Proudly serving unpolished working motherhood, with bipolar depression & hilarity on the side
It started with biting. I’d be working from home at my little white desk and my phone would buzz. On the other end was the preschool director, her voice mixing notes of frustration and sympathy. “I’m calling to let you know Banana bit a classmate today.” “Oh. Um. I’m so sorry to hear that,” I’d […]
The mystery woman beamed up at me from the restaurant booth. I smiled back, my brain stumbling to figure out if I knew her, when she said, “I work with autistic children. I can be a resource to you.” I stared at her. “I’m sorry – what?” She then proceeded to rattle off a short […]
The competition moms were going full force behind me. “LET’S GOOOOO, MAISY!!!….oh noooo. She just missed an AA time.” “She’ll get it next time. She looks so strong,” reassured the mom next to her. Next heat it was her turn. “COME ON, JACKIE, COME ON!!!….argh. GOOD RACE HONEY. Darn it. That was a second slower […]
I always thought my grandma stopped ice skating when she hit 70. Wrong! “I’ve raised four children and now I want to do what I want to do,” she told me matter of factly. What she wanted to do, in her seventies, eighties and nineties, was skate on the open-air rink near her house. So […]
The signs are all a lie, according to my husband. “Shit for sale!” he announces every spring, gesturing darkly to the hand-lettered signs. “Not enough crap of your own? Come buy ours!” When we drive by he adopts the persona of a soldier skirting hostile territory – eyes fixed straight ahead, not a break in […]
“Do you ever think about taking your own life?” asked the psychiatrist with a face like a board. I stared into his clinical eyes. “No.” It was a lie. After hauling myself up four flights of stairs to my dorm room, I’d tilt my head over the railing, imagining what it would be like to […]
Here’s the thing we’re not supposed to say in my family – one of our own can get irrationally angry over just about anything. We’ll call him “Schmad”. This doesn’t happen every day – in fact, most days it doesn’t happen. But that’s the rub of it – you never can tell when Schmad is […]
I have an allergy to spending money. It’s one of those allergies that appeared later in life, seeing as how one of my favorite activities as a college student was saving up my summer pay for the express purpose of blowing most of it on a shopping spree. Banana Republic, J. Crew, Urban Outfitters for […]
We hopped on a plane to go see my grandma ice skate in the desert. How many kids get to write that sentence? I got to blow off first grade for a week and fly to Reno, Nevada, with my mom and toddler brother to see my grandma and my aunt compete in the National […]
I was born into a gig and I have to get away from it. And by “gig”, I mean “life defining label”. I need to stop being the mayor’s daughter already. People I met as an adult – sur-PRISE! People I grew up with – how weird is it that not everybody in my little […]