sometimes it takes years to understand something

it took years for these trees to grow on Central Park South for me and my daughter to look up at and enjoy and for her to be of an age and acuity to snap the photo of the beautiful trees that took so long to grow.

Carnivore Study: Meat as currency

I come from a doctor's family. I've pretty much been taught to look at things empirically, scientifically. I see an MD psychiatrist. my brother is one too. I like to collect DATA and experiment with it. Not always very successfully. No sirree. My own son said to me the other day "mom you like to jump off a cliff where people have died and been splattered and see if you can "'make it work". Is that the artist side? I suspect scientists do this too, as they experiment and destroy on their way to discovering new antibiotics. But their journey is a controlled one with a goal and a grant. Mine's a bit more....chaotic. or as the kids would say "random"...as in "god, mom..that's random". they usually follow this up with "jeez, you are like SO bi-polar"....and ok, probably this proclivity toward destroying things reflects some lack of self esteem. again, as the kids might...DUH. but regardless...I just like to experiment and even fix things - which i did with the coffee maker yesterday, so there!) but i have a huuuuuugggggeeee (weird) desire to destroy things too. Like draw or paint the perfect nose, then add one little stroke that screws it up just to push the limit and just because i can and then see if i can draw it again. Analyze THAT.
anyway...per my recent inquiry into Jewish physiognomy vis a vis carnivorous behaviors....here's my mother. she never really had an aqualine nose to begin with. no bump or hook whatsoever. maybe just a tad longer than most to declare her eastern european roots. her nose was lovely. my mother was absolutely beautiful. and everyone told me so. they'd say "Your mother is so pretty. And you look just like your father." but my mother didn't FEEL pretty. and there was no photoshop in the 50s and 60s so there are tons of black and white photos of her gorgeous self where she's taken pencil and shortened her nose. and hollowed out her cheeks and redesigned her almond eyes. the graphite *almost* but not quite matches the greys of the old photos. but of course ultimately she was just doing it to see what she would tell the plastic surgeon. eventually she had her nose scooped out just a bit more and shortened just the way she thought she wanted it. it made me sad when she did this because i never thought there was anything wrong with her native nose. but this was very common in the 60s and 70s and 80s and 90s and 2000s. i can spot a nose job on a jewish woman the way an eskimo can spot a snowball on a glacier. and when my downright aqualine nose was popping out of my teen face at a different pace then my undersized pin head and wide womanly hips and i looked nothing like my pretty mom who had exactly the opposite body and i'd say mom my nose is big and she'd say well, you can fix it and somehow that didn't quite make me feel better. then she'd sing to me: You've got the hips that sink the ships from London France and Peru...and if you're gonna tell me boy, she's my waterloo..." And i've tried to sing similar songs to my own children as i witness their painful lack of synchronicity - the sweet things are ugly and deformed one month and then beautiful and "synced up" the next, and then when the nose is finally proportioned to the face the pimples or the eczema flares up to ruin the canvas....) so back to the Carnivore study. here's bubbie. my darling mom in her sparkly pink-logoed Adidas tee shirt/uniform with the faded denim, elastic wasted Pant Suit. she's now missing a tooth but lately she's never smiled more. the facelift she had in her 50s has now given way to pillowy drapy cheeks. her sweet and hilarious and giving character seeps out of the keloid scars that mark her attempts to look more beautiful and smooth two decades ago. makes me think, of course as i begin the decline and/or desire to hide behind the curtains of aging skin. here she models for me her blue fake denim pant suit with faux mocassins from TJ Max and a real corned beef sandwich which she not only lovingly brought to me and my kids but with which she also "tipped" the cab driver. she opened up the rye bread from Juniors deli in the back of the cab (i can forensically back this up as this morning i discover the twisty for the Rye is in tact while a hole has been bored thru the back end of the Rye's plastic bag. like an evolved badger or a primitive mother, she clearly and urgently scratched the hole thru the the plastic bag of rye bread with her acrylic finger nails so that she could whip up a corned beef sandwich in the back seat of the cab for the dear driver who so kindly waited for her at Juniors Deli then brought her to her daughters house. Corned beef as currency. The Jewish Woman as Carnivore study continues. But this scientist notes (ok, shooting from the hip, not enough data yet but INTUITION (rapid cognition?) is everything, just read Malcolm Gladwell and the case of the phony artwork...and you'll see that this particular Judaic Carnivore is qualitatively different than the Producer painted a few blogs ago. this carnivore, my mother, serves meat to men. the other one makes meat out of men. my daughter eats meat of any gender. i will keep studying this until i figure out my place in this food chain.

Understated Sandals

i'm still trying to get through my ex's "memoir". i'm getting near the end and there have been countless allusions to blonds and boobs and tight white jeans. but i had to actually put the book down when i came upon: Understated Sandals. as usual, some "blond bombshell" (now that's an original term) is "checking him out" at his father's "opening" of photographs of non-jewish standing in as Shekinah, women wearing nothing but white gauze and Marquis de Sade amounts of strappy teffilin...and as he wanders around at this opening without a sense of humor and the usual dose of desperation...he just KNOWS the "blond" wants him.....and then, pretty much nothing happens....but this one is wearing Understated sandals. and it made me wonder what ARE understated sandals? and what are Overstated Sandals? i've always considered myself a fashion buff but i never thought to categorize sandals in terms of under or over statements. are understated sandals leather flips flops? Miu Mius without the rhinestones? Marc Jacobs without he bows? Berkenstocks just the way they come? nah, they wouldn't be Birkenstocks...at least not at a Michael's restaurant opening of Leonard Nimoys pix of naked women wrapped in teffilin.

