Flipping the Switch

Sophomore year in high school. Trying to fit in just so I could manage to go unnoticed. Most of the girls in my all-girl Catholic high school had lost their virginity by now—giving in to our fellow Regis boys across campus. Talked about it all the time like they knew what was up—high school’s version of 30-somethings discussing orgasms over Eggs Benedict and mimosas at some SoHo café.

Although I didn’t hang out with the popular girls I was considered one of them. Not by choice but socio-economic status. There were the haves and the have-nots and as much as I wanted to be somewhere in the middle—I was among the haves—whose daddies bought us cars and diamond earrings for our Sweet Sixteens. Our mothers played cards together and went to Tupperware parties and took pills and planned our futures.

The have-nots hated us. I completely understood why.

I was for all intent and purpose a dork. A true geek. And I liked it that way. I hid behind my glasses and devoured books—Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Austen, the Bronte sisters—eating my lunch at the cool table with my face buried in a book, while my “friends” talked about fashion and made fun of the girls in second-hand uniforms as they walked by.

I was determined to get good grades so I could get the fuck out of there.

Every once in a while I would give in to a Regis boy—make out in the back seat of his car while rock ballads poured out of the tape deck. But it always ended up with me asking him to take me home, exhausted from fighting him off. His inexperienced hands groping my breasts over my blouse… dry-humping my thigh… trying to pry my knees open in hopes of getting to the holy grail. Virgin snatch in white-cotton-days-of-the-week panties.

My savior in this high school hellhole was Terry. A blonde bombshell in a sea of Italians, Chicanas and Puerto Ricans. She and her sister—a senior—had amazing breasts and bad reputations. But I could relate to them. They were easy... but they were real.

She came from money. Parents had a condo in Vail. A stocked liquor cabinet, weed and a hot tub. Good White Catholics.

It was cold and clear that night. Snow was on the ground. Parents were in Vail for the weekend. Terry and her sister were looking for trouble and I was in the back—along for the ride. We found what we were looking for in three college boys down from Boulder.

Somehow we split up and Terry and I wound up in one of the boy's Jeep. "Let's go to our house," Terry said without hesitation. Me in the back seat with a strapping 20-something man, cropped black hair, amazing brown eyes and a smile that was a recipe for disaster.

And we were back at the house with the liquor cabinet, the weed and the hot tub.

I didn't drink yet. Or smoke weed. I didn't want to get in the hot tub. But Terry and her sister stripped off their clothes... the boys' eyes wide with enthusiasm... as they jumped in the hot tub in their brightly colored bras and panties.

And me. Refusing to take off my blouse, sitting on the edge of the crowded hot tub dangling my feet in the water feeling nervous in my day-of-the-week panties. The bottom half of my uniform crumpled in the corner.

Terry and her sister, high and tipsy, wasted no time choosing their lucky contestants... getting busy as I tried to divert my eyes. And the strapping 20-something looked at me and smiled. Disaster had a plan.

I felt flush. Stupid. Shivering. Under a microscope. And he stepped out of the hot tub... boxers sticking to his muscular thighs... wrapping a towel around his waist. He reached his hand out to help me up and without hesitation I followed him back into the house... up the dark staircase... and into the guest room.

He told me his name was Andrew. Staring at my feet I whispered my name. He lifted my chin with his finger and kissed me. Full lips. His tongue was soft and warm, waiting for my cues. Other boys had no idea how to kiss a girl. Shoving their tongues in my mouth exposing themselves for what they really were--impatient and inexperienced.

He laid me on the bed, pressing his body against mine. His hand moved under by blouse and rested on my belly as he continued to explore my mouth with his tongue. There was no hurry.

And a switch was flipped. This was sex. I could feel my body relax for the first time. My hands weren't preoccupied with pushing him away but exploring unfamiliar territory, running my fingers over his back... his arms.

And somewhere between me letting go of all of my preconceived notions and taking in every curve of his torso, his fingers began slowly and deliberately unbuttoning my blouse... pushing the fabric aside exposing my breasts to the cold night air.

He looked at me, at my naked breasts and kissed me again moving his mouth over my neck... my collarbone. I gasped the first time I felt his wet tongue on my nipples, sucking so tenderly I could feel butterflies in my belly.

Moans came from my mouth as his hand moved over my panties. Friday embroidered on the front just beneath the pink bow. Shame. Scared. But unable to control the feelings I was having.

I could feel his hand move inside my panties... his fingers exploring... opening me up and working his finger inside me. Moaning in my ear as he moved his finger back and forth, the palm of his hand massaging my clit.

I didn't want it to end. He moved down my body, sliding my Fridays off and tossing them to the floor. I started to close myself off. I wasn't ready for this. For him. 'Relax' I heard him say and before I could move away from him his mouth was kissing the inside of my thighs. His fingers played with my pubic hair as his mouth moved closer and closer to the holy grail.

The flick of his tongue sent shivers down my spine. My fingers in his hair, my legs relaxed, open, inviting. Small wet circles in places I didn't even know existed. Exposing virgin snatch with his fingers, he ran his tongue over and over... my hips rocking back and forth... crying out his name.

And then it happened. First in the pit of my stomach... then in my legs... all the way up. Fear rushing through me as this uncontrollable feeling took over. He was ravenous. The more I rocked the faster his tongue moved in and out of my hole. Drinking me in.

I lay there. Spent. He moved up to my mouth. Kissing me with more force than before. He was letting me taste it all. And then he rolled over and we laid there in the dark until we both fell asleep.

In the morning, the boys were saying their goodbyes. Andrew did not get lucky last night, although I'm quite sure he was the only one. Before he left he kissed my forehead, smiled and told me to "save it."

It wasn't sure what he meant by that. But it all made sense when I found who I was saving it for.

It's All in the Sauce

As a child, I would spend my summers with my grandmother in her little kitchen on the south side of Chicago. My grandmother was a first generation Italian-American. I credit her with giving me the simple things that make life worthwhile. The sparkle in her brown eyes and the kindness in everything she did resonate with me today. She died the day after my twins were born. But I will never forget the last time I stood in her kitchen and learned how to make Sunday Gravy.

