Girl Detective

#51 in my 2007 book challenge was Marrit Ingman’s Inconsolable: How I Threw my Mental Health out with the Diapers.

To borrow her phrase, reading this book made me wonder if Marrit Ingman had been reading my mail.

A good friend, and post-partum depression survivor, lent it to me in the wake of my own struggle with PPD after the birth of Guppy, now 21 months old. Ingman is smart, funny, and often brutally honest about the often ugly underbelly of new motherhood. From a birth that deviated from plan to a rash-y, colic-y infant, Ingman’s experience was so physically and emotionally exhausting that I can’t imagine anyone going through it and NOT becoming depressed. Shifting hormones, sleep deprivation, and the bewilderment of breastfeeding are just a few of the circumstances that make new motherhood less than idyllic.

Ingman details the exhaustion, the ambivalence, the recurring regrets, the suicidal thoughts, and the waves of anger that were all part of her experience. I empathized, I laughed, and I cringed at various points. The book sometimes felt a little disjointed; it’s more a collection of essays than a linear memoir. But the insights into the struggle, and the importance of surviving, are present throughout.

It is taboo for mothers to confess their anger, their confusion, their frustration, their resentment…Looking back now from a place of relative sanity, I see maternal anger everywhere, bubbling through the veneer of politesse, reaching out from inside the platitudinous language we turn to when we are confounded: “I thought I was going to lose my mind.”

I kept taking the Paxil. I started writing and here I am. I woke up to a rash and a screaming kid this morning at 3:30. It’s more manageable most days. You could say it’s better.

I’d discovered from my own experience socializing with other mothers that we could talk about just about anything other than mental illness. We could eat braised puppy and defecate on each other before the topic of PPD would come up.

You have become the person you sneered at when you were young and single and knew everything. You are That Mother.

“You’re very judgmental, you know,” The Good Therapist had pointed out one time. “Do you realize how critical you are of others? You think you’re smarter than everyone else.”

In the end, she reminds us of something I’ve written about many times. Mothers don’t need judgment, especially from other mothers; we need help. When you feel that snarky comment coming on, ask if there’s anything you can do, instead.

Mothers of the world, we’ve got to have each other’s backs. Without working together, we literally cannot survive. Because we are divided–into “working” and “stay-at-home” parents, into “natural” or “attachment” parents and “mainstream” parents–we remain marginalized as a group. We just haven’t noticed because we’re too busy shooting each other down, trying to glean little nuggets of self-satisfaction from an enterprise that is still considered less significant than paid work

Drake’s Aunt Sydney got him The Muppet Show dvds for his birthday. It has become one of his favorite things to watch in his TV time.

Here are some of Drake’s comments: Kermit lives in the O! No, Mom, it’s FUZZY Bear, not Fozzie! No, Mom, his name is Puppy Dog, not Rolf!

Me (to myself): Why are all the women wearing wigs? Why do all the stars look like they have dentures? Isn’t Connie Stevens a little old to be singing “Teenager in Love”? What made Sandy Duncan get famous? Which eye is her glass one? Who ARE most of these male guests: Charles Aznavour, Bruce Forsyth, Avery Schreiber? Why is this sketch set in a bar, and the star pretending to get drunk?

Perhaps Drake won’t grow up to be a critical cynic like his mom.

This one is so ridiculous that it sounds like the writers of The Daily Show might be moonlighting during their strike. I’m sure they’d have a field day with this one:

Millions of toys recalled; contain ‘date rape’ drug

Read through it all, because many more toy recalls are detailed.

I’m thinking of buying US-made toys this year, how about you? A Toy Garden has a good selection of these.

Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert is one of my favorite books I read this year. I recorded her appearance on Oprah. It was mostly Oprah gushing about the book, and an appearance by Richard from Texas, whoEat, Pray, Love was almost completely ignored. I was feeling especially bad about having wasted an hour (and tricked 4yo Drake into watching it with me) when O asked EG for ideas. Gilbert offered these three pieces of advice, not from the book:

1. Begin the morning by asking yourself (and possibly writing in your journal), “What do I really, really, really want?” She was firm about the need for three “really”s.

