While My Boyfriend Was Sleeping

What I write after Joe and Henry go to bed

By now I’d have two kids

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FAMILY PHOTOGRAPHY BACKDROPS uk

That’s me up there, four months pregnant with the baby I lost in December. I remember feeling way further along when I took the pic. It’s one of only two belly pics that exist from that ill-fated pregnancy.

They say by the time you sprout your second or third or, if you’re Michelle Duggar, your 19th kid, your wrung-out stomach “pops” early, making it doubly or triply or quadruply harder to resurrect your abs. This is the sad truth for all gestating women, except Heidi Klum.

I read a description somewhere that likened the bellies of women who’ve had babies to balloons that have already been inflated. New balloons are a bitch to blow up. They don’t give. You have to pre-stretch them and blow like a mother to fill them with air. Your face turns red and the tail can be difficult to knot.

Twice inflated balloons are another story. They swell immediately.

With my second pregnancy, I quickly inflated, then quickly deflated – both physically and emotionally. When it became apparent that I couldn’t repress my way back to feeling normal, I did the only two things I could think to do at the time: I ran and I blogged. More accurately, I ran a lot and blogged just once.

This miscarriage wiped me out. Running made me feel strong again. Blogging – as heavy as that last post was – helped me compartmentalize my thoughts and articulate things I couldn’t in person.

The thing is: I’m a lighthearted person. I cry NOT AT ALL in front of people. Prior to this miscarriage, few people outside my family and BFF of 20 years have seen me cry. In the last five years, I can count two: the veterinarian who euthanized my dog and my friend Kim, who watched me break down over breakfast when my son’s off-the-wall behavior became too overwhelming to handle. “I can barely parent one,” I tearfully confessed. “How will I manage two?”

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Oh, wistful Regina…

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Hey. Let’s take a break from road tripping for three minutes and 17 seconds to watch Regina Spektor’s new music video. The song is called Laughing With and it’s off Spektor’s new album, Far. 

For more on this lovable songstress and why, if you haven’t already enjoyed her music  you should, read my future sister-in-law Leilani’s post on Creative Loafing’s excellent music blog, Tampa Calling. 
I definitely think you’ll like.    

What a heathen gives up for Lent.

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This is Joe’s senior picture. He graduated from an all-boys Jesuit high school in 1993 when I was 11 years old. I’m weak for bow ties, so you can see now why I fell for him. I needed some information about Lent, so I figured I’d go to the source.

I was jawing with my best friend Ro last week and she casually brought up this business of Lent. She said she was giving up pasta, and naturally I responded by saying, “What? For Jesus? Jesus wants you to give up pasta? If I were Jesus, I’d be like eat the pasta. It’s just a starch.”
And she responded (as she does every year) that Lent is a Catholic tradition, that she’s been giving up beloved foods since she was a kid, and like all good Catholics, she must sacrifice something she loves for Lent.
“Is it really a sacrifice?” I asked.
“Yes of course,” she said. “I love pasta.”
So I mulled it over – this hullabaloo over Lent – as I’ve mulled it over for years. Raised by an atheist mother and a non-practicing Lutheran father, who has an appetite like a bear, I’ve never been asked to give up pleasurable food for 40 days.
I could give you my heathen opinion on the matter, but who am I to tell gluttonous Catholics there’s a chance this ritual pleases Jesus less and Richard Simmons more? I’ve got plenty of asinine rituals myself (ie: crossing my fingers and kissing them twice before taking off in an airplane), so who am I to knock Lent when I believe crossing my fingers and kissing them twice keeps airplanes in the sky?
So I hung up the phone with Ro, and told Joe I was giving up sarcasm for Lent.
“Why sarcasm?”
“It’s something I’ve been meaning to do for awhile.”
“What about food?”
“Nope. Who gives a shit if I give up a food? Jesus? This whole Lent thing seems bunk. If Jesus were in our kitchen right now, he’d make himself a turkey sammie, and tell me that when he gave up sarcasm he noticed a huge improvement in his gospels.”
Now understand: Joe is a writer too. A writer and editor at Tampa’s snarktastic Creative Loafing. Telling Joe you give up sarcasm is like telling Mrs. Butterworth you give up pancakes.
As I left the living room and turned the corner into the hallway, I shouted, “I want to return to writing more meaningful things! Things that make people sigh!”
Last night I interviewed Joe about Catholic sacrifices. The transcript is below.
 
Hey Joe? Can I interview you about Lent?

 

Sure.

