Let's Party Like it's Geocities 1999

Why? Because this strange child is my heart.

 I'm just a writer.

I'm not doing this to create a brand for myself, not that there's anything wrong with that. I named my blog Cincy Sarah because it's just kind of catchy and is pretty on-the-nose. I'm Sarah and I'm from Cincinnati. No-brainer.

But every now and then, I get weird pressure from people I know in the blogging community, as it were, to monetize my blog or finish up designing my own site (turns out I really and truly detest that kind of thing), or to organize blog posts into an ebook that I would then sell on my blog that already contains all those posts... and I'm just not into it. I kind of envy the very talented people who have managed to create gorgeous, information-packed websites that draw visitors from all over the world. I'm just downright jealous when they amass enough readers to get free shit from companies just for mentioning them "casually" here and there. That's pretty sweet! I love that entrepreneurial spirit.

However.

That's just not me. I thought it might be, but it's just not. I don't have a particular agenda to promote, though I don't mind holding you hostage now and again to rant about something important (THINK BEFORE YOU PINK, PEOPLE). I like to write things that I hope people can relate to. I try to strike a chord now and again. I'm ever aware that I'm just another anonymous voice on the internet and it's totally understandable that you, the average internet person, doesn't necessarily care about me, in particular. I'm comfortable with that and the feeling is probably mutual. We both know what this is.

I'm also not interested in joining one of these massive rings where everybody blindly clicks on everyone else's blogs and leaves meaningless comments so that everybody gets lots of hits in some kind of modern day chain letter, Google-tricking waste of time.  That feels icky to me.

So I'm just going to continue writing whatever the hell I feel like writing here. And someday, I hope I can relate some exciting news about how someone is paying me actual money for writing things I love to write about. But it won't be Google Adsense. When I point you to Amazon and ask you to pretty please buy my book, I hope you'll want to do that because it sounds interesting and you'd like to support me because you're cool like that.

Now, how about you? What are you up to? I'd love to use my small internet voice to help get the word out about cool things you're doing, too. My next post will be pure promotion of some internet up-and-comers I'm excited about. If you're doing something from the heart and you'd like me to help spread the word, I'm happy to do that. No link exchanging required.

Let's just be real together, like it's Geocities 1999.

My life has become a yogurt commercial

xkcd.com

I spent the day putting 120 miles on my van yesterday, carting the husband and children from one end of the county to the other from 8:30 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. This is very unusual for me, and I don't recommend it in general, but it struck me that I might as well have been wearing a giant bullseye when it comes to representing a certain market demographic. I started narrating a commercial in my head as I went along.

Read this in a cheerful, singsong voice that makes you want to be my best friend and also stab me in the eyeball:

Hi! I'm a busy mom on the go! If I'm not rushing the kids to a scouting activity, we're off to baseball, music class, academic activities, running errands or taking "Daddy" to work! It's days like these I'm forever thankful for - what are we selling again? Oh, yeah - yogurt! I'm thankful for yogurt.

Because without yogurt, I'd never make it.

Without yogurt, how would I have summoned enough strength to referee 15 separate wrestling matches fought in the parking lots of several prominent retailers?

How would I have ever managed to not crash my van into the ditch while steering one-handed as I awkwardly passed a water bottle to a screaming, panicked 5-year-old who was convinced he just swallowed a "flying spider" after opening his window despite my stern protests?

Without yogurt, would I have even been able to get into that zone where I pretend the rest of the world does not exist as my child accidentally-but-repeatedly hurls a baseball directly at his new coach's crotch?

Were it not for yogurt, I'd probably still be lost on Cincinnati's west side, searching for the mysteriously invisible signage involved with the current I-74 Colrain Ave. detour. Thanks to yogurt, we only drove an extra 22 miles out of our way trying to find the wrong end of the one way street we needed.

The power of yogurt allowed me to force a somewhat convincing smile  for the other parents, even when my oldest sobbed for 30 minutes because we had been "outside for too long" on a 70-degree, party cloudy day at a nature center.

Yogurt was there when I realized I had managed to force everybody under 8 to pee on a regular basis all day, but I had yet to take my own bathroom break for 9 hours and that it would be yet another hour before I could. 

Thank you, yogurt! You keep us modern moms moving, and I'm not just referring to Jamie Lee Curtis's bowels.*

*Do not Google "Jamie Lee Curtis's bowels."

