But so much more

I certainly didn’t want that last post front and center for so long, sure as shit not a full month.

Even worse, the comments. I’d delete them from the blog but what’s the use since I can’t delete them from my mind? (What the hell with the drama, delete them from my mind? Scrub them from the hard drive that is my gray matter! Oy. Read on if you must, but allow me to pre-apologize for the angst.)

I just wrote a quick e-mail to another blogger who’s ripping it up right now, and after two or three sentences about the inspired direction her blog is moving in, the e-mail ended up about me and about how I can’t manage to compartmentalize whatever it is I need to quarantine in my brain so I can write a post without meandering back on the same ever-present topic. And how horrified I was at the comments that last post received and how they have paralyzed me, since I’ve already written things I would have rather not reveal and that I’ve lost control over the protagonist of my blog, chiefly because I don’t have control over anything right now. I don’t know who to be on my blog, but I already fear I’ve said too much, that the persona I’ve put out there isn’t one readers will care about long-term.

I summoned some wisdom from who the fuck knows where because it’s in short supply lately and deleted all but the sentences about her and sent the e-mail off.

I never intended this to be a disaster blog. I’ve followed blogs written by parents dealing of terminally ill children and women dealing with divorce and marveled at their courage and grace, but I’m not among them. I know there is some blogger out there who could take the story of a struggling restaurant, tangled business and familial relationships, and dashed hopes and turn it into comedy gold or noble tragedy, or both. Penelope Trunk could probably blog the hell out of this story and then sell the memoir, the screenplay and even star in the goddamn movie of it, and I keep thinking I’m missing an opportunity here, that this situation has landed in my lap for a reason and, as a writer, I have completely missed the boat, that I’ll never be given such fertile material, and all I can come up with is terrified whining. Whining that’s not at all entertaining, either. (I could accept this trial in my life if I could at least make it amusing. Fuck, I’d agree to be set on fire if there was the chance someone would find my telling of it funny. I’m an insecure laugh whore that way.)

There’s a possibility my husband may be away from us for three months this summer, working in another state. How do I not write about that when I’m living it? And if indeed that there is no way not to write about it, how do I turn it into content that matters to someone other than me and my immediate family? I don’t know if it can be done.

I don’t know how authors of “disaster” blogs feel about the comments they receive, but I’m really curious. Do they find the sympathetic words and offers of prayer comforting? Are they able to accept the kindness of others – the kindness of strangers, in most cases – without feeling even worse about their present circumstances? Probably. Most people, even in extreme situations, don’t pathologize sincere messages of encouragement so that even the most heartfelt “Dude, that sucks” is heard in the blogger’s brain as, “Even YOU have underestimated just how bad things are. Not only are you in a hell of a tough situation, but you’re an idiot for not fully recognizing it.”

I know I’m ungracious, but I’m not ungrateful. I find it remarkable that someone I’ve never met, who lives far away, would take the time to write something in response to one of my posts. These are intelligent bloggers I respect and I value their words. I just can’t shake the feeling that I’m imposing on them emotionally. That I’m a charity case of the blogging world, always taking, needing to be soothed and propped up, too fragile to contribute.

(I’m proofreading as I’m writing and all I want to do is delete, delete, delete. But that means the previous post remains on top, which I don’t want. The only other option is to take down the whole blog and set my laptop on fire. But I’m afraid you’d find the account of the laptop being on fire funnier than when I was on fire and I don’t think I could take that, on top of everything else.)

And THEN. The religious comments.

My honest reaction when I saw them coming in? Fuuuckkk. That is not what I wanted. Partly because they involved my husband, his spiritual state of mind and the superhuman commitment he has to both his family and his business, and I just won’t write about these things. Also: What’s Deb on the Rocks going to say? (Why I thought of her and what she’d think first? No idea. Just telling the whole truth here.)