 

Before you became a heathen, what did you give up?
Chocolate ice cream.
You always gave up chocolate ice cream?
I always gave up chocolate ice cream.
Because you love it madly?
I was obsessed with the fact that I could have it for breakfast one day a year.
What day was that?
Easter. I had a deal with my folks that if I gave up chocolate ice cream for Lent, I could have it for breakfast on Easter.
Did you think you were a better person because of it?
I probably dug the God part of it then.
When did you stop giving up chocolate ice cream for Lent?
By my early teens I was off the religion bandwagon.
Yet you continued to go to an all-boys Catholic school? That’s like being a member of Styx and hating your No. 1 song.
Yes it is. It’s like being a member of Styx and hating Come Sail Away.
Why do people always give up food?
People typically give up things they do or enjoy that are frivolous or pleasurable.
What did your parents give up?
My dad gave up ketchup.
KETCHUP?
Do you know what a sacrifice that was for him? He puts ketchup on ketchup. You know, on Fridays during Lent you couldn’t eat meat either.
Yeah, I know. How did you survive without chicken and chocolate ice cream?
We had pizza night and tuna fish sandwich night. My mom used to make a giant plate of tuna fish sandwiches with potato chips. It was always more than we could ever eat. It was like nature’s bounty on the table.
I was always jealous of that part. I used to claim I was Catholic when my parents would force me to eat meat on Fridays.
Do you often interview people in a towel?
Only you.
Is that all m’am? I don’t usually talk to the press.
Yeah, I guess I’m done with you.
If you’d like to know what it’s like to eat a pound of chocolate ice cream for breakfast, I’d be happy to fill you in.
 

 

—
PS. Joe’s senior quote is from Guns N’ Roses‘ Estranged. W.A.R = William Axl Rose. He felt the lyrics were a perfect senior quote. Melodramatic and angtsy … because nothing says Fuck You like a bow tie.

 

Thank you for pushing my buttons.

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Of all countries, my first blog critic hails from Canada. Miffed over my blase attitude toward guardian bum angels.
You may have already read Natasha’s comment after the Tree frogs, bums & wedding dress post. My face was burning when I read it. I haven’t been this scolded since a newspaper advertiser reprimanded me for likening his real estate gimmicks to David Hasselhoff’s German popularity.
YET, I was simultaneously thrilled and pissed. A Mormon Canadian mother-of-four wearing an adorable scarf in her blog photo AGHAST at something I wrote in St. Petersburg, Fla.?
Before I hammered out a reply I Mapquested Alberta, Canada and saw that her province’s southern towns border Montana. Picturing this blonde woman and her husband Jude, their four kiddos and tag-a-long dog living in some prairie mountain town north of the border, I was flattered to have held her attention.
Pasted below is our exchange. It is by far the most constructive feedback I’ve received since starting Lance last April.
BUT, before I go … Natasha, how do you feel about the word canuck?
—
Heidi,

I was going to give you some Twitter advice to help you promote your blog because I uncharacteristically clicked on your spam barrage of links on your Twitter feed and I thought, Huh– this blog is not half bad.

Then I read this post.

I am AGHAST at your LACK of “humanity”. You were indignant and offended at the ladies at the store who didn’t say “good anything” to you and yet when presented with a man whose foot just might even have to be amputated, you told him it was disgusting and gave him all of one dollar. When telling his friend to get Jed to a clinic, you forgot to add, “…after you collect a lot more money because, of course, a dollar isn’t going to get you anywhere.” Maybe you don’t have much money or didn’t have much on you. That’s understandable. What is not understandable is your comments to him. Not, “I hope that gets better soon!” or “I’m so sorry. That looks painful.” No, you “snapped” that his foot was “dis-gusting”. Where was your compassion? You judge some ladies for having poor manners when you lacked something greater?

Your first thought was “Foot ointment? Ah, this is one I haven’t heard before.” You were judging him. Sure, a lot of homeless people suffer from alcoholism, to try and shut out the pain of their world, but not all of them do. And because you cannot know for certain, you should never, ever take it upon yourself to judge. Live generously without judging and be blessed while letting the sin of lying be upon the head of he who lied to get money from you.

You couldn’t have taken him to the clinic yourself and asked someone to fix his foot? Asked if they had any sort of charity program or whatnot? I don’t know how it works there. In Canada you don’t have to pay for basic health care– everyone is cared for.

Even the word you use for these people– “bums”– associates them with something lowly and maybe they are by appearances. But when judgment day comes, it’s very possible that these bums will rise higher than you, because they’ve very likely been given very little with which to work.

And even if you don’t believe in God, you claim to believe in humanity. But you begrudged it.

Even to sandwich such a sad issue like homelessness in with your prophetic tree frog and your wedding dress shopping is so dismissive!

