The Differences Between Women and Men

I recently watched this very fascinating documentary that used brain imaging as a basis to talk about the vast differences between women and men, highlighting such things as gender stereotypes, use of language, sexuality, and empathy.

But one thing the documentary didn't touch on was housecleaning.

In my mind, one's ability to detect dirt (along with one's ability to endure illness) are excellent indicators of the female sex. If you can see dust on top of the bookcase and if you can go to work with a high fever, you are, most assuredly, a woman. On the other hand, if you step over that pile of cat vomit for three days and confine yourself to your bed at the slightest sniffle, you must be of the male persuasion.

Like nearly every other married with child(ren) woman in America, I wish that Brent would do more to help me out around the house. Every time I scrub the tub or vacuum the couch or clean up all of the toaster crumbs, I find myself wondering why I'm ALWAYS the one to do all of this stuff, and then it is only a short, very slippery slope until I am cursing Brent's very existence and thinking about calling a divorce lawyer.

Because I LOATHE cleaning. I can think of approximately 8,793 better ways to spend my time than dusting the living room. The problem is I also LOATHE dirt and filth, and you'd never know it to look at my house, but I'm not big into clutter either.

I've tried holding out before. I've said to myself that THIS TIME, I'm absolutely, positively not scrubbing the toilet. After all, it's only fair that Brent takes a turn after I've taken the first 14,562 turns.

But here's where the difference between men and women comes in.

Brent apparently does not see dirt or grime on anything. Ever. Not only does he completely not observe the apparent algae growing around the rim of our toilet bowl, but he also misses coffee drips on the front of our white kitchen cupboards, apple juice spills that are sticky enough to tear off the soles of your shoes if you accidentally step on them, and Mikey hand and faceprints on the tops of our glass tables, not to mention on mirrors, windows, and on the TV screen that he likes to lick, for whatever reason.

So when the house is so filthy that it is giving me the heebie jeebies, Brent apparently thinks it is clean.

I should say that Brent actually does help out around the house a lot. He does all of the dishes and a lot of the laundry. He cooks when he's home. He has even been known to sweep the house and he's usually pretty good about cleaning up after his cat who has acid reflux. And, over the past 2.5 years, he has changed a lot of poopy diapers.

But quite honestly, I'm not sure if the man even knows how to turn on the vacuum and I'm sure he wonders what that mysterious little brush behind the toilet is actually for.

Recent studies indicate that today's mothers spend significantly less time cleaning our houses than our mothers did. This only makes sense: trying to balance work (often full-time), motherhood, and wifelydom, while trying to also remember that you actually are a human being with needs, wants, and desires is more than enough to fill someone's plate.

But here's what those studies don't tell you: our houses are a lot dirtier than the ones we grew up in. Because unless we're paying someone to come in and clean our houses for us, it's not getting done. In spite of the fact that our husbands do pitch in more than our fathers did, modern man is completely oblivious when it comes to dirt.

So while my mother may have stayed up until midnight waxing on and waxing off, I try to look the other way as much as possible when it comes to dust, fingerprints, and the like. You literally could have eaten off the floor in my mother's house, and don't get me wrong -- if something falls on the floor in our house, we observe the ten-second rule and blow it off and eat it too. But as I take a bite, I also take great comfort in the fact that an herbalist I know told me that consuming a certain amount of dirt helps to keep your hair from falling out. Dirt -- the health food of the new century.

After I had Mike, cleaning really went by the wayside. For the month before he was born, I hurt my back, rendering me unable to walk. In fact, I was in such great pain that I had to ride in an Amigo around Costco -- a flag waving behind me as a warning that I was near, when what I really needed was a semi-truck's air horn.

Then, after giving birth, I spent nearly every second that I was awake, approximately 23 1/2 hours a day, breastfeeding. The other half-hour, I reserved to consume food and sleep. Our house quickly lapsed into something that would have been more easily torn down and rebuilt, rather than go through all of the vacuuming, dusting, and sterilization that would have made it livable again. (We actually ended up moving out.)

Since I remember the filth we lived in after Mike's arrival all too well, I have developed what I believe is an excellent way to remedy the situation in our house, especially in those first few months after Devil #2 arrives. I suggested to Brent that we hire someone to come in and clean our house -- not forever -- just until I feel like moving around again and have semi-figured out how to handle a new baby, a busy toddler, work, and my life.

"HIRE SOMEONE TO CLEAN OUR HOUSE???" Brent asked, as incredulous as if I had just suggested that we go live in a hotel for six months and pay for someone to make our beds on a daily basis. "Why on earth would we do that?"

"Well," I began. "Mainly because I do the bulk of the cleaning and I'm not going to feel much like cleaning for awhile and it really drives me crazy to live in a filthy house."

"Like I never do anything to help out!" Brent said. "I'm completely useless!"

I resisted the urge to say, "You are INDEED completely useless when it comes to cleaning anything other than the dishes."

Instead, I said, "Well, I just remember that after I had Mike, I didn't really feel much like doing anything and this might be something that helps us both out in the long run."

"I'll be home for a couple of weeks," Brent said. "I'll take care of the cleaning."

