All I really wanted for Mommy Day was a necklace made of plastic beads and macaroni, something I could wear with an evening gown to feel a little Overboard, a la Goldie Hawn. This want felt like it had grown up from Mother’s Days past, where all I really wanted was a gold charm bracelet, or bangles and baubles, or anything really from one of the many “Gifts to Celebrate Mom on Mother’s Day” magazine or web lists. Every year I feel disappointed that Phil didn’t write a card, didn’t have the kids make cards, did nothing more than make brunch reservations. I didn’t want to feel disappointment this year, so I told the kids that it was Mother’s Day Weekend, that they could cram in as much mom love as possible, in song and otherwise. Especially, I stressed, when said mom love could involve homemade waffles… with mini chocolate chips. Throwing in the detail of the chips makes them full-speed-ahead kids, ready with cheers and the insistence that they make me breakfast in bed, knowing that the chips will fall where they may (into their wee bellies). I printed out the recipe come Friday night. But when Phil and I returned from picking the kids up from gymnastics Friday night, he went into bed to rest, as I began to measure waffle ingredients. “I’ve made the batter,” I tell him, leaving the bowl on the counter with the remaining instructions and waffle iron. The batter sits on the counter overnight, with the yeast left to rise and double. Come morning, eggs and baking soda are added, then blueberries or chips.

Making batter for your own surprise breakfast in bed is like picking out the engagement ring before he proposes. It made me sad that I had to be involved to get what it was that I really wanted. If I really wanted the macaroni necklaces, it wasn’t enough to hint at it four times. No. I’d have to set the kids up at a table with string and beads and a box of noodles, otherwise, forget it. And that sucks. It sucks that I have expectations. It sucks that I want certain things and the only way to get them is to do it myself. Which is like buying your own jewelry. Even when you wear it, you always know you were the one who had a hand in it all, that on some level you forced it, stepped beyond hint into help. It’s just not the same.

I want to say that I appreciated everything just as it was, but I didn’t. There were no framed photos for a wall, no noodle necklaces or home projects with the help of dad. There was a bouquet of dyed flowers from the supermarket, bought not for me, but for the required “bring a flower to school for teacher appreciation week.” Maybe it’s just because of what I’m going through now with the latest health news–though I doubt it–but I felt undervalued. No gifts, no flowers, no cards, no photo or homemade gifts. Waffles of my own making.

If I have expectations that run too high, it’s because I grew up with this, with a father who always bought my mother flowers, special ones from a florist, bought cards and gave presents, engraved or otherwise. My grandfather, too, always celebrated my grandmother on holidays and ordinary days, with gift wrap and planning. They were spoiled. Or so it always seemed. Perhaps these women had to buy their own cards (the thought of this makes me cry), or perhaps they had to buy their own jewelry or put their children in a playroom, supervising sentiment. Maybe these things shouldn’t matter to me, but they do. Because I want to feel cherished by my husband, to know that he planned and schemed and made the effort at extra special that he knows matter most to me.

He made reservations and cooked my waffles. This isn’t the kind of disappointment I’d usually admit. But I’m feeling sorry for myself, despite all my blessings. I feel let down, as if I’m a spoiled brat who never sees the positive in things. Chooses not to focus on the fact that my husband took the time to research a restaurant I’d like for Mother’s day, that he made the reservations weeks in advance at a place with west coast oysters (my favorite) and lobster rolls and Blue Crab Eggs Benedict. I should focus on what I do have, that my family wanted more than anything to snuggle in bed with me. But instead I’ve chosen to feel sorry for myself and to blame and stew over what? In the grand scheme of things what does it even matter? Things don’t, but gestures do. But perhaps even with the gestures I’d then still want more, want things. And if there were things wrapped in gift paper, in velvet boxes, then perhaps I’d complain that there weren’t enough gestures. Maybe what I need to work most on is to be thankful for whatever it is I do have. Though while I try to do this, it’s very hard to look away from what I can’t see. That’ll take some work. I’m just not sure it’s the kind of thing one should be working toward, lowering her expectations. It’s just nothing I can imagine ever convincing my children to do for themselves. “Lower your expectations, so you won’t feel disappointment,” sounds like the shittiest advice ever. It’s advice I’ve heard from life gurus on tapes, but it’s advice I’ve never been able to stand behind… advice I seem to keep stepping in.

Instead, especially in light of my latest health news, I should be thankful that I’m even able to celebrate Mother’s Day, that I am in fact a mother with healthy children. I should be thankful that we can afford such a holiday brunch, that we were all together, safe, able to make toasts and laugh and love on each other. I need to be thankful of these gifts instead of wanting others, wanting things that in the end mean nothing. And that’s something to remember.

