Author Interview

An author interview from Pembroke Sinclair.
http://pembrokesinclair.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-witches-of-dark-root-by-april.html

Here's a highlight...

Q) What is the oldest thing in your fridge and how old is it?  When I'm novel writing, something has to give. Usually it’s housework and the zipper on my jeans. At this point, I’m not sure that even carbon dating could track the age of what’s in the fridge. It might be easier to just buy a new refrigerator. Or move.

Sock Blocker

There's a mystery afoot. Or rather, off my foot. No matter how I rack my brain I just can't seem to figure out where all my socks are running off to. Not just one sock, or even a few, but lots and lots of socks.

I've looked under beds, in sofas, behind the dryer, and in the refrigerator (Yes, I've been known to toss strange things in the fridge when my mind is distracted). Nothing. I've even put up posters around the neighborhood with the caption Have You Seen This Sock? This only netted me
snickering comments from area children and a few propositions from a local foot fetishist.

It's a sad plight and my husband seems to be taking this the hardest.

"Not Bob," he says, tossing it's limp helpless mate into the ever growing pile on the guestroom bed. "He left without saying goodbye."

"Maybe it was suicide. We should look for a note."

We search for a post-it note that would read something like: What is the point? Stuck in the same dead-end drawer day after day. Partner ogling odor-absorbing sock at the gym. I'm launching myself down the nearest drain. Goodbye cruel world.

But either socks don't write or Bob didn't care enough to explain why he had to leave so suddenly.

"What do we do with the spares?" my husband asks. Neither of us can stand to toss them out. That would mean that we have given up all hope.

I scratch my head. "Send them to a home for unmatched socks?"

"This isn't the fifties," he reminds me. "Let's let them go with some dignity."

I agree. "Maybe donate them to charity?"

"No one wants to wear one tube sock and one ankle sock in varying degrees of off-white as a pair. Not even the homeless."

"Oh," I sigh, feeling the weight of our problem. "Then I guess your daughter is getting sock puppets for her birthday. And Christmas. And maybe even in her Easter basket."

"That seems the most humane option."

My husband and I sit on the bed, hand in hand. We discuss our dream. The same dream we've always had, once we get the money.

"We are going to throw out all of our socks," he says excitedly.

"Every last one of them!" I add enthusiastically.

"And then..."

"And then..."

We look at each other, our eyes sparkling like they had when we had first met.

"And then," we say together, "we go into the Nike store and buy five new packages each, all the exact same color!"

A smile warms our faces. It's a genius plan. Every sock looks exactly like the other socks in our Utopian dream world. There may be an occasional odd man out, but there will never be a mismatched sock again.

We slump over collectively and sigh, the daydream over. When we win the lottery that's what we will do. Until then, the hunt is on.

"Did you check the towel closet?" he asks, standing to resume his task.

"I'm on it," I say. "In the meantime, you check the freezer."




"

 

Head Games

"I have an idea," I said to my husband last night after dinner. "Let's play a game."
"Yeah?" he asked, one eyebrow raised hopefully while the other managed to arch in an 'uh-oh' sort of way, unsure of the direction this game would take.
"Yes. Let's play: If you had to name the top things that drive you crazy about your spouse what would they be?"
"I'm out."
"Why?"
"Because this has train wreck written all over it. Remember the last game we played?"
"That was a fine game until you messed it up," I informed him. The game had been if you could sleep with one person again, who would it be? We were both supposed to write that person's name on a slip of paper and trade at the designated time. Of course, it was an unspoken rule that we would write each other's names on the papers, laugh, kiss, hug, agree, and have a beautiful evening. My husband of course, wrote the name of some woman I had heretofore never heard of, whose name began with the letter Y.
"You can't be serious!" I said, throwing the slip of paper at him. "You were supposed to write ME."
"How was I supposed to know that? I thought you wanted the truth."
"I did want the truth. So long as your truth matched my truth."
I spent the night in the guest room, dreaming of big breasted women named Yolanda.

