Dirty Little Secret

Today I am ticked off at Kelly Ripa. I don’t want to pick on a fellow girl from Jersey (oh yeah, don’t let the blonde perkiness fool you, she’s from Jersey – so don’t fuck with her), but those appliance commercials she does make me want to find Hot Guy’s old paintball gun and shoot her. In the eye.

Generally, I like Kelly well enough. Anyone who was on Dance Party USA (I so wanted to be on that show) is going to have my affection. Even if she’s a size 2 mother of three with like 7 jobs and oodles of money who plays up the whole ditz thing a little too much. But these appliance commercials are insulting MY intelligence and I don’t play the ditz card. (I do not mean to say that I am never ditzy. Anyone who has ever seen me cook, drink more than 2 beers, or play a game that requires hand-eye coordination can attest to my ditziness. But I’m never playing. All my stupidity is real.)

Anyway, in case you’re one of those people who never has to watch live TV anymore, the commercial or commercials (there may be more than 1 version) show Kelly rushing around a lovely home acting like she’s a housewife who’s busy life has been saved by using the appliances.

Who out there thinks that in addition to hosting with Regis and producing weird shows for TLC and maybe still being on All My Children (I have no idea about that one) and keeping her hot husband happy and hitting the gym for hours each day (I’m assuming) and spending time with her children that she takes the time out to do her family’s laundry? Anyone? Bueller?

I don’t know how much money she and her husband make. Possibly not as much as I’d thought, considering she’s doing these stupid commercials. But still, I think she makes enough to have a cleaning lady. Or five.

And I don’t have a problem with that.  Cleaning sucks (that’s why I blog instead, after all). I will hire a cleaning lady of my own(maybe like Alice from Brady Bunch, but open about her sexuality) as soon as my blog starts making tons of money or I win the lottery. But I after I hire my cleaning lady, I will be changing the theme of my blog and I will NOT be posting about appliances. Because I won’t be doing any fucking laundry.

So Kelly, do us all a favor. Tell the advertising team that we all know you’re not really one of us and that you don’t do your own laundry. You are a blonde from Jersey who appears on national television every day. Tell them to write you a believable commercial. Or else.

Dear Lovebug,

You have become such a little boy in the last few months. I think back to the first time something you said surprised me (you weren’t two yet and we were playing a “guess the animal” game with Ironflower and suddenly you popped up with the correct answer, even though you were hardly talking yet) and I realize how much you’ve grown up. Every day you say something that surprises me!

I love that you are so independent, that you enjoying playing by yourself and doing things for yourself and yet you still need lots of hugs. The other day I watched you playing rough and tumble games with your friends, constantly expecting you to get upset. But you didn’t. You were having fun, just like a big kid.

You are brave, Lovebug. I know a lot things worry you and new situations cause you anxiety. And I’m so glad that you’re opening up and telling us about it, which is brave. But not only do you do that, you’re starting to do things anyway, even if they do make you nervous. That’s makes me so proud.

Your interest in trains has grown to include cars, trucks and airplanes. You build complicated track systems and roads so well. What has really developed this year is your passion for Legos. I can’t wait to see what you’ll build every day. Even if it is during breakfast. Or lunch. Or dinner.

You are such an amazing brother. You look out for your baby brother and share with him more than anyone could expect. And you stood up to the boys from Ironflower’s class who chased her and her friends, even though they were bigger than you are. You miss Ironflower a lot when she has her long day at school.

You, Lovebug, are a really cool kid. And I am so lucky to be your mom.

I love you,

Mommy

You know what is supremely wonderful about the circus? The other people are just as fantastic as the acts. Especially when you go to the circus in Newark, NJ.

I mean, it was Ringling Brothers, so of course the circus itself was fabulous. Except for the tigers and the elephants. I just feel like they’re looking at us, trying to say, “I am a majestic beast, dammit! Of course I can roll over, motherfucker.” For some reason I don’t get the same impression from the llamas and miniature ponies. Anyway, there was much jumping and flipping by amazing athletes, 6 motorcyclists in the globe cage (I remember when there were only 2 – and that was super cool) and clowns that didn’t freak me out too much.

