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ramblings: andrew sullivan in boxers, nanny diaries, hooker and marriage

You know, I don't think I'm even going to tell you the dream I had about Andrew Sullivan in boxers, a volleyball team and my righteous indignation. It was a dream induced by back pain and things you take to make that pain go away and it's really none of your business.

When you need to spend a lot of time flat on your back, there's not much you can do, unless you're a hooker. So, when I got home from work early, at about 1:30, I chewed some Motrin, got on the couch and debated making some money while I was just laying there, but my husband didn't feel like going out and finding customers for me. So I read instead.

My sister - who, by the way, is going to DisneyWorld with her husband and child today and really has some nerve taking that kid away from me for ten days, even if he is going to see his heroes Buzz and Woody - which brings to mind that funny little exchange I had with him when he was presented with a brand new Buzz doll and Woody doll: Me: I got a buzz! Him: I got a woody! Which sounded like every date I ever had in high school.

Did I get lost in a sentence there? Yes, sorry for the lack of closing punctuation, but I can't figure out where I was supposed to close that run-on thought, so I'll just start again.

My sister - the one who is going to Disney - gave me a copy of The Nanny Diaries yesterday and I scoffed and made a face but promised her I would read it because she seemed to like it. I mean, I just read Ender's Game and Snowcrash and Clash of Civilizations and I'm supposed to top that off with a book written by two women who served lunch to snotty kids in New York City and made a fortune telling the world about it? Of course, I dove into it.

I read it through the afternoon news shows and through the Yankee game and by the time the first pitch was thrown in the Cubs game, I finished the book. I have to say, it was probably time better spent than if I had taken up my husband's idea of seeing if the lecherous landscapers outside the window wanted to take advantage of my being on my back while parting with their mulch-stained ten dollar bills. Ten dollars? I smacked him. He should have at least said fifty.

So, Nanny Diaries. This tale of fiction is taken from the true life experiences of the aforementioned women who took care of the kids of the ridiculously wealthy in New York. Nannies. Hence, the title. Apparently, they kept diaries.

While the couples represented in The Nanny Diaries are fictitous, they are very much real. I know these couples. I know the mothers who think kids are accessories, the fathers who are married to their businesses and spend nights with their secretaries instead of their wives, the mothers who have time for every committee, every flower show and shoe sale, but don't have the time to give their children a hug.

I knew one mother who was going to save the whales, stop global warming and feed every kid in Ethiopia. Her own son, however, was going to have to go to a Professional Problem Solver in order to help his transition when he lost his beloved blankie.

There was the mother who started a neighborhood community program that served home cooked meals and delivered them to the homeless, but who hired a full-time cook to serve her kids breakfast, lunch and dinner because her community service kept her tied up.

But they had a perfect family because it was mommy and daddy and mommy and daddy were married. There were no gay parents or step-parents or single parents. Just perfect family function. And these people are active in the community and give to charity and go to church.

I guess it doesn't matter that while Henry Sr. is off bonking his office staff, Henry Jr. is exhibiting signs of serious behavior problems. And while Mrs. Perfect is off at her spa retreat which she so deserved after all that work she did for Activist Committee Number 22, her daughter is looking to her male classmates for affection that she doesn't get at home.

But I - when I was divorced and a single mom - was not worthy to have my little unit of me and two children called a real family even though my kids were well adjusted and never bit anyone and were pretty damn happy in our comfortable, if messy, home.

And the gay couple who adopted a child and loved that child with all their hearts and made excruciating adjustments to their work schedules so one could always be home, spending time with their child, well they don't qualify as a real family either.

Nor would I qualify now, what with my second husband being a step-father to my children, and I'm just waiting for that moment when they snap from the unfairness of it all and start dealing crack and hiding dead hookers in the trunks of the cars they steal from elderly people. I mean, it's bound to happen, because we are not Married Original Mommy and Daddy.