Understated sandals. maybe they're black suede Barneys Co-Op.

God, this is a breakthru memoir. Forget the so-called Recovery part,
its given me a whole new way of looking at sandals.

she says i'm doing a good job with my kids

i was yelling at my kids, i guess loudly enough for her to hear, telling them they had to stick to a budget as we bought last minute chanukah gifts for The Cousins. maddy was yelling back at me. on one hand mad about the budget on the other telling me (correctly) i never have the guts or srength to stick to one. and i'm sure we talked about her wanting a Blackberry and how sick that made me. (her dad got her one for the last night of Hannukah which pissed me off, put the fake pleather jacket i got her H&M to the bottom of the ho hum gift food chain) anyway, this little short woman with the velvet scarf chimed in that i was Right. I was Good. she was that type of little withered apple-faced woman who's a hybrid homeless. she could indeed be living on the margins or she could be a famous filmaker. she said she was a nurse. and she empathized wholeheartedly and just HAD to speak up (comrade in arms) about what an uphill battle it is to raise good teenagers. and what a good job i was doing. my kids stopped dead in their tracks and smiled from their hearts at her which made me forgive them for being spoiled brats because of course it's not their collective fault that they want blackberries and gold Marc Jacobs bags and Randy Rhodes guitars and too many games for the Wii. its' mine of course. i'm inconsistent and confused. and obviously it's a kids job to push the limits and a mom's job to set em. and god help us if i'm the designated driver.......

microwave mental hygiene

sometimes when i'm feeling really down and self destructive i stand too close to the microwave while heating up the kids' lunch. and sometimes when i'm feeling really frustrated by the state of the world, and how nothing i do seems to matter, and no one will vote for Obama, the only candidate with guts and passion, until Oprah kicks their butts....on days like that, i don't recycle water bottles. and as i commit that modern crime, i wonder to myself how long it will take for the stupid plastic bottle to decompose in the regular trash as opposed to the recyling bin which i understand just generates a lot of wasted energy too by the time they shlep all the recylables in a gas guzzling truck to the recycling plant and spend all the energy it takes to melt it down and turn it into something else. and speaking of pointless recycling, throw into the big blue trashcan that my ex is writing a Memoir at the ripe old age of 51 with the "voice" of a 17yo. yet another Recovering Addict story because we need another one of those. Laced with much homage to his 70s pop icon dad from whom he still wants approval. i call it Psych 101 meets Introduction to Photography. in fact, it's a thinly veiled 12 stepfordly attempt to meet chicks. and that too makes me wanna stand next to the microwave while i'm heating up the kids' lunches.

itsNOtimportANtWhatItisYouarELOoKingAtbuT....

more pondering of nancy's ID. nancy remembers the day michael told her that she needed an Identity. she didn't know she didn't have one till he pointed this out. she's been completely grateful to him ever since.

modern day absinthe

michael, the environmentally eternally sustainable designer. painted here on recycled Epson Matte Paper Heavyweight cardboard box

chappy chanukah

Carnivore Series/Female Jewish Physiognomy: TV Producer with wrinkled Neck

this is a TV Producer producing a new show called Cashmere Mafia. She is atheletic and has broad shoulders and is married to a man who is unatheletic with narrow shoulders. She is a fierce lioness - her own unique ruthless brand but honestly not unlike a lot of Jewish women i know. There is a strain of this in me and my daughter whose first words were "more meat". But our noses are less aqualine. So maybe my daughter and i are watered down versions. If we had this physiognomy we'd be producing tv shows instead of watching them.

J. sCrew Catalogue

pink ecstacy

pink agony

Next Generation Vildezach: i've created a monster

....or so my ex says about our beautiful firey tempered daughter when he can't handle her rage. or her neediness. or her power. and so i found myself saying those words to her last weekend as she and i went at it yet again on the 405 FWY as i got us incredibly lost and ran a light and she yelled at me and i thought she was blaming me for something when she was appropriately hysterical that i was about to cause an accident. she took over driving at that point. i surrendered. i had been taking Zaida's "short-cut" to Orange County (to make him happy) and a drive that should've taken 55 minutes turned into 2 and a half hours. we ended up at Knotts Berry Farm at one point. and then we finally got decent directions from a Korean couple who we flagged down in a Buddhist gated community in Irvine. they were so nice. and calm. and we Jews were so rattled and lost. or at least i was. partly it's been the stresses of college applications. and up and down love affairs. *we* got deferred for the moment - from Bard and from men we know. we're gonna have to try harder and that's of course a good thing but it makes us mad.
her name is Mad. how perfect is that? makes me remember how my mother used to call my brother Hitler when he misbehaved. demonizing is a family tradition! but the upside is: we don't give up on each other...maybe it's co-dependent or the devil we know. i like to think it's love. and this girl's gonna be just fine. i should just stay out of her business more. and if i feel i have to control her i should just stick with what i know how to do which is painting her - framing my vildezach (wild one) on a canvas with acrylic paint. drawing her gorgeous loopy hair tangled up in a pony tail. i'm proud of my little monster. and look how pretty she is.

