Maternally Challenged

Show Me The Blood

That's what I tell my kids when they come to me with their problems when I am trying to write. Jane Austen was right never to get married and have kids, is all I can say, because I am dead certain that if SHE had had a seven-year-old turning up at her elbow approximately every 90 seconds to sigh heavily and say, "Mommmmm....." we would never have had Pride and Prejudice. I don't regret having kids, I can't imagine life without my kids, but there are times, and this is one, when I would really, really like to scream, "WOULD YOU PLASE JUST LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE FOR TEN MINUTES WHILE I FINISH A THOUGHT FOR THE LOVE OF CHRIST?!?!" Instead, I say to them, "Come get Mommy if there is blood on the carpet or the cops are at the door," and they go away as if they have understood--when the reality is that they and I both know they will be back in less than five minutes with another Great Big Huge Honkin' Problem that only I can help them with.

In short, I've childproofed my office, but they keep getting in.

And here's the thing about parenthood: at this point, I have no idea if I am a) instilling a deep sense of worthlessness in my children, because some dumb magazine article always seems to be more important than them and their problems, or b) modeling for my children that you can be a mom and still use your brain--or what's left of it after childbirth.

I imagine that one day they will be discussing this with their shrinks. I only hope that I am still around to hear how it all turns out, because, man, I would really like to know myself.

Falling Back in Love with Writing

I have been out of love with writing for awhile, for reasons which have partly to do with having been sick (that last episode of depression last winter was a killer, folks), partly having to do with the inevitable letdown of having finished a book, and partly having to do with....I dunno. Midlife crisis, I guess. It's been at least a year since I've really wanted to write anything but the briefest of dispatches; producing an essay I agreed to write for an upcoming anthology, The Maternal Is Political, to be edited by Shari MacDonald Strong, was like pulling teeth (and yes, Shari, I know I'll probably have to do a rewrite, so I'm not done yet). All writers get writer's block, but this wasn't writer's block, it was pure-D writing aversion. Which, in the great scheme of things, doesn't matter a damn; the world is full of people who can write, and even fuller of people who think they can write and, to paraphrase Abe Lincoln, my absence would be little noted nor long remembered.

I note this only because this morning, it came back. The joy, I mean. Which is really the only reason for creative endeavor of any kind. Smokin' sales numbers are nice, don't get me wrong, but ultimately the only reason for any creative endeavor is the joy you get from doing it, and if there is no joy in the doing (and yeah, sometimes anguish and hair-pulling too), it's called W-O-R-K, and if that's what you're doing there are usually lots of ways to get better pay. But if you create something and it's yours and you took pleasure in creating it, then it's worth it. Perhaps you have made the Sistine Chapel and perhaps you have made a lopsided clay pot, and I'm not saying the ultimate worth of these two things is equal or that either one will pay the rent. But in terms of nourishment they gave to the soul of their respective creators, they might well both be priceless.

Anyway, this morning I had to get in my study to prepare for a talk I'm doing next week at the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore, and my 10-year-old was whistling, which she likes to do but which drives me nuts. So for the first time in a long time, I went through my CD stack and found some headphones and did what I used to do a lot, which is plug in some music to listen to while I am writing. By chance I happened to come upon my copy of Ralph Vaughan Williams' "Variations on a Theme by Thomas Tallis" and so I hit "play."

Now, there is some history here. The only reason I know this piece of music is that when I was in high school, a cultured friend of my father's (my dad's own taste in music ran to the likes of "The Cowboy Isn't Speaking to His Horse") gave me instructions to look it up. My dad was taking us on a trip to London that year, and my dad's friend said, "Go to Harrod's, ask them for this recording and tell them you want to hear it in the listening room." Back then, and I'm not even going to tell you how long ago this was except that the Beatles had just broken up and we listened to music on big black vinyl things called "records," Harrod's had a special listening room where customers could sample their proposed purchase in big soft easy chairs equipped with huge, state-of-the-art headphones. (Yes, I know. They actually had salespeople, too, and they actually waited on customers!) Anyway, I did as instructed. This particular summer's day was gorgeous and sunny and warm; the windows in this room were on the second floor, open to the outdoors. Some slight street noise came in, but it was muted, and a light breeze occasionally lifted the curtains. So my first impression of this music is indelibly mixed with that sensual pleasure--the light, the feeling of the warm summer air on my skin, the wonder of being in a strange and exciting new place, combined with the lush violin score of a signature work of a very, very English composer. There is a violin solo in the middle of this work which one critic, and I wish I knew who so I could give proper credit, described as being like "the sound of the wind running underneath the house," and if you have ever been in a poor shanty of a house built up off the ground where the winter wind does indeed blow, maybe that description, not to mention the music which inspired it, will make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up, too.

