Posted by Amy Byrnes

Just back from a quick trip to the Land of Grim the other night and I’m here to report that love, alas, is not waiting for me in a New Jersey strip mall.

My also-single girlfriend and I drove about 40 minutes north of where we live to take part in a round of Speed Dating, which I think one of us had seen advertised on Match.com like a month ago and neither of us needed convincing to sign up.

Now, this is the same woman I’m going to a shooting range with this weekend — and salsa dancing a few months ago — so when we heard about the speed dating, we were like, “Ohhh, let’s try that.” It’s the same way I felt about competing in a triathlon or having a baby (although I stopped at two triathlons).

It’s also the same impulse I have for trying skydiving, and although I’ve yet to jump out of a plane, it’s on my list of terrifying things I might want to try. Maybe, I don’t know. I would kind of like to have that experience in my back pocket to pull out in a conversation, like to be able to casually mention “that time I jumped out of a plane.”

It’s mucho macho.

Or stupid. One or the other.

Another factor in my decision to sign up for the speed dating was to satisfy my now-eternal quest for content. I need shit to write about, dudes, or this blog will become the equivalent of a Seinfeld episode. It will be about absolutely nothing.

Case in point: I sat in bed all day last Saturday and read an entire book.

End of story.

(In case you’re interested, it was an Anne Lamott novel that I don’t necessarily recommend unless you, like me, just finished reading her memoir on writing and then you might find the way she wove bits and pieces of her personal life and advice into her fiction as fascinating as I did.)

And of course, there was also the hope, deep down inside, that the speed dating thing would pan out. There was the “you-never-know” factor at play. People are always telling me their stories about their divorced sister-in-law who met the man of her dreams online or the friend from high school who reconnected with her college love. And I am an avid reader of the New York Times wedding announcements. So, I know love shows up in weird ways and sometimes when you least expect it.

Let me go on the record right now as saying that there is no love going down at a cheesy Italian restaurant in a New Jersey strip mall, the epicenter of all that is grim in this world. It’s just not possible and in retrospect, I don’t even know what made me think that it was worth a shot.

Eternal optimism, I suppose.

And really, isn’t that what brought all 14 of us there (six men and eight women)? I went with a friend but most everyone else there seemed to show up alone and probably also in hopes that the $28 fee for the event would be the ticket to meeting a special someone.

But love was not in the air for me Tuesday night.

I met some very nice men with whom I had pleasant conversations as they rotated to my table (#4) every eight minutes. It was quite the cast of characters. One of them was definitely somewhere on the spectrum – he was very intense about country music – and I question whether another of the guys fit the 40-54 year old age bracket stipulated for the evening. Plus he was married.

But here’s the thing: for as much as I was thinking none of the men was really my cup of tea, the guys were apparently feeling the same way about me.

The nerve.

You get a sheet to rate everyone throughout the evening and then the event coordinator emails the following day to let you know who was interested along with their emails in case you want to follow up.

Out of the six dudes I chatted with, only two were interested in me. And one was the married guy.

What could this possibly say about me?

Luckily, I’m not too broken up over it. Maybe if there were someone I had really been into, I would have felt differently. I think it’s more kind of funny than sad and should be filed under who-do-I-think-I-am life lessons.

When I got into my friend’s car to drive there Tuesday night, we laughed and said who would of thought when we were busy trying to pick just the right books to read for our mother-daughter book club all those years ago that ten years later we’d be heading off on a speed dating adventure.

“You just never know,” my friend observed.

And she’s right.

Ten years ago, my head was filled with thoughts about redoing my kitchen and what to buy the kids for Christmas. I never imagined myself sitting across from a Staten Island police officer as a potential love interest and having a timed conversation.

But that’s life. You never know what’s waiting for you around the corner.

So what’s the moral of the story? Is there an important takeaway?

For me, it’s that I want to be in the game. I want to experience life. The good and the bad.

In the future, I am just going to try to avoid doing so in strip malls.

Nov

2013

Young Amy: A Cautionary Tale

Posted by Amy Byrnes

Over the course of the, like, bazillion hours my college girlfriends and I sat around talking during a girls’ weekend earlier this month, the topic of how much you should let your children know about your past antics came up.

One of the girls said that she had an acquaintance who’s like an expert in adolescent psychology, or something, and that professional advised that parents keep their younger misdeeds under wraps.

“You really need to live the lie,” our friend said. “But I’m sure I don’t need to tell you girls that.”

And as the rest of the group nodded along, all I could think was, “Oh dear.”

Because, as you might imagine — what with this blog and all — my children know a little bit about their mother’s far-from-stellar past.