I just kept quiet, not telling Brent the myriad of things that were so very wrong with this statement. Like, 1) I'm STILL not going to feel like cleaning the house from top to bottom two weeks after I give birth and 2) In an average two weeks time, I will have scrubbed the house upstairs and downstairs 2-3 times; vacuumed everything, including all of the furniture 4-6 times; and wiped off every finger-printed surface, i.e. mirrors, windows, and tables, countless times. In the same two week period, Brent may have wiped off the kitchen counter -- once.

So this is just one of those things -- one of those male/female differences -- that no matter how many times I say to Brent, "How can you not see the mud that you tracked in all over my clean floor?", our views of cleaning will never diverge. This leaves me with two choices: 1) I can just give up and keep on as is, resigning myself to live in filth post-partum and digging myself out later; or 2) I can hire a cleaning service to come while Brent's at work for a few months.

Something tells me that two of my womanly instincts will kick in -- my nesting instinct, which helps me to keep my home safe and comfortable and my empathy, which helps me to understand how my actions will affect those around me -- and I'm going to pick up the phone and look forward to those once-a-week visits from Merry Maids.

They Will Come, and They Will Be Overcharged

In an effort to solve our never-ending storage dilemma, Brent and I have identified two completely useless corners of our house that could be made into closets. Currently, these two corners are filled with extra dining chairs, four seasons worth of outerwear, and approximately 3,700 children's puzzles. So why not build a couple of walls that will hold up a tension bar so that fewer of my clothes must be hidden in storage in the basement and hide our unsightly mess at the same time?

Sheer brilliance we thought.

Since moving in, we have done nearly all of our home "fix-it" projects ourselves. We have painted, sanded, sodded, scraped, built, and refinished huge portions of our house. And we have only had to call the fire department once through all of this.

But we are running out of steam. Between our work schedules and taking care of a 2-year old who (and this is becoming more apparent to me every day) shoots up speed whenever we turn our heads for a minute, AND expecting another bundle of energy to arrive soon, we have more than a few unfinished projects around our house. Our hot tub hasn't worked in two years. It is possible that our bathroom tub will rot through the floor of our house before we replace it. And, we have tape around the edging in our dining room and up our stairs -- tape that is now hanging, bedraggled like decade-old flypaper, because it has been up since before we moved in -- over two years ago.

So, we decided to seek expert advice on the closet situation, and contacted our neighbor, who just started his own business as a house-framer. I left a message for him, and he finally wandered down to our house nearly a week later, claiming that he was so busy he hadn't had time to return my phone call.

He whipped out his measuring tape and measured a little here and a little there, and then announced that the job would cost around $1,700.

"What?!!!" I asked him. "ARE YOU KIDDING? $1700 for ONE CLOSET?"

(Keep in mind that this is a closet being built into an existing corner so that TWO WALLS already exist.)

"Well," he replied. "That may be a little on the high end, but with materials and my hourly rate, it'd be close to that."

"What's your hourly rate?" I asked him.

"$30 an hour," he replied.

Then he stammered something about putting an estimate in my mailbox and being so busy that he didn't know if he would actually have time to come and make $1700 for, what I assumed, would be a pretty quick and easy job.

And this from someone who just started their business less than a month ago. And I thought we'd be doing him a neighborly favor by tossing a little bit of business his way.

Herein lies the problem with living in a place that is being so rapidly developed to accomodate our population that seems to quadruple overnight -- every night. The people of Helena, Montana seem to expand as if they are wire coat hangers. You put two in a closet, turn out the light and shut the door, and the next time you open the door, you are left with 457 completely useless wire coat hangers. All they do is take up space. VERY valuable closet space.

So anyone who has anything to do with home improvement or home building in this town is 1) too busy to return your phone call unless you are planning to spend $500,000 and 2) expecting more in an hourly wage than Stephen Spielberg might expect for making a full-length feature film that will eventually gross MILLIONS OF DOLLARS.

$1700 for a closet. And not even a closet -- 1.5 walls and a pre-made door. Give me a fucking break, please. AND, he still hasn't given me a written estimate.

They Call Me The Seeker

I don't believe in God, but I want to.

Looking at it scientifically, the concept of God makes no sense to me at all. But the idea of some higher being with infinite power and caring guiding my life and shaping my destiny? Wow. Sign me up.

Which is maybe why, about 15 years ago, I ditched my job as an editor with Ford Motor Company for a few days, rented a van and bought a bunch of Jack Daniels, and headed to Janesville, Wisconsin to see a white buffalo.

At the time, I felt really lost – directionless, motionless, with my wheels spinning and going nowhere fast. I had decided to stay in Michigan after graduating from college, and after living at home with my parents and working part-time in a video store, I took one of the first real jobs I could get – as a technical editor for Ford Motor Company – and moved to Detroit.

If ever there was a job to suck the life out of someone, this job was it. I sat in a grey cube under glaring fluorescent lights and edited service manuals day in and day out. There was never any end in sight. If you finished one, there was another waiting in your crappy plastic in-box. The money was fine, but the monotony was overwhelming. I cried every day on my way to work and at 5 p.m. on Friday, I was always one of the first to blast out of the doors. But Monday always came around.

