Endearing words from my loving husband as I prepare to leave for my weekend of writing:

“You could be the next Diane Steele…isn’t she the one that writes those love books? What are they? Sex books?”

Peace. I’m out. Be back on Sunday.

As of 7:30 p.m. tonight, I will be without cell phone, Internet access, husband, kids, books, magazines, cable TV, everything until late Sunday afternoon.

I’m spending the weekend holed-up in a super cozy one-bedroom apartment with the most charming of views (a lake). My view will mostly be my laptop monitor as the goal is to finish the first draft of a novel that I started last year. I’ve given myself until the end of this month to finish, but I think 20+ uninterrupted hours may get me there.

As my departure time draws nearer, I’m starting to fret a bit. Our son has a slight cold and has been overly fussy come bedtime and, again, at 4:00 the past couple mornings and nights. My daughter doesn’t quite understand why I’m going to be gone the entire weekend.

My husband is more than capable; we’re the 50/50 kind of parents. He can do everything I can do except maybe fix my daughter’s hair the way she likes it. But she’ll survive. They will all survive without me; that doesn’t help the lingering guilt of choosing to be gone from them for an extended amount of time.

What is that guilt? Where does it coming from?

I wish it was gender-neutral, but it’s not. I’m not saying that there has never been a father in the history of time who has not felt guilty about the lack of time he spends with his kids. I’m just saying that the majority of people who suffer this specific, sometimes daily, guilt are the moms.

Every time we choose something for ourselves over our children, it rears its ugly head of wasted energy. It makes us (me?) feel inadequate on the mom-front because I work, or drag them along to the grocery after they’ve been in daycare all day, or bring take-out home instead of fixing a freshly made four-course meal with organic vegetables and chickens that aren’t on the steroid and hormone juices.

My mother-guilt has a slight, whispery voice that never comes across too aggressively. In fact, I would say she’s mostly passive-aggressive, continually questioning my decisions: “Do you really need to be gone the whole weekend? Do you have to stop and get a chai latte instead of going straight to pick-up your kids? Why get a babysitter? Can’t you just find a restaurant the whole family will enjoy? Is it really fair to hire a babysitter when they’re already in daycare?”

See how good she is? No bullying, no demands or unusually hurtful commentaries. Just a slight, “…should you?”

Fortunately, my answer this weekend is a loud and clear YES, I should go off like a hermit and finish this novel (or first draft of it) for me and my kiddos. What kind of an example would I be setting if I didn’t finish what I started? Besides, they are in more than capable (and probably more fun) hands…it’s not like I’m leaving them at a foster house or with Amy Winehouse. Hanging out with dad pretty much means a weekend of pancakes for breakfast, Papa John’s pizza for dinner, America’s funniest home videos, and a trip to Bass Pro Shop just to get out of the house.

So wish me luck…and Chris…if you’re reading this, don’t let me come home until I type ‘The End’.

I think it’s only fair that you put a warning label on your menu just below the bacon and egg sandwich. It could say something like:

WARNING: If this is the first time you are ordering this sandwich, be forewarned that it won’t be your last. It may not even be your last today; it definitely won’t be your last this week. You very well could start making excuses to find your way back for breakfast OR LUNCH (it’s a sandwich…you can eat it for any meal of your choice).

Seriously, I’ve got an affliction with this whole bacon and egg sandwich. Today, my husband called after he left for work to tell me that traffic was backed up…my first thought, I should go have breakfast since I can’t cross the river anyway.

Even worse, I ate at Toast on Market THREE times last week. THREE TIMES. THREE. I had this whole plan to stop eating lunch out and what happens…I become obsessed with a bacon and egg sandwich.

I’m not sure what it is. The bread is perfect and there is a touch of dijon mustard…I can’t explain it. I don’t even like dijon mustard. But whatever, it’s too late now. I’m going to have to go cold turkey soon. Until then, let me know if you want to grab breakfast.

So hold on to your llamas because I’m about to race headfirst into uncharted territory…

In Defense of Conservative Women

There’s been some female bashing that I can’t seem to process without calling it what it is: widespread, slightly watered-down, misogynistic temperament.