And while I try to spare them the gory details — sometimes a lie really does need to be lived — I have made it pretty clear to my kids that I was a dope when I was younger.

I like to think that I’ve offered myself up to them as a cautionary tale.

Like, they know that I was an enthusiastic smoker until I started having babies. They know I am comfortable making my way around a fraternity tailgate and am open to drinking beverages concocted in sketchy coolers. Clearly, my decision-making skills were questionable.

And while I’ve been honest about these pieces of my history, I’m also pretty sure I have not promoted these activities as recommended habits of highly successful individuals.

Clearly, they are not: I am the single mother of four kids holding down a low-paying, entry-level job.

And I have a tattoo.

But I think that what I have done is presented myself to my children as a very real person, flawed and full of mistakes, and sometimes regret. They’ve seen me act like a bitch, cry, celebrate their accomplishments, dance like a weirdo and sing a song about my cat.

I am all that and a bag of chips.

I’ve told them that I wish I concentrated more on academics than partying in high school and college. I wish I had figured out what I was good at and followed that career path. And I wish I hadn’t been in such a rush to get married and have babies.

But I couldn’t have done any of these things because I simply had no idea who I was, deep down inside, all those years ago.

And I also think that’s why I’ve come so late to writing in earnest. As Ann Lamott wrote, “Becoming a writer is about becoming conscious.” And people, I was unconscious for many years.

But, as my therapist would tell you (because she tells me all the time), that’s all just been a part of my journey and it’s helped put me where I am today and for that, I would trade nothing.

Being a mother forced me to wake up.

And while I am not gunning to be the Dina to their collective Lindsay — I already have lots of friends, thanks — I do want them to know that I am a human who makes mistakes and tries to learn from them.

Of course, that’s not to say that I haven’t been called a “hypocrite” for grounding a certain someone who stashed an empty bottle of liquor (swiped from my own booze collection) under a bed. And when feeling defensive, other kids have questioned what I got on my SATs and mocked my math skills (which would probably never be great, no matter how self-aware I was as a kid).

They also have mentioned that they think my tattoo is ridiculous (for the record: so do I).

But I think deep down, they know I’m working really hard to make up for lost time.

Last Christmas, my older daughter – who was seriously broke at the time – ended up pulling out the showstopper of a homemade gift and shared what all this has meant to her.

She handed me a deck of cards and at first, I had to admit, I wasn’t impressed. Like, I don’t really know any card games.

But I pulled the deck out and saw this:

52 Things I Love About You

And this:

And then this:

Wait, what?

And in that one moment, I knew that I must be doing something right.

My daughter knows so much that there is to know about me – my love of wine and Ryan Gosling, my “weirdness” and even my “goofy dancing” – and despite it all, she still loves me.

It’s not perfect, but it’s okay.

Honest.

Nov

2013

Amy’s Week in Review (Nov. 11-17)

Posted by Amy Byrnes

I love Sunday. It’s my favorite day of the week.

Before I worked full-time and the kids were still small and I was married and all that, I felt quite the opposite.

The weekends were an annoying and disruptive break in the somewhat peaceful kingdom I managed the other five days of the week. Schedules were thrown off, there were all these people underfoot and I just couldn’t wait for Monday to come and get everyone back to work and school and out of my hair.

But now that I’ve got some place to be on Mondays as well (well, virtually) and everyone’s a little older (not to mention far fewer living here all the time), Sunday is literally my day of rest. If I can, I try to cram all the food shopping and annoying weekend errands into Saturday so that Sunday can be completely indulgent.

I’m all about that.

I usually wake up around 7 a.m. to start the day. Which, apparently, is really weird because when I was away with my college girlfriends last weekend, the alarm that I set for weekends went off on my phone at 7 one morning and my friends were like, “WTF?”

But I want to make the most of those days off from work and the usual spin of things. Especially on Sunday. I want to squeeze every minute that I can out of the usually schedule-free day.

And it’s not like I’m curing cancer or anything over here. I mostly lie in bed and read the paper and peruse whatever other reading material has been piling up next to my bed over the week. And coffee is always involved.

Now that I have the blog, I’ve added a new wrinkle to my Sunday routine with the need to post this review of things. It’s like my weekly public service announcement. Sure, I could write it in advance but sadly, I am a born procrastinator and just couldn’t imagine doing something like that.

So here I am.

My favorite TV shows bookend the day as an added bonus — with CBS Sunday Morning to start and The Walking Dead at the end. I am all about Charles Osgood and zombies.

In between, I’ll slowly start to prepare for the week ahead. Probably in a week or two, as the holiday drumbeat starts to thrum a little louder, the ease of my Sundays will be replaced by shopping and checklists.

God help us.