I NEVER leave critical comments on people’s blogs. But you really don’t seem to have any idea how this post comes across and since you put it out there, and you linked to it, and you’re trying to drive more traffic to it, and you’re trying to become a writer, I couldn’t in good conscience walk by and just toss you a measly dollar.

Best of luck with not stepping on the tree frog, finding the right dress, and dealing with “the bums”.

—


Natasha,
Your blog is very pretty. I like the scarf in your picture and I dig most of the to do’s on your bucket list. I figured this place was as good as any to post a reply to your criticism (ie: MY first hate mail.)

What can I say? I refer to bums as bums. It rolls off the tongue.

I realize it’s less P.C. than “homeless person,” “man on the street,” or “transient.” I’ve learned from many conversations with bums that street peeps resent the word transient. Most of these guys/gals hang around one city block longer than I’ve lived in some apartments. And since “homeless man” or “man on the street” sounds too Phil Collins, and since most of the ones I interact with nearly every day tend to do a lot of bumming around, I’ll stick with bums.

Despite my crude sense of humor, I do have a heart. I’m a sucker for GD bums. In fact, I have friends with much more sarcastic senses of humor who’ve suggested I suffer from, “a Pollyanna complex.”

Note: I only had two bucks on me that day.

Note: When my boyfriend moved out of his apartment two years ago, I delivered a stack of his old blankets and pillows to a man sleeping on the sidewalk. Having observed this man earlier in the day on a bike ride, I returned with my car and the bedding, careful not to wake the old bugger as I set a pillow by his head.

Good lord, Mormon. I wasn’t passing judgment. Sure the guy’s foot was battered, but no more than mine after a muddy music festival and a bad fall. His request for foot ointment WAS a new plea. Usually I get asked for cigarettes, quarters, dollar bills, lighters, etc … And usually these requests are followed by – or preceded by – a catcall.

Was I cavalier? Probably. Am I always cavalier? No. Was this post an honest snapshot of the day? Sure. Did I embellish his wound by calling it “gangrenous?” Probably. I’m a writer not a doctor.

As for driving this guy to a walk-in clinic, if I were to personally escort every ailing person I pass to a medical facility in St. Pete, I’d log more miles than a NYC cab.


Natasha, your blog is lovely. And I mean that sincerely. My boyfriend was “following” you on Twitter and since I’m a blogger with limited readership I figured I’d follow you too. I wanted to share my posts. The “spam barrage of links” on my Twitter feed is the only way I know how to draw traffic to my site, that and Facebook and MySpace. As irritating and exhausting as social networking sites can be, they’ve introduced me to a bevy of talented writers and photographers.

Like you, I just want to make people laugh and think and come back for more. If my “behavior” chaps your ass, I encourage you to read more of my posts. I’m much more than a bum-bashing pisspot.

Also, by scolding my dismissive behavior you totally overlooked my two favorite literary devices – juxtaposition and symbolism. The post that left you AGHAST had both.

Having said all that, thank you for your comment. I’m tickled by hate mail too. I was working on a freelance piece about a Tuskegee Airman when I read your comment. It woke me up and carried me through to deadline.

Maybe we can be friends.

—

Hi, Heidi. (That was the name of our favourite cat, by the way.)

Okay, first of all, I did not give you hate mail. I didn’t call you stupid or use crude language. I was commenting on your behaviour and I believe my writing left it open as a dialogue.

I sort of hear you on the symbolism and juxtaposition thing. Sort of. I wrote a post about my Twitter philosophy that got me MY first critical comment, except that unlike my comment to you, this one attacked ME personally instead of just my behaviour. And the reason she attacked me was because she didn’t notice the symbolism in the very thing she was criticizing: I was telling people who use Twitter to tell me (or you or any other Twitter follower) how they could make them happy, make them “remarkable”, etc. etc. I objected to the arrogant language by using it myself to say, “Maybe I can help YOU!” and then proceeded to tell them a better way to use Twitter and it was TOTALLY on purpose and some readers picked up on it.

Speaking of which, here is what I wanted to tell you: People want to get to know you. If you tweeted little random thoughts, links to other things on the web, comments back to people, and funny observations, only then intermingling links to your blog, you’d get a lot more followers and ones who would be following not out of obligation but because they found you engaging. Twitter really is about relationships. But when all your tweets are about your blog, it looks like you don’t want a relationship. You just want to talk about you.

And that’s NOT a criticism. I am not suggesting that there’s any symbolism there with how you use Twitter. You just started. And normally I don’t even bother to tell people how to use it better but I could tell you weren’t just some big business jerk-off and I liked your blog title.