"Okay," I agreed. "Maybe that wasn't the best game. Let's try this one. Please?"
My husband looked at me skeptically, then pushed his hands into his pocket. "Okay, fine."
"I'll go first," I said. I had a long list I wanted to get through. "I hate the way you throw your dirty socks almost into the bedroom hamper but they don't quite make it. They land, one right in front of the other, as if they are trying to walk their way to the hamper, but they just can't get up the speed." I crossed my arms and thought about it. Yes, that was a good start. "Your turn."
"Well," he asked, cocking his head uncertainly. "I hate the way there's writing stuff all over the house. Papers, laptops, research books, pens. But it's also what I love about you. So I guess I don't really hate it. There, I'm done."
"That's it? That's all you got?"
"Sorry, yes. You're up."
Now I was the one feeling like I was walking into a trap. But he was probably just testing the waters. I had to go for the big guns, get him to retaliate. "You scare the hell out of me when you drive. I have to close my eyes every time we merge."
"I've noticed."
"Doesn't that make you want to change the way you drive?"
"Not really."
"Well, does it bother you at all? I know a man's masculinity can be tied up with cars and such."
"Nope."
"Oh." I furrowed my brows, disappointed. I thought this would at least incite a conversation. He would tell me that he was sorry for the way he weaves through traffic like he's in an episode of COPS and promise to never do it again. But not a word of penance was uttered from his lips. "Your turn," I sighed, turning it back over to him.
"I only had the one pet peeve and you've heard it. I'm out."
"You're joking."
"No. I can't think of anything else you do that drives you nuts. You are just so adorable, scattering your things around the house like a little kitten."
"Okay, that's another thing that drives me crazy. The way you call me things like 'little kitten' or 'cute little mouse'. Or sad little puppy' You make me sound like I belong in a pet shop."
"Noted. No more animal metaphors. Got anything else?"
"Yes!" I then described the way he couldn't scramble eggs, turned up the volume way too high whenever Van Halen was playing on the radio, and never called my mother just to say 'hello'.
"All noted," he said, studying me, his face calm, serene, and amused. I was sure my face looked more like Yosemite Sam's. "Got all that out of your system?" he asked.
"Yes," I said, suddenly embarrassed. This had been my idea so why was I the one feeling bad?
"You know," I said, pouring him a diet coke, "I may not love the way you drive but I appreciate that you do it. I hate driving."
"I know, honey."
"And at least you get your socks kinda close to the hamper."
"I do my best."
"And don't lose the animal metaphors. They've kinda grown on me."
"Noted." He squeezed my hand. "You're a mess, you know?"
"I know," I said. "How come I don't drive you as crazy as you drive me?"
"Maybe I just love you more."
"Or maybe you're just getting better at playing my games than I am."

The Road Back from Costco

I was driving home from a Costco trip, kinda bummed because I had spent way too much money (as always). As I approached the last intersection before my house, I was stopped by a red light. Two men crossed in the crosswalk, both on bikes. I assumed by their dirty, bedraggled appearances that they were homeless. This assumption was further fueled by the collection of bottles and bins and bags they had taped and secured around their bikes.

The first man crossed, pedaling fast and hard, trying to make his way before the stop light changed and the rain that threatened dumped on him. The second man crossed, taking a more leisurely approach, peddling slower, his rosy face aimed towards the sun that was trying to peek out among the clouds.

I watched the second man. Although I have always had a soft spot for the homeless this was the first time I saw a man in this situation, not as he is now, but as he might have been years before. I imagined him as a twelve year old boy racing his bicycle down the road with his friends. Maybe they'd be delivering newspapers or perhaps trying to get to school before the first bell rang. His hair would be darker, his face would be cleaner, and there would be optimism in those blue eyes as he thought about the future ahead of him. This thought made me immeasurably happy because to me, he was no longer nameless or faceless. We had both shared a common historical thread; we had just wound up in different places.

I continued to watch. He smiled into the world; a beautiful beam of peace that preceded his slow peddling. I smiled too. He caught me. Normally, I would have turned my head, not wanting to make him feel like a spectacle. The lessons of my elders always play in my head, "don't stare, and don’t point." But this time was different. I just continued to watch, my head following his path, that trace of a smile sticking to my face. He seemed so happy and content, even though he had nothing and I had a carload full of Costco goods.

As he pulled out of my sight and onto the sidewalk he turned to me, saluted, and shouted something I couldn't hear. I rolled down my window, certain he would ask me for a dollar or tell me that I had blown a tire. Instead he said, "Thank you for that beautiful smile. It made my whole day." Then he tipped his worn hat to me and rolled away.

It's moments like this that put my life into perspective. How is it that we live on this planet full of people, yet continue to ignore those around us? Is it out of a desire to 'be nice' or out of defense? I will ponder this as I go about my day. And maybe I will smile at more people.

 

The Quest for Truth

     My stepdaughter asks me how the dinosaurs died? I look at her, wondering if I should tell her the truth.

     "Well," I begin, "some people think that dinosaurs were killed off by an asteroid."

     "What's an asteroid?"

