finslippy

Warning, Dutch people: the American idiots are here.

Melissa and I were sitting on a bench at the Rijksmuseum when a kind-faced elderly woman approached us, a guard guiding her by the elbow toward the bench. We immediately rose to give her our seats, but instead of, say, sitting down, she began chittering at us with some sort of urgency in Dutch. It seemed like time stopped while her mouth continued to open and close, open and close, while she squawked and clicked and yooped and eccched. We stared at her, frozen in terror, finally managing to summon enough strength to back away. And as we did, Melissa murmured, “I don’t speak what you’re talking.”

Then we hid around the corner, which was about five inches from where the old woman was sitting, and we snorted with laughter until my father came to take us away. I'm sure the poor woman is still wondering why they let the feeble-minded wander unescorted through a museum.

Craving for a tan.

.

Strangely enough, I am also craving for a tan, or better yet, a sunburn, and the rise in body temperature that would accompany it. It is cold here, nipple-invertingly cold; I'm no stranger to the cold but with the wind whipping off the canals HOLY CRAP it's cold.

My first-day impressions, clouded as they were by a thick haze of sleep deprivation, were recorded in an email to my husband:

"Getting to the train? And then the tram? From the airport? Not an easy experience for someone who probably right now can't tie her own shoes. There's no way to figure out which tram goes where and you need a special ticket to take the tram and how do you pay for the ticket? No way to know! Everything's in Dutch! We finally figured out that we had to buy the ticket at the bookstore in the train station, where we lamely were all American and like "GIVE US TICKET PLEASE" and they were all "Thank you for not learning a single word of Dutch."

I don't even know how to say thank you.

Then we got to the hotel, which is an amazing place--I may spend the rest of my time here in the bathtub, and if Melissa wants to hang out with me, well, she'll just have to climb in--but they wanted me to fill out forms, and seriously I couldn't do it. If someone had handed me an IQ test right then and there I would have pulled out a brown crayon and scrawled I LIKE NAPS across it. I thought I had lost my passport and proceeded to have a full-scale panic attack, which was nipped in the bud .5 seconds later when I found my passport. Melissa gazed down upon me in pity. "

Then before I could hit "send" I passed out on my keyboard.

If anyone in Amsterdam wants to get drinks with us, email me. Melissa needs company in her quest to drink more than a single beer, and I'm not up to the task. Yet.

I'm back! But now I'm leaving.

I know! I’m all, “I love you, baby,” and then I go and disappear. For a week! No, eight days!

It’s not that I don’t love you, it’s just—it’s me.

My mind is not working right these days. I seem to be afflicted with the particular brand of insanity that occurs when you spend your weekends trudging through crappy house after crappy house and then finding the one house you like and then bidding on it and then not getting it and also you’re preparing to leave the country for six days. Wait, where are you going? Denmark? Finland? Close enough.

I’m trying to juggle way more things than a person can reasonably be expected to juggle, and I’m not a good juggler. Really. I have serious coordination issues. Meanwhile I have this little boy here with me whose idea of hilarity is to sing, over and over, “Dinah won’t you blow/Dinah won’t you blow/Dinah won’t you blow your BUTT BUTT BUTT.”

Which actually is pretty funny.

Henry has really had it up to here with me. So what else can you do when you have a crazy mother but insist that you go RIGHT NOW to see the crazy dancers?





And after you’re done admiring the craziness of the crazy dancers, you go to the Egyptian Wing, where you tell your mother all about how the mummies are wrapped-up people who have been wrapped up by other mummies. Or mommies? Unclear.





And then you make a ruckus in the “echo room,” which is actually a room full of Rodins, most of which don’t appear to be enjoying the ruckus one bit.





My next post will be from Amsterdam. Six days without Henry and Scott and Charlie the Dog.





Can I handle it? Will I never want to return? We shall see.

I know it’s a day early…

But dear Internet: I made you this valentine. It’s a red heart, see? I cut it out myself! With some bits of a paper doily all around the edges! It’s a little sticky from all the glue and sparkles. I pasted on some googly eyes, but they fell off. Oh, wait, here they are, on my shoe.

Why did I bother making this when you’re just going to throw it out? Because I love you. I love you, Internet. I want to date you. I want to invite you over, and bake you a casserole. I will gaze at you in misty-eyed adoration, and warble love songs at you as you eat. Sweet Jesus, you'll think, does she have to look at me like that? What am I eating? And why is she singing Anne Murray songs, of all things? and then you’ll make up an excuse about having to leave early. I’ll call you as soon as you run out the door and I’ll make kissy noises into your voice mail.

And then I’ll FedEx you the rest of the casserole.

You will be scared.

But it will all be out of love, Internet. You are my one and only. Don’t ever forget that. And never leave me. Ever.

Okay, okay. Seriously, now. Wow. I don’t even know what to say about the response I received to my last post. I am overwhelmed. Thank you.

The amazing Leah interviewed me, and you can read it here. Go see! Embarrassing secrets--revealed! And there’s a picture of me trying to look pretentious, and succeeding.

Did I say thank you? Thank you. It doesn't seem like enough, but it's what I've got.

Don’t read this.

Yesterday was one of the worst days Henry and I have ever had together. Truly, I have never seen him like that before. I’ve never seen me like that. We clashed on every topic (Are Dried Cranberries An Acceptable Dinner? Could He Watch TV For Just Another Minute? Why Couldn’t He Head Butt Me Repeatedly In the Groin While I Am Talking To the Mortgage Broker?) and each time Henry’s demands escalated into full-blown weepy hysteria; we went to our separate corners to enjoy our respective time-outs; we came back to each other to hug and declare our undying love; then it all started again. At one point I found myself yelling and clenching my fists and hopping up and down. Hopping. And I slammed doors. Twice. I am an excellent role model.

