Becoming Badass

Remember the name...

2012-02-02T08:53:00.002-05:00

My friend K asked me a really good question the other day. "Why are you so terrified that someone might remember you?" It's a good question. Without meaning to, I work very hard to be nondescript- to be on non-memorable- because it's safer. "Keep your head down and no one will shoot it off," you know? (Granted, that might be better advice if I lived in a war zone (as opposed to Groovy Land)

Win

2012-02-01T15:04:00.002-05:00

http://tinyurl.com/6lh2k9y Somedays, I think the most Badass thing I can do is get out of bed, let the dog out, and smile at my family before I've hooked up the coffee i.v. If I can manage to get through the ensuing 10-14 hours of drop-offs, pick-ups, technology snarls and bad frozen lunches without snarling at strangers, throwing things at my co-workers or bursting into tears at an

So I'm not Marion Ravenwood

2012-01-10T09:54:00.000-05:00

Remember this? This is what you'd think I'd done last night based on this morning's headache. In reality, I just went to book club and had a glass of wine. Okay, maybe two. Though, now that I think about it, maybe it was more like this: Hungover on a Tuesday after two glasses of Chardonnay? SO not badass.

My Secret Identity

2011-09-29T13:40:00.002-04:00

Back to school has commenced, with all that entails, and I've found myself pulled in a couple of new and fairly uncomfortable directions. In spite of my swearing I'd never do it, I've gotten involved with the PTA and, unfortunately, they turned out to be very nice people which sort of sucks 'cause I'd mentally written this whole post about how crazy they all were. (Trust me- it was

I Thought This Would Be Sexier

2011-09-20T13:31:00.001-04:00

You know that scene from the 90's flick Ghost? The one with the potter's wheel? This may job your memory: Yeah. So I'm old. Get over it. See, here's the thing. I've been using this whole "potter at a wheel" metaphor a lot lately. Not 'cause I'm teaching classes in pottery or anything, but because I'm trying to step back from this need to MAKE things happen. I mean, I can spout

Looking for Mama

2011-09-13T11:27:00.000-04:00

Here's the thing: Sometimes the badass rises up all on it's own. I see stuff like this stupid T-shirt from JC Penny (not the one you may have heard all about last week, but this one's just as bad) and it just springs forth like Athena from the head of Zeus. (Can you tell we've been reading some Percy and the Olympians in my house lately? But you know what squashes the badass like a pea under a

Saying No

2011-09-11T08:09:00.000-04:00

I've been on a media black out for about a week now, at least where coverage of 9/11 is concerned. I've avoided the articles in the paper, the Truther's letters to the editors, the specials on TV. I've stayed of NPR and limited my web time to the most mindless and entertaining sites I can find. So this morning, I was oddly surprised to find that even the comic pages weren't safe. I was

Once More Into the Breach

2011-09-05T14:16:00.000-04:00

I did my Shakespearean time back in the day. Took the classes and all that but I wasn't a scholar of the Bard by any means. But today, this is all over my brain. Back to school much? Yes. And it feels more than ever like a return to the front lines. I'm a seasoned, grisly veteran of this war, but it's a war nonetheless. Like all good soldiers, my only goal is to survive and to achieve my

Neighborhood Watch- Fairy Division

2011-07-17T09:05:00.000-04:00

I just got home from our annual pilgrimage to the beach. Trust me- anyone who willingly camps at the beach with children (let alone a husband) is, by definition, badass. 'Cause between the sand (oy the SAND!) and the trying to find things people will eat and the sleeping on the ground and the bug spray and the sunscreen which only attract more sand? That's a whole mess of work. This year we

This is Your Brain...

2011-07-05T08:39:00.000-04:00

Long holiday weekends like this one just past are a mixed blessing for me. I love the days off- I'm not an idiot- but they're hell on my unreasonably high expectations (a kissing cousin of my Impossibly High Standards). I imagine bar-b-q and family board games, all governed by the calm competence I recall infusing the adults of my childhood. Now, we did pretty well this weekend- there were

Blinding Flash of the Obvious

2011-06-28T21:13:00.000-04:00

I had a Blinding Flash of the Obvious (BFO) today. Actually several of them. 1) I cannot sew. 2) I am a terrible gardener 3) I cannot cook (though I sort of suspected that) and 4) I am neither an educational visionary nor a powerful force for change. I have no doubt that I could learn to do any of those things, if I really wanted to. I also realized, however, that I lack a work ethic of

Living La Vida...um, What's Spanish For "Working too damn hard?"

