I am getting ready for a trip to visit my parents (if you recall, they live half the year in the same town as me, and half the year quite far away), and yesterday evening I hit the sweet spot of stress-turning-to-energy and got a ton done. I was tearing around the house handling things left and right: some specifically travel-related stuff, but also the In Case of Death stuff I do because when I travel outside my usual range I feel like it’s pretty likely I’ll die, and if that happens I want everyone to be totally caught up on clean laundry.

In the midst of all that, and in that heightened state, I cut my own hair. I know there are people who always cut their own hair and it’s merely practical and not at all alarming, but for me it is a little alarming: it was not a calm, practical thing, but more of an “impulsively grabbing half my hair and sawing off a handful with scissors, and then grabbing the other half and doing the same thing” thing. This morning when I woke up and saw all the hair in the trash, my eyebrows went way up at my last-night self. On the other hand, it is a huge relief to have it shorter (it had hit the length where it felt like a heavy, tangled burden), and I wear my hair twisted/bunned up so do I really need to pay $25 to have someone else cut a straight three inches off the bottom? Perhaps I will do it this way from now on. It came out really well. I will probably need to snip a few weird pieces here and there after I wash it (right now I am in my pajamas taking advantage of the quiet house before everyone else gets up), but just flipping it this way and that and looking at it in the mirror I don’t see anything that looks like a pre-travel-stressed woman did it to herself. So overall I’m pleased.

I went to another march/rally last weekend, and it was very different than the first one I went to. The first time, I went to one in a big city, and it was just like those news photos you see where people are packing the streets. This time I went to one in a much smaller and nearer city, and it was not at all the same thing; and if imagining being in those news photos fills you with dread, it might be much more your thing.

Just for starters, there were probably 500 people at most, spread loosely over an area that could have handled ten times that number. Saying it was “much less crowded” would be an amusing understatement. But that meant I felt much more foolish joining in with chants, songs, etc: it felt as if everyone around me could clearly hear me, rather than my voice disappearing into a vast noise. Also, while the crowd was large for the area and so was still encouraging, seeing a scattered bunch of people in a nice park was nowhere near as encouraging as seeing more people than I ever see, filling streets where people don’t usually stand. This felt more like the times my childhood church would hold an outdoor service.

On the other hand, there was ample free parking and cleanish bathrooms and I didn’t have to figure out public transportation, and it didn’t take me half the day to get there and back. And there was zero feeling that anyone could get trampled or put in prison. There were no helicopters. We could see the stage and hear all the speakers talking.

Overall, I preferred the giant crowd and the helicopters; and even though last time I was so nervous about the subway, the subway ended up being part of the whole thing: seeing all those people cramming in, all of us on our way to the protest! (Plus, I could follow them instead of using a map.) But if you hate the whole idea of the crowd/helicopters/subway, I strongly recommend one of the smaller satellite locations: quieter, easier, more spacious, less fraught, but you still get to participate.

I wish there were an easier way to invite a woman on her own to join a group of chatting women at a place such as the swimming pool or a school event or kindergarten pick-up or the park or whatever. I know from experience and from other people’s reported experiences that sometimes a woman is standing there feeling isolated but with no idea how to JOIN. And sometimes a group looks like a cohesive, established, everyone-is-best-friends group when actually it’s a mishmash of some people who know each other well and some people who only know one other person but only just met the rest and some people who didn’t know anyone else until it turned out their kids were friends. And sometimes a group, for whatever reason they think they can justify, is not welcoming to a person who tries to join—but you don’t want to hang out with them anyway.

I saw someone pull off a “Join us!” successfully the other day at the pool, but she knew the other woman somewhat even though the rest of us didn’t. She was like “Jen! Come join us!” And Jen joined us. But there were two other women, each on their own, casting looks at our group that seemed to me to communicate a wish to be part of it, but none of us knew either of them, and of course maybe they wouldn’t WANT to join us or were too busy watching their kids to make sure they didn’t drown. There didn’t seem to be any good way to find out, was the problem I wish I could have solved.

I had several methods for getting myself on the inside of these groups, in case you are wondering.

1. Initiate conversation with other people standing on their own. Joining a group cold turkey can be difficult-to-impossible if you don’t know anyone in it. A single person is an easier nut to crack IF they are also standing there wishing to be included. If you can leap the hurdle of “being the first to say something” (and it IS a hurdle, especially at first when you’re not used to it; I had to pretend I was someone who found it easy), routinely approaching other people who are also on their own means you soon know a whole lot of people, if only lightly. Don’t underestimate the “knowing someone enough to say hi to” category of acquaintances: that’s an important stage. Pretty soon you will start standing in groups with those people, either because some of you form your own group or because you’ll see them in groups with other people and they’ll call you over.

Initiating a conversation with someone new is easier, I’ve found, in situations where there is very limited time: for example, while waiting to pick up the kids after kindergarten. It’s harder if it’s a big school social event, or if you’re at the pool or park, because then if the other person does not seem to want to talk to you, you have to find a way to get away from them; if it’s just five minutes until the kids come out, all you have to do is wait in silence for that to happen, and then not approach that person again. (If it IS at a longer-term thing, I use my kids as an excuse. I stand there pretending not to feel awkward for a minute, and then I say, as if something’s just caught my eye, “Whoops, I better go see what going on there. See ya!” Then I go over to my child and put my hand on their upper arm and say something like, “Remember we’re leaving in half an hour” so it looks as if I had a stern talk with them.)

