The School For Good Mothers

We took the kids out tonight a bit too late to see an open mic night at a coffee shop. It was great. A typical line up for that sort of place, but fun. A night out we couldn’t have contemplated even a year ago. 

When we got home, in anticipation of a quick decline in mood, I started with the arrival instructions as we walked from the car. Go inside. Shoes off. Hang up your jacket in your closet. Bathroom. Hand washing. Bed. Nothing unreasonable. But 5 minutes later when I walk in the room, none of it has been done.

Shoes everywhere. Coats on the floor along with dirty socks and piles of shed clothing shells whose layers you can see like the age lines in a tree. Rings of socks inside panties inside pants, blanketed by shirt-and-sweatshirt drifts. Books lying prone under beds, rugs, toys, and—most horrifying—the birthday slime bucket that literally made me gasp when it came out of the packaging. A foot-long smear of dried slime has embedded glitter into the antique wooden chair I’ve used since I was in my 20s. 

I lose it as calmly as I can. I pick up dirty clothes, shoes, jackets and toss them into the closet. Close the door. Turn out the light. I pile books and confiscate the bucket of slime. I just need to see the floor clear so I don’t feel like I like in a fucking barn. The whole time I’m muttering my list of frustrations. 

“How can you guys live like this? We spent hours over break cleaning and organizations and you haven’t put a single thing away since. Why? Why do you want your toys messed up? Is this the way you’re supposed to treat your books? Didn’t I tell you no slime on the clothes, bed, furniture? It sticks to everything. Didn’t I tell you to hang up your jacket?”

I can feel my husband bristling from the other room as he steers clear of this squall. It feels like a further abandonment, since the kids room might as well not exist in the architecture of the apartment as it is in his head. I don’t know if he just doesn’t care to keep it clean, or if his mothers’ incessant childhood cleaning has trained him to assume it’s someone else’s problem. It’s not a place I feel super supported in our marriage, let’s just leave it there.

All the while I’m grumbling the guilt builds. I shouldn’t be breathing my children about their cleaning habits before bed. I shouldn’t wreck an evening with my spouse because I can’t ignore the kid filth for a night. I know this. But I’m fuckimg sick of saying things to my kids and being ignored and lied to. I’m fucking enraged by my spouse’s annoyance with me when I feel like he’s almost as lacking in give a shit as the kids are. It’s exhausting. It’s got me hyped and even though I’m doing my best not to really get mad…I just can’t stop this frustration from bubbling up. 

It ends with one daughter asleep. One in tears, self-flagellating for her stupidity (“please don’t talk badly about your self my love”). And my spouse and I barely speak until bedtime.

The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan is the sort of book where you think you know what you’re reading, and then in a page it turns, and you don’t. 

In the world of Ms. Chan’s School, the lack of self-controlled parenting I displayed tonight could have gotten me taken from my kids, potentially forced to terminate parental rights for my untrustworthy and unloving behavior. It’s not just a cutting takedown of the state’s freewheeling lack of concern for parental bonds, however fucked up they may seem to some. (Or how fucked up they can actually be in some instances.) It’s also a rigorous interrogation of the feelings of authentic parenting. Can you trust your instincts? Should you? If you’re fucked up, can you ever have a chance to raise not-fucked-up kids? And if you can, how much work, self-sacrifice and discipline does it take? 

Chan’s astute descriptions of the high school cafeteria that is contemporary motherhood hits home on too many levels. Somehow managing to elegantly take down white feminism, neo-liberal wokeness, cultural superiority and the underhanded competitiveness of female intimacy in vivid clips of mealtime conversations. Crafting a central character in Frida who feels utterly righteous, relatable and self-hating - it’s a poignant reflection for the reader who can’t help but assess their own parenting mistakes with the lens of inherent criminality. For those without kids, this is the sort of story that could convince or confirm that it’s just not worth the pain of continuous loss associated with growing humans. 

I’m already plenty aware that I can be a better parent. More skilled at managing my own and my kids emotions. More playful. More understanding. More patient. More empowering. Less angry. I can envision the fully-resourced parenting of some stay-at-home wealthy person’s reality. But is loving your kids through the stress and suck of limited choices, time, money a more meaningful parenting experience? Doesn’t it better prepare kids for the likelihood of their own lives? And can’t we just forgive ourselves for the inevitable damage in spite of the best intentions? Can we parent without the panopticon? Without the internal judgment that always says you’re not doing/giving/being enough?