MAD MEN
Obviously, I’m back on board with Mad Men, though this week’s past episode was smoking crack—or at least was tripping on Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. Between Peggy giving a HJ to a stranger in a theater, to Roger’s “trip” with Jane, to Don and his dearest’s fight, chase, and crash, I didn’t know where to look. I’m still trying to process it all. And, I miss Betty.

GIRLS
Lena Dunham (Tiny Furniture) is the creator of HBO’s Girls, “which is co-produced by Judd Apatow.” I hate that—that every article I’ve seen on the show includes the Apatow footnote way up in the opening paragraph, as if to legitimize the series, like giving accreditation to a three-week summer program. The girl can slouch just fine on her own.

I was in their Long Island City offices one afternoon while Lena polished the pilot script, and I was cheering (albeit silently) for her, thrilled truly that such a young woman had a tribe of people buzzing around, creating an entire series based on her vision and talent. Good for her. Not just because she’s young (25 yrs. old), not just because she’s a woman, but because even in Hollywood, where everyone wants to stir your pot, she was able to keep the authenticity and quirk of her voice and characters, the ones that sparkled dimly (in that desired understated way) in her independent feature film Tiny Furniture (winner at Austin’s SXSW—TX shout out).

The show purposefully shines an unflattering fluorescent light on Dunham’s generation of privileged twenty-something’s, specifically, a circle jerk of all-white New Yorkers. Write what you know. I don’t believe Dunham is suggesting that the girls in the cast (herself included as the main character, Hannah) are a microcosm of her generation, but rather, she’s writing about the world she knows, just as Neil Simon wrote about his own particular life.There’s been a lot of backlash, particularly criticism on the narrow and spoiled view of it’s characters, but I believe Dunham knows exactly what she’s doing: she’s being self-deprecating.

While I was in their offices, a friend mentioned to me that the lines written to be funny, where Dunham pokes fun at her own character’s weight, weren’t funny because Lena looked too good. She wasn’t fat enough to make fun of her weight. She’s trying though. She’s putting the absurdity of privilege coupled with aimlessness and a sense of entitlement on display.

The only bit that didn’t “read” true to me was the scene where Hannah is taking a bath with her friend, leaning over the tub, EATING A CUPCAKE. Why, oh why, did she have to go there? Might as well have been a carton of ice cream. It’s cliché, so perhaps that bit was forced upon her in editing to make an executive happy. The bath, I don’t get, but it’s probably something she has experienced, plus it demonstrates that Hannah is at ease with her body, storybook tattoos and all. Overall, I love the unapologetic self-centered view, the frizz and the unflattering. It feels as if you’re looking in the mirror without makeup, “rough” after spending days of unshowered sloth in the same pajamas, eating cereal from a Pyrex measuring cup because it’s the only clean bowl you have left. That’s how Girls feels. And ironically, it’s refreshing.

I saw the film Hysteria with Maggie Gyllenhaal, Hugh Dancy, and a minor role for our adored Rupert Everett. It’s billed as “A romantic comedy based on the truth of how Mortimer Granville devised the invention of the first vibrator in the name of medical science.” And I can see the blurb now: “Vibrating!” But, it’s really not a romantic comedy, nor is it vibrating. There’s an absence of tension. Not once do we wonder (or even root), “Now how will the lovers, who are so clearly meant to be, ever get together?” It really doesn’t feel anything like a romantic comedy, so don’t see it hoping for a satisfying chick by way of flick. Doesn’t happen. Overall, I would not recommend this film until it hits homes in DVD fashion. This trailer pretty much sums up the entirety of the film:

I just dug up this post from my archives (I still can’t believe I’ve been blogging for over eight years now) because for the past few days I keep circling back to this message; I’ve been hearing it everywhere. Perhaps it’s topical, presenting itself to me as a reminder to apply these learnings to my marriage. And perhaps I’m meant to share this again with you because you need to hear it.

Watching Oprah’s Life Class the other day, I heard the “Fake It To Make It” message once again. Keisha, a woman who chose to adopt her incarcerated brother’s little boy expressed her deep resentment toward her nephew, a hearing impaired child with Diabetes. He was hungry for her affections, and she confessed that she was at war with herself because while she didn’t want to damage this sweet boy, she also was deeply resentful, hating having to sacrifice, and didn’t want to hug him or give him the affection he so often craved. She wanted to find love elsewhere, wanted to pursue her degree in medicine, and he got in the way of her plans. Brave woman to admit to that truth. Intellectually, of course she realized he didn’t deserve any of this, that he deserved only love, but she couldn’t get past her feelings of “This isn’t fair! I never would’ve signed up for this had I known.” At one point, Oprah addressed the audience to remind viewers to look within their own lives, not at Keisha’s, and figure out where they are ignoring the love that’s right in front of them for the taking. Keisha was looking for someone to love, to start a real life, oblivious to the fact that this boy was that someone she could love. Yes, she wanted romantic love, a partner, but it was coming at her in a different form. The little boy, Oprah said, was there to help her open up some heart space. Bishop T.D. Jakes’s advice to Keisha was to fake it, that the feelings would come. Fake it to make it. I felt myself nodding.

