I Guess I Was Punk Once

That is what the bumper sticker on my car says. I saw it in Eugene, Oregon, and I had to go online to get myself one. It perfectly encapsulates both my nostalgia and ambivalence.

But in a way, it's not true. In fact, in a way (and hear me out), I think I'm more punk now than when I actually sported blue-green hair, a lip ring, and my 8-hole Docs.

So how is that, you ask? Well, it's like this: I feel that the punk rock ethos is all about living by your own rules, creating the world the way you want it to be, and owning (in a metaphorical sense) the things you "shouldn't" be allowed to own. Punk rock, first and foremost, was about working-class kids who didn't have the money for guitar lessons just picking up a guitar, doing whatever they did to it, and playing something with a raunchy voice and just a few chords. "You thought I couldn't do it, and you wouldn't let me into your club. But here I am, doing it." It's why Sid Vicious covering Sinatra's "My Way" is so perfect.

But I know you're not convinced, because I'm not doing a damn thing that looks punk rock these days. I'm your average soccer mom with a house and a well-paying job with benefits. I make cheese for fun. At the very least, I was more punk when I was actually making punk music.

I know that "subvert the dominant paradigm" is kind of a bumper sticker-y thing to say, but it also strikes me as a punk idea. And the dominant paradigm is consumerism. It's a disposable society. It's having a ticky-tacky house in a neighborhood with CC&Rs. And within that paradigm, making cheese can be pretty damn subversive.

Why? Well, cheese-making is certainly a bit of a trend right now. Sunset Magazine will surely tell you how to do it. But if you are making cheese to avoid buying cheese, you are opting out of the culture at large. If you are making yogurt, growing your own fruits and vegetables, making your own jam, baking your own bread, crafting your own Christmas gifts, buying used clothes from the consignment shops... Well, that shit starts to add up. And what it adds up to, in our case at least, is a conscious shift away from the consumer culture. By participating in Buy Nothing Day instead of Black Friday, we were being subversive.

I follow a blog called Punk Domestics, which is part of what got me thinking about this. That, along with a book I read called Radical Homemaking, struck me as odd pairings. Since when, after all, is being domestic punk? Since when is homemaking radical? But if a big part of punk is saying no to the paradigm, saying you'll do things your way and on your terms, then I think you can approach almost anything with a punk ethos.

Years ago, a kid in a punk band used to hang around with us and come to our parties. He was railing on one night about anarchy -- he wanted to build a little anarchist community, and they would live all by themselves, and if they wanted food or something, they'd just go to a little nearby town and steal what they needed. The inherent problem in his plan, of course, (one of the problems, anyway) is that his version of anarchy still relied on there being a big old capitalist system nearby to leech from.

I participate in that capitalist system. I buy groceries, new clothes sometimes, kitchen goodies -- hell, I interrupted writing this blog post to go add a silicone spoon to my Amazon wish list -- and I am materialistic in certain ways. I love my stuff. But the more we opt out of the capitalist culture, the more we can opt into it in ways that we feel good about: we can go to local restaurants with minimal staff turnover. We can buy directly from the farmers' market. We can support locally-owned small businesses.

Have we sold out a little? Oh sure. We got an education. We have retirement plans. My biggest involvement in the Occupy movement was to take them some water and bananas. But we're also raising a kid who, with any luck, will see that we create our lives in the way we want them to be. We question the way things are done and choose what works for us. We encourage critical thinking in our kid, in our students. And we are making marriage, home ownership, parenting, and our lives work for us, making it all up as we go along.

So maybe once I listened to music real loud, looked more intimidating, wore band patches safety-pinned to my backpack, and spent less time at the playground or in the kitchen. But I don't think a punk mindset will ever be entirely behind me. Well, maybe if I didn't start every morning with The Clash...

Fit or fat... or both?

We were having a conversation at the lunch table about what time people got up in the morning, and what they did with the time. I said that I'm still getting up at 5 every day to work out at the gym.

"Oh yes!" my colleague clapped with enthusiasm. "You've been doing that for...?"
"About two years now."
"Fantastic! And how are you feeling? What has it done for you? Do you have more energy?"

I didn't want to disappoint my raw-food enthusiast friend, or the math teacher who's also a runner, or the health coordinator, or any of the other friends I share a salad with once a week, but the gods' honest truth is this: I'm not sure it's done a damn thing but rob me of an hour of sleep.

