Yes, and...

Can we just take a moment to acknowledge how perfectly gorgeous Tina Fey looked at the Emmys on Sunday?

Good gracious.

I've been spending a few minutes here and there over the last few days trying to figure out how I could justify putting this picture up here.  While I'd love to just be able to put up pretty girls on here for your viewing pleasure (and mine), I feel like I need a reason.

Not having Tina Fey on my TV every week has not made me forget about her, but I don't think about her as much as I used to, but seeing her in this form-fitting blue dress has left me with little else to think about. There is one part of Bossypants that always sticks with me and it's when she's talking about doing improv, and how one of the main rules is that no matter how the scene starts, your job as a fellow improv player is to say, "Yes, and..."  So no matter what world your partner is creating, you have to agree to it and add something to it.  I remember her talking about how this has helped her on every level of her life, from her professional to her personal life.  I re-downloaded the book on my iPad this morning so I could search for this section and find out exactly what she had to say.  It is more fitting to me now than I even remembered:

"To me, YES, AND means don't be afraid to contribute.  It's your responsibility to contribute. Always make sure you're adding something to the discussion. Your initiations are worthwhile."

This comes as I'm a little bit more than knee-deep (maybe thigh-deep) into a journey of trying to find my way back to writing, trying to figure out why it is that I write... or more appropriately, why it is that I don't write, and why it is that I want to write.  A lot of little things I've been coming across lately speak of "responsibility" - to yourself, to the world, to your artist. I'll now add this to the list.

I am certainly not one to argue with Tina Fey.

Do the right thing

Once Maddie came to stay with us full time, parenting went from a Very Manageable, Enjoyable Job to High Stress, High Stakes Career.  Isabella had been such an easy kid - very mellow and adaptable, somewhat ornery at times, but overall, a breeze.  She had a set bedtime and she rarely woke up before 6:45 in the morning.  Gina and I thought we were getting away with murder, basically - we had this cute kid who admittedly arrived with a bit of trauma but who seemed unaffected by said trauma.

Maddie alone is a tough kid - beautiful and sweet but with a temper running in her bloodline she sometimes can't control. Alone, both kids present their own challenges...toddlers are difficult, as a rule. Together, they are maniacs. They are lunatics in adorable little-girl bodies. 

Parenting two children this young is not something I would have ever avoided on purpose; however, it is also not something I was prepared for.  Would it be different if the new child that had arrived had been a newborn?  I'll never know.  And I don't have time to think about it - my life is now full to the brim with transitioning the girls to the next part of the day: asleep to awake, morning at home to morning at daycare, daycare to car, car to home, home to dinner, dinner to bath, bath to bed, mommy to Jack Daniels, and so on.  These transitions are never consistently seamless, despite our best efforts.  Our daycare provider suggested bringing something to entice them into the car so that we could avoid the screaming fits from one or both if she couldn't open the door, or shut the door, or climb over the other's car seat to get to her own, or buckle herself in (ISABELLA HELP YOU!  ISABELLA DO IT! - News flash, you'd help me a whole lot by SITTING THE EFF DOWN and letting me BUCKLE YOU IN LOVE YOU MEAN IT OKAY?).  So one day when I had a little extra time, I ran home before going to get them and I secured some pretzel sticks for them.  They are ravenous little beasts right after school and I thought maybe a small snack would help.  It turned into Isabella having some pretzel left that Maddie wanted, and Isabella wouldn't give it to her (even though she wasn't eating it), and Maddie didn't regain control of her wits until about an hour and a half later. And then there is bedtime, which admittedly is getting better (Maddie is starting to fall asleep to songs and rocking instead of Rizzoli & Isles), but it is such a process, and there are no rules, and Gina and I end the night barely awake at 10pm, wondering what we are doing wrong, if we are doing ANYTHING right, and if we are ever again going to have a life that doesn't include trying to console a 3 year old because her 2 year old cousin flushed her poop without her written permission.

It's hard.  There is yelling.  Lots of yelling.  By me, by Gina, and by them.  I don't want to yell at them, I know yelling is my temper tantrum, but it usually WORKS and it makes me feel better.  I say stuff to them, try to reason with them, in a way that makes absolutely no sense.  I ask them insane questions - "Why would you do that?" Answer: I am 3 or I am almost 2 (depending on the kid), I make no sense whatsoever, haven't you figured that out yet, you fool?  And then my favorite is when they have a case of the "MINE!s", we are both known to say something like, "You know what?  NONE OF THIS IS YOURS!  It's all MINE and I let YOU play with it, so calm down!"

We both have college degrees, you guys.

They say you should be the person you want your child to be.  I'm not there yet, and I can see it when Maddie plays with her babies and gets right in their face and says, "Stop it! Nap! Quiet!" in the sternest voice a three-year-old can muster.  I can see it when Isabella looks at her milk (HER MILK) and says, "Stop it, milk!" in her quiet, authoritative voice.  And I can see it in how they talk to each other, when Isabella tries to shut the door (there is a no-shutting-the-door rule in our house (lest fingers get caught) that is broken every six seconds), and Maddie goes up and grabs her by the arms and says, "NO, Isabella, no shutting the door!"  It's in moments like this that I know I'm just screwing them up, and they will grow up talking about their mean mommy/auntie, and by then, therapy will be like $2000 an hour.

Inevitably, the tears come.  You get to a point where you are too angry and too tired to even yell, and the tears start falling if for no other reason than your body forcing you to just CLOSE YOUR EYES for a minute.  About 30 minutes after we got them home from daycare on my 35th birthday a few weeks ago (a birthday I was NOT looking forward to), I hit my wall.  They were fighting and screaming at each other over I can't even remember what, and there was still dinner to give and a kitchen to clean and baths to administer, and I had nothing. left. and I just put my head in my hands and let the lump in my throat evolve to tears, because just like yelling, tears make me feel better.  They stopped fighting and just looked at me.  Maddie came over to me and put her hand on my arm.  "Aunt Katie, so sad?"  I said, "Yes, I'm sad."  And then, as though it were scripted in a movie, she rubbed my arm, and then leaned her head on my shoulder and said, "It's okay, Katie.  I got you.  No sad.  I got you.  Ssssh.  I got you."

