Column: Rough Drafts

My favorite
column photo
(I still look like
this--Honest!)


This is the first column I ever wrote, beginning a 15-year career of publishing Home Front in California newspapers. It speaks of the identity shift that happens after becoming a wife and mother. At the time it was written, I had a one-year-old boy, a two-year-old girl, and a husband of just four years. There didn't seem to be much relationship between my old life and my new one, but I tried to make the connection here.

I was a girl like any other. I had dreams. I had ambitions. Can I help it if they were a little far-fetched? If I haven't achieved them, does that make me a failure?

My particular dream was to be an artist: to write great poems and present them to the world; to run in rarified circles; to travel to Europe, often; to live each moment like there was no tomorrow.

I remember that dream now, from the distant plateau of reality, of years worn away like rock and worn upon like clothing, because I recently got a letter from a firend, and old friend, whom I haven't seen in six years.

In those six years I have metamorphosed from poignant, struggling, would-be artist to plain old househag: married woman, mother of two.

Explaining this transition to my friend was a problem. Would he still respect me when he knew what I'd become?

The kids were easy. I've always wanted children. I didn't expect to have two in two years, but they're cute, they're healthy, and they're not old enough to be juvenile delinquents. I told him about the kids.

Describing how I spend my day was a little more difficult. I haven't written a poem in years. I rarely go to the movies, the theater, or a concert. I can't seem to finish a book. My current idea of excitement is letting my two-year-old run around without diapers during infrequent attempts at potty training. For adventure, we go to the drive-thru car wash.

Still, there are justifications. Everyone knows toddlers take up a lot of time. I decided not to dwell on it. One or two sentences would suffice.

But when it came to describing my husband, I was at a loss. I love him, sure, but perhaps that's because I never sat down and listed the personality traits that make up the man.

For instance, my husband loves monster movies. Our living room wall is adorned with posters of the Wolfman, Frankenstein and Ymir, a really angry looking giant lizard that came from somewhere, out there, 20 Million Miles to Earth.

Our video library is stocked with classic titles like The Hideous Sun Demon (man gets mean and hairy in the daytime); Fiend Without a Face (disembodied brains with spinal columns that can fly and suck your brains out); I Married a Monster from Outer Space (sound familiar?); and Monolith Monsters (really scary rocks that terrorize the planet by growing big and falling over on people.)

You might think that because my husband is a movie buff he would occasionally take me to one. Not so. New movies just don't do it for him. He likes his entertainment, like his philosophy, in black and white.

He also loves animals, but not the cute and furry kind. With the exception of his attack cat, Rover, he saves all his loves for amphibians, reptiles, and fish. The problem with these animals is that they die a lot.

He hates to travel, but on what basis, I'm not sure. He's only been out of the state once, on a trip to Boston when he was 10 years old. He doesn't even much like to leave the yard. His idea of a fun weekend is waxing the Studebaker or building a deck. Or, more accurately, ripping out an old deck and leaving debris all over the yard.

He doens't fancy himself a deep thinker and we almost never stay up late discussing the meaning of life.

After a couple of unsuccessful rough drafts, I finally told my husband of my dilemma. Given this list of attributes, how could I describe him as a mate suitable for a poignant, romantic, struggling would-be artist? When I met him on the college newspaper, he wanted to be a writer. Where had all his creativity gone?

"That's easy," he said. "Tell him at first I put my creativity into fixing up the house, and now I'm putting it into the kids." When he said it, I knew it was true, or at least true enough to play in Poughkeepsie.

I mean, his most endearing quality is the way he chases the laughing toddlers around the living room. Instead of a poem, or a short story, or a novel, we were creating a childhood, a family, a life. There will be time for all the rest of it, I hope.

So that's what I told my friend, and no more. I just didn't see the point of bringing The Beast With Five Fingers into it.

This column was first published in The San Francisco Progress on April 1, 1988.

Column: Childbirth by the Book

My favorite
column photo
(I still look like
this--Honest!)


You practically have to have a credential to have a baby these days. I went to childbirth classes when I was pregnant with both my children. I read books, attended seminars, even joined a "group."

I learned about the Lamaze and Bradley methods and the LeBoyer bath. I could recognize Braxton-Hicks contractions and do a Kegal on command.

I looked forward to engorgement and hoped my "let down reflex" was up to par. I worried about "transition" and dreaded the "ring of fire." I hoped my kid would give a good anterior presentation and pass his Apgar test.

I decided against circumcision, requested no episiotomy and insisted my husband hold my hand. I knew when to huff, when to puff, and when to hunker down.

I even learned about a part of my body I didn't know existed. I'll bet you dollars to donuts that no woman out there who's never had a baby can put her finger on just where her perimeum is.

