Boy, bye

My son is 17, and he is doing exactly what he should be doing: Coming home only when circumstances require it. When he clomps through the door in his giant shoes, it’s typically because he needs to sleep here so he can get to work at 6 a.m. Or it might be time to mow the lawn so he can get his allowance and avoid his father’s wrath. Or maybe he is out of clean clothes.

But if none of those things are true, he’s gone. He has a car, a job, and a bunch of friends he’s always staying with in a dizzying rotation (gratitude to the families who are feeding my teenager this summer). I am philosophically inclined to allow him a lot of autonomy because I think parents are supposed to prepare their kids to be autonomous, and turning them loose a bit is the only way to really do it. He’s got good grades and a clean driving record, he pays for his own gas, his friends are nice fellows. I have no real reason to limit him, and every reason to feel good about the young man he has become. It’s all as it should be.

Also, this is worst thing ever and I'm slowly dying. I hate it. No one told me how very much I would hate it. You guys, why didn't anyone WARN ME?

When he briefly materializes, our conversations go like this:

“Hey Jack, did you have fun at Connor’s? What did you guys do?”

“It was great. We helped his grandmother move into her new house, and then we drove around in Calder’s Jeep. It’s really fun because it’s open on the sides.”

“That’s so nice that you helped with the move. I’m sure she appreciated having all you boys there. Where did you guys go in the Jeep?”

“We went up Signal Mountain, just drove around, it was fun. Hey, I’m going to stay with Jesse tonight, I just need to get my laptop and some cables to hook up to his keyboard.”

“Sounds good. Have you had dinner?”

“Yes, I’ll be back tomorrow to cut the grass.”

“OK, honey, I love you.”

Fine, right? FINE. Totally normal progression from childhood to adulthood. But this is the conversation in my head:

“Hey Jack, did you have fun at Connor’s? What did you guys do?”

“It was great. We helped his grandmother move into her new house, and then we drove around in Calder’s Jeep. It’s really fun because it’s open on the sides.”

“JEEPS ROLL OVER JEEPS ARE DANGEROUS YOU WILL FALL OUT AND DIE DID YOU WEAR A SEATBELT? I DON’T CARE IF YOU WORE A SEATBELT NEVER RIDE IN A JEEP WHO IN THE WORLD GIVES THEIR TEENAGE SON A JEEP?”

“We went up Signal Mountain, just drove around, it was fun. Hey, I’m going to stay with Jesse tonight, I just need to get my laptop and some cables to hook up to his keyboard.”

“FINE LEAVE GO I DON’T CARE IT’S NOT LIKE YOU EVEN LIVE HERE GAH.”

“Yes, I’ll be back tomorrow to cut the grass.”

“YEAH, YOU BETTER DAMN WELL CUT THE GRASS. I love you.”

Meanwhile, Jack has a 12-year-old brother at home, Ben, who alternately misses his brother terribly and is living it up as the only child for the first time. He and his father recently picked me up at the airport, and he reported that he had not seen Jack in days.

“I miss him,” Ben said. “But also it’s just been Daddy and me all weekend and it was awesome.”

Yesterday, my mother called and asked what I was up to. The answer was not much. It was Pay the Stupid Damn Bills Day, so I had been paying the stupid damn bills, catching up on laundry, and living it up like the rock star I am. I told her about all the fun she was missing and she said, “Well, maybe I’ll just come over and say hello and catch a glimpse of you.”

And I realized: Holy shit, I am never ever EVER going to stop being sad that my kid is growing up. I am 45 years old, and I am not in a good mood on Pay the Stupid Damn Bills Day, and I have nothing to offer in the way of entertainment or charming banter, and my mother wants to just come sit here where I am for a while. Just because this is where I am.

I would totally do that to Jack. If I knew where the hell he is, I would go just sit where he is just to catch a glimpse of him. I would go there and maybe I would even bring him something good to eat or see if he needs some money or help with anything.

Unless he’s in a Jeep. If he's in a Jeep, I'll just wait for him to get back.

See how autonomous I'm letting him be?
I'm a very rational parent.

Yes, OK, I'm weird about Facebook sorrynotsorry

A friend of a friend recently asked for my cell phone number so she could text me some information.

"I'd get it to you through Facebook, but I know how you are about Facebook," she said.

I cannot tell you what a relief it was to hear her say that. Cannot. Tell. You. Because while there are 20 million ways Facebook has made real life even more socially awkward and stressful, here's one of the worst:

"Hey," says the vague acquaintance you barely know and just met and aren't even sure you like AT ALL. "Are you on Facebook?"

This is an intrusive question, in my opinion, but it is apparently socially acceptable. So here are my options:

1. The implausible lie. "No, I've never heard of it. What is this Facebook thing of which you speak?"

2. The sort-of lie. "Not really. I don't use it much. It's not a great way to reach me."

3. The truth. "I find that most people use Facebook in ways that make me throw up in my mouth and weep for the fate of our species, so I'm only Facebook friends with people I'm related to by blood or marriage, or people I would trust to raise my children if everyone else in my family died."

That third one is pretty heavy, so I usually go for the second option -- the sort-of lie. The vague rebuff. The unspoken 'don't-send-me-a-friend-request-because-it-will-die-a-quiet death' option.

But, occasionally, if I'm feeling reeeeaaaalllll bitchy, I whip out the third option and watch their faces. It can be fun, depending on just how bitchy I'm feeling. Ask an intrusive question, get a painful answer. Sometimes it just seems fair to me.

At a recent professional conference, a colleague asked me about this little blog. "Do very many people read it?"

I had to think about that for a minute. My instinct was to say, "No, and I could not give one single shit how many people read it," but I was wearing heels and make-up and trying to be a grown-up making polite, work-related conversation. Sometimes life is annoying like that.

"No, not many people read it," I finally said. "But having a lot of people read it isn't the goal. It's personal. I write it for me, for my family and friends, and if other people find it and like it, too, that's a bonus. But I don't even look at those numbers most of the time. Could not tell you the readership stats."

He looked confused. I get it. We work in communications, he works in marketing, and the whole point of LIFE is to get a lot of people to read/do/buy stuff. I guess there are ways I could use social media to try to get more people to read this. But it just doesn't matter to me. I'm not a product or a brand. When I'm off the clock, I got nothing to sell.

Because it's a direct reflection of my choices, Facebook is also personal for me, despite its insanely wide reach. I don't have lots of Facebook friends. I like to keep it sub-70. Sometimes the people who make the cut change, because life changes. I trim periodically. I even add very occasionally. And I keep some sentimental favorites around because we have interesting shared histories, they have interesting lives, and I like to know how they're doing.

Of course, I know that when my friends like my things on Facebook, those things go everywhere, and when they share those things, those things go everywhere. It's cool. This is an input issue for me. I am selective about what makes it into my field of vision because I am selective about what I put into my brain. That's all I can control, and so I control it.