But let’s not go there yet. Let’s enjoy one of the last quiet Sundays of 2013 and if you, like me, find yourself with some free time today, let me tempt you with some posts you may have missed in all the hustle and bustle of your week:

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In case you hadn’t heard, last weekend was quite the busy one for me as I reconnected with my college chums to eat and drink our way through the East End of Long Island (with a brief pit stop in Brooklyn for good measure). We laughed a lot and remembered what drew us together all those years ago. I also learned something about myself along the way:

The Girls

Between us, we have 19 kids, 9 weddings, 3 ex-husbands, 2 boyfriends, over 25 years of memories and a lot of opinions.

Since we met as students at the University of Delaware in the mid-80s, our gang of 8 friends has come a long way from our days of sitting around dorm rooms and sorority dens in oversized Forenza sweaters and big Jersey hairdos, telling each other what to do. (READ MORE … )

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One thing I learned over the long weekend with my college girls is that I am a fucking bore.

3 Hazards of Becoming an Over Sharing Blogger

I am learning, in the almost-year that I’ve been doing this, that being a blogger is kind of weird. Like, you need to be okay with people knowing your business. I mean, you have to be really comfortable with the idea that a few of the people you’re standing in line with at the deli counter know you like to drink wine in bed at night or that your son’s teacher has read that your child sometimes has impulse control issues. It’s probably not great that she knows you’re drinking in bed either.

Luckily, I am totally cool with all of this. (READ MORE … )

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Finally, I want to thank all of the good people that “liked” me on Facebook last week and pushed the page over the 400 mark. It’s really fun watching the audience grow in pockets as friends of my friends start to follow along. It’s totally the Fabrege shampoo commercial (and so on, and so on).

And don’t forget boys and girls, you can sign up to get new posts emailed straight to your inbox. You don’t even have to find me through Facebook.

Just fill your email address in the “Subscribe to blog via email” box, which is to the right of this post if you’re on your laptop or if you scroll way to the bottom if you’re reading this on your phone. Just keep scrolling, it’s there. Fill in your email address and then go to your inbox where an email will be waiting that you need to open to confirm your subscription.

Is that easy or what? (winky face)

Nov

2013

3 Hazards of Becoming an Over-Sharing Blogger

Posted by Amy Byrnes

Luckily, I am totally cool with all of this.

But as more people start to read the blog, I find that I am running into a few of the same situations whenever I manage to tear myself away from my laptop and enter the real world. Forthwith, the hazards of blogging:

You Have Nothing to Say at Gatherings: Because you are constantly writing about what’s going on in your life – what you’re thinking, doing, hoping, dreading, eating, drinking, watching, daydreaming – people pretty much know everything about you. I probably started about 10 stories when I went away with my college girlfriends last weekend, only to be either stopped mid-sentence with an, “Oh yeah, I read that.” I definitely need to develop some ancillary material that does not make it into the blog, just so I won’t be so boring at parties.
Friends Start to Use Terms Like ‘Off the Record’: Not everyone is as comfortable as a blogger is with spilling it all to the world. And let’s be honest: I don’t share everything that’s going on around here. I get to pick and choose how I present myself to you people. Those around me aren’t always so lucky. Just ask my ex.
People Want You to Write About Them: Unlike your children or ex-husband, who have already experienced the pleasure of being written about in your blog, girlfriends are always looking to get a shout out. My surrogate teenage daughter across the street is also looking for a mention (PS girl: Boom, there it is). But it’s weird who and what gets written about, the stories that I choose to focus on. Like, I write about my two sons a lot, but I think that’s because they’re the oldest and the youngest of my brood and tend to be the measuring sticks for my parenting experience. I also find I frequently reference my therapist, who I see maybe once a month, but have never written about the guy who my friends and I work out with a few times a week who dispenses lots of advice while torturing us with squats and lunges (we call him The Girl Whisperer).

In the end, these are not life threatening work place hazards. I’m no coal miner dealing with black lung or police officer battling thugs. The scariest things I deal with are angry teenagers.

I just need to work on some new material or I’m never going to be invited to parties.

Amy shares way too much about herself at ‘A’ My Name is Amy. You can follow her on Facebook and Twitter@AMyNameisAmy.

Nov

2013

The Girls

Posted by Amy Byrnes

Between us, we have 19 kids, 9 weddings, 3 ex-husbands, 2 boyfriends, over 25 years of memories and a lot of opinions.

We’ve seen boyfriends – and those bad hairstyles – come and go. We’ve danced at weddings, celebrated the births of all those babies and when the towers came crashing down in 2001 and took one of the husbands with them, the group swooped in to support our friend bowing under the pressure of all that grief.

