Idle Minds

by Mothership on August 30, 2010

It’s been weeks since I posted, possibly the longest break since I started.

I felt bad about that for a bit. And then I didn’t anymore.

I decided recently that I was going to spend less time doing the following things:

  • fiddling around on the computer
  • tidying up
  • going to the supermarket
  • worrying
  • checking my face for signs of decay

And, in contrast, I was going to spend more time:

  • Having fun
  • Building an exciting new company
  • Spending time with my children doing things we both like
  • Sitting and staring into the middle distance.

On this last point I am going to be particularly vigilant as it is not only one of my favourite things to do, but it has also been recommended by both the literary community (see poem by W.H.Davies here) and, as I read in the LATimes today, SCIENTIFICALLY PROVEN to be good for your mental  health.

Read all about it here and go and do it immediately.

Then tell me what you were pondering, I love tangential thoughts.

Good to see you all again xoxo.

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Going away and coming home

by Mothership on August 12, 2010

Husband and the children are going on a road trip next week.

I was supposed to go but in the end I just couldn’t quite face it. I had agreed, initially, to a “family holiday” (oxymoron?) driving through California, stopping at National Parks, spending time at majestic lakes and listening to a special music compilation that Husband had put together for the journey. But as the time for departure drew ever closer, all I could think about was packing/unpacking, dirty clothes, squabbles (junior and adult), whether there would be enough snacks, would Three throw up, who was going to get Poison Oak, how badly I would sleep, how little I cared about looking at a Redwood tree when most of my mind was focused on stopping my toddler from getting lost in the woods, creepy potential pedophiles who may be hanging around at campsites waiting to snatch my precious progeny and on top of that all a seemingly endless string of bad hair days.

I think it’s safe to say I was not going to go into it with the right, Pioneer-style attitude.

So I opted out.

This felt very daring and also made me feel quite anxious on a number of levels.

Husband has never taken the kids off on his own before. I’m sure they’ll all be fine but I do have to stop myself from envisioning Bad Things from happening which I would surely be able to prevent if I was on watchdog duty. I think this is mostly paranoia and reluctance to relinquish control but I keep on envisioning the aforementioned predators trying to capture Six while Husband is sipping coffee and looking the other way, or Three zooming off and down a mountainside before anyone has the chance to catch him. I’m sure this will not happen, but I’m not so sure how to contain my overactive imagination.

It was hard just to say I didn’t want to go. That I had other priorities to attend to, and the top one was, well, ME.

After all, for years now I have been Mummy. It’s been my job to make sure everyone is safe, well-fed, looked after and happy. For mothers, it’s pretty much a job requirement to put others first and yourself last – all of society tells you this including many other mothers, and I also find that once one is in this role it’s quite hard not to place the needs of Husbands above one’s own, too, while one is busy subjugating oneself.
At least that is what has happened to me, almost without my noticing.  And you know I was raised to KNOW BETTER. It infuriates me, but there, I have done it in all sorts of ways which I looked upon as making concessions for the family as a whole, for other people so that they could get what they needed because surely they would then automatically ensure I got what I needed. But of course they didn’t. Not because they wanted to deny me, but because we are each responsible for looking after ourselves. And it turns out that I am very, extremely good at looking after everyone else, but perhaps not quite so good at taking care of myself.

I think I might have handled all of this slightly better if I hadn’t been so thoroughly out of my element at the start of this leg of life’s journey. Those who have been reading for a while will know that at the point I got pregnant with Six we left London, where I was flourishing professionally, and came to Stepford where I  was promptly immersed in new motherhood, adjusting to a new country, trying to make friends in a place where I instinctively felt I didn’t fit in (still think I’m right, there) and Husband’s job was so pressured and all consuming that there was little time, especially once we had Three, to build a life outside the family. And in those years, I lost some of my sense of self, which is shocking, especially if you knew what a strong sort of personality I am, and how very definite, (sometimes frighteningly so)I seem most of the time.

