luck angel emails to ten of your “closest” friends, just in case. And what about those cracks in the sidewalk…just how is your mother’s back, anyway? It seems to me that more people suffer from the repetitive and bizarre affliction of superstition than not, but I have to admit that at times I am as guilty as most. However of late I’ve become interested in how these beliefs come about. But rather than do real scholarly research—who has the time and truthfully, I’m just too lazy for that—I have arrived at my own theory: that many of these old traditions are based on simple practicalities. They were a way of instilling sensible behaviors early on in life.
For instance, my Puerto Rican aunt told me you should never place your pocketbook on the floor. “The money will flow out,” was her belief. I considered what might be behind this one. There is the issue of being sanitary: a purse that’s been on the floor will be carrying all sorts of germs on its bottom. But then there is also the safety issue. I know this isn’t as much an issue in Vermont, but if you consider the crime rate in Puerto Rico, a purse on the floor is not a good idea in general, at least in a public place.
“Ay Annie, when you leave the house, you can’t go back in if you forgot something! It’s mala suerte!” My friend Jane admonished me in hushed and reverent tones. Okay, this one completely baffles me, because if I were to take this to heart, I would never have anything I need and my life would be chaos (well, at least more chaotic than it already is). I have to go back at least once, EVERY SINGLE TIME I leave the house. I mean, really! Was the person who invented this one a mother? I don’t think so! Anyway, I thought the history of this one might also be safety. Going back through your door opens you up for someone to follow.
Never put shoes on the bed. Again, this begs the interpretation of a plea of unsanitary. Lord only knows where those soles have been anyway, and I can’t imagine you’d want remnants of it on the bed.
If you keep making that face it will get frozen like that. I love this one. The fact that I almost bought this as a child makes me laugh out loud. From the vantage point of motherhood, I have to chalk this one up to simple social control: my mother was probably embarrassed by my behavior. Or maybe it’s some kind of parental-in-joke that is passed on from generation to generation. If so, it’s stopping with me. I have yet to say it to my son and he spends half his waking hours making faces. Wait. Maybe I should rethink this.
Walking under ladders. Okay, as a painter’s wife, this one makes perfect practical sense as well. I’ve seen many a ladder slip, fall over, or upend its paint can from on high, so why would you want to walk under one? And doesn’t this theory make so much more sense than the triangle being the shape of the pyramids, the holy trinity or the gallows? I mean, really.
Breaking a mirror. Now I don’t know whether YOU think mirrors are magic or can see your soul in them and are concerned about shattering it, but I would be more concerned with the sharp pieces of reflective glass. But hey, that’s just me.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m all for the passing on of traditions. I’m a cuentista (storyteller) who is trying to carry forward the tales, beliefs and history of my family, but when something is detrimental I think it should be passed along with care. I remember standing frozen in the middle of a sidewalk in Leonia, New Jersey, surrounded by a spider web of cracks in the concrete, certain that with just one step I was going to condemn my mother to a life of immobility. Kids are so literal, so I try to present this kind of tradition as a silly quirk, actions done with a sense of fun.
You might not agree with me on this theory: you might believe it’s better to be safe than sorry. In that case: send a link to this blog to 100 of your closest friends and you will have a month of good luck (until next month). Really. (Knock wood.)
July 2nd, 2007
Small Town Business
Growing up in and around a city, I learned what I knew about small town life from television and books. It always seem so bucolic to me, serene and white-picket-fenced, kids rode bikes everywhere and had tree houses. Me, I was mugged three times before I was eight. My entire third grade class was robbed by a teenage gang on our fieldtrip to Grant’s Tomb. I had my bicycle taken, my lunch money, you name it! So to me, those images of quiet rural life always sounded like paradise. That’s one of the reasons I ended up in Vermont. I didn’t want to raise a child as I had been raised, with fear and a prey’s sixth sense. What I had never considered, however, was the more invasive part of small town living.
At one of my first jobs in Stowe—a business that was chockfull of ski bums and bunnies, most under the age of 30 (either chronologically or emotionally)—I was shocked one morning to overhear someone ribbing my boss. “Hey Karen (not her real name). I saw Mitch’s car in your driveway this morning…so, you guys seeing each other or what?” It was inconceivable to me; not only did people bother to recognize your car (a skill I still haven’t mastered) but just by driving by they knew who you were sleeping with! Yuk! The worst was how the news spread like a flame on a late-autumn corn field. I mean, in New York City, if you have a bad date, odds are good you will never have to see that person again, and if Karen chose to sleep with every bartender on the east side probably no one would know. And more to the point, no one would care.
Two years later I had just left the doctor’s office having found out I was pregnant, when I stopped by Bear Pond Book’s to pick up a copy of What to Expect When You’re Expecting. As I waited to pay, I cracked the book, too excited to wait until I got to the car. Within seconds I heard a voice to my left. “Oh Ann, how nice to see you! What are you readi…Oh no! Are you pregnant?” she shrieked. Now this was an acquaintance, mind you, my husband didn’t even know yet! A good friend of mine who is dating a commitment allergic man had a similar experience, almost in the exact same spot as she read, “He’s Just Not That Into You” and a friend walked by. “It’s for my cousin,” she yelped, knowing the clichéd excuse only made her look guiltier. And then there was my sister. When she started dating again after her divorce, she wanted to purchase some condoms but was afraid to do so at our neighborhood pharmacy for obvious reasons. So I took her on a field trip to Burlington. But always the mischievous little sister—even then at 30—I ran ahead, held up a box of Trojans and yelled across the store, “The condoms are over here, Sis!”