2. End the day by writing down a short description of the happiest moment of the day.

3. Change your mantra to something positive.

I know it sounds cheesy, but I’ve found that #3 is a big deal. When I was floudering in my post-partum depression I had a discouragingly wide repertoire of bad messages for myself, which included, but are not confined to: I suck at this; I can’t stand this!; I could kill myself; Oh, shoot me now; I hate my life; I’m a moron…

Lather, rinse, repeat.

In April, I attended an outpatient program for my depression, and my mantras have improved dramatically since then. Negative ones still creep in, but I notice them now. Instead, the one getting the most play in my head lately is the chorus from the Disney Cinderella: You can do it. Fortunately it’s not in the squeaky mouse voices.

#74 in my 2007 movie challenge was Johnny To’s Triad Election. I borrowed this from the library after I read the glowing piece on his films at Salon by Stephanie Zacharek, who called it a Hong Kong movie for people who don’t think they like Hong Kong movies.

The 96-minute Asian gangster film was well acted, well shot, well directed, and had a fabulous musical score. But it wasn’t for me. There was a great deal of violence, and it’s hard to follow a subtitled movie when my face is turned away from the screen. And to me it felt like yet another “I tried to get out and they keep pulling me back in!” mob movies. Yet I loved Infernal Affairs, so I can appreciate Hong Kong mob films.

So if well-made Hong Kong action mob movies are your thing, you’ll probably like it. If torture violence bugs you, or if you’ve developed mob-film ennui, skip it.

#50 in my 2007 book challenge was Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home. My goal for the year was fifty, and I’m happy I’m going to exceed it. See, it IS possible for parents of small children to read, and to read books of substance!

This is labeled memoir/graphic narrative, since it can hardly be called a graphic novel. This is one of the best books I’ve read this year. I’ve not read her comic strip, Dykes to Watch Out For, but friends have and recommend it. Bechdel’s art perfectly reflects her memoir–gentle, sad, measured, careful, and caring. It is both expressive and engaging. Interestingly, it called to my mind the style of Carla Speed McNeil, who writes/illustrated in the very different genre of fantasy.

The fun home of the title is how the family jokingly refers to the family business inherited by her father, a funeral home. Bechdel deftly balances myriad elements–her own memories, childhood journal excerpts (that amazingly manage not to be dull or irritating, but rather deserving of empathy or pity), literary interpretation, humor, and sadness–to tell the story about her family and specifically her father, a complex and intriguing person. It would be easy to read him as a villain if Bechdel didn’t so meticulously make him human and complicated. Further impressing me was that the story jumped back and forth in time, yet was easy to follow. This book is lovely to read both literally and pictorially. It’s a beautiful example of the power of graphic narratives.

It’s November 5:

Remember, remember the fifth of November,
The gunpowder, treason and plot,
I know of no reason
Why gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot.

Fawkes was a member of a group that tried to blow up Parliament. They didn’t succeed. He was caught and came to a bad end.

There’s a brief Guy Fawkes interlude in Neil Gaiman’s Sandman finale, issue #75, and attributes the doggerel to Shakespeare and Ben Jonson. Fawkes is a theme in one of my favorite graphic novels, V for Vendetta, as well as the name for Dumbledore’s phoenix in the Harry Potter series. Fawkes was also possibly the historical antecedent for the word “guy.” More here from Wikipedia.

We had a playdate with a friend of 4yo Drake’s scheduled week before last that got cancelled that day. He was disappointed, but I was secretly relieved.

Oh, canceled playdate
All that housecleaning for naught
Yet I’m glad for peace

Today I made cherry chocolate-chip banana bread with 4yo Drake. Here are some things I tried to teach him:

1. Dip and sweep
2. Pour
3. Whisk
4. Fold
5. Sneeze AWAY from the mixing bowl
6. Lick the spatula AFTER the dough is out
7. To lick a bowl, sweep with a finger, then transfer to mouth. Do not stick head in bowl, which results in dough in hair.

Here is something he taught me:

8. Do not plan to serve boy-helped baked goods to guests, only family.

Sigh.

I think it’s probably best not to know what might have been. I liked Lionel Shriver’s Post-Birthday World, which explored the idea very well. But seeing Rob Thomas’s mock-ups for Veronica Season 4 makes me more sad than filled with geek joy.

Pilot part 1
Pilot part 2

(Links from Everybody Loves Saturday Night.)