But it’s never too late to be what you might have been, as they say, or in my case, what I used to be, so I blurted out and thus fulfilled my ever growing Home Alone fantasy of somehow being forgotten when they pulled away in the rented minivan in the form of

“Actually, I think I won’t be coming along. I have some important stuff to do”

It wasn’t especially well received. But I didn’t try to defend my position, I just apologised for the inconvenience caused and re-stated it.

I realise that it might have been prudent to say at the outset that I didn’t want to go and then other plans might have been made, but they also might not have been made, at least in a way that would be pleasing to everyone. But I didn’t. I said it now.

And I’m very glad.

I think everyone will survive.

While they’re digging up worms and going for hikes and arguing over the DVD player in the car, I shall be happily ensconced in my studio doing a little composing without stopping to cook  meals, bandage knees, mediate disagreements, fetch people from classes and camps etc. What bliss! It’s been years and years since I had that luxury. And then I think I shall push off to see some friends in the city to sniff out all the things I mentioned in my previous post, and when I go, I shall leave at a moment’s notice, shutting the door behind me precisely when I feel like it and without reporting to anyone.

Welcome back, self. You have been sorely missed.

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The Prodigal Daughter

by Mothership on August 5, 2010

I’ve been away for a while visiting my father in Washington D.C.

It was supposed to be a trip en famille, the four of us trooping off to spend a happy fortnight with my dad in the Nation’s Capital and also at the country house, swimming in the pond and roaming through Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia (on the trail of the lonesome pine), but at the last minute Husband decided not to come for the majority of the holiday. It emerged he was in a quiet panic over the submission of a Very Important Paper to a Very Important Publication and although at first he tried to convince himself that he could finish it in between museum visits and inevitably messy ice-cream parlour soujourns,  it became clear that the only way he would be able to get it done was to stay behind without any distractions and obligations, so myself and the children set off alone. He was terribly worried that I would be furious with him, or greviously disappointed by his absence, but truth be told I was actually relieved that he was remaining behind to finish whatever he had to do rather than coming along and spending the time fretting about what he really ought to be doing.

We’ve had a lot of holidays like that.

Suffice to say we had a glorious time with the family on the East Coast. We hung around with the family, pottering around at museums, making cheerful messes at restaurants, enjoyed the enormous variety of construction projects and their assorted diggers/loaders that were on display within walking distance of the house (your stimulus dollars at work!) and generally didn’t push ourselves too hard. My sister and her boyfriend were charmed by the little ones which was entirely mutual, and we spent days out at the Virginia house with Six and Three delightedly swimming in the pond with the dog who was their willing and docile slave through the whole trip. I met with friends while my family babysat and went out to stylish restaurants, talked about my plans for my work, about shared pasts, laughed, remembered what it was to have real friends, use my mind and connect with people who I get, get me.
Husband came out for the last five days, relaxed and happy,  having completed his work, and then, all too soon, it was time to come back.

I wasn’t looking forward to it at all.

Not one little bit.

All I could think about was how flat and small my life seems here, how limiting the daily grind, how I have failed, somehow, to create a satisfying life for myself here in Stepford and we’ve been here nearly seven years.

Husband keeps trying to suggest that I may feel like this wherever I go, but really, I am a big girl, I’ve been around several blocks several times (maybe more than him) and I just don’t agree.

I believe in synchronicity and as we sat in the airport lounge at SFO waiting to transfer to our eggbeater plane back home, an article in the NYT caught my eye about how the market is punishing to mothers, how they lose out in careers and may never catch up. “Oh really?” I wanted to ask, but it hit so close to home I wanted to vomit, and I passed it on to Husband who usually doesn’t like to read these things as he finds it so intolerable that there are inequalities like this in the world that he usually just denies that they are there in case I hold him personally responsible (I don’t).

In the last few years, over 40% of married women with children under 3 years old in the USA have stayed at home to look after them, and this crosses all socio-economic classes. So if you have a couple of them, you’re out of the workforce for, what, six or seven years.

That’s me, folks. Seven years. These may be the most powerful ones in terms of moving on up that you can have. Where are our pensions? Where is our independence? Where are we going?

No wonder I feel like a 1950’s houswife sometimes -I AM a 1950’s housewife. Except it’s 2010 and I was raised to expect something else.