Meat sauce. Spaghetti sauce. Whatever you want to call it. It was a rite of passage. A simple family tradition that tethers me to my roots and is a mainstay in my cooking repertoire.

I’m having surgery on Monday. I won’t go into specifics, but when it’s over I won’t be able to have babies anymore.

The idea comes as no shock. I’ll be 42 next Sunday and I pretty much hung my hat on reproducing any more young’uns around my 40th birthday. If I need to smell or hold a baby, I can pick up my granddaughter from day care and get it out of my system.

So why am I so melancholy? Why does losing the physical ability to bear children send me into mourning when I decided years ago that I did not want any more kids?

I remember quite vividly how in love I was with each one of my children the moment I found out they were setting up shop in my belly. When they were born, instincts and emotions I didn’t know I had came out with them. I learned what every cry meant—I knew theirs smells, their expressions, every detail of their faces. The meaning of life rests in the unconditional love I have for each of my kids.

But I hold no illusions. I remember the tired in my bones. Pacing the floor in the middle of the night, holding my son and waiting for the medicine to put down the pain from another ear infection. Sleeping with one eye open next to a three-year-old kickboxer with the face of an angel. And days where I didn’t have a moment’s peace because I was too busy trying to control the chaos.

I’m still bone tired. But the root of my exhaustion has shifted from the physical drain of raising babies and toddlers to the mental and emotional cluster-fuck of adolescence. Things are way more complicated now.

I’m developing relationships with my children on a more cerebral level. As I navigate the waters of raising young adults, I am inadvertently carving out my place in their lives as they begin to live outside my boundaries. One wrong move, and I’m the root of every hang-up and the topic of discussion in therapy sessions.

And I find myself yearning for the years when they were babies.

And maybe that’s where the sadness comes in. After Monday, I will have lost the chance to bring a fresh one into the world—and have a do-over. But in that sadness I have also found another rite of passage.

My reproductive years will soon be over. And so I stood at my stove today and made Sunday gravy. While I have passed the baton of bringing fresh ones into the world, life goes on for me—in me and through the lives of my children.

It’s in the patience of simmering relationships. It’s in the belief that keeping things simple brings out the best in all of us. Passing on what I know and keeping my heart open to the things my children can teach me makes me a woman. Not whatever parts nature has decided are no longer relevant.

I think that is what my grandmother was trying to teach me. It’s all in the sauce.

Sunday Gravy

2 T. extra virgin olive oil

1 lb. ground Italian sausage

Course ground black pepper

2 to 3 cloves garlic, minced

2 to 3 T. fresh rosemary, chopped fine

2-28 oz. cans fire roasted crushed tomatoes

1/4 c. red wine (optional)

1-inch Parmesan cheese wedge

1 tsp. cinnamon

Warm olive oil in a large sauce pan and add Italian sausage. Liberally pepper Italian sausage and cook until no longer pink. Add garlic and rosemary and cook until fragrant (about 30 to 60 seconds). Add tomatoes, red wine, Parmesan cheese and cinnamon. Simmer on lowest heat at least 30 minutes or up to three hours. Remove Parmesan cheese wedge and serve over warm pasta or rice with freshly grated Parmesan.

Keep it simple.

Bread is a lot like life. One wrong move and you’ve got a mess on your hands. But when you get it right, you realize all at once that it was worth the effort.

For as long as I can remember, food has attached itself to some of the best—and worst—memories of my life.  As a young girl, I can remember spending hours in my grandmother’s tiny kitchen on the south side of Chicago learning how to make the ethnic foods of my family—Sunday Gravy, cannolis, gnocchi, Italian Christmas cookies, Czech pastries. My mother, on the other hand, grew up on a ranch—and to this day, I haven’t been able to replicate her fried chicken, biscuits and gravy, and famous potato salad.

Before my generation, women in my family were raised to know their place. They were devoted and dutiful wives and mothers—and there was no room for want, or desire to fulfill their own dreams outside of the home. And so they cooked.

I come from a long line of amazing cooks, and I never felt as though I had attained the title of “Good Cook” until I met a woman named Naomi some four years ago.

I was a single mom for the longest time, raising three kids on my own. I didn’t have the money or the time to cook. My kids ate out of a box or a can for the first four years of their lives. But Naomi changed all of that. She taught me what women in my family had been trying to teach me for years.

Keep it simple.

She reintroduced me to the idea that whole foods were best. And like a sponge, I soaked up all of her wisdom—and got back to basics. Naomi has since moved on, and I have lost contact with her. But I am forever grateful for the gifts she gave me.

Ten years ago, my grandmother passed away. I wasn’t able to attend her funeral, because I had just given birth the day before to the twins, Michael and Alyssa. Weeks later, I received a box in the mail from my father. In the box was a large three-ring binder full of all of my grandmother’s hand-written recipes. It is one of my most prized possessions.

For the past two years, my family and I lived and worked on an organic farm. It was there that I cemented my place among the women in my family as a “Good Cook.” I learned about the value of buying local, and eating organic whenever possible. I realized that cooking with what you have makes for a far better meal than falling victim to the food industrial complex.

My family and I live in Madison, Wisconsin, now. And while I have become a farmers’ market junkie, and we’ve reduced our meat intake to one or two nights a week, because our budget won’t allow for local, organic meat every night—I still fall prey to certain pre-packaged vices. M&Ms, Taco Doritos, and the occasional Snapple.

But I’m trying.

Best White Bread

2 pkgs. Yeast

½ c. warm water

Pour yeast into a small bowl and add warm water. Let sit until yeast has dissolved, about five minutes. Stir to combine.

3 T. sugar

1 T. salt

¾ c. warm water

1 c. whole milk, warmed to 110 degrees

1 T. shortening

1 T. unsalted butter

In a standing mixer with hook attachment, blend all ingredients on low speed for one minute. Add yeast mixture and stir for one more minute.

