Oh how I’ve missed you so. Though the airwaves may have been quiet, I’ve been rather busy wading through the muck and mire of my little life here in cute and cuddly Eugene, Oregon. What’s that you ask? Oh yes, the tattoo. What is up with the tattoo, that gorgeous tattoo I had promised to show you and then never delivered? Why did I tease you so? I had no intention of jest, dear reader, the delay was an unfortunate result of my husband needing to spend not one but three two-hour stints with the tattoo artist formerly named Ryan. The very act of having tiny needles inject red, yellow and magenta dye into Corey’s arm took nearly a month of Saturdays and resulted in much scaling, scabbing and a nasty little magenta dye allergy. But as you can see, ‘twas entirely worth it as the final rendering is beauteous.

Where else have I been? Well, there was Thanksgiving (I’m the annual Turkey cooker since about 2001) and thanks to a well thawed-out free range Diestel bird and several bowlfuls of lemon zest, rosemary and olive oil, the meal was scrumdidlyumptious. There was much merriment with family in attendance (mom, sis and the newish boyfriend, the two freshly moved into their place in Vancouver, Washington). Stallwarts HGM and Jim, our good friends who show up at our door every year and who would not celebrate Thanksgiving if it weren’t for us, they being anti-Tgiving as well as con Xmas, brought delicious appetizers of stuffed mushrooms and a tasty Shiraz. Jason, our Taiwanese foreign exchange student who lives in our small in-law formerly known as the basement, and whose real name is spelled Jui-Shen, was late in replying to our invite, methinks it was a cultural snafu. Jason is wary of my tomato-laden cooking (there are no tomatoes in Taiwan) and since October has insisted on cooking his own meals (always the same dish, a motley concoction of burnt onion, garlic and soy that seeps up through the grates in our floors making us wish we had imposed a $50 smell tax on the apartment). Jason brought his friend, Antonio, an affable mate who is from Mexico, quick to laugh and patient with my halting Spanish. B, who is now 21 months, perfectly timed his toddlerishness. Just as the whipped cloud potatoes were being scooped onto plates he demanded to watch his Twenty Trucks DVD. We ate the entire meal, plus dessert, with the “Can you name twenty trucks? I sure do bet you can” song playing in the background. We chatted and laughed through dinner, and told our international friends how we all had been taught to believe the lies in the history textbooks of our youth. It wasn’t the Pilgrims that shared their meat and vegetables with the Indians on that hallowed celebratory feast, that first Thanksgiving. It was actually the other way around. If not for those nice Indians, the Pilgrims would have starved.

It’s really hard to make depression kicky and fun, and so I’ve written very little about my husband’s experience with depression over the last several years. Most of you had no idea. So surprise, Happy Holidays! Now that we’re loosening its tight grip on our small world, I can begin to make sense of the depression and maybe even laugh. Case in point: Corey, after months of my pleading, finally got his butt to a psychologist. This psychologist was supposed to act as a therapist and serve as someone to whom, other than myself, Corey could vent his frustrations. As fate would have it, this therapist was also a specialist in ADHD, and within fifteen minutes of Corey walking through his door, was well on his way to diagnosing him with ADHD. After further meetings and numerous diagnostic surveys, it was discovered that not only did Corey have ADHD but he had a particular brand of ADHD and that this particular brand of ADHD quite probably caused the depression which has so upset our happy little family. It’s a wonderful thing to have a label, an answer. So now C’s time off is spent digesting ADHD books with Chapter subheadings like “Memory Difficulties” and “How Not to be a Piss Poor Spouse” (Well, I made that last one up but you get the idea). I can’t say the ADHD diagnosis is a shock. Corey has always been a fast talker, anyone who has spent two minutes with Corey knows his words spill out at lightning speed. Oh, and for years I’ve called him “ADD boy” (mainly because he gets distracted easily and prefers to hold three different conversations at once with three different people, and usually succeeds). To be honest, Corey and I have always assumed that his mother had it too—those of you who have set foot in her museum of a house can attest to the amazing quantity of tschotchke and art and statues and pictures upon pictures upon pictures. It truly is a living shrine to ADD—which begs the question—is Corey’s ADHD biological or environmental or a lot of both?) And funnier still, only a month before Corey got his butt to the psychologist, one of his fourth grade students, in a private conversation regarding her work as an ADHD student, looked my husband, her teacher, straight in the eye and said, “Well, you’re ADD too, right?”

The ADHD diagnosis has been one gigantic DUH! I still have to remind Corey to do most household chores, which exhausts me and leaves me resenting my role as nagging bitch. Corey also, and more noticibly, retains his weird fetish that causes him to hoard everything (including fortune cookie wrappers)—a function of ADHD. If you’ve ever stood in our living room you’ve noticed the gazillion little toys, the bird’s nest, the Masai warrior beaded baskets, the porcelain bunnies and the three thousand books that line our shelves. Ninety percent of these objects are not mine and if Corey had his druthers, there would be twice as many sugar skulls from Oaxaca. But no, dear reader, at some point during 2004 in my third trimester and uncomfortable as hell, I demanded that my husband take half the shit down. It was the first time that I had won the “We have too much goddamn stuff” argument but it would not be the last. Now, as I write this, he’s boxing up books and sifting through greeting cards that have sat on our mantle since 2001. He’s making lists for himself that include the words, “Take out trash.” And he’s SMILING, he’s actually humming! Never before has a wife been so thrilled to learn that her husband has a mental disorder.

