Working

I am supposed to be reading that book "Leaning In" for book club. I will read it--I just haven't gotten around to it yet. I've been avoiding weighing in on this whole issue, because the thing that annoys me the most about this whole so-called "debate" about women working outside the home is not the usual gripe; it's not about gender roles or empowerment. I've been avoiding it, but then I woke up early (like always) and started to read the Sunday paper before heading out to the gym (like always). I started reading an editorial about how this whole debate has been framed in the wrong way, because we are asking the wrong questions. This is going to be great! I thought. But no, the question we apparently should be asking is this:

Are you deriving joy from your job or your decision to stay at home? What makes you feel most fulfilled as a person?

And then I found myself doing that thing called "rage quitting" as I sat there muttering to myself while my entire family slept peacefully upstairs.

This whole debate is such an upper-middle class load of bullshit.

I say this as someone who has found herself living an upper-middle class life herself, a life she will probably never really feel comfortable in nor understand.

Life is not about deriving joy, feeling satisfied, or getting to do what you've always dreamed of doing. It's great if you have that privilege. But this article stated that the best way to be a parent is to show your children that you are fulfilled.

So what about everyone else? What about the people who work outside the home because that is the only option? Because shit costs money, and even if it's hard and even if it's meaningful and even if it's what you'd rather be doing, no one is paying anyone to stay at home with their own children? What about the people who stay home because they can't find jobs, or because they can't find jobs that pay enough to justify the child care expenses? What about those who need to care for aging parents or disabled spouses? What about the people who, GASP, work jobs they don't even LIKE, for bosses they can't stand, in less than ideal working conditions?

Are these people worse parents than the tiny percentage of folks who are out there living the dream while they pay someone else to clean their house and cook their food?

I'm tired of it. We live in a society that has been absolutely crushed by a horrible economic crisis. And then we pull out this tripe where we tell our kids they can do anything they want to do--we fill their heads with this so often and so early that they begin to see themselves as failures if that's not how their lives turn out. We talk about following your passion and breaking the glass ceiling and we listen to millionaires, whether they are women or men, tell ordinary people how they should live their lives as if those people have a freaking clue.

Growing up, with a father who was a teacher and a mother who stayed home except when she worked minimum wage jobs because she had to, I learned this lesson: I was being raised to be a productive member of society. That was the goal, according to my mother. The GOAL IN LIFE was to not feel entitled, to use my talents to do something useful if I had the chance, but to never assume that I was entitled to that chance. I was expected to get good grades because that was my WORK. Also, I began working when I was 11. Working for MONEY. In high school I used that money to buy my own clothes and help my mom pay the light bill. I understood that one of the greatest manifestations of parental love was watching your parent go to a low-paying job because she needed to feed you.

Most people have jobs, not careers. Most people need to work--for MONEY--for decades and decades. Most people do not go to college at all, much less graduate school or medical school or law school for crissakes. For many people, retirement is a a dream, not a reality. And yet we are steeped in this rhetoric that assumes that no one is happy just HAVING A JOB, because everyone wants to be the boss man or everyone's got that fire in her belly or everyone is trying to figure out how to cure cancer or be a rock star.

I used to love hearing my mother's mother and my father's father talk about their jobs. My grandmother was a legal secretary for many years, when suburban women weren't supposed to work and they definitely weren't supposed to be DIVORCED. I loved hearing her talk about dreaming in shorthand, riding the train, planning her boss's schedule, seeing the lake from her desk, matching her clip-on earrings to her necklace every day. My grandfather was in insurance, but I never once heard him talk about that aspect of his job. He talked about the social stuff--drinking with clients, going to steak houses, smoking cigars in historic buildings. So on the one hand, I learned that the TASKS of working could be the fulfilling and interesting part--learning to write in code, doing someone else's bidding--and on the other, that part of working was the people associated with it, and the job itself was less important than the access it gave you to the rest of your life.