6½ c. sifted unbleached all-purpose flour

Add half of flour to standing mixer and blend on low speed for three to four minutes, or until dry flour remains. Add remaining flour and blend until dough is slightly sticky, and leaves the side of the bowl. If necessary, add more flour, one tablespoon at a time until dough is right consistency.

1 T. olive or canola oil

Lightly grease large bowl with oil.  Place dough in greased bowl and turn to coat the dough. Cover with a damp cloth towel and place in a warm spot. Let rise for 1½ to 2 hours or until double in size. Punch down dough and fold in to create ball. Cover and let rise for 45 minutes.

Divide dough in half and let rest for 10 minutes. Shape dough into two loaves and placed in greased rectangular or round loaf pans. Bake at 425 degrees for 20 to 25 minutes, or until crust is brown and bottom of loaf sounds hollow when tapped.

Immediately remove bread from pans and let cool completely on a wire rack before slicing or storing.

Robert Frost Was Right—Part Five

Man, I need to find a way to wrap this up. The road of my life looks a lot like the image posted today. The months that have passed since my trip to Houston offer up so much material, that I've resolved myself to get through this—so that I can move on—on so many levels.

The big day came. Graduation was at 4 p.m. Diana really wanted to eat at Salt Grass, a steakhouse that was once famous for it's amazing beef, but has since become another corporate "Dolly." But she really wanted a filet mignon—she liked the way the words sounded when they fell off her tongue. So we made reservations for the whole damned clan.

We all filed into a long row near the stage—my parents and I and Diana's father and his pregnant wife, young son, father-in-law and mother. I hadn't seen him in over five years. And he looked good, as always. A tall drink of water with midnight blue eyes that were starting to show their age, the same smile that got me here in the first place, and curly black hair now peppered with gray.

It's hard for him to look at me these days. It has been since the day I walked out.

We were every jack-and-diane-young-turks-living-on-a-prayer song. Crazy in love from the moment we laid eyes on each other. But you don't hear what happens to Jack and Diane or Tommy and Gina 10 years later. It ain't pretty.

He let his insecurities get the best of him. I know that now. So here we are, sitting together at our only child's high school graduation. Everyone around us is making small talk, but we are silent. And reading each other's minds. Pride and nostalgia. Worry for her because we both know where she's headed.

He still loves me and looks at his new wife with regret. I still love him and look at my new husband with appreciation. It's lop-sided and sad. But make no mistake. My sympathy stops there. You reap what you sow.

Diana attends an inner-city school. Caucasians are the minority. Latinos and African-Americans fill most of the auditorium. Living in Houston gave me an education on people and culture—it seemed every country was represented here. My new home doesn't offer up much with regards to range on the color spectrum. So I have come to the sad conclusion that man must have a never-ending quest to find something to hate or belittle. Material up here is limited so the old codgers whisper things like "Whatcha expect—he's a Finn dontcha know?" or "Dem Norwegians ain't the sharpest tools in da shed."

As the procession of students passed us, I could see her down there in her royal blue cap and gown. She looked up and smiled and waved at me. She and I knew what it meant. She had saved that smile just for me.

Each student walked across the stage and accepted their diploma as family and friends cheered wildly. These beautiful young people were about to embark on life's journey—the real deal. And everyone in the room felt a little pride and worry whether it was their child or the person next to them.

Because few students planned to attend a university, some had plans to go to community or vocational colleges. But most were off to basic training. I found it hard to cheer—so many of these young people were displaced by Hurricane Katrina, and most of these kids had with no other way out. I feared for them and wished that our government had a conscience and prayed for those families whose children won't make it back.

And then they called her name. I shot to my feet, my cheeks stained with mascara and tears, and screamed "Nana-Banana!" I hadn't planned on saying that—but it just came out of my mouth. I knew she'd call me on it later. And she did.

I thought my heart was going to pop. I had waited for this moment her whole life.

So many images of her flashed before me. The red, wrinkled baby girl handed to me nearly 19 years ago. Her peaceful, round toddler face as she slept in her bed, cuddling her Dino—and the look on her face the first day of school when I said it was time for Dino to go away. The look in her eyes the morning I told her daddy and I were getting a divorce. Her puffy face, swelled up from tears as we sat silently in the restaurant the night before, holding on to my hand for dear life as she absorbed the brunt of what was growing in her belly. And her body language today as she stood up straight and walked across that stage like she owned it, took that diploma and turned to her family and smiled.

Good job, Diana. I love you. No matter what.

Robert Frost Was Right—Part Four

Prior to dinner, we stopped by Diana's apartment to drop off packages along with some things my mother had brought from home—the rocking chair she rocked her children and grandchildren in, dishes and embroidered towels handed down from her mother. This was our chance to get a look at Robert before we all sat down to dinner.

And there he was—shaggy, unkempt hair, baggy shorts and a faded t-shirt. I give her props. On the outside, he's adorable. Big brown eyes, broad shoulders and a devil-may-care-panty-peeling grin. She has all of my weaknesses when it comes to men. Which is why I could see right through him the minute he flashed that grin and said in his sweet, Southern drawl, "Hello, ma'am."

I had seen that smile before. A hundred times. And it got me in trouble—short-term, long-term, lifelong trouble—every time.

I had gone over the conversation I was going to have with Bob a million times in my head. It always ended with some Dirty Harry line that involved a blunt object, a waiting line and a willingness to serve time. But I sat through dinner and tried to keep the conversation light with a few pointed questions thrown in.

"What do you want to do when you grow up?" became "What are you interested in as a career?"

"How much bleach would it take to clean up your gene pool?" became "Tell me about your family."

Questions my mother never thought to disguise when interrogating the father of her first grandchild.