On a chilly day in early November, B was a cranky, sleep-deprived toddler wailing in his crib. He needed sleep, so much so that I felt even HE knew he needed sleep and yet try as he may, no dice. Noisy garbage trucks ambled by just outside his bedroom and our OCD -plagued neighbor was grinding away as he mowed his lawn for the fourth time that week. I lay on the couch trying to relax while B screamed his bloody head off and then quieted . . . and then stirred again. I wanted so much to clean the dishes, but because the kitchen is directly across from B’s bedroom and the acoustics in our old house rival the Metropolitan Opera, venturing anywhere near the kitchen is a recipe for disaster unless the child is in deep REM sleep. Thoroughly defeated, I settled into the living room couch ready to skim the newest issue of “Life and Style”, confident that the dishes would remain crusty. Just then, the phone rang and it was my mom, asking me what I’d like for Christmas. My sarcastic answer: A new house. As if the fairy princess herself had waved her wand and whispered in my ear, “And so you shall!” by the first week in December we were writing a check for $5,000, earnest money in negotiations to buy a house in Portland. Next time I’m asking for world peace.

Cheers and Happy Holidays,
Emily

It’s a shiny, happy world in which the Democrats control the House for the first time in twelve years and Nancy Pelosi is two bullets away from being President. It’s 11:10 PM on the west coast and I’m doing my own version of little B’s happy dance on my living room floor. Democrat Claire McCaskill just unseated Republican Jim Talent for the Missouri Senate seat. Montana may go blue too before the night is over. Rick Santorum, the gentleman who likened being gay to having sex with animals won’t be reprising his role as US Senator representing the great state of PA. Bob Casey Jr. trounced his ass in one of the first Democratic victories of the evening. And in a very delicious upset, Virginia’s incumbent Republican Senator George “Macaca” Allen appears to be losing to Democrat John Webb by a very slim margin. But going into a recount it’s oh so much better to have the numbers on your side. In a month or so we’ll know whether the D’s have taken the Senate and meanwhile we get to watch that horrible racist squirm. B’s asleep right now but I’m tempted to wake him up to tell him we’re no longer going to hell in a hand basket.

Even if we don’t wind up with the Senate, isn’t it lovely to know we’re done with the ridiculous flag burning bills and the anti-gay legislation and the “let’s rape the earth and tax the poorest” fare that we’ve grown accustomed to from the House? I’m interested to see what the Dems propose in the first few days of the new cycle. I’ve got my money on something health care related . . .maybe prescription drug coverage. It’s a populist dream and a Republican nightmare.

I once shook hands with Nancy Pelosi. It was the summer of ’95 and I had gone to see the eminently forgettable pop singer, Poe, sing her seminal “Hello” at an early morning radio spot in San Francisco. (Ten points to anyone who can quote me a Poe lyric, or even another song title—you can’t do it.) Pelosi was there, no doubt championing an important cause. With so few people in the studio, I ran up to her and blabbered something about it being an honor. She was already late for her radio spot, and as I jumped out of her way to let her pass, she grabbed my hand for the second time and said, “Wait, it was very nice to meet you but you didn’t tell me your name. What’s your name?” I told her. She repeated it back, slowly and with feeling in her voice. She looked me in the eye and the weight of her hand on mine, her close body language, her general vibe all told me that she was not only a fierce liberal woman politician from San Francisco, but blessed with a natural diplomacy and grace (oh how I’ve missed diplomacy and grace these last six years!). Two minutes with Nancy left a lasting impression. Imagine two years. Imagine a decade.


Thank you Dan Savage, for doing your part to defeat Rick Santorum. Thanks Mark Foley. Thanks to the Republican in whatever state it was that had to kick off his campaign running TV ads that said something to the effect, “I did not choke my mistress.”

Thank you to the Democrats who finally, at this late hour, too many years too late but finally, inexorably, for Christ’s sake thank God you finally did it, you got some balls. Thank you for speaking up. Thank you to all the volunteers who picked up the phone—be they Democrat, Republican, Independent or Martian. Thank you to groups like MoveOn.org . . . you sent me enough emails that I finally caved and used B’s naptime to call people in New York, Pennsylvania and Arizona. It was such a treat to call random folks in PA, the state where I experienced my first kiss, learned to drive and marched my first protest march. I talked with a sweet elderly man in PA’s tenth Congressional District who, when I called to urge him to vote for Bob Casey, Jr, for US Senate, replied, “Honey, it’s the only reason I’m going to the polls tomorrow. You bet I will!” How much fun was it when he and I launched into a communal lovefest over the candidate’s father and much beloved ex-Governor of PA, Bob Casey Senior? People, it was so much fun. I got to relive the eighties in an inspired trip down memory lane AND I convinced the guy to call his entire family to do the same thing. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND you try calling in ’08—it’s wickedly easy (you can sit at home in your Lazy Boy recliner and dial at your own pace) and it’s kind of fun. And with huge wins like this, you can feel really good about yourself having been a teensy weensy part of it. Tonight makes me inspired to run for office. What a foreign feeling it is--I actually feel good, hopeful even, about my party, about my government, about the world my son might grow up in.

Politics is sexy again.

