Mark Fiore is more inspirational than Oprah

Did you hear about my friend Mark Fiore (he's the one who got Dengue Fever at my birthday party)? He won the Pulitzer Prize last week. The Pulitzer Prize, people! That's, like, the most colossal and public pat on the back a journalist can get.

I did the voice for this one. It earned him death threats!

I have dealt with my pride and excitement by working the information into as many conversations as possible. I run into a parent preparing snacks in the preschool kitchen and say something like, "Man am I tired; it must be because my really good friend Mark Fiore just won the Pulitzer Prize." I'm out to dinner with some work friends talking about learning to make Chinese dumplings and I say, "That reminds me of my really good friend Mark Fiore, who just won the Pulitzer Prize." An acquaintance mentions she just got back from New York and I say, "Oh, my really good friend Mark Fiore will be going to New York to accept the Pulitzer Prize he just won."

Ahem, I did the voice for this one too

But seriously, I am really proud of him. I tried to make a toast at a party in his honor earlier this week but because of my weeping problem (it prohibits all public toast-making and reading of poetry), I couldn't do it. What I wanted to say was this: I am proud and happy for him not because the Pulitzer is a big deal, super-prestigious prize, but because he was justly rewarded for following his passions.

I got a book when I graduated from college called Do What You Love, the Money Will Follow. This, of course, is the kind of soft-minded pap that makes me dislike Oprah (I jumped off her bandwagon around the time of The Secret). But the first part of the title, the part about doing what you love, has some merit. Mark Fiore has done what he loves, regardless of whether the money was following or taking a totally different route. He worked hard, super hard, at doing it well. He invented a form (the online political animation) and he found success. It's positively inspirational.

Mark helped us build our chicken coop. What a stand up guy.

I was waxing thusly to my dad the other day when he reminded me that talent plus hard work does not always result in success. Lots of people do what they love and find neither money nor notoriety. Lots of good, smart people toil away at what they love in anonymity. My dad, by the way, is perhaps the least sentimental person on the planet. He's also right.

But this doesn't mean I can't get a little lift from Mark's reward. Just because in the end very few of us will win venerated awards, doesn't mean we shouldn't try to remember to pay attention to what moves us, to work hard, to practice discipline, to ignore the bullshit, and to follow what we love. That could be pretty rewarding too.

Congratulations, Mark! Woot! Woot!

Why not just practice the rhythm method and see what happens?

from here

A lot of my friends are currently trying to decide whether or not to have a second baby. Actually, they are writhing in a sort of tortured late '30s angst trying to decide whether to have a second baby.

I get it. Here you are, you've got your mate and your career and your one completely, ridiculously doted upon offspring. You still get to go out with the girls every now and again. You're having sex once or twice a week. Your body is more or less back where it belongs. You've got it worked out. Why mess it up?

It's not a bad question to ask yourself. But I find that I have little patience for the dithering. Maybe because giving birth to twins knocked me off my axis so profoundly that I never really got to the part where I felt like I had it all worked out. Maybe because I'm jealous.

I imagine life with one baby as a kind of gauzy, pink-tinged Gerber commercial in which you have hours a day in which you are required to do nothing more than suck on perfect little infant toes. If I only had one baby, I tell myself, I would never lose my temper, or yell, or say things like, "when you learn to cook your own dinner, you can start complaining about the food" to three-year-old children.

I suppose what I am saying is, I am not the person to ask when you are considering having a second child. I always knew I wanted two children. I was wholeheartedly committed to the idea of two from the beginning. But that's not why I am not the person to ask.

I am not the person to ask because there are many times when I want to grab my friends by the shoulders and shout, "Don't do it." I want to tell them that it will indeed mess everything up in all the ways they suspect. I want to warn them about never really being able to enjoy a lazy Sunday, or eat an uninterrupted meal, or have twice weekly sex again. I want to tell them about that weird shrewish voice that will come out of their mouths when their children are bickering, and how the idea of going out to a restaurant with the whole family will seem like an impossible dream.

Half the time.

The other half of the time I want to tell them to quit their hand wringing and get knocked up already. Join me in my messy, wonderful suffering. Enlarge your heart. Join the human family. Get in here and root around a little.

Mostly I don't say any of it. Mostly I shrug and say I don't know. Because, of course, I don't. If you are waiting for the right answer, forget it. There is no right answer.

I am of the best-guess-and-no-guarantees school of decision making. Go with your gut and hope it works out. That's how I approached my marriage and my career and the decision to become a parent in the first place.

And really, the big decisions are just a mixed-bag of emotions anyway— moments of despairing defeat and moments of profound and blissful joy. And in between lots and lots of moments of folding the laundry or watching crap TV or running out to the all-night Safeway to buy milk. Sometimes you are the luckiest girl in the world, and sometimes you look over and think, "This? Really?" And there's probably nothing more we can ask for.

