JJust Kidding

On Faking and Making. Also: "It."

noreply@blogger.com (JJ Keith) — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 19:40:39 PST

Go ahead. Tell me to “fake it ‘til I make it.” Maybe you’d also like me to “own it”?

Here’s the thing: I don’t want to. I don’t want to pretend that I’m comfortable in social situations. It’s time I acknowledge that I look like a $5 hooker when I try to give myself a smokey eye and can no longer do a front hand spring. And, honestly, I don't want to act like I feel pretty in my favorite dress from before I had kids. It clings to my saddlebags like a mofo. I don’t want to project a phony inner glow of self-love and confidence. Life isn’t method acting.

And I don’t want you to either. I don’t know who you’re making all this confidence up for, but it’s not me. Please don’t act like that you always know the answer even when you don’t. Let’s just get together and enjoy the stuff we’re good at and give up the illusion that we both know what do when long ago ex-boyfriends send us friend requests on Facebook.

It’s not that I’m not good at anything and always feel like a poseur. I have several strong suits. If you need a lady to herd two semi-feral toddlers through the isles of Target, I’m here. Need a ghostwriter for a pithy email to your ex-boyfriend? I’m your gal. Perhaps my best skill is confronting strangers who give me weird looks as I herd two semi-feral toddlers through the isles of Target. I will happily confront strangers on your behalf if that's not your thing. And hey, I’m here if you need someone to vent to about that seemingly confident bitch who pretends that she’s totally comfortable in her own skin at all times and always knows exactly what to do. Because guess what? She doesn’t. She hates herself as much as the rest of us, which is to say, sometimes, but not always.

Would I like to feel like Bea does when she ballet dances, which is to say, totally sure that I’m The Best Ever? Yes! But I’m not three anymore. I'd like to hole up in the woods with enough shrooms to see God, but that's also not appropriate at this point in my life. And not to be too much of a downer, but I hope by the time Bea is my age, she learns, as I have, that a love of movement isn't the same as dance talent and doesn't become the laughing stock of So You Think You Can Dance’s twenty-seventh season. There is grace in giving up… sometimes. It’s one of those gray areas that isn’t well-covered by contemporary aphorisms.

And look, I don’t want to put too fine of a point on it, but this whole faking it until we’re making it business? It’s nothing short of the downfall of Western Civilization. It is why we have self-proclaimed experts telling us that global warming isn’t real. It’s the reason there are politicians who can’t lead, cashiers who can’t add, and almost fully explains the green lighting of Are You There, Chelsea. The world would be a better place if all parties were thrown by people who feel they’re at their best selves when they’re entertaining, and no one ever pretended that a fairly funny book of mostly made up essays about being black-out drunk, screwing redheads, and fetishizing little people would make a good premise for a sitcom.

Besides, what is “making it,” anyway? Does someone ring a bell when you get there? Why live like you’re a grifter, as if your life is one big long con? Confidence doesn’t come from within, it comes from knowing how to do something well, being rooted in who you are, and admitting to yourself that your favorite dress from before you had kids now clings unfairly to your saddlebags.

Hon, It Wasn't Yet the Spring

noreply@blogger.com (JJ Keith) — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 19:54:23 PST

I made these. And by these, I mean two humans who will one day live independently of me even if they currently fill my days with their ass-related demands.

I play Bon Iver through my computer speakers to drown out the clank of overalls in the dryer. I was reminded that I own Bon Iver's album last night when I finally got around to watching this week's Saturday Night Live on which they were the (unnervingly enchanting) musical guest.

Kasper wakes from his nap. As I scoop him from his crib, I realize I pushed it too hard in spinning class this morning. My back aches and I feel so goddamned old. When other people say they're 32 I think, "That's pretty young, still," but I feel ancient. I have to remind myself sometimes that lots of 32-year-olds are hip and cool single people who have sex for fun and wear short skirts.