B is not enjoying the Rec dance and music class. The class is deceptively perfect: It’s close to our house, he can run free and bang on stuff and show off for the ladies—all of his favorite pastimes, and it’s really, really cheap. He loves the magnet board on the wall just outside the class and if left to his own devices, could spend hours repositioning “boy” “like” and “cat” or hanging monkey-style from the water fountain in the hallway, but when we enter the mirrored room with buckets of costumes and musical instruments, he shrieks and bolts for the door.

Rec class is Mondays, Bounce gymnastics is Tuedays and Wednesdays, soccer is Thursdays and Playgroup is Fridays. As I’ve said before, my mantra is Wear the Fucker Out. Luckily, he’s reached an age where he’s eligible for the youngest groups in each field. At Bounce he’s a “Rollie Pollie,” at soccer a “Bunny” and at the Rec he’s . . . a cranky, ill -mannered twenty month old.

When I enrolled B in the Rec class a month ago, he was underage and so didn’t meet the requirements. The red blinking light on my computer screen told me so when I typed in his birthdate—and then it froze me out of the online database. It’s a weird sensation, being bitch-slapped by a database. I retaliated by getting crafty: I called a real live human being at the Rec department and hoped she wouldn’t do the math. “He’s twenty months. His birthday was Feb _ 2005.” “Perfect Dear,” the nice lady chimed. “You’re all set.”

A typical day at the Rec class consists of me dragging B around to the various stations in the room wherein I act out the tricks we’ve been asked to do (leap frog, high kicks, lunges) while my son sits on the floor and cries or runs to the door, rattling the metal lever as he works to bust out. In the moments when he isn’t planning his escape, his eyes look into mine as if to implore, “Mama, this ain’t Bounce. Why the fuck are we here?” To which, I would answer this: We’re here, Honey, because this costs about a third of what Bounce costs and because Monday mornings are always difficult, especially now with fall rain and your unending pleas to go "ou-sy” (go outside). We’re here because otherwise Mama will have to start drinking her expensive pear brandy, the stuff she reserves for Friday’s Battlestar episode, on early Monday morning just to take the edge off. We’re here because there’s a hole in Monday’s schedule and by God, Mama is going to fill it—before you came on the scene she scheduled events for a US Senator so she can sure as hell schedule you. We’re here because Mama can’t take another morning of you wailing and slapping the TV chanting “TT, TT!” (code for Teletubbies).

When I talk about Bounce gymnastics class, my normally pale face takes on the healthy glow of a newly kissed co-ed. Bounce makes me swoon. Bounce indulges my son’s need to wear himself out silly and my need for a midday nap. Plus, B loves Nadja, the brilliant teacher/owner. And Nadja adores B. They’re always giggling and hugging each other. And at the end of each class, Nadja stamps the kids on the back of their hands and the tops of the feet—sometimes it’s a cow, sometimes a kitty, the charm is that you never really know what it will be and therein lies the Bounce allure. The piece de resistance, however, is the glitter stick. Noisy children are suddenly quiet as they follow Nadja’s call to congregate in the center of the soft, padded floor, their eyes dewy, and arms outstretched in supplication so that she may give them that which they most covet—a swipe of the amazing glitter stick otherwise known as “SPARKLES.”

There is no glitter stick, no sparkles at the Rec class. The Rec teacher has the early morning faux chirpiness of someone who has never had children. Luckily, her first name is my mother’s middle name and it is for this reason only that I am able to recall it. The woman has mousy, dirty blonde hair, wears nondescript black jogging pants, and seems to embody every tired, disaffected college senior I’ve ever met. I feel bad for her. She has to lug out the clunky tumbling mats and the rickety little beam and the tiny tramp, which might as well be an inner tube with a cover on the top for all it’s pathetic glory. She takes out her trusty masking tape and draws a two foot by two foot square on the linoleum floor. She tells the kids that inside this sacred square they are to practice their kicks. I look at B as she calls out her orders. His facial expressions are always the same. He vacillates between bored, vacant stare and a squinty-eyed scowl that verges on outright contempt.

This woman with my mother’s middle name is not really the problem. The problem is another mother, a strange, awkward woman of no age, she could be 25 or 55, she is cursed with one of those seriously worn faces. She smells like Meth, bacon and cigarettes.

When it’s nice out, most of the parents take their kids to the park next to the Rec building. One morning after class, B was swinging on a big rubber tube with two children from our class. The scene was straight out of a Hallmark card--three cherubic blondes swinging in the morning sun. Their mother and I snapped pictures and pledged to share the photos. The mom told me my son’s eyes were beautiful. I told her how much I loved her little boy’s outfit. We were gelling and I was thinking possible play date. Meanwhile, Meth lady was standing on the sidelines, making awkward small talk. I, erroneously I see now, decided to answer her feeble asides. I told her B’s birthdate when she asked. I smiled half-heartedly when her voice cracked with excitement as she told me her son was just about the same age. Meanwhile, my new play date friend with the fellow towheads shrank back whenever Meth lady came closer. Meth lady is just one of those unfortunate souls that can’t seem to get it right. Her stained jeans and stale odor, her penchant for interrupting, I wanted to be far away from all of it, and luckily, B made a break for the rope ladder. I ambled after him and waved goodbye at my possible play date, repeating that I’d email her photos. She shepherded her kids close-in under her arms and headed in the opposite direction of the smell interloper.