These are a handful of the topics Jessamine Chan battles in her book. It’s a mind-fuck, a constant wonder, and a curious journey through the (often self-inflicted) trials of parenthood. I loved it. 

I read it in 8 hours, 1 minute over 3 days on the Libby app. 

I’m not editing. Just posting. Don’t judge me for the typos. 

The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan

Altepehua Atlas

Possibly a repeat post, I was cleaning out my dropbox today and rediscovered this incredible project by the talented (and no doubt, gainfully employed former USC student) Diana Hughes.

It's the Altepehua Atlas, and it's fascinating. From the first time I saw it, I've wanted to use it as the source for a game design.

Since I'm too lame to figure out how to embed a PDF (and you can no longer download this amazing thing from Diana's USC website), I've turned it into a series of jpgs...

 

The future of school

Becoming a parent has changed everything for me. It's not that I didn't hold the same set of values and beliefs before, it's that enacting them has become intensely, critically important now that my daughter has to grow up in this world.

The bane of my existence for the first...well, for my life so far...has been education. Or, rather, school.

School sucks. Everything about it is frustrating, enraging, confusing, archaic, and counterintuitive. I've felt that way since my first day in school, and I still feel that way today.

I've said for many years that I want to start a school - a place where I could dispose of all the systems, incentives, and relationship dynamics that resulted in my hating school with a stultifying passion. The problem, after all, is not the idea of a school. The idea of a school is wonderful, exciting, inspiring! It's the current construction of school that is so disappointing. And that can be changed.

Thanks to another seed of inspiration from my mom (via this link, plainly embedded in an email titled "Have you considered Framingham MA?"), this issue now occupies the majority of my attention...

Some day Artemis will have to go to school.
Do we attempt to support her and assuage the inevitable feelings of frustration, confusion and humiliation as she adapts to the NYC public school system?
Do we sacrifice our financial future to fund a private school education that is questionably more effective and demanding?
Do we leave Brooklyn?
Do we homeschool?
Do we search out a school that embodies a different philosophy, here or elsewhere?
Do we realize our fantasy of building a school that reaches out to the whole person? And when, when do we do that?

The way I see it, the clock is ticking. At the best, we could delay her entrance into school until she's 6...forever if we commit to homeschooling, but the requirements for that in NYC are already ridiculous. They presume compliance with the evil corporation that is "Common Core" requirements. There are standardized tests and worksheets involved... And can we afford it?

What I know for certain is that I can't set this aside and just accept what's handed out, or gulp down my aversion and join the rat race that is charter school admissions in Brooklyn... I don't want to be one of those parents that's harping and harassing the "good schools", because parental involvement in school is worse than neglect - that lack of trust communicated to your kid and to the teachers and staff? No. Hell no.

Becoming a parent makes me want to be an activist... Don't mow your lawn, let the wilderness grow! Everybody bike! Turn off your lights! Buy reusable containers! Buy organic! Grow your own! Build your own! Design better! Play outside! Dance ugly! Sing your own songs! Form cooperatives!

Ada's Apotheosis

From one of the Ada Lovelace profiles...

"Her life was an apotheosis of struggle between emotion and reason, subjectivism and objectivism, poetics and mathematics, ill health and bursts of energy."

Struggle?

I challenge this characterization. Life exists in the tension between emotion and reason, subjectivism and objectivism, poetics and mathematics, ill health and bursts of energy! To believe otherwise is to buy into a narrative that forbids contradictions. That only exists in myth.

And even more...what a wonderful way to see the world! Full of logic, confounded by chaos.

Being able to see that the creation of systems is a human created, arbitrary activity that can encompass literally anything that can be assigned a rational value...perhaps that awareness arises from the acknowledgement of this life tension. It certainly requires a mind that accepts disconnections and contradictions without refuting them.

Ada came into the conversation when Suheir and I were discussing the potential for a poetry game - What would that be? What would it look like? And since the real act of poetry is a surgical truth-telling, and that's awfully hard to set up as a game, could you instead create a database (perhaps crowd-sourced) of values assigned to words that would generate "points" when combined? Would order and grammar and specificity matter, or would abstract or random orderings have the same interpretive value?

???

Ada is the start of all things

I almost wish I'd named our daughter Ada...but Artemis suits her perfectly.

I always do what my friend Suheir says, because when she says something that sticks in my mind, she's always right. She's the queen of the ear-worm.