When I let Kasper loose, he strides to his cheap, but ultra-efficient Ikea high chair and pats the seat as if to say, "Yo, lady. Make some lunch happen." I pop a box of Joe's Diner Mac n' Cheese for Kasper in the microwave. Dinner is only five hours out so I rifle through the cabinets, lay a bag of Trader Joe's Whole Wheat Spaghetti on the counter to remind myself to buy sauce at the grocery store on the way to picking up Bea at preschool, then pour two cups of Trader Joe's Sparkling Blueberry Juice, one in a floral glass from the sale section of Anthropology and one in a dino-shaped straw cup from the Natural History Museum. I sneak a sip before I put the glass at my spot on the table because it's special. The sparkling juices are kind of expensive and I only buy a bottle occasionally. I think of how nice it is to have special food and decide to buy a pint of Americone Dream at the grocery store.

The microwave beeps and I split the mac in half for Kasper and I to share, putting his in a baby bowl with a suction cup base even though it won't stick to my table and will end up on the floor no matter what. I blow on his bowl to cool it more quickly even though I don't believe blowing on food really cools it any quicker. While I wait to push Kasper's bowl of mac over to him, I bribe him with a small pile of Trader Joe's 50% Less Salt Roasted & Salted Fancy Mixed Nuts and a Trader Joes Applesauce Crusher. I flip through the most recent issue of The Atlantic to look for articles to read later when I can concentrate. I decide on Adam Davidson's (of Planet Money) job story and Caitlin Flanagan's review of Joan Didion, the latter of which will surely cause me to seethe until I scour the web for more bad reviews of Flanagan's Girl Land. I mark the pages with subscription inserts then bat Kasper's bowl into his eager salt-coated hands. I hope there's a Planet Money podcast that references Davidson's piece in The Atlantic.

As Kasper turns himself into ground zero of a mac 'n cheese explosion, I think about the details that make my life mine, and all the little ways I tip pieces of my identity. If I were writing this scene in a memoir, what would I be telling the reader about the me-character? That me-character can't cook and me-character relies on Trader Joes to feed my family? That me-character is desperate to stay current, to not disappear into motherhood? That me-character is a vain, aging poseur? Or that me-character is a young struggling writer trying to keep a grip on the zeitgeist, even as the me-character slips into the abyss of parenthood? Could the reader not judge a me-character unless I described the me-character's tits as "still saggy" or "surprisingly pert"? Are the me-character's boobs germain to this moment?

Would the reader get a sense of how badly the me-character wants a writing career or be hung up on the lack of cooking skills? What's the sympathetic angle here? What am I trying to get at with a me-character reading The Atlantic, sharing mac with my baby, and listening to Bon Iver? Would the reader like the me-character more or less if I revealed that the me-character was wearing a stained Old Navy sweater/shirt and no makeup? What if I lied and said the me-character was wearing Jimmy Choo's and a vintage housedress? Listening to Ke$ha? Eating a Lean Cuisine? Cooking pasta from scratch? How can I write this more effectively?

And then I realize, I'm just eating lunch with my kid and I could probably relax already. Also, we're almost out of Applesauce Crushers and I can't get to TJs until Wednesday.

Bath Time Equals T Minus Five Minutes

noreply@blogger.com (JJ Keith) — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 21:56:49 PST

I Really Do Need an Editor to Title My Stuff

noreply@blogger.com (JJ Keith) — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 19:34:02 PST

In the beginning of December, a lady from the pet crematorium made her delivery to our home. She was a friendly, middle-aged, wearing practical sneakers and a freebie t-shirt. She understood without me saying to not hold up the fabric gift box holding my dog's ashes and announce, "Bernie's in here." It's been hard enough repeatedly telling Bea that Bernie's not coming back without explaining to her how all twenty pounds of his mighty little body fit in that box. I'm all about parenting with honesty, but she can wait a few years to learn the details of our beloved pet being ravaged by cancer, euthanized, then consumed in flame. (I have a hard enough time with it myself.)

