Author: bloomis

Lie, Lay, EYE-lah?

When my children correct me about something from the as-I-say-not-as-I-do category, I like to talk to them about building intellectual authority, and then I prescribe continuing their music lessons and not ignoring grammar. “Early one mornin’ the sun was shinin’, I was layin’ in bed,” sings Bob Dylan, but I don’t turn that part down. Instead I explain that Bob Dylan is a poet, and he knows all the rules, and the characters in his songs may “lay” in, or across, beds sometimes, but that doesn’t mean that either of my children should do that. I mean, say that. I mean—they may certainly lie in their own beds, but only by themselves, for now, in the present tense.  By contrast, Barry Manilow, whose song I use only for the sake of comparison—or when I feel like someone is really hogging the mic and I need to monopolize a 17-bar interlude—could have asked “who shot whom?” at the Copacabana without breaking character. So, children, when I say “like” too frequently, remember that it’s with a wink—not, like, when Ariana Grande says it on Sam & Cat.

Gosh, intellectual authority—authority of all flavors—is so easy to fake within the parent-child relationship. It’s not as easy elsewhere, but I would like to point you towards some of my scholarly work, if you have a few hours, and read German: http://www.beckyloomis.com/Ichbinsehrsehrintelligent. The link has been a little fussy lately, but I hope you will get a chance to read at least a portion of this at some point, because I’m concerned you’re starting to believe me when I tell you I’m an airhead. Or maybe you’ve even witnessed that sort of behavior.  Last night, I was trying, as always, to be subtle! But the hills of [more in a moment] were calling me, because I’ve been on a rare bourbon streak recently.  Bourbon, it turns out, pairs nicely with the campfire smell lingering (permanently?) from the fire I made recently without opening the flue. So I needed to restore balance, and warm up, with a Lagavulin, before the Mary Chapin Carpenter concert. (Christine, she’s a folk singer.)  The bartender told me they didn’t have Lagavulin. I believed her, but she also looked puzzled when I asked for Laphroaig. So I got up—not in a huff—and walked down to the end of the bar to point it out, and the other bartender said “Oh! you mean [something I didn’t understand]?” and held up the bottle of Laphroaig.   “I’ve always pronounced it [same sound]”.  “Maybe,” I said. “I’ve never been to Ireland.”  I have also never been to Scotland, but I know where Islay is, more or less. At any rate, neither of them was disarmed by my mistake, and my white bean chili showed up with the cheese I had asked them to omit. I started to compliment the one bartender’s fishnets, or tell her I had a pair just like them, but that would have been a lie. Mine have the line in back.

Curiosity, Politics, Shhh…

The daughter I mentioned having in another post, who was, in that one–for narrative purposes–almost eleven, is, as it turns out, actually eleven now and has started acting more–yawn–socially aware. The other day she asked me if there is a difference between Democrats and Republicans. I have no idea where this came from, unless it’s that darn Montessori again. At home, we make a point never to discuss politics, calories, or Jon Snow’s parentage, but children develop curiosities all the same. You are likely not eleven, and I don’t want to be patronizing, so here’s an abridgment of what I told her:

Federalists, Abraham Lincoln, some of my best friends, blood on the steps of the U.S. Capitol, Religion, things that frighten people.

I voted, you know, but I did not discuss it. I don’t think it’s fair to assume that because I’m an airhead who falls down a lot that I’ve completely checked out.

Hey, can I get sentimental for a moment? Because I’m just remembering another time my daughter asked me about the differences between people. We were living in Vermont, so she couldn’t have been two yet, and she and her little friend [boy] were playing in the river. When his mother was changing him out of his wet swimsuit, my daughter observed that [N.] “has a different bottom”.  I was sure I was out of earshot of my grandmother in Virginia, so I decided it would be all right to be kind of Vermonty and open, and not just change the subject and offer her a maple candy. “Yes he does,” I said. Not an easy conversation, to be sure, but, I mean–now that I have an eleven year-old, I’m feeling pretty smug that I got it out of the way when I did!

