i met myself for coffee

I met my 15 year old self for coffee. 

I was late and she said she was worried I wasn't coming.

I ordered a coffee with cream and she asked for a coke while she fiddled with an unopened pack of Marlboro Reds.

She asked if we were happy. She asked if it was all worth it.

I couldn't lie to her.

I met my 20 year old self for coffee. 

I was late and so was she.

I was sober and she was still crashing from the night before. I ordered a coffee with cream and she asked for a coke while she rolled an unlit parliament between her fingers.

She asked if her and her boyfriend where going to make it.

I told her the truth.

I met my 29 year old self for coffee.

She was on time and didnt notice I was late because she was answering emails on her Blackberry.

I ordered coffee with cream and she asked for a coke without looking up from her phone.

She asked what she was suppose to do now. If she was going to make the right choice.

I told her what I would never tell anyone else.

I met my 40 year old self for coffee.

She had two kids with her and I didnt recognize her when I arrived late. I ordered coffee with cream and so did she. And two hot chocolates for the kids. 

She begged me for the truth.  I wish I had told her.

you were always smarter then me

We met in 6th grade English class. You're poetry was better then mine, but I was bolder then you. I won most talkative in the yearbook, the only superlative I would ever win, but you had more important things to say. 

In 7th grade we spent more time sitting in the hall kicked out of math class then we did learning pre algebra. Something that caused me challenges for years to come.  But not you, math was not your weakness.

By high school we were meeting in the bathroom between classes to pass cigarettes behind stall doors. Finding meaning in the meaningless.

In 10th grade outside between classes my cuts and your burns taking turns listening to Thunderoad on my Walkman. 

And then you call years later, I'm in my junior year of college and you just had your first baby. You tell me everything. You were always so much smarter then me. 

When I see you again we are both 30, I just fresh off my first divorce and you married with 4 wonderful children. We spend an afternoon on the Bayou, the furthest place to girls from Maine could have been.

Fast forward again, I'm on marriage number two pregnant with my second baby, sitting on the sidelines while we watch your boys play baseball. We make promises to get together.

The last time I see you is your second wedding. And years pass between us even though the distance is only a few miles.  You maintain your core group of friends, stay connected to the community and I lock myself away, because, as I have said, you were always smarter then me. 

And I watch from a safe social media distance as you divorce again, watch your daughter get married, celebrate graduations and holidays. And I think I will reach out. But I dont. And now social media tells me I may have waited to long. 

So I shut my eyes tight and picture you the way you were the sunny spring day. My headphones enveloped by your curly hair. The grass sharp and warm beneath my legs. Your eyes starring into mine.  I hope you got everything you ever wanted. I hope you have more time.  And I'm sorry. For whatever it's worth. So very sorry.

May this be the year

 Each year i write a summary in our holiday card of everything we have done.  And I realize why I am always so tired.  

So may this be the year that we take the time to listen to the sound of melting icicles and not worry that they are the sound of a leaky roof.  

That we can sit in the dark and hurt, but do it together so we are not alone in our pain.

That we can learn to say, "horrible" when someone asks us how we are and have that person give a sad smile and nod.

That we can learn to say no, and yes, and feel no guilt of the consequence.

That we can put down our phones and step away from the screen and look up at the hollow blue of the winter sky, the cotton candy summer sunsets and the slowly falling colored fall leaves.

So this year the summary can look something like this:

This year we did things that brought us joy.  We spent time with people we love. We chased our dreams and let go of past hurts.  We grew as people and as a family and mark this year not by the activities completed or the bones broken but of smiles shared, and the quiet moments in between the big ones.

i.lied.

I lied to my children today when i dropped them off at school. There eyes heavy with disappointment and the failure to understand that only children can feel which is worse then for adults because there is helplessness layered all through it. I lied to them and I said it would be ok.  And I reminded them, the best we can do today and always is try to be kind.  But that is a.lie too.  The best we can do is so much more then that and yet...and yet...we will fill pages of social media with rage and frustration for a few days, a week or two.  It will flare up periodically but on the whole we will return to.posts about cats and kids and trips and milestones. And why shouldn't we?  We can not be expected to live in a state of rage forever...and yet...and yet...isn't that where the change must grow from? It must come from a place that is no longer habitable. It must be wrestled and formed in pain and in hopelessness. And it must become something stronger then rage. It must become the thing that unites us. That collectively pulls us into the light. Because it will not be ok otherwise.