But I can’t say the same about the people watching the circus. They freaked me out A LOT. For example, after standing in line to enter the arena for a good 10 minutes, where they repeatedly stated “Have your tickets out!” over the loudspeaker, some people still could not grasp this. As soon as they got to the front of the line, they opened their bags and SEARCHED for their tickets. I don’t know if they were all extremely stupid or extremely thoughtless, but the result was the same – more standing in line for the rest of us.

Speaking of stupidity, shouldn’t seat 1 be at the start of a section? Like let’s say you’re sitting in section 3 and you are in seat 1 in row whatever, wouldn’t you expect seat 1 to come first? Like if you walked from section 2, wouldn’t you expect section 3’s seating to start with 1? It doesn’t. Unless you go backwards from section 4. And boy, did the ghetto fabulous usher who grabbed my tickets tell me how dumb I was for assuming seat 1 in section 3 would be closer to section 2. Not that I actually wanted her help, because I can read numbers. And not that she really helped, she just yelled that I should have come in the other way. Considering that there were about 20 people in the entire section at that point, I think her bitchiness was unjustified. Which is why I snapped, “I know EXACTLY where I’m going” and gave her a totally snooty look.

I also gave a snooty look to the guy 3 rows in front of us with his electronic cigarette. Not that I have a problem with cigarettes that don’t harm others, but who really can’t make it through the circus without a cigarette? Do you think he also brings it into the shower? He also sported hair gel and tight black jeans – stuff that was cool when we were both young. That might have prejudiced me against him. The clincher was when he rolled he sleeve up and had his wife apply cream to his new tattoo. I have nothing against tattoos per se; I have two of my own. And it’s because I have tattoos of my own that I can say no one needs to apply cream that often. What a douche.

And speaking of douches, a special Jerseygirl shout out goes to the asshole who thought it was funny when his kid smacked the lady in front of him with his sword. I was embarrassed when my kid smacked the ladies in front of him with his sword, thank you very much.

And on a sadder note, both of my children want to be clowns. They were entranced the whole time, but clearly I’ve screwed them up so much already that they want to be clowns.

I am so glad The Real Housewives of New York City are back on again. Not that I don’t enjoy watching all the other Housewives shows, because I do.

(See? No shame. No embarrassment. I am letting the entire world know that I watch trashy reality TV. Actually, I do more than watch – I THINK about it.)

But the New York Housewives are my favorites. They’re smarter than the other Housewives. It pains me to say it, Jersey resident that I am, but it’s true. When I watch the other Housewives shows, I’m always listening for grammatical mistakes and the misuse of big words. I’m also always staring in mute horror at the behavior of most of  the husbands. Which is its own kind of fun.

But the New York Housewives generally make sense. And while there are many, many, many things to be said about the symbiotic relationship between Alex and her husband Simon, I’d much rather hang out with him than with Tamra’s husband Simon. That guy is such a douche.

Anyway, what’s great about the New York show is that while the women seem fairly intelligent and have equal marriages (er, those that still have marriages), they are STILL immature and nuts. They have stupid fights, alliances change and where you sit really, really matters. It’s like high school with money.

I would happily go out drinking with any of the New York women (except Kelly, she’s a  complete bitch). I would go out with a few of the Atlanta women too, but that’s it. All the cool Orange County Housewives have left. And the New Jersey Housewives. . . . .

I will watch it when it comes on again. Partially because I like to see places I recognize  on camera. It makes me feel cool. And of course, they do provide a lot of drama. But naturally I find the show embarrassing. I mean, not only is it about New Jersey, it’s about my area of it. And it’s not completely inaccurate. That, quite possibly, is the worst part.

Which is another reason to love the New York show. I’m not from there. Sure, I’m familiar with it. I’ve even been to the Hamptons before. (Once. A long time ago.) But it’s not personal.

Thank God.

When I was a teenager,  just about every time I went to the mall, boys came up and talked to me. They were always different than the preppy boys I was used to and each time I was a approached a shiver of fear and of excitement would run through me.

Without fail, the boys would then proceed to ask me about my “friend with the red hair”. I would stammer, “She has a boyfriend,” as I looked down at my penny loafers. The excitement would turn to pure fear as the boy would look at me menacingly, trying to decide if I was lying.