When the bill came, mom picked up the tab and excused herself and my dad. They left the three of us there and went back to the hotel—they'd had enough small talk and had made their quiet verdict. Bob was toast. Now I had my chance to really let Bob have it. But I remembered sitting in that swing not two days before, listening to my mother and Aunt Connie drone on about child-rearing, and how small I felt then. And the promise I made to Diana that night.

So, I listened. I listened to him tell me about his low-life brothers and drugged-up mama. I listened to him tell me about the day his daddy walked out like he was reciting an article from Readers Digest. He was three and never saw him much after that. He talked about the various relatives he'd lived with throughout his life and his high school years—never taking anything seriously, playing pranks, getting sent to detention and graduating simply because faculty just wanted him to leave.

It was all heart-breaking. Until I asked him why he broke all of my daughter's hangars and kicked her out of their apartment. And he just smiled. "I've got a bit of a temper," he had the nerve to say.

Like it was some f*cking badge of honor.

At that point, Diana was in tears. And I asked Bob to go find something to do for an hour. I needed to talk to my daughter.

As they stood outside and said there good-byes, I sat there and cried.

My hangars were never broken. But many other things were. And when he ran out of things to break, he came after me.

By the time she came back to the table, I had dried my tears. I scooted next to her and lay my head on her shoulder. "Diana. I love you. I hope you know that. And I'm saying this as a friend—because you are my best friend."

And she knew what was coming and started to cry again.

"Don't do this. Don't think you can fix him. Because you can't. And it will only get worse. I promise you. The decision is yours to make. But I know more than you think. And I hope you're listening to your heart."

And we sat there for an hour—in silence. I prayed for her. And she sat quietly and wept—and asked herself the same damned questions I asked myself 18 years ago.

And like me, she would have to learn her lesson the hard way.

Robert Frost Was Right—Part Three

I drove the rest of the way to Houston. Crossing the New Mexico border into Texas, we saw a sign outside a small west Texas border town—Texico—that read “Welcome to the Lone Star State. Home to the 43rd President of the United States—George W. Bush.” I looked around the nondescript town, sprinkled with single-wide mobile homes and expansive cattle ranches and wondered why they couldn’t come up with something more legendary than birthplace to the worst president in modern-day history.

The drive through Texas was beautiful. I had forgotten how much I missed this part of the country. Southern hospitality. Biscuits and gravy. Men who took their hats off when they entered an establishment, and held doors for perfect strangers. Cattle country as far as the eye could see. Texas deserved to be proud of itself. Except for George.

I left my anger and disappointment somewhere around of Dalhart. Mom and I had a couple of really good conversations. We stuck to issues that were safe—parenting and the latest gossip about friends and family. My mother is a wonderful woman. The older I get, the more respect I have for the sacrifices she made as a divorced mother—when divorce was social suicide and sexual harassment was the price you paid for working outside the home. I’m convinced she’s a closet liberal. My money is on the fact that she married a man who is an ex-cop and is selfish in his views about the world—and she has had to adopt most of his truths to keep domestic peace. At least that’s what I tell myself.

The moment we entered the outer city limits of Houston, the unreserved quiet of the Texas prairie seemed like a dream. Like some extreme video game, cars, SUVs and pick-up trucks on steroids—lots of them—whizzed by at lighting speed, weaving in and out of traffic, in a balls-to-the-wall race to the finish. Urban guerillas steering 2,000 pounds of steel with cell phones in their ears and Big Gulps in their dashboard cup holders blew past me—oblivious to anyone outside their fabricated, leather-clad bubbles.

I suddenly remembered why I left this town. Living in Houston is like living in Chicago or L.A.—but with attitude. Bigger is better. And if you ain’t first—you’re last.

Mom and dad were white-knuckling it. Everything I had remembered about driving in a big city came back to me—but this time, I was a few years older and more afraid of dying. I kept it under 80 and reminded mom to breathe—and found my happy place, thinking about the pristine pine trees and slow pace of northern Minnesota.

The minute I saw her face—I wanted to scoop her up and take her home. She will never realize how beautiful she is—or how loved. I suppose none of us will. She is a long, tall glass of water with big, beautiful blue eyes—and now she is sporting a paunch. I have to stand on my tiptoes to hug her. And I squeezed her as hard as I could and fought back tears.

She filled me in on her morning sickness, her first visit to the doctor—and Bob. His name is Robert, but I call him Bob because I don’t like him. It’s my sinister way of reminding her that she can do better. He is nineteen and a colossal idiot. He drives his truck like he stole it and treats my daughter like she’s disposable.

Half-way to Texas, she called me in tears. He’d lost his temper again, broke all of her hangars, threw her clothes all over their room—and kicked her out of their apartment. This visit was killing me.

It wasn’t too long ago that I was in her shoes. Young, self-depricating and in love with a man who showered me with crazy, passionate, leave-me-and-I’ll-kill-you affection. And now karma has come back and bitten me in the ass.

So I took her shopping. And bought her the maternity clothes he had refused to provide her. And a comforter and sheets for the bed he’d promised to buy her, because her back was killing her sleeping on a cheap mattress on the floor.

I bit my tongue the entire afternoon, trying to be cool and listen and offer up “girlfriend” advice, instead of motherly. My stomach knotted up inside every time she told me about one of their fights. I sat on my hands while she told me about her failed attempt to apply for Medicare and WIC, because he was bored, and didn’t want to have to wait in the long lines.

I was meeting Bob for the first time that evening. We—Diana, Bob, my parents and I—were all going out to dinner. I had visions of launching myself across the table and wrapping my hands around his throat, while the restaurant staff tried in vain to pull me off of him. She said he was really nervous.

Bob had no idea.

To be continued.

Robert Frost Was Right—Part Two

My mom drove the first leg, navigating the steady stream of traffic from Denver to Colorado Springs. She white-knuckled it as cars sped past her, on cement-barricaded-under-construction highways that seemed to go on forever. She didn’t want to talk. She was too nervous. Fine by me. I was in the back seat medicating myself with strong, black coffee—wishing I could just hook the to-go cup to my vein and relax while the Columbian nectar did its magic.

