Morphing into Mama

Not the Look I Was Going For

Our new house feels so large and grand (well, to me anyway) that I find myself gliding down our staircase with nose in air, and floating from room to room with my hands slightly raised and eyes towards the ceiling.  Then I suddenly stop and wait for my close-up while a dead man’s body floats face down in our pool (just kidding – we don’t actually have a pool). 

Recently, while waiting for my close-up, Husband said, “What the hell are you doing?”  His words shook me into reality, and I suddenly realized how silly I looked standing in the kitchen in my grody old sweats acting like Gloria Swanson.  I brushed off the incident but decided that more appropriate clothing was in order.

What I needed was some seriously elegant loungewear.  Something black and slinky but not shiny (since that would be too ‘80s).  Something reminiscent of the days when men wore hats, and women were silhouetted with broad shoulders and tiny waists.  In fact, my yearning for this type of loungewear was actually what first brought me to Los Angeles nine years ago. Once I’d finished art school, the plan was to be a loungewear fashion mogul.  Sadly, a year of school and another year spent working in the rag industry killed that dream, leaving the world and me without the perfect clothes in which to lounge. 

Then, the other day while out shopping, I became giddy with excitement when I spotted something black, slinky, and lounge-y.  It was a short robe, and next to it was matching pants and a lacy bra top.  I put two of each in the cart alongside the paper towels, wipes, and diapers, and glided home, eager to don my new elegant loungewear for Husband who I knew was tired of looking at my very tired, old sweats.  As I heard him pull into the driveway that evening, I hurriedly ripped off the tags and wrapped myself in slinky blackness.  I glided down the stairs and floated into the living room, greeting him just as he opened the door.

“Hello, Darling,” I said in a breathy voice.

“Why are you dressed like a ninja?”

Fortunately for Husband, I have a self-deprecating sense of humor, so I laughed whole-heartedly instead of performing a high-kick to the face. 

I Say I Shouldn't, But I Do

I really shouldn’t complain.  My kids are healthy.  My husband is hot.  Our new house is gorgeous.  But holy mother of fuck, moving is stressful. 

First there’s the packing.  Next is the actual moving of the items sans moving company.  Then, when you’ve finally cleared out ye ole squalor of a rental, your now former landlord hands you and your husband a can of spackle and a gallon of paint and starts telling you where to make the touchups when you haven’t even had time to put the kids’ rooms together in the new house, and they’re due home from Grandma’s in two hours.  Fortunately, I’m a bit of a take-the-former-landlord-by-the-balls type of gal, and I tell him that’s not going to happen, so let’s decide right here and now how much it will cost us not to spackle and paint the dump everyone in the neighborhood wishes he would sell to actual homeowners who would live in it and upgrade the chain link fence surrounding it to a tasteful wood one.  Thankfully, it wasn’t much.

But even after you do get the kids’ rooms together, you’re still wandering around the house rifling through boxes to find your most basic necessities while cursing the moron who packed the linens with your sneakers until you realize it was you. 

On the brighter side, nothing was damaged in the move since Husband did an excellent job wrapping all the furniture in blankets and saran wrap.  We usually joke that if the attorney gig doesn’t work out for him in the long run he can always model, but really the man was born to be a professional mover.  Not only can he wrap and single-handedly move large, heavy items (with a hand truck, of course), but he can pack a U-Haul better than Tyson packs a punch . . . or better than Tom Cruise packs fudge. 

So, yes, we survived the move, and I did survive midterms, but finals are in a week.  No rest for the motherfuckin’ weary.  (And thanks to everyone who sent me good vibes during midterms.  They worked.)

MIM out.