I know you didn’t ask but my weekend was wonderful. Alana turned Amazing Years Old and to celebrate her husband, Matthew, threw her a fete fit for her lovely self. Now I, being the misanthrope that we all know and try like hell to love, had misgivings about attending this party. Though Bill and his wife would be there for me to lean on along with Alana’s sister whose face lit up when she saw me and went in for that full body hug; I was still nervous. I can’t help it and I’ve finally succumbed to an overwhelming, heart racing, palm sweating, reaction to social situations. Especially situations where I’m surrounded, like sardines in a can, by people I’ve only recently met. It’s like, “Hello, I’m Heather. I know we just met but I’m going to stick my elbow into your slice of birthday cake.That cool?”

But God. Those people down there. And I knew – KNEW – this would happen, but they were all so nice and wonderful. We talked kids and jobs and the difference between Upstate and Downstate. They were the type of people that you wanted to spend Saturday nights with drinking prosecco, talking politics, art, pop culture. Anything. I couldn’t help but think today even that I want a dinner party with everything in miniature and hugging a friend of a friend. That was how the night ended. The hostess, Emily, wrapped her arms around my waist and told me how glad she was that I came and that she finally got to meet me and I hugged Alana’s dad and high-fived her Uncle Dan (Dan who is married to Jill) and that night, it really was one of those nights that keep you buoy you when you think that things are so so bad.

Now may I be narcissistic for a second? For Alana’s birthday her husband had her friends and family and Katie Couric leave blog entries of sentimental things about The Birthday Girl. I taped mine right before I left for the party so I didn’t say everything I wanted to say. The truth is that I love that lady. So perhaps I throw the word ‘love’ around a lot. Perhaps you just don’t notice. But I do love her. She is one of those people that make the Internet good and a happier place to share and be. It’s something I don’t say enough to so many people who prove what the Internet really is: not some scary bad place full of evil people who want to kidnap you but maybe, just maybe, the Internet has some gems. And when you find these gems who get you in a way that so many never did and never will…well… it makes life that much sweeter.

A note from The Artist Formerly Known As The Roommate:

“Holy shit, heather…they are combining the themes of your favorite two shows”

via Jezebel

“Showtime is bringing back The L Word as a reality show about six lesbians who live in L.A. The Real L Word: Los Angeles is described as “a lesbian answer to Bravo’s Real Housewives franchise” [Variety]

I get Variety delivered to my inbox. It’s a keeper from my MamaPop days. I also like blends. I like grenache, shiraz, mourvedre. I like mint and chocolate. Chocolate and cherry. Anything and chocolate. I like pineapple on my pizza and I love ruffles with a structured skirt. I really think I’m going to love this.

It’s a little too sparkly for my taste but it’s a good precursor for my next post.

I’m safely within the confines of The Beltway for the next two days. There’s something about heavy traffic that thrills me to the bone. It seems that my wet dream is sitting in a cab for an hour and almost getting hit by a minivan in front of the White House.

When you feel really strongly about something – anything – the words to explain that feeling escape you. For there is no way to possibly encompass all that you feel into the limited number of words available in the English language. That’s how I feel about Chris and Susan: A weekend with them and I get that ‘Aaahhhhh’ feeling. My life is still a little messy and yet their perspective makes me feel like it is all as it should be. Chicago cannot come soon enough.

Full set here

“Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come.”  ~Anne Lamott

Once someone told me that “you can’t spin hope”. And I quoted it for months with a snicker. ‘Hope’ isn’t part of the party platform. I’ve read the party platform and next to ‘improving public education’ it doesn’t say ‘dream big’ with little unicorns and a heart instead of a dot above the lowercase i. I find myself to be a generally cynical person and pragmatic. The glass is never half full or half empty it’s just a glass with water for me to quench my thirst. Which is why when ‘hope’ was used as a catalyst for people to throw their cautions to the wind and vote for ‘change’, I scoffed and guffawed and remained a non-believer.

There was no push or drive during the last two years, I was just going through the motions of electing a President whose platform most aligned with my ideals. That is until last night when my coworker, Ben, a man old enough to think that he would never see the Berlin Wall come down, started to tell me a story that I had been dying to hear. I was already for the The Drama when out of the corner of my eye I saw something that made me stop everything. It’s rare that I’m at a loss for words or that when something exciting or monumental happens that I’m not shouting from the rooftops. I turned to Ben and politely said to him, “Barack Obama is the President”. He just stared back at me and said “Wait. What?”