But it’s not all bad, this small town experience. When I had my baby the women at our bank sent me a card signed by all of them. I was always shocked they even remembered my name. The few times I’ve had car trouble, people stop. They really stop. AND they’re not planning on mugging you. Odds are good you might know them. And we watch out for each other, keeping an eye on the neighbor’s house when they are on vacation or bringing back their truant Labrador when he wanders down the street. And it’s safe. Really. I know, I know, there are drug problems and crime everywhere, but trust me, I spent the most formative grammar school years on the upper west side, and whatever Vermont can dish up is nothing compared to what I saw. Besides, how likely is it that my son’s fourth grade class will get mugged outside the Fairbanks Museum?
So I’ve learned to love asking after my pharmacists house-building project and visiting with other parents at my son’s hockey games. And if something good or bad happens, that neighbors will find out and either support or congratulate me. After years of apartment living, where you didn’t know the neighbors’ name, but you knew what time he went to the bathroom each night, I was ready for some more amiable interaction. At least in a small town it is more personal and you take the good with the bad. I had always wondered what it would be like to be part of a community, any living we did outside of the city never lasted long, so now I’m relishing these connections that I lacked in my youth. And by the way, if you saw me buy that bodice-ripping romance paperback at the bookstore the other day, I was buying it for a friend. Really….
May 26th, 2007
Office Void
A colleague of mine died recently, Alice Soule-Collins. A beloved work friend. This has been an all too common event of late, and I find myself reflecting on the uniqueness of this type of loss. I think that all grief is different, different for an individual of course, but also different for the kind of person you lose, the role the place they’ve held in your life. Parent, sibling, friend, colleague, each loss is felt in unique ways. But Alice’s death really struck me, particularly in my reticence to let it progress in the natural way of workplace grief. Let me explain.
The death of a co-worker is always so odd. I mean, even though they are not your family, and you may not socialize with them after work, you see them every day, sharing so many hours of your lives—sometimes even more than their families. You hear about their daily aches and pains, their professional and personal triumphs. Through photographs, stories and occasional visits you witness the growth of their children or grandchildren. And in Alice’s case, you take turns bringing her food, driving her to chemotherapy, taking notes as doctors discuss intensely personal things. They reside in an important place in your daily life. But when they pass on, they are just gone. One day their desk is empty, their emails unanswered, and you feel a void. For moments, you forget. You expect to see them walking down the hall, or talking on the phone. But then it hits you, sometimes several times a day, maybe even an hour: you will never see them there again. You grieve together with your colleagues, trying to make sense of it, remembering your own past losses. But eventually the workplace moves on as it must, their office is cleaned out and occupied by another, their duties parceled out, their phone extensions reassigned. But this is a progression I just can’t accept.
When my work friend Jim Galloway died, we were all devastated. His loss was keenly felt for weeks. But gradually the echo of his presence faded, and things moved forward. I fought it tooth and nail. I would bring his name up in admissions meetings every week. I emailed his sister regularly. When there was talk of passing his personal, over-sized leather chair on to a new employee I defended it feverishly. Though it was not really my style and was too large for my office, I would bark, “No one who didn’t know Jim and love him can have his chair!”
When Craig Crist-Evans died I didn’t need to scavenge items from his office or display memories of him. I had my writing career to remind me of him since he was the first one to suggest I become a writer. He planted the seed that sprouts life every time I put words on paper. So he is always here with me.
Today, just 24 hours after Alices’ death, I pull a dark-pink vintage coat she had given me off my coat rack and bring it to the dry cleaners. Not in preparation to wear it, but rather to display it in my office. You see, the coat represents Alice to me. Stylish yet funky. Terribly elegant but at the same time Bohemian. Classic, but colorful and fun. Like Jim and Craig, I need to feel her in my office with me every day. Because as with all wounds, the voids these work friends leave will fill in with time, but I need to leave a place marker for them. I need to know they’re not entirely gone. Isn’t that what we all really want after all? To be remembered? And if by the time it’s my turn to go, my office is filled to the brim with pieces of other’s lives, people like Alice who were important to me, than so be it. I can’t think of a more loving way to be surrounded.
In memory of Alice Soule-Collins
1938-2007
March 31st, 2007
Surplus of Stories
I think my co-workers were sorry they had invited me along. It was their seasonal trip to the Vermont State Surplus warehouse in East Montpelier—I think they were looking for shelving for the MFA in Writing offices—and they asked if I wanted to come along to look for a couch for the sitting area of my office suite. We drove over in a storm, the small sign marking the turn on Packard Road barely visible through the swirling popcorn snow.
Walking into the cavernous and sparsely-lit warehouse I was overwhelmed by the excess of grey: grey floors and walls, grey metal filing cabinets, grey shelving. What the hell am I doing here?—I thought—this is depressing. I trudged among the aisles, skimming the offers much faster than my co-workers. They were more experienced, and spent their time digging behind the utilitarian office equipment on their shelving quest. I rejected the only couch available—one too many coffee stains for my taste—and was heading back towards the sound of their voices, anxious to leave, when I noticed a box of shiny leather pouches.