Bea insisted on giving the lady a tour of our house, which was fine with me because I was busy sobbing over the clay impression of my dead dog's paw print. When the tour concluded, the lady said, ostensibly to make me feel better about my 700-square-foot cottage, "I raised my two kids in a house just as small this and we have really happy memories of that itty bitty home."

I didn't really know what to say ("Uh, thanks?), but I talked anyway, as I am wont to do in awkward situations. "Yeah, it's tiny, but we're used to it. The only problem is I can't get the kids to share the bedroom so we're stuck with Bea in our bed."

She rushed to comfort me. "You're absolutely doing the right thing! Did you know that? There is no better way for a child to sleep than in her parents' bed. Have you ever heard of a man named Dr. Sears?"

As it so happens, I was up late the night before editing the essay that would eventually be this. Were it not for the fact that I was still clutching my dead dog's paw print, I might have had fun with the lady. No, who is the mysterious doctor of whom you speak? Does he write books? Might I be able to read them and learn how to be the bestest parent ever? Tell me at least he has a website. And, dare to dream, might he have a line of BPA-free feeding accessories?

But instead I stood there and dumbly nodded along as she told me all about how I didn't have to be ashamed of co-sleeping and there are a lot of resources out there for parents like me. I didn't even say, Lady, do you really think if I was ashamed of co-sleeping I'd tell the person who just torched my dog?

We co-sleep with Bea because she likes it. She wakes several times a night and says, "Can I has a hug?", which is really cute and almost makes up for the fact that she kicks like a donkey with restless leg syndrome. We probably would have reclaimed our space by now, but doing so would require way to much work. That, and every time we try to put her in her bed she wakes Kasper, which is pretty much the worst thing that can happen in our entire universe. We're living based on the assumption that one day Bea will announce, "Know what guys? I want to sleep in my bed!" Kind of like the embarrassingly recent day when I told her that her bottle was gone and she'd have to drink her milk from the awesome rocket ship cup and she was like, "Rocket ship!" and never asked again about her bottle.

I have no problem with attachment parenting and do many of the things prescribed by Dr. Sears and his cohorts. However, I'm not a disciple of that or any other parenting method. I did some parenting book reading when Bea was a baby and identified with attachment parenting more than other variety, but these days we're off the grid. We're just figuring it out as we go along, like every family. There are few parenting absolutes. I could run myself breathless talking about how much easier co-sleeping with Beazy has made our lives, but I'll be goddamned if I let Kasper back into our bed. A particularly deep inhale will wake him and he won't go back to sleep for hours. That baby-man needs to be sequestered in a sound-proof chamber with a fleet of white noise machines. Parenting (and this is so cliched that I'm embarrassed to even be saying it) is not a one-size-fits-all kind of endeavor.

I mention this not to clarify what I wrote in Salon -- I think it stands on its own -- but because I've just spent a week sifting through hundreds and hundreds of responses to the article, few of which I responded to directly. Many were flattering, some were stupid and nasty or had nothing to do with me, and a few were accurately critical. But several people chimed in to reflexively defend attachment parenting or to note that the title was misleading, to which I say, "Did you know that editors, not writers, get the final word on article titles, but your willingness to defend attachment parenting as if it were The One True Way To Parent even though it is barely implicated in the essay justifies the editor's decision to re-title it that and illustrates the point of my essay?" But thanks for the click through!

The Pros and Cons of Having a Baby

noreply@blogger.com (JJ Keith) — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 11:39:39 PST

Pros	Cons
Baby kisses	Baby barf
Having someone look just like you (provided you go the “from scratch” route)	Having all your worst flaws mirrored in your child
Doing it differently from your parents	Ultimately parenting like your parents did no matter how hard you try
Being able to force another human being to wear a sailor suit without being an officer in the Navy	Having another human being’s shit on your hands
Handing down your personal collection of Legos	Relieving all your childhood traumas
Being in charge of forming their perception of the world	The probability that you will warp them
Making jokes about obnoxious parents	Being the butt of jokes of other parents who think you're obnoxious
Seeing the world through the eyes of a child	Barney
Never being alone again	Never being alone again

Have any to add?

