I was about to write a post asking if by any chance anyone knew why I had ordered a certain book, but then I tried one more idea and that was the one that let me figure it out.

Here is what happened. A book arrived for me in the mail; I wasn’t expecting a book but I wasn’t NOT expecting a book, either: I’ve ordered a few used books from eBay and Amazon recently, and sometimes they take a long time to arrive because of media mail being slower and also because of the current administration sabotaging the United States Postal Service. So I opened the package, interested to see what it was, and it was this:

(image from Amazon.com)

A Jeweler’s Eye for Flaw, by Christie Hodgen. I didn’t recognize it at all. No bells ringing. “Maybe someone sent it to you?,” suggested Paul, and I thought that was possible, but there was no gift information on the receipt. I looked in my email inbox for the name of the company and the name of the book—no match. I looked in my Amazon orders—and there it was, an used copy purchased from a third-party seller. So I’d ordered it. BUT WHY.

The order had been placed just over two weeks ago, so I thought it MUST have been as a result of the book recommendations post. But I searched the comments for the name of the book and the name of the author: no matches. I checked on Twitter, because sometimes people comment there instead of on the post: nothing.

Maybe my sister-in-law recommended it? I don’t remember her recommending a book lately, but on the other hand I’ve been pretty distracted with all the news about schools putting a bunch of people together in closed rooms during a huge outbreak of a virus that appears to spread primarily via shared air. I searched my OTHER email inbox, the one I use for family: nothing.

Well, who ELSE might have said something about a book that made me immediately order a copy? Maybe I saw it on Shelf Love? No. Maybe Nicole recommended it? (HI NICOLE.) No.

Could I have read about it in a news article? Maybe there was recently a story about it? Feeling like it was a real long shot, I searched online for the title of the book, but just got a bunch of hits for sites that would sell it to me and/or sites that had reviewed it; nothing looked familiar. Then, just in case, I searched the name of the book again but added the word “Swistle.” And there it was, the person who had recommended it to me: ME.

A couple of weeks ago, when I was writing that recent post looking for book recommendations, I went through my blog archives looking for any mentions of books I’d read, to see if I could add more to my “Books I’ve Liked” list. I found my old review of Christie Hodgen’s other book, Elegies for the Brokenhearted, which apparently I’d loved, and I’d said in that post that I was going to get her second book from the library and, if I liked it, order the third book, which our library system didn’t have a copy of. I have no idea how that whole thing turned out! I wrote the review in 2012, and never wrote anything about how I liked the second book; and I looked up the second book just now, and I have no memory of reading it. (To be fair, I don’t remember the first one, either.) But I thought, “Oh, that seems like the perfect kind of book to order during a pandemic, since our library doesn’t have it so I’d have to buy it ANYWAY,” so then I impulsively found a cheap used copy and ordered it and went back to writing the post and forgot all about the order! Perhaps now I will read it and remember I already did this same thing back in 2012, didn’t like the book, and got rid of it!

I had to clean out my sock and underwear drawer. Again. Last time I did this, I said that I was not someone who rotated clothing seasonally. I am still not. But this drawer is so frustratingly full, and it’s so hard to find things, but I still like and wear pretty much everything, so I am willing to ATTEMPT seasonal rotation. We will see if I can maintain it. My money is on Perhaps.

Here is the drawer as we begin our journey, too full to close:

And here it is after I took everything out and put it on the bed, except for the back-up bottles of L’Artisan, which have expanded since the last time we peeked:

Here is everything sorted on the bed (it’s a little misleading, because the D pile actually came from a different, smaller drawer, which didn’t seem interesting enough to mention except then I added a list to the end of the post that means the clarification is necessary), with a map key below the picture:

A: Underwear I dislike and wear only one week a month
B: Underwear I like
C: Underwear I like, but it’s a little too big
D: Nylons, dressy socks, shapewear, cartwheel shorts
E. White cotton crew socks, worn year-round
F: Socks without twins
G: Fleecey and wool socks of the kind I wear over other socks for extra warmth
H: Ankle socks, worn only in hot weather
I: Crew/boot socks, worn only in cold weather
J: Wool socks I can wear without another layer underneath
K: Holiday/theme socks

I had more pairs than I needed of Group A underwear, so I got rid of a few, and I put Group C up in storage with my other too-big clothing. I set aside Group F (single socks) in a bag that hangs from my closet door handle and serves as a last-chance area before I throw the socks out. I evaluated Group G (fleece and wool), realized I’d bought too many when we moved to this chilly house, calculated that I could get rid of half and still have plenty, and did so. I looked through Group K (holiday and themed) and got rid of a couple pairs.

But things were still pretty good from the last time I did this, and these minor edits weren’t enough for the kind of significant results I wanted to see. Systemic change needed to occur.

