Told you it wasn’t pretty.
On the road I pass lots of other carbodies, all of us doing the same thing. Moms in packed minivans, sales reps with full closets in the back seat, lawyers writing on pads on the dashboard. They talk on phones or text like crazy. Once I saw someone smoking a cigarette, opening a pack of Trident, and driving at 70 mph. It was like watching someone juggle an axe, a gun, and a bazooka.
I always put makeup on in the car, since it has a great magnifying mirror, and I keep the mascara and blush in the glove box so it won’t melt. Then I started moisturizing my legs in the car, and I pack the car moisturizer with two pairs of sunglasses, one prescription and one not, plus reading glasses, a spare pair of contact lens and big bottle of ReNu solution, so that my console is now my Eye & Beauty Centre.
I added my puppy, Little Tony, to the traveling circus, and he wowed the crowds at my signings and sold books like hot-cakes. I pimped him out mercilessly. It’s the least he can do, after I bought him a foreskin.
Those babies ain’t cheap.
Little Tony has his own seat next to mine, and his own side of the car with his dog toys (plastic keys and Nylabones), bottle of water (Dasani) with paper cup (generic), snuggly blanket (adorable), and spare kibble (overpriced bullshiz). Still, it’s nice to have a man around the house.
Last week, daughter Francesca and her puppy Pip came along for the ride, and soon my car house was bursting with mascara, kibble, and Snuggie blankets. Francesca rode around with two puppies on her lap, plus a chicken salad and drive-thru lemon cake. But in Arlington, Virginia, the air-conditioning broke down and the navigation system went on the fritz. The carhouse was melting down, and our road trip had come to an end.
On the way home, the car was quiet as we drove past the Washington Monument, all lit up, at twilight. It was a perfect white spire reaching heavenward, before a sky deepening to the hue of fresh blueberries and an orange moon proud as a newly minted penny.
“Check it,” I said to Francesca.
But she was already looking.
Only the dogs missed it.
They were sleeping with their mouths open.
Heavy Cable
I give up. I admit it. I flunk multi-tasking.
Here’s when I figured it out, finally:
I was in a hotel room watching MSNBC, as political pundits massaged an endless loop of the same election news. And at the bottom of the screen there were white banners with short phrases, evidently intended to explain the obvious, like OBAMA SPEAKING TO CROWD and MCCAIN LEAVING PLANE. Under the white banners was “the crawl,” a moving line of script that reported the events of the day, from whoever hit the last homerun in Cincinnati to the stock market in Tokyo to new evidence that pomegranates aren’t all they’re cracked up to be. I tried to focus on the pundits but the crawl kept distracting me, and then five minutes later I was distracted even from the crawl by a bright red banner that came on and said BREAKING NEWS.
But BREAKING NEWS doesn’t fool me anymore.
I used to stop dead when BREAKING NEWS came on the screen, dropping my dishcloth in alarm. Now, I know better. Everybody who watches TV eventually figures out that BREAKING NEWS is neither breaking nor news. BREAKING NEWS is easily the most oversold phrase in the universe, after SUPPLY LIMITED and my personal favorite, LOSE FIVE POUNDS WITHOUT DIET OR EXERCISE!
To get back to my point, what happened was that I was trying to watch the pundits but I had to ignore the BREAKING NEWS banner, and the crawl was telling me something about a tornado in the Midwest, and I starting thinking about nice Midwestern people losing their homes and how they really deserved the BREAKING NEWS banner and not the crawl, which seemed like a demotion, and then I wondered if their insurance had been paid, which lead me to wondering if my insurance had been paid, and then what if there was a tornado that leveled my house and by the way, do I really want yellow shutters? I mean, who has yellow shutters?
BREAKING NEWS: CHOCOLATE CAKE IS DELICIOUS.
That was my chain of thought, and before you can say Benjamin Moore, one of the pundits had disenfranchised the voters of Florida, one of whom was my mother. Between us, I knew she wouldn’t be happy about that. If my mother leaves the kitchen, she wants it to count.
