Mom & Pop Culture

sluggish and crashing - it's going around

Looks like I'm not the only sluggish one whose body is crashing.  Yesterday I tried all day to get into Typepad to blog but the system had completely crashed. 

Today, I did get in and read the post from Typepad apologizing for the "sluggishness of the system."  Baby, no need to apologize -- we are completely in sync.

Of course yesterday morning I wrote an entire entry that was eaten by the crash.  It was a rant about Anna Nicole Smith's weight loss and how I was jealous of her and was even tempted to try Trimspa.  I also bemoaned the fact that I have put on 20 freaking pounds in the last two years and how I feel fat, and how mad that makes me because I hate having negative body image thoughts, especially in light of the fact that I have an 7 year-old-girl who is at an impressionable age and who will most likely struggle with her own body insecurities in our nip-and-tuck, chew-and-puke, society.

the last sex and the city

Got together last night with  a group of moms and female filmmaking friends to say goodbye to Sex and the City.  We had our Cosmopolitans and talked about how much we'd spend on a pair of shoes.

The last episode was sweet and sad and left most of us wanting more and saying, "Couldn't they give us a whole freaking hour?"  There was just too many loose ends they were trying to tie up - and what we all really wanted to see was more face time with Big or should I say "John." 

That's right six years later and we finally get to know Big's first name.  Yeah, they made it worth the wait.

wishing for babies

I had my babies the easy way.  In fact, I never really "tried" to get pregnant.  Both times I became pregnant because my husband and I decided that we were going to try "next month" which meant we might as well be careless at "this moment".  Before next month even came I was already heaving my guts up into the toilet. 

So in a way, I felt as if I twitched my nose, made a wish, and it was so before I even had time to consider it. Which is why the struggles of the infertile women, observed brilliantly in blogs like Chez Miscarriage or A Little Pregnant or This Woman's Work make me realize how totally clueless I really was when I jumped into pregnancy and became a mother.   I wanted to be a mother and assumed it would happen when I was ready and that I would have two perfect, healthy babies. 

But turns out that it was all just dumb luck.

nobody puts baby in the corner

At the movies last weekend I saw lots of coming attractions.  Why is it that whenever I go to a movie I suddenly want to see every other film but the one I am seeing?  Why are the trailers so enticing?  Why are they my favorite part of seeing movies in the theater? 

Anyway, I saw the trailer for HAVANA NIGHTS - the "Dirty Dancing" for this generation of filmgoers.  I must say that I hold a certain fondness for the original DIRTY DANCING having seen it at least half a dozen times in the theater (I swear it was the first film I went to multiple times). That film was just one of those things that happen at the right time.  I was a sophomore in college when the film came out and it was "the chick flick" of the 80's.   If you think about it, it was quite racy for the clean-cut Reagon 80's. 

And who could resist the story of a geeky "good girl" being seduced by the bad boy ways of Johnny Castle?  It was a real "female fantasy" and there were and still are so few of those in the film world, that clunky plot points aside, we embraced the film.

life lessons about presidents - dead and alive

President's Day Weekend has come and gone but not without teaching us all some valuable lessons here in our home. 

My son's Pre-K class did an enormous amount of projects featuring George Washington and Abrahamson (as my daughter still sometime calls him) Lincoln.  The schools love to teach them about all things presidential.

My son thought long and hard about what he learned and talked to me in the car on the way home from school. Jared:  Mom, is Washington dead? Mom: Yes, yes he is son. Jared:  I don't want to die. Mom:  I know son.

Every once in a while my son asks me about death -- generally his own death.  And me, being a lapsed Catholic and not having any clear answers about life, death, or life-after-death, generally fumbles with different philosophies whenever the topic arises.  

dueling voices inside my head or are all writers delusional or is it just me?

I'm having a writer's moment of panic.  Last night I began listening to the dueling voices inside my head. 

On one hand you have the MUSE - much like a mother, she is patient and wise and she inspires me and tells me she loves me and that I am brilliant and that I have much to say. 

On the other hand, you have the CRITIC who sounds an awful lot like American Idol's Simon Cowell.  No matter what I write he's always there sneering:  "That was terrible" or "So what?  It was just okay."