“I think that Barack Obama is the President”.

He stopped the story that I was so dying to hear to turn around and look at the television screen with me. You know those moments that are forever etched in your mind? Those moments when you remember exactly how you were standing, which way the moon was facing and the color of the chipped nail polish on your fingers? Those moments? It’s just that…it isn’t everyday that I stand in a room full of people, put my head down and my hands on my knees and feel everything inside of me collapse and then cry. Two minutes later Ben went back to telling me the story and I stopped him to say, “Yeah, whatever you’re going to say is going to be boring as shit compared to this”. But he told me anyway.

I called my father later and he was far too quiet than usual. Not the normal banter and telling me that I’m adopted but he was quiet and thoughtful. If you grow up in segregated Birmingham, Alabama, you can never really prepare yourself for raising children in the suburbs of Upstate NY. You probably don’t envision your black son and daughter discussing political science and supply side economics and the LSATS and their white peers as if they were common place. And you sure as shit don’t ever bring yourself to really push your mind to pursue the possibility of a black man living in the White House.

But you hope. I hope for a lot of things. That my check clears or that a pair of perfect shoes are available in my size or that one day I’ll be able to fit into my favorite dress again. I hope that the Giants win this weekend and I hope there’s more wine. I’m neither sentimental nor idealistic, but yeah, sometimes I hope. We all hope every single day because it’s what gets us up in the morning: That hope that things will be better or just as good as the day before. That hope that whatever we are working towards – either alone or as a people – will go well and get better. It’s just that on any given day we don’t realize how much we hope because we never outwardly say it because it’s just a little too trite and rainbows and kittens to say that you spend your days hoping. Though I think it’s human nature and catching to see one person be optimistic and so it’s hard to avoid that drug of good feeling.

So would you like to know what my first thoughts were last night? After the tears and my father. It was of my friends, Leah and Simon, and then of every other  parent I know that has young children. But Leah and Simon especially because they’re having a baby in six weeks and their baby will never know of anything different than having a black president it will be natural to him and forever be a grip on my heart and something that I remember vaguely thinking about. Just as it will always be baffling to my father that Garrett and I have always experienced integration (its ups and its harsh, harsh downs) as it’s always been natural to us but a grip on his heart.

There are these little tiny babies who will always think of this – what just happened – as ordinary. And they will have that luxury and life because one day in November several million of us chose to lean on the idea of hope a little more than we had in days, weeks and months prior. It was one day in November when we said we could and so we did. We hoped and then we changed.

]]> http://nopasanada.org/2009/01/20/once-more-with-feeling/feed/ 13 http://nopasanada.org/2008/11/05/one-day-in-november/ http://nopasanada.org/2008/11/05/one-day-in-november/#comments Thu, 06 Nov 2008 00:48:23 +0000 nopasanada http://nopasanada.org/?p=752 “Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come.”  ~Anne Lamott

Once someone told me that “you can’t spin hope”. And I quoted it for months with a snicker. ‘Hope’ isn’t part of the party platform. I’ve read the party platform and next to ‘improving public education’ it doesn’t say ‘dream big’ with little unicorns and a heart instead of a dot above the lowercase i. I find myself to be a generally cynical person and pragmatic. The glass is never half full or half empty it’s just a glass with water for me to quench my thirst. Which is why when ‘hope’ was used as a catalyst for people to throw their cautions to the wind and vote for ‘change’, I scoffed and guffawed and remained a non-believer. 

There was no push or drive during the last two years, I was just going through the motions of electing a President whose platform most aligned with my ideals. That is until last night when my coworker, Ben, a man old enough to think that he would never see the Berlin Wall come down, started to tell me a story that I had been dying to hear. I was already for the The Drama when out of the corner of my eye I saw something that made me stop everything. It’s rare that I’m at a loss for words or that when something exciting or monumental happens that I’m not shouting from the rooftops. I turned to Ben and politely said to him, “Barack Obama is the President”. He just stared back at me and said “Wait. What?” 

“I think that Barack Obama is the President”. 