The nylons, dressy socks, shapewear, cartwheel shorts—I wear such things HARDLY EVER. Like, once or twice a year. But when I DO need one or more of them, I don’t want to have to go BUY them. This was the perfect use for a Hello Kitty shoebox I’ve been saving:

I put it up in my closet next to the shoe boxes of dress shoes I wear hardly ever (but don’t want to go out and buy when I DO need them).

Next, finally, a reluctant and tentative commitment to seasonal rotation:

I almost accidentally labeled the box “cold-weather socks” but then realized “out-of-season socks” means I can use the same box for whatever socks I’m not currently wearing. (If I’d accidentally written “cold-weather socks,” I would have written “warm-weather socks” on the other end of the box, and then I could have just put it facing a different way in my closet.)

After:

This is the best it’ll ever look, since the hot-weather socks take up less space than the cold-weather socks.

And the trash can:

And a list of things found in the different, smaller drawer that contained the nylons and shapewear and so forth (which I apparently didn’t go through the last time I did this project):

• An iron-on Jeep logo, apparently torn out of a magazine.

• An old packing list that included “powder.” It’s been so long since I’ve worn powder, I couldn’t even think what the word referred to at first, and only figured it out because it was in the same list as lipstick and under-eye pencil. Matte skin used to be very In, which was difficult because I am naturally rather dewy. Happily, trends change.

• A 2005 packing receipt for nursing bras, which I saved because they were hard to find and I didn’t want to forget which ones they were if I needed to order them again later on.

I wanted to redo my Archer Farms Monster Trail Mix Recipe experiment with a second bag, not only because that seems like good science (individual bags will vary somewhat, and we wouldn’t want to make lifelong recipe decisions based on what could have been a flukey bag) but also because I was unhappy about the bowl colors and forgetting the slips of paper. Look how much better this is!

All six bowl colors! A bowl for taring, so that I don’t have to dump out one bowl first! Darkest ingredients no longer in darkest bowl colors! Pieces of paper put into bowls, instead of lined up forgotten on the counter!

Notice that THIS bag had regular-size M&Ms rather than minis. We have seen all three variations in recent mixes: all regular-size, all mini, and some regular / some mini within the same bag.

Anyway! Here are the numbers this time:

• unsalted peanuts: 4.3 ounces / 122 grams
• chocolate chips: 1.7 ounces / 47 grams
• raisins: 3.7 ounces / 104 grams
• peanut butter chips: 2.0 ounces / 55 grams
• M&Ms: 2.2 ounces / 62 grams

For comparison, here are the numbers from last time:

• unsalted peanuts: 3.6 ounces / 101 grams
• chocolate chips: 2.5 ounces / 69 grams
• raisins: 3.5 ounces / 99 grams
• peanut butter chips: 2.0 ounces / 56 grams
• mini M&Ms: 2.7 ounces / 77 grams

Well, now I have to test a third bag. The peanut butter chips are the only measurement that was the same. Some of the others are quite a bit off: last time I concluded the recipe should have about equal weights of peanuts and raisins, but this time they were less similar; last time I concluded the recipe could have about equal weights of chocolate chips and M&Ms, but this time they were less similar and there was also less chocolate in the mix overall.

But I do feel like we’re narrowing in on the GIST of Monster trail mix: papa bear raisins and peanuts, mama bear chocolate chips and M&Ms, and baby bear peanut butter chips.

I have an old high school boyfriend I’m still in touch with once a year or so: a few emails go back and forth with newsy updates, and then that’s it for another year or so. I’m glad we’re in touch: for a few years after we broke up we couldn’t talk without fighting, and so we stopped talking, and I liked that a lot less. He was my first serious boyfriend and we dated for almost two years, and I’m interested in the occasional updates on his life/wife/kids, and I like feeling like the kind of person who can be friendly with an old boyfriend. Plus, occasional contact with him reminds me how extremely not sorry I am that we broke up (he’s a little dumb).

If you’re in touch with an ex, and they make a negative remark about their marriage, how do you react? My rule of thumb OVERALL for emails to an ex (even with no remarks about the spouse) is to make my entire email completely readable by the ex’s spouse AND by Paul: like, I do a final proof-read thinking to myself “Would it be okay if his wife read this? if Paul read this?” and making sure the answer is a definite, obvious YES. (I do make exceptions to this overall policy at times, but I want them to be exceptions I’ve thought about, not oblivious ones.) So if my old high school boyfriend makes some small complaint about his wife, I’m inclined to answer something like “Oh, I am DEFINITELY with your wife on this one,” or something jokey.