When a friend of mine at work told me about a white buffalo being born in Wisconsin, I felt as if I needed to see it. Not because a white buffalo is so much a genetic curiosity, but because, spiritually, the birth of a white buffalo signaled that miracles were on the horizon – that, according to the Lakota Indian legend, White Buffalo Calf Woman would return to the world, bringing back harmony and spiritual balance.

I needed a little harmony and spiritual balance in my life. And so off I went to Janesville with a bunch of co-workers.

We were a motley bunch. Two were going through divorces. One had recently come out of the closet. Another had just gotten out of jail. And then there was me – and all I could think about was not spending the rest of my life complacently editing service manuals for Ford Motor Company in my little cube, nodding my head, and thinking life was great because I could pay the bills.

We piled into a rented van and cracked open our first bottle of whiskey, barreling down I-94, literally heading to greener pastures. That night we slept in a park and woke the next morning covered with late autumn dew, and then made our way to the farm where the White Buffalo had been born.

We waited with throngs of people to see the white buffalo, shuffling in line, wanting to pay our respects or to understand the meaning of life or to find religion or ourselves. It was not a joyous place, as one might expect, but was rather like going to pay your respects at a distant relative’s funeral. People were quiet, introspective; the tone of the day was ominous, foreboding, as if waiting for a phone call that bore devastating news.

After standing in line for hours, I finally was at the white buffalo’s field but when I looked out, I saw no white buffalo. There was only a brown buffalo calf with its brown mama.

“Where’s the white buffalo?” I whispered to the guy in front of me.

“That’s her,” he said, pointing at the brown buffalo calf.

“But that buffalo is brown,” I told him. Could others see what I could not? Was I so lacking in vision that this calf, named Miracle, was not evident to me?

“She turned brown as she got older,” the man hissed back at me. “But that’s her. She was born white.”

I felt as if someone had socked me in the stomach. The white buffalo, the buffalo for whom I had ditched work, for whom I had spent money and time, and upon whom I had pinned a lot of hopes, was brown??? Was this guy kidding?

But no, he was not. There was no longer any white buffalo.

I don’t remember much else about the trip. We spent the night at some dive motel in Chicago and headed back to Detroit early the next morning. And then, I was back in my cube.

I wish I could say that my journey to see the white buffalo had been a pivotal one in my life – that yes indeed, the white buffalo was white, and that suddenly, upon seeing this white buffalo, I had clarity, understanding, focus. That I knew what I needed to do with my life. That I knew the direction I would take and that I have been steadily chipping away since.

But the only thing that trip provided for me was some perspective on how many people are desperately searching for that clarity, understanding, focus and direction. That lots of people are lost and wandering and looking, seeking for something they can’t articulate.

I read today that a new white buffalo has been born on the same farm in Janesville, and there is no doubt in my mind that thousands of people will flock to this field again, trying to get a glimpse of the white buffalo, to understand what they can’t understand, to fix what they can’t fix, to find guidance where now there are only questions and darkness.

I won’t be going to Janesville this time around. As that old U2 song goes, I still haven't found what I'm looking for. I don't even know if I'll recognize it when I see it. But I do know that I'm not going to find it by staring at some buffalo, white or not, in a field in Wisconsin.

Professional Trapeze Artist

As a state government employee, I get no perks. There is no "extra" vacation time you can earn. There are no three-hour lunches on the boss. There are no year-end bonuses. There isn't even a year-end gift certificate for a ham or a turkey as at some of my previous non-profit employers.

But there are books. I work at a library, and because of that, we receive lots of "Advance Readers' Editions", which are essentially books that will soon be published but are, at this point, often full of typos and going through book jacket redesigns. Since I am doing everything I can to support our local library by racking up obscene amounts of overdue notices, these Advance Readers' Editions are often what get me through until next payday when I can go in and pay off my fines in order to check out more books.

These freebie books are stacked in our breakroom, under our mailboxes, and I often get down in a squat, and peruse the titles until I begin to feel guilty for looking for pleasure during work hours. But the other day, I walked by and a bookjacket and title caught my eye. Then I saw the words "classic coming-of-age tale" and I knew I had to have it.

On the way back to my desk, I flipped it over and read the book's famous author endorsements and saw that one of my former grad school professors had raved about the book.

Could it be? Could someone I went to school with have gotten published? Gotten a real novel published? I looked down at the name and saw who it was. And if there was ever a reason to draw back in horrified consternation about something, this was it: The author of this soon-to-be-published novel is one of the most odious, most horrific, most ostentatious and annoying human beings to ever grace the earth.

Example: She worked as a contortionist and a professional trapeze artist. AND she lists that in her author bio.

I mean, WHO DOES THAT? First, who works as a contortionist and professional trapeze artist and secondly, who would list that in their author bio?

And even worse, her equally odious husband has published TWO books and his author bio lists that he is married to the author so-and-so who used to work as a contortionist and a professional trapeze artist.