Why are my voices dueling it out?  Well, another year has passed and it's time once again to meet the tax man and show him what I have accomplished in the past year.

funtime parties or speaking of headaches

I forgot to mention that yes, today I have a headache and yes, yesterday I took my daughter to a birthday party at Funtime America.  And although there isn't scientific research to support my claim, I do think there might be an actual cause and effect relationship between Funtime America and migraine headaches.

I tried to keep my spirits up at Funtime, because it is after all a big play area for kids and it makes them so happy.  Why oh why, then, does it make me absolutely cringe in misery?  Could it be the 900 kids mulling about, hopped up on ice cream cake running around with the desire to "win things"? 

Could it be that I despise video games, especially the kinds with violence, attached jetskis, and such?  It is ironic that in college I was the manager of the gamesroom (the room filled with billiards, ping pong, and pinball machines) since I clearly am not a "gamesroom type of person". 

Trapped in Funtime I felt like the Gringe who complained about the Who's and "the noise, the noise, the noise!"

headache and blues

So today I woke up with a familiar ache behind my eyes. Feels an awful lot like an impending migraine. So all of my blogging about the blues and writing, and it may be that my recent blues have nothing to do with my artistic soul, but are actually more founded in some physiological basis. My body is very sensitive. And by journaling I have been able to see a connection between my mind and body. My mind somehow knows a migraine is coming long before I do. Or maybe, the migraine is just a symptom of my physical/mental crash and not a trigger.

You see, I'm not really sure which comes first - the migraine or the blues. Does my depressed state trigger the migraine, or does the slight barometer changes in my body somehow reach my moods first, in an attempt to signal to me that a migraine is on its way?

It's all very upsetting. For years I've suffered from migraines, but it wasn't until motherhood when my hormones wreaked havoc on my poor sensitive body that my migraines became unbearable. I'm now taking a daily antidepressant that is supposed to "prevent migraines." And usually it does help, because a year ago, without medication I was enduring weeks and weeks of constant headache pain. But several hormonal times during the month, a migraine comes no matter what and for that I luckily have "Imitrex" which is the only medication I've ever taken that can stop my migraines after they begin.

By the way, right after my son was born, I was truly a physical mess. Migraine sufferers do not do well with disturbed sleep patterns and poor dietary habits. At that time, I hadn't yet been given anything to relieve migraines - in fact I had never sought medical treatment for my migraines because before they were not very frequent. Anyway, there were days that I wanted to sleep away my migraine (which at the time was the only treatment I knew) but I discovered that my post-natal tylenol with codeine was the only pain-reliever that did the trick. It was an amazing muscle relaxer that allowed me to somehow escape the pain of the migraine and make it through the day with a 2 year-old and a newborn. At that point, I went to a specialist , deciding that codeine probably wasn't a habit I wanted to rely on.

I've heard that Elvis Presley was a migraine sufferer and in light of that, his drug addiction makes sense to me. I can see how one could easily get addicted to narcotics for migraine relief. It is perhaps the worst pain a person can endure - without actually being ill, injured, or near death. I'm lucky for Imitrex which allows me to otherwise get out of bed and live my life despite the migraine. And I'm lucky because it isn't an addictive substance. Because I felt the strength, power, and beautiful relief brought on by tylenol with codeine. I wonder what would have happened if I lived in a time when Valium and narcotics were the only things prescribed for pain relief.

We also live in a society that doesn't allow us to truly slow-down and allow our bodies to heal on their own time. So popping pills for "instant relief" is a very enticing remedy. And truly scary.

creative mortality or all good things must come to an end

I have been wondering why I have been feeling blue, now that my short film is nearly done and now that things actually seem to be going so smoothly. 

Also, I had a pretty fun and long weekend.  I actually had time to see a couple of movies.  I took my son to see Miracle  - our first movie date.  He was excited but then fell asleep during the middle of the movie.  He woke up to see the Americans beat the Soviets so he didn't really miss the point.  The film, while uplifting did not lift my spirits. 

The other movie I saw with my daughter was 50 First Dates.  This mindless Adam Sandler-Drew Barrymore comedy actually turned out to be pretty sad and bittersweet.  I left the movie feeling bluer.

crashing

Yesterday, I felt the crash coming.  For weeks, I have been going full speed.  I have been blissfully happy and charging ahead with purpose and speed and efficiency.  And then yesterday, out of the blue, I just began feeling blue. 

There was no reason for the change.  I just felt tired, spent, and a bit disconnected.  I do this sometimes, I think, when my body and mind need a recharge and I need to step back and look inward for a while.