My Level of Awareness

My son sleeps in our bed.

But that’s not the confession part.

It isn’t that he won’t sleep in his own - he does happily, through the entire night.

It isn’t that I am an attachment parent, and I have the philosophy that it is better for bonding or his self-confidence or ability to form emotional attachments.

I have in the past rationalized it as a function of human evolution.  Modern living arrangements are a blink in the eye of human history.  When was it ever a good idea to put your most defenseless family members the furthest away during the most vulnerable time of the day?  Think about it - thousands of years of evolution on savannahs with prowling lions and hyenas.  Does this make sense to YOU?

However, I know this is just a rationalization.  I don’t live on the savannah.  I live in the rural suburbs.  In the United States.  In a 3-year-old house with a wired-in alarm and fire detection system.  The nearest lion is well-fed and behind a very big fence and a very deep moat, miles away in the Zoo.  The closest thing I have to feral predators is the occasional possum that makes it’s way into my backyard, or VERY rare fox or coyote.

Here’s the confession.  Harry sleeps with me simply because I want him there.

From the moment he drew his first breath I have been loathe to part with him.  Kris begged me to let the attending nurse take him away to the nursery the first night in the room so that we could get some sleep, but I adamantly resisted.  He slept his first night curled in the crook of my arm.  The thought of him being somewhere distant, where he would wake and cry and not have me to pick him up and hold him was more than my nerves could bear.  Having him taken away wouldn’t have been restful.  It would have been hell.

The first months at home Harry slept in a bassinet, at arms reach by my bedside, out of the practicalities of midnight feedings and changes.  Then came Katrina, and there was no bassinet - in fact, no room at all.  He simply slept with us out out of necessity,  in whatever space we could find - the guestrooms of friends and family, in cramped hotel rooms, and eventually in a tiny apartment.  He was all we brought out of New Orleans, and he was the center of my overturned world.

Now the necessity is gone.  But the reassurance of having him close remains.

Sometimes in the soft glow of the reading lamp on my bedside table, I like to sit and gaze at his perfect porcelain skin, the round curve of his cheek, the light playing through his halo of hair and painting it golden.  His relaxed limbs are already outlined by the sturdy muscles of childhood.  I like to hear him murmur and sigh in his slumber.  And when I turn off the light, I want to wrap my arms around his heavy sleeping form, and inhale the sweet smell of his baby shampoo, fresh from his bath.  He is everything clean and beautiful and innocent in that very moment.  And he is mine. 

In the days where the assertion of his independence is increasing daily, those stolen minutes of maternal reverie are precious.  In the quiet moments between wakefulness and sleep I feel I can stop time, and he is once again the baby I fiercely guarded from the maternity nurses.  I can fool myself that somehow the relentless march of time will never take him beyond the call of my voice, that our separate-but-not-quite-separate closeness will go on forever.

I want him close because I know that the self-deception will not last.  I know that my time in this world will become his time,  and I will only see a glimpse of it.  I know that my place in his life will move steadily away from the center.  And that is as it should be.

But I also know that I will miss these moments, and I want to emblazon them on my memory.  I know I will regret the time taken away, the milestones I missed, and the thousand little negligences of normal parenthood.  Not far away are the storms of adolescence and the day that he shall leave me.  And I will wave at the door and watch him go and send the prayers of my life with him.

But right now, right here, he is still my little baby.  And I am selfish.

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Okay, though the people actually keeping up with the book club may have dwindled to one, at least this month (and I am using the term ’month’ very loosely) we are once again introducing a little more tell-all-gratuitous pop culture:

Sorry, guys, it’s more chick lit.  But at least it’s chick lit of the Hard Rock variety:

From the Publisher

This hilarious peek into the early years of the hair-band era reveals the hierarchy of fishnets, bustiers, and chicks with the Holy Grail—a backstage pass. After college, Anne Thomas Soffee journeyed to Los Angeles to start a career as a rock journalist and small-time heavy-metal flack. A taste for other people’s prescriptions and too much beer edges her freelance journalism work right off her schedule. She struggles with not being thin enough, pretty enough, or cool enough when, in the midst of the L.A. riots, Soffee is offered a coveted slot in Virginia Commonwealth University’s MFA writing program. Determined to pull herself out of current habits, Soffee starts turning her life around, making a stop at rehab before she heads off to graduate school. Her quarter-life crisis is packed with offbeat characters that prove that fact is often funnier than fiction.

