The Lament of the "Fantastically Boring" Blogger

At 3:12 am
"Alexandra" left me a comment:
"Holy shit, your blog is fantastically boring."
I found it three hours later
Whilst my son's waffles were in the toaster
And coffee was brewing.
Fantastically boring stuff was happening
Of which I should not be writing.
Apparently I can't help myself
Because here I go again.
The thing is, I think she is right--
if unnecessarily mean. 
Alexandra's google profile says she is a suburban bohemian in her 30's
She left her comment from Greenwich
After 4 page views.

On My Continuing Difficulties With Housewifely Duties

Still with me despite my inevitable blogging silences? Thank you. You may remember the fascinating August 14 post about getting my son a new dresser after his Pottery Barn Kids one broke. Hey, I write what I know. Long story short, the boy STILL doesn't have a new dresser, despite all the good advice I received in comments. A Facebook friend suggested Stanley Young American, but my son rejected the reasonably priced floor model I found. For some reason, he has taken a keen interest in this new furniture, which mainly translates as a surly pubescent rejection of any viable option.

During the search, we desperately set foot in Ikea for the first time in 10 years, ignoring vociferous pre-teen objections. They didn't have the dresser we were going to buy, which was ok since I was ambivalent about it anyway. We did emerge with a chair, our first Ikea purchase. I don't know what came over me. I sat down in the floor model, found it so comfortable and the price so cheap, that before I knew what was happening, it was paid for and in the trunk of the Ford Focus.

I also need a new slipcover for the 10-year-old couch

Crookshanks the cat really likes it. Hopefully, she won't pee on it. That's what happened to the chair that used to be there. Or poop on it. I love her, but her toilet habits are worse than GG Allin's.

I spend a lot of time cleaning up the bodily emissions of C and her offspring, Fang and Clawed, and speaking of house cleaning, I am getting ready to admit defeat. About six months ago, I dismissed my cleaners and attempted to live a martyr-like cleaner-free existence. I am not the worst housekeeper in the world; dishes are promptly washed, laundry is done, the trash is set out in a timely manner. I'll vacuum, but I have to admit that dusting is spotty. (I recently noticed that the walls were dusty; I didn't even know that walls needed dusting.) Scrubbing tubs and toilets makes me hate myself and the world. I thought it would be good for my kids to have household responsibilities; they beg to differ.

The house has three stories, not including a disgusting unfinished basement. Two messy kids, three shedding cats, a husband who doesn't notice dirt. I am ALWAYS cleaning, but the house never has that freshly-cleaned feeling. I know this makes me sound like a privileged asshole, but here goes: life without cleaning help has turned me into a gigantic bitch. Just ask the staff over at the middle school, who received a visit from me after they messed up my son's schedule. A cleaner is coming over at noon to see my house before she agrees to take on the job.

I have to tidy up so she isn't scared off.


P.S. Please check out my interview with Andrea Linett on xojane. And I am also writing about family entertainment for ew.com.

Demented Product of the Day: The bearded beanie

This is being sold on Fab.com.

Oy. I am really on the wrong side of the generation gap now. It's never been clearer.

Why is All Mid-Priced Furniture Crap?

The excitement never stops here, people. My son, age 12, is about to get the third dresser in his short life. The first one was thoughtfully purchased by friends from our registry at a baby store on Avenue A. It was $400 and doubled as a changing table. Unfortunately, the plywood bottom of one of the drawers fell out almost instantly, and I would drive myself insane trying to keep it pushed in. Two year later, we got a new dresser from Pottery Barn Kids for around $500. It is called the Kendall, and matches his trundle bed.  The finish didn't last very well, and it was starting to get too small for him, and I was considering replacing it. Then a week or so ago, one of the drawers fell off the track and wouldn't go back on. I took a break from ruining everyone's fun to call Pottery Barn. I  had a frustrating conversation with the service agent, who is even better at ruining people's fun than I am. She basically accused me of willfully breaking the thing. Then she said that since the shoddy dresser was 10 years old, I should not be surprised that it is broken. Something about normal wear and tear. Which is just bullshit, and the fact that the majority of the goods we buy quickly fall apart is one reason that our planet is covered with trash.

(I have this Ethan Allen furniture which my mom bought me in the sixties. It is not to my taste, what with the vaguely colonial hardware--I keep meaning to go to Anthropologie and get some more appealing drawer pulls. But this hideous bedroom set is incredibly well-made. The drawers will never fall apart.  I am bound to it, and it to me.)

What to do? I can't bring myself to go to Ethan Allen. I might live in the suburbs and own a kicky pair of floral shorts from Talbots, BUT I DO HAVE MY LIMITS, PEOPLE.