I guess we're doing something right.  Maybe they can get away with bi-weekly instead of weekly therapy sessions?

Autumn and The Method

It's that time of year again. Fall! Well, not technically. But September brings all sorts of fall feelings out in people and I'm no exception.

Fall is the only time I find it hard to live in Los Angeles. Fall has always been my favorite season. Growing up in the Midwest, I used to love everything that it brought... School, football (marching band), my birthday, and the start of the Holiday Season. I love the smell of the trees changing. By the time September rolls around, you might not be ready for winter, but you're ready for a bit of crispness in the air.

In Los Angeles, September means the start of fire season. Just when you are ready for that break in the heat, the heat becomes more relentless; October is often the hottest month of the year. You start to realize that chill in the air you're waiting for isn't coming for another couple of months, and you start to long for the bitter (yes, bitter) cold that comes in January. 

You have to be a bit of a "method" actor in Los Angeles when it comes to seasons. The calendar says September, so you send the kids back to school, you watch football, you buy the pumpkin candles, you order the pumpkin spiced latte... You play the Autumn Game, and eventually, it does start to feel a little like fall, at least in your mind. You buy Halloween stuff and then you get ready for Thanksgiving, and finally the weather starts to cooperate in December, bringing the Midwest fall temperatures you had been waiting for.

And then, when the rest of the country is digging themselves out of snow, you don't feel so "left out" of the whole seasons thing. I'll take a late fall over an Ohio winter all. day. long. 

(To make the lack of cool temps a little easier on the soul, we are headed to the beach today. Fall in LA isn't that bad...)

We'll miss you, Frost.

It's Rizzoli & Isles Tuesday, which is usually a highlight of my week. The best is when I forget it's Tuesday until on my way home from work and then I remember, and then my heart! It SINGS! 

I admit my feelings for this show are extreme, and aside from the obvious reasons for my obsession...

...my true love for this show is hard to explain. I like A LOT of television, but I love this show with the fan-girl fervor of a 12 year old. I admittedly follow (and tweet to) @JaneRizzoli and @MauraIsles on twitter. THEY ARE NOT REAL PEOPLE. BUT I LOVE THEM. 

When news of Lee Thompson Young's suicide showed up in my twitter feed, I felt my face go warm and my stomach drop. Young played Jane's partner, Detective Barry Frost. 

This picture makes him seem like a serious character, but in the show, he's funny and goofy and sarcastic.  He's the Computer Guy - can hack any cell phone in Boston. He also loses his lunch repeatedly at homicide scenes, which is a running joke because, well, he's a homicide detective. 

He's not the lead, but he's a constant. Jane looks out for him like he's a little brother. And now he's gone, by all accounts, without warning - no note, just a quick self-inflicted gunshot. 

I allowed myself to be shocked but wouldn't allow myself to be sad. And then I had to tell myself (and hear some friends tell me) it's okay to be sad. In this world of connectivity with celebrities, we are all so quick to say things like "you cry for a drug addict but not for a soldier." I call bullshit. You cry when you cry. You're sad when you're sad. Sincerity is not for suckers or chumps. I think we need to remind ourselves of that.

So tonight, I mourn for his cast mates and all of his co-workers. I mourn for his mother. And I mourn for a man who everyone said had such a positive attitude and an infectious smile, but who underneath was clearly deeply unhappy. 

And I mourn selfishly for the loss of my untarnished happiness at Rizzoli & Isles Tuesdays. I hate the thought of any sadness penetrating this one little bright spot of my life. Sure, my life won't change that much. I didn't know him. I don't know Sasha Alexander or Angie Harmon (although I've had several dreams that beg to differ). But because I allow them into my living room every week (and sometimes EVERY DAY), I feel a connection to them that I refuse to belittle. I'm allowing myself to be a little sad, to say a little prayer for everyone who knew him, especially his mother. And I hope that the show can still be fun and a bright spot on my week, after everyone has had time to mourn and heal. I think it's what Frost would've wanted.

**Call the Suicide Prevention Hotline if you need help: 800-273-8255**

A little bit country...

My music tastes haven't varied much from high school.  I've maybe leaned a little more toward rock and way from pop in my advanced age, but I still love a good Justin Timberlake or Britney Spears song as much as I ever did.  I'd say my favorite band currently is Muse, but I also love most of the KROQ playlist - Imagine Dragons, Mumford & Sons, Foo Fighters, Nine Inch Nails, Vampire Weekend.  I also still love Dave Matthews Band and Indigo Girls - good lyrical guitar stuff.

But every once in a while, something happens and I just get the urge to listen to A LOT of country.  Sometimes I feel an intense dislike for the genre, but other times, something happens where I crave it. I'm there now (as of a few days ago) and I've been trying to pinpoint what it is that makes this happen, or at least what attracts me to those songs.

I think there's just something about being told a story in a song that sometimes I need.  Sometimes I need to just hear a simple tale that involves a Chevy pick-up and a girl in jean shorts and cowboy boots, or a strong man who can't dance and loves his wife.  I need to be reminded of dirt roads and bonfires and acres of land, of running barefoot in the sunshine, long summer days, hot summer nights, houses with big front porches and enormous shade trees, gravel driveways... a small world where you know the people with whom you share your town, and there's no traffic or helicopters or sirens or public transportation, and you can drive with your window down without breathing in the exhaust of 7 million other cars...

I'm sure it's all of this, but above all, it's probably the fact that sometimes, I just need a little Tami Taylor and Tyra Collette in my life.

I'm a Real Mom!

The only constant in my life has been my desire to be a mom.  It's the only thing I've always known I'd be good at. Career ideas have come and gone, but the motherhood itch has been there almost as long as I can remember.

The past few Mother's Days have been kind of difficult for me, because for several years, we were in the thick of a fertility struggle.  Mother's Day would come and I would have to remind myself to concentrate on celebrating my own mom (who is AWESOME) as opposed to dwelling on my inability to start a family of my own.

Now that I am a Real Mom, Mother's Day is surprisingly anti-climactic.  And I've been wondering why that is.  I'm starting to think maybe it's because I felt like a mom for long before Isabella came along.  I'm not sure when it started.

