24/7

It's no secret that The Partner and I have different attitudes toward sex. He can take it or leave it, while I prefer to take it. He often goes a week-and-a-half to two weeks without showing any interest. Then, suddenly, the testosterone begins to flow. This time it coincided with a deluge of another kind, and the story that resulted is such a sad but illustrative commentary on the state of my sex life that I cannot help but relay it to you here. *** I had just climbed into bed for the evening. The Partner called the dog downstairs for her evening constitutional. I heard the door open. I heard the door shut. I heard "Goodbye" from The Partner's AOL session and I heard him let the dog back in. They both padded up the steps toward bed. I had an inkling that The Partner might be interested in a little romp in the hay. It had been long enough that even he should have been getting antsy. But then I heard the bathroom door shut, and instead of water spilling over a toothbru...

I was in the kitchen when I heard a sound like a little miracle from the living room. It was a 9 month old belly laugh lurching out in spurts at the prompting of a three year old. Not the least of the miracle was the fact that the 9 month old part of that equation had just popped two teeth--simultaneous eruptions of exactly the same height and width in the center of his bottom gum--the night before. It was a labor of love impossible for him to sleep through. He had been a Teething Mimi for the past 24 hours, during which time there were no smiles. The second marvelous aspect of the scenario was the instigator. The delight The Boss took in entertaining her brother was totally new. Up to that moment, she'd sooner let him choke on a Gerber Puff than divert her attention from the television to notice his windpipe had been compromised. But then she did something that made him laugh. Sequestered in the kitchen, I didn't know what it was. But he did it again, and again. He really laug...

Write a poem. You can do it. It's easy. Don't believe me? Here's a template . I first tackled the exercise on an old blog almost three years ago. For some reason, I was thinking about the poem in the shower this morning. I'm reposting here. Note: You may be interested in knowing, if you get to the last line, that Great Aunt Sonia has since passed . So too have our secrets. Where I'm From I am from Cookie Monster sweatshirts, shrugged on past bedtime. I'm from Dairy Queen and a station wagon. I am from the chain-linked smell of gasoline and grass clippings. I am from dandelion seeds, yellow weeds and petals of "he loves me not." I'm from lilacs for mom on the kitchen table. I am from Marlboro Reds by the carton, by the day; I'm from them living while I sleep. I'm from Faith, Hope and Wisdom, Russian sisters in translation. I'm from pampered grudges with skin soft from attention. I'm from funereal reunions. I'm from shhhhhh and ...

If my parents ever doubt my overwhelming devotion to them, they need only look to exhibit A: I am still living in Connecticut. They are the only things tying me to this godforsaken suburban box where winter lasts for 7.5 months and you can buy a 1000 sq ft split-level for roughly the price of the South Dakota governor's mansion. I'm bitter because it's cold. I get this way toward the end of every January, though my inability to deal with it gets worse with each passing year. I am seasonally affected and dis-ordered. I can't get myself together. I would like to sit in the bathtub beneath a heat lamp and read for the next three months straight, but then my skin would fall off and the authorities would probably take away my kids. Instead, I put on two sweaters and turn on every light in the house. I do the best I can. But my February best is nowhere near good. The Partner and I stay here because of our parents. It's not just that The Boss and Number Two need babysitter...

I am standing at the coffee counter, waiting for my order to come up, when Number Two begins to trill in the soft vibrato that has heralded his ascent from the surly depths. Recently, and as if overnight, the line of his lips curled upward and a voice emerged. He used to give the impression that he was humoring us with his presence; now he's a laughing child. I press the too-sharp line of my nose into his neck. He giggles. I hug him tight and he laughs harder. The air in the coffee shop is as hot and aromatic as a mug of house blend. All the sudden I hear 10,000 Maniacs, and though it could be coming acoustic from the speakers, it's not. It's in my head. These are days you'll remember. Never before and never since, I promise. It would be easy to shake out the sap, grab my coffee, and go. I mean, how sentimental am I? Instead, I go with it. It's not every day that I attune to my own soundtrack, but I hear it now. I'm resting against the long wooden counter in a ...

I think I saw a mouse in the kitchen. I'm going to cry. I've been feeling overwhelmed to begin with; now I'm overwhelmed and nauseated . My phobia of rodents makes it hard for me to function. The only way I was able to return to the location of the peripheral mouse sighting (I can't be sure it was a mouse and not a figment of my imagination, but let's be real--it's five degrees outside, while in here it's a balmy 62, and crumbs abound) was to have my dog, Roxie, go in ahead of me to sniff things out. She didn't appear to sense anything, so I bit the bullet. The dog tried to leave as soon as I joined her. "Get back here!" I shrieked, not only to get the dog's attention, but to make a general noisy situation that would not appeal to vermin. I quickly made my sandwich. Roxie stayed semi-loyally by my side. I made sure to look only where I absolutely needed to. I've known for awhile that we have mice, but the knowledge alone is not the pro...