But hope for the fans continues. DC Comics may pick up the series as a comic book, as Dark Horse has done with Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which has been a success.

Today I took 4yo Drake to the theater to see The Sound of Music. I had realistic expectations. He started to cry minutes into the last movie I tried, Ratatouille. He loves music, though, so I a nearby showing would a reasonable gamble. Things started off well, since there was an old-time organ concert of the movie music beforehand. I hadn’t known that the showing was a benefit, though, so there were several long speeches after the music but before the film. Drake began to get antsy, but then the movie began. In the olden days when this movie was made (1965) the credits were at the beginning of the film. The considerable list of names ran on, and Drake asked, “Is the movie over, Mom?” I didn’t think that boded well for the 2 hour 54 minute movie. But when the credits finished and the movie began with the panning shots over the mountains, Drake was enthralled. He stayed mostly still for almost two hours, nodding when I asked if he liked it, and shaking his head no when I asked if he wanted to go. Eventually, though, he said he wanted to go home. This happened at a good break in the movie–right after the kids go to bed at the party.

I can’t remember how long it’s been since I’ve seen the movie. Probably not since I was a kid myself. But the welcome familiarity of the story, music, and lyrics was a comfort, and sharing it with Drake was a joy. I even found my grinchy old self tearing up, incongruously during “Do-Re-Mi.” Drake says he wants to get both the CD and the DVD.

So, to borrow a trope:

Movie tickets: $13
Popcorn with real butter, plus drink: $5
Introducing childhood classic to my music-loving child: incalculable.

Entertainment Weekly recommends five new shows to watch this season: Reaper, Dirty Sexy Money, Back to You, Bionic Woman and Aliens in America.

I agree about Reaper. Critics who loved the Kevin Smith pilot have been griping that it’s the same thing over and over. Each week, though, a little bit more is revealed, and I think there’s a lot to explore. (Wild guess: Andi’s dad will be a demon of the week, either during sweeps or in the season finale.)

I also agree about Dirty Sexy Money. I was skeptical at first, and didn’t think they could handle the wild changes in tone required for the soapy dramedy. But the past few episodes have shown a remarkable ability to handle the wide range of situations. Peter Krause is amused and exasperated by the Darlings while still trying to stay grounded and find out who killed his dad. The episode where Jeremy and Tripp fight, and Brian’s illegitimate son owns up to the wife, was filled with really good, emotionally authentic dialogue. One problem I have is Samaire Armstrong. Does she have a swollen tongue, or a speech impediment? Why does she speak so strangely? (Wild guesses: Nick’s half sib is either Karen or Brian, not the twins as was hinted last week. Also, Nick’s dad isn’t dead; no body was found.)

I can’t speak about Back to You. I haven’t watched it. But I haven’t even been tempted. “Old-style sitcom” is not a winning recommendation, to me.

I gave Bionic Woman three weeks. I found it badly written with a disappointing actor in the lead.

I watched Aliens in America exactly twice. The pilot was good, but the next episode I watched didn’t make me laugh in the first laugh. I think it’s being pushed by critics more for its acceptance message than for its funniness as a comedy.

Instead of the last three, I like Life, as I’ve written before. There’s a strong lead actor, and an interesting mystery as backstory, of why he was set up for a multiple murder and served twelve years of a life sentence.

My husband, G. Grod, and I recently read the Philip Pullman “His Dark Materials” trilogy. G noted, which I repeated in my review, that Pullman repeatedly used religious language and tropes, though he claimed his book was a non-religious fantasy. He and others viewed it as an atheistic answer to C.S. Lewis’s Narnia, and J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle Earth.

In “What the New Atheists Don’t See” at The City Journal, (link from Arts & Letters Daily) Theodore Dalrymple points out that many of the new books on atheism make a similar move. They deploy religious frames in their arguments against religion. Rather than being at the opposite end of a continuum, they are like the flip side of a coin: inextricably tied to what they seek to eschew.

Dalrymple argues quite reasonably for a middle ground that sounds more like ethics than religion, and more like agnosticism than atheism.

I am reminded of one of Michael Pollan’s insights about eating from The Omnivore’s Dilemma. Most people are wilfully ignorant of the industrial practices of meat. If people learn what meat is and how comes to out table, one reasonable but extreme response is to go vegetarian. Pollan, though, advocates a middle ground of learning and choosing sustainably raised flora and fauna.