I was at the Different Games Conference this weekend, and though I loved and laughed at Leigh Alexander's keynote, and was totally curious and engaged by the panel on Sex Games, I still feel like there's something missing from the conversation of games.

Because everything is a game! And where is the discussion of how our systems and incentives are set up to make choices for us? Or force choices that don't let us move outside of those systems? Or question those incentives?

Suheir suggested that I look up Ada Lovelace - whom I of course heard of, but don't know much about - and it turns out that it's really hard to find anything out about her. I guess that shouldn't be too much of a surprise, since she's a woman and she lived before the 21st century...

I'll have to extend the search into primary sources and whatnot, but here's what a quick google search came up with:

Ada and the Babbage Engine, from the Computer History Museum

Ada's Bio, from Yale's Computer Science Dept home page

Analyst, Metaphysician and Founder of Scientific Computing (this one has some helpful sources that I'll be looking into)

Hilariously short profile from the site for Ada Lovelace Day (?)

Of course, Wikipedia, which has the most comprehensive collection of information

More digging to be done...

Universal/Personal

"Science provides a [personal] understanding of a universal experience, and Art provides a universal understanding of a personal experience."

Time to say goodbye

Dear DVF sandals,

You are the most beautiful, comfortable, and functional shoes I've ever worn. I've paired you with everything from cocktail dresses to sarongs, and you've brought me nothing but envious looks and complements.

The holes in your soles are starting to wear away the leather of your footpad, and it's time for you to go to Shoe Heaven. You will be missed, and your pink sisters will never replace you in my heart!

xo

phoebe

Zombies all night, writing all day

Last night I dreamed of being caught in a zombie apocalypse with Mr. Fuzzykins, but the moment that kicked it off is the bit that really tickles me.

So, in the dream me and Mr. Fuzzykins are living in an old clapboard house, very similar to the one I grew up in, but with more neglected gardening in the yard. For the second night in a row, I'm pregnant in the dream, and we decide to walk over to the nearby McDonald's (which, I must point out, I wouldn't actually want to eat if I were 1. awake, and 2. not pregnant). So we go and get our McWhatevers, and then I suggest that we also stop at Taco Bell (because what goes better with your Mickey Ds than a side of bean burritos or chalupas or other ridiculous fauxican food?) and Mr. Fuzzykins stands in line, orders, and doesn't ask me if I want anything. So, I do what any hungry pregnant woman would do - I burst into angry tears and storm out of there, yelling about how inconsiderate he is!

But, when I step out into the semi-mallish, semi-suburban neighborhood, it's clear that all hell has broken out...sort of. It actually looks like any low-income semi-urban neighborhood where nobody gives a shit and does stuff like leave the carts from the strip mall grocery store in the middle of the empty parking lot. But there is food around, and you don't really see that much.

At this point, we're so wrapped up in our own argument, we notice the mild chaos around the hood, but we don't really take it in. (Then again, if you were in the midst of a zombie apocalypse, would that ever be the first thing you'd guess as the explanation for odd human behavior? Probably not til you saw zombies eating people.) When don't even have a chance to resolve our argument before we get attacked by our first zombie and go running back to the house.

The dream got pretty elaborate from there... We fought off zombies, gathered supplies, took in some neighbors and thought we had weathered most of the storm...until we see a giant tour bus of very happy people pull up and start flooding the street in front of the house! As we and our crew of randoms look around like WTF, one of us decides to step outside and warn them about the zombies...

When whoever it is - not me - steps outside and gets their attention, they storm our house en masse and start eating people. So their response to the zombie apocalypse was more of an "if you can't beat em, join em"...and they decided to survive with cannibalism. Somehow, a number of us convince them to keep us alive and set up a sort of fortress in our neighborhood...

I just hope my child doesn't have to grow up in a commune of cannibals fighting off zombies. Either way, I wake up hungry.

In my waking life, I'm embarking on the most terrifying project I've ever taken on: a novel. Holy shit what have I gotten myself into?!

Today at the Planetarium

Maybe it was just the exhaustion of shuffling 18 kids between 4 and 13 years old on two trains, then through the Hayden Planetarium and trying to keep them quiet enough to hear the fraking voiceover, but when I hear - in the middle of Journey to the Stars - that we all have star material in us, I just can't help crying!