He stopped the story that I was so dying to hear to turn around and look at the television screen with me. You know those moments that are forever etched in your mind? Those moments when you remember exactly how you were standing, which way the moon was facing and the color of the chipped nail polish on your fingers? Those moments? It’s just that…it isn’t everyday that I stand in a room full of people, put my head down and my hands on my knees and feel everything inside of me collapse and then cry. Two minutes later Ben went back to telling me the story and I stopped him to say, “Yeah, whatever you’re going to say is going to be boring as shit compared to this”. But he told me anyway. 

I called my father later and he was far too quiet than usual. Not the normal banter and telling me that I’m adopted but he was quiet and thoughtful. If you grow up in segregated Birmingham, Alabama, you can never really prepare yourself for raising children in the suburbs of Upstate NY. You probably don’t envision your black son and daughter discussing political science and supply side economics and the LSATS and their white peers as if they were common place. And you sure as shit don’t ever bring yourself to really push your mind to pursue the possibility of a black man living in the White House. 

But you hope. I hope for a lot of things. That my check clears or that a pair of perfect shoes are available in my size or that one day I’ll be able to fit into my favorite dress again. I hope that the Giants win this weekend and I hope there’s more wine. I’m neither sentimental nor idealistic, but yeah, sometimes I hope. We all hope every single day because it’s what gets us up in the morning: That hope that things will be better or just as good as the day before. That hope that whatever we are working towards – either alone or as a people – will go well and get better. It’s just that on any given day we don’t realize how much we hope because we never outwardly say it because it’s just a little too trite and rainbows and kittens to say that you spend your days hoping. Though I think it’s human nature and catching to see one person be optimistic and so it’s hard to avoid that drug of good feeling. 

So would you like to know what my first thoughts were last night? After the tears and my father. It was of my friends, Leah and Simon, and then of every other  parent I know that has young children. But Leah and Simon especially because they’re having a baby in six weeks and their baby will never know of anything different than having a black president it will be natural to him and forever be a grip on my heart and something that I remember vaguely thinking about. Just as it will always be baffling to my father that Garrett and I have always experienced integration (its ups and its harsh, harsh downs) as it’s always been natural to us but a grip on his heart. 

There are these little tiny babies who will always think of this – what just happened – as ordinary. And they will have that luxury and life because one day in November several million of us chose to lean on the idea of hope a little more than we had in days, weeks and months prior. It was one day in November when we said we could and so we did. We hoped and then we changed. 

My friends LB and Mah have bought a house together. Normally, I’d frown upon boyfriend and girlfriend shacking up and think of all apocalyptic type problems that could arise just to make sure they’ve thought of everything, but in this case, I teared up a little while looking at photos of their adorable red door adorned home. For my first visit to their house, they emailed to say that a friend of Mah’s sister would be visiting so she would be joining us for dinner. Great! I thought. I made sure to have both the crackberry and the cell phone handy. The crackberry just in case any unforeseen circumstances should arise, like she tried to have a conversation with me and I was unable to come up with an adequate response to make me come off both smart and funny. Lest you think that I never worry about these things, it is in fact at the top of my mind when meeting new people: That thing that we’re all worried about; what if they don’t like me? Though more importantly on a rainy evening: Does Aveda offer a product to beat the shit out of my hair and into submission? Never fear of course, for in I walk and there’s Margot. She wants to talk politics and blogging and makes up a fun game called “Posing with wine glasses”. She thinks that Yellow Tail Shiraz is the greatest thing produced from God’s green earth and has more creativity in her tiny self than I will ever have. In the end, after a night of sitting too close to the television and doing color commentary on the debate; she hugs me with two arms. I tell her that when I’m in Chicago again, I’ll give her a call. She tells me that when I come to Chicago, I’m staying with her. She also says “You’re fierce! I don’t understand why boys aren’t running after you”. It makes me hug her harder.