Pottery Barn isn't getting any more of my money, and they have thousands of dollars of it already. I have never bought a single thing at Ikea. It is inexpensive, but anything that cheap, in my opinion, REALLY has to be garbage. And you have to assemble Ikea furniture, which will involve a lot of cursing and frustration on the part of my husband. So, in desperation,  I am about to spend $800 on a dresser from Land of Nod.  I am worried it is going to fall apart too.

Thoughts? Has anyone bought anything at Land of Nod? Any furniture suggestions?

Also,  R.I.P. Helen Gurley Brown, who I am certain never spent much time worrying about the quality of cheap bedroom furniture. She was too busy explaining what we should do on the bedroom furniture. Oh, I am hilarious.

What is Wrong With Boys?

I'm taking a quick break from ruining everyone's fun to ask a question that has been on my mind: What is wrong with boys?

I have been observing my son and his pack of 10 to 13-year-old friends like an anthropologist. (Or sociologist? Psychologist?) Behaviors, which appear to be innate and impervious to the civilizing influence of a good home,  include: pool games such as Sharks and Minnows, the object of which seems to be drowning each other. Underwater wrestling, until at least one competitor is near death. I actually asked the boys: "Please explain to me what is fun about that." They stared at me blankly.

The point of another game, called "Taps," seems to be whaling a ball at the opponent's head until a concussion is achieved.  On land the boys play games such as Zombie Tag, Cops and Robbers and Capture the Flag. Grouped together, these activities could be referred to as "Lord of the Flies." Or maybe "The Hunger Games."

I asked my husband if he had any insights, and he said: "They are boys."

Men and boys really are different. And not in a good way. Which reminds me of a Lynda Barry cartoon from The Village Voice, which I had posted on my bulletin board for years, called "Why I Like Men." I couldn't find it on the internet but I can quote it pretty much verbatim from memory: "Why I like Men: Well, for one thing there's their big muscles. They like things that are on fire and loud noises. I cannot explain why I like to kiss them. For life is filled with such mysteries."

The Mom Who Ruins Everyone's Fun

Please allow me to introduce myself. I'm The Mom Who Ruins Everyone's Fun. This is quite an accomplishment. Any mom can ruin her own kids' fun, just by making them wear sunscreen and eat fresh fruit,  but who among you can ruin everyone's fun?

What's more, I have been informed that "everyone thinks that I am the mom who ruins everyone's fun." Just yesterday, while I was stretched out in the shade trying to read my third Nora Ephron book in two weeks,  I saw a kid strongly knee another kid in the stomach. It was like a pain-inducing move I learned in a women's self defense class back in the 80s, except that one was to the groin. The aggressor's parents were not around, so I said: "I saw that. That wasn't good." Then, I made sure the child writhing on the ground had no internal injuries. This, apparently, was one of many fun-ruining actions.

I was also spotted handing a kid a napkin.

Here is my theme song.

There Was No Square Dance

The Square Dance was where all generations--the children, the teenagers, the adults of all ages--gathered and laughed and had fun. Good clean fun like we could never remember having, but which made us feel like we had been transported to another century, one without tvs and maybe even radios. Certainly, in this century, the pretend better century we were visiting, there was no texting or social media or blogging. The air was fresh and the lake water was clean and cold.

Everyone danced, even the non-dancers, the sullen teens, the widows and the not-so-spry. The fiddler would strike up a tune, and the caller would call out the steps, and we'd all follow along and get sweaty and out of breath and step on  people's feet and make mistakes and laugh and smile like crazy. It is impossible to be ironic, or in a bad mood, or experience any kind of ill temper while square dancing.

In 2007, we all headed to the Lake Lounge for the square dance. Violet, age 4, was excited because James, age 8, had told her he would dance with her. He crossed the wood floor in a polo shirt neatly tucked into his chino shorts. He practically bowed, then took her hand, and they began to dance. There was swinging your partner and do-si-doing. During a break they went to get punch, and it looked like a Norman Rockwell painting.

Mary, an elderly widow, danced every dance, her back straight and her while hair in a neat bun. The next morning at dawn she went on a canoe ride with me, and told me all about it. "You bet your bottom dollar I danced," she said. Her brother had just died, and she had been his caregiver. The square dance was a way of reaffirming all that was good about life.

But this year, there was no square dance. There was a d.j. He played ymcapartyrocki'vegotafeeling. As the horrendous music blared, and even the teens were confused, the soul of the place dropped right into the lake. The kids looked betrayed. They asked to leave and go to the game room. I am glad Mary wasn't there.