Let’s take this one until the end of May.  And please, at least let me know if you read it, ‘kay?

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Do you think Child Protective Services will really believe that he put himself in there?

Just what is the irresistable draw of children to dog crates?

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I can sum up in three words why my son is absolutely destined to grow up spoiled:

Big.  Brown.  Eyes.

Trust me, his father has gotten some mileage out of that one, too.

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Even before the Virginia Tech shootings, a series of events had been causing me to ponder the nature of schadenfruede, the perverse pleasure we derive from the misfortunes of others, and how amplified this pleasure is when the “other” is someone we view with recognized or unrecognized envy.  We feed in a frenzy on the bodies of the fallen great, and we revel in the transition from famous to infamous.   Like watching the proverbial train wreck, we cannot tear our eyes away from the soap-opera antics of celebrity, no matter how restricted in scope the celebrity is, and given the opportunity to participate in the fall, few can resist.

The fascination with Cho Seung-Hui arises not because his rage is alien, but because it is so basic, so familiar.  It is the suppressed anger of the marginalized majority.   We all look through the white picket fences of our neighbors and we covet their gardens.  We judge ourselves by the golden measure and we find ourselves short, and if ambition will not carry us into the Elysian fields, then we drag the objects of our desire into the trenches with us.  What we cannot build, we will tear down.  Cho does not differ from us by nature, only by degree.

We hurt our victims, not with bullets, but with casual slander.  We amplify the moments of simple human failures into epic descents from grace.   We not only derive a perverse happiness in witnessing  misfortune, but we revel in passing the salacious details.  “See, they are no better than me.  They are decadent.  They are dissipated.  They are undeserving.”  We dehumanize the objects of unattainable desire to lessen the pain of the longing.  Success becomes an object, not of admiration, but derision and scorn as we assert our moral superiority. 

The line between the masturbation of the ego and social psychosis is a terribly fine one.  Thoughts lead to words, whispered behind backs.  Words lead to actions of subtle sabotage.  And before the realization dawns that tearing down the “other” does not raise us up on mountains, the small acts of envy can become bullets and bombs and falling planes in an escalation of frustration and outrage and the demand to be recognized for our superiority to our victim.  Or, at the very least to be noticed. 

To be somebody above the faceless crowd.  For once.  At any price.

As we look at the images of a snarling Cho, we need to turn that scrutiny inward on ourselves. 

How many small massacres of the spirit have we committed with our words? 

How many whispered confidences have we passed along eagerly, warming our hands over the fire of someone else’s burning reputation, the whole time safe in the conviction that “They brought it on themselves”?

Just how far are we from that door between human nature and monstrosity?

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In a way, I had.  Between trying to maintain productivity while working from home with a sick child yesterday and staring aghast at the news coming out of Virginia Tech, I just didn’t have either the time or mental energy to pour out anything coherent.

Besides, I think I may be the only person who actually read last month’s GAMBLE book.  Remember that one?  The one that got lost in the GW excitment?  The one I actually read in it’s entirety on my last business trip - ten days late?

Anyway, I can tell you that if you want to catch up with this one, it’s a mixed bag. On one hand, Vantrease does an excellent job evoking the atmosphere of the time and place.  She entwines her characters and historical figures well, and unfolds the history without the book every feeling contrived, and without “background” descriptions.

I had two basic problems with the book.  First, it felt “unfinished”.  Not unfinished in the way that you feel there is a sequel coming (which there may be), but unfinished in a way that feels like she opened several story threads that she just didn’t know what to do with later, so she just cut them off expediently.  Very unsatisfying in that respect.

The second problem is the characters never really build depth.  We never really got the impression of them as complex human beings.  If they experienced any character development during the course of the book, like the main character, Kathryn (contrary to the title, the Illuminator is really not the central voice of the book), and her son Alfred (who exhibits probably the most profound changes), there really does not seem to be a compelling force behind those changes, or at least it is not adequately explained to us.  Alfred comes back from his squirehood a changed man, but we are only given a tiny glimpse of an explanation for those changes, and they seem to fall short.