It was almost enough to make me jump on a plane to New Orleans so I could personally punch their lights out.

I could not resist the urge to look up the book on Amazon, and saw that it got great reviews -- both by some of the biggies (i.e. Publisher's Weekly) and by lots of people who offered reviews of their own. Who were these people? Her friends? Her relatives? And even more importantly, could the book really be good?

For days, I let the book sit amidst the squander of my desk at work, its bold cover transparent through a paper I purposely placed on top of it in order to try to forget this reminder of my own failings as a writer. When I couldn't take it anymore, I brought the book home -- though I should have just thrown it in the trash. Because now, everytime I walk past it, I clench my fists and curse myself for everything I've never done with my life.

I want to read the book, the same way I'm tempted to pick at open sores or to push on a broken bone to see if it still hurts. But what if it's great? What if I can't put it down? This woman, who in grad school perplexed me for her willingness to accept less, to take jobs as a dishwasher, to live in squallor, what if she's good?

The Myth Perpetuates

I have recently had to endure several days with a Grumpy Old Man. I'll spare you the details, but I do need to share a little bit of GOM background for you to fully appreciate the below scenario.

The GOM is not one of those exceedingly attractive and well-groomed middle-aged men you see on the Viagra and Levitra commercials. Oh no. The GOM is rumply. He looks old and weathered and not in an outdoorsy-spent-my-life-in-the-woods-or-on-a-boat kind of way. He has an enormous red nose that could potentially put Rudolph out of a job. He's not penniless, but he couldn't exactly provide for a woman the way a young woman who is willing to spend her time with a nasty old man would expect.

And yet, the GOM seems to really believe that he is somehow a “catch” for some pretty young Miss Thang.

On one of his first nights in town, the GOM and my husband went to the grocery store together and when they returned, my husband reported that the GOM was hitting on an attractive 25-year old girl.

"She wasn't telling me no," said the GOM. "She was smiling the whole time."

I just turned away, resisting the urge to say, "Of course she was smiling the whole time, you nasty old coot."

And here's why: because most nice young women have been brought up to believe that yelling, "Get the hell away from me you disgusting old man!" at someone, even if said someone is bothering them, is rude and should never be done unless said disgusting old man is brandishing a weapon.

But the GOM seemed so pleased with himself, as if he actually believed that yes, this attractive young woman, who is younger than his youngest child, would really find him attractive. Did he really believe that if he’d had a few more minutes in the grocery store with her that he would have left with some pretty young thing on his arm? Did he not get the memo that under only very rare circumstances (i.e. millions and millions of dollars, escape from impoverished countries or tyrannical rulers, mail-order brides) do beautiful young women endure the affection of nasty old men?

A couple of days later, at lunch with a strikingly beautiful friend of mine, I relayed the scenario to her. She just rolled her eyes.

"Do nasty old men really think they have a chance?" she asked.

"I suppose they do," I said. "Otherwise, why would they bother?"

"I think it's an ego trip for them," she said. "Just because no one is throwing a drink in their face, they believe that they could have gotten the goods."

"And the girl?" she asked me. "She didn't do anything?"

"No, I guess not," I said. "What do you do when it happens to you?"

"Nothing. Then I feel like a turd for not doing anything."

"And so the myth continues," I said.

"It just goes on and on and on," she said.

Revisiting an Old Theme

I recently worked from home for a couple of days in order to take care of Mike while Brent was at a conference. This meant that Mike and I got to actually spend some real quality time together for a change. And let me just tell you -- it was a blast. We went to the lake, to the bakery, to the library, for walks. We laughed and read books and baked cupcakes and I wasn't nearly as tired as I always am, and I wasn't depressed like I am a lot of the time, and I wasn't in a rush and I didn't feel any pressure and it took just about everything I had to drag my butt into the office on Friday morning.

I suppose I have it pretty easy. I only work part-time but because of my husband's schedule, I have to work every morning. There's part of me that loves working in the morning because whenever I have to work in the afternoon, I spend the morning looking forward to going into the office like I used to look forward to my weekly piano lessons where my teacher beat my knuckles with a ruler. If I work in the morning, I have considerably less time to dread going and wasting my valuable time and being away from my child for the pittance per hour the state finds fit to pay me.

It also means that I get naptime, which I have said before is absolutely vital to maintaining my very precariously balanced mental health. Without naptime, I am just another cog in some state bureaucratic wheel who gave up potential vast fortunes as a businessperson all to stay home and be a potty cheerleader who also just so happens to be the very best monster truck garage builder EVER. Ever. Hands down.

Naptime, very simply, is the only time of day I have to write and to plan my future after Oprah discovers me and I go on to become a multi-millionaire because of the huge number of books I sell. Or after I become a multi-millionaire from winning the Powerball. Whatever. When I contemplate my future, there are multiple millions in it and this is, obviously, the most important part.

But working in the morning has its drawbacks too. The major one being that I reguarly miss the very best part of Mike's day -- that time of day that doesn't include making dinner with a kid zooming by you on a firetruck and feeding a toddler who doesn't like to waste time eating and washing the hair of a toddler who loathes getting his hair washed and lots and lots of toddler maintenance. I miss the time of day that is fun.

