Aaarrrggghhhh!

I'm starting to resemble Chewbacca. Yes, that is how badly I need my eyebrows waxed.

We'll Miss You Montana Fats

About eight years ago, I came home to my little house on Laurel Street in New Orleans and found on my doorstep one of the most hideous animals I had ever seen. Covered in candlewax, hairless with black splotches on his fluorescent pink hide, with a skinny, crooked rat tail, it was a cat. At least it appeared to be a cat.

"Get out of here, you mangy animal," I said to him and shooed him away from the door. I already had one cat, and was not interested in getting another one -- especially this one.

But the hairless cat was persistent. He stayed on my doorstep for days, shivering in the April air, and mewing this high-pitched unearthly sound.

I didn't feed him. I didn't give him any water. But I talked to him.

"What in the hell is wrong with you, anyway?" I asked him multiple times a day. "Shoo! Scat!" But the cat stayed.

Then one day I opened my door, and the cat walked into my house as if he belonged there. He used the litter box, ate approximately 17 pounds of cat food and drank a gallon of water, curled up on my bed and promptly fell asleep.

I named him Louie. At the vet, I found his hairlessness and totally rancid breath was a result of neglect and abuse. The old saying "scared of his own shadow" was probably written with Louie in mind. He was terrified of everything -- except for me and my other cat, Stanley.

While Stanley was a fighter, overestimating his own strength and chasing German Shepherds in the neighborhood, Louie was a lover. He pranced instead of walked, and his favorite activity was rolling in the grass and smelling the neighbor's flowers. He slept next to me every night, snuggling in as close as I would let him get. He became my shadow, perching on the edge of the tub when I showered, sitting on my lap whenever I sat still for more than a minute, and always running in between my feet when I was standing or walking.

His hair grew back, and he began to resemble a cow because of his strange markings, and his propensity for eating, as he ballooned from 6 to 27 pounds. He ate ALL of the time, something I could identify with. He was also an emotional overeater and would rush to the food bowl whenever he got in trouble or was being beaten up on by other cats in the neighborhood. That's how he came to be rather affectionately known as Montana Fats.

I took Louie in the car with me, driving around New Orleans with him running back and forth and howling in protest. I flew home early from a vacation because the cat sitter had accidentally let Louie get outside and he wouldn't come back in and all I could think of was poor Lou -- under the house being cold, wet, lonely, scared, and hungry -- so I caught the next plane. When I had to leave Louie and Stanley behind as I evacuated for a hurricane, I cried and tried to teach them how to crawl up into the attic in case of flooding, demonstrating as cat-like as possible how to reach the open attic door on my precariously balanced stack of furniture to make it easy for them. When I moved to Chicago, they came with me and now here we all are -- in Montana together.

In spite of the fact that he is still terrified of nearly everyone and everything, Louie has gone through the moves and my major life changes -- from single woman in New Orleans to married mommy in Montana -- with surprising ease. When we first brought Mike home from the hospital, I wasn't sure how our other animals would react to him but I was sure that Louie would be great. And I was right. To this day, if Mike is crying, Louie is right there, running around next to Mike, and crying right along with him. He lets Mike pick him up and carry him around and pull his tail, as Mike yells "No pulling tails!" Louie will sit next to Mike as he plays with his blocks just to get his fur rubbed the wrong way or to be used as a base for a new block tower. When I go in Mike's room to check on him at night, I often find Louie sleeping on the floor next to his crib. Before Mike could talk very well, he began to call Louie "Moo Moo" after the cow character in what was his favorite book at the time, "Moo Moo Goes to the City."

It's funny how animals seep into your life, until they permeate nearly every thing you do. Every morning as I blow my hair dry, Louie is first in line (before Mike) to get his hair blown dry too. He sits next to me at the dinner table, waiting for any spare scrap of food to come his way. And still, whenever I sit down, he is quick to hop on my lap and nap there.

He is only a cat, but he has been a huge part of our family for a long time now. It is hard to imagine our lives without him here, because he has always been underfoot. But he is sick, and I have selfishly kept him alive far too long because I didn't want to miss him. This past week, his suffering is much more than I can stand to watch, and tomorrow, I'm going to put Louie to sleep.

The vet and Brent and my mother have all been telling me that putting Louie to sleep is the best thing. I keep wondering if I've done everything possible, and if he is really as miserable as he appears. What if it's a really bad case of kitty flu that he can't seem to shake? What if there's some amazing kitty antibiotic that can save him? But no one seems to know what's wrong with him, and as his body shuts down a little more each day, I am slowly coming to terms with the fact that putting Louie to sleep is probably the most humane thing to do.