Belief follows behavior. Sometimes you have to force yourself to invest in the choices you’ve made and to make the most of your situation. It can’t hurt to at least try. It was the message I needed to hear this week. Fake it to make it in every aspect of your life. Your job, your love life, even your health…

I took a Health Psychology class in college, where I learned, among other things, about the power of positive (and craptastic) thinking, particularly its impact on our health. I already knew that imagining myself making contact with the ball on a softball field would improve my chances of slamming the thing for real. That we can literally practice in our mind, visualizing it happening, and studies have proven that it works.

I also knew, as a writer, that I could elicit a physical response from words alone.
With just a paragraph of description, with nothing but imagery and words, we can cause a physical reaction. Simply describing, for example, the texture of a lemon, its pores, and slightly green tip. The resistance of a knife as it cleaves through the skin, cleanly. The sound of the knife pushing forward on the wooden board. The way the halves rock and teeter, laid out on their sides. How some of the seeds are left whole, small winks hiding beneath the translucent pockets of sour. Wiping the knife blade clean of the acrid juices, and that first squirt, clean and bright, a spray. Then pulling a wedge to my lips, taking that quick first lick, just to test, and the wince that comes after that first sharp taste, a sting and burn, and a bloom of saliva from the back of your jaws.

I could salivate just from reading it, a physical response to imagery. Then I studied the Placebo Effect, “the power of healing that can stem simply from a patient’s belief that a treatment will be effective.” Basically in a randomized and double-blind study, patients were divided into two groups: one received actual medication, and the other group was given a look-alike placebo pill. The study was double-blind, meaning not just the patients, but the doctors too had no idea which was which. And all the patients believed the pill would help them… and it did. Just the belief that it was working improved the patients’ health. This could be the reason so many people believe in the effectiveness of alternative medicines. In fact, “Ten years and $2.5 billion in research have found no cures from alternative medicine. Yet these mostly unproven treatments are now mainstream and used by more than a third of all Americans.”

The Placebo Effect has always fascinated me, not so much with regard to our health, or the validity of acupuncture or chiropractic treatments, but with how this concept of “belief following behavior” could be applied to my dating life.

The practice of forcing myself to date the men who were actually interested in me—the over-eager boring ones who never made me work for it, the ones who’d make great fathers, and put me first—was a test-study of the “belief follows behavior” axiom. If I forced myself to date celery instead of funnel cake (behavior), I’d soon actually believe that I prefer these celeriac men (belief). The same way that forcing yourself to smile even if you’re miserable (behavior), actually DOES make you feel better (belief). “If I’m smiling, I must be happy.” Then we actually feel happier. So if I forced myself to continue to date a man to whom I had no attraction (behavior), the assumption is that I’d grow to be attracted to him (belief). That’s why we hear so many stories of, “Well, I wasn’t attracted at first, but then the more I got to know him, the more I liked him.”

It extends beyond our dating lives, touching almost everything. Believe you’re already a thin person, you start to eat and behave like a thin person. Insert cough here. No need to worry; there’s a placebo for that.

A YEAR AGO: Food and Mood Dreams, Obsession Under Pressure
2 YEARS AGO: Not A Euphemism
4 YEARS AGO: Back in LA

Unrelated. It’s the first word that strikes me for this post. I have two totally unrelated items to share. The first of which involves hives on Kind Sir’s sweet face (neck, one area on his back, hands and forearms). We first noticed them, I want to say when I picked him up at school. My eyesight is for shit, so to me, his red cheek just looked flushed, as if he’d just been running  or was hit in the face with a dodgeball (this happened to me more than once in my adolescence). I didn’t think much of it. Then we went swimming in our backyard. I mention that it was our backyard and not the main country club pool because our backyard pool isn’t heated, so we braved it in frigid waters. When he swam into my arms, and I held him, I felt bumps on his face, tried to inspect them, but he wiggled free. I left it alone. Then came a clean bean bubble bath. Phil came home and noticed the red, too.

Upon further inspection, I realized that it had gotten much worse. Now the bumps were hives, some skin colored, some red, growing in size. I went over the food he’d eaten that day: matzoh made at school, almonds, ten mini chocolate chips, hummus, carrots, milk, rice cereal, turkey. Nothing unusual for him at all. We called his teacher, who assured us he hadn’t done anything out of the ordinary. But you never can tell what he’s stuffing into himself—our boy’s signature self-soothing comfort move is to suck his thumb while picking his nose, single handed. We’ve tried to break him of the habit, but until he really wants to stop, we’ve found that it’s become pointless to constantly remind him not to do it. It’s just not working, at all. Though this is most likely unrelated to the hive situation.