This leaves me feeling very angry and short-changed and I find myself thinking that Brent doesn't use this time as well as I would because if he did, Mike would be fluent in seven languages by now and on his way to developing a cure for cancer and a path to world peace. I also get really irritated with myself for marrying someone who is a social worker and doesn't make any money. WHAT WAS I THINKING?

I obviously wasn't. But here's some thinking for you. Cocaine dealer. Arms smuggler. Stripper. Now there are some professions I could do after Mike is in bed at night and I could still be up first thing in the morning, fresh as a daisy, making pancakes. And I'd still get to enjoy naptime.

Quite frankly though, I haven't drawn up a business plan to examine the market in Montana for cocaine or illegal firearms. I also don't know if my hummingbird heart could take the stress of potentially getting arrested and being shipped off to Sing Sing for the next 30 years. And, if I was a stripper, I'd probably end up getting sued for knocking a customer off his chair after unleashing my enormous drooping boobies. So I'll probably stay put. At least for now.

But perhaps you can tell from the manic tone of this post that figuring out a way to quit my job is becoming my number one priority.

Which, I suppose, would be easy enough if I wanted to go sell Avon or host a bunch of Tupperware parties. But it's not just quitting my job; it's quitting my job to be a writer.

I cannot stress it enough: I LOVE being Mike's mama. I LOVE being a mom. I find it, hands down, to be the most rewarding, most incredible, most joyous thing I have ever done in my life. Don't get me wrong. There are days when the thought of reading one more book about dump trucks is enough to make me want to sign myself into the nearest looney bin. But 99.9% of the time, being someone's mommy is filled with so many little unexpected joys and hugs and kisses and triumphs and first successes and failed attempts and belly laughs and shy smiles that it is almost enough to sustain me.

That's right. I said almost.

Because someday Son #1 and Son #2 will grow up and, very hopefully, move out, and go on to be happy, successful, well-adjusted boys who dedicate every award they ever win to their mommy. And then what? I'm supposed to keep my fingers crossed for grandchildren?

No thanks. Because even now, my son's life is his life. His successes are his successes earned by the hard work he has put into them. And more than anything, I want him to want things and to strive for things and to work hard and to do better and to have amazing dreams that may be hard to fulfill but that he will work at with passion and dedication.

And I certainly don't want anything less than that for myself. Or for my kids.

Becoming Mike's mommy is easily the most amazing transformation I've ever experienced. First, there's the whole suddenly-you've-got-a-kid-who's-totally-dependent-on-you thing. But for me, it also helped to crystallize a lot of things in my life, most significantly what I wanted for me. There's no question that my sons will be my proudest achievement, my biggest success, my crowning glory. Enjoying Mike's milestones and achievements are far sweeter than enjoying anything I've ever accomplished. But even with that, I still need to be able to say that I am more than someone's mommy. And I want to say that I am a writer.

I've wanted to be a writer for longer than I have been able to write. It is my dream, my passion -- the reason I used to get out of bed in the morning (now it's a little voice that calls out from the next room "Mommy, you're all done with sleep!). It is my hope for the future, for myself, and just as importantly, for my family. Being a writer would provide the autonomy I crave and need as a person, and as a mother. But it would also mean that I will have worked very hard to satisfy a lifelong ambition.

For me, what a crowning achievement. For my sons, what a great example.

I remember reading something by a life coach who asked, "Are you willing to put your dreams on hold until your children are old enough to need you less?"

The answer for me is no. I don't want to wait another day. I'm being patient, but here's the thing about motherhood: nothing is just for you anymore. Yes, being a writer is my goal, but it will be a success that will be enjoyed by our entire family. I like to think that someday, Oprah will discover me and I will go onto make millions. But I know enough about writing to realize that I should be happy if I can make enough to help pay our bills. And, I know enough about life now to understand that success at one thing doesn't necessarily mean that all of my other problems will be solved. If I'm a successful writer, I won't necessarily be a better mother. I won't suddenly be graced with patience and a tall, willowy body. I will probably still eat too much sugar and I will still probably be chief of the Drooping Boobies tribe. There's no disillusionment here. Becoming a successful writer will not instantly erase all of my other little problems.

But I will have taken the one thing for which I have always had a gift, the one thing about which I have dreamed since I was a little kid, and I will have turned it into something real and valuable through hard work and dedication and persistence.

And I will be able to say to my kids, "Look at what you can do. Look at where hard work can take you."

So Tupperware parties? Ding-dong Avon calling!? Stuffing envelopes at home? No thanks. For now, I'll lower my head and keep plugging along at my little part-time job and writing whenever I get a spare moment to myself, and hoping that I will find success as a writer while my kids are still young enough to want to spend time with me and to look forward to my always being at home. So here's to success. Here's to autonomy. Here's to hard work and perseverance and dedication. Here's to wanting something more -- for me. And for my boys.

Out of the Closet

I very recently spent the morning cleaning out my closet.