“Can I help you, young lady?”
I looked over at the amiable white-bearded man standing next to me. “What are these?” I inquired, running my fingers over the reflective black leather.
“Those are handcuff holsters.”
I tried not to act surprised. “Well, of course they are. Where did you get them?”
“From the State Police. I think we have some gun holsters in this box over here.”
I followed him over to another broken-spined cardboard box filled with gun holsters and belts. “My son would LOVE to play with these!”
“Well, the set wouldn’t be complete without this.” He held up a black leather strip with a brass ring at its end.
”What is it?”
“A billy club holder.”
I spent ten minutes picking among the belts, gathering all the accoutrement for my son, chatting with the man about where they came from. It wasn’t until I was done that I noticed some white Formica-covered desks with oddly shaped keyboard shelves. “What are those? Office desks?”
“Oh these are great, they fit in the corner and each piece is hydraulic so you can adjust it.”
I was considering the possibilities when he added, “They were fingerprinting desks.”
I was hooked. I wandered about with my new guide, asking about this and that. “Where did all these pocket knives and lighters come from? They’re all different.”
“Aiport security.”
“No kidding…” I rooted through the box, half hoping to see my sewing scissors and expensive knitting needles that were confiscated several years earlier. “So, does everything in here have a story?”
“Oh, you don’t know the half of it.”
My co-workers had to drag me out of there almost an hour later, pulling me away from a conversation with the warehouse’s manager about the restoration of antique radios, parenthood and the foibles of growing older. Of course I had to endure quite a bit of ribbing from the all-male staff there (“Sure the handcuff case is for your son…right…”) As I left, waving goodbye with the arm that wasn’t full of used police equipment, I look over the warehouse and saw something completely different than when I walked in.
I could have spent hours there, going through the different items, asking about their history, what office they came from. As a writer I am a story-archaeologist, always digging for remnants of people’s history, and the idea of a desk that was touched by thousands of criminals, or a shiny black leather holster that still holds the shape of a particular officer’s gun was in itself a writer’s dream. But on a more universal level, the surplus warehouse is like the greatest Vermont garage sale—minus the crocheted doll toilet paper roll covers—chock full of office items that have seen the inside workings of our state, and even of our state offices in Washington. Pieces of legislation were signed on their surfaces…policies decided in their company…could there even have been minor scandals committed on that coffee-stained couch? If only these items could talk, what a book I would write…
March 7th, 2007
Tanks for the Mammaries
Okay, I know that winter weather has only really just begun in Vermont, but I’m already sick of driving through it. Ice glaze, tourists in SUVs who think they’re impervious to conditions, road salt that won’t work because it’s too cold. It’s exhausting to go anywhere, but as my husband says, “If you don’t go places due to weather in Vermont you’ll never go anywhere.” So as I fishtail on slushy roads through my morning commute from Morrisville to Montpelier, I fantasize about my next vehicle purchase. I hope to replace my Ford Focus wagon with something infinitely more practical for driving in Vermont winters: a tank. Now I’m not talking about a Hummer, no siree, that’s brightly colored candy and I’m thinking steak. I want an authentic, armored, fighting vehicle. Don’t worry, I’m a pacifist, I’ll have the guns removed, but the way I figure it, that sucker will go through any conditions Old Man Winter can dish out. So the gas mileage will suck and I won’t be able to do 65 mph on I-89, but I’ll get where I’m going, by the Jesus!
I don’t need anything TOO big. I’m thinking one of the lighter duty tanks, like a M41 Walker Bulldog. Not too imposing, just somewhat intimidating. Of course I’ll be stuck with that dull military green (not even a metallic glimmer), but I could make it work. That shade goes with pretty much anything, and besides, I can always add some colorful magnets (my orange peace sign would be particularly paradoxical).
I think tanks have gotten a rep as macho, armored, unapproachable kind of things, but I’m hoping to change that. I went to graduate school with a tank commander from the Vermont National Guard, Jim Hylton, and he used to arrive every day dressed in his camouflage fatigues from head to toe, looking quite intimidating. With time I found out that he was a rather lovely man—a good father, future English teacher—and he was studying Victorian femininist literature. Jim was a gentler, kinder tank commander. So perhaps I can take it a bit further, maybe a “lipstick tank commander.” Can you picture me hauling myself up into the driver’s seat in my high heel Kenneth Cole boots, designer purse under my arm? Applying my lipstick in the rear view mirror (wait, does it even have a rear view mirror?). I can put my “Yankee Tattoo” and “I’d rather be knitting” bumper stickers on the rear of the hull. Parking in Montpelier would be a bitch, but I don’t think I’ll ever have an issue with traffic in downtown Burlington again. Next time I’m stuck at the light on Williston Road, near the new UVM building, it’ll just be up and over, baby! I’ll lean out the window and politely call, “Pardon me! Excuse me!” to the drivers below me as the Latin music pours from my tank speakers (I’ll have a stereo system custom installed, of course).