It could've started when I first held my first baby sister, Jessie, the summer between my 2nd and 3rd grade year.  That is definitely when I first understood that I wanted to be a mom some day.

But I think more likely, the day I really became a mom was the day Madelyn was born.  She's not my own kid, but I truly had never before felt love like that, and she completely changed my perspective on my entire life, just like any kid of my own would have done.  I also knew I'd probably be caring for her temporarily, so my body responded in flooding me with all sorts of Mommy feelings.

Some people say that fathers become fathers when they first see their baby born, but mothers become mothers the minute they conceive.  In that case, I became a mother in December 2010, after our first and only successful round of IVF.

I know for sure that a notch on my ladder to motherhood is taken up by going through a miscarriage at 12 weeks in a hospital bed.

It seems I would mark my "becoming a mom" as the day I found out that I'd be Isabella's mom, which was two days before Mother's Day last year.  But we hadn't even met her yet, and nothing was definite, and I was busy researching Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, as the social workers said there was a chance she had that.

Maybe the day I met her was the day I became a mom, but we didn't get to bring her home for another month after that.

Maybe the day we brought her home, June 15, 2012 was the day I became a mom?

Or the day we adopted her?  December 17, 2012?

Whenever it was that I became a mom, what strikes me about this Mother's Day, my first Mother's Day where the world finally recognizes me as a mom, is not necessarily what I feel... it's more what I find myself not feeling.  I don't feel hopeless, depressed, jealous, angry, bitter, or disappointed.  I feel the same way I feel every day - lucky, loved, and happy - and at moments, tired, weepy, and annoyed - and I think this is exactly how being a mom is supposed to feel.

My Coffee Date with Jennifer Carpenter

Since I left Hollywood and moved to Northeastern Los Angeles (like many non-wealthy wannabe-parents-turned-actual-parents), I don't get to see as many celebrities out and about as I used to.  Living in Los Angeles for 13 years has significantly diminished the adrenaline rush that comes with spotting a famous person living Just Like Me, but every once in a while, I'll spot a star and will get stopped in my tracks, and I'll be reminded of just how much I'm enamored with the business of making television and film.

This happened on my date with Jennifer Carpenter at Starbucks yesterday.

I haven't dated much in my life, but my date with Jen (she likes when I call her Jen) went much like any other date I imagine I'd experience.  I was caught off-guard by how HOT she was, which rendered me speechless.  She looked annoyed and completely ignored me.

That's a date, right?

Truthfully, she was walking in as I was walking out.  She wore big shades and an irritated grimace, but she looked stunning.  If I had found the words, I would've said, "Hey! You're fantastic, I love the show!" Maybe if I'd had a few drinks in me, I would've added, "What you're doing with the complexities of your character is fascinating and ridiculously fun to watch." Maybe with more than a few drinks in me, I would've continued.

"You are HOT."

On Jodie Foster

Someone I know only through facebook posted this on her page Sunday afternoon: 

"This morning I'm thinking about sincerity—how deeply seductive it is. This is particularly true in a time in which so many of our social exchanges are constrained by irony and detachment."

I haven't been able to stop thinking about this thought since then, and it's been especially loud in my mind since seeing all of the negative reaction to Jodie Foster's Golden Globes speech.  I called my friend Kathleen, whose opinion I value, and she insisted that I write about my feelings on the speech.  So here goes.

I'm downright pissed at the negative response the speech has received.  Granted, I've been a pretty big fan of Jodie's for a long time, but my anger doesn't come from me being fan.  It comes from me being compassionate.  A lot of people labeled this as Jodie's coming out speech.  Truthfully, she mentioned her partner by name in a speech at an awards luncheon in 2007, so really, among the gay community, she was out.  But unless you're gay or live in Los Angeles, you may not have heard that, so to you, this might have been her coming out speech.

People are calling her a coward, a hypocrite, a lunatic.  Her speech was rambling, people say.  Was she drunk? people are asking.  On meth?  (Because meth is hilariously fun to joke about.)  What was with her?  And what's the big deal, coming out on that stage in 2013 when being gay isn't a big deal and she should've come out a long time ago when everybody else did!  And there's the other storyline of the speech, where people are saying she's a hypocrite because she talks about valuing her privacy.  And still, there are those that talk about how that stage wasn't the time or the place to say the things she did. And on and on and on.

The piece that really got me going is this one  on Huffington Post by Deb Baer.  I feel like she's expressing a lot of what other people are saying.  "Why am I so angry? Because I'm roughly the same age as Jodie, and yet I had the courage to come out exactly 20 years ago."  OH, right.  Your life is just like hers.  You guys are the same age, so you should have the same level of courage.  Because you are the same age, you have the same life experiences and insecurities.  You deal with them exactly the same way.  You both have the American public at large interested in your private life.  

Oh wait.

You guys - everybody is different.  People come out when they are READY to come out and not a moment before.  It's not like Jodie Foster was parading around married to a man.  And even if she had been, it's no one's business BUT HERS.  Everyone is fighting their own battle.  Yes, we should all be out and proud to show America's youth that it's okay to be gay.  But we're not all there at the same time.  We don't all arrive at that place just because you think we should.  A lot of gay people don't want to "come out."  They want to just BE.  They don't want to hide who they are, but they just don't want to have to have that conversation with anyone.  Can you imagine having to have it with the whole world?  This reluctance to have that conversation oftentimes doesn't have anything to do with the fact that we are ashamed of being gay.  It's just a dumb thing to have to tell people out of context.  And for me, I don't want that to be the first thing I'm identified as.  I'm way more than that, as is every gay person everywhere.  

And then there's whole issue with her talking about how she values her privacy.  She is a successful Hollywood figure - there WILL be interest in her private life.  I'm pretty sure she wasn't saying there shouldn't be interest.  All she was saying was that she's not interested in sharing it.  "Well, she's famous, we pay money to see her movies, and she makes a lot of money, so she has to be willing to lose her privacy."  Well, no.  She has been acting since she was 3 years old.  She became famous in the '70s, before Perez Hilton, before TMZ, before Honey Boo Boo.  Do you think she had any idea what she was getting herself into?  Do you think she had any notion what fame would become?  She clearly HATES all of that.  She's allowed.  And you know what?  If you have a problem with that, don't go see her films.  Sure, she could quit acting, she could leave Hollywood... but if it's just this one thing that she hates about her career, why would she walk away from it if there is so much she loves?  Plenty of people love their job, but still complain about it.