It wasn't meant to be some big purge of my clothing, where I ended up with bags and bags to give to Goodwill. This closet cleaning business was meant simply as a way to get my closet under control so that I could walk in it again and remember what all was in there.

I should probably tell you that my closet is also my husband's closet and is also Mike's closet, and when the unnamed devil child #2 arrives, it will be his closet too. That's right -- my closet is shared by three, soon-to-be-four, human beings -- which serves as proof that this house was constructed by a man who probably owned two pairs of pants and did not enjoy standing amidst all of his finery in a well-lit room wondering aloud "What to wear?".

Regardless of my home's original occupant's evil intentions, my clothing and shoes had definitely taken over the better 90% of available closet space, rendering this obscenely tiny, unlit ship's galley more useless than ever before. Sweaters were piled on top of silk scarves. My stilettos were mixed up with my every day sandals. My long-sleeve silk shirts were shoved right next to summer linens. It was complete and utter mayhem! Bedlam, I tell you, bedlam!

The closet pandemonium was hard enough to take, but I also had a new dilemma to solve -- maternity clothes and where to stash them. There was definitely no more room in my/our closet. This meant that I had to actually go through my clothes and organize them in such a way that some clothes were put into storage and other clothes, the clothes that I may wear within the next 6 - 12 months, were left behind for actual wardrobe consumption.

Warning to All Pregnant Ladies: This is not a task for the faint-at-heart. Because a woman's clothing speaks volumes about who she is and what she does and what she enjoys and where she is in her life. And those giant panels in the front of all of the pants you wear now -- let's just say that you don't want to be there for very long. People always talk about the miracle of birth, but I'm here to tell you what feels just as miraculous is getting into a pair of your pre-preggo pants and zipping them up -- without having to lay down.

I'm six-and-a-half months pregnant now, but I couldn't resist trying on a bunch of my old clothes (read into this clothes I wore when I was not pregnant with a 50 inch waist). And, believe it or not, they didn't fit! I could not zip or button my "Miss Thang" jeans that are more spandex than cotton. Try as I might, I could not get my favorite angora sweater to cover my belly button. And my stilettos? Well, envision Fred Flintstone's feet in stilettos and you get the idea.

After coming to terms with the fact that I am pregnant and rather portly-looking right now, I decided to use my ill-fitting fashion show to my advantage. Any piece of clothing that I could right now get up over my ass would stay in my closet. Any shirt that I could still button across my breasts that are so enormous they now need their own car in which to get to work would stay in my closet. Any piece of footwear that would not make my feet look as if they belonged to some oversized transvestite would stay in my closet.

And thus began the purge.

Keep in mind that I have done this pregnancy thing once before, during which I gained 65 pounds. In spite of my fairly incredible weight gain, I remained optimistic that after having Mike, I would immediately shed ALL 65 pounds -- like within hours. This line of thinking prompted me to bring along one of my favorite sweaters to wear home from the hospital -- a skin-tight, cowl-neck, bright purple number -- and I think my inability to even shove my sausage arms into its sleeves might have been what helped me plummet into an abyss of postpartum depression that would have leveled the chirpiest of cheerleaders.

But I digress.

My point, I suppose, is that I was trying to be very realistic about what I would be able to put on my body for the next several months.

But the job soon became more than what would fit and what wouldn't fit over the next several months. Because I haven't really gone through my wardrobe since I was a single gal living in a big city. This was waaaaay back -- back in the day when I would have plunked down more than $30 for a bottle of wine -- on a Tuesday, for chrissakes. Back in the day when I would shell out more for a pair of shoes than what I now pay on a monthly basis for my mortgage. Back in the day when a splurge for dinner meant paying over $150 -- just for me -- not the $7.95 all-you-can-eat buffet at the Chinese place next to the Department of Corrections.

So, my life has changed some. As have my dressing habits. What would have made sense would have been for me to put all of the clothes that I haven't worn in the last five years into a pile to donate to charity. Let's face it. When am I next going to wear that skin-tight, see-through, angora-knit DKNY black tank-top again? What Montana occasion would call for my $795 Jimmy Choo stillettos? The next neighborhood barbeque? Storyhour at the library?

But really, I reasoned with myself, would those people over at Goodwill even know what to do with a Manolo Blahnik if its expertly designed stiletto was piercing their still-beating hearts?

I don't think so.

So I did what any rational expectant mother craving her former body and every-once-in-a-while her former life would have done.

I put all those clothes in a refrigerator-sized storage box down in my basement.

Because that DKNY skin-tight, see-through tank top? Well, let's just say, you never know. I might very soon have the most PERFECT occasion for it.

Like yet another toddler birthday party.

Grizzly Adams and Me

This weekend I humored my husband and spent time in the woods -- not just any woods, but woods where you rarely if ever see another human being, woods without flush toilets, and woods that have no plush mattress sets. The last time we spent time in said woods I discovered a blood-sucking tick on my neck hours later and spent the next year worrying that I was going to die from Lyme disease.

People assume that because I grew up in rural Michigan and now live in Montana that I am an avid outdoors person -- that I camp and fish and skin the hide off of freshly killed animals, and then after eating them, use their bones to pick at my teeth.

