Rosa Barks

I am a cat person. I am not a dog person. Not in the least bit. But I want an English Bulldog puppy so bad that it makes my heart ache. Every time I see one, I cry a little bit because they're cuteness is so great that it actually hurts.

I have been thinking nonstop about these little buggers and how badly I want to squeeze and squish and kiss and love on one of them that it was inevitable that I would have a dream about one. Like, literally dream about it.

The other night I dreamed that this little sweetie was sitting on my dining room chair, looking up at me with those adorable sad looking puppy eyes and I was squeezing and squishing and kissing and loving on her and she was just gratefully and happily soaking it all in. Then, because even my dream life is messed up, the vet called and told me she had a cancerous brain tumor and she died.

Her name was Rosa Barks.

Rest in peace, little Rosa Barks. You were loved and will be missed more than you will ever know. You were the dog of my dreams, little Rosa Barks.

Closet Cool

I am a closet cool person.

I used to be outwardly cool but now I secretly wear my cool on the inside like Clark Kent with his electric blue tights and cape.

In the height of my coolness, I was a quirky eccentric artist type who stepped into luck without realizing what was happening. By utter coincidence and perfect timing, I landed a job running an art gallery and got to hobnob with some fancy-pants people among a local arts community. I was fancy. I was interviewed by magazines and newspapers for my reviews of artists and galleries, sought after for my professional advice, and found that my name was a name that was often dropped when fancy people namedropped other fancy people. I was fancy. Fancy and cool.

Let it be known that all of this occurred in my very early twenties. I peaked at 22, more than a decade ago.

Where did it all go wrong? When did I lose my cool? How did I stop being fancy? I won’t blame it all on having kids, but a great deal of fault lies heavily upon them. I lost my fancy coolness as well as my waistline when I had my kids.

The truth is, being a fancy-pants artist gives the illusion of fancy-pants success, but I was flat busted broke and had bills to pay. So, I packed up, moved home, and traded my paint brushes for a job as a cubicle dweller in corporate America. Bo-ring.

However, without making this decision, I would never have met the love of my life who is also a closet cool. Together, we built a life in the suburbs and took civilian jobs to support our growing family. Now we spend our weekends remodeling bathrooms, driving to baseball games and piano lessons, fulfilling obligatory PTA duties and watching the Food Network. But we do it with secrets. I still wear black nail polish, he still wears Chuck Taylors and we both still hum lyrics to The Cure to ourselves.

We might lead boring lives, but we’re nurturing some cool kids along the way who will hopefully one day lead fancy-pants lives themselves. Our piano playing oldest has been begging for a baby grand piano so he can one day learn to bang his stool on the keys like Ben Folds. Our middle is an actual living, breathing, bona fide superhero. And the baby, well, he’s destined for great things of the Cirque du Soleil variety.

My days of living outwardly cool might be over, but I see great things in the futures of my children and believe the sacrifices have definitely been worth it.

I have cool kids.

In the Beginning

Writing is where I find comfort. It always has been and I really don't understand why I try to think otherwise. It's been far too long that I've been away from my dear 'Mommyhood,' and I have tried a plethora of odd sorts to remedy my stress and anxiety but have never quite been able to shirk this unsettled feeling inside of me.

I'm sure it's because I miss writing.

Some people drink, some people smoke, some people do other self-soothing and, more often than not, self-destructive things, but me? I write. It just makes me feel better, plain and simple. Don't get me wrong, I overindulge in just about every vice I can get my hands on, but writing is the only thing that actually eases my soul and makes me feel somewhat accomplished.

I don’t even know if people still blog anymore. I first saw the fate of ‘Mommyhood’ decline with the emergence of MySpace then Facebook. Ah, Facebook. I love me some Facebook. The bug of microblogging interlaced with the ease of photo uploading and the access to hundreds of my closest family and friends killed ‘Mommyhood’ for good. God help us all that I still haven’t deemed myself interesting enough to jump into the pool of Twitter. Seriously, the world just isn’t ready. Not even close.

I miss ‘Mommyhood.’ It opened with the birth of my first child, chronicled the pregnancy and birth of my second and closed for good with the birth of my number three. There is so much that I lost that day when I decided not to renew the site. All of the pictures, stories, memories and random letters were gone in an instant. I still feel a lump grow in my chest thinking about it.

But, ‘do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.’ And so I am here, once again, sharing my story with the world because sometimes 420 characters just isn’t enough.