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Yes, yes, let's talk about the weather
Climate chatter is usually the last resort. If at a cocktail party, one is stuck with someone who won't laugh at one's jokes, there is always the weather. If one wants to change the subject, there it is. In My Fair Lady, Eliza Dolittle is told to stick to discussions of atmospheric conditions in polite society because the only things she can pronounce are little vocal exercises ("the rain in Spain. . . "), and the girls chorus in the Pirates of Penzance chatters away about a predicted warm July to distract them from the impropriety of their sister Mabel, making time with a pirate.
Well, anyway, the weather has been a nightmare lately. It sucks the life out of my brain, leaving this soaking depressed and angry residue, and then there's the sweat. I only wish I could glow, as Orson Welles purportedly said Rita Hayworth did.
I'm not alone, I know. The streets are empty and weirdly, the Felix suddenly became rather uninterested in getting his meals from the source, while happily guzzling bottles of food. I suspect this is not because of the "nipple confusion" one is always cautioned against and more because the bottled milk is cooler. It's odd, but if my suspicions are correct I don't blame him. On the other hand, if I'm wrong, I might take it personally.
Several months ago, I read Eric Klinenberg's book Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago, and it frankly haunts me now, even though I'm ashamed to say my then freshly post-natal mind didn't retain as much of it as I would like. It is astonishing how difficult it is for cities to deal with heat and how quick governments are to try to minimize the problems- in spite of obvious discomfort and the universal propensity to make jokes. (One of the NY dailies ran a piece today about whether wearing a bra that had been frozen would keep a girl cool- apparently it won't.) The Chicago heat wave in question was the week-long nightmare of 1995 and, while it hasn't gotten nearly so hot here for so long, the book had haunted me so that I count the days and morbidly listen to the news. They say it will break tonight with a fit of thunderstorms blowing in from Canada. I hope so, and in a moment I'm going to run outside with the terrier and see if the wind I think I'm hearing reminds me of a tornado in Kansas.
But before I go, I must mention this familiar but horrible story about a family in Raleigh, SC that got split apart for six months because the mother took an (analogue) picture of the father kissing his baby son's navel. (It is not, by the way, hard to spot a possible racist component to this arrest, as this more elaborate article suggests.)
These things do make me feel anxious and helpless, full at once of righteous indignation for these people and their poor children, and frightened about the implications of this story.
I would love to say in this case that it's the heat, but I fear not.
posted by Elise at 7:39 PM
1 Comments
Thrills n' Chills
The week kicked off with Felix revealing two new teeth and a death wish. He took a header off the bed. The former makes it seem as if he's growing up a bit too quickly, the latter, I suppose, proves that he isn't. I could find this comforting if I didn't feel so guilty about the tumble.
It doesn't matter that he was pronounced perfectly fine by one doctor and another expressed mild surprise that 1: his forehead isn't sporting a large goose egg and 2: this hadn't happened sooner. This sort of thing is as common as dirt, but as the song says: "the way of love is the way of woe."
The parts of the incident that linger with me are my shoddy reflexes- I only caught half of Felix as he went down- the wrong half- he still clocked his head and belly, and the sundry lingering accusations that float my way. My mother, for instance, took the opportunity to tell me that my bed, which is rather high, is the problem. (And, yes, the bed height is also a result of my poor planning and questionable instincts. In the wake of the events of September 11th 2001, the EPA recommended that people living in my area replace their mattresses. When we ordered the new one, we did so without thinking or measuring much and, sure enough, the beast is tall.) These things can make a girl rather wary, so I've spent the last few days looking over my shoulder, anxious about what fresh threats are about to snarf me.
The frisson of unhappy apprehension is not entirely unfamiliar to me. Pregnancy is full of suspense. First there are all the usual well-founded excitements and fears, but those are rarely sufficient. When I was pregnant, people loved to tell me what sort of terrible things were going to happen to me. My feet would swell and never return to their original size, my future was full of back fat and edema. And some people loved saying that my future, post-child, would be full of thwarted ambitions and the insanity of sleep deprivation. And the little world of anxiety that was my labor and delivery is best passed over. I will say only that I should have looked upon it the way law school grads regard the bar exam. Once you pass, you are ready to start living a life of suspense in earnest.