But if an ex says, as part of a newsy update, that he thinks his 20-year marriage is probably ending, my usual light/jokey approach doesn’t work. Also, just for further information, this is an ex who called me the day I was getting married to ask me to not get married, saying he’d send me a plane ticket to come be with him, which is the sort of thing that can seem romantic in movies but truly stupid in real life. [Kerry had a good question for clarification: this was my FIRST wedding, the one where I was 20 years old. It was a long, long, long time ago.] This is also an ex who long ago used to periodically float stuff about how wouldn’t it be crazy if we ended up together when we were old and widowed. He hasn’t done much of that kind of talk recently, and it didn’t seem like he was serious even at the time (he’s the kind of guy who loves silly romantic pop ballads and Oprah specials about high school sweethearts reuniting), but I still felt it was better to err on the side of fully squashing it each time by saying very direct things such as “Even if we were both available, I wouldn’t want us to date; it is enormously clear to me that we were not a good match.” And when he would say things like “Imagine if we’d gotten married!,” I would say “We would have had two kids and then a very messy divorce, and we’d still be fighting now.” Anyway. Just so you see why I want to be extra careful about stuff like this with him, even though it might not still be an issue.

Possible reactions I’ve considered:

1. No reaction. Just answer everything else, leave that part alone. He  said it very casually, and it was hard to tell how serious it was, and he didn’t give much to go on.

2. Saying I’m sorry to hear that, paired with a hope that things will work out. (I go with “things will work out” because it sounds like a hope for the marriage to continue, but still applies if the marriage ends: I do hope things work out, one way or another. I didn’t like when I was getting a divorce and some people acted as if it were a giant tragedy and that the only positive outcome was staying married.) Maybe add on something nice about the wife and their relationship? Like, “I’m sorry to hear about you and Steph, and I hope things work out. From what you’ve told me, it’s always seemed like you were good together.”

Hm. I like the last sentence of the second option from the “imagining the wife reading the email” point of view, and from the “it’s CLEAR I am not hoping they split up, or in any way encouraging it” point of view—but it seems like saying more than I know; and also, if they’re not good together, who cares if I wrongly thought they were? Still, if I imagine being the wife reading that response, I like the way it makes it seem as if he’s been telling me good stories about her over the years. And I really HAVE thought they sounded good together: even his occasional complaints about her made it sound to me as if she was well able to deal with his nonsense in a way that could only be good for him. But maybe it’s better to stick with sorry/hope, to avoid seeming like I’m pressuring him to stay in a bad marriage. Or maybe this is all kind of complicated and it’s better to go with nothing.

I have been feeling as if I shouldn’t write unless I was writing about what’s happening right now with the ongoing protests against racial injustice and police violence. And so I have been working instead on my summer project which, if you recall, is going through my old blog posts (I’ve finished 2008 and am now in 2009) and fixing all the links and photos that broke when I moved the blog from Blogspot to WordPress. It is tedious, satisfying, cringey work. How many times back then did I say “OMG”/”ZOMG”/”teh”/etc.? SO MANY. It is tempting to fix all that while I’m at it. But no: that all belonged to 2009, and 2009 can keep it. In another ten years I can look back and see what cringey things I’m saying all the time in 2020. (If you already know, don’t tell me: let’s keep it a fun surprise for later!)

And I DO think it was better to shut up for a few minutes while the protests were everywhere in the news, and a post about something else could seem oblivious/dismissive. But here is what I realized, going through months and months of old posts: this is not a current events blog. This is not a news blog. This is not a politics blog. This is not a blog about systemic racism/sexism, or about necessary governmental reform. It’s not a blog where we DON’T talk about such things, either—but if someone is looking for daily, up-to-the-minute deep-dives into what the issues are and why, and what should be done about them and why and how, this blog would not be the resource anyone would recommend. And there are SO MANY OTHER qualified, interested writers handling that, day in and day out—real experts, and interested amateurs, and just so many choices for ALLLLLL of that. You can’t turn around without bumping into a huge array of choices.

Whereas THIS, as it becomes clear to me while editing post after post from 2008 and 2009 on the same topics I’m writing about in 2020, is a blog about sick babies (2009/2020), and Target shopping trips (2009/2020), and hair (2009/2020), and gift ideas (2008/2020), and cats (2009/2020), and irritating spouses (2009/2020), and bad days (2009/2020), and asking for advice (2009/2020), and so forth. And there is room for that, too: we wouldn’t want NOTHING BUT political/reform/corruption/news blogs, however important they are. I can tell you what I think about current events (racial injustice in the U.S. is horrifying and systemic, and there is hard work and big change ahead; our police force has become corrupted by racism and violence, and there is hard work and big change ahead; everyone should vote for affable, disappointing, yet-another-old-white-man Biden in 2020 because the alternative is literally one of the worst and stupidest people alive spending another four years steering what’s left of our country after the pandemic even further into fascism and white nationalism), but I’m not interested in writing eight paragraphs trying to get you to think the same way I do. I don’t have the education or the experience or the knowledge or, perhaps most importantly, the drive.