I could point to Henry and say IT’S HIS FAULT and say WHO STOLE MY CHILD AND REPLACED HIM WITH THIS MONSTROSITY? But the thing is, I know what’s going on. He’s reacting to me. I am distracted and frazzled and depressed and it’s making him anxious as hell.

We sold our place for more money than we thought we could, which is great. We’re thrilled. But our large margin of profit is not quite what we thought it was. Not quite enough for the house we want. Take the large amount and remove the $20,000 of closing fees and moving expenses, the huge tax bill we’ll have for 2005, the money we’ll need to put down for a car, the small amount of savings we’ll need in case any expenses come up with the house, and you have a much smaller number. Factor in the added expenses of owning a house—the insurance, the car, the heating bills, the inevitable repairs, the hefty real estate tax bill—and the number shrinks even further.

We could take more of a risk and put more down if, say, one of us had reliable employment. Without going into detail about my husband’s job, we don’t, not really. Not reliable in the benefits-and-vacation-time, check-every-two-weeks, severance-pay-guaranteed sense. It’s a great job for his industry, which is not known for its steadiness. We’ve been lucky for a while, but there’s always the spectre of the work drying up. If the work isn’t there, he doesn’t get money. So we have to be careful. We’ve been careful for years, we know the drill. But now we’re looking for a house, and being careful doesn’t jibe with finding a good and safe place for our family, and it feels like the air is being sucked out of the room.

We decided on this neighborhood in New Jersey; it’s close to the city, the trains are right there, the prices for the small homes with small lots (the kind we want, as we are city folk) are not unreasonable. We have friends nearby. But now it seems that if we want to be in the parts of town that have good schools, we have to extend ourselves past our comfort level. Last week we bid on a great house; we were right at the brink of what we could afford, and the taxes were astronomical, and we were stressed out and fighting about the expense. But the school there is wonderful, and I read the description of the school and I thought of Henry being at that school, and I wanted him to live there. I walked around that house and I thought, We will be happy here. We could just barely afford it, but we could afford it, so we bid. And then one other bidder came in at way over the asking price and swooped it up. This isn’t the first time this has happened; such is the market these days. Even if the numbers indicate we can afford it, we can’t really afford it.

We’ve looked at the less-fancy parts of town, that have relatively decent schools, at least we think, and taxes that aren’t so high. But every house we’ve seen in that area has low ceilings and dark musty kitchens and shag rugs and the neighbor’s windows so close you could pass cups of sugar back and forth, and I know this isn’t what we want. We’re not asking for a lot, but we’re asking for a little more than this.

So maybe I feel entitled. Maybe I’m a stuck-up bitch and I should get over myself and living in the cramped smelly house that after all we could fix up. That is probably a valid opinion.

But this is all symptomatic of the larger problem here. We don’t have enough money. We’re not making enough. Every optional expense has been cut out, and yet there’s still not enough. And it’s hurting us. It’s a constant source of tension; there’s no escaping it. Everywhere we look there’s a sign that we need more money. The dog is overdue for a vet appointment. We don’t have the money. Here’s the list of good preschools in Jersey. We don’t have the money. Let’s get food delivered because I’m exhausted and Henry didn’t let me even get near the kitchen all day, he’s been so clingy. We don’t have the money. Well, okay, maybe pizza. But let’s not go crazy with the toppings.

(We want another baby. We don’t have the money.)

Please don’t tell me I should write a book to make money. Or rather: tell me to write a book, and thank you for having faith in my abilities, really, but understand that such an undertaking takes years, years of nonpaid work, and also no one should write a book for the money. It just doesn’t work that way.

Do you want to know what I am wearing now, O Internet? (Especially those members of the Internet who send me hate mail because of my fabulous bloggy existence?) I am wearing jeans that have enormous holes in the crotch and across one knee. They are dirty, as I wear them every day. They are one of two pairs of jeans that I own; the others were pre-pregnancy and are now laughingly small on me. (Size 4! BLAHHAHAHAHA.) In addition to my crappy pilly too-small and too-old Gap sweater, I am also wearing ugly black leather shoes that I bought when I was pregnant, and thus are now one size too big. I trip in them every day. On most days I wear the too-big shoes and the ripped-up jeans. I could probably buy myself new jeans and new shoes, but the idea fills me with guilt. How can I buy something like clothing when we might not be able to pay for Henry’s preschool?

I know how whiny I sound here, I do. I know many many people have lives infinitely more difficult than this one. I know how lucky I am. Please don’t yell at me because I’m whining about my shoes. It’s just—I feel like I’m decaying, a little. I feel unattractive and like I don’t have the right to feel attractive. I feel like god there has to be more money somewhere, except there’s no time to get the money and no money (for childcare, that is) to get more money. I feel like my creative life is dying because all I do is worry and crunch numbers and do the little writing jobs that might bring in enough to pay the cable bill. (Yes, we still have cable. The indulgence! I know!) I feel like there has to be an answer somewhere and where’s the answer and aren’t I smart enough haven’t I been good don’t I have the education and the intelligence and resources to figure this out why can’t I figure this out?

I know, I know. I’m feeling sorry for myself. I should snap out of it, right? You can tell me.

(p.s. If anyone knows anything about the school system in the above-mentioned town—it’s linked to, right up there—please, please email me.)