I've been so preoccupied with Number Two's small size relative to other eight-month-olds that I failed to notice he's still growing. Fast. Photos by Lauren That's not a baby. That's a boy. ___

The Boss, at three, assigns context through personification. Take, for example, her thoughts yesterday morning when we rose before the sun to bring The Partner to the train station: "It's not day yet." She was perplexed in front of the bay window as her upper lip guided her face into a small yawn. She looked jealously outside. "The sun must still be resting." *** Her reality becomes a story. She fabricates understanding. The Boss views the world from the carseat of modern mythology. Having returned to the train depot to pick up The Partner at the end of the day, we headed home again via I-95. We were all quiet. We looked fixedly ahead. Several vehicles in front of us, sheets of ice careened off the top of an SUV. "That snow does not want to stay on the truck," The Boss commented. The Partner and I nodded. I hummed my agreement in absentminded vibrato. The car behind the ice-wielding Ford flashed its high beams vigorously. More ice fell. The asphalt too...

It shouldn't surprise me, being that I met my husband via America On-Line, but somehow the shock is still there every time the world as it appears on my computer screen intersects with the world that lives and breathes and smells and shrieks around me. A blogger I know named Lauren wedded an Irishman named Sean in a nature preserve before the snow started to fall on Saturday. She was protected from the elements by a gazebo, by Sean, and by a fur trimmed coat that The Boss tells me is something a snow princess would wear. The thing about the coat--the thing that intersects--is the fact that it was sitting in my own closet just a few days ago. It never occurred to me when I first stumbled upon Lauren's blog three years ago that this wiry, red-haired artist would be making her wedding vows while wearing "something old"--in this case, vintage 70s--from me. Lauren came over my house on the Thursday before her wedding and mentioned that she had to go shopping for a coat. I...

The Boss was giddy in her perch behind me as I drove away from pre -school. "Mom, do you know what E. said?" I looked in the rear view mirror to the pink-clad, pink-cheeked girl sitting in her gender-neutral car seat . Stray hairs emerged from under her hat, pressing against her forehead like trampled straw. My nose wrinkled at the sound of E.'s name. "No, honey. What did she say?" "E. doesn't hate me anymore! She told me she LOVES me!" The unbridled enthusiasm of The Boss's proclamation made my heart beat faster for a second, then sag in my chest. E. was one of the older children in The Boss's Montessori classroom, with at least 1.5 to 2 years on The Boss's 3. I've considered her a bully ever since The Boss told me that E. had pinched her twice--"Two times," The Boss said, holding her fingers in a V and counting them off, one by one--and made her cry. I know it's best to reserve judgment on the bully issue with child...

Sometimes it's the precise alignment of the words that draws me into a book; other times it's the story. The ones that stay with me, though, burrowed in the recesses of my brain where I would think more usable information might be better saved, are those that weave language and events into a history so detailed it is as if it becomes my own. Isabel Allende opened Two Words , one of her short stories, with this line: "She went by the name of Belisa Crepusculario, not because she had been baptized with that name or given it by her mother, but because she herself had searched until she found the poetry of 'beauty' and 'twilight' and cloaked herself in it." The ability to fuse language, love and story layout in contemporary literature has also been mastered by Nelson DeMille , Pat Conroy , and Anita Diamant . I read for balance: sarcasm and sentimentality; the feminine and the masculine; a series of scenes and an epic journey. These writers have created m...

A timeshare telemarketer called to inquire about my vacation plans. I told him I didn't have any and that, when I start formulating some, I will do so with The Partner, who is not available at this moment. The telemarketer told me he could not wait. His offer for two days, two nights in LAS VEGAS! TUSCON! CORAL GABLES! was time sensitive. "I am not an idiot," I informed him. "Did you know that vacationing together is one of the most important things you can do as a family?" "You can stop with the spiel because I am not going to make any decisions without The Partner." "I'll tell you what. I can give you all the information about our premier resorts in LAS VEGAS! TUSCON! CORAL GABLES! and you can call your husband to discuss it. Then you can get back to me right away." He spoke with a strange lack of inflection despite the exclamations. "No," I said. "Your husband sounds dominating; your marriage, unstable. Perhaps you ne...

Sometimes I get tired of my idiocy. For a while it can be blissful, but eventually the stupidity coagulates in a pool that's an aerobic workout to trudge through. I just got off the phone with a local business owner. I was calling in my capacity as publisher of our town's quarterly newsletter, beseeching this woman to renew her advertisement. The fact that I volunteer [note: apparently I don't have enough non-paying jobs] to publish a 24-page color document every four months is just one example of my stupidity. Another is that I realized, after speaking with this woman, that she requested a change to her ad a good six months ago that never materialized. You can imagine her reluctance to pay up front for another year of wrong information. She came around when I promised her a proof of the corrected ad before she sent any payment. It's no biggie in the grand scheme, but it's me being wrong again, and the last thing I want is another person thinking I'm incompete...

It's been said by some misogynists that one shouldn't trust anybody who bleeds for seven days and doesn't die. It's been amended by certain people with whom I stayed on an extended New Year's holiday that one should not trust such people anywhere near the septic system. I clogged two toilets over three days with a combination of sanitary products and the morning-after effects of a digestive tract compromised by hormones and bourbon. It was embarrassing, to say the least. The Partner brandished the plunger in accordance with promises made at the altar to deal with my shit till death do us part. For reasons unknown to me, his best friend took up arms, too, applying the black rubber suction with as much vigor, and possibly more finesse, than The Partner. If thrashing around in your friend's wife's excrement isn't a sign of true camaraderie, I don't know what is. I haven't had a visit from Aunt Flo in 18 months. It figures that she'd make up for ...