Meanwhile, here are just a few things I do not see in my Facebook feed:

Hateful, ignorant fear-mongering by superstitious busybodies. For example, when the Supreme Court ruled (yay!) on marriage equality in July, my feed was a rainbowfest of Love Wins smoochyfaces. A few of my friends took to Facebook to lament all the hate they were seeing on their feeds, but I think that means they need to tend their Facebook gardens a bit more carefully. Time for some pruning. With a fucking chainsaw, y'all.

People posting pictures of the latest fancy, expensive thing they just bought. If there is anything I care about less than money, I do not know what that thing is. Yes, we need money so we can eat and have a dry place to sleep, but conspicuous consumption is boring, and displays of materialism are tedious. I tend to have Facebook friends who share that perspective.

The memememememememememememmeeeeeeee thing where every person has to document every meal and every thought and where they are and who they are with at every moment doing every pedestrian and predictable thing that ALL PEOPLE DO. These are not my folk. But I have a message for them: You guys. Live your lives. Put the phone down. Be in the moment. Be with the people you are actually WITH. Stop taking the same selfie over and over and over and OVER. We saw it the first 4,386 times.

That's all pretty harsh, so I'll dial it back and end with this. I know there are lots of fun ways to use Facebook, from networking to not working to building up your business and making sure everyone sees your craymazing nail art. I wish genuine godspeed and good vibes to all the people who have the hundreds and the thousands of friends and the millions of posts scrolling before their eyes all day long. My husband is among you! He is a total all-day-long Facebook junkie, and I want everyone to have a super terrific time together.

But, you know, if you want to reach me, I'd be happy to give you my email address.

Facebook? Well, yeah, I don't use it much. It's not a great way to reach me.

A really nice picture of Ben in one of our favorite places that I never posted to Facebook.
And yet, it still happened.

44/11

Here’s a question my Ben asks with somewhat alarming regularity: Is that a rule or a law?

As in, If I ignore this edict, will I go to actual jail, or will I just get in trouble?

As in, Lady, I give zero fucks about the way people tell me things are supposed to be, but before I totally ignore this convention, I must weigh the consequences against the benefits of disregarding the tedious restrictions you people insist on reciting at me ad nauseam.

The real problem with this behavior is that I find it charming. It makes me swoon a little bit. And Ben can read me with terrifying accuracy. So I solemnly swear to you good people that I am dutifully reciting tedious restrictions and making serious mom faces at him. I really, really am.

For example: Do not use that bad word, I say to him. That is not a word kids are allowed to say.

But my brain is thinking, Yeah, that is a pretty dumb rule, and if you want to say the eff word now and then, it really isn’t that big a deal, man. It’s just a word. Words only have as much power as we assign them, you know? So don’t use it to hurt people. Don’t call them fuckheads or anything. But if you want to use it to express an idea more forcefully, or to register your disdain, or even your amusement, I happen to know it is quite effective. Also, you very quickly discover who in the room would be a fun friend based on their reaction to it.

So you guys, I am really saying the mom things and making the mom face, but Ben is looking straight into me with his blue, blue eyes and reading my mind and taking the lesson he wants from this encounter. That lesson being: Fuck it. This is a rule and NOT a law and I won’t go to jail for this bullshit.

If you read this blog, you probably know me, and this is the part where you say, Yeah, that kid is just like you. And to you I say, I know! Isn’t it great? (Also, please send help. Also, wine. Thanks.)

I tend to attribute this rule/law-challenging temperament to a high degree of rationality, which seems better than attributing it just being kind of an asshole. But it has always seemed to me highly rational to question things, and to refuse to blindly accept the widely assumed answer.

If you lift the hood on most generally accepted conventions and muck around in the guts of things, you tend to find fear in one form or another. Fear is the absolute worst. It’s a paralyzing agent, and the enemy of rationality. So let’s unplug some shit and rewire some shit and see if it still runs. (It mostly does. Don’t worry.)

That’s a nice story, right? The one about a high level of rationality being the reason Ben and I cannot seem to stop hot-wiring conventions and taking them drag racing? It’s a story I like to tell, but it’s some delusional bullshit.

As a kid, I fairly crackled with resentment at my powerlessness. All I wanted was to steer my own ship, and people kept telling me what to eat and when to sleep and making me sit all day in desks where I had to do math. I was so pissed, you guys. I was not rational.

And Ben is pissed. The other morning, I was hustling everyone into the car so we could leave by 7:30, which is when the goddamn train departs, and he just lost it. WHY DO WE HAVE TO LEAVE AT 7:30 WHAT IS SO SPECIAL ABOUT 7:30 WHY DOES IT HAVE TO BE 7:30?

And then I also lost it and explained that WE LEAVE AT 7:30 SO I CAN DROP THREE KIDS OFF AT TWO SCHOOLS BY 8 BEFORE I GO TO WORK ALL GODDAMN DAY WHERE I EARN ALL THE MONEY TO PAY FOR EVERY SINGLE THING GET IN THE CAR OR I WILL LEAVE YOU.

So he got in the car (he was SO PISSED), but man, that kid just wants to steer his own ship and I totally, totally get it.

Growing up is the hardest work we ever do. My deepest reservation about having children was knowing I’d be inflicting the process of growing up on an innocent person who asked for none of this. But since I went ahead and had kids anyway, I try to be reasonable and empathetic about the messiness and inherent frustrations involved in escaping the heavy atmosphere of childhood. (Unless I’m trying to get their asses into the car by 7:30. Then I take no shit.)

It often kind of sucks being a kid, you guys. At least, that’s how I remember it. But at least it doesn’t last very long.

Proof that it doesn’t last very long: Ben just turned 11(!), and I’m about to turn 44(!!). I have decided (in totally irrational fashion) that this has special significance.

This is our first mutual repeating-digit age year. Ben and I will get one of these every 11 years and, yes, I know anyone who has a baby during a repeating-digit age year gets a mutual repeating-digit age year every 11 years. I suck at math, but I’m at least that alert.

But since this is our first one, and since Ben faces a lifetime of carrying around the curse that is my temperament, I feel like I should mark this year somehow. If I was a certain kind of person, I would dress us up in coordinating outfits and make him stand in a sunlit field and subject him to professional photography.

But I am not that kind of person, you guys, not even a little fucking bit.

I’m thinking more like we should get into some trouble together, and maybe co-author a story about it. He likes to read, and he likes to write (my boy mineminemine) and he likes to get into some trouble. The real question is, what kind of trouble should I pick for us?

Digression: Now I’m thinking about Ben’s most recent parent/teacher conference, a special called session of multiple teachers to discuss… well, Ben. It emerges that Ben starts work, but does not finish it, and is not impressed when the teachers tell him he HAS to finish it before he can start something else. He just… doesn’t. He just stops the work and gets up and goes to do something else and does not listen to them at all.