     "It's like a giant rock from outer space."

     She accepts the explanation, but I wonder if I've scared her. "Don't worry," I say, "that happened a long, long time ago. We are safe."

     "It won't happen again?"

     I hate not being honest, but I tell her that I'm absolutely positive it won't happen again.

     She nods okay.

     As adults it's our job to protect children and to preserve their innocence. Sometimes that includes lying.

     We lie about the fun things: Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and The Tooth Fairy.

     We lie about reality: I'm not crying. I just got something in my eye.

     We lie about our uncertainty: There are no more asteroids. They died off with the dinosaurs.

     We lie about life: If you stay in school and work hard you will be able to do anything you want

     We lie about death: Goldie went to live with other dogs on a farm. He is very happy there.

     I'm starting to notice these things because she asks me the other day while I'm taking her to the potty if I will always tell her the truth? She's bright for her age and has figured out that adults are sometimes trying to pull the wool over her eyes, even if their intentions are good.

     I swallow, wondering how to answer. I could be really truthful and say 'yes, unless lying is for your protection or to keep your parents from getting upset.' Instead I respond simply,  "yes, I will always tell you the truth."

     "You promise?"

     "I promise."

     She uses her new found power right away. "What's in the boy's bathroom and why can't girls go in there?"

     "Um, potties are in the boy's bathroom and girls can't go in there because there's a 'no girls allowed' rule."

     "I know," she says impatiently. "But why?"

     She looks at me as if she's put me in check. I hedge. "What do you think?"

     "Well," she rolls her eyes to the side, "my friend says she knows."

     "Oh?"

     "Yes, she says its because the boy's bathroom is haunted and girls are more afraid of ghosts. Is that true?"

    As a step-mother my role is nebulous; I'm some kind of strange hybrid between parent and friend. I think about my options: It's not my place to tell her about the differences between boys and girls. It's also not my place to agree that the bathroom could be haunted.

     I kneel down beside her. "That's an interesting idea your friend has. What do you believe?"
    
     She puts a finger to her chin, considering. "Well, I want to believe the bathroom is haunted. That's just more fun."

     "It does sound more fun."

     "Then let's do it. Let's believe that together." She takes my hand and leads me back to her daddy who is waiting for us in our booth.

     "What did you ladies talk about?" my husband asks. My step-daughter and I share a secret smile.

     "Just girl talk," I say.

     "Yeah, girl talk," she echoes back.

     My step-daughter pulls out her dolls. The small doll begins asking the big doll questions: Why are some people mean? Are monsters real? Where does the tooth fairy live?

     The big doll replies, "what do you think?"

     And the small doll answers back, a long happy stream of consciousness. The small doll has lots of ideas about the world and the big doll listens.

    Someday, I may have to keep my promise to always tell the truth, but for now I think I'm safe. For now, I'll just be the one who has her examine the world. Through that, the truth will come.
    



    

Sexy Time with the TV

 
      I returned home one night to find my husband sitting in the living room, leaned in close to the TV. As I walked inside my husband quickly tapped a button on the remote and handed me the controller.

     "What are you doing?" I asked, suspicious.

     "Just turning it to one of the shows I know you like," he said, kissing me on the forehead before heading downstairs to his man cave.

     Before he could make it down the staircase I hit the LAST button on our remote. Just minutes before he had been viewing a show called The Wild Wives of Africa.
   
     "You perv!" I said, following him.

     "What? How am I a perv?"

     "The second I leave the house you're scanning the TV looking for something pervy to watch. I know you didn't watch The Wild Wives of Africa by mistake."

     "I'm not a perv and I didn't watch it."

     "No?"

     "No. It was horrible. Not nearly as good as the title. It's about cheetahs who protect their young. And it was on the Animal Planet network." He shuddered. "Not a wild woman in sight."

     I sighed and stomped upstairs.

     This wasn't the first time I had come home to find 'questionable' programming on our TV. Once I returned to see that he had been watching a movie called Passion in the Desert, a movie advertised as as a 'gripping and erotic tale of forbidden love'. I watched the movie for several minutes, confused because there were no women in the movie. Finally, I discovered the object of the protagonist's affection: a large, female lion.

     "Really?" I demanded. "You're watching movies about men who fall in love with lions?"

     "Is that what that was about? I got bored after thirty minutes of watching the guy run around the desert looking for water." I continued to stare at him, dumbfounded. "What can I say?" he added. "The title had promise." He then went on to inform me that Wild Things was a 'cinematic masterpiece' and Bodacious Babes Behind Bars a 'gripping documentary',  and, as luck would have it, both were on tonight.