On the rope ladder, B grabbed for the second tier and his little feet, pointed toes and kicking, left the ground. He reached higher with his right hand, slipped a bit and then recovered. Meth lady, assessing all of this from the swings, approached B from behind, hugged his little back and made a furtive attempt to place his foot on the next rung. Cradling him by his lower back, she took weird, mama sniffs of his hair. It was at that moment that I experienced a searing, visceral urge to tackle her in the sand and beat her with the chain link swing.

Instead I took hold of B’s hand, moving my body into her space and said, “Didn’t I hear you tell the teacher you have a fever of 103?”
“Oh, yeah. I do.”
“Then get away from my son.” I jerked B off the ladder and into my arms.

Meth lady followed us around the playground apologizing. I met her awkwardness with socially sanctioned “it’s Ok, It’s Ok”s. I was trying to placate the crazy bitch as the other moms scattered like a herd of frightened deer.

The next Monday, with my possible play date conspicuously absent and the other moms and grandmas dodging Meth lady at the beam, the summersault area and even at the frog jump, she latched onto me and wouldn’t let go.
Her brilliant opener was this: “Are you Grandma?”
To which I replied, “Um what?”
“I thought I heard you call him . . . I don’t know, are you his Grandma?”
“What? No. I’m his Mom.”
I tried to get away but B was still working on his summersault and Meth lady’s admittedly cute son was right there playing along with him, two boys communing through poorly executed gym moves. She kept on with it. “You know, my grandmother was the youngest grandmother in California history. She was a thirty year old grandmother.” The teacher called out that it was music time. As I held B’s hand walking toward the tambourines, maracas and triangles, I did the math. The best case scenario is both her mother and grandmother gave birth at 15. The worst case scenario is . . . much worse.

B’s refusal to do pretty much anything in class has made him the problem child. From day one, the teacher would look at me with pity in her eyes. I found myself saying things like, “Really, I don’t know what’s wrong with him this morning. Normally he loves to clap. He’s very social, really he is. And he’s been doing the butterfly for months now.” I’d be saying this to her while grabbing B as he leapt toward the windows, or as he rabidly scratched his ear. “Honey, we need to stay with the group,” I’d say. “C’mon, now let’s do nose to knees.” The teacher would sigh that condescending sigh and I’d swear she was thinking, “Poor, delusional woman, this kid’s clearly mentally retarded.”

At some point, the teacher and I realized we had a dysfunctional relationship, one that could not be fixed. Last week was the low point. I had a poor attitude driving in the car on our way to class. B had shown no enthusiasm whatsoever when I sang, “Dance and music, dance and music today” while Velcro-ing his shoes to get ready. His eyes were glazed over and disinterested in the drive there and when I pushed through the Rec room door, he started to kick and scream. And yet, I naively soldiered on.

We were a few minutes early so the teacher sat on the floor with us for a morning chat. We exchanged the obligatory how are you’s and as B twisted and turned in my arms, she gave me one of her sighs and a toothy, fake smile. B was agitated only a minute into the room and I was already exhausted. “You know,” I say, “I think it’s the fluorescent lights. I think he’s allergic to the lights.” I point to the ceiling where six rows of thick, canoe shaped lights rained down on us. The teacher’s skin looked sallow, ashen. “I’m allergic to some fluorescent lights, it depends on the frequency, and I’ve noticed B has some of my symptoms in certain stores—irritability, he’ll itch his skin, his eyes are red, he seems really uncomfortable and cranky. He’s been that way here ever since the first day. It must be the lights.” I could tell she didn’t believe me. But even still, she touched my knee and said, “Maybe next week we can do something about that.” I imagined six kids attempting summersaults in the dark.


Meth lady showed up late again, right as the teacher was bringing out the bin of scarves. B reached for the pink neon square, readying himself for serious twirling and waving. Meth lady knelt down beside B, cradled his head in her hands and planted a mouthy kiss on his forehead. B did not reciprocate. He simply waved his pink scarf up and down and trotted away. Meanwhile, I found myself lunging forward unsure of what I was about to do and while in motion, looked up to see the teacher staring not at Meth lady, but at me. It’s clear that she’d seen the kiss, the entire thing—including the furious look on my face that said, “Alright bitch, it’s time for a throwdown.” With wide, frightened eyes the teacher silently begged me not to cause a scene. I cleared my throat and forced a smile. “I hate you too,” I thought.

I really don’t like the teacher. She has an unhealthy fascination with the Woodpecker song, a song with only two lines. The song is vapid, stupid and annoying—all the nose pecking bullshit that she wants the kids to do is like nails on a chalkboard, like watered-down Barney and I just can’t deal. B won’t even attempt the inane head nod—which I admit makes me a little proud. He gives her that squinty -eyed stare whenever he hears the first few bars. He’s not down with her stupid reindeer games.

At Bounce, each child gets their own, huge tramp and Nadja plays “Animal Action,” a song in which the kids act out different animals—meow like a kitty, slither like a snake, fly like a bird—while dancing around their sizable, individual tramp. It’s so gosh darn adorable. Every toddler in the room has a permanent grin plastered on their face and happy moms and dads sit on the padded areas of the their little darlings’ tramps and smile while daydreaming about the two hour respite they’ll get during the post-Bounce nap. Nadja is charming and fun and B’s elephant is fucking fabulous. There's even a bubble machine.


