Week 6: Buzz buzz

The email I want to write this week is the one about how we found and chose our baby’s name, what it means according to the baby name websites we scoured, and what it means to us. There’s a piece brewing inside me about how I guide people through the pronunciation when they hear it for the first time, even offering a mnemonic device, and why I’m trying not to do that anymore.

The email I need to write this week is the one about how two distant relatives from two different sides of my family shared a meme on Facebook this week defending Brett Kavanaugh. We’ve only recently added each other as friends and I didn’t know their political views. I feel like a naive chump to have felt as shocked as I did. So far I’ve responded to one of the two.

(Is there a flowchart somewhere that helps you figure out when arguing with relatives online is worth it in 2018? Something like Ann Friedman’s hater matrix? When we are white women and have the opportunity to engage with a white relative in a swing state, I’m guessing it’s pretty much always on us to dive in?)

This week I wish I had the energy to say something new about anger, something snappy about the bees inside me, something eloquent about termites. Something as articulate as my friend Steph’s explanation of why we should all be aiming to embody the slogan kind, not nice. Now that I’ve finally caught up on Insecure, I should be writing a piece about Frieda. And a friend asked if I would write about this piece on “progressive white parents,” and I need to go there, too.

My tender heart and tired-from-cradling wrists want to write an email about parenting an eight month old, weave together the rainbows-and-dewdrops optimism and also the despair and cognitive dissonance that come with watching this little person crawl and climb and express very strong opinions, oblivious to all of this cruelty. Or maybe I want to explore how my own growth feels sort of synced up with hers these days, write something about this very email practice and link it to the items I’ve pinned on my small but growing “self/parent/parent/self” Pinterest board.

But of course I’m lying.

I want to have written all of these emails. I’m not writing any of them right now. I have already procrastibaked this tried-and-true granola and done a bunch of dishes. I should be turning the professional rejection I got today into golden honey, or at the very least, invoicing a client. I’ve fed a baby and fed her again and then once more in hopes that she’ll sleep through the night or at least til 4 a.m. I’ve done the dishes. I’ve even done 20 crunches at Tanya Tarr’s brilliant suggestion.

Mostly I’m pretty sure I should be joining my little family in bed. So very much is going on and the firehose isn’t slowing anytime soon. Closing arguments in the Van Dyke trial are tomorrow. People I respect are planning creative actions in Sen. Collins’ office in DC tomorrow. The bees inside me are buzzing and I’m on alert.

How are you? Really, how are you?

Gifs via: Pi-Slices, giphy, giphy, davebees

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