Undomestic Diva

Come around

I met her within a few days of her family moving into the house four doors down and across the street. It was socked-in foggy, typical for October in our town, the day I put one sneaker in front of the other and shyly introduced myself with a piqued curiosity at the idea of another girl my age on the street with no other children. We instantly adhered to each other - at first based on the childhood friendship rules of geography - and quickly thereafter because it was obvious we were meant to be friends.

Of all the things we had in common - and there were an uncanny number of them - our physical appearances were the most prevalent to strangers wherever we ventured. "Are you twins?" No. "Yeah right!" And we laughed. This was always funny to us in a way that it would never be funny to actual sisters. We even dabbled in dressing alike, dying our hair the same colors - every color - and driving our parents crazy as partners-in-crime, acting as each other's alibi, wingman, excuse and beggar when necessary.

Before the freedom of four wheels and the trouble of boys, we were inseparable and passed the time in this boring town with nothing to do by lying on the warm sidewalk singing Mariah Carey songs carelessly and out of tune, prank calling our classmates incessantly, trading in all our change and maybe even some of our parents' for candy at the Grocery Connection, scouring the neighborhood for trouble, ordering 12 CDs for 1 cent via mail and attending sleepovers arm-in-arm; never sleeping a wink. Over time, our friendship eroding the sidewalk between our houses with our constant back-and-forth.

High school wedged between us; she went her way and I went mine though never on bad terms, just different crowds - drill team versus newspaper staff, curly highlights versus pixie cuts - our lives never failing to intersect both in small hallways and at major crossroads.

It would be many years after school ended that we would find each other again and pick up where we left off, somewhat more grown up and yet still so similar: divorced, with sons, in the same town, the same neighborhood even, taking to the town at night only to have people ask if we were sisters. We'd laugh. No. They still didn't believe us.

Two weeks ago she got married, myself as the Maid of Honor. As I stood beside my oldest friend I couldn't help but think about how perfect it all was. It wasn't about the the venue, the outfits, the details... it was the moment. It was her. And it was him. Of course. But it was also me... getting to stand beside her, right where I was supposed to be 17 years - almost to the day - since we first met. Funny how things in life come back around.

Cockfighting for kids

Randomly, as conversations frequently happen with my boys, my 6 year old dropped an interesting oh-by-the-way-this-happened-at-school-two-days-ago bomb on the way to soccer Saturday morning.

"My friend was getting beat up by this kid and I asked him if he was getting hurt and he said yes and I said what does the kid look like and I went and found the kid."

I turned down the radio the rest of the way.

Shit.

All three of my boys are trained in MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) a full three years; the six year old a first degree green belt. He's also Mr. Peacekeeper of the bunch but when he spars? I hold my breath. The kid is a powerhouse. 

"You went and found him? Then what?"

"I found him and his friends hiding behind a wall. They started punching me."

I was clutching the steering wheel, scared to ask what happened next. We have made it very clear to the boys that they are not allowed to use their MMA training unless they need to defend themselves and - well - here we are, a situation where he had every right to defend himself.

"I blocked the punches."

"Did you punch them back?"

"No. Just used my MMA blocks."

Relief.

"So you didn't have to punch anyone?"

"Nah. Their punches weren't very good so I just blocked them until they got tired and then I got a teacher."

I sat back in my seat. I was impressed. At six years old, he had a) stuck up for someone getting hurt, b) utilized his MMA skills while maintaining the right amount of composure and restraint and c) made sure a teacher took control from there.

This is where I make my case for MMA. When I mention my boys (ages 5, 6 and 8) are MMA trained as well as nationally recognized and awarded, I hear everything from "Geez, what is that? Cockfighting for kids?" to "Oh you're raising little fighters, huh?"

No, actually.

I'm raising boys. Boys who participate, play and train in a number of sports - soccer, baseball, basketball and yes, MMA. Boys who are strictly disciplined at home and whose discipline continues at the MMA studio. Who are not allowed to abuse their training in any way. If they do use their skills in a way they shouldn't, they won't just answer to school officials and us as parents but to their sifus and senseis. They will lose their ranks and belts. They are taught respect and self control before they learn to throw a single punch and they're taught that throwing that punch is only done when it's necessary.