To calm her nerves, she turned on the radio. A Limbaugh-esque conservative talk show host was bashing the Democrats—something about destroying al-Qaeda and supporting your troops by spending money at your local Wal-Mart this Memorial Day weekend.

Out came the iPod and in went the headphones. And the anger rising up in my throat was soothed by Elton John serenading me with “Tiny Dancer.” I stared out the window and wondered when it was going to happen. My meltdown.

My step-father sat in the passenger’s seat, reading one of his James Patterson novels and occasionally looking up to make sure mother was remembering to breathe. Mom listened to the radio, nodding her head in agreement and clenching her jaw.

I love my parents. But it is hard for me to understand how they can be so indifferent now. My entire young life, my mother preached to me about love and tolerance. Turn the other cheek. Cheer for the underdog. Help the less fortunate. Be kind to your neighbor. Cherish our differences. Work hard. Be honest. Stand up for what’s right. All the stuff we’re supposed to teach through example as parents.

And now she listens to morons who are at their core bitter, angry, intolerant, maligned and misinformed. She watches them on TV. She votes them into office.

It is heartbreaking.

Because I heard every word my mother ever said. Every lesson ever taught. And I passed these values on to my children.

My kids are amazing. Yes, I’m a bit biased. But ask anyone who has shared the pleasure of their company. They are polite. Respectful. Helpful. Courteous. Compassionate. Genuinely good kids. My kids have never thrown a fit in a store. Or disrespected an adult. And they know when I say ‘no’ I mean it. And I have to believe it’s because I have instilled in them the same values my parents gave me.

I cannot have a normal conversation with my mother. We don’t agree on anything. Suddenly she sees the world as “every man for himself.” This woman told me to share with my brother—and now she won’t share with hers.

I could feel my jaw starting to clench as we pulled into a Country Kitchen in Trinidad, just north of the New Mexico border. My shift was next.

We sat in the restaurant, attached to a worn-out La Quinta and waited patiently for bad service and even worse food. My mother tried to hide her disgust at the waitress’ less-than-stellar work ethic and the wilted lettuce on her $8 salad. But at one point she couldn’t contain her disdain and whispered that “those people”—a reference to the young woman’s age and ethnicity—don’t know how lucky they are to have a job. I bit my tongue.

While we finished our coffee and waited for the check, the conversation somehow steered toward the issue of global warming—an issue my parents are convinced is a big conspiracy and a ruse to revive some sort of communist takeover. I listened to them complain about the inconvenience of recycling and the high cost of their electric bill since summer came early this year.

But the most disturbing moment came when my step-father said, “That’s the good thing about getting old—we won’t be around long enough to see the outcome [of global warming].”

My eyes filled with tears. I grabbed the check, took the keys and waited outside for them to finish their coffee.

I stood in the parking lot and called Diana. I needed to hear her voice.

I felt like the curtain had been stripped away and I had seen them for who they really were. Self-absorbed. Hypocritical. Bitter.

I didn’t want to see my mother that way. I wanted to feel the love and the nurturing side of her that had comforted me through pregnancies, kids with high fevers, cheating husbands and deployments to Iraq.

At least it was my turn to drive.

To be continued.

Robert Frost Was Right—Part One

The trip from Minnesota to Houston was a long one.

It wasn’t about the physical distance. Long car rides never bother me—I find a great deal of pleasure staring out a car window at the great expanse of my homeland. I love being on a long stretch of road, seeing the beautiful landscape dotted with small towns and houses and yards with clotheslines and swing sets—and every once in awhile, seeing people moving about. Road trips make me contemplative, reflecting on my own life and wondering about the lives of others and their level of satisfaction relative to my own.

This long journey was about the company I kept, the people I would see when I reached my destination, and the past that I was finally able to leave behind.

I headed down to Houston to watch my girl graduate high school. There was a lot of logistical planning—the flight from Minnesota to Denver… the rendezvous with the parental unit in Denver, and then the long drive to Houston, piloting their every-bell-and-whistle-known-to-man minivan—with a radio that was programmed to play only mind-numbing, conservative talk radio.

For starters, I hate to fly. I’m a bit of a control-freak. I like to be in the driver’s seat—on so many levels. However, my fear of flying is quelled by my love of the airport 24-hour lounge. Half a Valium and a couple of Crown and 7s at 10 a.m., and suddenly flying at 30,000 feet isn’t so bad.

I landed in Denver mid-afternoon, numb and half-tanked. I hate DIA. It’s the Hollywood starlet of airports. Pretty on the outside. F*cked up and confused on the inside. I navigated my way through the terminal to the train, which whisked me to baggage claim. The first stop on my journey back to the future.

The same scenario has played out since the first time I left home and came back. I see my mom and my aunt Connie in the distance, and pray that I can sneak up on them before they notice me—and summarily embarrass me in front of thousands of strangers. But alas, it never happens the way I hope it does.

My aunt Connie notices me first. She’s not my aunt by blood—I’ve just known her my whole life because she’s my mother’s best friend. And I love her to pieces. But she’s loud—with bleach-streaked hair, a red silk bowling jacket and a nasal voice that cuts through the crowd, screaming, “There she is!” And every head in the airport whips around in my direction. And my mother, whose mind hasn’t told her legs she’s not as young as she used to be—throws her arms up in the air and comes “running” toward me, shouting “My baby! Would you just look at her?”

I’m 38 years old, and the minute I see my mother coming at me like a spider monkey hopped up on happy pills, tears of joy streaming down her face—I am sucked back into my childhood. Red-faced and mortified. I’m seventeen again. This is going to be the longest five days of my life.

I’m so different from my family in so many ways. I’m not better or worse. Just different. I come from a family rooted in the Catholic faith—the branch that believes it’s okay to skip Mass on Sunday because the Broncos are playing. As long as you confess on Wednesday for having a little too much hooch and shouting expletives at the TV screen in earshot of your children and your mother-in-law—all is forgiven. My family, mostly my mother’s side, is also ultra-conservative. Except for the swearing and the hooch. In that arena, they suddenly become a bunch of flaming liberals—slurring something about freedom of expression.