At the Rec class, after the scarves and highly inappropriate kiss, the kids were given a little free time. B ran for the tiny balance beam. The mats that sat on either side were so askew that I made sure to hold his hand and his waist so that should he fall, he wouldn’t crack his head open on the linoleum floor. B was distracted. He was looking for the beanbags, the brightly colored, perfectly-sized -for –sitting-atop-little-heads beanbags that he normally works with at Bounce. On cue, the teacher walked over just as B was starting to fuss. She hadn't said anything, but the vibe was crystal clear: What's wrong with your mentally retarded child this time? I glanced at her with raised eyebrows and announced caustically, “He knows how to do the balance beam. He’s got great balance.”
To which she said,
“He learned that at Bounce right?”

B and I move on to the next station—the pathetic 2 foot by 2 foot square drawn on the floor with masking tape. I play Cheerleader and commence the right kick, left kick drill as B sits on the ground and sulks.
The teacher comes by and chirpily says, “You don’t want to do your kicks?” and B says “nonono” in his sweet sing-song voice and then runs in the opposite direction. Behind us on the speakers, some generic girly voice is singing about having fun and falling in love. The room is filled with such bargain basement syncopated rhythms and badly done techno that I actually find myself wishing she’d just be done with it and put on some Britney Spears. When the song is over, so is the class. B and I are the first ones out. My skin stops itching. I no longer have a headache. B smiles as he heads to the magnet board, skips even, and I realize we won’t be coming back.

My husband wants a tattoo for his 33rd Birthday. Today was the day and though I got to hold his hand in the first few minutes of the process, it was B’s naptime. Maybe it was when Ryan, the tattoo artist, put on the loud, death guild music or maybe it was after B’s second attempt to find the lizard in the terrarium came up with nothing—the look on B’s frustrated little face told me it was time for us to leave. I kissed my husband, who was by now grimacing in pain, and hauled B outside. As I opened the car door, B asked through tears, “Dada? Dada go?” To which I replied, “Dada’s getting a picture on his arm.” My son picked a classic moment for his first clearly discernible “WHY?” If I were to give him the truthful version I’d say something like this: “Monkey, Dada’s having a strange man shoot ink into his arm with tiny needles. It’s called a tattoo, Honey, and it hurts a lot. This is Dada’s warped, adorable way of saying that he still really loves Mama.”
But that would be highly inappropriate, so instead I say,
“Please stop crying. We’re going home right now, baby. We’ll see Dada later. Promise.” He doesn’t like this answer, perhaps he senses that Mama is hedging. I know this because he’s bucking and screeching, his body rigid as I try to pin his arms into the car seat. It’s not pretty. We’re an event, me and my son, like one of those staged happenings by the absurdists, I think “happenings” is actually what they called them. Regardless, I can feel we’ve generated quite an audience. The guy standing at the edge of the parking lot, extensively tattooed and with massive round tribal ear wear thinks I’m a horrible mother because I can’t get my son to stop screaming. The car next to ours has a woman sitting in the driver’s seat pretending not to notice that a toddler just kicked me hard in the chin. We’re impromptu entertainment and B’s wailing could shatter glass.

There’s a statistic out there that claims over half of the American population has tattoos. I would guess very few people with the name “Edna” have tattoos. Little boys and girls don’t have or absolutely should not have tattoos. The very old and very young are pretty much out. That leaves teenagers with all manner of body artwork and sorority girls with Drew Barrymore daisies on their ankles and Goth chicks with black scrawlings on their lower backs and hippies with the Japanese symbol for peace at the nape of their neck and biker dudes with naked women on their biceps and middle aged men with random shoulder tattoos chronicling something or other that seemed momentous at the time and Vietnam Vets and Korean War guys and very old World War Two military men with solidarity tattoos. Even our friend, a wonderful, kind woman with twin babies, a woman who’s so American she loves NASCAR and fantasizes about taking her kids to Disneyland, even she has a tattoo—it’s of Mickey Mouse.

I don’t have any tattoos. I’m of the mind that the only valid reason to get a tattoo is if something truly amazing or life shatteringly horrible has happened. This vital moment merits a permanent spot on one’s body, but only if one chooses the proper location (pick your best feature and please make sure it's not an area that will see significant sagging) and the perfect artistic rendition—a difficult formula to fulfill. And this is key: Any tattoo that a woman models damn well better go with a couture Chanel gown should she ever be invited to the Oscars. Anything else is just superfluous, silly, and the makings of a huge fashion faux pas. My husband has a much more laissez faire attitude about tattoos. He has one tattoo on his left hip—a 1913 comic strip image of KrazyKat and Ignatz Mouse-- and right now, as I type this, he’s having a large rose branded into his right forearm.

My husband wanted a rose because it’s my middle name. I find this deliriously sweet.

Roses are ubiquitous in tattoo culture. They’re everywhere. Rose buds, tiny tea roses, roses with fairies popping out, roses with hearts, thorny roses, roses formed in the shape of chalices, rose vines that twist around naked women, dancing roses, roses with knives, roses with name banners, Jesus and the cross roses, overtly sexual roses with gigantic, pointed clitorises, roses with butterflies, roses with frogs, roses with Jerry Bears, roses with smirking trolls, roses with fairy princesses, Japanese anime comic book roses, skull and cross bone roses, evil looking roses done in the deepest black, and happy roses done in baby-doll pastels. I dreamt about ugly, lame, height of cliché roses for a week.

