Too Much Information

Yesterday, I spent the day shopping and people watching in Montreal. It's my favorite thing to do here -- people watch. Mostly, I usually notice how folks who live in the city are either very young or empty nesters. Hardly anyone with children chooses to live in the city. Instead, they've opted for the suburbs. Because, I'll admit freely, this is not the most beautiful city in the world, but it does know how to have a good time. I'd guess you'd have to if you had winter eight months out of the year. Where I live, we only have it six months out of the year, so you know I give them some slack.

The other reason I love Montreal, when it's past the time for kids to be up, the television lights up like a Christmas tree with sexual adventures. It's hilarious. It's like there's a timer. I'm American. My country was founded on Puritanism, I get that. It's got that strong Khristian vibe (I use the K because I really believe there are far more believers who have their faith messed up in judgmental and cruel ways than there are actual Christians in the world.). And for some reason, nudity at all really freaks America out. The fact that in this day and age we still have people that think breast feeding in public is some kind of moral outrage really shakes me. You can't order someone to choose life (by denying them any medical opportunity to choose otherwise) and then tell them they can't feed the kid when it gets hungry. And let's face it, babies get hungry at the most opportune time, not provide any family friendly environments and then get all offended by nudity. There's also the truth that most moms really don't want you looking at their boobs either. And the women who stay at home all the time locked in their homes with their children, well, I'm pretty sure every Mom I know will tell you nothing good would ever come of that.

But here, I notice another difference--clothing. At home, the regular day wear is jeans and t-shirts, maybe a hoodie. Everyone's in tennis shoes and flip flops in Illinois, yes, even in the big city. Shopping downtown yesterday, everyone had knee-high, heeled boots, skinny jeans, tight tops with large fashionable sweaters. Their hair was done. They had ample make up on their faces. They looked like they always wore the clothes from the special shops they were going into. I, in my jeans, Nike t-shirt, fuzzy fleece jacket and Nike shoes got that I was -- odd -- in this background. Quite plainly, every woman was dressed very feminine, and none of them had cookie on their shirts.

I point back to the fact that I see very few children here past the infant stage. These folks have disposable income, and holy cow do they look good in it.

The other thing I noticed was how much couples touch here. They're walking down the side walk with arms around each other, holding hands, hand stuffed in the other's back pocket. They stop at stop lights and smile and kiss. They freaking meander.

I don't know about you, but I can't remember the last time MacTroll and I did that kind of stuff. Usually we're on some kind of babysitter time clock. Must get to restaurant. Must get to dessert. Must get to bar. Must get to child. The slow down happens enough for conversation, but not for touching. It can't be a choice, right? There have to be people out there who still meander, even with cookies on their shirts, right? Someone has had to figure out how to have it both ways? Or is that asking too much?

When I got back to the apartment and made myself dinner, I thought about how good it feels when MacTroll gets home. And how hard it is to reconnect with him after a lengthy trip. I'm tired. I've got things I can finally get to because there's another parent in the house. But like X-man does, I also kind of put him in a penalty box from being gone. Our life stops and starts so often that I sometimes feel like I have trouble feeling emotionally bonded with him. I know I love him. But the travel also leads to me feeling neglected, this spouse on the road thing, it's hard, even though it's pretty much all we've ever known. But I have some relief in that I still get excited when we're waiting for him to come through the door, or when X-man and I can meet him at the airport, which we make the effort to do from time to time when it works with bedtime, or after particularly hard single parenting weeks.

I'm really not uptight or frigid, my husband will confirm. But I also don't just see someone I'm attracted to and instantly have that physical need. It takes a warm up. It takes some intimacy. It takes some effort. It takes energy. It takes being able to look at my relationship in a different light sometimes and seeing all the things that do work well in it. And sometimes when I see something I think is missing, I try not to get frustrated. Why not try something different for a while? I've never been one for PDA, but at the same time, I do miss being touched on an affectionate level by another adult.

I hate that I'm getting home tonight only to have MacTroll leave tomorrow. I know he's not happy about it either. But I am excited about seeing my boys. Hopefully, X-man will be able to get to sleep quickly, so MacTroll and I can have some time to ourselves before he flies out tomorrow.

From the Road

Every week MacTroll visits a plethora of places around the country. For example, next week he'll visit D.C., Miami and New York in three days. He flies over 100,000 miles a year primarily on American Airlines, which qualifies him for Executive Platinum Status.

What the hell is that you ask?

What it means is that although you and I might plunk down our cash for a coach seat with our (or others') shrieking children and overweight thighs that make it impossible to get the service tray to lay flat for our non-existent food -- MacTroll is privileged.