I lied to my children this morning. Because it is not their turn yet to hold that rage like a sword. There time will come but now it is up to us. Back against a wall, feet lost in quick sand to look inside and ask ourselves just how much we are willing to risk today, so our sons and daughters don't ever have to pick up that sword. And yet..it feels simpler to find a way to make this scorched earth home again, to build a nest in the highest branch and fortify the walls for the coming winter...and yet..

Sounds of summer

 The screams of childhood permeate my closed windows.  Did I once run between houses with my neighborhood friends as the summer nights, free from obligations, extended long past normal bedtimes?  My wish for them, is not just more nights when freeze tag erases petty arguments of the day, but also that they remember.  If not the exact players or game, but the feeling of being unburdened by what adulthood brings.  For a moment I consider opening my window to let in the evening breeze and their laughter.  But somehow I fear by doing so I will somehow shift to them some of the weight that I carry.  And just for one more night.  For one more summer.  For just a little longer, I want them to believe they are light enough to be carried up by a balloon. 

moments

Moments not metrics. Moments not years. Not months or weeks or days. Not hours, or minutes. Moments like snapshots. His smile boarding a Rollercoaster, the sound of her voice singing along to a favorite song. Them, heads together asleep in the hotel bed. Him ordering a steak and her saying "I'll have what he's having". And at least for now it is my privilege to witness these moments and sometimes be a part of them. Moments. Not trips or purchases. Not vacation homes or theme parks. Moments. Quiet and loud. In between the big discoveries. It's why I happily wait off stage, at the edge of the pool, at the bus stop. It's why I say yes to going on the giant roller coaster, the water slide, to one more game of cribbage.  Moments, like pictures in an album. In hopes that as they grow these moments will stay with them, and remind them in their darkest moments that they were once, and are always loved fiercely. 

a reflection of a year

Beware the Ides of March was a common saying in our house and I am sure I was making a joke about in March of 2020 as we prepared to celebrate my nieces birthday which falls on the 15th.  Schools were closed on that Friday the 13th for a workshop day and I was busy making my nieces favorite bread for her birthday celebration the next day.  There was a feeling of impending doom as Covid cases were on the rise and everything felt tenuous and uneasy.

We would spend the next day celebrating my niece with kids running around and family. My parents talked about their trip to Flordia that they were planning on taking the next week. We ate lunch from a shared buffet and people made side comments about how nice it would be to have a week off from work.   Several hours later we were celebrating the birthday of a dear friend and his family. Our kids sharing ice cream sundaes and barbecuing ribs.  At 7pm we got the call. The schools would be closed for 2 weeks. An hour later I got an email that my office was closed for the next 4 weeks. 

And so that warm day in March became the last day in a year that we gathered without concern.

A year later as we prepare to gather again for my nieces birthday, this time with just my brother and his family and my parents, who have been vaccinated, it  is with both joy and continued worry. It has been a year of home schooling and working from home. Of time spent together as a family, canceled events and missing our friends.  We still did so much, wearing masked, socially distanced, online.  I want to say what we gained has outweighed what we lost. That the increased time as a family, board games, movie nights and magical visits from fairies and bunnies and Santa will be what we remember.  

But I would be lying. Instead my kids have learned to wear masks, seen a country divided on what to do and listened to the school board for our district fight amongst themselves about what to do.  They saw the worst in people more then they saw the best. And the new found anxiety of getting sick, of losing someone, of never being able to play sports again or return to the stage.  And we did our best as the adults to safely guide them through the storm but we were drowning to.  Overtaxed and overwhelmed. Struggling to maintain friendships, to get work completed while also teaching elementary school math. To figure out a new way to shop for groceries and navigating who, if anyone, should be allowed in our bubble.