    "Perhaps I'm being too hard on him," I thought, after several hours of not speaking to him. I mean, it could be worse. I was reminded of a friend whose computer was so infected with viruses after her husband's 'internet activities' that they had to throw the whole computer away and buy a new one. The worst I had ever seen on my own husband's monitor was a bikini clad picture of Pheobe Cates taken in the 1980's. Maybe things weren't so bad.

     Besides," he informed me one evening as we were flipping through channels, "sexy TV can be good for both people in the marriage." He found a channel airing the male gymnasts of the Summer Olympics because he knew I thought they were cute. He then dimmed the lights, lit some candles, and poured me a glass of wine. I almost laughed at the absurdity of what he thought I found sexy, but I shrugged, swilled down the wine, and thought 'what the hell?'


     Maybe I will never understand his desire to watch Wives in Thigh Highs, but I guess I don't need to. It's harmless, and fairly (fairly) innocent. Though I don't mind an occasional Channing Tatum flick, I don't schedule my life around them. I guess men are just more visual.
    
     Who am I to criticize anyway? I have my own version of 'sexy time,' it just happens to be found in the lines of a really good book.

     "What's that?" my husband asks, pointing to my copy of Lady Chatterley's Lover.

     "Oh, just a book about the class struggles in England shortly after the first World War."

     "Uh-huh. Whose a perv now?" He pours me wine.

    "It's not perverted if it's a classic," I retort, taking the glass.

     "Exactly!" he replies, joining me on the couch and flipping on the TV. "And good timing on your epiphany. One of greatest classics of all time is about to start: Wild Things Two. We can watch it together and then you can read to me from your book."

     And we did; and a new tradition has been born.

Smile and Nod

(Note: This piece differs in content and tone from most of the other things I write in this blog. I wrote this five years ago but never published it due to the sensitive nature of the subject. It is not written as a dig at my mother but rather a snapshot of what I was going through during the year that followed my father's death).

***

     I wade through the boxes, bins, and totes that are strewn across my mother’s apartment. The living room is filled with long-forgotten treasures recovered from her storage unit; treasures collected from her daily trips with my father to the Goodwill store. Treasures that probably cost her $500in total to buy, but which she has paid $800to store over the past eighteen months.

     There are memories here, memories of when my father was alive; remnants of her happy past, lovingly preserved in a tin can tomb. Each item has a story and my mother is more than happy to tell it.

     "Remember this?" Her eyes mist over as she holds up a picture of a French village, ripped from an old calendar. The picture once had a frame and hung on her wall. It was ugly then and uglier now, crinkled and torn at the edges, but I’m a dutiful daughter. I smile and nod.

     "Your father and I found it by accident. We were out looking for salt and pepper shakers one day when we came across this perfectly good calendar. It was a few years old but the prints were still good so your dad framed them. Got twelve pieces of art for less than a quarter. I wonder where its frame is?” She searches through another crate and, not finding it, sighs. “Oh well, I can probably decoupage it onto a piece of wood or something. I need to get started on making Christmas presents anyway.”

     "What will you do with the rest of this stuff?" I sort through a nearby tote and find pictures of my dad from his infancy through his sixty-fifth birthday, when he was taken from me; pictures I resent my mother having because some part of me believes they are mine. I was his child. She was only his wife. I take a few, concealing them in my purse. She will never know. She has so many.

     "What do you mean, what will I do with this stuff? Keep it!" She clutches an old Tupperware bowl she has just unearthed to her chest. "I'm too old to start over now."

     My heart softens. This is her life. All that she owns. Every ounce of self-worth she still possesses is neatly bundled up in boxes I helped her gather from behind Safeway. It's junk. All of it. But it's her junk.

     "My therapist will be happy," she continues. "Going to storage and getting all this stuff back is a big step in my grief recovery."

     My toddler niece, born the day of my father's funeral, enters the room and removes a photo from a carton. "Look!" mom says, a smile spreading across her face. "She found a picture of your dad. She knows her grandpa." She has always been convinced that my niece is the reincarnation of my dead father. This cements her theory. She pulls my niece onto her lap and strokes her hair.

     I smile and nod.

     "I never knew being a pack rat was a sign of mental illness," my mother sighs. This was a new confession coming from her lips.

     "Well, being a hoarder,” I explain, purposely changing her wording, “means that you can't let things go, or that you have an obsessive-compulsive personality."

