High-heeled sneakers

For the longest time I have labored under the belief that all I needed to reach my full potential was peace and quiet. I begged for peace and quiet. I extolled the virtues and possibilities of being left alone in my peace and quiet.

Now that it has finally arrived, me, myself and I are ready to strangle each other.

Perhaps that's because we're watching too many cop shows while folding the laundry.

It has been a surprise to come face to face with myself at last only to find that I don't know me as well as I thought I did.

Truly, instead of getting down to my life's ambitions, I just started to expose my shortcomings in timely fashion, pulling at all the loose threads with obsessive attention. I even minutely criticized my reflection.

I needed a purpose. Yes, yes, I have my writing and volunteering and all that, but - in addition - should I consider becoming a private detective who specializes in pet disappearances? Sell homemade pastries in the local library cafe? Start a 80's rock cover band and hold concerts in my carport on Friday nights?

Instead I rediscovered shopping.

For years I assumed that I didn’t like to shop, that I loathed it in fact. Now I realize I just hated shopping with children. Shopping for clothes has become utterly enticing now that there are no little people running down strangers with carts, begging for donuts where donuts aren’t sold, opening dressing room doors when I’m less than half naked, and playing hide-and-seek with sticky fingers in clothes racks.

At this point, it’s difficult to tell how far this shopping thing might go as a kind of therapy until I find myself again, but for now I feel a strange compulsion to supplement my wardrobe with articles that make me feel like a rock star or at least have “rock” in the brand name.

I bought my first pair of skinny jeans – the kind that feel like they’re relocating my kneecaps, suffocating my thighs, and are just one step away from those deconstructed things.  And I spent more than 50 bucks on a pair of high-heeled sneakers. Yes, high-heeled sneakers. (I’m still looking for neon leg warmers and a hot pink leotard to go with them.)

My new wardrobe has me seriously thinking about that rock band. We’ll name ourselves the Radical Thirty-Something Rebels; I’ll dye my hair blonde and invest in a pleather dress.

I would ask my friends to play in my band, but they’re far too sensible. Moms, too, they don’t seem to be applying black eyeliner, squeezing into skinny jeans and layering funky jewelry merely to drop the kids off at school.

But until I can become a celebrated writer or pet detective, it's all I’ve got.

The struggles of a humor writer

For a while there - not long ago at all - I felt like my creative aspirations were dust in the wind, at least where my humor writing was concerned. Primarily, my outlook was all wrong. I was attempting to take some real crises I was having and make them funny, but I wasn't in the mood.

I spent weeks working on and off on a few pieces, but I couldn't get the tone or flow right on any of them. They had no punch. It got to the point where I was chewing obsessively on petty words, paring paragraphs, and cutting and pasting content back and forth between posts.

Finally, I decided to write a little about my creative struggle here, and quite suddenly inspiration came back to roost. Not only was I able to finish pieces I had been working hard on with very little success, I wrote two more - one of which I thought needed very little editing.

Well, the one I thought needed little editing just got rejected. Such is life. Perhaps I should revisit my original judgment on its readiness for the online stage. And of course I will, because after asking for insight I received some constructive feedback on why the site declined to publish it. I'm grateful to know it was considered.

One of the former pieces I had been fiddling with for what seemed like far too long - perhaps a few months - I submitted this month to a prestigious humor contest. I was terrified that I would have nothing worth entering but was determined to jump in the pool. Whatever was least dreadful at deadline would simply have to be my submission. In the end - after inspiration found me again - it really only retained the bare bones of the original idea, but I was proud of and pleased with it. I believed I had finally made my crisis funny. My hopes? Very slim. But I'm not embarrassed. The past winners are hilarious and very talented.

A third piece just got published at Erma Bombeck Writers' Workshop. It was inspired by a visit from my sister Annie over my birthday weekend. With her permission - and giving her credit, of course - I ran with her idea of "anger pies", Extra inspiration was provided by a recent visit with my in-laws at Christmas.

That last post is called Family Pains. Let me know what you think of it here, if you like. Can you relate? If you enjoy it, any shares would be appreciated.

Valentine's comparing bug

I've had an attack of the mama guilt.

My youngest girl, precious Ella, went to school this morning with her handmade Valentine's box to catch all the class Valentines.

For two weeks she and her little brother have been experimenting with cereal and tissue boxes, duct and masking tape, and scissors. They have cut jagged rectangles into their boxes and secured paper to their sides with the aforementioned tape. They have drawn goofy hearts and plastered on animal stickers.

And each box has looked like...well...hmmmm. I don't know what to say. I'll let you picture them.

Suffice it to say that I made some suggestions, and I finally offered up some of the shoe boxes that protect my high heels. But their Papa said they had cut up enough boxes, and Ella said she was fine.

Earlier this week and just today I saw the boxes some of the children were bringing in for their Valentines. They were very neat, keeping to a theme. Almost all were made out of large shoe boxes. One was a Princess castle complete with turrets and a prominent crown and one a happy heart dude with legs, antennae and a cheerful face. Others were more modest but still very meticulously done.