Anyway. I sat down this morning in front of the computer and plugged myself in and--KABOOM! It was back. I looked out my window over the grass in the back yard, and with that gorgeous music filling every space in my head thought with a kind of anticipation I have not felt in many months: I have several hours of writing ahead of me. And it was joy.
 

The Way It Isn't

How did I wind up here? --Middle aged, that is, and out of work?

Don't get me wrong: in one sense, I have more work than I can possibly do (especially while recuperating from knee surgery). Running a household is w-o-r-k, and no end to it. Important work at that.

But once upon a time I had a career. It had its ups and downs, but for the most part it was a solid, respectable career, and it came with a healthy 401K, and I could look forward to years of steady employment and watching that 401K grow with my matching employer donations. And then this thing happened: I had a baby. I took a year off to watch her grow, because my employer was very lenient and understanding about that, and after a year I planned to come back. But my employer also let me know that when I did come back, I'd be doing something less interesting--a job that looked suspiciously like the work I had been doing at the very beginning of my career, 20 years earlier. I didn't much like that prospect, and I was getting to enjoy this mom thing. So after much anguish, I decided to ask for another year's leave--immediately granted, that should have told me the gig was up right there--and see how well I could do by freelance writing.

Which, after a slow beginning, was pretty well. One year I made $30,000 as a freelancer, a number I cite not because it's so staggering (it was just over a third of my former salary, and no benefits), but because I was able to make that much money without even thinking about it. The kinds of articles the women's magazines wanted back then were a piece of cake for someone like me: I was accustomed to working on deadline and turning out accurate prose on topics much more complicated than "how to buy a cellphone." I was making money and hardly realizing I was working. My husband and I were living within our means, which meant we did not live in a fashionable part of town, but we liked where we lived and we liked our small house, and things were fine.

Then came kid number two--a surprise, but a delightful one, and then I took some time off to be a mom to her full-time, and then, somehow, getting back in the saddle wasn't so easy. By this time, my employer and I had pretty much parted company, in a listless "see ya later" kind of way. I had tried to find ways to fit in around my old shop on a part-time basis, but I'd met a brick wall. That hurt, but I decided it was okay; pumped up on my recent $30,000-in-one-year experience and kept afloat by my husband's medical insurance, I figured I could do just fine, and I was liking my freedom. But something was happening to the little niche of the magazine world where I had found a home: the appetite for anything that looked remotely like fact-based journalism was evaporating. What was taking its place was celebrity interviews and, increasingly, "psychological" articles citing "experts" that purported to give the final word on spanking (or not), developing empathy, the Power of Intuition....puff pieces that made me feel fraudulent writing them because I knew how little actual information they contained. The end came one day at Barnes and Noble, when I sat down for a cup of coffee and read an entire article in a women's magazine before realizing I had written it.

For several months, I floundered, and then an idea I had rejected as uninteresting suddenly began to look interesting after all, and whaddya know, I turned it into a book proposal and sold it. The day I got the word from my agent about the deal I came out of my office screaming and pumping my fists. "What is it, mom?" asked my oldest, who was then about six.

"MOM'S BACK IN THE GAME, BABY!" I yelled, and we all danced around, even though the kids didn't really know what the fuss was about. Oh, God, what a sweet moment: I was a mom, AND I had a career, on my own terms. Life rocked.

Which brings us to the present: the book is out, it's selling in respectable numbers, the checks from the publisher have come in (all but one, and it won't be large, and it will be months and months from now before I see it)...and, since my book (like most books) has not hit the best-seller list, I know that this is pretty much all the money I will ever see from it. Even with a nice advance, which I got, the money goes. It gets spent on doctor's office co-pays and kids' clothes and summer camp and plumbing disasters and income taxes. My huge $150,000 advance for this book (in the writing world, that's considered very nice--million dollar advances are the ones you hear about but most writers never see that kind of money) now consists of about $4,000 tucked away in a savings account. I am one major car repair bill away from that most hateful position to be in: totally dependent on my husband's money. (And I don't care how egalitarian your marriage is, both partners KNOW who is bringing in the bucks. Nobody has to say a thing.)