Shortly before school let out, a friend whose child is well over a decade older than Felix was talking about teaching her kid about suspense, and I offered her a list of movies that would provide some tense pleasures over summer vacation. Included, for those playing at home, was a scattering of Hitchcock pictures (The 39 Steps, The Lady Vanishes, To Catch a Thief) that provide an exquisite combination of danger and romance, humor and threat that would appeal to the tween set (offering thrills and tension without the harder to handle anxiety of Hitch's more "adult" pictures like Notorious, Rebecca, Vertigo, that sort of thing.)
It appears Felix loves suspense in his own little way. Among his favorite games is for me (or anyone really) to count slowly to three and... do something. It doesn't matter what. I can hoist him in the air or drop something on the floor; by the time I've gotten to 2, he's in hysterics, thrilled by the prospect of something about to happen, not caring what it is. And he still adores the mystery, even after falling off the bed.
I suspect I'm in the sway of bad perception. Whoever says people don't read anymore needs to take a few trips on the New York City subways (despite the threats to everyone's civil liberties). Everyone everywhere is feverishly lugging around multi-pound copies of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. I've seen people miss stops. I've seen people cry with this text in hand. Everyone reads it desperately, craving and dreading the threats, the death, the cliffhanger, the thickened mystery that signals a series on the verge of ending. I'm looking forward to getting swept up in it myself. It's been a while since I regretted staying up too late while trying to squeeze myself through a few chapters.
Felix's fall was frightening, but ultimately it was no more painful for him than his subsequent savaging of one of his toes with his two(!) new teeth. It would do me well if I could stop cursing myself for not being able to see around corners and learn to enjoy living with my heart in my throat.
posted by Elise at 8:44 PM
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Modern Love, What a Pain
So for the second time this week I found that an article in the New York Times's Modern Love column had the unfortunate effect of triggering great ire. I've always found the column to be sensationalistic and its writers to be mostly interested in a kind of self-congratulatory navel-gazing. I commented on the incendiary piece by Ayelet Waldman about her Life's Great Loves in March, which makes me wonder why I still sometimes read the thing.
But Waldman had the decency to invent an issue she could worry. The two more recent columns really only feed their authors' egos and humiliate some unfortunates. I'm thinking about this because yesterday's article "The New Nanny Diaries Are Online" (I know, I know, the title) really made me cringe. The writer admits to a kind of jealousy and curiosity about her nanny's blog, which she read regularly and was upset at what the woman had to say about her and her family on its pages. Eventually, she fired the nanny and then wrote this strange article. Part "poor me" lament, part rant of a protective mother and wife, the piece feels very much like a journal entry in itself, except that it is in the New York Times and Olen, the writer, somehow saw fit to broadcast her former employee's abortion and perceived sexual habits to the world. Olen really should be ashamed of herself. There is a place for this sort of revelation, but this isn't really her information to publish in an international setting.
Needless to say, Olen's former nanny was upset about having her story told to the world by someone else. While she perhaps shouldn't be surprised - writers often filch good stories that belong to other people and she knew Olen was a journalist, and besides that, she was writing all of this in a public blog - she is right to feel used. She was used. And while the news is filled with stories about Dooce and how her blog accidentally created a verb when it got her fired (or "dooced"), so all the world knows about the risks of blogging about work, it is rare the one's former employers decide to retaliate so publicly, especially when No Harm Was Done to Anyone Anyway.
So feelings were hurt on both sides and this little domestic fight got elevated to mammoth proportions. Do I feel deeply sorry for anyone? Not really. I'm sure someone will decide to option this battle and somehow turn it into a romantic comedy.
