Celebrating with friends
Jan 15, 2006 Friends
I’m all hung over from the party, which is odd because I don’t drink. I think it was the late night, much talking, and general party business.
I didn’t have any alcohol for the party but figured someone would bring wine (people did) but then I realized I have no wine glasses so I had to hit up my friendly neighbor to bring some by. I guess I should pick some up next time I’m at Goodwill.
So this was our first party in this house and I was interested to see how the social flow would work. I had to shoo people out of the kitchen (people always want to hang in the kitchen) but then it worked our nicely. There was room for three social groupings and I think everyone was able to hang with the people they wanted to hang with.
And the food was good. We had a lot of it. (We’re eating the left-overs now for lunch.)
But I’m left feeling vaguely unhappy likely because I over-teased a friend of mine about a friend of hers. Sometimes I don’t know when to shut up.
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Tags: Erica
It’s not a contest
Jan 14, 2006 Adoption
As I continue to take notes on the essay that may never see the light of day but dammit, I’m going to write it, this blog: Speaking For Myself: Southbound again inspires me.
Parenting is not a contest. Yes, I know we want our kids to love us best but they get to love who they want to love. They get to love teachers and grandparents and other adults and kids who are adopted may also (believe it or not) love their birth parents.
Parenting is not about the glory; it’s about the parenting.
This is part of what I want to write. I don’t wipe Madison’s nose and her tush and clean up her toys and teach her not to touch the hot stove so she’ll reward me — I do these things because I’m her parent. Those things — big picture — give me joy. Caring for her is my privilege. She might grow up to hate me. I do it anyway. She might grow up to break my heart. I do it anyway. She owes me nothing although sure, I’ve got my hopes.
I still strongly believe (and this is the pivotal part of the essay, which becomes more and more clear as I hammer at it) that the surest way to lose her is to refuse to share her.
It’s the irony of being a parent. The less tightly you hold them, the more likely they will come back. If I made Madison choose between us in any way that would be like asking her to choose one of her hands. It’s dirty rotten pool, dammit.
If I do my job right, I believe there will come a time when Madison will say something to me like, “I wish I could have lived with J.” And I’ll know I’ve been a good mom because I know I will given her the room to be truthful and the belief that I’m strong enough to handle it. I think of my own mom who could hear me say, “I wish Daddy stayed home instead of you,” and wouldn’t flinch. Instead she’d say with a hug (I know, I remember), “I know you do, honey.”
So when Madison says that, I’ll steel myself, I’ll hug her to me and I’ll remember that having her in my life is a privilege, not a right.
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Bragging on Madison
Jan 14, 2006 Parenting
Sometimes Madison kind of freaks us out — she’s really smart. Here are the smart things she’s done lately (remember, she’ll be 22 months at the end of this month):
1. Recognize some colors. “Those purple pants!” she said recently. She can also identify blue. Other than reading Brown Bear, Brown Bear upon request, this is not something we’ve ever consciously worked on.
2. Uses pronouns. Ok, so sometimes she gets it wrong. She still says, “With me!” when she means she wants to come with you and “Rocka you!” when she wants you to rock her but that’s because it’s the way we say it, “Do you want to come with me?” “Do you want me to rock you?” But she also gets them right an awful lot. Especially possessive pronouns. “That’s his.” “My eye hurts.”
3. She says “two” when she means two. “Two rubberbands!” she’ll shout when she finds a second.
4. She remembers everything. She remembers books we haven’t read in months, she remembers events that happened this fall.
Mostly it’s the talking. Noah spoke more clearly at this age but said a lot less. We have a video of him at 23 months and he’s saying (indicating a board book), “Apple book! Apple book! Read book! Bite!” (And then he bit the book because it was shaped like an apple.)
Madison, on the other hand, would say it like this, “I want apple book, too! Read book, tease! (her word for please) I bite apple book, see?”
Just now she said, “Chips! I want chips! More chips, tease!” (It’s 9am.) “Salsa!” I told her no and she said, “I ask Daddy about it.” (She knows Daddy is a push-over.) Now she’s pointing to the kitchen table. “That’s Daddy’s chair. That’s Mommy’s chair. That’s Noah’s chair. There’s Noah’s chair.”
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Pretty awesome post
Jan 13, 2006 Adoption
Speaking For Myself: Fast Forward: Reader’s Digest Version
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Liars and memoirs
Jan 13, 2006 Writing
The transcendent Cecily commented, “I’d be interested in hearing what you have to say about the James Frey and J.T. Leroy scandals…”
I knew someone was going to call me on that ‘cuz I just wrote about how memoirs aren’t always 100% truthful!
First off, I haven’t read the books in question. Remember I generally only get my books in thrift stores and they aren’t showing up there yet. (This is why I didn’t read any Anita Shreve ’til about two years ago.) I figure in two years the shelves will be flush with discarded copies and maybe I’ll grab one then.
It looks to me that J. T. Leroy is sort of a grown-up Lemony Snicket — call it performance art. The whole fabrication (if it is one) is so outrageous that the “is it true or not?” is part of the story. It’s part of the marketing and the mystique. Also the books are marketed as fiction — maybe fictionalized autobiography but still, fiction. This isn’t true of Frey.
In my mind, lies are permittable in memoir if they are truthful. In other words, if a conversation that didn’t happen is created to illuminate a larger truth as in Vivian Gornick’s walks with her mother. (However I do think — and I didn’t know this when I wrote the first entry — that Gornick should have been explicit at some point, perhaps in a note to her readers in the front of the book.) Any dialogue in a memoir is going to be a fabrication and likely scene changes, composite characters, etc. But the spirit of truth should underlie these efforts, which I believe was true of Gornick’s memoir although, as I said, I don’t think this is permittable in a journalistic effort.
Frey’s lies weren’t performance art and they didn’t underline the truth of his story. It looks to me (again, not having read the books) that he tried to sell the book as a novel and when it didn’t take, he switched to memoir. I wonder if at any point his heart started to sink when he realized he’d hit a home run of a bestseller. Maybe he didn’t think anyone would read his book and he could keep getting away with it.
One could argue that his book is entirely metaphor. That he felt like a “Criminal” (and I’ll add here that just reading excerpts makes me HATE his overuse of capitals) except that he never says, “I felt like” he says, “I was.” Also he trampled on other people’s lives for the book — most notably the lives of the families who lost their daughters to the train wreck. That’s inexcusable. Using the event for inspiration for a novel? Writers do that. Lifting it to add a gloss to his “Criminal” image? Indefensible.
What kills me is that you know 14 million people are going to go buy the friggin’ book now. Listen, you want to read it? Wait two years and pick up a copy in a thrift store. Trust me. The shelves will be over-flowing.