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I just posted a new blog on xanga. You can now comment there and it will link back to a blog anywhere so come visit. :) http://www.xanga.com/neuroticfitchmom

The Road

For all its bleakness and paranoia inducing pages, The Road has a deeper message to convey to the reader. Set in an unknown time, somewhere in America, a father and his son journey to survive in a post apocalypse world.

Their mission is to make it to The Coast, starving in a bleak landscape of people eating marauders, burned out buildings, dead bodies and falling trees.

A harsh tale of survival, of a father's love for his child, and small kindness.

McCarthy managed to chew me up and spit me out in a span of two hours. Several times I thought I wouldn't finish as Bill played Monopoly with the children. One of my greatest fears, something happening to the world and trying to survive with my children. Dear Lord, please let them be grown. Feeling their desperation, each bite of Easter dinner, guilt filled. But finish I did and thought about it all evening. And considered what he was trying to say.

Yes, I think it was some sort of warning on where we could end up. If we don't straigten up, and start being nice. But I also think, it was to remind us, in a way we could relate to that people are starving now. That people are just trying to survive with their children now. In landscapes, that are extreme in their own ways. Where people kill you because you aren't their race, their tribe, their religion. In stupid wars. Just because they can.

It really was good. And I'm really glad I read it. I'd love to know what meaning it gave you.

Sliding Away Like a Popsicle on a Hot, Summer Day

Crossposted from my main blog

I counted down the months today. April, May, June, July. Only four... my stomach twisting into a tight knot of regret. I wish I hadn't counted.

"How long now Mama," she's asked for the last year. I replied with a made up number, not wanting to think of it.

Until she caught on and I was forced to face the reality.

11 years prior, I'd started wistfully counting, tacking on more years with each child I birthed. The years until school, until my house was quiet and I could actually think. The children running wild through the house; screaming, playing, painting my walls KoolAid red, I longed for even one moment of silence.

But somewhere along the way I stepped back, as each one went off in turn, the years sliding away like a Popsicle on a hot, summer day. And wished for them back. The late nights staring into wide eyes, the bumps and bruises of one, the tantrums of independence at two, the endless hugs and kisses. Me their entire world.

The guilt overpowering some days, that maybe I'd parented better with my last two. The first two, only three days shy of a year apart, a time of survival. Feeling my way around like a newborn kitten until the third was born and I felt more secure. By number four I'd relaxed into parenting and was blessed with two years alone with her as the others tromped off to school.
And here I am now, four months away, wishing I could roll back time.

"Aren't you excited?" Well meaning people ask me, more and more frequently.

And I find that I'm not. She's supposed to be my little one, my baby. And somehow she's grown tall and her features are that of a girl.

She thinks thoughts I don't know. Soon enough she'll look at me with exasperation like my older daughter and I'll be left waiting for those fleeting moments of being let in on her world.

She's ready to fly away, all of five, as her brothers and sister have done before her. I see her watching the other children at the school, reaching out to them. I assess the teachers who will care for my baby and pray they aren't mean. I'm clinging to these last days.

I'll adjust,I'm sure, as I've done before. Writing and thinking, in a silence, that on some days will remind me more of them, than the loudest noise ever will. I probably will enjoy it and find a new place, a new definition of me without a shadow in my image, following along behind. But I'll stop and listen and grab each moment, remembering this counting and how the years pass...so quickly.

Flat Faced Four Eyed Freak

Mirrored on my xanga with pictures

"Your face is so flat," she'd whisper under her breath, when the teacher wasn't looking.

The leader of a gang of pretty, privileged girls with perfectly coifed hair, plastered on Guess jeans, and the latest Swatch watch.

"And she's practically blind. Look how thick her glasses are," the other would twitter, just loud enough for me to hear.

My pale skin betraying me with a brilliant shade of red, to match my hair. Mortified, I'd count the minutes until the school day was over and I could return to my safe little nest.

"Just ignore them," my mom counseled me. "They're just jealous."

Of what, I couldn't see. Out of place in my own skin, I began second guessing every choice for it's coolness factor. My previously high self esteem spiraling into nothing.

I permed my hair, everyone was doing it. It fried and the chopped up result resembled Billy Ray Cyrus' poodle.

"Love the hair," she yelled out the next day. I considered buying a wig.

I bought the Guess jeans, the Coca Cola shirts, the Swatch watch, and the Converse tennis shoes. And felt like an imposter.

"Isn't that cute. She's trying to look like us."

I didn't want to...really. I wanted to blend in, just enough, so they wouldn't notice.

My friends didn't get it.

"They only think they're cute. They look stupid. I like your leopard and fluorescent dress and Madonna bracelets. Do you think your mom would perm my hair?"

I tried a color rinse, so it wouldn't stand out, only to turn it slightly purple.

"Copper Top," they'd squeal.

The bangs, in 7th grade, the last ditch effort. They stood six inches high and were plastered with enough hair spray to catch fire within a half mile from a flame.

Soon enough, my whole brigade had them too and the other crowd had grown their's out.

So, I gave up. Resigned myself to being queen of the band nerds, which suited me fine.

Twenty years later, they've probably forgotten me and their careless words. I've mostly forgotten them. Except for those rare occasions someone is standing next to me and I find my hand snaking up, to hide my profile or the thickness of my glasses. And I remember.

And I hope they got fat.

The Best Animal in the Zoo

Mirrored from my xanga site, here. It has pictures which I would put here if I could figure out how to do that, or change the banner, design, etc... I suck


“Do we have to go Mama? The zoo's boring,” my daughter whined when I informed her of our plans for the day.