The limited-time sort of situation also makes it easier to invite others to join a group. In the days of waiting around at kindergarten pick-up, sometimes I might be talking to Jen and Melissa, another day to Tracy and Jess and Alison; another day I might arrive before anyone else I knew. So if I was on my own and I saw someone on their own, I could just wait casually nearby and make a casual opening remark: “Which one is yours?” is a good one when kids are involved, or “Which teacher does yours have?” If she seemed eager to talk, we could keep talking; and the next day, if I was talking in a group but saw her arrive, I could say, “Oh hi! We’re discussing the new first-grade teachers,” and then she could take that as an invitation to join in if she wanted to. (Telling someone else what the rest of us are talking about is my number one best strategy for inviting. I highly recommend it.)

When Rob was in kindergarten and I had to wait for him every day, that was when I started doing all these things. I figured it like this: I am standing here wishing we were not in a big awkward group where a few of us seem like besties and the rest of us stand in awkward silence. I would like it if someone would talk to me. So I will work on the assumption that some of these other people want that too—and that if they don’t, we’re only standing here for five minutes until the kids come out, so it’s not a big imposition on them for me to make that mistake. Each day I would stand near someone else and make a comment about the weather or something. I know people say they hate small talk but it is the absolute best way to test the waters: if someone doesn’t want to talk to you and you say, “Wow, sure is hot!” they’ll say “Mm, sure is” and go back to looking over at those trees. But if they DO want to talk and have been standing there feeling lonely and awkward and like they have no idea how to make friends, they’ll say “OH I KNOW! It is SO HOT! I am DYING!”—and then off you go, having a conversation like real people who are not at all socially anxious!

You may remember I was making a list. All of that was #1, apparently. “Initiate conversation with other people standing on their own,” if you don’t want to scroll up.

2. Say hi to people. This one is especially good if it’s too hard to initiate conversation, or if everyone is being so silent you don’t know who to sidle up to. Instead it goes like this: You arrive to kindergarten pick-up, a few people glance up, you say “Hi!” Optionally, when more people arrive, you glance up and say “Hi!” That’s all. Pretty soon it changes the group: people get used to saying hi to each other as each person arrives, and the whole atmosphere is more primed for people to start talking. Or at the pool: when I joined the section of parents waiting while their kids took swimming lessons, I would say “Hi!” Maybe the first day you do it you surprise someone and they say “Oh!…uh, hi!” or they say NOTHING because they’re snobby or more likely because they’re thinking “Did she say hi to me?? Ug, what if she was talking to someone else, and then I say hi back and it’s super awkward??,” or something else happens that makes you feel you bungled it, but you do it enough days and people get fully used to it, and then they start feeling like they know you, and you start feeling like you know them, and pretty soon someone will start a conversation. Or some of them will say hi and then look pointedly down at their book, and you will know they are using these minutes to have some peace and quiet, but saying hi didn’t ruin that for them, and now you have the valuable information that they are not feeling left out and hoping for someone to chat with.

Saying bye to people can do the same thing but without any need for follow-up lines. Let’s say you stand there awkwardly on a Friday afternoon, and then your child emerges and you can leave. Turn your face back to the group as you leave and say “Bye everybody! Have a good weekend!” Again, the first time you do it, it may catch some people off-guard. But if you persist, you work steadily on building a culture where it is easier for everyone to talk to each other, and where people feel as if they know you. Meanwhile you are out of there before people have to see you stammer or blush, and so you come across all confident and friendly and socially relaxed.

3. Accidentally become friends with someone who knows everybody. My newish friend Morgan knows EVERYBODY. I was at the pool and I saw her, and she was like “Hi hi hi!! Oh do you know my friend Katie?” and then I lightly knew Katie, and then their friend Michelle came over and joined us and then I lightly knew Michelle, and then Michelle called Jen over and then I lightly knew Jen, and then there I was standing in a girl gang at the pool, hanging out with other women complaining about our children and how hot it was outside, admiring the pedicure of the one woman who had one, talking about where to get the best swimsuits, talking about what things we’d signed the kids up for this summer. Basically living the In A Group dream, when half an hour ago I only knew Morgan! But I ended up in a group, because Morgan knows everyone and naturally forms groups. And now I kind of know Katie and Michelle and Jen, so if I see them next time I will feel more comfortable joining their group. But this is what got me thinking I wish there was an easier way to invite others.

One more note: if you’re a socially anxious person, you may find that even once you’re good at joining groups, you don’t feel the way you thought people in groups were feeling. They all looked so happy and confident and close, but maybe you still feel kind of awkward, and maybe you’re still worrying about things, and maybe the bonds all feel more casual than you expected. For a lot of people, this is so normal: it’s only from the outside that a group appears to have been close friends for many decades. From the inside, you can see that sometimes a group is just a bunch of near-strangers who know each other lightly and know how to form a chatty group at public events. You may decide you actually prefer to hang out on your own without the social pressure.

I have several related questions, and I have forgotten at least one of them, but we are going to proceed with the ones I remember and we’ll see how that goes.

Here is the basic topic: I have a 13-year-old daughter.

And here is the basic thing I am wondering about: leg/underarm shaving.