When he buys his tickets in coach they instantly work to try to upgrade him to first/business class for free. He rides up front with his fellow professional travelers enjoying free alcoholic drink service, complete meals that don't suck, cups of warmed mixed nuts, a closet to have someone else hang up his coat for him, clean blankets and extra-wide seats with two times the leg room of a coach seat.

He enjoys access to the fancy clubs at the airport where there are free snacks, free internet, loads of empty, large leather chairs to sit in and free soft drinks. The bathrooms in some Admiral Clubs have marble floors and doors that extend from the floor to ceiling keeping your gassy identity top secret, so no one can identify you as the smelly one by your shoes.

I don't fly a lot, but every six to eight months I get on a plane for a Loosey-only vacation. And each time I use MacTroll's frequent flier miles and each time I get upgraded to first class, where I am reminded how much I am NOT used to be waited on. I sit next to all baby boomers with Louis Vitton luggage and $90 haircuts. I drink water, instead of a mixed drink, and I scarf down my nuts fearful that one of the well made-up, excessively smiley crew that are appointed to the first-class cabin will identify me as a fraud by my old tennis shoes and discount fleece jacket and rip the little ceramic bowl out of my hands.

Today is one of those experiences. I'm flying next to a guy on his way to a conference in Phoenix. He's got a manilla folder on his tray. The tray the uber friendly flight attendent assumed she had to tell me how to use as I refused their fancy smelling dinners. "I'm having dinner with my friends when we land," I said politely.

No one cared, but as a Fat girl it killed me to pass on the glass of ice cream with the hot fudge sauce they handed out 20 minutes later.

Currently my co-passenger, who began our flight arguing with a co-worker in the seat behind him about whether 6B or 6E was the best seat on that particular model airplane due to the extra 1/2 inch leg room -- they apparently once measured, has had his Crackberry out the whole time reading ugly plain text. He tries to put it down, lasts 30 seconds, and then picks it back up again.

We've been in the air for 2 hours. During which I finished my second book of the year (It's a big accomplisment for me you readers! So stop snickering.), Laurie Novaro's "Guide to the Idiot-Girls' Adventure Club."

It was the only book I brought -- for obviously slow reading reasons. Hence my impromptu blog via my school notebook and then typed so diligently on my friend KAP's laptop.

Anyway, when forced with flying solo I get a lot of quiet time, which I use to eavesdrop.

My favorite were the Chicago businessmen enroute to Phoenix where they would be golfing, probably during the same conference as my seat buddy. You can tell the guys were from Chicago because they all had Mike Ditka attributes: Black jeans, white New Balance tennis shoes that are as wide as they are long, black socks, collared shirts underneath fleecy sweatshirts that have either colleges or sports teams on them. Their bellies hang six or more inches over their belts, that seemed to be pulled extra tight for some reason and over-emphasized the years of Budweiser drinking and shouting at the TV. Don't forget the hair either. The short spiky haircuts that match the same gray bushy moustaches.

As the gate agent called for first class to board first (they have to make sure the privileged have a chance to suck back a complete gin and tonic before take off), one of the Ditka replica says to the other, "I didn't get an upgrade, so I wonder how many employees are hogging those seats."

When he finished, I stood to get ready to board. I felt his eyes scan me as I walked to the line, handed my ticket to the gate agent and proceeded down the jetbridge.

As my people boarded 10 minutes later and moved to the cattle car in the back of the plane mooing, I sat with my eyes in my book. Head down. Dont' make eye contact! Refuse a drink! Do not draw attention to yourself! And I wonder how long it took MacTroll to get used to riding at the front of the bus with wings after flying coach on discount airlines when we ran our own business. I also wondered if he'd ever be able to go back to just flying coach.

I mean let's face it. He lives a life of $300 hotel rooms withnmaid service and free pints of Ben and Jerry ice cream when he's on the road.

At home, he gets a wife who runs around hurriedly trying to keep the household in clean underwear, wiping down walls she's glad they paid the extra money for to upgrade to eggshell coatings so that it makes removing dirty toddler finger prints off of them easier, running off to class and meet ups and leaving him with stuff to do or a kid to care for. In comparison to his travel life -- he definitely married a woman who is the epitome of coach.

One that is full of kids who kick your seat, spill their drinks and make you feel grumpy and cramped.

But maybe that's why he upgrades me to first class each time I actually take the time to make time away for myself. Maybe it's his way of saying thank you for grounding him in a reality where sleeping in a pile like puppies with your familiy is way cooler and happier than 1,000 count Egyption Cotton sheets.