I sound AMAZING in my car

Last night I went to a rock and roll concert, stayed out too late, and witnessed my first doobie smoking in a long time. As souvenirs I have a fading "Over 21" stamp on my hand and an exhaustion headache that probably has a lot to do with drinking three glasses of the Fillmore's house white, served in plastic tumblers.

But it's all worth it because Patty Griffin was a revelation. I didn't just love her, I lerved her, which is like love, but with extra feeling and much welling up.

Here she is, singing Heavenly Day (which, by the way, should totally be your first dance song at your next wedding).

I spent most of the concert fantasizing about being able to sing. I sometimes think people who can really sing must never be sad. I've spent a lot of time thinking this about Aretha Franklin. I mean, why cry when you can belt? Of course, history does not bear out this philosophy. A lot of people who can sing are tortured and depressive and end up choking on their own vomit. So, there's that.

Still, I wish I could learn this song so I could sing it to the Mister on our upcoming 10th anniversary. Wouldn't that be cool? Wouldn't you just get all choked up? Not on vomit. In a good way.

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Next time on Up Mama's Wall : Should you have that second baby (or please join me in the exhausting chaos that is my life).

How we finally decided not to get cable

Last Friday night my BFF Sarah and her second-grader Georgia had a sleepover at our house with Maggie and Oliver. It was an all-out preschool rager complete with banned movies and copious amount of hitherto forbidden foods. Something called "fruit gushers" was smuggled in. Rice Crispy treats were introduced. There was—I can barely stand to say it—morning television. Needless to say, the kids were in the sort of Heaven where you float around on clouds of cotton candy and big girls give you their undivided attention. The kind of Heaven dreamed up by three-year-olds.

Fruit Gushers. Some consider them food.

But what this story is really about is the Mister's and my night away. We couldn't go far in our precious 17 hours, so we Pricelined a San Francisco hotel and hoofed it over to the financial district Hilton. I know, it doesn't sound that great.

Like me, you may be picturing balding businessmen overeating at the complimentary breakfast buffet, possibly an irritable family from Des Moine on some extended and unhappy vacation. You might, like me, be so worried about the business grimness of it that you might, like me, lie to the man at the check-in counter about it being your anniversary. You might shamelessly ask for and receive an upgrade and then you might get this view:

And when you got this view you might start to realize that this was going to be a good night, even if neither of you had bothered with dinner reservations or negligee of any kind (and how I love the Mister in his negligee). Because, really, it's hard to have a bad night when you're in North Beach playing "when we move here," and then you stumble upon the cutest bar in the world and have the adult version of a fruit gusher, only better. And then another.

Go here and order a Pim's Cup. You won't be sorry.

When the extremely friendly Syrian cab driver talks to you about how much money Jennifer Aniston makes you really know its a good night. And then, when you get into this surprisingly delish restaurant even though you have no reservation of any kind and you eat meatballs and cold cuts made from duck, well, this pretty much tops it off. It's one hell of a date night. It's perfect.

Until you get back to the room, where you are very much looking forward to indulging in a little cable TV and eating the dessert you ordered to go.

The Mister won't pay $15.99 to watch The Blind Side on pay per view (and I can't blame him) so we decide to do a little channel surfing in the land of a thousand shows. And guess what? There is nothing on. We spend, nay, waste, and hour flipping between E! Twenty Top Celebrity Body Part, MTV's Spring Break and HBO, where they are showing the Best of YouTube. Not only is it bad entertainment, but what it says about our culture is so grim, I begin to regret bringing children into the world. People pay a lot of money to access the Twenty Top Celebrity Body Parts. This makes me want to eat fruit gushers until I explode.

The bright side is that we were just about to break down and finally get cable. And now we don't have to.

And now, for something completely different, a kid story that's not about one of my kids, but about one of the kids of one of my friends. It goes like this.

Three-year-old kid is in the bathroom with mom while she's changing a tampon.

Kid

Mom, when I get a vagina can I have tampons?

Mom

You already have a vagina, but when you get your period you can have tampons.

Kid

Do you think I can have Hello Kitty tampons?

And that's really it for the week. See you in approximately seven days.

Naughty dreams

I've been dreaming about men other than my husband. Last night, for example, Dave Eggers and I, each chastely in our own sleeping bags, laid face-to-face discussing trucker hats and real estate with a most delicious and thrilling intimacy. The night before that, I went to the Laundromat with Avi Avital, an Israeli mandolin player I met recently through a friend. We may have held hands, but mostly we were just in the laundromat, enjoying each others company.

As you can see, these are not hot and heavy sex dreams. They are hot and heavy getting-along dreams. Dreams in which mere conversation can be thrilling, a sexless buzz of electricity quite enough. They are dreams about being seen in a way that it is nearly impossible to be seen after nine years and seven months of marriage. They are, I think, a form of nostalgia.

