Friends & Lovers

I've known Amy since my library school days. We met at work and it was instant friendship. I know her family and became friends with some of her friends. I thought you had to be under the age of 12 to make a new best friend. She introduced me to Cape Cod and is godmother to my kids. I went to her 50th birthday blow-out weekend and she would have gone to mine if I had had one! We've actually gotten closer recently. She was the one I turned to when I was sure my daughter, then aged 19, would never speak to me again. She said my daughter would like me again and she was right!

She's living near me for the summer and has only been around for a week, but it has been so eye opening. Since she's going to be around for the summer and likes vintage goods, she offered to help with with my antique shop. She came over yesterday and I gave her the job of pricing. I really don't like to price. She plopped herself down in the linens and made up prices. It was great. It was so nice to feel I have someone who I can talk to about the shop, who will help me and who is on the same wave length.

This morning as I was in the shower I had a major epiphany about crucial relationships in my life. I don't know about you, but the shower is my most productive place to think! I was thinking about how nice it was to have Amy to share the shop with. For years I have tried to get my husband to be my partner in the business. It doesn't bore him completely. He has ideas, he will give me his opinion about displays and will move the furniture around if I ask him. But, sadly, it never feels like he's completely engaged. And I've known for a while that without a partner or a deadline, I just don't get many projects done.

What I realized is that there are people who think like me and there are people I have much in common with. And I don't have to demand both from one individual. Amy and I think alike. My husband and I do not. Amy's sense of style, her sensibility is similar to mine. We can work together and we have, both as librarians and cleaning out her parent's homes. We could easily start a business staging houses, or being bridal consultants, or selling antiques. We just think alike.

My husband and I do not think alike. When I met him, he was the first person I was family-close to who didn't criticize me. He listened to all my stories and was interested. So all these years I've believed we think alike. We don't. I even don't care why, which is strange cuz I always care why! But in this instance it doesn't matter why, cuz just knowing we don't think a like makes so much of my married life make sense!

What we have is a life in common. And I don't mean our married life. We have our childhood in common, even tho we didn't meet til college. We are the same age and grew up in similar neighborhoods in the greater Los Angeles basin. We experienced the '60's. We listened to the same AM radio stations. We know the same songs from high school. We remember the Sunset Strip "riots," and know it was the basis for Buffalo Springfield's For What It's Worth. We both went to The Troubador, even if we didn't see the same groups.

We also have a life in common after we met. I knew within three days of meeting him at summer camp that I would spend the rest of my life with him. We have that summer camp and all those friends in common. We have the same religious and spiritual beliefs. He knows my family, I know his. We have kids together.

Things have been difficult between us for the past six or seven years. Not consistently difficult, in fact inconsistently so, which probably makes it all the worse. Things will be going along smoothly and then I'll get hurt and threaten to leave. He wouldn't seem to understand. And I couldn't figure out why my thinking isn't perfectly clear and understandable to him. He understands the feelings, but my thinking was foreign to him. Well, if after all these years of me not really understanding how he thinks, I'm pretty sure he doesn't know how I think either. I don't know if this will make a difference to our lives, this understanding that we have lots in common, but not the way we think. I don't even know if I will tell him of this "ah ha." It helps me, but will it help him? He might think it's cool and then again he might just not get it!

Luckily we will always have Paris? No, forget Paris . . . we will always have our roots in common.

Rock & Roll Dreams

When I got married, I thought I was gonna be a rock & roll wife!

My guy was an electric bass player and keyboard player and he was really good. As a sideman, he had already recorded a couple albums with a singer-songwriter buddy from college. One single went to #9 on the Billboard charts. They went to the Grammy's, they toured, some of the tours were hilarious, not at all glamorous and a lot of fun. I didn't have a career or children, so I could go with him sometimes. I liked it a lot.