In the end, we had to get very creative and ironically, very mundane. We went with a representation not found in the forty tattoo books we scoured or the 3,000 wall drawings we scanned—a true, naturalistic rose in full bloom, drawn to scale and with such painstaking attention to detail that it looked real. I wanted it pretty, as though it were freshly picked, with the right color gradations and shadows. I wanted it feminine—because although it was going on my husband’s arm, it was supposed to symbolize me. I wanted it, in one word, perfect.

Did we reach that nearly unattainable perfection? Today was just the beginning—the rose is half-way there. Next Saturday is Corey's final sitting. I’ll have photos of both versions posted here.

I'm late on this "Lost" review but I get a pass because the in-laws were in town and the kid's been entirely too cranky. So without further delay . . .

"Lost" may have redeemed itself in Wednesday’s third season premier, this, after a so-so second season with too many unanswered questions, too much lag time in the middle and a fondness for killing off some of the most interesting characters (Anna Lucia). Again they’re toying with us: The first shot is of a woman we’ve never met before (a la season two’s Desmond) in a house we don’t know. She is burning muffins and looking very post-modern-put-upon housewife. Cut to the bookclub: She’s in her living room surrounded by people dressed in khakis and Izod shirts. They sit on normal looking couches and argue over the choice of novel (we later see it’s something by Stephen King and one crazy blogger sleuthed about to discover it’s a hardcover reprint of “Carrie”--seriously). Muffin Lady is pissed because a male guest is trashing her book pick and in the heated back and forth it’s hinted that she’s somehow separated from her husband Ben, the Henry Gale imposter and possible leader of The Others. Moments later, an earthquake hits and the guests sprint for the doorways. Except it’s not an earthquake—it’s the Lost plane, Oceanic flight 815, screaming and popping through the air as it hurtles toward the earth. Outside, there is measured chaos as we see Ben call out orders to the men we know as Ethan and Goodwin—they must pretend to be survivors and report back. The last shots of the opener are of nicely dressed neighbors milling about finely manicured lawns that abut perfect “Pleasantville” homes . It’s a suburban utopia—well—a suburban utopia prone to magnetic pulses and plane crashes. But still, I am breathless with anticipation because I have to know: How is it that the Others came to own lawnmowers?

The opener was brilliant and compelling and the rest of the show, while chock full of entertaining moments, seemed to be just a hair shy of meeting that bar. A few scenes offered seriously memorable lines, most notably when Ben and Kate (in a pretty sundress) are eating a decadent breakfast beachside. Kate demands that her captor answer these questions: How are her friends, why is she there, what does he want from her, and Ben, ever the control freak, tells her in that weird, messianic voice, “The next two weeks are going to be very, very unpleasant.” Creepy. We don’t know how or why Kate’s world is going to suck, but the fact remains, Ben the weird Messiah guy says so and we can pretty much bank on it.

Meanwhile, Sawyer wakes to find himself in a giant hamster cage and then with the help of some other guy (formerly trapped in his own giant hamster cage and methinks an Others plant, though the motivation is unclear) gets loose and then promptly tasered by aforementioned Muffin Lady. My favorite Sawyer moment though, is when, after he’s spent what seems to be the better part of a day figuring out how to work the feed contraption and brags about it to his captor, Zeke (now beardless and considerably less scary), Zeke scoffs back, “It only took the bears two hours to figure that out.” Yes, we humans are a sad, pathetic lot deserving of being locked in hamster cages and Sawyer is dumber than a bear.

Meanwhile, Jack is trapped in a dark, cavernous room and Muffin Lady wants to feed him. Jack does not want to eat. Jack must eat, Muffin Lady says, because they’ve injected him with some mysterious Others drug that leads to massive dehydration and hallucinations if the injectee goes without food. Jack agrees to be a good boy and eat his meal, but then behaves badly. He attacks Muffin Lady, grabs her taser in the scuffle and while trying to escape encounters Messiah Ben. Jack wants to open the big, heavy door to get away from Messiah Ben but Muffin Lady tells him that if he does, they’ll all die. Curious. So what does Jack do? He opens it and out pours an avalanche of water. Muffin Lady and Jack must swim to safety, and coughing and sputtering for air, Muffin Lady punches bad boy Jack so handily, she knocks him out, allowing for a cool camera angle of floaty Jack captured from below. Score one for Muffin Lady—damn is that broad tough! She’s set to be a major player in this season, perhaps the desperate outcast and lone defector among the Others. And with a little luck, she’ll go Carrie on everyone (as the Stephen King book shot might imply)—blood spatter for all, a severed head for Ben. Or maybe the writers will simply slum it opting instead for the boring and obvious—could she be Jack’s next love interest?

I for one wasn’t so interested in the Jack backstory. Woe is him, sad, pathetic Jack—he of the slutty ex-wife and distraught alcoholic father. As for Muffin Lady’s Jedi mind tricks regarding Jack’s sordid past, I’m certain the writers will be doling out tasty little morsels ever so slowly over the course of this season. Meanwhile, you and I must remain the metaphorical equivalent of poor Sawyer trying to position the rock just right so he can get the fish biscuit. We’re all begging to know: What exactly do the Others want? Why is Jack stuck in the dolphin tank? Will there be a reenactment of that old Sea World skit where the little ferret comes out pushing a shopping cart? No? Well regardless, I’m just thrilled all of us are on this island together and holy fuck, now there’s a freakin’ theme park! Hydra and dolphins and bears, Oh My!