And finally, there are the people that are saying she was incoherent, rambling, and her speech started off with an un-funny SNL joke.  I see her as someone who has taken herself so seriously her whole life, has had to do that, and someone who is maybe uptight, but someone who is older now and wants to let loose, wants to be goofy because she's at a point in her career where she can be.  Clearly, she's not great at comedy.  Can't we just look at her at someone who is maybe terrified of being this personal with millions of people, this goofy, but she's doing it anyway?  Why do we need to ridicule that?

After the response this speech has received, can you blame her for waiting this long to publicly address the gay thing?  And Deb Baer thinks she should've come out sooner so she could've saved some kids' lives.  But Deb Baer isn't really helping matters by ridiculing her for coming out "too late."  What are we teaching the kids we say we are trying to help?  That sincerity is for suckers.  That unless you are courageous at the right time, we will mock the hell out of you for telling the truth.  

Can't we just be kind to one another?  Can't we just support this woman who just did something that was difficult for her, even if we think she's silly to be that afraid of it?  Can't we just celebrate that she finally feels okay to talk about this, that she's finally comfortable enough with herself and her life to share it a little bit?  What becomes clearer to me every day that passes in my life is that above everything else, we just need to take care of one another.  

I'm starting to think maybe I should just quit the internet.

Postcards from Parenthood: School Supplies and the Apocalypse

Little Bee started daycare this week. Over the weekend, I thought that I should buy her a lunch box, but then the logical buzzkill in me decided that was ridiculous, she’s 10 months old, she doesn’t need a lunch box.

Turns out, she needs a lunch box. I was a little too excited to head to Target on Monday to pick one up for her. I originally imagined an old school metal square lunch box, but the daycare provider suggested more of a fabric-cooler type lunch box, so I thought for sure I wouldn’t be able to find anything cute.

BOY WAS I WRONG.

Gina also mentioned to me that I should pick her up a little backpack, and my first thought was of pure love that Gina was indulging my ridiculous love of school supplies, because why the hell would a 10 month old need a backpack? For 100% cuteness potential, that’s why! I was shopping with a friend who has a 3 year old and another one on the way, and I was telling her about how great it was that Gina was encouraging me to buy her a backpack, and I said, “You know, because she’s gonna need something to carry her stuff in back and forth from daycare!” My friend said, “Like what stuff?” … Um… Well, she has two changes of clothes that stay at daycare, along with diapers, wipes, and diaper rash cream… so … um… “Oh… um… I don’t know. Maybe she doesn’t need a backpack…”

Target’s selection was laughable anyway, so I didn’t get one for her. When I got home, I was excited to tell Gina I didn’t buy a backpack, that I resisted the urge, because after all, she doesn’t need one! She’s a baby! …to which Gina said, “But she DOES need one. The daycare provider keeps an emergency backpack for each of the kids.”

Nuts.

So the next day (yesterday), I managed to find her a character-free backpack and a mini flashlight, which was one of the items on the list for the backpack.

The other items:

A Two-Day Supply of the Following: 

• Shirt/Pair of Pants; small hat, pair of socks, shoes 
• Lite (gah! Lite?!) sweater/emergency blanket 
• Diapers (4) and pair of gloves 
• Bottle of water 
• Emergency food (non-perishable) 
• Pacifier, transition objects 
• Bottle and formula 
• Emergency card with important contacts 

As we started putting the backpack together, all I could think of was what horrible thing might happen that would require her to need these things. Despite the fact that she doesn’t walk (which justified not putting shoes in the bag), I pictured her walking, in a pair of dirty socks, with the backpack (which is just a little smaller than a normal backpack) on her shoulders, dwarfing her, wearing stained, mismatched emergency clothes and hat, her face layered with grime, heading down a desolate Los Angeles city street with her teachers and her other little friends, in some sort of apocalyptic scene where everything is gray… and she’s looking around for us, and just barely trusting the adults she’s with, and they’re all so grateful that they have their emergency rations of pureed carrots and pears…

And then I started wondering - would anyone notice if I just made myself a little joey patch and carried her around with me everywhere I went?

Niece sleepovers

My 2-year-old niece Madelyn has been coming to stay with us anywhere between 1 and 3 weekends a month. We love spending time with her - we actually fostered her for the first 6 months of her life (more on that later), so we have a bit of a special bond with her and cherish the time we get to spend with her now that she's full time at home with her mama. Her mama (my sister Jackie) went back to school this week and needed some help with childcare, so Maddie came to stay with us for a couple of nights.

She's a co-sleeper, which (for those of you non-parents out there) means she doesn't sleep in her own bed, she sleeps with her mom. There are million arguments out there for and against this, and I really have very little judgment for co-sleeping or not co-sleeping. For the record, she co-sleeps because she doesn't have her own room, and because when she was a baby, she only would fall asleep while being held. It's kind of a slippery slope from there.

Anyway - she co-sleeps, which means when she comes to stay with us, she sleeps in our bed with us. This was kind of cute (albeit nerve-wracking) when she was a baby, but she just turned 2 (!!) last week, so she's no longer a chubby little baby, and is instead now very much a kid, with long arms and long legs, feet suddenly too big for her body, and most importantly, strong, developing muscles. She sleeps in between us and doesn't like to be covered, so if the covers touch her while she's sleeping, she'll kick and kick until they are off. She'll also twist and contort her body into positions that can't possibly be comfortable, positions that involve the three of us forming a letter "H" on the bed. Needless to say, the only one out of the three of us that gets a good night sleep is Maddie. Gina and I are left to figure out how best to maximize the very small amount of space she leaves us on either side of the bed. The toddler rolls, flips, sits up, turns, shifts, fidgets all night, constantly needing to feel the body of someone next to her. We wake up cranky, she wakes up excited for the day.