I read an article when this all started that talked about how the adults get to chose how our kids will remember this time, and that is kind of true. But our kids are not unaware of what is happening around them. Will they grow up seeing more what divides us then connects us? Will they be fearful of the world?   

I look back on this year and I can not remember how we made it through.  But we did.  But that was all we did. We made it through. 

Marking What We Have Missed

The pandemic that has kept us isolated and nervous since mid-March shows no sign of slowing.  And as time marches on I find myself worried less about virus and focused more on all the small things we aren't able to do this year.  And worrying that we won't be able to do them next year either.  And even though I work so hard to keep things normal for them, how will they remember this time?  Will they remember the later bedtimes and board games and laughter?  Or will it be the year that time stopped and all the things they loved to do got put on hold.

• No Easter with my parents where every year the bunny hides eggs and toys for all in attendance
• No spring theater production with the kids holding puppets as ensemble cast members in Dr. Dolittle
• No Ballet recital where my girl would spin her hair in a tight bun, her outfit colors of the ocean
• No Field Day at school where I got to volunteer and watch the kids and their friends run amok in matching shirts
• No baseball practice, long afternoons sitting on the sun with one of my closest friends while our boys run laps and practice catching fly balls
• No baseball games on sun filled Saturday mornings where the girls play on the swings while the boys wait in the dugout and the parents talk lazily on the sidelines
• No last day of school where I pick up the kids and we blare Schools Out for Summer while we drive past the line of teachers waving goodbye
• No first day of summer where everyone sleeps in and the weather is usually crappy
• No trip to the Jersey Shore where we would sleep in a fleabag motel right on the beach and eat fudge and cotton candy on the boardwalk until we felt sick
• No Ballet camp where I would work from the hallway of the studio for a week while my daughter smiled non-stop for 3 hours a day
• No football camp where the boys got used to their pads and ran laps trying to outrun their coaches
• No summer theater show where Moana and The Jungle Book would have been staged
• No football practice where the parents would park with their cars facing the field so they could turn their lights on when the sun fell below the tree line
• No back to school shopping with my mother, going from store to store shopping for pants and dresses and underwear and sweatshirts and new shoes
• No first day of school where we would race for the bus and then I would follow them in to gather with the other parents to watch the kids arrive off the busses
• No Ballet and tap classes where I would watch my daughter dance and gossip with the other moms in the hall about schools and lice and in-law visits
• No football games where I could cheer for my boy and his friends, watching him always find me in the stands after a big play
• No fall theater show where I would work back stage, helping them with costume changes and being able to watch them shine

and what is to come? How long will school be online? Will there be no birthday parties this fall? and what of Halloween?  Will there be basketball? Will my in-laws be able to come up for Christmas? Will the Elf on the Shelf show up? 

With every decision we chose between the risk of the virus and the risk of holding our kids back.  As the world begins to re-open, do we re-open with it? And how do we create a new normal? One that allows us to look back on this time not as a time when so much was missed, but as a time when something new was gained.  Only time will answer that question, if only we knew how much more time we will have to wait.

Spring in Maine

Dairy queen will open soon

And the ice will melt from the trees

and the streams will rush with life

And dairy queen will open soon

Clocks will jump forward

We will pick ripe strawberries and blueberries

We will buy seedlings full of hope at the farmers market

And dairy queen will open soon

The snow will melt to make way for green grass

The birds will start to sing songs of redemption and rebirth

The days will be longer

Bedtimes will be later

And Dairy Queen will open soon

We will have meaningful debates about the value of the last week of school

About which beach has the best sand

About when we should go to Boston

Longing for the days we will spend sitting in the back of a pickup truck eating ice cream from Dairy Queen

The perpetually grayness will fade into spring colors

Blues, pinks, purples

Easter bunnies and peeps

We will hunt for chocolate eggs

And eat lamb around a big table

And we will say what we are thankful for

And there is no doubt that one of us will say we are thankful that Dairy Queen will open soon.

Today

I woke up today and you were still gone.   I got the kids breakfast and put them on the bus. An inconvenience and a luxury. A luxury to kiss them goodbye.  To have dinner in the crockpot ready when everyone gets home.  A luxury you will never have again.