And sometimes, it is necessary.

My oldest spent three years being bullied to the point of complete misery and anxiety at his last school. So much so that it ended in both police and school board involvement at the end of last year and us moving schools. This, mind you, with the school having a supposed "zero tolerance" bullying stance.

Yet he never threw a single punch. He never defended himself.

I'll be honest. I wish he had. When your kid cries himself to sleep at night because the kids won't leave him alone and the school officials whose job it is to keep him safe refuse to, don't tell me you wouldn't want your son to fight back too.

This is the irony of the schools' no-bullying campaigns. Even when the schools enforce and provide consequences to the kids who are bullying (which his school didn't), rarely do they go beyond the write-ups and suspensions to actually get to the root of the problem and resolve why the event(s) even happened in the first place.

Maybe this is why the bullying never ends? Why it's being called an epidemic?

The schools have kids - even at the Kindergarten level - so scared about coming face-to-face with the principal over an altercation of any kind with another student that kids will let other kids bully them until they can't take it anymore.

If they tell on the kid? They're told not to be a tattletale.

If they stick up for themselves? They're given the same exact punishment as the kid who threw the first punch.

And the moment the bully's friends find out their buddy got "ratted out" well, forget it.

Don't get me started on the parents who refuse to believe their precious child could have ever done such a thing.

We will never encourage our kids to fight. Ever. But we will always make sure they know that they have the right to defend themselves if they have to. Because in all the anti-bullying campaigning, the school's are failing to teach our kids that they do not deserve to be pushed over, punched, jabbed, tripped, bitten, spit on and harassed by anyone. And if the schools won't remind my boys that they deserve to be treated better than that by other human beings, I will.

In the Cosmos

 

Go ahead and belly laugh but I'm just being real: I subscribed - not bought an issue, but full-on subscribed - to Cosmopolitan magazine.

In my defense, dearest people of the Internet, I honestly believed it would bring me good blog fodder. I mean a "21 Naughty Sex Tips" article? Really, Cosmo? How many times have you printed that in some version or another over the past decade?

I might have started off with a bit of a cynical attitude. I'll give you that.

But, ok, here's the deal. Here's where I get honest at the expense of you pointing your finger and laughing in. my. face. until your ribs hurt.  Every single month? I find at least a few - if not several - articles, tips, tidbits, WHATHAVEYOU that make me go "Ohhhh."

Oh.

Oh.

Ohhhhhh.

*epiphany*

You would think at the ripe old age of 30 I should know whatever there is to know about a) men, b) relationships, c) make-up and d) sex but apparently shit changes and trends and technology and OH MY GOD I now thumb through Cosmo's pages nodding along, eyes wide open, jaw sometimes dropped, a few particular pages dogeared like I were 14 years old hiding in my bedroom trying to learn about things, mom, I didn't care to learn about at 14 years old I SWEAR TO GOD.

I mean, until my recent Cosmo binge, I for one didn't know "what men want most at 9 pm" but thankyouverymuch June Cosmo for making me blush.

*sets alarm clock*

*looks around for a man at 9 pm*

*hits snooze*

Aww, well.

The September issue promised to let me know what my "vajayjay" was "dying to tell (me)." And sure enough, well. *nods in appreciation*

Protips: Buy yogurt, pee after sex, give your vibrator a bath and don't wear jeans so tight. YOU'RE SO WELCOME.

I've also learned how to not just hide but *erase* dark undereye circles, shrink my inner thighs in 6 minutes per day! (don't look, I haven't actually tried that yet) and read - READ - that *cough* vibrators have come alooooong way technologically speaking. *cough*

Laugh all you want but holy hell, I am now a wealth of information. Do I have any use for it? Not so much. But if knowing is half the battle... well... dammit, bring on the war.

Do a little dance

Photo by the one & only Lotus Carroll aka SarcasticMomLC

It's been awhile, hasn't it?

I know. Trust me, I know.

It's not like I haven't sat down here in this hard wooden chair, stared at the glaring light of my Macbook a hundred times and let my fingers dance furiously along the keyboard - out of rhythm from sitting far too long on the sidelines, unfortunately - composing complete jibberish that once made sense in my head mid-steamy shower and then refused to hit publish. I've definitely been here. Just... a bit two-left-footed, I suppose.