But no book, class or seminar could answer the two questions that loomed largest in my mind: "How much will it hurt?" and "Will I be able to take it?"

I remember when I was about seven months pregnant with my first child, my best friend Jane asked me, in all sincerity, "Don't you worry about all the blood and guts and terrible wracking pain?"

You have to understand Jane. She wasn't trying to be mean. She really wanted to know.

I told her I tried not to think about it. If it good too bad, there was always the miracle of drugs.

But the truth was, I thought about it a lot. Would I make a fool of myself? Would my husband see me make a fool of myself? Would they have to tie me down? Would it last two hours or 20? Would I be able to do it without drugs?

When I told my friend Wanda, who lives in New Orleans, that drugs during labor were discouraged in my class she said, "Wow! You Californians must be into pain!"

I considered leaving the state.

I tried to console myself by eyeing haggard mothers in the supermarket. "If she can do it, so can I."

But the thought that brought me the most solace came from Sheila Kitzinger's Complete Book of Pregnancy and Childbirth. Kitzinger said some women had told her that having a baby was like having sex.

"You will probably have an overpowering urge to bear down and press the baby through the birth canal," Kitzinger said. "This is passionate, intense, thrilling and often completely irresistible, and for some women, it is the nearest thing to overwhelming sexual excitement."

I told my friend Joe, whose wife had labored 17 hours with a breech baby before having a Cesarean, what I had read. He just looked at me sadly and sadly shook his head, whispering a barely audible "no."

Still, it was a concept, and I was willing to run with it. After all, so many things depend on your state of mind. I just had to get psyched up. I must have read that passage 50 times.

The funny thing is that when it came down to the wire, all that preparation didn't do me much good. My mind went blank. Well, almost blank, except for one burning question: "Is is over yet?"

For the record, I did make it through without drugs, but not by choice. I was begging for a shot of something, anything, when the doctor came in to announce, "It's too late. the baby was born an hour ago."

I really think the best thing about the modern methods of childbirth is they make your husband go. That's good--not so he can share in the joyous moment of birth, but so he can appreciate the hell you've been through. I figured it was worth at least a couple of breakfasts in bed. I was right.

And now that I've actually experienced childbirth, I'd like to reassure all you uninitiated women out there. It wasn't that bad. I'd even go so far as to say Kitzinger was right: Having a baby is a lot like having sex--with a moose.

This column was first published in the San Francisco Progress on April 8, 1988.

Column: So Much for Super Mom

My favorite
column photo
(I still look like
this--Honest!)


There are basically two kinds of stay-at-home mothers: ones who spend the early morning hours bundling up their babies and driving them to exercise classes, the supermarket, the bank and the playground; and ones who spend them in their bathrobe.

In case you hadn't guessed, I'm one of the latter. Oh, I started out with good intentions, all right. I remember when I was pregnant with my first child. I had decided to quit my job and drew up a list of household projects to take care of in my "free time." I knew babies slept a lot, so I'd really be able to whip my house, my life, and my husband's life into shape.

It's now nearly two-and-a-half years later and nothing's been crossed off that list. Unless you count number one: Make list.

When I was pregnant with my second child, a mere six months after our first was born (we call him our little pumpkin surprise), I grew tired of looking like a bullfrog when I sat down and vowed to get to work getting slim as soon as the baby was born. One year later, I'm still lugging around 15 extra pounds.

Not only am I fat and disorganized, my house looks like the aftermath of the '06 quake; my laundry lives in two piles: clean and dirty; and my freezer never held so many little orange boxes.

All of this would be understandable and acceptable to me if it weren't for those "other" mothers who are constantly flaunting their superiority in my face.

Take Mindy, one of the mothers I met in Lamaze class. Mindy's the kind of mother whose house is always neat, hair always coiffed, children always clean and smartly dressed. To make matters worse, she works part time. There ought to be a law.

Mindy had her last child the same day I had mine and is trim as a privet hedge. She has a perfect body and a full wardrobe of matching leotards and Spandex tights to prove it. My only consolation is she has lost so much weight since the pregnancy that it makes her nose look big.

I dropped my kids off at her house at lunch time once. She was feeding her baby at the time and there wasn't a speck of food on the table, the floor, or even his shiny Gucci bib.

Since I know she's a nurse, I suspect she feeds all four of her offspring through plastic tubing. She must have stashed the equipment when she heard me at the door. (Personally, I prefer the feeding pen technique: Line the walls and floor with newspaper, put the bowl in front of the kid, and stand back.)

I ran into Mindy once at an exercise class. It was one of my rare, misguided attempts at supermomdom. I had gotten up early in order to feed and dress the kids, pick up my friend Sally and get to class by 9 a.m.

Sally and I, novices both, stood close together in the back to monitor each other's breathing in case of spontaneous heart attack.