The fact of the matter is I hate camping. I'm not much into fishing, and that coonskin cap my son wears? I bought it at Big R Ranch and Home -- which I only go to in order to show my son the baby chicks they have around Easter. I don't like the taste of game because it is, quite frankly, a little gamey. And, I live in perhaps the only house in all of Montana that is not decorated with preserved animal heads.

This is not to say that I don't love the outdoors. In fact, until moving to Montana, I always considered myself rather outdoorsy. Thanks to my parents, I always spent a lot of time outdoors in the woods as a kid, of which I loved every minute. Because of that, I can identify probably a hundred species of birds by sight and their call; I can name nearly every tree species, and alert you if you're standing in poison ivy or oak. I've hiked, canoed, backpacked, biked, and skied the countryside. I even own some clothing from LL Bean, for chrissakes. But once I moved to Montana, where the outdoors can kill you, I realized I am actually a bit of an outdoors wimp.

Because Montana woods are something altogether different from the woods in which I grew up. First, there's that whole "no other human beings" thing. You can go out in the woods in Montana and be totally alone -- for days -- perhaps seeing no other trace of human beings. My husband loves this about Montana. To me, it signals that if I fell and broke my leg, I would likely have to gnaw off the bad leg and hop out on the good one before anyone else found me.

There are also a lot of really bad things that can kill you in Montana. Even if you don't end up having to gnaw your own leg off, there are plenty of other opportunities for death to find you. From freak snowstorms to grizzlies, mountain lions and rattlesnakes, from plunging cliffs to raging river rapids and avalanches, going outdoors in Montana is like playing Russian roulette. There's even a flesh-eating spider out here. That's right -- a FLESH-EATING spider -- a little spider that will EAT YOUR SKIN OFF.

But there's something far worse to me than being eaten alive by a spider. My dad, a very wise man indeed, actually summed up what I dislike about the wilderness out here the best. When I asked him why we never camped as a family, he replied, "I remember the last time I hung my ass over a log in Vietnam to take a poop. And I said to myself that I would never do it again. And I haven't. And I won't."

The fact of the matter is I like being comfortable far too much to enjoy extended periods of time in the middle of nowhere. No matter how hard I try, I am completely incapable of peeing without sitting on a toilet. This means that in the wilderness, I must disrobe completely from the waist down -- underwear, pants, socks, and shoes -- in order not to smell as if I've been sleeping in the subway for the past week. No matter if I close my eyes and swallow without chewing, I will never be able to enjoy Dinty Moore Stew-in-a-Can or granola bars or any other pre-packaged food that requires minimal, if any, cooking time and refrigeration. No matter how much my blow-up bed is inflated, I will never be as comfortable as I am sleeping on my Sealy posturepedic pillow-top.

When we are out in the wilderness, my husband always reminds me that being comfortable is not the point of enjoying the outdoors. But being comfortable is a key element in my being able to enjoy anything. I cannot relax if I am looking for a place where I can take off more than half of my clothing to squat and pee. And I don’t care if I’m looking at the most stunning view that Montana has to offer – if all that is in my stomach is some beef jerky and half of a Snickers bar, I’m going to be thinking of my next meal – which better not be more beef jerky and Snickers.

I have friends here who go backcountry skiing every winter. This means that they camp(!) in the winter, and armed only with their skis and their avalanche rescue transceivers, dive down the sides of craggy-faced mountains – all in the pursuit of the freshest powder. I have another friend who just returned from a month-long canoe expedition by the Arctic Circle and came back raving about not seeing another human being for weeks. A small part of me is envious of their ability to totally immerse themselves in the middle of nowhere. But there is a larger part of me that knows I’d hate every second of a trip like that.

Last winter, I willingly went and stayed in a rustic cabin (read no heat, toilet, or running water). I did this only because there were hot springs nearby, which meant that I could get clean on a daily basis, and that at the hot springs, there was a toilet that flushed. Our rustic cabin also had electricity in the form of a bare light bulb and one outlet, so I cooked for days in advance and brought coolers of food and our microwave along. There were beds, though the mattresses were so broken down that my blow-up bed may have been more comfortable. The worst of it was peeing outside in the middle of the night in a snow bank, but I somehow managed to survive even that. To me, this was the ultimate in roughing it. If I had been any closer to Mother Nature, I might have hauled off and given her a swift kick in the teeth.

So give me the outdoors, but give me a nice hotel or cabin nearby, preferably one that has triple sheeting and a gourmet restaurant with a good wine list. Let me enjoy the sunrise and sunset, just on the balcony or deck of a big house with a steaming cup of freshly-brewed coffee in my hands. And give me s’mores and even hot dogs cooked over an open flame – the open flame of an indoor fireplace, which, trust me, works just as well as an outside fire pit, where at any time, you can be besieged by bugs and bats and prowling grizzly bears. Give me peace and quiet, incredible views – even solitude – but make sure there’s a town within 30 miles where I can pick up some crusty bread, olive tapenade, and some soft stinky cheese for a snack before dinner.

