1. Do you need to go pee pee?
2. Do you need to go pee pee?
3. Do you need to go pee pee?
4. Enough with the fucking Band Aids already.
5. Is that pee pee?

5 Things I Hear Way Too Often

1. Mommy, wipe my butt!
2. I want a banana.
3. I broke the banana.
4. Mommy, fix the banana.
5. I want a banana.

1 Thing My Husband Never Says

Do you mind if I use your towel?

5 Foods I Can Eat My Weight In 

1. Avocados.
2. Pasta.
3. Olives.
4. Anchovies.
5. Wine. (Shut up. That is a food.)

2 Things You Should Never Say to the Author of This Post

1. Is this supposed to be funny?
2. I ate all the pasta.

This post is also published on Huffington Post.

So all the ladies on the block love this ad campaign, and I understand why. It shows, very clearly, that women are our own harshest critics. Strangers are kinder and more generous   with compliments than we can be when speaking of our own looks. Okay yes, sure.

So I decided to do my own not-at-all-similar experiment.

Part 1.

I am going to describe to you what I think my face looks like. Right here.

Kind of like a brunette Gwyneth Paltrow.

High cheekbones. Movie star kind of mouth. Full lips, strong eye brows. Sophisticated beauty but still youthful and cute, like Ashley Judd. Totally, I look like Ashley Judd.  

Possibly a little Juliana Margulies. My skin is very smooth like hers. My hair is very thick and full. And it totally frames my face. In a word, “understated glamor.” 

I can’t want to see how this turns out!

Seriously. I can’t believe I never thought of doing this before.

It’s going to be very interesting.

Part 2.

Now I will take a photograph on my iPhone and forward it to my email without looking at it. I will upload it to my blog and place it here:

I will now assess it.

And… I look like a man.

Dove’s slogan for this campaign is “You are more beautiful than you think.” Which is great, and I am certain, true. Except for me. Fuckers.

This post was written for fun and in avoidance of hard deadlines, so don’t send me hate comments, okay? I use Dove products and respect its “Real Beauty” campaign. 

And then the unfathomable bombings in Boston happened as I was about to go live with this post. I saw myself in almost all the essays in the collection; I wanted to include my reaction to the news. This was, appropriately, to go out for a drink with my dearest writer friends; we found a quiet bar and watched the President address the nation. Later, at home, husband asleep on the sofa, I poured a glass of wine. Ice cubes melting, I watched coverage unfold via Facebook and Twitter feeds.

Drinking Diaries is about more than dealing with the stress, hardships, and horror of life with alcohol. But it is certainly about that. Its editors, the fabulous Leah Odze Epstein and Caren Osten Gerszberg are both talented writers who bring their own different, intimate relationships with drinking. (You can read those in the book!) They were generous to spend time speaking with me as well.

Their goal–which began with the Drinking Diaries blog–has been to “take women’s [drinking] stories out of the closet.”

The stories go beyond, expectedly, deeply, what we share among ourselves on playgrounds, at the office, at dinner parties, even at the bar–some are uncomfortable; all are heart baring. Rarely does the need for preservation of self disrupt a story–as it will in casual conversation. The stories come with vulnerability and that ugly sort of honesty we’ve felt perhaps only a few times in life. Susan Henderson’s “Forever Thirteen” is short and far from sweet. Its brave details are as sharp as adolescence itself.

Caren and Leah told me it was not difficult getting women to put their stories on paper, and of their own grateful astonishment at the wonderful writers that came together.

The sublime Joyce Maynard has written an essay called “Under the Influence,” that, while stunning, is lowery at every turn:

Now here I was, by the side of another dark New Hampshire road with no similar appearance of leniency awaiting me. Now the police officer was opening the car door for me, since my hands were locked together. Now we were heading to the police station in the town where I’d raised my children, back when they and I were young.