Once a group of them actually chased us through the mall. After which, our interest in visiting that particular mall sharply waned.

I am reminded of this because now there is another male of the species trying to intimidate me, even though he has no interest in me. But this time I am not 15.

Recently I received a Facebook message intimating that my husband was cheating on me. My first inclination was to laugh, because not only would Hot Guy never do that, he doesn’t have the time. Or the energy. Or a working  cell phone.

Then I remembered that Hot Guy had told me about a high school friend of his whose high school boyfriend had started stalking her through Facebook. Even though she’s married to someone else and they haven’t seen each other in 15 years, the ex has become obsessed with her again. To the point where he’s been accusing all of her male Facebook friends from high school of sleeping with her.

Which is where Hot Guy comes into it. Apparently the ex thinks Hot Guy and high school friend are having an affair (did I mention that she lives 1200 miles away?) and since trying to intimidate her and Hot Guy wasn’t working, he decided to message me and make the accusation.

What’s really scary is that after I blocked him he set up a new account and messaged me again. He’s freakishly determined to contact me so that he can mess with Hot Guy and thus prove to high school friend how serious he is.

She has threatened legal action and is documenting everything, of course. But that’s all so far. I am scared for her, to be perfectly honest. Chasing down the wives of high school friends seems extreme to me.

I replied to the second message with a request to please leave me alone and the threat of legal ramifications if he didn’t. But I don’t know if that will just piss him off or what. I don’t know what he knows about where we live or even if he knows about this blog.

I don’t think he would really care, though. It’s high school friend he’s after. Right? I don’t know a lot about stalkers.

You know, I really didn’t want to learn to appreciate being just “the friend” this way.

Disclaimer: If reading about my sex life makes you uncomfortable (hi Mom and Dad!) you should probably stop reading now.

I am not a fan of the unexpected guest. Even before children, when my house was generally clean (except for the spare room, but that’s what is was for,right?) I didn’t enjoy people just dropping by unannounced. Now that my house is pretty much always a mess (and we do not have such a thing as a “spare” room) I kind of dread people stopping by.

Sometimes I do a quick declutter of the hallway before the pizza guy comes.

Sometimes I swear to my children’s preschool teacher, who came by to drop off their Christmas stuff, that the pile of boxes is an anomaly (they were) and am relieved when she doesn’t venture as far as the kitchen.

Sometimes I step out onto the front porch, even if it’s 15 degrees out and I’m not wearing shoes.

And sometimes, like today, the unexpected visitor has to come all the way in. Today’s visitor was the not unattractive guy changing the water meter, and (as the woman patiently explained on the phone when I called because I’m all paranoid cautious like that) he was stopping by because he’d finished another appointment early. I vaguely remembered that they are, in fact, changing all the water meters in the entire town. Since our water meter is in the basement, I had to let the dude in.

Now, our house is fairly clean at the moment. And even better, the fabulous Hot Guy just spent yesterday cleaning out the basement. The boys were dressed and not trying to kill each other and my shirt didn’t even have too many stains on it.

There was absolutely no reason to be embarrassed.

Except that this morning I received my brand new vibrator. (other people read before bed, I take care of business. More relaxing.) My children believe that vibrators are actually back massagers (what? You can use them for that too), so I had casually placed it on the stairs. So I could remember to bring it to my bedroom.

Did I mention that you have to walk past the stairs to get to the basement?

Did I mention that my new toy is bright blue?

Did I mention that water meter guy smirked as we stood by the stairs while he gave me the receipt?

Yeah. A whole bunch of people are going to be laughing at this during happy hour tonight, I bet.

Anyone else have any embarrassing sex toy stories? I really want to read them in the comments or on your blogs. Because there are very few things funnier than an embarrassing sex toy story.

So yesterday I had an epiphany. Not the kind that will solve the healthcare crisis or even make the Jersey shore cast return to their natural selves (no steroids! no tanners! no saline!), but hey, it made me feel better.

For the longest time, I’ve been really slacking in the blog arena. Not keeping up with my favorite bloggers, not posting as much, not posting as well. I blamed it on writing for Demand Media and on not having as much time in general.