So, Moo Moo, Louie, Montana Fats (now Montana Slim due to his illness), a cat by any other name could never be as sweet. I'm going to bury him under the cherry trees, and I know I'll think of him so often, whether I'm drying my hair, eating chicken (his favorite), or sitting on the couch with no one on my lap. And now, I'll always think of him when the cherry blossoms bloom.

We Need to Go Home Now

Last night, we took our normally well-behaved child out to dinner. This restaurant is no fancy-eatin' digs, mind you. It is a buffet friendly to families, and there are always a buttload of toddlers there because the "restaurant" serves things like macaroni and cheese and jello, absolute essentials of the toddler diet. I am quite frankly shocked that they do not serve up giant bowls of Pepperidge Farm goldfish as appetizers.

Mike is really and truly a pretty good kid. I actually have received many compliments on his behavior from unsuspecting strangers and service people who have actually witnessed him listening to his mother and also saying please and thank you.

Last night, however, was a different story. The straps on the highchair were not enough to hold the boy down. He stood up in his high chair and shouted about how the light bulbs needed to be changed. He yelled at other children. He refused to let even a morsel of the completely grotesque buffet food pass his pursed lips (can't say as I blame him there) as he shook his head vehmently back and forth and yelled for everyone's pleasure who happened to have the bad fortune of sitting down within a three mile radius of us, "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!"

I knew it was time to leave when other parents could not even disguise the pity they felt for us. I was furious. I am fairly certain that my father took over my mind and body because I actually said, "We spent $19.38 on that dinner, and none of us got to enjoy it because of you!"

Trying to make someone feel bad who hasn't yet developed self-awareness is no easy task. But try I did. Mike, however, was more interested in the big rigs we passed on the way home.

Note to self: Must take lessons from my mother, queen of guilt trips, on how to make children feel terrible about themselves.

Can I Get You Some Fries With That?

For those that know me or read this site on a semi-regular basis, you are keenly aware of just how difficult it is for me to maintain my stunning physique with only 35 extra pounds saddled on my body, mainly on my gut, butt, and thighs. (I do have positively striking forearms.) As I have written here before, I love food -- adore food -- and believe it is a miracle for which someone should receive sainthood that I do not weigh approximately 7,000 pounds.

I do work very hard to maintain general obesity and to not fall into the super duper obesity category. I go to the gym daily. I eat a lot of salads. And I occasionally decline cookies (though never cake) when offered. I have even managed, with the help of two severe bouts of the flu, to drop quite a lot of weight over the past two months and have kept it off.

Truth be told, lately, I have been watching what I eat. I wouldn't call it a full-fledged diet (I say this because I just devoured three chocolate chip cookies the size of frisbees). But I'm cutting back.

And let me assure you there's nothing more annoying when you're not eating every single thing you want than someone who is more successful than you at losing weight.

Case in point: my mother. Childhood memories of my mother include her pointing out women that weighed about 500 pounds and asking me whose butt was bigger; watching her consume entire rings of pickled bologna (yes, I still consider this a delicacy); and eating nothing but grapefruit to lose something like 80 pounds prior to her 20th class reunion. My mom's weight has gone up and down over the years because (and I say this without doubt), it is entirely possible that she loves ice cream more than I do.

But lately, old Franny has been dieting and aerobicizing and she has dropped nearly 20 pounds. 20 pounds!

So what do I do? I tell her that she'll never reach her goal weight and then send her a recipe for strawberry shortcake that requires SIX CUPS of heavy whipping cream, so that each amazingly delicious bite has 84 grams of fat.

If she lived closer, I would sneak into her house at night and feed her fat through an IV drip while she was sleeping.

And, don't even get me started on my husband. Brent has this annoying ability to put on ten pounds and then say, "Sheesh -- I better cut back" and within a nanosecond, he has not only lost the ten pounds he put on, but has also shed an additional five pounds and 18 inches off his body. He is a coffee-aholic, and in each cup of coffee (and he has several per day), I have borne witness to him using HEAVY WHIPPING CREAM and an ENTIRE cup of sugar! Per cup! I use skim milk and Splenda, and my butt still wiggles and jiggles as I run up the stairs.

So I have been reveling in the fact that ever since Brent got a new job and is not as active as he was at his old job, he has put on about 15 pounds. I have been trying to help him -- not to lose weight -- but to put more weight on. When he grabs a banana to bring to work with him, I offer a dozen chocolate chip cookies. When he comes home for dinner, I pile about 96 ounces of red meat on his plate. I actually encourage him not to exercise.