Normally I am the type of person who would just sit here and rant about it because I am most especially good at that, and I do a good line in resentment, too, but in an unusual step I have decided instead just to reveal my plan for climbing out of the pit, which is not without its costs and share of angst. I wonder what you will all think.

In September, Six will go to school until the shocking hour of 2.30pm. Then I am sticking her in an afterschool program until 5pm. Three has a nursery place next door to her school and he can stay there until 5.30 if necessary. This is quite painful to consider as I have so loved being with them more than that, organising everything for them, being present, making sure they had a warm solid maternal presence to keep them steady. I missed out on a lot of parenting one way and another and the thought that I might willfully deny them some kills me a little bit. But on the other hand, I’m dying a little bit anyway.

I am going to start going up to San Francisco at least twice a month and I am going to stay there for several days at a time. I’m going to get a room somewhere and get out there and find some business. I just can’t do it from here. I can’t. I’ve tried, it doesn’t work. I need to be there to meet people. And, dammit, I like the city, I want to be in one. I feel that I’ve done my time in the small town, it’s time I had some life in a city again, and if it doesn’t make sense for the whole family to move to one right now, at least I can get a fix and also revive my career before I turn into a corpse or a medicated/grumpy June Cleaver (spot the difference?).
Husband can pick the kids up during that time, and he’s brilliant at looking after them.  I know he supports me in this endeavour. He understands, and this is one of the reasons I love him.

You see, this change is not just about getting a life, it’s about saving a life.

Mine.

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Gone

by Mothership on July 12, 2010

He never spent much time here, returning mostly for food and sleep, curled about my head when the danger of toddlers had passed.

I never really knew where he went in his other, catty life, except it was a dusty place full of fleas, evidenced by the constant scratching and biting, necessitating expensive unguents placed on the back of his neck at frequent intervals which he loathed and made him even less willing to spend time in our company.

He’d come to us under false pretences. We had chosen a big, fat, gentle puss who claimed to love small children, preferring the indoor life, purring quietly upon my bed day-in, day-out.
Then he discovered an open door and the irresistible lure of a California springtime which seemed to trigger something primal in his small ancient brain, and from that point on he went feral.  Things were rarely the same again. We’d get glimpses of our sweet old boy from time to time – when he was tired, or I trapped him in for the night, afraid of coyotes, then he’d reluctantly submit to a caress and forget himself, arching his back with pleasure. But mostly he stood by the door miaowing, waiting until we let him out again into the wild night so he could go back to being who he really was.

I did not, on the whole, allow him out once it was dark. I know too many people who have lost precious pets to coyotes, and I did not want Bagpurrito to become one of them.
But since I went to England, quite possibly the night before I left, he exited the house and has not been seen since.

I fear the worst, I really do.

Husband put up some posters and asked the neigbours if they had seen him.

They hadn’t.

He rang the animal shelters. He hadn’t been brought in. Bagpurrito is microchipped so we would be called if he had been found. Six says she called him a few times but he didn’t come back. Even shaking the catfood didn’t work and that’s pretty much foolproof. I think he’s gone. In my heart I know he’s gone.

I feel terrible.

The worst of it is not because I miss him for himself because I don’t exactly. He wasn’t the best of pets – in fact he was fairly crap as far as pets go. But just the other day I was complaining to Husband that

“Burrito is a substandard cat”

and now look what’s happened! He’s probably been eaten by a coyote. I feel that this is obscurely my fault.

Six and Three are rather chillingly un-upset.

Six: “Oh, poor old Bagpuss. Can I choose the next kitten? I like Siamese kittens.”

Three: “Oh! Buwwito is been eaten! Mummy? I hungry. Pease I have a biscuit?”

Mind you, I say I don’t miss him for himself, but I found myself standing by the door last night calling him, a tear rolling down my face when he didn’t come.  I dreamt he had come home and woke up so very happy. And then I was not.
I went to the shelter this morning after I dropped the children at their various camps and nurseries to see if by chance he had been brought in and – cruel irony – there were at least six portly ginger cats all looking for a home.

But none of them was Bagpurrito, the double agent cat.

The shelter told me he might still come in. But probably he was coyote food.