Even more tearjerking is the knowledge that I will be passing that star power into the form of my little alien. It gave me a hint of that thing that all parents talk about - the sense that when you have kid(s), you are part of the continuity of life. And not just humanity, but the universe and everything.

Meh, I'm sounding so momish already. Good thing I've got the boobs and starter-bump to prove it.

Light Space

Inspector Sophington

Every time I clean the apartment - which, admittedly, is not that often - the dog acts like I've ruined all the important fur shedding work she's been putting in since the last cleaning. She huffs around, looks dejected, and watches me resentfully. Afterwords, she walks the perimeter, sniffing intently in all the corners. 

I may be reading into it a bit, granted, but I find it particularly hilarious. Especially since I'm allergic, every time I clean I feel like Napoleon in Russia - totally helpless against the onslaught of forces (aka dog fur and dander) beyond my control - because we both know it's a battle I will always lose. 

Studies in Human Parasitism: Anxiety Dreaming

They say that pregnant women are way more likely to lose their shit, but so far that hasn't happened to me much...while I'm awake.

Ok so maybe last night I cried over the household chores, but I do that on a monthly basis anyway. Mr. Fuzzykins is like "hey, the sheets are in the closet where sheets go - isn't that 'put away'?" While I'm more the type to sort sheets into sets, stack them neatly, and have them ready to go when I need them...What? The nuance is lost on you, too? Well, then you are not anal. Congrats!

So my emotional life hasn't seemed way out of control to me. But my dreams have been fucking bonkers! Not only are they long, involved and unusually vivid, they are emotionally intense in a way that I've rarely experienced since childhood. And interestingly, they are often about deeply anxiety provoking things - either my personal and/or professional shortcomings (like night before last's train filled dream where my mom got mad at me for not fulfilling my promise as a writer), or about loss.

Lately the loss dreams have focused not on losing people to death or injury or things that are terribly sad but don't terrify me during waking hours, but about losing track of people, especially Mr. Fuzzykins. I usually wake up and have to look around and be certain that my waking life is as I left it - they're that convincing.

Last night's dream was almost hilarious, except that I woke up at the point where I was sobbing and trying to yell but unable to use my voice. 

Here's the setup: Mr. Fuzzykins and his BFF, and a woman who must've been BFF's wife (although her personage was not distinct in the way that some dream people can be) hop in the car to go to a barbecue joint I'm really excited about. It's unclear whether this BBQ joint is in Rhode Island or Delaware, but regardless, it's a place I've only seen while passing through and I've never been there before. When we get there, rather than being an authentic and mouthwatering rib shack, it has the plastic tables and faux jolly staff of a fast food joint, and I can tell from the second we walk in that the barbecue is gonna suck. So we have a powwow. Mr. Fuzzykins, who is even more a slave to his stomach than pregnant me, is all for staying and giving it a try. His BFF and BFF's wife are hungry, but happy to go along with the whims of the Hungry Pregnant Woman. So I talk Mr. Fuzzykins back into the car so we can go to another place I think I've seen from the train (oddly that is a reference from real life - a spot in Wilmington DE that looks a little sports bary but good) , but in the parking lot we run into my friend Melissa who's there meeting up with her bridesmaids, and you can tell because half of them are wearing ridiculous pink prom dresses. (That's one of the best things about dreams - I was actually in Melissa's wedding, and it was as unlike my dream of it as it is possible to be.) I stop to say hi of course, and get unintentionally swept into the pack of bridesmaids. When I look around for Mr. Fuzzykins, he's nowhere to be seen! I wander around the parking lot looking for the car, but it's gone. And then I walk through the restaurant - still, no sign. I reach into my pocket to get my phone, and instead of my iphone I find some gargantuan phone that is definitely not mine! Somehow I unlock it and try to dial Mr. F, but every time I try to plug in the numbers the phone takes me to another screen or quick dials a person I'm not trying to reach. At this point I start to get really upset. I try to make my way through the multiplying bridesmaids to Melissa so she can help me dial the number, but I can't seem to make her understand what's happening. Then a girl comes over and claims the gargantuan phone that, it turns out, is hers. I ask for mine in return - thinking maybe we'd switched - but she doesn't have it and after a search through all the bridesmaids cars, I can't find my phone either! By now I'm really alarmed. So much so that I am sobbing uncontrollably and crouching on the ground. But now - as if things could get any worse - the troop of bridesmaids, with Melissa at their core, start to shuffle into the fast food barbecue place. And as I try to yell after her, I realize I can't muster more than a whisper because my throat is so parched from crying!