I’m going to continue to do what I’ve done since the very beginning of this blog, when I’d spent a fair amount of time feeling like I couldn’t start a blog until I knew what it would be ABOUT, and then finally I decided that what it was going to be about was “Whatever I feel like writing about that day.” Does that mean we get rather too many posts about grocery-shopping in a pandemic? POSSIBLY. Does that mean we are rather light on the big topics of the day, and rather heavy on what is desirable to purchase at Target? POSSIBLY. Does that mean there is rather a lot of small-picture whining, and not much big-picture perspective? OH INDEED. But thinking we can write only if we’re writing about The Very Most Important Things is like thinking people can’t complain if anyone else is worse off than they are—and you know, I hope, how I feel about that (#tagline) (it’s the hashtags, isn’t it; that’s what I’ll cringe about in ten years).

I took down my post from earlier, which, if you missed it, was basically a “Ha ha, look at us aging!” post. I’d had it in drafts for awhile and it was due to be posted today; I wasn’t sure if I should post it or not, considering that right now there’s not only a pandemic but also nationwide protests against police brutality and racism—and, since the police are in charge of regulating these constitutionally-protected protests against themselves, the nation is getting a really good demonstration of the level of violence the police feel comfortable and protected and authorized to use against their own fellow citizens, the ones they are supposed to be serving and protecting, and also against the journalists there to report on it. And our president says if we don’t stop protesting, he will turn the military on us: he will take the armed forces we use to fight our enemies and attackers, and he will turn them on our own citizens. Things are not going well here.

But I’ve been seeing a lot of posts about how white people’s input and questions and shock and emotions are NOT HELPFUL right now, and that perhaps we would like to shut up unless we are doing something useful and not just ranting and railing, so I didn’t want to rant and rail and potentially add to that not-helpfulness. And so I posted the other thing. Then it seemed like definitely the wrong thing to have done, so I took it down. I don’t know exactly what is needed from me right now, but it’s not a lightweight post about getting older.

I have been working on a boring but satisfying task, and it is a task that has been hanging over my head for SEVEN YEARS. I think it’s seven years. It’s not important enough to look up the exact dates. But it’s been hanging over my head since whenever it was that I moved this blog and the baby-name blog from a Blogspot blog-hosting platform to a WordPress one. There’s an import/export tool that let me move all the posts in a convenient swoop—but all the LINKS within those posts are still to the posts’ OLD location. So you could be HERE on WordPress, and then click a reference I made to an older post I wrote, and find yourself on the old Blogspot blog. I know this is very boring, but I’m almost done explaining it.

ALSO: any PHOTOS on the old blog didn’t actually move to WordPress but still actually lived over on Blogspot, using some system that lets the WordPress blog show the Blogspot photo as if through a little window. So if I were to delete an old Blogspot post, the photo would no longer be visible on the WordPress blog. But I NEEDED to delete the old Blogspot posts, because they are duplicate posts, and there is some issue online with duplicate posts: it looks scammy to search engines and workplace computers or something. And in any case it’s not tidy: it’s like having stuff still at your old house when you’ve already moved to your new house.

But it’s so tedious and time-consuming. Every photo (even the ones that are no longer very applicable, such as photos of things I bought on clearance at Target in 2008) has to be copied, then uploaded; then the post has to be edited to remove the old version of the photo and replace it with the new one. For every link, I have to figure out which post it links to, find the new version of that post on the new blog, copy the link to that post, and replace the old link with the new link. On the baby-name blog, every single time I did a “Name Update!” post, it has a link, and that link for all posts pre-move-to-Wordpress is wrong and has to be found and changed; every single photo of a cute baby has to be copied, uploaded, and replaced; every time I linked to an old post saying it was applicable to the situation in the current post, that link has to be found and replaced. And it’s easy to get distracted and find I’m just READING the old posts and forgetting to LOOK FOR LINKS AND PHOTOS.

I started working on this project long, long ago, right after I moved the blogs, and I did a couple of years’ worth of posts and then got distracted or busy or something. And once I’d stopped, it was much harder to restart: there’s a fair amount of effort involved in remembering what needs to be done for each post, and figuring out a good system of open windows/tabs for doing it, and getting into the rhythm of it. Plus, it’s pretty cringey to read my old posts. So when I started back up again, and did a couple more years’ worth, and then stalled out AGAIN—well, it has taken A VERY LONG TIME INDEED to get myself to go back to it. Every time I thought of it, my heart sank.