So: here I am, a 51-year-old journalist with tons of experience and awards and honors from Back in the Day (that 1987 Pulitzer finalist thing sounds quaint now, it was so long ago) who, if I were to show up at my old job now, might score a nice lunch with an editor but they know and I know I ain't getting hired back there. I am Not Needed; they are paying people my age to go away these days, because newspapers are never profitable enough for Wall Street, and Wall Street calls the shots these days. (I remember the old days when newspapers were not supposed to be "profit centers," when they used their unique positions as the only business in our society afforded constitutional protection to advance agendas bigger than making money. But that was a long time ago.) There's always the possibility of another book--if I can think of something marketable, which is a big if; there's magazine work, if I can bring myself to write the kind of article they want these days, which is so forgettable even I forget I've done it. I could get a part-time retail job to bring in some cash, and give up on using the skills I worked so long and hard to acquire. I could quit complaining and settle into Middle-Aged Momhood, as so many women before me have done.

My only problem is that I have this burning desire to be Useful. I have things I want to say, skills I want to pass on. How to do this? It's one thing when you're 21 and have no responsibilities and nothing but time on your hands, and even though the path before you is steep there's something exciting about tackling it. It's another when you're 51 and there are college tuitions looming in your future--and, what's worse, the last 10 years of your working life have been largely spent doing work that our society does not value. At 21, you're a hot young find; at 51, you're just a mom. You exited the fast track and now there are no "on" ramps. And I look around me and see dozens of women my age, in a similar position to me, scrambling for piecework--women with advanced degrees, women with priceless experience, women with superior intellects.

And I think: how wasteful can this society afford to be?

The Cat As Muse and Tormentor

I don't know why cats like to hang out around computers, but I've always had cats (with brief hiatuses due to landlords, spousal objections, etc.) and they have always displayed an inordinate interest in what I'm doing on this machine. It's almost as if they think....there's cat food inside. In this picture,  I think it's beginning to occur to her: Maybe...not.

The idiocy of cats never ceases to amaze me, especially when you consider that it's pretty clear they have domesticated humans, not the other way around. (Not a roaring endorsement of the supposed superiority of the human brain.) Cats will, when it's raining, go to the front door, meow to be let out and then, confronted with evidence that torrents of water are pouring from the sky, look at you accusingly, as if to say, "I could call the SPCA on you for this." They then trot to the back door and meow to be let out. When you open that door, they always look stunned, absolutely poleaxed with horror. "GodDAMN, it's raining out the back door, too!" I figure the basic tabby cat domesticated humans millions of years ago because it was becoming clear that, evolutionarily speaking, they were slated for that Big Slag Heap in the Sky. Yeah, they hunt. But I have seen Roxy spend loooong moments stalking... an oak leaf. My former cat, the dear departed Ralph, used to catch rodents all the time, but he worked on a catch-and-release basis, somewhat like U.S. immigration policy: he nailed the little critters at the border, brought them inside the Big House and then said, "Now, getouttahere, you wild and crazy guys!" Which they did. Some people get a cat to rid themselves of a rodent problem; we never had a rodent problem until we acquired a cat. The only thing Ralph ever learned to do, and this was absolutely seared into his tiny little brain, was to come running when he heard the can opener. He lived to be 19 and this behavior continued up to the day of his death, some 12 years after I quit buying cat food that required a can opener to get into. "What? Tomato sauce? But I thought..." Ralph, bless his heart, keeled over and died at the food trough, which is the way I suspect he would have wanted to go. His interest in food was not just a hobby; he was One Big Mother. Part Maine coon cat, he tipped the scales at 22 pounds; a veterinary assistant who had to carry him upstairs once accused me of feeding him concrete. Roxy, in contrast, is svelte, and quite beautiful, which she knows; periodically, she will throw herself on the floor and roll around like a naked Marilyn Monroe on a bearskin rug, and you can just read the thought balloon above her head: "Ain't I purty?" That's it. That's her One Big Party Trick...sort of like some women I have known. Unlike them, Roxy is assured of Tender Vittles for the rest of her life, which just goes to prove my thesis: as dumb as they are, they are smarter'n us.

Life Crisis

So here's the deal: I have just finished a book. It's getting decent publicity, people are buying it (you can buy it too, from Amazon, by clicking on The Ghost in the House: Motherhood, Raising Children and Struggling with Depression), and if you don't want to do that you can read all about it in USA Today. So I have nothing whatsoever to complain about. Except that now I have to figure out what to do with the rest of my life.