Ding Dong Ditch: a prayer for Zalman

a friend of a dear friend's 16yo boy is hanging on to life support today. his name is Zalman. everyone is being asked to pray for him. i worry that i don't know how to pray. especially for someone i don't know that well. as a mother of course i can empathize. but i feel inept when it comes to praying. and it makes me feel like i'm a bad person. but i think it's no accident that i've been threatening to paint a picture of my 15yo son for the last year, wanting so badly to capture this painful but exquisitely dear moment in his life where he's growing over night but his nose doesn't match his knees and he still asks me to sit with him when he's scared but finds me incredibly embarrassing. he's got pimples and random hairs but the prognosis is very good that he's on his way to being incredibly handsome. he sleeps with his ugly doll and 3 animals and his voice is as deep as his fathers. he's the man of the house since his dad doesn't live here and but he got caught and bopped in the eye for playing Ding Dong Ditch with his friends last week. he's my Jonah. and i finally got off my lazy ass and painted this fleeting moment of his precious awkwardness before it turns into something else. it's my prayer for Ben and Marlene's Zalman. it's not finished yet. i'll keep praying, i'm mean painting.

pour some more salt in my wound, baby

hair brush fires

downward turn
when hair is wild and won't lie flat and takes sharp turns on the left side of the head then does a U-ie in another spot and is smooth as silk in the front and like curly wirey pubes on the crown, when hair does what it naturally does without Product (hair antidepressants?) when it goes up instead of down like smooth heavy weighty asian hair..when it's light and brittle and curly and inconsistent and frizzy from the Ukraine and defies gravity, the hair goes up.....and the mood goes down. nancy's absolutely positive she would've had a much less negative life if they'd had hair irons and better product in the 70s to keep her hair down and her mood up in her formative teenage years.

nancy remembers when her daughter was 7yo and suffered from "hair bumps." the hair was going up (the little parts that don't stay smooth in the ponytail) and the mood went down. every morning. tears and anxiety over this. to the point that nancy sometimes lied and acted like she was fixing it when she wasn't. nancy noticed that this worked just as well - inverse correllations. consoling (lying) words come out, stress goes away. hair to mood. hair goes up, mood goes down, warm words come out, anxiety goes away. can't change gravity. bumps stay where they are. same with nancy's son. when he can't press a goofy piece of 15yo baby fine hair down, when the hair stubbornly stays up, his mood goes down. nancy suggests a baseball cap for him (cover up the stress). baseball cap down on the head, mood goes up.

really tough day 'round the homestead for lots of reasons not the least of which might be the unhealthy air alerts caused by destructive brush fires haphazardly doing their wild up and down damage through southern california mountains and valleys. fires the shade of nancy's shirt. fires as wild and moody and unmanageable as nancy's hair.

1971 Mission Impossible Family

the black dress: alex katz

the black dress: doing myself the way alex did ada

grapenuts with blueberries and milk

Hey Ya (Explicit)

Mayo Clinic

Boundary issues, expiration dates and the exploding mayonnaise.

nancy first learned about expiration dates when she worked in her dad's doctor's office Dr PLOThicKINs aka known as Zaida. he goes with Bubbie in case you haven't figured that out by now. they are getting frightening close to their expiration dates as they remind nancy every day when she doesn't have enough Time for them. but now Zaida really has some health issues and nancy's feeling the reality of it all. she adores her folks even as she struggles with them. she's wants to tell them they've been pulling the age card since they were just a bit older than nancy is now so nancy steels herself against feeling guilty and actually goes a couple days sometimes without checking in on them. she hopes (and she's pretty sure after a couple decades of therapy) that this won't CAUSE their expiration as they would like her to believe. she'll live dangerously and accept this bit of guilt just to miss a couple lectures from Zaida on however she's failing him lately. actually....this whole mortality thing has kicked everyone's butt into some more respectful behavior all around.

nancy reads writes all this with a little more sadness and reality today. zaida really DOES have a small cancer as Bubbie made her imminently aware of last weekend when she stormed into nancy's house yelling "HE's GOT CANCER!!" it was all nancy could do not to say: well you've been buckin' for this for a few years....not for him to have cancer. oh no. just for a legitimate reason to make nancy feel very shitty. and guess what? it worked. back to this later.....we're still waiting for biopsy results and dr. zaida and dr. brother think it's probably not that bad, thank god. that's not gonna stop bubbie from milking it.

When someone died in Dr PLOThicKINs office, their file wore a little sticker with the word Expired. this happened often in that office not because he was a bad doc (he was the Best and the Brightest) but because he is an oncologist so people die (nancy's college microbiology prof in college confirmed that Cancer is indeed a mutation and if you live long that will happen...) when working at dad's office (meaning zaida's, dr PLOTthicKINs - nancy has mostly become a mother herself so now HER dad has become Zaida because that's what he is to HER kids, it's all very cubist)...anyway, way back when she worked in that office, she had to apply the "expired" stickers on the files after somebody died. and rifle thru lots of insurance forms. she doesn't remember what she got paid to do this or what she was wearing, but it was a very flexible job so that she could do freelance artwork at the same time. it was really nice of her dad to give her this job when she was *struggling* artist/JAP/right brainer who couldn't keep a straight job past 18 months before she felt her life was passing her by....

now nancy has her own right brain child - her son - who is obsessed with expiration dates. not on people -- but on food of any kind. even processed food. chips, condiments, cereals, the occasional yogurt which nancy (the doctor's daughter) explains to her son CAN'T go bad it's already bad, you're SUPPOSED to eat it that way but jonah never believes her. he's got an anxiety/hygiene gene from his dad despite looking and acting mostly like mom. this will be a life long battle.