Finally, last night, we realized we can't all three sleep comfortably in the bed, so Gina volunteered to take the couch and give Maddie and I the bed. It's kind of a catch 22 - with the couch, you get to sleep by yourself, but it's not the most comfortable couch in the world, so you still might not get a good night's sleep. I thought for sure with just Maddie and I in the bed, we'd be fine and I'd get a great night's sleep.

When we finally got Maddie to calm down enough to go to bed (at 11:30pm!), she got into bed without argument. Once I shut the light off, she took her pillow, set it on my stomach, slapped it a few times, and laid her head down, so that half of her body was on me and half of her body was on the bed. I was exhausted. All I wanted to do was sleep, and with a 27 pound kid leaning on me, it wasn't likely to happen quickly. I thought back to every night no one forced her to sleep on her own, every night that led us to this moment, where she can't sleep on her own in a bed. I thought how this was only going to get worse the older (and heavier) she got.

When I knew she was sleeping, I carefully lifted her off of me and put her in her own space in the bed. She didn't argue - instead, she curled toward me, sighed contentedly, put her arm on my arm and, still sleeping, gently patted me with her chubby little hand. She slept nuzzled near me almost the entire night (except the part where she actually fell off the bed, which I knew would happen - she just whimpered and fell back asleep as soon as I picked her back up). I still didn't get a great night's sleep, but having this little kid smelling faintly of oatmeal shampoo so near me all night, feeling her little hand pat me almost like she was comforting me, and being able to feel her soft freshly-dry curls against my shoulder all night - it was better than any full night's sleep could ever be. I know there will come a day when she will no longer smile broadly and run to me when she sees me, where she will no longer reach for me to hug her, and no longer pat me gently with her hands. She won't always wrap her arms around my leg, and she definitely won't always sleep in bed with me when she sleeps over. When I look at her and think about all of these things, it's then that the sleep doesn't matter, and I'm just intoxicated in the intensity and beauty of now. Right. Now.

**A rare solo-nap, splayed out.

Postcards from Parenthood: Flying the Friendly Skies

It was only five years ago that I genuinely enjoyed flying. I was amazed that human ingenuity had figured out a way for 300 people to be contained in an aluminum tube and for that tube to be able to make its way to 30,000 feet and stay there for hours on end, landing on the other side of the country or even the earth. I would get goosebumps on takeoff and landing, sometimes fighting back happy tears that I was lucky enough to live this life.

Not surprisingly, that changed pretty quickly after I started traveling for work. After about 6 months of flights that ranged from 1 to 17 hours, and in quick succession, I realized that not only did I not like flying, I loathed it. It got so bad that the smell of LAX was enough to make me nauseous. I eventually took a break from traveling, but the whole flying experience has never been the same for me. I look at it as a giant inconvenience that threatens to catapult my blood pressure and thin my patience to a dangerous level.

I knew flying with our then-9 month old foster daughter would be somewhat challenging. But we had practice last summer when we flew with our then-9 month old niece Madelyn. She was a fussy kid, but she was so great on the flight. Our little bee is such a pleasant kid, so we were a little concerned that the flight would change that. We were right to be concerned.

We took six flights for our "vacation" this year. Our flight from LAX to Pittsburgh connected in Newark. Our flight from Pittsburgh to Myrtle Beach connected in Charlotte. And our flight from Myrtle Beach to LAX connected in Atlanta. She did so well on almost all of these flights, even on the first one when a guy who I thought was drunk passed out right in the aisle next to us. She woke up from her slumber, confused, dazed, and looking like a junkie - glassy, unfocused eyes and messy hair - but she handled it and eventually fell back asleep. It was the flight from Atlanta to Los Angeles where she decided this flying thing was BULLSHIT and does everyone know how much this sucks or is it just me?

The brilliance of her decision to misbehave on the flight from Atlanta was two-fold. One, gina and I were in completely different parts of the plane. The people next to gina wouldn't switch with me because they were a couple and had been traveling for a long time and were just so tired (boo-hoo). The girl next to me was about 17 and was traveling with her parents, but her parents were a few rows up, so I thought for sure she'd switch with gina and the baby. I asked her, explaining that my partner was in the back with our 9 month old kid and would she mind switching, even though I understand it would be an inconvenience because the seat is in the back of the plane? She simply said, "I'd rather not." Thanks, bitch. So gina and I were separated for the entirety of the flight, and you can't cut a baby in half, so we had to take turns being on our own with her.

(Here's the thing - I fly a lot for work, and I understand it sucks to be in the back of the plane. If a newly married couple or a duo of girlfriends asks me to switch to sit in the back of the plane, my answer is always no. But when there is a baby involved, it's just plan rude to split up the parents. Period.)

Two, the flight was FULL of children. I was in a row with the 17 year old snot face and another girl, a newlywed who didn't get to sit by her husband. Gina took the first round with the baby, so I was alone and quiet up there with the 17 year old brat and newlywed. As the flight attendants were making their announcements, it sounded like an elementary school lunch room on the plane - just a loud general child din. Obviously this is not ideal, but I have no beef with loud kids on planes. Seat-kicking is another thing altogether (not okay), but kids are loud, it's fine. Well, crabass 17 year old and newlywed were talking about how many kids there were on the plane and they were sighing and rolling their eyes about how they hope it's a quiet flight. I thought, just you wait, bitch.

The entire row behind mine was taken up by a family. Two parents and five children, one of which was a lap child (who is supposed to be under 2 years of age) who was CLEARLY no younger than 3 1/2 years old. They were loud and annoying, and the guy across the aisle from me was annoyed by them from the minute he sat down. Lots of heavy sighing and eye rolling. I smiled and couldn't wait to bring up little bee to sit with me, so there would be MORE children to annoy him.

For about 30 minutes of the first 2 hours of the flight, little bee slept on gina's lap. I knew this without even seeing her, because the rest of the 90 minutes of those first two hours, I could hear her yelling and crying. Halfway through the flight, I went to relieve gina, took the baby back up to my seat. Little bee was over it. Done. Would NOT sit still, fussed, bitched, complained, and I let her. I told her out loud, "You cry as much as you want to, kid. This sucks being on this plane." She kept kicking Spoiled Teenager McGillis next to me, and I never once apologized. I did my best to keep her in my space and away from everyone, but when she did cause a fuss, I never said anything. Screw you guys!