What is wrong with me? I know that it is in everyone's best interest to eat healthfully and weigh less, but here I am -- offering those closest to me a knife to stick right into their cholesterol-addled hearts.

Is it my competitive nature that is so strong it once forced me to cut into a funeral procession so I could beat someone in a race back to the office? The competitive side of me that won't let my two-year old win at games as I tell him that it's good to learn how to lose? Is this why I keep encouraging those around me to continue their lives as fatties and discourage them from any attempts at weight loss?

Or is it just that misery loves company, and that there's absolutely nothing pleasant about being "plump"?

I think I'll go have some more cookies and mull it over.

Battle of Wills

If I had to choose three words to describe my son, they would be:
1) stubborn
2) demanding
3) stubborn.

It is a lucky thing that we do not have to put him in daycare because I am afraid that after an hour of battling him, the daycare provider would just give up and lock him in a small dark closet, occasionally shoving small bits of food under the door at which he would yell, "No THANK YOOOOUUUU!!!!"

As a matter of fact, in spite of how much I love this little boy, I often feel like locking him in a small dark closet. Lucky for him, the insightful planners of this house installed no closets -- not a single one. There is also not a single door that shuts completely, leaving the option of locking him in a room completely unavailable as well.

But, thankfully, there is naptime. The blisfull two hours a day during which I spend the majority of time folding laundry and stacking it in impossibly high towers in laundry baskets, cooking dinner, and occasionally reading the New Yorker. Naptime is a slice of pure nirvana. I am going to do everything possible to ensure that my son will have naptime until I drop him off at college across the country.

Lately, however, he has turned to trickery to get out of taking his nap. He waits until he is up in bed, alone, supposedly sleeping to take a giant poop. Then I hear on the monitor, "Mama, Mikey needs new diaper." OR, he just talks and talks and talks and talks. OR, he jumps up and down in his bed until I am fairly certain from the rattling chandelier in the dining room that the crib is going to come right through the ceiling. OR, he tries to entice the cats into his room by calling out to them, and hissing, very dramatically. After he has kept up these antics for an hour-and-a-half, I start to feel so guilty that I go and get him. I mean, is it child abuse to leave your kid up in his bed, alone, as I sit downstairs cursing him and fervently wishing that he would fall asleep?

I say no, because damn it -- I need my rest -- and so does he.

However, when he refuses to fall asleep immediately, it completely throws off our entire schedule. And, I have been a schedule fanatic since the second Mike graced us with his presence a month early, and completely threw off my plans for those last few weeks of my pregnancy (i.e. buying and installing a car seat, taking a day off from work, putting together a nursery, etc.)

Today, for instance, he sung the "itsy bitsy spider" for nearly two hours before pasisng out from exhaustion or delirium from repeating those inane lyrics over and over and over, I'll never know. Now the dilemma -- do I wake him up in an hour, which is when his normal naptime ends -- or do I let him sleep until he wakes up, which could possibly push back dinner and bedtime, and the whole shebang until all of a sudden, it's tomorrow morning.

There should be some kind of parenting book that tells you stuff like this. Like, here's the real deal. There's enough garbage out there about co-sleeping, and nursing a kid until they're in kindergarten. What nobody ever tells you in these books is that sometimes you're going to want to throttle the little bugger and it's best just to let them sleep for a long time so you get a break from the itsy bitsy spider and blaring fire engines and Thomas the Tank Engine, and the park, and shape sorters and don't even get me started on Elmo, the muppet from hell.

Note to My Husband

1) Covering the loaves of homemade bread with intricately laid hot pads in the pans in which they were baked does not equal "Please put those loaves of bread in ziploc bags so they do not get stale."

2) I realize we keep our house at a rather cool 64 degrees so that the energy company doesn't come and take our first born child, but that doesn't mean you can leave meat products on the counter for fourteen hours. It may feel like we live in a deep-freeze, but really, we do not.

3) Contrary to what you seem to believe, two-year-olds are not big enough to "entertain themselves quietly" while you sleep. No matter how tired you are, or how early Mikey wakes up, it is vital for his safety and for the future of our marriage that you get your lazy butt out of bed and take care of our child.

What Flavors Does It Come In?

Last night, I experienced something that few Montanans have ever experienced: an evening at a wine bar. It was rather fabulous. I almost felt like I was back in Chicago for a few hours -- except I had on jeans and cowboy boots.