This happens to me every time I finish a big project. I don't celebrate getting things done; I go into mourning. This is because I am neurotic as all hell and because I wouldn't know happiness if it rose up and bit me in the butt, which it has several times in my life. I am just way more practiced as misery, and so when I get to these interstices in my life, between projects, my first thought is always, OH MY GOD THIS IS IT. I'LL NEVER FIND ANYTHING USEFUL TO DO AGAIN.

Today I was thinking about how young you have to be to check into the Old Folks' Home, since obviously my usefulness to the human race is done and I have no further business taking up space on the planet.

My husband is familiar with these desolate stretches of my psyche. "Here we go again," he says, and straps on his headphones to watch ESPN. The kids aren't interested in anything except whether they get to stay up past bedtime since there is no school tomorrow (election day). There is nobody here to share my angst except the cat, Roxy, who will share anybody's angst as long as they know how to open a packet of Tender Vittles. So it's me and the cat tonight, sharing our long, dark, lonely night of the soul. It's okay; don't mind me. I'll just be sitting here in the dark, facing the abyss. I'm fine. Really. (Sound of stifled sobs). And so....(deep, heartfelt sigh) to bed.

Why I Miss Newspaper Work, and Other Observations

Years ago, when I was working for the Washington Post, a mentally disturbed woman managed to climb into the lion enclosure at the National Zoo one night after hours. Her body was discovered the next morning. This was horrific, of course, but like cops, paramedics and other people who have to look at horrific things with some regularity, newspaper people develop coping mechanisms. One is humor. Very, very black humor.The reporter who was assigned to cover the story went out to the zoo to get the facts, and came back late that afternoon. My desk was next to the city desk, so I heard the ensuing conversation:

Editor: "What happened?"
Reporter: (Long sigh) "Oh, the usual. Each lion's saying the other lion did it."

Maybe black humor appeals because I"m a black mood. Birthdays aren't good. And on this one, I missed my mother, who died last December of congestive heart failure. For the first time in 50 years, I did not hear that warm Southern voice saying, "Happy birthday."  And yesterday, not even the hugs of my children and all their happy babble could make up for the one voice that was missing.

A Handy Dandy Reference Guide

 This is blatant self-promotion, but I confess to being slightly agog at the number of mentions that The Book (The Ghost in the House: Motherhood, Raising Children and Struggling with Depression) is creating in the blogosphere. Since I don't have time to do anything else today, here's a list of who's saying what:

http://spyderkl.net/?p=175
http://jbjones.blogspot.com/2006/08/i-wouldbut-i-cant.html
http://www.amalah.com/amalah/2006/08/blog_interrupte.html
http://www.blogsheroes.com/feed/parentinganddepression
http://thismodernworld.com/3069
http://fortherecord.wordpress.com/2006/08/15/dear-dooce/
http://inneedofgrace.blogsome.com/2006/08/16/dooce-reviews-book-about-maternal-depression/
http://www.hipmama.com/node/24153
http://wakingupastonished.blogspot.com/2006/08/so.html
http://orangeconezone.wordpress.com/2006/08/15/more-on-that/

http://jujubeejenny.typepad.com/my_weblog/2006/08/skip_right_on_o.html
http://limberlime.com/2006/08/13/maternal-depression-irritability-and-guilt/
http://welborn.blogspot.com/2006/08/ghost-in-this-house.html

And, just so nobody thinks I'm sitting here smoking Gauloises in my Chanel suit while fielding offers from film agents, here's how I have spent my day:

5 loads of laundry
dealing with three force-five swivets/ screaming hissy fits from the 9 year old
one screaming hissy fit of my own
trying, unsuccessfully, to get the 5 year old to nap
breaking up about 8 full-bore screaming sibling fights
packing for a trip to Wisconsin loooong before the crack of dawn tomorrow

This, ladies, is the reason Jane Austen never married.

Oh, yeah, and last item:
eating prunes to cure my constipation (Dooce, are you listening? Prunes, honey. Prunes are the cure.)

The Impostor Syndrome

We all know what this is--the feeling that, deep down, you don't deserve any good fortune, that sooner or later people are going to see past this lovely veneer of accomplishment you've managed to construct to find the Truly Inadequate Person within. Groucho Marx even made a famous joke about it: "I'd never belong to a club which would have me as a member." I don't know if Groucho suffered from depression; I don't know if depression is a prerequiste for this feeling. All I know is that I've had a bad case of The Impostor Syndrome lately.