They invited me to wait a bit, just in case he comes home (unlikely), and then come back and get another ginger cat. They always have a few.

I don’t think I can bear to.

Not for a while anyway.

Farewell, Burrito. You were loved.

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The Secret Life of Three

by Mothership on June 27, 2010

“I don’t want to go home” he cried fretfully.

“I want to go to my house.”

I tried to tell him that home was his house- we all lived there together – but he wasn’t having any of it. Three insisted that his house was somewhere else and the only place he wanted to be.

*sound of heart splintering like smashed window on abandoned lot*

Upon further questioning we learned that:

Three’s house was at his college, which is blue.

He keeps a race car there and also a monster truck, a monkey and a space shuttle, though he was at great pains to point out that he does not often visit the moon because it is very small and one might fall off and get a big owie.

He does not live alone.

He has (deep breath) another mother.

*Large bulldozer rolls back and forth over previously broken glass while hooligans look on and laugh manically*

Her name, I was told, is Peanut-and-Keenut. She is “Great”.

He loves her more than me because, apparently, she makes him peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

I MAKE HIM PEANUT BUTTER AND JELLY SANDWICHES! I DO! I DO!

But they don’t count. They’re not as good as Peanut-and-Keenut’s sandwiches and any further protests from  me will inevitably lead to a dismissal:

“Stop talking! I busy.”

*sweep up any remaining shards and deposit in dumpster*

I’m not the only person to be replaced. Six has been usurped by an alternative big brother.

His name is Gayboy. (Yes, I did check. Several times.)

RANDOM!?

There is no sign of a second, ersatz father, about which Husband feels quite smug. Or he did for a day or two until Three changed his mind and said that actually there were four Daddies there and they each had a very big tractors, bigger than Husband’s, though he did mention kindly that his biological father might be allowed a short ride in a borrowed vehicle.

Freudian?

At Three’s house there are superior pets to the poor, timid Burrito, our ginger cat, who by now spends most of his life either under our bed or out of the house trying to avoid small children. The boy apparently owns a cheetah, a giant snake and a monkey,  none of whom ever defecates which is lucky for Three as he will have quite enough trouble cleaning up after himself. It emerges that Peanut-and-Keenut does not change nappies, yet Three is adamant that he will not use the potty at college, either.

I’m not quite sure how that is going to work out for them. Three seemed fairly untroubled by this small detail but I’m sensing a small crack (geddit?) in the foundation of their relationship. He can enjoy her sandwiches, indulge in their eerily hygienic pets and play with his truck for a while, but sooner or later he’s going to fill a nappy to overflowing and he won’t be happy about it when his “mummy” makes an ickyface and won’t wipe his bottom.  I’m also hoping that after a while he’ll get bored of the same old snacks, or when he falls off the moon, Peanut-and-Keenut will not know how properly to kiss a big owie, or fill his race-car with gas.

Then he’ll have to come back to my house.

And perhaps in time, with a little encouragement and understanding, he’ll come to regard it as home.

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The Square Window

by Mothership on June 12, 2010

I bought an iPad yesterday.

So I probably won’t be bothering much with blogging for a bit until the shine wears off my new acquisition.

I also won’t be bothering much with paying any attention to my children either though I shall probably remember to throw them a crust of food periodically and look up from time to time to make sure that Three is still on the property and neither of them are in mortal danger.
It’s been a long academic year one way and another, what with Kindergarten, Husband’s tenure bid (delivering the case at the end of this month!), two back-to-back birthday parties in the last three weeks, all the end of term festivities, my recent re-entry into the working world etc. and I am quite desperate for a break, to get away to where there are no demands on me and I don’t have to cater to anyone else’s needs.

I do have my London trip coming up in just under three weeks, which shines like a beacon of hope and glory ahead of me. (I don’t know how I did without these trips before, honestly) but actually, I couldn’t wait for that. I just HAD to have something this minute NOW to remind me I was an adult, a grown person, someone who was part of the real, contemporary outside world, not someone who was tied to a small house in a small town with small children, and when I did meet other people I made small talk.