Maybe, but I'm too busy losing at the sudoku in the inflight magazine to think about it too much. :-)

Disturbing Billboard

In late winter 1998, I was lying in bed reading the newspaper. It was a completely normal Sunday morning. MacTroll and I slept in, he ran out and got a coffee and a Washington Post and I hung out with the kitties being lazy as can be. 

Then in the middle of my beloved Metro section out comes the question: "So, um, are we going to get married?"

It wasn't really a proposal, but my mind turned upside down, and I stared only at the now non-sensical paragraph in front of me. I wasn't really surprised at the question. We had been together since July 1992. We had moved in together. We had joint bank accounts. We adopted a couple cats. We had furniture. But it was the whole word -- "marriage." It was tied to words like "wife" and "husband" and "anniversary." All words that I hate because of the the cultural assumptions that are tied to them that I believe are sexist, dangerous and just plain ugly.

My response, which was, I'm sure, not the one MacTroll had wanted was, "Can't we just be together without all that - mess?"

Silence.

"I guess I just always pictured myself married," he said quietly.

"Can I think about it?" I asked.

"Sure."

So I did. I thought and I thought and I shook my head with distaste. Marriage was about law and religion and all this other stuff that didn't really apply to us. 

A couple weeks later it got brought up again. I said I needed more time. 

"How much more time?"

"I want to live with you for at least another year before I give you an answer."

In January 2000, I decided that if we got married we could do it our way. None of this white dress, staring at the bride down the aisle stuff. No uncomfortable wedding showers or people in suits and ties. If we were going to get married it was going to be a big party -- and most of all, it was going to be a ceremony that celebrated the 8 years we were together before we got married. Because, damn it, you put 8 years in with someone, they count. 

Sure, there will still be those people who only believe your relationship is validated once you sign that damn certificate, but they just don't get it -- the big picture of what is important. 

Life is about connections and regardless of what you signed or pledged before whatever power that be you believe in -- you've met someone you want to spend part of your life with. Someone you can be vulnerable with and someone you can depend on (and vice versa). That doesn't happen every day. So when you find it, you need to hold onto it and work on it as hard and as long as you can. Because there are no guarantees -- and in case anyone hasn't noticed the idea of "forever" has gotten a lot shorter lately and with good reason. 

People are forming relationships more out of mutual interest in one another (and much later in life) rather than because it's a societal institution and a check mark on a list called "A successful life." 

In April 2000, I went to the Feminist Expo 2000 with my friend Heidi. We had to take an afternoon off of work to go. We drove up to Baltimore and saw Tyne Daly and Sharon Gless give their speeches. Then we broke up into small sessions. Would it be Mary Daly or bell hooks. Damn, that was a hard decision.

bell hooks was talking about love and damn it, I was a 21st century, 20-something with a big question on her hands...

So I stood up and asked how in the world can a feminist who is uncomfortable with how society treats and talks about marriage and assigns roles based on gender could I possibly ever feel comfortable with the reality, when the basic relationship vocabulary made me seriously uncomfortable.

She gave me an honest answer about negotiables and non-negotiables. Getting married to me was negotiable. Sharing a last name was a non-negotiable. Having a lot of people was a non-negotiable. Having traditional vows that made people promise a lot of stuff that they might want to do, but in reality probably wouldn't, was non-negotiable. 

On the drive back to D.C. I talked with Heidi and made my list. Not surprising most of the stuff that was non-negotiable Joel didn't give a crap about either. :-) That always makes things easier--when you agree on the big picture stuff.

So, when I drove down Prospect Avenue today after making my $70 purchases from Target, my eyebrows furrowed when I read a billboard that said, "Married people make more money. Marriage Works" with large images of coins on a table. I gagged and turned up my Liz Phair.

In all of my stressing out about what I wanted our marriage to be about, it didn't even occur to me to think of capitalism as a point to get married. I mean, holy shit. 

How is a relationship based on promises of greater financial success possibly a good advertisement for one of the most challenging and dynamic relationships that you'll ever have.

In my opinion, that stupid billboard is what is wrong with America's views of relationships. It represents exactly why so many marriages end up in divorce, which is not a sign of failure between the two people, but instead a sign of failure of our culture which promotes a completely materialistic view of "success" and an unrealistic approach to love. Love should be appreciated for all of its grandness and its pretty serious shortcomings.

(Someone remind me again what is so desperately wrong with being single? It's not like a plague. Seriously. Be happy single. Be happy in a committed relationship. Be happy however you live your life.)