Kool

noreply@blogger.com (JJ Keith) — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 20:34:16 PST

Both my husband and I played clarinet in our high school bands. In our courtship this was established about two hours after we met and fifteen minutes before we slept together (fifteen minutes being the amount of time it takes to hash out which chairs we held and our favorite clarinet solos).

As might be assumed of a couple of clarinetists, Alden and I are not, nor have we ever been, cool. However, we’ve blown many a night in Los Angeles hanging out in back rooms of music venues, listening to now famous bands before they had any cache. For a brief portion of my mid-20s, I repressed my love of Sondheim’s musicals and "Classical Gas" and worked as a music writer for a reasonably trendy website. I knew people. I did interviews. I went backstage. I smoked.

Smoking was my thing. To my regrettably superficial thinking, cigarettes were the catalyst for my transformation from a frizzy-haired straight edge band nerd to the kind of person who could blend in at a Sleater-Kinney show. But I loved being a smoker more than smooth, deep inhales or being able to climb stairs without gasping for air, but my desire to be a mother won out. I quit smoking when we started talking kids. I don’t regret quitting, but now, as a mother of two, I suspect that I lost my groove the day I dropped the pack-a-day-habit like... a bad... habit?

In a true baby-with-the-bathwater stroke, along with the cancer sticks, I quit music writing. I understand that smoke-free rock criticism exists, but I don’t get it. It seems sort of like being a sober bartender to me. I figured I'd never be able to go to shows once I had kids, and it turns out, I was right. The last show I went to was to see Canadian indie darlings, Stars (not THE Stars, that's a different band) in 2008. Sandra Oh was there because she's Canadian and the best kept secret in the world is that there are only fifty Canadians and they all know each other. (True fact: 1 out of 5 Canadians has been in Broken Social Scene at one point or another.)

These days the only new music I hear is on commercials, movie trailers, Glee, or in spinning class at the YMCA. Alden, however, continues to work tangentially in the music biz as a purchaser for a sound gear company. While he’s getting into the latest anti-pop outfit to bust out of Quebec, I’m blasting Ke$ha in the car so often that Beazy knows most of the words to “Tik Tok.” (Though, thankfully, she believes it to be a rollicking ditty about a clock.)

Rolling around Hollywood with two carseats in the back, I don’t need to worry about being cool. But, unfortunately, all my Amazon and iTunes receipts go to Alden's email and I have to answer to him every time I buy a Glee cast cover of a Katy Perry track. (If anyone wants to drive me to a karaoke bar and funnel pints into of Stella or a comparable foreign lager into my mouth with a beer bong, I'd be happy to perform my rendition of "Firework." Eat your heart out, Lea Michele.)

I keep trying to tell Alden how great Adele is: “Look honey. It’s like she wanted to marry this guy, but he married someone else. She’s not even bitter about it. She wishes him well, but she wants to find someone like him for herself. Isn’t that such a beautiful, original sentiment?” Alden is the only person with "a heart and iTunes account" who doesn't like that song. He's all hung up on the vocal mix because something something something. I never listen when he starts talking about "the mix." Give a boy a journeyman certificate in sound engineering and he thinks he can undo a million downloads. Fancy boy almost divorced me when the Coldplay receipt came through. Then again, over a receipt for a Glee cast cover of a Coldplay track.

I'm Facebook friends with several of my former students from the freshman writing classes I used to teach. When one of them, beloved to me for his wiseass ways, posted about Drake I asked him, “Does it make me old that I can’t see Drake and not think of Jimmy from Degrassi: TNG?” (Did I mention I'm kind of obsessed with Canada?) I meant it as a rhetorical question, but my student took the liberty of answering: “No, having a mom blog makes you old.” Fair enough.