I have other personal favorites among these. As a writer, a drinker, and steadfast fan of honest storytelling, it is hard to choose–but Asra Q. Nomani’s essay “The Mother of All Sins” reads like a map, a history book, a war documentary, and a world’s religions lesson. And she still tells her story of alcohol. She was good friends with murdered Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl and his wife:

As the days passed, I turned once to a swig of Jack Daniel’s from a hotel fridge mini-bottle; I needed to numb myself as we searched for my buddy. In the fourth week of our search the police got a break that we hoped would lead us to Danny. One of the Pakistani locals ordered a bottle of one of Danny’s favorite liquors so it would be ready for his return.

It is difficult to concentrate beyond this storyline; yet Nomani’s writing both educates and satisfies.

Rita Williams’ essay “The Root Cellar,” brings us to a brutal place; and it is unfailingly gorgeous.

I am forever in love, however, with “My Father, My Beer Buddy,” by Ann Hood. Its details preserve perfectly the dynamics of memory itself–it is both ideal and encouraged. Ms. Hood’s recounting of her relationship with her father, made impenetrable with her father’s affinity for drinking and for his little girl: “For the rest of our lives together, my father knew how I felt and scooped me up into his warm embrace. For all my life with him, beer was on the sidelines…”

Unlike many family drinking stories, this is not one of heartbreak. The author’s closeness with her father and the pains with which she recounts details about him reach back through the years.

During that period, when my father ate lunch at fancy restaurants in Boston, he had a flirtation with martinis. One weekend when I was about twelve, he spent an afternoon teaching me how to make a good one. He was a man who liked his juice in juice glasses, his ties hung on a tie rack, hand towels at the bathroom sink. Therefore, martinis required a silver bar set–jigger, shaker, long stirring spoon, and strainer…

I asked my husband to read this essay about a father and daughter spending time together over many years, in many restaurants, over many drinks. We have three children, and we wonder always what our children will remember about us. What details, what days will stay with them. Ms. Hood’s design for imprinting memories–clinking of glasses, warm beers in Irish pubs, tales of foods from foreign lands–is romantic and enviable.

Every day since my father died, on April 14, 1997, I’ve missed him. He taught me how to tell a good story. He gave me a love of travel and the bigger world. He showed me what it felt like to be loved, truly loved. And he taught me to drink beer. ‘Always get the good stuff,’ he told me.”

I would hope that my child remember I taught her how to tell a story. Any parent would.

Thank you Holly Fink at Culture Mom Media for this opportunity and for introducing me to Leah and Caren (who I hope don’t mind my calling them by their first names; they are just so cool). I was given a copy of this book for review purposes. All opinions are my own.

We recently survived and celebrated eight years of married life together; I think of all that we have embraced, conquered, mastered, destroyed, and learned to live with. We celebrate what we have built, and acknowledge how much we put in.

Sometimes, it is better to walk away than to stay and fight. I have learned this from my husband. I would fight all night. He will walk away and calm down. Sometimes, a little distance, a stroll, a call to a friend, or a few minutes sitting in a cold car parked on the street can do more good than all the explanations in the world.

Always, we have to laugh. Nothing reminds me of why I married this man more than when he can make me laugh after hours of fighting and crying. His humor is offensive, ridiculous, unexpected. I bite my lip trying so hard to not laugh. It is always what I need.

Never is a hard one. Because we break all those rules. We go to bed angry. We begin sentances with “You always…” and “I hate when you…”  We accuse, and we blame. We bring up the past. We walk out. We are not good at never. But never do we take for granted our luck in being together; our desperation for staying together; our inspiration in our children, to keep doing this.

Sometimes the old rules apply; always we make our own. Never do we regret the moments in which we have revealed our most ridiculous selves.

March 2005

This post can also be seen at Huffington Post Weddings.

We take these lights on vacation with us. When we stayed at hotels after Hurricane Sandy, we had the lights with us. They have become one of the most important parts of our bedtime routine–ahead of “sips and kisses,” just behind “bunny” and “bear.”

