OMG...my mother - who I don't think has ever cut an article and sent it to me in the mail (especially since email where she now emails me every single joke coming out of Florida) - just sent me this hilarious piece in The New Yorker this week:
Easy Cocktails From The Cursing Mommy
I'm not one to curse much (wink, wink), but I had to share it!
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Photos...and a few thank yous
There are always so many fabulous people that make a play happen. And at the top of my list is Cody Jones, my director extraordinaire. What a a woman. We just clicked and I adore her and I hope we bring this baby to Broadway!
And the cast really did an incredible job for a staged reading. Above is a photo of all of us before the show in the green room.
And I've just got to mention Suzanne Maloney (not pictured). She's the doctor to this baby. Thanks Suzanne!
And although she's not in a photo above...Donna Norton from Momsrising was super to come and speak with me on stage after the play. She really helped give the main character Beth's journey a context. Did you know the US is one of I think she said 4 countries that does not offer paid maternity leave for mothers? Don't like the sound of that? Me too! You better check out Momsrising right now! They rock.
Post Partum...
Oh my! Has it really been 10 days since the play had its reading at the Kennedy Center? And do I really have...post partum play depression?
Yep.
I kept thinking no matter how the reading goes after it's over I'm going to feel relief. Like, a hearty "Hallelujah!". I even had the photo planned for after the play with my Jewish mother, on the balcony of the Kennedy Center, looking triumphant, her looking so proud of me (like I just got my medical degree)...me feeling like a million bucks. But Instead - maybe not too surprisingly when I really think about it - after the play I felt like my laundry pile just got a whole lot bigger.
What the fuck was I thinking? I don't have time to write a play.
Our tuition lawsuit against the local school district is in high gear with lots of mudslinging and analytical thinking, neither of which is in my comfort zone; and I need a much heftier income than "playwright" if we lose our lawsuit with the school district; I've got dinner to plan and make; Jacob's dance schedule to figure out (Jazz on Monday conflicts with Aden's soccer and the dread locked twenty year old at the front desk in the Dance studio doesn't seem to know more than how to take my money - "it's not in my genre" she tells me every time I ask her a question beyond taking money); oh, and I have a million people to get back to for my other play BIRTH, not to mention a symposium I"m speaking at in October; and now...a new play. Exciting, exhilarating and exhausting. Mostly after the Kennedy Center I just felt exhausted. My hair had been falling out for a week before the performance and it still is today.
So I've been letting the whole experience sit for these past 10 days. Lay low.
And then Friday after a loud night out at a fabulous pizza place with good friends, with the encouragement of my girlfriend and her husband (who runs a nonprofit in DC but I think his calling might be LA Super agent), they convinced me that I have to keep working on the play. Rewrite. Get it out there. Inspire mothers to tell their mothering journeys. In invite Michelle Obama. Start a dialogue on motherhood.
That's when I started thinking: maybe...maybe.
It sounded good on Saturday. But that's when I thought - after an average of 25 emails a day for 2 weeks - our soccer carpool had finally been worked out. On Monday I found out one of the soccer moms fired her au pair so...I know any minute the soccer emails are going to start again. I can feel it in my pounding head. And then what? We lose our case with the school district and I have to go buy a cheap business suit, make some "real" money so Jacob can go to a school that meets his learning needs, and throw out my dream of getting this new play out there.
Oh, there I go again, I'm close to flushing myself down the toilet.
Complaining is so annoying. I actually did enjoy this week's drive with the 4 boys to soccer practice... until my cell phone rang with an urgent message from Tim just as we were passing a grave yard and Jack decided to scream out "GRAVE SITE!!!!!" at an octave beyond my ear drum capacity and then all 4 boys saw a police car and started screaming "POLICE!!!!!" at a level of sound that made 2 Advil a requirement after drop off.
I really do like mothering.
And that's my point. I like it and I want to write about it. I thought a comment someone made after the play was that on the play's poster the baskets filled with laundry also looked like cupcakes. This perfectly describes motherhood: the sweetness and the overflowing, never ending number of chores to do.
Sounds like it would make a good play.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Come see the play this Saturday!
Where are you going to be Saturday night? At the Kennedy Center, right?!
Michelle Obama: Taskmaster
A one-act play by Karen Brody
Saturday, September 5, 2009
9pm
Kennedy Center
Terrace Theater
Post-show discussion will follow with the playwright and Momsrising National Campaign Director Donna Norton!
For info from the Kennedy Center click HERE!
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
A Day in the Life of a Mother
I had so much fun Monday night at our rehearsal for the play. Here are a few pictures of us. (Guess who's Michelle Obama?!)
And here's a look at my day on Monday. (Sometimes I feel lately that I'm living my play. The frazzled mom searching for the perfect "other side" lost in my "to do" list!)
(WARNING: It's long!)
6.30am - Wake up
7am - make two healthy lunches for school
7.30am - say goodbye to Jacob who gets on the bus for school
7.30am- Work on computer answering 8 emails about Aden's soccer carpool
7.45am - call soccer mom telling her our practice site for today is no longer Carter Baron, it's at Jellef so I cannot take her son who's practicing at Jellef.
8am - Eat bowl of oatmeal while untying the quadruple knot in Aden's shoes.