I received a humorous yet distressing email from the editor of the Weekly last Friday. In my never ending quest to write an advice column, he and I had embarked upon what I thought was a friendly dialogue. I assumed he knew and understood me, and then, bam, he insinuated that I just wasn’t naughty enough for the good readers of the Weekly. Ouch! Apparently Savage Love (one of my favorite reads) is a “bit too naughty” while I’m “probably a bit too nice.” I spent the weekend muttering to my husband, “Can you believe this?” and giggling and wishing my mother still had email so I could forward her the news—she would be so proud. But alas, I fear I may have misrepresented myself to the good man. Was it the hair? Maybe I should have kept it red. Was it the shirt? Perhaps it should have been lower cut. Was it my tales of working for the US Senator? Was it the fact that I’m a mommy? I guess all of these attributes, taken together, might say “Suburban Soccer Mom,” but that just ain’t me. As my good friend Emily G. pointed out in her blog, I’m the girl who wears the camo mini skirt and gold shit-kicker Frye boots to a garden wedding. I’m the girl whose favorite film is To Die For and the one who longs for the next installment of Nip/Tuck. I’m the girl with Sexing the Cherry, The Story of O and other erotically-charged book titles lining the shelves of her living room. I’m the girl with enough sordid sexual experience to raise eyebrows. I've catalogued scenes, snippets and observations that I won’t share here, mainly because my mother-in-law is reading this, but they're itching to go in a column ;-). I’m that girl. Short of walking into his office and reenacting the masturbation scene from Madonna’s Blonde Ambition tour, I’m not quite sure how to convince the gentleman that I’m no Pollyanna.

And in other news . . . I wrote the following soon after Pluto was demoted to non-planet status but forgot to post it. It’s even a wee bit naughty:

Millions of school children have been summarily mind-fucked by a band of rogue cowboy scientists. According to these astronomers, Pluto becomes the planetary equivalent of the lacey thong underwear you wore in college and now that you’re married and a little heavier in the hips and the lace has stretched out, well, it just doesn’t fit anymore so you toss it in the bathroom wastebasket and try to forget all about it—the underwear and your lurid past. First of all, everyone knows that you don’t fuck with Pluto. You can tease Jupiter mercilessly, you can punch Venus in the nose, but you don’t ever want to get in Pluto’s business because she’s a vengeful bitch and she will give harder than she’s gotten. Pluto is the Roman god of the underworld. Pluto’s all about birth, death, destruction, annihilation, deep dark secrets and sex, the naughty stuff, which is precisely why I adore her. Pluto was discovered in 1930 amidst the great stock market crash that ignited the Depression. Pluto was just a babe when Adolf Hitler came on the scene and yet in infancy, the girl helped cook up World War II and the Holocaust. When Pluto shows up at your house, you don’t slam the door in her face. You bow humbly, offer her some tea and with quaking voice, tell her you’re at her service. I think it’s cute that those venerable scientists, with their big, engorged PhDs, think they can defame Pluto, sully her reputation and that she’ll just quietly slink away. Pluto’s like the saucy sorority girl who shows up at a drunken frat party wearing too much makeup and super short skirt and then wakes up the next morning to a room she doesn’t recognize, a man she doesn’t know and a sticky wetness between her legs she never asked for. Yes, she’ll leave quietly and do her walk of shame and chances are you won’t hear from her for awhile, But when Pluto finally makes her presence known, it will be to paper the entire campus with pictures of the asshole who defiled her, the word RAPIST in bold on his mugshot. The point would be this: Pluto always has her revenge and usually when you least expect it. She is one wrathful bitch so those smarty-pant scientists might want to take care.

It’s my party and I’ll celebrate with tapas and cocktails if I want to.

For my 33rd Birthday, I booked a table for ten at a newish place in town, El Vaquero, and hoped to lure people to come help me ring in the new year with silly yet somehow appropriate Hiron’s cocktail invites. They boasted martini and lime colored cards nestled in glass-shaped vellum paper (You must see to believe, the kitsch value was worth the money alone). . . And then virtually no one RSVP’d, save a few very well-mannered friends. Why oh why do Eugenians think they can get away with not RSVPing when the invite clearly states in big bold letters, “Please RSVP?” Emily Post would have a field day with my friends. The RSVP debacle led to a brief freak-out in which I pictured myself, my husband and the lovely couple who RSVP’d sitting in a dark corner of the restaurant, empty chairs strewn about, Birthday hats askew and all of us pretending not to notice that no one else had shown up.

On the day before my 33rd, I did what every self-respecting girl would do: I headed to Macy’s to buy purple eye shadow. Immediately following my trip to the Clarins counter (at some point I’m going to have to write a girly post about how Clarins changed my life) I experienced a drive by shoeing. B was cranky, and it was ten minutes and counting before meltdown so I did stroller wheelies in the shoe section, circumnavigated the floor with lightening speed and tossed two possible Birthday pumps at an unsuspecting Macy’s employee. Meanwhile, B moaned and tossed his head and whinnied like a horse (“Horse,” by the way, is one of B’s newest and most favored words). I chose the pair that said, unequivocally, with their cheap price tag ($22) and their strappiness and their silvery glitteriness,
“We’re your mother-fucking birthday shoes, so fun, and if anyone dares to scoff at our ridiculousness they can kindly piss off.” There was no need for a second opinion but I consulted my son anyway because it’s what we always do-- I find it contributes to mother/son bonding.
“Honey, Honey? Look at me." (Horse head toss from inside the stroller). "Yes, we’ll go very soon. But first, what do you think about these shoes for Mama?" (Shooting my leg skyward so he can get a better look) "Do you like them?” And because the boy has been trained since month five, he looked me up and down, then at the shoes and then giggling, proclaimed, “Yes.” I know there will come a time when my son will size me up, place hands on hips and announce, “Come on Mama, you know you can’t pull that off.” But that day has not yet arrived and until it does, I’m workin’ it.