Most nights they are lit up the moment each child is in his or her bed. Three sky-fulls of stars fill their bedroom walls and ceiling. They change colors, and back again. The room glows orange or blue or red, or orange and blue,  orange and red. Henry likes to coordinate the color of his turtle with the girls’. A crescent moon appears, then another, and another. Three moons among the sea of glowing stars. They they fall asleep under the night sky of another universe.

We replace the batteries every few months, as the dream light begins to fail, to blink, to switch colors on its own. I fight with them to Stop touching the dream lights and go to sleep! NOW! Ellie will howl if her ladybug cannot be located immediately at bedtime. Molly has lost the privilege of the dream light for disobeying a babysitter. For this, she declared she “hated” me and wrote me a note further explaining her feelings.

Translation: “Dear Mommy. You are trash. No daddy seeing this picture.”

As they fall asleep, each child’s light remains close. My children’s thoughts, entering the strange world of dreams, are as distant as any celestial light. Their breathing slows and amplifies. They snore. I move away only when I am sure their eyes won’t pop open.

Henry fell asleep in a princess dress.

The stars shift on the ceiling as a child turns in her sleep. The lights will remain on for another 30 minutes by themselves. When I open the door later to check on the kids, the room will be dark except for the light from the avenue seeping under the window shade.

On occasion, I have switched on a dream light at that point. And I sit in the children’s room as they sleep, for ten minutes, for thirty minutes, with the stars–their stars–surrounding us.

And my perspective has changed–slightly but significantly. Slowly, I’ve become less concerned with the opinions others hold of me, and terribly concerned with my own. Speaking my mind, showing weakness, being proven wrong are no longer the worst things I could do. At the same time, the stakes have never been higher. My children look to me for an example of how to live reasonably, happily, and with purpose. Their faces show me their fear or their joy in response. All the moments count now.

I think relentlessly about reaching my goals. Those things we determine, set, work toward, sacrifice for, revisit, reinvent, sometimes regret, and if we are lucky, celebrate. Those goals seemed once to have an expiration date so far in the future, it was impossible to imagine not reaching the other side. Now each day I am aware of the future pressuring the present. Often I sit at the kitchen counter, my laptop in front of me, staring at downtown Manhattan at midday, making little progress toward any end. There are emails and unfinished posts opened, lunches and class parent responsibilities dotting my agenda book; there is work to complete on deadline. How aware I am that there is little time among these to devote to window gazing.

I no longer obsess about calories or cellulite, or fashion or gossip; but I worry about growing old. The old ladies in my neighborhood do not seem as alien as they once did, when I was a graduate student, unable to imagine a time when I might be left alone.

I realize I have more than I ever expected or could have dreamed. Gone, mostly, are the fantasies that extravagant vacations (I’ve taken one or two), invites to fancy parties (I have been to several), or the right address (I’ve tried this over and over) could minimize my problems. And yet I do not have everything that I want. So few of the answers I desperately hunted down truly satisfied. I designed my life without knowing it: the three surprising, remarkably funny children; a husband that supports my writing; friends I miss all over the world; a life in the big city. I spent years searching for the “path” without seeing I was on it.

This gratitude, humility, uncertainty, and ambition come not with this decade exclusively, of course. They come with our experiences of the years–both the staggering and the casual. With being in, what may be, the middle of my life. These come with a moment when looking forward is infinitely more promising than looking behind me.

My five year old’s portrait of me.

Me at 40-ish.

This post can also be seen on Huffington Post.

Adding a dog to your family should be a simple process. You simply select a breed, find a breeder or adoption center, choose your puppy, buy a leash for said puppy, and bring it home. Or, so we thought.

My wife and I were vacillating between an active or a lazy dog. On a good day—meaning our children had spent the night at a relative’s house, and we had slept for more than five hours without interruption, finished a conversation and actually relaxed, we wanted an active dog. On a bad day, meaning most days, we wanted a lazy dog that took about as much work to care for as a Pet Rock. Our children, on the other hand, didn’t care what kind of  dog we got.  Our son Willy could not have cared less.  He was completely indifferent.  Our daughter Olivia didn’t care what kind of dog we selected either—as long as we did it soon.

