changing from MoMoir to Auntoir

O.K. enough of Charlotte who doesn't even read my blogs which have all pretty much put her in a starring role.  (Her favorite role.) From now on I'm going to blog about my nephews and nieces.  I have a brand new booky best friend. Mr. Kieth Spaulding (last name withheld). He confessed to me this weekend that he now reads fiction.  Not just any fiction. But he just finished Freedom by Jonathan Whatshisname.  And he liked and hated it as much as I did. Poor Kieth. He is now on my You Have To Read This Now List!!!!! It's so nice to have a nephew who reads especially when you have a daughter who won't give you the time of day. PS. I just bought a kindle and am waiting for Skippy Dies to download. A warning to future Kindle purchasers: this is not an instant download. It took about ten minutes. I want my money  back.

The right couch, at last!

How pathetic is this? The only news I have to share is not even about my daughter, it's about her couch.  She picked it out, had it delivered and there it is. Ta-dah! A very nice brown couch. And it came with extra throw pillows. How do I know this? Because she sent a picture. Or is it called texting a picture?  That doesn't really make sense because texting is supposed to be words, right?  Well, anyway, she's very happy with her new couch.  And now I don't know what the next big thing is going to be.  I'd like to be able to blog about what she's thinking, feeling, dreaming, planning but all I have is the brown couch. I hardly even get news of Bailey the dog anymore.  Well, a brown couch is better than nothing. Stay tuned.  She starts her Christmas shopping soon.

The wrong couch Part II

So I called Charlotte yesterday with what I thought was a terrific solution. "Instead of rushing into buying a couch (which is the biggest piece of furniture in your apartment besides your bed, I informed the woman who invented feng shui) why don't you buy a few bean bag chairs until you know what you really want?" This is how she responded to my suggestion: "1. I'm not rushing into anything. I've spent a month shopping.  2. I know exactly what  I want.  3. Why would I spend money on bean bags when I could spend it on a couch? 4. Since you say you have trouble buying a couch why don't you get a few bean bag chairs yourself?"  What compelled me to offer her the  BBS. (Bean Bag Soution)? I think it was my way of keeping the Mother-Daughter Dialog going.  And the number one rule in the MDD is:  Say something stupid so your daughter can feel smart and superior.

The Wrong Couch

I talked to Charlotte last night.  She sounded very happy which, of course, makes me happy.  She is couch-shopping.  A very difficult task. I never bought a couch. I still have my Grandmother's Victorian...not exactly love seat...but a couch you definitely don't love sitting on.  I pretend it's because I am so in love with Victorian furniture but really it's a deep-seated (forgive the expression) fear of buying the WRONG COUCH.  Because after you select it, pay for it, have it delivered (or God forbid) load it up yourself there it is sitting in your living room taking up all the space and it hits you:  This purple paisley faux-velvet sectional is THE WRONG COUCH.  It's like getting the wrong face lift.   What are you going to do about it? It's done. It's over. It's looks awful. And everyone is going to see you made the wrong decision.  And now my daughter is bravely going forth from one discount furniture store to another looking for THE RIGHT COUCH. Charlotte, Queen of the removable cushions!

It's all about me

It started out about her, it really did. It was all about Charlotte, the light of my life.  But when she kept presenting herself as "the Mystery Girl" (what is she thinking, what is she doing, what is she feeling?)...Well, naturally I turned to the second most fascinating subject: me. What am I thinking, what am I doing, what am I feeling? This is supposed to be a mother writing about motherhood--describing her child in exquisite detail.  I keep coming back to me in not-so-exquisite detail.  I'll try and stay on topic in the future. But it's hard. I keep getting in the way.

Read all the juicy details onMOMoirs help solidify mother-daughter bonds - Westport News www.westport-news.com

I have multiple personalities.

Thank you dear Jack for figuring out how I had more that one blogspot and that's why I couldn't get my blogs onto my website.  I have so many different names now Linda Urbach Howard Clark Momoirs Madame Bovary's Daughter I can't keep track. And just to make matters worse I just joined tweet. 

MoMoirs Makes The News

I finally made the local papers and it wasn't for driving under the influence. Check out the sunday issue of the Westport News or the Fairfield paper. My friend Karen wrote me up royally. When I went online I didn't recognize the headline: MOMoirs helps in mother-daughter bonding. I thought, oh that's nice for some mother and daughter. They're bonding. Her opening paragraph was about how if your house was on fire the first thing you would rescue would be your photo album. And then she quotes me as saying "one MoMoir is worth a thousand pictures". Quoted in an article. Maybe I should get a press agent. I even sent the story to Charlotte. I hope she's not mad at me. It's one thing to post blogs on a website than no one ever sees. But this is in the actual newspaper in the actual town where spent her ("stop staring at me") teenage years. People are actually going to see this. How embarrassing is that, Charlotte?