While I was finishing up a BA in anthropology, he was off at music school studying bass and music education (his parents were paying after all). The powers that be discovered he owned and played baritone sax and suggested he'd get lots more playing experience if he changed to a woodwind performance major. At the time I didn't realize this meant me giving up that dream of being a rock & roll wife. He became a jazz educator/musician and while people think it's way cool, I still sometimes miss the possibility I could someday dress up for the red carpet at the Grammy's.

I must be incredibly clear. It was never his dream. All he has ever wanted to be was a working musician. He would be happy working at a music store if he could talk music and noodle on the shop instruments. I don't know when I realized he didn't care a bit for the fame and fortune of rock & roll or even jazz greatness. Sometime after that realization I went back to grad school, established a career, had kids and didn't think too much or too often about reflected rock & roll glory.

A couple years ago a female student of his wanted to be a jazz wife. His jazz wife. (What ever happened to feminist principles where you never went after another woman's man? I guess I'll save that rant for another time). She tried to convince him it was all my fault he wasn't a famous musician. She couldn't understand how someone so talented could be so unknown. And since she was in love with him, it couldn't be him, so it had to be my fault! I'm glad he's always known that fame doesn't matter to him and could ignore her subtle and not so subtle attempts to . . . do what? what the hell was she trying to do? Actually I saw her emails, I got a pretty good idea of what she wanted! She moved away, we moved away, he's not her teacher anymore, he and I are still together.

But something rather interesting has been happening this coming-up-to summer season. A musician we have both loved for years, who isn't exactly famous, but could be, who doesn't exactly play rock & roll, but it's close, has asked him to join his band on a little more permanent basis. My guy is thrilled! He still doesn't care about the fame. He still is just delighted to be playing really good music and to be appreciated for his talent.

This band, where all the players are amazing, is downstairs right now practicing. Before they arrived, my guy set up the keyboard and started playing some of the stuff he used to play for me. It reminded me of my dreams of standing in the wings of The Fillmore in some fabulous costume, basking in the reflected glory. Our youngest daughter graduates from college on Monday, our son has finished school and is making his own way. It's a little later than I thought and I'd have to get a facelift to look like I did when I had these rock & roll wife dreams. I'm way more realistic about fame and what makes a person really happy. But ya never know! I may get a shot at those dreams after all!

Fan Blogs Are Not For English Majors

I'm still trying to get myself motivated to do something. It has been awfully difficult. I've been clinically depressed in my life and this is not it. But the behavior is a little too like for my comfort.

As my DH observed, depression is like having the engine turned off. What I'm doing is the equivalent of having the engine idling. And when I find what my destination is I'll engage and take off.

In the mean time, I've spent a lot of time online looking at fan blogs. It's easy, one does not have to expend much energy and it takes me out of myself (someplace I have noticed I have been avoiding for more than a few months). People can get rather passionate about a fav book/movie/fictional character or actor, whew! The comments on these blogs rather astound me. Some of them -- ok, most of them -- are so rude! And not to be unkind, but have these people ever heard of spell check/grammar check?

Before reading some of the comment streams I thought I could be just as catty and unkind as the next person . . .but whoa, I was wrong. Seems everyone has an opinion and they feel they have to express it -- but not in any sort of proper grammatical way. They are painful to read (specially after these past couple years reading my daughter's excellent college essays) and sometimes just plain mean.

I keep looking for the magic key to get going. I'm pretty sure the world of fan blogs is not it! I know I need to engage. I keep thinking if I only knew what the hell was going on with me I would snap out of it. I haven't a clue what is going on and I don't seem to snap out of it. But at least I laugh with myself at my emotional ineptitude. And I write in my personal journal and sometimes I come here and try to make sense.

"It's Not Rocket Science"

I get such a kick out of that phrase. Someone said it to me the other day and it made me smile.

You see, I was raised by a rocket scientist. My dad, a mechanical engineer, worked for a NASA contractor. He was the project manager and part of the team which designed one of the Apollo engines.

Whenever I hear that phrase I think, ". . . rocket science isn't such a big deal." It's not that my dad isn't smart. He is. But he always made me feel I was just as smart as he was. It's kind of one of the neatest things about my dad. And my dad didn't think he was the smartest man. There were always others (electrical engineers as a group, for instance) who he thought were smarter.