So if your favorite part of your job is the gym at the office and the commute (looking in the mirror), you are not a bad parent. If your favorite part of your job is getting the hell out of there and going to have a beer with your co-workers afterwards and bitching about your boss, you are not a bad parent. If your favorite part of your job is COMING HOME, so what? If your favorite part of staying home with the kids is when they leave and you have the house to yourself, who cares? Who are we kidding? Do we think that housework is fulfilling all the time? That raising children is just joy after joy? There is drudgery in everything, and that doesn't make things meaningless. For most people, satisfaction comes from small moments of grace and insight--both at home and at work--amidst the mundane and the chaotic.

I have built this supposedly interesting career for myself. At one point, I was even very well-known in some circles. I have done fulfilling work--I have been a part of the low-paid advocacy groups that successfully forced financial institutions to change their abusive lending patterns years before anyone else (including liberal politicians) admitted there was a problem. I have been LUCKY, in addition to hard-working. I fell into this career. I answered an ad IN A NEWSPAPER for a job that sounded interesting, knowing nothing about the work I would be doing. I was hired because they thought I wrote an excellent cover letter, everyone liked me, and the senior staff was about to go on vacation, so they figured they would hire me. Thus began my life in policy research and financial services at age 23. I never saw it coming, nor planned for it.

I'm going to take a deep breath here and admit something. I'm not sure that I'm more FULFILLED because I have had a chance to do this big-thinking work. I have loved other jobs, some of them irrationally. I was a secretary for the summer when I was 19, working for the single most dysfunctional office you could imagine. Seriously, I could write a book about the sexism and the racism and the crazy shit that happened there. I used a radio to tell electricians what jobs needed doing, I did a lot of paperwork, and in general I managed everything while our boss was out golfing. At the end of every insane day, I felt...FULFILLED. I felt like I had done a lot of things, that loose ends had been tied up, that my day had been busy and interesting and tiring. I held that job because the woman who worked it before me was retiring--after 20 years. She worked for those crazy people for 20 years, doing a job that wouldn't affect anyone else outside of the office, and you know what? She missed it.

When I was 18 I worked at a bookstore. I made $5 an hour. I hated aspects of that job, including standing up for 8 hours and dealing with customers. I loved other things, like working in this space literally called "the cage," where I dealt with special orders in a tiny claustrophobic room and got to find out things like who had a penchant for German poetry or soft porn. One day, while I was working the register, a pregnant woman came over and put "What to Expect When You're Expecting" on the counter. I told her to wait a minute. I walked over to the overstock section and brought back the exact same book, with a hole punched in the cover to mark it as overstock. I said "this is the same book, but it's $5, and that one is $25. You're going to have a baby. You should get the cheap one." She was very grateful to me. The man behind her, all dressed up in suit and tie and reeking of cigar smoke and money, chastised me: "Honey, you need to earn that money they're paying you! Your job is to make the company money, not help pregnant ladies. You're a pretty girl but you have a lot to learn." Then, this dude asked for a copy of the Tonya Harding Penthouse edition that had just come out that week. I gave it to him (they were kept behind the counter and creepy guys always came into MY line to ask for porn, as opposed to the lines of my male co-workers) in a see-through plastic bag. I lied to his face and told him we were out of paper bags. He left looking embarrassed, trying to hide the magazine from people as he walked. I took my break soon after, and blew an hour's worth of wages on an iced coffee with whipped cream.

It's been 19 years, and that 15 minutes from pregnant lady to coffee stands out as maybe the finest moment of job satisfaction that I've ever had.