On the morning of my birthday, B and I headed to Amazon park. The air had that crisp, cool early fall smell and B was content to listen to Liz Phair on the stroller speakers as he watched the bikers and joggers blow by. At the big yellow tunnel slide, the one B is much too small to ride but nevertheless tries to climb up from bottom to top, I tried to teach him the Happy Birthday song. He didn’t seem interested. I was the crazy woman singing “Happy Birthday Dear Mama” to myself while my kid hung upside down in an impressive attempt to dismantle the slide. But by three o’clock, when I was on the phone and standing on our back deck watching B sift sand into the back of his tonka dump-truck, he looked up at me when he heard me describing the evening’s festivities and said, quite clearly, “bird day.”

By 4:15, I was comfortably ensconced in a salon chair with the wonderful Jarrell running her fingers through my hair. When she asked me what look I was going for I told her to make me blonder and to style my hair “like Bridget Bardot—you know, sex hair.”

By 6:40 I was back home, sprinting down the hallway while throwing kisses to my husband and B, who were so cute and yummy smelling, splashing about in the bathtub. I had five minutes to retouch my makeup, throw on my slinky birthday dress and scooch into my new heels. I was supposed to be at the restaurant at 7:00 and a quick scan of the clock told me I’d only be ten minutes late (fashionably so I thought). Leaving my husband back at the ranch to field questions/avert crises with the new babysitter, I said my “ bye”s and “love you”s while applying Chanel glossimer and in kissing goodbye got the lipstick all over B’s left temple.

Lo and behold, people showed up. In fact, nearly twenty friends trickled in as the night progressed, the latecomers scavenging for new tables and chairs. The food and ambience were perfect and the conversation, divine. And the good people at El Vaquero had the sense to put us in the quieter back room, so we had the space to ourselves and avoided the rowdy drinkers that littered the front. Having had only a Superfood shake and antioxidant orange juice for lunch, I took it upon myself to start the ordering.
“We’ll have Camarones al Coco and then Tacos de Pescados and the seared ahi. Oh and the grilled skirt steak tacos and my hairdresser said if I ever ate here I should order the pork flautas because they’re insane,” (I don’t eat pork but I knew others would). “And I’ll start with a Richmond Gimlet, please.” My friend Pete (who is a loyal RSVPer and a trivia master much like my husband) informed me that the Richmond Gimlet, a yummy concoction of gin, lime and lots and lots of mint, originated right here in Eugene. I must say, Richmond Gimlets are not to be missed at Vaquero. The cool of the mint pairs nicely with the spicy chipotle and tomato salsas. There were so many exotic tapas to choose from, but my favorite was the decidedly lowbrow Mac ‘n Cheese with Champignones (mushrooms). Oh My God—it’s a heart attack and an orgasm simultaneously, the ultimate full body experience. The two women on either side of me were drooling and I do believe the only reason they restrained themselves with a spoonful each was because I was the Birthday Girl. Next time, Mac ‘n Cheese for all!

As for the sparkling conversation, Emily G and I talked Spain. I tried to recall, on gimlet #2, the correct order in which I visited various cities in Europe when I was studying in Salamanca. She wanted to hear my favorites (Barcelona, Munich and Florence) and we compared notes. She remembered marvelous street fairs in Spain, which I suggested might have been Carnivale, and she loved the whole Swiss “The Hills are Alive” Sound of Music tour, which is just so perfectly her. Back on the far end of the table, Wendi and her husband Robin and I talked Spain too, Sevilla specifically, and how we longed to get back. I think our predilection for talking travel has something to do with being Moms to small children and knowing the closest we’ll be getting to Italy anytime soon is the pasta aisle at Safeway. How joyous it was to be having adult conversations about adult things! And Susan, my new friend recently arrived from Sacramento, dressed up beautifully. And so did Arian, with her pretty black frock and new sophisticated short ‘do that I initially failed to notice, tsk tsk. Anne Marie, an always generous friend whom I call first in a babysitting pinch, not only watched B so I could get my hair colored earlier that day, but also attended my dinner bearing a gorgeous bouquet that now sits on my dining room table, the gerber daisies almost as big as sunflowers. There were many more friends who I’d like to toast, too many to name here, but you know who you are and thanks for showing up and enjoying fabulous urbane dining with me.

As we stepped out into the night air following our six shared desserts and my delicious spot of port, Pete pointed to my feet and said, “You’re like Dorothy in those glittery shoes. Ok, now click your heels three times.” I did it and then took a long celebratory stride that landed my kitten heel right in a sidewalk grate. I wish I could claim I looked like Marilyn Monroe in that iconic air-blowing-up-the-skirt scene from The Seven Year Itch. But I didn’t, I just looked stuck. Arian helped me yank myself out of the grate and we all moved on. What Dorothy says may be true, there really is no place like home. But I really must get out more often.