Just as I debate daily (no exaggeration, yo) in what form and how often I want the restaurant to make appearances on this blog, religion undergoes the same scrutiny. I could write paragraph after paragraph explaining where I come from on this issue and the shifts I’ve experienced and I know I need to man up and take whatever heat there is to take by saying this, but if I’m going to be effusive about my beliefs, I’ll be doing it on other blogs, over at religious bloggers’ places, and not here. I welcome every reader, and if someone chooses not to stick around, I want it to be for something other than my faith. Which I even hesitate to write – my faith – because I’m no faith-filled practitioner of religion. I practice it like I do most things: clumsily.

I’d really like to close comments on this post, because the kind words that last one got really were enough, more than I expected, and I’m not phishing for more. I do apologize for the self-absorption. Not quite sure what I can do to kick my ass out of this rut, but until it’s abundantly clear to me that I’m not capable of writing about anything else (and it has probably been quite clear to many of you for a while now, but hey, I’m a slow learner), I’m going to try to forge on. Unless you’d like to chastise me about caring more what Deb Rocks thinks than what God thinks or to tell me about how absolutely hifrickinlarious I am when engulfed in flames, then let’s just pretend this one never happened.

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This isn’t a rant or a pity mope but an honest-to-God what the hell would you do? post. OK, it’s a little rantacular.

There are brilliant multitaskers and fantastic time managers, and I’m neither. Therefore, the particular demands I’m under now are either conditioning for a yet more-difficult trial to come or I’m being fucked with. I think it’s the latter.

I have a job, a child and a husband who works 100 hours a week. And laundry and a body badly in need of exercise and a blog I neglect because I can’t face the emotions released by what I might write. What I’m in desperate need of – besides a script for amphetamines with unlimited refills and a personal trainer – are the clarity to see where the boundaries should be and the backbone to make everyone respect them.

Luckily, I’m enjoying the job, the job I really, really need. There are some nice perks to this job, but it’s a job nonetheless, with a company undergoing change. (Translation: You all can be replaced, especially you, recent hire.) Four days a week I’m functionally a single parent.

I think I have the weeks well-covered. It’s not pretty but it works – the kid gets off to school, the work gets done, and while I’m not happy with the real dinner vs. takeout ratio, I don’t think it’s a lost cause. It’s the weekends where I come completely undone.

By the time Saturday arrives, my daughter hasn’t seen her father for any more than 5 minutes since Wednesday, and she misses him. She’s whiny. My house, which also hasn’t received the full attention it needs, is whiny as well. We have breakfast at the restaurant, which isn’t as “yuppies go for their goat cheese and basil scrambled eggs” as it sounds because Chuck’s busy and can’t always sit down with us. We then do a day’s worth of errands. And you know how kids love their errands!

We should be spending the afternoon at the playground, or she should be riding her bike with her daddy while I go walking and for coffee with a friend, or I should do the grocery shopping by myself while he drives her to ballet. I’ve got more Saturday fantasies than is healthy. I make a big deal about our routine of listening to “Car Talk” and then the Met’s radio broadcasts. (”Noooo! We can listen to Barenaked Ladies any time! It’s time for those funny guys from Boston who talk about starters and oxygen sensors!”)

Saturdays wouldn’t be bad if I could spend Sundays cleaning, organizing and cooking a few things for the week ahead. I don’t subscribe to the full menu of wifely duties, but I do think, after the week my husband’s had, I should cook a decent dinner for my family on Sunday night.

The problem is, is what the problem always is. IT’S THE GODDAMN RESTAURANT. To be said in all caps, all the time, like SHINGLES! It’s always the problem, THE RESTAURANT. (Not the SHINGLES! Which I suppose is a problem, just not a My Problem.)

Sundays are busy. Their payroll is so tight they don’t have the help they need on a busy day. And I have, ahem, the day free.

I’ve spent almost every Sunday there since the place has been open, running food, seating tables, expediting meals, taking drink orders, processing credit cards, making coffee, pouring coffee and picking up chewed lumps of pancake from under high chairs. All while Tink sits at the food counter coloring, only interrupting me if she has to go to the bathroom. Half the time one of the Mexican bus girls takes her.

