Email galore #1: the magazine
Nov 14, 2002 Writing
The Bitch that would not die. Here is what the patient editor said:
Sorry for the slow response; we moved our office last weekend and I actually didn’t get your email until yesterday. I feel terrible that you’re struggling so much with the piece, and especially so because I think the concept is such an interesting and original one. I would really, really hate to see this piece not come into being. So I guess what I’d like to know is whether you’re wanting to give up now, or if you’d be willing to have me look at what you’ve written and offer some direction.I think there’s a lot of potential in just what you’ve written [already]. If you want to show me what you have at this point and let me know which angle you’re most inclined to stick with, we can work together on building the piece.
Well, how can I say no to that??? I’ll try again. She gave me some direction in answer to some suggestions I mentioned and I’ll work with that. Maybe if I wave my hands in the air like I just don’t care instead of agonizing, I’ll find my fucking thesis. Oops, I meant f*cking, of course.
Noah has a date with his grandmother today and I was going to go to the $.50 movies but alas, I’ll work on this instead.
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Tags: Noah
Email galore #2: the agency
Looks like that adoption agency is pretty desperate for families. Listen to this:
I just talked w/our director about your [financial] situation. As we currently need couples for our African American infant program, she is willing to get your application ASAP for the program and you can wait until the day before group and assessment to pay. Will that work better for you? I’ll let our social worker know of your situation. She’s the person you will be hearing from first after we’ve received your pre-app.ALL birthmothers in the special programs are on medicaid. In NEARLY all cases, we can also get the baby on medicaid so that there are no medical fees involved for you.
My word. How can we say no? Here’s how: Brett is freaked. Who can blame him? We talked (fought) about it last night. First we fought and then we talked. Noah heard us fighting before we took a breather. Brett went and sulked in his secret room (don’t ask) and I played the martyr upstairs. (As an aside, this morning I told Noah that we made up after he was asleep and he said, “Oh yeah. I’m not surprised. I had it in my mind that you two would get over it.” This inspired the essay I’m going to write about arguing in front of kids.) When we no longer had an audience, Brett and I thrashed it out in earnest.
Brett is a wonderful, gentle, kind, considerate man but he’s not the best communicator. I, on the other hand, could communicate with a wall only communication also means listening and while I’m a good listener when there’s something to listen to, I’m not so great at ferreting it out when nobody else is talking. In talking to a wall, I could go on for days before realizing the wall hasn’t said anything back. In other words, I very often think Brett and I have discussed something only to discover later that he has a whole world of words that he hasn’t shared with me yet. This was one of those times.
Brett wants to be a father again but he’s concerned about adopting an African-American child. Why, you ask? Don’t worry I asked, too. He’s bothered by it because he believes (and I agree) that racism is responsible for the fact that there are so many more black children up for adoption and that they are less wanted — that they are “bargain babies” with these special programs and fees. He says how can we as white people take advantage of this racist discrepency? Institutional racism, he argued, hurts African-American families and creates this “supply” of black babies. He said, would these women keep their babies if we just gave them the money instead of the agency?
Well, these are concerns that I share but I also really want a baby. My argument (and it’s flawed as all emotional arguments tend to be) is that we can’t do much about institutional racism and whether or not we like it, there are more black babies who need families so why not our family?
He also talked about this romantic ideal that we would “rescue” a child. He always thought that when he adopted it would be, say, a big-eyed 3-year old left on the church steps with parents conveniently not in the picture. In that make-believe scenario we wouldn’t have to acknowledge the tremendous pain that will inevitably be the birth mother’s. I told him that pretending it (parental pain) doesn’t exist isn’t realistic and that a very young baby is likely to fit into our family better.
Finally he said that he feels uncomfortable adopting a child *because* it’s black. That a black child is all we can afford, which puts an ugly dollar value on people. I hate that, too, but I can’t do anything about it. I said, “If we were rich, would we stipulate a white child?” (The answer is no.) “In that case, we would likely get a black child anyway because those are the babies who are needing homes. So let’s pretend that we said, ‘Whichever mother chooses us first, that’s the one we’ll work with if we’re compatible.’ And that the child we get is the one we were meant to have.”
Finally I asked him to look to his faith about this. We’re going to try to hook up with some adoptive couples informally so he can ask some of his hard questions.
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Broadway related news and presents
Nov 13, 2002 Read/heard/seen
My mom sent me this link: Entertainment Weekly’s EW.com | EW.com News: Alan Cumming will star in Steve Martin-produced gay detective series I have a little crush on Mr. Cumming; wasn’t it nice of my mom to remember?
I also have a gift for you, my gentle readers. I uploaded this mp3 of Mandy Patinkin and Michael Yukon Grody doing a duet of Stephen Sondheim’s Poems. It’s beautiful. I listened to it about 6 times last night when the boys were both asleep and then got up this morning and listened to it again. It’s so gorgeous; a perfect song.
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Only two bucks!
Nov 12, 2002 Uncategorized
Sarah’s zine Crunchy Granola Earthmama’s second issue is now available. Why should you buy it?
1. It’s fun and funny!
2. Sarah makes you feel good about yourself!
3. You’ll be supporting one cool mama and her two cute kids!
My sister just paypal-ed me and hopefully I can figure out how to shoot $2 on over to Sarah. It’ll take me forever to get it together enough to actually write a check!
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Hey pot? This is kettle…
Nov 12, 2002 Uncategorized
Madonna: pop star and paragon of virtue! Is she (rightfully) protesting the woman’s exploitation of her son? Or is her problem with the fact the woman is still nursing him? Anyway, her criticism seems a wee bit ironic to me.
Madonna has demanded higher standards of decency on TV after a US station broadcast footage of a mother breast-feeding her eight-year-old son. The singer, who is famed for her controversial sex-and-violence-laced videos, said she was outraged that the image was shown to millions of viewers on ABC’s Good Morning America show. "People have no morals, I swear to God," she told Los Angeles radio station KIIS-FM. "The things that people do for ratings. It’s unforgivable." Lynn Stuckey, from Urbana, Illinois, gained notoriety after ABC ran the tape of her nursing the boy in July. She told the program: "I think people need to see me and my child and realise this is a perfectly normal practice." A judge has since ordered child welfare officials to investigate whether the 34-year-old, who also allowed her son to share her bed, has created a harmful home environment. Authorities told a hearing in October that the child had been ridiculed since he appeared on TV. Stuckey said she stopped breast feeding him in the summer. Mother-of-two Madonna, 44, said ABC should never have aired the footage. "The world is collapsing. Why is there a tape of it? It’s terrible. That child will never recover," she said.
In other breastfeeding news: a mom breastfeeds puppies! Yup! Go read it because I thought it was pretty damn funny. Hope they had a good latch!
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Tags: Erica