BREAKING NEWS: IT’S GOOD TO HAVE FEET.
But the point is that I had lost track of what was going on because I was trying to ignore the BREAKING NEWS banners and trying to read the crawl, and then I tried to take in all three at the same time, which was impossible. Even if I managed to ignore the fake BREAKING NEWS, I got only the gist of the tornados and the gist of the primaries, and they both seemed like natural disasters.
I can’t do two things at once, much less three.
I had the same problem last week, when I did my grocery shopping while I was on the cell phone. It seemed to be an efficient use of time, and I was continuing a conversation I had been having while I drove, which by the way, was hands-free. The only problem was that I went into the store for eggs, light cream, and romaine lettuce, and came out of the store, albeit hands-free, with the wrong kind of cream, a hunk of cheddar cheese, and spinach in a plastic box.
So I have to face the fact that I can’t multi-task anymore. I used to be able to, but somewhere along the line, I lost my multitasking mojo. In a world of BlackBerries, cell phones, Sidekicks, and iPods, I don’t know what to do about it.
I have to do more than one thing at once, or I won’t get everything done. And I can’t do away with my electronic toys, because I need them too much. For example, when Francesca was away at school, I loved sending her photos of the dogs from my BlackBerry, like the time Penny discovered the sunroof.
And daughter Francesca sends me cell phone photos when she’s trying to decide which dress to buy, so I can see her wearing both. I don’t think that’s what shop-by-phone meant originally, but women are good at finding innovative ways to buy things.
We all know that our kids are texting, IMing, and calling each other all the time, bringing them closer to each other and making them happier, which is a good thing. And the devices can be lifesavers—calling for directions in a pinch or texting to find your kid, brother, and mother in a graduation crowd of 35,000.
So what’s the answer?
BREAKING NEWS: THERE ARE NO ANSWERS.
Pillow Talk
One of the great things about getting older is that you’re tired enough to fall asleep, all the time. Or maybe it’s that you realize you’re not missing anything if you nod off. You know that it will all be there when you wake up, for good or ill. This might be called perspective.
Or laziness.
For example, I never used to be able to take a nap, but now I’m a big fan. I love naps. When I told a friend about this, she called them power naps. She said, “After you take one, you can work harder.”
Not exactly.
To me, the term “power nap” is an oxymoron. I don’t take power naps. I take out-of-power naps.
I don’t nap to work harder. I nap because I’m tired and I need to lie down.
I used to have all manner of sleep quirks. I couldn’t sleep at night unless the room was completely dark, absolutely quiet, or if there was a man next to me.
Then I got over it. My second divorce cured me.
Nowadays I have no curtains on my bedroom windows, and daylight streams in at dawn, but it doesn’t wake me. Nothing wakes me, these days. Here is a true story—a few years ago, a fire broke out in a field next door to my house, and it took ten firetrucks all night to extinguish. I slept through it. Why?
I was tired.
But I relapsed on book tour, in different hotel rooms for four weeks, and I got to thinking that I couldn’t sleep unless it was dark. Hotels have those double curtains; you know the ones, the top curtain made of some lovely fabric and behind it the secret curtain, made of gray impermeable rubber to block out light, noise, and nuclear war.
I closed the curtains, using that weird plastic wand, went to bed, and settled down. Th
en I noticed the flashing red lights on the fire detector and my BlackBerry. The phosphorescent glow of the digital clock. The red switch of a surge protector. The ghostly whiteness from the bathroom nightlight. The hall light spilling under the door. The bright pinpoint of the laptop. The green of the thermostat.
Christmas in Room 373.
I got up and started unplugging things like crazy, turning over the BlackBerry, covering the thermostat with a towel, and tilting the alarm clock to the wall, but when I went back to bed, no dice. I reached for a pillow to burrow under, which was when I realized there were twenty-six of them on the bed. They were of all types and sizes; some were thick rolls like logs, and others were soft and square as ravioli.