I mean, maybe I do have more energy, but I also rarely get as much as seven hours' sleep a night. So they kind of, you know, cancel each other out.

I'm not saying going to the gym has done nothing for me. I feel more muscle definition, particularly in my arms. And I haven't gained weight, despite the fact that I haven't been watching my food intake as carefully lately. But, well... I'm feeling pretty goddamn ambivalent about the whole thing lately.

See, sometimes I see my neighbors, who are bikers and runners and rowers, and I'd love to be athletic.

And sometimes I look at Michelle Obama, and I think, I just want to be toned.

And then I run across a lingerie ad and think, fuck athleticism and toning, I just want to be skinny and sexy.

And then I think, oh my god, what unhealthy, disordered thinking! Skinny doesn't mean sexy. I'm gorgeous and sexy as-is.

And then I see myself in a photo and I feel like an ugly lump. Like, I ran across this picture of me and Sweetie from his high school reunion, and I thought I looked super-hot that night, but it turns out that I looked like the Michelin man in gold lamé.

And then I think, I've got a kid. A daughter. It's my job to teach her to love herself, to love her body. To see that health and fitness are more important than body shape.

And my health is good. I'm fit.

But fat.

Are fit and fat even opposites? I mean, I work out, I ride my bike, I can hike and walk long distances, I can lift weights. I can hold my own in Zumba class*. My cholesterol and blood pressure are both very good. I'm overweight, but I don't suffer from any weight-related health issues.  But would I someday?

My Facebook feed has links to blog posts from moms who say out loud that they themselves are beautiful, just as they are. And links to articles about how anyone could lose weight if they really wanted to and tried hard enough.

I unsubscribed from Livestrong's newsletter after about the fifth article in a week that said if you were fat, you were making excuses and not trying hard enough.

I want my body to be able to do cool stuff, like karate or capoeira or dance. I feel great when I dance. I wish I had the time and money to go back to ballet.

And I could probably lose the extra weight, and I know exactly how. It involves Weight Watchers. My metabolism has changed a lot since I used to drop weight easily on the WW, but I could still do it. What it would mean, though, is skipping desserts except on days when I had carefully planned for them. It would mean skipping the cocktails at poker night. It would mean having a salad when we go out to dinner, dressing on the side. It would mean being hungry a fair amount, and craving things that I could not have. It would mean planning every last detail, paying attention to every last bite, and often going without things that I like. And I really like food. Honestly, cheese? Man, cheese makes me happy. It would make me unhappy to skip the cheese. So is it worth being unhappy to lose weight?

I know people who are that careful with their diet. My mom is probably a perfect example. She knows when she's invited to a birthday party that there will be cake, so she has extra-light other meals that day. I envy her self-discipline. I don't even think she's unhappy. And I don't think she likes cheese less than me. I think she just wants it more than me -- wants not to be fat. I think I like cheese more than I like thinness. But I don't know. Because thinness looks pretty good, too.

And it's all complicated by the fact that we may, someday soon, think about actually giving Z that little brother or sister she keeps begging for, and why would I lose 40 pounds just to gain 40 pounds again? Even though starting a pregnancy fat is riskier than starting a pregnancy at normal weight.

You see? It's complicated. I want to model healthy attitudes and healthy eating. I want to model joy and self-love and self-esteem. I do not want to model obsessiveness and calorie-counting, or indulgence and sloth, and I do not want to model self-hatred. I think a fine line exists in there somewhere, but I'm having a hard time finding it, and I suspect it will be a hard one to walk, too.





*This is modesty. I straight-up ROCK at Zumba.

Indigo Girl

     I took Zadie to the gypsy market, but not, as you might expect, to sell her to gypsies. They were selling little knitted things and handmade jewelry and whatnot, and there were occasional performances of dancing and hula hooping. We passed a small table with a crystal ball and a woman seated behind it. Zadie peered at the ball, asked a few questions, and then settled down to watch the dancing.
    "You know she's special, don't you?"
    "Yes, thank you. She's very special to me."
    "She's an indigo child*. Have you heard of those?"
    "I have."
    Another woman nearby nodded knowingly, and a man leaned in and offered, "She's what we're all trying to become."
    "Well, she's certianly unique. And often very difficult."
    "They always are."