To me, wine is kind of like sushi. I really love it, but it's important for me to go with someone who knows what they're doing so I don't end up looking like a jackass.

Case in point. When I first moved to Chicago, my new boss there had previously been the marketing director for the biggest wine distribution company in the Chicagoland area. He was asking me about wine, and I actually said to him, "My favorite flavor is chillable red. It comes in a box."

As my brother likes to remind me, I am a direct descendent of the species hillius billius.

Bang Your Head!

In spite of my tone deafness and resulting off-key crooning, I have always loved to sing. And now that I have a child, I have the perfect excuse to sing all of the time.

I can't seem to remember any children's songs (must have been all the booze my pre-school teacher slipped us in those cardboard milk cartons) but I do know a surprising range of 70s TV show theme songs and 80s rock.

And now, so does Mike.

There are few things that give me greater pleasure than listening to my 2 year old belting out "Movin' On Up" ("The Jefferson's" theme song) or singing "Schlimiel, schlimazel, hasenpfeffer, incorporated! We're gonna do it!" (Laverne and Shirley for those not so in tune with their 1970s television). He also knows "Good Times" (Temporary layoffs! Good times! Easy credit pay-offs! Good Times!!!!) He sings these tunes with a surprising amount of soul and feeling. Might he be the next Bruce Springsteen? As long as his fortune is large enough to pay off my student loan debt, he could be the next Yanni for all I care.

His most recent musical acquisition surprised me though. As we walked by a construction site the other day, I said to him, imitating the hammering noise, "Bang! Bang! Bang!"

And he just replied, "Bang Your Head! Metal health will drive you mad!"

Long live Quiet Riot!

As I Move Towards the Dreaded 35-50 Market

In a few short weeks, I will turn 34. I realize that birthdays are meaningnless, and that age is more a matter of how old you feel vs. how old you really are. However, I have worked in advertising and marketing long enough to know what is really on the horizon after 34 -- the 35 - 50 market -- when companies start trying to sell you things like laxatives instead of ipods; when you walk into places like Victoria's Secret and you are herded to the doors of "more supportive" undergarments at JCPenney; when you try to be young and hip, and people say things like, "She should really dress her age."

Which brings me to the Gap.

I have been a Gap shopper for more than 20 years now (20 years -- good lord!). I am completely and totally devoted to their jeans; I refuse to even look at any other brand. Shopping at the Gap was much easier back when I lived in Chicago and there were Gaps across the street from one another on every other corner (much like Starbucks). In Montana, there is, I think, only one Gap and I must drive a long time to get to it and it is small and poorly stocked and so normally I just wait until I go back to the Midwest so I can go to a real Gap, a behmoth Gap, with more pairs of jeans in it than there are people who live in Montana.

However, last week, an emergency arose. Both of my favorite pairs of jeans AND my khakis experienced rear blow-outs. I could not imagine making it through an entire week of work without wearing jeans, and so I made a pilgrimmage to the Montana Gap.

I went bright and early in the morning because I can no longer sleep past 5:30 a.m. and so even with travel time, I had to go drink coffee for awhile and wait for the Gap to open. As soon as the doors were unlocked, I made a beeline for the jeans.

But these were not the Gap jeans that I had known and loved. These jeans had funny names like "long and lean" and "curvy". There were ankle cuts, long jeans, bootcuts, and regular cuts. And every single pair of jeans barely covered my buttcrack -- let alone my giant cotton big mama underwear that ends four inches above my bellybutton. The jeans also came in approximately 27 different shades of blue -- one of which came with a warning label that said something to the effect that the dye would rub off on light colored clothing or furniture. AND, worst of all, every single pair of jeans had SPANDEX in it.

Spandex!!!

Now I came of age in the 1980s. And spandex has absolutely ZERO positive connotations in my mind. Spandex flattered NO ONE, especially the band Whitesnake. But really, aren't jeans just supposed to have one material -- cotton? When did spandex start invading and taking over jean factories?

I asked a salesgirl where their regular jeans were and she launched into a discussion about the different cuts and different amounts of spandex and how these jeans that give the wearer a plumber's butt are really very flattering and blah blah blah.

So I said to her, "I just want a pair of jeans that covers my buttcrack when I bend over."

It was clearly the most appalling thing she had ever heard in her life because she pointed to a shelf and said that was their highest-waisted jean and left me to my own devices.