I woke up today and you were still gone. I read somewhere that a sign of hope is setting your alarm to wake up in the morning.  And couldn't help imagining you setting your alarm Sunday night.  Preparing the house for another week ahead of school and work and kid activities.  Was it still going off when they found you?

I woke up today and you were still gone. I want to text you and ask you how I'm suppose to handle this because you are the person I would have normally texted.  And I know you would tell me to keep swimming. To "not trouble trouble".  So I sit in my office, emails coming in, meetings to attend. I have conversations at the bus stop about training dogs and the bike trails the town put in.

I woke up today and you were still gone. And if I am lucky enough to wake up tomorrow you will still be gone. And I will miss you in all the small moments. And years from now I  know if I am still lucky enough to keep waking up I will reach for phone to text you.  Because we were supposed to be old women together.  Because you were robbed of the luxury to tuck your kids in and watch them grow.  Because I was robbed of one of my best friends.

I woke up today and you were still gone.

The day that was more then good enough

I woke up on the first day of school and had time to straighten my hair so when I went to the schools boo hoo breakfast I wouldn't embarrass my kids. I got down stairs and made them fresh smoothies. My son complained his eye hurt it was a little puffy but not pink eye (I called the doctor to check). I made them lunches and made my daughter brush her hair.

When we missed the bus (because a summer of no deadlines means no one noticed the kitchen clock had slowly lost 10 minutes) I didnt yell. I laughed and made the kids get out of the car and take first day of school photos. Then I got passed the bus (legally) and pulled into one of my sons best friends driveways.  Everyone laughed when I told them what happened and the events were forever captured and published on social media.

I got to the school before the buses which means I got to see my son walk by me flashing the peace sign and earned one more hug from my daughter.  Then I went to work. Sat in meetings, worried about my son's eye and waiting until it was the day was done. At 315 they called me from my mother's care laughing about the day, my sons eye was fine, they were off to get DQ to celebrate the first day of school.

I met my mom at my sons football practice at 6.  His turquoise practice Jersey a stark contrast against the light green manicured lawn. His helmet and pads making him look like a little kid in his big brothers clothes. While my daughter ran around the parameter with a new friend her blond hair streaking like fire behind her in the setting sun.

I sat on a conference call for the last hour of practice and was able to get my sons helmet and pads off without needing to put down the phone and when the call switched to the car speakers (because hands free laws are important) my kids turned their voices to whispers.

It was 8pm when we pulled in the driveway, I hung up the phone and finally asked them what I had been dying to know all day, how was school? 

We tumbled in the door together, a pile of backpacks and sports equipment. I filled out what seemed like hundreds of pages of emergency contact, bus transportation, school lunch and internet privacy forms while my husband got the corn out of the boiling water. We ate dinner, open faced warm roast beef sandwiches made from last night's pot roast and corn from the farmers market. We talked about our days and laughed about what there was to laugh about. The kids took showers and at 915 my daughter was in bed curled up with her kitten and my son in bed curled up with a book and I took the dog out and spent 30 minutes on the porch with my husband watching the moon rise above the tree line and thinking that even though the day was far from perfect, it might be as perfect as we will ever get.

What if

I know the girl I want to be. Do you want to hear about her? She is confident, kind and healthy. She wears the clothes she likes no matter what people think. She is brave and speaks her mind. She loves her body and is good to it. She has a tattoo that makes her smile. She enjoys every day, gives herself permission to fail and asks for help.

It's easy at night when the house is quiet, and the moon has climbed high in the sky to make a list of promises for tomorrow. Of all the things I should do. Do yoga, drink water, pay bill's, work, dinner, kids, husband...each one with a million small bullets beneath them. Run, call my mother, baseball registration, don't eat the cookies.  It's easy at night when the only thing between me and sleep are the list of what ifs that pound in my brain like squirrels on typewriters.

What if baseball registration is full. What if they miss the bus. What if the bus is late and then I am late to my first meeting. What if I left the coffee pot on, the oven on, the crockpot on. What if I made the wrong call at work, what if my husband's contract isn't renewed. What if the house never sells, if someone gets sick. What if I get sick. What if the dog needs surgery. What if the cat doesn't come home. What if, what if...