Sometimes, people work because they have to or because they want to, and sometimes people work because they wouldn't know what else to do. In my family, we could alter our lives so that one of us could stay home with the kids. That one of us would probably be Gabe, because he would enjoy staying home more than I would. But this is probably never going to happen--because we don't know how to not have jobs. We are both terrified of not working, because no matter our actual situation, we will always feel one step away from the poorhouse. Gabe will always be the guy who we use to get the kids to eat. We do not say that kids are starving in far off locations or in other neighborhoods of the city. We say, you know, a lot of people grow up HUNGRY, and then Gabe glares at them from across the table and eats all of the rest of their food whether he is hungry or not. I will always be the kid who sent money home to her mom in college rather than the other way around. I am that mom who rips a ridiculously long article out of the paper about strawberry-pickers and tells my daughter to read it, so that she understands that food shouldn't be wasted not just because some people don't have access to it (and those people could even be you sometime) but because people work their asses off producing that food.

We Americans seem so convinced that happiness comes through personal fulfillment. We consider ourselves enlightened if we think that happiness comes from serving others. Sometimes--most of the time--happiness comes from a decision to be happy as you live as a hard-working person in the world. Every survey that has ever been done on happiness shows that we are actually less happy (read: FULFILLED) than people in many developing countries. It's as if we have so many examples of happiness and fulfillment that are so extreme--celebrity culture, millionaire mother CEOs--that we have forgotten how to be happy with regular life.

This can be really problematic, even for very privileged people. People who want to be lawyers because of the exciting stuff they see on TV can become really disillusioned by the actual job itself, with the paperwork and the ridiculous hours. My mom once dated an obstetrician who thought delivering babies was boring, tedious. I can't count the number of managers I've met who lament the fact that they are so busy managing that they don't have time to do the work that they used to enjoy.

If everyone is chasing a fantasy, the reality of that fantasy can be a crushing blow even once it is achieved.

I hate being asked "where do you see yourself in 5 years" by managers or prospective employers. I always want to say: "gainfully employed, healthy and with a roof over my head," but I know I am supposed to recite some line about management or expanding my skill set or something. I'm supposed to be obsessed with getting MORE out of my job/career; I'm supposed to hate working for others as opposed to being my own boss; I'm supposed to look for ways to claw my way to the top.

Please.

Do you know when I have felt most proud of myself as a working mother?

I have never been prouder of myself than when I was going through chemo, after having had two breast surgeries. Yes, I went to work, and did very well, actually, earning a bonus and a raise that hellish year. Yes, I mothered my kids, though we had lots of help with things like meals. But the moments when I was proudest were those when I knew what was happening in my body--I knew that the derivative of mustard gas, combined with the drug so toxic it stopped some people's hearts, had destroyed my ovaries, my hair, my mucous membranes, my digestive system and my immunity. I felt proudest when I put one foot in front of the other and made it to the goddamn train. During my performance review that year, my manager asked me what I wanted to be doing in five years. I knew she wouldn't take it the wrong way when I said:

"I want to still be here."

So if you have the opportunity to follow your passion, whether that means staying home with kids or starting a charity or working for yourself or being an artist or a plumber or a CEO, good for you. But if you are just plugging along, as most people are, GOOD FOR YOU TOO. There's nothing wrong with that. Your worth as a person, as a woman, as a parent, should not be derived from which side of an elitist debate you hail from, because your situation might change, and you will still be the same person, with the same amount of worth.

People always ask me when I will quit my day job to become a writer. I always say that I can't imagine doing that. Again, I fear not having a paying job, with a regular paycheck and health insurance, and that fact does not make me a lesser person than you. But there is another reason I would never do that. I like having a separation between my work and my passion. To me, work is work. Writing is NOT work. I know I could change a lot of things and find sponsors and advertisers and get paid to write this blog or something else. Kudos to my friends who do that. I just don't want to do this for anyone else. I want to do this the way I want to do it, all the time. I don't want to ever have to write because I have to or about something specific or by Tuesday at noon. I do that with my job. I see my husband, a guy who built a career in IT out of his hobby, lament the time he used to spend tinkering on computers for fun. I listen to the wives of carpenters talk about how he never does any work around their own house. I hear the words of my grandmother, the legal secretary who loved wearing spectators and costume jewelry and walking around among the masses in Chicago at rush hour, discuss her various arts. She could do this amazing embroidery, sewing, knitting; she made these rag rugs that no one else I know could make, even when her eyesight was practically gone. These are the kinds of rugs that last forever and could sell for a decent amount of money. She lived on a fixed income in a subsidized retirement community and struggled to pay for medications and utilities. Couldn't she sell those rugs, couldn't she earn a little money from all the things she made?

