Because, you see, if you don’t want to call yourself a feminist because you’re afraid guys won’t know you’ll put out on the second date, you don’t believe in equal rights.

If you don’t want to call yourself a feminist because you’re afraid guys will think you’re a raging, militant lesbian—who doesn’t just fake-kiss other girls for their pleasure—you don’t believe in equal rights.

If you don’t want to call yourself a feminist because you’re afraid the hiring manager at your interview will think you’re too uppity for the job, you don’t believe in equal rights.

If you don’t want to call yourself a feminist because you’re afraid guys will assume you don’t wax your nether regions, you don’t believe in equal rights.

If you don’t want to call yourself a feminist because you’re afraid someone might take away that cute, fitted “power” suit and those stilettos you wear every day at all-male meetings where you’re definitely taken super-seriously, you don’t believe in equal rights.

If you don’t want to call yourself a feminist because you’re afraid guys will assume you only want to sleep with them for your own benefit, and not at least partly for theirs, you don’t believe in equal rights.

If you don’t want to call yourself a feminist because you’re afraid your boss is gonna think that as soon as he promotes you, you’re gonna shave your head, stop wearing makeup, and start stomping around the office in combat boots, you don’t believe in equal rights.

If you don’t want to call yourself a feminist because you’re afraid guys will think you’re only gonna go down on them to bite off their penises, you don’t believe in equal rights.

If you don’t want to call yourself a feminist because you’re afraid society will ask you to strip naked to prove you have all your girl parts, you don’t believe in equal rights.

You don’t get to have one without the other. If you’re not afraid to say you believe in equal rights, you should not be afraid to call yourself a feminist. If you believe in equal rights, you are a feminist. There is no valid reason for calling yourself one but not the other. The problem is not just that you feel it’s a negative label—but that we’ve allowed it to be defined negatively . . . by men.

We don’t need to come up with a new word for feminism; we need to come up with a new word for the guys who would like us to believe that feminism is a bad thing.

How about “misguided wastes of space”?

But the actual problem is that when you’re a sleep-deprived, scatterbrained individual—and I’m sorry, but there’s no sleep deprivation and scatterbrainery like that which accompanies full-time mothering of a toddler . . . otherwise I’d consider extending this pardon to those of you who are forgetful for other reasons and feel like you should be off the hook—is that you forget what dinner is.

I mean, you know that it’s a thing that you eat at the end of the day—one of the three ritual meals normal Americans consume—but that’s where your knowledge and remembrance of the practice ends. You can’t recall any examples of actual food combinations that might be appropriate for you to put together and serve and/or eat.

This is the monologue that runs through my head most late afternoons when I’m strolling to and from the playground with the aforementioned toddler. What should we have for dinner? Did we order in last night? Should we order in again? Where should we order in from? What places are there to order in from? (That’s the other thing you forget: restaurant possibilities. You live in central New York City and can’t come up with a single place to get food.)

Or should we make something? Our cupboards are overfull–we must have something we can pull together. But what is there to make? What do people make? What constitutes a meal? Which grocery store should we go to—the one that’s a block away, the one that’s two blocks away, or the good one that’s four blocks away? And if we’re coming back from the playground, can we risk waiting on the long line at Trader Joe’s with Noah restlessly wanting out of his stroller?

Of course by “we” here, I mean “I”—Elliott doesn’t run into the same dinner-making/-planning issues. He’s much less psycho than I am, especially when it comes to food. He’s usually the one who cooks, which of course just makes me feel like even more of a homemaker failure. The only thing that makes up for it is witnessing the number of pots and pans he uses, where “number” = “all the pots and pans in our possession.”

The other thing that makes me feel like a loser is the nannies at the playground. They exhibit approximately zero outer signs of sleep deprivation—and, really, they should since their jobs are harder than mine! They get PAID! Nobody’s gonna fire me if I don’t do my job perfectly. And if they aren’t live-in, their asses are commuting all the way back and forth from, like, Canarsie to be with their actual, own families. I don’t envy them their lives even remotely.

But the nannies . . . they are so good at what they do, it’s insane. I think some of them might have their PhDs in Nannying. They memorize all of the children’s names at the playground, organize impromptu activity groups among, like, twenty different strange kids—all the while keeping track of their “own” charges and chatting amiably among themselves. Sometimes I feel like I could take a leisurely stroll around the block and I wouldn’t be missed. I’d come back to find Noah having learned the alphabet . . . in French.