First: Carrie Prejean

My political issue with Ms. Prejean is the hypocrisy that reared it’s ugly head in the form of risque video starring the pageant contestant. Miss Prejean was preaching (prejeaning?) Christian values and campaigning against gay marriage when out of an ex-boyfriends saved video files, some questionable footage made its way to the Miss USA offices.

I have no problems with sex tapes. You do what you want to do for whomever you want to do it. Being a female with a sex tape does not make you less of a woman. It does, however, discredit you if your intention is to push a Christian-value agenda.

All in all, I think Carrie is young. She lacks the resolve or experience to handle the celebrity train ride she has jumped onto. Regardless of all her public conflicts, I VEHEMENTLY (yes, vehemently in all caps) oppose anyone calling her out as having a, “dumb blond moment” as one of Glenn Beck’s cohorts did on his radio show following her Larry King interview.

For one woman to be referred to as a dumb blond is to belittle, disrespect, and devalue all women. There were plenty of ways in which they could have discussed the topic, much language that could have been used, and more appropriate words than what they went with…they pretty much reduced her, one of the few conservative women getting camera time, to the color of her hair. Nice job, guys.

Second: Sarah Palin

And yes, I did just mock lines from her book in the post below (come on, like I’m not going to comment on her talking about her shirtless, tanned husband?! It’s kind of ironic though since I’m about to defend her here by calling out Newsweek for using her legs to sell more mags).

Question:

Why did Newsweek choose the photo of Sarah Palin that she shot for a cover of Runner’s Magazine for their own Sarah Palin cover story?

Answer:

They want to sell a lot of copies of their magazine and to do that they need lots of (free) media coverage…this picture of Sarah in work-out gear got them what they wanted. And all it cost was another anti-female shot below the belt.

I disagree with Sarah Palin on pretty much every sociopolitical issue she stands for. I believe in evolution, I believe women should have the right to their own bodies, I believe our children should receive sex education in school at an appropriate age, I do believe in global warming and the necessity of living a more green and sustainable life…but, I do not believe it is okay to, again, belittle her, disrespect her, and devalue her by using her own body against her.

There I said it. I just defended Carrie Prejean and Sarah Palin.  I won’t vote for either of them; but, I’m not going to judge them on their hair color or what they look like in running shorts.

“Have you seen Todd?”

…just a tiny nugget that I’m sure will be well covered in the coming days.

(Morning Joe gave the whole bit this morning–thanks, Willie.)

First, let me just say that this is one of the reasons I love words.

While looking down at my hands covered in dark taupe colored spots I thought, ugh, bacon grease burns…and then I thought, hey, that works both ways, as in:

“Wow, you have a lot of bacon grease burns on the  back of your hand.”

or

“HOLY CRAPOLA, bacon grease burns!”

Second, in case you’re wondering, bacon grease burns take forever to heal.

On the ride to school today, my daughter informed me that she didn’t like the song we were listening to.

“It’s one of those fast songs. I don’t like fast songs; I only like slow songs.”

What was the song? Only one of the best songs ever recorded: Ballroom Blitz (…It was like lightning Everybody was frightening And the music was soothing And they all started grooving).

She went on to tell me that she not only likes slow songs, but the music daddy listens to. I took that to mean country and bluegrass. I don’t know what to do.

How did I raise a daughter who would rather listen to than Daddy’s Hands than Red Hot Chili Peppers.

So this week’s column got me all existentially-thinking about time and whether or not it really exists and what to do with what you have and list making and so on and so on.

I guess the powers that be at the local news didn’t like it as much as I did. (But you know how I eat up existentialism…it’s like raw chocolate chip cookie dough for me.)

Since they didn’t post it in today’s online version of the news (picture me with my bottom lip out), I’m posting it here in it’s entirety:

Where Did that Extra Hour Go?

By Local Columnist, Amy Gesenhues

All weekend, I was looking forward to the extra hour we were getting compliments of daylight savings time. Come Sunday, we would set our clocks back and I’d get an entire sixty minutes all to myself. I spent my Saturday morning making a list of things to do with my extra hour. (I love making lists—it’s kind of a hobby, or OCD symptom. You say to-MAY-toe, I say to-MOT-toe.)