The guy across the aisle from me finally turned around to the family behind us and yelled at the father, telling him he needs to control his kids, "I'm just trying to get to Los Angeles here, and you're ruining this flight!" The father laughed and said, "Maybe you should've taken a private jet." Grumpy guy was all, "I paid for my seat and those are not my kids, I shouldn't have to deal with them, they're YOUR kids." The flight attendant came over and spoke to the guy like he was a five year old, and tried to smooth things over ("Okay sir, did you ask him nicely to keep his children quiet?"). The whole thing was just so ridiculous - I already had my statement prepared if he turned to me and complained about my baby. I'll share it here since he didn't say anything to me and I didn't get to use it:

"You think you're miserable? She's a baby. She didn't choose to come on this flight. She has no idea what's going on. All she wants to do is roll around and play. The difference here is, you're an adult and should have the capability to deal with stressful situations. She's a baby, and hasn't learned that yet." Just try me, Grumpy Guy!

I said two things to gina when we got off the plane: "Thank God we will never have to fly again with her at this age," and later, "I can't wait to go back to work."

Where did YOU go on YOUR summer vacation?

Returning

Hello everyone, and welcome back to my little corner of the interwebs. I know some at least one of you have has missed me, and I do apologize for my absence. Instead of harping on that, let's talk about my plans for this space.

I've been blogging since about 2004, and the reason I always liked it was because it got me writing. As I look through my archives, dating back to when I was 25 (!!), I realize that this blog has been a great way for me to chronicle my life, a little spot for me to look back and remember things that become so easily forgotten. They might not be worth remembering to others, but they are to me, and I've always kept a blog for my own use and not with hopes of monetizing or profiting.

So what can you expect from this space? I realize a lot of bloggers look for their "voice," or try to capitalize on their "brand." Well, I don't really know what my voice sounds like or what my brand looks like, so for now, here's what you will see here:

--Anything and everything on my radar. Television, books, movies, popular culture, maybe some unpopular culture (although I'm probably not cool enough to know about the unpopular culture), politics, Los Angeles, Ohio, aunthood, parenthood (yep), writing, producing, comedy, podcasts, music, college football...and whatever else I'm thinking of. There's no theme here, people - just Katie's head.

--Labels - I hope to be diligent about labeling all of these posts so they are easily accessible on this page to anyone who might want to read about a certain topic.

--There will be an entry some point in the near future explaining my two-year hiatus from this space.

What is my goal for this space? I've been a writer since I was in 2nd grade. It's been the one thing I've been told consistently I'm good at, and whenever I feel like my life is lacking, I always think, "I should be writing more." I'm not saying this is the space I SHOULD be writing in, but this is a start, and I hope to use this space to unlock my creativity in my own personal writing, writing that I might actually try to get published some day.

I'm not going to proclaim some lofty goal of posting every day, but I feel like a goal of three times a week is an achievable one. It's easy to be great at setting unattainable goals, but it takes a stronger sense of self to set attainable ones, so let's start at 3 posts a week. I hope that's enough to keep you coming back for more, because while the main point of this space is for me to remember things and get back on track writing-wise, I also love sharing my thoughts with YOU and hearing your thoughts back. Also, there is a part of me that has a fear of sharing certain things, but I am starting to realize I'll never get to where I want to be if I'm not honest with myself, and what better way is there to hold myself accountable than to put my thoughts and goals out there for you to read and judge? (Or perhaps I just like being ridiculed? Not sure.)

Thanks in advance for stopping in to say hi. And please, if there is anything I can do to make your katieeverybody blog experience more enjoyable, let me know. I'm not sure how much I will be willing to or even know HOW to change, but I would love to hear your thoughts.

-k.

School's out

I left Ohio ten years ago this past July. It was only a couple of years ago that I finally realized you really can never go home, and that the small town I was expecting to see when I visited just wasn't there anymore... on one hand, it remained the same boring place, full of churches and gas stations and not much else... but on the other hand, it seemed there was nothing familiar about it. Too much time had passed... people had moved on and made the town something it wasn't when I lived there. It took me being gone a long time to realize this happens to everyone's hometown. The longer you're away from it, the less it is yours anymore.


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Currently, in my hometown of Hubbard, Ohio, they are putting the finishing touches on a brand new high school. There are four schools in Hubbard: a parochial K-8 school, and the public elementary, middle, and high schools. Once the high school is complete, they'll tear down the old high school to make room for the new middle school. Then they'll tear down told middle school to make room for the new elementary school. It'll be a convenient campus, with access to pretty much anything a student could want. (Gone are the days of walking from the middle school to the adjacent community pool for swim classes in the middle of winter, and walking back to the middle school with frozen hair.)

We recently spent a week in Ohio and I drove past the new high school and mid-demolition old high school. I'm surprised to be full of emotion about this. My parents both went to the old high school. I went there, and so did both of my sisters. When I was younger, I always imagined sending my kids there when I grew up. (Note: not in a million years would I send my kids to Hubbard schools now, mainly because I'd have to live in Hubbard to do so. Oy.) I was nostalgic about the whole thing before I saw the school being torn down. But what really got me was seeing the band room with the windows blown out.

Gina and I met in band in the summer of 1992. We both played saxophone. (She was a cool band kid - I was not.) I loved being in band. I have so many good memories in that band room, vivid memories, but not vivid enough. It was always comforting to think that the band room would always be there for me to visit. My strongest connection to high school is with the band room, but the truth is, I loved every bit of that school. I had a great time, and learned a lot about myself in those four years. I laughed A LOT there, and met people who would become lifelong friends. I had teachers who I still think about to this day, teachers who changed the way I think about myself and the world. (I certainly had a lot of crappy teachers too... it wasn't all sunshine and roses.) To experience such a visible, tangible destruction of part of my past has been weird, to be perfectly honest. It's crazy to think all of that will be gone.

They had an open house of the school before they began demolition last spring. Of course, we couldn't go because well, we live in Los Angeles and Hubbard is not nearby.