I tried all the pillows, found some too hard and some too soft, then threw them off the bed like a latter-day Goldilocks, until I came to the widest and tallest pillow I’d ever seen, maybe six feet long and two feet wide. I turned on the light and called the front desk, “What’s this big thing in my bed?”
“It’s an organic body pillow.”
Huh? For organic bodies? “What’s that?”
“Our guests love our body pillows. They hug them. It’s a sleep aid.”
“Really? Thanks.” I hung up, turned off the light, and flopped back down. After a minute, I leaned over and gave the body pillow an awkward hug. I admit it, I felt silly, looping an arm around an inanimate object. But it was kind of cuddly, and after a few minutes, it felt like a warm and friendly thing that I didn’t have to marry and divorce.
I named him George.
As in Clooney.
Luckily I was in town for two dreamy nights, during which George and I slept happily together. I snoozed like a baby. So did he. It was hard to leave him, but we vowed there would be no strings. We made no promises we couldn’t keep. When I had to move on, he didn’t ask me to stay. In fact, he said nothing. He couldn’t. He knew the way it was from the beginning.
I bet he’s already sleeping with someone else.
With the curtains closed.
Jitterbugging
The Flying Scottolines are zooming around everywhere, like protons spinning crazily out of control. I may be wrong on the science, but I think this why we just had a familial nuclear explosion.
It started because I’m on book tour, brother Frank is visiting daughter Francesca in NYC, and Mother Mary is left at home in Miami.
Alone.
Without a cell phone.
In other words, she could fall and not get up. No one would know but two toy Pomeranians.
I find this unacceptable. I’m not her daughter for nothing. Mother Mary raised me to understand that the American home is a perilous place and lethal accidents can happen at any time. I’m still afraid my blow dryer will jump in the sink and electrocute me. Also I could choke if I eat too fast. Plus if you read without enough light, you could go blind.
I warned you. Don’t come crying to me.
So you would think that she would understand my concern that she’s home alone, with no cell phone in case of emergency.
But no.
Mother Mary resists getting a cell phone, on reflex. She fought a battle over the second hearing aid, and this is World War III. Her arguments are many: She doesn’t need one. She won’t fall. If she falls, she wouldn’t want to get up right away, anyway. She could just lie there for a few days. It’s cool on the floor. Bottom line, it’s none of my business.
I rant, rave, and beg, but none of it works. I try scaring her. I tell her that if she didn’t have a cell phone and she fell, she could die.
I actually said, “Ma, you will DIE!”
That’s right, I threatened my own 84-year-old mother with the prospect of her own demise.
She said, “I’m not afraid of death. Death is afraid of me.” Finally I used my ultimate weapon. Guilt.
I told her, “You’re worrying me, when I have to do my job on the road. I can’t do my job because of you.”
So now she has a cell phone. Or more accurately, a Jitterbug, which is like a cell phone for mothers. Of course, we fought over it for so long that brother Frank is now home, but never mind. She has it and that’s good, though she doesn’t agree. She describes it as “very pretty” but she has already decided not to use it, ever again. The buttons are big so she can see them, and she’s supposed to wear it on a neck chain, but she won’t. She admits it’s easier than dialing the regular phone, but she hates it.
Let me tell you why.
Frank programmed it, then taught her how to answer and make a call. While he talked, she took notes in Gregg shorthand.
There is an irony to this, of course.
My mother was a secretary and always writes in shorthand, by habit. Most people don’t even know what shorthand is, nowadays. I tell them it’s like Swahili, without Africa.
Frank programmed five people on the Jitterbug’s speed dial—himself, daughter Francesca, cousins Jimmy and Nana, and me. There’s a big button for 911 and another for Operator, though I wonder how effective that can be. I tell my mother to forget the Operator button. I’m sure her call is important to them, but they will leave her to DIE.