What if tomorrow I woke up and decided that I am enough. That the extra pounds, the gray hairs, the bad habits, the fashion choices, are enough. What would happen then?

Happy New Year?

I feel like I just wrote this post...or maybe it is that a year in my life has not yielded much change. 2016 was not easy and I don't know why.  Everything felt hard, like I was moving through jello. Somehow no decision I made was easy...each one coming with what felt like consequences and then we spent the last 6 weeks of the year sick.  All four of us...off and on..sick.  Never all healthy at the same time.  But there was good too...ballet recitals and first days of school, holidays and birthdays and Saturday night movies nights and pizza at Romeos.  That is what I want to hold on to.  Not the feeling that nothing I do is enough...

So on to 2017. Tomorrow we kick off a new year.  One that starts somewhat arbitrarily...and one that carries with it all the weight of the lost hopes and goals of the year before.  My Facebook feed is already full of friends involved with MLMs telling all of us now is the time! 2017 can be your year!  And in my house, the kids and husband, dog and cats are asleep, a Law and Order SVU  marathon is on the TV and I have a paper to write.  It does not feel like a "special" night.  It did not occur to me to get a babysitter or let the kids stay up late to celebrate...

2017 is going to the be the year of contraction.  Pulling inward to have more time to spend on what matters and less time behind the computer screen.  I am going to commit to less and finish what I commit to.  And heck...while we are being unrealistic I am also going to lose that last 20 pounds, eat better and run 5 days a week,

Happy New Year.  May 2017 bring you most of what you want, and all of what you need.

Meleena

The milestones we don't reach

We celebrate anniversaries and birthdays. First steps and last days of school.  Facebook even helps us to celebrate the longevity of friendships by prompting us to create a video montage of the pictures we have shared of each other.  But there are few ways in the society to recognize the milestones we do not reach. The promotion we did not get. The children we didn't have. The marriage or relationship that did not go the distance.

I hopped on to Facebook this morning to find out who had made a healthier breakfast for their kids then I had and who had already been to the gym and who had already gotten a bonus at work...because I prefer to feel bad about myself in the morning before my coffee has kicked in...and there halfway through my feed was a picture of my ex-husband.  Facebook is recommending that we be friends.  Today. On August 18th. A date that given my lack of caffeine I had not yet realized.  But somewhere around 1pm I checked the big wall calendar in my office and realized the date.  Did Facebook know that today would have been our 15th wedding anniversary?  Is that how his picture and profile found its way into my news feed?

Once I realized what today was I found myself needing to process it so I weighed my options.  I could talk to my current husband about it  (seems like a bad idea), I could email my ex (maybe the worst idea)I could call a friend (I may still do that), I could post something about on Facebook or Twitter or Instagram (I compromised on the blog).  Because what can you say about the milestones you don't reach?  It has been 7 years since my marriage ended.  Since I separated myself from the man I had been with for 11 years and went off to build a life apart from us.  Then to build a life with another man...one full of children and animals and laughter and arguments about the mortgage.  And I don't think about the old life much anymore.  But then I am reminded suddenly and completely of that life, that version of myself, that relationship.  And I have this feeling in my gut that I have to rid myself of.

15 years ago today I woke up to a sunny day with a slight breeze in Bethel, ME.  My maid of honor was asleep next to me, my husband to be in the condo next door.  We did not see each other before the ceremony, and I remember standing at the end of the aisle looking toward him and thinking that this was it.  That I was looking at the rest of my life.  And so I promised before my family and friends, and God I suppose if you believe he is present at these things, until death do us part.  We ate steak and drank champagne and danced to a Radio Head cover of "Nobody Does it Better".  And we made it 7 years. 5 of them good.  So this was my pause in my day.  My moment to give voice to the milestone that will not be achieved.  To allow myself to feel sadness just for a moment. And then to move on and celebrate all the good that is here now.  Happy failure to reach our 15th anniversary Matt. May your life be everything you wanted it to be.  I know you wish the same for me.

