Velveteen Mind

Perfec-she-yawn

Nothing like a slew of women in their twenties coming to peek in your life to make you feel, well, not in your twenties.

Welcome, vibrant new readers.  I am not Miss Musing.  I do not write about my beautiful piano room or my heroic boyfriend or my pink bicycle.  My life is not perfection.

Fortunately, for those of you that stick around, it appears that perfection can be wearing.

But it gets worse.

I don’t even post that often.  Period.  I own this baby, it doesn’t own me. 

So let’s just own it.  I’m a mom, at home, no longer living in a large city.  I live near the beach but no longer own a bikini.  I have stretch marks.  Because I have two toddlers.  And a new baby on the way. 

A new baby that I haven’t even written about because I am nauseous and tired.  Laissez les bon temp rouler!  No?

When I do post, it is rarely about controversy.  Instead, I’m usually pleading with women to stop worrying so much and to come out and play with us in real life, because seriously, it’s okay.  Reality bites but we don’t. 

For instance, are you going to BlogHer?  I see many of you have the BlogHer ad network on your much-updated blogs.  (Ahem, I did until they booted me for, um, poor update frequency.  Don’t say I didn’t warn you.)  Well, I’m co-hosting a party the night before BlogHer.  It’s called The People’s Party and this is our third year (which we’ve only teased so far, but more details to come).  The goal?  To make women feel at ease while out from under the cover of their blogs.  Imagine that.

But that’s about as glamorous as I get.  I do publish and serve as the Editor-in-Chief of a successful (aw, shucks) online magazine called Blog Nosh Magazine, but that thing is currently run without shoes on and, were I updating it this morning, without a bra on, too.  Ya deal?

I am not in my twenties.  Haven’t been for a few years.  And when I was?  I spent all but one year of it with my would-be husband, not exactly gallivanting around with a martini in hand.  Chick, I don’t even own stilettos.   The last time I wrote about shoes was to demonstrate my own dichotomous personality that seems to straddle between punk rock and Florida retiree.

We might not have a lot in common.  Other than the dichotomies that define us.

But I write to you from the heart because I don’t know any other way.  And I embrace all that is me.  And you might be surprised what bits of yourself you find in me.

I write this to you from my backyard because today is too gorgeous to not inhale deeply.   Our roses are blooming.  I’ve been so busy, I hadn’t even noticed.

When I ran inside to grab my camera just so I could show you our modest accomplishment (if by accomplishment, you will accept that we simply didn’t touch them and therefore did not kill them), my two year old decided a romp outside suited him, as well.  You haven’t lived until you’ve dated a two year old.

While chasing him around, I caught wind of a smell from my childhood in Illinois.  Wandering around old properties, gathering Queen Anne’s Lace to take home and dye with food-coloring-spiked water.  This smell, the one in my own backyard, was the smell of my mother, stopping at the side of a rural road to gather and assure us we could taste.

Honeysuckle.

I didn’t even know we had honeysuckle in this yard.  But this morning, it is blooming.  And filling our yard with the warm scent of simpler days, superseding the rich layers of the bayou, so close to our home.

I live in Mississippi.  On the Gulf Coast.  Not in New York.

Perfection here comes covered in powdered sugar and doused in sweet tea.  Our fingers hint at crawfish boils enjoyed with friends and the air wafts by with a hint of Zydeco.

Yes, there’s a hurricane party every time it blows.

My musing comes in very different flavors than you might be used to, but there is room for you here at my table, sugar.

Ya’ll come back now.

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Into the Wild with Your Own Tribe

I’m in my studio today, brainstorming for a new writing project that I hope to tell you about soon.  Managing the Blog Nosh Magazine editors list, preparing to launch a couple of new channels.  Food and Race & Ethnicity, two of those channels whose links have been dead-ends since the relaunch so many months ago.

My studio is in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi.  Just blocks from the water, but just far enough away from the waves that it suffered minimal damage in Hurricane Katrina.  I am on the same block as seafood restaurants and gritty little Southern bars.  At night, Lynard Skynard bleeds through the walls and the smell of poboys tempts me into unscheduled breaks.

Thanks to some tumultuous decision making I had to finish this afternoon, I decided to treat myself to one of those very same poboys for lunch.  Fully dressed shrimp poboy on crunchy-yet-chewy French bread, a side of crab balls, and a towering cup of sweet tea.

Rather than mindlessly watch my twitter stream or daydream while I ate, I decided to watch a DVD of Into the Wild, starring Emile Hirsch.  I’ve had this DVD for possibly years now, but never have gotten around to watching it.

Now, less than a quarter of the way in, it leaves me feeling much the same way the book Revolutionary Road did: 

This life of a suburban mom can sometimes be hard to swallow.

I have always wanted to be a mom.  I have always wanted to stay at home and raise the kids.  Though, to be clear, I don’t think I ever kidded myself or any potential suitors into thinking that I would be a reasonable housekeeper of said home.

But now I’m here.  And sometimes I can’t help but want to be there.

We all struggle with where we belong.  Who we are.  Who we want to be.  Who we once were.  Who we could have been.