And also (this is very important) that I am ALLOWED to buy whatever the fuck I want because I earned my own money last week and the kids aren’t the only ones who get new toys.

*I should note that actually nobody asks me to justify any of my purchases, it’s just a maternal guilt thing I seem to have bestowed upon myself. Out, damned spot!

I also thought that owning one would help me in some unspecified way with my work. The aforementioned earnings were actually from a composition that will be deployed on a mobile device including the iPad (yes, all 4 seconds of it!) and as I plan to acquire more clients of this nature, it is only sensible to own one.

See? I really need it! I will be writing it off against tax which means it’s actually free, right?

There have been some claims that the iPad is ‘magical’.

Well, it is and it isn’t.

On a practical level it is an elegant piece of technology, not a piece of magic. And no doubt it will become more and more sophisticated and in ten years’ time we will laugh at how fabulous we thought it was.
I watched a friend excitedly show her guest her iPad today and as I looked at them I remembered, vividly, the first computer I bought for making music and how proudly I showed my Dad what it could do and he was suitably amazed.

It was an Atari with a whole 1mb (yes, that’s one megabyte) of memory, and I ran Cubase on its tiny, slow, black and white screen. It saved midi information but no actual sound, and when I’d finished writing the music sequence I’d save it on a floppy disc.

A floppy disc! Remember those?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

And I had a viciously expensive sampler which I bought with the insurance money from my car that was conveniently run over by an 18wheeler lorry.

The Akai S3000 was a giant lump of a machine which cost £2000 (!) and I could sample about 30 seconds of sound on it at a time. One also saved the sounds on to floppy discs.

Listen, you laugh, (or else you’re googling floppy discs and trying to work out how soon I’m collecting my pension), but this was pretty par for the course in the 90’s.

That loyal, stable Atari lasted me for nearly a decade, slow though it was, but when I replaced it, finally, with a Mac, I could hardly believe what I’d been dealing with all that time. The speed! The power! The things I could put into the actual computer! The INTERNET!

Then of course I felt astonished that I’d been impressed by what I’d had before – it seemed so…primitive.

I’m sure my iPad will feel primitive in a few years when something even more amazing comes out, but for now, oh, it’s so pretty!
And there are so many apps to discover and play with or learn with or look at or even share with your family if you are so inclined (me, not so much for right now, at least).

I bought the Alice in Wonderland app today. I am a terrific Lewis Carroll/Tenniel purist, you know -I simply can’t bear any Burton/Disneyfication – and I am fairly hardline about alternative illustrations or abridged versions of the book, although I will make exceptions in certain circumstances.

It was utterly compelling. I particularly enjoyed the moving shower of colourful licorice comfits that Alice pulled out for prizes at the end of the Caucus race.

Over the next week or two, as Three and SIx run wild in the garden in the late afternoon sun and the pot of tea cools unheeded on its silver tray by my side, I will most likely be found face-down in the app warren, and it is here that I shall find some space, and some escape from the small walls of Stepford without ever leaving my chair.

And that is a sort of magic.

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Down on the Farm

by Mothership on June 3, 2010

The night before last was the Kindergarten end-of-school play; “Down on the Farm”, in which my beloved Six had a speaking part as a donkey.

Actually, it was wonderful as all of the children had a speaking part and they sang some very sweet songs, hilariously finishing up with “Country Road, Take me Home“.
All thirty six children – that’s both Kindergarten classes combined – trooped into the assembly room and lined up on the steps of the stage in twos and threes according to which character they were playing. Most of the children were animals, but there were a couple of scarecrows, two farmers and three ‘farmers’ wives’.

Just to let you know, there are six boys in the whole of Kindergarten. They were assigned  the scarecrows and farmer parts. Oh. And two who aren’t such great talkers got to be turkeys.

Each animal described its job on the farm in rhyme, with each child assigned a line. It was very sweet!

Six and her fellow donkey:

“I am stubborn and I never behave, I always make the farmer rave”
(visions of agricultural students with smileyface t-shirts going “Aciiiiiiiiid!”)

But the Farmers’ Wives! Three little girls in aprons and headscarves:

“I cook and I clean and I sweep all day, sometimes I get to tidy hay”

WTF?