Almost not a Baby Anymore

My always-up-to-something, goofy, moody, loving, wonderful little 4-year-old.

I'm just going to lay it out there. This post is unabashedly and unapologetically mushy, sentimental, and maybe a little saccharin, but it's either this or subjecting my "baby" to an uncomfortably intense snuggling session so that I might internalize the essence of being in his 4-year-old presence forever. And I don't think anyone wants to see that happen. I've already been relegated to planting kisses only on his clothes or hair, because my kisses are "too much kisses," which is really just a polite way to say I'm a slobbering troglodyte when it comes to expressing my affection. I can't face that rejection so early in the day.

So here's the deal. My youngest is about to turn 5 and I'm having an unexpected little freak out about this whole situation. We won't have "little kids" in our house anymore! Panic! I'm accustomed to little kids by now. I'm comfortable in little kid land, where I'm very much in charge, and where my children adore me and call me things like "Bubblegum Mommy Cutie Pie Princess of the West." I've become accustomed to my princess lifestyle and I do not want to give it up.

I am not ready to move past the stage where I can scoop him up like a medium-sized dog and feel his hot breath on my chest when he snuggles up on my lap, or the flutter of his soft, enviably-long eyelashes on my cheek while he whispers inane secrets to me about a duck in the mailbox.

I am not ready for the day when he tells me, hopefully gingerly, to stop calling him "baby" or when the two of them will huddle in conspiratorial whispers about what an out-of-touch, goofy old lady I've become.

I'm certainly not ready for the day one of them gets a girlfriend, life partner, spouse, personal goldfish or car! I think I'm getting the spins here. It's all too much.

I know, I know. It will all be okay. And I am incredibly lucky to have two healthy, goofy, loving little boys who are proving every day how kind, smart, and engaged they are becoming. It's a very good life. I just didn't expect this lurch in my chest as my baby crosses the invisible bridge between the land of Dora and tricycles and the one where he'll need deodorant in a few short years.

Today, though, I will sneak a sniff of his little blond head as I help him get untwisted when he tries to take off his pajama shirt.

Today I will sit on my hands while he makes his own peanut butter sandwich for lunch, even when he wipes the knife on his shorts and there's more peanut butter on the table than the bread.

Today I will maintain something between a grimace and a smile when he's on his 13th successive knock-knock joke with no punch line.

Today I will scoop him up from behind, and delight in his squeal of surprise. I will twirl him around and sing into his ear while we dance to "Long Gone Daddy," and I will try hard to memorize all of it. The size of his little warm body in my arms. His weird little boy smell. The way he says "we're" instead of "our," and how he always says thank you with such genuine sincerity whenever I make him pancakes or skeptically hand over the kid scissors.

I will remember that at 4, he loved smoked salmon and hated watermelon, and that he sometimes had to put one of his three baby dolls, Tom, Craigslist, and Cabba, in time out for breaking the rules.

I will remember how much he loved dancing and singing, and how he did both with exuberance, every single time.

I will remember that above all, he really just wanted to be exactly like his big brother, and that being with his mommy and daddy, grandparents, uncles and aunt made him happier than anything else in the world.

And even when he is faced with navigating the sometimes excruciating process of growing up, and it makes him angry and confused, I vow to remember the way his tiny hand fit inside mine when he was 4, and how he once reached for me instinctively whenever he was worried. And I'll hope that he will carry our pure, eternal love for him in his heart, and that it helps when the world shows its claws now and then.

And I will watch this video, and many others like it, and smile, laugh, and probably cry like a sentimental mommy is meant to cry at a time like that. Because despite being "mine," my little David is his own little person, and it's a gift to be able to be a part of his growing up. I will miss this part so much, but I'm so excited to see what tomorrow brings, too. Did I mention that part about how grateful I am for this awesome life?

Side Two Musings

Shake It is one of Cincinnati's best record stores. Go buy some records!

We had a rite of passage in our house yesterday. Anderson learned how to flip a record and (fairly) gently set the needle down to start Side Two. 

I think I was a little older when my dad finally let me approach the stereo system, and by then I'd already memorized all the skips, scratches and bumps on both sides of Neil Young's Harvest. I knew that my favorite, "Needle and the Damage Done" didn't come until deep into the second side, though I had no idea what Neil was singing about. When my mom was in charge, it was Carly Simon or Joni Mitchell, pouring her heart out, skating down a river I imagined was surrounded by frozen bushes under a baby blue winter sky. 

