Deep Cuts, Trk 2

Early in this blog month, I gave a post the title Deep Cuts. That title was meant to be a reference to the compilation albums that are 0h-so-helpfully created for me by iTunes Essentials: The Basics, The Next Steps, and finally, the Deep Cuts, where you'll find those lesser known gems and prized oddities that are only known by the lucky bastard who goes deep, preferably staying on iTunes as long as possible, double clicking on 30 second sound bytes of songs until his bank account balance drops by the double digits, seemingly entirely of its own accord.

On November 26, just a few days before I unplug, it feels like the right day to add a track to that compilation album. It has a 90 second drum solo, that only a purist could love, and that's the telephone. It doesn't offer the total anonymity of the internet. And it doesn't offer the soul-calming ease of being with someone face to face. It means listening to hold music. It means keeping track of phone numbers. It means practicing being a generous listener with the phone in one hand while Milo is threading figure eights around my legs.

And I'm not good on the phone. If I were to take one of those fun quizzes that test, "What Kind of Learner Are You?" -- and I am bravely resisting the impulse to do that, right this second -- I am certain that it would define me as a visual learner. Unlike the parrot I have for a son, I have a hard time remembering -- or even responding correctly to -- things that I hear without matching visual cues. After several years of racking up a mess of phone call slip-ups in which I spoke the wrong date, name, theatre company, or even play title, I actually made a point to move my professional interactions into cyberspace.

In that light...what I'm doing right now is crazy.

But, here I stand, with a goal and the will to achieve it, and I have many more reasons to leave the internet (for a while) than I do to stay. Prime among those reasons is the realization that the type of interaction that I've been having, even on this blog, is completely accessible to me through other means, if I'm willing to make the effort.

Toast to the Turkey

I'm a Thanksgiving person. Like there are cat people and dog people, I'm a Thanksgiving person.


I think very fondly of the years that I sat at a table spread by Adam and Ben, who probably will read this at some point, and toasted our gratitude so elaborately that we might have fallen off our chairs before we ate. And I think very fondly of that one college-era Thanksgiving of "tequila rapido," with our friend Forrest's mom, who observed in the wee hours that I was too drunk to keep playing her games and so administered cold turkey, instead of letting me go to bed. And let me be clear that this isn't an alcohol thing, although those two vignettes are obviously from the days before pregnancy and breastfeeding. There's just a pure spirit of celebration that comes with Thanksgiving. I've successfully separated it in my mind from any historical events, and I celebrate it as ritualized gratitude for gratitude, in which you eat and give thanks and eat and give thanks until you can't eat and give thanks any more.


This year, I'd like to toast the turkey, and...

The chef, who is never me.

The many friends with whom I have reconnected.

All the forgiveness that I didn't deserve.

That I have someone in my life who actually believes that turkeys say, "gobble gobble."

Hot cocoa and every part of the distribution chain that brings hot cocoa to me.

That my husband stole a flower for me on the way home from work today.

That my husband came home from work today.

And...

Your blogs.

If you are a blogger, and you are reading this, I do mean YOUR blog. Even if I don't comment, I read it. And even if I don't read it very often, when I do read it, I tend to read back to the place where I left off when I read it before. And, just in case you still don't think I mean you, if you have told me something in conversation that I already knew from reading your blog, I probably didn't let that show.

Tomorrow, in my post-turkey state of regret and resolution, I will post about how reading blogs is bad for me. Given my particular weaknesses and imperfections, which include gluttony -- and there's the real reason why I love Thanksgiving -- that is true.

But today is the day before Thanksgiving, and I'm celebrating gratitude.

Today I'm saying thank you to all of you for letting me read your personal thoughts, and your poetry, and your rants, and your prayers. I'm saying thank you to all of you for letting me know that I'm not alone in so many things that I'm not alone in, like...injured kids, and sleep frustrations, and poor housekeeping, and work stress, and obnoxious theatre patrons, and being inspired to laugh by your baby for no apparent reason, and crying on your kitchen floor, and being deeply concerned about the world, and having a love/hate relationship with Starbucks, and WalMart, and Disney princesses.

Thanks for writing to me.

This is What Mommy Blogs are Good For

When you have something wonderful to celebrate and you're the only adult in the house and it's still too early for it to be light outside, let alone to call a friend:

Milo just said, "B is for Book." I've been working on B is for Bunny, and B is for Baby, but we haven't done B is for Book. Unless he learned that phrase from my niece -- who is apparently related to me because she teaches language skills as continuously and with as much enthusiasm as I do -- he has made the letter-sound connection!! Pointing to the letters on the keyboard, he says, "B, buh buh buh, B says buh, B is for Book." You know it!!

Now he's saying, "don't touch my letters," which I think means that I should stop typing for a while and celebrate. How should we celebrate? Clearly, we should read some Books.

I'm glad I had a mommy blog today so I could share that with you. To be filed under "things I will miss."