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I was sad to miss it, but I'm old enough to know that walking through those hallways one last time won't elicit the feeling I'd be expecting. And the truth is, I know that school so well, I have it mapped out so vividly in my mind, what would one more walkthrough do? It reminds me of the scene in the series finale of Six Feet Under, where Claire is getting ready to leave home and she gets the family together for a picture, and Nate comes up behind her and says, "You can't take a picture of this... it's already gone."

So it's good. Out with the old, in with the new. Besides, I have gina, who I can say without a doubt is my favorite memory from high school.

Six years of blog entries; no comments.

Ah, I'm a saver of things. I never got a lot of comments on this blog, but I was happy to read every single one. And now, they're all gone. Bye-bye!

I'm trying to get back on my own personal blog train, but this isn't encouraging. LAME!

Lesson

Me, before gay pride last weekend: "I can have fun without alcohol!"

Me, after gay pride: "No, no I cannot."

A very casual observer's opinions on the oil spill

I can’t even watch the footage of the oil spill. Except for one crab and one bird, I have carefully avoided shots of wildlife affected by the spill. I’ve seen the Spill Cam, and I’ve seen the satellite imagery of how large the spill is. Beyond this, I avoid visual coverage of it.

It’s frustrating to me that people are comparing Obama’s reaction to the spill to Bush’s reaction to Katrina. Just because two catastrophes happen in the same place doesn’t mean they’re the same. Bush’s administration was quite unaware of what Katrina had done until days after the hurricane hit. Americans were left to die in New Orleans while the government scrambled to help. There was a humanitarian crisis on our hands the size of which this country had not seen in a very long time.

Is the oil spill as catastrophic? It depends on your idea of catastrophe, but I would argue to say that yes, it’s just as catastrophic. It will affect the area for probably much longer than Katrina has and will. The Gulf is most likely forever changed because of this spill. It’s heartbreaking to think of the ramifications – the animals affected, the economy and jobs that will be affected. It’s terrible.

With Katrina, there was no one responsible but the government. Mother Nature smacked us in the face, and we depend on our government to take care of us when stuff like that happens. This BP disaster was a terrible accident, and while I won’t assign blame, there was and is a company whose job it is to fix it. I would say it’s the government’s responsibility to make sure that the company is fixing it, but ultimately, it’s up to BP to fix this. And it looks like they have, thank God. I don’t understand WHAT THE HELL TOOK SO LONG, but I also know I don’t know anything about oil drilling – I would imagine it’s pretty complicated. (I have to wonder why they don’t have a solid plan in place should disasters like this happen… perhaps this is where government can really shine – forcing oil companies to figure out a way to stop something like this right away the next time it happens…)

I don’t understand people rushing to blame Obama for this. It seems like the people who are blaming the Obama administration are the same people who think government involvement is generally a bad idea. Also, adding a jab to the left side of the spectrum, I don’t agree with people yelling at Obama saying, SEE, THIS IS WHY WE SHOULDN’T DRILL IN OUR WATERS! Those are MY people saying that, democrats, liberals, etc. How about instead of yelling about not drilling, we come up with an answer for this global oil-dependence crisis? How about us Americans come up with a way to be less dependent on OIL in general, foreign AND domestic? If oil drilling is so terrible, we need to figure out another way to power our cars – plain and simple.

If anything, I think this spill should serve as a wake-up call that we are destroying our planet with our complacency. We should be encouraging children to study science and math and come up with a way to end our dependence on oil. This is not good enough – it needs to be better. And no one is going to fix it but us.

I used to not even watch TV.

I'm beginning to wonder if the reason I don't have anything to post is because I'm too busy watching TV to have a life to write about.

To that end, here is my TV/pop culture round-up, just in time for season finale month.

1. Glee - I really do love this show - so much that we went to see them on tour. The live show was GREAT, and I'm still on board, but really you guys? You have Idina and Lea, two of the most beautiful Broadway voices, and you have them sing Poker Face? I liked it, but there are so many other GREAT SONGS out there they could've sung! Sigh.

2. Brothers & Sisters - I was all set to NOT watch this show anymore up until the last 10 minutes of the finale. Damn you, bad-writing-but-good-last-ten-minutes!

3. American Idol - Crystal. (Although I think Lee is dreamy.)

4. Nurse Jackie - ARE YOU WATCHING THIS SHOW?! If the answer is no, you should be ashamed of yourself.

5. Modern Family - Might be the best show on television right now. Eric Stonestreet kills it every week, in a good way.

6. United States of Tara - This show has hit its stride, if you ask me. I like how there are less scenes with the alters this season. It was getting a little annoying and felt like I was in a speech competition. If you were on speech team, you know what I mean.

7. Parenthood - Okay, if Modern Family is the best comedy on television, Parenthood is the best hour-long drama. This show is everything I wanted it to be... although I admit, I'm still left thinking what the show would be if Maura Tierney were on it instead of Lauren Graham. Love Lauren Graham... but it would've been different. Better? I'm not sure. Different. And Mae Whitman is incredible, although I just now realized her name is unfortunately similar to a certain GOP candidate for Governor.

8. Parks and Recreation - I love what they've done with this show in the few seasons it's been on the air. They are knocking it out of the park right now. Andy is my favorite.

9. 30 Rock - This show is not as accessible as Modern Family, but ranks as high in my book comedy-wise. The comedy is arguably smarter on 30 Rock, and I have a huge crush on Tina Fey... although it probably has more to do with wanting to BE her than wanting to... uh... DO her.

10. Friday Night Lights! We don't have DirecTV, so this season that's airing on NBC right now is new to us. We're loving it, although I miss seeing the really good Panther football. I have a feeling it won't be long before East Dillon shows us some good stuff too.

11. LOST - I have been thinking about the finale pretty much non-stop since Sunday night. I have gone from being "meh" about it, to being REALLY ANGRY ABOUT IT, and I'm now sort of moving into respecting it and almost liking it. I could probably write a whole post about just Lost, but suffice it to say that I don't think it was the right ending for the show... that's not say it was bad, but it just didn't seem appropriate. Still - the more I think about it, the more I understand and respect it. Besides, it's so much easier to like something than to develop a negative but informed opinion of it.