So they are telling me this, and I am nodding solemnly and expressing dismay and pledging my sincere devotion to working with the teachers to make sure this shit stops. And I’m totally going to do that. But I’m thinking, Goddamn it, I start and then wander away from work all day every day of my life and I still get my job done. I just don’t do my job in a linear way.

But my poor Ben has got to learn to do things the way the world wants him to right up until he doesn’t have to anymore, which is where childhood ends and adulthood begins.

You guys, being a kid SUCKS .

Anyway, Ben is 11, I am 44, this year feels important and I’m shopping for some trouble for Ben and me to write about together. I welcome any and all ideas, though I’d prefer to focus on trouble where we break rules and not laws.

Or hey, let’s at least make sure we’re staying in the range of misdemeanors.

We could probably tunnel out of jail, anyway.

The introvert's dictionary. It's not alphabetical because it's my dictionary and I didn't do it that way.

I took my boys to the Tennessee Aquarium and the Chattanooga Zoo on Friday. It was Ben's idea. "Animal Day," he said, when I asked him what he'd like to do on this rare day off for all of us.

Ben did not enjoy the saltwater part of the Aquarium. There were a lot of people there. A. Lot. Crowds. Hordes. Mobs. He didn't complain, but he cringed a lot.

When we got to the freshwater part, he seemed far happier. "It's better here," he said. "I think more people go to the saltwater one so they can see sharks. I like the sharks, but I don't like all the people."

Oh, I feel you, honey. I really do. 

I took a long, solitary trail run on Thursday morning and, during that run, I thought about the specific reality of the introvert. Well, I primarily thought about how goddamn amazing it felt to be alone in the woods and pushing my body to the point of endorphin intoxication, but I also thought about how amazing it felt to just be alone. And while I did that, I also wrote this dictionary/glossary/guide to introverts thing. 

Mephoria: The intense rush introverts experience when they are all alone and can do whatever they want. And no one is looking for you or calling you and no one expects you to be anywhere and no one is even texting you because maybe the battery in your cell phone is even dead. Gah. Yesh.

Youphoria: The particular joy that accompanies abundant, unstructured time doing fun things with one specific someone who totally gets you on a mind-meld level. I am ridiculously lucky, so I have a few of these people. You know who you are. I miss you.

Regretrovert: What an introvert becomes when everyone leaves you alone because you told them to, but then you miss them. Dammit.

Ohdeerface: That thing where the people who know you best see that you are DONE, just can't. any. more. And their heads kind of swivel up, like a deer who detects a threat, and they come over to you and put a hand on your shoulder and excuse you from whatever agonizing conversation you have been forced to endure, and then they take you home and hand you a book and don't even bitch about what a pain in the ass you are. (Thanks, Jim.)

Charging station: The place introverts go to briefly isolate themselves in a social situation, whether we are temporarily hiding in a bathroom at a party or maybe curled up in the corner reading for a few minutes at a reunion or even taking a surreptitious little walk around the block during a conference when we pretended we were just going to the bathroom. It's OK. We'll be back. Probably.

The ghost: What happens when an introvert leaves for a charging station and decides not to come back. Introverts don't leave, exactly. They just ghost.

Defcon 5: That thing where you're in your charging station and someone busts in and says in that infuriating, unintentionally accusatory way, "What's wrong?" or "Why are you so quiet?" or "Where were you?" Well, hey, Bargey McRuderson, here's a question for you: Why don't you just mind your own dumbface business?

Untroversion: What introverts practice when they have to interact with so many people so much and so often, and have gotten so adept at it, that when they end up disclosing during a conversation that they are introverts, the person they're talking to say, "No way! I would never, ever guess that." Winning. Also, suffering.

NOTTHESAMETHING: That thing introverts have to clarify when people express surprise that they are introverts, and they say, "You don't seem shy at all." Right. Because I'm not shy at all. 'Shy' implies fearful. You don't scare me even a little. But in order to function optimally, I need you and everyone else to just go away sometimes. NOTTHESAMETHING.

Occupational therapist: Most dogs are extroverts. Not all of them, I know. But most dogs. And if you are an introvert with a dog, you probably take your dog to the dog park and out for walks and stuff, and that thing where you interact with other people with dogs is your introvert occupational therapy. No copay, lots of unconditional love. Good therapist. Stay.

Introcceptance: The state introverts achieve after they spend decades trying to figure out why everyone else seems to want to hang out in big groups and you hate it more than anything, it is hell, and whywhywhy? And then you realize that yeah, that's just life for the introvert, and you figure out how to happily introvert your way through life and it is amazing. 

Funtrovert: What the introvert becomes when you host a party, and the people you love best are at your house, and you're simultaneously with your best people on your home turf, and also having a high degree of social interaction, and it is bliss because everyone there knows. They KNOW. And they will never, at any point, wonder where you went if you walk around the block, and they will never go Defcon 5 on you.

Waterboarding: Small talk, elevator talk, cocktail party talk, people on planes who are apparently looking for new friends, people who want to know what you're reading, those dead minutes at the beginning of a meeting when people talk about weather/sports/the day of the week/payday. Also, meetings. Also, elevators.

Shocktrovert: That jolt of recognition the introvert experiences when you're being waterboarded, and you suddenly realize the person you're talking to is ALSO being waterboarded, and you mutually confess your misery, drop all pretense, talk about real shit that is worth actually talking about and maybe even make a new friend.

Ironictrovert: That thing where you know you will have to interact with groups of people in a surface, social way that makes you want to die, so you read books and articles about how to do that effectively. Alone. All by yourself. You read. About how to talk to people.

Saints, martyrs, gods among men: The people who know, love, understand and protect introverts. You guys are so awesome. I love you so much. Now please go away.

Ben and I engaged in a lively exchange of ideas.

Meet my drunk teenager

Because I am the world's best mother, I gave my cell phone to my 15-year-old son. I carried that phone for 5 years. He had it for 3 months and then jumped right into the neighborhood pool with it in his pocket.

Look, I wasn't mad (see world's best mother reference above). I know it's not technically his fault. The rolling wave of testosterone that's unfurling in his blood blocks oxygen to the brain. It forms an actual barrier somewhere just south of his neck. This is science, people. You can't fight it.

My boy is walking around in a paralyzing fog of hormones that makes him, for all practical purposes, drunk. He's exactly like me after five beers. Laughing too loud, interrupting everyone, walking into stuff, falling off of stuff, convinced everything he says is hilarious, jumping into the pool with his iPhone in his pocket.

But now that he's just like me after five beers, he can legally learn to drive a car? OK, people who make the rules. That makes total sense.