Looking for guidance, we reached out to family and friends. We had done this before when we were undecided and choosing names for our children. It didn’t work out well then either.

We would mention a name, and our friends would tell us about someone they knew with that particular name that had questionable character or was a victim of her unfortunate name.  “Oh, I knew a Vanessa and she was a slut!” Or, “You’re not going to name the kid Elliot!  Do you want him to get beaten up on the playground?” These were actual statements from friends.

I happen to like the sound of Vanessa and Elliott. And if your children bear these names, I’m sure that their promiscuity or nerdy traits are just coincidental. We actually considered both names, but we thought our kids would have enough issues coming from our very shallow gene pool. I’m amazed our children are as perfect as they are. Our daughter was actually born with only one kidney. (According to the obstetrician, it had nothing to do with my collegiate pharmaceutical usage.)

Predictably, our experience asking friends for advice on dogs wasn’t much different.  We began our quest by asking our friend Rob who has two dogs, four cats, two horses, and a goat–but no children–what kind of dog we should get. When we told him what type we were considering, he said, “It’s not a fashion statement. You’re adding a family member.  And you’re an active family, so you need an active dog.” We weren’t sure we could trust Rob’s advice because he is the same guy who had the opportunity to join Google in the late 1990s, but decided against it.  He couldn’t see the Internet’s potential when every town had a library. I guess he liked libraries a lot.

Against our better judgment, we took our friend’s advice.  We tried to adopt a Labrador Retriever but were rejected in favor of another family because they had a bigger yard.  Olivia was devastated. Willy was relieved. Phoebe and I were shocked. We didn’t get the dog because our yard was too small.

A short time later, we adopted a Golden Retriever named Molly.  This was clearly a rebound-relationship, and like most rebounds, it didn’t work. And let me be clear about Molly’s temperament. While we loved her, she was the world’s only aggressive Golden. The family we adopted her from failed to mention this.

We had to say goodbye to Molly the Golden a few months later when she allegedly attacked our neighbor’s dog and they threatened to sue us if it happened again. We learned this from the police, whom they called. Our children started crying when the police came to the door because they thought Molly and Mommy were going to jail.

We flirted with the idea of a Labradoodle because Olivia really liked them, and my son seemed to tolerate them. Because the chocolate ones looked like Chewbacca, and he was really into Star Wars at the time. I wasn’t as sure. To me, Labradoodles are the El Camino of dogs: the El Camino is not really a truck, and it is not really a car. I have the same problem with this particular breed. It is not really a lab, and it is not really a poodle. It’s an experiment.

Now, finally, after several years, and a few unsuccessful attempts with ‘active’ dogs, we’ve chosen a ‘lazy’ dog.  We are expecting to bring home a Basset Hound puppy in August.

The Basset Hound is a funny breed.  It looks goofy.  It smells. It drools.  It is difficult to train.  It will run away if it catches an interesting scent. It cannot swim. It doesn’t really like to fetch. And I don’t think the breed has caught a rabbit in generations. It’s essentially a large, expensive hamster.  But it is gentle, lovable, and cute.

So our hound dog probably won’t dazzle our friends with remarkable tricks. It will not impress people with its intelligence. It probably won’t obey most commands. But it will add some unconditional love and laughter to our family. And that’s not such a bad thing.