I ended up buying three pairs of pants -- one khaki, one regular (with only 1% spandex and that sits only 1 or 2 inches below my belly button) and one hip mama pair (that my husband now refers to as my hot pants) which are 20% spandex and sit so low on my hips that my shirt would not stay tucked in today. I suppose my next step is to buy one of those really small t-shirts that would expose my stretch-marked belly so that roving groups of teenagers can remark to one another, "Did you see that old lady? Who does she think she is?"

No Thank You!

One of my more distinct dinner table memories from my childhood involves my father yelling at my brother and I, "You two eat like a bunch of god damn vikings! Elbows off the table! Backs straight! Hold your utensils correctly!" as he swatted the backs of our hands with a gravy ladle if we reached for something without asking that it be passed.

So it is no wonder that I am a stickler for manners from my own child. I have been trying to drill politeness into this child, and it has seemingly been a losing battle.

After every burp, I say, "Mikey, what do you say?"

And he either institutes his very selective listening policy, completely ignoring me or yells, "NO -- DON'T WANT TO!"

Whenever he does something bad, I say, "I think you owe so and so an apology."

To which he will announce, "Mikey wants to play with fire truck!" as he runs off into the sunset.

He is a demanding little bugger, and after he bosses me around, I say, "Mike, you need to say, 'Mama, will you please unsnap that for me."

To which he replies, "Mama, unsnap. NOW."

After I'm done doing whatever he wants, I say to him, "Now you say, 'Thank you mama!" And he says, "NO!"

So imagine my complete and total shock last week. After my husband and I forcibly pinned him into the barber's chair for 10 minutes of sheer torture during which Mike screamed and stomped his feet and probably wished he was a girl so he wouldn't have to endure such indignities, we got in the car and Brent said, "I can't believe he acted like that." And a little voice piped up from the back seat, "I'm sorry, dada."

"He just apologized!" I said, victorious, forgetting that he had only moments before pulled out fistfuls of my hair in anger.

Then, later on in the day, as he told me what to do and when to do it, he added "please" onto his order.

He later thanked me for helping him with something.

And tonight, when I grabbed a book off the shelf that he didn't want to read, instead of yelling, "NOOOOOO" as he swatted the book from my hands, he actually said, "No thank you. I don't want to read "David Goes to School" right now. I want to read a different book."

And I keeled over and died from happiness.

So Where Is It?

I like to try to give up something that's important to me, usually swearing or chocolate, during Lent. I'm not a religious person; I just like the idea of denying yourself something for a long time and then getting to enjoy it again. That way, the chocolate is sweeter, and so is the swearing.

I started this practice when I lived in New Orleans. The pre-Lenten season, otherwise known as Mardi Gras, was six weeks of complete and total debauchery and after that I actually felt that a little soul-cleansing would be a good thing. On Easter Sunday, my friend Diane and I would go to mass at this black Catholic church on the edge of the French Quarter in New Orleans where a friend of hers was a priest. After our souls had been saved, we would head on uptown and have ice cream sundaes for brunch, cursing like sailors the entire time.

This year, I thought I would give up chocolate since I am trying very hard already to give up swearing since Mikey has super-sonic hearing and will let me know, "Mama said a bad word," if I cuss within a 3-mile radius of the boy.

I did pretty well for two whole days, and then some kind soul left a bunch of caramel-filled chocolates on my desk at work. I thought one wouldn't really be breaking my Lenten devotedness, but then I devoured the rest of them in a feeding frenzy. It is possible I also swallowed my computer, without chewing -- that is how rapidly I was shoving these little nuggets of deliciousness into my face.

Since then, it has been a rapid descent. I went from not eating any chocolate to trying not to eat too much chocolate to ordering my husband to drive to Dairy Queen and get me the biggest Choco-Cherry Love Blizzard they had.

Today, Brent made a brownie pudding for lunch for me (he had refused to go to DQ in the middle of the night, the bastard, and was trying to make up for his ineptitude as a devoted husband, I think). Anyway, I had a nice chunk of it at lunch and then told him to hide the rest so that I didn't eat it all this afternoon.

He apparently took me for my word because I cannot find the remains of the brownie pudding pie ANYWHERE and I have torn the kitchen APART.

Six Years and Counting

Today marks the sixth anniversary of the day that I met my husband. It was Mardi Gras, we were both residents of New Orleans, and somehow we ended up in the same bar at the same time, and the rest, as they say, is history. Actually, I know how I ended up in that bar -- I was supposed to meet some other guy who stood me up. In walked Brent, and that, I guess, is history.