But what a perfect quarantine/summer project! As a quarantine project, it has gone the way of my entire list of Good Ideas For Quarantine Projects, which is to say I have not done a single one of them and that doesn’t show any signs of changing. But the kids’ remote-learning school year is coming near to an end, and we have been talking about how we’re going to handle Quarantine Summer, and one of the things we were discussing is if each of us (the kids and me) might like to choose A Summer Project. We are also considering doing our usual academic/creative/organizational concept, but A Summer Project would be good for those of us who want motivation to do something BIGGER.

For example, Elizabeth played trumpet for five years, and then a discouraging situation happened with the school’s music program and she stopped for a year, and now she would like to get back to it; that would be a GREAT Summer Project. Edward wants to learn a computer programming language that the high school doesn’t offer but that Paul and Rob both highly recommend he learn; that would be a GREAT Summer Project. And I would like to finally, finally, FINALLY get my entire new (“new”) blog location tidied up and the old blogs deleted; that would be a GREAT Summer Project.

I got a surge of motivation a few days ago to Get Started, and at first I thought, “No, no: I should wait until the school year is over and we are officially beginning our Summer Projects”—and then I thought ARE YOU NEW HERE OR SOMETHING? SEIZE THIS FLICKER OF MOTIVATION WHILE IT LASTS, and I got started. You should not notice much difference here. But if you have ever been back in the archives for something, and you’ve noticed the photos are all crammed up into the text weirdly, or if you’ve clicked a link and found yourself on a different-looking Swistle blog with a solid-blue background, that should soon be happening less often.

If I finish the project early, maybe I’ll go back to the earliest posts and take out all the double-spaces after sentences.

I was coming in from outside, and there was a smallish-medium stoutish spider on the wall of the house next to the door; and, as she was outdoors doing her good work, I resolved to mind my own business and open the door bravely even though the handle was maybe only a foot or so from the spider—and as I reached for the doorknob, she leapt onto my hand. LEAPT. ONTO MY HAND. Just like what you might think you were ridiculous for imagining a spider would do! She then parkoured right off my hand and down to the ground, at least I hope that is what she did, because she disappeared, and I had no real choice other than to go into the house without having firmly established her location. I am pretending I am fine with this, just fine, is she maybe up my sleeve, oh dear could she be on my shoe or something?

Yesterday I tried the oft-mentioned “use mayo instead of butter on the outside of a grilled cheese sandwich,” and I can report that I did not like it. For trouble-shooting purposes, if applicable: I used Hellmann’s Real Mayonnaise—nothing low-fat or fat-free, not Miracle Whip, etc. And I took to heart what a few people said about mayo not having the nice salty taste of butter, so I added a sprinkle of salt to the sandwich. The crispiness of the finished sandwich was nice, but not noticeably crispier than when I use butter. And the taste was “vegetable oil” instead of “butter.” Very distinctly vegetable oil, and not pleasantly. Like if one morning instead of putting butter on your toast, you tried using vegetable oil. I am so mystified. We just watched the Bon Appetit Test Kitchen episode where they make grilled cheese, and MANY of them used mayo. I can’t imagine they would prefer the flavor of vegetable oil over the flavor of butter, so it seems like something else must be wrong: the mayonnaise not fresh, or the wrong brand, or they make their own, or something.

Re-reading Little Women (and this paragraph will have 150-year-old spoilers, yes), I know the scene where Laurie and Jo finally have it out is Very Popular, and I DO AND DID love that scene. But my FAVORITE Laurie/Jo scenes are: (2) when he’s toying with her apron string and there’s the threat of the horsehair pillow and (1) when she’s leaving for New York and he’s being surprisingly chill about that, but then he whispers as she’s leaving, “It won’t do a bit of good, Jo.” Like, clearly, as an adult woman, I no longer think Laurie and Jo should have ended up together, and I feel sorry for Jo who just wants to be dear friends with Her Boy, and I think Laurie should have taken her at her word FAR earlier. (Young Swistle thought Jo MUST love him, how could she not? Older Swistle sees all the signs have been there all along.) But I still do love the Laurie/Jo not-romance.

Today was better than yesterday. Still some glum, but much less. Thanks to all of you who said you sometimes have Weird Glum/Droopy Days too and then things get better again. One of the characteristics of a glum/droopy day is that it can FEEL like it is THE NEW FOREVER.

I am reincorporating a technique I found helpful in 2016, both pre- and post-election: if I want to scroll Twitter for extended periods of time, I have to do it while walking on the treadmill. I don’t have to walk FAST, but I have to walk. This shortens the amount of time I spend scrolling, and also gives me an immediate way to spend the adrenaline.

I finally made a Tater Tot Casserole/Hotdish! I read through all the recipes you mentioned and tried a sort of composite, in part because I wanted to simultaneously make a smaller pan of vegetarian version for Rob and Elizabeth. It was pretty okay! Nobody raved; I was the only one who went back for seconds, and I’m the only one working through the leftovers. I want to try some other versions now that I get the gist of it, maybe lean a little harder on the Velveeta, maybe try a spicier edition, maybe pre-bake the tater tots to get them crispier.

