Are you dumber than a two year old?

I've made my living for the past ten months as a professional nanny. I prefer the term nanny over babysitter for the same reason escorts don't call themselves hookers. For one, I charge more, but there's also an expectation from the person paying that they're getting more from the transaction. Instead of a blow job in a car, they want the full girlfriend experience. Parents expect a nanny to have a vested interest in the well being and development of their child. I have no problem with this and will gladly read a story in Spanish to your drooling ten month old, because who am I to decide that the whole thing is a useless enterprise? I am not (by choice and bit of luck) a parent, so I have no idea if playing Beethoven while a kid sleeps is a good idea or not and I'll do it without passing any judgement, because that is my job. When I tell people I'm a nanny, they often respond by rolling their eyes and insinuating that it's unacceptable for a mom or dad to pass off responsibility for their child to a near stranger so they can have time to themselves. Trust me, it's not. Kids are lot of fucking work. Lock yourself in a room with three puppies who got into some Ritalin and a rabid squirrel and you might have an inkling of what it is like to raise multiple children. I don't begrudge those parents a minute of respite from their progeny. I listen attentively during the meet and greet, mentally noting where the favorite snacks are, nap times, emergency contacts, taking in every detail. But still, I am constantly thrown off guard the minute the parent leaves and I'm faced full on with a shit storm of child babble. Kids say the darnedest fucking thing. All the time. I haven't decided whether or not kids are really smart or really dumb, but I do know you need to be very careful what you say because these mini-people, who will one day forget where they put their car keys on a regular basis, have tape recorder in their brain that enables them to repeat shit you didn't even know they heard in the first place. I doubt their parents realize that their children are telling the hired help that, in the words of a six year old, "Daddy told mommy that they need to go on a long vacation together because they spent their whole honeymoon in the hotel room." My mom is a unfailingly liberal former teacher who tried to be post-racist in the most awkward ways possible. We had these anatomically correct baby dolls, one white girl and one black boy. In theory, it worked great, but I still remember the look of horror on my mom's face when she saw my teething little sister chomping on a tiny black penis in the bath. The more intellectual parents I've met insist on using adult words with their children, leading one three year old to tell me she pushed her broccoli off her plate because her potatoes were ostracizing it. Kids are not ready for the shit. It's more disturbing when the child starts using the real names of genitals and bodily functions with you. At this point in my development, I still say "hoo-ha" and can't even talk dirty in bed. Leo, my very favorite two year old, has apparently learned the word penis and, like any guy, loves to talk about his. He was in the bath when he cooed in his baby voice, "Moooo, I'm touching my peeeenis under the waaaaaater. Are you touching your penis?" I looked him straight in the eyes and said, "Leo, I do not get paid enough for this. Just play with your ducklings." I think the idea parents have here is a hippie hold over about bodies being natural and not making your child ashamed of his sexual organs, and it's fine and probably effective, but that particular toddler needs a mandatory sexual harrasment seminar. I once nannied for a five year old named Corbin who had a faux hawk and couldn't recognize any letters of the alphabet. When I used the parent provided ABC flash cards with him, he would just yell out random letters until he stumbled across the right one. His most annoying trait was that, throughout the day, he kept trying to pull my shirt down while yelling, "BOOBIES!". I debated whether or not to tell the parents that their child a)seemed stupid and b) is on the fast track to becoming a date rapist. I expect Corbin will grow up to be a college football player and then go on to manage a successful hedge fund. It also gets complicated when I nanny for older children because we always play board games and I am extremely competitive. I won't lie, I get satisfaction from beating a six year old at Chutes and Ladders. On the flip side, I was once so soundly beat at Monopoly by a nine year old girl that I considered letting her invest some money for me in the stock market. I was going to cheat, like I always do when I play monopoly, but a shred of my dignity was still left so I lost gracefully. Then I told her we were playing Uno because I never fucking lose that game. But I'd rather get m ass kicked at monopoly for six hours than deal with a child who likes to play make believe and insists you join in. Playing Barbies is hard for me, especially because all I want to make mine say is, "I'm bulimic and addicted to plastic surgery, check out my crop top." I just can't get over my selfconciousness and even in front of a first grader I feel absolutely ridiculous. Most days, I do love my job. I'm happy to wake up at eight every Friday and go see the little half Asian twins I nanny for every week. When Luke hugs me and tells me he "lubs" me, my heart melts. It melts, and then I need to run over to him and take away the bobby pin he is attempting to insert into an outlet on the wall. I have so much respect for parents now because every kid is absolutely exhausting and adorable in their own way (you know, not the faux hawked mini bro, he wasn't adorable) but I'm telling you right now that I'm looking into getting one of those IUDs like Mirena. My concern is that it only lasts for five years.