And moose? Ha! No problem. Though the route I usually take is affectionately called, “Moose Alley,” I will no longer have to worry about it. While I’ve always suspected that my loud music scares them away ahead of time (I had a particular incident with a fellow who heard the strains of Fergie’s “London Bridge” and took off for the woods at top speed), things will really change when I get my M-41. Bullwinkle best be gettin’ out of MY way! Too bad my husband’s not the hunting type, he could remount the weapons and take out the game by the herd without slowing down or putting down his Camel cigarette.
Yes, this is making more and more sense. I’ll keep the wagon for my summer car (trips to see my brother in Connecticut would cost as much as our mortgage payment in the M-41…probably each way), but my winter driving will be stress free.
As I round the curve off of exit 8, I relax just a bit. There’s only a short distance to go. Once into town, I pull up to my favorite parking space on College Street, peel my white knuckles from the steering wheel and breathe deep. I’ve arrived safely yet again, the tank distraction just a fantasy to get me through the harrowing commute. Or was it? Maybe I should check EBay when I get into the office…
February 1st, 2007
PARENThetical Sex
Why is it when we become parents we lose our classification as sexual beings? I mean, come on, admit it, nobody, and I mean nobody likes to think about their parents having sex. It is as if the two roles aren’t compatible. But wasn’t it our exploits as sexual beings that brought us to the role of being parents in the first place? I had thought that this was a perception primarily held by our own children, but I recently found out that it reaches into the extended family.
One day my husband Doug was male-bonding with my then 21 year old nephew Josiah. They got into a discussion about the unique places they had had sexual experiences. Doug said, “Yeah, I remember that: the corn field, airplanes, the movie theatre, while driving down the highway at 80 miles an hour.” Josiah responded, “Yeah, those were the good old single days, huh?” To which my husband replied, “No, actually, that was all with your aunt Ann.” Josiah howled and slapped his hands over his ears, “Ahhh! No! I didn’t want to know that! It burns!”
I mean, Josey’s a smart guy, he knows that we were young once and that we had to have sex at least once to have Carlos, so why is it so horrifying? But on the other hand, I feel his pain. I remember a particular incident when I was eight years old that probably scarred me for life. I was riding in the car with my friend of the moment, Nancy Weiss, and we were giggling about the concept of oral sex. I made the socially suicidal move of asking my mother who was driving us around, “You never did that, did you Mom?” To which she replied, “Oh sure! All the time! I loved doing that to your father!” I arrived at school the next day to find that Nancy had told all of our classmates, and I swore then and there I would never, ever, discuss sex with my mother again.
But when our kids are grown and off living their own lives, does our sexual being classification return? I think not, at least not from what I hear from external sources. And it isn’t just about being parents, but about aging. For some reason, in this country we don’t want to think about older adults as sexual creatures, particularly for women (as my friend Kyle commented, old men are called distinguished while women are at best matronly, at worst hags) . But what I’m trying to figure out is, why not? I’m beginning to think that our need to be sexually validated by society is what gets us into trouble. When we’re five we play with Barbies, dressing their unnatural figures in form-fitting designer miniatures and shoving their tiny butts into the seats of molded plastic sports cars. When we’re twelve we can’t wait to grow breasts and wear high heels and lipsticks, and catch the eye of the high school junior who looks like Justin Timberlake. When we’re nineteen we know we can’t be sexy unless we have the same bone-jutting figure as Kate Moss or squeeze into those low riding Seven jeans. And when we are middle-aged parents, we find that the traditional qualities associated with sexuality no longer apply to us: the latest fashions aren’t designed for our figures, we don’t see women our age represented in beauty magazines, and the actresses our age in movies more often than not play the romantic lead’s mother. As far as the media is concerned—it’s just too late.
Perhaps we are the only ones who can give ourselves the approval to be a sexually vibrant being. Though I know this intellectually, it is still hard to make the two roles of parent and sexy adult work together. Years ago, my husband and my favorite time to make love was the morning: well rested, the sun streaming in the window, it was a lovely and relaxing hour. But with an early rising nine-year-old it is not so relaxing anymore, and certainly not private. But we adjust: we manage to sneak between the Wamsuttas amongst work, school, hockey parent and household responsibilities. But I’m still hoping that one day my inner-siren will return, all on her own, and not care what anyone thinks. And hopefully, by that time, Doug won’t be too damn tired to heed her call.
March 6th, 2006
Lipstick Vogue
The other day I was at Gesine’s having a latte with my friend Rick and he mentioned he had had a long conversation with his mother the night before. I didn't know much about her, so I asked questions: what she had done in her life, what his relationship with her was like, who she was. As he spoke I imagined a well-coiffed, tailored, seventy year-old retired school teacher who sent lavender scented thank you notes and organized her husband’s sock drawer. He painted a comforting picture of his mother, a woman I imagined was a more traditional "Mom" than my own had been. Then as I took a bite of my pastry he added, “During our conversation last night my mother told me she was thinking of getting her lips tattooed.”
After I dislodged the small piece of carrot cake that I had nearly asphyxiated on in my shock, he quickly added, “Not with a design or anything. Just a color, like permanent lipstick, you know? Several of her friends have done it.” As I continued to stare at him, attempting to reconcile this bit of news with the image I had of his seventy-year old mother and deciding if he was merely pulling my chain, Bonnie came out from behind the counter and walked towards our table.