Oh! I remember the third thing! It was about looking for recommendations for books teenagers can consult to find answers to their own questions, without having to ask parents or rely on the iffy knowledge of friends. Let’s save that one for another day, actually, because I think we have quite enough for one morning, and because I want to make a Reference Post of the other topic so we have all those recommendations in one place. If you put them in THIS post, and then I write the OTHER post, you might feel as if you already said it and don’t want to say it again, and then we’ll lose that valuable input.

In my own childhood, I was very keen to be a teenager and I got ahead of things by reading a lot of books about/for teenagers, and subscribing to Seventeen and Teen and Sassy. So, for example, I was the one who told my mom it was time for me to start using deodorant, and I asked to be taught to shave my legs and then explored other methods (my mom still uses the Epilady I bought with babysitting money and used for 20 seconds), and I was making my own appointments at hair salons and getting my hair feathered, and I was counting days until I was allowed to wear make-up. (I should mention that now, as an adult, I am no longer nearly as interested in hair/make-up.)

Elizabeth is not the same sort of child. She does paint her nails. She has strong opinions about her hair (LONG with BANGS, no she does NOT want to grow the bangs out, stop ASKING her). She has strong opinions about her clothes and is irritated that now that she is 5’6″ it is harder to find shirts with good pictures on them, or shorts in pink and purple and turquoise, or jeans with embroidery. With the possible-but-not-necessarily exception of the nails (MANY little girls like nail polish), those are all still indications of CHILD mode. She does not look for teen books/magazines, she does not ask to wear make-up, she does not have posters of attractive celebrity teenagers on her walls. She does not fuss with her hair or spend much time looking in the mirror.

Here is what I am nervously working up toward discussing with you:

1. She gives all indications of identifying as female.
2. We live in a society where most women shave their legs/underarms.
3. Our particular city is a place where ALL women appear to do so.
4. She is not making her own move to do so.
5. At some point, am I supposed to cue her to do so?

It is swimming pool season, is what I am saying. And I know in some areas of the country, there are LOTS of women with body hair, and that is good and natural and I’m glad to see it. At my own particular swimming pool: NONE grown women or teen girls with natural underarm hair. Literally none. I have seen literally not a single one, and we moved here when Rob was under a year old.

So. If you are a woman who has natural body hair, and your partner loves it, and your daughters are being raised to have natural body hair, and you couldn’t care less what society thinks, then that is LOVELY and also it is a different discussion. You will need to switch your problem-solving minds to Swistle Mode, where the circumstances are different on every point and there is an issue to be solved within those circumstances.

What I don’t want to do is rush her into teen stuff. What I also don’t want to do is leave her untaught and open to remarks. She tends to be embarrassed about this kind of thing, and I don’t want her to be stuck having to ask me for training or figure it out on her own if she doesn’t want to. And I don’t want it to be a nasty remark at the swimming pool that motivates her to start shaving. I would much prefer it to be just a normal thing, like when I said it was time to start wearing a bralette, or time to start wearing deodorant.

It’s just, I don’t know if shaving is the same category or not. Like, I would not say, “It is time for me to teach you how to wear make-up” or “It is time for you to get a fashionable haircut” or “It is time to start consulting magazines about what you should wear.” Underarm/leg-shaving is not exactly in the hygiene category, not exactly in the fashion category. That is: our society in general and my part of the country in particular would say it is hygiene, but I am worried about promoting that view when it is actually fashion. (If it were hygiene, most men would also shave their underarms and legs.) And yet I don’t want to try to make my child the vanguard for social change, at her own expense. Nor do I want to make a Big Deal about this. (Too late.) And I want to make sure she has the information/materials to make her own choices about it.

Oh! I have had an idea. What if I say to her something like, “So listen: in our culture many women start shaving their underarms and legs once they hit their teen years. You’re a teenager now, so I want to show you how and where the supplies are, in case you want to do that.” And I could go over other options I’ve tried, which might make for an entertaining talk while she’s trapped in the car. How about something like that? Does that seem like it gives her the information without pressuring her to do it? I could add a little rant about hygiene vs. fashion.

While we’re on the topic: if you shave underarms/legs, how did you start? Did a parent tell you to, or teach you to? Did friends start doing it, so you started doing it too? Did you get the idea from teen books/magazines, as I’m pretty sure I did?

After Mother’s Day, for which Paul regressed to his pre-prefrontal-cortex early 20s and said “She’s not MY mother” and he and the children did literally nothing, many of us, including me, were wondering what I might do for Father’s Day. There were so many satisfying, vengeful options to consider.

Here is what I decided: That even if Paul shrugs off his parental duty to teach the children to celebrate Mother’s Day, I’m not going to retaliate by shrugging off my parental duty to teach the children to celebrate Father’s Day. That in fact, if one parent is going to model selfishness and thoughtlessness, the other parent needs to STEP IT UP on those topics, however unfair that seems, if there is any hope of avoiding raising selfish, thoughtless jerks. And that if by doing this, I could passive-aggressively point out to the children and Paul that Mother’s Day had been done very poorly indeed, and teach them to do better in the future, then that would be a bonus.