And that, dear readers, is bullshit.

I have been depressed and I haven’t wanted to post about it. I’ve had a lot of excellent reasons to be depressed, but I haven’t wanted to post about them either. In fact, I’ve been afraid to post about a lot of things, for fear of insulting or over-sharing with the people I know in real life who read this blog.

And it occurred to me yesterday that the more I worry about not living up to other people’s expectations of me, the less I feel like myself. You’re probably thinking, “Duh, it’s so sad that you didn’t figure that out when you were 20.”

I did. But motherhood – and all the inherent expectations of “good” motherhood – made me forget. Then we moved back here to Stuck-Up (where not everyone is Stuck-Up, but you all know what I’m talking about) and I completely lost it.

I started imagining other people’s expectations of me. It was like in my head I went back to the last time I lived here. In high school.  Do you have any idea what it’s like to have a high school mentality and adult problems?

My head has been like a really bizarre episode of 16 and Pregnant.

And I am SO over it. If one of my posts offends you, I’m sorry. Feel free to write a nasty comment or ignore me at the grocery store. If you don’t like me and you take it out on my kids (my greatest fear), I will kick your ass.

And if I’ve been ignoring your blog, I’m sorry. I’m back now.

I have just received Ironflower’s 8 PAGE packet for her dance recital. Now, I might welcome the packet if it told me exactly what make-up to put on her or what to do with her beautifully unruly hair. I might welcome the packet if it laid out her 2 routines so that we could practice at home. I might welcome her packet if she wasn’t in preschool. But instead I look at the packet and think, are you FREAKING SERIOUS?

I still don’t know how to do her hair or her make-up. . .or even what her costume looks like (which doesn’t really bother me because the recital is not until late May, but why not just include this info in the packet?). But I do know that we can’t make our own DVD of the recital AND that it will cost us $40 to buy one. I also now know that I can purchase extremely over-priced bouquets and photos. Oh, and there’s a complicated lottery system for ticket purchases. I have also read about the procedures for picking up my child after the performance and extensive details about the dress rehearsal.

I am also to provide non-staining snacks and toys for her use backstage.

Snacks????? Toys??????

You know what I did backstage during the myriad recitals and performances I was in?

I talked to my friends and I watched the other dancers. When I got older, I put on more make-up. And I didn’t get to eat anything. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I also walked 2 miles up hill to school (actually, I would have done that, if my mom hadn’t driven me to school most of the time) and survived just fine.

I am usually the person who stands up for the booster seats until they can drive (or whatever the rule is now),  helmets and bouncy playground surfaces. I’m reluctant to leave my children with a baby-sitter or for them to have playdates without me. I overanalyze everything (which you have probably noticed if you’ve ever read this blog before). In short, I am a modern parent.

But I think we’ve gone off the deep end where dance recitals are concerned. First come, first served seating is no longer good enough for today’s families.  DVDs have to be professionally produced. Bouquets have be  big and expensive. Photos must be taken by an overcharging professional. Children must be entertained backstage. Packets must be sent home 3 months beforehand. All the spontaneity of live performance must be crushed.

I am so NOT cut out for helicopter parenting.

I was watching the Wanda Sykes show last night (It was one channel up from the Olympics and I got really sick of staring at Apolo Ohno’s stupid soul patch while waiting for him to skate) and they got into a discussion about how some 12 year old New York City schoolgirl got arrested for writing on her desk.

Now, I missed this story, probably because the only local news I (grudgingly) watch is News12New Jersey. I could Google it now and get all the facts, but they’re not germane to my post and, um, once I start Googling things hours fly by and I realize that I’ve forgotten to feed my children. So if you really care, you can Google it yourself. Preferably after you’ve read my post.

Anyway, Wanda was getting all, “They’ve taken ‘zero tolerance’ too far!” and her guests were all “Oh my, who could handcuff a 12 year old girl?”

I could.

I’ve seen a second grader handcuffed and you know what my main emotion was? Relief.

Granted, the second grader had been throwing chairs at other students and had had to be restrained by 2 adults and hadn’t been writing on his desk, but still. You know what started the assault (yes, I”m calling it assault when a student throws chairs at other students and bites a teacher and bruises several teachers) with the second grader? I wanted him to do his math. His math that he was fully intellectually capable of doing.