We medicated him with Benedryl once he became really uncomfortable, scratching. The hives cleared up quickly after that. The following day, Phil took the kids swimming in the heated country club pool, and once again, Kind Sir broke into a bad case of hives. Mind you these two instances were the first times he ever had any type of allergy to anything. And he’s done a lot of swimming, and we’ve never had this happen. But I know we can develop allergies, and maybe there’s something about this time of year in Florida? I don’t know. Phil took the kids to Pirate’s Cove, a playground near our home, that has a splashpad / sprayground. Where once again the hives returned. I wonder if it’s chlorine related.

Unrelated to swimming, yesterday we went for Sunday brunch, a buffet of dreams consisting of sausage, bacon, bagels, waffles, French toast… you name it, they have it from pecan pie to creme brule; it’s a food orgy.  As we finished brunch, Lucas climbed into Phil’s lap, and Phil noticed that the hives were coming back. Not all of them, but some were starting to form and grow. Lucas began to scratch. Benedryl yet again came to his rescue. He’s been fine. But I’m now scared to take him swimming… or anywhere.

I google, a basic nightmare, with underlying causes that rhyme with anemia. Perhaps he’s allergic to the cold? So I take an icepack and hold it to his forearm for five minutes, but no hives. I’m getting his ass to the allergist, but I fear they’ll tell me “it could be anything. There’s not much we can do.” I also realize, of course, that this is the least of it. That it could be so, so much worse. I just looked, he has a hive that’s popped up on his wrist just now.

In unrelated news, I received an interesting email about a new series “Kids on Race: The Hidden Picture.” It airs tonight on Anderson Cooper 360°.

“A white child and a black child look at the exact same picture of two students on the playground.
The pictures, designed to be ambiguous, are at the heart of a new study on children and race commissioned by CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360°. White and black kids were asked: “What’s happening in this picture?”, “Are these two children friends?” and “Would their parents like it if they were friends?” The study found a chasm between the races as young as age 6.

Overall, black first-graders had far more positive interpretations of the images than white first-graders. The majority of black 6-year-olds were much more likely to say things like, “Chris is helping Alex up off the ground” versus “Chris pushed Alex off the swing.”

They were also far more likely to think the children pictured are friends and to believe their parents would like them to be friends. In fact, only 38% of black children had a negative interpretation of the pictures, whereas almost double – a full 70% of white kids – felt something negative was happening.”

Link to the AC 360° blog

Anderson Cooper 360° airs at 8 &10 pm ET on CNN. Video link from tonight’s segment will be available after the show.

This time change thing is a bitch. I’m pretty sure I’ve never said this before because I can’t remember ever feeling it. Sure, when it’s black out at 5:30pm, I felt it, but waking never felt like this. It might have to do with my wee addiction to iPad/iPhone puzzle adventure games. The past few nights, I haven’t gone to sleep before 3am.

I’ve been known to do this. When I worked in advertising, in 1997, I once called in sick because I’d been up all night, into the daylight of morning, playing Playstation’s Final Fantasy, another puzzle solving, I can’t stop, this is crack laced with powdered sugar laced with lottery tickets, game. This week, my nerdly dependencies were twofold: 1) Dream Chronicles – The Book of Air by PlayFirst; 2) Jules Verne Return to Mysterious Island.

First let me begin with this tidbit, which dates back further in my nerdom history, launching us back in 1996, when instead of attending a keg party, I was stowed away in my dorm room playing Myst, solving it, over the course of a weekend, leaving only to defecate. I’d pee in a cup.

No. Not really. I left to pay the delivery guy down in the lobby. That was it. Then, years later, after Final Fantasy, within my first four years working at Juno Online Services, Faith Chang got me enslaved to Riven, by the creators of Myst. If you haven’t played either of these games, I suggest you begin with Myst.

Let me put it this way. If you liked the television series LOST, you will want to have crack cocaine babies with Myst and Riven. I would write more about this problem solving obsession of mine, but I have the issue of children. Both of whom are at school, waiting for me to collect them. I’m fighting every instinct to nab them up and race home to continue to play Jules Verne Return to Mysterious Island. In lieu of this, I will buy sushi and bring cups for water, a blanket, watercolors, brushes and watercolor paper. We will zip over to Morikami Japanese gardens, where we’ll picnic over sushi after painting from the landscape. Though, no doubt, I will be looking for hidden clues where they don’t exist.

Then I will race home to mock The Bachelor, drink wine, and eat red velvet cake from Cheesecake Factory. Because if you’re going to spend all day playing video games, you’d better be fat, too.