Five days before Father’s Day, I began. I mentioned to the children in an enthusiastic voice that Father’s Day was the upcoming Sunday. I asked if they had thought of what they wanted to do for it. I told them they should let me know in plenty of time if they needed help/money from me. I gave some suggestions, based on things they would know their dad likes/wants:

making him a card
offering to go out and get a box of doughnuts
vacuuming out his car
shaking out his car’s floor mats
taking his car through a car wash (I’d pay)
taking his car to fill with gasoline (I’d pay)
sweeping the living room without being asked
cleaning up the living room without being asked
Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups
vacuuming the stairs
doing any of the other little things Paul usually tells them to do, but without being asked

After I’d mentioned the importance of thinking about the person and what THEY might like, Rob said scoffingly, “Or instead, we could just ask him what he wants?” Well, I said. Parents spend EVERY DAY OF THE YEAR telling children what to do. So part of the gift is DOING THE THING YOU KNOW THE PARENT WANTS YOU TO DO but without the parent having to ask this time; part of the gift is THE BREAK FROM HAVING TO ASK. Part of the gift is THINKING ABOUT WHAT THE PARENT MIGHT WANT, rather than forcing them to tell you AS PER USUAL.

Rob played into my hands again. He said “We didn’t do anything for Mother’s Day, did we?”—with a tone of so-why-are-we-suddenly-doing-this. And I said no, we hadn’t, and I pretended to misinterpret the gist of his question. I said that although it was tempting to get revenge on Dad by doing the same for Father’s Day, since I blamed him to some extent for not organizing the children into action, that I didn’t think that would be right—and that it would sacrifice a valuable teaching opportunity for the children. Rob said he didn’t think it would be revenge, he thought it would just be a step (“in the right direction,” his tone added) toward letting these “minor holidays” go uncelebrated. I did not cry or scream, even though his continued use of Tone made it tempting. Well, I said, I didn’t think so; I said that it had been pretty sucky to spend Mother’s Day seeing pictures on Facebook of all my friends doing Mother’s Day things with their families. So I didn’t think doing less was the answer. There was a significant pause.

Rob tried to blame Paul but quickly petered out, like he could tell there was no leg to stand on there. He brought up that he had ASKED Paul about Mother’s Day. I said, yes. And that I’d heard him ask, and that I’d heard Paul say “She’s not MY mother,” and that that was wrong and sad and here’s why, and here’s how Paul could have presented the same concept in a very different and useful way (“Well, she’s your mother; what do YOU think we should do?”). But. That the essence of what Paul had been saying was: It’s YOUR job to figure this out. Because she’s YOUR mother. Pointed look.

Rob wrote something down in a notebook. “I’m making a note to do something next year,” he said.

Lest you celebrate his change of heart: after all this, he let Father’s Day go by without doing anything. He went to work mid-afternoon, having done nothing at all. Despite discussion. Despite follow-up questions/reminders. Despite a sad face and personal testimony and a significant pause.

Mid-morning (while Rob was still asleep—he’s working second shift) is when I reminded the other children. “Are you remembering it’s Father’s Day?,” I asked them. “Are you all set? Do you need anything from me?” Sometimes I made sure that we were having these whispered conversations near enough to Paul that he would be aware that they were going on.

Mid-afternoon is when a low simmering anger kicked in. “You ungrateful wretches,” I didn’t say. “You horrible, selfish, spoiled beasts,” I didn’t add. “Where have we gone so wrong in our parenting?,” I didn’t wonder aloud. “How many of your future partners will blame ME for this?,” I didn’t speculate aloud. I did not scream or cry, or get in the car and keep driving away from these terrible people who are apparently younger versions of their father.

“It’s mid-afternoon; what are you PLANNING?,” I did in fact ask. “Come on, you’re running out of time!,” I did add. When I got shrugs, when William said “I haven’t done anything for Father’s Day since 6th grade,” when some of the kids started seriously arguing to me that OTHERS of the kids hadn’t done anything, that’s when I gave the rage a little leash. “This is one of two days a year we ask you to think of someone other than your own self,” I said. “Thinking of what to do is PART OF THE GIFT,” I said. “YOU are supposed to be thinking about Dad and what he might like,” I added. “I gave you ideas, and I gave them to you FIVE DAYS AGO,” I hissed. “Do something, do ANYTHING, but DO NOT LET THIS DAY JUST SLIP AWAY UNCELEBRATED,” I said with my hair smoking gently, lit with resentment about Mother’s Day and now new fresh resentment about Father’s Day.

When even that failed to yield results, I considered not telling you about it. It makes things look better on me and on the children if I have eager, willing, generous, easily-led children, and if all Paul needed to do was nudge/help the poor confused dears instead of thwarting/stunting them. It looks badly on me and on the children if I cannot kindly and easily coax them into lifting a pinky finger for their father. I hope you are empathetic enough to realize that this does not mean I want other people to say critical things about my children. I assume you and I can exchange A Look about it, possibly a CONCERNED Look, and have that be enough.

Eventually, with increased incredulous effort and sustained hissing, I achieved grudging results. One child cleaned the bathroom sink/counter, even though Paul does not particularly value that chore—but at least the thought/effort was there, and it was the child’s own thought/idea. One child brought out a card he had made at school but had not previously mentioned for some inexplicable reason. I coerced the other two children to come outside with me and work on Paul’s car: we shook out the floor mats and vacuumed the floor and threw away trash.