*******

I’m attending my third Sleep is for the Weak signing. I cannot help but exclaim that I have very talented and pretty friends and I’d like to buy many of them a pony. I’m chatting with Amy and Tracey and standing at the back wall, sipping coffee when Hilary walks in. She looks at us, including me, just standing there possibly biting my cuticles and rolling my eyes; and says that she’s nervous. I remove my thumb from my mouth so that I can give a full on WTF look. Why be nervous? She’s nervous that she’s standing here in front of the three of us (keep in mind that it’s not even my book. I’m just standing there enjoying the coffee and how nicely my new sweater coat fits and perhaps I’ll get one in black) and she doesn’t know what to say and she almost didn’t come in (Me: mmmm, cuticle. Tasty, tasty cuticle). Tracey and Amy ask her name and this time I remove my index finger long enough to say “Oh yeah! You commented on my site today”. I bust out the crackberry (I told you it comes in handy) and sho’ ‘nuf there’s Hilary’s comment. Later she joins me on the back wall and now I’m all nervous trying to come up with some sort of nonchalant conversation as if I’m good at small talk. In my head a constant loop of “oh my god, but you’re so fucking cool” going through my head. I spend twenty minutes staring at her and plotting a way to get her to join me at Vapiano the next time I’m in town. I’ll probably come off as needy and utterly uncool via email and vapid and she’ll hate me but perhaps I’ll try. Later at dinner, Tracey and I turn to each other and express our love of Hilary. It’s official: We’d like to adopt her.

*******

I’ve known Rita for a few years but mostly tangentially. We know the same people and work together and yet we’ve never had an actual conversation. I assure you that it has nothing to do with oil and water personalities but that at BlogHer – when we usually see each other – it’s so easy to get swooped up in the tide and the next thing you know it’s all over, you’re back at the shore, dripping wet, thinking “What the FUCK was that? Did anything happen?” So we’ve just never really chatted. She’s in DC for the reading of the book that she has labored over for the past three years. It makes me most envious that she was able to see a project through for that long while I find my ability to sit through a 120 minute movie comparable to running a marathon. I commend her. While at dinner I find out that she’s hilarious. And not a simple chuckle but the kind of hilarity that forces my cheeks to hurt and my head to throw back during fits of laughter. She tells these stories with her full body and facial expressions. First a story that forces me sides to ache as my shoulders go up and down in my silent laughing thing and then one that is heartbreaking. I request that she writes more. I wonder why I’ve never really talked to her before. Then I realize it’s probably because I spend too much time worrying about whether or not someone will like me and gnawing on my cuticles rather than actually allowing words to come out of my mouth. Perhaps I’ll work on that.

So, I didn’t like babies. And I sure as hell didn’t want children. I’m sorry, I was unequivocally against having oft thankless, little people stuck to me and sucking every bit of energy and money from me thus leaving me little time to enjoy the finer things in life like Anthropologie and wine flights. One of my parents, the one with the xx chromosomes once upon a time felt the same way about children. She once told me that she used to see parents in the park with their children and think it was the most god awful thing. Then she had a child (moi) and realized that hey! These children? With their snotty noses and wet kisses and need to shove their half eaten bits of food into your mouth? They’re not so bad. So she went on and had another (Garrett) and lo has now made it through two and half decades without either of us going to prison or losing a limb. She deserves a medal or some flowers or something.

It always seemed that babies were so very needy. And their neediness would have to trump my neediness and when you’re in high school and college your needs come before everyone elses needs. It wasn’t like I had some plans to get pregnant right then and there at the age of 19 it’s just that I’m a planner and my plans did not include getting up at 3 AM to feed someone else because really? What kind of human being decides that eating at 3 AM would be a fantastic idea? You know what’s a good idea at 3 AM? SLEEPING. Try it. It will do wonders for your complexion and overall health and maturity. It will also prevent your parents from putting you up for adoption.

Noah Storch was four weeks old when I met him. His mother had deemed me acceptable to watch her precious newborn as determined by my love of Coach bags and a good petite syrah of which we had a mutual love. People who like expensive bags and wine are so totally not crazy. I swear. He was all bundled up in his stroller and I didn’t touch him that first day. I just peeked periodically at his tiny fists and face and then had a flashback to the first time I met one of my cousins. He was the exact age that Noah was, I was 10 and I didn’t understand that babies didn’t come equipped with strong neck muscles. I removed my hand from the back of his head and he went flying the hell back. And well, that ended my association with those under the age of eight months. And even then it was touch and go.