I took considerable comfort from all your stories about trees you were forced to cut down; it made me feel like maybe my Coping Thoughts about my former maple tree (“Maybe it got a terrible disease, maybe it was hit by a truck, maybe something bad happened to the roots”) could be real, rather than mere consoling fiction. When we first moved into that old house, we noticed weird black spots on a couple of pretty plum trees, and we brought in a tree guy, who strongly advised removing the trees because they were seriously diseased and could not be saved; and we DID remove them, and we were sad about it (the thought of having our own plum trees had been a happy thing when we bought the house), but we didn’t have a moment’s thought about the previous owner. Who, in our defense, was no longer alive. But still! The trees needed to be taken down, as trees sometimes do, and we didn’t do it lightly, and we were sad about it, but there it was. Perhaps soon we will see that our old house’s new owner has planted a replacement tree! Maybe a similar maple!

Mother’s Day is over for another year, and I am glad. I wish to get rid of that holiday. It can be so fraught and complicated, for so many reasons.

And it feels impossible to complain about. Any complaint at all sounds like being ungrateful, or being demanding, or wanting the princess treatment, or not letting people choose their own way to show love, or not appreciating that I get to be a mother when so many people want to but can’t, or making too big a deal out of a holiday I don’t even like. And I feel like the potential for misunderstandings is just ENORMOUS—especially since everyone sees things through their OWN set of circumstances.

But I want to talk about it anyway. I saw a lot of conversations on Twitter yesterday that showed me that, among the MANY ways to have a fraught Mother’s Day, a lot of you are having similar experiences and similar feelings to mine, and I found those conversations very comforting to read: like, I am not the only one who cannot figure this out, and I am not the only one with a family like mine, and I am not the only one having these feelings about it. So I will tell you how it went for me, and I will tell you what I thought/felt about that, and I will also tell you what I have been doing in a (partly successful, partly not) attempt to mitigate all that.

I feel like I have very low standards for what constitutes a successful Mother’s Day. I don’t WANT people to spend money on me; I don’t WANT a big deal made over me; I CRINGE at the idea of being the center of attention at a brunch or other celebration. The only year I kicked up any fuss was the year my family did literally less than nothing: one of the kids asked Paul if they should make plans, and Paul shrugged that off, so not only did they do nothing, they DECIDED to do nothing, and furthermore Paul effectively PREVENTED there from being something. And then all that day I was seeing pictures on Facebook of other people’s families doing Mother’s Day things, and everywhere I went in my house there were messes left for me to handle, and I felt terrible and like a drudge and completely unloved, and I wanted to leave all those terrible ingrates in their self-made squalor and go away by myself, possibly permanently. That was the one year I made any complaint to the family, and I don’t feel I was out of line, or acting spoiled, or being demanding, or not letting people show love in their own way. I had set up an easy laid-back situation where the bare minimum would be plenty, and they had said “Eh, too much effort.”

Here are the ways it can make a mother feel, when Mother’s Day is apparently too hard for anyone to do anything about:

• Like maybe the reason no one is doing anything is that she is a bad mother. Near Mother’s Day, the internet is FULL of grown-ups talking about how Mother’s Day is hard for them because they had a terrible mother, and how they have to find alternate ways to appreciate / cope with the holiday. How many of those bad mothers don’t even KNOW they were bad mothers? Maybe SHE is a bad mother and doesn’t know it, and so asking for Mother’s Day to be celebrated just adds a new breathtaking layer of badness to her mothering.

• Like maybe she is not a BAD-bad mother, but definitely a mediocre/sub-par mother. And so then can’t you just picture this absolutely mediocre mother preening and waiting to be praised for her spectacular mothering on Her Whole Special Day? It’s embarrassing! Does she think she’s a mother like in the commercials and in all the online tributes, where her family loves her and WANTS to celebrate the day? CRINGE! Who’s going to tell her she is not that kind of mother?? I mean YIKES, this is AWKWARD.

• Like maybe she’s a perfectly fine mother as a person, and her intentions have been good, but her parental efforts are clearly ineffective, and all her years of lessons about gift-giving, thinking of what others might want, being considerate, having empathy—those have all completely failed. She’s a terrible teacher, obviously, and also no one wants to model their behavior after hers, obviously—and oh no, what OTHER of her teachings have the children completely failed to learn??

• Like maybe she is a perfectly fine mother as person, but her family doesn’t love her or care about her. And they never will. For whatever reason. She just doesn’t have that kind of family, that’s all.