His humility about his own intelligence is one of the nicest things about my dad. His intellectual curiosity and kindness are what make him one of the smarted men I know.

Why Do I Do These Things?

I do my kids' taxes cuz a) I'm a nice mom. b) I'm nuts. c) I'm a control freak. d) I can't say no. e) all of the above.

I hate tax forms. They make me hyperventilate. I swore I would not do my son's again. He even asked me to ask our tax account to do his, but I dithered, didn't ask her til I thought it was too late, worried it would cost him a lot (she charges us an arm & a leg, but we think it's worth it), so here I am doing his taxes again.

They are done. His were pretty easy and my daughter's were form 1040EZ simple. The state forms aren't too bad and all this is just a rationalization for the reality that I should have my head examined.

Tomorrow I am spending the day in the city. My daughter is being inducted into her college's honor society. (Top 10% of seniors are invited). I will be attending, but this is another one of those multiple-guess answers (see options above), cuz she's not even going. She doesn't want to miss class, doesn't like fusses made over her, who knows why.

Part of my day tomorrow is not multiple choice. It's cuz I want to! I'm going to see The Runaways. I have long been a Joan Jett fan and who doesn't like a little kick-ass female rock & roll? Nobody I want to talk to tomorrow!

Happy Easter

If the kids were here, we would have had an Easter Egg Hunt. The last one was when our son was in 10th or 11th grade. He was new in school and I'm not sure his friends had ever met anyone as nutty as his mom -- planning an egg hunt for 16 year olds! We all had a blast.

As it was, my husband and I spent today like most other Sundays: church, lunch out, browsing at our fav bookstore (he gets coffee, I read magazines) and a leisurely drive home on the scenic route.

When we returned home one of B's friends had sent him a link to Peeps dioramas. Ya gotta check it out. We were in hysterics. Having read a lot of books to my kids, I was delighted to see their favorites featured: "Where The Wild Peeps Are" And "Goodnight Peep." We laughed and laughed and I had to share it. What will you make with Peeps next year?

Enjoy!!!

Passion

I tie myself in knots because I think I should be passionate about something productive. It's an attitude handed down by my engineer father and probably one I have handed down to my kids.

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language gives "boundless enthusiasm" as one of the definitions of Passion.

I was thinking, as I was driving, that maybe I have lost a sense of passion, at least the kind that translates into doing something. The kind I remember having in college when we protested about everything -- the Viet Nam war, women's rights, relevancy in classes. We were a passionate generation, everything mattered. Maybe it was being 19, maybe it was the times. Maybe it was having the enormous freedom to go to college and not work full time. Whatever it was, my youth was not wasted on the young! And somehow those passions seemed productive. We were "doing" something -- ending a war, allowing women to keep their own names, reading Malcolm X and Eldridge Cleaver!

But these days I don't seem to have a passion for running a business or making art -- both things I say I would like to do. Those are productive things. But they are not the things that get me going each morning.

My boundless enthusiasm is the same as it was when I was eight years old. Reading and stories! I love stories, whether a novel, non-fiction work, or movie; any thing that sparks my interest and allows me to put myself into a place or learn about interesting characters. I really love to read. And finish a couple books each week. When my daughter was in kindergarten, the teacher asked her what I did. She replied, "My mom reads books." The teacher, who knew me, said, "Oh, is she a librarian?" My daughter answered yes, which I am. But the truth is, "My mom reads books," is probably the truest thing she could have said about me.

I don't read for a living (tho I did love that Robert Redford's character in Three Days of the Condor actually did get paid by a spy agency to read). I don't have a library job, by choice. So some days, like today, I feel just a bit stuck that the thing I do well, and a lot isn't a job or career and takes up a lot of time I think I should be doing something else.

I wish I had a good conclusion to this post. But that's all I've got. I just wanted to write it out.