Why I'm a terrible mother
The trolls of the interwebs have, on more than one occasion over the lifetime of this blog, relished painting me -- in the most absurd tones imaginable -- as a bad mother.
Best Of Sweetney
Something to put on your life's To Do list:
Take your daughter to Disney World solo -- just you and her.
On oversharing
I haven't said a lot of things here over the course of the past year.
The Fire Sermon*
Late last night I realized that today, June 17th, is my wedding anniversary.
So, as you might imagine, I spent a good chunk of the rest of the night crying.
The best I can
During the course of a conversation I had yesterday, a friend mentioned having parented solo for a few days the previous week while her husband was out of town on a business trip.
"I have no idea how you do that all the time, every day," she said. "There's no way I could."
I get that a lot.
Liberation
The other night I was watching "Mad Men" -- a show ostensibly about the machinations of the Madison Avenue advertising industry of the mid-sixties, but in truth more about what the lives of women were like during that era -- when I realized something. The only time in history I could've ever existed was during the past forty years.
Wherein I gush sappily in an unseemly fashion. Deal with it.
My best friend Kelly, aka kdiddy, graduated with her Master's degree in English on Saturday, so I flew out to Pittsburgh this weekend to attend her graduation party and celebrate this huge achievement with her.
Stupidity, thy name is KRÄKK
This past Saturday, I felt a level of sheer, blinding panic I haven't felt in a good, long time.
Wait, let me start over.
The safety of objects
It's odd how you can live day-in day-out with something (someone, my daughter would correct), and not think to say much about it. We got our new puppy Locke just a few short days ago, and I've already broadcast numerous photos and a bit of video of him. But no one really knows about Stella, and we've had her for years.
The little things
Today, everything makes me cry.
Choose Your Own Adventure
You announce your presence.
You open the door.
For Auld Lang Syne - 2009
What better way to close out the year than by looking back at where I've been? To that end, here are my 12 favorite Sweetney posts of 2009, one for every month of the year.
Schadenfreudetastic, Or: Should I, as a woman, feel bad for loving VH1's "Rock Of Love"?
I need to get something off my chest, ladies. I LOVE the VH1 series "Rock Of Love" (its present incarnation of course being the "Rock Of Love Bus," or as I have dubbed it "Rock Of Love: Bus Of Fools"). It is, I think it's safe to say, a guilty pleasure of a show on par with "Paradise Hotel" (also LOVED!), or the cringe-worthy but eminently watchable "Celebrity Rehab With Dr. Drew" (VH1 clearly has my number... my sad, shameful number) -- something one imbibes as a palate-cleansing aperitif in-between sober and intelligent programming like, oh, anything on HBO or "Mad Men" -- at least that's what we tell people, right? But really, why are so many of us -- educated women who consider themselves thinkers and feminists -- watching this BS?
Beauty and broken things
People have asked me many times before why I love Baltimore so much. My answer has always been the same: because it's broken.
Prophet
I don't believe in magic.
I'm not even what you'd call a spiritual person, honestly. I was raised in the Catholic church, a religious community I abandoned when, around age nine or ten, I listened to a priest who stood before our congregation and heard him, in so many oblique words, tell us that we could buy our way into Heaven (or, alternately, miser our way into Hell, one supposes). I was a kid at the time, sure, but even then I knew that wasn't right.
Definitions
For most of this week, Jamie was sick. And without over-dramatizing things or going into great detail, suffice it to say that it was one of those rare and exceptional hand-wringingly-intense, cause-for-real-concern, bordering-on-kind-of-genuinely-scary types of illnesses.
Tiocfaidh ár lá
It sounds kind of dumb to say it, but I've been thinking about life a lot lately. I know what you're thinking: when does anyone STOP thinking about life a lot, right? Yeah, yeah. But I have, and with a certain uncommon kind of intensity. I guess that's what happens when your life falls apart and you have to try to patch something together from the vague debris and shifting detritus that remains. What do you save? What do you toss? What do you try to remake, and how do you do that in an altogether different way, so that what rises up from the ashes bears no resemblance to what came before it? I'm trying to figure this stuff out. I'm having a hard time figuring this stuff out.
Engine
The surest sign of trouble with me is when people ask me how I am -- which they do often these days and with good reason, and I'm honestly more than a little grateful to be asked at all -- and I find that I can't respond, that words literally fail me. When even the standard, stock "fine" rings so false I can't force myself to utter it -- because I'm many things to be sure, but I'm not a liar -- oh yes, then I know for certain that I'm in for it.
But still, I don't know how I'm doing, how I am. Not really. Not so I could tell you. I can't even tell myself.
Hi, I'm Tracey.
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Best Of Sweetney
- Why I'm a terrible mother
- Fortune
- Something to put on your life's To Do list:
- On oversharing
- The Fire Sermon*
- The best I can
- Liberation
- Wherein I gush sappily in an unseemly fashion. Deal with it.
- 40
- Stupidity, thy name is KRÄKK
- The safety of objects
- The little things
- Choose Your Own Adventure
- For Auld Lang Syne - 2009
- Schadenfreudetastic, Or: Should I, as a woman, feel bad for loving VH1's "Rock Of Love"?
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