"Froky Doesn't Play Around Here Anymore" (I KNOW, the title, it pains me too) is the other article that blindsided its subject. The piece discusses a little poignant moment. The author realized that his relationship with his girlfriend was over when he was no longer able to use or derive comfort from the pet names and invented language they shared. The author, endowed with "creative nonfiction" superpowers, liberally altered facts, reshaped the personality of his ex-girlfriend, broadcast the words they used to use with each other, and never warned his ex that this was going to appear one Sunday in July.
The former girlfriend in question, Kate Kirtz, wrote an elegant response on the Black Table, and while she clearly feels embarrassed and betrayed, she understands that she was unfortunately fair game. She points out the sad bottom line of this whole tangle when she describes confronting her ex in a letter and hearing back from him. I won't quote it here, because her piece is really worth reading.
Ever since I became aware of it, I've wondered why the Modern Love column exists. Now I realize. It is like a tree that every week produces an apple of discord that serves to spread outrage or pity, pain or contempt, and otherwise distract us from real problems, real news or even real fiction. I sympathize with the writers. Very few people would turn down a chance to dance on the pages of the Times, but perhaps writers could pause before running off at the mouth and work a little harder to respect their subjects, without whom they would have nothing to say.
** The New York Times articles require registration, and the Frocky piece may be only available for a fee by now. My apologies.
posted by Elise at 10:42 AM
8 Comments
Who Wants It?
I have here a copy of the DVD Prenatal Yoga With Shiva Rea. Yoga is not really my bag, I'm afraid, and something about the music Ms. Rea uses makes my little dog livid. It is difficult to assume poses while trying to shush the growling and insistent request to turn the thing off.
So, if anyone would like my copy, just let me know. It is yours, bonus Pregnancy Massage chapters and all.
Cheers.
posted by Elise at 4:55 PM
2 Comments
Pangolin
One of the animals that one is not permitted to keep as a pet is the Pangolin. I had no idea what this was, but now that I've seen one, I am quite charmed.
Pangolins apparently nurse their young for 3-4 months, but at around 1 month, the babies begin eating some solids in the form of termites.
One wonders if pangolin grandmothers rub their "well-developed" claws together when the little thing is two weeks old saying:"Will you just give him some termites? Look at the way he's STARING at them. He's dying for solid food."
One advantage these scaly critters have over us is that they don't have teeth. I say that's an advantage because there seems to be some teething here and the day, as a result, is looking rather threatening.
... and hey, I took a good look at the banned animals, and noticed that monotremes don't make the list. One wonders if Giuliani was less than comprehensive on purpose, that perhaps he had a secret fondness for echidnas and platypuses. If so, I sympathize. I love those weird egg-laying mammals.
posted by Elise at 11:14 AM
1 Comments
Standing Corrected
In an effort to explain to a small child why it is unwise to swallow objects that are inedible, my husband trotted out a relatively old chestnut about the unhappy day our dog ate a sewing needle and wound up at the Animal Medical Center where he was x-rayed, laughed at by veterinary interns and released with the proviso that he consume a lot of bread. (Why this hasn't led to needle-eating as bread delivery mechanism is beyond me, because the dog's grasp of cause and effect when food is involved is marvelous.)
When I tell this story, I generally hear about the improper things other pets and children have eaten, so I wasn't really prepared for the narrowed lips and prissy tone of:
"What was your dog doing with access to a needle in the first place?"
Apparently, school was in session and home safety was on the lesson plan. It was I, you see, who left the needle unattended and prone to being snapped up by a young terrier. I confessed my critical error to the parents of the toddlers around me.
Of course it was terribly necessary that someone point out my negligence. If I had only known the charm of the AMC waiting room (ferrets do get into all sorts of trouble*) and the expense of the x-rays, I would have been throwing all sorts of inedibles on the floor and sprinkling them with kibble. Thank God I had a right thinking parent explain my misdeeds to me. Never mind the fact that a certain level of intimacy should be established before people should feel comfortable chastising guests on a weekend afternoon.