I can't say it hasn't been frustrating; I've always been the girl to dance - not walk - her way onto the parkay floor, soaking up the spastic neon lights like energy, never needing to find the beat because it was always already in me. Then, there I was, watching everyone else with their shoulders bouncing, hips a-swaying, hair sashaying while I silently sipped my drink in a dark corner only to be enveloped with envy, seemingly unable to do the dance.

But guess what, assholes? Gloria was right. At some point, the rhythm does get you. Maybe it starts with a toe tap or a bop-and-weave of the neck. Perhaps it completely engulfs you and suddenly your entire body is shaking in maddened delight and there you are: you. You're back.

Or maybe it starts with a poorly written little post with shitty analogies.

Either way, I'm ready to get back out on the dance floor.

I just want you to know...

To my boys:

School is starting and I just want you to know that...

I love you.

You make me proud.

You are the funniest people I know.

And the bravest.

You are so smart.

Your hugs are amazing.

Your fist bumps are too.

You are great MMA fighters,

soccer, baseball and basketball players

but I am even more impressed by your kindness,

your thoughtfulness,

your generosity.

I am grateful for you every single day,

love you even when I'm mad

and miss you so much it hurts when you're not here.

I want you to always be you,

the people that you want to be,

the people that you are.

Because you?

You are amazing,

awesome,

the raddest.

Never let anyone tell you

or treat you

any differently.

You make me smile,

you make me laugh,

you make me cry,

you make me happy,

you make me.

YOU can do anything.

So do it.

Do everything.

Love,
Mom

Nine hours

THIS is what - or who, rather - I'll be spending nine hours with in the car today.

They? Are excited.

I? Am terrified.

You? Pray for me.

Being somebody else

Today, I don't want to me. I want to be somebody else.

Just for today.

(OK, fine. Maybe there are some other days when this idea appeals too.)

But especially today.

If you could be somebody else - past or present - just for a day, who would you be? Why?

Fair play

It's our favorite time of year: The Fair. Year round, the boys ask if it's fair time yet, how much longer until the fair, can you believe it's almost time to go to the fair?!

It's uncanny, really, being that I grew up going to this same fair, looking forward to it with the same eagerness and excitement. Now I see my boys traveling the same pathways, lining up at very same corndog vendors for hot dogs on sticks and lemonades and churros and greedily draining me of midway tickets... Life circles that way.

This year was the first year they entered handmade items and baked goods in the fair to be judged and while they placed first or second in everything they entered, all their baked goods (all 8?) took first place. Every single one. Apparently that 'baking gene' skipped a generation. L-Dub even took two "Best in Show" ribbons - for his strawberry jam and his pumpkin pie.

I couldn't be prouder.

But the best part: watching their faces as they experience the rides. Worth the cost of the midway tickets five times over.

Lonely

If you could touch lonely, it would feel like a worn brass doorknob handle, slightly warm from the last touch, streaked in goodbyes with fingerprinted memories - vivid and fond - which no amount of furrowing of the brow will bring back the one who left.

Lonely is when you can almost see the footprints on cement steps leading out the door, though none were actually left, the moment of walking away having been instantly engraved in your pupils and cannot be unseen, forgotten, retrieved.

It's hearing tiny feet run in the opposite direction and not return for days, only getting seconds of conversations of muddled sentences talking about their day because they're too busy to miss you back. Lonely is padding barefoot through an empty house at midnight and stealing a favorite stuff animal off an empty bed just to feel like you have a part of them with you when they are gone.

Lonely is being surrounded in a crowd of furiously happy friends and acquaintances with a painted smile on your face, keeping pace and faking the facade only to come and go alone; to have the company and companionship end with the night. To feel forgotten in an evening of everlasting photographs.

It's being amongst him and not having him even consider you; to see you as one of the guys and a friend... but. Lonely is feeling invisible when you're in. his. face. and still not enough.