The middle ground. How interesting that Pollan and Dalrymple must remind us of choices of balance, because the extremes have become so widely practiced.

While many sources state that ensure and insure can be used interchangeably, I disagree. I concur with the Chicago Manual of Style, (quoted at JSU):

assure/ensure/insure – “Ensure is the general term meaning to make sure that something will (or won’t) happen. In best usage, insure is reserved for underwriting financial risk. So we ensure that we can get time off for a vacation, and insure our car against an accident on the trip. We ensure events and insure things. But we assure people that their concerns are being addressed.” (Chicago, 213)

In two recent books, The Omnivore’s Dilemma and Three Cups of Tea, the authors and editors have used “insure” to mean “make certain will happen.” I think ensure better captures this meaning:

I assure you, gentle reader, I wish publishers would ensure the accuracy of their text by consulting the Chicago Manual of Style, since insuring something implies that a policy has been paid for.

#49 in my 2007 book challenge was Michael Pollan’s Omnivore’s Dilemma.

The blessing of the omnivore is that she can eat a great many things in nature. The curse of the omnivore is that when it comes to figuring out which of these things are safe to eat, she’s pretty much on her own.

Pollan’s thoughtful, thorough, and provoking book is one of the best I’ve read all year. In fluid prose that is neither needlessly academically esoteric, or dumbed down for the masses, Pollan examines four food systems, the meals they produce, and their hidden costs and suffering. The four are agricultural industrial, organic industrial, organic sustainable, and hunted/gathered. In the end, it’s not hard to determine where Pollan’s bias lies after all his research and experience. What makes this book so compelling, though, is that he takes effort and time to explore and explain all the alternative views. The cruelty and problems of industrial farming are clearly delineated, but Pollan’s book situates them in time and place to make them understandable, though nonetheless disturbing.

I was surprised and concerned to learn how prevalent corn byproducts are in the North American diet. Another point I especially liked was that eaters must either be ignorant of where their food comes from and how it’s processed, or choose from smaller, more challenging method of eating, like vegetarianism, or a focus on locally farmed and sourced organic food.

To visit a modern Confined Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO) is to enter a world that for all its technological sophistication is still designed on seventeenth-century Cartesian principles: Animals are treated as machines–”production units”–incapable of feeling pain. Since no thinking person can possibly believe this anymore, industrial animal agriculture depends on a suspension of disbelief on the part of the people who operate it and a willingness to avert one’s eyes on the part of everyone else. Egg operations are the worst,

Pollan quotes Levi-Strauss about the ideal that food should be both good to think and good to eat. According to Pollan, this means that the eater knows how and where her food is produced, and feels good about. There’s another interpretation of the Levi-Strauss, phrase, though, that lends itself less well to Pollan’s text. As Pollan does, though, I find it a useful phrase that will help to guide my food choices. I’m no longer willfully ignorant of the provenance of much of my food. Already I do most of my family’s shopping at our local grocery cooperative. But after the book, I’ve resolved to seek out even more local, organic food, eschew products with high-fructose corn syrup, and cut back on the non-local, non-seasonal organic items that have hidden costs (e.g., petroleum used in transportation) in addition to their high prices.

This book has changed the way I think about food, and will change the way I shop and eat.

I broke down this year and scheduled a sitting for 4yo Drake and 21mo Guppy with a friend who’s a photographer. I can probably count on one hand the photos we’ve managed to take of both of them looking simultaneously happy. Much more typical is one of them in the foreground running away, only one or neither looking at the camera, or one of them hollering in response to some abuse visited upon him by the other one.

We had a very tense morning as I tried to get the boys dressed. Drake’s T-shirt would not stay tucked in. His hair needed lots of spritzing and combing to settle down. The photographer, C, took the boys outside, where they had a good time running around, often near one another. After about an hour, we returned inside, where I hoped to get some shots of them in front of our built-in buffet and stained-glass window. They were having none of it. They demanded snack. After a copious administration of goldfish, they were not sated. They wanted lunch. I tried to placate them by perching them on top of the furniture. Drake took this as carte blanche to climb to the ceiling. Guppy just cried; he’d spotted the post-Halloween candy dish of dark chocolate. Nothing could sway him from his misery. Eventually I just let them have chocolate, which wrung a few sequential grins from them. Naturally, during all of this I was more and more tense as it went less and less well, so I’m sure that didn’t help.