“It'll be fun,” I told her remembering a trip to the zoo with my mom and friends, Madonna and Michael Jackson serenading the animals with the boom box we carried.

They went grudgingly, entirely too cool for our bunch. Until they discovered the best animal at the zoo, pre-teen boys.

"That boy back there liked us Mama! His Mama was saying that was a red fox and he went on and on about how it was half panda or something, trying to impress us. And he looked right at me."

"I think he was looking at me," her friend replied. "And he keeps flinging his hair. JUST LIKE JESSE."

"He's sooooooooooo cute," they squealed.

"I'm sure he thought all of you were cute," I told them, hoping they'd hush, for just a moment.

I searched with my eyes around the scores of strollers clogging the walkway for little boys. I'd taken to counting them out 1 through 9 at least 60 times an hour after finding the 13 year old, brother of squealing girl three, chasing the peacock that roams free throughout the zoo and trying to climb in the elephant's enclosure.

"Stay by me. No running ahead. Find your buddy," I hollered until my voice was hoarse.

"Where'd he go?" The girls asked, having lost track of their prey while relating his every perfectly divine quality to me.

And like animals stampeding, they followed.

"Boys don't like to be chased," I called after them, thinking about my own pre-teen boy and his pre-teen friends. They are more horrified by girl's stares than anything else.

But considering, that in the 7th grade, my 12 year old stalker in the making self, forced my mother to drive by Bryan Mitchell's house at least once a day and cried copious tears and listened to Aerosmith's Angel 750 times when he didn't even speak to me at the Valentine's Dance, I didn't have much room to talk.

So I let them lead the way. At the next exhibit, they jostled one another around, vying for the coveted spot next to him in front of the boa constrictor. By the fifth exhibit, he'd blocked himself between his parents, ignoring them with a look of abject horror in his eyes.

“I think he might be cuter than Chase,” one of the girl's said. Chase being the A list boy, at their school, since THIRD grade. “And maybe even Jesse.” Jesse McCartney, who is the CUTEST famous person EVER, at least according to them.

“No one's cuter than Chase or Jesse,” Georgie mulled. “He can be number three. We need to make up a name for him.”

“How about Jeff,” one of the girls suggested.

“My first boyfriend was named Jeff,” I informed them, trying to hear over the boys bird calls.

“Make that Josh,” my daughter replied.

Two hours later, squeezed together in the zoo's train seat, I snapped a picture for them to fawn over. Hustling everyone to the car as soon as it was over.

They positioned themselves at the windows, rolling them down and hanging out as far as I would allow, the perfect music blasting from the radio.

“Bye cute tall boy with the blond hair,” one of them screeched as they all waved, flinging themselves back inside in a fit of giggles.

“His hair was brown dummy,” a voice chided. And I smiled.

“Mama, that was the best zoo trip EVER.”

Life Goes On

The Bake Sale Nazi is on a rampage and my mother-in-law is dying.

The neighbor tells me her children, "cried from Biloxi to Hattiesburg. They didn't understand why we couldn't stay. They ran from room to room touching the two by fours. This is my room. This is Mama's."

I never understood what people meant by life goes on. I'd heard it said by many people, in many ways.

"I lost my job but life goes on. I've got to keep going and not look back."

"The dog got run over by a tractor. Hunting season is comin' up soon. Better get me a new dog. Life goes on, ya know."

"My mother is dying. Isn't it funny how life goes on?"

The sun keeps shining, the children keep playing, the deadlines don't go away, the Bake Sale Nazi insists you be at the Bake Sale the entire 12 hours that it is going on.

Your children must go to school. You must make money to pay the rent. You have to get out of bed.

"Call me tonight," she calls out to me as her car rolls by in the carpool line. "You need to add the times we need help to the Bake Sale reminder handout."

"Could she make it more difficult," I say under my breath. I want to scream, "They can bring booger muffins for all I care." But I don't, because it is not her fault.

"Park over there, Daddy!" I hear her yell from 6 cars back. Daddy is half deaf, pointing the munchkin to the bathroom when she asks for an apple, the first time I went over to discuss the bake sale.

Daddy helps her into her wheelchair, she leans so far forward, as he pushes her towards me at my post, that I hope she doesn't fall out in the middle of the carpool lane.

"That bake sale is in one week," she tells me, pointing her finger, somewhere around my upper thigh. "And I haven't heard a thing from you."

I listen, committing to nothing.

"Gotta love the bake sale lady. She sure has definite ideas." The school secretary informed me a week earlier.

"We need signage, new tablecloths. Fred's has some cute ones that are cheap. Labels for the baked goods. You'll probably have to be there all day Wednesday as well to receive the stuff."

I know what she meant now.

How do I tell her that explaining, why the man on the bicycle is wearing a neon orange shirt and pants, with his gut hanging out in between, feels like too much right now.

Three school parties and a beginner violin concert on Friday.

A bake sale on Thursday.

Life goes on and my mother-in-law is dying.

Thanks for the memories!

This came from Writes For Chocolate ... Let's see how creative y'all are!

Please post a comment with a COMPLETELY MADE UP AND FICTIONAL MEMORY OF YOU AND ME. It can be anything you want–good or bad–BUT IT HAS TO BE FAKE. When you’re finished, post this paragraph on your blog and be surprised (or mortified) about what people DON’T ACTUALLY remember about you.