“I’m sorry, I hope you don’t think I was eavesdropping, but I just have to ask about this lip tattoo thing.” She turned to Rick, “Are you serious? Your mother’s considering this?” Rick confirmed that it was indeed true. Bonnie was shocked too, but clearly fascinated. Finally she offered, “Well, it kind of makes sense. My mother was dying and on the way to the hospital she just had to apply new lipstick before arrival. Now that I think about it she wanted to freshen up her lipstick before her last angioplasty! I think it is a generational thing.” She smiled as she remembered her mother attempting to apply it evenly in the moving car.
I was prompted then to remember my Great Aunt Ana in Puerto Rico. She was a forceful woman with a military-like countenance, a series of tasteful length polyester dresses her uniform, and always armed with a completely practical and frugal approach to life. A former math teacher she saved everything, spent no money that wasn’t absolutely necessary, and always wore her salt and pepper hair in a sensible helmet of controlled curls. Needless to say she was not a woman prone to frivolity or vanity…with one exception: the hourly application of peppermint pink lipstick. I used to love to watch her do it. She would purse her lips as if she had just eaten a lemon then carefully apply the lipstick while looking into a tortoiseshell, compact mirror. As she neatly tucked the lipstick and mirror into their proper compartments in her black vinyl handbag, she would un-purse her lips, pink stripes going up and down her lips from where she had puckered them. No matter how much she was lacking in skill, I recognized that this was her one indulgence, her one nod to the girlhood that was robbed from her when she was told she was expected to care for her disabled sisters and not marry. Realizing this, I celebrated her candy-cane striped kisses.
But in my family this habit was not just restricted to Ana. My mother would not even go to the supermarket without lipstick. Her beauty routine included many more elements than her Aunt, but lipstick was as essential to her as her eyeglasses or shoes. When we traveled she carried around a hard-sided, Samsonite make-up case that coordinated with her teal luggage. I remember walking through the airport hand in hand as she carried the case in the other, the clean clicking sound of the Max Factor lipsticks rolling back and forth in the upper tray of the case. How many of you readers were once little girls (or boys) who smeared their mother’s lipstick haphazardly on their lips, proudly displaying what you thought was a badge of adulthood?
I had been half listening to Bonnie and Rick talk as this Viewmaster reel of memories ran through my head, when I became aware that they were looking at me.
“Did I freak you out with the tattooed lips story, Lupe?” Rick asked. I thought for a minute as he and Bonnie waited for my reply.
“No. I think it is lovely that your mother enjoys festive colored lips enough to make it permanent. But what about being able to change the color with her outfits?” As my friends discussed this dilemma, I thought about these stylish, mature women with their paraffin smelling lipsticks, and smiled. Then I quietly put down my empty coffee cup, the tell tale kiss mark of Viva Glam IV on its white cardboard rim and reached for the lipstick tube from my purse. Pulling it out, I raised it up to Rick's and Bonnie's mothers, to my great aunt Ana, and to my own well-turned out mother, a generation of women who took care and pride in their appearance, and recognized that whether you were going to church, the supermarket or the operating room, you should always look your best. Then I pulled the top off of the black metallic tube and carefully reapplied the frosted wine color to my own lips.
September 5th, 2004
Almost Wrestling the Man on the Moon
I must say, that thanks to email, urban legends have found new life. I am continually amazed at the gullibility of people who forward messages about flesh-eating bananas and, my personal favorite, the dreaded toilet spiders, but my nephew Jed forwarded one to me yesterday that gave me pause. The email contained a link to a BLOG that was supposedly written by Andy Kaufman, the brilliant performance artist/comedian/television actor who died of lung cancer in 1984. The site exclaims "Andy Kaufman returns!" and claims he is now "Bigger than Jesus." Blasphemy aside, this is in all probability just another hoax as there have been rumors about Andy having faked his demise for years. I had the privilege of meeting him 25 years ago, and as I sat staring at the website headlines I thought back to that encounter that had taught me a strong life lesson about gullibility…and integrity.
When I was sixteen, my friend Rachel and I attended an Andy Kaufman performance at Carnegie Hall in New York City. It was a huge deal for us to finally see him live as we were big fans of his, camping out in front of the TV whenever he made a guest appearance on Saturday Night Live. We found his bizarre style of comedy hilarious, and as awkward teenagers we related to his "outsider" persona. His “foreign man” character was my favorite when he did bad imitations and destroyed jokes in a gentle cartoon-like generically "foreign" voice, (the character who eventually became Latka on the hit show Taxi).
We squirmed in the red velvet, Carnegie Hall seats, adjusting our corduroy culottes and feeling the dizziness of the bottle of Cold Duck we swigged down on the way to the theatre (Hey, I was sixteen! I had no taste in liquor yet!). Even at our young age we were seasoned concert goers and though we were excited at the prospect of seeing Andy in person, we didn’t expect more than a stage version of his traditional act. All of the sudden Andy appeared alone on stage with no dimmed lights and no fanfare, and announced that if we were all good he’d take the entire audience out for milk and cookies. Certain that this was just one of his odd jokes, we all chuckled and settled in for the show. He was, as always, brilliant.