So every day it’s the same scene: the nannies are busy schooling and entertaining every kid at the playground, and I’m just standing there trying to remember what dinner is. What food groups are there again? How many days in a row can we have leftover Chinese for lunch before it’ll kill us? Is it bad to eat pasta with pesto every single night for two years? Can babies subsist on kimchi fried rice alone?

And the nannies go home—via nine separate subway transfers to the Far Rockaways or Flushing—and without batting an eye make dinner. Probably from scratch. I mean, unless that’s the one aspect of their lives in which they don’t absolutely excel. But somehow I doubt it.

And I go home and usually the husband makes dinner, and it comes out perfectly—no pouting over charred remains in our household—and then every once in awhile to make up for it? I make cookies.

Because I know what cookies are.

Attention, sleep deprivation: you can try, but you can’t take away my knowledge of cookies.

Hey, maybe one of these days I’ll bake a batch of cookies and bring it to the playground!

For the nannies.

Man, I just got all choked up simply opening up this screen and sitting down to type. My heart didn’t even give me a chance to wax nostalgic over the past eighteen months of your life for a single paragraph before signaling my eyes to turn on the waterworks. Yes, that’s exactly how it works scientifically! Heart straight to eyes—no brain intervention necessary.

But that’s really how it feels to be a mother. They warn you about it in So You’re About to Become a Mother school, but you don’t “get it” until it actually happens. And oh, does it happen. Yesterday I was listening to a radio jockey explicate an Ice T song, and began tearing up over a sink of dirty dishes. That’s gonna have to be the example I give Moms-to-Be from now on . . . but still . . . you have to be there, so they’re not gonna listen.

We love you so much, it’s crazy. We take pictures and videos of you constantly, we can’t help ourselves. I hope it doesn’t give you a complex when you grow up, but that it serves only as solid evidence of how consumed by you we were when you were a baby—that you’ll be able to look back at it when you’re a teenager and rebelling and want nothing to do with us, and at least know deep down inside how special you are. Even if you don’t want to admit you know. Even if you’re embarrassed that all the footage will be on archaic file types and need to be converted to whatever the 2026 standard is—as my own unruly teenager self would have been.

I mean, my god, I hope we have that much time until you start hating us for awhile. I know it’ll probably be a little less—what with kids growing up so fast these days—but a mom can dream. A mom can delude herself a little. A mom can pretend she isn’t destined to become Hoyt’s mom on True Blood, yes she can!

Recently your father and I semi-seriously-discussed the fact that we probably aren’t going to have any more children, which makes me both sad and happy—sad because you are so awesome, it would be wonderful to have a bunch more of you—happy because I don’t think I’d have it in me not to always favor you. Sad because without siblings or cousins in the immediate vicinity, who will you grow up with? Happy because it’ll be a little easier for me to never have to make you feel gyped.

Today is your eighteen-month birthday and—here I go tearing up again—we’re still nursing. I know, I know, you can’t believe I just typed that and then put this out there to be saved digitally on the interwebz forevermore! How embarrassing to have undergone “extended” breastfeeding! And we didn’t even make the cover of Time.

Well, we’ll wean soon, I promise, but in the meantime, some legit/highfalutin’ scientific/medical info: the AMA recommends breastfeeding for at LEAST a year. To me, that translates to somewhere between one and two years, right?

Because the other science—the one that sends signals straight to your tear ducts from your left ventricle—is making it really hard for me to race ahead into a world where you don’t need me to put you to bed at night.

I’ll take the current relationship for as long as I can get it. And then you’re allowed to become an unruly teenager and start listening to Ice T.

So please remain a baby for another decade, at least! Thank you for your cooperation, NoJo.

Love,
Mommy

And I’ve been wanting to listen to music more—I’ve actually already pre-planned my 2013 New Year’s resolution: to attend at least one musical event per week in the city . . . the furthest in advance I’ve ever planned anything in my life, which should tell you how serious I am—so for the past couple days, at 9 AM I’ve been turning off the regular, live news radio, and turning on a music podcast of some sort. I leave it on loudly-ish if Noah and I are just sitting at the table eating lunch or something, and then lower it—or just pause it completely—if we’re reading or doing something else that requires attention since I don’t want to give the baby ADD.