We’re scattered now up and down the East Coast – with one West Coast outlier – and don’t keep in touch like we should. We don’t send cards for birthdays, reply-all to group emails and only a couple of us are active on Facebook (which is confusing to those of us who can’t imagine a day without it).

Without the Internet grapevine, we still know the big stuff – like who’s getting a divorce or moving to a new state – but the little things – like where the kids are headed for college or news on a parent’s hip replacement – gets lost in the shuffle of daily carpools and holidays.

So when we do get together every few years, catching up is our number one priority. We are expert interrogators.

We gather around dining tables and lounge around sofas gleaning as much information as we can about kids, jobs, husbands, parents, siblings and every facet of each other’s lives while slipping back into the easy friendships that began in college.

There’s always a carbohydrate involved and we laugh a lot.

But it’s a challenging crowd. They put the “Boss” in Bossypants. In fact, there are so many chiefs in the group, I just get in the back seat and try to keep my mouth shut like a good little Indian.

And I can be a bit of a loudmouth in my regular life.

But in much the same way that we revert to old behaviors when we get together with our families, when my college girlfriends and I gather, we assume the roles that originated almost 30 years ago.

View from me and the Jet Setter’s room at the swanky Wythe Hotel in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

We convened this weekend on the east end of Long Island – after a quick night of eating and drinking in Williamsburg, Brooklyn (ground zero for hispsterdom) – and by the time we drove the few hours out to the beach on Friday, we had fallen back into familiar patterns.

There was the Spy, the Smart One and the Jet Setter. Bossypants, the Nice One and the GDI (Godddamn Independent). The Senator was declaring her allegiance to Chris Christie’s presidential campaign by nightfall and I am supposedly the Funny One, but I think I am way more amusing on the page than in real life.

During previous gatherings, I had discovered that I tend to lose sight of 30 years of personal growth and become thin-skinned around the group. This year, I didn’t want our gathering to be clouded by hurt feelings and all my, like, stuff.

So I went back and skimmed my copy of “The Four Agreements.” I reminded myself not to take everything so personally or to make assumptions. (They happen to be two of my favorite internal hot buttons.)

My resolve was quickly put to the test Thursday night when we were freshening up in the hotel room before dinner when the Boss – who has been in the fragrance and cosmetics industry for 25 years – cut me off in mid-sentence to question my lipstick choice.

“I don’t like it,” she said, rubbing the dark stain from my lower lip with her thumb.

Five years ago, I would have been crushed. I would have taken her words as a personal affront. She was the same person who, when I made a comment about the group of girls sitting around her dorm room bleaching their mustaches with Jolen, came close, stared at my upper lip, and said, “Not for nothing but you might want to think about it.”

But as I listened to her explain that at our age, we should veer away from deep stains and formulas that sank into the crevices that have formed in our aging lips and opt instead for more neutral tones that used more of an emollient to literally gloss over our old mouths.

She was helping a sister out.

And that was that. I didn’t dwell. I thought it was funny and moved on.

We spent the rest of the weekend eating great food, drinking lots of wine and discussing our sluggish digestive systems at length. We also got some very detailed information about somebody’s bikini waxing preferences — using raingutters as a metaphor and ensuring I would never look at the outside of my house the same way again.

We walked along the soft sandy beach in Amagansett and shopped in tony East Hampton stores where I found the perfect pair of short black boots, only to discover that they cost over $900.

Sunday came much too quickly and soon, we were all heading home via planes, trains and automobiles knowing that we would gather again next September and get serious about planning our oft-discussed 50^th celebration.

The emails started that night, everyone chiming in to say what a great weekend it was.

“I adore all of you and love having you in my life even if it’s just once a year,” wrote one pal.

“It was so nice to see everyone and you haven’t changed much, funny thing,” chimed in another. “It’s so easy to be with all of you and to just continue on where we left off.”

The way good girlfriends do. Who could feel bad about that?

Nov

2013

Amy’s Week in Review (Nov. 4-10)

Posted by Amy Byrnes

Check out more of artist Sandra Lippmann’s work, which she graciously let me use here, on Instagram #100circles.

It was quite the week, as many of you already know, over here in the Land of Amy.

If you have been able to dodge my relentless social media crowing, you might have missed that my blog had a brief little, tiny kind of mention on The New York Times’s parenting blog “Motherlode.”

I know, right?

I like wake up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night and remember it and am just so happy.

So, anyway, as of this writing, I am frantically trying to cross things off my to-do list so I can get on a ferry this afternoon and join my college friends for a long weekend of fun.

I will try to take copious notes and photos and share details upon my return and warn that some editing might be required to protect the innocent.

I lived through college in the 80s with these people. I know what they are capable of.