A portrait of an artist as a dumb girl

There's usually a moment halfway through a haircut when the middle aged woman getting a "classic bob" looks at me earnestly and says, "Well, you must be very artistic, you look very creative." I always nod and say, "Oh, uh, yeah, I write." While this is technically true, as you are currently reading my writing, I always feel guilty about implying that I'm some sort of inspired poet or novelist. Clearly, there is no rich symbolism in my blog posts, no deep, universal truths i reveal that resonate with my audience. I mostly started writing again because I no longer have a boyfriend who is contractually obligated to listen me and my real life friends have heard all my stories already. I feel guilty for engaging in this farce, as most people I know actually are creative and talented. I live with a video editor whose stop motion animation is wholly impressive and one of my best friends plays bass in a band so good that I'd listen to them even if I didn't habitually share bottles of wine with the members. Since I became a fan of alternative music and a participant in the admittedly weak counterculture my generation has created, I just figured I'd acquire some artistic skill with every purchase of skinny jeans I made. I quickly discovered that I not only can't draw, but I should really be banned from the activity because everything I draw ends up looking completely disturbing. Here is an attempt I made at an Easter bunny for the kids I nanny for, which ended up looking like the Donne Darko Bunny's cousin who isn't allowed within a thousand feet of an elementary school.

With that avenue clearly impossible, you'd think the next option would be music. There's a lot of shitty bands out there, I've heard them. I could ostensibly learn four chords and then assault people's eardrums at a basement show. I really already do that enough at karaoke, though. I'm not tone deaf or anything, but I am definitely vocally challenged and, out of courtesy, I wait until everyone is sufficiently hammered before I sing. In third grade we were supposed to learn a simple song on the recorder to perform in front of the school. I was already a procrastinator by then, so I put off practicing until the day before the performance. I'm sure my parents were happy about this, as the recorder is the most annoying instrument known to man. Even if played correctly, it's shrill and oddly obscures every tune into a series of whistles loud enough to make your ears bleed. A class full of eight year olds with those things is a punishment that should be considered by the people who run Guantanamo Bay. Anyways, when it became clear that I was just blowing into my cheap plastic instrument from the devil and moving my fingers indiscriminately, my teacher suggested father forcefully that I just pretend to play during our slot in the show. I remember agreeing with her that it was for the best. Plus, most instruments require that you move your hands independently of each other and do two things at once, and I can only rub my tummy and pat my head on a day when I've had enough sleep and caffeine. Beyond the technical skills I so clearly lack, I also lack the one important ingredient that elevates something into art: taste. I have terrible taste. I completely lack the ability to look at something and recognize whether it is "good" or "Not even worth talking about". The only exhibits I like in museums are the ancient art because that way I can just say, "Wow, that's old." instead of having to form an opinion on the effectiveness of the color palette used. I can look at something and tell if it's bad, sure, but more often than not I find myself waiting for someone more educated on the subject to share their opinion. What the fuck do I know about modern art sculptures? Not only do I lack taste, but I also lack the drive to learn more about stuff like that, because I am lazy and I'd rather watch BBC crime dramas. There's been a few times when even I've been shocked about how far off I was from the collective opinion of everyone else. I was at a show at age 18, passively watching the opening band. "Jesus," I though, "With a band name like that, they're not going anywhere. Is that guy wearing Birkenstocks? Fuck this, I'm going to have a cigarette." Imagine my surprise when two months later, Vampire Weekend's debut album took off and the songs I would have heard that night were everywhere. More recently, I heard a song on the radio and was like, hey, this is a catchy tune and turned it up. It was a song by the band FUN and I still haven't forgiven myself. Growing up in suburbia, I