Capitulate Now: Issue 78
Winter outfit wrap-up / random braindead thoughts
Tuesday, January 27
I’m writing this at our dining room table. The sun is shining and the sky is blue but it’s 19 degrees and the city is encased in eight inches of frozen sleet and there’s no thaw in sight and there’s possibly another snowstorm this weekend so it’s hard to say when the kids will get back to school. My ass hurts from sitting for so long and my back aches from shoveling the driveway and my left knee hurts for reasons unknown to man. The Brick that I finally set up to block Instagram and Substack on my phone isn’t helping as much as I thought it would because I still have to sit in front of a laptop all day, where I can (and boy howdy do I) access those sites through my browser. Plus my phone is still plenty capable of shredding my attention due to the ongoing texts from neighbors about sledding and playdates, which of course I am so grateful for, being in community, yes, I don’t want this local web of support and friendship to be taken away from me but all the back-and-forth like “they’re headed out to the park!” and “can I come grab him at 1?” really does require your buzzy little phone to be near you at all times. I am also currently being worn down by:
the YMCA website which will not allow me to log in to register the kids for sleepaway camp during the one week that I strongarmed their friends’ parents into agreeing to,* and
the sound of the 8-year-old crashing around in his room right above me, interacting Shaqishly with his over-the-door basketball hoop
The 10-year-old is sitting across from me, somehow focusing on his homework paragraph about Harriet Beecher Stowe; I, meanwhile, have the great good fortune of no meetings and no deadlines today but all the things that I need to work on require, if not deep focus, at least like shallow end of the pool focus, and I can tell I’m going to spend today, and probably the rest of the week as well, in the attentional version of a wading pool, warm with baby piss. What? Oh my god I don’t know
*As regards summer camp registration and scrambling to grab spots for your children as soon as the winter holidays are through: As a middle aged white mom I’m required to bemoan this process if I want to maintain my license to shitpost on the internet but can I say something so brave? I fuckin love squaring this shit away as far in advance as possible. God!! I love it. Of course I would prefer to inhabit a world with less manufactured scarcity around childcare; in my dream scenario as well as yours, everyone would be able to sign up for inexpensive, high quality summer camp right at the last minute. What I am saying, though, is that even in this alternate universe, I would still be texting other parents on January 3 all “Hey everybody which weeks work for you for sleepaway camp for the boys?? I have my eyes on July 5th!” We all live in hell and I’ll be over here with my pitchfork, poking you in the butt, an insane gleam in my eyes
Thursday, January 29
I’m out of practice over here. Somehow I found it easier to write when I had smaller, physically needier children and was huffing Twitter and Instagram all day long — 2,600 word blog posts about Invisalign and family separation policies and going to a protest with my toddler could sprout forth from the dirt in the cracks of my shattered attention span. Eight years later and we find ourselves experiencing: Extravagant cruelty against immigrants, stomach-churning state violence captured on video, mass demonstrations, a disaster that has closed the schools and trapped us in our home with our children and their worksheets — where have I heard this song before? And what do I have to say for myself this time?
This sucks to admit but: It’s possible my sense of self was more cohesive when I spent more time thinking about how to post about my thoughts and my life on multiple platforms all day long. Tweets, Stories, blog posts, whatever, they flowed smoothly out of me and onto my phone and/or laptop. But now that connection has been largely severed — I still Consume, but the Poster within is enfeebled — and I’m noticing disconnects all over the place. For example: The kinds of music I listen to and what actually comes out when I try to write songs with my band; my idea of myself as the family archivist and the fact that I haven’t taken any photos in weeks, or put together my annual cheesy Christmas video; the way I think I want to dress and the outfits I actually put on; the age I am in my head and how ancient I realized I must seem to our new, younger neighbors who just moved in with their baby and toddler; the fact that I consider myself to be an open book with basically everyone in my life and yet I have this weird blog that most people don’t know about, including my children.
I had an hourlong Signal call the other day, an interview to finally join my side of the city’s community defense team. This was the closest thing to a job interview I’ve had in 10 years and I felt fine about most of it (they tried to nail me with “what’s the difference between mutual aid and charity” but little did they know that I spent the pandemic swiping through social justice instagram carousels, each one more deranged than the last, and I’ve been waiting for someone to ask me this question since March 2020) but then they asked me, and I believe these were their literal words, “What do you care about?”
Uh.
I blurted out “having fun!” And I probably would have felt panicked by this thoughtless answer ten years ago but again, due to the poisonous levels of Woke Internet that I have consumed in our everlasting Trump era, it was an easy rhetorical lift from there — having a good time with each other is, after all, an essential part of building strong community networks that are resilient in the face of fascism (smiley face with halo emoji)(I do actually believe this, I just hate myself for saying it)
In any event, what do I care about, and what do I actually do about it? I passed the interview, did the ICE Watch Zoom training and got added to my ward’s rapid response Signal chats. The only thing left to do is to scroll up a few times, read the manual, and sign up for a shift. Any day now, you lazy bitch!!
February 10
Then there’s the most mysterious gulf of all, the one between how I think my children perceive me and how they actually do, and vice versa. The other day the 10-year-old was looking over my shoulder as I paused to consider an ad on my phone for a pair of humongous nylon cargo pants, low-slung on the teenage skateboarder model. They were exactly the kind of pants I had been hoping to buy for the spring, unfortunately, and I felt a humiliating need to disavow my desires in front of my son. “Would it be so embarrassing to have your ancient mother walking around in these gigantic cargo pants?” I asked, like a conspirator, like I was gossiping with him about some other woman.
“No?” he said, confused, as though he didn’t understand the question.
“…oh!” I said, caught off guard that my child was not participating in my bit about how I’m old and pitiful.
“You should get them,” he said, shrugging and reaching out to tap to the next story. I batted his finger away. Cut it out! Also thank you, maybe I will.
Another day, the 8-year-old’s teacher called me at the end of the day. It was the first call from the school we’d had in a while, a pinprick piercing the beautiful calm soap bubble I’d been floating in for months. I closed my eyes and answered with my customary “ah yes it is you, my child’s benevolent and understanding teacher, reaching me, his mother, who is aware of his volatile emotional issues and who is certainly working on it with him and who is, most importantly, so grateful for you and everything you do” tone, but oh! What relief: She was just calling to rat out the 10-year-old, who had gone directly to the soccer field behind the school and had forgotten to pick up his brother from the elementary school dismissal line.
Later, when we were all home, the 8-year-old asked me what had gone through my head before I answered his teacher’s call. I bet you thought I was in trouble, he said. He took a deep breath and did an impression of me, as his weary and disappointed mother: Oh boy, he got sent to behavioral support again, what did he do THIS time. He was pacing the living room as he did this, hands on his hips, shaking his head. He stopped and turned to look at me, the performance melting off his face, a naked, pleading question underneath. Where could my child have possibly gotten this tendency for self-deprecating theatrics from?
I smiled and told him no. I knew it was fine all along.
I have perfected the tone to take with teachers--"Oh I am kind and wonderful and smart and devoted and I am AWARE my son is a complete pain in the ass."
The red blouse! Amazing