He used to smell of warm dinner rolls, fresh cut grass, clean laundry. Now he's shrouded in musky fumes whose origins I prefer not to contemplate. He used to hold up his tiny, dimpled hands to let me know he was ready to be carried. Now he's a head taller than I am and speaks mostly in grunts.

Well, except that time he jumped into the pool with his cell phone in his pocket. That event traumatized him into temporary talkativeness. 

"I'm so sorry! I'm SO SORRY!" he moaned. Pause for two beats. "So, can I please get another phone?"

The flip side of my drunk teenager is that he's super useful. He can mow the grass and spread the mulch and drag the garbage out to the curb and make lunch for himself and his little brother and carry ALL the heavy stuff. 

For years, I felt like a baby/toddler/little boy sherpa, forever schlepping their little bodies and all their gear everydamnwhere everydamnday. These days, when I pull into the driveway with a carload of anything, I just hop out and saunter into the house, leaving the cargo for the teenager to unload. 

Most of the time, he even greets me in the driveway. He knows the drill. He knows who buys the cell phones around here.

Well, unless there's something fragile in the car. I still carry that stuff. You really don't want a drunk teenager hauling your breakables.

Just leave that in the car. I'll carry it in. 

In defense of those assholes who tell you to "enjoy every moment"

OK, I would never say that to the parents of young children. That's a dick move. I remember how exhausting it was, how unrelentingly needy they were, how scared I was that I was doing it all wrong, how sure I was I would never again sleep through the night/go to the bathroom by myself/finish the day without food in my hair/get to shave both legs on the same day. In fact, I'm pretty sure I have mild PTSD from those years. It. Was. Hard.

So no, I would never say that to the parents of young children. But here is a thing I would say: Have you ever had your heart utterly, completely broken by someone you missed long after you should have been over it? A romance that marked you, changed you, made some song or some movie or some season or some stupid little joke forever painfully poignant and fraught with loss? Have you just gotten crushed and had to eat ice cream straight out of the carton, seasoned with tears?

Well, those unhinged assholes telling you to enjoy every moment with your little, screaming, sticky children are caught in the throes of precisely that kind of heartbreak. They are looking at you and that soft, dimpled creature and they are remembering only the soft-focused best of that long-gone romance that will never, ever be back. They can't even Facebook stalk this ex because he/she is gone forever, transformed (and, yes, I'm sorry, but it DOES happen so quickly) into an utterly different creature.

Those clouds of soft, wild hair have turned into teen-age dreadlocks or that douchey boy-band hairdo they slick up in the front with gel. Those tiny, dimpled hands reaching for you -- and you, only you, no, not that one, YOU -- are waving 'bye over a broad shoulder as he grabs your car keys and the last $20 from your wallet. That back-of-the-neck baby smell that releases all those happiness chemicals in your brain will be replaced by a teen-age funk that, if weaponized, could bring entire empires to their knees.

Looking at old pictures doesn't really help. In fact, it's sometimes physically painful to haul out the images of those long-gone babies, to see in those round, guileless faces and gummy grins the faint outlines of the adolescent somewhere up ahead. Was he ever that small? (Yes, he was, and I was so, so tired…)

My 15-year-old son recently asked me if I wished he were little again.

"Not really," I said truthfully. "My life is easier now that you're so big and smart and strong, and you can help me with stuff and teach me things. It's a lot of fun to have big kids. But I would love a visit."

"A what?"

"I would love it if I could have 2-year-old you back for about 3 hours," I explained. "I would like to feel the weight of your warm little body in my lap again, and hear that funny immigrant English you spoke in that little helium voice….Just for a little while."

"Weird."

Yeah," I sighed. "It's weird."

But time doesn't work that way. And no, I would never tell the parents of young children to enjoy every moment, because wow, it's a tough time and that's a dick move. But I might say, hey, it's a lot more temporary than it feels right now. The good, the bad, the days that take months to drag by, the months that disappear in a flash. It's all so temporary.

They'll be gone soon. You won't enjoy every moment. But maybe try to consider these incredibly demanding years with the tenderness you would reserve for an intensely felt and ultimately doomed romance.

Because there just isn't enough ice cream in the world for this particular heartbreak.

Gone, baby, gone.

My big-sister self is back, and she is mighty aggravated

There’s this desk in my room where I sit to write and work and pay bills and generally keep the wheels of our lives turning. I recently walked to that desk and found there was no chair.

“BOYS!” I screamed reflexively. “WHERE IS MY CHAIR?”

My younger son, who’s 10, hollered back, “IT’S IN MY BLANKET FORT. I NEEEEED IT FOR MY BLANKET FORT!”

OK, a couple of things to point out here. When I walk to my desk, I am mentally zeroed in. I am ready to pay the bills or do the work or write the thing, and I have dragged myself away from whatever diverting alternate activity I’d rather be doing (do you guys know about ThredUP? Seriously.), and I am ready. I mean business as I saunter up to that desk, y’all.

Also, I am the big sister. Granted, I am also a 43-year-old mother of two large boy-type children, but some part of me has apparently never gotten past those big-sister years when all I wanted in the world was to be left alone to read in peace and to find my things where I left them and to not have gross little boys always touching my things and moving my stuff and WHY ARE YOU EVEN IN MY ROOM? GAH.

When my kids were small, my big-sister origins were not a problem. I mean, they were little children and mostly helpless and pretty much always in either my lap or my line of sight. They did annoying shit, sure, but it did not generally involve moving furniture or surreptitiously taking my stuff to undisclosed locations, so I kind of forgot about the big-sister years. But as my boys have gotten big and strong and grabby enough to disrupt my environment in truly significant and bewildering ways, that 14-year-old version of myself is suddenly back. And wow, she is super bitchy.

“Son, I know you think you NEED that chair for your blanket fort, but you do not. I need that chair for my butt, so I can sit in it and pay our bills and finish my work. So please go get that chair and bring it to me. And do not take furniture out of my room. That is not OK.”

All of the other chairs in the house were also in this fort, by the way, so you would not think my little office chair would be critical to its infrastructure, but you would be wrong. In making him move that chair, I destroyed his life and proved myself the worst mother on the planet.

Which, to tell you the truth, is OK with me. Someone has to be the worst at this stuff. It can be me. That way it isn’t you! You’re welcome.

I also found that my free weights were a critical part of the infrastructure of this elaborate fort. I found that when, you guessed it, I went to lift my free weights. (That sounds so badass but, you guys, these weights top out at 8 pounds and they are coated in colorful plastic. They’re perfect blanket-fort ballast.)

And forget about being able to use my most favorite giant towel at the pool. That is not my towel anymore, and the way I can tell that is not my towel is that some wet child is constantly wrapped in it. I even bought a new version of it covered in giant pink flowers because I figured none of the boys I live with would want it. And now my reward for teaching them about feminism and gender equality is that they could give a shit if they have a pink floweredy towel. It’s cool, bro. Now we have TWO giant towels – perfect!