It is also a book that doesn’t really ever decide what it wants to be.  It is not really steamy enough to be a historical romance, but it’s a bit too romantic to be a serious historical novel.  Illuminator is more of a light-reading historically-based fantasy than anything else.  Good for a few hours of diversion, even engrossing in parts (Julian the anchoress is the one character that really shines), but it falls just short of being memorable.

…and on to next month.  Stay tuned.

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Just a couple of material comforts that made up for my business-trip mishaps:

 Despite having to pay a stupid amount of money for it, even after the rebate, I have replaced my 3125 with my first love in smartphones:

My sexy new Blackjack.  Only mine is actually sexier with the black menu bars and red poppy wallpaper.

And, while we are on sexy appliances, that new Kitchen Aid food processor arrived at my doorstep while I was away.  This weekend, I made fishcakes, and I am pleased to report that the processor is exactly all it is cracked up to be.

You may now drool with envy.

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First things first.  The house (otherwise known as “Our further adventures in home non-buying”) has some tiny little issues:

1. Much older than the claimed, or I am no judge of construction styles.
2. Because of #1, in need of much updating - on top of which, previous owner was a smoker, so every stitch of carpet would need to be stripped out before I will put my son in the house.
3. The previous owner had either died, was incarcerated, or was incapacitated. Because the house has been vacant a year and everything is exactly, EXACTLY, as he left it.  Pipe in the pipestand.  Bills on the desk.  Clothes in the closet.  Cans of food in the pantry.

That’s just a little creepy.

The lot was nice, though.

But not nice enough.

And now, the business trip from hell.  Otherwise entitled “How I made a series of assumptions that all proved faulty at one time and conspired to ruin my good nature.” 

Or, possibly “Why I should staple my cell phone to my hand.”

Assumption #1:

How much traffic can there really be on the highway at 5:30 am?

“Lots” is the unexpected answer.  Even worse,  lots of TRUCKS.  Big trucks.  Big trucks that do not like to move over when you have to get to the exit lane.

 Which led to my arrival at the airport only 40 minutes from my flight departure.  My arrival, that is, at long-term parking, which, in turn, led to my mad sprint to the check-in Kiosk to check my bag and pray that it made it on the same flight I was going on.

Assumption #2:

Just how many people can there really be in the security line for a 7am flight?

Much like my misassessment #1, the answer is “Many”.  Many being businessmen with laptops, lots of electronics and lace-on-shoes.  Net result?  By the time I got to the security gate, they were calling the boarding for my flight as I was divesting myself of shoes, coat, briefcase and phone. 

Or, well, everything except that last bit.  I stood there, barefoot and frantic, with my hand to my waist, trying to divest myself of a phone that had somehow already divested itself of me, somewhere between the car and the security gate. 

The businessman in front of me took pity on my desperate moans, and asked me if I needed to call someone, and I woke my husband up at ten minutes ’til 7am, on my way to the gate, to tell him he had to make the 45 minute drive to the airport to look, in the pouring rain, for my cell phone.  Oh, now that’s a sure fire way to guarantee future domestic felicity and warm marital feelings.  At least he wouldn’t miss me as much while I was gone.

Assumption #3:

I will call my husband from the Atlanta airport during my stop-over and check the status of the prodigal phone.

Has anyone reading this tried to find a working payphone lately?  And tried to make a call without a calling card?  Even in a major airport?  Let me stress this - DO NOT MAKE THIS MISTAKE.  Staple your cell phone to your hand if necessary.  The pay phone would not take my credit card number (who the hell actually carries change anymore?), even after entering it EXACTLY according to the directions voiced by the sultry mechanical operator on the line.  Which led to being transferred to a less-sultry-more-surly actual human being (the human touch being somewhat overrated in this particular instance). Which led to being charged the “Operator Assist Rates”.  Either I am a completely incompetent dialer, or this is a total scam.  Either way, I am a moron.  There was a $16 charge to my credit card for the thirty seconds necessary to ascertain that my mobile had gone the way of the dodo.

So, my first stop upon arrival in Knoxville was to take myself to a Cingular store, where my luck began to change.  The cute salesboy behind the counter was kind and helpful, and not in that smarmy sales-guy kind of way.  He was genuinely sympathetic, and told me yes, if I paid a modest upgrade in my data plan, that I could recieve the $100 rebate on the smartphone I previously owned and not have to pay full-price.  He was so nice I asked him if I could pay for the upgrade and use the $100 toward a better, slightly, more expensive smartphone.  He said yes.  It was the beginning of a beautiful relationship. 

