ad hoc MOM

Apr11My Standard Issue Mommy-form and How I Tried To Change It
Carrie

On Saturday morning, the family and I set out to attend an outdoor activity. We were excited for this one–it was called Touch-a-Truck.  For $5.00, kids were allowed to climb aboard firetrucks, cement mixers, cherry pickers, garbage trucks and all types of cars. For my son, this was, essentially like Beatlemania. It turns out (shocker!) there were only about 7,500 other kids with the same fantasy. It was a madhouse. The scene: long lines with a soundtrack of horns operated by three year olds and tormented screams by kids who waited in the backs of lines that stretched 30-minutes long.

As I stood shoulder-to-shoulder, diaper bag-to-diaper bag with the other parents from my neighborhood, I was greeted by a gruesome sight: hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of other moms and dads who…looked…exactly…like us. I felt like I was in a  mirror-filled funhouse, running into slightly distorted versions of myself with the same mom uniform. Big Sunglasses, Ponytails. Big Sunglasses, Ponytails. Big Sunglasses, Ponytails. It was creepy. And unnatural. And identity-crisis inducing.

That afternoon, I left the house for my usual weekend solo jaunt into the city. I was spooked by seeing one million me’s at the Touch-A-Truck. When I got off the train, I was in a trance. I wandered into my favorite stores and started trying on all sorts of freaky stuff–trying to break out of my mom mold.

I tried on not one, but two strapless jumpsuits. Heart-shaped sunglasses. Neon checkered vans. Cropped leather jackets. Lace vintage blazers. Tiger-patterned parachute pants. I was all over the map, and it wasn’t pretty. I was desperately trying to shed my Mommy-form. And what was I trading it in for? An outfit that made me look like an aging crystal meth addict from 1984?

What..had..I…become? I succumbed to the wave of my existential crisis. There was no original thought. There is no free will. We are rats in a maze. Ghosts in the machine. Spirits in a material world? (Wait–why have The Police invaded my brain? Has all this Eighties fashion driven me into the arms of Sting???)

I hadn’t felt this way since, well, 1986 when I went to a Howard Jones concert in what I thought was a unique outfit with an oversized fedora perched on the very back of my head. I arrived, greeted by the sight of 2,000 other 14 year olds wearing the same hat.

So maybe this wasn’t so bad! If it had happened to me when I was 14 and if it’s happening now when I’m 38, maybe things haven’t changed so much at all? Maybe I’m going with the flow. Maybe I’m tapping into the zeitgeist. Maybe I’m exactly where I should be?

But maybe a pair of heart-shaped sunglasses would help me see myself and others with a little more love in my heart? A little flair didn’t do any harm, now did it?

Filed Under: ad hoc CHIC, Fashion, Fear
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20 Comments

 
Apr4Blinded by Love, Barn Filled With Pottery
Carrie

I love Pottery Barn. I know I’m a punch line. But so what, who cares? I’m a child of the eighties, so sue me. Loving Pottery Barn is such a joke that there was even a Friends episode dedicated to it. I’m a “designer”– couldn’t I get more creative than this?

I know that it would be cooler if I didn’t like it. I could make myself seem younger if I stuck to West Elm or Design Within Reach. For Christmas’s sake, even Crate and Barrel would be more palatable.  It would be preferable if I scoured flea markets with an eye for the eclectic, or had the cash flow to decorate my house in a more minimalist modern style, but what can I say? The Pottery Barn catalog fills my brain with potent house decorating fantasies. They are so strong, that sometimes I feel like I actually own a house on a beach where I throw casually elegant brunches every Sunday and toil on nothing more troubling than a 3-item to-do list and a crafting project. If I find myself straining to read a small line of print, a giant magnifying glass is always within reach.

But lately I feel like Pottery Barn is a boy I’ve been dating for years: a jerky preppy jock, perhaps–popular in the extreme, but pretends to like indie rock to give him an edge. I’ve wasted years following him around like a puppy only to realize that I know everything about this boy, but sadly, the boy knows NOTHING about ME.

For example, I have never written a To-Do list on a chalkboard. And IF I had written a to-do list, it would not have three duncey-dumby things on it. My to-do list is so long,  I don’t have time to write it on a chalkboard. I don’t have the wall space for a chalkboard! I don’t need to need chalk, because then I’d need to write on the chalk board “BUY CHALK” and that would be a real shame, let alone a closed circuit of supply and demand.

I have shoes, coats, bags and lunch boxes. My entryway is not filled with rocks, pottery and artfully arranged firewood. Come to think of it, I don’t even have a fireplace, you asshole, and you’d know that if you ever bothered to come to MY house for a change.

I have a computer with lots of cables. When I work late at night, my desk is littered with dirty dishes, coffee mugs, an empty beer bottle or two, some kid toys, and some old cough drops. Not stacks of books, beautiful note cards and apothecary jars filled with objets d’art, n’est ce pas? If I had a writing desk, it wouldn’t look anything like the ones your catalog photographers so lovingly memorialize.