We struggle with the ties that bind and simultaneously long for the ties that bond.

At the risk of BlogHer stripping me of their offer, I will be speaking at the opening Mommyblogging track panel in Chicago this year on the topic of “Have you found your Mommyblogging tribe?” and will most definitely touch on some of these feelings of dissonance.

Sounds like a barrel of laughs, right?  Well, I promise you, it will be.  But yes, of course I’ll be throwing in a bit of the “threadbare.” 

Identity, knowing where we belong, feeling distinctly as though we don’t…  it’s all part of it.  BlogHer said they selected me for the topic because I have more or less created my own tribe.  To that, I say “Amen.” and “Hell yes.”

And I also say, “You should, too.”

Join me at BlogHer in Chicago July 24-25, 2009.  Early bird pricing ends February 28, so hop to it, sister.

You might even want to get there early.  I bet there are some fun parties the night before…

In the meantime, tell me your thoughts on belonging and tribes.  It doesn’t have to have anything to do with blogging.  My feelings today on Into the Wild had nothing, I assure you, to do with blogging. 

“It should not be denied that being footloose has always exhilarated us. It is associated in our minds with escape from history and oppression and law and irksome obligations. Absolute freedom.”  -Wallace Stegner

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Mardi Gras in Mississippi? Bed Racing, Ya'll!

Laissez les bon temps rouler!  It’s Mardi Gras!

Gone are the days when a near-week off school meant back-to-back crawfish boils, house parties, and hitting every parade our teenage bodies could imbibe.  These days, it’s all family, all the time…  which apparently means racing beds down the side streets of Mississippi!

That’s how we roll, ya’ll!

Enjoy a peek at how we spent our first Mardi Gras event of the season this year at the Mardi Gras Bed Race in D’Iberville, Mississippi, benefiting the Salvation Army.  Maguire serves on the board of a local child abuse prevention center and raced with their crew, all decked out in blue for their Go Blue! promotion to support child abuse awareness.

On the back bay of Biloxi, surrounded by marsh and the smell of shrimp, laced with the aroma of corndogs and jambalaya wafting from the carnival, a fabulous day serving a wonderful cause and oh-so-very Mississippi Gulf Coast style.

Let the good times roll!

That’s Maguire in the middle with the white shirt and feather boa!  Nothing says confidence like teddy bears and feathers!

Goose necking while we wait for Dad to make it down the line!

One of the cutest beds and crews!  “Tooth fairies” representing a dental clinic!

Go Blue! finally makes it down the street!

So did they win?  The race is run by two teams running side-by-side, hitting a halfway point where two team members swap the pajamas and bed seat, then head toward the final finish line.  You’ll have to watch the video to see if crew Go Blue! was able to beat the team they raced alongside or if they…  oh, my.  It might have gotten ugly. 

After all of the screaming, cheering, and running was over?  The real fun began! 

How can you not have a ball when carnival rides are involved?

***   ***   ***

Tonight is the Krewe of Gemini Gulfport Night Parade and we’ll be there in all of our bead-heavy glory! 

It’s no New Orleans Mardi Gras (watch the New Orleans parades roll live all day), but it’s right where we are right now.

Rockin’ the motorcycles and collecting throws like true treasures!  See you there!

*And yikes, the formatting for this post is insanely wonky, but it's Mardi Gras and we'll just have to roll with it.  ;)

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Sunday Serendipity: The Idea

Spending money on coffeehouse coffee right now is not in our budget.  Particularly a café au lait, which is essentially drip coffee with hot milk.  We have coffee and milk at home, very near heating devices.

Planning ahead is going to be our key to survival during this personal economic crisis.

Yet, as I drove past the Mockingbird Cafe on the way to my Bay St. Louis studio this morning, my car found itself in the parking lot.  Apparently the previous owner of this little white wagon trained it well.  Who am I to break its spirit?

Very few coffee-splurgers were in attendance this morning, save for a few disheveled-looking middle-aged men leaning into their laptops and murmuring into cellphones.  I made my way to the counter, placed my what's-the-cheapest-thing-on-the-menu-board order, and then wandered over to browse their from-scratch bread selection as the barista slaved over my drink that I should have made at home.  Sourdough is a weakness of mine and the Serious Bread company, housed in the back of the Mockingbird Cafe, makes a mean rosemary garlic sourdough.

Wondering how I could justify $7 for a coveted loaf, I wandered back and hopefully asked the barista if the day-old breads were on sale.  On occasion, I knew I had been charged half price and was hoping it was because of slight staleness and not simply generosity.

As I was embarrassing myself with my bread haggling, a man approached the counter beside me.  It was clear that he needed something that would take only a moment, perhaps a refill or a napkin?, but was going to try to wait out my literal dough crisis ramblings. 

I glanced at him to offer an "I'm almost done if this chick will just cave and give me the bread for half price because, um, yeah, that's where I'm stuck" smile when his face made me do a subtle double take.  I knew this man.  Possibly.

He was an older black gentleman, in charcoal pants and a button down shirt kept tidy under a fitted lemon meringue hued sweater.  He stood erect, far more formally than the situation suggested, and smiled back in a slightly curious way.