Nobody ever really wants to hear how we met as soon as they hear that we met on Mardi Gras because I think they automatically assume that it was a result of my baring my enormous boobies for beads. That actually wasn't it at all. My boobies were bared unconditionally.

Actually, I was waiting to meet someone else. My friend Abby and I had been out drinking since three days earlier, and had gone back to my house to change my clothes into a nicer t-shirt to impress this fellow who would end up missing out on someone who was really ready to be in a serious relationship -- just the kind of person you're looking for on Mardi Gras.

Halfway into my 18th vodka tonic at the Club, in walked Brent. I can honestly say that I remember the moment he walked in. I remember what he was wearing. He was gigantically tall (nearly 7 feet) and ridiculously skinny (under 200 pounds). And that was it. I wouldn't lower myself to talk to a man who had not spoken to me first (I lived in the South too long), and so Abby made the first move and bummed a cigarette. And Brent and I started talking and we have been talking now for six years. Meeting Brent at the Club (open 24 hours with $1 drinks -- yes, you read right) completely disproved my theory that you couldn't meet quality people in bars -- unless, of course, you met me.

It' funny how two people end up together. Brent and I have always been and will always be the most unlikely of pairs. When we met, I suppose you could have compared me to a giant semi riding your ass on the freeway at 90 m.p.h. with the air horn blaring. Brent, on the other hand, might have been a mime on a unicycle using hand signals.

I was (and can still be) loud, pushy, aggressive, and bossy, and these are my finer characteristics. I also really liked to drink at the time, so you could multiply all of those personality traits by 100 once I got a fifth of Aristocrat vodka pumping through my system. Brent is quiet, reserved, and thoughtful. He's also highly logical, which I find to be the most annoying of all traits, especially when we fight and he throws some logical argument at me and I am left with my usual retort of "Oh yeah? Well, I'll show you, buddy."

I think we have both mellowed over the years, both out of necessity of trying to make a relationship work and because of the lack of alcohol flowing through our veins at any given hour. Even though I was completely smitten with him from that first night I met him, I couldn't have predicted that we'd end up together all of these years later, owning a house in Montana and raising the most perfect of all children -- together. At least I certainly couldn't have predicted the Montana part.

Because I actually told Abby the day after meeting Brent that I intended to marry him. Why I knew that I'd never be able to tell you. But I just had a feeling.

That's not to say that being married is easy, and I don't think Brent and I are made for each other, as people like to say in the movies. That's just to say that from the beginning we've had an easy way of talking to each other; we've had a way of backing each other up and believing in the other person and making demands on each other to be better, smarter, more decent human beings. We fight. We get mad at each other. We annoy one another. But we always get over it.

A few months ago I was in Washington D.C. visiting my best friend Shannon (the only other person in the world I could probably happily marry). I was telling her about my new fascination with "Sex and the City" re-runs.

"Why'd I ever get married?" I asked her. "My life was just like Carrie Bradshaw's!"

Shannon spoke to me very slowly so that I would understand: "Your life was NEVER like that. EVER." She paused and then said, "That show drives me crazy. The only people who ever like it are gay men and married women."

Good point. When I was single, I ached for a partner I could share things with -- experiences both good and bad, hopes, dreams. Now that I have that, there are moments when I think, "I'd really rather not be married," as I envision my single gal lifestyle of expensive clothes and shoes, leisurely brunches with my gal pals, and an ever-interesting array of dates with well-established, intelligent, funny, kind, and mentally-stable men.

Then I come back to earth. And I remember the moment Brent walked into the Club and I knew he was the one for me. I remember how he didn't leave me after I shoved him towards a shark while we were swimming in the Gulf of Mexico so I could make a quicker escape. I remember driving home along Highway 1, sipping homemade daiquiris. I remember how patient he was when I was whining about camping after I had agreed to camp (this is not a specific memory, more of a recurring event). I remember the first time he told me he loved me, drunk on cheap champagne. I remember seeing that field of sunflowers in the U.P. of Michigan with him. I remember us sitting naked in Jerry Johnson hot springs, surrounded by spring in the mountains. I remember him crying as I gave birth to our son, and watching him cut the cord.

And so here we are, six years later, husband and wife, mother and father. And that's the way it will always be; I suppose that's the way it was meant to be.

Here's Why I Do This

Shortly after I had my son, my parents came out to help. I have never been so glad to see two people in my entire life. I don't remember much from the first few weeks of my son's life, except the lactation consultant rolling my nipples in her fingers, my first after-birth poop, and thinking that I had more coffee than blood running through my veins so that I didn't pass out from exhaustion and drop my son while I was nursing him 23 hours a day.