I've been feeling nostalgic about a lot of things lately. I wept embarrassingly during a preschool slide show set to Prince's Purple Rain. It was as if I could see this marvelous and amazing moment in my sweet children's lives slipping away and I was missing it in advance. I find myself feeling intense pangs of college-withdrawal. I make lists in my head of all the things I am now too old to become: Olympic gymnast, ballerina, stripper, Jane Goodall's star pupil. It's all very un-Buddhist of me, this mourning for the past, this clinging to the present.

It stems in large part from being 40 and wondering what I am going to do with my life. I'm working on a novel, sure, but I've been down that road before. I'm raising kids, but if I am to believe what all the 50-something women are constantly telling me, that's going to be over in a flash. And then what?

Seriously, then what? All suggestions most welcome. Extra points if you can come up with something that saves the world and requires very little extra schooling and allows me to live in a place with indoor plumbing. And I don't want to be a teacher, so you can forget that one.

And then there is this, via Decorno. I had never heard of Neko Case (what?!) but if I could sing like her all my problems would be moot. Please listen to it. It's enough to make you weep.

I am 48.7% successful

Way back when I was only 39, I made a list of things to do before I turned 40. Some of them were simple (eating hot dogs) and some of them were not so simple (writing a novel). Some of them I accomplished, some of them I didn't. Some of them I really wish I had tried harder to accomplish, some I let go without a second thought. The Yuba River, after all, will be there for a long time. So will Shakespeare plays. The gig is up, however, on getting the kids into backpacks (the good news is that they have hiked two miles on their own two legs!). In all, I managed to do 19 out of 39. Plus a few almosts that I didn't let myself count.

So here we are. A review:

1. start some meaningful and ongoing volunteer work

2. re-read some Shakespeare plays

3. learn to sew, even a little

4. make a headboard for our bed (not yet, but I bought all the stuff and put it in the garage!)

5. throw a party

6. visit a state I've never been to

7. reunite with some friends I don't see very often: Tara, Vida, Kate, Hilary

8. publish at least one piece in a national publication (I'm not counting my freelance magazine work. I'm only counting fiction and essays. So, no. Not this year)

9. go sailing

10. take my kids to the circus

11. eat hot dogs on the pier at Chrissy Field with my family

12. swim in the Yuba River

13. take my kids to play in the snow

14. take my kids to see a dance performance

15. go to Vermont

16. host a brunch/clothing swap at my house

17. follow the sun more when it gets foggy

18. eat oysters at Tomales Bay Oyster Company

19. spend a weekend by myself

20. make ice cream and then sundaes with Magnolia and Oliver

21. finish landscaping my front yard

22. find some more good, cheap restaurants to love in San Francisco

23. go the Alameda Flea Market

24. take a dance class

25. do some more encaustic painting

26. go hiking with the kids in backpacks before they really get too heavy

27. take the kids on a ferry ride to Angel Island

28. clean out the garage

29. eat pupusas

30. plant a few veggies (pickling cucumbers!)

31. spend a weekend away with The Mister

32. write a letter to my representative

33. have a movie marathon day at a multiplex

34. write a rough draft of the novel I'm working on (*please see NOTE below)

35. bake bread

36. get a massage

37. organize the closets

38. make a new friend (Hi, Miranda)

39. have a San Francisco day with my family: cable car, Swensen's, chowder in a sourdough bowl, Fisherman's Wharf

All of the things leftover are on my rollover list. I still want to paint more encaustic. I still want to make it to the Alameda Flea Market. I am still planning on writing my representative (I mean a real letter, not a click-here-to-sign), and I still have a gift certificate for a massage that I haven't used. It's looking pretty good for 41, I must say.

* NOTE: Although I am still a long ways from completing the novel I have been working on, I am 120 pages into it. Which is enough to know that I want to finish it.

There are many reasons why I am a slow writer. Motherhood is one of them. So are The Sopranos on DVD (yes, I started over), general fatigue, and maybe a smidge of self-defeatism. But what really slows me down is worrying about keeping up this blog. I love this, but I am starting to believe there is no greater impediment to writing a longer work than blogging (well, maybe Tweeting). There are only so many hours, as they say, but more than that, there are only some many creative impulses, only so many times you can hurry-scurry from one thing to another and retain any sort of depth or focus.

So, in an effort to actually give this book a chance, I am committing to blogging only once a week. Maybe twice if I'm feeling chatty. I'll still be here, just less often. We'll call it quality over quantity. Kay?

Please stand by

We are in the mountains, accomplishing (a little late) number 13 on the list of things to do before my 40th birthday. (Yes, we are still going to review the list together to see how I measure up to my ambitions). I've never quite seen anything so harmonious as Maggie + Ollie + snow. It's a match made in heaven. And the sledding! Oh, the sledding.

While the view is spellbinding, the Internet connection is patchy at best.

Tavis McNally, where for art thou?

While we are away, please amuse yourself with my 1988 prom picture. Be sure to appreciate the crimped hair; it took more than three hours to accomplish. This is part of an ongoing series I'm starting called "Cleaning out the Garage." I think you will enjoy it.