And while I'm all worked up, remind me again, how not allowing people who are of the same gender to get married isn't discrimination? I've always been a little fuzzy on good and bad things and I tend to be "non-trad" according to my friends about things like this. But I'm still confused. If Ellen wants to marry Portia, why the hell does it matter to the rest of us? Can't we just say, "Rock on and good luck!" Like we do when any other couple that we purchased a $99 ricemaker for takes that plunge?

That sign really pissed me off. 

"Mommy" and "Daddy" Differences (in My House)

My husband and I will have been together for 16 years this July. It marks the first year where we will have been married as long as we dated. So, I like to think I know him pretty well. 

• I know that he cares deeply for me and our home. 

• I know that since X-man's birth he feels this need to provide for us and works desperately hard at his job to keep big bucks and awesome health care available to us.

• I know he loves his work more than he gets annoyed with the stupidness that sometime occurs at his job at Apple.

• I know that he has a fabulous sense of humor.

• I know that I can always talk to him about things that are on my mind and even if he disagrees, he won't ever not want to hear what I'm saying.

• I know he came from a home where he was the fourth kid, was often told he was an "oops,"  and felt ignored and neglected and left to his own devices and doesn't want X-man to ever feel that way.

• I know that he can think in dimensions that I can't when it comes to academic and technical solutions.

• I know that every time he reads, "Mars Needs Moms" to X-man he cries and thinks of how our lives matter most in how we provide for him.

• We share the same values about all the big stuff in life. 

Knowing all this is definitely part of how we survived the long haul as two kids who met at summer camp before my junior year in high school in Rockford and his senior year of high school in Dunlap, went to separate colleges and lived in separate states during the six years before we moved in together in Falls Church, Va., when I decided to go to graduate school.

But this morning, I was uber annoyed with him.

I get up with X-man every morning. I make him breakfast. I wrestle him into clothes. I get him on the way to school. Most mornings out of the month, I do this alone because of MacTroll's erratic and heavy travel schedule. 

This morning, X-man came in our room at 5:50 a.m. I had had a great night at sushi last night with the CARE Moms and was buzzed enough from my adult time that I couldn't fall asleep until 2 a.m. I just laid in bed struggling with sleep. So I told X-man he either needed to lie down with me and go to sleep or he could go play trains in his room. 

What he wanted was a playmate and after 35 minutes of X-man crawling around on top of us, MacTroll went. I fell back to sleep for a short time. When I woke up X-man was at my bedside again asking me to come play. I thought maybe MacTroll had come back to bed. But no, he wasn't there. He wasn't in X-man's room either. I shouted for him and he was elsewhere in the house. I'll bet my VW that it was in front of an iPhone or a computer somewhere.

He responded immediately, in that "damn, I'm busted" tone, and went to play with X-man. At 8 a.m. on the dot, I hear MacTroll walking around to my side of the bed. He pats me on my left shoulder. The one I had to remind him all week was tender due to my tetanus/whooping cough vaccine on Wednesday. So when people touch it, it's like someone is pushing their finger into a deep bruise causing a fit of pain.

"Whoops, sorry! I'm going to go and get a blood test," he said.

"What?" I stammer, my eyebrows furrowing even further. 

"I am supposed to get a blood test as a follow up to my physical. So I'm going to go now."

"You never mentioned this to me this week."

"Well, I forgot until now."

"Can you take X-man with you?" I ask.

SILENCE

He looks toward the curtains that are pulled closed at the window.

MORE SILENCE

"I don't know how to do that if I'm getting blood drawn for a while and he's running around," he finally responded.

"Put him in the stroller," I responded offering a solution.

SILENCE

"I guess this means that you want to keep sleeping," he said.

"Yes," I answered.

"How long do you want to sleep for?"

"Until I'm not tired any more," I answered closing my eyes.

SILENCE

"Did he eat breakfast?" I ask.

"He had some juice and goldfish crackers."

"That's not a healthy breakfast."

"It's what he wanted."

"That's fine, but that's one element you put on his plate. You put all the other stuff around it."

SILENCE

"I guess I won't get my blood drawn," he says quietly.

"Thousands of other people take their kids with them everywhere, every day."

"I know. I know. I know," he says standing up.

SILENCE

"Well, you go back to sleep, then," he says as he walks out of the room.

Fat fucking chance now. But it took me at least an hour to work through the conversation and think of several reasons why I'm crazy about my husband before I could write about it without wanting to throw breakable shit across the room.

Any parent who is the primary caretaker of their child knows how you end up taking your kid with you everywhere. How you never get to get dressed alone or pee alone. How you take your kids to your doctor's appointments, if you have to. Or how you have to NOT go places because you have your kids, and it's not appropriate for them to go. And this is one of those things he doesn't get about my day-to-day life: 

What I need or want doesn't usually matter.