just the other day he pulled out some Lawry's salt and announced that it had expired three years ago. nancy didn't believe him at first, nor did she think it was relevant when it comes to a flavor enhancer like Lawrys. nancy's brother the psychiatrist has explained to her the scam of expiration dates on psychopharmaceuticals, she's not gonna let a little Lawrys salt from 2004 go to waste. in face she bets Lilly owns Lawrys....

but jonah persisted. he read aloud the 2003 expiration date on the bottle. nancy was busy with something else and decided to let him win this battle (she'll go for the war) and told him to throw it out. she then explained to jonah that Bubbie had probably brought it over 4 years ago to make a turkey breast and nancy forgot to use it after that. she explained (at least to herself) that it's hard to remember to use things when you have no emotional memory of buying it. she has the same trouble in her closet with shoes and sweaters. they only expire when they go out of fashion. and honestly, if you keep them long enough they become "vintage" and cool again - more defiance toward expiration dates and their arbitrariness!! jonah accepted this interpretation and made his eggs with one of five other "fresh" Lawrys that bubbie has brought over since then.

but like any Good Mother...nancy "heard" jonah....(a sign of how healthy is their relationship even if there are spoiled preservatives around the house)...so nancy decided to clean out the condiment drawer today. with gusto she did her best imitation of her organizationally gifted daughter maddy who got those genes from her entitled father who throws Everything out just so he can buy things again--nancy fluidly and efficiently grabbed handfuls of Guilden mustard packages and Best Food Mayo packets from Juniors and Soy sauces from Hop Li and sent them flying into the trash WITHOUT pause...until she came across the exploding mayonnaise. she couldn't help herself. she tried to throw it out..in fact she did. but then she retreived it from the trash. she studied it. thought about it. scanned it. it was yet another reason adam divorced her - retreiving things from the trash, reconsidering decisions after they're made....keeping spoiled food around with the peasant mentality that she'll soon make a stew out of it. this drove her ex nuts (though ironically stew was one of the only dishes he thought she cooked well). but she had to look at it. BLOG IT. it was blown up like one of those metal balloons you get on Mothers Day. it made her think...how long has this been in this drawer? and just how lethal is it?...this would be when her ex husband would yell at her and call her ADD. and tell her she's missing the point. just throw the damn rancid thing out. Stay Focused goddamit.

this is when she'd find him shallow and emotionally unavailable.

the toxic exploding mayonnaise was about so much more...it was a metaphor for boundaries. there it was, in its shiny package, its official logo---all normal looking but not. just like nancy. ready to explode if you were sensitive enough to pay attention to such things. it had everything to do with maternal responsibility in a broken home and the slippery slope of narcissistic neglect...how nancy thinks about what to wear every day but doesn't clean out the condiment drawer and how dangerous that has become. life threatening even. she could've thrown this (unwittingly) into Jonah's lunch! for a moment, nancy wants to blame someone else...(blame she has learned is a normal part of grieving). she grew up with Live-in help...it's HER mom's fault. she doesn't have a a visual of bubbie washing a dish. that's it..no one ever taught her to clean out drawers. as long as you Looked Good that day. but nancy was amazed at how much she had in common with the mayonnaise itself...all shiny and slick but exploding with dangerous stuff.

how even a condiment, filled with salt and other less natural preservatives will eventually rebel against it's pretty package after 3 years. it'll try to explode just like nancy did in her marriage--and a few other places just yesterday. it's one thing to defy boundaries in your own life..but what IF she had thrown the exploding rancid mayonnaise into her kids' lunch one day and poisoned them? it got nancy very down. it stopped her dead in her tracks. she doesn't even remember what she was wearing...that's how sad it made her.
but it became yet another in a series of difficult mid-life moments from which she Learned.

turns out boundary decisions are everywhere and she's not good with any of them. but she's working on it. the exploration of the Exploding Mayonaisse is a step toward greater awareness, honesty and empowerment as she accepts her limitations and therefore takes a first step toward managing them more responsibly. examining the messy metaphorical toxins and having the Choice to not put it in her son's lunch (and worry about it all day or god forbid make him sick) is ultimately huge progress.

my therapist told me a couple weeks ago that i even have a Choice to fall in love or not. i'll tackle that option next. after i stop potentially poisoning the kids.

self promotion

L'Shana Tovah

This is Nancy's mother Polly (aka Bubbie) looking up a chicken's ass on erev Rosh Hashonah. Today the chicken is wearing much less fat after Bubbie carved it away and put it in that little pile you see next to her. she collects the fat to make Shmaltz for Zaida to shmear on his bread in Orange County next week. This is a Jewish version of robbing Peter to pay Paul. You prepare, roast and serve your holiday guests a nice nutritionally correct chicken without the extra fat with the secret plan to smuggle it back into Orange County to enjoy on a piece of toast, or worse yet (according to Bubbie) to cannibalistically but deliciously scramble eggs in it. here's the next victim....
and this is Bubbie kissing Nancy while she photographs it. Nancy's father still feels that Polly lavishes too much unconditional love and praise on Nancy. It makes him jealous. He prefers conditional love- with chicken fat.
Today both featured chickens are wearing nothing, not even their heads, just a few raw onions up their featherless butts. Nancy is wearing a striped turquoise and green crew neck tee from the Gap with cut off "Long and Lean" jeans (like the chicken after Bubbie got to it) also from the Gap. Bubbie wears a brown tee shirt "outfit" - that means the same pattern top and bottom - loose top, elastic waist. note that older folks like to dress the same way babies do, in onesies and with matching stretchy tee-shirt, jersey, velour or terry cloth material, top and bottom. it's comfortable and easy to eat or poop in, which is of course how we come in the world and how we go out, with a little cooking in between. Bubbie wears a yellow fake diamond around her neck though she assures Nancy that Zaida has indeed given her some that are real. Bubbie gets a little defensive when Nancy asks her where it's from, so Nancy doesn't push it. Zirc is gonna take over diamonds real soon anyway. Finally Bubbie wears white bobbie sox with beaded white moccasin loafers that she sent away for from a catalog called Blair which Nancy has never heard of. Nancy, as usual, wears her dressy silver rubber flip flops from Madewell.
Speaking of making things well, Nancy better get back to the kitchen - she knows Bubbie's the best maker of chicken but Nancy's job is to keep down the salmonella hazard as the master goes along....