Mindy, in the front row, hopped up and down like a piston. When the instructor said, "If you want to make it a little harder, put your foot on your head," we knew Mindy would. While we lay in lifeless bundles during the last 20 leg lifts, Mindy kept pumping thigh even after the music stopped.

After class, we gathered in the back to socialize. Mindy scrutinized her finger with chagrin. "I cut it this morning on a baking powder tin," she said.

Sally and I looked at each other, aghast. "You were baking this morning?" we asked in disbelief.

"Oh yes. Biscuits. It's the only time I can find when the kids don't pester me. I love to get up and get something done while the kids are still asleep."

Sally and I commiserated over coffee after class. We both admitted being concerned about Mindy. All that energy could signify a metabolic disorder. Could she be anorexic? For all her perfection, we wouldn't want to be in her size 5 tights.

We decided to order sweet rolls, just to make sure.

This column was first published in the San Francisco Progress on April 16, 1988.

List: Chronicle of Carnage

Following, for your amusement, is my painstaking compilation of the various ways men are killed in The Iliad, complete with page numbers and sample passages from the Robert Fagles translation.

24 are Skewered...spearhead punched his back between the shoulders, gouging his flesh and jutting out through his ribs (165)
13 Butchered While Sleeping...whirling into the slaughter now, hacking left and right and hideous groans broke from the dying Thracians slashed by the sword--the ground ran red with blood...(292)
12 Pierced with an Arrow (240, 241, 313, 337)
10 Sliced Through the Neck...hacked his neck below the ear and the blade sank clean through, nothing held but a flap of skin, the head swung loose to the side (423)
10 Speared in the Chest...stabbed him square in the chest and split the bronze plate that cased his ribs...and the point stuck in his heart and the heart in its last throes jerked and shook the lance--butt-end quivering into the air (355)
8 Hacked in the Shoulder...heavy sword hacked the collarbone, right on the shoulder, cleaving the whole shoulder clear of neck and back (168)
8 Stabbed in the Belly...it flayed the skin off Odysseus' ribs...As the fighter tore it out the blood came gushing forth (311)
7 Slashed Near the Nipple...slashed his right nipple, clean through the shoulder went the brazen point and down in the dust he fell like a lithe black poplar (161)
7 Corpses Clogged the River...he killed in a blur of kills...still more Paeonian men the runner would have killed if the swirling river had not risen, crying out in fury, taking a man's shape, its voice breaking out of a whirlpool..."All my lovely rapids are crammed with corpses now, no channel in sight to sweep my currents out to sacred sea--I'm choked with corpses and still you slaughter more, you blot out more! Leave me alone, have done--captain of armies, I am filled with horror!" (527)
6 Crushed with a Rock...brought him down with a glinting jagged rock, massive, top of the heap behind the rampart's edge,...crushed the rim of the fighter's four-horned helmet and cracked his skull to splinters, bloody pulp (337)
5 Speared in the Thigh...the honed tip of the weapon hitting his left thigh, ferocious, razoring into flesh and scraping bone (186)
4 Skulls Split Open...skewered...through the mouth, the merciless brazen spearpoint raking through, up under the brain to split his glistening skull--teeth shattered out, both eyes brimmed to the lids with a gush of blood and both nostrils spurting, mouth gaping, blowing convulsive sprays of blood (423)
4 Brains Splattered...skewered Damasus, pierced his bronze-sided helmet...boring through the metal and skull the brazen spearpoint pounded, Damasus' brains splattered all inside his casque (331)
4 Guts Spilled Out..slashing out his life, slitting his belly open--a scooping slice at the navel and all his bowels spilled out on the ground (526)
4 Eyeballs Burst...the sharp stone crushed both brows, the skull caved in and both eyes burst from their sockets, dropping down in the dust before his feet (436)
3 Slaughtered While Begging for Mercy...just as Dolon reached up for his chin to cling with a frantic hand and beg for life, Diomedes struck him square across the neck--a flashing hack of the sword--both tendons snapped and the shrieking head went tumbling in the dust (291)
3 Tongues Cut Out...Athena drove the shaft and it split the archer's nose between the eyes--it cracked his glistening teeth, the tough bronze cut off his tongue at the roots, smashed his jaw, and the point came ripping out beneath his chin (173)
3 Slit in the Liver...struck him under the midriff, slit his liver and that instant the man's knees went limp (354)
3 Gouged in the Bowels...rammed his spearshaft home, stabbing deep in the bowels, and the brazen point went jutting straight out through Patroclus' back (439)
3 Speared in the Back (438, 516, 519)
2 Hooked through the Mouth...stabbed his right jawbone, ramming the spearhead square between his teeth so hard he hooked him by that spearhead over the chariot-rail, hoisted, dragged the Trojan out as an angler perched on a jutting rock ledge drags some fish from the sea (426)