When I make change I give the waiters their tips, which they leave with. My husband and his business partner leave with nothing. I leave with a child who missed her nap.

So, what would you do? Would you have put your foot down? Would you sacrifice the smooth running of your coming week to help the cause? Remember, this is a business that doesn’t pay your husband and won’t any time soon. Would you stand firm and say, “No”? “No, I have a family to take care of and only one day a week to do it. We’ve got enough to deal with; I need this one day to impose some order and peace to my life”?

Or would you let guilt take over as you wonder what they’ll do if they get busy? Would you bow to pressure to pitch in with the attitude that maybe some day this business will be successful and these Sundays are an investment in future profits that will someday be your family’s?

Would you do it even if, before the restaurant opened, there was a nightmare of a showdown that ranks among the very worst days of your entire life when you were told that you will have no role in the business and that someone would rather pull the plug on the whole thing than let you be involved? But who now accepts your free weekly labor (and let’s not forget your 4-year-old daughter’s time, too) because he’s up a creek?

To say “I’m torn” is ludicrous. I’m torn, in every one of my obligations and in every emotion I have about them.

This past weekend was even worse than usual. (HOW COULD IT GET ANY WORSE? you ask? Oh, please. Nobody knows the fuckitude I’ve seen.) Saturday night the restaurant was giving a percentage of its sales to Haiti earthquake relief, and Sunday there was a mother-loving church service being held in a 15,000-seat arena three blocks from the restaurant. (Honestly, a church service in the same venue where the Wiggles and monster trucks have appeared, though not at the same time? Sometimes I completely get why atheists sneer.)

Tink and I got the restaurant around 6 on Saturday just as things were getting hairy. I didn’t have her Sunday bag of crayons, Hello Kitty coloring books and Spiderman dudes, and there really isn’t anywhere else to put her so I can keep an eye on her no matter where I am, so she sat at the bar with an old guy who comes in for dinner three nights a week, drinks a bottle of wine and then takes a cab to the upstate’s premier titty bar.

I worked well past Tink’s bedtime and once again, we had nothing to show for it. Actually, Tink left with $4. Mr. Phil asked her if she had a piggy bank and then gave her some money. I demurred politely but wanted to come right out and ask him, “Won’t you need those singles where you’re going tonight?”

She and Chuck ate Taco Bell after he got home. You know. Quality time.

She was a little, uh, off her game Sunday. As I was showering, crying and composing this post in my head, she came in the bathroom and told me we had to put her jammies in the wash. I asked her why. No reason. They just need to go in the wash.

Fuck.

She’s had more accidents than I’d like lately, and who’s to say why. Could be developmental, a stage, nothing to worry about or her reaction to an irregular family life. I’m frankly too tired to make more out of it than I should, which I guess is a blessing in disguise. But an accident on Sunday morning as I’m getting ready to go there when I should be here … it was more than I could take.

I yelled and then cried some more and scared her, of course. And then when I saw the two damp, wadded tissues on top of the underwear on the chair of her room, I laughed. It was her first deliberate attempt to pull one over on me. I think she did all she could and then realized she was going to have to fess up. It was a good first try.

Did that happen for a reason? Was it comic relief? A bit of much-needed perspective? Is this phase of my life two pee-soaked tissues, something sucky and inconvenient, but which, too, shall pass?

Would you be outraged that demands on your time by necessity means demands on your preschool daughter’s time? Because in a further slap in the face, I can’t ask anyone to watch Tink on Sunday – that’s the day everyone spends with their family.

Or should I see this as a cool adventure as Tink sometimes does? Should I take a special pride in the fact that she’ll have memories and experiences that make my white-bread childhood pale in comparison, even if it means those memories will involve making chit chat with elderly perverts?

Or, since my husband’s hands are tied and he can’t say it, should I be the one to say, “Enough”? Enough. My family comes first.

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