     She laughs. "Maybe both!" She is giddy. She used to deny she had a problem but lately she has begun to relish her craziness, to luxuriate in it like one would a hot bath. It defines her. It gives her purpose. But she will only accept it in the context of my father's death. He caused it. Before that, she insists, she was perfectly normal.

     "My psychiatrist told me there aren’t enough years left in my life to cure me." She grins like she has just won a game. "So he loads me up on pills now. I can't believe your father's death would do that to me."

     I want to say more. I want to say ‘mom, don’t you remember our childhood? Remember how checked out you were? Remember how you were so depressed you slept for days at a time and we were left to fend for ourselves?’

     But I don’t.

     I smile and nod.

     I spy another picture of my dad on the top of the nearest pile. I perform a sleight of hand trick and take it, knowing she would never give it up willingly. It's mine now. I’ve got secrets too.

     "But I think my psychiatrist is just going through a mid-life crisis and hates all women," mother continues. "He's probably about forty-five. You know how men are when they get that age? Crazy, all of them.”

     ‘Yes, mother,’ I want to say. ‘All your problems are related to my father's death and by men suffering mid-life problems. Your sanity, or lack thereof, rests completely with the men around you who have oppressed you in one form or another. Either by dying and leaving you behind, by running off with your mother's best friend in your formative years, or by labeling you a nut so far gone there isn’t enough time left on this earth to cure you."

     But I don't.

     I just smile and nod.

 

Feliz Navi-Enough?

     Making cookies with my mom this morning. I feel bad that I'm not more 'jolly' about it. The commercials tell me that I should be smiling, singing, joking, utterly and completely enjoying my task. But my face is drawn  and my brow is wrinkled as I mix and knead the dough. I don't like cracking eggs. I am sure an eggshell or two escapes into the bowl. My fingers are sticky and I can't wipe them off with a paper towel. I wash my hands a zillion times. This is supposed to be fun, but its work.

     I have lights on the tree and candles glowing and baby it really is cold outside. But in these moments I wonder where all the 'magic' of the season is; Why I look forward to something so much only to have it become another thing on my 'to do' list?

     I know that when this season is over I will mourn it. I will have nothing to stave off the lonely months of January through March. Portland winter rain, without the warmth of twinkling lights, is downright depressing.

     I jump back into my cookie making, determined to give it the spirit it deserves. Sprinkles. That's what these cookies need. Sprinkles make everything better.

     Meanwhile mom is buzzing, her hands elbow deep in dough. She is talking about things I don't understand. Relatives I never knew. Conspiracies I can't imagine. And what Bones is doing on TV.

Fa La La La - Run!

So I'm going away for Christmas. It's the third year in a row that I will be spending Christmas with my husband's family, and not my own.

I'm okay. Really I am. My family has plans of their own on Christmas anyway. Still, it feels funny. It's like my house will miss me or something.

It also feels weird to hang lights and deck the halls when we won't be around to celebrate.

My step-daughter asked me if Santa will still come to our house if we aren't there. I want to tell her that yes, of course, Santa will come. He won't skip our house just because we aren't there. We have a Santa Stops Here sign that says so.

However, although she is five I think she may be trying to trick me into more gifts.

She knows we are doing 'present day' early this year, before we take off (she will be spending Christmas with her mom).  If Santa comes and we aren't there, naturally there will be presents waiting for her when she gets back.

Clever kid.

For now I'm just fudging, hoping she forgets. She's only five. Her attention span can't be that long.

On another note we are leaving on Dec 21, 2012, the day the Mayan Calendar ends and some say, so does the world.

I was watching the History Channel and it aired a special on Nostradamus and his end of world predictions. According to Nostradamus experts they've narrowed down the exact epicenter of the end of the world. Ironically, it happens to be the exact place I will be traveling to on that day.

I can just see the line of cars leaving the area as we are driving in.

I guess if the world is going to end its better to be at the center of it than the perimeter. I've read The Road. I don't want to be kept on ice in some body's basement meat locker when the resources run dry. At least this way it's Boom. Game over.

Still, I might stock up on water and jerky. With Twinkies out of the equation I'm not sure what other food sources will last indefinitely and are easy to pack.

I'm also running up credit cards and running on the treadmill. The first is in case the world really does end. Might as well charge as much as I can if I don't have any debt. Does this mean my student loan is finally forgiven?

The second is in case the world sort-of ends and I need to run away from shit. All that treadmill running will come in handy.

The H Word

Just got into my first holiday 'debate' with my mother. She said something like 'women fought for women's lib and what did it get them? Sexual harassment. Low paying jobs. Women should all just go back into the home.'