His mother’s response, when confronted with her son’s behavior issues, was to tell us not to upset him. Other responses I’ve heard from parents (and yes these are all true, I wrote them all down at one time or another) about things like biting, stealing, cheating and vandalizing include:

“He ain’t my problem when he’s at school,”

“Why you always be picking on my boy?”

“I’ll make sure to smack him when he gets home,”

“Well, my daughter says you punch the other kids.”

“Yeah, she’s bad.”

Most of the students of those parents were not ever arrested at school, at least not while I was teaching them. My school, though I think it had “zero tolerance” on the books, had a more of a let’s-wait-until-you-assault-the-principal- tolerance policy.

So most of those kids? Only got worse. Maybe a few teachers got together and came up with a strategy to help this kid or that kid, but they were all only band-aids. Most of the parents were too stressed, overwhelmed or angry to get involved. They just stopped answering calls from the school.

But when a kid is arrested, that’s different. They have to get involved then. There are social workers and evaluations and all sorts of things. Sometimes this inspires the parent to move to a new school district (that’s what happened with my second grader) but sometimes it actually helps.

I’d rather have a 12 year old arrested for writing on her desk than an 18 year old arrested for vandalizing a store. I’d rather have a second grader in handcuffs than a 14 year old beating someone to death. (Actually what I’d rather have is a world with no unwanted children, where parents have to be licensed and every child knows unconditional love, but I accept reality).

“

Dear Terrorists,

I don’t think about you a lot. I am fortunate in that I don’t currently have any family members or close friends serving in the military or traveling in the middle east. And I am also fortunate in that I live in the United States, where the media would much rather listen to Tiger Woods’ pathetic excuse for an apology than to pay attention to anything you do.

I know you see us as the big Godless bully, one that keeps getting back up again even though you landed an excellent punch and made the rest of the class hate us. In your scenario, you will kill all of the infidels and have a perfect Muslim world (never mind that you can’t even agree on which kind of Muslim is perfect) where women are chattel, imams rule and no one eats hot dogs.

In my scenario, all the terrorists, rapists, pedophiles, racists, homophobes and murderers die of a mysterious illness and we live in a perfect liberal world where women are truly equal, children are ALL loved and no one eats hot dogs (see, we have something in common – give tolerance a chance!).

Here’s what would really happen in both of our scenarios: A bad seed would be born and start advocating equality or redhead hate and all of the people who weren’t quite as well off and who weren’t quite as educated would start listening to the bad seed and we’d be right back where we started.

Did you ever see the movie Heathers? It’s one of my favorites. In it,  a young couple murders the popular bullies of their school. . .only to have someone else step into the bully shoes almost immediately. Sort of like a modern day version of the Hydra.

Now in the movie and in the myth, the heroine/hero defeats the evil, resurrecting bully. Which is great, because who likes a story where nothing changes? No one.

However, these stories are also FICTION.

You are not going to defeat the bully. We’re not the biggest country (though I’m sure many of our high school graduates think so). We’re certainly not the smartest (just watch The Hills). We’re not the kindest (just ask our veterans). But we are the most popular. Take a poll and see how many of you have watched an American movie, heard an American song, eaten an American (or an American version) food, read an American book or heard about American Idol.

Even those kids who wear black and spend all of their time making fun of us (Russia, I’m talking to you) secretly want to be us. Yes, you can make us look stupid. Yes, you can hurt us. Yes, you can make people nervous about being our best friend. But given a choice between coming to the party where they have celebrity telethons for tragedies and sex is meant to be fun and coming to the party where they ignore other people’s problems and sex is shameful, which do you think people are going to pick?

Do you ever imagine what your lives would be like if your grandfathers had managed to move to the US? If your parents had opened small businesses in Detroit? If you and your sisters had 12 years of public education (which is better than you have gotten, even if it did produce Sarah Palin)? If your first crush was the Christian or Jewish kid from across the street?

Then you would have seen Heathers too. And you would have given up on this shit already.

Regards,

Jerseygirl