I gave Paul two presents, even though he is not my father. One was four pairs of Pair of Thieves socks from Target; they have this new line that costs EIGHT UNITED STATES DOLLARS PER PAIR for plain solid-colored socks, and because they changed colors the old colors were 70% off, so I got him four pairs to try. I’d also noticed recently that his favorite measuring-cup device had gotten badly chipped, so I replaced it with a new one.

Also, all day I kept up with dishes and getting them washed and/or into the dishwasher, because I know he doesn’t like having dirty dishes piling up on the counter. I washed a difficult dish he’d left to soak in the sink instead of leaving it for him to deal with. At the grocery store I made sure to get him the things he likes. I vacuumed the stairs because none of the kids did it and it really needed doing. I took care of several other things. It occurred to me that one reason he doesn’t think to do things like this to please me is that maybe he doesn’t notice/care when I do these things to please him. I tried not to think about that.

Sunday is one of the nights of the week when he cooks, so I thought about offering to take over that task for him, even though he claims to like cooking. But I could not quite work up the enthusiasm for that. I got him some presents, I worked with his terrible children, I was thoughtful about other things, and that is going to have to be enough for someone who did literally nothing for Mother’s Day.

The mother of Elizabeth’s friend Sarah asked Sarah to give Elizabeth a pamphlet for a religious summer camp. “My mom says to say it’s not REALLY about religion,” said Sarah. The pamphlet explains that the purpose of the camp is to have fun! and make friends! and eat s’mores! and deeply explore the Bible to learn how it relates to every aspect of our world and our lives! I looked up the organization and they are a group formed for the purpose of using children to evangelize to other children.

I am trying to react to this with semi-amused eye-rolling (“Just toss the pamphlet in the recycling and forget about it! She’s probably just thinking Elizabeth might like to go to the same camp as Sarah!”), but let me tell you confidentially that I am not succeeding. You may remember that I was brought up Christian, so I remember this kind of thing from the inside point of view, and I have been recognizing the symptoms in Sarah and her family for awhile now; this is not just a casual camp idea. I remember learning in Sunday School and youth group about looking for opportunities to witness to our friends. I remember telling friends that the picnic or youth group activity or vacation Bible school or summer camp wasn’t really about religion, it was just for having fun! and making friends! and eating s’mores! You don’t have to be religious, it’s for everyone!

I also know that back then, I would have felt very sorry for Elizabeth, whose parents Weren’t Saved and so weren’t teaching her The Good News. I would have been worried about this, and I would have had a strong mental image of their dark souls hungering for the light. I would have earnestly brought the situation up as a prayer request in Sunday School or youth group. It makes me feel queasy to think about this, and to think of this other family seeing our family this way. I don’t have to wonder if Sarah has reported Elizabeth’s unsaved status to her family, or if they might be thinking they can save Elizabeth, or if Sarah has been taught she should be on the lookout for moments she can Share Her Faith. “It’s not about RELIGION,” Sarah explains at the school lunch table. “It’s about the way the world WORKS.” I know this script. I have advised Elizabeth that there is no point in arguing, and that it is better to change the subject. Sarah is a good friend when she’s not trying to do her Evangelical Duty.

When I was on the inside of this kind of thing, it seemed compassionate: we’re trying to RESCUE people! we are battling for people’s ETERNAL SOULS! From the outside, it looks presumptuous and predatory. Adults should not be trying to convert other people’s children to their religion. Adults should not be using their own children as tools to convert other people’s children. Adults should know this through the easy one-step method of wondering if they would want other adults to work on converting THEIR children. I don’t think Sarah’s mother would think it was compassionate of me to try to save Sarah from her parents’ teachings. I think she would be outraged at any attempt, and would want me to stay away from her child, and would think it was really weird of me to try to get involved, and would see it as me trying to lead Sarah astray.

I am not, however, going to do anything about this, except explaining to my own children what this is and why I don’t like it and why this is a hot-button area of discussion for me. I’m not going to confront Sarah’s mother, someone I’ve met only once. I’m not going to send back a pamphlet about Skeptics Camp, telling Elizabeth to explain to Sarah that it’s not REALLY about skepticism. I’m not going to do anything except roll my eyes and recycle the stupid pamphlet and lie awake composing mental arguments about it.

I made the mistake of reading other books before reviewing these, so already they fade in my memory.

(image from Amazon.com)

My Ex-Life, by Stephen McCauley

The plot of this book is exactly my kind of thing: David, a gay man whose life is in a bit of upheaval, goes to stay with his ex-wife Julie and her daughter Mandy for a little while to help them with some stuff, and things go really nicely and companionably and appealingly. But the book was written in a style I don’t like: the author almost couldn’t write a sentence without making a snarky/clever/witty add-on:

David guessed him to be in his late thirties or early forties, but boyishness still clung to him, as it often does to men with good hair or unresolved relationships with their fathers. He was tidily dressed in short pants and a green polo shirt, and he wore around his neck a lanyard with a heavy set of keys attached, a little like a gym teacher or an obstreperous camp counselor.

I found it extremely tiring to read in fiction, because there is no way to get absorbed in the story if the author is constantly drawing your attention to the way he’s writing it. It was like getting constantly nudged.