Husband and I exchanged a raised eyebrow although nobody else seemed bothered.

Um, last time I checked we were not encouraging women to think of themselves as being defined by their menfolk.
HELLO? THE WORLD IS FULL OF WOMEN FARMERS!
This strange hybrid of 1950’s housewife and rural idealisation was very unsettling and, in my view, limiting and damaging to my curious, wild daughter not to mention the other thirty impressionable girls.
Of course it was just a play, and yes, it was just cute, and I know, it was just full of chatty sheep and turkeys, but still. Even the talking livestock were allowed their own identity and some kind of farm-specific work.
The farmers’ wives lives were just domestic servitude transplanted to the country with a side of straw.

I want my daughter to think she has more to offer than a dustpan and brush, and that life (and agriculture) has more to offer her.

So I wrote to the teacher.

Dear Mrs. X, and Mrs. Y

Wasn’t that the most fantastic performance? All of the children did wonderfully and it was so marvellous to see them all shining on the stage, confident and happy after a year of learning and nurturing under your expert tutelage.

You have done so very much for us all. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

One thing, though, that did jump out for me and my husband were the lines of the ‘farmers’ wives’.

Why do they have to be cooking and cleaning as their primary role? And why do they have to be farmers’ wives in the first place? Why can’t they have their own identity and also just be farmers? (I don’t remember the cows being referred to as the bull’s wives)

This might seem like a small point, but to our small children, it might actually loom rather large, especially compounded over time.

Growing up as a child of the 70’s and 80’s – the era of political correctness – meant that a lot of gratuitous sexism was eradicated, or at least suppressed, and I thought that it really was going to be possible to grow up as an equal to men and by the time I raised my own children there would be no question of gender inequality. However, since then there seems to have been an alarming backlash, and now I find that more than ever there is casual and thoughtless sexism running rife and unquestioned through our daily lives. The media becomes increasingly appearance obsessed, plastic surgery is on the rise for all age groups, female politicians are judged on their appearance rather than their policies, and we’re still earning 79c on the dollar as compared to men.

Thanks to you, the children have all been learning about seeds and plants and how they grow this year (I have had photosynthesis explained to me, somewhat condescendingly, a few times). Six has taken this in very enthusiastically and we have many little plants growing at home, and are observing them keenly, and she regards herself as somewhat of a gardener, if not a farmer.

I’m hoping she won’t start to think she should be cooking and cleaning instead.

Once again, though. I thought you two did a brilliant job with the play. I would not speak up about this if I didn’t think it was worth saying, and it in no way detracts from the amazing job that you have done all year, and with this fantastic production.

I was pleased and proud to be there.

Kind regards,

Mothership.

I received a very short, polite reply some 24 hours later thanking me for my views and saying that if they did the play again (which presumably they will as they requested donations for the costumes to be kept for future years) they would take this into account and that they had been trying to think of alternative names for ‘farmers’ wives’.

I restrained myself from writing back and offering my services as playwright and lyricist although I am fairly brimming with fabulous ideas. I intuited, with my almost psychic emotional antennae, that they wanted me to STFU so I graciously left it at that and when I went in yesterday for my usual hour of volunteering in class we all pretended that I hadn’t said anything.

*if you listen closely, however, you can hear the muffled scream of Mothership’s brain – HOW ABOUT JUST FARMER? HOW ABOUT AN EASY RHYMING COUPLET COLLECTING EGGS AND FEEDING CHICKENS? OR SHEARING SHEEP OR SOWING SEED? OR FIGHTING LAWSUITS AGAINST MONSANTO?*

Six heard me loud and clear,though. Poor child doesn’t have a choice 😉

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Letter to Shayma

by Mothership on May 28, 2010

Dear Shayma

I have just read about the terrible attacks at the mosques in Lahore and the huge sorrow and unease it is causing for the city and entire country. I am so sorry and I hope, fervently, that your family is safe and you are not too worried about them.

I also (somewhat belatedly) read about the Facebook competition over the cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed and the subsequent blocking of that site by the Pakistani government.