Anyway. After the truly tanked Mother’s Day a few years ago, I came up with a three-part plan, and that’s what I’ve been doing since:

1. Set an example on Father’s Day. I was ALREADY doing this, but now I make A Big Pointed Point Of It. It’s too bad Father’s Day doesn’t come first: 11 months is a long time for a lesson to percolate. But it’s what we’ve got, so anyway on Father’s Day I go very heavy-handed about how we need to think about what Dad would like, and how we should think throughout the day of little things that might make the day feel a little more special for him. I talk about how some of the best gifts on such a day are gifts of SERVICE: let’s take his car to the car wash and use the fun super-powerful coin-operated vacuum cleaner there! let’s clean off the coffee table without being asked, since we know that’s a particular preference of his! And I talk about how some of the best gifts are gifts of DEFERENCE: let’s think about what HE might like best for dinner! let’s let HIM choose what we watch on TV! And I talk about how it’s not about spending a lot of money or buying big gifts or doing huge difficult things, but more about Thinking Of The Other Person, and Making The Day A Little Special: maybe while at the grocery store, pick up a bag of those lemon drops he likes; maybe bake some cookies or some other dessert we know he likes; maybe do some little task he usually does, so that he doesn’t have to do it. I then say to the children, “Okay, so what sort of thing appeals to each of you? Let’s each pick a thing we’re going to do for Dad.”

2. Make it clear ahead of time what I would like. I hate this. I hate having to do this. I feel like this can so easily be spun as filling out an order form, or like “My mother was so controlling and had to have things Exactly Her Way. She even TOLD US what to do for Mother’s Day!” But my family does not seem to be able to handle it on their own. And Paul does not seem able to take his one day per year to train the children in thoughtfulness and empathy, though Paul has many other fine qualities that may mean the decision to marry him was not a stupid one: for example he will spend dozens of hours patiently and cheerfully working with a child on a science project or a math assignment, tasks that after 30 seconds make me want to literally scream and cry. So he is able to teach, but apparently unable to teach THIS, so I will teach this and he will help with science projects.

3. Find ways to celebrate it myself. Put cream and hot-chocolate mix in my coffee. Deliberately skip all skippable chores: no laundry, no bathroom-cleaning, no wiping kitchen counters. Skip anything I don’t want to do and don’t have to do, even if it means I’ll just have to do those things the next day. Do more things I do want to do, like reading and napping and playing phone games and snacking and browsing online stores. Definitely have a treat with afternoon coffee. Wine with dinner. Etc.

I waited a bit this year to see if they would take the job on themselves so I could skip the second part of that plan, but it got close to Mother’s Day and I sensed no Secret Consults, so a few days ahead of time I said to Paul, “I don’t want to Fill Out An Order Form or whatever [that’s his family’s take on making wish lists, which is one of my family’s practices, so this is familiar shorthand], and if people already have their own plans, that’s great! it’s perfect! I love it!—but if people are TENSE about it, or think they have to BUY things (and especially in quarantine when that’s more difficult than usual), I can tell you some things I would very much enjoy that would not take money or much effort.” And Paul paused in a way that communicated “OhGodMother’sDay” and then said, very casually, “Why don’t you tell me?”

So I told him that what I would like was to have those canned Pillsbury orange cinnamon rolls for breakfast (in my family growing up, we had those for Special Occasions like birthdays and Mother’s/Father’s Day), and that I had already acquired a tube of them. That I would like us at some point during the day to go outside and take a photo of me with the kids. And that all day long I wanted to not have to nag anyone to do their chores, or remind them to put their dishes in the dishwasher. And that if, for example, the cat threw up, I wanted everyone to think, “Well, MOM shouldn’t have to handle that, not on MOTHER’S DAY!” Ditto for if the toilet paper roll ran out. And Paul cooks on Sunday nights anyway, but I wanted to get to choose which of his three rotating meals we would have, and I wanted to add a side of that garlic-herb bread-machine bread, but that I would make that. And then after dinner I wanted us to watch the movie Knives Out and eat popcorn. And as a BONUS item, but by no means would my happiness rest on it, it would be very pleasing to me if someone would make cookies.

Okay, please pause and evaluate that list of requests and tell me if you think it is demanding or princessy. I have not asked anyone to buy me anything. There is almost no extra effort, almost no additional chores; for the most part I am asking people ONLY to do the chores they were supposed to do ANYWAY, but without ME having to do the thing I ALREADY SHOULD NOT HAVE TO DO, which is nag them. I am mostly asking for things we ALL enjoy: the orange rolls, the movie, the popcorn, the cookies (the kids LIKE to bake cookies, and often ask to). I am asking for two gifts of deference: I want to get to choose the dinner among the three options, I want to get to choose the movie. I am also, by requesting that I not have to clean up cat barf, asking that the day be treated as if it is special for me.