devoured as many books as possible, reading Syria Plath during my lunch break, Rainer Maria Rilke in the hallway and Nietzsche before bedtime. The white middle class culture is a culture of blandness and I wanted to distance myself as far as I could from it. As I've gotten older, I've realized that maybe my tastes aren't as high brow as I thought. I will never be able to look at modern art and be able to quantify what, exactly, sets it apart and elevates it into something extraordinary. I know so many people who function as cultural barometers, people who can listen to ten seconds of a song and say, this is good, the progressions are amazing, the drummer is great, reminds me of, et cetera. I can't watch a movie and think, the lighting really highlighted the mood, but the camera work was sub par. I constantly have the moment Cher has by the fountain when presented with something new. i'm clueless. If I was in charge of telling people what was good, everyone would be listening to Elton John and watching Iron Man. It's tough, accepting your own mediocrity. It's hard to look around and think, "I have no idea what you people are talking about, that looks like just a picture of an apple to me. Or a pear. It could be a pear." But it's too difficult to explain to people that, yes, I dress like I'm in a band and am clearly projecting an image of someone with tastes outside the mainstream, but really I'm an imposter of sorts. So I stick with the answer, "Yes, I'm a writer", a statement my sixteen year old self would be pleased with. Twenty four year old me, on the other hand, is just hoping they don't ask what I write, because then I'd have to show them this.

Bleeding Heart

I've always been encouraged to “give back to my community”. That's a staple lesson for all us white middle class kids, one pounded into your head at a young age. I remember some sort of class field trip in elementary school where we walked to the food back, each clutching a non-perishable item and feeling very self-important about it all. We were making a difference, one can of creamed corn at a time! Soon, my involvement in my church's youth group meant I was spending a fair amount of time at a food pantry in a lower-income community twenty minutes away. Granted, this wasn't exactly out of the goodness of my own heart, because my mother worked at the church and often spear-headed these excursions. I went, sulking and complaining, desperate to show the other kids there that while I was the daughter of the overzealous church lady, I wasn't some sort of Jesus freak. I was unpopular enough due to a middle part and know it all tendencies, I didn't need another mark on the blacklist. Eventually, I started going on “mission trips” with the same church, traveling to a poor part of a state and volunteering for a week in some sort of charitable capacity. I managed to block out the “God” part, or at least play along well enough, and genuinely enjoyed the service aspect of it. I went to Washington D.C, Alabama, Mississippi, Honduras and a bunch of other places closer to home. I had eye-opening experiences in every location, and learned a lot about myself (like the fact that no one should let me use power tools and that eating unpasteurized eggs will result in the kind of excrement worthy of Alien vs. Predator). I'm not saying that this all made me a good person (the jury is still out on that one) but it was, without a doubt, a “good thing to do”and it widened my world beyond the confines of upper middle class suburbia, if only by guilt trip. These experiences have continued to manifest themselves in a unique way in my life today. Helping the less fortunate has become a knee jerk reaction, except the less fortunate I know tend to be of a different ill than a poverty stricken family. I am totally incapable of not buying someone a drink at the bar if they're broke. It doesn't matter if I even like them, or if they're already drunk, or if I brought twenty dollars out with me and only have five left. I will buy you a PBR. Or a shot of whiskey. And I will do one with you. I am also not able to resist giving someone a cigarette when they ask, which means I probably smoke about half my pack and the rest go to people at parties (you know who you are). I don't even want to estimate how much money I've spent on alcohol and cigarettes that weren't for me. Hundreds. Definitely hundreds of dollars. This is now my way of giving back to my community, I guess, because my community is a bunch of alt twenty somethings who make minimum wage. I could donate the money to a homeless shelter or the ASPCA or really any charitable organization