I suspect many a parent wielded scissors, colored paper, stickers and even a hot glue gun this week in preparation for today.

And what did I do? I sent my little girl to school with a tissue box wrapped in plain paper with blue masking tape stripes that were peeling loose at the edges.

Gosh, what can I say?

Beside the elegant boxes this morning, parents were helping their children haul in large glittery bags full of, I assume, amazing treats for teachers and fellow students. My kids have run-of-the-mill candy - no cards this year - and I forgot to pick up something special for their wonderful, overworked teachers.

Ahhh, mama guilt, you old friend! Come and nag me by the fire!

My only consolation about all this Valentine's stuff is that Ella decorated the box herself and that, presumably, she made it just the way she wanted it. Her older sister, Ana, and I talked about it a little anxiously this morning, but one of the school paras assured me that a child's own work is what teachers prefer. Yet, should I have supported her more? Should I, like a good mama, have bought extra fun materials for her creation?

She didn't ask for my help - though she did ask for shoe boxes - and I really just want Ella to feel good about her box, and I'm afraid I failed to insure that she would.

No, I don't think I should have created it for her! Even in preschool when all the other little ones showed up with star student posters that were color-coordinated and carefully laid out, my kids' posters had their messy but adorable handiwork on them.

But though I made sure my kids were part of the creative process, I still compared our efforts to others'.

Perhaps that's my problem, and I certainly hope I don't pass on the comparing bug. I just don't want another student to say anything judgmental about Ella's box and then have her feel discouraged as she gazes around at others' productions, wishing her mama had helped her more.

When I pick up my little girl, I wish her to be beaming as she holds her small striped box full of treats and tells me all about her day.

That would indeed be a wonderful treat for me.

And next year I'll try to get into the Valentine's spirit a little earlier in case Ella should need me.

What's been going on: a mature room and a humor competition

After more than 14 years of marriage, my husband and I finally got a bedroom set.

Yeah, yeah. Big deal.

But, really, it is.

Before last week's delivery of our new furniture, our small dresser was one from my husband's childhood home. (And we thank you for giving it to us, Mom and Dad-in-law.) Our mattress sat on a box spring on the floor with not even a wall tapestry to offer it some dignity. Having our bed that humble way saved space, and for years it gave our nursing babies a safer place to rest by their mama in case of a roll off the bed (very rare!). Our other furniture was an old desk with silver sharpie and black marker embellishments, a file cabinet, and an old TV stand that held our shoes and discarded jeans.

Now our room is all grown up, hardly recognizable. "Whose room is this anyway?" Matthew and I ask each other. Beautiful. For a whole week I have been unable to stay away from this regal furniture. I stand or sit and simply stare in blatant admiration. I stroke its smooth finish. I admire its reflection in the large dresser mirror. I brush off the insolent dust. I am in love with this dark bedroom furniture.

We had waited so long - because of our wee ones - and my expectations had grown so high in that time, I was certain we would have to get rare and unusual bedroom furniture from some renowned antiques dealer or some artist in Jerome, Arizona who constructs things out of abandoned barns and mine frames. But we did the American thing and found our set at a furniture warehouse. Since its purchase I have scoured the furniture ads and sneered at their offerings; our bedroom set is surely the most beautiful of them all, even if it is mass produced.

So, you can understand now. This was a big deal for me. Not a necessity, but a big and beautiful deal.

Moving on to important things in an entirely different sense, I have been struggling for two weeks now - perhaps more - to write a humor entry for the Erma Bombeck writing competition that accompanies the Erma Bombeck Writers' Workshop I'm going to attend.

It has not gone well. Things are certainly not flowing. I am stuck in the detangling stage of my writing and, for the life of me, cannot find a cohesive or funny thing in the crazy, knotted threads of my thoughts. I wish that I could enter something I have already written. There are quite a few that I like a lot, and some that came quite easily. Inspiration was my friend then! But the entry must be pristine, unseen, a newborn babe not yet known to man. So here I am. Where are you now, o inspiration? It's a slog, believe me.

But I do recognize that any challenge, even this frustrating, is good for my craft. So whether my entry is worthy of a humor competition or not, I'm going to enter something.

Meanwhile, I have to tell you that, for my own good or ruin, I have checked out the past winners of this competition. I kid you not, they are hilarious. I laughed out loud at several of the pieces. I highly recommend checking them out if you need to lighten your load today. Here are some of my favorites:

Legacy

The Kotex Kid Strikes Again

Appreciating a Depreciating State of Things

Republican Hair

And you can find all the winners of past years HERE and determine your own favorites after a couple hours of laughter or smirks.

Well, now I must leave you, because after his papa stayed home last Friday from work and his oldest sister home from school and church with an entirely different but quite nasty virus, my youngest son has been throwing up all morning. No joke.

My poor little fella. I don't think Mama's sorry humor essays would cheer him up. I'd better work on that.