I wanted to say that I was, not for the first time, truly shocked by the appalling disrespect and hatefulness of ‘The Great Online Unwashed’, and the way that people feel free to use the internet and social media as a way to wield aggression, fuel violence and unrest.

What bloody idiot came up with that idea? I take my hat off to the Pakistani government for blocking FB in terms of damage limitation and the right to protect people’s religious dignity. I only wish it had been stopped before it came to that.

Although I would have described myself as a liberal and a supporter of free speech up until very recently, I do have to say that increasingly I see that First Amendment right cited more often as a way to protect the aggressors.

It’s used to cloak verbal hate crime in a mantle of democratic patriotism.

It’s cleverly twisted to present abusive, degrading pornography into some kind of empowering symbol of free expression

It allows anyone to say anything to anyone, often anonymously, without fear of direct physical retribution.

But words are very powerful as you know.

I read the other day about ten year old girl who was part of a school group who met Michelle Obama,  and she asked her about immigration on behalf of her mother, who was Mexican, and did not have the correct papers. Mrs. Obama gave a smooth answer and moved on – she was there to talk about children and food – but the comments afterwards were truly shocking.

“Send the bitch back to Cucaracha-land and get the brat to a textile mill to earn her keep and pay back some of my tax money!!”

“If I could get near some of these people I’d just get my gun out. We know how to get rid of trash in Texas”

The hatred fairly shimmered off the screen. Who are these people??
And in what way is this commentary contributing to a positive democratic society?

In the same way social media, FaceBook in particular, swims in very murky water.
On the one hand it will let people say almost anything they like. Racial hate groups abound – I have seen several anti-Semitic ones, then there’s the famous one wishing Obama to die (in cloaked references), and now this charming ‘Draw the Prophet Mohammed’ day which I will not link to as I think it’s disgraceful. (BTW I wonder if some of the people who thought that was amusing would also be tickled by a  ‘Draw Christ giving Mary a blow-job’ day? Maybe not as popular here in the West, and I’ll wager it would get taken down, but I don’t think ANY of them should be up there on an international public forum where there is so much room for anonymous rage.)
Funnily enough, this the same site that insists on removing photographs of people breastfeeding their children (nary a nipple in site) but will allow highly suggestive photographs of women in scant sexy underwear, many of whom, bafflingly, try to friend me.
So FaceBook speech is not entirely free, just certain things entirely discounted?

Anyway, I digress.

The main point of this letter was to let you know that you are on my mind today, so please know I am sending my thoughts, prayers and wishes for safety to you and all your family.

Love,

Mothership

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Time Warp, Mr. Sulu

by Mothership on May 20, 2010

I am supposed to be working. I’ve got a little commission to do some space-themed music and I am in transports of ecstasy flipping through all the bizarre sound effects and odd synths that were too weird for most of my commercial work but  I had earmarked and set aside for just such a project as this.  In my little studio I have the distinct sense that I am floating through another galaxy, far, far away from the everyday humdrum of Stepford.

At least I was this morning.

I have just been to a ‘volunteer appreciation lunch’ which was held by the PTA to thank all the parents who have contributed time in the classroom and extra-curricular programs, and also in the not inconsiderable fundraising achievements that make our little elementary school so special.

I have, as you might know if you are a regular reader, spent an hour a week in Six’s Kindergarten class helping little groups of children read, write, cut and paste various projects and I’ve also done a fair amount of separating-for-talking-too-much-ing, walk-don’t-run-please-ing, sit-properly-on-your-chair-ing, and we-don’t-throw-scissors-at-our-friends-do-we?-ing.

That has been most satisfying if a little trying at times.

However I was slightly nervous of attending the volunteer lunch,basically because I have a dread of large groups of people with whom I might have to make small talk, and also because there would be a good chance I’d be bored out of my mind.

But I was wrong about that.

I’d put my emotional response closer to horrified.

I actually thought it would be good for me to pop round to eat a spot of lunch with the other (mostly) ladies – I needed to give my ears a rest from blips and bleeps -so I whizzed over to school and into the library where tables were laid with delightful place mats hand painted by the children and bowls of salad and sandwiches were laid out for us to help ourselves.