Lance Armstrong, Casseroles, Not-Snobbery

This was going to be my Lance Armstrong entry, where I talked about DNF-ing in the NY Marathon, and quitting being forever, etc. I guess that might have sounded a little self-loathing. Even though I was not able to get my hands on any good blood transfusions, I finished the run on Sunday, so I guess if I’m going to be able to put anything new out there today, I have to try to do something with Billy’s suggestion, and talk about casseroles.
On Sunday afternoon, when I saw Billy for an unlikely second time in three weeks, I had just run a marathon, and then tried for about an hour in the freezing wind to find our hotel, which was only a few blocks from the finish line, while he, Brad and Ty watched a little dot track us on Stevie’s phone, laughing meanly as we walked several blocks in the wrong direction. Then I arrived at the hotel bar and quickly finished two tequila grapefruits, so I thought chances were pretty good I would forget he’d mentioned the casserole thing.  Well, all I wrote was

casseroles  blog

so I don’t remember if there was a context, and now I can’t ask Billy because he is back in Guatemala, dealing with what sounds like some very sordid business of the kind you probably already associate with Guatemala, I would have said unfairly. And, actually, in order not to perpetuate any stereotypes, I won’t say what it is, except it’s not gastroenterological in nature, and it doesn’t involve exploding helicopters either. I suspect, now that I think about it, that he was trying to goad me into revealing a little bit of snobbery, like the time he tried to suggest the burrito I was eating during the ALS Facebook challenge wasn’t from Taco Bell, or that I wasn’t even eating it, or, damn it Billy… I did the challenge, even after it stopped being cool.

I have two things to say about casseroles.

Thing one: When we were second years at UVA, I wanted to make something Sara Rydell would like. At the time, she didn’t enjoy lentils, for example, as much as Bridget, Jill and I did. We liked to share mini packs of M&M’s #covertbailey #insidejoke #deliberatemisuseofhashtags, but otherwise our taste in food didn’t overlap all that much. So I decided to make Sara Grandmother Shippy’s Heavenly Hamburger, because I knew she liked hamburgers! But she did not–as it turned out, at the time, as it turned out–like tomatoes, sour cream, onions, cream cheese, garlic powder, onion granules, egg noodles… Sara, please edit. She was really sweet about it. I bet we grabbed a fro-yo after.

The second casserole thing: I was introduced to a Sandra Lee semi-homemade chicken enchilada casserole at some point while I was pregnant. It had cream of mushroom soup in it, which I left in. I adapted it to include real cheese, corn tortillas, and some plants, like cilantro and scallions.  And pickled jalapeños. It still felt like cheating, but lots of people have eaten it and not complained. I haven’t made it lately because the Cooks Illustrated recipe for chicken enchiladas seems more defensible.

But it turns out I’m still very lazy in the kitchen. The other day, I came across a recipe for harissa, and I realized I have been buying prepared harissa. Which reminds me of the other thing Lance Armstrong says: “Fool me once, shame on…shame on you. Fool me — you can’t get fooled again.” That was him, [sic] right? I don’t know of any casseroles that call for harissa, but I bet they’d be flavorful.

Jägermeister, Jimmy Buffett, Feelings

When I get the feeling a dinner party is winding down, I like to pass out a nice digestif–a white port or airplane bottles of Jägermeister. Depending on how that goes over, I might then ask if anybody wants to go to Philly, which tends to make me feel a little like a sitcom dad trying to get laid. I wonder if they, too, get their feelings hurt when they are rebuffed every day except their birthday. I always rein it in though, because appearances are so important (I didn’t say to me–that would sound shallow.) An aside: I was talking to Cookie the other day about how much I think I would enjoy being the girl Jimmy Buffett, except that–my talent for rhyme and my enthusiasm for mustaches of all thicknesses aside–I would just end up looking like some lush with a tambourine (I don’t play the guitar) because middle aged girl drunks are somewhat less accepted. I’ve been self-Pygmalioning my tipsy voice ever since I heard it on the iPhone video where Kay and I were trying to find a fox(?) on the walk home from Murph’s(?) in recognition of that particular double standard.  Darn. You know, I think the Jimmy Buffett conversation was with Jay, not Cookie. I must have been pretty high at the time. On alcohol, mother. No, wait–life.