While your waiting for me to dish on that, perhaps I can interest you in perusing some of the other things that have been on my mind over the last week.

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Early in the week, I bemoaned how little time my kids would spend in school this month.

November is the Cruelest Month for Moms

Anyone who agrees with T.S. Eliot’s assessment that “April is the cruelest month” has obviously never spent time trying to be a mom in New Jersey during November.

This week alone, my fifth grader has three days off. Three days. I didn’t even know about one of them until this weekend. (READ MORE … )

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Later in the week, I had the whole NYTimes thing and hallucinated. One having nothing to do with the other.

That Time I Got Mentioned by the New York Times

Yesterday was one of those days that showed just how far your emotions could swing over the course of a 24-hour period, aided and abetted by hallucinatory gases.

I shall explain. (READ MORE … )

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At the end of the week, I got a bee in my bonnet and cut off my hair. Again. Kind of like another girl I know.

Jen and I Get a Haircut

By now we all know that I am no Jennifer Aniston. This important piece of information came courtesy of my 10-year-old-son recently who, upon learning that Jen was just a couple of years younger than his withering mother, suggested I consider following her “tips.”

Thanks for pointing that out, guy. It’s not like I don’t own a mirror or anything. (READ MORE … )

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And don’t forget you guys, you can sign up to get new posts emailed straight to your inbox.

Voila! Amy, all the time.

Nov

2013

Jen and I Get a Haircut

Posted by Amy Byrnes

Thanks for pointing that out, guy. It’s not like I don’t own a mirror or anything.

And that’s okay, usually I’m pretty good with just being Amy.

Sure, I’d like Jen’s legs, abs and income to buy some of the cute stuff she wears, but I’ve come to terms with having to work with what the good lord gave me and a bank account limited by the care and keeping of four children.

So while I inherited a short torso, healthy thighs and problematic skin (or, as my girlfriend likes to call it, “Cheap Irish Skin”), I did walk away from the genetic melting pot with thin ankles and good hair.

And this is where I could give Jen a run for her money.

For a number of years, I sported very long, layered hair in varying degrees of blonde (eg: I just keep getting blonder), similar to Jen’s. I really liked it a lot and dedicated a significant amount of time, money and energy to its care and keeping.

But then, one day early this year, I chopped it all off.

I just woke up one morning and was grossed out by all that hair.

I walked into the place where I get my hair cut like two or three times a year armed with a couple of photos and told the owner what I wanted.

Okay, we need to back up right here because I really need to set the stage for this.

I only get my hair cut a couple of times a year because it’s outrageously expensive. And while I’m happy to share with you most things about me, I am too embarrassed to tell you how much I spend per cut. It’s shocking.

It’s especially shocking because, if you didn’t know any better, you’d assume the salon was just another Korean nail place tucked into a New Jersey strip mall. It’s flanked by a Dunkin’ Donuts and dry cleaner and inside it’s pretty nondescript.

The owner is a tiny Korean woman who could best be described as an anime character crossed with maybe one of the sexy locals one of the officers would fall in love with from time to time on M*A*S*H. She’s got her long hair piled up on the top of her head and I’ve seen her wear a skirt made of fur in like February and teeter around in impossibly high heels.

But she’s also all business and is literally a one-woman operation. She usually has an assistant on hand to do the hair washing and combing, but the owner does all of the cutting and blow drying and moves women through as if on an assembly line.

It’s not unusual to walk in on a Saturday afternoon and find the waiting area filled and a line of women sitting in a queue with wet hair wrapped in towels, waiting to get combed out and moved towards the main chair.

Henry Ford had nothing on this woman.

It’s a very strange experience, really something out of Seinfeld, and you’d never imagine you’d fork over $50 for this service – much less lots, lots more – until she performs her magic on your hair. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to her cutting method but she zips the scissors here and there and pulls out her big, double-barrelled hairdryer and blows your hair dry like no one ever has before. It’s bouncy and chic and you could never replicate it at home. It’s just sexy.

So when I went in that day to lop off like eight-inches of hair, the normally non-plussed owner was like, “Whoa.” She even had to walk away down the hall and come back. And by then, she had a plan.

It was the first time I ever got a drastic hair cut that I didn’t regret. I must have been really just ready for it.

Of course, the first people I see after are my kids who were basically like, “What the fuck did you do to yourself.”

Confidence boosters, they.

Naturally, I would see pictures of Jen from time to time in People and admire all her hair. But I had moved on.

And now, so it seems, has she.

Huffington Post

Seems like Jen might be trying to be Amy, because last week she chopped all her hair off. It’s chin length and looked pretty chic in the blurry photos I saw of it online.