Lonely is eerily quiet in loud groups and unbearably loud in quiet places and disguises itself in shoulder-shaking sobbing shower sessions and empty pint glasses alike. It smells heavily of the sea, where the waters are rough and the shore cannot be seen; tulmultuous and salty. It weighs more than most can lift yet it sits easily on one's shoulders.

The brass doorknob eventually turns cold and I can no longer discern where fingerprints begin and where they end. But the memories remain, remarkably prominent, invoking lonely.

The town that never changes

This is the town that stays the same, even when it changes.

Strip mall stores come and go, shopping centers get repainted every now and again and yet the sign welcoming you in is the one that stood there since 1970-something.

The Lucky's grocery super market may have become Alphabeta (or was it the other way around?) which became Albertson's but locals still reference the old store names and remember the strawberry field that used to fill half its parking lot.

Even our infamous landmark - the state mental institution - eventually closed but wasn't torn down. Instead it was later re-opened and recycled into a mental institution of another kind: a state university. Of course.

Even when the streets have been repaved on hot days when the smell of tar is sure to hang heavy in the air, the potholes return in the same spots just weeks later - proof no one (or nothing) leaves this place for long.

Chances are the streets you grew up on, the cul-de-sacs you rode scooters around and the houses you passed by on your way to elementary school became the neighborhood you now live in as an adult, sending your kids to school to that very same elementary school, walking those same streets with sidewalks you have memorized, to learn from some of the same teachers who taught you.

Even on the rare occasion something does change in this small town, my childhood refuses to let it go.

The palm tree at the end of the driveway that resulted in an emergency room visit and stitches has been gone for years but when I close my eyes and picture the house I grew up in, it's still there. Yama Sushi may have replaced Cord's which replaced Happy Steak but when I walk in the restaurant, it's still Happy Steak to me. And the 99 Cent Store may have taken over the old Thrifty's but I can't go near the place without thinking about two-scoop ice cream cones. The corner liquor store will always be The Grocery Connection to me - a place I spent all my nickels and dimes buying Big League Chew Bubble Gum and Garbage Pail Kids during the summertimes as a kid.

Even on the coldest day, I can recall how the sidewalk feels on my cheek on a warm day as my best friend and I would lie singing, poorly, Mariah Carey songs. I can tell you where it dips and where it rises from the city's largest tree's roots that lives in my mom's front yard; I can map out its dimples and cracks and divots on the back of my eyelids.

The rusted train tracks that chase the street I grew up on and the never ending freight trains accosted by graffiti that rumble along them raucously go unnoticed. Their loud symphonies are as natural as the owls in the ash tree at night.

Strawberries are never bought from the store; only from the corner fruit stand where they were just picked in the field behind the dirt parking lot - only when the flag is flying high.

Avocados are purchased 3 for $1 (4 for $1 if you're lucky) from a kid on a corner looking to make a few bucks off his grandmother's orchards. And you'll never find oranges so sweet or lemons so tangy as you will along the 118.

Somis Market is where you run into everyone and anyone you know while grabbing the city's best mexican food for breakfast from a two-toned green building that looks like it's barely standing upright.

It's a town of farm workers and software engineers, suburban housewives and lawyers alike. Retirees roll along the streets - often on the wrong side of the road - proudly displaying their "I Love Camarillo" bumperstickers while soccer moms dodge them in their gigantic SUVs and stylish minivans with the family decal stickers adhered to their back winshield bragging about their husband, 2.5 kids and labordoodle.

The soccer fields are among crops of cilantro and romaine lettuce - pumpkins depending on your timing - and it's understood to factor in the possibility of having to follow a John Deere on your way to Saturday's game into your travel time. Yet this place is chock-full of new, red tiled roofs and track housing, six Starbucks, yoga and pilates studios, community pools and even an enormous outlet shopping center... all surrounded by farm land, of course.

This is the place everyone says they're going to leave some day, but few do. The place where those who actually left eventually come back to. The place many simultaneously blush as they admit they're still here while eagerly house hunting on familiar streets. It's where teenagers drone on about boredom and having nothing to do and parents rave about it being a great place to raise children; where businesses start-up and movies are shot and a population of 62,000 feels eerily small when you stop in at Brendan's on a Friday night.

It is home.