Think about what each person has to do differently, to make me happy. VERY VERY LITTLE. Think of how many of the things I want are treats for them as well. ALMOST ALL.

Well. I had a fine Mother’s Day. I felt like I set a pretty low bar, and some of those things were still not met, but other things surpassed it; and the things that were not met are things I can address at Father’s Day and in the way I handle Mother’s Day next year. But here is what I found: for me, the reason Mother’s Day is such a fraught holiday is that it puts a spotlight on things that are usually just simmering on the back burner, or even simmering way off the stove, maybe in some back corner of the kitchen. As Mother’s Day approaches, I start noticing those things more because I am anticipating what might be about to happen on Mother’s Day and how I’m going to feel about those various possibilities; on Mother’s Day, I notice them a HUGE AMOUNT; and after Mother’s Day, it takes awhile to stop noticing them so much.

I am not discussing here what portion of the problem belongs to society and which parts to the participants; nor how those problems ought to be dealt with in society/households/individuals; nor how my own household could have been set up a different way to avoid any of them, nor how I could go back in time to change any of those things, nor how others would never allow such a situation to exist in their own, different households; nor how these issues might also affect, say, FATHERS, or OTHER HOLIDAYS, or whatever; I am talking here only about how Mother’s Day for me in my household (and for similar others in similar households) can bring certain things to my attention in a way that, for me, temporarily but dramatically increases unhappiness, making the holiday unpleasant. Here are some of those things, which of course will not apply in every household/family:

• The way communal/household tasks (changing the toilet paper roll, cleaning up cat barf) can fall disproportionately to us—with, in fact, other family members not even considering doing them, but just leaving them without even thinking about it, walking right past the same obvious-to-solve issue (such as something that has fallen to the floor but obviously does not belong there) again and again. So that on One Special Day per year, we might ask AS A SPECIAL TREAT for other people to change the toilet paper roll or clean up cat barf. What a very, very low bar.

• The way family members, when thinking of Nice Things They Could Do For Us, might choose chores that are not even our chores to do (e.g., a kid deciding to clean the Kid Bathroom, which is already the kids’ job to keep clean), leaving us to further unhappily ponder the way communal chores and in fact ALL chores seem to be seen as our domain, and that despite fairly rigorous teaching on this topic, chores assigned to other family members may have been misunderstood as “helping us with OUR chores” rather than rightfully pitching in with work that belongs to us all.

• The way it might happen in some households, for example mine, that the child who does think about Mother’s Day well in advance without being reminded, and who comes up with a thoughtful gift that is not “doing their own chore they had to do anyway,” is a girl. And while we know this will not be the case across the board, and that there are many thoughtful/considerate sons and many thoughtless/inconsiderate daughters, we might spend time thinking about gender roles in our society, and resenting them.

• The way we might trundle along automatically taking care of others in the household as well as ourselves, and do it as part of our role in the family (just as we might earn money for the whole family and not just for ourselves)—until the one day a year we have Opposite Day, or “Mother’s Day,” and find that EVEN ON THAT ONE DAY the other family members won’t take care of us: that our treat is that they will take SOME care of THEMSELVES. Our treat is that we get some time to take care of our own selves, and we get to take somewhat less care of them.

• The way family members might pat themselves mightily on the back, and expect vast praise from others, for doing on one single day per year the things they ought to be doing regularly.

• The way it turns out SO MANY THINGS work well ONLY because we are reminding or pre-planning—so that, for example, if we deliberately stay out of a task to let others handle it for a day, it can be like one of those stupid “a MAN tries to be the MOM!!” movies, or a Family Circus comic. Perhaps we say that we would love to have garlic-herb bread-machine bread with dinner, and that we will make it ourselves; but the others say “Ah-ah-ah, it’s Mother’s day, so WE will make the bread!!”—but then the time to start the bread machine comes and goes, and we are not nagging/interfering and so we say nothing, and so at dinner there is no garlic-herb bread-machine bread.

• The way we might communicate clearly and reasonably, and not be listened to.

• The way we might have small wants and low expectations, smaller and lower than anyone else’s in the family, and still not have those met.

• The scalding outrage of the crumbs, the CRUMBS, that we might gratefully accept as symbols of appreciation and love. Things that are routine, normal, daily, thoughtful things for us to do for our family members, are special treats for us one day a year, and that’s something we might write glowing reports of for others to read. The fact of this situation. The fact that it is not rare.

I feel like Mother’s Day can be an Exception Proves the Rule sort of day, making many mothers feel much worse, and highlighting the ways in which our usual efforts go generally unappreciated, and the ways in which our culture still kind of sucks. And I had a perfectly fine Mother’s Day for it being Mother’s Day, but it’s Mother’s Day itself I don’t like and don’t know how to cope with but can’t opt out of it either.