By the time I was 10 or so, I knew which songs marked the end of side one and I'd rush in to do my duty so the pause between sides was as short as possible: "Are you Ready for the Country?" "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!" "Stairway to Heaven."

Records were the soundtrack of my youth.

We're no audiophiles, nor do we really wish to be, but one of the best purchases we've made as a couple has been our vintage Marantz stereo system. I don't think it's been off more than a few waking hours since we got the last pieces a few weeks ago, a couple of surprisingly decent speakers from Goodwill. We pore over our meager but solid little record collection, and we've begun to prefer our cheap-bin records to the crystal clear mp3 versions. 

Digital music is great in several ways, but there's something ritualistic about pushing a shiny silver button and watching the stereo come alive. The deliberateness of selecting an album and listening to it all the way through is contradictory to the way most of us listen to mp3s. It's slower, and far less convenient, and you can't listen to records outside your house. I get it. We've moved on as a society and I'm nostalgic and a proponent of heavy lifting when it comes to my music. 

It still warms my heart to know that when my kids hear Aqualung 30 years from now (because they will, I mean, come on - that's some amazing, timeless flute-playing right there), they will mentally insert all the scratches and bumps in just the right places, and they will know that the slightly creepy laughing at the start of "Up to Me" means it's almost time to flip.

Home on the Horizon

You're living a good life when the best part of a great trip is the coming home.

"When I come home
Cold and tired
It's good to warm my bones
Beside the fire"

(Roger Waters)

I've been reading through past posts here and approving comments from months ago, and realizing how much I miss writing here, how I never feel quite at "home" if I'm not writing this kind of stuff regularly. There's only so much creative satisfaction one can derive from writing web content for various corporate interests. That's about a .05% creative satisfaction level, I've discovered. Some days it's actually a negative number.

I've been glum for a while now, when I haven't been wracked with grief over the loss of my grandpa in April, or troubled over a spectacularly awful and seemingly irreparable falling out with a cherished friend. My state of mind has been more focused on just trying to find a soft place to land, and emotionally I haven't been up to the inherently vulnerable task of writing.

And in some ways, I'm still not there, but this is what I do, and not doing it has begun to feel worse than doing it and risking the pain of rejection or criticism. I still feel an overwhelming sense of "they're all gonna laugh at you," but I'm choosing to finally take that deep breath and dive back in. I mean, let's be honest, anyway. Of the 12 people who will potentially read this one day, surely only 2 of them will actually point and laugh. Right? Right.

I have lots of stuff I want to get to here soon, but for today, I will leave you with this old picture I came across the other day. It makes me all kinds of bittersweet and gooey. Kind of like Ben & Jerry's Karamel Sutra but without the brain freeze.

The little one is turning 5 in a few days. This one's going to sting.

My bed is your bed and why not: Every living thing in this house winds up in my bed every night already

One day, these googly-eyed boys will demand privacy. Hmph.

One unexpected memory that sticks out for me from childhood is being allowed to stay up late to watch Saturday Night Live with my parents. I can't remember how old I was, but probably not really old enough to get most of the jokes, not that it mattered. We all knew I'd be asleep on the couch long before Chevy Chase tripped over something or Eddie Murphy hee-hawed his way through a Gumby sketch. 

But somehow, this routine really meant something to me. Partly, it was a privilege because my little brothers weren't allowed to stay up that late, but mostly, it was because I got to be with my parents by myself. I'd drift off to sleep to the sound of their laughter, one on each side, and even with my very limited wisdom, I sensed that these routine moments were the important stuff. When you're little, the adults in your life are your assurance that everything is OK.

So now, when both kids wind up in our bed almost every single night, and I can't quite stretch out because the dog has taken up the area where I'd like to put my feet, I can't help but smile a little. Anderson barely fits between us these days, one arm stretched out on top of me, one on Kurt, and David seems to think his feet belong in my ribcage. It can make for a fitful night. But I know how fleeting this is, and I'm struck by the magic power that seems to draw us all together so often, whether it's our bed or a small bathroom, dog and cat included. It's safe and warm, and a little claustrophobic, but mostly, it's a kind of love I couldn't have imagined.

