Ugly

For the last week, I've been reading Steve Almond's Not That You Asked, a collection of his personal stories some written about writing, some not. Steve is an instructor at Grub and I might be a bit of a groupie.

So, the other night I was tucked in, comfy, wearing my PJ's - the ones with the elephants playing golf while drinking martinis (The elephants were drinking, not me. They make me smile, though I also suspect they might be Republicans, so maybe the joke is on me.) - cruising through Steve's book when something I read almost knocked me off the bed.

It was a chapter about how all great writers are ugly. Not just ugly in the physical sense, though he meant that too, but ugly emotionally. Freaks.

When I was in the fifth grade, my lunch table was in close proximity to a group of girls called the barrettes. They didn't call themselves that of course, but they all wore barrettes with ribbon woven in alternating colors, a different color pairing for each outfit. My barrettes were the metal undersides of theirs, unadorned. The "before" version of the ones they wore.

One day one of the barrettes called out to me. I stood up, surprised that she was talking to me, and approached the table. She handed me something in a small packet. My heart raced.

"Beauty cream," she said, "you need it." The girls all laughed. I walked back to my table and slipped the packet into my pocket.

So there it was. Not pretty. Ugly.In many ways, I have always been that girl.

So what struck me about Steve's story was that this part of me - the tendency to over emotionalize, over internalize, over analyze everything - in other words, the ugly freak thing, is actually okay. It is, as far as writing goes, an asset. Something to be cultivated.

Finally, the fact that I look at myself in the mirror and always see the "before", the me without the ribbons, is a good thing, and also not something I have to worry about growing out of. Which is such a relief, because I am almost forty and starting to feel pretty sure it isn't going to happen.

Sticker Chart

Little Guy is going through a phase. Testing at every turn. On a good day, the kid has a ton of energy, but for the last few weeks, it has gone up a notch. Likely we're hitting a developmental spurt, but seriously, he's killing me. He wants my attention constantly. When he doesn't have it, he's doing whatever it takes to get it.

I decided to put him on a reward system. Bribery by way of the sticker chart. We went to Walgreens and picked out some Toy Story stickers. I explained the plan to him.

"So I'll get a toy when I earn my stickers?" he asked.

Yes, I said. Ten stickers, and you can have the rocket launcher (don't ask).

But then we got to the part about how he earned the stickers - no hitting his sister, behaving at dinner, no name calling. He looked distressed. He asked if he could just get them for going potty, something he's been doing since the end of last summer.

Can you just get the reward for something you already do well? Um, no. Sorry buddy, that's not how it works.

But wouldn't it be nice if we could all stack the deck a little?

About last night

Last night was bizarre. I met a small group downtown to review a few pieces of writing. A couple of us planned to attend the spring workshop reading at Grubstreet afterward. A friend of mine dared me to read a flash fiction piece and after a few beers, both of us decided to go for it.

The reading went really well. It was amazing actually. Afterwards our instructor lavished us with praise and I experienced some sort of literary euphoria. Smiling, tingly, and a little sweaty. Like a first kiss. But before I could really soak that in, a man approached me.

I didn't quite put it together at first, but he was someone I'd met awhile back. He was trying to start a writing group near my house. He turned out to be a little aggressive, alienated the entire group (12 or so people dropped out, more than half before our first meeting), and had his meetup group officially removed, twice. Red flags all around. I was starting a new class at Grub, so I politely told him that I couldn't work it out.

Except he showed up at the reading. It felt like he hung out a while near the elevators, so I'd have to talk to him. It was weird because while the thing is technically open to the public, usually the event is just for people who've taken a class that session. He followed us outside and then proceeded to chat us up on the sidewalk for awhile. Puffing away, asking about the classes, commenting on the readings, etc. I urged him to take the novel class and extracted myself. He'd likely take the same train as me, so I left with a friend and waited it out at a nearby bar, we needed to go over some things anyway. He's probably a harmless enough guy, he owns a business near my house and has for many years. Still. Not sure if that will be the end of the story.

So finally I head for the trains and they are all late. I am waiting and waiting, texting the sitter. I get on a train and it stops twice. Lights out, no explanation. At one point the train expresses to the final stop and I have to get off and catch another train. By this time, my sitter is not going to make her train home, so I call her a cab before I even get there. Cab, sitter, killing time at the bar, I've spent a small fortune on this evening.

She leaves and texts me to say that the cab got pulled over. I stay up to wait for her and Little Guy wakes up with a nightmare. It is now past 1 AM and I am downstairs when I hear his feet hit the floor. He runs to my bedroom looking for me, but of course, I am still awake and in the kitchen. I head up there, walk him back to his bed and he says, "Mommy can you just be in your bed now?"

So it was one hell of a night, both awesome and weird, but he was right, at that point I really just needed to be in my bed.

Lockdown

Girlie came home yesterday and mentioned that there had been a lockdown at her school. She told me this over lunch and only after I asked how her day had been, a good twenty minutes after she arrived.

Apparently, the bank down the street had been robbed and the guy escaped on foot into the neighborhood. While no one at the bank saw a weapon, the man said that he had one. The school is less than a mile from my house, and just a block from the bank, so the police contacted the school and the staff was told to issue a lockdown. The doors were locked, blinds pulled, and the kids had to sit along the wall, away from the doors.

I asked Girlie how it all went down. She said the principal made the announcement over the intercom system, stating that the request was not a drill. She said her teachers were very calm and the students had been quiet and orderly. She said she wasn't really scared.

At the end of the story she shrugged and said "It's not like anything could happen."

I ate my sandwich and let her believe that.

Motivation

There is this little nook at the top of my stairs where I fantasize that my desk will be when I am a "real writer." You know, when both kids are in school all day and I sit down to write my second best selling novel. Right now, I have a dresser in that spot, because we need the extra storage and also because the nook is next to the bedrooms and I could never get any work done up there in the wee hours while the kids are sleeping.

I like to imagine that the kids really hold back my creativity, that I'd be such an amazing writer if they were a little older or I was a little younger.

The truth is, given an entire day with no interruptions, I'd probably squander it. As it stands, I get more passionate, more motivated, in some ways, because there is so little time to do it. I have to make it happen.

And because, let's face it, this is all I've got going on right now.