And just like that, I decided I needed to lop off whatever length I’ve started to grow over the last few months since my last cut (my ponytail was finally moving past the super-stubby stage).

And I love it. It’s short and chic and fits where I am right now.

Of course, after I am inspired by Jen and get all mine cut off, I read on HuffPo that her new do was the result of a Brazilian straightening gone wrong and she was kind of regretting it.

But I stand in solidarity with my hair sister. Because while I will never be Jennifer Ansiton in many respects, it seems hair could be the great equalizer. As long as no one looks down.

Nov

2013

That Time I Got Mentioned by the New York Times

Posted by Amy Byrnes

Yesterday was one of those days that showed just how far your emotions could swing over the course of a 24-hour period, aided and abetted by hallucinatory gases.

I shall explain.

The first thing you need to know is that I try to get up every day around 5 a.m. to write. “Try” is the operative word here because sometimes, my only response to the piano sound trilling from my iPhone next to my head is to hit snooze. Like 10 times.

Once I’ve lumbered out of bed I need coffee. STAT. And then I get back under the covers with my laptop and get to work.

But not so fast. Before I can get to the writing – the real work – I’ve got to fritter away precious early-morning minutes checking Facebook, emails, Twitter and the daily statistics for the blog.

The stats don’t really dive too deep, but I can see things like how many page views I get each day and where some of the traffic is coming from – like did you get here through Facebook or Google. (It still cracks me up that at least once a day, some poor unwitting soul winds up here after Googling “Cheez-Its.”)

So yesterday, I check the site stats and notice #1, traffic was already pretty brisk for the start of the day and #2, most of it was coming from The New York Times.

Wait, what?

So I click on the link and am taken to the Times’s parenting blog, called “Motherlode,” which of course, I love because it’s smart and current and everything you’d think a parenting blog associated with The Grey Lady would and should be.

I scour the various articles and comments and don’t see any links to my blog, nothing indicating how people were ending up from there to here.

I repeated this fruitless effort throughout the day as I noticed more and more clicks on my site coming from “Motherlode,” but still couldn’t get a handle on why.

In the meantime, I had a conversation later that morning that reminded me that people do not change. Not really. Ever.

And it made me cry so hard and so long, I began to suspect that hormones were helping to enhance the melodrama of the event. Perimenopausal madness at its finest.

But it was one of those cries that leaves you exhausted. Emotionally spent. And with a blotchy face.

At lunchtime, I had an appointment to get my teeth cleaned, which I look forward to because it’s an opportunity to get completely stoned in the middle of the day under the supervision of medical experts. My teeth are so sensitive that I need the laughing gas even for a cleaning. To put it in perspective, I gave birth to two of my kids naturally. Not a problem. But don’t even try to come near my teeth without some type of sedative.

I might bite you.

Now, I don’t know how nitrous oxide works, if the technician turns a dial to a specific setting depending on how anxious you are or the dosage is based on your size. Maybe it’s just an “On” and “Off” button.

I also don’t know if that sweet, sweet air is affected by your emotional state. But I was really hallucinating as she scraped the plaque from my lower teeth and rattled on about the holidays.

Usually I can stay pretty connected to what’s going on in the room. Can follow the one-sided conversation coming from somewhere above my face.

But yesterday, all I could think about was how my whole body was vibrating, sitting there in the chair, and that the noise of a motor was filling my head and drowning out the chatter and the whir of the brush as it polished my teeth.

And then I’m confused because it’s no longer the hygienist who’s been cleaning my teeth for years but some random mom I know in town sitting there, shining my pearly whites.

“What is she doing here?” I wonder.

Then, in an instant, I’m being instructed to breathe through my nose. “It’s oxygen,” the hygienist tells me. And before I know it, she’s removing the mask, straightening my chair and telling me to have a nice day.

And I’m slightly concerned because just moments before, I couldn’t feel my face.

I am able to make my way home and once again, need to go through the whole check in routine – it’s obviously a compulsion – and continue to be confounded by that NYTimes traffic.

“Why am I not understanding how the Internet works?” I wonder.

I click over to “Motherlode” one more time, and whether it was because I really believed I’d actually find a clue this time or the magical powers of nitrous oxide unlocked a portion of my brain previously closed, I noticed a box on the site I hadn’t paid attention to earlier in the day.

And that’s when I saw it.

Do you see me? I’m there with The Atlantic and CBS.

At first, I thought, “Well, maybe it’s some kind of ad or something. Like, it’s just coming up on my computer.” Sort of like that pair of Frye boots I looked at once on Zappos that now seem to follow me around the Internet.

But then my 16 year old walked in from school and was like, “What are you, stupid? Mom, it’s really there.”