Also, it was the kind of book that confirms your fears that everyone is thinking mean things about everyone else:

Carol had a high, girlish voice. She took superb care of herself–her skin appeared to be polished–but she had the hard face of someone who could stand to eat a cupcake once or twice a year. The bones were too prominent, and the muscles around her jaw flexed visibly when she spoke. As was to be expected, she was pretty. But it was the flat prettiness of a sorority sister who wears pastels, subscribes to Self magazine, and actually reads the articles. She punctuated her comments with a dry, nervous laugh that reminded David of the panting of a dog eager to be petted.

and:

If Carol was making an exhausting effort to please, Henry was aiming for a stern demeanor that gave away nothing. David had noted this deportment in strong-willed men overcompensating for the fact that their lives are controlled by their wives or girlfriends. He had a dark suntan, an attractive affectation, but one that these days looked somehow vintage, like a dial telephone or an electric carving knife.

It’s vivid, creative, descriptive writing, but I didn’t like it and it made me feel yucky to read it. Despite that, I read to the end because I wanted to know what would happen with the plot, which I liked very much. And because of charming passages like this one, where David and Mandy walk Mandy’s dog deliberately past a shop where the shopkeeper always comes out with a dog biscuit:

After a few minutes, a small man emerged holding something in his hands. “Please don’t pretend you’re not expecting a snack,” he said. “We’re beyond that charade.”

The author then interjects to say it wasn’t clear if he was speaking to Mandy or to the dog, but it is 100% endearing if he’s talking to the dog, and otherwise it is not, so I wish he had just let us assume it was addressed to the dog (which it absolutely was, and you cannot tell me otherwise).

It is hard to say if I recommend the book or not. I guess I do, especially since people have different tastes in writing styles and you might LOVE what I found tiring/depressing.

(image from Amazon.com)

Lincoln in the Bardo, by George Saunders

I read this after reading Shelf Love’s review, which I highly recommend you read as well, because it explains it very well with the appropriate warnings. Even with the warnings, I spent the first 50 pages or so thinking the book might be too experimental/confusing for me to get through (and sighing at the body-part crudity and bathroom crudity). But sometime after that, I went from uncertain to enchanted, and spent the rest of the book thinking things such as “Why are there not MORE books like this??” and getting bowled over by new plot points. (And skimming some of the chapters full of quotes from Lincoln resources. They were good, and they contributed to the story, but there were TOO MANY BY HALF.) I really, really liked it, and added several more books by this author to my library list.

I had another morning of cursing my sleep conscience: I dreamed I turned down a dinner date with a really great guy (“I’m married,” I said; “I don’t mind married,” he said, charming as all heck; “I really CAN’T,” I said), and I dreamed I turned down a dozen different foods I really wanted to eat. Why. Why have I not mastered lucid dreaming. I turned down a chance to eat brownies and not-forsake-all-others and EAT BROWNIES.

I am applying for TSA Pre-Check, which is that thing that lets you get through airport security faster and more easily and without all the instructions that make me frazzled and anxious. I kept starting the application process and then stopping it, because it said that it was CRUCIAL that your name be EXACTLY THE SAME on all the documents you brought to the interview to prove your identity. But my driver’s license shows just my two middle initials, and my passport has my middle names spelled out. Those are not matching, but not something I can easily fix. And I couldn’t find anything about it in the FAQ; and to get to the interview portion I have to drive 45 minutes away to a city I hate driving in, so it wasn’t something I wanted to take a chance on, either.

BUT ALSO, I have found while researching it for the baby name blog that at least for Social Security purposes, the U.S. government doesn’t consider middle names part of your legal name. (Suffixes such as Jr., III, etc., are also not part of the legal name. The post where I said so gets regular comments from pissed-off men who want to explain to me JUST HOW MUCH those suffixes ARE part of their names, and want to prove it to me with multiple not-at-all-proving-it examples. YAWN.)

(screenshot from SSA.gov)

So my hope was that this would be the same situation for the TSA Pre-Check thing, since that’s the government too, and I finally just proceeded with the application. Mid-application, I got to this line:

(screenshot from TSA.gov)

HOPE CONFIRMED. In case you too have been fretting about this.

I am reading The Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler, and I would like to say that this is just the kind of thing I used to like to read before the possibility of this exact kind of future (no contraceptives! clean water is too scarce for most people to afford! all education is private and too expensive for most people to afford! police/firefighters are private and have to be paid for directly by the citizen who summons them! women and children can’t go outside safely except in a group including armed men!) went from “oooh, kind of thrillingly creepy to think of the effects of that kind of unlikely societal collapse!” to “our political leaders are right this minute working on achieving those very goals.” I want to finish the book, but it’s setting my baseline level of panic way too high for daily life, so I think after this one book I’m done (it’s a series).

I’d like to veer into another topic, which is my new pillow. This story begins when I was doing my in-home eldercare job, and one of the houses I went to had the TV set to a station that played a pillow commercial again and again and again and again until I was about to lose my fool mind but also kind of wanted to try the pillow. Then I read some reviews, and the reviews said the pillow was nothing but one of those egg-carton memory foam things you put under a sleeping bag, but all ripped up into chunks and stuffed into a sack.

I was at Target earlier this week, and their whole pillow aisle was full of the new yellow clearance stickers (I HATE the new yellow clearance stickers). I found a pillow labeled “Shredded Foam Pillow: Shapeable memory foam designed to fit your ideal sleep position.” Definitely hinting at it being a knock-off of the one in the commercial, and I squeezed it and it felt like it was full of ripped-up chunks of memory foam, so I bought it.