The problem is, and I’m not blaming anyone in particular here, but when I don’t get to go to Philly, that energy has to be redirected somewhere (I took two semesters of physics for non-majors–I’m pretty sure this is called “friction”) and a lot of times I redirect the energy into getting injured. I tried to get people to go to Philly, at least in spirit, when we were in St. Lucia last week, and they totally wouldn’t, so I fell down the steps. This might mean I won’t get to run the New York Marathon on Sunday, or that my heel will start bleeding and I will have to cut out early and find a falafel cart. I bet I will also cry, tears usually reserved for certain less-pageanty passages of Beethoven, and the time I swallowed a fly while running in Brandywine Creek State Park. But that’s a good thing, because a lot of people think I don’t have feelings, which isn’t true. Also I bleed a lot.

Alfonso Ribeiro, Nena, Frango Mints

Linked In would like me to add a few details to my job history. And it (Linked In) matters(?)
I’m definitely going to have to finesse some things. I had a job or two, before I got the one I have now that people love to say they respect, but kind of think is for no-ambition German Literature majors (answer: secret shopper, online*).  I would much rather post some of my relevant experience, e.g. I taught Alfonso Ribeiro how to hand-splice eight track in New York City in the late 90’s–attn: Mother, that’s not a reference to illegal drugs–and I’ll bet many of my professional contacts would be interested in knowing about that sort of accomplishment. Unfortunately, Linked in is obsessed with dates and employers. And while I would say it took Alfonso longer than it should have, it was easily less than a year. And then I would want to add that I trained that same year as an airline hostess, though the process got derailed (if you’ll excuse the mixed metaphor) while I awaited results from some tests United Airlines makes you take to see if all your years of reading Goethe and listening to 99 Luftballoons have helped you be able ask Germans what they’d like to have to drink (Antwort:Bier). And then grading the language tests takes three months or so, during which time I read that the stale air on airplanes has a premature aging effect on the skin, and also, during that time, I might have gotten pregnant or something–I have lost track of some of those months. But I did get to go to Chicago several times to be weighed at United’s headquarters, and when I got off the scale, I could go eat Frango Mints at Marshall Fields. Which reminds me I don’t think I was pregnant, even though that would have been a nice excuse for the eating. I couldn’t have been pregnant because I wasn’t married (attn: Mother). I think when I wasn’t in Chicago or New York that year, or come to think of it, maybe also Guatemala, where I learned to say “quiero ser aeromoza” which turned out to be a crock of shit, I was in Washington DC, trying to catch a husband. Because I think I had decided that was looking like a pretty good deal. I’m going to spin this differently on Linked In, I think.

*not true

I have read all the parenting books (vicariously), Contest!, Galaxy Austin

In spite of everything I’ve learned from the parenting books my sister has read and told me about, it turns out I’m failing my children. The other day one of them–I will protect her anonymity–told me apologizing made her feel weak. This is so weird because I’m sure I’ve “modeled” the apology. In fact just yesterday when one of them–again, I won’t say which, but it was the other one–attacked me for being late for school pickup, even though it was only 5 minutes and he hadn’t even lined up for aftercare yet, I apologized.
“[N.,]” I explained, “I’m sorry. But your sister is the one who still wants to go to this school even though it’s, like, 45 minutes from our house.” I have to stop saying “like” so much. And it’s actually closer to half an hour, but hyperbole is an important part of apology, even though they’re spelled quite differently. I hesitate to say this, because my mother has become an avid reader/critic of this blog, but I’m not so sure apologies were rampant in my household of origin either. I’m trying to remember whether this is because my parents were perfect, or because of the general sweep-the-leg mentality of the 80’s. What is the lesson here? [rhet.]

I don’t know if I remembered to announce it, but I held a blog-wide contest from October 14-16th to see if anyone could guess what I was thinking about when I posted a grainy picture of one and a half taxidermically preserved squirrels as my background photo. The most correct answer is the John Malkovich SNL sketch in which he plays Len Tukwilla, the driftwood sculptor. I would also have accepted Aspen, or a subtly proffered bribe. This week there were no winners.

I thought about “fleshing out” my first post about Austin a little bit, but I wouldn’t want to reveal that everything I know about Austin fit into the March paragraph of my 2011 Christmas letter. I mean, it’s one thing to name drop SXSW a few months after you were there, but a few years later… You kind of have to go back to Austin, or move on and talk about the places you’re hanging out now that you’re in your late thirties, like Boca Raton, and Perkins Cafeteria. My teacher, @matropolis , was at Austin City Limits the weekend I wrote that, and he offered us extra credit for putting up one blog post, so I decided to suck up a little. I can only imagine what kind of grade I might have expected if I’d had a chance to tell him about Galaxy the insane cab driver, whose card I might even have somewhere, but I was probably busy helicopter parenting and/or meditating.