I know in that really, really hot moment - seriously, they are both little furnaces - that they are both content in one of the happiest places they can imagine right now, right between mommy and daddy. I realize sleep-sharing to any extent isn't for everybody, and I've read about all the terrible outcomes we'll all face as a result of this "permissiveness," but I'm not buying it. We have sweet, independent, well-adjusted little goofballs and I'm not sure why their growth won't continue based on where they wake up each morning. I'm sure someone will fill me in via email or the comments below. ;)

At any rate, I have a feeling life will look a whole lot different this time next year. A lot can happen in 12 months. My goal is to keep recognizing the beauty in the seemingly mundane, no matter how much the big picture changes. We can't slow down the fleeting, but new things are always on the horizon. Here's to hoping the new things involve changes for the better, as opposed to angry, hulking grizzly bears that have migrated to the suburbs seeking revenge for all those times they've been excluded from a lovely forest pic-a-nic.

Forward is the only way forward

I've had to spend the past week processing the shooting in Connecticut before I felt able to write about it. While I can't say that I've come up with anything profound, I've at least moved past the initial shock, mostly through a lot of anger, and straight into the sadness that will surely always touch this memory.

As the mom of a 6-year-old, I was going to do a post called "This is 6," but so many fellow bloggers have covered that territory so elegantly, I'll just post this picture and say this: This is 6. It's precocious, innocent, fiercely loving, stubbornly independent, sometimes wild, and free from the pressures the world will bring someday. No longer a baby, not quite a big kid, miles away from the confusion of adolescence. It's a great age.

Of course, if it wasn't 6, it might have been the innocence of 12, or 4, or 16. And sometimes, it is. The fact that children sometimes die, sometimes violently, is a sobering reality every day of the year. Cumulatively, we lose many, many more than 20 kids to violence each year in this country. It's hard not to get stuck right there, to not just freeze in place forever, unsure why we should bother anymore. If this could happen, is there really a point here? It's a sad cycle.

It's hard not to get stuck, and rage against ... well, something, anyway. It feels kind of productive, at least. We can rage against guns, parenting, mental health care failures, the culture in general, security in schools, you name it. And to be clear, there are much-needed national conversations that need to be had regarding many of these things. But it's easy to get stuck on the rage, too, and that worries me. More rage is not what we need to move on, and we must move on, eventually. There is really not another option, if we consider life worth living, but to keep moving forward.

So I think all we can really do if we must do something, is to take stock of how we treat other people and how much honesty we're putting out there. It is really, really hard to live authentically, all of the time, but I truly believe this is a worthy goal. And if we're going to live lives that are true to ourselves, we need to encourage others to do the same, even when we are freaked out by another person's freak flag.

Here are my goals, post Newtown.

1. To reach out to the marginalized wherever I can.

2. To figuratively and literally wear a bathing suit in public, because time is short and we all deserve to just be.

3. To look other people, of all ages and backgrounds, in the eye more, for my own sake and theirs, because we're all worthy of being fully acknowledged.

4. To do more playing, singing, laughing, learning, seeing, and thinking.

5. To do less consuming, acquiring, idling, assuming, wasting, and regretting.

6. To make sure my kids spend the next several years just being kids. More running and playing, less comparing and pushing. 

7. To make random acts of kindness a way of life that I don't even think about as out of the ordinary.

8. To presume good will, most of the time.

9. To not get stuck on the bad parts, so they can't drive away the good.

10. Above all, to keep moving forward. Always.

Once I've achieved all that and I get my Perfect Person award in the mail, I'll be all set! No, I realize it would be impossible to become this ideal, relaxed, incredibly kind person, but it's all about progress. I'm always going to be a bit of a dork with a flair for irresponsibility and bad taste in movies, but even with these sometimes debilitating handicaps, I feel confident I can do good things, that I can be better. We all can. Positive goals are crucial right about now, when we would all like to just curl up together in a heaving sob and stay down for a good long while.

Soon enough, though, we'll have to make a choice - to either allow this tragedy to fade into a surreal, misty memory like so many others before it, or to allow it to change us in a fundamental way. I'm going with the latter, and I'm choosing positive change this time around.

I hope you'll join me in tuning out what feels unproductive and damaging, and focusing on what we can do on an individual level to make this place a tiny bit more kind and beautiful, for the 6-year-olds who left us too soon, for the ones who are still among us, and for the ones we all once were.