L'shana Tovah!

Sports Bra

Today, as Maddy got ready for her first AYSO Girls' soccer game of the year, she yelled out "Mom, do you have a Sports Bra?" then Maddy dug through her underwear drawer and produced this black and red push up deal from Victoria Secret and asked with absolutely no irony or humor whatsoever if this could qualify as a Sports Bra.

Nancy said "No, but i need to blog this."

Maddy yelled at Nancy that there wasn't time for that. She needed Nancy to go get cold water bottles from the back fridge. But Nancy ignored her and swiftly stopped by Photobooth, took two shots over her pajama top, then dashed upstairs and got Maddy an orange halter 34B sports bra to borrow for today's game. As they stuffed Maddy's gravity defying C-cups into the front locking harness, they both agreed it wasn't a perfect fit but it would hold "them" in place for today. Then Nancy produced two ice cold water bottles. One for each breast.

Perhaps the reason Maddy seriously asked if this cheesy decorative Vegas Showgirl number qualified as a Sports Bra had everything to do with the fact that Nancy, Maddy and Jonah had just finished watching an episode and a half of Real World on MTV. The catfighting, skimpy attired 20-something reality show has now become their favorite. They love watching the bitchy beautiful girls fight and they can't wait to see who'll hook up Isaac and who'll steal Dunbar away from his girlfriend. Nancy and her kids plan to finish watching the white trash second episode later tonight On Demand, after Maddy finishes working with her $200/hr College Counselor who promises to get her into an intellectually selective college.

Back to School Edition

today nancy is wearing darker hair, a blue cashmere cartigan, a celadon green and turquoise floral egyptian cotton pajama top from Bedhead, cut off blue jeans from the Gap (vestige of summer which was just a few days ago) and no shoes, as it's still warm enough to get away with this and jonah was in a hurry. she noted as she got into the car how lucky she is to live in California and be able to go barefoot and not feel the severity of temperature or smut below her feet. instead she feels the gentle manicured grass of her next door neighbor's McMansion.

she carrys her beaded bag from St Bart, a gift from her former malevolent Quasi-Mother-in-law, not to be confused with her sweet and loving Real Ex Mother in Law, birth mother to her ex husband, if you're following this. At times Nancy has been ambivalent about enjoying the beautiful accessories she was gifted from "Quaz" when they were still speaking - there's the raw sapphire necklace, the sexy periwinkle lacy boyshorts (nancy's pretty sure Otto ate those, so that's not an issue anymore and it pissed nancy off when Quaz gave them to her since it seemed less of a gift and more of a dig from exhibitionist inappropriate Quaz, trying to - as usual - rub in and let everyone know how much sex she and Leonard were having...ewww!!!!) Then there was the smart black Prada rain coat which Nancy covets - it was too small on Quaz whose weight goes up and down. but there was also a gold ID anklet with the letter N which nancy never liked - it was Quaz's taste, not Nancy's, it reflected the Jerry Lewis Vegas era, being a teen in the early 60s when nancy was still playing with Barbie and was later to become a hippy (at least in dress)...so my point is: there has never been any temptation to wear the Capital N anklet. it makes nancy think of cheerleaders. yuk.

back to today's attire: she's "worked through" her mixed feelings about carrying the beautfiul beaded bag because it's such a great fucking bag. she gets compliments on it wherever she goes. and nancy's always been able to shunt out bad feelings in trade for good ones. she's a cheap date that way. and looking or wearing something beautiful to nancy is like cocaine to a user. she just needs to watch the budget more these days so she doesn't end up financially like a crack head. that wouldn't be good for the kids - you know...to leave them with a bunch of debt if something happens to nancy. all because she couldn't say no to an Agnes B blouse.

moving on to Audible Accessories...today's discussion on the way to school was: how can our friend Dick Katkov be called Dick...and no one laughs. nancy said to Jonah: what if someone was named Vagina? that wouldn't fly. Jonah corrected her and said: No mom, it would be like being named Pussy. and it's not like we call Richard...Penis Katkov. Hmmm. Good point. Then nancy said aloud "Pussy Katkov" a couple times to hear how it sounded...after which she seized the "educable moment" to tell Jonah that this is how authors come up with interesting names for their stories - you know - switching real stuff around. nancy does it all the time and she's not even a professional author. she just does it for fun-- por ejemplo esta manana, to stay awake on the 10 freeway as she drives jonah to school at 6:45am, completely contrary to their circadium summer rhythm of sleeping in till noon. (nancy likes to lapse into spanish when she can, it's fun too, keeps your mind alert and creativity flowing).

but then, as she drove between the Bundy offramp and Cloverfield, she thought more about all this. cruising toward Lincoln Blvd she made the nuanced comment (kinda proud of herself) that Pussy also means Cat while Dick means nothing other than Penis. so Pussy Katkov is still a gentler, more acceptable name than Vagina Katkov...or Dick Katkov. so..again, one wonders why the world lets us call someone Dick but not Vagina...and get away with it. it's a man's world i guess. (but it ain't nuthin without a woman or girl....dooby dooby doo).

THEN...or "theyennnn" as her talented writer at the NYTimes used to point out is her personal paragraph starter when she's wandered off-point and wants to Get Back to whatever she was saying several bagillion words and minutes ago....(apparently she used to do this in verbal stories back when Hunky Talented Journalist was at the LA Times--he's always been very perceptive and kind and funny and affectionate when he points out such verbal tics to a dear friend - he makes it come off as a Cute Thing rather than a Put Down. This always made nancy feel Seen and Heard and consequently Loved but that's another entry....)

anyway THEYENNN....Jonah and Nancy continued the exploration of names for potential future characters in books they'll never write. Dick's wife in real life is Miriam. so Nancy pointed out that our "invented" couple could be named: Pussy and Solomon Katkov. Get it?? Or maybe...Pussy and Solomon Plotkin. swapping out Russian sir-names. although it's kind of wonderful to echo the "cat" motif in Pussy Katkov. think we'll stick with Katkov if they'll give us permission.

jonah enjoyed the discussion. it got him to school happy and uncharacteristically on time--and ready and alert to take on Honors Algegra at 7:03. by the way, why do classes of this generation always start at very specifically weird times? previous ancient generations just got to school at generic/rounded off times like 8 or 9....hmmm. we'll have to deconstruct that too in another entry, it's clearly part of the switch to Digital Time. we do it because we can, not because it's better. just like bad desktop publishing.

anyway...jonah and nancy will speak with the Katkovs and see if we can get that permission slip to monkey around with their name for our upcoming graphic novel. jonah will check with Nick (rhymes with Dick) Katkov at nutrition today.

Nature's Miracle

even (and especially) the small, genetically confused ruling class dog in this house - Otto - has no boundaries. note that this product nancy just used to compensate for his latest crap in her studio is just for cats. maybe that's why it doesn't deter the dog from using the entire house but especially her office and the heating vents in the dining room as his toilet. nancy thinks that commericialism leads to the marketing of products that are specifically targeted to particular needs as a capitalist manipulation to create that need...for that product. the fact that nancy even uses the word "capitalist" betrays the stupid decade during which her brain/hard drive was formed.

as pointed out (she thinks) in previous entries but it bears repeating: Slim Fast is the same exact product as Ensure. just read the ingredients next time you're in Rite Aid, like she did. one is marketed for losing weight, one is marketed for gaining or maintaining weight. there ya go. proof of the pudding. she figures it's the same deal with Nature's Miracle.
here's nancy cleaning up just before making English Breakfast Meets California (chicken/mango bangers, potatoes, baked beans, bisquits and....avocado) for the kids as they ask nancy if Bubbie and Zaida ever cheated on each other.

fashion advice for my September date

what to wear to his ex-wife's wedding to The Coach (feet/shoes are poorly drawn, done quickly/late at night when fashion illustrator was very tired - disclaimer)

Looks are deceiving

The other night Nancy served warmed up chocolate chip cookies from Trader Joe's topped with expired Bon Bons and borderline okay whipped cream that sounded like poop when it came out of the can as she squirted and twirled out the last bit with a bunch of air making funny fart sounds....she topped it with perfectly fresh carmel syrup squeeze bottle topping. nancy served this to michael black and jonah when they asked to go to Cold Stone's at 10:30pm the other night and she didn't feel like taking them nor did she feeling like spending the money.
both boys were very impressed with the beautiful presentation of the platter. nancy wanted to deflect the boys away from the desire to go out. nancy thinks Deflection is one of the best tricks in the psychological book. when somebody wants something you can't give them...just distract or deflect for a bit and see if they still want it 2 hours or 2 days later. if they still do, then it's worth considering. deflection as filter for shunting out what one needs to really really respond to and aDress...and what one can discard or at least put lower on the list. michael (the guest) of course politely said Thank You Nancy..this looks great. even the visually distractable Jonah chimed in "wow".

here the boys are enjoying cereal the next morning...that nancy worries has moths in it. (addendum: nancy took a better look at this photo in Photoshop and realized she had undersold herself. the boys are eating Fresh Paninis she made them with perfectly under-expired no-nitrate Ham and Cheddar/Jack combo cheese purchased within the last two days...squished to perfection in her panini maker with healthy olive oil on fresh whole grain sour dough bread from Trader Joes. so there!!)

but back to the honesty of the previous moment/image/carmel platter....jonah knows better. jonah knows his mom. the fancy dessert wasn't lost on him. he tasted a bon bon. it had freezer burn. he asked how long they'd been lying around. i poker-faced "hmm. not sure..." though i was indeed sure they weren't fresh and that's the point. would it hurt them? no it wouldn't. do bon bons go bad? thankfully he didn't even mention the possibility of the whipped cream being sour. i tasted it. it was...pretty much okay. with all the carmel slathered over it.

i go through these mothering decisions all day long. worrying i'm not really up for the job...but deflecting negative self loathing voices with jokes and things that Look Good. just like the girl in Fred Segal the other day who wore really really short shorts and chunky heels to show off her great gams and distract away from her meeskeit face....

smoke and mirrors. hotpants and dark glasses. carmel and bon bons.

cleaning out the closet

preparing for Yom Kippur

"mom! are you taking pictures of yourself??" jonah just yelled from the next room. sammy told him to shut up and leave me alone. she understands. she's a little exhibitionist too. i just explained to both of them that i'm cleaning out my closet by wearing whatever is on the floor in there. and i must photograph the outfit to attain some objectivity on it. back to third person....

today nancy discovered this wonderful white tee shirt she got on sale at Madewell. still had the tag on. this is first run and she's liking it. the jeans are Levi skinnies and they are way snug. red flip flops are the foot uniform of course (it's still summer) and she's adorned the New Orleans Fleur de Lils with a long loopy chain of unknown metal that is delicate and lovely and was a gift from nancy grant who has excellent taste. reminds this nancy that she hasn't yet given that nancy anything for her birthday back in july...must take of that IMMEDIATELY. before Break Fast at that nancy's next month or this nancy will have way too much to atone for.

Joint Custody

august 9

nixon resigned, jerry garcia died, nancy throws a birthday party for her ex. pix to follow....must go get the bed out of the living room before the guests arrive!

whore moan replacement therapy

this is when you like someone again after you thought you wouldn't--after you finally got over feeling so bad over how many times you did that and it didn't work out. and the nasty somnambulant sex drive wakes you up moaning like your beautiful bitchy teen titty daughter does every summer day at 1:30 in the afternoon, calling you upstairs from her cell phone in her squishy bed, asking what's for breakfast when it's already past lunch. it's when the whore/madonna ratio spills over like your bubble bath, and you stop acting like such a nice neutered mom and instead you moan all grown like the slut you really are.

this is also called dating in your 50s.

it's an alternative to Hormone Replacement Therapy which is even more common at your age and though you're not there yet, it's a frequent topic of conversation among your Peer(less) group. that kind of hormone replacement requires a prescription and a little insertable *joy ring* so i hear...which your Cobra insurance doesn't cover right now anyway.

you figure Whore Moan Replacement therapy is cheaper--you can do it on your own in the bath or after a $5.50 bottle of wine from trader joes with your *date*---and it's less paperwork, the latter of which you were never very good at anyway.

don't shop for me argentina

bubbie traveled to south america with zaida. her favorite part of the trip was The Hilton.
she wanted to bring home souvenirs to the grandkids but zaida wouldn't let her. no matter that he spent $10,000 taking her there, he wasn't going to have her spend anything extra on stupid trinkets for the kids. but bubbie, like any exquisitely trained undercover agent/crack smuggler understands the arbitrariness and urgency of it all and how to bring in goods if not over the Latin border, then over the border of Orange County.
so when she returned from south america souvenir-less, she went to TJ Max at the mall down the road and found gifts for nancy and the kids that "could" be from Santiago and Rio--in a Nordstroms bag she brought over a rustic brown tee-shirt for jonah that looked very Brazilian except for the fact that it said Los Angeles on it. and for nancy and maddy she bought some silver plated machine/hand-hammered dangles and faux turquoise drops that reflected excellent south american staging on Bubbie's part.

here, nancy models the heartfelt fake souvenirs.

divorce is the new marriage

or...how to start flirting with your ex with no particular goal in mind other than to keep those checks coming since you have a reputation to live up to.
first, of all...just get thru the first awful two years of divorce. the haggling over the millions, the brainwashing and therapy of the kids and the general spewing of hatred and resentment from both families--mostly his with the frequent exception of your father aka Zaida who hated everyone even before the divorce.
THEN....when you're feeling like your old self again, take a trip to, say..New Orleans to see for yourself what FEMA hasn't done and to turn your kids onto mixed drinks and warm beignets. you've always loved disasters and New Orleans is a particularly charming one. just like your family.
now...have your adorable teenage son who's obsessed with Megadeth borrow your laptop on the way to New Orleans as he flies separately from you and his sister because Zaida (who's big idea it was to take a Family trip for neice's graduation from Tulane) was ultimately too cheap to buy him a ticket on your flight. interestingly he offered to buy your ex a ticket but not your son. we'll analyze that in another entry as we continue to forge the world of Mixed Motivations and explore the psycho/fashion chasm between how things Look and how things really Are. for now, figure it's safe to say that when your own dad will weirdly offer to fly your ex husband to a family gathering 3 years after he moved out... but not your kid...it's cuz he wants it to LOOK a particular way. or zaida's just pulling more of the Jewish mafia stuff...trying to muscle the stupid divorced couple back together thru a "family vacation". BIG MISTAKE. besides, that's precisely where the marriage broke up - on a Princess Cruise. family vacations are toxic for the strongest of couples.

just ignore the Jewish Don and grow up and fork out the dough to buy your own son a ticket to the neice's graduation. then -- a la Sophie's Choice, you fly with his sister but not him--but you offer up your laptop as consolation so he can watch old episodes of the OC and not do his homework. when your laptop is returned to you, you see a jpeg on the desktop called Dave.jpeg. it's a drawing of Dave Mustaine from Megadeth. you hate megadeth but this is the cutest picture you've ever seen.