I sat  beside a woman and her four year old daughter who I did not know, and started to chat companionably  enough.
A couple of other women joined us and within about three minutes the lot of them were talking about their favourite teachers and who they did and didn’t like which was slightly rude considering many of the teachers were actually in the room.

Then the mother of the small girl got up, grabbed several cookies and started stuffing them in her mouth while saying to us all

“Oh, I’m so FAT! I should never have come and broken my diet but I’m addicted to sweet things, now I’ll have to starve myself as punishment”

Her daughter watched with big round eyes.

I said gently that I thought she looked just fine, and wouldn’t it be better to enjoy her cookie, let her little girl enjoy her cookie and not beat herself up about it. Also, did we want to teach our kids that food is a source of punishment? She blithely said that she would NEVER teach her kids anything like that, she just didn’t like to be FAT herself.

Four year old continued to watch and listen, gravely.

I bit my tongue.

The table moved on to discussing what we each did as volunteers. I said I worked in the classroom and that was what I liked to do – teach children- I was more of a child-friendly kind of person than the casserole baker or fundraiser type.

The same woman said

“Oh well, it’s easy enough in Kindergarten, but they’re so smart by 6th grade (11 years old) that we’ll all have to give up because the  math will be too hard for us!”

And the worst thing was that everyone else at the table except me laughed approvingly and agreed.

AAGGHHHH!!!

Listen, I happen to know that one of these women has a Phd in mechanical engineering and SHE LAUGHED, TOO!

WTF is happening?

Is it something in the water?

Beam me up, Scottie, there’s no intelligent life down here

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Six

by Mothership on May 17, 2010

The baby who used to live here is gone.

In her bed this morning we found a gangly, tangle-haired, long-leggedy six year old girl who stated it was her birthday and as such she was claiming her right to try chewing gum for the first time. Where was it?

I laughed and kissed her although I did feel the corner of my heart crack slightly when I gathered her into a wriggly hug. She’s awfully big now and quite far from the pliable infant I used to nuzzle and coo over such a short time ago. She drank hot chocolate and ate cinnamon rolls for breakfast and opened a few little gifts before school although her main presents are yet to come.

Sometimes it seems that these years have crawled by at an achingly slow pace. I have been at times so bored I could scream, frustrated by the combination of small-town-life and stay-at-home-motherhood, (neither of which I exactly meant to do).
Yet looking at this amazing child, I see that the time has thundered by because here she is, a great girl of six already.

She is still so innocent, so dear, so funny, so sweet, so interesting and so untouched by the travails of the adult world. I plan to keep these things from her for as long as I can.

To this end I will continue my policy of no broadcast media in the house, no fashion magazines or other commercial female beauty-related imagery, minimal gender stereotypecasting in terms of toys and clothes although I will  not impose outright bans on gifts from other people. Ok, I will if it’s F. BLEEDING HANNAH MONTANA, and there is no negative talk about body image in our house. The longer Six is blissfully unaware of her appearance the happier she will be.

This afternoon we are going out to tea, just the two of us, and then we will go and spend a gift card she received the other day at a book shop. She’s quite excited by this grownup present although at first she was slightly put out that once she spent the $15 the card was void. I think she got it confused with my credit card and had been hoping that she’d get one of those because she told me that she thought that a really good gift card would be one that never ran out, that you could just keep buying things on.

I explained to her that when she was a grownup she could get one of these credit cards for herself, and then every month she could spend whatever she liked provided she had enough money to pay it back.

“But that’s not a GIFT!’ she shouted. “I want a GIFT CARD with, like a MILLION DOLLARS on it!”

I told her that most people didn’t have a million dollars, and even if they did, they usually didn’t give it away as a present. And even if they did give it as a present, they gave it to people who really needed it, like hungry people or endangered animals, not as birthday gifts for individuals.

Six had obviously thought about this for a while because this morning she said to me that when she was really big, like eleven or something, she’d have TWO million dollars and she was going to give most of it away to hungry people and endangered animals BUT she was still going to get one of those cards that never runs out like I have.

“And you know what, Mom? I’m going to get you one of those, too.”

Only five more years, then, and I’ll be a kept woman.

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