So, this is just to say that I have long been afraid of being indoctrinated into the literal-minded overly earnest parenting world. Now that I've crossed the border, ignoring the "Abandon All Hope" sign, I think I'm less annoyed by the lack of humor and insistence on sobriety than I am disgusted by the sense I get occasionally that I am supposed to join them. I have the lay of the land now, and I am relieved. As long as there are people out there constantly willing to explain my follies to me, I don't have to worry about them myself.
*Even though ferrets are still technically illegal in NYC, the AMC will treat them.
For the curious:
The list of animals one cannot legally own in New York City is fascinating. If you look at it with a generous eye, it appears Rudolph Giuliani might have had a shred of a sense of humor after all (the list was published as part of the NYC Health Code in 1999 when he was still mayor):
(1) All dogs other than domesticated dogs (Canis familiaris), including, but not limited to, wolf, fox, coyote, hyaena, dingo, jackal, dhole, fennec, raccoon dog, zorro, bush dog, aardwolf, cape hunting dog and any hybrid offspring of a wild dog and domesticated dog.
(2) All cats other than domesticated cats (Felis catus), including, but not limited to, lion, tiger, leopard, ocelot, jaguar, puma, panther, mountain lion, cheetah, wild cat, cougar, bobcat, lynx, serval, caracal, jaguarundi, margay and any hybrid offspring of a wild cat and domesticated cat.
(3) All bears, including polar, grizzly, brown and black bear.
(4) All fur bearing mammals of the family Mustelidae, including, but not limited to, weasel, marten, mink, badger, ermine, skunk, otter, pole cat, zorille, wolverine, stoat and ferret.
(5) All Procyonidae: All raccoon (eastern, desert, ring-tailed cat), kinkajou, cacomistle, cat-bear, panda and coatimundi.
(6) All carnivorous mammals of the family Viverridae, including, but not limited to, civet, mongoose, genet, binturong, fossa, linsang and suri- cate.
(7) All bats (Chiroptera).
(8) All non-human primates, including, but not limited to, monkey, ape, chimpanzee, gorilla and lemur.
(9) All squirrels (Sciuridae).
(10) Reptiles (Reptilia). All Helodermatidae (gila monster and Mexican beaded lizard); all front-fanged venomous snakes, even if devenomized, including, but not limited to, all Viperidae (viper, pit viper), all Elapidae (cobra, mamba, krait, coral snake), all Atractaspididae (African burrowing asp), all Hydrophiidae (sea snake), all Laticaudidae (sea krait); all venomous, mid-or rear-fanged, Duvernoy-glanded members of the family Colubridae, even if devenomized; any member, or hybrid offspring of the family Boidae, including, but not limited to, the common or green anaconda and yellow anaconda; any member of the family Pythonidae, including but not limited to the African rock python, Indian or Burmese python, Amethystine or scrub python; any member of the family Varanidae, including the white throated monitor, Bosc's or African savannah monitor, Komodo monitor or dragon, Nile monitor, crocodile monitor, water monitor, Bornean earless monitor; any member of the family Iguanidae, including the green or common iguana; any member of the family teiidae, including, but not limited to the golden, common, or black and white tegu; all members of the family Chelydridae, including snapping turtle and alligator snapping turtle; and all members of the order Crocodylia, including, but not limited to alligator, caiman and crocodile.
(11) Birds and Fowl (Aves): All predatory or large birds, including, but not limited to, eagle, hawk, falcon, owl, vulture, condor, emu, rhea and ostrich; roosters, geese, ducks and turkeys prohibited or otherwise regulated pursuant to ยง 161.19 of this Code, the Agriculture and Markets Law or applicable federal law.
(12) All venomous insects, including, but not limited to, bee, hornet and wasp.
(13) Arachnida and Chilopoda: All venomous spiders, including, but not limited to, tarantula, black widow and solifugid; scorpion; all venomous arthropods including, but not limited to, centipede.
(14) All large rodents (Rodentia), including, but not limited to, gopher, muskrat, paca, woodchuck, marmot, beaver, prairie dog, capybara, sewellel, viscacha, porcupine and hutia.