8.15am - put Aden's filthy sneakers in the washing machine
8.30am - drive Aden to school
8.45am - Mail 10 copies of my other play, BIRTH, to performance location in Atlanta
9am - Answer more carpooling emails
9.30am - Answer BIRTH play emails
10am - Get a call from DC Public schools about Jacob's special needs. Explain to the Special Needs Coordinator that I should not be talking to her because we're having a resolution meeting with the DC Public Schools on Wednesday since the DC Public Schools never responded to our request to have Jacob placed in their system so we had to hire a lawyer for $10,000 that we don't have (what recourse do poor people have?)
10.30am - Call our lawyer to explain I may have said too much to the Special Needs Coordinator, but I don't know, and I don't really care about anyone but my son but I have to know and I have to care because if I don't then he'll get lost in the system, which is basically what has happened.
11am - Go back to work on MICHELLE OBAMA: TASKMASTER play, answering emails about Kennedy Center details.
11.05am - Receive an email about Jacob from the DC Public Schools calling him "James Brady" and giving him a birth date that would make him twelve. Email lawyer to ask if this is a problem.
11.30am - Work on play again.
11.35am - Soccer Carpool emails start again. Aden's friend who was going to Carton Baron for practice is now at Jeleff so I will take him too with me when I pick the boys up for practice this afternoon.
Noon - Work on play (for one whole hour!)
1pm - Shove down lunch
1.15pm - Call Special Needs Coordinator back telling her I can't meet her informally about Jacob's case until the DC Public Schools acknowledges the papers that we filed on January 7 to have the DC Public Schools tell us what services they can offer Jacob.
1.30pm - Print 8 copies of script for rehearsals tonight.
2pm - Go back to work on play. Endless Kennedy Center emails on lighting spec, where to enter on Saturday, who's doing what, when, how....
2.30pm - Urgently deal with audience-led reading of my play BIRTH in October at a conference and how audience is going to get copies of the script when the the conference has no budget for photocopying.
2.45pm - Get ready to pick up Aden and his friend for soccer. Provide snack, water, and various bells and whistles
3pm - Leave to get Aden
3.15pm - Pick up Aden, but not his friend who his mother has just discovered that he's now not practicing at Jellef where Aden is.
3.20-3.40pm - Aden eats snack while we wait for Jacob's bus. Aden informs me he's not going to college, but will be a professional soccer player when he grows up.
3.40pm - Jacob gets off bus. Walk home with Jacob and Aden who tell me I'm the best mommy in the world...and by the way did I "bring the chocolate chip cookies for a snack?"
3.50pm - Get home and receive book from Paris with pages about my play BIRTH. I can't read any of it because I don't know French but the photos are fabulous and make me smile. The French really understand layout!
3.55pm - Listen to the message on machine from Special Needs Coordinator telling me she wants to schedule an official meeting to talk about Jacob's case. I scribble a note to call her back.
4pm - Aden's other soccer friend is dropped off by au pair so I can take them to practice
4.10pm - leave to pick up 2 more boys and take all 4 boys to soccer practice.
4.15-4.40pm - Listen to four 8 year old boys in the car debate the pros and cons of what to do when you bash your head open - should you get stitches or staples in your head? Consesus was staples sounds worse, but feel better(Jack got 17 stitches).
4.45pm - drive back home.
4.58pm - Get another message from Special Need Coordinator who says we haven't filled out forms for Jacob to be a "non attending student" so I need to do that tomorrow morning. (Yeah, right.)
5pm - Discover I haven't punched holes in the scripts for rehearsal tonight and I have 11 copies of the script and only need 8.
5.15pm - Tim arrives home and punches holes in script.
5.20pm - I run to Home Depot to get binders for scripts. Home Depot is a 3 minute drive on Google Maps. It takes me 20 minutes with parking.
5.40pm - discover I forgot to buy snacks for actors so stop at supermarket. Person in front of me on line decides she needs egg whites and cashier takes her on a 10 minute trip around the store looking for egg whites while I continue to stand on line, wondering if I should start reading People Magazine or violently attack cashier when he returns. Instead I call Tim to tell him to fix me dinner that I'll have to eat in the car on the way to rehearsals at 7pm.
6pm - Return home, tell Tim I will divorce him unless he helps me get out of the house. Promise Jacob I'll play with him next week (or year), once the play is over, then go to the bathroom to pee because I haven't all day.
6.20pm - Drive to rehearsal. Sing "Breathing in, Breathing out" from my mindfulness meditation class...and curse at every asshole who cuts me off.
6.50pm - arrive 10 minutes early for rehearsal and look for parking. No fucking parking anywhere. I wonder if I can just abandon the car, but then, in the distance I spot a parking space by a meter so I take it knowing I have at least 2 dollars in quarters...but the meter costs 25 cents for 8 (yes, eight!) minutes. I need an hour and half's worth of quarters.
7.10pm - Ten minutes late for rehearsal. I call director to tell her I've got to go look for quarters. I will kill for quarters. Nobody on the street has one fucking quarter. So I enter Safeway and, pick up a banana and with one person in front of me on line I expect to be out in minutes.
7.20pm - College student in front of me finally figures out how to pay for a loaf of bread with her debit card and then I pay for my banana, get my quarters and go (to the nearest bar!)
7.25pm - Walk to rehearsals with 8 eighty page scripts, 10 pounds of fruit and two boxes of cookies.
7.30pm - Arrive at rehearsals. How was my day?, they ask. GREAT!
12.30am - Go to bed.
12.35am - Aden comes into bed telling me he dreamed a three-headed monster was attacking him on the soccer field.
12.40pm - Let Aden spend 20 minutes in our bed.
1am - Put Aden back into his bed.
1.30am - Fall asleep!
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