This is when I wake up, look over at the real Mr. Fuzzykins in our bed, and then rush to the bathroom. Because peeing all the time is a real thing that happens - don't wait to find the dream-bathroom, it's too late then.

Studies in Human Parasitism: Hongry, Hangry, Tigry

Latest news from the alien invasion:

1. my boobs are GINORMOUS! it's awesome having a spectacular rack.

2. my belly is keeping pace (poo!), but I get to walk around with my gut hanging over my belt with pride and singing "I don't think you're ready for this belly" over and over in my head.

3. I am hungry all the time! (hence, the belly) And there are three variations of hungry. 

Hongry: So fucking hungry that I can eat a cow, or two. 

Hangry: So fucking hungry that I'm soul-strippingly angry and cruel to everyone who gets between me and the aforementioned cows.

Tigry: So fucking tired and hungry that I have a headache, feel depressed, and have to lie around for several hours watching crap TV on the Internet while I debate between eating and sleeping.

4. Y'know, you actually don't have to buy into the insane fear-mongering and obsessive materialism that is modern day baby culture. If I could head out into the woods and pop this sucker out, I would. But for now I'm just thankful to the doula I talked to yesterday who basically debunked all the "Oh you really must ....!" And one visit to Babies R Us gave me and Mr. Fuzzykins hives and heart palpitations...cloth diapers, minimal stuff, and homemade toys all the way!

So, SNL is funny again (?) or it's just Jamie Foxx as the Ding Dong

I think in code now

animate:
    actions:
        - { action: character.show, name: phoebe, position: center, speed: slow }
    after:
        dialog:
              speaker: phoebe
              style: all_caps
              text: "ZOMG! MY BRAIN ONLY WORKS IN CODE NOW!"
              after: phoebe_reacts
phoebe_reacts:
    dialog:
         speaker: phoebe
         style: normal
         text: "I guess the only solution is..."
         after:
             choice:
                 options:
                     - text: "...turn off my computer and cry myself to sleep!"
                       selected:
                           increment:
                                         cry_baby: 1
                           action: oh_nevermind
                      - text: "...become an itinerant laborer and organic farm hand!"

                        selected:

                            increment:

                                         okay_hippie: 1

                            action: oh_nevermind

                       - text: "...munch and munch til I'm done with the crunch!"

                         selected:

                             increment:

                                          keep_on: 1

                             action: oh_nevermind

oh_nevermind:
    if:
        test: { cry_baby: 1 }
        then:
            dialog:
                speaker: phoebe
                style: whiny_baby
                text: "whaaaaaaah!"
                after: fin
    else:
         if:
             test: { okay_hippie: 1 }
             then:
                 dialog:
                     speaker: phoebe
                     style: sarcastic
                     text: "Everyone has an escape plan..."
                     after: fin
        else:
            dialog:
                speaker: phoebe
                style: peppy
                text: "Go girl! You got this!"
                after: fin
fin:
    animate:
        actions:
            - { action: character.remove, name: phoebe, speed: fast }
        after:

Gross, Sophie!

You got dog hair stuck under my A key.

THAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANKS dog.

Afternoon #DanceBreak! Five Seconds - @thetwinshadow

If you happened to see a screaming woman on the side of the New Jersey turnpike Thursday night...

that was me.

trying to stop my beloved fiance, who was running away from me on the southbound shoulder of the turnpike, because we were having the fight of the century over the definition of "enhancements" as it applies to professional athletes, and therefore what types of medical technologies should be considered regulatable and, thereby, illegal.

because that's what really matters, ok?

thank you for the photo, Matthew Gallaway

turns out we were both feeling stressed about other things and too much looking forward to spending time together.

#AfternoonDanceBreak: Shuffle A Dream @twittledragon

Pretty convinced this is about Kanye West...

You're So Vain for the 21st century

Everybody's so serious...

Look. My heart stopped when I heard there'd been a bomb at the Boston Marathon - there are plenty of people I love there, and no one needs to get blown up. Especially no one that's just run 27 miles.

But it's adorable that there's this little trope formed on the late night comedy shows on Monday...

Stephen


Jon
[evidently I can't embed more than one video from hulu]

Craig
[evidently, CBS doesn't believe in embed codes]

Conan
[also, not an embedder...]