"You're Zadie's mom?"
This time we are at the park.
"Yes."
"I wonder... She reminds me a lot of my older son. Have you read, by any chance, The Mislabeled Child? It's about how some kids who are gifted get labeled hyperactive."
"No, I haven't. It sounds interesting. She certainly does have a lot of energy."
"And she says the most amazing things. She's definitely gifted."
"Well, she's different. We've certainly wondered at times, whether she was hyperactive or had something like sensory processing disorder."
"Oh yes! Does she love movement? My son does, too."

The truth is, we get stopped pretty frequently by people who want to tell me how Zadie is an old soul, gifted, indigo, special in some way. And some of my deepest concerns revolve around the fact that she is different from the other kids in noticable ways. She is active. She has a hard time sitting still. She is passionate, intense, emotional, sometimes mean. She is extremely physical, wiggly, fidgety. When she was still a toddler, I found this article and thought it apt.

My ego as a parent of course wants her to be special. Special in a good way. And I don't want her to be different in the bad way. There is a huge part of me that would love to embrace the gifted label and reject the hyperactive label. The book sounds PERFECT. But I don't want to label my kid at all. I want her to just be who she is. Active, imaginative, verbal, funny, physical, curious, and a thousand things more.

She's very special... to me. That's plenty for now.


*I actually find the tone of this Wikipedia article about indigo children pretty hysterical: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigo_children

Bein' a Dad

"But I have no idea how to be a dad. I never had any example."
Around nine years ago, in the middle of a grueling and completely un-fun conversation about Where This Was Going, Sweetie revealed his main reason for not wanting kids: he was afraid he wouldn't be any good at parenting. In a testament to both my unflagging optimism and my bullheadedness, I assured him that parenting is an instinct; it just comes to you. He'd be great. I talked him into it, as a far-future possibility, and eventually, as the years passed, into a reality.

And maybe it did come to me by instinct or maybe I had internalized my own good parenting to the extent that it felt natural, but parenting does come pretty easy to me. Not to say that it isn't hard, or that I enjoy sleep deprivation, or even that I don't completely lose my shit sometimes. But here is the unvarnished truth of the thing: he was basically right.

From a very young age, Sweetie's dad was not living nearby. That doesn't mean he wasn't a good person or anything, but he was not around. Sweetie really has no idea what a dad does. And to be even further unvarnished about it, the parenting example he did have, on the maternal end, left rather a lot to be desired. As far as I know the best parenting example he got was from early 80s sitcoms.

But (you were hoping for that but, right?), even though it didn't come instinctively, he has been willing to learn. I'll read a parenting book, tell him the Cliff's Notes version, and within a day or two, see him employing the principles of it. Their personalities are very similar in ways that cause the two of them to butt heads a lot, but he knows he needs to build a bond with her, so he would read her bedtime stories, alternating with a story from me. Earlier this year, he started reading her The Hobbit. Then they read Fellowship of the Ring. Now they're in the middle of The Two Towers. He's been the bedtime story guy for months. It was a huge improvement in the amount of time they spent together.

Even so, a lot of the pre-bedtime hours were still her and me, and he would be in his office. A few times over a short period, she would tell me something that included this phrase: "Daddy was in his office... as usual." That struck a weird chord with me. I didn't want her to think of our lives as one where Dad was available primarily for 20 minutes just before sleep. I brought it up to him, and he was defensive, arguing that he was with us for dinner time, too. Also, she could go into his office any time she wanted, and she chose not to. I mentioned that his office isn't very comfortable for guests, particularly guests who like to touch stuff. He huffed at me a little and didn't answer immediately, but the next day when I came home from work, he was moving her little desk from her room into his office.

It worked. Now, she spends some time with me, some time with him. Sometimes they paint or draw together. Sometimes they listen to audio books. She never complains about his availability. I think he's happier to have a better relationship with her. I'm happy that I can do my own thing sometimes without my (wonderful, charming, attention-seeking) constant companion.

In sum, I meant to write this for Sweetie's birthday. Sure, he's been a man for a long time; we own a home, he's got a job and an education... But he's been slowly growing into this fatherhood thing, and working hard at it. And I love my Dad, and he's a good man, too, but I don't think it's a secret that I don't have a lot of experience living in a household with a mother and a father co-parenting as partners. So we're both making it up as we go along, working on instinct, and consulting the books when we don't know what to do. And I'll probably never stop being optimistic and bullheaded, and I just steamroll him sometimes, but he's getting awesome at this whole thing and I couldn't ask for a better partner.