I have innumerable unmentionables that I need to hide under my bathroom sink. I’m not going to over-share, ’cause I ain’t that kind of dame, but for the love of embarrassing toiletries, please stop showcasing open shelving for the commode.

I  have a backyard. I am lucky. BUT, but, but. It is not an outdoor screening room.  And if it was, I wouldn’t want to watch an old, dumb movie about an old, dumb pickup truck on an old-time road to nowhere. I don’t have an electric outlet back there to plug in the projector, the Christmas tree lights, the rattan pendant lights (nor the New York City permit to string them up and operate them), all-weather ground beds, or the wherewithal to schedule 3-4 hours of my time making popcorn and funneling it carefully into tiny paper cones for my guests, who are all of your friends anyway. And now that we’re on the subject–I find your friends to be a bunch of BORING foodies–all they talk about is wine and flavor profiles like an army of lobotomized morons from wine country.

So I guess my only question to you,  Pottery Barn, is: do you even know who I am? Have you been listening to anything I have ever said? When do I get to pick the restaurant? The rock show? The movie? Pottery Barn, look, you’re really cute in a kind of pre-Dancing-With-Wolves-Kevin-Costner-kind-of- way, but I just don’t think this is working anymore. Goodbye. I love you and I always will.

Filed Under: ad hoc CHIC, Relationship
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22 Comments

 
Mar23Whatever it Takes, Which May Include My Sanity
Paula

We are moving.  Any day now.  Really.  However, we’re at that horrible point in the selling/buying process where terrible glitches pop up and I’m now pretty much convinced my family will soon be living in a tent in Prospect Park.  I’ve spent a good portion of the day either on the phone or scanning documents.  I hate my scanner.  It’s old and overly complicated.  I can also use it to produce fake IDs make toast and pop popcorn.  Every time I started to use it June would become fascinated by the device and demand to get involved.  Since I don’t know how to build a wig-wam, and I really like to shower, I decided I would do whatever it takes to get this situation resolved. . .  which means June was going to have her way.  This is how I kept the peace today.

BREAKFAST: Chocolate cupcakes.  My friend Jess pointed out that this really isn’t all that different than a muffin.  I figure, why start the day off with an argument?

FIRST-AID: No less that twenty spider-man themed band-aids are applied lovingly to a non-existent “boo-boo” on child’s foot.  For some inexplicable reason (namely child insists on removing them) the band-aids will not stick.  Constant attention to fake injury seems to placate child.

ENTERTAINMENT:  Toy Story 3.  I rewind crucial “barrel of monkeys” scene about 17 times.  Toddler rolls on floor in hysterics first few times. . . then stands directly in front of tv as if dissecting every second of scene.  Is she future Sofia Coppolla? Or future Judd Apatow?  Or is she just ruining her eyes?

DINNER: Pizza is ordered at her majesty’s request.  The first slice has “too much sauce.”  WTF?  Second slice is “funny.”  Huh?  Third slice is actually second piece simply walked back into kitchen and returned. . .  Third piece is eaten with enthusiasm allowing me to spend an inordinate amount of time fighting with ancient scanner.

BATHTIME: Since I admittedly spent a good portion of the day ignoring my child, I decide not to get mad when she pours a large measuring cup of water on top of my head during bath time.  There’s nothing that says “this is pay back bitch” like a giant cup of luke-warm sudsy water running directly down your back and into your jeans.

I’m sure that if paired with a bushel of organic apples, a box of bran cereal and a pile of tofu this delicious chocolate cupcake is part of a nutritious breakfast!

This is when I realize I’ve really let myself be taken for a ride.  Why do I feel so guilty about having to take care of some stuff?  Yeah, obviously it’s easier to deal with mortgage brokers and real estate people without your child screaming in the back ground, but it’s probably time I teach her that when mom is on the phone it’s time to play quietly with Mrs. Potato Head.  Tomorrow is another day and there will be more drama.  Instead of cupcakes for breakfast – I think I’ll go back to cereal.  Unless I feel like oatmeal.  But whatever we have, it’s going to be my decision, and I’m not going to be afraid of a little arguing.

Filed Under: Food, Insanity, Motherhood: The Job, Shortcuts
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9 Comments

 
Mar21My Trash, My Treasure
Carrie

As regular readers here know, I had a minor crisis a couple of weeks ago when my laptop acted like a slatternly wench and made away with all my data without so much as a “maybe we could get coffee sometime.” Well, gladly, the story has a happy ending! For a nominal fee (err…I mean a mind-numbing notable fee), all of my data has been recovered!

In the interim, I spent two weeks recreating files. For the files I couldn’t recreate, I went back to the drawing board. I tried to see the loss as an opportunity to make stuff that was even better than the originals. I kept on thinking (through the tears and hysteria) of the writer Maxine Hong Kingston who lost the only manuscript of a novel in the Oakland, California fires of 1991. She mourned, but recovered by writing something she felt was better than the original.

