So I think I've exhausted the possibilities on Match.  And now I feel like an emotional moron.

Because not only do I have a Match baby, whose father continues to fight me in court on child support, and has never met his son; I also have the on-again, on-again, off-again, sort-of-off-again, no-really-please-don't-call-me-again, well-okay-maybe-just-one-more-time, no-never-mind "friend;" and then there's the one who saw me on Match, then found me on Nerve.  We're still friends.  With occasional benefits.  Of course, there are the various failed dates, not-quite-dates, and two-daters who never call again.  Some were painfully boring, some were sponge-worthy, some were just really, and irritatingly, liars about their height.  Which normally wouldn't bother me.  Except when you tell me you're 6'2" and I'm 5'11" in my bare, naked, shoeless feet, and I show up in my awesome Sigerson kitten heels, not even my cool-as-shit Kors wedges that are three inches, but my freakin' Sigerson mules that hike my ass up less than an inch and a half, and you are, like, SHORTER than me by a head when I stand up to say, "Nice to meet you," well, then, there is just something flat wrong with you.  Because did you think I wouldn't NOTICE?

There are, of course, the filter-less ones.  Who know I have kids because it's there IN MY PROFILE - in its own paragraph, in fact.  And still show up all freaked out about the notion of a single mom, and who then feel free to expound on how NOT ready to deal with kids they are.  As if they are hoping that given the chance, and the right incentive (a walk-in closet or Caribbean cruise), I will, perhaps, find some suitable adoptive parents for my kids because I am so SMITTEN with this man, and well, children, you understand.  Mommy needs to get her mojo on.  

Then there's the one who snoozed me.  As in, set the alarm, decided it wasn't important to be on time for our date, hit the fucking SNOOZE button, and went back to sleep for 20 minutes. Because that 20 minutes snoring alone in bed was so much better than having to kill time with me before the movie.  He recently friended me on Facebook.  

And, lastly, there's the real boyfriend, the one who loves me and wanted to take care of me, and be there for me and get up early with my kids so I could sleep in.  Unfortunately, as mentioned above, I happen to be afflicted by emotional moronity, so of course I couldn't handle someone actually wanting to be my partner.  Not if it meant having demands made on my time or my person or my life.

So yeah, I think I've finally managed to exhaust the very-remote-to-begin-with possibility of finding my Match.

Which is fine.  The thought of logging on AGAIN, and updating my profile AGAIN, and acting all nonchalant when my search results produce the same cadre of faces it vomited up the last time I was an active and willing participant in this digital spin-the-bottle game...well, that thought is enough to make me want to have my period every day for the next five years.

What is a single (straight) mother to do?  Frequent the single dads' chat rooms?  Sandwich board myself and pound the pavement at the Brooklyn Flea?  Rethink heterosexuality?

I think, actually, I'll take a break.  No, really.  

Right after I do some window-shopping on Nerve.

Groundhog day...part two...again...twice

Int.  A living room in Brooklyn.  A mother and her two young kids.

Mother:

Eat your breakfast, please.  Try not to spill your milk.  Pay attention to what you're doing.

Six-year-old son, Luca:

I am eating.  You already said that.

Mother:

I know I did.  But you're not eating.  So eat.  You, too, Dash.

Two-year-old son, Dash:

May (means yes).

Ten minutes later...

Mother:

Did you finish?  It's time to get dressed and brush teeth.  We're going to be late for school.

Luca:

I'm not done yet!

Mother:

Finish up, then!

Luca:

Can I play on the computer?

Mother:

After you get dressed and brush your teeth.

Luca:

But Mamae, you always say that!  And I really, really want to just play one game, please?!?!

Mother:

Get dressed and brush your teeth.

Luca:

Just one, Mamae?!  Please?!

Mother:

Get dressed and brush your teeth.  If there is time after you do that, you can play a game.

Luca (stomping away):

Awwghwhghhh!!!

Mother:

Dash, let's get your diaper changed and put on clothes.

Dash (as his saggy-diapered-ass disappears down the hall):

No!  I no wanna!

Mother:

Time to get dressed, Dashie!  Come on...

Mother proceeds to chase down increasingly agile and quick-limbed two-year-old; wrangles him to the floor like some rodeo show scene gone horribly wrong; fights for every flailing limb; it is, after all, winter, and the child cannot leave the house naked.  Much as the mother would prefer just that.  Maybe in the summer...

Luca:

Can I play on the computer now?

Mother:

Did you brush your teeth?

Luca:

Yeeessss.

Mother:

Okay, five minutes.

Ten minutes later...

Mother:

Get your jacket and shoes on.

Luca:

Just one more?!  Please?!

Mother:

Get your jacket and shoes on.

Luca:

But mamae!!  

Mother:

I know this is shocking, and a new routine, and that we've never had to do this before, but please, get your jacket and shoes on.

Rinse.  Repeat.  And repeat.  And repeat.

Anorexic gazelles and other creatures in need of help...

I went to a Fashion Week runway show for the first time in my almost 20 years in New York.  

I'm glad I waited.

For one thing, I totally didn't care that compared to most of the spectators there, not to mention the models, I am morbidly obese.  Meaning, I wear a size 8.  15 years ago, I would have run home from the show, made a bee-line for my bathroom and proceeded to regurgitate every evil morsel of food that had crossed my lips in the last 24 hours.  Of course, it could be that I'm just lazier than I used to be...