I also remember a conversation with my dad, Big Mike, who is actually a short little man I used to like to ridicule by wearing his pants around (which are so tiny they come up to my mid-calf area) and announcing, "Look at me! I'm wearing knickers now!" And I wasn't even drunk.

We named my son after my dad, which is just about the biggest compliment in the entire world that you can give someone. I've had plenty of disagreements with the old man, but as an adult and now as someone else's parent, I can say without reservation that I have incredible respect for him. He is one of those rarest of human beings -- just a really, decent and kind and caring person, who has given enormously of himself to my mom, my brother and me, and to many others who have had the privilege of knowing him. He has made huge sacrifices for us.

And so, I was talking with my dad about going back to my job as a consultant, and I was telling him that I didn't realy want to do this because I'd be gone all of the time, but the money was really good, essentially trying to justify that I'd miss out on 95% of my son's life. I also bemoaned the fact that I hadn't yet established myself as one of America's greatest writers, able to support myself and my family by doing what I had always wanted to do: write for a living.

My dad listened to me, and then he just said, "You know, I always wanted to go to art school."

Art school? I honestly think I would have been less surprised had my dad told me that he was Jesus Christ himself.

When I asked him what happened, he just said, "Well, I got married, and I got drafted and when I came back, I had your mother to support and then you and your brother and then here I am today, 35 years later."

I was SHOCKED. I couldn't believe that at one point in his life, my dad had wanted to go to art school, that he had wanted to try his hand at being an artist...that he had ever wanted to do anything in his whole life other than work the jobs he had and to be a father and husband. Suddenly, I remembered all of the little drawings he would leave for me in my lunches, and that I would save in neat little piles in my desk. All of the cards, and little comics he would make for my brother and me.

And then I was shocked that I was shocked. Of COURSE my dad had once had dreams that went beyond being a husband and father. Doesn't everybody? But art school -- wow.

My dad, who is a pretty cautious and conservative human being, has always supported all of my dreams, from my get-rich-quick schemes, like "Catheter for a Night" (already done if you can believe it) to my desire to support myself as a writer. I will never forget when I was still in college and he gave me a copy of "The Writer's Market", essentially a list of places to sell your writing. And, when I quit a lucrative first job after college at Ford Motor Company as a technical editor because it was "crushing my soul" so I could go study poetry in New Orleans, my dad helped me pack and drove me down there. I know now he thought I was crazy for taking such a big jump, but I didn't know it then.

So my dad always wanted to go to art school. He wanted to be an artist. And as usual, he gave me great advice without telling me what to do. Follow your dreams. Carpe deim, and all of that crap. Because before you know it, you're middle aged and the bulk of your life is behind you, and you're closer to pushing up daisies than you are to art school.

I ended up quitting my job, which I actually really enjoyed and at which I made buttloads of money. Our lives would be financially easier if I was the one that worked full-time and if Brent was the one to stay home with the baby more. Sad but true -- you can make more money writing advertising than you can saving little kids' lives as a social worker. And, my life would be easier if I didn't spend every spare second I had writing and researching; I assure you there are many days that I'd rather spend on the couch watching Oprah. But here's why I do this: because I don't want my son to be surprised that I wanted to do something other than work meaningless jobs to give him a better life.

Sometimes it's good to remind myself of that.

Beans, Beans! The More You Eat!

As a graduate student in New Orleans, I was poor -- even more poor than I am now, if that's possible. And I couldn't really afford to buy food, especially because the bulk of my money was spent on car repairs and Aristocrat (ha!) vodka. As a result, I am thankful for the few forms of nutrition that kept me from getting scurvy and avoiding malnutrition:
1) Bar fruit, as in those little pieces of lime and lemon that come with drinks
2) Grains, as in grain alcohol
3) Happy hours at which free food was served
4) Ladies Nights at which free food was served
5) And last, but certainly not least, beans.

Beans are amazing. It costs approximately 12 cents to buy a bag of these little pellets that are so so hard our own vice-president could have used beans instead of birdshot when hunting his friend. You open the bag, put them in a bowl and soak them overnight in water, dump them in a crockpot with an onion and some seasonings and sweet jesus -- at dinner time, you've got a bowl of delicious nutritiousness.

I ate a lot of beans in graduate school, and drank a lot of really cheap vodka, and between the combination of those two, I don't think I took a solid poop for nearly five years (The poverty continued post graduate studies; I did get my MFA in poetry after all).