This would be a much better story if I loved the pillow, but I don’t. It seems like it might be good for me: when I lie on my side using the pillow, I can just SEE the part of the commercial that shows the side-sleeper’s spine aligning correctly. But I am also a stomach-sleeper, and a half-stomach-half-side sleeper, and this pillow doesn’t CHANGE enough for that. It’s the firmest pillow I have ever used: there is almost no GIVE to it at all. I am accustomed to a down-filled pillow, which had too MUCH give (I had to keep plumping it up and squishing it into a half-pillow-sized lump in the pillow case), but this is too far the other way. When I squeeze the pillow with my hand, it feels as if it would squoosh down nicely, but my head is not heavy enough to make it do that, so I feel as if my head is resting on a stable little shelf. In the reviews for the pillow on TV, reviewers wrote that foam chunks could be removed from the pillow to make it more adjustable; I may see if I can do that.

Let’s see. I saw the movie Life of the Party, and I saw it with friends which is I think the best way to see it.

I will see pretty much anything Melissa McCarthy does. And I want YOU to, too, because I want Things Melissa McCarthy Does to be profitable and therefore abundant. This movie was as good as I expected, though not quite as good as I’d hoped. It is a nice fantasy movie, like Bad Moms.

I also watched the royal wedding, and I hope for that hugely publicized event we were all remembering that it adds nothing to the world to volunteer one’s own scornful lack of interest in something other people are happy and enthusiastic about. My interest levels were much lower than for the Will & Kate wedding, and I wasn’t even sure I was going to get up early to watch it—but I DID get up, and I was so glad I did, because it turned out to be a MUCH MORE INTERESTING wedding. There was this strong thread of “Oh, you don’t think the monarchy should be including a biracial American? Huh! LOOKIT WHAT WE’RE GOING RIGHT AHEAD AND DOING ANYWAY!”—with a sweet, sweet smile.

I read Natural Causes: An Epidemic of Wellness, The Certainty of Dying, and Killing Ourselves to Live Longer, by Barbara Ehrenreich.

(image from Amazon.com)

There was a lengthy middle section I found a little sloggy to get through (something about cells, and it seemed important but it also seemed like it went on forever and at a much lower entertainment-value level than the rest of the book), but I liked the first part and the last part. Do you remember awhile back, when a lot of people were writing really interesting articles about how Fitness/Food has become something much more like Religion for a lot of people: rituals, superstitions, purity/sin values, righteousness rankings, warding off fears of death? This book is along those lines.

I read American Gods, by Neil Gaiman, at Paul’s suggestion.

(image from Amazon.com)

I read something somewhere about why did some website/store have a Women’s Fiction category but not a Men’s Fiction category, so I will make a point of saying that this is Men’s Fiction: more talk about pissing and penises than I would think anyone in the world could possibly be interested in. TONS of fighting. A fair amount of grossness. Plenty of unlikely fantasy sex. But a really good book anyway, I thought, with interesting themes and ideas. I felt like about 90% of the particulars about gods/goddesses was going right past my limited knowledge, but the book was entirely readable without that knowledge: the author helps the reader get the gist of what they need to know.

Breaking Cat News is a huge hit at my house:

(image from gocomics.com)

We are all reading it. Also, Henry is getting the book for his birthday. There will be jealousy.

I find it difficult to maintain high levels of pique for long. After writing yesterday’s update, I found that even just the writing-it-out of the whole thing brought me down another level or two, and the rest of the day I was feeling markedly better: forgetting about it, feeling like it didn’t matter so much, feeling sheepishly like I’d built a mountain out of a molehill, feeling things slipping back into normal. It was hard to tell which feelings/thoughts were the Right Ones: the earlier ones, when I was thinking this incident (and others like it) could be THE BEGINNING OF THE END? Or the later ones, when I was thinking this incident (and others like it) were the routine disappointments of sharing life with others, and just meant I needed to tweak things a bit in the future? Or maybe some of each? It is so hard to tell.

Anyway, I wasn’t sure how to approach it with Paul, but then there was a sort of perfect set-up of quiet children and the right sort of moods and me Feeling Able, and I pounced on the chance. And even just in the first few minutes, seeing his open uncomprehending face, I could see what this was going to be: more work than I wanted to do. I finished expressing how sad I’d been; I told him what it was like seeing my Facebook feed ALL DAY full of other families doing things to celebrate; I told him that the whole thing had been so inexplicable, I’d considered explanations such as him having brain tumor, or him wanting a divorce, or the children thinking I was a crummy mother.

And he was just so baffled by it all. He couldn’t even respond except with a sort of soothing patting. He was listening, he was paying attention, he wasn’t defensive or making excuses—but I could see that it was going to take SO MUCH WORK to get him from seeing things his way to understanding my point of view. I would need metaphors and similes and relevant examples from the world of computers. I would need to work HARD, and it would be EXHAUSTING, and it would involve frustration and fighting and tears—and at the end of it he would briefly understand, and that understanding would last for about a day, and then without endless shoring up it would drop away again and I’d have to start at the very beginning next time. And after more than 20 years of this, I am tired of it. I don’t think I want to do any more of it. I don’t think I can change this about him. I am Sisyphus deciding to leave the rock at the bottom of the hill this time and maybe put that energy into country line-dancing or my friendships or something.