Now this was the period in his career when he began the controversial act of wrestling women on stage. People hated and loved this misogynistic, crude and clearly sarcastic addition to his popular stage show. He called for female volunteers from the audience, and before you could say, "Cold Duck hangover" I was on my feet and running down the elegant red-carpeted aisle towards the stage in my chunky-heeled brown vinyl boots. I was joined on stage by four other eager potential wrestlers, and I nervously thought I might have a chance to be chosen. However, it soon became clear to me that one of the other women was a plant. She was tall, broad and attitudinal, yelling taunts at Andy as he paced in front of us like an auctioneer. The decision of who he would wrestle was based on audience applause, and of course the Xena-look-alike won. I returned to my seat, defeated yet somehow relieved. It took all of my nerve just to go up on the stage of that revered hall…actually wrestling Andy Kaufman, well, I’m not sure I could have pulled that off.
At the end of the performance, Andy returned to center stage, had the houselights turned on, and declared that we had all indeed been good, and instructed us to follow him. He then ran down the center aisle and out the front of the building. Figuring this was just a clever way to make an exit, none of us rushed to follow. The audience started filing out of the theatre, the conversation lively as people reflected on the performance as they would any other. Rachel and I headed out, reluctant to put the show behind us, and started down the front steps of the theatre. As I struggled to get my arm in my coat sleeve (Cold Duck will often do this), Rachel gasped, and pointed to the curb. I looked up and saw buses lined up and down 57th street. Everyone in the audience was standing on the sidewalk slack-jawed. Eventually, with the encouragement of show staff, Rachel and I joined our fellow audience member and stumbled aboard the buses, mouths agape, still baffled and disbelieving. The convoy carried us to a public school on the lower west-side where we found the gray-hued, institutional style high school cafeteria set up with thousands of packages Famous Amos cookies and cartons of milk. There was a bizarre show in the auditorium (all I remember is fire walkers and jugglers), and Andy thanked us for coming and joked that the party would continue the next day at 10:00 am on the Staten Island Ferry. Finally, after a call to our worried parents, we stumbled home after midnight.
It seems Andy's comment about the ferry really was a joke, but I skipped school the next day (don’t tell Sister Catherine!) and joined about 12 other gullible types in the Staten Island Ferry Terminal who’d taken Andy at his word. After the milk and cookies incident, why not believe him? Among the group was someone who worked for him, and she called Andy to say that we were waiting for him. The man himself arrived not 20 minutes later, very pleased that we’d come. He said he thought no one would take him seriously. He was warm and totally approachable; nothing like one would expect a celebrity to be. He took us on the ferry and we rode back and forth twice, while he told us about his life and his aspirations (he was still trying to impress a high school sweetheart), and he even wrestled several of the women. To my disappointment, just as it was my turn to wrestle with Andy, we docked in Manhattan again. We all shuffled off the ferry, and Andy, sensing our reluctance to end the 24 hour party, bought us all ice cream cones before he said goodbye.
It has been years since I have thought about this adventure. It was without a doubt the greatest concert experience I’ve ever had, and a life-altering experience. Andy Kaufman was an amazing character and talented artist, but he was more than that to those of us who were his fans. He was a man who respected the guilelessness of an audience, of people, and repaid it with magic. He was someone who knew the party had to end, but at least he could buy you an ice cream cone to make it easier. So, although I'm afraid we did lose Andy Kaufman on that fateful May day in 1984, in honor of his spirit I do not wish to squash the naive hope of fans like my nephew who would believe him to be alive. I think I’ll take Jed for some milk and cookies.
When I was sixteen, my friend Rachel and I attended an Andy Kaufman performance at Carnegie Hall in New York City. It was a huge deal for us to finally see him live as we were big fans of his, camping out in front of the TV whenever he made a guest appearance on Saturday Night Live. We found his bizarre style of comedy hilarious, and as awkward teenagers we related to his "outsider" persona. His “foreign man” character was my favorite when he did bad imitations and destroyed jokes in a gentle cartoon-like generically "foreign" voice, (the character who eventually became Latka on the hit show Taxi).
We squirmed in the red velvet, Carnegie Hall seats, adjusting our corduroy culottes and feeling the dizziness of the bottle of Cold Duck we swigged down on the way to the theatre (Hey, I was sixteen! I had no taste in liquor yet!). Even at our young age we were seasoned concert goers and though we were excited at the prospect of seeing Andy in person, we didn’t expect more than a stage version of his traditional act. All of the sudden Andy appeared alone on stage with no dimmed lights and no fanfare, and announced that if we were all good he’d take the entire audience out for milk and cookies. Certain that this was just one of his odd jokes, we all chuckled and settled in for the show. He was, as always, brilliant.
