Ask Cathy!

Good Morning America recently completed their nationwide search for their new Advice Guru, an actual paying job on network TV.  To enter, viewers submitted  photos, answers to three knotty problems, and essays explaining why them - why they should be the next Advice Guru.   I thought my destiny was to schmooze with George Stephanopolous while solving the problems of your everyday Americans.  I even scheduled a hair appointment, so I'd have no grey roots the day they announced the winner.  I was camera-ready.

I am not the next Advice Guru. 

Here's my essay explaining "Why Me?"  And screw them anyway.

I don’t have all the answers (though until I was about thirty, I thought I did).  I do, however, have some amazing people in my life who’ve taught, and continue to teach, me so much about how to live in this world.  My friend Elizabeth reminds me that we never know what burdens people carry, so we need to give them the benefit of the doubt.  She also, handily enough, gives me free legal advice.  My friend Mary believes the only person who gets in the way of us achieving our dreams is ourselves.    If you need a kind but firm kick in the backside to get moving, she’s there to provide it.  Sharon has showed me that the key to popularity is to truly enjoy the people around you.  I’d always thought I had to show how terrific I was, instead of just appreciating how terrific they are.  Because of my sister, I know that it is never okay to eat your groceries in the car.  From my mom, easily the kindest person I know, I’ve learned the most.  She believes in family, forgiveness, and affection.  Her early life was so different from mine that she has a perspective I often lack.  But I know where to find it.  One of the most important things she’s always told me (paraphrasing the Buddha) is, “Always be kind to people.  Just remember, you’re a people too.”  That and, “Never underestimate the male ego.”

El Sancho: Why I am a Mexican Man

I was listening to an NPR discussion on life insurance in minority communities (because NPR can make even this subject interesting to me, which is why I should donate some cash).  The insurance expert explained that a major reason Mexican men won't buy life insurance is El Sancho.  El Sancho is the guy your wife takes up with after you're dead and who will spend all your life insurance money.  I've always been bothered by the possibility that a second wife could spend IRA money I accrued before I got married.  Now I have a name for it!

Halloween

Every Halloween, I think about this woman I never knew. I've linked to the piece she wrote on seeing her third-grade daughter off on Halloween night, the last Halloween of this mother's life.

I bought this book for my then eight-year old daughter so that, if anything happened to me, she would know. Marjorie Williams would tell her how being a mom feels.


The Woman at the Washington Zoo ... - Google Books

Smoke 'Em If You Got 'Em

I always keep a pack of matches in my jacket pocket.  Nothing else is permitted - no ponytail holders, no Kleenex, nothing that is used for the care and feeding of someone else.  I haven't smoked for years and have no desire to do so now.  The matches just remind me of me, when I didn't have to take care of anyone else* and I could smoke because I was never going to die.



*Standard disclaimer:  Of course taking care of my children is the most wonderful thing in the world to me, blah blah blah.

Tales of a Smarty Pants

I found an old journal of mine, one of many that have the first twelve pages filled followed by a hundred that are empty.  One of the few entries was from five years ago, and the memory made me laugh.  Also, I'm too lazy to think up anything new, so here it is:

I saw my eight-year old self at the playground last night.  As Belinda and Bill threw and swung at T-Ball practice, Julia and I hit the playground equipment.  There, I saw the kid I'd have been if I were a boy.  Just the tiniest bit chubby and with the short, puffy hair I know so well, he was playing Frisbee keepaway with three other boys (and I could tell they were only playing with him because it was his Frisbee).  He (who could have been me) fell and said, "I think I hurt my cranium."  One of the normal boys asked, "What's that?"  My silent answer was, "Head."  He (who could have been me) answered, "It's a part of the skull.  You know....cranium, maxilla, mandible..."  Later, sitting next to the normal boy on the playground mountain, he (who could have been me) asked, "Did you hurt your phalange?"  The other boy looked disgusted and said, "Why do you say that?  It sounds dumb."  It took me thirty years to learn that people don't particularly like it when you have all the answers. 

Handbags and Gladrags

I admit that I have absolutely no perspective here; I gratefully welcome the guidance of those who do.  As my older daughter enters middle school, one of her Top Ten Issues of the Day is the Vera Bradley backpack.  For those who don't know (as I did not until my daughter enlightened me), the Vera Bradley backpack is a quilted, floral concoction that puts me in mind of a Laura Ashley (is she still around?) throw pillow.  The price tag, of course, is ridiculous.  (It's a backpack!  For a sixth-grader!)  My daughter knows that she has absolutely zero chance of getting one (and since her after-school job is to badger me for a cell phone, it's not a battle she picks).  Still, this damn backpack comes up in her conversation more often than is remotely interesting.  Leading me to my quandary:

I realize that, as far as fashion spending goes, I'm a reactionary.  At this moment, I'm proudly wearing capri pants and a t-shirt that are new-to-me from Goodwill.  I'm free with the information that my purse is a Target ($17).  Perhaps this is just as obnoxious as sporting logos that broadcast the fortune someone else paid for theirs.  I also appreciate that since (clothing-wise) I could have pretty much whatever I wanted while I was growing up, it's not an issue to me now.  I don't carry that handbaggage from my past, if you will.  I know for a fact that a label can't make you popular or get you a boyfriend, the only things that really matter (and I wish I was kidding).  So I need answers to these questions:

1)  If I have a blanket embargo on these Items of Label, will that just make my kid obsessed with what she's missing?  Will she believe that everything would have been different/better if I'd just let her wear the same stuff as All The Other Girls?

2)  What if she uses her own money?  Even if I think it's a horrible choice and I fear it will only spawn more of the same, is it a choice she's allowed to make?  Part of me worries that the damned Vera Bradley backpack will get attention enough to bolster her skewed perceptions of what's important.

3)  What if the Item of Label is on sale?  Here the issue is more the shirts from Aeropostale and Abercrombie and Fitch.  I'll certainly not spring for full retail, but what if it's on clearance (my own personal kryptonite)?  Though price is not the issue here, it's still supporting the idea that we want our clothing to send a very clear and precise message.  I realize that all clothing does that, but I just hate for the message to literally be spelled out across her chest.

Got answers?

I've Completely Changed My Mind

Screw this whole idea about growing older = gaining a valuable wisdom that, in the end, makes it worth it.  I'm starting to see that growing older = hearing news that gets progressively worse. 

My dear aunt got some bad medical news.  My friend's father is struggling more and more with his Alzheimer's.  A neighbor is facing bankruptcy because of the costs of her husband's mental hospitalization.  Another friend just buried her mother, who was laid waste by Huntington's.  Yet another friend's cousin, a youngish mother of four, has seen the return of her Stage IV breast cancer. 

Now, someone who sees each day as a gift would point out that, number one, I am blessed with friends and family in the first place.  The same person might say that with each breath there is hope and in death there is peace.  He/she might add that the joy is in this journey.  To all this I reply, "Well fuck that."

I would very much like someone to change my mind about this.  Personally, I don't think it can be done.