Of course, the mommies who belong to the League of Women Who Join Every League have wonderful, perfect children just by virtue of being married in the eyes of God. Their children won't go astray, they won't act out, they won't become crack whores even though their parents have probably hugged them twice in their entire lives and don't even know what their favorite color is.

I suppose that a perfect mommy wouldn't be sitting around writing about laying on her back to get ten bucks from the landscapers, even though she's kidding around. The perfect mommy would be kissing the perfect daddy good-bye at the door right now, while he scuttled off to the Big Important Job and left mommy behind to solve the world's problems by committee, while her ten year old is sucking his thumb and wetting his pants at night.

Geez, where was I? Hmm...Andrew Sullivan in boxers, back pain, Woody and Buzz....oh, yes.

Nanny Diaries. Thoroughly enjoyable.

Back to my sci-fi, which does not aggravate as much as reality.

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Comments

My sister - who, by the way, is going to DisneyWorld with her husband and child today and really has some nerve taking that kid away from me for ten days, even if he is going to see his heroes Buzz and Woody - which brings to mind that funny little exchange I had with him when he was presented with a brand new Buzz doll and Woody doll: Me: I got a buzz! Him: I got a woody! Which sounded like every date I ever had in high school.

I'm going to be laughing out loud at random times today and probably tomorrow, thanks to you.

"...The League of Women Who Join Every League..."

Know why those women don't have group sex?

All those thank-you notes.

D

Michele, may I suggest Vernon Vinge's novel A Fire Upon the Deep and its prequel A Deepness in the Sky?

"...The League of Women Who Join Every League..."

That reminds me of a conversation Lee (bf) and I had the other day. I mentioned something I thought had gone out with the fifties--debutante balls--and Lee assured me they still existed. I paraphrase.

Me: America likes to pretend it's a classless society, but it isn't.
Lee: Yeah, I knew kids who went to debutante balls and joined the Junior League.
Me: The what?
Lee: The Junior League.
Me: What do they play? Hockey or baseball?

What I don't understand is why the moms don't get their kids involved. I mean, if you enjoy something that much, wouldn't you want to share it with your children? Let them get a healthy dose of work ethic and appropriate community action while spending quality time saving whales with the kids? Or take your kids to the spa with you? It's not as though the activities they engage in are mutually exclusive with children.

Having spent 8 years in GA, I can assure you that the Debutante Ball is alive and well. Although I don't know a single person that has ever attended one.

I confess. I have been to a Debutante Ball. And they are a NIGHTMARE.

D

I've been to two. One in Atlanta, even.

Of course, I wasn't the deb at either one--just attending a college with a lot of girls from "old money" families. Woo.

I think of it as an interesting sociological experience. And the vodka was top-notch.

But Michele, how do you really feel about those Junior League ladies?

I've always been curious - is there a Senior League? Maybe there is, but it's so exclusive that even the people who are in it aren't sure that it actually exists...

"leaving the innocent people of Iraq to fight terror on their own is morally unconscionable."

That's a major pet peeve of mine.
We aren't at war with an emotion, we are at war with terrorISM. Big diff.

The League of Women Who Join Every League

Brilliant. Mind if I steal it? I'll chop and channel it to "The League of Women Who Join Leagues", or perhaps, "The League of Women's Leaguers". Then no one will recognize it as yours. Muahaha!

I learned about the Junior League and debutantes from Molly Ivins and Florence King and Maryln Schwartz. Schwartz's books, in particular, are terrifying.

By the way:

...the dream I had about Andrew Sullivan in boxers, a volleyball team...

Sooooo. Did you convince him to "play for the other team"?

Actually, Syl, despite what the politicians and the news media call it, what we're at war with are terrorists and the states that sponsor, harbor, or otherwise aid them. Remember Dubya's speeches during the weeks immediately after 9/11?

Iraq did all those things. If some of the terrorists thus aided happened to be al Qaeda, that's only icing on the cake.