"Well, yes I could, honey. But then it would be WORK. I do this for the love."

Insomnia

I have insomnia.

I don't mean that I have insomnia sometimes, or that I get anxious and I can't sleep, or that I need to count sheep. I mean that my inability to sleep is a lifelong reality that I have learned to accept, and that those who love me and live with me have learned to accept as well. I had an epiphany in my 20s that enabled me to manage this issue, and that revelation led to changes in my lifestyle that might seem extreme, or selfish, to some people.

I am now teaching these techniques to my 7 year old daughter, who is a lot like me.

My mom has always told me that I stopped napping at a year old. I would sleep soundly all night long, so soundly she would fear that I was no longer breathing, but once I was up, I was up. And I was always--ALWAYS--moving. I never sat still, though we as a society seem to believe that is a problem that only afflicts little boys. She says that my entire childhood was a "blur" of me dashing through the room. I was also not the most affectionate child on the planet. When she would sing to me for hours as a newborn and I would continue to cry, my mother would wonder what exactly it would take to calm me down. One day, when I was maybe 6 weeks old, she couldn't stand it anymore, and put me down in my crib to "cry it out." I instantly started cooing at my bumpers, happy as a clam.

I just wanted that crazy lady to leave me the hell alone.

I am still like this. I love spooning--for a minute or two. I give a hug and walk away. I snuggle with my kids, but I don't linger. I hate back-rubs. I have perfected the art of getting the boys and men in my life (every single one of whom has been more affectionate than me) to take it down a notch and give me my space.

I am also still the same person who stopped napping at a year old. I never slept much, even as a teenager. I woke up early. I couldn't even nap when I was pregnant or going through cancer treatment. Five hours of sleep is adequate for me. I can be pleasant on less, and if I get more than six hours, it's like a miracle. When I had morbid insomnia from chemo, and I didn't sleep at all for four nights--not at ALL, people--I could still function, and work, though it was hard. When I had menopause and literally never got more than a single hour of sleep in a night--for months at a time--I was fussy and irritable, but I managed. Falling asleep has always required rituals for me, tricking my body into thinking I was doing something else. I used to have "seasonal insomnia" (I made that term up) in the summers in high school. It took me years to figure out why. I've always been little, and jumpy. My metabolism works overtime, with everything--food, drugs, you name it. I've always had more muscle for my frame than seemed normal.

I now believe that all of these things are related.

When I was in my 20s, working two jobs, dating, hanging out with friends, and interminably busy, the insomnia started to grate on me. I was still jumpy, still little, hanging out at a size 4 before vanity sizing had taken effect.

I didn't have a lot of time to exercise.

I took a long walk every day--I had always done that. My need to walk is partly psychological, partly physical. After the car accident I survived at age 9, I had extreme arthritis and bursitis in my hips. If I didn't walk long distances every day, my hips would lock up on me or the pain would be too severe to manage. (This is another reason I don't sleep well--I am a side sleeper, and I can only sleep on one side for maybe 2 hours before the pain in my hip wakes me up and I have to switch positions.) That car accident also gave me a fear of atrophy, since I was immobile for 3 months.

So, I walked in the early mornings when everyone else was asleep. I walked to the train, I putzed around my apartment because I still can't sit still. But I didn't go to the gym--when would I have done that? Two jobs, grad school...

Walking an hour every day at a fast clip (can't run, due to my car accident injuries), a 20 minute routine of situps and pushups and other toning exercises I essentially made up, and swimming in the summer--that was my exercise, and I did it faithfully every day for my entire adult life. It's a hell of a lot more exercise than most people get.