out there, but those service trips conditioned me to believe that if there's no tangible evidence, you're not really making a difference, which is why I continually try to give homeless people food instead of money. It's not that I don't want them to buy a forty with my two dollars, I get it, their lives suck and they're thirsty, but it's a little more complicated than that. In Providence, the only homeless people you really see are downtown at the bus station and it is very, very clear they are on some heavy narcotics. My ex-boyfriend worked on a psychology study dealing with addicts, so I have it on good authority that there are people using PCP and bath salts with abandon around there, and I would feel terrible if my change got someone's face eaten off. I normally don't frequent bars in downtown Prov because, like every resident here, I think driving anywhere in a city where you can get across town in twenty minutes is too much of a hassle. Everyone I know goes out to places within a fifteen minute walking radius (at most). I've long since weeded out friends who live “across town” and if anyone mentions living on the East Side when I meet them, I just fake saving their number into my phone. I know I'll never see them and all the bars over there suck anyways. Two year ago, however, I was working at a restaurant in the heart of downtown and I realized there was more down there than a filthy bus station and a mall. I was genuinely surprised at the brisk business I saw everywhere. It was a concept I had never considered in my time in the city. But why would you come here, I asked myself while picking up a drink with 13 different ingredients, the beers by my house are two dollars. It was a bit like realizing some people in the world still use Yahoo email addresses. Nevertheless, my coworkers and I would head out somewhere around the restaurant after a long shift and I quickly became more comfortable with the area. One perk was the 711 nearby. Most convenience stores by my house closed early, resulting in more cross city drives for cigarettes at 2 a.m than I'd like to admit. It was a luxury to not have to check my pack hourly and estimate how long it would be before I had to bum a cigarette off someone smoking menthol 100s. Like every drunk person ever, I convinced myself I was great friends with the guys who worked there, standing in unflattering fluorescent light while drunkenly asking detailed questions about their previous lives in Pakistan. One night as I walked in, a humble looking homeless man called out to me. “Miss! Miss! You got a dollar for some food?” he asked politely. “Yeah, sure, hold on,” I slurred. So I added a prepared and sketchy looking ham and cheese to my purchase, thoughtfully adding packets of mustard and mayo in case the homeless gentleman liked condiments as much as I did. I felt pretty damn pleased with myself, in the way that only a privileged white person can feel right before they do something for the “less fortunate”. Here I was, spending my tip money on something more worthwhile than a martini with muddled fennel in it. I walked proudly up to the guy when he was standing on the corner and offered him the sandwich. Suddenly, he morphed from the pleasant homeless caricature of my dreams into a drug addled mad man. “WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS, BITCH? I ASKED FOR MONEY.” He ran inside with superhuman speed, and I watched through the glass as he tried to return the sandwich. The man behind the counter turned around slowly and looked at me as I was standing on the sidewalk with an open mouth and unlit cigarette. The formerly reasonable man who had asked me for a dollar was screaming and waving the sandwich around over his head. He soon realized this wasn't going to work and stormed out of the store. He stopped ten feet from me, face to face and spat out the words, “Stupid bitch.” Then he full on pelted me with the sandwich. As I was hit directly in the chest with a ham and cheese, I reflected that this had never happened while I was under the supervision of Jesus. He continued his lunch meat assault by whipping the mustard and mayo too, the latter of which exploded by my feet. He ran away into the night, darting in and out of traffic in a manner I hadn't seen since I played Frogger last. I watched until he disappeared into the park and checked the time. I had just enough to make it back to the bar in time for last call. Feeling a bit peckish, I picked up the sandwich and ate it as I walked back, admitting to myself that it really would have been better with mayo.

What it's like going out when you're single.