(15) All even-toed ungulates (Artiodactyla) including, but not limited to, deer, antelope, sheep, giraffe and hippopotamus.
(16) All odd-toed ungulates (Perissodactyla) other than domesticated horses (Equus caballus), including, but not limited to, zebra, rhinoceros and tapir.
(17) All marsupials, including, but not limited to, Tasmanian devil, dasyure, bandicoot, kangaroo, wallaby, opossum, wombat, koala bear, cuscus, numbat and pigmy, sugar and greater glider.
(18) Sea mammals (Cetacea, Pinnipedia and Sirenia), including, but not limited to, dolphin, whale, seal, sea lion and walrus.
(19) All elephants (Proboscides).
(20) All hyrax (Hyracoidea).
(21) All pangolin (Pholidota).
(22) All sloth and armadillo (Edentala).
(23) Insectivorous mammals (Insectivora): All aardvark (Tubulidentata), anteater, shrew, otter shrew, gymnure, desman, tenrec, mole and hedge hog.
(24) Gliding lemur (Dermoptera).
posted by Elise at 6:29 PM
3 Comments
London
Felix has been rising early lately, so it was still murky out when I learned about the attacks in London.
I can't say how sorry I am. It shouldn't surprise me that this sort of violence is possible. I live in New York City, quite far downtown. I was here on September 11th 2001, and had crushed cars piled on the streets around my house, unspeakable powder in the air, and for months I had to show my driver's license to police officers or armed forces personnel if I went more than a few blocks away from my building. It isn't that I don't understand that terrible things are eager to happen.
But there is this unpleasant twisted feeling I have about the world that I haven't felt in some time. Walking around Manhattan today with my son and my dog, I kept thinking about London and feeling desperately fragile, wondering if I should have held off on having a child.
This is ridiculous impracticable thinking and only leads in circles, but with Felix on hand, the badness of things seems worse, I feel less resilient, and I admit that I am a bit concerned I will become like a less slim version of my mother, herself a professional in the field of worry.
Still, I'm trying to be temperate and leave the hand wringing for late night hours. I kept reading about the London attacks and saw a lot of analysis, but I thought that Josh Marshall laid it out bluntly and very well in his Talking Points Memo today. I understand that I had to give up being at all sanguine when I became a mother, but it is comforting to know that there are people who can at least think in terms of remedy instead of shrugging because evil is inevitable.
posted by Elise at 7:35 PM
0 Comments
No Kool-Aid for Me, Mr. Cruise. But Thanks for Offering
People are wonderful. They walk down the street knowing everything, confident, smug in the knowledge that they are right in all things, and ready to guide you onto the One True Path. Accept no substitutions.
Just as it is inevitable that something undesirable will splat on my shoulder once in a while, know that I'm prone to coaching. I'll hear that the beet salad is really better than the Caesar or that I shouldn't use Splenda because it is bad for me, that yelling at the guy who runs the red light won't help matters, that my dog would be happier if I got him little boots to wear, that I should stop wearing glasses, that I am doing myself and my child a disservice by not practicing yoga.
I swim through it, generally saying that I deserve to have some vices and the dog once ate a pair of my shoes, so he doesn't deserve some of his own until he pays me back.
But now movie stars and the like are getting into the act and doing things like deciding that vitamins and exercise provide the One True Path out of post-partum depression. Now, I haven't really followed the Tom Cruise / Brooke Shields smackdown too closely, though I did hear about his rather incoherent observations and her New York Times Op Ed piece. One wonders why this man who has never been pregnant or experienced what it is like to witness a partner suffer from post-partum depression feels so obliged to speak out against conventional treatment. Why did he choose PPD as his jumping off point to rage against therapy and psychopharmaceuticals anyway? A little army of celebrities has gone public with tales of suffering and recovery through therapy and medication and Cruise could have attacked any of them, but he picked la Shields. I'm disgusted, but interested.
All the language is fascinating. Not only did Cruise talk in rather unpleasant terms about the harm Shields is doing to her person with Paxil, he also spoke the language of superstition- saying that Shields's career is faltering and doomed because of her choices.