I recently took a business trip and, while I was gone, my husband took our older son to get his learner’s permit. Then he posted a picture to Facebook of our baby boy driving my car.

MY CAR. Driving. My. Car.

“Good job, buddy. I’m really proud of you!” I texted to my son that night.

“Thanks for taking him. So why the hell can’t he drive YOUR car?” I texted to my husband.

They didn’t respond. I’m pretty sure they were all in the blanket fort. Or out driving my car.

No, really, this is fine. Just let me know when you're done with it.

That one time I quit writing my newspaper column

I published my last TFP column yesterday. Thirteen years is long enough, you guys. I'm starting to bore myself a little, which suggests to me that I've been boring other people a lot for quite some time now. Enough already.

But hey, I'm kind of fake quitting because I will still blog. Writers gotta write, yo.

So I will blog when I feel like it, and I will say what I want (profanity goes here!). I may blog twice a week or maybe I'll blog twice a year. Hell, I don't know. But last month, when I decided to just blog what was in my head, it got picked up by Scary Mommy and that was pretty thrilling. So just blogging. Let's do this.

Meanwhile, if you want to read my final TFP column, I am pasting it below. I am not linking to it as a petty act of defiance because the newspaper keeps running this horrendous 10-year-old picture of me on their website. I am like 5 minutes postpartum and I am growing out a bad haircut and I have this sleep-deprived, thousand-yard stare. I look like the walking momdead. Why did I let anyone take a picture of me at that point in my life? Oh right. I was insane from giving birth, which has that effect on me. I'm really glad I stopped doing it.

Anyway, I keep saying, Hey you TFP guys. Run another picture. You've got several. Some of them are better than that. And they keep running that horrible, horrible picture.

So anyway, here's my last TFP column. Something sentimental goes here about the end of an important chapter in my life. I'll see you on the blog.

The art of knowing when to say when

I really thought I was going to make it, but the afternoon sun through the clouded glass finally did me in.

"I'm going to have to pull over and wash this windshield," I told my mother. "I hate to stop when we're so close to home, but I'm driving blind."

The windshield of my mother's 19-year-old car was caked with sand from Florida and road grime from nearly 10 hours of interstate driving. We rolled into the parking lot of a fast-food restaurant in Ringgold and I popped the trunk. Mom rooted around in there until she came up with the giant jug of washer fluid she carries around, toted it to the front of the car and threw a few splashes of it on the glass while I ran the wipers.

"That's got it," I said. "Let's go."

My mother doesn't find this at all ridiculous, and I learned a long time ago to keep my mouth shut on the topic of her old-car fetish. She can't keep washer fluid in the reservoir of her car because no plastic reservoir is built to last through 19 years and 275,000 miles. They crack. If you try to repair them (and she has), they crack again. And, if you're my mom, you just shrug and start carrying around a jug of washer fluid in the trunk.

She's only driving this 1996 Camry because I bullied her into giving up her 1989 Subaru. It was around 2005, and I had a 5-year-old son and a newborn baby. My mom loved that tuna can of a Subaru, and she loved toting her grandsons around, but I wasn't happy with the idea of my little boy and my little baby in the backseat of that flimsy thing. So she caved and bought a 9-year-old Camry, which she still says is too big and heavy for her comfort.

Ten years later, I have a 15-year-old son, a 10-year-old son and a mother who will not give up her 19-year-old car. Every year, I drive her home from our annual trip to Florida, and every year there's a new quirk to accommodate.

"It's a good car," she says any time we talk about the possibility that a 19-year-old car is due to be replaced. "It has never once failed to proceed."

That's really how she talks. It's pretty cute. But still. Nineteen years, Mom?

As it happens, I think a lot these days about letting go. My sons are suddenly so grown up and independent. The first time my husband and I went out and left them at home, I felt disoriented and anxious. Now I don't think twice.

This year I've had to stop teaching the university media writing course I loved so much to accommodate a terrific career that requires more of me than I ever predicted. Maybe one day I'll have time for teaching again, but now is not that time.

This column is next. I've been writing it for 13 years — from the time I was barely 30, my older son was a toddler and my younger son was just an idea. I've written through the many joys of watching my boys grow up, through the challenges of illness, job loss, new careers and multiple moves.

I've loved writing this column, but I think it's time for something new. Thank you for reading what I wrote, and for all the times you wrote back to let me know how much it meant to you. Y'all have got to be the nicest readers anywhere, and it's been a privilege to share my stories with you.

Also, if you have any ideas for repairing the washer fluid reservoir in a 19-year-old Camry, I'll still be around and entertaining ideas.

I can't wait for our beach vacation! Is the biggest freaking lie I tell myself every summer.

Every June, my husband, my mother, my sons and I spend a week at the beach, and let me just start by saying that only a hideous, ungrateful shrew would complain about this. So now that we've been properly introduced, let me tell you about the difference between Beach Vacation in My Head and Beach Vacation in For-Real Land.

Every winter, I spend the gray, post-holiday months building up the fantasy of Beach Vacation in My Head. During Beach Vacation in My Head, I do hours of reading in a horizontal state while my skin turns a creamy shade of caramel. I take long, solitary runs along the sand. I dine in sweet little restaurants with my husband; we linger over tropical drinks. My hair looks fucking amazing. It never rains.

My children are somewhere around here, I suppose, but they are occupied studying sea life and journaling about the habits of ocean birds. Or flying kites or whatever. They're definitely wearing linen, wherever they are.

Beach Vacation in For-Real Land goes like this: NO, throwing sand at your brother is not a game you just invented! DID YOU JUST SPRAY HIM IN THE FACE WITH SUNSCREEN? WHAT THE HELL?

During Beach Vacation in For-Real Land, my hours of reading work this way: My younger son, who's 10, sidles up to my chair as I recline and open my book. "Mom, are you almost done reading? When will you be done reading? Are you done now? What about now? How long is that book, Mom? It looks pretty long. Like, 300 pages? It doesn't really look like you're reading. It looks like you're done. What do you want to do now?"

Every single day, everyone needs to eat three damn meals -- a soul-crushing fact I avoid much of the year by being at work for many of them. I do more grocery shopping the week of Beach Vacation in For-Real Land than I do the entire rest of the year. Grocery shopping does not feel like a vacation, no matter where you do it. And it's weird, but I NEVER remember the grocery shopping part during Beach Vacation in My Head.

Every afternoon, the summer thunderstorms chase us inside, where my sons apply sand and water to every surface where one might reasonably expect to sit or lie. My hair grows into an immense, frizzy cloud of snarls. Five days in, my skin is covered in red bumps from sand, salt, sunscreen, razor burn and mosquitoes. The condo is decorated entirely in wet towels and mateless flip-flops. (Seriously, why are there six left shoes in here??)