My mothering instincts also kicked in.  My boys are very healthy and active; I even manage to occasionally get some vegetables in them.  But as most mothers will tell you, getting your kids to eat more good stuff is, like, a full-time job.  So when those girls strutted by me, made taller and skinnier by five-inch heels and flowing clothes, what I really longed to do was have them all over for a huge, Brasilian meal.  And then follow them home to make sure they kept it down.  

In fact, what these girls need is a sanctuary, like that one down in Tennessee that takes in injured circus elephants.  They would be free to roam and graze at their leisure, out of sight of preying clothing designers intent on turning the models into human coat racks, all sharp corners and hooked limbs.  

Now I just have to come up with a good pitch for fundraising calls...

getting my chakras on...

Maya says my chakras are all out of alignment.  I told her they would have to take a number behind everything else that was out of whack in my life if they wanted some attention.

Then I started wondering if the reason why whack-ness seems to be striking in a disproportionate way has anything to do with out-of-sorts chakras.  And maybe I should give some tender, loving care to the chakras so they could start doing their jobs properly again.

Having decided on this course of action, I then wondered how many others are suffering from crappy-chakra-ness syndrome.  Christiane Northrup, who wrote Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom, and runs a clinic in Massachusetts that focuses on a holistic approach to women's health, has all sorts of amazing insights into how our bodies react to our world - taking energy and either enlivening or weakening the chakra centers through our processing of that energy.  Dr. Northrup, who has consulted quite a bit with Caroline Myss, says how connected we are to our lives and to the Earth has everything to do with how much attention we pay to our chakra-centers and their needs.

I'm trying to figure out how to contact Ann Coulter...I'm beginning to think she's got fucked up chakras, and not just that she's an idiot.

Anyways, I've got some chakra plotting to do.

Right after I have some cookies.

Endowments and other lofty ideas...

Took the boys to the Barkley Hendricks exhibit at the Studio Museum in Harlem today.

One of the Hendricks portraits was called "Brilliantly Endowed," a self-portrait of the artist. In a hat. And glasses. And NAKED as the day he was born.

So Dash came over and stood next to me, and pointed to Hendricks's hooha and said, "Mamae, wook." (He's doing w's for l's these days.)

And Luca wanted to know what the painting was called.

I hesitated for a moment because I was still traumatized from the Sex Talk, where L asked me how a baby gets in my belly and I told him Sex, and he asked what Sex is.

Having skipped my morning snack, I was low on creative skills. So I told him the name of the painting, hoping he wouldn't ask what it meant. Because I wasn't about to start explaining endowment to my six-year-old in a loft-space gallery surrounded by hipsters and nearly-sleeping security guards.

That will just have to wait until we go to the Nude Camp this summer.

Boomeranging back to childhood...

In this age of Dreamworks Animation and George Lucas plying us with "cartoon" movies that you would swear are live-action, my kids are hypnotized by...

Popeye.

And Tom and Jerry.

And Scooby Doo. (The old one, not the lame, "updated" one.)

And Hong Kong Phooey, the Smurfs, the Flintstones, the Adventures of Captain Planet...

and I'm noticing things as a 37-year-old woman I never took note of as a seven-year-old girl.

Like Olive Oyl's abusive love/hate relationship with Bluto. I'm pretty sure she belongs in a battered women's shelter.

Or how about the black mammy-maid who threatens to put Tom out of the house with her broom and aproned tummy, all lawn-jockey-black arms? And missus-will-be-home-soon proclamations following some cat-and-mouse chase scene? I could swear Tom & Jerry lived on a plantation in the Civil War South.

As for Daphne and Thelma - I guess the point was that pretty is dumb and smart is nerdy? Can we get some post-feminist translation of their contributions to the gang?

Hong Kong Phooey might as well be running around screaming, "Flied lice! Flied lice!"

Smurfette is definitely the animated world's first concubine. And Papa Smurf bears a striking resemblance to Warren Jeffs, if you ask me.

And can we talk about Wilma? Her machinations to get her way with Fred are simply brilliant. I'm going to try them on my man, I think...

And finally, had we paid more attention to Captain Planet thirty years ago, maybe, just maybe, our planet would like us a bit more than it does now.

Just a thought.

enough with the babytalk already

My older son wants to know if I'm going to have another baby.

Had he asked me this two mornings ago, when his baby brother was acting as if he had been possessed by the evil spawn of Lindsay Lohan and Satan himself, I would likely have thrown him a look as if I might sew his mouth shut for suggesting such a thing.

But then the turdy little thing got all sweet and cuddly and "Bye, Mamae" with a smile.

I mean, it's like they have no idea that on any given day, we are THIS close to calling in the National Guard and registering them for the nearest and meanest boot camp. Just to give them some perspective on how not-mean Mean Mommy is.

So, like I said, on that morning, another baby would have come over my cold, dead, lifeless body.

But then they smile. And they get along, and they say Please Mamae, and I love you Mamae. And on these days, it seems entirely possible to handle another child. I mean, I'm already outnumbered. Maybe a third would throw me into the seige state of mind where only what is necessary gets through.

Hmmm...

Gotta find another sucker to knock me up, first.

Con Edison trauma

Mamae, I think our lights are going to go out.

Why?

'Cause Con Edison is in front of our building doing something in the street!

At the tender age of six, my son has already figured out the sad irony of public works in New York. The last time Con Ed was in front of our house, the whole building lost power for three hours.

So for him, if they are back, it means we will, again, have a Little House on the Prairie afternoon of electricity-free time.

The street-smart portion of his education has begun...