My mother is a liberal, a die hard Democrat, so her declaration that women should all just 'return to the home' was jaw dropping news for me. I suddenly imagined her with a flip hairdo, a poodle skirt, and a set of pearls.

"Mom, most women today aren't fulfilled by being a full time homemaker. They want to do something besides attending to their homes. Work full time, go to school, or maybe even take a part time job."

"Well, why? I just don't understand. In the 1950s women all got their hair done twice a week, entertained for their husband's boss, and got a heck of an allowance for managing the house. My mother was well taken care of. Sounds like a good life to me."

"So women in the 1950's were happier? I find that hard to believe." I had watched enough shows to see that every woman of that era carried a martini glass and a bottle of pills while looking out the window to see when 'daddy' returned home.

"Yes. They loved it."

"As women, we have more opportunities than ever. We don't have to stay in the home now, if we don't want to."

"But still, you go to work and the men maul you and act sexually aggressive towards you. Then men get promoted to better jobs just because they are men. What kind of world is that?"

Trying to explain to her that there are now sexual harassment laws, that more women are employed then men, and that women can be anything they want now proved futile.

"So what you are saying is that women are confused by what they want and aren't fulfilled by anything. If they were they would be happy caring for their homes."

I love my mother, I really do, but I was feeling a vein in my head pop. "I'm just saying everyone needs to do what they want to do to find happiness. If that is being a homemaker, they should do that. If its working at Taco Bell, they should do that. If its owning their own company they should do that."

"Don't you consider yourself a homemaker?"

"I write from home, then I turn on my robot vacuum and throw a pot pie in the oven for my husband before he gets home. I'd hardly qualify myself as a homemaker."

She just looked at me like she had won.

I had to ask myself why I cared? I have great respect for homemakers. They do things I could never do. But hearing my mother call me one was unnerving.

Then the epiphany came. She defines herself as a homemaker, and though I love my mother Ive never wanted to be anything like her. I didn't like being cast in the same play.

While I was absorbing this revelation, she continued.

"All I know is that I never wanted to be rich, or famous. I just wanted a home to take care of."

I thought about all the homes we had lived in when I was a kid. All of the eviction notices posted on our doors. She had never really gotten her dream and I felt really sad. I had taken for granted the things she had always wanted: A husband who loved me and a home to take care of. Sure, it wasn't what defined me, but it was mine.

"I'm sorry." I almost said, but I didn't. I walked away to my computer to try and make sense of it all. I didn't like her thinking. I still felt it was dangerous to say all women should do anything. But I  wasn't wearing her lenses.

In her 1950's world - the time of her childhood, before men hurt her and jobs disappointed her and my father died -women were free and cheerful and didnt have to worry. That's what men were for.

She wasn't saying she really wanted that world again. She was just telling me she wanted to feel safe again.

Maybe for Christmas I will buy her a vaccuum, or a broom. And she can clean up the pain of her past as she attends to the orderliness of her present.

My Mom's Coming to Visit

My mom's coming to stay with me for an entire month over the holidays. She is set to arrive, twelve suitcases in hand, the Tuesday before Thanksgiving and stay until the Friday after Christmas.This will be the longest she has stayed with me and I'm a bit nervous. Hoping my brother will take her for a few days now and again, maybe like a library check out system. If not, it's going to be an interesting month for me.

As a writer I'm a solitary person during the day. I get up, slog to the computer, peck out a few thousand words, eat cereal by the handful straight from the box (I have a special talent I can pick out the pink hearts from the Lucky Charms without even looking), brush my teeth, and repeat the process again at lunch. Having my mother here - she who processes every thought she has out loud - is going to be a challenge.

"April, do you know where I put my coffee?" "April, do you ever watch Bones?" "April, you should really dress more like the girl on Numbers. She has your personality and shape."

I'm going to have to find a different spot to write. To read. To exercise. To think. My house is not that big and there may be little reprieve for me. She settles in, roosts, swallowing up the entire room with her presence. Worst of all, she hogs the video games.

Still, I wouldn't change it for the world. I miss my mom. Some way, somehow, she has become one of my best friends. It will be worth the constant updates on Murder She Wrote reruns, the declarations about how much better we were in the 1950s, and the TV blasting at sonic boom levels just to have her here.

Mothers are interesting. You love them. Resent them. Move away from them. Come back to them. Seek comfort and wisdom from them, then tell them to stay the hell out of your life.

And my mother, with her tarot cards, neon red hair, penchant for losing things, and a heart of gold, is the most interesting mother of them all. I'm a lucky woman.