In the end, though, I feel both affirmed, and hopeful. Affirmed that it’s not just me who has trouble capturing the cuteness of my boys at the same time. And hopeful that with all the photos she took, we have a greater chance than ever before of dual cuteness.

Further, I’ve learned some lessons if there’s a next time. One, feed them up before hand. Two, don’t spend an hour outside. Three, don’t put a size 5 T under a size 4 button down and expect a 4yo to leave it tucked in. And finally, hide the chocolate, no matter what time of year it is.

Last night was one of those nights that parents of older children never told me about. It shouldn’t have been so surprising. My naive expectations of parenthood were that it would be tough at the beginning, and gradually get easier. So with perseverance and good intentions, I expected to surmount the initial difficulties, and coast from there. As I said, I was naive. Instead, raising two small children has proved to be a microcosm of life, with the difficulty upped at least two levels. Sometimes things are easy and joyful, sometimes they are difficult and challenging, even torturous, like last night.

21mo Guppy woke crying sometime after midnight, less than two hours after my husband G. Grod and I had gone to sleep. I went into comfort him and offer him water. Each time he settled down, I’d stumble back to bed, then ten to fifteen minutes later he’d cry again. G. and I took turns. I think it was on the third round that I brought in the Tylenol. This normally clears up nighttime difficulties pretty quickly. Alas, Guppy did not go back to sleep till long after two, and after several long comfort sessions.

G. and I stumbled around this morning, haunted from our hours of interrupted and jangled sleep. Another reminder that parenthood is like life–it goes in cycles. Everything passes, both good and bad. It’s a linear progression only in age.

I put off buying Halloween candy till today. Bad decision. Though the aisles of Target were stocked, the good candy was gone. There were no bags of Take 5, not even combination bags that included it. There were no more Hershey’s Special Dark bags or mixes. There were no dark-chocolate M & Ms. It was terribly hard to decide. I didn’t want to do those cheapie grab bags that have high ratio of crappy candy. I decided I wanted to avoid peanuts and peanut butter (in revenge for the Take 5, but also because so many kids have peanut issues these days). And though I really wanted to avoid milk chocolate, because I don’t believe in it, in the end I decided on M & M minis, because they’re cute and the packets are small. Next year I’m shopping early, for the good candy.

#73 in my 2007 movie challenge was Michael Clayton. In spite of hype, the fall films this year have received mostly mixed reviews. MC is one of the few I strongly wanted to see, and I wasn’t disappointed. Clooney plays the title character, and is believable as a tired, disappointed, struggling man. Tom Wilkinson tears up the screen as his manic-depressive colleague, though I think Tilda Swinton may steal the show as a falling-apart corporate lawyer. Though things are a bit confusing at the start, the movie ably fills in the details as it goes, and the end pulls it all together. The story, about subterfuge by a huge agri-corporation, has been done many times before. See Erin Brockovich and The Constant Gardener for two strong examples. But the solidity of the plot is cemented with able direction, and elevated by the strong performances of the entire cast, not just the leads. I thought this film was both enjoyable to see, and good to think about.

Some friends were recently discussing their bribe of choice–Jelly Bellies–now that their 3yo sons had started learning to use the toilet. That spurred me to offer 4yo Drake a treat if he’d stop doing something that was causing me distress. (Behavior not included, as it might someday cause embarrassment.) I was very careful. I said that if he did the thing I wanted (phrased positively rather than as “not X”) then I’d give him a small piece of chocolate (dark, which has antioxidants and iron) after he’d eaten healthy foods for breakfast.

My husband G. Grod took issue with me offering him candy for breakfast. But to Drake’s credit, the positive behavior has continued. Also, I don’t remind him of the reward in the morning. If he asks for it, I give it to him; if he doesn’t, I don’t. Is it manipulation, or savvy parenting? Bribing my child with candy to do what I want sounds terrible. Yet offering him a small reward to do a good thing and thus reinforce a positive behavior, does not. I think they’re different aspects of the same thing, and it’s how I handle it that can make it good or bad.