While My Boyfriend Was Sleeping

What I write after Joe and Henry go to bed

Archives for March 2011

The psychic boy and the toy horses

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I swung by Dollar General yesterday afternoon to pick up some odds and ends.

While I was standing in the discount DVD aisle, a little boy about five years old ran up to me clutching two stuffed horses.

He was galloping. The horses were pretend galloping and pretend neighing.

I was considering purchasing a $4 As Good As It Gets DVD.

The child nuzzled me. The horses in his hands nuzzled me.

I put down the DVD. Wondered what Jack Nicholson was up to lately. Turned my attention to the kid at my waist; the brown horses neighing at my enormously pregnant stomach.

“You like my horses?” He asked.

“They’re very beautiful,” I said, bending down to meet him.”You take good care of them.”

“They’re race horses,” he replied.

“They look very fast,” I said.

“They need a bath.”

“They look perfectly clean to me.”

“Oh no, they stink like dirty horses,” he said turning his attention to the DVD display in front of us. I scanned the store for his parents. The only adults I could see were two presumably homeless men buying generic cola at the checkout counter.

“You buyin’ a movie?” He asked.

“Was thinking about it. You got any suggestions?”

He thought about it for a minute and then wildly galloped his horses in the air.

“I think you should buy a horse for your son,” he said.

I looked around for sign of another child. Surely, this kid had seen another boy in the store and assumed he belonged to me.

There were no other kids in the store.

Just me. The boy. The clerk. Two horses and two bums.

I wasn’t sure how to address his comment.

Technically I don’t have a son. Not yet anyway. I mean … well … I do, but he’s not exactly running around the house begging for toy horses even though lately some of his kicks and jabs make me think he’s ready to come out and play.

I looked at the boy suspiciously.

Where are your parents, dude?

I was in a hurry and in no position to explain pregnancy to a five-year-old.

So I said, “I don’t have a son.”

The boy tilted his head to the side. Nudged my stomach with one horse.

“You will soon,” he said, grinning.

—-

True story. It’s rekindled my belief in animal spirit guides.

Pregnancy Confession No. 5

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[I want beer.]

This does not mean I've had a beer.
It just means I want one.

Or two.

I want the bubbles.
The foamy head.
The cool carbonation sliding down my throat.
The bottle sweating in my hand.

The buzz.

The subtle clinkety clink of the bottle hitting my wedding ring.
The white vapor tickling my nose

A fine mist
rising from the bottle neck
like a genie
granting me a wish the second I crack the cap.

The way one sip brings me home.
To my roots.

My beer drinkin
campfire sittin
motorcycle ridin
muddy
country
dandelion roots.

I was chatting with a fellow preggo the other day
and she mentioned that there's a bar in downtown Sarasota
that serves delicious non-alcoholic beer.

Clausthaler.
It's a German brew. (Like me.)

"You walk in with your belly and I promise you,
they'll hook you up," she said.
"The bartender loves pregnant ladies."

---

PS. Happy St. Patrick's Pug-trick's Day.
Guess where I'm going Saturday?

Eavesdropping in a Sarasota theater

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Two

The following is an excerpt from a conversation I overheard last week between two old women at a Sarasota theater house:

“You have how many children?”

“Three boys.”

“Boys? I didn’t know you had all boys.”

“All of them boys.”

“I heard boys are easier. Are boys easier?”

“I thought the toughest time was when they were two years old and they made no sense. You had to watch them every second of the day. I couldn’t wait for them to be independent.”

“Well, I adored my girls.”

“I always thought you could get closer to girls. Can you get closer to girls?

“When they’re teenagers, forget it. When Emily was 15, I would have sold her to you for a nickel.”

—

PS. Photo by George Schon.

PPS. Yes, I jotted down this conversation word-for-word. I was covering an event at the theater, so I had my notebook with me. Then again, I always have a notebook with me.

Yakking with Yoko [again]

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I interviewed Yoko Ono two years ago. Perhaps you remember. Some of you guys even gave me question suggestions.

Well, Ms. Ono’s at it again: plugging her late husband’s traveling art exhibit, Imagine: The Artwork of John Lennon.

If you’d have told me when I was a wanna-be journalist kid, that I’d get one crack at interviewing Yoko Ono, much less two, I’d have asked what you were smoking.

My husband thinks this is an exciting claim-to-fame.

Here’s what I think is exciting: I chatted with Yoko Monday afternoon from a Walgreens parking lot in Sarasota. After asking the usual battery of art/Lennon questions, I asked her for advice on motherhood.

To hell with What To Expect When You’re Expecting. I’ve got John Lennon’s widow.

One day I’ll tell my kid this and depending on how cool he is, he’ll respond one of two ways: “Who’s Yoko Ono?” Or, “That’s AWESOME.”

To read my short Q&A with the now 78-year-old Ono, check out The Observer.

—

PS. Photo by Charlotte Muhl and Sean Lennon.

 

Pregnancy Confession No. 4

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[I've always loved dogs more than babies.]

I'm an unabashed dog lover.

When I see one, my heart leaps. I get younger. My mind quiets.
My instinct is to nuzzle the dog. To let the dog nuzzle me.
I know not all dogs are people-lovers, as all people are not dog-lovers.
But it doesn't matter. I turn to mush. Dog putty.

I want to curl up in a ball on the floor,
surrounded by fur and paws and dog saliva
and not communicate with people.
I know this sounds disgusting to non-dog lovers, but it's how I feel.

Give me a yellow tennis ball and a chocolate lab
and I'll be out of your hair for hours.

My affection for dogs is pure and addictive.
I'm like a boy at a monster movie,
cupping a supersize Coke, guzzling and burping.

No need to come up for air.
In the presence of dogs, I boil down to my purest self.

Most four-legged animals make me feel this way.

I wish I could say the same for babies.

Babies and I operate on a different level.

My insides don't turn to apple sauce and cherry cobbler
in the company of babies.

It's an honest admission from a pregnant woman.

I'd rather watch a two-hour Discovery Channel documentary
on the mating habits of otters
than tune into some TLC reality show
about 25 screaming kids and their tummy-tucked mother.

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