And I couldn’t believe it. I mean, it was just a quick little mention. A link to a recent post and my blog name. The blog editor tagged a question to it, trying to generate some conversation.

Even so, it was beautiful.

Once I determined it was legit, I took to Facebook to share the great news.

And it was there that I found that validation that I was looking for earlier in the day.

It was there I felt the love.

So many people chimed in to say “Mazel Tov” in one way or another, it washed away the hurt from that morning.

My college son sent me a text laden with heart-filled emoticons – just what I love – and told me he was proud and happy for me. One good girlfriend called to say woohoo and another BFF came over to have a celebratory cocktail later in the day.

(Really, we’re always just looking for a good excuse to have a cocktail.)

And it was all just nice – to have everyone from my kids to high school friends to folks I’ve met through my work as a local reporter –psyched for my success, no matter how really minor it was.

And I know, it’s just Facebook and we could make a whole case that the site just provides an alternate and slightly misleading universe for many users.

But just give me this. Today. I really wanted the petting and kind words and maybe that’s why I do what I do. I’m needy.

But in the end, it was a good reminder that sometimes, you need to find a new well to drink from when the first one comes up dry.

Because that water tastes just as good.

Nov

2013

Amy’s Week in Review (Oct. 28-Nov. 3)

Posted by Amy Byrnes

I was all over the place last week. Literally.

Last Friday, I drove with my favorite girl crush into the city to see “Betrayal,” the new Mike Nichols play starring Daniel Craig. It was worth sitting in two hours of traffic just to see James Bond up close for 90 minutes. Seriously sexy.

On Saturday, my best girlfriend and I went to Brooklyn for a failed attempt to see Junot Diaz at the Brooklyn Public Library. Take note that the security guard there does not care how far you drove or how much you love an author. When she says there’s no room, there’s no room. And I think she was carrying a pistol.

So, we made the best of things, eating and drinking our way through Park Slope. The drinking paved the way for me spending $38 on a knit cap when we stopped to do some shopping. It’s not cheap being a hipster.

Two days later, my single gal pal and I drove back into Brooklyn to, well, I’ll remind you about that in a minute.

Anyway, my posts last week were also all over the place.

The one-year anniversary of Hurricane Sandy reminded my how much I love hot coffee first thing in the morning, a light on when I use the bathroom and heat. I really love heat.

My Hurricane Sandy Story

The PTSD kicked in earlier this month, when the weather around here started to cool down but not enough to warrant switching the heat on in the house.

On a few of those days, sitting in my chilly kitchen mid-morning working – before the afternoon sun warmed up the front of the house – I’d flash back to those few weeks last year when the sun was the only thing we had to rely on to heat the house. (READ MORE … )

So, as I started to say, last Monday I drove to Brooklyn to see a taping of NPR’s “Ask Me Another,” which reminded me of what a geek I’ve become. And it’s okay.

It’s Hip to be Square

I spent the first half of my life trying to be cool so it’s kind of interesting that I’ve become such a geek in mid-life.

And while I think my affinity for show tunes, talk radio, Hobbits and comic books had been ingrained at an early age, I spent a lot of time back in the day trying to temper such nerdy impulses with cigarettes and attitude.

But now I am too old and busy fighting about curfews and telling certain people to put on a sweatshirt to keep those appetites in check. (READ MORE … )

Finally, if my calculations are correct — and I’m an English major so it’s a long shot — there are 52 days until Christmas (sorry). That means that between now and December 25, there is a lot of holiday terrain to navigate. And whether you’re dealing with difficult family members, growing children, the loss of a loved one or a change in marital status, traditions evolve. It’s inevitable.

Here’s how I’ve been dealing with it:

Traditions: Old and New

I was agitated earlier this week when I got a text from my ex-husband announcing it was his year to spend Thanksgiving with our four children.

I had already committed to hosting the holiday at my house for my side of the family and was looking forward to the planning and execution of the dinner alongside my girls. We’ve had fun over the years peeling potatoes and baking turkey cakes side by side in our kitchen. I love how well we work together, how one of the girls slices the apples while another prepares the filling and then I sprinkle the sugary crumble on top. (READ MORE … )

I also got distracted by a bunch of things online last week, as I am wont to do, which I shared on Facebook (and I’m too lazy to rewrite the links so apologies for the SCREAMING HEADLINES):

Wine with Halloween candy? Oh yea! (Patch.com)

Listeners Respond: Your Favorite Scary Halloween Stories (The Takeaway)

The Food Writer and Her Picky Eater (Motherlode/NYTimes)

Here Are Kerry Washington’s Adorable SNL Promos! (About That…) (Jezebel)

‘Homelamb’ Is The ‘Sesame Street’ Parody Of ‘Homeland’ You’ve Been Waiting For (HuffPo Comedy)

And don’t forget dudes, you can sign up to get new posts emailed straight to your inbox.

