Susan Senator

I got a new cellphone today and I guess I’m a primadonna but I don’t like the shade of pink! It is a flashy fuschia instead of a true pink. Max says, “Whoa, it is mad thin,” which means it’s good (of course, he has the Krzr, which is even thinner. He is completely in love. With the phone, that is. Although he does not do too badly with the opposite sex, either. The other day he told me he was IMing with Monique, Dina, and Mikki all at once. Yo Max). The only person I IM with these days is Ned, which is lovely but not three admirers at once!

The phone I got clashes with itself when it is all lit up. Kind of a neon periwinkle, next to a flashy, trashy, magenta pink. Hmm. Not my choice of combo, that’s for sure.

Max took apart my old phone and said, “Whoa, this thing is old.” Just like me, in his view, I suppose.

I hate a day like today, although it started really great. I went to Ben’s breakfast share for the third grade, which was about the 50 states. Ben’s state was New Jersey because his cousin Kimmy lives there and he adores her. Each kid did a state and then they stood there in the front of the room and sang a song about the “nifty fifty” states. They stood there, faces earnest, working on remembering all the words, singing proudly and seriously. It was just about the cutest thing I’ve ever seen, right up there with Benji’s baby feet. Then I had coffee with a fellow autism mom whose kid was Nat’s first real friend. She and I have a lot in common, needless to say, and she is kind of a fascinating person, full of plans and hopes for DJ, just the way I am for Nat. Then I had lunch with a new friend, which was absolutely lovely and fun. He and I have a lot in common, too, in terms of politics and certain basic beliefs.

I guess most of my day was great, as a matter of fact, until 4, my witching hour. My mood swings come back around then. I get hungry and tired then. I take a nap, wake up, and sometimes, like today, I become kind of a carb-seeking zombie. I bit the M &Ms; out of most of the M &M; cookies. Then, to assuage my guilt, (and shift to a different mindset), I made a bowl of popcorn and pretended I was going to share it with Max and Nat. But I never called Nat in from the livingroom (Hey, can’t he just come in by himself? Just how far does this initiating problem go? I can’t even assume he’ll come in if he wants popcorn?? Is it my responsibility to give him food, too? Oops, oh yeah, I AM HIS MOTHER, D’oh) And I ate and ate in a buttery, salty carb haze while Max played with his new phone next to me, only occasionally dipping his large male hand into the bowl. Double D’oh!

There’s a meeting tonight of all the autism parents in my town. Of course I should go. Of course I don’t want to go. I get sick of being an activist. I get sick of all my problems and the problems that just go on and on. I am annoyed at myself for eating popcorn (yes, yes, and M & Ms though they don’t really count because it is like breaking up the cookies and we all know that broken cookies don’t count).

Mostly, I feel too cold to do anything productive; that’s why I’m here. Yesterday I was Ms. Productive, whereby I wrote two essays and sent them to two excellent papers where they will languish in ignominy. Plus I finished my book proposal, which ended up 76 pages long, and Neddy Sweets went over the layout to make sure it looked scrumptious and professional. So today I am empty.

I should just put on my loveliest bellydance outfit and do an hour of dancing. I’m afraid that I hurt my hips really badly yesterday, however. I was practicing a hip-down, or a hip lock-down, (not like a hip lockdown, which is when all the cool people in a building are prevented from leaving the premises). This is a very cool move, which when done properly, looks like the dancers hips are, one at a time, moving downward, lower and lower. It is different from hip drops or piston hips or vertical eights. So I practiced over and over and — YOW — my hips are so sore. But still, I have been stretching and practicing all day today, even in my tight new size 28 jeans. (My kids are quite accustomed by now to seeing me start some kind of dance move right in the middle of the kitchen.)

I finished the jade colored outfit of my dreams, although I still am waiting for the bead fringe to arrive from Egypt. So much of bellydance originates from Egypt, it’s kind of funny to me. Growing up and into adulthood, I never went to the Other Side of Semitism or sampled the charms of the Arab world. There is a little frisson of the verboten in the whole thing for me, a nice Jewish girl. The other day my teacher had us cross our arms under our veils in “pharonic pose.” I said, “Pharonic? As in ‘Pharoah?'” And she nodded, not realizing what pharoah means to me: enslavement of my peeps! For thousands of years, or hundreds? For as long as it took for us to build those pyramids, way back when. So here I am, emulating the Pharoah, and ordering costumes from Egypt! Oh God! What would Moses say? Don’t know, apparently he was slow of speech. Okay, what would Aaron, his brother say? “Oh, Shoshana, Let [My People] It Go!”

So I did. If only everything else were so easy! Oy = D’oh = Sigh