It wasn't enough for me.

I finally realized that I had seasonal insomnia in the summer as a teenager because I was doing less, and therefore moving less. Eventually, I came to the equilibrium I've been at for about the last decade.

If I want to sleep WELL, I will get 3 hours of intense exercise EVERY SINGLE DAY.

I walk, I spin, I do strength training at the gym and at home, I do water aerobics. In the summer I swim, paddleboard, run for an hour through a strong current (I can run in the water--doesn't hurt my joints). I go to the gym three days a week at work (lunchtime) and early in the morning at home 5 days a week. That's in addition to everything else.

I have small children, I work full time--how do I do this? Well, I'm lucky to have a gym at work. It is probably my favorite thing about my job. I'm lucky to have a husband who knows and understands that this is a necessity, not a privilege, for me. He has fond memories of watching me do jumping jacks through the window of my condo after he dropped me off from our dates in the early days. He could eat anything he wants, forget to exercise for two weeks, maintain his six pack at 37 years old, and still fall asleep right in the middle of a goddamn sentence if he wanted to, and he once told me he really wished he could "give me his sleep."

I have listened to people berate me for being small or skinny or having a good metabolism all my life. These people need to keep that shit to themselves, but they also need to recognize something. There are people who look like me who don't exercise at all. I know these people, and they have been blessed with a great metabolism. I would get bigger if I didn't exercise, but that is NOT why I do it. I'm not some vain little mini-sized freak. I also don't exercise like this to reduce breast cancer recurrence, because I was ridiculously active before my diagnosis, so let me just say this once: lack of exercise did NOT give me cancer. Maybe all this exercise will help prevent a recurrence, or maybe not--it doesn't matter. I am not one of the people whose cancer is related to activity, unless I was destined to be a professional athlete who works out 8 hours a day or anything lesser would kill me. That is NOT why I do it.

I just want to sleep. And stay sane.

I want the same thing for my daughter, my 7 year old, who doesn't even weigh 40 pounds. The one who can do one-armed pullups, 42 situps in a minute, 19 pushups in a minute, climb the rope higher than any other kid in her class. She is tiny, and has big arm muscles and a crazy strong core section, and the combination allows her to do these things.

She also isn't very affectionate, and she has trouble sleeping.

My daughter will hug us. She will cuddle with us--for a minute. Then she asks to be left alone. She runs around, even as she loves to just sit and read.

She wakes up before 5 AM on many days--right before I leave to go to the gym or walk. She does this even if she doesn't fall asleep until 9:30. She has told us that she tries counting sheep, but sometimes she is still awake at 10:30. Because she is so quiet, we never knew this was happening.

I could take her with me on walks, but she is short, and therefore slow in comparison to me even when running, and I need to MOVE, not amble--so I don't. We have been telling her to read, to try to go back to sleep. She gets fussy at night.

I changed my strategy just last night. I told her--and my husband, who is not a morning person--that if she woke up early, she should go outside with her dad. He could use the stationary bike on our porch, since even with his tiny body fat percentage self he could use the cardio, and she could jump rope or something. I have also decided to let her come with me in the nice weather sometimes--she can ride her bike while I walk.

She woke up at 4, went back to sleep, woke up again at 5:15 and was UP. I left for a walk at 5:30, told Gabe to get up. When I returned, I asked her what they did. "Daddy used the exercise bike. I ran up and down the hill."

That's it? Were you playing a game or anything?

"No, just running up and down the entire time."

She seemed so happy. I know now that this is what we need to do--we need to find a way for her to move manically, every day, for the same amount of time that I move. It will be hard. Chicago Public Schools allows 20 minutes of recess a day, not always outside. They have gym only 6 times a month. Well, you know what? I work an office job. It's hard, but it's possible. It takes a certain amount of selfishness to continually claim that time for yourself, but everyone around me is better for it, and the same will be true for her. I can teach her that it's ok to be who she is--little, strong, jumpy, manic, stoic, not so affectionate, even that dreaded word SKINNY. We were made this way, and it wasn't a mistake. People will still love you, even if at 7 years old you have already heard so many people say mean things to you about being little, strong, skinny, or stoic.