The maternal world is shrouded with the cobwebs of superstition, and we are so susceptible to threats of doom. We are advised to embrace or avoid certain foods and drink, to sleep in certain ways, to adhere to specific patterns of behavior because to refuse to comply means disaster. For many, from the moment they start hoping to conceive, daggers hang over their heads. Mr. Cruise is not unique in playing upon irrational fears and the threat of disaster. I suspect he picked a woman with a circumstance he can't hope to understand because pregnant women everywhere are susceptible to this kind of threat and he wanted to select the audience with the most vulnerable ears.
The air is full of ad hoc advice and predictions of doom- does it really matter if one of these squeaky voices belongs to a movie star? I mean, if you wouldn't buy mascara based on his opinion of it, why would you let this guy's notions influence your decisions about your health? I've had more than a taste of post-partum depression, and I believe it can be so crushing that even vitamins and Pilates can't overcome its strength. Plenty of folks are up in arms about what Cruise said, but I think it is more important to contemplate why he said it, and whom he was trying to influence.
posted by Elise at 6:23 PM
1 Comments
Give That Kid a Chicken Leg!
What is it with food and the baby?
I also know that feeding small creatures is fun. I have always loved petting zoos because not only does one get to pet the animals, one also can purchase fistfuls of what I can only describe as "farm animal kibble" to feed them. On one particularly memorable occasion, a little goat made an additional snack out of some mouthfuls of my hair when my head was goat-level and prone because I was tying my shoe. (I still love goats and their fabulous eyes with the rectangular pupils and when I have hair to spare, which, with any luck, will be when Felix is of petting zoo age, they're welcome to try to catch me.)
But at the same time as this tender feeding impulse is known to me, and one I share, I am more than a little overwhelmed by the concern people have for Felix and his diet.
While he was in utero, I heard from several people, including relatives who will remain nameless, that my son was suffering because I wasn't getting big enough and because I was drinking caffeinated coffee. I've mentioned my kid's ample birth weight before on these pages, so let me say that if his size was at all stunted by my regular java infusions, and penchant for strawberry popsicles, I'm glad of it.
Now that he's a few months old and down to two chins, there are some who claim see an aura of desperation about him.
Since he is a sociable sort, Felix is happy to sit on my knee at meals. Some would take this as evidence of his deprivation.
"Look at the way he watches your fork. He can't wait to eat real food." My mother likes to find meaning in Felix's glances. I regularly point out that he also has that ravenous gleam in his eye when he studies light fixtures and the dog, but she always bounces back with a handy rejoinder: "But he's drooling!"
It doesn't end with relatives. Recently, while I tried to buy a hat, Felix began growling, with a mind to exploding. A woman turned to me.
Woman: He's hungry. You better get him home."
Me: I think it's mostly the weather. It's a bit early for him to be hungry.
Woman: Are you breastfeeding?
Me: ...
Woman: Because if you're breastfeeding, there's no telling WHEN HE COULD GET HUNGRY. I know! I breastfed all my kids and they were NEVER ON A SCHEDULE.
Me: He's not hungry yet. I know he's-
Woman: Look at him! He's starving!
Me: HE JUST ATE! He's bored.
Now, I'm a sport. But people want to know best. Babies cry for oodles of reasons, some of which are identifiable, but all I hear about is food. No one even wants to suggest that he's tired or hot, just hungry or craving a broader menu.
I suspect that, though I've offered them plenty of chances to administer bottles, my son's relatives can't wait to feed him the hard stuff (mashed to a pulp). As for the comments of strangers, I don't know what to say or why I feel obliged to argue.
When Felix was born, I had to fight to get all the visitors to stop feeding the dog. Soon enough, Felix will be susceptible to well intentioned gastronomic interference; but I'm in charge of my little zoo, which is doing just fine without help or advice or corrections.
One wonders if one could obtain one of those signs that used to crop up in parks and wildlife centers.
"Do not feed or annoy the animals."
posted by Elise at 9:32 AM
1 Comments
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