Also let’s not worry about the fact that the phone has a Philly area code and she lives in Miami. I don’t want to think that the closest ambulance it calls is five days away.
Back to the story.
For their trial run, brother Frank told her to use the phone to call me and watched while she did it, with one gnarled finger placed purposefully on the button. But she seemed confused when the call connected. She said the phone wasn’t working and tried to hand it back to Frank, but he insisted she use it. She kept trying to hand it back. It almost came to fisticuffs.
“Just talk into it!” he said.
“I don’t know what to say,” said she.
“Tell her we finally got the Jitterbug!”
So she did, telling about the new phone and its features. Then she hung up and handed the phone back to Frank, disgusted. “Throw this away.”
“Why?”
“It didn’t call Lisa. It called somebody else.”
Frank checked the phone. He had programmed my number in wrong, off by a digit. So Mother Mary had called a complete stranger and told her all about the new phone. He informed her as much.
“Told you,” she said. “It sucks. It called some lady.”
“So why did you talk to her?”
“You made me.”
So for now, the phone remains in the wastebasket.
Life in the Middle Ages
I think I’m a woman “of a certain age,” though when I tried to find a definition of the term, I couldn’t. I checked online at dictionary.com, but it wasn’t there, so I gave up.
Which is so like a woman of a certain age.
We have perspective.
In other words, I think I know the definition and I’m going with it. It isn’t worth the time to look it up, especially when I could die at any minute.
Now, to begin.
I think a “woman of a certain age” means a woman in her fifties, though I’ve never heard the term applied to men in their fifties, which is odd. In any event, let’s say that today I’m writing for men and women of a certain age.
We’ll call it Life in the Middle Ages.
It’s a weird time in lots of ways, but here’s the way it’s weird today. I’m thinking lately about Mother Mary, living in Miami with brother Frank. By way of background, until fifteen years ago, she lived in the house I grew up in, about five minutes from my house. She babysat for daughter Francesca while I worked part-time for the federal courts, before I was a writer. Then, after I finally got published (after five years of rejection, but that’s another story), I stayed home, and my mother decided to move in with Frank.
We did talk about her living with me, but she thought my life was “too boring.” She said, “all you do is read and write,” which is true, except for the chicken part. Now, I feed chickens. I read, write, and feed chickens. I know it
sounds boring, but it’s my life’s dream. And it’s my blessing, or maybe my curse, to never be bored.
By anything.
Anyway, my mother lives down in Miami and she’s happy as a clam. Brother Frank has tons of friends, all of whom are very attentive to mommies, and my mother goes out to dinner and has fun. I can barely get her to visit me for a long stretch because she misses her life, house, and dogs. So our time together is over the telephone, and if I don’t call her for a few days, she’ll say when she answers:
“Hi, stranger.”
Or, “Who’s this?”
Then we’ll start talking about the weather or her eyes or who’s sick in the family and stuff like that. Again, it’s not boring, at least to me.
It’s our only connection. I hear her voice, and she’s hears mine. We laugh at things that only we think are funny, and every time we sign off, she says what she used to say before I went to bed—“pleasant dreams.” I like the phrase so much that I stole it and say it to Francesca. Now, at the end of the phone call, my mother says it to me because she knows I like to hear it. Even at two o’clock in the afternoon.
And even though I’m a woman of a certain age.
But recently, I found myself thinking that, some day, my phone will ring, and it won’t be Mother Mary. She has survived a world war and throat cancer, but one day, it will be Frank, calling me. And then he’ll tell me what he has to say.
That will be how I find out.
As unimaginable as it is, I find myself imagining it more and more, with dread. Mostly these thoughts come to me at night, and then I can’t sleep.
Pleasant dreams.
I don’t know how to prepare for that phone call, and I wouldn’t try even if I did. I’m just grateful for the time we have. After I finish this column, I’m going to call Mother Mary and hear her say: