While My Boyfriend Was Sleeping

What I write after Joe and Henry go to bed

Archives for April 2013

Storytelling live tonight in Ybor

by 2 Comments

 

Everyone and everything is celebrating birthdays this month.

On April 10, I turned 31, as did my beloved pen pal in Toronto with whom I’ve exchanged snail mail for nine years. (Wait. Nine years? Is that right, LZ?)

Two days prior, my Irish twin, Heelya turned the big 3-0.

On April 24, this little blog turns FIVE. FIVE. Yeee haw, Lancelots! I stuck it out for five years, during which time I received more fan mail than hate mail. Success! Thank you for your loyalty, kindness and honesty. I plan to commemorate the milestone by turning the Best of Lance into a book. I’m putting this goal out there so you hold me to it. You guys are good at keeping me on track.

I’m an Aries to a fault: fiery, quick tempered, spontaneous and hyper. I start things and fail to see them through.

My blog however, is a Taurus. And like a true Taurus, it’s stubborn, sensible, down to earth and determined, which is perhaps why it’s still around.

For five years I’ve used this space to air confessions, fears, accomplishments, and of course stories.

Which brings me to tonight.

Tonight I’m stepping up to the mic (again) for Creative Loafing’s Story Time event in Tampa. The theme is birthdays in honor of the newspaper’s 25th anniversary. (You noticing a pattern here?)

I’ll be reading something new, that is IF I can sit still long enough this afternoon to write it. I’ve been swamped with work these past two weeks, so I can’t totally blame procrastination, though without pressure I fail to work to the best of my ability. Typical Aries. Lance would have written a story two months ago and immediately laminated a copy at Kinkos in preparation for the event. I’m not even sure if I have printer ink.

Anyway. Special thanks to Mothership, who’s in town this week and currently at the library with Henry. They’re at a different kind of story time; the kind that involves dancing to Raffi with bean bags.

Oh, and about the picture. That’s me up there, running amok in Colorado on a hot summer day. I was 25 and on the brink of making major life changes. I’m posting it because it kind of, sort of, ties into the theme of the story I haven’t written yet that I plan to read tonight. Hell, I’m such a fickle Aries, it might not tie in at all. ♥

CL Story Time: Birthday Edition starts at 8 p.m. at the CL Space, 1911 N. 13th St. #W-200, Ybor City.

Hope to see you tonight!

To chase a career or a kid?

by 10 Comments

Before I had Henry I was impatient with the world, critical of myself and sometimes of others.

I thought stay-at-home moms had it easy. Worse yet, I thought they were devoid of interests beyond the confines of motherhood. I pictured them schlepping kids from Gymboree class to play dates, dressed in yoga pants and a pained smile. I pictured them chained to the kitchen, the SUV, the laundry basket and the obligatory spin class. I pictured them dutifully scheduling time for mommy pep rallies that celebrate the pleasantries of breastfeeding, cloth diapering, baby wearing and holistic nutrition. (Dear Earth Mamas: I see nothing wrong with these things. As topics of discussion, however, I find them boring.)

I thought I’d lose my identity as a stay-at-home-mom. I thought I’d compromise my self-worth and freedom. I thought I’d be resentful of my husband and pissed at myself for having failed at being a working mother: the ultimate wonder woman. I thought I’d be considered a disgrace to the radical feminists who came before me and a quitter to the overachieving, have-it-all multitaskers of my generation.

Leaving my job at the newspaper would mean I’d dropped a significant ball in the heroic juggling act that is regularly executed by the modern working mother. I’d be forced to rethink everything I thought I’d do or wouldn’t do as a parent, as if you really know these things before you bring a tiny, demanding, Bambi-eyed being into this world.

I was wrong about working mothers AND stay-at-home mothers. (As an aside, I was right about yoga pants.)

[Read more…]