What would I do with a whole hour? I could write. Do my nails. Clean out my refrigerator (that one got nixed as quickly as it got listed). Nap. Read. Work on the Sunday crossword puzzle. Organize photos. Make more lists.

The possibilities were endless.

I wanted to spend it wisely. I was fervently aware that come spring of next year, daylight savings time would be taking back her hour (creating the need to make a new list of things to cut from my Sunday routine next March 14^th).

Time is an interesting thing. I once saw a guy wearing a t-shirt at a Coldplay concert that said, “Time is a man made concept.” It bugged me the entire show. Man-made…it’s not real. Time is not real. It was as if somebody had just told me that the earth really was the back of some giant tortoise shell. If time wasn’t real, then what was? I thought, while trying to focus on Chris Martin singing Clocks. It was too much to consider on top of him singing about going back home (home, as in the one you can never go back to).

I finally filed the thought in the same box that holds other such questions like, where does the universe end? Or, how many stars are there? And, how does a short-wave radio work. (I know there is actually an answer for that question, but it still blows my mind that sound waves can enter a transmitter, travel thousands of miles through our atmosphere, and come out some random speaker almost immediately).

Right now, one of the books on my nightstand is, “The Principles of Uncertainty” by the artist, Maira Kalman. It’s a beautiful collection of paintings (with some photos) paired with a stream of conscious story that fits together in its own enlightening way. One of the theme’s of the book is extinction and how everything dies; and since everything does come to an end, then what’s the point. But, of course, the point is art; it’s the book itself.

The idea of ‘what’s-the point-anyway’ comes around often in our lives. During the day-in-day-out chores that go along with raising a family, working a job, and keeping a household, it’s easy to get caught in that vicious cycle of confusion and lack of importance.

“Why am I driving to work again, like I do every Monday, wishing I could be still in bed, reading the paper, drinking coffee?”

Even I—someone who loves her job; who gets to write a column; who has the two best kids in the whole wide world along with a loving husband and whole slew of friends to drink coffee with—even I sometimes think, “Why? Why am I doing this again?”

The answer, of course, is because I choose to do it again. This life that I have right now, in this moment in time, is what I have chosen. I drive to work everyday because I want a career and I want certain things that come with having a career. I could choose not to work. And if I made that choice, I wouldn’t live in the house we live, we wouldn’t take the vacations we take, we wouldn’t have the healthcare we have, and my kids wouldn’t get to enjoy the things we provide for them.

And then I remember that time isn’t real anyway. This drive to work is just where I am in my life right now. Like plucking the shoe or the hat from the Monopoly box and placing it on the board, the place I am now is simply a slice of my life. I will have many more slices and they will all fit together in some form or fashion, overlapping, disappearing, or stretching out over days, months, and years (none of which actually exist).

Sunday night, after my husband and I spent the day saying, “Does that clock have the right time?” I found my list of things to do with my extra hour. It was 10:00 p.m. and we had just gotten our one-year-old to asleep. I still had not folded laundry; I had not written my list of weekly tasks (see a pattern here?); I had not checked my email; I had not done one thing on my list of ways to spend my extra sixty minutes. And, as far as I could tell, that hour was long gone.

It didn’t bother me for too long. I knew that my extra hour didn’t really exist anyway.

I’m just saying, if I get another tattoo…that’s what it’s going to read.

Maybe I could get it in Mandarin script or Latin so it would look a bit more tasteful. (Was it a bit too much having a curse word in the title? It’s still PG, right? I mean, I used asterisks… )  Actually, I get shit done in Latin may be my best bet.  It’s aggressive and blunt, but with an old school, Catholic mass kind of slant. Like a nun who goes around smacking left-handers with a big thick wooden ruler.

I’m pretty sure that I did more this morning than I did the entire year I was 24.

Wake kiddos, fix breakfast, fix hair (mine and my daughters), find snack, check work email, get one kiddo to school, get the other kiddo to daycare, come back to first kiddo’s school and read stories while taking questions from five and six-year olds. BREATH. Check voicemail, remember that I completely forgot to check first kiddos school folder last night and hope she did not have homework. Arrive at coffee shop and work on newsletter while answering emails from CEO…it’s not even 11:00 a.m. yet.