Now this was the period in his career when he began the controversial act of wrestling women on stage. People hated and loved this misogynistic, crude and clearly sarcastic addition to his popular stage show. He called for female volunteers from the audience, and before you could say, "Cold Duck hangover" I was on my feet and running down the elegant red-carpeted aisle towards the stage in my chunky-heeled brown vinyl boots. I was joined on stage by four other eager potential wrestlers, and I nervously thought I might have a chance to be chosen. However, it soon became clear to me that one of the other women was a plant. She was tall, broad and attitudinal, yelling taunts at Andy as he paced in front of us like an auctioneer. The decision of who he would wrestle was based on audience applause, and of course the Xena-look-alike won. I returned to my seat, defeated yet somehow relieved. It took all of my nerve just to go up on the stage of that revered hall…actually wrestling Andy Kaufman, well, I’m not sure I could have pulled that off.
At the end of the performance, Andy returned to center stage, had the houselights turned on, and declared that we had all indeed been good, and instructed us to follow him. He then ran down the center aisle and out the front of the building. Figuring this was just a clever way to make an exit, none of us rushed to follow. The audience started filing out of the theatre, the conversation lively as people reflected on the performance as they would any other. Rachel and I headed out, reluctant to put the show behind us, and started down the front steps of the theatre. As I struggled to get my arm in my coat sleeve (Cold Duck will often do this), Rachel gasped, and pointed to the curb. I looked up and saw buses lined up and down 57th street. Everyone in the audience was standing on the sidewalk slack-jawed. Eventually, with the encouragement of show staff, Rachel and I joined our fellow audience member and stumbled aboard the buses, mouths agape, still baffled and disbelieving. The convoy carried us to a public school on the lower west-side where we found the gray-hued, institutional style high school cafeteria set up with thousands of packages Famous Amos cookies and cartons of milk. There was a bizarre show in the auditorium (all I remember is fire walkers and jugglers), and Andy thanked us for coming and joked that the party would continue the next day at 10:00 am on the Staten Island Ferry. Finally, after a call to our worried parents, we stumbled home after midnight.
It seems Andy's comment about the ferry really was a joke, but I skipped school the next day (don’t tell Sister Catherine!) and joined about 12 other gullible types in the Staten Island Ferry Terminal who’d taken Andy at his word. After the milk and cookies incident, why not believe him? Among the group was someone who worked for him, and she called Andy to say that we were waiting for him. The man himself arrived not 20 minutes later, very pleased that we’d come. He said he thought no one would take him seriously. He was warm and totally approachable; nothing like one would expect a celebrity to be. He took us on the ferry and we rode back and forth twice, while he told us about his life and his aspirations (he was still trying to impress a high school sweetheart), and he even wrestled several of the women. To my disappointment, just as it was my turn to wrestle with Andy, we docked in Manhattan again. We all shuffled off the ferry, and Andy, sensing our reluctance to end the 24 hour party, bought us all ice cream cones before he said goodbye.
It has been years since I have thought about this adventure. It was without a doubt the greatest concert experience I’ve ever had, and a life-altering experience. Andy Kaufman was an amazing character and talented artist, but he was more than that to those of us who were his fans. He was a man who respected the guilelessness of an audience, of people, and repaid it with magic. He was someone who knew the party had to end, but at least he could buy you an ice cream cone to make it easier. So, although I'm afraid we did lose Andy Kaufman on that fateful May day in 1984, in honor of his spirit I do not wish to squash the naive hope of fans like my nephew who would believe him to be alive. I think I’ll take Jed for some milk and cookies.
July 2nd, 2004
Compulsive Containerism
It started innocently enough. While shopping, Mom would find herself drifting towards the Tupperware aisle, running her hand along the smooth colorful plastic tops and admiring the organizational possibilities that the clear boxes held within their matrix. She would choose a modest one, a thermos perhaps, or a pillbox; something small and innocent. Or she would buy attractive travel cases even though she hadn’t spent a night away in years. With time she graduated to the large plastic boxes that fit under the bed, perhaps attempting to hide her increasing container addiction. She would fill them with the fabric she collected over the years for her sewing projects: double-knit denim, (clearly a contradiction in terms), wild paisley prints and gentle calicos. The diversity of the fabric betrayed her eclectic tastes.
After my mother’s death at the age of 70, my brother John and I were packing up her kitchen, and we discovered a cabinet filled with the plastic microwave dishes and bowls that frozen dinners come in. There were literally hundreds of them, and we just stared at each other in disbelief. As we collected them to be recycled, we discussed this bizarre quality of our mother’s, just one among many. We decided that it must have been a residual of wartime mentality, the hatred of waste. I was content with this explanation, until the day I noticed symptoms in my older sister, Ellen.
She and I were shopping at Ames, chatting and laughing, when she stopped in mid-sentence and stood mesmerized by a display of new storage containers. She walked over as if in a trance, and picked up a mid-size food container with a purple top. “This would be great for leftovers, or the boys’ crayons…anything really.” She purchased two, and we returned to her house. I stood in the kitchen with her and chatted, and as she opened a cabinet to put away her purchases, my heart stopped as I noticed several stacks of multi-sized containers. My mind raced. What should I do? Was there someone I could call? C.C.A. hotline? (Compulsive Containerism Anonymous) I could just hear myself on the call, “Help! My sister buys dozens of plastic boxes she doesn’t need!”