2011-06-28T10:37:00.002-04:00

It's summer. I'm sitting in a basement meeting room, engaged in relatively interesting conversation around educational legislation and policy. With people I don't know. And there's no booze and thus far no one has laughed at any of my jokes. This? So not badass.But when I get home I'm going to sit on my deck with a beer and ponder the world-gone-mad in which people ask *me* for input on

Calling me out

2011-06-27T12:18:00.004-04:00

"You know, I still have yet to see signs of bad-assery..."Thanks to my friend Katie and these words, shared in a recent exchange over why she needed to write me a giant grant to fund this project, I'm do a teeny bit of soul searching today. She makes a good point. I haven't done that much, outwardly, to merit the title "Badass." A little shooting, a little shouting, a

Badass Poultry

2011-06-23T15:14:00.002-04:00

I rarely make posts out of other blogger's stuff. It feels vaguely ooky and just a little dishonest. But then, I rarely come across something this perfectly, beautifully badass in just exactly the way I one day hope to be badass.Behold. The Chicken.This is golden. It is perfect. It is all I aspire to be in life. I need this chicken. I need it with the most powerful force known to man or

Bang

2011-06-18T12:19:00.004-04:00

I have lots of things on my Becoming Badass list of skills. Some of them are internal- I want to be able to carry my Screw You internal attitude into the world at large. I want to stop caring so much about what people think of me. I want to let go of my impossibly high standards. I want to say what I'm thinking- even if it's not the nicest thing to say. Some of them are what we call "hard

Soccer Mom My Ass

2011-05-10T17:46:00.003-04:00

It's soccer night. That means I get to schlepp my kid, his best buddy, my other kid and a butt load of stuff out to sit in the middle of a field to stand by as two teams of 9 year olds race around after a ball for an hour. Then I'll schlepp them all home. The badass possibilities are limited, so I'm choosing to stake my claim in a more subtle fashion: I'm actually going to watch. I'm not

Tough Enough

2011-05-09T15:54:00.003-04:00

I've heard lots of people make the joke about birth being the easy part of parenting. You know, like this. I sort of assumed, though, that this hellish childrearing experience would come with adolescence. I imagined screaming fits, tattoos, poor clothing choices and Libya-level engagements around curfews and cellphones. Maybe that stuff is coming, but I've already seen the worst I can

Free to Be...

2011-03-05T08:20:00.004-05:00

I've been thinking a lot lately about a little girl named Lisa. Lisa was in my 2nd grade class (about a thousand years ago) and I invited her to my Super Amazing Sleepover Birthday Party, along with 7 other girls. We did all the usual birthday things- ate cake and pizza and slept in sleeping bags on the floor of my room. It was a typical 8 year-old good time.The morning after that party was

Testify

2011-02-16T14:00:00.002-05:00

You know what's really freakin' brave? Standing up and saying "Hell No" when something's just wrong. Visit my darling friend Katie to see the latest in Badasssity.Then go here and tell NH Legislators to keep their damn hands off Katie's Marriage.

Tearing Down My IHS

2011-02-08T21:51:00.003-05:00

I have a confession. It's a hard one to make and I hate to admit it because it feels like a terrible, awful thing to admit- like the sort of thing I need to whisper with my head down, not making eye contact.I'm L and I have Impossibly High Standards.There. It's out. That's like 50% of the battle right? Or 90%? I can never remember.I'm not sure when it happened because my youth was filled

Feral Mindfulness

2011-01-28T10:30:00.003-05:00

I've been dabbling for a few years with the idea of mindfulness as a way of climbing out from under the giant, ever-growing tsunami that is my life. The whole idea- that I can better manage by focusing myself on the present moment, not yesterday or next week or 5 years ago- seems lovely, in a polished wood, watercolor, home-canned jars of peaches sort of way . I imagine that, in my totally

Tired

2011-01-27T14:52:00.002-05:00

I can't sleep. Technically I suppose that's not true- I can sleep. I can close my eyes and doze off. I snore a little, drool a little, have a little dream- and then I wake up. (It's the waking up that clues in me in to the fact that I was actually asleep. I'm pretty clever you know.) So actually, what I can't do is stay asleep past about 3. Or go to sleep before 11. I can go to bed before

Disruptive Joy

2010-12-31T13:49:00.003-05:00

Earlier this month, the good folks over at Blogher suggested we make vision boards filled with "the images that are reminiscent of your list of things that fill you with joy and grace, or things that you want for yourself in the coming year, or images that typify the kinds of creative activities that you'd like to try, or just words or passages that you find especially stirring."This is a little

Raise Your Glass

2010-12-30T16:08:00.002-05:00

So it's been a hell of a year. Without sharing the details (which I will share, eventually. Trust me. They're just not quite funny yet.), suffice to say that it's been...a hell of a year. Have no fear, though, my journey to Badass isn't over. Detoured? Maybe. Canceled? No way in hell.But it's almost New Year's and I'm not going to navel gaze or ponder or meditate on the lessons learned/

Living the Dream

2010-11-25T07:41:00.003-05:00

The pie's in the oven (that and the cranberries are my sole contribution to this year's meal), the kids are hooked into screens and The Man of the House is headed to Sears to buy his big Man Machine (snowblower). I'm still in my jammies, enjoying my second cup of coffee and I'm pondering the journey thus far.When I was a kid, living in a series of apartments and rental houses, I used to imagine