Maxine Hong Kingston, I ain’t, so I was tremendously relieved to get all of my files back last week. But you know what I found out? I spent a whole lot of money getting back a whole lot of nothing. I would say that 10% of what I paid to get back was important. The other 90%? Weird garbage. Drafts. Downloads. Roads to nowhere.

My computer is choking with files. I am buried alive in my data. I don’t know what I have. The only thing I do know is that I need to have it, whatever it is. The problem is–it’s not just my computer. My house is overflowing with information and papers that are impossible for me to throw away. Behold–these monuments to minutiae, these records of irrelevance, this stuff I can’t throw away:

IMPORTANT!

Lots and lots of cd’s and dvd’s of panicky backups made in the dead of night. Most are from 2003 and 2005. They are named helpful things like “IMPORTANT! Carrie Harvey” and “THIS IS IT!” Thanks to myself for labeling them so usefully. I also love the floppies. Maybe if I send them in a time machine someone from the past working in a data processing plant will be able to tell me what’s on them?

I'M READY TO GO!

Should my husband plan an impromptu trip to Central Asia and our internet service is down, I can grab a book off of my shelf in the blink of an eye and be armed with the best travel tips (past their fresh date) around. Need to find an editor’s cheap eats pick (now closed) in Naples circa 2004? I GOT IT! Let’s go!! Move it, move it, move it!

ENLARGE THIS! (AT SOME POINT...)

If an acquaintance of mine from 1996 should call me in search of some pictures for a slide show on the occasion of his 40th birthday, I’m his gal! I have lots and lots of unlabeled, slightly damaged negatives from 1995-1999 that are just waiting for their moment in the spotlight.

IDEAS 'R US

You know why I’m smart? Because I don’t ever need to have an original idea again. I save all of my notebooks, so on the off chance somebody asks me to come up with something, I just have to peruse through years of illegible, half-assed explorations to get me started. Even though I have never actually referenced one of the 73 notebooks that I have stashed in a drawer, that doesn’t mean the day isn’t going to come when I will MAKE IT RAIN with stuff (stuff spelled $$$tuff) I dreamed up on the F train, OK?

CONSIDER IT...FIXED. YOU'RE WELCOME.

Someone, somewhere is worrying about what will happen if they suddenly forget how to operate their ceiling fan. They bought it at a Salvation Army (where I donated it 6 years ago) and its operating manual was missing. Now, all they have to do is track down and interview a dozen or so former Salvation Army employees from 2005. One of them will be able to provide them with a visual description of me. A couple of police sketches and 3 neighborhood canvases over the course of several years later and—BAM! Just like that, the guy will be in possession of a Hunter Douglas fan operating manual. And that’s what it’s all about folks–keeping the ceiling fans of the world running.

HERE'S A CASSETTE. IT'S NOT LABELED. LET'S SPEND THE DAY TRACKING DOWN AND BUYING A CASSETTE PLAYER TO LISTEN TO THIS TAPE (WHICH COULD VERY WELL BE BLANK.)

Undeveloped disposable cameras. Unlabeled blank tapes. Defunct electronics. They are not garbage. They are poetic vessels of undiscovered potential and discarded dreams. OOOh. That sounds like a cool idea. I’m going to scribble that in a sketch book and shove that sketch book in the back of a drawer. In 2048 someone will read it and say “Wow, that chick was deep.”

Alas, did this blog entry teach me that I have too much useless stuff? Yes. That I hold on to things like a psychopath on Hoarders? Yes. After the photo shoot for this post, did I gather up all the junk, and with a smug smile and a knowing peaceful grin that speaks of closure and life lessons, throw it all away? No.  I shoved it all back into a canvas bag, which I then crammed into a drawer in a filing cabinet in the back of a closet in a room that I rarely go into. You’ll thank me one day.

Filed Under: Disorganization, Fear, Insanity, My Neuroses, Uncategorized
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14 Comments

 
Feb17My Fave Food Hall of Shame: Frightful or Delightful?
Carrie

Mealtimes around here are serious business. Do my kids have a protein? A veggie? A fruit? Over the course of the day, have they eaten all the colors of the rainbow? Have I given them enough opportunities to try new things? Will the teachers at school think I’m a capable, nutritionally enlightened  mother?

And then, my mind wanders back to the food of my youth. Processed. Fattening. Unnaturally orange. And I think: DELICIOUS!!!! These are the foods that pop into my head like unexpected guests from a checkered past. These are the foods that I’d probably buy if I wasn’t afraid of being brought up on charges.

Tonya’s post this week about digging cake out of the garbage really made me think about how each and everyone of us keeps dark and dirty food secrets.

So I’ll keep it short (and delectably sweet and salty) this week. Frightful or delightful?

1. French Onion Dip (with Ruffles)

2. Hostess Orange-Flavored Cupcakes

3. Steak-umms (should beef ever have a hyphen?)

4. Corn Dogs (be HONEST!)

5. Wise Onion Rings (NOT Funnyuns. That’s a whole different food group.)

And if not these taboo treats, what’s in your secret Favorite Food Hall of Shame?

Filed Under: Food, Frightful or Delightful?
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14 Comments

 
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