You've been to this bar a thousand times, but tonight you're seeing it with new eyes. Instead of simply skipping over people until you locate your friends in the sea of beanies, you take stock of every male face. Since when do so many guys frequent this place? Apparently, they've always been here, because no one else has stopped short and stared open-mouthed like you. You get a drink and attempt to angle yourself in such a way that you're standing with your friends, the people you ostensibly came to see, but also so that you're facing the room. Men are scared of groups of girls, you remember that from an article you skimmed at the doctor's office. One of those “How To Meet Guys Anywhere” articles that you, at the time, gleefully overlooked because, of course, you were in a relationship. You felt so smug that those cheesy fluff pieces didn't apply to you. Those poor women, you thought, looking for answers in one of the glossy banes of the feminist existence. But here you are. Time for another drink. At the bar, a guy you vaguely remember, one you met months ago at a party whose name you forgot instantly, asks you “how you've been, how's the boyfriend”? You say you broke up, the same way you'd tell someone your cat died. To you, it means everything but to everyone else, it's just an awkward lull in the conversation as they try to figure out how to respond appropriately when they don't actually give a shit. But he leans closer, looking at you with renewed interest and offers to buy you a drink. Before you can answer, the leering specter of date rape waves at you from over his flannel clad shoulder. Besides, you might be new at this, but you know that if a guy buys you a drink, he's marking his territory, like a dog. You are not a fire hydrant, you remind yourself. It's only ten, too early to commit to one person for the whole night. You smile and say you're fine at the moment, looking down at your empty glass, mentally preparing yourself for the despair you'll feel when you settle your tab later and see that you've spent the equivalent of three hours of work at your shitty job on watered down bourbon and sodas. So you go to have a cigarette and you're in luck. There's a cute guy already out there, leaning against a wall and brooding. He's actually really cute. Cute in a way you haven't seen since you last laid eyes on your ex. You remember your friend Phoebe's advice, to pretend you don't have a lighter to start a conversation. She's practically an expert, you think to yourself. She has a real boyfriend. You know you're not supposed to meet guys at bars, that's it's not the place to start a healthy relationship. You're supposed to run into them at cute places, like a book store or a coffee shop. But let's face it, you are no where near whole enough to date a guy who spends his afternoons perusing the non-fiction section for pleasure. Last night, you drank an entire bottle of wine and cried while listening to Fleetwood Mac. You found yourself explaining the nuances of your breakup to your roommate's cat, because you realize all your friends are fed up with you and have no one left to talk to. At this point, your hobbies are chain smoking and getting drunk on Wednesdays so this is, actually, the perfect place for you. You swallow your pride, and ask for a light. You see a flash of metal on his hand as he passes you a Bic and immediately tell yourself you've reached a new low where you're hitting on guys who wear jewelery. Upon closer examination, you see it's a ring. A wedding ring. You fight the panic rising in your throat. Last time you were single, you couldn't even legally drink in a bar. Now you've found yourself in a position where you are in an age demographic where people have exchanged legally binding vows. It's official, you can now add failed homewrecker to your resume. When you go back into the bar, the guy from the party has vanished, ending your hope of a free drink and maybe, possibly, a date. You order your whiskey on the rocks in the hopes that this pour will be more than the last, which you assume was a tablespoon. You rejoin your friends and try to engage. These are people you like, who were always enough for you when you had a boyfriend. What's the point of all of these attempts to force some connection with someone, anyone? It's just that you know you can't be totally unattached, to have no prospects, to have nothing to add to the conversation when everyone brings up their significant others. You can't bear to become the pathetic single friend you've counseled countless times during the course of your relationship. You can hear the words before anyone speaks: “You're better without him, he never deserved you, you need to find someone you really connect with, it's worth the wait.” But the longer you wait, the more you start to wonder if you didn't just over think things, that it's possible your relationship wasn't so bad and maybe you can sacrifice all those things you thought you needed, thought you deserved, for the comfort of a warm body at night and someone to listen to how your day was. You get another drink and the guy from the party is back. He smiles and asks for your number, wondering if maybe you'd like to grab a drink sometime. He fumbles with his touchscreen and sends you a text. How's Friday, he asks. You take a breath and weigh your options. It's probably too soon, but if you don't do something quickly, you know you'll get paralyzed in dating limbo. You say yes, sure, that sounds good. He says he'll call you tomorrow. You nod, not sure where to take the conversation after this. Your friends are leaving, so you have an excuse to go, too. You want to save all your small talk for the first date. You know you need those filler topics for later. You tip lavishly, giving thanks to bartenders everywhere for helping facilitate the social lives of temporarily damaged single girls everywhere. You sigh with relief, because you'll finally have something to talk about besides your break up. You're no longer drifting, no more desperate and ultimately deleted text messages at four a.m. You're sure your friends will be happier about this than you are. You light a cigarette, smile, and then stop. What if he doesn't call?