Nostalgia

In one of the famous Mad Men episodes Don Draper  tells us that in Greek nostalgia means pain from an old wound.  It is  a place "we ache to go again".   Nostalgia has become a frequent theme not just in marketing campaigns but in entertainment, products and music.  We are presented with remakes of movies, resurgence of toys and yes repeating ad campaigns...all of which are just copies of the original...lacking authenticity as well as originality.  To be nostalgic for something we must first feel it's absence...long for it wistfully.

So when Coke re-launched #shareacoke campaign this past summer, they were hoping to capture again what they had last summer....people searching through shelves to find the right name. That in opening a Coke you were not getting a beverage but a moment in time. A "place were you are loved".  A reminder of a friend or lover or lost parent.   It worked last year...so why not run it again? Add more names and hope that people are still holding on to that feeling of nostalgia.  Except we are so inundated with it, so overwhelmed with it in advertising that it's hard to feel it anymore.  We are all so busy tweeting out the picture of the can with our dog or ex spouses name on it that we don't feel the nostalgia.

Time for a new strategy...one that is forward looking, not backwards. One that speaks to where we are going, not where we have been.  One that tells us it's OK to drink that coke...not guilt us into buying it. How can we be nostalgic if everything just repeats. ..a remake of Point Break, Full House, more Ninja Turtles and My Little Ponies, another aging icon espousing the virtues of Detroit.  I'm not nostalgic for the old days and I don't want to think about my bro or best friend from high school when I drink a Coke.  I want to be won over, convinced of the virtues of a product.

The thing that made Don Draper's character so amazing to watch was that he was able to not just see what was, but what was coming.  As we fall head long into 2016 I find myself aching for the unknown.  For what is coming around the turn ahead.  And I am hopeful, as a marketer, an author and a teacher that this year it will be something new.  Something worth aching to return to once it has past.

Resolutions

I hate these things.  Resolutions.  I never stick to them.  And I am never sure if, at the end of any given year, I am better off then I was when it started.  But I am here and there are children growing bigger and smarter every day.  And there are companies to run and work to do.  And I am here.  And when I look back, the one thing I am sure of is that every failure has brought me to this moment.

A wise shrink once told me that aspiring to be happy is a useless pursuit.  That happiness is an unsustainable state.  But instead we should strive for contentment.  Because in contentment we leave ourselves open to happiness.  I like that.  It feels attainable.

And I am reminded, because I am here, that in addition to all of those failures there were also a lot of moments of bravery.  Of deciding to jump.  Because I knew what life looked like where I was and it was time.  Time to do something different.  And that it isn't just me that is here.  That I didn't have to make those jumps alone.  I have been lucky enough to have family, friends, a husband who have stood with me.  And who have given me the confidence (and sometimes the push) I needed.

So I resolve, not for 2016, but for as many years as I am lucky enough to still be here, to be proud of where I have been, excited about where I am going, and present enough to be open to the moments of happiness as they come.

May 2016 bring you the peace that comes when you are content with your life and the courage you need to make changes.

~Meleena

Little Moments

Life tracks back to the little moments.  The ones when at the time you don't realize the ripple effects it will have for years to come.  We celebrate our milestones, birthdays, anniversaries, holidays.  Mark the passing of the years with Christmas Trees and birthday cakes.  Count the grey hairs deciding just when it is time to buy a box of hair dye once reserved for teen rebellion.

We don't dwell on the missed phone calls, minor slights and coffee breaks.  But if we track back the course of our lives we will find it is those little moments that set the course.  And it impossible mostly to recognize them when they come.  To be able to see where they will take us.  Because our memories are flawed it is hard to look back on them with accuracy.  We forget the details.  And maybe that is for the best.

Accomplishments and Fear

My second book was published a few weeks ago now.  North of Boston, originally titled "I can't come to the phone right now" after my blog is a book of short stories.  That is the simple description.  But it is more then that.  It is a book of dreams and moments.  Nightmares and might have beens.  I used my friend's Facebook status updates to inspire my writing every day for nearly a year.  And what I found, in myself, was that I need to write.  If I don't something eats at my insides.