As you’re aware if you know me at all, I’ve been listening to pretty much the exact same music for, like, twenty-five years. Ani DiFranco, Tori Amos, several lesser variations thereof, a BIT of other random folk/alternative/whatever, and some classic rock thrown in for good measure. I rely on other people to introduce me to new music, and luckily I married someone who is excellent at that.

But he’s been slacking off in that department lately—I guess because, say, we don’t exactly have time anymore to sit around making mixtapes for each other—so I’m eager to do some experimental discovering of my own, on my own.

We’ve listened to a few different podcasts so far—of both “New Sounds” and “Spinning on Air”—and I’d forgotten about how much I love “Spinning on Air” in particular. I’d forgotten about the show in general, actually, since they switched its airtime on me. I used to sit on my bed in Brooklyn listening to it on Sunday nights at, like, 9 PM, knitting and waiting for Elliott to come home from Belmar.

I haven’t picked up a pair of knitting needles since before Noah was born—actually, that’s not true, I tried to return to a halfway completed blanket the other day, and ended up completely fucking it up and having to undo the entire thing—and I haven’t sat down calmly and listened to a piece of music in just as long.

The former, I’m not so concerned with. The latter? Baby steps toward remedying it.

Here’s one we heard today that I went back listened to again later on, I enjoyed it so.

There’s nothing better on a brisk fall day than to come in from the cold and cozy up with some good music.

Part of it is that I’m just really bad at making friends. I rely on people to swoop down out of nowhere and refuse to budge from my life. And I’ve just been incredibly lucky that those people have happened to be people I like a lot and can accept as friends.

Another part of it is that I don’t really get the whole concept of socializing for the sake of socializing. If I’m gonna socialize, I want it to be about stuff that I’m interested in talking about—not just noise to fill up an otherwise uncomfortable silence. I do not mind uncomfortable silences that much.

Yet another part of it is that I live in a neighborhood full of, well, rich people. Not that there’s anything wrong with rich people—hell, some of the nicest people I know are very well-off—but in most cases rich people aren’t dragging their kids around from playground to playground all day. That’s what they have nannies for. So usually it’s just me and the nannies at the parks, and I mean, I’d love to become friends with a nanny or two, but what if I become attached to one and she quits her job the next day? What then, I ask you?!

The people in my hood who aren’t rich are poor, so either they’re working a minimum-wage job all day while Grandma takes care of the kids, or they’re on welfare and bitter that they can’t find a lame minimum-wage job to make ends meet—and then they see me and my blindingly white, ridiculously happy son strolling down the avenue, and think, “Look at that f-ing rich white woman whose husband makes enough money that she can stay at home all day watching soaps and cooing at her overfed baby!”

Except we aren’t rich by any stretch of the imagination. We just lucked out and ended up in a slightly-below-market-rate apartment by way of a lottery that I happened to find out about at a time that we happened to be living in a community board district that had 50% preference for getting into the building.

We just don’t have expensive tastes, which is helpful because we can’t spend money on anything beyond the essentials.

Which is hard because New York City is full of wonderful little, completely inessential impulse purchases to grab up when you walk by. That’s one of the reasons we love it here so much. We love it enough that we’re content, for now, just to look—not touch.

But the other day I was walking down the street, pushing Noah in his stroller, behind these two blonde mothers with very small babies—so young that it was hard to believe how fit these moms were, how perfectly heat-straightened their hair was. Pushing Cadillacs of strollers in front of them, they chatted about their husbands, about how they were trying to find time in the day to go to the gym. I wondered if they’d known each other before, or if they found each other online for the sole purpose of having someone to chat with about husbands and the gym.

I’m sure a shrink’s first words to me would be, “Don’t come back until you’ve had at least ONE shallow conversation about husbands and the gym,” but I’ve gotta say that a couple blocks later when we passed a Muslim woman coming toward us—she in full burqa, her baby’s stroller covered in clear plastic, which I found hilarious—I couldn’t help but think, Now there’s someone I could stand to be mommy friends with.

Because there’s someone I could—if nothing else—learn something from.