Just fill your email address in the “Subscribe to blog via email” box, which is to the right of this post if you’re on your laptop or if you scroll way to the bottom if you’re reading this on your phone. It will generate an email and you just need to confirm your subscription and you’re good.

Oct

2013

Amy’s Week in Review (Oct. 21-27)

Posted by Amy Byrnes

Growing up in the early 70s, I remember long stretches of weekend afternoons stuck at home with my dad while my mom was out food shopping or doing whatever else it was she couldn’t do during the week with six kids in tow. I was never one of the chosen ones, the child lucky enough to get to accompany her on these outings, and was instead relegated to spending the long day with the rest of my rejected siblings rolling around the small room that served as our TV room back then.

Those were the days when families owned exactly one television set, that played exactly seven channels (including PBS), and if you were stuck at home with your dad all day during the weekend, that meant you were stuck watching sports.

And if anything could have made not being selected as my mom’s shopping companion any more painful, it was being forced to watch four hours of sports programming on a Saturday afternoon.

Talk about the agony of defeat.

And if you know anything about 1970s sports programming, you know you’d be facing a few hours of auto racing or golf or, if you were lucky, Mexican cliff diving courtesy of ABC’s Wide World of Sports.

None of it would ever interest me. I don’t even remember what I’d do to keep busy – maybe I read a book or pestered one of my three brothers – while our dad dozed on the couch watching whatever sporting events were on that day.

But I’d always perk up for the intro. I mean, how could you not find it compelling – the skier tumbling off a jump or the victorious driver spraying a shaken bottle of champagne, host Jim McKay celebrating “the human drama of athletic competition”? And of course, the iconic “thrill of victory and agony of defeat”?

It was grand and global and the exact opposite of being trapped in a small house in New Jersey watching sports on a boring Saturday afternoon.

I pondered the highs and lows of life this week in a couple of posts that were neither grand nor global. But it turns out, that’s how life rolls.

I shared tips for getting nothing done each day except checking a lot of Facebook statuses and enjoying the significant improvement in 21^st Century television offerings here:

5 Habits of Highly Ineffective Bloggers

People ask me all the time, “Amy, how do you manage to get absolutely nothing done, day in and day out?” (READ MORE … )

And then, in a stoke of organizational genius, I scored a personal victory the following day, which I shared here:

The Thrill of Victory

Although I’ve confessed to you all that I am a hopeless procrastinator and not-doer of things, I did experience a triumph in organization and planning yesterday that was really too good not to share. (READ MORE … )

And finally, I wrote about not wanting my 10-year-old son to masquerade as a murderer for Halloween, an feeling kind of bad about it, here:

The Thwarted Ninja

The kids and I crossed a lot of things off our to-do list this weekend. We stocked up on milk and Greek yogurt at Costco, cleaned out about seven contractor bags worth of outgrown clothing, old magazines and Nerf guns from our closets and finally got around to buying the 10 year old’s Halloween costume. That last one was the biggie. (READ MORE … )

And here are some links I shared on Facebook for one reason or another last week:

Now We Are Five, By David Sedaris (The New Yorker)

50 Years of Girls Names (The Atlantic)

What American Accent Do You Have? (GoToQuiz.com)

Remember you can sign up to get new posts emailed straight to your inbox.

Just fill your email address in the “Subscribe to blog via email” box, which is to the right of this post if you’re on your laptop or if you scroll way to the bottom if you’re reading this on your phone. It will generate an email and you just need to confirm your subscription and you’re good.

Ciao!

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Amy Byrnes

life in fits and starts

Tag Archives: humor

Speed Daters

Young Amy: A Cautionary Tale

Amy’s Week in Review (Nov. 11-17)

3 Hazards of Becoming an Over-Sharing Blogger

The Girls

Amy’s Week in Review (Nov. 4-10)

Jen and I Get a Haircut

That Time I Got Mentioned by the New York Times

Amy’s Week in Review (Oct. 28-Nov. 3)

Wine with Halloween candy? Oh yea! (Patch.com)

Listeners Respond: Your Favorite Scary Halloween Stories (The Takeaway)

The Food Writer and Her Picky Eater (Motherlode/NYTimes)

Here Are Kerry Washington’s Adorable SNL Promos! (About That…) (Jezebel)

‘Homelamb’ Is The ‘Sesame Street’ Parody Of ‘Homeland’ You’ve Been Waiting For (HuffPo Comedy)

Amy’s Week in Review (Oct. 21-27)