Let's Talk

The fall issue of Brain, Child is now officially out (or in the mail, if you didn't get yours yet). And now we're doing something a little interactive: a comments/discussion page for the content we put up online. (I'm saying "we," as if I weren't out gallavanting around this summer when the issue was being put together, but as of today, I'm officially back.)

Anyhoo, have a gander.

There's Tracy Mayor's feature on what role mothers will play in the 2008 election. If you do nothing else, read the first part of it. If that's not one of the best openings in the history of magazine features, I will be a monkey's uncle.

There's also Dawn Friedman's piece on doing her African-American daughter's hair. It's called "Textured," and when you read it, you'll know why people are all over Dawn's blog: the thoughtfulness, the working through sticky issues, the loverly voice.

There's Kory Stamper's essay "Alma Mater." She was a married twenty-one-year-old, attending a prestigious, feminist university, when she got pregnant and decided to become a mother. It both burned my britches and got me thinking about how my feminism has evolved over the years.

And there's Elisabeth de Vos's "Close Encounters with Kindermusik," a fabulous essay about many things, one of which is mothering with OCD. What I love most about this is how tangled everything is, how you can't always separate your own ish (OCD, depression, panic, ahem) from strong beliefs or even regular parenting.

So, read and comment! Comment and read!
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And because we are wily folk, not everything is on the website. Have a look-see at the table of contents, which are just as tasty as the above articles. There are benefits to paper, is all I'm saying.

A Shout Out

A couple days ago, Gretchen Rubin tagged me for the W List. (More on that in a future post.) I met Gretchen when we both became aware of each other's projects: that is, experiments with self-help advice in order to become a better, happier person.

It's one of those projects where a million people could do it and you'd wind up up with a million different stories. Gretchen's site is The Happiness Project, and I go there every day because I like the lady's perspective. I love her fascination with St. Thérèse of Lisieux. I also love the everyday stuff. Take this sentence: "You don't want to exercise…" Before PPIEW, I'd finish it by writing, "…so you purchase larger clothes." Gretchen would say, "…but you do it anyway."

We're not even the only ones out there with this project. On Amazon, I stumbled on this book by Beth Lisick due out in January, and there's a guy, Tom Chiarella, who recently got a book contract to do his own experiments. Gretchen turned me on to Brangien Davis's blog, the Petri Project.

Someday, we should form a posse, travelling the land with our collective wisdom and conclusions, shining a light into book festivals far and wide. Or at least, you know, all hook up via email.

Poison

Thank you for coming back. I understand that many of my recent posts are not in the least amusing. I've temporarily lost my flow, people, that thing that makes work gratifying. I think this might be because I'm spending all of my time watching and rewatching Rock of Love with Bret Michaels. Help me.

Help me stop rooting for Heather.

Help me stop watching Bret, who is a rocker yes, but also a womanizing gossip who should have stopped Heather from getting his name tattooed her neck.

Help me to cease coveting Jes's hair and getting drawn in by what Bret is looking for in a lady. (That list includes an interest in rocking, in motorcross, in football, in partying, and in "passion" generally.)

Help me remember that I wasn't into Poison the first time around.

Help me with the stray thoughts that wander into my mind, like "I wonder what Sam is doing now."

Help me to get off the Internet, so I'll be unable to answer that Sam is finishing up her Master's degree.

I'm afraid it's too late for this series. But I have to conquer this problem before Flavor of Love Season III starts. I have work to do.

Klassy

As you might know, my mom is a first grade teacher, and every year before school starts, she spends a few days taking classes. This year, one class she took was all about education, race, and class. The idea is, that for some teachers, maybe raised in the upper middle class, there are sometimes hidden class or race codes that, if you're just sensitive to it, might explain why a kid has trouble grasping certain concepts or subjects.

Mom and I find all of this stuff fascinating. In her class, the instructor had the teachers split up into different groups. One of the markers of people raised in the lower middle class is probably having to pay your own way through college, she told me. I remember my own first weeks of college and how startled I was when I realized that the women in my first-year suite had, without even meaning to, segregated ourselves into our class stratae. All my friends, like me, were on scholarships and had hefty student loans. We hadn't been to private schools, and when break came, we worked.

I was nervous when Practically Perfect came out because I thought that the class issues in it were too naked. People would certainly see the sort of raw discomfort that I felt about money, authority, the sense that it all could go away at any minute—in other words, having some issues with class mobility. I thought that people would call me on it. Yo, chickee, it's a book about class and you're not even addressing it.

But what's weird? Nobody noticed at all. (Which is why, I suppose, they offer classes on race, class, and education in the first place.)