Newborns are kind of…how do I put this gently?…Boring. They’re boring. They sleep like 90% of the time and when they are awake they’re only interest is screaming in protest for having being born or because they are hungry. Then again, I’m a bitch when I’m starving and have spent the last four days complaining about my oh so difficult life so I can almost understand their angry. Newborns are also so tiny. It’s impossible for my mind to move past their relative size and generally gentle demeanor for they haven’t yet become cynical or suspicious. They like to be held and well, I was good at the holding. So on that first night with Noah we sat together and I held him. All evening I held him and rocked him and sniffed the top of his head. I held him in the bathroom while the faucet ran because he liked the sound of running water and fuck environmental conservation when there is squwaking involved.

The next morning Amy told me that he slept through the night and demanded to know what I did to get her kid to sleep an entire night. Was it drugs? Crushed up Ambien in his Similac? WHAT? I just held him. And that’s what I did for the first two months and every time I saw Noah thereafter. I held him. I would get to his house stressed out after a day of dealing with adults who I wanted to face plant in a pile of dung. I would be tired and cranky and I’d see this tiny face, the face of a person who would cry in protest or would poop on my freshly dry cleaned pants or would spit up on me. But then night would come and we would sit in the dark listening to music and I would just hold him.

And that’s what I love about newborns. They’re actually my favorite. As my friend, Charlie says, they’re ‘teeny tiny’ and gorgeous. They’re needy and they doth protest way too fucking much. They’ll puke on you with aplomb. They’re mercurial. They don’t know the difference between night and day and they could give two shits if you’re tired. But they’re fairly easy to please. They just like to be held and snuggled and hugged. It’s like all of their problems can be solved with a new diaper and a gentle coo as you hold them as close to you as possible. It’s precious and endearing to feel them fall asleep with their heads resting on the side of your neck. You smile while holding them and wish that all of their problems for the rest of their lives could be solved just as easily. But for now you close your eyes and sit there with them knowing that this? This is the easy part.

*This post is for Kristen and Rebecca and Amy and the Mo’ Babies Shower Extravaganza in honor of the impending arrival of their teeny tiny babies. Congratulations, ladies.

You know those people who when you ask them how they’re doing, they reply fine all rapid fire like and succinct and then when you press for details because you are genuinely interested in knowing how this person’s life is going, everything is a one word answer? Those people who say “Fine. Oh, I’m fine. Everything is fine. Just fine” as if “fine” is the only word they know in the English language and to find a replacement would require a thesaurus. I am that person. The person who answers ‘fine’ to everything and then thinks that that is a perfectly adequate answer and nothing else should be inquired as to the state of my general well being. Obviously I am alive and breathing without an assistive device so clearly nothing can be that bad. Right? Right. But oh, oh, the way I can put on a front. I should have been a damn theater major with the way I can smile on the outside while feeling as if every ounce of happiness is being sucked from my insides with the force of a Dyson; well, it’s an art.

And the Oscar for Most Able to Look Happy on the Outside While Dying a Slow and Painful (and somewhat exaggerated) Soul Sucking Death on the Inside goes to…Heather Barmore.

My shoulders are starting to hurt due to the number of times I’ve given myself a congratulatory pat on the back for not sitting in the corner, rocking back and forth and threatening to bite people if they come near me with another asinine question. And that is the best way to describe how God-awful this summer has been. Then again, in the grand scheme of things and as I stated so eloquently before, I am still breathing and standing unassisted but still in the grand scheme of things known as my life and mental well being, I think this summer would go down as the one when I almost ended up in a straight jacket.

But of course, I was FINE! No really, just FINE! So fine in fact that on July 31st, I wrote something that will forever be saved in DRAFT and there it will stay until I have a teenager and my teenager throws herself on the floor in some crazy dramatic fashion because life isn’t fair and she has it so hard and OMFG I didn’t let her stay out until 2 AM. Then I will show my teenage daughter this DRAFT post and tell her that she can’t over drama me. Oh hell no, if she wants to see overdramatic hyperbole and prove herself worthy of throwing an excellent temper tantrum, then she needs to try a little harder. For her mother is wholly unimpressed.