Go Go Go Go Go

My husband is giving me a breather right now and picking up the kids before we go–as a family–to Kroger. Talk about a mess. Grocery shopping with all the kids is like being in some low-rate, no-budget TV game show where the objective is to get only what you need and get out before you spend double what you should and have a crying baby to calm through the last two aisles.

When I look back on this time, I know I’m going to think–how the hell did I do all that with two kids? And by all that I mean hold down a full-time career, keep up a regular weekly column, and write my first novel that led to my life of leisurely luxuries and wild success.

I’ve been wondering about how using my kids for material will come back and bite me in the behind…but it hasn’t stopped me.

Here’s last week’s column where I totally call out my daughter for being a tattletale…so uncool for both of us. She being the tattler and me being the tattletale mom.

Tales from a Tattler

Published in the October 28, 2009 issue of The Tribune.

My daughter is a tattletale. We knew this going into kindergarten, but were unaware of her full capacity to tattle. Like her mom, if she enjoys something, she doesn’t do it halfway; she’s a really, really good tattletale.

It has become our Monday morning breakfast topic and our afterschool check-in discussion.

We start the week with pancakes and the routine question, “What are you not going to do this week?”

My daughter looks down at her breakfast and heaves a heavy sigh, “I’m not going to tattle.”

“No matter what, right?”

“No matter what, I won’t tattle. Unless somebody’s bleeding, right mom? If someone’s bleeding I have to tell the teacher.”

“Yes, if someone is badly hurt, you should tell the teacher,” I say.

“What if their feelings are badly hurt?” she asks, looking for a loophole.

“If someone else’s feelings are hurt then it is their job to tell the teacher, not yours.” My daughter’s tattletale-ing is far reaching. She doesn’t just tell on kids who have wronged her. She is on the look-out for slighted kiddos across the playground. She’s the superhero of whistle-blowing.

“Fine,” she says. She’s never happy with this conclusion. We’ve taken away her superpower.

Regardless of how well this conversation goes, it never sticks. By Wednesday, the ride home from afterschool care includes a story of how someone cut in line and why she had to tell because everybody knows that you can’t cut in line and get away with it. I try to explain that cutting in line could be considered just as offensive as tattling. She doesn’t buy it.

My daughter sees her tattling as an endeavor in righteousness. Part of the issue is that she has the mentality of an only child. Her brother didn’t show up until a couple months before her fifth birthday. According to Alfred Adler, the famed psychologist who sold us on birth order psychology, there’s a good chance she will exhibit only-child personality traits throughout her life. If things go per his theory, she will be conscientious and ambitious as well as conservative and conforming.

The conservative in her has already bared its Republican head. Last year during elections, my daughter refused to side with me and her dad to pull for Obama. She was a McCain fan from the get-go.

“I like his girl,” my daughter would say about Sarah Palin. If you’ve read anything I’ve written about politics you know how difficult of a pill this was for me to swallow. “But Sarah doesn’t want you to be educated or have a choice,” I would tell her, referencing Palin’s anti-abortion and no sex education in school platform. My debate held no water with my daughter; she was a tried and blue conservative. Her political views were my first real test in parenting. I want my children to be their own person; but, this is much easier said than done when being their own person means their vote would negate your vote for president.

We found our way through her conservative tendencies and embraced her love for McCain-Palin (even though we checked Obama on our ballot). It’s the conforming issues that are proving to be a more difficult battle for her dad and me. Not so much her conforming, but her need to make everyone else around her conform to her rules.

How do you curb your cute-as-a-button snitch? Or do you?

What if we encourage it?

Nobody likes a tattletale; but, we all need them. What would we do without whistleblowers to stop big business from exploiting customers or investigative journalists who keep tabs on crooked politicians? Jeffrey Wigand may not have any more tobacco industry buddies, but now we are all a lot more aware of how far a billion-dollar corporation will go to turn a profit.

And how much of the tattling has to do with birth order versus parental order? I mean, who’s the bigger tattletale here anyway? The five year old daughter tattling on a line-cutter or the 36-year-old mom tattling on her daughter? From the way it’s reading, this tattle-teller doesn’t fall far from the apple tree.

http://www.news-tribune.net/archivesearch/local_story_301003514.html