When my first book came out it was easy to distance myself from it...I wrote it years ago, it was fiction and so even if a character here or there was loosely based on someone no one would ever know.  But North of Boston is something else entirely.   And so with the accomplishment of having had it accepted for publication, came the fear that somehow I would be found out.  What if my father-in-law recognized himself in a story and didn't like it?  What if my best friend from my youth assumed something was about her?  What if my husband (or ex-husband) didn't like what I had written?

When you write, fiction or otherwise, you put a piece of yourself on paper.  And when you publish you take that piece of paper and share it with everyone you know, and the people you don't.  North of Boston isn't just a book of short stories.  It is a collection of snapshots of a life, some real and some imagined.  All viewed in the moment, without the perspective of past or future events.  Without the hope that things might get better on the next page.

Birthdays

Birthdays are an interesting thing as you get older.  They become a place of reflection, of considering what one has accomplished, of what one has failed at.  It can cause us to take a closer look at how we spend our time...to review just how much we have wasted in anger and regret, stuck in traffic and behind a desk.  How many first days of schools and little league games have been overlooked.  I spent time today trying to remember as many of my birthdays as I could and found that most are at best vague recollections and at worst completely absent from my memory.

I remember turning 4 and my mother finding chicken pox on me the day of my party and having to have it canceled.

I remember the year I turned 9 and my Hawaiian themed party was almost canceled because of the foot of snow that fell over night.

I remember the year I turned 17 and my mother dragged me up to a ski resort so my brother could snowboard.

I remember going to dinner at Rialto in Harvard Square when I turned 21 and drinking Bailey's on the rocks.

I remember turning 24 in Maycomb, Illinois and my students bought me a grocery store cake tat we ate with our hands in a hotel room.

I remember turning 30 perfectly.  Because everything I had planned for my life was laying in shambles at my feet.  Grilled cheese and tomatoes soup for lunch. An early dinner at Mooo.  Gifts so impersonal they could have been for anyone.

I remember turning 31 in New Orleans and eating Domino's for lunch with co-workers and the cake my husband had my nickname written on.

I remember turning 35 while on a business trip in Boston and the kindness of my co-workers.

So many gaps.  So many years that have blended together.  Do I dare say this will be the year that I try to slow down, live in the moment, taste my coffee, close my laptop?  Maybe I should start now.

Late Night TV Marketing Fail: Vermont Teddy Bear and Law and Order

I pulled an all nighter a few nights ago...not because I had some crazy work deadline or was working on finishing my second novel...I was trying to finish the Valentine gift my son had requested for his classmates.  And I had really underestimated how long it was going to take.

After mid-night TV gets weird.  And I was happy to find a Law and Order marathon to have on the background while I crocheted until my fingers cramped up.  My learning from that night is not how many stuffed giraffes I can make in a 12 hour period (the answer is 11), but that there are few companies willing to advertise that late.  Between midnight and 6am I must have seen 20 ads for Vermont Teddy Bears 4 foot tall bear.  Also advertising was a company wanting to help me sign up for health care, a company who wanted my husband to buy me roses and Sherries Berries who successfully convinced me I would never want to be friends with a couple who purchased from them.

Except for the health care company who was gender neutral in their ads, everyone else was targeting men.  And not subtly.  Watch the Vermont Teddy Bear ad (link above) and see what I mean...these were ads that were not meant to appeal to me as a women at all.  As a marketer I am intrigued by these types of ads so I did a quick Google search to find out who exactly watches Law and Order...and the whole first page of results came back with articles about how much WOMEN watch the show.  And not just the show that runs new episodes, but the re-runs that TNT plays, and that I was watching.  If you visit the TNT viewer profile more women watch then men.  This makes me question the companies running ads...did they do their research?  By excluding an entire gender from their ads they no doubt lost business...Vermont Teddy Bear could have just as easily created that ad to be geared towards both genders, or parents, since the only person I know that wants a 4 foot bear is my 3 year old.  And who knows...if they had done that, they probably would have made a 3am sale to me.