There’s no question – I love the outdoors, just on my own terms, and with all of the things that I find make life worth living nearby – water, in oceans, rivers and lakes, bottled and in the fridge, and the kind that flushes down the toilet; the earth’s spoils – fresh fruits and veggies from the local farmer’s market for a divine dinner and breakfast and lunch; and wild animals – the sounds of loons calling to one another over the water, the foie gras slightly seared, and the down that stuffs my comforter and keeps me warm all night.

All Hail Snake and Jake's Christmas Club Lounge

This past week was one of remembrance. Because it was a year ago this week that I watched, along with the rest of the world, the decimation of New Orleans.

I avoided all of the TV "news" shows' recollections of the horror and politicking and complete and utter disregard for human life by our own government. I avoided magazines and the Internet and those "Year in Pictures" montages that show little progress of rebuilding and rebirth. In short, I avoided what is and was in the recent past.

Instead, I concentrated on the New Orleans I knew and still love. I reconnected with a few old friends -- some who still live there, some who have moved on -- and remembered fondly some favorite evenings out. I read about my favorite New Orleans restaurants, many of which are still closed, my old haunts, my uptown neighborhood, my old employers, even my favorite stores (Saks burned!).

But on Wednesday, as I drove to the grocery store mindlessly minding my own business, the song "Get Up Offa That Thing" by James Brown came on the radio. First of all, let me just tell you that it is nothing short of shocking to hear James Brown on the radio in Montana. Kenny Chesney? Alan Jackson? Hell, even all those Montana gangstas have a better chance of hearing Outkast than I do of hearing James Brown. But as soon as I heard that little James Brown squeal, I was instantly transported back to one of my all-time favorite hang-outs in New Orleans, Snake and Jake's Christmas Club Lounge (pictured above).

Now I had a lot of favorite hangouts in New Orleans; I can say without exaggeration that I probably frequented about 45-50 different bars. But Snake and Jake's stood out from the crowd in my opinion. It doesn't look like much. In fact, the picture above is probably more flattering than not. There were even rumors that the place didn't have electricity and they kept the Christmas lights running and the refrigerators cold by plugging everything into a generator in the back.

Snake and Jake's opened around 9 p.m. and usually closed around 9 a.m. We frequented the bar usually after 2 or 3 a.m., when things really got moving inside, and when we were already half in the bag. It was a quick drive home from Snake's, and along some quiet, desolate streets, though that wasn't why we loved it so.

Ask anyone and they will tell you that I have a thing for the sleaziest, diviest bars you can find. If you can cut the smoky air with a knife, if you can gas up your car with the house liquor, if you can buy a bag of Funyuns and a pickled egg from the bar instead of an appetizer, if you are more likely to meet a musician or an artist masquerading as a waiter than you are a lawyer or a doctor, then find me a stool because I'm staying for awhile.

Snake and Jake's was all that and more. They had a great juke box full of old funk, great bartenders to whom I regularly gave my phone number (always vowing, "If he doesn't call me this time, then that is IT! I'll never give him my phone number again!"), and stiff drinks that were cheap and came at you fast. There was a policy that if you were totally nude, you could drink all night for free. (Though I also heard you had to WALK IN NAKED as undressing in a New Orleans bar is illegal.) I always propped myself up at the bar, but there were lots of couches and chairs on which to lounge (though you probably wouldn't have wanted to see any of those under a forensic black light if you get my drift.) It was a place where the next morning snuck up on you, and as you would stagger from its windowless, natural lightless depths, you were always surprised to see sober people on their way to work.

My friends Abby, JJ, and Jason were my most constant companions at Snake and Jake's. We all could probably have put our future children through college for what we spent at Snake and Jake's drinking. But it was worth it because there were so many good times, many of them vaguely remembered now. They all definitely put up with my "Just one more drink" policy that usually turned into another 3-5 hours at the bar when they were ready to go home. They endured my phone calls to Max to always try, fruitlessly, to drag his lawyer ass out of bed at 4 a.m. to join us for a drink. But we all gave. For Abby, I rolled up someone's cigarette pack in my t-shirt sleeve and pretended I was Schneider from "One Day at a Time" -- all to bum her a smoke. For JJ, I pretended I was gay to get us in good with a roving pack of lesbyterians, one of whom she wanted to hit on. And for Jason, I didn't even flinch, when after leaving Snake and Jake's one early morning, he tore the side mirrors off his parents' Brady Bunch, wood-paneled station wagon by hitting other parked cars, and only remarked, "Wow, these streets are really narrow."

After convincing one of the most prim and proper human beings I have ever had the privilege of knowing to accompany me to Snake and Jake's, we then endured my one and only police raid. And, as we stood with our feet apart and our hands against the wall with cops examining our i.d.'s, the ice quickly melting in our plastic drink cups, my friend Michael hissed at me out of the corner of his mouth, "Sara, I'm having flashbacks to Stonewall and I quite frankly cannot believe that I ever let you talk me into coming to this 1970s basement rec room of a bar!"

Snake and Jake's isn't much more than that. And it sure isn't for everybody. But man, good times, good times. And that's the way I'm going to remember New Orleans.