I know him from somewhere.

When I worked in the French Quarter of New Orleans, I realized that I have a sharp eye for celebrity.  I can spot one a mile away and from behind.  Even if their only claim to fame was a TV movie in the 80's.  I won't always know their name, but I can usually place their resume loosely enough to acknowledge them.  That being said, I prided myself on not acknowledging that I recognized them until after I had already won them over with my "we're all just regular people here" approach. 

The pleasant surprise on their faces when I slipped a quick "For instance, I Know My First Name is Steven was an interesting move for..." into the end of the conversation was always a sweet reward for my patience.

The things you do to occupy yourself during the long hot months of summer in Louisiana.

But this man today, I simply could not place in the two glances I allowed myself.  Double takes are strictly against my celebrity-spotting rules, as it was.

So here I am, hours later, and it is pestering me.  Not so much that I still can't place him, but that I didn't just say something.  For all I know, he's an international broadcast journalist hanging around the coffeehouse looking for quotes from us poor Mississippi folks before the inauguration.  I bet he was just waiting for someone with something to say to walk in that door.

You know that is so me.

Which brings me back to my frustration.  Because I know better.  After all, today is Sunday. 

Sundays hold some kind of mystical power over my inhibitions and I consistently find myself striking up conversations with strangers.  Learning about the community around me and about myself, as we so often do as we attempt to truncate our interesting peccadilloes into bite size pieces for these new acquaintances to take home.

Sundays are always far too beautiful to stay home.  The light is always a shade more inviting outside than it was even a day before.  Rain or shine.

Sundays smell different to me.  Crisper.  Cleaner.  More layered.

I wake up on Sunday mornings and feel a pull from outside of myself.  As though some magnet has been placed overnight in some seemingly random spot across the county and activates upon my waking.

Sundays pull me to flea markets.  Sundays attract me to museums.  Sundays pry free my lips and shake my voice loose.

And I'm not a shy person to begin with.

I have so many stories to tell you about my Sundays.  Stories jotted down in notebooks and then buried under to-do lists.

These happy accidents can only inspire more fortuitous finds and I think it's time I shake them loose from my memory.  Making my Sundays an act of sheer will may prevent moments of missed opportunity like today with my mystery man.  Hopefully, these moments shared may inspire you to find your own bit of serendipity on Sundays.

Starting next Sunday, I'm going to start sharing a chance encounter story a week with you.  My own little feature, however reticent I have been to do anything predictable...  because predictability is just one more ball for me to drop.  But I'll give it a shot and see what pries free.

In the meantime, how do you spend your Sundays?  Am I alone in sensing something different in the Sunday air?  What do Sundays make you do?  How do Sundays make you feel?  What are you going to do about it this year?

If you prefer to write about it on your own blog, feel free to snag the graphic above.

Let's call this my Delurking Day post, too (brilliance courtesy of of Rude Cactus and Greeblemonkey). 

If you've never commented before or rarely do, let me know you are there. 

This is me shaking your voice loose.

Tell me about your Sundays.

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Coffee Cup Lipstick

Listen to or Download 'Coffee Cup Lipstick' read by the author

Lipstick stains on a coffee cup.  One of the images I loathe.  One of the images that haunts me.  One of the images that surrounds me.

As soon as I see lipstick smudged onto the rim of my coffee mug, it is a near compulsive move to wipe it away.  The moments I allow the stain to remain are an act of defiance.  A challenge to my self-control.  Though... 

I never take my eye off of that stain.

And then it's gone.

When I was little, dark mauve lipstick stains on coffee cups were the bane of my existence.  A shade of mauve that insisted "Estee Lauder!" in my mind.  They seemed to be everywhere.  At school, on the desk of my most-fearsome teacher.  At home during visits from a flighty aunt.

Lipstick stains on a coffee cup always signaled impending doom.  One way or another, grief was headed my ten year old direction.

Lipstick stains on a coffee cup indicated a lack of care to me.  They symbolized bitter older women, hell-bent on misunderstanding me and not granting the benefit of the doubt.  Women who muttered to themselves, "I don't care what people think" and therefore refused the simple act of wiping their lipstick from their coffee cups.

Lipstick stains on a coffee cup smell bitter in my memory, laced with cigarette smoke.

I picture loosely pinned buns, most of the important pieces of hair that seemed to necessitate a bun never actually cooperating.  Yellow teeth.  Crows feet.  Falsely patient smiles belied by snickers.

I swore that if I ever wore lipstick, I would sooner lick an ashtray than leave a lipstick smudge on a coffee cup.

Never.

Never.

Say.

Never.

I am 32 years old this month of December.  I leave lipstick stains on my coffee cups.

But never for more than a moment.  Mostly just in private.  As a test to see if I can do it. 

If I can be that woman and not turn evil.  Not immediately begin snickering and throwing backhanded compliments at small children about their parents.  Not begin pacing and tapping chipped nail polish fingernails against that same coffee cup as I spout off about things anyone older than nine could easily see through.

And I can.

But only for a moment.  Then I feel the urge to suck my teeth and I know I just have to wipe that lipstick away.

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