THEN...about a week later, when your ex comes to you for Letterhead and asks you which font he should use and you note..he's asking so much more sweetly than he did 3 years ago when he asked for the same thing with an entitled snarl and he didn't listen to you anyway and hated everything you showed him....you realize, at this moment...
you have him over a barrel. sure, you need the child support, but he needs a font -- and he's clueless and he finally accepts that. so you take this moment to remind him what an asshole he was last time he asked you for Graphic Design help. and guess what happens THEN??? he laughs!! this is truly a developmental surge. this could not have happened 3 years ago. maybe his 12 step program has kicked in (you keep asking him when he's gonna get to the part where he APOLOGIZES to everyone instead of blaming them? and he keeps saying he's not up to that number yet)
maybe he's just happier and more generous of spirit because he doesn't live with you or anybody anymore. could be.
we'll come back to that later. doesn't matter, just keep going with the positive moment.
so THEN...drop the cool typeface INTO the cute illustration done by the adorable Megadeth fan you both call "Son" and his sister calls Fucktard.
THEN...send it to your ex on the email in a Timely Manner (that was always something that was important to him that you used to regularly and passive-agressively blow). here it is, censored to preserve the privacy of your ex husband's VERY FAMOUS family name. just like that big black box that kept covering Borat's dick in the wrestling scene.
THEN....watch the fireworks begin.

you write him:

"hey i figured i'd kill two birds with one jpeg -- show you jonah's funny drawing he did on the plane AND show you the type face i think you should use."

he writes back: Yes to the type face. Thank you.
(this is the beginning of heavy flirting for him--please note: it doesn't seem like much but there is no blaming and he likes what you sent him. this is incredible.)

On May 26, 2007, at 1:31 PM, Nancy writes:

you're welcome.
and listen, for no extra charge i can add the illustration of dave mustaine.
i know the artist personally. i think he'll do it for you.
for fathers day.
OR you can pay it off with interest, to be deducted when i buy you out of the house.
OR you can SAY you'll pay me and not..and i'll put you in Arrears and you'll owe ME money when you fucking try to make me sell this house in 2010. xooxoxo

then HE writes back:
2010: A Nancy Odyssey

this is SERIOUS joking on your ex's part. he sees you. he's not mad at you. he's actually MAKING a joke about your boundarylessness!! the very thing that drove him out of the house is now CUTE again!!!!

ok, now that i paste it in and see it in black and white, granted, it's not much. i was doing most of the flirting. nothing new there, my therapist says i can work with very little. i can take a small little pixel and blow it up the size of a drive-in movie screen. part of the psychopathology and downside of being a Glass Half Full Personality. but the way i see it, it starts out as just a bit of Email Levity. but by the end of the thread..i dare say it's showing signs of full blown flirting and perhaps a reunion marriage at the 25 year mark. just do the math. if you figure you split at 18years, then you add a 7 year itch in reverse (that is, 7 years of divorce) then you RE-marry at 25 years just when your rights to his residuals were gonna dry up anyway. you figure, at that point, you have more age spots than g-spots, and it's probably time to just pack it in and watch tv with someone, so it might as well be with the father of your children!!

Destinos - The Mini Series

Angela is with Jorge who has the hots for Raquel who's hooking up with Arturo as she hangs out with Luis who also has a thing for Raquel. the actresses wear vintage cream lace, leopard rayon, boy's plaid surf shorts and wool tweed bar mitzvah jackets that don't fit any more. the clothes are as mixed up as their love triangles and as sexually confused as the transgender dorm at Wesleyan which none of them, so far, have applied to. but the actresses are focused and efficient--they write the script and pull off the shoot in one day, having to outsource only the graphic design and recruit younger brother to do the editing and music direction in iMovie. it's evident that these can-do actress/producers are far less confused than the mom they hired to do the titles for their Spanish class film. in fact, this particular mom could use these smart women to re-write her Destino right about now.

happy father's day to my ex!

booty shorts

tonight my 17yo svelt daughter is going to dinner with a "friend". as she kissed me and her brother goodbye i noticed i couldn't see her wearing anything under her shirt.
she slightly lifted the on-sale Banana Republic size 2 Petite baby doll cotton embroidered cream colored camisole to show me she was wearing Levi cut-offs underneath that had been cut *above* the pockets. i told her they looked a little short. maybe she should consider the pedal pusher style that's still tight and sexy but hits more around the knee rather than the crotch. she walked away as in Like I Care What You Say. and then her 15yo brother informed me that this a "style" and it's called Booty Shorts. i felt so relieved and informed.

i love paris in the springtime redux

clearly this outfit is not going to work this season.

on wearing Blue

took this pic yesterday with my camera phone when having lunch with darling jungian deb.
this little guy on the right wears Blue real well!!
clearly makes his owner very happy. nancy's kids always get a little embarrassed/nervous when she asks if she can snap a stranger's picture.
nancy points out to Maddy and Jonah -- why else would a geezer like this dress his dog in a sharp little royal blue tee if he didn't want someone to enjoy it with him?
granted the dog looks a bit serious here, like he's thinking: oh fuck, not again. and what the hell am i doing in this bullshit tee shirt anyway? it's 80 degrees outside.
but the owner is mighty happy.
and we all know, after torturing thru so many relationships that you're way ahead of the game if even one person in a relationship is happy. and you're even farther ahead if you can pull off Royal Blue.

Feeling blue and blonde

if anyone were to "blacklight" this painting they'd find another one underneath. she is wearing hairpins and nothing else.