Otherwise it’s just me, the baby, and the skyscrapers, up and down the avenues, across and back down the streets—not that there’s anything wrong with that; in fact, it’s one of my most cherished loves in life—day in and day out, and I recently learned that what I like most about buildings is asymmetry. The more asymmetrical the better.

That’s all!

Seems like a no-brainer, but it took seventeen months of mommy-friendslessness and one glance up at a Tudor City tower against a sleek modern UN backdrop for me to learn that about myself.

And that, to me, is more valuable than having someone to chit-chat with about primetime dramas.

Maybe I’m the one who’ll get dragged away in a straightjacket first? But at least I’ve learned some things about myself in the meantime.

8:30 PM Believe it or not, we haven’t started drinking yet. I just finished my dinner and Elliott is playing a game on his iPad. Don’t hate!

8:32 PM I do want to mention that we took it up a notch for this debate and borrowed money from our parents to buy a nice bottle of Chilean wine—versus the usual Trader Joe’s crap we normally put back.

8:49 PM There should really be a pre-debate red carpet thing. Is there one? I need to watch more TV.

8:54 PM Of course, hi-def-police Elliott just turned on the TV and immediately noticed that there’s something wrong with the picture.

8:59 PM We’ve just watched thirty seconds of Dancing with the Stars. My brain just exploded.

9:01 PM Two chick moderators in a row—woo hoo!

9:02 PM Romney doesn’t know how to pose.

9:04 PM Aww, a gawky college kid!

9:05 PM The poor kid is like, please, can I just faint now? Actually, it would be adorable if they let him.

9:08 PM Not for nothing, but how about a non-white-male college kid asks a question? I mean, come on . . . is it really THAT BLEAK yet for uppermiddleclass whiteguys in today’s post-collegiate job market? Comparatively speaking?

9:10 PM 7-11 and Macy’s? Wha? Is anyone worried about the fate of 7-11?

9:12 PM Who are these question-askers? They’re all terrified! They must’ve gotten the shit beaten out of them in the green room!

9:14 PM Maybe it’s just the “change” in the picture on our TV, but Romney looks like he’s aged dramatically since the last debate.

9:16 PM Yeah, NORTH American Energy Independence. We’re gonna drill the shit outta Canada. Fuck, yeah!

9:20 PM Just . . . this.

9:22 PM Seriously, hello, pipelines are not a newfangled thing! Creating ANOTHER ONE of them isn’t good!

9:25 PM Are these questioners straight off the streets of Long Island? Damn, they’re authentic.

9:26 PM You know Obama wishes he could laugh hysterically like Biden did last week.

9:27 PM Candy, Candy, Candy, I can’t let you go! All my life you’ve haunted me, I love you so-oh-oh-oh!

9:31 PM Romney should just never mention percentages. Whenever he enters talk of the 40–60% range, everyone immediately thinks of his 47% comment.

9:34 PM Are we sure that Romney and Bristol Palin didn’t prep together for tonight’s co-festivities? Their demeanor is uncannily identical. Oh wait, that’s just because they’re both completely empty on the inside!

9:36 PM Elliott keeps “getting” tiny little hilarious nuances of Obama’s speech and cackling maniacally—I’m not quick enough to pick up on it!

9:40 PM You can tell that this questioner girl just heard today for the first time that women and men aren’t paid equally. It was cute of her to go through with the question anyway, even though she’s obviously going through an identity crisis right now.

9:42 PM They’re obviously not showing her face in response to Romney because she’s cringing and scrambling for the exit.

9:45 PM Hahaha, this Susan Katz woman is the most decided voter I’ve ever seen in my life.

9:48 PM You can tell it hurts Romney to say the word “contraceptive.” Oh, really, you want every woman in America to have access to contraceptives? Including Mormons? (Tomorrow’s homeschooling activity: mailing contraceptives to Mormons.)

9:50 PM “Governor, you’re the last person who’s gonna get tough on China.” Bwahahaha!

9:53 PM I liked it better when the candidates referred to each other as “my friend.” OK, maybe it was only Biden, but still! *tear*

9:57 PM Dodd Frank. Drink!

10:00 PM Aww, yeah—Romney’s in Mission Mode! The charming white Mormon boy going in for the minority kill. Cha-ching!

10:03 PM Obama just said “and sought cooperation from Congress” but I thought he said “and soft cooperation from Congress” . . . interesting! “Soft” cooperation . . . pretty much, if that!

10:05 PM I really don’t like Romney’s attitude toward Candy.

10:08 PM I’ve had a hole in my heart for so long! I’ve learned to fake it and just smile along. Down on the streets the men are all the same! I want a love, not ga-ames! Not ga-ames!

10:09 PM Wow, this guy’s hardcore. Mineola, yo!

10:12 PM New Mormon mission destination: Libya.

10:21 PM Wait, did Romney just make the distinction between SEMI-automatic weapons and AUTOMATIC weapons? Wow.

10:23 PM Gee, so if I’m on crack and I’m knocked up with my strung-out baby-daddy’s baby, we should get married because just having a two-parent household is really beneficial?? OKAY! That will solve all our other problems too.

10:26 PM OMG, native Long Islander questioner Carol Goldberg totally signed up for this, like, ten years ago. She can die a happy death now.

10:28 PM Is this really happening? Is Mitt Romney really a candidate? I don’t know if he himself can even believe it. Is it wrong that I hope he wins so we can move to Scandinavia? Or, hell, even CANADA?

10:31 PM I love that Obama’s wedding band takes up, like, 3/4 of his body.

10:32 PM Man, Romney really does not know how to pose . . . which is charming to someone like me . . . but unfortunately I am not the norm! (I wonder if it makes my stepmother not want to vote for him?!)

10:35 PM I love that Elliott has been casually “blogging” this the entire time via FB, and that he’s gotten more feedback since that’s the new way to “blog.” Whatever.

10:37 PM I wonder when they’ll find out that Romney is an automated Stepford robot.

10:41 PM I wasn’t even paying attention to Obama’s closing remarks because I was giggling over Furstie’s comments that the American public would instantly impeach anyone who would dare to raise the cost of the iPhone. Hahahaha . . .

8:34 PM Halfway through first glass of wine already, though to be fair, it’s a small glass! We’ve managed to break all of our normal-sized glasses.

8:35 PM Husband just asked me if I’m “ready for more” wine. Yeah, um, how long does this debate go ’til? Will I nod off before it even starts like the time I had to go home BEFORE Elliott Smith came onstage in Hoboken?

8:38 PM Husband is watching an episode of Thirty Rock. I can’t pay attention to it because all my efforts are concentrated right now on preparing to liveblog. I’m honestly worried I’ll screw it up—I mean, I haven’t done it since the last presidential election. And, what, I ask you, is more important than remaining a good liveblogger of debates—through the abandoning of your singleness for married life with a child? It’s dead second to losing your OVERALL COOLNESS AND CREDIBILITY AS A PERSON OF SUBSTANCE. I mean, right? Right, people reading this? Yeah, I didn’t think so.

8:43 PM OMG, if they don’t come on at nine and IMMEDIATELY start debating, I’m gonna . . . I’m gonna . . .

8:49 PM Ooh! The baby just woke up. But Elliott has nighttime baby duty, so it’s allllllll goooooooooood. (Elliott’s favorite phrase.)

8:54 PM I just got really worried for a sec because Elliott left the room and it’s almost nine and I don’t know what channel the debate is on! But he came back in time. Phew.

9:01 PM Wait, Jim Lehrer is moderating again? But, like, half of my jokes are about him.

9:03 PM No noisy, distracting “things.” Got it?

9:04 PM Elliott just BURST OUT LAUGHING at Romney’s haircut. I didn’t notice it was different at all.

9:06 PM Economic patriotism. Seriously.

9:08 PM OK, not for nothing, yes, Mitt Romney is charming. He is full of charm. I’ve never met a Mormon who wasn’t.

9:09 PM But he loses me at that.

9:12 PM Oh, now Ritt Momney feels the pain of middle-income Americans? Thanks, Ritt. Oh, wait, I can’t thank you because your definition of middle-income is $200k or above! I’m below that.

9:13 PM Republicans just want to hear a 1960s-film-projector voice saying the word “re-daymp-shone.” With a really thick head of hair, designer clothes, and a blond wife.

9:16 PM Yeah, “blond” as an adjective doesn’t generally take an “e”.

9:17 PM Mitt Romney reminds me of the “God is in his holy temple!” guy from Poltergeist. His dentures are whistling.

9:19 PM I know you don’t think I’m critiquing Obama enough, but it’s kind of hard to.

9:21 PM Mitt was just looking at Barack like he felt sorry for him that, come Armageddon, he’s gonna burn in Hell while all the do-gooders—alive and dead—will be enjoying the earth together in harmony. Wait, that’s the Jehovah’s Witnesses.

9:23 PM Elliott just burst out laughing that Obama is making a “basketball” formation with his hands when describing the “five trillion dollars.” Apparently that’s hilarious.

9:26 PM Elliott just informed me that there are no commercials? What the? When do they go get their makeup touched up and whatnot?

9:28 PM “I actually like you, too.” — Mitt to Jim Lehrer. REALLY? You “actually” like the moderator?

9:32 PM Can they both please say what exactly they mean by “small businesses”? ‘Cause in actuality they’re talking about Subway and Dunkin Donuts franchises—not little hole-in-the-wall shops on Main Street, USA.

9:37 PM OK, so they’re both good debaters, I’ll admit. This is no Sarah Palin or Dubya here. But the difference is that one is only booksmart and prep-school/ivy-league educated—and believes that a secret stash of magical glowing tablets from God were found in the woods of upstate NY in, like, 1975—and the other is booksmart AND streetsmart AND very, very personable and cool/fun. The end.

9:40 PM I’m not really sure where to look on the TV without Nancy Pelosi blinking maniacally in the background to distract me.

9:45 PM We are opening up a second bottle of wine. This is a big deal for us, as we were recently described as “marathon” drinkers. (I know . . . what?)

9:48 PM Seriously, I think I said this last time, but what oh what are they gonna do when Jim Lehrer dies? They don’t make ‘em like him anymore.

9:48 PM I love that Mitt doesn’t want the guv’t muddling in his private affairs, but he does enjoy that the Church of Latter Day Saints demands 6% of his earnings or however much.

9:51 PM I typed “muddling” accidentally—instead of “meddling”—but I’m pretty sure that THAT’S WHAT HE SAID AND WAS THINKING.

9:54 PM Oh, Elliott just told me that I’m completely off with the 6%, that it’s more like ONE MILLLLLLLLLIONNNNNNNN PERCENT. Minimum.

9:55 PM Whenever I hear the term “Dodd-Frank” I hear “Dot, Frank” and think of Amy Romano’s parents, Dot and Frank. Sorry, guess you had to be there.

9:58 PM Expen-SEEEEEVE. Expen-SEEEEEEEEEVE things hurt families.

10:00 PM “Insurance companies can’t jerk you around.” Yes. I’m voting for the person who dares to say this, thanks. The person who is ALREADY PRESIDENT who dares to say this.

10:02 PM Somehow I never realized until now that Ritt Momney has the generic old-moneyed, geographical-origin-less prep-school accent where you REALLY pronounce your Rs. I can’t bear that. I like to be able to tell where people are from as soon as they open their mouths.

10:07 PM Hahahahaha, Mitt was just about to call insurance companies “small businesses” but caught himself and changed it to “enterprises.” Bwahahaha.

10:09 PM Mitt’s like, “Shit, wait, what? F-ing temps didn’t do their research thoroughly enough to tell me coherently what my PLAN IS? Oh no they didn’t!”

10:11 PM Are people really referencing Reagan still? Like, as a good thing?

10:15 PM Maybe if they took some money from the NAMING of school initiatives—Race to the Top, No Child Left Behind—they could actually put it toward DOING SOMETHING ABOUT the schools. Just saying.

10:18 PM It’s odd that Mitt is so hell-bent on federal government not having any power since the entire longterm Mormon position is that eventually the religion will take over the US government. I mean, to me his state/local municipality focus reeks of frighteningly outcast rogue individualism—in the eyes of the church, anyway.

10:22 PM Borrowing money from your parents. Hee hee hee hee.

10:26 PM I just left to go to the ladies’ room for five seconds and as soon as I got back, Elliott was like, “YOU KNOW IT’S ALMOST OVER, RIGHT??”

10:28 PM Obama is great at being all nostalgic and acting all sentimental when relating stories and whatnot, but he’s REALLY GREAT at snappy comebacks. Goddamn is it unfortunate that the latter isn’t valued more.

But I mean, I guess I was someone . . . a person who walked and talked and had a life of some sort . . . in fact, way more of a “life” than I have now. But what did I converse with people about? There are entire relationships I can’t remember much of from start to finish. What did we do? What drew us to each other? Why did I spend x months/years with this person the current “I” wouldn’t be able to stand?

But there are of course the really painfully, mortifyingly embarrassing things—those cannot be forgotten, alas. Poems I wrote and thank god eventually destroyed. Cringe-worthy lengths I went to for silly, silly boys. Cringe-worthy lengths I went to for not-so-silly boys . . . I think? I guess? I hope? Some? A couple? Any? Bueller?

I wonder if other people experience this forgetfulness phenomenon to such a degree as well—I mean, honestly, it’s almost an amnesia—or if there’s seriously something wrong with my brain.

I do remember one thing, though, that a friend of mine said after the boy I loved had fled to the opposite side of the country. Actually, it’s not weird that I would remember something that this friend said, as she’s quite possibly the wisest, most remembrance-worthy person I know—not to mention someone I’ve known since I was a teenager and therefore can provide testimony to my younger self’s existence, should that ever become necessary before a court of law or what-have-you.

She said more or less verbatim: it’s so hard to accept that someone could see so far into you and then never look again.

And she was and is right—that is among the hardest things to stomach. Some people may never experience it, though. Some people may never have to; some people may never get to.

But with the living of my thirties comes the—for me—harder to accept truth that you yourself could see that far into a person and then never look again. It’s one thing if another person does it, but . . . you?

Maybe when I’m in my fifties I’ll look back at this whole big blob of time and wonder who “I” was, what “I” did. And in some ways it’ll be a relief not to remember, because it’s so much easier to forget yourself than to forgive yourself.

Maybe I’ll look back at this whole big blob of time and really see it for the tiny little speck it actually is.

And then I’ll look again.

The other day at the grocery store a man approached me to become a home subscriber to the Star-Ledger—like, to sign up to actually have a print newspaper flung onto my porch each morning by a paperboy on a bicycle, I kid you not—and when he asked me where I lived, I said Belmar right away. I didn’t even have to think about it.

As I walked away from him (he wasn’t a very good salesperson; I mean, come on—saying “fine” when somebody tells you they’re not interested? Even I can do better than that!) and headed on down the potato-chip aisle—randomly, just to make it look like I had a purpose—I mused inwardly on how scary that just was. Walking in out of the eXtReMe heat with the baby in his stroller, my mind a total wasteland of keratin-treated hairstyles and eyebrows threaded within an inch of their lives—”Call Me, Maybe” (I refuse not to insert that comma), “Somebody That I Used to Know,” the song that goes “What doesn’t kill ya makes ya stronger! Just ’cause I’m alone don’t mean I’m lonely!” and twelve hundred different thoroughly overplayed tunes by Adele cycling through my head on repeat—the only thing I had the wherewithal to do in that moment, caught off guard by the newspaper-seller man, was to state my place of residence. Which is Belmar. And is sad.

It’s not that I’m so miserable here—it’s just that the place has sucked dry any creative juices I may once have had. I know that historically speaking, motherhood itself is where creativity goes to die—and that the childless rely on that to make their cases for remaining single and carefree. And as much as I hate to rain on that parade, I’ve survived motherhood in that respect, I think. It’s to the Jersey Shore that my muse has gone to be taken out to sea and forgotten in a tragic sorority-summering hazing incident. Guys, she was only trying to fit in.

Not having a muse is a problem when you think in written sentences. The written sentences are still being thought, except they’re not going anywhere, not escaping from your head, from your body—except in the form of sweat. Lots and lots and lots of wasteful sweat.

And in the form of drool. The drool that escapes the corner of your mouth in a lazy trickle while you’re sitting around in too-hot-to-do-anything heat feeling your brain ooze out of your ears.

Except that you can’t even feel it because you’re too numb to feel anything.

In the middle of Alabama, they stare at me wherever I go
I don’t think they like my haircut, I don’t think they like my clothes
I can’t wait to get back to New York City, where at least when I walk down the street
No one ever hesitates to tell me exactly what they think of me.
[Ani DiFranco, "Every State Line"]

It hit me the other day that this is the longest I’ve ever been away from The City. Three-ish weeks going on forever! Actually, I just checked the calendar and it hasn’t even BEEN three weeks. Holy shit does it feel longer than that. What’s weird, though, is that it’s been relatively painless. I guess not having to live the typical commuter life of the average suburbanite—you know, being at stay-at-home mom who “doesn’t work” and all—helps, but I thought I’d be ready to go home by now.

I don’t miss very many of the things I thought I would. Mostly just certain foods. Olives from the International Store on Ninth Ave., for one thing—though I’m sure I could get something similar down here at one of the Italian delis if I really tried, but I’d feel like I was cheating—and lamb curry and saag aloo from the Pakistani restaurant up the street. I’m pretty sure there isn’t a Pakistani place between here and, like, Bayonne. Actually, if there is one in Bayonne? Let’s f-ing go there NOW because it’s bound to be damn authentic.

I do miss being able to walk everywhere effortlessly—especially being able to walk outside and down the street without being killed by the sun! There is zero shade here. ZERO. It’s like that issue of Time magazine from, like, 1985, where they showed a picture of what Earth would look like in a few thousand or however many years, and it showed a dark-sunglasses-clad person opening their door a crack to look out at the sun blotting out the entire landscape. That’s what it’s like here—Belmar, NJ’s atmosphere is ahead of the rest of the world’s by thousands of years. And nobody here cares because nobody goes outside—except to hop straight into an air-conditioned car that takes you straight to the beach to become the next Tan Mom.

We’ve figured out a couple ways of getting some walking in, though—most of which involve waiting until dusk because I can’t wrap my brain around the notion of driving somewhere to walk. The other thing is that there are very few sidewalks here, so we’ve resorted to some parks and trails and whatnot to take advantage of. Some are more remote than others, and I’m a little wary of walking around in the woods by myself with a baby—for a variety of reasons, some of which might even be shared by normal people! It’s actually been eye-opening, having a baby to care so much about. Provides a dramatically stark contrast with how little I care about myself.

And I know, I know, I know what you’re thinking. Poor little Bess, trying to play it off like she’s some unflappable ruffian. It’s weird, though—I used to walk around by myself in, like, the South Bronx, without batting an eye. No, not the South Bronx—that’s a poor example. Is the South Bronx even “bad” anymore?

You know the woods between Upper Manhattan and the Hudson—below and beside the West Side Highway? I used to hike around in there among the ossified poop of homeless people because I’d already hiked around the entire rest of the city and there was nowhere else to go. There were discarded items from, like, 1935 lining the trails, because that’s how little of a shit anyone gives about the place, and that’s how hardcore I used to be, and now I’m . . . I’m . . . well, not hardcore anymore. At all. Let’s just leave it at that.

Motherhood does this to everyone, and better writers than I have done it better justice since the dawn of time, but now I’m a broken woman. As one Caroline Degenhardt not so long ago put it. I can’t watch the news, I cry at the sight of blood, and every time I’m walking down a street in Belmar with the baby and there isn’t a soul in sight and the only sound for miles is the buzz of air conditioners, it depresses the living fuck out of me.

Every time we’re completely alone and it’s desolate and creepy, I CARE. You better believe that I DO. It’s not just little old if-anything-happens-she’ll-get-over-it fly-by-the-seat-of-her-pants me anymore. The life of a defenseless creature is now in my hands.

I don’t really know how much longer we’ll be down here—theoretically, for the rest of the summer, give or take—and to be fair, it’s nice not having to look out the window to see someone snorting coke off a windowsill of the projects. But while I haven’t yet tied rocks to the hem of my dress and waded into the Shark River, I do wonder how long it’ll be before I’m sitting on the train platform—perfectly upright in my corset—trying to “escape” back to civilization with the baby.

In place of Virginia Woolf’s concerned hubby, it’ll be the big hot fiery sun that hunts us down and prevents our departure, frying us into place on the concrete, dragging us by the wrists back into the shade of the house.

And it’ll win because I won’t have remembered to wear my aerodynamic Oakleys that day for protection.