I’m not sure this disorder has been researched as yet, but I’ll bet there’s some Freudian explanation: a desire to return to the womb perhaps, or on the other end of the spectrum, a wish for the neat and easy containment of the coffin. In his classic book Childhood and Society psychoanalyst Erik Erikson describes observations he made of two children, a girl and a boy. The boy would build a tall tower, only to gleefully knock it down (219) thereby being the all-powerful builder and destroyer. The girl engaged in peaceful play, “with a certain maternal quality of care and order” building a “stable” for a toy cow. He describes this as the “’inclusive’ mode, a female-protective configuration, corresponding to the baskets and boxes and cradles arranged by little and big girls to give comfort to small things” (230). Taking care of someone or something else…doesn’t it always come down to that? Regardless of the psychological interpretations these men place upon this disorder, womb envy, inclusive mode, I think it’s genetic. And as it turns out, it gallops in my family.
As I was cleaning my bedroom the other day, I bumped the vacuum into the plastic boxes under the bed that contained my knitting yarn. My mind immediately inventoried the new drawered plastic boxes under my son’s bed that contained his toys organized by art supplies, games and superheroes. In my mind I saw the handled plastic basket in my car that held all the items that used to roll around the floor of the passenger’s side at every turn I took. But instead of being alarmed, I was strangely comforted. These items might not be necessary for one’s survival, but they are opiates for the anal compulsive: the illusion of control and order in a household with children. However, this disorder can continue way past the child-bearing years when one no longer has offspring to blame.
A co-worker stopped me the other day to tell me a story. The evening before, she had been shopping at the supermarket and she saw a small plastic zippered bag that she thought would be ideal for toting tampons or storing them in her desk. She purchased it, and when she got home, she tore through the bag scattering her groceries around her to get at her prized purchase. As she held it in her hand, she was proud of her organizational ingenuity. Then it occurred to her. She was in menopause and hadn’t had a period in over a year.
What difference does it make if you have it all if you don’t have anything to put it in?
November 2nd, 2003
The Linebacker and the Sparkly Pink Pumps
One day my three-year-old son Carlos saved a toddler at daycare. She was about to dart out into traffic and he grabbed her by the arm and pulled her to safety. When I found out about it, I was shocked and very proud of him. "I'll take you to Brook's and you can get a special hero prize." He beamed. As we walked down the toy aisle in the drugstore Carlos' eyes honed in on a toy, and he tentatively pointed it out to me. "These are cool!" he said quietly. As I glanced over I saw him taking a pair of plastic high heels on a cardboard backing from the hook. They were mules, bright pink with sparkles throughout and heart cutout on the toe of each shoe. I only hesitated a moment, regained my politically correct composure, and said, "Yeah, they are cool." And non-chalantly added, "Look at these animal-shaped balloons…"
Now I should explain that as an anti-bias scholar and a bleeding heart liberal I strongly oppose gender stereotyping, and I have no issue with my son playing with what was considered in my youth to be "girl's toys." I spent my whole childhood wishing for a train set and some Hotwheels and never getting them. But I also knew how cruel kids could be. I should also explain that my son is built like a linebacker. He has always been off the charts in height and weight, and he wears the same hat size as my husband. I pictured this solid boy teetering around our house on those Cinderella shoes, and a smile came to my face. "If you want the shoes honey, you can have them." He lit up, and grasped the package to his chest. As we made our way to the register I wondered what the consequences were of what I had done.
As we drove home, he frantically ripped them out of the package, tore off his hiking boots and socks, and gleefully put them on his feet. Then the proverbial other shoe dropped. "Mom, can I wear these in to visit Daddy at his work?" Now my husband is a contractor, so you can imagine what kind of an audience would be awaiting us. "No honey. Those are just to wear at home. I'm afraid some people might not understand and I wouldn't want anyone to make fun of you and hurt your feelings. You can wear them around the house all you like." I don't know if it was the right thing to say, but he immediately understood and seemed content to limit his fun to the comfort of home.
That afternoon my friend Andrea came over, and immediately her eyes fell on the shoes. I told her the story with a chuckle. She didn't seem as amused. "Oh Lupe, my husband would be furious with me if I bought those. He would throw them in the garbage and not talk to me for a week!" I told her that I felt I had saved Carlos from an adult shoe fixation as whenever you deny kids something they without fail become obsessed with it. Early that evening my husband walked in and Carlos rushed up in a furry of clicking plastic heels to tell Dad about his daring rescue and to show him his new prize. My wonderful husband didn't miss a beat, he looked down, smiled, and congratulated him on his bravery. As he hugged our son hello, my husband looked at me, smiled, and shook his head.
Well, Carlos wore the heels for three straight days and then threw them in his toy box in the corner of the room and never touched them again. Just before his fifth birthday Carlos and I were cleaning out his toy box to make room for the new toys he got at Christmas. He found the shoes in a box under his bed, and threw them onto the pile of toys he wanted to get rid of. "Those are girl's shoes" he declared, and went back to carefully organizing his Batman toys. I sighed. I couldn't help but miss that age when he didn't attach a gender to his toys. When he would try out my lipstick and not be ashamed. We try our best to teach our children to be open-minded, but somehow they decide that dolls are for girls, and (God help us) guns are for boys. But I can't help but think that the boy in the pink mules is in there somewhere, and that hopefully, he will grow up to be a sensitive, thoughtful young man who respects difference in people and treats women well. Or at least has really good taste in shoes.