The occasion for this is the publication of my new book, The Ghost in the House: Motherhood, Raising Children and Struggling with Depression, which debuted Aug. 8 and which has been getting raves in the mom-blog world ever since. All of which has induced in me an uneasy sense that the other shoe is about to drop--the somebody out there will sneeringly point out that my research is worthless, or that I'm a whiner/slacker mom, or that the book just plain sucks. And perhaps, soon, somebody will.

Or I could, as my friend Andi Buchanan (of Literary Mama fame) suggests, consider the possibility that maybe, just maybe, I've written a good book. And while I was digesting this idea, I got an e-mail from from oldest friend in the world, an e-mail containing some serious Buddhist-inspired wisdom. Meghan Caughey and I go back to Mrs. Hendry's Kindergarten on Highway 29 in College Park, Georgia. Today she is an accomplished artist, and a person who has walked through the hellhole of schizophrenia--a place darker and scarier by far than anything depression has to offer--and emerged on the other side. She lives in Oregon, we haven't seen each other in decades, but the spiritual connection between us is profound. Meghan, I hope you don't mind the quote, but it was so great I had to share:

"You are a vehicle, a vessel, the messenger. I know the compliments go against the self-critic in your head, so I can see why it is maybe hard to take it all in. But you wrote something that was genuine and about the truth. The self-critic hates the truth and wants you to feel bad. But people recognize your work as valuable and want to communicate their experience of this to you and to others. The self-critic must be over-ridden and the truth must prevail. The small ego is wrapped up with the self-critic. The deeper essential self knows the truth and recognizes the value of one's work and is gracious when recognized."

The small ego is wrapped up with the self-critic. Ooooh, that's tough, which is why I like it. It gets at the essential truth of the Impostor Syndrome, which is that it is itself an impostor: it is a form of arrogance masquerading as Poor Little Me. It's a way of saying that you, and only you, can be the arbiter of what's really good and what's not--and that your friends and admirers are either a) too dumb to know the difference between good and mediocre or that b) they are sucking up to you (which is a fairly unflattering view, to say the least). Deep down, the Impostor Syndrome is about Pride, which they don't count as one of the seven deadly sins for nothin'.

So: I'm giving it up. The Impostor Syndrome, that is. Which is not that hard to do, because the alternative is not raging egomania ("Me! Me! Me!") but simply the recognition that you've been given a gift and that this time you've used it well. You have not obstructed the cosmos; you have not impeded The Flow. Now, that, I gotta say, is a nice feeling, and one I'll take any day.

Meanwhile, I'd like to give a great big thank you to all the reviewers out there who have read the book and have their own penetrating insights to offer. For those of you who haven't caught up with your internet reading this week, here they are (and I'm sorry about not linking directly to your home pages, guys, but this is my third try at posting this thing and every time I try to do that I lose my post--so bear with me):

Monday--Jen Lawrence, of MUBAR
http://tomama.blogs.com/mubar/2006/08/this_blog_post_.html and http://www.mothershock.com/blog/archives/2006/08/mothertalk_the_1.html

Tuesday--Mir at Woulda Coulda Shoulda  http://wouldashoulda.com/2006/08/08/blog-book-tour-the-ghost-in-the-house/ and http://www.mothershock.com/blog/archives/2006/08/mothertalk_blog.html

Wednesday--Jenny at Three Kid Circus
http://threekidcircus.com/threekidcircus/archives/2006/08/mother_talk.html and http://www.mothershock.com/blog/archives/2006/08/mothertalk_blog_1.html

Thursday--Asha Dornfest at Parenthacks http://www.parenthacks.com/2006/08/mothertalk_blog.html and http://www.mothershock.com/blog/archives/2006/08/mothertalk_blog_2.html

Friday--Tracey Gaughran-Perez at Sweetney
http://www.sweetney.com/001372.html and http://www.mothershock.com/blog/archives/2006/08/mothertalk_blog_4.html

Keep an eye out for Heather Armstrong, aka  the fabulous Dooce, who promises to weigh in on this subject on Aug. 15 via her column on Alpha Mom.  And, if you still have time on your hands after all this, you can look up some mainstream media reviews on my  website.

Gotta go. The kids are pounding at the door.