By Thursday, I'm always contemplating an early exit. I could just rent a car, you know? I could just go home and spend a few days by myself. No big deal. That's normal, right?

"It's Thursday of beach week," my friend texts me every year. "Are you ready to come home?"

And let's talk about the packing, shall we? In Beach Vacation in My Head, I toss everything I need into a grocery bag. A small one. Bikini, flip-flops, running shoes, shorts, T-shirts, toothbrush, and let's go, bitches.

Actually that's what I do for Beach Vacation in For-Real Land, too. But at the part where I open my mouth to say, 'Let's go, bitches,' I remember that we have to go install the giant box on the roof of the car to hold all the golf clubs and sand toys. And put five coolers in the back and load up all the electronics. Yes, we are those people.

Then there's the unpacking upon arrival. Then the repacking upon departure. Then the unpacking upon arrival. We finish Beach Vacation in For-Real Land more exhausted than when we left, it will take two gallons of aloe to get my skin settled down and my keratin treatment is totally wrecked.

My mother says I'll miss all this chaos one day, but I'm certain that's just one of the 10 million lies she's told me in her merciless quest for grandchildren. I'm on to you, lady. You hear me? I'M ON TO YOU.

"Man, I can't wait for our week at the beach!" my older son recently crowed. He's 15 now, and we are heading back for our 11th consecutive year at the very same place. "It's always the best week of the year," he said. "I love it."

"I know," I said, wrapping an arm around his skinny man/boy shoulder. "It's the best, isn't it?"

Shit yeah, it is. Because it's still Beach Vacation in My Head, and there's really no reason to start Beach Vacation in For-Real Land until it's absolutely necessary.

I'm standing like that because my legs are covered in bug bites and sun-allergy bumps and it kind of hurts if they touch, but look how much fun we are having, you guys!

Jack's got my number, so text with care

Switching cell phones is always kind of a pain in the ass, but it gets even more interesting when you hand your phone off to your teenager. When I gave Jack my phone, I warned the folks I correspond with regularly that my number would change over to my work phone, and that went off without a hitch -- mostly.

I was especially aggressive about warning the folks with whom I regularly swap secrets and juicy personal stories. "Text me back and confirm that you got this," I demanded of them. "I do not want you sending my son into therapy. That's my job."

"So don't text him this?" responded my friskiest friend, shooting me an elegantly framed still life of her unclothed bottom.

"No, don't text him that," I responded. "It's very pretty, though. I'm keeping that picture forever."

There have been a few minor, harmless text mix-ups, but they're quickly sorted out when Jack responds and pastes in the boilerplate I wrote for him instructing people that this is his number now and directing them to my new phone.

The best mix-up, though, came when a student I hadn't heard from in many months wrote me a long text to tell me what a great job I did teaching my media writing class, and what a big difference I had made for that crop of young 'uns.

Jack read me the text that afternoon when I picked him up from school.

"Mrs. Fortune, I just want you to know how much we all appreciate what you did for us," he read to me.

"Wow," I said. "That's just awesome to hear. Your mom is a media-writing-teaching badass, young man."

"Uh-huh," he grunted. "So can I delete this now?"

Anyway, today's TFP column is about adventures in cell phone swapping and the eternal nature of the cell phone number. I hope you like it.

And please don't text me any pictures of your butt without confirming the number first. Thanks.

Waiting on some misdirected texts from middle-aged women.

The folks from back home

When she settled us in Chattanooga 26 years ago, my mother told me we're related to pretty much everyone in East Tennessee one way or another. For a long time, that information did not interest me at all. I suppose it's yet another sign of my official arrival in the land of middle age that I suddenly give a pretty significant damn about all these family connections.

Today's TFP column is about a weekend I spent with a bunch of people I'm related to and the people they're related to and well, you get the idea.

Lord, y'all, I'm turning into my mother. But hey, I could do a whole lot worse.

GO UPSTAIRS NOW

Yeah, who else is loving the snowstorm-that-wasn't-but-was-instead-cold-rain-and-ice-and-my-kids-are-STILL-out-of-school? It's fun, right?

Just to make things funner, I took this week off work to indulge in a whole lot of nothing to celebrate my husband's birthday (Thursday) and my birthday (Friday) and decompress a little because, you guys, I could use to decompress a little.

Instead, I am home with Ben (10) and Jack (14) and their dad (58 on Thursday!) and I love them, yes I really really do, but gah, you guys, this was supposed to be the week of running and shopping and reading and writing and getting my hair did and going to yoga and running and shopping. Instead it is the week of trying to keep my kids from killing each other (Shut up, fart brain!) and then listening to them complain when I separate them (I want to play with Jack!) and then rinse and repeat repeat repeeeeeeeeeaaaat.

That's OK. It really is. Because I have the playroom. Last weekend, I published a column in the TFP about the playroom. I forgot to share it here then, but I am doing it today with a renewed sense of gratitude for that ratty, filthy, chaotic den of boy noise.

The playroom is serious, you guys.

Halloween in the playroom. Some of these children are mine. Most of
them are not. As long as they stay upstairs, I like them all just fine.

I hate writing this so much

I don’t want to write about Brian Kalla. Instead, I want to have some of the amazing pancakes he always made when our families had breakfast-for-dinner dates, or the spicy matzoh ball soup he would bring me because he knew how much I loved it.

I want to pour him a drink and tell him one more time how much it meant to us this past summer, when my husband Jim had a terrifying MRSA infection, and Brian came over and tended to him, brought him Medihoney and medical advice and comfort and friendship.

I don’t want to write about Brian Kalla. But I have to, so you’ll know how few real friends my husband has – how guarded and cautious and how very, typically male Jim is about letting anyone in. I have to tell you how I teased Jim about the unabashed bromance he and Brian had going.

“You totally love that guy,” I would say to Jim as he headed off to spend the afternoon building stuff or working on cars at Brian’s house, or when he invited Brian and the kids to come hang out at the pool, or called him up to see if he could borrow his pressure washer. Again.

Brian had this laugh that got me every time – it had a kind of a shout in the middle of it, and it cracked me up. He helped carve the turkey at our house this past Thanksgiving. He brought his much-adored family over for trick-or-treating this past Halloween – an annual tradition that has long served as a milestone in our years.

He was outspoken and irreverent and prickly and warm and sweet and absolutely funny as hell. He was one of four brothers, just like my husband, and Jim and Brian had a running joke about that. I would explain it here, but it’s really only funny to them. Lots of things were really only funny to them.

My husband loved Brian, and I loved him, and we had vivid pictures in our minds of the future Halloweens and Thanksgivings and breakfasts-for-dinner we’d all have together as we eased deep into middle age, as our amazing kids grew up, as the bromance I teased Jim and Brian about spun out for years and years.