With the new phone.  What WERE you thinking?

But alas, this is was only fate conspiring to lead me down the primrose path.  When I arrived at my test site, I found my study was progressing in an unexpected way.  “Unexpected” in my profession rarely means anything positive.  And I wasn’t beating the odds this time.  After a few back and forth phone calls (which required me to stand in the pouring rain in the middle of a cow pasture in order to have a phone signal - did I mention I was in RURAL Tennessee?), the necessary adjustments (and increased budget) were approved, and I was on my way back to my hotel for dry clothes, food, coffee, and mindless TV.

Assumption #4:

When you reserve a month in advance, with a credit card, and are a frequent business patron of a hotel (inclusive of being a member of their “Priority Club”), you actually get the type of room you reserved.

Otherwise entitled “My delusions of my own self-importance are shattered.”

I always rent a single room, King-sized bed, with desk.  I work in my room.  Since rooms are generally uniform in size, if you squeeze two queen beds in them, there is no room for a desk chair at the desk, and you end up with two standard-issue uncomfortable hotel chairs situated at the ends of the desk, sandwiched between either the television or the wall.  All this to accomodate a completely over-adequate expanse of bedspace.  At 42, I am too damned old, creaky, and grumpy to work crosslegged on the bed with my laptop.    When I walked into my room, what did I see?  Two beds.  For one me.

So I took myself back down to the desk, and explained to a kid less than half my age that there had been a serious error on his part.  Which, after a quick glance at my face, and my reservation, he allowed that there had been.  But, there were no more King beds to be had.  That’s too bad, I said, because I would hate to take my business three exits closer to Knoxville from now on, and miss seeing his youthful face every three weeks.   Would I consider a handicapped room?  Did I have a choice, really?

So in exchange for workspace, I had to forgo my nice warm nightly bath in favor of a shower in  seated position due to the presence of a very large bench in my spartan shower stall.  Life is full of little challenges.

But the fun doesn’t stop there.

When I arrived at the Tyson Airport to check in for my return flight, the Attendant at the check-in desk waived me away from the Kiosk - “Atlanta or Cincinnati?” 

“Cincinnati.”

“One moment.” <tap, tap, tap…> “Ma’am, the connecting flight through Cincinnati is indefinitely delayed.  I don’t have an estimated departure time.”

I looked at him.  Balefully.

“One moment, ma’am.  I think I can reroute you through Altanta.” <tap, tap, tap…> “Yes, there you go, I’ll take your bag, and here are your boarding passes.”

“Which gate, and when?”

“Gate 5, departure in ten minutes.”

So, for the second time, in less than 48 hours, I boarded a plane out of breath and in stocking feet.  One of these days I will actually try flying with shoes on.

Assumption #5: 

Since I was rerouted to an earlier flight, I will actually get to see my son before he goes to sleep!

Did I mention that my flight from Atlanta to Little Rock was delayed?

Life just LOVES me.

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There is so, so much.

Nothing earthshattering.

All absurd.

Just the grinding stupid minutiae of daily annoyances. 

And a reiteration will wait until I have had:

Food.

 Coffee.

Shower.

Mindless TV.

Pretty much in that order.

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I think there should be a law against posting Amazon sales on blogs.  And if there were, I would SO be turning Sarah in to the authorities right now.

Against all the rules of logic, decency and good budgeting (when I should be crimping against the eventuality of buying a few little things, like a HOUSE), I am now checking my inbox every five minutes to when THIS:

… is going to ship.

Yes.  I just posted a picture of a kitchen appliance that is larger than any posted photo of my son.  I am SUCH a paradigm of Martha-Stewart domesticity.  Only I picture Martha as the white appliance type.  I prefer jet black, or even a racy red.  I like to live dangerous like that.

I am rationalizing my moment of impulse-buy indulgence by the fact that the price has gone up $50 overnight since I purchased it.  And I still have a $20 rebate to claim.  It’s a baaaah-gan.

And if you ask why a family of three needs a food processor with a 12-cup capacity, you will get the same blank stare you would if you asked a balding, paunchy, middle-aged man why he needs a red Corvette convertible.

Because it’s sexy, baby.

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