Anyway. I’m different. My political views are different. My religious views are different. My social views are different. I don’t shop at Wal-Mart. I don’t eat at chain restaurants. The list is long.

We drove from the airport to my old neighborhood and I was amazed how much everything had changed. Wide open fields where groundhogs used to run free, and kids would play kickball—gone. The mom-and-pop sandwich shop where I used to hang out with my friends—gone. The streets my friends and I would cruise on Friday nights—belting out the words to “Sister Christian,” rebelling against itchy uniforms and teenage oppression—now made me feel claustrophobic. This place was now filled with trendy shopping centers, over-landscaped apartment complexes and outback-applebees-chilis-texas-roadhouse-macaroni-grill-brightly-colored-everything-tastes-the-same restaurants—as far as the blinded-by-neon eye could see.

My nostalgia was gone too. The familiarity of my youth was bulldozed and replaced by something out of a weird sci-fi movie. This wasn’t home anymore.

I spent the evening having dinner at TGI Friday’s with my parents, my aunt Connie and her son, Joe. Joe is thirty-three and just moved out of my aunt Connie’s basement—and the only thing he can talk about is his new truck and the ins and outs of workman’s comp. Just before my last cocktail arrives—my brother, who I haven’t seen in five years, walks through the door, loaded. Some things never change.

Sitting there watching my baby brother, now in his thirties, still struggle to cope with what I accepted a long time ago was painful. We did not choose the paths our parents had envisioned. I did not become an Ivy League attorney. He did not follow in my father’s military-career shoes. We both took Frost’s advice.

I revel in my separateness. My brother wallows in it.

I sat out on the porch with my mom and my aunt Connie that night, and enjoyed the cool Rocky Mountain air. I politely sat in the porch swing as these women lectured me about motherhood and raising kids and how I need to treat this “situation” with my daughter. Connie does love to give speeches.

I rocked back and forth, my feet not quite touching the ground—just like when I was a kid. And I looked up at the starry sky and thought of Diana. Her sweet face. How much she had become my friend. How cool it would be to hang out with her again. I missed her. And I sent her a message by way of the heavens.

“I promise. I will never make you feel like you’re seventeen—ever again.”

To be continued.

What It Means to Be a Mother

Tomorrow is Mother's Day. The kids have been smuggling in construction paper cards, tulips made from egg cartons and pipe cleaners, and Styrofoam cups filled with green sprouts.

This is my second time around.

I was nineteen when I had my firstborn. And she was two weeks old before I fell in love with her.

Mom had come to visit for two weeks. And it wasn’t until she left that I understood what it means to be a mother.

I was lying in bed the morning after mom left, and I could hear my baby girl stirring in her crib. But I lay there, praying she would go back to sleep. She started to fuss, and again—I lay there like a spoiled teenager stealing five more minutes of shut-eye.

To this day, I can still feel those phantom hands on my back pushing me out of bed and my chest filling up with a sense of urgency like I had never felt before.

I walked into her room, and there she was. Her receiving blanket wrapped around her head and the fussing I heard was her gasping for air.

In a panic, I unwrapped the blanket and she immediately began to wail. My eyes filled with tears as I picked her up and pulled her close to me, caressing her and kissing her tiny head and whispering to her “everything is going to be all right.” It was more for me than for her.

Her cheek pressed against my chest, my heart pounding—and she stopped crying.

It was at that moment I knew I would love this person all the days of my life. A love so deep, it hurt to breathe. And it was then that I started making deals with God.

She is eighteen now. And two weeks from now I am going to Houston to watch her graduate high school.

She has been my anchor. We’ve been through so much together. Two divorces. Three marriages. The birth of the twins. But we’ve always had a motto, the two of us. “No matter what.” Regardless of what curve balls life threw our way, or what catastrophic error in judgment I made with regards to my relationships with men—we were a team.

No matter what.

She lives in Houston now. I live in Minnesota. That’s a conversation for another time. I talk to her on the phone and I want to cry—I miss her so much, it hurts. I miss her face. The dimple in her cheek when she smiles. The freckles on her nose when she’s had too much sun. Her eyes so blue and so revealing—the hurt I have caused her stares back at me with a vengeance. And yet she still loves me like she did that day she pressed her sweet face against my chest and found comfort.

Love like that can never be communicated in a Hallmark card.

She called me today. She is pregnant.

I hung up the phone and immediately ran upstairs and sought out my first Mother’s Day present. A little clay pot that I keep my spare change in, that still bears the markings of her tiny fingerprints where she pressed against the clay to form the crude bowl. It is my most prized possession.

I held it in my hands and cried. Not tears of sorrow. Although some would argue that I should not consider this a cause for celebration.

Her life is about to change. She is going to learn the meaning of worry. And heartache. And unconditional love.

And that is what I feel today.

No matter what.

Happy Mother’s Day, Diana. I love you.

Canadian Bacon

I was ten years old when my father took me to see the movie “Grease.” I remember feeling so completely mesmerized by the music and the energy. I wanted to be Sandra Dee. And not the Sandra Dee crying by the kiddie pool. I wanted to slither about in a black cat suit and red high heels while men who moved like John Travolta fell at my feet. I had no idea what it meant to “skip a period” but I was certain that when I grew up, I wanted to be just like “bad Sandy.”

And not because of some sexual fantasy. I was in awe of her independence.

The sexual fantasy came later.

My mother had forbid my father to take me to see the movie. My mother, hell bent on raising a good Catholic girl, insisted that an impressionable young mind such as mine should not be subjected to a movie filled with sexual innuendoes and gyrating dance moves.

But my dad had a reputation to uphold. He was the one that took me with him every time he went drag-racing under my mother’s radar. He was the one that let me stay up late and watch “All in the Family” and “The Jeffersons” while my mom was at PTA meetings. Ice cream for dinner. Mismatched clothes. Uncombed hair. Dad was cool.