I do not want at all to write about Brian Kalla. But now I will because we were robbed. His wife and kids, who adored and relied on him. His friends, who loved to hear him laugh. His patients and his colleagues, who counted on not just his expertise, but his humanity and his humor, his irreverence and his intellect.

Those pictures we all had in our heads of a long future that included Brian – that included his laugh and his warmth and his many sharp edges -- are erased. And we’re left to figure out how pictures of the future are supposed to look without those essential things.

Above all, I know this really would have pissed Brian off. I am sure of it. It certainly pisses me off. And I know the loss of our great friend is a tiny, infinitesimal fraction of the loss his family will endure from now until always. So I guess I’m writing this thing I really don’t want to write about Brian Kalla for them.

Because Suzanne and Sadie and Joey, please know, please understand: We love him, and we love you. We know there’s nothing we can do, not really, but we’re standing with you and we always will.

We’ll always be among the people who can hear his laugh in our heads. He’ll always be part of us and of our family, and you will be, too. There’s nothing we wouldn’t do for you.

And I'm just so damn sorry I had to write this about Brian Kalla.

I would really like to spend more time doing it all night long

Sleeping is what I'm talking about there, you guys. Sleeping. What did you think I meant, you freaking weirdos?

Today's column in the TFP is all about the ways my true love, my boyfriend Sleep, has both comforted and betrayed me throughout my life. Most recently, he has been viciously teasing me -- taking me in, letting me get all seduced and unconscious, then tossing me unceremoniously back into the horror that is wide-awake-at-2 a.m.-and-gotta-work-in-just-a-few-hours.

Is this a middle-age thing? I used to be like a pro sleeper. If there had been a Sleep Olympics, I would have been on every podium, pitying the competition as I slept standing up through the awards ceremony.

I don't know what's going on with Sleep, but that jerk better step right, and soon, or I'm going to…well, I might have to take a lot more naps, I guess.

Threesome. Hell, yeah.

Give him room, folks. He's got a plan.

Today's column in the TFP is about Ben the Builder. Because sometimes I get home at the end of the day and I can't walk into the living room.

"Do not move my city," Ben warns me as I step into the house. He's standing at the center of a complex of Legos and blocks and blankets held in place with clothespins and…is that a spatula propped up on a tissue box? 

"Well, I will not move your city right now," I sigh. "But eventually we will need the living room for, you know, living."

"I know, but I have all the cars parked under the coffee table. It's a garage."

Obviously it's a garage. What else would the coffee table be? Because it's Life with Ben, chapter eleventythousand.

The dining room -- don't touch it!

The living room -- don't touch it!

The beach -- don't touch it!

Maybe you should drive

Painful parenting truth: We start out knowing everything and telling them what to do; they end up knowing everything and telling us what to do.

It's a process that takes decades, but it begins (apparently) right around the time your older son turns 14 and begins to flex his superior sense of direction. So now that I'm grown really and truly all the way up, I'm learning another hard truth of adulthood:

When in doubt, do what the kid says.

Jack in a fancy car of some kind, practicing for life in the driver's seat (of a Honda CRV).

The dirty truth about my clean house

It has taken me several years to adjust to the idea that I pay someone to clean my house. But over time, I have evolved from vaguely self-conscious about it to unapologetically celebratory.

Every two weeks, I come through the door -- late, tired, hauling my laptop, my backpack, my gym bag -- and my house is clean. And it smells good. And everything is shiny and pretty. It's my absolute favorite day, every single time.

I spent a lot of years cleaning my house. For that matter, I grew up helping(ish) my mom clean our house because people who live in their houses keep them clean, right? Right.

And I hated it. Hated it when I was a kid, hated it as an adult. Because who doesn't hate it?

But I kept doing it, year after year, for all the usual reasons. Someone has to do it. And my husband will kind of do it, but he's terrible at it. And my sons will kind of do it, but they do it wrong. And really, I'm the one who deeply craves all this cleanliness and order, so I guess that means I'm the one who's gotta scrub and dust and scrape and mop and vacuum.

So I did and I did and I did, even after I became the full-time breadwinner for our family. Monday through Friday, I worked. Saturday and Sunday I cleaned.

Ugh.

Then my dad got me a treat. As a brilliant gift, he paid for the most incredible, wonderful woman on the planet to come deep-clean my house. She spent five hours doing her magic, and the clean that happened there that day was a whole new level of expert clean that I don't even have the vocabulary to describe.

And I had a revelation. "In addition to hating cleaning my house, I am terrible at cleaning my house," I told her. "I cannot live without you. Please don't leave me."

She laughed and laughed. She would not tell me the magical secrets of how she got all the things so clean (the tile! I have never gotten tile that clean!), but she was absolutely willing to come back and do it again. And it was amazing how quickly I managed to find the money in our budget for that.

"I'm being smart," I told my husband. "I'm outsourcing work to a contractor who has much deeper expertise in this area. It's ultimately a huge efficiency gain at a moderate cost."

"Cool," he said.

Unexpected bonus: Happier marriage. Because my husband and I never fight any more about cleaning the house. And I never spend my Saturday afternoon cleaning our bathroom and hating him because cleaning bathrooms makes me hate all men.

Now, about the yard...

Raising kids like a lying, creepy weirdo

If you are the parent of a kid who's losing teeth, you are either a creepy, gross weirdo who saves those teeth or a soulless monster who heartlessly discards them. You can't win. There's no right answer. My column in today's TFP is all about our Tooth Fairy adventures and my life as a creepy, gross weirdo.

But while I'm at it, I have to mention that the older my kids get, the weirder it feels to lie my face off to them. Santa. Easter Bunny. Tooth Fairy. Lance Armstrong. Tiger Woods.

Why did I ever set this bear trap of deception? The big kid at my house is officially over it, and he rolls his eyes any time any of it comes up. (Well, except Tiger Woods. He may still believe in him a little bit.) But my littler kid is still teetering on the brink of belief/disbelief, and I can't seem to bring myself to shove him over.

"If I grow up and find out Santa isn't real, I'm going to be really mad at you," he warns me.

"Really? You'll be mad at me for wanting to give you a magical childhood full of wonder and joy and piles of awesome free stuff you got for NO REASON?"

"Yes."

"Fine. Be mad at me. You'll be super unique in being mad at your mother and thinking she did a crappy job raising you. No one else ever thinks that."

People, we can't win. Tell the lies, skip the magic, save the teeth, throw them away, make their grilled cheese sandwiches or stand by while they burn their hands on the stove. It's all a trap. That's why god made therapists, you guys. We're here to keep them in business. 

And they all lived happily ever after. The end.

If Facebook wants to manipulate my mood, they are welcome to try. Good luck with that.