Alden is trying to reform my pop music ways. It’s not all altruistic. I think he senses that I’m dragging his street cred down with mine, like I’m just one Maroon 5 song away from going to see a Twilight movie on opening night. He recently approached me with a compromise. “I’m going to put the first New York Pony Club album on your iPhone, okay? You’ll like them. They use their stuff in Garnier Fructis commercials.”

Those pony people, they’re okay, but they’re no Rihanna. And have you heard Beyonce’s latest single? Not only is it awesome, but it’s teaching my daughter to count. Once that kid finally works the choreography out, I’ll be thrilled to post the internet’s one millionth “little kid doing the Single Ladies dance” video. Alden can cling to his slurry shoegazer revival acts and Canadian supergroups, but even he can't deny the saucy finger waggings of a towheaded toddler in a leotard.

Though, the poor kid shakes it like both her parents played the clarinet in high school.

Your blogger in 2005

Elle est formidable / She is formidable -- A Lesson in Strangely Applicable False Cognates

noreply@blogger.com (JJ Keith) — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 20:31:47 PST

I'm not a big astrology person, but I'm hung up on the significance of my daughter being born four days before my birthday. Bea and I, we're Aquarii, which I guess means that we're supposed to be independent, rebellious, and unemotional. Check and check. Score one for astrology.

Before I had kids, I was not one of those people who was told what a great mother she'd be. I'm not a softie. I don't deal well with other people's emotions (or my own for that matter). Empathy doesn't always come easily to me. I can be a harsh lady, maybe a little intimidating. Not motherly. Also, I don't bake and I can probably take you in an arm wrestling match. I most certainly can drink you under the table.

That Beazy (as she goes by these days) is a tough little mutha. She'd eat a softer woman alive, reeling her in by the strings of her apron. I may be offering myself up as a case study in faulty Foucauldian narratives, but that Beazy, she's not only made of me, but for me. I have birthed the one person most able to amuse and terrify me. (Which was sort of the point of my entry in the "Your Life... The Reader's Digest Version contest. And by the way, I won a $2500 runner-up prize and my entry will appear in the March issue. Thanks for the votes folks!)

Beazy cares not for potty training. In my harried passivity, I've essentially given her the choice between crapping on herself all the time and being mildly inconvenienced by having to visit the potty periodically. She chose the former. It galls me to no end that she'll pull out a clean diaper, a package of wipes, then lie down on the ground and announce in immaculately enunciated English, "Mom. I needs a change. I has poop." Then when I clean her, she'll take a wipe in her hand and correct me, "No mom, like this. Wipe too slow." Really? Cause I'm pretty sure that by the time a kid can clearly articulate her preferences for how a diaper change should be performed, she should be using the fucking potty. I don't want to be overly didactic, but that just seems obvious.

Beazy isn't a huge fan of hanging out in the childcare area of the gym. They don't change diapers there, so poop in the pants results in a parent being beckoned. Beazy knows this: the key to getting out childcare is feces. She may not be able to crap on command, but here's what she did: she pantomimed pooping for one of the teachers then announced, "I pooped my pants. Get my mom." Fortunately the caretaker called her bluff, but, definitely, by the time a kid can pretend to poop her pants in order to get out of childcare (and harsh on the one hour a day I spend away from her), she should be using the fucking potty. No, like, seriously. I know she knows what she's doing when she pees her pants. She used to announce it, but then her dad and I were always like, "Come sit on the potty!" She hated being goaded towards the bathroom so now she doesn't say anything until the damage is done. Dastardly, for a not-yet three-year-old, me thinks.