Until I became a teenager. But that’s a story for another time.

So he took me to see the movie with the obligatory sworn oath that I would never tell my mother.

So there we were, sitting in the dark theatre. Both of us fantasizing about “bad Sandy.” Although in very different ways, I’m quite sure. And there were a few moments, when I could feel my father cringe… and question whether taking his ten-year-old daughter to a PG movie was a good idea. Catholic guilt is a bitch.

But true to his wrong-side-of-the-tracks-of-Chicago-Catholic-boy roots, he was rebellious to the bone marrow. And that moment of guilt was followed by a flash of his Hollywood smile, and a shrug. Enjoy the moment. Memories like these don’t come around very often.

A few weeks later, my mother found out. I don’t know how it happened. Neither does my father. But we both remember the fight they had because of it.

Fast-forward to present day.

We don’t have television. Let me clarify. We have television sets in our house, but we have no reception of any kind. No rabbit ears. No snow channel. Nada.

The man of the house has set up a sweet home theater system, complete with surround sound and a projector that shines glorious images from classic films to new releases on to the opposite wall, putting big screen TVs to shame. Nemo is suddenly four feet long and the infamous car chase scene in “The French Connection” grabs you by the balls and takes you along for the ride.

And so it has become a family tradition every Saturday night. We have family movie night. I pop popcorn the old-fashioned way… in a pot of hot oil on the stove. And we gather around the projector and watch a flick with the kids.

We are determined to broaden their horizons and give them and education in film, introducing them to the classics as well as the magic created by Pixar and DreamWorks.

The kids have seen “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” “The Great Escape” and “The Blues Brothers” more than once. They love “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” They sing along to the amazing soundtrack and my son can imitate Pete’s exclamation “you stole from my kin” as if he spent his entire young life in the marshlands of the Mississippi delta.

So, last weekend we rented “Canadian Bacon.” From what I remember, it seemed harmless enough. Poorly acted. Political messages that would certainly fly under their seven-year-old radar.

But somewhere in the middle of poking fun at the self-centered nature of Americans, one of the main characters spews the line, “The American public’s attention span is about as long as your dick.”

And all of a sudden, I was back in that dark theatre. Only this time I was my father. Cringing, wondering if my round-faced, naïve children picked up on the euphemism for a penis. I looked over at them and saw no response at all on their little faces.

My son didn’t get it. My daughter looked bored to tears.

I wrestled with whether this was due to their young minds or the fact that they have been exposed to so many great films, that they understood that what they were watching was really bad—and so they weren’t phased by the bad jokes and gross humor.

I opted for the latter. And then the fight scene at the hockey rink sent them reeling with laughter. And I looked at them, flashed my father’s smile and shrugged.

Embracing My Inner-Ho: An Essay

I have this problem. No matter how conservatively I dress, before I leave the house I instinctively add some emblem of what my girlfriends refer to as my ‘inner ho’. An ankle bracelet. Crimson lipstick. Spiked black heels I wobble in. And these items are only what the world sees. Underneath my suit could be a corset or silk thigh-high stockings—or sheer panties. I can’t help myself.

I have been teased for years by my closest friends—those who know about my fetishes for Victoria’s Secret undergarments and sexy shoes. I blame it on twelve years of Catholic school, because so many things can be blamed on that, but it goes deeper. I’ll dare call it a spiritual issue. Whatever my token of the moment—black stockings, a silver locket—it serves as shorthand for one important aspect of my self. It’s the shingle my Freudian id hangs out: certified vamp. If my soul were visible, she’d recline in a red silk robe on an animal skin, hearthside, sipping Chivas from a snifter.

Once that I know of, I’ve been mistaken for a working girl.

It happened in Houston. One a.m. at the Westin Galleria Hotel. The decadent lobby, with its Grecian pillars and palm trees and the blue light shining from the courtyard pool, was populated by last-call bandits. Two men asked me and my girlfriend if we “had dates”. Not knowing what that meant, we coyly said no, and they asked us “how much?” I’ll always regret not testing him. Just for trivia’s sake, it would be great to know how much I’m worth. My friend, the hellcat, handled the situation. The men followed us out, apologizing. We ran in spiked heels and slinky little mini-dresses through the parking garage, my friend turning occasionally and walking backwards to let go another string of obscenities at their receding silhouettes.

It depressed me. I didn’t tell anyone about the incident.

And I looked in the mirror when I got home: how could I seem to be for sale? I’m a bookworm. The dorky girl with glasses. I’m shy, introspective. So what if my lips are always vamp red? So what if I like short skirts and high-heeled shoes? How could he not see through my props to the real me?

But with some imagination, I’ve turned these misunderstandings into a narrative.

When I say I have a call girl fixation, I’m using call girl—inaccurately, creatively—as an umbrella for variations on a theme: kept woman, good-time girl, the go-go dancer in the cage at a downtown club, the stewardess and secretary and nurse of yore, party girl, trophy wife. Any woman between a societal rock and hard place. Any figure who symbolizes that tantalizing dichotomy of public propriety and private sin.

My call girl is a construction.

My call girl is not walking the streets. She exists only in books and films and the fantasies those breed. She’s Henry Miller’s dancehall slave and the YSL-dressed housewife in Belle du Jour. She’s Holly accepting a fifty for the powder room in Breakfast at Tiffany’s; Gloria stealing the wife’s mink in Butterfield 8. It’s the same character in Pretty Baby and Pretty Woman, in Sweet Charity and Taxi Driver: she’s the most jaded and most innocent woman in the room. We don’t know if we can trust her in Risky Business, because she won’t look him in the eye, and she paces, smoking, and tells stories that don’t match—until the scene on the train. Sex like that never lies.