A lot of people are mad at Facebook because the site did a “psychological experiment” on users. Apparently, Facebook messed around with people’s newsfeeds to see how different types of posts (happy or sad) affected their inclination to post happy or sad stuff.

Then Facebook published the findings in a recent sciencey journal, and people got super mad all over the interwebs. Facebook was messing with their heads! Facebook was messing with their newsfeeds! Facebook is terribly bad and should be terribly ashamed!

Um, OK? Has everyone forgotten that marketing and advertising are things? They are things that bombard us all the time, everywhere we go, and they are designed to make us feel all kinds of feels and want all kinds of wants. They are absolutely messing with our heads at every moment of every day in an attempt to get us to part with our dollars in exchange for whatever it is they’re selling. It’s called capitalism. It’s pretty popular, as a rule, here in ‘Merica.

The only difference between that relentless everyday marketing and Facebook’s little experiment is that we can avoid Facebook. It’s easy. Don’t use it. The rest of that stuff is harder to avoid. Billboards, in particular, are an absolute plague of in-your-face, like-it-or-not, bikini-bodies-blown-up-to-the-size-of-a three-story-building marketing and advertising.

WAX YOUR WHOLE BODY OR YOU’RE NOT PRETTY ENOUGH, suggests the bikinied vixen on the billboard. (Which makes me wonder fleetingly if my grooming rituals are adequate.) My poor, battered psyche! But I don’t see anyone freaking out about that.

I use Facebook. I’m weirdly particular about who I’m friends with (as I am in real life), but I’m out there for some good reasons. For starters, they don’t charge me one thin dime for a service that allows me to communicate instantly with dear friends and family near and far, share my blog with those folks and offers me a fast, convenient platform for creating and distributing the annual invitation to our epic Halloween party.

But of course there’s a price for all that great stuff. And of course that price is privacy and information about me and my life and my friends and family. I get that. In fact, you know what? I like it.

Yes, marketing people, please make me the victim of your nefarious psychological experiments and send me coupons for things I like to buy. Please give me discounts on airfare for places I like to go. Yes, thank you for knowing that I do NOT want to see ads for golf clubs and I DO want to see ads for discount Calvin Klein bras. My fave!

Yes, I know Facebook is looking at my data, and at my friends’ data, and at the ways those data interact. Of course they are studying us and maybe even messing with us and responding accordingly. I mean, duh. Yes, I did notice that AS SOON as I started shopping for my son’s new soccer shoes online, all the ads I started seeing were for kids’ soccer shoes.

I know why that happened. I know they’re watching me. And I got a killer deal on soccer shoes because of it. GOOOAL!

If Facebook wants to mess around with my newsfeed and see if they can make me feel particular kinds of feels, that’s their right, I suppose. Their platform; their rules.

But if you’re that easily manipulated, you’ve probably got bigger problems than Facebook’s interest in your mood, anyway. I mean, I bet you bought a Snuggie, or stuck that weird sticker family or a monogram (why??) to the back of your minivan or clicked on the belly fat cure in those disturbing animated ads that make me feel queasy every time I see them.

Heck, you may have even given in to that billboard and gone for the wax. And no matter what Facebook is doing to your newsfeed, that experience has got to be a serious mood wrecker.

Matt Lauer should not be allowed to talk to women on TV. Or anywhere. Ever.

A couple of years ago, Matt Lauer grossed me out so much, you guys. So. Much. I don’t watch morning TV because it is relentlessly banal, but my newsfeeds just lit the eff UP over this interview. And then Anne Hathaway was SO kickass about the whole thing. It was worth seeing her dominate that sad little man, even if it meant I had to accidentally watch a little bit of morning TV.

For a minute there, I even thought, well, maybe Matt Lauer will learn from this experience about how to interview lady humans as if they are just regular humans and not talking vajayjays. Maybe he will get better at this high-profile job, for which he is paid a great deal – this job of talking to humans and not making everyone around him vurp every time he opens his face hole.

Maybe, I thought, Matt Lauer will grow as a person.

But I probably thought that because I am a woman. Women, you know. We’re prone to naiveté. And wearing skirts in public with our actual bodies beneath the fabric. Plus, shouldn’t we be home with our kids making sandwiches or something? So we’re pretty much asking for it, emirite?

Anyway, I did have the vapors there for a while, but my sweet little lady hormones eventually settled down about the whole thing. And I happily returned my life, supporting my family like a champ, teaching my sons about feminism, wearing skirts in public (with my actual body beneath them) and never, ever watching Matt Lauer do anything. But then a friend of mine at work emailed to ask: Did you see the interview with Mary Barra this morning?

Well, no, I didn’t. Because morning TV, emirite? But then I went out on the endless interwebs and found it and OMIGOD NO HE DIDN’T. Oh, yes, he did. He did. HE DID ask the CEO of General Motors if she could run that great, big, scary car company AND be a mom at the same time and not suck terribly at being a lady-type person.

“Can you do both well?” he asked in a totally serious way that suggests he really thinks that’s a real question he should ask a CEO. Of General Motors. Really. REALLY.

Holy hell, y’all. Holy HELL.

Oh, and he ALSO said – after squirming around and using the pitiful, cringe-worthy phrase “I want to tread lightly here” – whether she maybe, possibly got that great, big scary job at the car company because she is a lady-type person and we are “softer,” apparently?

Mary Barra, of course, responded with great equanimity and poise, because she is an incredibly accomplished and intelligent person who does not need to waste her time and energy annihilating a banal little morning TV host man. She’s kind of busy, yo. Being a BADASS and dealing with a massive manufacturing crisis in which people died.

Matt Lauer is a bug on the windshield of her life, y’all, because she has to talk to employees at General Motors and say this:

“We failed these customers, we must face up to it and we must learn from it.” Which is a brave and smart CEO thing to say and not especially SOFT.

Matt Lauer later got all defensive and insisted he would have asked a man that question about whether you can pay adequate attention to your offspring AND be a CEO, which is utter bullshit. He did not, for example, ask that question of this Ford CEO guy, who has FIVE kids. Three more than Mary Barra, for those of you who are counting.

Not that any of this has a damn thing to do with the reason she’s on the TV in the first place. I may have mentioned: GM CEO managing huge freaking crisis.

Hey, Matt. I hope Mary Barra’s softness and momness made it easier for you to get the message: You failed, you must face up to it and you must learn from it.

Instead of going on the defensive, try accepting the possibility that you’re a creep who has work to do on how he talks to female humans. Do the work, Matt. Say, hey, I sure am sorry about that, and I will think carefully about what I’m saying before I open my face hole on TV in the future.

In other words, man up.

But there I go again, being a silly lady-type person and thinking Matt Lauer will grow from this experience. Probably I just think that because I’m on my period.

Just because we CAN be polite to Matt Lauer
doesn't mean we should have to.