I wonder if it does anything when you use someone’s Twitter handle on a blog. I left a space after @matropolis just in case, and that might not matter either. Which makes me feel a lot like my mother posting private messages to her friends on her own Facebook wall when she was sorting all that out. So I might owe her an apology.

Dream Animals, Chris Farley, I Lie

My teenage whininess forced my mother to join a Jungian women’s group, where she learned her Dream Animal is a giraffe. Maybe it was a book group and a Jungian analyst? It’s possible I’m conflating some things. When it comes to personal minutiae, the responsibility for keeping track flows more from parent to child than the other way around, eh?

Anyway, this blog, which I started as an assignment for a class I’m taking, got leaked a little bit because of @kplawson9’s enthusiasm for social media, and I was reminded why I have always liked to write a once-a-year Christmas letter on a typewriter, glue a Polaroid or a candy cane to it, and mail it via USPS to anyone whose address I might still have in my little red planner from the Coach outlet, Senior Skip Day, Norfolk Academy, 1994. Remember when Chris Farley used to interview celebrities on SNL and then immediately berate himself for whatever he said? I think it’s kind of obvious that I live like Chris Farley: balls out, immediately regretting almost everything I say.

So I wanted to make it clear that in my previous post I meant “Dream Animal” in a Jungian sense, to the extent I remember, or ever knew what that means. I don’t dream of owning a German Shepherd in the same way I dream of being able to kitesurf, or being a bartender/ski bum in Aspen with no children. Though I do seem to do a lot of daydreaming about it, and to friends who’ve apparently heard a little much about the potential unrecommended dog, it’s become known as my direwolf, and I don’t even know if those exist outside of Game of Thrones. Don’t tell me, because I enjoy imagining myself as Daenerys, with my big loyal direwolf following me to Whole Foods and Montessori. I know–Daenerys has dragons. But that’s not very likely to happen is it? The last thing I want is to end up with an unruly, un-furry dragon, and the whole de-clawing issue again. All I meant was, when I’ve taken the right combination of sleep medications, or performed my yoga fire breaths–this second thing is an aspirational lie, ugh, and an unintentional pun, which I hate but now I’ve said it and can’t un-type–to dream vividly, the animal most likely to appear is a wolf-like dog. But I will do my best to remember not to get one, even though I’m sure they are available online.

I lied about the babies, too. I’m not going to talk about babies.
Next time: I explain my first post, about Austin, which was really more of a Tweet, or a Tumbl? Fingers crossed the topic will be covered in my next class.

Tattoos, Pets, Life Lessons

In a few weeks, my older child, a daughter, will be eleven, so I guess it’s time to start talking to her about not getting a tattoo. But you know, these days you go in for Restylane and Coolsculpting and your dermatologist asks if you want her to take off the tramp stamp while you’re in there. So maybe that’s not even a thing anymore?
I did bring up her changing body the other day–I mean, not hers specifically–God, she would kill me–and she really wasn’t receptive at all. So I think what I’m going to do to kind of check that box is to give her the talk about pet ownership. I’m not at all nervous about this one because I have given this talk to several of my newly married friends when they wanted to get pets either to “test things out” before they started having children, or just, I don’t know, travel less and spend their extra money on emergency vet bills.
Personal story: A long time ago I used to have a job. I won’t say what it is because that would be too personal a story, but I took both it and myself seriously enough that I believed the time was wrong for my dream animal, a German Shepherd (or similar).  So I got onto the dial-up internet and ordered some Burmese cats. (From Texas! Like I’m going to order cats from Burma/Myanmar.)  They are still alive. They have ruined most of my furniture because I used to be nice and I didn’t have them de-clawed and now the vet won’t do it.
It is much less humane to have two healthy cats removed than it is to have a cat tattoo removed, and, presumably, even more expensive, because of the discretion involved. Also, the vet bills, food, destroyed furniture and what-not add up. And if you get a dog, you can’t go on vacation. And you’ll stop liking it if you have a baby.

Next: Babies are also more permanent than tattoos.