The thing I realized last night as I was deciding NOT to take on that workload is that he really does not care. I don’t think he can help it. I think with huge effort on his part and mine he can get to the point where he understands what it would be LIKE to care or why OTHER PEOPLE care, but it doesn’t make HIM care. He cares about my feelings only to the extent that they affect him: if I’m sad or angry, he wants to fix that because it’s uncomfortable for him if I’m sad or angry. But he’s not thinking, like, “I wish I could KNOW HER MIND better! I want to UNDERSTAND her! I wish I knew what she was feeling!” At all. And he’s not going to. He is willing to sit and listen to me try to explain it to him, but it’s similar to the way I am willing to let him explain the computer problem he’s trying to solve at work: I don’t care about it at all, and I don’t really understand it either, but I don’t mind if he wants to tell me about it.

I realized I do a lot of routine system checks to see how I’m doing as a person/mother/wife: things like, this isn’t working, what can I think of to fix it or improve it? Or: this is a temperament flaw of mine; can I fix the flaw, or do I need to find a way to work with it, or do I need to find a way to keep it from harming others? What are some relatively easy ways I could make the kids’ lives happier? What are some things I could do to keep myself from getting frustrated or yelling at them? What are some things I could do to make Paul feel happier at home? What are the things that seem to make him feel more content, and are there any of those I could improve on? Are there things I could do (sock-pairing, bed-making) that would be small and easy for me but make him feel a lot happier? Things like that are routine things for me to be thinking about.

What has occurred to me is that Paul does not do this at all, and that is part of what is hurting my feelings and confusing me. He is not evaluating his own behavior, wondering what he could do to be a better father or husband and then working on those things. He is not wondering what he could do to to make our marriage better. Because of the way language works, it sounds harsh to say he “doesn’t care” about those things, or that those things are “not priorities,” though I think both statements are accurate. It would be fairer to say something more along the lines of those issues not being on his radar, or not being part of his own systems-scan, or not being included in his pre-sets, or whatever. It’s not that he thinks “Be a better husband? Who cares about THAT?,” it’s that he never analyzes himself in that way or wonders about things like that. He cares about being a better programmer, and he cares about acquiring more knowledge about things, and he cares about being a better gardener. (I would have to use all of this in a conversation trying to make him care about caring about being a better husband, and then I would have to draw careful parallels, and we’d still only just be getting started on a long, long road.)

I don’t want to treat him like a child or like someone who is just soooooooo rational he needs irrational woman-things explained to him carefully, and I don’t want to buy into the idea that he needs me to tell him what to do because he can’t figure this stuff out—but it seems like what is needed here is a way to cope with this gap for the duration of our relationship, considering the gap IS THERE. Like, am I willing, in exchange for a happier, more peaceful life, to say things to him such as, “This upcoming event is important to me. It will make me sad if you do x or y. It will make me happy if you do anything within the category z, with z defined as ‘thoughtful things that show appreciation/caring’. Some candy and/or a non-browning supermarket bouquet would also be pleasing, but not necessary. I like tulips, btw, or mixed bouquets.”

This all just SMACKS of being his personal puppeteer. It’s not that I don’t think I could do this; it’s that it’s hard to see the results being satisfying: if I’m going to program him through the actions, why not save myself the time/effort and do it myself? How is “he” doing it if I’m the one writing the script and the stage directions? Why, in this relationship of two adults, am I in charge of how both of us behave? And I suppose the answer is “Because I care about that” and/or “Because his behavior affects me, and he evidently can’t/won’t handle his own.” Honestly, who DID think marriage was a good idea? Two people who can’t figure each other out or get what they need from each other, living together for decades until one of them LITERALLY DIES AND THEIR LIFE IS OVER? What a great plan!

Well. Despite getting a little ranty just now, this morning I am feeling even less pique than yesterday. I feel like I can talk to the children about what happened and make them feel the right amount of bad without there being any weeping or overdoing it on my part. I feel like I can continue living with Paul and allow things to go back to normal (with tweaks and preventative tweaks as things go along), and I am no longer thinking things like “Let’s see, what makes most sense is if I stay in the house with the kids and we get him a condo in the same neighborhood…,” and I will be alert for signs of mental deterioration, hearing loss, mental issues, mid-life crisis, etc., that could be having their own effects. I liked a LOT of the things you guys said that I hadn’t even thought of, like life changes and stressors and so forth. On one hand it’s hard to see those things having an affect on how he treats me on Mother’s Day; on the other hand, thinking back to my OWN times of stress and/or despair, I know there were things where I would think “I just can’t deal with that right now”—and they often were things unrelated to the source of stress. Like, I’d be stressed about something happening with politics, and it would give me that panicky “I just CAN’T” feeling about sending in stuff for a bake sale. That’s not a good comparison because no one person is personally neglected by me if I don’t contribute to the bake sale, but I’m having trouble thinking of a better one. BECAUSE I WOULD NOT HAVE DROPPED SOMETHING THAT WOULD MAKE ANOTHER PERSON FEEL PERSONALLY NEGLECTED BY ME, I WOULD HAVE DROPPED SOMETHING ELSE.