Motherhood

The thin grey hairline

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I am suspicious of Starbucks. And I have more than the usual suspicions about which ingredient makes their coffee especially addictive, or whether or not cashiers have been genetically enhanced in pods to be extra pleasant to caffeine junkies, babies and dogs.

I want to see their employee handbook and find out whether or not they are instructing young male employees to flirt with married, middle-aged women. Here in America, we are one of the most highly courted consumer groups, after all. Just the other day, I pulled into the drive-thru for a quick cup in between stops. After all of the usual niceties seemed to be complete and I had pulled the gear back into drive, the young man leaned out the window with a flirty grin. “Hey,” he said, “I hope you have an amazing day.”

If this had been an isolated incident, I wouldn’t have thought much of it. But this is just one of several events where I’ve been subjected to attention that seemed too oddly flattering. They ask superfluous questions about how I am doing, accompanied by meaningful arm-folding and head-tilting – like they’ve all studied John Corbett’s Aiden character on Sex in the City for tips about how to appear more concerned and sensitive.

Either that, or there is something about getting your first few grey hairs and a layer of mommy fat that makes you wildly attractive to a certain breed of men, many of whom apparently work retail. I heard the entire marital history of a man selling me office supplies on Tuesday for no discernible reason. I left wondering whether my wedding ring, modest though it may be, might have become invisible.

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Copyright Tracy Zollinger Turner, Tinymantras.com, 2009.

Notes of a She-Hack

Some validation…

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The KnowledgeWorks Foundation storytelling project that I write for just won a silver Wilmer Shields Excellence in Communications award from the Council on Foundations for our 2006 publications about school reform initiatives in Ohio.

All of the writers involved have spent many, many hours at urban high schools that have committed to fight their way out of academic crisis. We are working on two more publications, due out later this year.

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Copyright Tracy Zollinger Turner, Tinymantras.com, 2009.

Armchair Astrophysics, Motherhood, Zeitgeist

Andy Wormhole

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One of the great joys of the DVR is the fact that I can catch up on all of the old episodes of Star Trek: Voyager and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine that I missed when I had a social life. (I managed to pull off watching all of The Next Generation episodes I hadn’t seen before during those first few months of napping and nursing.)

As a result Declan has two requests that he makes daily: “space show watch?” and “wormhole watch?” These are usually code for “lie down and snuggle with me after I jump up and down while looking at images of space.”

But it’s more than a TV/snuggling fixation. His vocabulary expands daily: rocketship, Earth, meteor, planet. Space toys, outside of Twilight Turtle aren’t very easy to find at his developmental level. I stapled cosmic felt onto a board for the playroom last week, threw velcro backing on some glow in the dark stars and made a few planets and spaceships for him to stick on there. I think he would prefer that the whole room was covered in felt so he could stick these things wherever he wished, but at least it’s getting a little use.

When I went to a craft store to get some things for this project the other day, I also spotted a small reproduction of Andy Warhol’s painting, “Space ship” on sale for $2.50. I snagged it and handed it to Declan as soon as I walked in the door. “Space ship!” his father trumpeted.

“Oooooh! Space ship,” Declan repeated.

“It’s Andy Warhol,” I told them.

“Andy Wormhole!” said Declan, wandering into the living room, holding it in his hands. “Space ship wormhole!”

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Copyright Tracy Zollinger Turner, Tinymantras.com, 2009.

Notes of a She-Hack

Regret the error…

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I love this! As a regular contributor to newsprint for over a dozen years, I’ve had a handful of embarrassing gaffes that still haunt me in the wee, paranoid hours in the night. (And a few that irritate me in the night because I’ve actually had errors edited into my copy as well.)

Here’s reassurance that even the best, most highly-paid folks in the biz make common, and sometimes hilarious mistakes.

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Copyright Tracy Zollinger Turner, Tinymantras.com, 2009.

Motherhood, Zeitgeist

Sympathy for the revel

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After the past couple of weeks of mockery and scorn over her endless bender, I was actually relieved to see some traces of compassion for Britney Spears in the media this week. Being a sometimes music critic, my views of her popness have not always been flattering ones. But something about having your own toddler makes you extra sensitive to the cathode crows pecking away at a new, young mother, particularly one who seems to be coming undone in front of the world.

Most moms know that the very act of living with a newborn can make you feel ferociously inadequate, even if your strongest postpartum symptom is that diet diagnosis parenting magazines and books call the “baby blues.” Whether you are a pert little jezebel or comfortably frumptastic, your relationship to your own body and the outside world fundamentally changes with a pregnancy.

Every pregnant woman and new mom, famous or no, automatically becomes a little bit of public property. People touch you, bless you, look at you in disgust and pray for you in the cracker aisle of the grocery store. If you nurse in public, some people congratulate you and others openly gag. When your child cries, you can be eyed with suspicion, scorn or sympathy, depending on your karma. And when you look to those who can be your greatest salvation – other mommies – you sometimes find exactly what you need, but other times, they can sting you more deeply than you imagined possible.

I can’t imagine living through this period of life as a sexual icon surrounded by cameras, sycophants and gossip feeders. And I really can’t imagine what the hormonal effect of consecutive births, combined with the babyweight shedding at the frenzied pace of an image-conscious celebrity could be. Blogger Heather Armstrong of Dooce may be the first person that I’ve seen publicly suggest the taboo possibility of postpartum depression, even though it’s hard for many moms I know to imagine that it doesn’t have something to do with this. Rebecca Traister of Salon has the measure of what Spears culturally represents.

And then there is this heartfelt, little soliloquy from Craig Ferguson. I’m never up late enough to watch him, but after seeing this and last week’s appearance on Bill Maher’s show, he has impressed me as a truly decent man:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bbaRyDLMvA]

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Copyright Tracy Zollinger Turner, Tinymantras.com, 2007

Zeitgeist

The one-person revolution

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Whenever people talk about social change beginning at home in the U.S., it generally begins with recycling – something you can make part of your daily life that is good for the planet. The effectiveness of this has been hotly debated (I like Cecil Adams’ take on it), but it remains widely embraced as one way to to at least reduce the beating the environment is taking.

For the more personally committed, organic food and hybrid cars were the next step in living responsibly. I was amazed enough that finding organic baby food was simply never a problem – when I saw Organic Rice Krispies at my mother-in-law’s house, I realized how mainstream this message had become. (If you’ve watched The Future of Food, obvious consumer demand for organic food does feel like a victory.)

Then yesterday, I read this: Vegetarian is the new Prius, and I wondered how far I can take things. Ever since my pregnancy, I have tried to buy more meats that promised no use of antibiotics, free range chicken, organic milk and greater use of soy as a protein. I’m not al that structured about it. I buy cheaper butter, my nearby grocery stores do not always carry the eco-friendlier choices and sometimes organic products are just really damn expensive. I figured as long as I was making some effort, it was better for my body and the earth. Now I’m seriously wondering if what I’m doing is enough.

And while we’re at it, in the spirit of movies like Blood Diamond and steaming cup of fair trade coffee here’s a story about products to avoid because of the violence and exploitation they foster.

VH1 is also airing a documentary that looks really interesting this week: Bling’d: Blood, Diamonds and Hip Hop.

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Copyright Tracy Zollinger Turner, Tinymantras.com, 2007.

Smooching infinity since 2005.