Prophetess

Yesterday:

"Knock knock," said Ayla.

"Who's there?" said I.

"Interrupting diarrhea!"

Well that's just good comedy, I thought to myself. The best part was her delivery--clearly that was the punchline. Because if you were, say, shopping for Shake Weights and found yourself suddenly interrupted by diarrhea, would you take the time to say "interrupting diarrhea who?"

Me neither.


Today:

It had been a long day. I had walked into Michael's thinking it would be 'easy' and, I don't know, 'cute', to pick up supplies and have the girls make their own Valentine's. I have never been so wrong in my life. We took one step into the store that will eternally smell of fake flowers and wicker and I immediately started crying. Indy was all like "What's wrong?" and "don't cry, mommy", and I told her to stop being such a little brown-noser and give mommy a minute to recover from massive stamp and sticker over-stimulation. Panting, in a cold sweat, I called my sister. In reassuring tones she navigated me through the meelee like this was wartime Saigon and she was on her third tour. She knew the natives, she spoke the language. "Card stock and construction paper are basically the same things," she said, calmly enough to almost make me believe everything was going to be all right, despite all evidence to the contrary. "But it all has flowers on it," I sobbed. "And storks, and soccer balls. Oh god I am too young to die!"

"You are not in enemy territory," she said firmly. "That is just the scrapbooking section."

Well. You coulda fooled me.

After that I dragged my weary soldier to Target because apparently Michael's is too upscale for people like me who don't wish to make our own stickers out of German glitter glue and the blood of the Viet Cong. She is four, and she was tired, so naturally she went for the only option available to her: stamping her foot, screaming, and making the bloody purple monsters dance to their eerie funeral dirge five thousand times. Oh baby you . . . got what I neeeeeeed. I think she must have picked up something about torture methods during our time in the war zone.

We made it out of Target with, I swear to god, two cans of chopped clams, one box of stamps without an ink pad, two cute bags with owls on them that I have little to no use for, and absolutely none of the things for which we had come. We called it a wash. Went to get Ayla.

Went to King Soopers.

Almost made it alive through the store at rush hour. Got to the check out. Kindly gentlemen ringing up my goods. Me, magnanimously distributing quarters and pennies to my own little waifs to entertain them during the wait.

"Mom," Ayla whines. "I have to go potty."

"You're gonna have to wait just a minute. We're almost done."

"Mom," she starts to cry. "I have to go POTTY."

And then she grabs her bottom.

"We're going to have an accident!!" Poor, poor me screams to the kindly checker. I grab my daughter and friends, I ran like a bat out of hell--honestly, Louis Zamperini had nothing on me--my daughter in my arms, a mad dash for the bathroom on the opposite end of the store. "Will you watch my daughter!" I cry over my shoulder to the checker, pointing to my little cowgirl Indy--wearing her pink cowgirl boots, grinning like an idiot, obliviously enjoying her penny pony ride like no one has ever enjoyed that ride before. My wallet hit the floor, coins flew, people stared. I'm pretty sure at one point an old woman pushing a baby carriage pulled out of my way in the slickest nick of time. I elbowed and leapt and beat people back the way my teenage self once did trying to get front row seating at an O-Town concert. If you were there, I truly do apologize for those things that I shouted. Please interpret them in the kindest possible way.

The women's room is closed.

"Hello!" I yell, and dash into the men's.

Empty. Good things do happen.

Ayla is flustered. Teary. Probably a little embarrassed and a lot terrified. I situate her so she can see to her business. She's drawing in quick little breaths, chewing her bottom lip. I take a deep breath. She looks like she might cry.

"Ayla?" I say softly.

"Yeah?" her little voice wobbly.


". . . Knock knock."

Blog Fail

Dear Readers,

I am sorry.

I had a massive writer failure. I was aiming for a tone of 'too much to do!' and 'need a breather!'. And instead, as it turns out, what I actually hit was 'I am being forced against my will to watch Sex and the City 2 and the man behind me is loudly consuming snacks!' and gave you all flashbacks to that time in high school when one of your friends got dumped and started talking about how she just wanted to 'end it all' and you all had to (got to?) act really concerned and overly dramatic about it for awhile. And maybe you all went and talked to an approachable teacher or coach about it and then they had to be really concerned and be all, 'this is a very serious matter' about it and then they separated the boys and the girls and gave you some sort of talk that ended with a prayer and donuts.

I was going for 'tired!' but what I said was, "MY PSYCHE IS BEING MAULED BY A BEAR MADE OF EMOTION AND I AM FEELING MOROSE ABOUT IT!!!!"

Throw in a picture that is, in retrospect, rather dismal, and title it after a Neko Case song that apparently no one else has listened to and you've got a recipe for disaster.

I didn't realize until I got a call from my mother asking me "are you ok?" in that way only mothers do. And then people started offering to bring me dinner and slipping me websites and phone numbers of 'people who can help' and a stranger at Wal-Mart actually offered me valium to make the pain go away, but I don't think she had read my blog. I think that was just a coincidence.

Anyway I think I'm more depressed now than I was when I wrote Cold and Shivers because of my own massive writerly failure and now I'm pulling all my hair out and haven't brushed my teeth in three days and I keep pounding things out angrily on a typewriter only to yank them from the reel and stuff them into my mouth and swallow both because my writing is so ghastly awful and because I will never be appreciated for the genius I am. **

I don't often feel as dark in my soul as I made you all believe I was feeling. And if I do, I don't blog because that's just ugly. I wait for it to pass and then I blog about the aftermath. Which may still be ugly but is generally less disturbing for readers.

So I thank you for your kindnesses and concern, and I'm sorry I scared you. Please don't leave me. You wouldn't want that emotion bear to start ripping out my innards with his claws of self-loathing and his sweet breath of long-expected failure, do you?


I am Vesuvius and the bear lines are funnier if you imagine Will Ferrell saying them.

**Just kidding!