Hilarity

We had a 4.4 earthquake this morning, but the local news in LA acted like it was armageddon, covering the small quake for the entirety of the morning newscast. Robert Kovacik is a local anchor, and while he was interviewing people this morning, my gaydar went off, so I tweeted this:



I was kind of surprised to see this email in my inbox once I got to work:



His auto-follow bot might want to be a little more selective.

Corey Haim, addiction, and facebook

Hey guys, did you hear Corey Haim died?!

That's my attempt at humor in this post, because the rest of it will not be funny.

I sometimes think I should cancel my facebook account, because so much of what people put on there makes me so angry. Then I talk myself off the ledge and remind myself that I can just block certain people. But facebook has really become a reminder to me of how hateful and ignorant people are, and that's not something I think should be ignored.

Someone I'm friends with on facebook updated their status yesterday with something along the lines of, "Oh boo hoo, Corey Haim overdosed. Come ON, when you do drugs, you die! Get over it!" (I've omitted the horrific spelling errors.) Her point is that people are dying of cancer, people are dying in the war, why are we sad when someone dies of an overdose? Now we're gonna hear about the overdose for weeks and we won't hear anything about any soldiers dying!

A few reminders:

-America is a culture obsessed with celebrity. You can't get around it if you want to live in this country.

-Death is sad. It also serves as a reminder of our own mortality. This is also sad for some people. And that's okay.

-Addiction is a disease. If he was taking enough pills to accidentally overdose, it sounds to me like he was an addict. And the very definition of addiction includes loss of control. I would argue that most people don't choose to become addicts. But once you're an addict, it's pretty difficult to choose to be sober. Yes, it's a disease that started with a choice, a choice to do drugs, and yes, it's a disease over which you can ultimately choose to have control, but that control does not come easily. To say an addict "should die" is insensitive and ignorant, and shows an utter lack of perspective on the world at large.

In the words of the Indigo Girls, "Who are you to speak for God?"

Kindle, you can blame the Scholastic Book Club.

Some of my favorite days in elementary and middle school were the days the Scholastic Book Club order form came out. I would notice the shrink-wrapped stack of newsprint sitting, without fanfare, on the teacher's desk. I didn't know when the form would make its appearance, but I could guarantee that at some point during that day or week, the teacher would open that packet up and start passing out the four-page leaflet to me and my classmates. This was usually a "put this in your folder and show it to your parents" moment, but I could never help but sneak a glance at all of the books the leaflet had to offer, books I would have never heard about had it not been for this little newsletter. And because it had the word "club" on the front, it felt like I was part of a very exclusive, underground gang of young readers, anxious to gobble up any book available.

The form would eventually wind up in my backpack, and I would feel frustration rise up when I got home and opened my backpack to find the form had become crumpled. Still, I would flatten it out on top of a text book and grab a pen, when pens were cool because we weren't allowed to use them in school, and I would carefully read the description of each book, circling the ones I wanted. Now, about seven times out of ten, my mom would sadly inform me that we couldn't afford to get new books this time, but I still wanted to circle the ones I wanted, as though I were starting my own little book list at 10 years old. But there were those three times out of ten that Scholastic Book Club coincided with my dad getting a paycheck full of overtime, or thanks be to God, it came right around tax-refund time when my mom would buy us steak for dinner. And those times are what I remember more, even though I rarely was able to get every book I wanted. It didn't matter - I got to pick which books I wanted more than other books, and I got to fill out the order form and go to school the next day with a check! for something I wanted.

My tweenager mind would often forget that I had submitted the order, so the day when the books came was an even more magical day, a bigger surprise (and a much bigger disappointment if I was unable to order books that round). I would notice the box of books, and I knew that the teacher would not distribute them until the end of class. This made the class drag on forever, and I would be eyeing the clock on the wall with intensity and fervor, noticing when it was seven minutes from the end of class, five minutes from the end, three minutes... come on, we're not going to have time! Finally, the moment would come, and the teacher would pass out the stacks of books. Usually the books came with a sticker or a bookmark, and always came with another order form, just in case your teacher didn't have the next month's order form, you could order on your own! The books were colorful and cool to the touch, and they smelled new. There was little better to me than the smell of a new book, except maybe the smell of more than one new book.

I would say that this is when my tactile response to books began, but it probably started earlier, with the first book I learned to read, "I Am a Bunny." I can't remember the words exactly to the book, but I remember with clarity my copy of the book, a cardboard copy, worn from use and duct-taped together, with the stickiness of the duct tape finding its way all over the book, not just at the binding. And as I think about it now, it seems like it's consistent for me to remember the way a book looks and feels more than what's actually in the book. I can see clearly the cover of "Island of the Blue Dolphin," "Hatchet," and "Sixth Grade Sleepover," but I can't really remember what those books were about.

This tactile element of reading has never left me, and I like to collect books. I like to actually have them in my possession to re-visit them. I'm not a big library customer. The best part about the internet is that I can order books and order them cheaply. I've embraced all sorts of technology that seems to make life easier and less cluttered - I've done away with all of my jewel cases and have my CDs stored neatly in a CD book - I don't even buy real CDs anymore - bills are paid solely online, and personal mail is non-existent unless it's in my email inbox. I embrace all of this.

When Kindle came out, it seemed like something I'd be all over. 1500 books at the touch of your hand?! YES PLEASE! But the more I thought about it, the more I started to wonder if I lost the element of the physical book, would I really remember that I read the book? Would I remember the time in my life the book corresponds with? Yes, my nightstand would be less cluttered, and I would probably read more, but books to me are more than just things that take up space. They are memories. They are photographs that I want displayed so that I can remember how I've grown and how I've changed. I want to be able to pick them up and leaf through them, to feel the wind as the pages fly past my fingers while I look for the excerpt that I underlined or highlighted, or simply remember reading. And I want my kids (when I have them) to hold all of those books when I'm gone, and to read them and experience them in their own way, in their own time, while my fingerprints and pen marks remain throughout the pages. Immortality with books isn't reserved for authors - it can also include the owners and readers of the books, and I simply feel like I would be missing out on something significant by switching to electronic text solely. I might change my mind someday, but for now, I'll deal with the clutter.