2 Pierced in the Bladder...let fly with a bronze-tipped arrow, hitting his right buttock up under the pelvic bone so the lance pierced the bladder. He sank on the spot, hunched in his dear companion's arms, gasping out his life as he writhed along the ground like an earthworm stretched out in death, blood pooling, soaking the earth dark red.(362)
2 Speared in the Forehead...speared the horsehair helmet right at the ridge, and the bronze spearpoint lodged in the man’s forehead, smashing through his skull and the dark came whirling down across his eyes (160)
2 Gouged in the Groin...speared him between the genitals and the navel--hideous wound, the worst the god of battles deals to wretched men. There the spear stuck. Hugging the shaft he writhed, gasping, shuddering like some wild bull in the hills (359)
2 Gored in the Hip...gored him in the hip with a slashing spear and the bronze lancehead hammered through his flesh, the shaft splintering bone as he pitched face-first, pounding the ground (422)
2 Heads Chopped Off...lanced his arm with a bronze-shod spear, he spitted the Trojan through where the elbow-tendons grip and there he stood, waiting Achilles, arm dangling heavy, staring death in the face--and Achilles chopped his neck and his sword sent head and helmet flying off together and marrow bubbling up from the clean-cut neckbone (518)
2 Corpses Mutilated (and 2 more considered for mutilation)...and now he was bent on outrage, on shaming noble Hector. Piercing the tendons, ankle to heel behind both feet, he knotted straps of rawhide through them both, lashed them to his chariot, left the head to drag and mounting the car, hoisting the famous arms aboard, he whipped his team to a run and breakneck on they flew, holding nothing back. And a thick cloud of dust rose up from the man they dragged, his dark hair swirling round that head so handsome once, all tumbled low in the dust--since Zeus had given him over to his enemies now to be defiled in the land of his own fathers (553)
1 Stabbed in the Ribs...spied his ribs, bared by his shield as he bent low—Agenor stabbed with a bronze spear and loosed his limbs, his life spirit left him (160)
1 Arm Lopped Off...flailed with a sword, slashed the Trojan's shoulder and lopped away the massive bulk of Hypsenor's arm...the bloody arm dropped to the earth (167)
1 Head and Both Arms Lopped Off...killed on the ground, slashing off his arms with a sword, lopping off his head and he sent him rolling through the carnage like a log (299)
1 Slashed in the Arm...slashed him under the elbow, down the forearm--a glint of metal--the point ripped through his flesh (304)
1 Arrow in the Foot...(arrow) punched the flat top of Tydides' right foot, the shaft dug through and stuck fast in the ground (309)
1 Split from Crotch to Navel...Chersidamas next...caught him up under the bulging shield with a jabbing spear that split him crotch to navel--the man writhed in the dust, hands clutching the earth. (310)
1 Lanced in the Head (347)
1 Horse killed...hit by a shaft...winged at its brow's high peak where the forelock crowns the skull--most fatal spot. It reared in agony, arrow piercing its brain and flung the team in panic, writhing round the brazen point (234)
1 Goddess Speared in the Wrist...his sharp spear at her soft, limp wrist and the brazen point went slashing through her flesh, tearing straight through the fresh immortal robes...immortal blood came flowing quickly from the goddess (175)
87 More Killed without Gory Details (168, 182, 184, 187, 196, 214, 299, 306, 307, 310, 319, 331, 338, 438, 461, 518)
Several Were Grazed by a Spear...the tip of the weapon grazing the man’s flesh, and dark blood came spurting from the wound...(150).
Others Run Over by Chariots (425)
Some Soldiers Prayed...the brave soldier...prays to wade in carnage (350)
Blood Sprayed Everywhere...they sped the careering car into both milling armies, trampling shields and corpses, axle under the chariot splashed with blood, blood on the handrails sweeping round the car, sprays of blood shooting up from the stallions' hoofs and churning, whirling rims. (314)
There Was A Variety of Weapons (160, 410, 454, 519)...hacked each other at close range...killing each other now with hatchets, battle-axes, big swords, two-edged spears, and many a blade, magnificent, heavy-hilted and thonged in black lay strewn on the ground--some dropped from hands, some fell as the fighters shoulder-straps were cut--and the earth ran black with blood (410)
Even the Gods Fought Each Other... Ares vs. Athena (533); Hephaestus vs. the River Scamander (534); Athena vs. Aphrodite and Poseidon vs. Apollo (536); Hera vs. Artemis (533)
But Remember, it Was all About the Love!..."Farewell Patroclus, even there in the House of Death! Look—all that I promised once I am performing now: I've dragged Hector here for the dogs to rip him raw--and here in front of your flaming pyre I'll cut the throats of a dozen sons of Troy in all their shining glory, venting my rage on them for your destruction! (560)