Growing up in the 70's (For Jimmy)

My nephew recently told me that he wished he could have been alive in the 70s to see what they were like. I had to pause for a moment as I was hurled through memory lane. I was a kid in the 70s. Maybe I could help him.

The first thing I remember is the simplicity of the decade. Plain clothes, straight hair, muted colors. We lived in a world of plaid and paisley but it wasn't blinding. Mustard yellow was a wardrobe staple.

We didn't spend our weekends at the Mall or the movie theatre. Going out to the Ihop was a treat. McDonalds was a luxury.
We spent our summers in the front yard running through sprinklers, zipping through neighborhoods on our bikes, or huddled under yards of sheets in makeshift forts. We had toys, but I had never seen a Toys R Us. My parents purchased my Christmas gifts at Kmart. I'm not sure where the other kids got their presents, but it must not have there because the K word, in the third grade, was a dirty word.

There were no vidoe games to keep us occupied. There was just one TV. We had three channels to choose from. Four if you were lucky and could get the clothes hanger your father installed as a makeshift antenna to work. My mother guarded our TV by day, and my stepfather took over at night. Occasionally, I was able to sneak in Mork and Mindy or Happy Days, but only because my mom found neither of those shows deplorable. She hated The Brady Bunch though, so I had to stay in the closet about that one until I came of age.

Homes were large and mostly one level. If you were lucky you got your own room. Most of the time I was unlucky, having to share a space with two sisters and several family pets. But once we lived in a four bedroom house and for two glorious years I had an entire room to myself. It was painted white and I dreamed of yellow fluttering curtains that my mom never got around to hanging up. I littered my room with Nancy Drew books and Slurpee cups from my weekly treks to 7/11. I put on shows for money to keep up my Slurpee habit. Bad singing mostly, but the kids in the neighborhood had few other options for entertainment and so they came to see me and my cousin perform. It was like Little Rascals without the really cool clubhouse.

Our living room was panelled to offset the green cabinets and yellow appliances of the kitchen. My mother would say that the panelling provided warmth. It also helped hide the drawings of my budding artist brother. The adults drank coffee together, brewed in our our house, discussing music and politics as they visited at speckled tables. And they played cards. Lots and lots of cards. The days of gathering on front porches and whittling had vanished but community, conversation, and neighbors were still very important. My mother opened up her house to everyone. This didn't sit well with me. There were six kids in our family and our house was always a mess. But my mother didn't care. She was as friendly as she was undomestic and the only people who seemed to notice were her own children who teased me about it the next day at school.


The adults of the 70s were the children of the 60s and they had come to this decade with the ideals of their youth, even if they were now saddled down by 'the man'. They talked about them too, oftentimes around children. We weren't as protected from words back then. We learned about wars and sex and who was doing what with who as our parents gossiped over chocolate fondue. But we also learned about freedom, sacrifice, and what it meant to be an individual. My mother was very open with me. She told me things that would make parents today gasp. She told me about a man she knew who shot children in the Vietnam War and never came out the same. She told me about the importance of a woman having control over her own body. And she told me that it was okay to love whoever I wanted, regardless of race or gender. Maybe that was too much to tell a child, but even then, I respected that she saw me as a person, not just a kid.

Speaking of protection, our generation was probably the least protected groups of children in current times. We didn't wear helmets when biking, and there were no bark chips on our playgrounds. In our day we played on hot, metallic monkey bars and if we were dumb enough to do an aerial flip and crack our heads on the pavement below, it served us right if we walked around drooling for the rest of our lives. I was too chicken to try most of the flips and so I (and chickens like me) stayed safe. But we watched with wonder as those kids, like my brave cousin, twirled around the bar three times, flew high into the air, and landed gracefully on their feet. There were no adults telling them to be careful. We had walked to the park. Alone. If it was during school hours you might have a playground attendant blow a whistle in your ear before she waddled away, but that was about as much attention as our stunts ever received.

We were the last generation to go to Drive-In movies and one of the first generations to witness the giant, naked breasts on the screens that surrounded us. My parents may have taken us to see The Fox and the Hound but we were gawking at the half-naked women running from a masked psychopath on the screen to our left. The movies of the 70s were a feast for those who love scifi, fantasy, horror, and boobs. And at seven years old, lying on a blanket on the hood of our my car with a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken, I had front row seats to a world formely privy only to adults.