What I find most disturbing about the attempted manipulation at the gym is that it's totally something I would do, I mean, other than the pretending-to-crap-my-pants-in-a-room-full-of-people part. That Beazy and I, we're cut from the same cloth, one of viciously reductive thinking. She's a little shit in all the same ways I'm a big shit (no potty training pun intended).

Elle est formidable. She is formidable. I am the mother for her.

Im in Ur Facebook Likin Ur Baby Pics

noreply@blogger.com (JJ Keith) — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 16:58:11 PST

One of my sisters was a Facebook hold out, arguing that she was too busy leading a "real" life to be online. Eventually she relented, but refuses to write status updates and rarely posts pictures. She's one of those people who believes that Facebook is for people who can't make friends in real life. For her, privacy is king. Every post is an "over-share." Meanwhile, I live on the other side of the country from her and would love some updates. Does my nephew get his front teeth in? Does shoveling snow suck? Does the baby keep his winter hat on or does he rip it off just like his cousins do?

What my sister sees as obnoxious reportage of minutiae, I see as the stuff of life. I want to know if my friend's newborn is sleeping, or that another friend's co-workers are pissing her off, or even that a long ago ex-boyfriend is craving miso soup. (Mmmm.... miso soup.) These are likely the things I would say to people in passing at the water cooler, when I stopped by their house to drop their casserole dish off, or when I was doing any of the interactive things that I no longer do now that I'm a stay-at-home mom and no one eats casseroles any more. Many of us live apart from our families of origin, childhood friends, college pals, and former colleagues. As our analog lives become more anonymous and disconnected, we have compensated by making our online lives more public. Or at least I have.

There are Facebook posts that bug me -- boasts about potty trained six-month-olds, an overwrought prayer of thanks to the $150 heritage bird who's about to become Thanksgiving's main course, photos of new sports cars purchased in a down economy.* Or worse, nasty diatribes about ex-husbands being total dicks regarding joint custody or rants about parents who "let their kids run wild."** In face-to-face life, there are many people who annoy me. On the internet, there are equally many people who annoy me. At least on Facebook I can unsubscribe from their feeds.

I knew a lady with fertility troubles who'd get bent out of shape over Facebook. She argued that people should stop posting about pregnancies and babies, like the entire purpose of those posts was to rub it in that she was striking out in the womb department. Hers was a narcissistic impulse, but one that I think most people share to some degree. My weak spot? Real estate. I try not to begrudge anyone their successes, but hearing about a newly purchased three-bedroom on a cul de sac with new hardwood floors and a large xeriscaped backyard makes me want to jump off a bridge. I'd never argue that people should stop posting about their new homes/craft projects/finely cooked meals/family outings/cars/diamond earrings, but I might block a new homeowner's feed for awhile so I can cry to myself about choosing a low-paying career in a place with a high cost of living. The things that get under my skin say everything about me, and nothing about the things under my skin.

People whine, "Why would I want to be Facebook friends with someone I went to junior high with?" Well, why wouldn't you? What's so awful about getting back in touch with people you may have forgotten about? I like knowing who has kids, who went to law school, who has a super glamorous single lady career and fascinatingly chaotic love life. It's awesome to me that so many folks I went to high school with have kids the same age as mine and whether they're Mormon housewives in Utah or working moms in New York City, their experiences echo and illuminate my own.

Sure, I get a little twitchy about the fact that bitch with the bad Manic Panic job who made out with my boyfriend in 1998 can happen upon my Facebook profile and sneer at the baby weight I'm holding on to or this extraordinarily awkward hair phase I'm stuck in... or that I'm raising my family in a rented two-bedroom in-law unit half a block from a pot dispensary. But at the same time, I have nothing to hide. Here we are, my little family of four living our funny little lives in the badlands of Hollywood, good days and bad. And if we're Facebook friends I'm gonna like the shit out of your baby and pet pics and block you for about a month after you buy a new house. Cool?

* I'm not talking about you. Or you. Stop being paranoid. I made these up. Kinda.
** Also made these up. Mostly.