By seventh grade, the girls in my class had been divided into ice queens, nerds, sluts and tomboys. The boys didn’t create these categories; they got them ready-made, handed down by previous generations, which leaves no one specific to blame. Nevertheless, whole diaries were filled out trying to figure out which one I was. If in fact I was an ice queen, which I seemed to be, how did other girls become tomboys, nerds or sluts? And was there really no fifth category? Hindsight has solved the mystery: I was actually nothing but a psychotically shy twelve-year-old girl.

I’m in my thirties, and still hunting for option number five.

Clinically shy people might relate: if you’re as introverted-to-the-bone-marrow as I am, you are not only unwillingly conscious of your self all the time, but of all selves within a mile radius. I’m not only aware of how I come off, but how that might insult someone else. I’ve thought about handing out business cards: I may seem cold, but I’m actually paralyzed by shyness.

In lieu of that, I make tribal markings. Seamed stockings. Stilettos. Wispy locks. Blood red lips. Notice how the shrinking violet is a French maid every Halloween? The message is that although this door is closed, it ain’t locked. My trinkets attempt to balance my temperament. It’s like slipping a paper Valentine into a boy’s desk when he’s not looking.

A few years ago, my friends and I sipped cosmopolitans on lacquer trays that came with side dishes of wasabi peas. A few of the girls scanned the Four Seasons bar for men to buy them round two, since at fifteen dollars a cocktail, round one was all they could afford. Around a jungle of flowers, a table was creating noise. The men lit cigars, the women took hacking puffs, and they all laughed. Almost sixty, strong and three-pieced-suited, these men were oil wells. Very handsome in a financial way. Dressed and groomed like any other woman in the place, the thirty-something blondes were not like any other woman in the place: they were definitely escorts.

How did we know? Everyone in the grand, gold-lit room knew. It wasn’t simply the age discrepancy, the newness or loudness of the money, the blondeness, or the fact that it was a hotel bar, but maybe a culmination of these factors, and something more: the men and women seemed to be strangers to each other. There was an unlikely comfort at the table. They enjoyed the luxury that came from being sure of the night’s arrangement.

Meanwhile my friends and I nursed our sweet drinks, stranded in the gray zone made by the black of chivalry and the white of feminism. Some of us bought our own drinks that night. Some of us waited for a suitor, dreading a suitor. Thirsty. Proud. Broke.

Most of us are familiar with the money anxiety of new romance. It’s powerfully silent, born from transactions at dark bars and box office windows and from a fear that the value of anyone’s love can be calculated, as exactly as a 1984 Chevy Impala. I’ve actually come home from first dates making mental notes like: I owe him a latte.

The call girl archetype answers a certain desire of mine: to deactivate the minefield of love, power, sex and money. Because those factors combine to affect any affair.

Lying in bed, my first love said something to me I can’t forget. The stage was set minimally: darkness, sheets, bodies, words. When he spoke, he was kidding but serious. He said: “I own you. Your ass belongs to me.” The moment was caught somewhere between a threat and a promise. I didn’t know whether to call 911 or to fall in love. I think I giggled nervously. I said: “Shut up,” or “You’re fucked up.” My heart was thumping. This guy was too broke to buy me lunch, but playacting the idea of ownership was exciting.

Memories of a Geisha wasn’t a bestseller for no reason. I picture myself in jeans and an obi, cross-legged, picking the strings of a mandolin for a Renaissance man. It’s a way for me to imagine myself a woman devoted to this man, to pleasure, to giving this man pleasure, to making beauty out of art, to making an art of beauty. It allows me to picture myself devoted to devotion. That’s more of a taboo these days than most sex acts I can name.

Certain friends of mine used to end their nights at strip clubs. One night, I went with them and ended up talking with one of the dancers. She’d just arrived in Houston from Louisiana, couldn’t have been older than sixteen, seemed pure and childlike. At first I made her a romantic figure: a hitchhiker, wrestling gators and eating ripe melons from roadside stands, barefoot and determined, working her way through the big bad city. Within minutes she revealed herself as dumb, strung out, desperate for money and doomed.

The call girl mirage doesn’t last. Like other spectacles, the magic works only if distance is maintained. I remember when I realized that ballerinas, those effortless swans, were actually dedicated artists with feet like gourds, spines like the trunks of thousand-year-old olive trees, and sweat pouring down their spangled and feathered arms.

You may have been wondering how naïve I might be about prostitution. The diseases, the drug addictions, the physical and metaphysical bruises, the circle of abuse, the legal and physical and emotional and spiritual vulnerability: I know these exist. In no way are they glamorous. These issues coincide with the worst things that have ever happened to me or to people I’ve loved, with the most acute fears I have for myself or the people I love. In other words, my call girl construction also houses pain and disaster.

There is strength in owning every possibility fate could enforce, in knowing thine enemy and keeping it close.

But the blonde women lingered in my mind.

And lying in bed thinking about my inner trappings—all at once fantasies filled my head. My mind shifted from the school girl images I tend to gravitate toward when I think of him. He brings her out in me—his eyes tell me stories, stories of seedy underground clubs and girls who paint their eyes black as night to hide broken promises. His eyes make me fidget with my clothes, and blush when he looks at me—taking me back to white cotton blouses and knee socks and want for those boys my mother told me to stay away from, who drove fast cars and listened to The Cure—full of angst and passion and misunderstood by everyone but me.

But his hands open the door. And my inner-ho pushes out from within. She walks into the room and there is an arrangement she has with him—she’s laid the ground rules, and anything goes. Whatever his fancy of the moment, whatever fetish he wants to explore—she is there to make it happen. She imagines meeting him at some fashionable downtown hotel bar—dressed to the nine in a slinky little dress and stiletto heels. And he waits for her with a cocktail and a room key.

There are no awkward silences, no rudimentary feelers for whether she’s going to put out. Their motives are clear. And when they’ve finished their cocktails, he reaches for the room key sitting on the bar, and leaves cash for the bartender. She follows him upstairs to his room, passing by couples who stare curiously at them. Once inside the room he pours himself a drink and sits on the edge of the bed, watching her move about the room and waiting.

And she asks him how he likes it.