I was thinking this over breakfast when she was refusing to listen to something I was saying, and in spite of my annoyance, I wanted to give her a hug.

But then I thought better of it and told her to go brush her teeth. She smiled at me, and went charging away.

A LiveChicken Mother's Day

Mother's Day will forever be a strange time for me, thanks to two things: It falls during the same week as the anniversary of my breast cancer diagnosis, and on Mother's Day, thousands of people walk right past my house for a community fundraiser for breast cancer. So it's like Mother's Day=breast cancer around here. It's weird, and sad, and confusing, and there's a lot of pathos and reverse nostalgia mixed into the whole mess.



But that's not the only reason Mother's Day is different in these parts.

The messages of Mother's Day are often lost on me, including the main one: that I should be celebrated because I am a mother and mothering is unbelievable and I am the only mother who could ever mother my children and there is no work more important than this.

I love my kids and I think parenthood is an exciting, entertaining, worthwhile trip. I've learned a lot from them, these small people, probably as much as they've learned from me. I would die for them--literally, I would throw myself under the actual, not just the proverbial, bus for them.

But I'm not LIVING for them. I would be living fully without them. Now--I would not be living fully if I had to live without them NOW, because that would mean something unthinkable had happened. But my life would be worthwhile and meaningful if I had never had kids. People say "I was meant to be a mother," "I always knew I wanted to be a mother," and "this is the only thing I've ever wanted" and I think, huh. Becoming a parent seemed like a natural progression to me and I wanted to have a family with my husband, but I didn't dream of motherhood any more than I ever dreamed of the perfect wedding.

When I was younger, I dreamed about having adventures and falling in love and being a writer and being able to do things like sing and dance well. I dreamed about being a grownup who lived in her own apartment in a big city and rode the subway to work. I dreamed about getting old and sitting in a rocking chair and looking around and realizing that all my people, no matter who they happened to be, were all right.

Some of those dreams came true, and some did not. And once I had kids, I was still the same person, though I loved them differently than I ever loved anyone else. I just never figured that my love would be questioned because I was a less exuberant or purposeful mother. So these days, my kids follow MY routine. Their schedules need to fit into our schedules. We place a hell of a lot of importance on our relationship with each other, even if it makes them jealous. Hell, maybe in some ways BECAUSE it makes them jealous, and helps them learn that there's a wide world outside of them and that world is filled with love too.

If I were to die, and that is a less rhetorical statement for me than for other moms, I know my kids would suffer. I also think my husband could raise them without me, and that someone could take my place as their mother.

Now, I don't think anyone could ever be ME, but someone could still hold the place of mother in their lives if I weren't here. This happens all the time, for a variety of reasons--death, divorce, parents being unable or unwilling to care for their kids--and people step in and the kids turn out just fine. Maybe it's that thought that keeps me so intent on being ME, because that is the unique thing that I have to offer to them. Sure, I'm a kick-ass baker and I am an expert at distracting people (including adults) away from their own frustration and pain, but other people are good at those things too. But you know what?

I'm the one that the traditional Mother's Day cards and gifts weren't made for, so I get other things instead.



Messages about letting mom have time to herself, leaving her alone in the bathroom, letting her take a bath and all of that?

Please.

I do my own shit all the time. Much of it involves working out, but I also sit here writing or I collapse on the couch after dinner or watch basketball for an entire month and ignore them and God help anyone who comes in the bathroom when I am in there for any reason, I mean ANY reason unless there is a LOT of blood involved.

Breakfast in bed?

RUGRATS OUT OF MY KITCHEN. and of course RUGRATS OUT OF MY BED.

Pedicure?