I’ll give you a paraphrased excerpt. The part where I literally walked around a small coastal town feeling as if I was losing my mind while everything inside of me broke in two: “I’m wearing shades not because my future is bright but because I can’t walk around town in tears. I make calls and stifle each sob as I wander up and down the main street trying to find some sense of relief. I head to the Ferry to get a schedule and peer over the edge. There’s a railing on Beach Road but it’s almost waist high and the water isn’t nearly deep enough to incur the damage that I would really need at this point. So instead I hoist my bag back over my shoulder, wipe my eyes and head home.” Actually, I walked back home and drank Bacardi straight from the bottle and cried myself to sleep. Then I woke up had some clam strips and was suddenly right as rain.

The summer was all about taking several small things, having them crash together at the exact same time as if they all planned to converge based on wind speed and temperature to fuck with my brain and lo a tornado has dropped down in my cerebral cortex. All of the little things were only exacerbated by my already fragile mental state and then stick me on a plane all over the damn country and as you can imagine there were moments when I was about as a pleasurable as a colicky six month old with reflux who is teething and thinks that sleep is for pussies.

The other day I stepped out of my office and it was slightly chilly. Not freezing but a nice 73 degrees and cool enough for a ¾ sleeve jacket. It smelled like fall. Like right around the corner would be pumpkin spice lattes and pick your own apples and cowl neck sweaters. That was the night that I finally turned off the fan and decided that I wouldn’t be in need of it anymore. It wouldn’t be hot as hell anymore and the interminable hell that had been a personal slugfest through summer appeared to be over. At last. I’ve been looking forward to September for quite sometime. Perhaps because I would be adding colors like ‘eggplant’ and ‘plum’ to my wardrobe or because I knew that if I could make it to September without quitting my job or life, then I would be OK. And then it would be smooth sailing and my parents would high five in a few weeks on my 25th birthday for raising a child who made it a quarter century without going to prison on charges of Losing Her Shit.

Yesterday, I finally felt a bit more settled. As the remainder of the summer weight was lifted off of my shoulders and I felt my feet a little more firmly planted. Yes, I thought, I feel good now. When I got home a package had arrived from Suebob. In it was a note that I read first before tearing into what was in the bubble wrap. You see, during one of my jaunts through somewhere, I lost all of my favorite jewelry. Including my superhero necklace and my pearls. Yes, these were material things that can easily be replaced but my superhero necklace always made me feel better and my pearls went with everything. The note from Suebob was expressing her sadness for me when I lost my superhero necklace and that she saw that I had been wearing one in most of my BlogHer photos. She happened to have two and one of them wasn’t her style and so she sent it to me. She sent me a brand new superhero necklace. But! And there’s always a but, when I thanked her there was a caveat. The caveat being that it needed to be a Pay it Forward scenario. She made me thrilled beyond believe with her generosity and now I had to be a little kinder. A little less acerbic and less bite to my words. “Wag more, bark less” she said. Cease with my feelings of woe is me and life is too hard and I should just pack up and move somewhere else because I’m not cut out for anything. So I agreed. And now that the end of summer has arrived, for once I am not lying through my teeth when saying that I feel a little bit better than my previous self.

Farewell, summer. You were a Goddamn royal pain in the ass like nails on a chalkboard and metal hitting a filling and like being kicked in the groin repeatedly for sport. You will not be missed. Bring on the knee high boots and turtleneck sweaters.

I’ve been home for all of 20 minutes and the second I landed and started to drive home I bought the largest bottle of Shiraz-Grenache I could find and when I finally stepped into my apartment I poured 24 fluid ounces of Shiraz-Grenache into a Nalgene. It’s been that kind of week.

I have so many stories to tell you all from the past week all of which involve my heart beating ferociously in my chest because of the overwhelming need to scream in the middle of 16th street. I’m pretty sure I’ve hit every single emotion this week and now I am in dire need of a very long nap. I am officially fried. And if I could write a sentence without my brain feeling like it was about to explode out of my eyeballs then I would. Photos are still being uploaded and processed and the ones from Thursday night are the ones that turn me into a big gooey mess of tears and pure joy.

I will tell you this though; when I took the photo below, when that moment happened when Jill Biden told her husband of the special guest and Barack Obama came out, the entire Pepsi Center erupted in an exploding cacophony of whoops and cheers. That is when I turned to my mother and said: “Holy fucking shit. This is almost as awesome as an orgasm”.

And that, my friends, was my week.