We were an interesting generation, unprotected from the adult world yet somehow spared the fears of global annihilation that generations before and after knew. The Bay of Pigs and Vietnam were old news, and the threat of Russia was years away. All we had were long days of bell bottoms, great music, and Gilligan's Island reruns. Time stood still in this decade. At least when you are seven years old.

I got my first radio in 1977. It was shaped like a ladybug and when you pulled its wings out you could hear music. It picked up two channels but I can still remember the thrill of tuning in and hearing Top of the World playing for me alone  the very first time. With my radio came freedom. I was no longer at the mercy of my mother's Bee Gee's albums. I was introduced to a new world of music to explore (if I were patient enough to wait for the song to come on), and as I was listening, I was dreaming. I started writing my own songs. Really, really bad songs. My sister would mock me as I'd tell her, all fists and seriousness, to leave me alone because I was going to be a famous songwriter one day. Once, she even stole one of my songs to piss me off and claimed it was hers. I was sure that she would get famous for it and no one would recognize the creative genius behind it, but that never happened. It turns out a song entitled Boy Oh Boy Ardee, written by an overzealous eight-year-old, was not destined to pop the charts. We weren't the first generation to have been inspired by music, but the mellow sounds of Bread and The Eagles, and later the harder sounds of Zeppelin and punk and early metal bands, all changed the way we thought and felt forever. Maybe I'm turning into an 'old fogie', but as I look back now I can't think of many songs as powerful and enduring as Hotel California.

You can't stay locked in a world forever. The 70s, like childhood, was about simplicity. But adolescence was on the horizon and another decade was about to roll over. New music was being recorded. Malls were being erected. Kids were wearing things that cost more than their parents made. We grew tired of simplicity and patches on our knees. We wanted new.

I was watching The Facts of Life one day and thinking...if all I ever get in life is a real pair of Jordache Jeans, a really cool blazer, and hair like Blaire's, I will be happy. Please, God. Please let me have those things. Brooke Shields, who had made her fame by living on an island in The Blue Lagoon, was now telling us to buy Calvin Kleins. And if Brooke was pimping jeans, we had to have them. My cousin and I wrote Brook a letter begging for a free pair since all the other kids would have them and our thrift-store shopping parents certainly wouldn't get them for us. Brook never responded. We resorted to cutting out the labels of my older sister's clothes and sewing them onto our own. I'm not sure anyone really bought that we were wearing Gucci cutoff shorts, but the power was in the words plastered across our butts. They made us superheroes, at least in our own heads. We started classifying each other. Those who wore designer jeans. And those who did not.

The 80's arrived and I was a decade older, ready to embrace the next chapter of my life. The world became nosier as gadgets and gizmos invaded our homes. We were one of the first houses to get an Atari and a VHS player, but one of the last to get a microwave. We also got an additional TV which mom put in her bedroom. She now had two to lord over, but I became queen of the remote during those hours when she slept and I'd turn on something called music videos and sing along. Maybe I wouldn't write songs after all. Maybe I would produce music videos instead. They were the future of the industry. With more TVs and gadgets came the necessity for more money and moms started going off to work. There wasn't after school care for us, there were TV's and VHS players to keep us entertained until our parents returned. We were the first and only latchkey generation, raised on the wisdom of Meatballs and Fast Times at Ridgemont High. We were free. Independent. And knew how to make our own macaroni and cheese.

More access to information also meant more news. We learned about the doom and gloom of a dissipating ozone and the real possibility of a global nuclear war. The 80s brought me into the real world and it was scary. So I did what every other kid of my generation did. I listened to loud, obnoxious music, ratted my hair out, and drowned out the world in the most gaudy pieces of fabric I could drape across my body. When the movie The Day After came out in 1983, depicting the horrors of humanity after a nuclear attack, I checked out of the real world and disappeared into the fantasy of the early 80s. If simplicity hadn't saved me, then excess might.

The 90s, of course, brought me back. While the 80s had taught me to Rock and Roll all night, the 90s reminded me of the frailty of human existence. The artists of this era sent out a wake up call, reminding my generation of the things we had tried to forget. Wearing hot pink and having hair that rivaled the height of the Space Needle was no longer in. The 90s meant you had to get real. I couldn't live in a pretend world anymore. The world was sticky and messy and at times rather unpleasant, but it was the world I lived in.

My nephew wanted to know what it was like to live in the 70s and I hope I told him. But that was my experience as a child. I knew nothing of what haunted the adults of that generation, those who had lived through wars and depressions and civil unrest. I only know that for me, it was a shelter before the storm. Maybe that's because i was a kid, and that's how it should be, in any era.