Um, yes please, if my husband does it for me using the skills he picked up during all those years he hung out at the nail salon where his grandma worked, because chemo JACKED UP these toenails.

A bottle of wine and cozy slippers?

Girl, I have that messed up sulfur allergy and most slippers are ugly. How about a bourbon, neat, and a wedge heel?

Inspirational books?

My brother sent me a poetry book about the war in Iraq.

Cuddling and spooning and foreplay?

Um, OK, if it's Father's Day because that's more Gabe's shtick and I am a meat and potatoes girl, if you know what I'm saying, and did I mention that my kids are little and go to bed early and at 9 pm around here it's pretty much always Katy and Gabe party time? And as for the spooning, I love that! For a few minutes. But can someone explain one of the great mysteries of marriage to me? Why, when we have a king sized bed, do I have to fall asleep with his knee on my ass? WHY?

Chocolate?

Yes! Definitely. But I am married to a chocoholic whose addiction is so severe that he once literally hoarded chocolate at the neighbor's house and told them not to tell me. So that comes with a lot of baggage.

Flowers? Jewelry?

Yes, I do like flowers, and I get those fairly regularly from my husband, which is nice. And now that I have pierced ears, I like getting earrings, though I REALLY like to pick them out myself.

Really sappy and sentimental cards?

Gabe loves these. I just, I don't, I mean, I can't even.

Chick flicks?

No, not really. When I am nervous and want to relax I watch Bond or Bourne movies.

There is nothing like being a mother.

True, but there is nothing like being anything that is different than all other experiences.

No work is harder than mothering.

Parenthood is hard, in that it is hectic and the love you feel almost hurts and you become paranoid and the whole thing is a leap of faith. But also, it's FUN. It's not like some thankless chore. I can think of a lot of work that's harder, like working in a sweatshop or a coal mine or scavenging through garbage just to survive or being a sex worker or cleaning up other people's messes when those people are not related to you or a thousand other things.

Cheesy cards and crafts made by my kids?

OK, these are usually awesome. Especially when they tell you that they are making a surprise and then they show it to you right then and there or say things like "it's a bracelet made out of paperclips and that was just a HINT mommy."

A day at the salon or spa?

I can barely be bothered with hair anymore. One of my fondest motherhood memories will always be the first day I went to Lenny's daycare bald, after I stopped caring if other kids would ask her questions. I was all prepared to face the onslaught, as the day before I had worn a chin-length red wig and a few weeks before I had long, curly red hair. I walked in and some of the parents and teachers looked away. A little kid, about Lenny's age so maybe 4, stared right at me. With a look of utter boredom on her face, she shouted: "LENNY! Your mom's here." So, no to the salon, though I do have to go more often to get it cut now that it's short. And a big NO to the facial or waxing or anything like that because let's face it that is just PAIN, and beauty is NOT pain, not in my opinion. I do appreciate a massage and I have been practically saved from the abyss by acupuncture, but that shit still reminds me of cancer so no thanks to that too.

I'm not hard to please--really, I'm not. I like to have good food and conversation with my kids and my family and friends on Mother's Day. I like to get some exercise, and I like to be left alone. I like to have a drink and have sex and I like to sit outside if the weather's decent. I like to think about making it to another Mother's Day, because that seemed like a long shot three years ago. I like my kids. Of course I love them, but that's the easy stuff. I also LIKE them.

On Mother's Day, I like the things that I like every other day. I claim many of those things for myself and I don't feel guilty, not for one minute, not any more than a man would feel guilty for being himself when he's single, married, a father, a widower, or whatever. I will not be the one to say that being married and having children is my life's work.

That's what my husband said the other day, and I believe him.

I don't know that I have a life's work. But I know that I have this life, and I love it, and I appreciate it, and I hope I have a lot more of it.

And now, I have to go.

The boys have left the house, and it's time to kick my daughter's little 40 pound behind in a friendly game of gin. Happy Mother's Day!