The Bitch Goddess Success

For anyone in the Western Hemisphere (and perhaps other hemispheres as well) who has not gotten an invitation to a book reading, a flyer, or an e-mail, here's the news: I have just published a book (The Ghost in the House: Motherhood, Raising Children and Struggling with Depression, HarperCollins). This is usually the time when a writer starts to put on airs. For one thing, it's the ultimate trump card when it comes to mundane household duties. "I'm sorry, I can't pick up the kids today," I can tell my husband. "I have this interview scheduled for my book." Or, motioning the kids to get away from the phone, I can mouth the word, "BOOK" and they may, for a few seconds, leave me alone. "I'll do the grocery shopping when I'm done doing this book publicity stuff," I'll cheerfully announce to anyone within earshot, and this person, who is my husband, will know that "when I'm done" translates to "never" and he will schlepp off to Safeway himself.

But this little item from The Shanghai Daily (yes, I get around) I think has cured me forever of my hourly habit of checking my Amazon sales ranking: "Within six months, Guo Ni has published six books - romance novels for teens and young women. People were amazed at her writing speed and prolific work. Her publisher, the 21st Century Publishing House, claimed Guo had sold out 2.05 million volumes of her books since February - the sales surpassed 50 million yuan." (That would be $6.17 million in U.S. dollars. This person makes J.K. Rowling look like a mid-lister.)

"In an age that adores quick success," the article continues, "it is not unusual to have writers like Guo around." WHAT? Okay, I can stand one prolific writer I've never heard of who makes a gazillion dollars (or the Chinese equivalent). But more? What about my dreams, guys? Does this mean that even if I make the front page of the New York Times Book Review, there may be a couple billion people who will have never heard of me? How can this BE?

Masochistically, I plowed on: "When Guo grows older, she could easily be replaced like a pop star - because more idol-like newcomers will appear."

(sound of quiet sobbing, made by me)

Finally, at the end of the article, a teensy ray of hope: "Writing, unlike singing pop songs, should be an occupation emphasizing hard work, life experience and intuition."

Damn straight. You can't just crank 'em out like that, Guo. There's a lotta hard livin' you gotta do before you write a book, a lot of good times and bad times to soak up, a lot of hard-won wisdom to accumulate, a lotta good whiskey and bad livin'. I don't care if you are rolling in so much dough you could flush a few thou down the crapper and not miss it--because I, Guo, unlike you, have suffered for my art.

Now, dear readers, it's your turn.

Proustian Questions

Recently, Her Bad Mother , a.k.a. Catherine Connors, asked some Proustian questions about blogging, which I will now attempt to answer:

1) What is the quality you most admire in a blogger?

They gotta make me laugh. Or maybe cry. But mostly I am looking for a laugh.

2) What is your most marked blogging characteristic (or, how would you describe your blog)?

Hard to say. I've been keeping a journal in some form or other since I was 14. So this seems very familiar. I just have to remember to keep my kids' real names out of it, is all.

3) What is your greatest virtue as a blogger (what do you most like about your blog)?

I try to say things other people are thinking but don't dare to say. Or, alternatively, make people laugh.

4) What do you regard as the principle defect of your blog?

Too much about me, not enough about current events. Which are truly frightening, so much so that I'd rather cover my ears and yell "Nyah Nyah Nyah!"--so, as you can see, I have trouble sticking to my goal.

5) What character of fiction do you most wish had a blog?

I would change this question to "what character in history," and my answer would be Elizabeth I. I used to be her, you know. Others have made this claim, but they are all con artists. I am the genuwine article.

6) What [other] historical or real life person do you most wish had a blog?

George W. Bush, because I truly do not understand how that man thinks. I mean, something must be goin' on in there, but I'm damned if I can figure out what it is. My best guess is that it is a looping re-run of "Animal House," which probably reminds him of his own days at Yale. He was not the John Belushi character, but wishes he was.

7) What is your present state of blog (present state of mind as a blogger)?

Bemusement. What will we all do with ourselves when Peak Oil hits and the generators go down and the batteries run out?

8) What is your blog motto?

"It's a weird fuckin' world, ain't it?" No, I'm sorry--my real motto is "They say children will drive you crazy. But what if you're already there?" It's either that or "Sisterhood is powerful. Motherhood is nuclear." I forget.
 

9. What do I regard as the lowest depth of misery?

Mental illness, which I know a little too much about. But then, I've never had to go grocery shopping in Beirut while the bombs are falling, so I could be wrong about this.

10. What is your idea of earthly happiness?

Well, at the moment, since I'm feeling kinda puny and have been up coughing all night, it would be lying in the warm sun in a hammock with a syringe of Darvon at hand. But I am trying to cultivate healthier habits. Actually, marveling at my children's beauty is a pretty good pastime.