A few things I’ll be working on as part of our short- and long-term fire safety preparedness:

• From Thanksgiving into the new year, I leave our Christmas tree lights plugged in. All the time. While we are in bed, when we leave the apartment. I never even think of unplugging them. (We have a fake tree, which presents less of a risk for fire.) I so love the lights. And now I will love them while they are off too.
• We haven’t changed our smoke alarm batteries this year. We were going to–my husband got the step stool, went to lift the cover of the alarm on the wall, and then we couldn’t find new batteries. This was in October (Daylight Savings), and we haven’t thought of it again.
• We have one smoke alarm. It is outside our bedrooms in the hallway. It is recommended that we have alarms inside the sleeping areas as well.
• We do not have an emergency fire exit plan. We live in a fire-proof brick building, but we have no plan to escape if there were a fire in our apartment. Molly recently had an educational visit from a firefighter to her kindergarten classroom. She came home with many questions about what would happen if our apartment had a fire. She asked what would happen if she woke up and couldn’t find us. Because I was so terrified by that thought, I told her that of course we’d find her. Because it is impossible to even think otherwise. But it is both cruel and true–the worst can indeed happen. I am going to make a plan for our family that our children can understand.

It is, in so many ways, a relief to know that there are things we can do to prevent fires and to prevent injury from fires at home. We cannot control all things in life, and there are dangers for which we cannot prepare. Fire safety, however, can be planned for; and for this, I am extremely grateful.

{CLOSED}Giveaway! Here is what makes me the happiest: Kidde will send one of my readers its new Worry-Free Kitchen Smoke and Carbon Monoxide Alarm (a $48 value). The alarm uses one battery over its lifetime to provide 24/7 fire safety protection–you will never hear those annoying low-battery chirps.

Here is what you must do to enter: Answer the questions on the survey (it will not take more than 15 minutes) and leave a single comment below on this post about one area of your home you learned needs attention.

The giveaway will end January 19, 2013, at 11:59 ET. A winner will be selected through random.org.

Kidde is providing me with compensation and one of my readers with a Worry-Free Kitchen Smoke and Carbon Monoxide Alarm. All opinions are my own.

And I am at a loss of how to help. Partly because I am not good at helping people. Partly because my focus has been on my own fears. And then I thought that maybe I don’t need to worry about the things that aren’t happening. About the wounds that don’t really matter when all is said, and all is mostly done. There are conversations I will never have outside my own head. There are wrongs that will never be made right. There are goals that will be left untouched.

What if I wake up tomorrow and my first thought is not the three major projects I am late delivering? What if I don’t step on a scale or look in a mirror? What if blueberry muffin crumbs remain on my floor all day? What if I don’t go to the gym, and I don’t feel awful about myself all day for it? What if I do own too many shoes?

There are moments when our world is reduced in a heartbeat to the basics. And then there are lifetimes in which we can choose to reduce our world to the very basics. What if I don’t win a prize–what if I never know what the prizes are? What if I don’t wait to be happy and unashamed?

So what if my best friendships are forged through tears and laughter and wine? What if I take a nap? Could happiness really be as simple as this moment?

And a quiet calm, the absence of guilt or pressure started to gel in me. And I thought, still, what if, dreaming, I am on a train to no known town, only to discover, eventually, at the end of the line, that I never existed? Oh no. What if I hadn’t watched that Twilight Zone marathon New Year’s Day?

What if every thought I have today could make me smile?

We get no guarantee of numbers. So many days under the sun or drizzly afternoons spent gazing out windows. We think they are infinite but they are not. One day will be the last. And this is not the hardest part. The hardest is knowing those we adore will share our fate.

We grow up when we know this. And this is the deal we get to be here. We don’t ask yet are given opportunity to love, to embrace, to wonder and be scared, to scream and kiss and run and lie still in the cool grass under the long-gone stars on a cool evening.

We go through this time, galloping or whispering across the years, with a vague knowledge of the end. We are born to love feverishly. To anguish and rebound. To flourish. We are born for each other.

It matters little where or when or how we are here. Our hearts share the same code. Although we spend our lives attempting to cement that which is impermanent, we come to the same end.

Our gift is not one of time because that is uncertain and unfairly metered out. We have one moment in which to live. Our gift is of comfort and care. We cradle those hearts we meet, bringing joy where there is sorrow and ease when there is turmoil. Those of us who have, and who can–we must. It is the deal we make with the one we get.

This post can be found on Huffington Post as well.