Do you remember that series that the New York Times ran a couple of years ago about class? They collected the whole shebang into a book—Class Matters—that I somehow missed when it came out. I just ordered it, and I'm looking forward to reading. It seems messy and interesting and crazy, in a good and possibly helpful way.

Speaking of that, do you love an online quiz? Well, here you go.

Messes

Maybe someone who knows their astrology can explain this, but this hasn't been the most stellar year for many of my beloveds. Me, I'm okey doke, other than this morning's revelation that girlfriend needs a sports bra, stat. (The skeevy-man-leering-at-the-bosom count was noticeable.)

In some cases, there's nothing I can do. In some cases, there's nothing anyone can do. I Google. I work my Merck Medical Manual. I make cheery phone calls. I think good thoughts, although I'm not a believer in the healing powers of my own vibes. I think about what I learned in the last chapter of Practically Perfect, the one about the soul.

I go to You Tube and I alternate between these two songs, depending on how optimistic I'm feeling.





Even though I know very well that it is a big thing, all of these things are big things, I still want to believe in the happy-as-possible ending, that I will be pressed into service or not, that there will be some redistribution of the good luck, and maybe everything will be all right.

Ringy Ding

So, I see the Do Not Call registry is back in the news. The list is expiring, and we all have to re-up if we don't want the telemarketers ringing us.

When the registry first started, I wrote this piece for Alternet about the time I spent working at a telemarketing center with my sister Erin. When I wrote it, I felt vaguely worried about what happened to the other women at the center. It was a bad job, but it paid better than retail or fast food. These days, I'd be surprised if the center still existed—or any comparable job.
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In other Newsweek-reported news: a profile of Republican presidential primary candidate Fred Thompson. I quote: "He was smart; everyone knew it," says Chunky Moore, a former classmate. "He just wasn't real interested in school."

If I am ever famous enough to have a profile written about me, I pray that my intelligence will not be assessed by a grown person named "Chunky."

What I Did This Weekend

Thanks for the requests for Brain, Child! They’re mostly in the mail. I’m not sure what I was thinking when I said just leave a note in the comments. That I would get in touch with you via Sylvia Browne, who could tell me in her trademarked sugar-and-ice manner what your address is? (Sweetie, she’s in Indiana.) Yeesh.

If you haven’t sent your mailing address yet, give me a shout at Jennifer at practicallyperfectbook dot com.
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Oh, what else. It was a busy, busy weekend. On Sunday night, we had a karaoke party and tested out this drink (the winning one), which totally knocked my socks off. The karaoke was fun, fun, fun, too. There may have been one too many vodka drinks, in retrospect, retrospect being the place where you suddenly recall a vision of yourself taking the microphone from a friend who didin't IMMEDIATELY jump on "Ice Ice Baby" and then rapping in semi-public. Word to my mother.

The kids were there, too, running around half-feral. At one point, I realized that they'd stripped one of the beds and were sliding down the stairs into a pile of bedding. It seemed to me to be ripe two unfortunate end scenarios: 1) someone hurting themselves on the stairs and 2) possibly more laundry, so I put a stop to that and they danced and watched Garfield and other things.

They still must have been up late, the whole crew of children, because the next day, Caleb came home from playing outside with a few friends and said, "I don't want to die."

"We're all going to die," I said. "But probably not for a very long time."

"I'm going to die tomorrow," he said. Even though I know he can be dramatic (in the way that the Pope can be Catholic), I got shivers.

I looked at him closer. His eyes held a miniscus of tears and he pressed his lips together.

"What happened out there?" I asked. "Did someone get hurt? Is someone in trouble?"

He didn't want to tell me, but I cajoled and pressed and urged. Finally, the story came out.

"We found this stuff outside and we took a little tiny part of it and ate it," he said, demonstrating the tininess of the serving with his fingernail.

"What was it?" I asked.

"I don't know!" he cried. "I don't know what it was and now we're going to die!"

"What did it taste like?"

"Nothing."

"What did it look like? Where did you get it?"

"Like black powder." It turns out, four of the kids had put their fingers on a mysterious substance found on a car's tire and licked. (Ewww.)

"Why did you do it?" Caleb shrugged. I knew this sort of shrug. It's the kind you given when you know you did something stupid and inexplicable. (Once, when I was a teenager—teenager!—I stood in my mother's closet behind her clothes. No good reason. But then I heard her approaching the closet and realized, with panic, that there was nothing to do. No matter if or when I spoke up, I'd still scare the crap out of her. So I didn't say anything and when she parted the clothes…it was me! Crazy, sexy, weird!)

"Did you think it'd be interesting?" I asked. He smiled and nodded. "Okay. You're probably not going to die"—niiiiiice mommy, with the probably—"but don't do it again."

He looked sheepish and mildly reassured but I think we're clear on the ingesting-mystery-powders front, for now anyway.