Spying on My Daughter on Facebook.

I read in the news how Facebook is giving out all kinds of private information and that you better watch out or people/companies/schools are going to pick up things about you that you don't want them to know.  Well, my daughter could work for the CIA.  Every once in a while I check her Facebook page. It's really not stalking...it's just...well I guess you could call it spying.  I just take peek, I don't leave a message and I try and cover my tracks.  This is how I find out some very revealing details like:  "Productive day"..."working doubles"..."need a vacation". She has no idea I'm doing this unless she reads my blog which as you can tell by her Facebook entries, she's much too busy to do.

The Privacy Issue Part II

Having posted two blogs about my dear daughter written ten years ago on my brand new website, I realized I had better clear them through her.  I dreaded having her see what I wrote.  This is a girl (woman) who really, really cherishes (make that guards) her privacy.  I was all set for her to say: "You can't put that stuff on the web. That's my life! Blog about someone else." The fact that she's my only child and that I had written a book, set up a website, created writing workshops all for and about Moms would definitely put a damper on my efforts.  I was all set to create a fictional child just so that I would have something to blog about.  So late last night I called her and told her to look at the website with particular attention to the blogs.  This is the email I got back from her: "Those are fine...no worries. Nice website by the way.love you. talk to you tomorrow. Charlotte."
This is the girl who wouldn't let me read her high school yearbook. I could look at the pictures, but I had to close my eyes when it came to her friend's inscriptions.  I love this girl.

invasion of privacy issue

Charlotte with Cigarette

I find a picture on the floor in her bedroom. (“What were you doing in my bedroom?”)  It’s of Charlotte and her friend Sarah taken during our recent trip to Costa Rica.  Charlotte is smiling. In her left hand she has a drink.  It looks like a fruit slurry to me.  In her right hand is a cigarette. A cigarette! A cigarette in my daughter’s hand looking oh-so-natural! My stomach turns. I am a radical ex smoker.

When she would come home and occasionally smell of cigarettes it was always from everyone else’s smoking.  When I smelled her breath it was sweet and tobacco free.  Now as I think back, maybe it was too sweet. Maybe she brushed her teeth, or took a breath mint.  Now I have to confront her on this. I know she will have an explanation. What I don’t know is whether it will be a lie or not.

Her explanation of the picture with the cigarette:

“I was just posing. It was actually Sarah’s cigarette”

“Sarah smokes?"Sarah is on the tennis team.

“No, not really. See it’s a full cigarette.”

“It’s lit,” I point out.

“I don’t smoke. I never smoked. I’m not a smoker.”  End of story.  And I believe her. Or more precisely, I want to believe her. Oh, boy did I ever.  And then out of nowhere apropos of nothing she says:

“ I may want to major in early childhood development and teach elementary school." This is the first time she’s even mentioned a major or even college for that matter.  I tell her she would be a wonderful teacher.  And she would. She would also be wonderful undercover agent. She seems to demonstrate a knack for throwing people off the trail.

Mean to My Mother

Mean to my mother.

October 16

Saturday Charlotte drove down to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina to live. That means she’s doesn’t live here anymore.  Even though she left her 600 piece shot glass collection, her 45 purses, her stack of periwinkle blue pillows, her bathroom full of every kind of lotion, face cream, lipstick, etc. etc. She is gone. 

I didn’t call her in the morning. I didn’t call her at lunch. I almost called her at one o’clock. And then I patted myself on the back for not “stalking” her as she put it…and I figured  that since I managed to not make those earlier calls I had earned the right to call her.  And of course all I got was her voice mail.

Yesterday she left me a message that she was glad she was there and she missed me. But today already she doesn’t miss me, she doesn’t have her phone on so I can talk to her, she doesn’t call and she’s moved on. 

But it’s O.K. I’m O.K Because all I have to do is think back to my mother and how she let me go... all  the way to Paris, all the way to New York, and never said a word…something that always drove me crazy.

(I had turned off the radio to write this. Now I have to turn it on again…WCBS news …I need someone talking in the background otherwise I feel lonely. And that’s the last thing I want to feel because there’s not much I can do about it.. As many phone calls as  I’ve had today…as many good friends as I can count on to listen to me…I always have to hang up the phone and then there is silence and that’s a reminder that I am alone. Yikes.

I was so mean to my mother. She was so sweet. So giving. Or rather, so sacrificing. Always doing, doing, doing for me. Stop doing, I wanted scream. Stop caring. Stop patting me with little soft hands. Pat, pat, pat. So soft and smooshy. She was such a  a push-over. My father was hard-edged and selfish. And he got everything he wanted. And Mom got hardly anything. I wanted to be like him not her.

And yet OMG, I just realized that I am like my mother with my daughter. There’s  nothing I won’t do for her.  I am a push over. I am so soft-handed and smooshy with her.  And I find myself wanting to  do, do, do.