Anyhoo, when I finally got a job that paid more than what I would make if I was dishing out nachos and slurpees at the local 7-11, I vowed to never, ever eat beans again as long as I lived. (I also vowed to never again have to sell so much of my own plasma that I would be on a first-name basis with the plasma center staff). And, I actually avoided eating beans again for the next several years, unless it was in the refried version covered with onions and cheese and sour cream at a Mexican restaurant.

Fast forward to today. My son is not what I would call a picky eater; he just goes for months without consuming food. But, the one thing I can always count on him eating are "magic beans" -- kidney beans to the rest of us. They're magic beans if you're a big fan of "Jack and the Beanstalk."

And so I have once again, grudgingly, become a bean expert, and add them in what would seem to others the most unlikely foods -- eggs, burgers, tacos, milkshakes....any way I can think of to get my son to consume a dash of protein that will help him become the professional football player we need him to grow up to be so he can pay off our student loan debt.

And so beans, here's to you, in all of your various sizes, shapes, textures, and colors. You are magic, beans, you cheap, wondrous brain food. You've seen me through my darkest hours, and now, once again, you are helping me through trying times. The lovely, lilting poem that celebrates you does not do you justice, but it bears repeating here:
Beans, beans -- the magical fruit!
The more you eat,
The more you toot!
The more you toot,
The better you feel,
So let's eat beans at every meal!

Yes, let's! Rejoice in the bean!

No! Don't Want To!

Lord knows when you become a parent, you give up a lot of the things you love, like long, leisurely dinners in restaurants, laying in bed while drinking coffee and reading the entire Sunday paper, and spontaneous road trips to hither and yon (wherever yon is.) But one of my most beloved experiences has also recently gone by the wayside: that of the closed-door, New Yorker article long bathroom session.

Early in Mike's life, I abandoned all hope of ever using the bathroom by myself again. When he was just a baby, as soon as I sat down, he would start to bellow, which would clog up the works and ruin the whole experience, so I ended up just taking him with me and holding him while I did the job. But he outgrew this, and I happily resumed one of my favorite times of the day -- those luxurious few minutes when I get to sit down in a room with the door closed and read without interruption.

For a long time, Mike has also enjoyed closed-door pooping. As soon as he is done with dinner, he announces, "Big brown poop!" and runs into the pantry and shuts the door. I once opened the door to check on him, and just found him semi-squatting with his face bright red. He paused long enough to look up at me and said, "Poop. Close door please." Which I did. When he's done, he opens the door and comes on out.

Since my son is able to announce when he's taking a poop, it seemed to my husband and I that he is ready to try to use the potty. So, a few months ago, we bought a little potty and put it right next to ours. At first, the potty was of great interest to Mike because he could push it around the house (it has handles that seem to be expressly for this purpose) while making truck noises. He wanted to do everything with the potty except sit on it. We let this go; he wasn't even two yet and it seemed that he'd be ready in his own good time.

Recently, however, we decided to start potty training in earnest, and part of this involves being a good role model. So now, whenever I go to the bathroom, I leave the door open. Mike almost always comes in and asks if I'm taking a "tee" or a poop, and then will sit down on his potty, fully clothed, and ask for toiletpaper, which he then rubs on the front of his pants, throws in his potty and says, "Bye bye toiletpaper! See you next time!" Then he's off and running again.

Again, my husband and I thought that since he is now voluntarily sitting down on his potty fully clothed, it's time for the next step: taking off his pants and diaper. Which we tried a few hours ago and holy sweet jesus -- I am personally shocked that child protective services did not show up on our doorstep to handcuff us and throw us in the paddy wagon -- that is just how torturous of an experience it was for Mike. And for Brent and I.

My mother swears up and down that both my brother and I were potty-trained by the time we were a year-old. I find this more than a little hard to believe that two children, who were unable to walk or express themselves in anyway beyond babbling, smiling, or crying, were somehow able to 1) determine that our bladders and/or intestines needed to be emptied; 2) express in some way the above sentiment as in "Mama, I need to poop."; and 3) somehow get ourselves to a potty, open the lid, take off our pants and cloth diapers, and get the job done, including wiping. I love my mother, but sometimes I think she is completely delusional.

And, so we shall proceed on with the potty training if, by God, it means that we have to affix straps to the handles on that little potty and strap his naked little body down until he produces something, at which point I envision the three of us standing around the big toilet and flushing it down saying, "Bye bye poop! Bye bye toiletpaper! Bye bye pee! See you next time!"