However, approaching your point about symbolism and juxtaposition, I don’t see it. If we’re going to critique it as a piece of writing, here goes: It read like a “Here’s what I did today” diary type post. It did not seem to have a moral, a lesson, etc. There was no point. Which is fine, for a blog post. Not all of my posts have a point. But for there to be juxtaposition or symbolism as a creative writing tool, there needs to be a point that is magnified by those tools.

And because it doesn’t look like there was any intended point besides to give a snapshot of your day and your life (and your character, so it seemed) it did put you in a bad light. As I said, I didn’t think you realized how it made you look and how it encouraged a similar mindset for readers. A few of these points that you’re saying here, could have been included. Like how often you’re catcalled, etc. You could have worked it in without breaking up the writing.

My heart is warmed to hear about you dropping off the blankets and I don’t doubt you’re telling the truth.

I’m friends with lots of people and you’ve made it clear that you can have a mature dialogue and are not easily offended. So, SURE!


—
PS. I took the photo above a year ago on a bike ride through downtown St. Pete. It is the staircase of the country’s first open-air post office. Built in 1916, the St. Petersburg Post Office was designed by George Stuart, an architect who served as a captain in the Canadian militia in the 1890s. After he was shot in the neck by an arrow in Canada’s Last Indian War, Stuart moved to Texas – where they used guns. Eventually he retired to St. Petersburg, Fla. (go figure) where he designed the St. Petersburg Yacht Club, the post office and dozens of gothic-y homes. I thought it was an appropriate picture given the context.

How I spent my summer Faycation

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I ran into Ian (remember him?) Tuesday morning in Sarasota near the downtown mermaid fountain a few hours before Hurricane Fay was supposed to ravage Sarasota.

I asked Ian, “Where will you stay in the event of a hurricane?”
And Ian said, “Come here. Come closer. Let me tell you something. There are some people in this town who would get offended by that question. Having said that, the question isn’t, ‘where will I stay in the event of a hurricane?’ The question is, ‘why isn’t the hurricane here?'”
Ian went on to outline some kind of Matrix-esque theory about the cosmos – essentially his version of Murphy’s Law. How puppets anticipate things. Not people. How government and newspapers are puppet masters. And how, if I were to sit on a bench wearing the Santa pajamas pants I was wearing when I approached him, how HE should be the one to ask ME where I’m staying in the event of a hurricane. 
So I looked down at my Santa hammer pants, which belonged to my friend Ricci before she moved to Africa, and I suddenly thought: touche Ian. I look like a slob. You look like a slob. For all anyone knows, we’re a street couple.
So I backed away slowly and let him rant some more about his being a scientist and a journalist, and how some people say he looks like Jesus when he wears a headband. Feeling like an asshole for reminding him that he was homeless, I said, “I’m gonna skedaddle, Ian. But can I take your picture first?”
And he said, “Wait. No. Not without my headband.” 
So he grabbed his headband and his ball cap, laughing like Muttley because Jesus didn’t wear a ball cap. And I snapped his picture, waved goodbye, headed back to PK and Kyle’s house and promptly took a shower and changed my pants.  
I was instructed by my editors to hunker down in Sarascrotum for the night and to be prepared to churn out a series of bang-up stories chronicling the destruction. Our publisher even pushed deadlines back a day to accommodate the coverage. 
Since all downtown offices were closed, all government offices were closed, Sarasota County schools were closed, stores windows boarded up and bottled water sold out, I ate leftover Chinese takeout, parked myself on the porch and invented “Fay” puns for the newspaper.
Should I Fay or should I go?
Oh Faymate. Come out and Fay with me.  
Would you like me to put the storm on fay-away?
Do not disoFay me!
My Western New Yorker friend Sam and his wife Beth were staying at a resort on Sanibel Island near Fort Myers, when the storm was scheduled to make its first Florida landfall. Around 10:30 a.m. I received an e-mail from Sam that went something like:

“Last night we were evacuated from the island. As non-residents we are not cool enough to weather the storm. I am pretty sure this state is full of wimps. I generate more of a storm surge when I take a leak in the toilet. We were going to venture out to the Bass Pro Outdoor World, but they are not open … even though they sell survival gear. Anyway, I strapped on my rain suit and went out to try and make it look bad outside. Here are some pics. The coffee here is OK and I didn’t lose my swizel stick.”

If anyone has good storm photos (and this goes for the New York readers, the Kansas readers, the Colorado readers, the Missouri readers, the West Africa readers, the New Mexico readers, the UK readers, the Germany readers …) please email them to blog.lance@gmail.com. In the meantime here’s my sister Heelya in our backyard after a blizzard in North Collins, NY.